Hi jmc jnr.Bloody hell your memorys good.Yes that was me.Those were the days 
.Not my most lucrative trip.Due to the '‘efficiency’ of '‘other people’ and the fact it was the worst winter since the mammoths died the repairs took forever.The trip eventually took 17 weeks[on trip money],i made the vast sum of £500 
Glad to hear your still with us[so many aren’t]Take care.If you ever get up this way stop in[i know it’s not likely but i have to make the offer] 
The temp will take you back. Mike
Hi Mike Thanks for the offer, but I’ve packed it all in now and trundle round the sports field opposite cutting the grass with my 1965 Massey. Not much call for that where you live, and I,m allergic to shovels.- Too much effort. If you’re ever in the UK near Diss in Norfolk look me up. I owe you and yours a ride round the block. Thanks for the reply. Take care. Jim
Apologies for intruding on the thread.
truckyboy:
I remember being in the londra with derek gull on one trip, ashamed to say he paid for a few beersAh, Derek Gull or “Snout” as he was called . He was also called “Our man in Istanbul”. I remember Jeffrey telling me one time that if Derek was still in Istanbul when I got there to kick his arse and tell him to get going to his destination.
He wasn’t all bad though. I recall him and me running back empty from Bandar Abbas in the winter of '75 and the weather was atrocious in Eastern Turkey. He was a good guy to run with in those terrible conditions.
Yes, Ron, I remember him best as ‘Our Man in Istanbul’! Is he still with us do you know?
David
David Miller:
Yes, Ron, I remember him best as ‘Our Man in Istanbul’! Is he still with us do you know?David
No idea of his circumstances these days, David. Haven’t had any contact with him since I left Simons at the end of '76.
I recall that towards the latter part of my time on Simons he was wanted by the old bill in the UK and he would send his trailer unaccompanied back to the UK from Zeebrugge (or Ostend?) and wait for an unaccompanied trailer to be shipped over to him.
Only just found this site. I hope this is of interest.
After doing overland for a year in 1976, I stayed in Saudi doing internals. I had worked for Douglas Freight, but bought Paul Kerr’s day cab Scania from him when he upgraded to a Transcon.
I Pulled for Sea Land at first, but that started to go quiet when they brought in their own trucks from the States & employed Philippino drivers. I was offered the chance to pull a car transporter by Pat Conway, who I knew from Dunderdale & Yates in Preston. The rate was lower than Sea Land, 1500 Riyals a trip to Riyadh from Toyota at Al Khobar, but it was still £250 and I could comfortably do 4 or 5 trips a week. Pat and another lad called Dave, then also Ted Thomas and another guy who looked like Alvin Stardust, but whose name I can’t remember worked for John Lancaster, formerly of Howlan International. They sent him £1000 per week home and he used the money to set up a very successful conservatory business.
When that job finished, all of us ex Sea Land subbies were offered work by Alan Newhouse and Ali Al Ghoson, pulling for their joint venture Behring/Caravan. This would be about 1978, but I can’t give exact dates because I didn’t keep a diary.
The details are a bit fuzzy, but I think Jeff Litwin must have already somehow been involved because Caravan employed a Transport Manager called Joe (can’t remember his surname) who had worked for Jeff in the UK, and I remember meeting Jeff when he visited the yard. Joe’s family were with him, living in a flat above Caravan’s Dammam office.
There were rumours that Joe had been the guy Jeff sent to collect his debts, he was certainly big and hard enough. I don’t think Jeffeun had sent any trucks down at that point, and Behring had shiploads of stuff coming in, so I think we were just meant to be a stopgap. I remember Joe saying ‘ I’m going to have units lined across there’ waving his arm across the expanse of the Dammam yard. Since we were already doing the work, we really didn’t want Jeffeun sending 50 or 60 trucks, but it was presented as a done deal.
Joe’s ‘company car’ was a big American crew cab Chevy pick up. We were in Dammam and he said ‘come on, I’ll take you up to Al Khobar’ I can’t remember what for. So Eric Collins and myself got in. Luckily Eric got in the front and I got in the back. We were quickly doing at least 90 and I was petrified. He was madder than any Arab. I was certain he was going to roll it. He just laughed. I got down onto the floor and braced myself. Where the railway lines crossed the road at an angle the truck swayed and bucked. Again, Joe just laughed. We finally got to Khobar and stopped. I was shaking as I got out. When we’d finished looking at whatever it was we’d come to see, Joe said ‘Come on, back to Dammam.’ Eric and I both declined. We got a taxi back and I refused to ever get in a vehicle with Joe again.
Fred Topham was around at that time too. I think he was working on insurance fraud or some such, but he had some association with Jeff Litwin — again, exactly what, I don’t remember.
I think the first driver to arrive was Black John. I seem to remember about 5 of those standard orange colour DAFs, probably 3200s arriving, but I don’t remember any drivers except John. Maybe Jeff came down in a Range Rover pulling a caravan and John came with him, again, fuzzy on detail.
I came back from a trip to see this caravan in the yard and Geoff Collins, Eric’s brother, rushed across to my cab & said, ‘John, come and look at this’. We went round the side of the caravan and two of the biggest feet I’d ever seen were sticking about a foot out of an open window. Geoff was howling with laughter and went across and tickled them. Black John came out having just been woken up. You could see why his feet had been sticking out, he looked about 7’ tall!
He introduced himself as Black John, but I wasn’t very comfortable with that and just called him John, although he did say, ‘you might as well call me Black John, everybody else does’. Unlike Joe, John didn’t have a menacing presence, he was a big likeable guy. He did used to complain that ‘all the f****** locals start to rabbit on to me in f****** Arabic before I stop them’. John spoke with a strong London accent.
I’d forgotten about his arrest and subsequent release — I guess that didn’t help Jeffeun’s credibility with Behring Caravan.
Joe had a likeable side, but he scared me with his unpredictability. He really wasn’t that popular with us subbies. He would dish the work out without any consideration of whose turn it was, and wasn’t interested if you said anything about it.
After a 3 month stint we would fly home for about 3 weeks R & R. I happened to get on the same plane as Alan Newhouse and by chance sat next to him. I asked him about Joe, but he said, ‘well, I’ve given him the job, so I have to give him the chance to do it.’
Joe’s unpredictability was his downfall. He must have had some blazing row with Jeff Litwin. He came down to the yard one evening and proceeded to use the forklift to completely trash all 5 Jeffeun trucks. We were still living in our cabs at the time and watched open mouthed as he put the forks through windscreens and I think tore one cab from its mountings.
He got the sack next morning. I guess he didn’t work for Jeff again either. I got a letter a month or two later, asking if I would give him a reference.
I think that was the end of Jeffeun’s involvement with Caravan too. Peter Best became transport manager and started buying ERF’s from Star Commercials. When Peter left I stopped driving and took over as transport manager.
Hello John and welcome to T/N. Some excellent memories there so it looks like you may well find a few old friends(or enemies ) on here!! There a quite a few ex M/E lads on here from back in the day, (im NOT one of them) and they have all got some great stories and photos to share. If you get a few days spare then check out the Astran / Middle east drivers thread…
That should keep you busy for a while 
Do you have any photos from back then? If so then post them up, you will have a very willing audience here. 
I also believe there was a budgie on Eaglewing and reading everyone of these posts makes me believe that a few of us at least started around the same time, for me it was 1975, i was working for bill puxley at the time in west ferry road, seemed the best transport companies were on the other side of the water, i lived in Charlton at the time, i had sent a few letters off to various companies in the hope of getting better work or better money when out of the blue came a letter asking me to come for an interview the letter was from Asian Transport Chislehurst. So after that weekend i went to the office, was amazed and awestruck looking at all the photos on the wall, Pete Cannon introduced me to all of the staff, and also to the Guvnor the legendary Bob Paul. I had heard or read a bit about this company which ius why i had applied to what i thought was the best, but what was i letting myself in for, Pete told me all the bad points about the job, minus 20/30 temperatures, punctures, engine problems, brake problems any mechanical problems and that all of this had to be fixed at the side of the road ,getting somehow into a town to ask for help, or maybe asking for spares to be brought out, he wasnt telling me anything nice, there wasnt any ! He told me to go away and think about it, and to let him know, i had a further 2 interviews, he asked about my mechanical knowledge, and told him i could strip an engine down blindfold, it was an obvious exageration, but i did have a lot of mechanical knowledge, and a very good tool box, which must have impressed him for they took me on, i started on the following week if i remember, just enough time to convince the missus that the trips wernt much longer than Germany or Austria, and she believed me, thank god for that. I remember going to Chislehurst for a final chat and they asked if i could take a vehicle to Norfolk, this was where a lot of the vehicles problems were sorted out, why Norfolk i never found out, but they never had a yard at that time, only since the birth of Astran from Asian Tpt. The truck i had to take was the famous or maybe infamous AMY, this was a ( cant remember ) 141 maybe 111 but a road train, and was just back from a trip, and the vehicles are normally serviced whilst the driver had a week off, so i took this up to where it supposed to be going, picked up a tractor unit only, and headed down to London once again feeling as pleased as punch to be driving a truck in those famous colours, no flashing headlights in those days ( unlike today ) I eventually arrived and noticed a Bussing unit only outside the office and couldnt stop looking at it, it was on foreign plates as well, i was intrigued by how nice it looked, i had seen a few Scanias maybe Volvos but never one of those marques, it belonged to a subbie at the end of the day, and Pete gave me my instructions for the next day and told me to go home, job done ! The next day i was to meet another driver who would come with me to Euston, that driver was Johnny Holland and were were going to collect 2 brand new F88s, This seemed to take forever and so i ended back in Chislehurst, where i was given my paperwork for the next day and my instructions, so home i went to collect all of my stuff, showed my missus and inlaws my new truck and went to bed. The following day i collected a hire trailer and loaded for Paris yes Paris, i was going to work for a Dutch company called Brutink, and spend a month in europe working with a planner called John, i went everywhere you could go in europe, but what i noticed was the easyness and the laid back attitude of the people i worked with but having no contact with my own office, weekends to myself and no rushing around, i wont go into much detail about that, but i guess it was a trial run and a month later i eventually arrived back in blighty where i tipped my load ( sorry ) and reported back to chislehurst. Home for a couple of days, and then i had to load in westferry road in the docks, very proud when i walked into the office there and asked for a load for Teheran it was water off a ducks back to them, they had loaded so much cargo for my company and i never expected them to be so laid back about it, i mean FFS i had never heard of the place and there was typical dockers saying Ok drive back on the bayinstead of WOW! you going there ha ha. Anyway duly loaded, corded up and back to my office, there i was given all my running money, fuel cards, instructions where to fill the bellytank, trip tics, carnet, permits, i had never seen so much paperwork...but i did have a briefcase ? I was introduced to a driver who in my mind was a legend, here he was in his green ex army jumper, a toothless grin, and as he held his hand out saidHi, my name is Jeff ( geoff ) as in Ruggins, he was to take me most of the way on my first trip outside of europe, he was going to Baghdad ( wherever that was ) i was going to a place called Ahwaz in the persian Gulf and so for most of the journey all i saw was the rear of the trailer AMY was pulling, red lights at night, jeff didnt like stopping except for coffee, then he was off again, we only stopped at the regular watering holes frequented by other middle east bound truckers, and they were few and far between, i had never been without a decent nights sleep since i was a new born, but i had to do it to keep following incase he told the office i couldnt keep up, i wont bore you all with details, you too have been there done it got the t shirt etc, but jeff certainly knew what he was doing, knew many of the foreigners by their first name, and they knew him, i met others whilst out there who too were legends, ■■■■ Snow whos only words were How long will he last, another newbie ` disheartening i know but all newbies have gone through that ritual, i did find a few things unusual on that first trip, paperwork, seals, in fact TIR in general, but learnt a great deal, how they would wash the wheels with dirty water in Yugo/Bulgaria to stop germs spreading ? what was that all about, racing the Yugos from their border to the Bulgarian one, they were very slow, and always had problems so we had to be first, Kapic was another, where parking was a huge problem, but managed to park, having to sleep with the truck parked on an acute angle, waiting for hours for clearance, and paying for the privelage, meeting Targe Kocman, a very nice guy who knew his job also despite all of the problems, having to greet all of the border officials like they were some kind of god, and them looking at you like you were a ■■■■■■■■■■■■■, the times i wanted to tell them they were all a bunch of paedos…ha ha all fkng each other, brothers, uncles, cousins…wow what a life, but pulling into a decent parking place for a couple of days was heaven on earth, being introduced to Aydin for one, such a change from the other turks i had met, a lovely kind gentleman who would do anything to help out ( another story for another time ) also involving jeff, but anyway it was a trip of a lifetime, the winter weather was starting, and the worst was to come, jeff got me a set of snowchains in the Londra for a good price, and good Austrian made chains that would last for many trips, and i was about to use them over Bolu for the first time, with jeff in attendance showing me the correct way, with more problems once we reached Tahir supposedly the worst mountainn in Turkey and i was told so many negatives about that p[lace it was enough to put me off going any further, but English drivers of that era never give up so easily and so i persevered, we got over it with chains on, chains off, and eventually we stopped at the top for a nice bit of food, yes jeff took me in there too, but no passengers to carry, we eventually moved onto the Telex motel, my first encounter but not my last, but alas we were going to split from each other and never to be seen for a while. I spent xmas overlooking Teheran listening to max bygraves on my 8 track ( remember those ) you needed a top bunk just to store them, and eating kippers from a tin, wow this is the life of a mid east trucker, i eventually got to where i had to meet my agent, and parked up for the night, outside a garage, lots of street lights, but still the ■■■■■ managed to take out my side window, lucky i was awake, and saw his hairy arm as it slid towards where the door handle was, he did yelp as i put my breadknife through his arm, i swiftly pulled the curtains back, and got my powerful torch to shine in the bushes where he was hiding, i went searching for him but all i found was the window and the rubber, but the rubber had been cut, but yippee, i at least found the window and spent the rest of the darkness taping up until i could get a new rubber, so that was it really without boring you, but i tipped in the customs compound watched in amazement how with donkey sadles strapped to their backs, and walking up/down ramps with half a ton on their backs i watched them taking strides with ease, rather you than me mate i would say to myself, but alas i went into Teheran, got into the hotel and after getting the new rubber and window put back, started heading back towards Ordu, where i would load my backload and deliver it to Mars in Slough. but there was trouble in store on the way back.
Proper old school tale Mr Truckyboy, more please!
Thanks for the welcome,
Unfortunately no photos from the jeffeun/Simon days except for a couple of the pink palace in Riyadh, where we delivered hundres if not thousands of loads before Jimmy Carter stayed there in 79 or 80. we were mostly too busy doing the job! I’ve recently set up a website
Www.middleeasttruckingstories.co.uk
There are a couple of gallery pages on there, including Caravans yard a couple of years later. I do have some others still to scan.
I’m working my way through the Astran thread and also enjoyed Ashley Coghill’s book.
Regards,
John
Thanks for the link, will enjoy browsing the site and galleries later.
John West:
I think that was the end of Jeffeun’s involvement with Caravan too. Peter Best became transport manager and started buying ERF’s from Star Commercials. When Peter left I stopped driving and took over as transport manager.
Welcome aboard, mate! If you did ‘internals’, and knew about Star Commercials’s ERFs, you might like to look at my threads on Left-Hand-Drive B-series ERFs and Left-Hand-Drive C-series ERFs, and the thread called ERF ‘Europeans’ 1975; and see if you can add anything - especially pictures! Robert 
bullitt:
Thanks for the link, will enjoy browsing the site and galleries later.
Here-here: nice link. I couldn’t resist nicking this picture from it - just get the quality of that Mediterranean light! Robert
Robert if you haven’t checked out that new site already, wait until you get to the two galleries. There you will find…wait for it…calm yourself… some pictures of your beloved left ■■■■■■ ERF`s!!
John West:
Only just found this site. I hope this is of interest.
After doing overland for a year in 1976, I stayed in Saudi doing internals. I had worked for Douglas Freight, but bought Paul Kerr’s day cab Scania from him when he upgraded to a Transcon.
I Pulled for Sea Land at first, but that started to go quiet when they brought in their own trucks from the States & employed Philippino drivers. I was offered the chance to pull a car transporter by Pat Conway, who I knew from Dunderdale & Yates in Preston. The rate was lower than Sea Land, 1500 Riyals a trip to Riyadh from Toyota at Al Khobar, but it was still £250 and I could comfortably do 4 or 5 trips a week. Pat and another lad called Dave, then also Ted Thomas and another guy who looked like Alvin Stardust, but whose name I can’t remember worked for John Lancaster, formerly of Howlan International. They sent him £1000 per week home and he used the money to set up a very successful conservatory business.
When that job finished, all of us ex Sea Land subbies were offered work by Alan Newhouse and Ali Al Ghoson, pulling for their joint venture Behring/Caravan. This would be about 1978, but I can’t give exact dates because I didn’t keep a diary.
The details are a bit fuzzy, but I think Jeff Litwin must have already somehow been involved because Caravan employed a Transport Manager called Joe (can’t remember his surname) who had worked for Jeff in the UK, and I remember meeting Jeff when he visited the yard. Joe’s family were with him, living in a flat above Caravan’s Dammam office.
There were rumours that Joe had been the guy Jeff sent to collect his debts, he was certainly big and hard enough. I don’t think Jeffeun had sent any trucks down at that point, and Behring had shiploads of stuff coming in, so I think we were just meant to be a stopgap. I remember Joe saying ‘ I’m going to have units lined across there’ waving his arm across the expanse of the Dammam yard. Since we were already doing the work, we really didn’t want Jeffeun sending 50 or 60 trucks, but it was presented as a done deal.
Joe’s ‘company car’ was a big American crew cab Chevy pick up. We were in Dammam and he said ‘come on, I’ll take you up to Al Khobar’ I can’t remember what for. So Eric Collins and myself got in. Luckily Eric got in the front and I got in the back. We were quickly doing at least 90 and I was petrified. He was madder than any Arab. I was certain he was going to roll it. He just laughed. I got down onto the floor and braced myself. Where the railway lines crossed the road at an angle the truck swayed and bucked. Again, Joe just laughed. We finally got to Khobar and stopped. I was shaking as I got out. When we’d finished looking at whatever it was we’d come to see, Joe said ‘Come on, back to Dammam.’ Eric and I both declined. We got a taxi back and I refused to ever get in a vehicle with Joe again.
Fred Topham was around at that time too. I think he was working on insurance fraud or some such, but he had some association with Jeff Litwin — again, exactly what, I don’t remember.
I think the first driver to arrive was Black John. I seem to remember about 5 of those standard orange colour DAFs, probably 3200s arriving, but I don’t remember any drivers except John. Maybe Jeff came down in a Range Rover pulling a caravan and John came with him, again, fuzzy on detail.
I came back from a trip to see this caravan in the yard and Geoff Collins, Eric’s brother, rushed across to my cab & said, ‘John, come and look at this’. We went round the side of the caravan and two of the biggest feet I’d ever seen were sticking about a foot out of an open window. Geoff was howling with laughter and went across and tickled them. Black John came out having just been woken up. You could see why his feet had been sticking out, he looked about 7’ tall!
He introduced himself as Black John, but I wasn’t very comfortable with that and just called him John, although he did say, ‘you might as well call me Black John, everybody else does’. Unlike Joe, John didn’t have a menacing presence, he was a big likeable guy. He did used to complain that ‘all the f****** locals start to rabbit on to me in f****** Arabic before I stop them’. John spoke with a strong London accent.
I’d forgotten about his arrest and subsequent release — I guess that didn’t help Jeffeun’s credibility with Behring Caravan.
Joe had a likeable side, but he scared me with his unpredictability. He really wasn’t that popular with us subbies. He would dish the work out without any consideration of whose turn it was, and wasn’t interested if you said anything about it.
After a 3 month stint we would fly home for about 3 weeks R & R. I happened to get on the same plane as Alan Newhouse and by chance sat next to him. I asked him about Joe, but he said, ‘well, I’ve given him the job, so I have to give him the chance to do it.’
Joe’s unpredictability was his downfall. He must have had some blazing row with Jeff Litwin. He came down to the yard one evening and proceeded to use the forklift to completely trash all 5 Jeffeun trucks. We were still living in our cabs at the time and watched open mouthed as he put the forks through windscreens and I think tore one cab from its mountings.
He got the sack next morning. I guess he didn’t work for Jeff again either. I got a letter a month or two later, asking if I would give him a reference.
I think that was the end of Jeffeun’s involvement with Caravan too. Peter Best became transport manager and started buying ERF’s from Star Commercials. When Peter left I stopped driving and took over as transport manager.
I met Fred Topham briefly when I was working for Jeff, in the yard at Hackney.
I was working for Litcor in Stoke, the firm that Jeff Litwin and Jack Corrie started from the remnants of Chapman and Ball.
I had flown out to rescue an F12 from Italy after the driver broke his ankle and finished up in hospital. When I got home Jeff said you might as well keep the motor, so I did, and was running it from Stoke for some time.
Fred was indeed an ex Met copper, specialising in insurance fraud, and he spent a lot of time travelling the m/e looking for dumped or stolen units and trailers. Likewise, I don’t know what his association was with Jeff.
No one was more surprised than me when I met up with Fred again at the Middle East re union at Gaydon last weekend. I asked him if he had see Jeff lately, and he said he hadn’t seen him for a long time.
bullitt:
Robert if you haven’t checked out that new site already, wait until you get to the two galleries. There you will find…wait for it…calm yourself… some pictures of your beloved left ■■■■■■ ERF`s!!
You are right! Well spotted Bat-Man! There are a good half dozen on there. Cheers. Robert
John West:
Only just found this site. I hope this is of interest.
After doing overland for a year in 1976, I stayed in Saudi doing internals. I had worked for Douglas Freight, but bought Paul Kerr’s day cab Scania from him when he upgraded to a Transcon.
I Pulled for Sea Land at first, but that started to go quiet when they brought in their own trucks from the States & employed Philippino drivers. I was offered the chance to pull a car transporter by Pat Conway, who I knew from Dunderdale & Yates in Preston. The rate was lower than Sea Land, 1500 Riyals a trip to Riyadh from Toyota at Al Khobar, but it was still £250 and I could comfortably do 4 or 5 trips a week. Pat and another lad called Dave, then also Ted Thomas and another guy who looked like Alvin Stardust, but whose name I can’t remember worked for John Lancaster, formerly of Howlan International. They sent him £1000 per week home and he used the money to set up a very successful conservatory business.
When that job finished, all of us ex Sea Land subbies were offered work by Alan Newhouse and Ali Al Ghoson, pulling for their joint venture Behring/Caravan. This would be about 1978, but I can’t give exact dates because I didn’t keep a diary.
The details are a bit fuzzy, but I think Jeff Litwin must have already somehow been involved because Caravan employed a Transport Manager called Joe (can’t remember his surname) who had worked for Jeff in the UK, and I remember meeting Jeff when he visited the yard. Joe’s family were with him, living in a flat above Caravan’s Dammam office.
There were rumours that Joe had been the guy Jeff sent to collect his debts, he was certainly big and hard enough. I don’t think Jeffeun had sent any trucks down at that point, and Behring had shiploads of stuff coming in, so I think we were just meant to be a stopgap. I remember Joe saying ‘ I’m going to have units lined across there’ waving his arm across the expanse of the Dammam yard. Since we were already doing the work, we really didn’t want Jeffeun sending 50 or 60 trucks, but it was presented as a done deal.
Joe’s ‘company car’ was a big American crew cab Chevy pick up. We were in Dammam and he said ‘come on, I’ll take you up to Al Khobar’ I can’t remember what for. So Eric Collins and myself got in. Luckily Eric got in the front and I got in the back. We were quickly doing at least 90 and I was petrified. He was madder than any Arab. I was certain he was going to roll it. He just laughed. I got down onto the floor and braced myself. Where the railway lines crossed the road at an angle the truck swayed and bucked. Again, Joe just laughed. We finally got to Khobar and stopped. I was shaking as I got out. When we’d finished looking at whatever it was we’d come to see, Joe said ‘Come on, back to Dammam.’ Eric and I both declined. We got a taxi back and I refused to ever get in a vehicle with Joe again.
Fred Topham was around at that time too. I think he was working on insurance fraud or some such, but he had some association with Jeff Litwin — again, exactly what, I don’t remember.
I think the first driver to arrive was Black John. I seem to remember about 5 of those standard orange colour DAFs, probably 3200s arriving, but I don’t remember any drivers except John. Maybe Jeff came down in a Range Rover pulling a caravan and John came with him, again, fuzzy on detail.
I came back from a trip to see this caravan in the yard and Geoff Collins, Eric’s brother, rushed across to my cab & said, ‘John, come and look at this’. We went round the side of the caravan and two of the biggest feet I’d ever seen were sticking about a foot out of an open window. Geoff was howling with laughter and went across and tickled them. Black John came out having just been woken up. You could see why his feet had been sticking out, he looked about 7’ tall!
He introduced himself as Black John, but I wasn’t very comfortable with that and just called him John, although he did say, ‘you might as well call me Black John, everybody else does’. Unlike Joe, John didn’t have a menacing presence, he was a big likeable guy. He did used to complain that ‘all the f****** locals start to rabbit on to me in f****** Arabic before I stop them’. John spoke with a strong London accent.
I’d forgotten about his arrest and subsequent release — I guess that didn’t help Jeffeun’s credibility with Behring Caravan.
Joe had a likeable side, but he scared me with his unpredictability. He really wasn’t that popular with us subbies. He would dish the work out without any consideration of whose turn it was, and wasn’t interested if you said anything about it.
After a 3 month stint we would fly home for about 3 weeks R & R. I happened to get on the same plane as Alan Newhouse and by chance sat next to him. I asked him about Joe, but he said, ‘well, I’ve given him the job, so I have to give him the chance to do it.’
Joe’s unpredictability was his downfall. He must have had some blazing row with Jeff Litwin. He came down to the yard one evening and proceeded to use the forklift to completely trash all 5 Jeffeun trucks. We were still living in our cabs at the time and watched open mouthed as he put the forks through windscreens and I think tore one cab from its mountings.
He got the sack next morning. I guess he didn’t work for Jeff again either. I got a letter a month or two later, asking if I would give him a reference.
I think that was the end of Jeffeun’s involvement with Caravan too. Peter Best became transport manager and started buying ERF’s from Star Commercials. When Peter left I stopped driving and took over as transport manager.
On another recovery job I did for Jeff, some driver had dumped an F89 roadtrain at Gevgelia when a trailer wheel bearing had seized.
I flew out to Athens with a set of wheel bearings in my luggage, to be met at Athens airport by Black John in the ex Radclive F12 roadtrain and we shared the driving up to Gevgelia where the rig had been put into the Yugo customs and tipped.
I managed to get the rig over to the Greek side and found a local fitter who could do the job which involved welding up the hub to take the new bearing. John and I went and spent a couple of days in a hotel in Salonika.
John ran me up to the border when the job was done and we made our individual ways home.
On another occasion, John was bound for Baghdad with a load of cocoa butter for the ice cream factory in the F12 roadtrain, going via Syria.
Going down the hill into Damascus John ran out of Ferodo and when he took the slip road at the bottom of the hill to head for the Iraq border, the trailer turned over. John pulled the pin and carried on, When he got to Baghdad he got BOTH CMR’s and delivery notes signed and stopped on the way back to top the trailer, (The load of cocoa butter had gone!), he then brought the whole lot back to Stoke where it eventually was sold off with everything else when things went ■■■■ up!
I found John to be an OK guy, we had some laughs and despite any problem, he could get the job done.
I worked for fred topham when he had some interest with Roy Bradford in Barking, he was a lovely guy but roy seem to have a hold on him, i dont know why but certainly an asset to the firm. Roy had a relative who i believed had something to do with MAT and the work out of FORDS, so he got the work obviously and it was large crates, loaded through the back of the trailer and a nice easy load as far as we were concerned, not heavy, but all destined for Haydrapasha ( spelling ) just over the Bosphorus bridge, with a reload either from Istanbul or Bulgaria or Romania, all in all the work was very easy. Roy had quite a large fleet all shapes and sizes, Dafs scanias volvos wherever he could get one for a good price, mostly a dealer in Cambridge, i had a 141 for a bit, then a 2800 daf for a few trips, a few of the middle east drivers worked there or came there to work, Young Phil who did the fastest trip ever from istanbul, leaving Friday Night and arriving in Dover Sunday morning ! Chris Hooper ( hooperman ) who i worked with on SAS many years before and did many trips with, Hoss, Ernie in charge of the warehouse but used to own a Mack, just to name a few, our base was in the old lorry park at Beckton, and it soon filled up with many subbies motors plus roys and some other unscrupulous transport companies that i wont mention, roys son robbie would often ferry paperwork and expenses to the park from the office in Dagenham, with the obvious big titted Brenda working in the office, she had been with roy since the Tanker bill days. Roy had work coming out of his ears, it wasnt only the ford work we had collections around the country, but as any one will tell you, when he was under stress, the brylcream would begin to run down his face, as his hair would be covered in the stuff…ha ha and if you bwere in his bad books, you would be called into the back office for a dig, i did end up in there sometimes, but never got the smack on the chin lol, i liked roy, and he liked me, same for fred really but unfortunately i cost him a lot of money, i had been there about 5 years, when i was offered a Volvo F10, it belonged to a guy who had been running greece with it, it was shagged out, but said i would give it a go, anyway i collected it, took it home done a few jobs on it, and went to barking to pick up a trailer after insurance etc had been arranged through the firm ( probably fred ) my first trip with it was a bit rough, the cab mountings were shot to pieces the engine had problems as i was about to find out, Greece was my destination, and i did however manage to tip, then went round to a mates garage to get it checked out, there was oil in the rad, a lot of it,and he suspected the oil cooler, now normally you cannot split open an oil cooler, but foreigners can, and they did
but didnt find much wrong to justify so much oil, and the bad news was after a trial run in the old girl, and a rad flush, the problem was still there, so his mate the Volvo man decided to have a look, he couldnt do much as he was going abroad on business, so left it to Volvo to sort it, it was decided a engine rebuild would be more suitable, and with me not having a pot to ■■■■ in was in the ■■■■, so a phone call to Fred was in order, he made me wait a few days ( understandable ) and gave the go ahead up to a certain amount so Volvo got to work, i stayed in my mates garage as he had a flat above the workshop so there i stayed for around 5/6 days, i knew i was committed but had no choice, i eventually got the ok, and paid around £1800 wow what a result, and after fred sent the money the truck was released, still no cab moubntains but i didnt care, i would get them done on the next trip, but i had to get this trip finished first. My Reload was in Russe in Bulgaria wine for the uk, so i set off, and as i was making my way towards the border i spied another englishmans long vehicle plate, and tried to catch him up until eventually he stopped near a coffee house, he had his girlfriend with him, and he told me he was geting a raw deal from his boss, and he was gonna jack it all in when he returned to the uk, and dumping the truck in dover, so we carried on chatting as you do i told him my problems etc, and then he asked me where i was heading, so when he told me he was also loading in Russe, and he didnt know the way i agreed to run with him. He told me he had a dodgy credit card but was good for greece, told me where to fill up etc etc and i could have a full tank for half the price, a good deal and i set off with card in hand, duly filled my tank to the brim, than as i was looking at my belly, i thought why not, a bit of skull duggery never hurt anyone, so i filled that too with 600 litres, although i wasnt going to tell him i mean nothing lost nothing gained was my motto, so he told me something about presenting the card, which i forgot at the time, so i went to pay, it seemed to be taking a long time, then the man said to me phone i thought who knows im here lol so i picks up the phone, Whats your mothers maiden name a voice saidMary` i answered and hung up telling the guy in the garage everything was ok, i mean the border wasnt that far away, as i walked outside, the old bill was waiting, excuse me sir, can i have a word, so he explained that the greeks were getting fed up with the english defrauding them, and were clamping down, apart from the heat, sweat was dripping, so he explained that he liked the english, that his sister lived in england, oh where i said, north london he answered, well i be blowed, thats near tottenham i blagged, yes thats right, maybe you know her he said ( expletives not allowed ) i said has she got curly hair ha ha he said yes lmao so anyway, hang on i gotta wipe the tears away, he said there is a solution pay what you owe, and you can go, we went to the truck to get my wallet, and whilst there he took charge of the keys, gave them to the man in the garage whilst i counted out the money, and i was short by about 200 euros, and didnt have a penny left, so the keys stayed there until i could get the rest. Now on a baking hot day, i have to walk and hitch a lift to where the cafe was, but whos gonna stop for a foreign looking geezer, long hair drizzled in sweat thumbing a lift, no matter how hard i tried i had to get there, i even looked at bikes that had been left outside a shop, and at one time i even looked at a scooter, engine running whilst he hugged his mum or granny or whatever, it was getting dark, i was getting tired and getting nowhere when a van stopped, hello do you speak english i asked, a leetle he said, i want to go towards the frontier with Bulgaria i said, i know it but i am not going that far, so i accepted, and sure enough he dropped me off in the middle of nowhere as they do, but i said my thanks and started walking, F me, just around the corner and there was the cafe complete with gb plates on the back of the trailer. I explained i needed 200 euros to get my truck back, with a promise to pay it back in BG or in fuel. I explained that rthey caught me bang to rights and kept the card, so i now had 1200 litres of dieselwhich was more than enough for my needs, he loaned me the money reluctantly, sat there eating his food with the girlfriend, and i went off to get my truck walking…till he eventually dropped his trailer and picked me up in the unit.
the next part to be continued…
Well Bullitt,
You were right, was contacted through my visitors book on the website by a young lad (well, he was then - there are probably people who call him Grandad now!) who used to be the mechanic at Trans Arabia in Dammam - more ERFs!
Think he piloted a road train to Jeddah once, having nagged Ken Broster to death!
So, obviously a good place to catch up!
Best wishes,
John
Im sure there will be many others catching up with you now you are on here!!
Truckyboy…another top memory from yourself about the way it was back then!..now pull your finger out and get the rest of the story posted!
With regard to Mr Bradford, a mate of mine from Charlton did a couple of trips for him as he wanted to experience Turkey and Roy was the only person willing to give him a go. He was given a knackered Iveco. I dropped him over the yard in Becton to collect the unit and trailer. I don’t think he enjoyed the “experience” to be honest!! A wheel came of the trailer on Austria, the truck kept having a hissy fit and I think he may have clashed with Mr Bradfords management style!! If I remember correct, he only did 2 or 3 trips then jacked! I think Kenny the Egg, who my mate was friends with anyway, was still on there at the time. In fact it may have been the Egg who got him a start with Bradford.