I’ve just remembered another incident, I had been week ended at the Czech/West German border and at 10 o’clock on Sunday evening I was waved through into WG on my way home. A couple of hours later I was making my merry way along the autobahn when I became aware of some idiot behind me with his main beam headlights on, I checked my mirrors but there was no one there. Then I started to smell burning and realized it was me with my main beam on, and I hadn’t touched the lever■■? Just then oops, flames started to lick up through the left hand corner of the dashboard and onto the windscreen. Luckily we carried fire extinguishers and I soon had the fire out but I no longer had any lights. I crawled along the hard shoulder up to the first lay-by and attempted to get some sleep and leave at first light and get to Ostende before dark. Have you ever tried to sleep in a cab that smells of burning? Not only that but I had been asleep all day ready for the overnight journey home and, although they were empty, I was loaded with cylinders which had been filled with Ethyl Oxide, which is pretty explosive stuff. The reason I mention all this (long winded I know) is that I took a picture of the DAF in the lay-by before I left.
And here it is, along with another one I took after a tow in to the garage on another occasion!
harry:
I wasnt knocking the DAFs but Jock was a Scania man so I was curios to know why he chose them. Probably DAFs were the only people that could handle the order with full M/E spec. The DAFs were good trucks. I leased a 3200 myselfYeah,youre right about the money. Jock told me that PIE were prepared to lose a million pounds to get it all up & running. Youre also right about Jock. He didnt last all that long. Hasty by name… But he was OK.
But surely PIE had more than 30 trucks when you started…?
I’ve just remembered Jock Hasty’s mate’s name. Sean Moran. They teamed together on SCA. I teamed with Johnny Edwards.
Last time I saw Sean was at a MSA in Belgium. I was going to Germany with a load of frozen Argentinian hares for a game-dealer near Dusseldorf. Sean was trying to raise enough enthusiasm to continue a trip to the ME. Kept buying me coffees to delay his start. He was quite a good bloke actually. Very, very smooth though. Had a Chinese wife at the time, as I recall.
Another SCA team was Keith Parley and Dennis Scorer. Dennis bought one of SCA’s Scannies and subbed to SCA. Keith? Last I heard he was running his own parcle courier firm down in Wiltshire somewhere.
Did anyone ever have a 110 with decent brakes? I never did. Nor on an 88 either. Best foreign brakes in my day were on DAFs.
They also had some very late F89s I had one for a while just after pie finished , that also had a kithen pack in it , also a fridge ac and night heater.
That was a great truck to drive. I wish i could remember the reg number.
Yep Geoff, they brought the F89’s over from Sweden when they closed down the depot in Malmö and re-registered them here (they were S Reg if that helps you remember your old motor).They used to pull like a train. No passenger seat 'cos the sink and cooker were there and the fridge was under the bunk. Plant & Engineering at Colnbrook bought 6 of them when PIE closed and I went to work for them for a while. This photo was taken in the yard behind the Riverside Café on the Colnbrook bypass.
This next photo was taken in the desert somewhere and it’s courtesy of my mate Keith Greenfield (pictured). There’s a PIE F89 on the right and the maroon Scania was the the one Keith was driving.
rexyu. Yeah, I knew Sean Moran. I was with him on SCA . I put his unit on a towbar once & towed him from Milan to Lugano. There was no Scania dealer in Italy at the time.The last time I saw him he came into a truck stop on the old road before the motorway opened between Porto & Villa Formosa. He used to get with these outfits that paid trip money & was normally in desperate straights after he left SCA. His heart was in the right place.Keith Parley rings a bell…
Were there any Foreign Truck Dealers in Italy in those days Harry? All the Italians drove Fiats or OM’s didn’t they? Something to do with protecting the home market I believe but all that came to an end when the joined the EEC!
The way it went in Italy was this. To license a truck they had to fill in a form. On the form was marked which trucks you could register. Scania, Volvo ect. were not on the form so they couldn`t register them. Thats why I drove a FIAT Italian reg wagon & drag for SCA .( They wanted the permits.) I flew down one Sunday to pick it up in Milan. They had just given Sandro the Italian driver the boot. The closest Scania dealer was in Lugano CH. There was a Volvo dealer in Bologna. They only sold plant but they could repair trucks. Kieth Parley was a good friend of mine. He always kept his truck immaculate.
Sounds like a good way of protecting the national manufacturing industry to me Harry, don’t put the marque on the form so no one can have one!
When did you drive the Italian registered road train, I don’t remember that? I remember when I worked for Howells & Reavell some of the drivers used to earn a little extra beer money shunting SCA trailers about on Saturdays.
Mind you, the way some of those lads used to drink, I’m not surprised they needed to earn extra cash.
Rattlesnake Dave:
They used to pull like a train. No passenger
seat 'cos the sink and cooker were there and the fridge was under the bunk.
Interesting that Dave, could they be ordered like that because the F89 (R reg) I
had at WhiteTrux had no passenger seat and no sign of ever having had one?
No cooker or fridge though, but my lady and I, at first dismayed at the lack of a
seat for her, soon realised the benefits of access to the storage space under
the bunk. She even preferred sitting on the bunk when travelling also.
You’re right about the pulling power though, at max 50mph (optimum speed
worked out by Mickey for retaining the fuel bonus) we still beat everyone else
to the beach. 
Rattlesnake Dave It was the early 70s. After I left Dave Jeffery’s tok over the FIAT. But I didnt meet Jeffery's until he was top- man at Leggets when he was doing Swiss. He used to do a Swiss,be away all week then Saturday afternoons he would hand wash his truck down in the yard . The funny thing was that he used to bring his pretty little wife down in the car so she could watch him. They parted soon after. It might have been ,Its me or the motor…` 
PS. That Riverside Caff car park never changed. But the food was good & the staff were friendly.
I was doing a lot of Italy and wine from France at that time Harry, but I don’t remember the Roadtrain. Probably old age creeping on, it was 30 odd years ago though. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! You could be excused for thinking the picture of the 89 was in the Riverside car park, it was a bit like that, as were most transport cafes, but the picture was taken on the path beside the cafe that went down to the yard and onto Colnebrook High St.
The PIE 89s didn’t have room for a passenger seat David, when you sat on the bunk the sink and cooker were in front of you with just enough room to get your legs in, with a fold over leaf (on top of your legs) to prepare and eat your food (and wash up afterwards-unless like some people I know, they always had their wifey with 'em). We often brought back a couple of small(ish) bulldozers from Fiat in Modena (I think) which weighed about 10 tons a piece and you still overtook most of the other lads on hills. Definitely one of the better motors I drove back then.
I only remember a Scania road-train on SCA, during my time there (early seventies) It was driven by Joe Rotvik, a Laplander, terrific fella. Can’t remember who his team driver was though. Joe lived in Dover, as I recall.
Sandro, or more correctly Alessandro, was a Milanese and a very wide boy indeed. Although I’m not surprised that they gave him the bullet, he was a very good driver and worker, but, like so many Italians, was always on the lookout for a fiddle, bless 'em.
rexyu
I was the last driver on the Maggi Road train . Then Sandro refused to leave Milan on a Saturday so they flew me down on Saturday evening to Milan to bring the FIAT back. I was with Graham Bill. I got to the truck ,Graham handed me the keys but it was dead…Sandro had turned the battery off with a switch located down the chassis by the fuel tank . Anyway,I crossed into France over the Blanc before 2200hrs…I heard about the Scania but I never saw it…
Since you go way back…Did you know Malta Cross…? I was the first driver on there…The trip was London to Marseilles with containers. When you got there you dropped the trailer in the docks ,parked the unit on the Quay de Belge,and stayed at a flash hotel on the front until the Containers had been unloaded & loaded…Lovely…!
Well Harry, I didn’t even know thay had a Maggie road-train. The frim started off in Eastleigh with two Maggie tractors. One 6x2 and one 4x2. The 6x2 had a V10 aircooled engine and went like stink. I loved it. Sounded like a bucket of old nails in th morning on startup, but as soon as it warmed up it was like silk. I can even remember its reg…HKM 449D. (how’s that for a memory after 39 years?)
As they grew, the firm moved to Island Row in Stepney and that was where I rejoined (having walked out after a couple of years at Eastleigh).
I finally left and went to Kwikasair in Paris. I left after only 5 weeks as nobody seemed to want to give me any wages. That was it apart from about a year on Rooksdale Haulage out of Canning Town. The rest of my working life I’ve spent mostly as a fisherman at Newhaven. Now retired.
Graham Bill? I remember that no good ■■■■■■.
No, I don’t remember thatMalta job. Sounds good though. I think I could manage that now.
What period were you on SCA then?
I started in Island Row in the 70’s
The Maggi Was completely clapped out when I got it. On the first trip it broke down before I got to Dover. I had a traffic cop inside the cab with me jiggling around with a broken throttle linkage ( With the cowling open ) until I could make it to Western docks for repairs.Blow out nr. Fontainebleau & no spare…The tyre guy came out with the tyre dumped it beside the road & left. That meant another walk to the restaurant to call London to get the tyre people to pick up the flat & the new tyre ,take it back to the depot then return & fit it. All day for a blow out! The only tools the truck had were a jack,a hammer and a wheelbrace…As I say I did about three or four trips in it then they dumped it… the last trip to Milan & Torino took three weeks due to French custom strikes & breakdowns…Good heater tho’.
Take a look here…You must have known Ralph Mullins…?
( We had two Italian drivers. Sandro was one & other was a bit younger…& better character ) Pehaps… 
picasaweb.google.com/harry438/SCA
Harry,
Its just come to me. The younger Italian driver was Alfredo. Smashing young bloke. Only English word he knew, in my time, was “anyway”. He’d come up to you and say “anyway” and you’d stand there waiting for the rest. His parents were peasant farmers from somewhere in Italy. He would cook great meals in his cab. I can always remember seeing him sitting on the bunk with this huge saucepan in front of him, cooking pasta. Ha ha!! A different type of bloke altogether to Sandro.
Of course I knew Ralph Mullins. He took me on my first ever trip abroad, to Zurich, tip and load. When we got back, he advised Chambers not to employ me as I was too cocky. Chambers gave me the chance and Ralph and I always got on fine. Straight as a die was Ralph. I’ve never ever heard anyone ■■■■ like he could. He was Adrian Chambers’ mechanic when he was a racing driver. They got the idea of international express transport when Ralph had to do a quick Blighty and back for a new gearbox just prior to a race. Seeing Ralp in that photo with open shirt and rolled up sleeves takes me back, |I can tell you. I did hear that he ended up as a fitter in a bus garage in Bournemouth, where he came from.
Good to see old Sean again as well.
I always got on with Ralph. I suppose because I always got that old Maggi home…
Did you recognize Bob at the Gate outside Dover…? In my opinion I always thought that Fredo should have had that FIAT. Every time we were parked he used to come over & tell me what a comfortable truck it was etc…After I left they put the Jeffreys out of Leggets on it with another driver…I think he is still driving for a Swiss outfit… I saw Sean a couple of times after in Portugal…But somewhere along the line I upset him & he stopped talking… Great bloke & a long story.( Possibly over dosh…He worked for a coy that didn’t pay & I was skint…Bit misty. Anyway I couldn’t float him & he took it personal ) He was coming home from Italy & holed up in one of the watering holes on the French flat. I had left Swiss gone to Spain ,reloaded Italy. Come over the Blanc ,stopped at Collonges & walked into Swiss to grab some dosh off the Swiss firm I was working for.They told me the money was in an Italian bank in Aosta. So I hitched back over the Blanc ,grabbed the dough then hitched back with a Dutchman. I was too heavy for Swiss so had to go round.As I say I stopped & Sean was there & couldn’t float him because I was loaded for West Berlin & from there God knows where…Pity really…But I tell you what,Berlin was a blast in those days!!
Yes, that would be Bobby Jones from Soton. His brother Peter was also on SCA with me. They had both worked for Jamesons in Soton. I took Bobby on his first trip abroad, to Italy, when he still worked for Jamesons and I had been Eurohaul’s fisrt driver. We got ■■■■■■ somewhere in France on th way down and, while trying to brew coffee in my cab, the Camping Gaz stove blew up and he got quite badly burned on his arms. Local chemist patched him up and we carried on. Peter was a bit of a bully (great big bloke) and I never got on well with him. Bobby was more or less alright though. Did hear Peter took a cafe somewhere in the west country and then worked for North Devon Meats.
Eurohaul went bust eventually and big time, for about 3-4 million so I heard. The boss, Robin Colenzo, was a good man. Grea friend of mine in those days. I wonder what became of him?
I always got on OK with Sean. Jock Hasty was his mate on SCA.
So what are you doing these days?
I ended up on containers .Good money ,easy life. But the paint was already dry.
Jacked in out of sheer boredom…Now retired & looking for a bolt hole to avoid the drizzly UK winter…Hastie became big honcho with PIE when they started in the UK. Where there was a girl around that one couldn’t be trusted an inch!
I never knew Peter…There was one from Cirencester which I got on with… & Georgie Wells…from Wells on Sea…& of course Bernie who ran off to Dublin with his girl friend & started Comeat. He got some horrible debilitating disease & had to give it all up. There was Roland from somewhere near Corby.The other Tony from Sotton. Had a fatal heart attack within the first hour his pub opened. The first customer was a uniformed cop.Tony was behind the bar ready to serve, he took one look at his first customer & croaked.Bob was chief mechanic.
I forgot earlier. I ended up on containers myself. Russell Davies out of Tilbury. Good job really, although we all moaned about it. No real work at all. Never helped load or tip a box. Boss always backed us ap and told complaining customers that it wasn’t our job.
I once went with a 20 footer to the Midlands somewhere loaded to the gills with 45 gallon drums of something. The customer insisted that I helped unload. I showed him my horoscope for that day in the paper. “Don’t get involved in other peoples activities today; pursue a lone path” Lovely eh?
Do you mean Bunny who worked the Milan office? He ended up in Ireland with multiple sclerosis and a lovely girl called Ann, who i thought was his wife but may not have been. She had a son called Stephen. He was a good friend of Johnny Edwards who I teamed with on SCA