hutpik:
Hi Buzzer.The F89 was owned by Oryx Freight of Gravesend and driven by Pat Hawkes.On that trip he had Philip Llewellyn with him .This was Phils first trip to the ME for Truck Magazine.He Went with Pat to Kuwait with Caterpillar parts…When he came back an article was written and published in Truck mag.Titled ‘On the desert trail’',it was published in April 75.
The green and orange F88 was owned originally by Seahorse Int of Harwich and driven by Tony Saunders.When Seahorse folded the truck was taken as shares by one of the directors Roger Hargreaves.He then put it on contract to Astran.This trip we went 2 manned [i was a driver for Seahorse previously]with a load of plasic buckets for the new King Faisal hospital in Riyhad.Hope this helps.
Hi Hutpik & Buzzer,
The mention of King Faisal Hospital in Riyadh, to which we often delivered, reminded me of three characters I met while in Saudi back in about 1979. Eric Collins, Geoff Collins and Tom ‘Ginger’ McNeil. They were and two of them still are from Teeside. Eric sadly died from a tumour about 15 years ago. An event a week or two back caused me to write to Tony, Geoff’s son, and he replied that it had made him and Geoff laugh at the memories:
"One of Geoff’s old sayings caused a huge laugh last Friday evening, which made me remember some other things from Saudi days which I can’t resist sharing with you.
A few of us were hauling out of Sealand from Dammam Port. Geoff and Ginger were working out of Jeddah at the time, but knew Trevor Cooper, who was one of our lot, so when Ginger wrecked a ‘Cherry Picker’ crane, they high tailed it across to Dammam to avoid the fall out about whose fault it was. This would be in Ginger’s Daf. Geoff’s truck was impounded in Germany at the time, thanks to their driver (whose name I forget) passing dodgy Deutschmarks in Germany.
Geoff quickly got a job with a Dutchman, hauling cement powder in a tanker off the port into Dammam. The seals on the blower must have been a bit dodgy, we would be waiting for loads outside Sealand on the Port road, and Geoff would pull over for a cup of tea, covered in cement dust. ‘Ah’m like a little f****n’ flour grader!’ he would say - I’m sure you remember the adverts.
He finally managed to buy a truck, a Fiat. An unreliable piece of junk, but Geoff managed it, and joined us outside Sealand. Eric came out to Saudi and took over Geoff’s job on the powder tanker. He would call in, but usually said ‘I can’t stop - that Dutchman’s up my arse!’
They must have been good workers, the Saudi who was partner with the Dutchman said ‘I want English drivers, get me English drivers!’ Apparently Geoff and Eric did nearly twice as many loads as the far eastern divers.
We often spent time just sitting in the cabs, waiting for loads. I can picture it now. Geoff in the driver’s seat of Ginger’s Daf, Ginger in the passenger seat and me on the bunk behind. Ginger said ‘Hey John, don’t know if you saw it, but the electricity board are giving a discount if you have more than a dozen electrical appliances, you should write to your wife and let her know!’
This elicited a strangled snort from Geoff, but Ginger carried on ‘I mean, is your cooker electric?’ ‘Yes’ I agreed, ‘and the oven, so that’s two. Hoover, electric fire’ . this went on with each of them making suggestions, and me putting in my two pennorth, ‘hair dryer, music centre…’ Geoff appeared to be shaking slightly at this point for some reason. We went through the list until we reached number twelve, when Ginger said ‘And a dozen glasses and a cuddly toy…Didn’t he do well, he got the lot!’ Geoff was now convulsed with laughter at my naivety, and I suddenly understood the snort and the shaking. ‘You pair of ■■■■■■■■■■ I shouted, which made them laugh even more because I hardly ever swore.
Ginger’s brain had no censorship mechanism before commenting on anything. He and I would be in the ‘Souks’ supermarket, which was very western and where all the Europeans and Americans shopped. He would call me in a loud voice ‘Ow, son, come and look at the state of this!’ I would go over and he would be pointing at some poor western woman, not caring if she heard ‘What a waste of an air fair,’ I would of course be crawling with embarrassment. ’ I mean, you wouldn’t bother for an old Bewer like that would you!’
On another occasion, we were unloading at Riyadh hospital. A man, obviously a doctor, walked by, wearing a white suit. ‘Ow John, look at the clip of this!’ The call goes up ‘Haway, Son, Who got you ready?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ asked a very English voice, looking us both up and down. Bearing in mind I would be in jeans and Tee shirt and Ginger’s total clothing was shorts and flip flops. ‘Who the f*** wears a white suit in Saudi? Did you bring your Mam out with you to get dressed in a morning?’ The doctor just walked away, shaking his head.
Geoff always said that Paul Daniels stole his catchphrase, ‘You’ll like this, not a lot.’
Eric said he was at school with Chubby Brown. He once brought brother Andy and me signed photos. I lost mine, but Andy who is a hoarder, showed me his the other day, when Roy did two nights at the Forum in Barrow (he was booked for one night, but they had to make it two because of demand). Our Po faced MP said he should be barred because of the content of his show, The general concensus was, you know what you’re getting, if you don’t like it, don’t go.
Andy’s poster had ‘Now then Andy, never mind the ■■■■■■■■, keep on trucking, best wishes Chubby.’ written on it.
Back to last Friday evening. I often go over to the west shore club, Walney island, on Friday nights, my cousin is in a bowling team and in Winter we all congregate there for a few drinks. We catch the last bus home and the bus fills up with all the usual suspects as it makes its way across town. We stopped at one bus shelter and were obviously early. The driver paused for a minute even though nobody was getting on or off. The lit advert inside the shelter was for a KIt Kat competition, with prizes for holidays to Miami, Barbados etc. cousin Charles said, ‘Hey, good prizes.’ I looked and said ‘You’ve got more chance of getting a back scuttle off the queen than winning one of those holidays!’
The whole bus erupted with laughter."
Not an expression I ever use really, but it was one of Geoff’s and took me back forty years.
The other memory it recalled for me was that at Caravan Trading, we used to deal with an American customer in Riyadh called MSI. I can’t remember what they did, but we used to do their customs clearance and some of their haulage (they had a few trucks of their own, including Kenworths and a Volvo). They employed quite a few Brits, including drivers.
They also had a swimming pool at their compound and this was a gathering place on a Friday, the day off, for the people who worked there and their guests, often including British nurses from the hospital. One Friday, one of the drivers, Jesse James (yes that really was his name, his parents must have had a sense of humour) was lying close to one of the nurses with whom he’d become friendly, next to the pool, when he uttered, in his Geordie accent, one of the best chat up lines I’ve ever heard:
‘Ah’m getting a new gearbox in the Volvo tomorrow!’
John
