There were about three of these loads at Patras and the problem, was as Gavin said. First time drivers who had not got enough volets stamped at Dover to complete the trip and arrived in Patras without any stamps for them to continue.
I met him on a boat once & he was a total knob, I know the bubbles can be a bit hormonal at times but after an hour of listening to his tripe I can see why they locked him up 
DTs did have some rather dubious clientle, I used to run the old Willi Betz ex SOMAT spread axle tilts, either to the ro-ro barge in Passau or occaisionally Sofia, anyway I got myself impounded at Dover trying to get cleared out with a load of what turned out to be Gun Metal, IIRC that was going to Teheran eventually, I ended up dropping the trailer in the import shed & that was the last I heard about it.
As Gavin said, there’s more to this than came to light, a few years after this I was given a book by the Managing Director of Matrix Churchill, a big engineering company in Coventry, opposite the old Standard Triumph, well the guy was saying how the Government was involved as Matrix were doing some of this work, when the S… hit the fan they denied all knowledge of it and the Matrix was closed down not long after. Wish I could remember the book now.
You need to speak to E.C.Transport.They feautred in one of the biggest ‘Arms to Iraq’’ cases,and won an Appeal in front of the Lord Chief Justice,5 years after the balloon went up.The Boss there was ‘very’ connected.
ey up,as far as i know,the then military commisioner in iraq ordered the building of a gun that could be used to fire at israel,you dont get these at asda so they approached russia who then approached a french firm whose name escapes me at the minute to design the gun then sub-contracted the machining and manufacture to sheffield forgemasters (now defunct). it seems everybody was quite happy to believe it was piping for oil transfer except for one old hand on the shop floor who had spent ww2 in a heavy mortar platoon who questioned why it was necessary for the insides of the ‘pipes’ to be rifled? he was taken into the office and asked to be quiet. everybody knew what it was. the hungarian truck that was stopped was carrying what would have been the breech
chuckle:
ey up,as far as i know,the then military commisioner in iraq ordered the building of a gun that could be used to fire at israel,you dont get these at asda so they approached russia who then approached a french firm whose name escapes me at the minute to design the gun then sub-contracted the machining and manufacture to sheffield forgemasters (now defunct).
Sheffield Forgemasters is still operating chuckle - well it was last week 
Another company involved was Walter Somers at Halesowen IIRC.
dieseldog6:
As Gavin said, there’s more to this than came to light, a few years after this I was given a book by the Managing Director of Matrix Churchill, a big engineering company in Coventry, opposite the old Standard Triumph, well the guy was saying how the Government was involved as Matrix were doing some of this work, when the S… hit the fan they denied all knowledge of it and the Matrix was closed down not long after. Wish I could remember the book now.
There were two books.One by the managing director and one by the sales manager.The sales manager had been working for MI5 or 6 for years and in order to keep his cover the goverment in the form of Alan Clark gave permission for Matrix to sell cnc machines to Iraq.
When it all went wrong the MD got charged with supplying the Iraquis with machines to make weapons.In court the MDs legal team ran rings round Alan Clark and got the guy cleared. Matrix Churchill were actually owned by the Iraquis via an office in America.There were other British firms involved also but although interviewed by security no further action was taken.When the weapons factories were entered by British journalists after the was there was about 400 Churchill machines there. I have the two Churchill books and the Alan Clark diaries.Cant remember the name of them either but can dig them out if anyone wants to know.They`re on Ebay quite often.
Mark.
In a similar vain, can anyone remember a computer system and a large satellite dish standing in the dock at Tangiers. It was impounded but I was paid 