In June 1983, so I’m told by her who knows best, I asked Staggie in our office, if I could do a load to Yugo which involved a bit of a run round as I wanted to take my wife Gill with me. She hadn’t been with me since ten years earlier, when I had been delivering fruit to Covent Garden Market for a previous employer, she had come along, at midnight, to help me offload. “Of course Brian, is there anything else I can do for you” was his caustic reply. (those who knew Staggie will recognise this reaction from him). “Well yes there is. I want to go via France and Italy”. “No problem Brian” he said after he came down off the ceiling. It was a rare event to do a Yugo via France and Italy due to the lack of permits. Now thinking he was on firm ground he asked again. “And is there anything else, any little thing I can help you with”. By now I was wondering how much further I could push him. “I would like to ship over on Sally Line out of Ramsgate” I said. It took about ten minutes for the bright red hue of his cheeks and the twitch to recede and one of the girls in the office to prise his fingers off the arms of his office chair. However, it was then that the spluttering started and I thought it best to come back in half an hour. When I finally returned Dave had calmed down and through gritted teeth agreed to all my demands. I was then going to ask if the trip could be arranged so I could be week-ended on the way down in Italy and also on the way back. But I thought perhaps that was a request too far. But, by pure luck, thats what happened.
We shipped over on a Thursday. As all those who used Sally Line in the early days will know the big attraction on board was the Smorgasbord self service restaurant. It was a fantastic Scandinavian extravaganza of dishes some of us had only read about. The only drawback of using Sally was that she went to Dunkirk. Still that wasn’t the end of the world. I remember poodling down the old RN south of Paris, I never used the autoroutes unless I was in a hurry. We stopped at various Le Routier cafe’s for my wife to sample the best French drivers cuisine. We then crossed the River Saone at Macon and made our way to the Shell Station the other side of Bourge-en-Bresse. Here we filled up with diesel and both had a shower. We then drove up into the Alps and through the Blanc stopping for the night in a quiet spot in Aosta. I wasn’t one for the Bakehouse or any of the other watering/feeding holes, much preferring to have somewhere to myself.
On the Saturday we headed off across northern Italy finally arriving at the little service area of Duino Sud just east of Trieste where we parked up for the next two nights. Now, for those not in the know, if you walk out the back of these services you go down the hill for a kilometre or so you come to a lovely little harbour with restaurants and bars nearby. We made our way down there on the Sunday and had a very pleasant day in the warm June sunshine.
Monday morning saw us pushing off early and after crossing into Yugo made our way to Celja where we cleared customs and tipped part of our load. On our way to Celja we had stopped and bought some tomatoes. Unfortunately these had an adverse affect on my wife’s stomach and for the next few days she was definitely under the weather. Whilst we were in Celja customs we went to the small cafe where they had tripe on the menu the very sight of which made her feel even worse. It left me feeling a bit queasy to. The following day saw us in Rijeka where we had a couple of drums of oil to drop off at the shipyard. Once delivered we went for a walk around the harbour. Unfortunately, we came to the fish market where my wife went a colour of green I had never seen before. We left there quickly and returned to the lorry. Next stop was the Zagreb Hotel for another shower and hopefully somewhere where she could regroup.
On Wednesday we made our way down the concrete strip to The National at Belgrade. This road didn’t help her stomach one bit. As anyone who used that road in those days will know it was rough. It was built just after WW2 and paid for by the Yanks. Unfortunately by 1983 is was one of the worst roads in Yugo to drive on. Each section of concrete was a different height from the next and so all you got was this bang, bang, bang at very even intervals as you drove along it. It reminded me of the drip, drip, drip, Chinese water torture I had read about. Once we got to the National we had another shower and then I introduced her to all the George’s in the restaurant. It always made me laugh when they came to your table, stood there with their writing pad and pen and said “wat you want George”. That cheered her up a bit as well. Its no doubt been mentioned on this forum many times but the waiters would buy the huge bottles of Whiskey we could buy in the duty free shop as we passed through the Bulgy border if we were coming up that way. I remember on one trip Promotor driver George Fardell bought a bottle and stashed it in his trailer. When he arrived at the National it lay smashed on the floor. You couldn’t talk to him for a week after that. He didn’t want you to see him crying.
Thursday saw us in Smederavo at the steel works where we tipped the remainder of our load. We ran back to the National where there was a telex waiting for us. We had a reload of wooden furniture waiting for us in Nova Gorica, back up on the Italian border. As my wife was feeling a lot better by then I thought we should push on that afternoon. We did, arriving there late evening. Friday we reloaded and did customs. As the Italian border was just down the road we crossed over and parked up for the night. On the Saturday we made our way to Lake Garda where as luck would have it, we were week-ended for the second time this trip. On the Sunday we had a pleasant day there. The weather was great and we strolled along the edge of the lake finding a small restaurant for an excellent meal.
Monday saw us drive across Italy to the entrance of the Blanc where I committed the cardinal sin of stopping the wrong side of the dividing line between Italy and France. There were quite a few lorries there that evening all trying to find somewhere to stop so they could go and do customs. I could’nt find a space until I had crossed the line. This little jumped up Italian customs official came running out shouting and hollering. I hadn’t a clue what he was on about but then this British driver, who spoke Italian, came over and said I was being fined about twenty billion lira or two hundred pounds for crossing the line. I was a bit shell shocked to hear this (how was I going to explain it to Staggie). Anyway the other driver did his best for me and the fine was reduced to only ten billion lira or one hundred pounds.
Thankfully the remainder of our trip was uneventful and we shipped home courtesy of Sally Line on the Wednesday where we attacked the Smorgasbord once again.
