DEANB:
Hi just found this site today and was wondering if any of you remember
Alan Warner known as pop,i first met him in the late 80s when i was
working for Coopers in Poole clearing drivers through customs,he started
for Ralph Davies and must have been about 62ish then,a great bloke
from london who i believe was one of the original middle east drivers? i
know he worked for astrans ? he was still going to Istanbul in his sixties
cant remember if he was still doing the trip to tashkent in Russia that
Ralph used to do then,knowing him he probably was? he must be about
80 now ,was driving a 113 scania for Ralph but was soon upgraded to
a 143!
Dean
Alan Pop Warner, was first involved with a company called ORYX freightline from Gravesend, and he used to park his lorry in my yard in Northfleet, Called B&F transport, and at that time we were running to Kuwait, When he joined Astran’s in 1981, He stayed with them till he had a nasty accident in Iraq, and landed in hospital in Basra, for quite a long time, when we went to the book opening of the latest book we unfortunately heard that he had passed away and will be sadly missed by all who new him,
hi. i have been reading your comments about my father alan pop warner and would like to inform you all that he us still alive and in good health and not deceased as has been reported. he is very active and enjoying life with his son and grandchildren and great grandchildren
Fantastic news Dave, I had thought it strange that no one had given a reason that your father was no longer with us.
It is great news to here that he is still enjoying himself after all the miles he has covered.
I send him my best wishes for a happy retirement and hope to meet up with him again sometime soon.
Regards Jamie .
dave1956:
i will pass on your good wishes. do you know what the book is that is menbtioned in an earlier post. is it about truck drivers??
Hullo Dave,
The Book is The Long Haul Pioneers, written by Ashley Goghill. A fantastic record of the early days of Astrans, and right up to the present. Yes you Dad is mentioned in it as well. What a brilliant present it would be for you to buy it and surprise him with. I know for a fact he would be over the moon with it. Please give him my Best Regards.
Cheers, Archie
p.s. You can get the book from Amazon for about £20. Although I’m sure you will be getting a far better offer than that, quite soon.
dave1956:
i will pass on your good wishes. do you know what the book is that is menbtioned in an earlier post. is it about truck drivers??
Hullo Dave,
The Book is The Long Haul Pioneers, written by Ashley Goghill A fantastic record of the early days of Astrans, and right up to the present. Yes you Dad is mentioned in it as well. What a brilliant present it would be for you to buy it and surprise him with. I know for a fact he would be over the moon with it. Please give him my Best Regards.
Cheers, Archie
p.s. You can get the book from Amazon for about £20. Although I’m sure you will be getting a far better offer than that, quite soon.
I wonder where Ashley Coghill got the info on “Pop’s” demise.
I’m sure Alan will have a chuckle to see that news of his passing has been greatly exaggerated.
Many of us knew him and wish him well,I send my greetings to him also.
By golly dont it make you we all have to go some time,some before there time ,its nice to know Alan is still with us ,I remember I departed two years ago but came back with horns and long teeth ,bald head ,grumpy and all that , .
dave1956:
i will pass on your good wishes. do you know what the book is that is menbtioned in an earlier post. is it about truck drivers??
Hullo Dave,
The Book is The Long Haul Pioneers, written by Ashley Goghill A fantastic record of the early days of Astrans, and right up to the present. Yes you Dad is mentioned in it as well. What a brilliant present it would be for you to buy it and surprise him with. I know for a fact he would be over the moon with it. Please give him my Best Regards.
Cheers, Archie
p.s. You can get the book from Amazon for about £20. Although I’m sure you will be getting a far better offer than that, quite soon.
I wonder where Ashley Coghill got the info on “Pop’s” demise.
I’m sure Alan will have a chuckle to see that news of his passing has been greatly exaggerated.
Many of us knew him and wish him well,I send my greetings to him also.
DEANB:
Excellent news Dave im glad your father is still about hes a gem! Get him on here lets here some of his stories !
Here Here!! Even though I have been doing the job a long time, I can still sit and listen to the genuine guys. Being a rebel myself, I can laugh til i ache at the stories instead of sitting all pious.
On one trip at the Saudi customs at Haditha, Alan had a load of fresh eggs for delivery to somewhere in saudi. It was i think a regular job for Grangewoods. Any way during the customs and vet control ,it was discovered that some of the eggs had the correct stamp on them and some had none. So it was decided by the customs that the whole load would have to come off the trailer onto the inspection bank for a control.The Indian or Phillipino labourers were told to empty the trailer onto the bank. As Maurice Grey and i were waiting for alan to clear so that we could run down the tapline together, we all mucked in to get the job done quicker. As we were following each other out and in to the trailer , Alan noticed that some of the labourers were helping themselfes to the eggs by slipping them out of the hand holes of the cartons. This is when the fun started. Some would slip them in their mouth where alan would tap them under the chin, others slipped them under their cap where they got a tap on the head and some had them in their pockets where it made quite a mess. We thought at first that some of the cartons would be condemmed and so started to swap tray’s of eggs with the syrian and lebanese drivers who had loads of fresh fruit and veg on the dock. we then discovered that all the cases were to be put back in the trailer and had to go back round the dock trying to retrieve them. Regards Jamie.
TEX43:
Well, I was beginning to think I’d spent a fortune talking to a ghost for the last ten years, glad to say that isn’t so.
I think folk should get their fact’s right before putting post’s on here it happen’s only to often some body put a post on here about a good friend of mine passing and i went round to see his Family to offer my condolences and he opened the door
nearly gave me a heart attack mind you he was amused to hear he was dead hahaha
It’s good indeed to hear that my old mucker, Alan, is still with us but the whole thread is full of innacuracies - none as big as his demise though
Alan did not start with Oryx but, like me, with J&T who were Astran subbies and also worked on their own account. I remember my first day at J&T. A load of us including Micky Fitzell and Alan went to the cafe for a cup of tea. I was standing in the queue behind Alan who turned to me and shouted at the top of his voice ‘You want tea?’ I was so surprised that all I could do was look lost and he turned to the lady behind the counter and said ‘Don’t worry about him, he’s Mutt and Jeff’. From there on the jokes and laughs never stopped. For various reasons it does not do to go into the way in which J&T became Orxy Freightlines but they did and so did we.
I then had the pleasure of working with him for the next 10 years on Altrex and Grangewood so I can say with some certainly that I cannot recall a serious accident that put him in Hospital in Basra for any time at all, certainly not for quite a long time - no Hospital could have put up with him for that long
I have mentioned in the other middle east thread that I just don’t understand this nickname ‘pop’. I can think of a lot of nicknames that would - and did - suit him but ‘pop’ with its image of slippers and a rocking chair just ain’t one of them. I am sure that his son will agree with that one.
Speaking of which, Dave 1956, please give your Dad my very best - Dave Miller - and your mum too if we have the good fortune that she is still with us. She will remember when they came down to devon to stay with the first Mrs. Miller and I.
Pop is a great guy, as everyone’s comments confirm, with a great sense of humour. He said to me I should be TEX1 not TEX43, 'cos I’m the only TEX he knows.
Hi just found this site today and was wondering if any of you remember
Alan Warner known as pop,i first met him in the late 80s when i was
working for Coopers in Poole clearing drivers through customs,he started
for Ralph Davies and must have been about 62ish then,a great bloke
from london who i believe was one of the original middle east drivers? i
know he worked for astrans ? he was still going to Istanbul in his sixties
cant remember if he was still doing the trip to tashkent in Russia that
Ralph used to do then,knowing him he probably was? he must be about
80 now ,was driving a 113 scania for Ralph but was soon upgraded to
a 143!
