I have just read a new post “South London Firms” submitted by southlondoner in which he mentions Beck & Pollitzer. They were big in exhibitions in the early 1900’s (before my time before you say it). I know little of the company but do have a short anecdote relating to an incident around 78 or 79 which happened at the Baghdad International Trade Fair.
I had driven out there and was to assist Chic Steadman, our on site manager, during the show. This included the put in, hanging around during the show and the pull out afterwards. I then reloaded and after clearing customs made my way home. Total time away was about eleven weeks. In the early days we did have some competition, Beck and Pollitzer being one of them. I don’t think they had much freight, maybe enough for one trailer. They had flown one guy out from the UK and as you did at all the fairs we got on with him ok but didn’t really have much to do with him. One morning as we were unpacking the heavy exhibits outside the pavilion Chic and I saw his small gang of locals manoeuvre a piece of heavy equipment on two pallet trucks through the door of the pavilion. It was about seven feet long about three feet high and quite narrow and we guessed it weighed about a ton. It was so narrow that they had used some wood to get it to stay on the two prongs of the pallet trucks. There were six or seven guys all trying to balance it as well as push and pull it onto the stand. We watched, concerned that it would topple over and block the doorway and stop us working. However, they got it in and almost to the stand when the inevitable happened. It did fall off the pallet trucks and toppled onto its side. In doing so it landed on the leg of one of the locals badly breaking it. All hell was let loose with much shouting and hollering and blokes running all over the place. They got him out of the pavilion and into the back of a pickup and rushed him off to hospital. For us we knew, if we were ever injured we had to be got out of the country fast. Amman or Kuwait were ok but never an Iraqi hospital. Unfortunately for this guy, being a local he had no choice. But it did come as a bit of a shock when we were told they had amputated his leg. No doubt an even bigger shock to him.
It was soon after this incident that the Beck @ Pollitzer site rep left the country never to return. The local agent handling the pullout and repacking the exhibits. Well that was one of our competitors out of the way but you had to feel sorry for the guy who lost his leg. Bet he didn’t get any compensation.
I will just say that a few years later The Park Group from Ireland landed a contract to run a hospital in Baghdad. After that everyone was trying to injure themselves just so the could be looked after by those Irish nurses. (undreds of em).
The Irish nurses were always in the Park Hotel bar drinking Lula or Scheherazade beer with a vigour rarely found in their English counterparts… No need to visit hospital to meet them - unless you drank too much Lula beer. Lula would come in different colours ranging from the customary yellow to a sort of “spring green” (pond water colour). Only to be drunk in extremis as it had a smilar effect to drinking pond water.
There were some good venues in Baghdad, The British Club - where kisses on their outdoor cinema screen were censored - and also the Yugo Club which did a great knuckle of pork (rarely found in Iraq for obvious reasons). Next to the British Club was the Moulin Rouge and some of the dancers used to turn up at the British Club. What fun!
Baghdad is the only place in the world where it could possibly happen, but standing in the street one day, a young woman walked over and ran her hand through my hair…
Taking a taxi with Peter Calderwood (Mr Promotor himself) the cost of the taxi journey when asked was always “What you like, mister…”. Whatever offered was always then doubled by the driver. Peter said to me when we arrive I’ll throw the driver a dinar (the going rate) and get out quickly. What happened was the Peter got out and threw the dinar to the driver and I found that there were no handles on the rear doors and I was trapped. Presumably escaping passengers was a daily hazard for Baghdadi taxi drivers. I had to cough up the second dinar…
Another memory of the Baghdad fair was the trailer lavatories. On a previous show the lavatory facilities their proved to be too great a demand - beyond capacity for people in urgent need (apparently the entire British contingent of exhibitors had caught Baghdad belly). So this trailer was imported with multiple facilities and a local gentleman employed to live in the block to keep them sparkling.
I should have said in my last post the Park Group hospital was for VIPs only. Your ordinary Iraqi wasn’t allowed inside. Of course if you were a Baath Party member that was different. Access to the nurses apartments was by invitation only and over a short period of time more and more vehicles with their distinctive 'foreigners plates" on were parked up in the car park overnight.
Efes. You mentioned various watering holes and places where you could get a bite to eat. The Yugo Club was by far the best as far as I was concerned but the small Italian club wasn’t bad. If you wanted to eat in an Iraqi restaurant there were very few decent ones but we still frequented them most evenings. The best was The Babylon Palace Restaurant which was down Sadoun Street towards the Opera on the right. They even had a grand selection of French wines. One evening there were eight to ten of us in there including Suzie Patterson our travel rep and Peter Calderwood. Suzie was celebrating something and decided we should have some wine with our meal. I remember it well even after all these years. To start with we had a meza. Large plates of hummus and tabbouleh with many other Levantine dishes. For the main course most of us had chicken as that could be trusted up to a point. However, the wine was what we were all looking forward to. Suzie chose what she knew would be the best ones and three bottles were lined up on the table. The waiter gave Peter a corkscrew and after opening the first bottle of Chateaux Nerf de Pape Suzie had the first taste. The look on her face told it all as she looked for somewhere to spit it out. Luckily there were some big pot plants nearby. The second and third bottles of a Bordeaux vintage were opened and only one was kinda drinkable. Of course the Iraqis didn’t know how to look after wine and they had been left in the heat to cook for perhaps years.
In 1982 civilisation arrived in Baghdad. Big new hotels were opened including the Ishtar Sheraton, the Al-Mansour Melia and the Palastine Meridian all with their fine restaurants. That however still didn’t mean the end of “Baghdad belly” just lowered the odds slightly.
If you recall Brian, the evening sessions were a complete waste of time for exhibitors. They were open to all and no business whatsoever could be done. Also it was a long show lasting up to a couple of weeks and on one occasion an extra week was added at Saddam’s request as the public were enjoying it so much.
Yes Jazzandy. The Baghdad International Fair ran from the 1st to the 15th November every year and the evenings were when the hordes came in. Prior to 78 or 79 it was held at the beginning of October but as the build up started mid September when it was still quite hot it was decided by the authorities to put it back a month. I always liked the evening sessions. It was cooler and you could sit on one of the outside stands with a drink in your hand and kinda relax with some of the exhibitors or wander round the fairground visiting the American or Swedish pavilions perhaps.
One reason for the change of month was that the Iran/Iraq war started during the set-up and the fairground was bombed. We were lucky but the German pavilion next door took a direct hit.
That year’s fair was then put back by a month and it continued thus.
Efes mentioned the Moulin Rouge Nightclub in his last post. During the late 70’s and early 80’s if you wanted a bit of night life in Baghdad it really was the place to go. However, in 1982 the Ishtar Sheraton opened its doors and it had a nightclub on the top floor. It was a very popular place frequented by business men staying in town and some of the ex pats living there. I must admit, as it didn’t open its doors until almost midnight, I never went even though I stayed in the hotel quite a few times.
As the hotel was one of the tallest buildings in town I thought it would be a great place to get some photos. One nice clear day when we had little to do a couple of us both with cameras decided to go up to the top floor to check it out. If you look at the attached photo you can see on the right near the top what looks like a viewing platform. It juts out slightly and was painted a slightly darker colour. It was here we headed. Things didn’t turn out as we expected though. As soon as the lift doors opened and we stepped out we could see that indeed there was a fantastic panoramic view of Baghdad, the Tigris river lay below us and looking down downstream, on the opposite bank, Saddam Husseins palace. We didn’t have time to turn our cameras on let alone point them before we were pounced on by a couple os Saddams security boys shouting “no photo no photo”. We were then pushed roughly back in the direction of the lift and told to go in no uncertain terms.
I reckon Saddam had been watching the film “Day of the Jackal” about the attempted assassination of De Gaulle . He knew that viewing platform would have been the type of place “The Jackal” played by Edward Fox would have chosen to conceal himself. And from there, unlike in the film, he couldn’t miss…
Once again Efes has stirred my little grey cells into some kinda action. He recently mentioned the new toilet facilities installed at the British Pavillion at the Baghdad Fair. Before that one had to use those provided by the Fair Authorities which were pretty dire. Now, although I can remember some things as if it were yesterday other things are less distinct but I think they were installed in time for he 1982 Fair. Getting things in chronological order after all these years can certainly be a challenge.
What I am sure of is that Promotor had the job of transporting the mobile Portaloo, bit like a mobile office, to Baghdad. There were I think eight cubicles lined up inside (no urinal) and a handbasin. This was certainly a luxury as far as the British exhibitors were concerned but there was a slight drawback and that was there were no drains nearby. The only way round this was to use PortaPotties, the type of thing that campers use. They weren’t ideal but hey!! this was Baghdad. The BOTB (British Overseas Trade Board) had found the money to pay for it, transport it and maintain it for that one show. Yes Efes, they did hire a local to empty the Potties and keep it all clean and tidy. After the show it was to be left on site, adjacent to the British Pavilion, to be used at future events. However, I remember going back the next year to find that the locals had broken in to it and it took a hell of a lot of cleaning to get it functional again.
I am confident John Preece had the job of transporting the Portaloo on one of our stripped down supercubes. Unfortunately I have no photos showing this but I have attached a photo taken a few weeks later of his lorry Annika (the one Welly Ward was to write off in southern Turkey early the next year) and the trailer loaded up with empty cases. The complete rig was parked up in the empty case storage area for the duration of the show.
And whilst we’re on about bodily functions and washing I have attached another couple of photos taken in the fairground. Not sure of the year though.
John Preece featured in my last post. Great bloke but seemed to have had a troubled history. I stayed with him at his home near Maidstone on a couple of occasions. At 5 o’clock one Sunday morning we both went with his son who was working as a greenskeeper at the golf course opposite side of the road to Astrans yard just down the road from Wrotham Heath as John wanted to knock a few balls around. Mind you he seemed an even worse golfer than me but we had a good laugh. I lost contact with him many years ago when he went off to Australia. I assume he ended up in Tasmania as he had often spoken about going back there. I think one of his sons lived there.
The Col Du Mont-Cenis if you are French or the Colle Del Moncenisio if you are Italian. To most British drivers it was just Mont Cenis. This high mountain pass linking France and Italy has been mentioned many times here on TNUK. It rises to 2,083m or 6,827ft and is only passable during the summer months. But what a fantastic ride you had. The views were to die for and the spine tingling excitement of meeting and passing other lorries on the hairpin bends lasted a lifetime in the memory.
I only traversed the col three times. All in the 70’s and all from the Italian side. Because of the permit situation France and Italy didn’t appear on our radar to often. A few years back I thought it a good idea to revisit the area and my wife and I drove up from Susa in Italy only to find the colle still closed by snow.
On my first trip over Mont Cenis I was up by the lakes around lunch time and feeling hungry, must have been all that clear mountain air, I stopped near one of the restaurants. It wasn’t a truck stop which was fine by me. I remember it being a lovely sunny day as I sat down at a table overlooking the lake. The table was well laid out with cutlery and glasses for wine and water and I thought, what the hell, its only money, I’m going to enjoy myself. I ordered trout, straight out of the lake I was told. When my dish was served up I was in for a bit of a shock, a nice shock I must add. Not only did I have trout but I had two. Small ones served up in one of those cast iron dishes where they continue to cook in front of you. I slowly devoured them, all washed down with a glass or three of a light Italian white wine. It was heaven. The best and finest meal I ever had during my time on the road.
Needless to say I didn’t get much more work done that day and when I got back to the office and put my expenses in Staggie, our transport manager couldn’t stop laughing as he used the big red pen to cross out “lunch bought for Alpine guide”.
Just looked at the photo I put on in my last post on top of Mont Cenis and have noticed there is a Turkish handbrake on the road. For those not in the know its just a lump of rock which many Turks wedged under their wheel cos they didn’t trust the handbrake that was fitted to the lorry. Saying that though, would any Turkish driver have found Mont Cenis let alone have the oomph to get over the top.
Looking at the photo I’ve attached today it looks as if its all about brakes again, or lack of them. Used to see lots or scenes like this whilst travelling around Turkey. Think this happened east of Gaziantep.
I remember on one trip I was on my way home from Baghdad. I had left Rutba and was well into the Syrian desert and I was wacked so decided to pull off the road and get my head down. Not something I normally did for security reasons but I was to tired to go on so chanced my luck. However, I was woken about two in the morning by flashes of light. Wondering what was going on I peered out through the curtains to see a fantastic lighting display in the distance. It didn’t take long for me to realise it was getting closer. Immediately I could see the danger of being parked up in the desert off solid ground. I jumped out of bed put my shorts on started the engine, engaged gear and was off. Just as I got back onto the road the sky opened up. The rain was so heavy I had a job to see the road. Needless to say I didn’t go back to bed again that night but that lighting display was quite something.
The two attached photos were not taken on the trip outlined above but where taken in the Syrian desert on another occasion.
Weathers lousy so been messing around in the junk hole and found another shoe box with some more photos in. Not that many of lorries unfortunately or Promotor drivers. Not sure if co-drivers count though.
You may remember a month or two back I posted an account of a trip to Yugo when my wife came along for the ride. I’d asked Staggie, our transport manager if we could go the scenic route. i.e. France/Italy to which he reluctantly agreed. We were weekended on the way down and also on the way back in eastern Italy. Luckily for us and any other drivers on the road Staggie never saw the pictures taken during that trip. If he or any other companies transport managers had known how many times we stopped for photo shoots then co-drivers (wives and girlfriends) would have been banned for ever.
As you will see my wife appears in many of the photos. Now I know you would all prefer to see pictures of lorries or even pictures of me but if any of you want to complain I can give you her email address but on your head be it.
Hi Sandway. Just to let you know that my publishers - Old Pond - have used your critique of my book Vodka Cola Cowboy - as a review on their website. Thanks for the kind words. I greatly appreciate them.
Vodka Cola Cowboy:
Hi Sandway. Just to let you know that my publishers - Old Pond - have used your critique of my book Vodka Cola Cowboy - as a review on their website. Thanks for the kind words. I greatly appreciate them.
I’m pleased to hear that Micky T. Hope the sales are continuing apace. How long before it becomes a million seller! Shouldn’t be long now.
Vodka Cola Cowboy:
Hi Sandway. Just to let you know that my publishers - Old Pond - have used your critique of my book Vodka Cola Cowboy - as a review on their website. Thanks for the kind words. I greatly appreciate them.
I’m pleased to hear that Micky T. Hope the sales are continuing apace. How long before it becomes a million seller! Shouldn’t be long now.
At the rate that it is going I reckon about 2099 ! ha ha ha
