According to Wikipedia the first demonstrations against the Shah of Persia took place in October 1977 in Tehran. These were peaceful but by January 1978 the mood in the country was changing and demonstrations appeared in other areas of Iran and were becoming more violent but still the Shah and the police and army who supported him had the situation under control. However, from August to December the demonstrations became increasingly violent and the Shah and those supporting him lost control. On the 16th January 1979 the Shah left Iran and on the 1st February Ayatollah Khomeini, made his way slowly down the steps from the aircraft that had flown him back to Iran, to the adulation of the masses, mainly composed of the poor and the clerics but also to the trepidation of those that opposed him.
And according to Jason Stringfellow it was during these troubled times in Iran that his father Jeff decided to take his wife, daughter and two sons on holiday. So what you may say. Nothing wrong with dipping your toes in the brinney in Skegness or even Southend. Everyone is entitled to a holiday, at least once a year. Well Jeff had other plans. He took his family to Tehran. They didn’t fly there. Jeff put them in his lorry and they drove there and back. All five of them crammed into a lorry belonging to Arthur G Evison Ltd, incidentally, a company mushroomman was asking for information on three years ago, of Radcliffe on Trent. According to Jason, who was only seven or eight at the time and the youngster, the lorry was a MAN and the trip took place in 78. I assume it was in August and the school holidays. What stories those three children must have had to tell their mates upon their return. Of course Jeff must have asked Arthur for permission to take his family with him. Otherwise can you imagine being unable to get into Iran at Bazargan and having to ring Arthur and say “they won’t let me in Arthur cos I got the wife and kids with me. What shall I do”!!!. I see that Arthur wound up his Transport business in February 1983.
It seems sleeping arrangements during the trip for the family were well thought out by Jeff. The two boys slept opposite ends on one bunk whilst mother and daughter did the same on the other. Jeff made a bed up across the seats. Even so didn’t leave a lot of room to have a scratch during the night. According to Jason they booked into the ‘Harem Hotel’ in Istanbul for a night or two. It seems Jeff’s wife did some washing when possible on the way down. This was fine until another driver reversed over her bucket one day. Jason reckons she didn’t see the funny side of it. When they arrived in Tehran they went to the Davies Turner yard and made good use of the swimming pool. Luckily for us Jeff took some photos of the trip and although he died a few years back the photos remain with the family.
It seems all was quiet on the ground in Iran during their trip. No demonstrations that I’ve heard about and the family returned safely but soon after Iran became a no go area. I don’t know the chronological order of events at that time but if Jeff was in Tehran in August and his next trip could have been October or November just as the situation there was getting out of control. There was a mass exodus of lorries and drivers and Jeff told me he was the last British driver to get out. I assume he meant from the Davies Turner yard. Once out of Tehran the journey back to Bazargan was uneventful but the border post was heaving due to the number of lorries there. Once back in the UK Jeff was asked to return to Iran to bring back a lorry that had been abandoned there. Now you may think this was a crasss idea but Jeff said OK. Foolhardy or not it certainly was a courageous thing to do. He flew to Tehran on what turned out to be one of the last flights before the airport was closed as the Iranian Revolution really took hold. He made his way to the Davies Turner yard but it seems the lorry he was to bring back to the UK was badly shot up and couldn’t be saved. Jeff was stuck. He couldn’t fly or drive out in the lorry. He was there for six weeks during which two Iranian guys looked after him and kept him safe. Contact was made with the British Embassy and they finally helped him leave the country. I don’t know by what means he left.
Hopefully Jason can fill in the many blanks in this short narrative.
If we move on a few months to the third week of March 1979 and you read the story I posted on page 7 of this Promotor thread you will see that I met Jeff in Volos, by that time he was working for David Duxbury. We both waited a week for a ferry to Tartous and were together for about twelve days. We split up just north of Damascus as I turned off for Baghdad and he went straight on to Saudi. I met him once more a year later in the National in Belgrade. He and another driver called Mick were after Iraqi visas. That was the last time I saw him. I did use the search engine here on Trucknet UK to try and find him a couple of years ago and found somebody had reported he had died.
