Some body had to do it Ron ■■?
Here’s me hanging around waiting to be unloaded at Al Ghat …just remembered that was my birthday !!! like yoy said the heat and hardship !!!
Mah Saalahms
Trans Arabia , the cook was a Indonesian named Hamsa he was very good on the whole and he had his work cut out trying to feed and please us lot. There where clashes with some trying to tell him how to cook english style, we had a variety of meats camel, goat, beaf, chicken, rabbit with potatoes, and greens. He cooked in the kitchen which was the same room as where we ate with two long tables and bench seats, one A/C with red hot walls. At the top of our Villa we all sat eagerly awaiting the food , there were references as to what his descendent ate in Indonesia ■■? As we all know they were Cannibals not so very long ago and shrunken heads often came up in conversation. He brought me back a puppet doll which the lads said had a voodoo on. It came apart from its base, trying to save it dropping on the floor it stuck in my arm with its sharpened spike body stick 
,quite deep but I was OK. When Hamsa went on leave he was surely missed so you can tell that he was a good cook. Ron
Working , for GCC we had a exhibition of all things related to transport, I forget the name of the hotel located in Dammam the massive hall was packed of companies selling there wears I was proud to see our ERF truck and i reflected back to my time at T/A driving and repairing this english truck for some 15 years home and abroad ,I knew it inside and out , and spoke to sales team , praising there brand , I had an exhibition of the ■■■■■■■ engines which sat alongside there exhibits , little did I know that my next company that I had the pleasure of working for was (TMS ) had already set in motion a order of mammoth proportions of this very same truck some 140 6x4 ERF no A/Cs day cabs , + 290 C/F trailers and anther order of the same amount for our sister company , I thought how fantastic to keep our firms back home in work , alas this was the last substantial order that ERF had before folding most of pity , Ron
At Caravan, we bought our ERFs from Star commercials. It was run IIRC by quite a posh lad called Mark. He had been to either Thailand or the Philippines and brought back a wife. They had very young twins. Mark and his wife had gone to England to visit his parents, who weren’t too pleased about the Asian bride. Mark used to laugh and tell the tale against his mother, who, on being shown the children, said ‘Oh, they’re white!’
The ERFs gave us good service, and, unlike the Saviem, didn’t overheat! This is the first one we bought. Peter Best was TM then, I was still working for myself. I’m sure I’ve put it on here or the other ME thread before. It’s loaded for waste management and the photo was taken from our villa. The O/Ds clubbed together and rented the upper floor, then Caravan took on 3 or 4 English drivers and they lived there as well, until we moved above the Caravan office.
The waste management contract was huge. That trailer would have come from the States exactly like that. Collected from the port and taken to Riyadh. Some trailers went back and others didn’t, so we finished up with a fleet of about 20 40’s, which your esteemed leader, Martin Mears used to borrow when he had a BP vessel in the port. Plus about another 20 20’ skeletals, which we kept a few, but turned some into 40’s and robbed axles off others to make 3 axle 40’s. (No c&u regs!) you may have even been involved in the engineering at some point.
Before Waste Management took on the Riyadh rubbish contract, all rubbish was dumped in the desert about 10 miles outside Riyadh. When we started hauling all the new equipment, we had to drive through a valley of waste, about 10 feet high. This mostly consisted of rotting animal intestines - you know how they slaughtered the goats at Ramadan!
If you thought the flies were bad generally, here they had to be seen to be believed. Even at the height of summer, you had to keep your windows closed. The sky would darken in front of you as they arose from this pile of offal!
Apparently, they eventually doused it with petrol and set it alight to get rid of it.
John.
John West:
At Caravan, we bought our ERFs from Star commercials. It was run IIRC by quite a posh lad called Mark. He had been to either Thailand or the Philippines and brought back a wife. They had very young twins. Mark and his wife had gone to England to visit his parents, who weren’t too pleased about the Asian bride. Mark used to laugh and tell the tale against his mother, who, on being shown the children, said ‘Oh, they’re white!’The ERFs gave us good service, and, unlike the Saviem, didn’t overheat! This is the first one we bought. Peter Best was TM then, I was still working for myself. I’m sure I’ve put it on here or the other ME thread before. It’s loaded for waste management and the photo was taken from our villa. The O/Ds clubbed together and rented the upper floor, then Caravan took on 3 or 4 English drivers and they lived there as well, until we moved above the Caravan office.
The waste management contract was huge. That trailer would have come from the States exactly like that. Collected from the port and taken to Riyadh. Some trailers went back and others didn’t, so we finished up with a fleet of about 20 40’s, which your esteemed leader, Martin Mears used to borrow when he had a BP vessel in the port. Plus about another 20 20’ skeletals, which we kept a few, but turned some into 40’s and robbed axles off others to make 3 axle 40’s. (No c&u regs!) you may have even been involved in the engineering at some point.
Before Waste Management took on the Riyadh rubbish contract, all rubbish was dumped in the desert about 10 miles outside Riyadh. When we started hauling all the new equipment, we had to drive through a valley of waste, about 10 feet high. This mostly consisted of rotting animal intestines - you know how they slaughtered the goats at Ramadan!
If you thought the flies were bad generally, here they had to be seen to be believed. Even at the height of summer, you had to keep your windows closed. The sky would darken in front of you as they arose from this pile of offal!
Apparently, they eventually doused it with petrol and set it alight to get rid of it.
John.
0
Hi John
Your posh lad Mark!!
Came back to the uk with his Philipino wife and children - he joined Spurlings in London a TDG company on their senior management team ( they had a large contract with Honda destuffing and redeliver nationals of their motor bikes and garden products) - he phoned me a couple of times - found it hard to settle, particularly his wife With the uk weather and eventually went as a family back to the Philippines- I remember him saying he could live like a king there■■?
Regards
Ken Broster
Kenb:
Hi JohnYour posh lad Mark!!
Came back to the uk with his Philipino wife and children - he joined Spurlings in London a TDG company on their senior management team ( they had a large contract with Honda destuffing and redeliver nationals of their motor bikes and garden products) - he phoned me a couple of times - found it hard to settle, particularly his wife With the uk weather and eventually went as a family back to the Philippines- I remember him saying he could live like a king there■■?
Regards
Ken Broster
Thanks for the update Ken. I hope he’s had a good life in the Philippines. Seems odd that those little girls will be forty now! Still, at least the joke of age is upon us all.
Regards,
John
John West:
Kenb:
Hi JohnYour posh lad Mark!!
Came back to the uk with his Philipino wife and children - he joined Spurlings in London a TDG company on their senior management team ( they had a large contract with Honda destuffing and redeliver nationals of their motor bikes and garden products) - he phoned me a couple of times - found it hard to settle, particularly his wife With the uk weather and eventually went as a family back to the Philippines- I remember him saying he could live like a king there■■?
Regards
Ken Broster
Thanks for the update Ken. I hope he’s had a good life in the Philippines. Seems odd that those little girls will be forty now! Still, at least the joke of age is upon us all.
Regards,John
Well John
Age - Yes that something that catches us all up at some stage.
I wento the Philippines a number of times and liked the people - honest and hard working.
Over the last 6 years have done a number of cruises, in fact I am on one at the moment from LA to Miami via the Panama Canal- this ship is like a multinational centre with the crew - really interesting and pleasant lot but a lot of them are from the Philippines- really nice people and work hard and when you tell them that you’ve been to their home country you become a special friend. Interestingly there’s no Brits working on this ship!! But the captain is French!!
Keep smiling
Ken b
I also went to the Philippines. JD longhorn came with me. I was instructed to return with 14 drivers, a mechanic and a cook IIRC. John, paid for himself, though he did complain at lunchtime about the idiots who had tried to kill him in the morning sessions!
This was a country, with many like us, who took fresh water, meals, fresh vegetables, a nice place to live etc for granted. But also extreme poverty - running sewers, little food, no life…
This would be early 1982 I think. Beautiful country and people,except as described above. We road tested a lot of drivers! You really felt for them, they were desperate for the job, they were from the lower strata! But…
We had to get drivers who could do the job!
Renee Valdez, who we took as mechanic had worked at the American air base. Our first question was always ‘if a ■■■■■■■ runs out of fuel, do you need to bleed the system to start it again?’
Renee knew far more than we did! Juergen Becker, who was mechanic at Caravan at the time, was delighted when Renee arrived. He only had to tell him what he wanted to achieve - Renee did the rest!
We were lucky with the rest of the drivers too. I only remember one ‘dud’, he would take a load for Khobar and return six hours later ‘I could not find it sir.’ even he was ok if you sent him on a trip you wanted him to do with one of the others first.
We found they preferred to cook their own meals in their own 20’ container homes, so the ‘cook’ also became a driver.
Enjoy your cruise!
John
John the recrutting of 320 Thai drivers was hard work but rewarding ! Thailand is fantastic ,the people are proud and true , Vic and myself had a massarge or two down town, and we where treated like kings !! We flew to Phuket , the beaches where so unspoilt with the palm trees Shading the hot sun on a quiet soft white sand lagoons ,sleeping in straw covered huts on the beach with BBQs cooking fresh green mussels and fish , I thought I had gone to heaven !! we also went to the white sandstone rock pillars standing up out of a mirror blue blue sea , in our own private boat with the drive shaft turning up a trail of clear wash behind , we went the same place 007 film was made, it was and still is the best place I have the good fortune to see in my life , Gisachuck and myself have traveled from top to bottom far and near all over this Wonderfull world , thanks to trucking ERFs and skills I found , Ron
ronhawk:
John the recrutting of 320 Thai drivers was hard work but rewarding ! Thailand is fantastic ,the people are proud and true , Vic and myself had a massarge or two down town, and we where treated like kings !! We flew to Phuket , the beaches where so unspoilt with the palm trees Shading the hot sun on a quiet soft white sand lagoons ,sleeping in straw covered huts on the beach with BBQs cooking fresh green mussels and fish , I thought I had gone to heaven !! we also went to the white sandstone rock pillars standing up out of a mirror blue blue sea , in our own private boat with the drive shaft turning up a trail of clear wash behind , we went the same place 007 film was made, it was and still is the best place I have the good fortune to see in my life , Gisachuck and myself have traveled from top to bottom far and near all over this Wonderfull world , thanks to trucking ERFs and skills I found , Ron
The thing I found difficult was the disappointment of the guys who you tested that were obviously not competent, but so desperately needed the work!
From our point of view of course we needed drivers who could do the job. The wages we paid were miserable by our standard, but represented a change in lifestyle for them and their families. I hope we made a difference to the lives of some of those great guys.
Picture taken by brother Andy on one of his overland trips, 20/02/84.
One of The Philippino accommodation containers can be seen in the background, along with my now defunct Saviem and also I think an old Hanomag Henschel.
One of our Philippino drivers (I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember his name) with Andy in Caravan yard, 20/02/84. Andy’s Transcon at the back. We were changing from ERFs to Scanias. As I remember, price was the major factor, the ERFs gave good service.
John.
Ron is the number of Thais to recruit correct? 320 is a huge number to find? Must have taken some organising
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Hi, Johnny ! Yes the numbers are correct 320 Thai drivers , the great majority I tested myself , Vic Turner was my GM and he sat alongside side Thep Yavarnet the agent at the side of the road with a table and chairs with the paper work ready to get a (pass ) or ( fail ) with crowds of hundreds Thai men waiting for there test to drive this artic , it was very well organised and this went on and on for some 12 days ,there where some scary moments for me sitting in this truck testing one after another with Police that I am sure got paid for turning a blind eye !! But we got our quote of good drivers every one , I can’t understand John West saying that they where not competent when he had nothing to do with this company ? These young men came to our camp and proved there worth , driving in the red hot desert getting used to the task they had before them, I was out keeping a eye on there driving skills they where really good , AND I WAS WELL PLEASED it was a hard life , driving day and night carrying heavy pipes for ARAMCO , all over SaudiArabia , Ron
ronhawk:
Hi, Johnny ! Yes the numbers are correct 320 Thai drivers , the great majority I tested myself , Vic Turner was my GM and he sat alongside side Thep Yavarnet the agent at the side of the road with a table and chairs with the paper work ready to get a (pass ) or ( fail ) with crowds of hundreds Thai men waiting for there test to drive this artic , it was very well organised and this went on and on for some 12 days ,there where some scary moments for me sitting in this truck testing one after another with Police that I am sure got paid for turning a blind eye !! But we got our quote of good drivers every one , I can’t understand John West saying that they where not competent when he had nothing to do with this company ? These young men came to our camp and proved there worth , driving in the red hot desert getting used to the task they had before them, I was out keeping a eye on there driving skills they where really good , AND I WAS WELL PLEASED it was a hard life , driving day and night carrying heavy pipes for ARAMCO , all over SaudiArabia , Ron
You’re right Ron, I had nothing to do with the Taseco drivers and it wasn’t them I was talking about. Bad use of grammar, apologies. I was referring to the Philippino drivers I road tested. I meant that they were all desperate for a job and one felt sorry for the ones that were not competent, because it meant one couldn’t offer them the job.
John.
Thanks Ron and John. That is a serious number of drivers to start at one time! Impressive! How was managing them? With culture differences etc. I work with different cultures and it can be challenging sometimes…
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Well , Johnny you are so right , the Thai culture was different, but when the there is work to do , and with my experience , I demonstrating the ERFs capabilities in the desert , I opened a training school naming and showing them all the components of the truck in case of breakdown! And how to service and repair the ERF. un hitching and coupling up , park brake is a must to put on , all the things that could go wrong with heavy loads I was in my element, we did have trouble with the trailer legs not being the heavy duty ,making it difficult to get under the turn table if they had been dropped to low But this was overcome by having all the trailer legs up graded , The heat was the main factor to deal with and I was very conscience of dehydration, and in fact saved the life of one of our lads by sending him to Hospital in Dammam ,always making sure they had Water on board , I had always worked on the shop floor so to speak and the Managers down to the Thai drivers all Appreciated my efforts Ron
Thanks John , for that I aways have respect for one who has been there and made the grade has you and your brother have, not forgetting Johnny Longhorn Ron
Many thanks for a very informative interesting part of all your lives it seems never ending, very enjoyable reading.
May i ask a question,around the 1980s+ wages were not that good for the uk driver, was the recruitment of uk drivers ever considered in stead of the 320 drivers [to be trained] drivers from Thailand .or was it thought that it would be to expensive, wages, etc.travel, accommodation .i do understand that the men all ready there with you,were from mostly the same area, and haulage company,however you may have been surprised, that a lot of men who were used to {roughing it] would have jumped at the chance . Just a observation pdb
As Cecil Rhodes said, ‘to be born an Englishman is to have won first prize in the lottery of life!’
While that may be open to much debate, English is certainly the most useful language to know as one traverses the planet.
German in Europe, Spanish and Portugese in South America, but worldwide - English.
So, we had Somali, Yemeni, Indian, Pakistani, Philippino, English, German, American, and Saudi employees, maybe other nationalities too. English was the common language.
Not necessarily immediately understandable English. I took my wife to the yard to meet our yard manager, Mohammed Hassan. He spoke for several minutes. Every other word was [zb]! When we left, I apologised to Julie for the swearing. She explained that she hadn’t understood a single word he’d said, and hadn’t actually realised he was speaking English…
So, our communication with the Drivers was in English. It might have taken longer there than in Manchester say, but we usually got there. I remember one discussion with Ahmed Yahya, a very bright Somali, which included the words ‘dual carriageway’. This seemed to cause confusion. Eventually I realised that he was hearing ‘Kharj way’, that is, the road to Al Kharj, when actually I wanted him to go in the other direction!
Some drivers twigged things immediately, others didn’t. To be fair, when I returned to England and started a parcels franchise …
Some drivers twigged things immediately, and some didn’t!
After some wasted expeditions, we found the easiest thing was to send someone who knew the way with someone who didn’t on the first trip. It was expensive on that trip, but cheaper in the long run!
John
backsplice:
Salahm alykuhm … John … would this be some of your " lost Property "
Alykhum Salahm, Habibi!
Well, they could have been, but they weren’t. However, I certainly knew of English companies who asked their drivers to abandon - by abandon I mean crash! Their vehicles, and take photos, so that they could claim the insurance. Anyone who travelled between Dammam and Riyadh from about 1981 and at least '87 (it may still be there for all I know) will remember a Mercedes 1418 and hoynor car trailer, which had been clearly allowed to gently roll down an embankment to lay on its side…
The insurance apparently didn’t believe the driver’s story that he had been forced off the road by an oncoming truck. Particularly as the vehicle was empty, and heading for Riyadh, when he would have been loaded with Toyota pickups, plus, it was quite clear in the photos that there was a wide hard shoulder before the embankment!
John.