I remember someone asking if I recognised the driver in the attached photo sometime in the past. It may even have been ‘mushroomman’ on this Promotor thread wayback. Anyway I’ve just seen it on F/B and he’s named as Martyn Moulsdale and glad to stay he’s still around.
Just come across some original photos of a trip I was on in 79 or 80 courtesy of John Clark who was on his first trip to Doha and was following Jeff Stringfellow, an old experienced Middle East driver. We all met up in Volos where we waited a week for the ferry.
The first photo, taken as we neared Tartous harbour and which is completely new to me, shows myself on the left, Barry driving for Dayson’s on the right and John Clark in the centre.
The other photos were taken a week or two later in Saudi. I wasn’t there as I was heading for Baghdad and so would have turned off north of Damascus.
Its great to see these pictures appearing again after all these years. It just shows there is a wealth of material still out there waiting to be shown the light of day again.
sandway:
Just come across some original photos of a trip I was on in 79 or 80 courtesy of John Clark who was on his first trip to Doha and was following Jeff Stringfellow, an old experienced Middle East driver. We all met up in Volos where we waited a week for the ferry.The first photo, taken as we neared Tartous harbour and which is completely new to me, shows myself on the left, Barry driving for Dayson’s on the right and John Clark in the centre.
The other photos were taken a week or two later in Saudi. I wasn’t there as I was heading for Baghdad and so would have turned off north of Damascus.
Its great to see these pictures appearing again after all these years. It just shows there is a wealth of material still out there waiting to be shown the light of day again.
Is this the same Jeff Stringfellow that drove for Redcliffe Roadways, it looks like him.
Birdie4x4:
sandway:
Just come across some original photos of a trip I was on in 79 or 80 courtesy of John Clark who was on his first trip to Doha and was following Jeff Stringfellow, an old experienced Middle East driver. We all met up in Volos where we waited a week for the ferry.The first photo, taken as we neared Tartous harbour and which is completely new to me, shows myself on the left, Barry driving for Dayson’s on the right and John Clark in the centre.
The other photos were taken a week or two later in Saudi. I wasn’t there as I was heading for Baghdad and so would have turned off north of Damascus.
Its great to see these pictures appearing again after all these years. It just shows there is a wealth of material still out there waiting to be shown the light of day again.
Is this the same Jeff Stringfellow that drove for Redcliffe Roadways, it looks like him.
Here’s a better photo of Jeff and myself in Volos. There’s a very good chance he did drive for Redcliffe. He did tell me who he had driven for but it was a long time ago. The photo you posted ‘Birdie4x4’ shows Jeff with his young son Jason.
David Duxbury’s been mentioned in the last couple of posts. Jeff Stringfellow drove for them as well as Simon Calderbank. Not sure if they new each other. Simon has just posted all his M/E photos of F/B and has given me permission to share them on here. I know some of them have been seen before but there’re great photos. I’ve only posted those showing Duxbury lorries but there were some others portraying things he saw as he drove along which are also of interest to those of us that headed down that way.
Here’s another cracking Simon Calderbank photo which I believe I took myself, on his camera, over forty years ago. Simon is standing on the left whilst ■■■■ Snow of Astran is sitting on the right. The reason I believe I may have taken the photo is that although we were all together in Volos for many days, I have only one recollection of ■■■■ and that was seeing him parked up next to a lamp post which can be seen to the right in the photo.
sandway:
I remember someone asking if I recognised the driver in the attached photo sometime in the past. It may even have been ‘mushroomman’ on this Promotor thread wayback. Anyway I’ve just seen it on F/B and he’s named as Martyn Moulsdale and glad to stay he’s still around.
Hello Brian, it wasn’t me sir honest, although I do remember meeting Martyn on several occasions in the eighties when he was driving for C.V.H. Caerphilly Van Hire along with Alfie Jones and Ron Slater affectionately known as Depression Ron due to his strong Brummy accent. They all seemed to be a good set of lads from C.V.H. especially Depression who had a great sense of humour.
In fact, on January 3rd 1984 I was sat in the desert at Fulluja with another one of our lads waiting for the Bulgarian refinery tanker driver when Ron pulled up and asked had we seen Martin who was supposed to tipping somewhere in Baghdad. For some reason I think that the showgrounds might of been mentioned as Ron had a good idea where Martyn was tipping. After having a brew with us Ron went looking for Martyn, Ron didn’t come back that night so I presume that he had found Martyn as we set off for home early the next morning but it’s good to know that Martyn is still around. 
Just in case anybody is wondering why the Ford Transcontinental drivers rearranged the Ford letters into DORF or FROD then this short article might explain the reason.
Ron Slater, I think that it was Ron’s son who posted this photo on Trucknet a while back so the credit goes to him.
Sadly Ron passed away a few years ago and Ron was another of those great characters who we liked to meet up with.
Ron.
Another one of David Duxbury drivers who the Duxbury drivers might remember was Mike Benn who bought this red Volvo when Duxbury’s finished sometime in the early eighties I.I.R.C. It’s a bit hard to see Mike pushing out the ZZZs in his garden chair.
I can’t remember where Mike was going to on this trip but we were on our way to Izmir and had stopped for the compulsory afternoon tea and biscuits 
at Kavala Beach in Greece.
Mike Benn.
And another driver who the Duxbury’s lads might remember was Athol Addison from Scotland who also used to pull for Davis Turner doing the Middle East.
Athol.
I can’t remember which thread I copied this from but it shows another Duxbury motor parked up for the night.
Hick’s drivers were another great bunch of lads.
There are some great photos on here Brian so please keep them coming.
Photo 3 a couple of posts back looks like the impounded area at Kapikule customs. I wonder what ever happened to that red London double decker bus that was there for years and all that plant machinery that for some reason had been parked up there.
(Zoom in to enlarge the photo)
Photo 5 looks like they are parked near The National Hotel in Belgrade, the building in the back ground was a very distinctive landmark.
This photo looks like it was taken heading east when they were building it.
And this photos look like somebody was heading west many years later.
Regards Steve.
Another great post Steve. Glad to hear from you again. I am posting some more of Simon Calderbank’s photos. Not many lorries this time but for those who travelled down to Baghdad, either from Syria or Turkey, you may recognise some of the scenes.
I especially like the first photo. Obviously taken covertly, it shows a Turkish submarine that had just forced the Volos to Tartous ferry to heave to. For you landlubbers that means stop. Simon asked if the incident happened on the trip he and I were on. Although I know about it I have to admit that I just can’t remember.
The second photo brings back nightmares. I’m sure we all hated travelling down through Yugo with all the Turkish guest workers from Germany. What was the term used to describe them, "arbeiter verkers’ or something like that. We all had our pet names for them and none of them nice.
Some of the other shots show the salt lakes at Aksaray and the road that runs parallel with the Turkish border. A few were taken in Iraq.
Please click on photos to enlarge.
Finally managed to get away and are now heading south looking for the sun in southern Spain. Mr Macron had to give way in the end. This afternoon passed by ‘Maison Blanc’ on the N10 south of Poitiers. I’m sure plenty of you have seen the old van advertising the lorry wash but how much longer before the rust gets her. She’s looking a state now. I’ve posted another photo of a similar van so you can see how its deteriorated over the years. Neither of the photos are mine.
Hi Brian, you mentioned nightmares in Yugoslavia, well it wasn’t only the Turkish Guest Arbiters (workers) returning home to Turkey after their work permits had expired. I am sure that all the old Middle East lads will remember ‘The Zoll Platers’ or ‘The Zoomies’ with their egg-shaped West German export numbers plates with most of them heading down towards Baghdad.
I remember asking a West German couple who had just bought a brand-new Volkswagen Combi van on my first visit to Germany in the sixties, why they had such an unusual shaped number plate and they told me that it was known in Germany as a ‘Columbus Egg’. The reason being that all vehicles that were made in West Germany could be driven for a certain amount of time on West German roads before they were exported without paying the purchase tax. I suppose that it was like buying the vehicle Duty Free.
I must admit that I only heard the term ‘Columbus Egg’ on a couple of occasions over the years so I did wonder if anybody else had ever heard of this expression. I can understand how this rule applied to new vehicles but why did all those convoys of between ten to twenty second hand vehicles that we used to see, display the egg-shaped number plate.
Anyway, getting back to the ‘Zoll Platers’ I believe that they were mainly Austrian drivers who were paid one way trip money down to the Middle East and then were flown back to Austria. I know this because I remember meeting one of them.
On my second trip for Dow’s in 1980 I had to load I.I.R.C. six or eight huge dumper truck tyres from the Goodyear factory in Wolverhampton onto a forty-foot tandem axle step frame trailer and deliver them to Innsbruck. The trailer had originally been one of those Super Jumbo tilts with the small wheels but after doing a few trips around the Commie Block the super structure was always needing to be re-strengthened. So, in the end it was decided to strip the trailer down and use it as a flat which was handy for this load as the tyres hung over the edge by a couple of inches on each side. After I had loaded, I was told to run down to Stratford L.I.F.T. which was The London International Freight Terminal. I seem to remember that it might have also been the container terminal but it is now the area where the 2012 Olympic stadium is.
I was asked to drop some paper work off for one of the agents at L.I.F.T. and I was also told that they would make out my T Forms for the load. As it was late evening by the time that I arrived I decided to park up for the night and to have an early night. I was woken up just after midnight by somebody parking up next to me.
When I pulled the curtains back the next morning, I noticed a Steyr truck parked next to me from the Austrian Company Frikus of Graz. While I was making my breakfast the Frikus driver opened his curtains and in really good English said “Good morning, you wouldn’t have a spare cup of tea for me would you as my camping stove has no more gas”. I offered him a cup and we started chatting like you do.
His unusual story was that he was studying to be a vet, his name was Andrias and that he lived in Graz in Austria. He had just finished his third year at university and was driving trucks to make some money to pay towards his fees.
As I had never been in the cab of a Steyr before I asked him if I could have a look in his cab which he didn’t mind. I was surprised just how roomy those cabs were and the collection of books that he was reading confirmed the story of his about studying to be a vet. It turned out that one of his student friends was the son of one of the owners of the company who had sponsored Andrias and his friend to get their driving licences. One of the books that Andrias had was an Austria Road Atlas and he was able to point out to me the industrial park in Innsbruck where I had to deliver the Goodyear tyres.
We both left the L.I.F.T. at the same time and made our way down to Dover Eastern Docks as we were both shipping out on one of the Townson Thorensen boats. Andrias explained to me about the booking in procedure and explained a few things about continental driving, which I really appreciated.
We drove as far as The Wally Stop near Aachen that night which I thought was far enough for that day but Andrias wanted to carry on to Frankfurt which would have been well over our hours so we decided to split up. He seemed a clever fellow and whenever I saw a Frikus of Graz motor I always thought of Andrias.
As you well know Brian, driving through Yugoslavia especially in the winter or in the fog could be really scary at times. And those, what were about twenty-foot blocks of concrete in places that they called the Autoput, well I can still hear that, ka dunk, ka dunk, ka dunk, ka dunk rhythm as you went over the cracks where they should have all been joined together.
What with the pot holes, the stretches of cobbled road, the concrete sections, the Turkish Guest Arbiters and the Zoomies whizzing in and out then it was no surprise that when we arrived at The National Hotel in Belgrade, we all needed a drink, or two.
I was really surprised about six months later when I pulled onto The National and Andrias came over to me and asked “do you remember me”.? Of course, I replied what the heck are you doing here and he told me as we were having the Yugoslav standard fayre of Mixed Grill and a couple of cold beers served by George, the waiter in the restaurant.
Andrias was still at university studying to be a vet and it was the holiday between two of his semesters. Some of his student friends had been in contact with a company in Germany who bought second-hand vehicles and delivered them around the Middle East. Andrias and the convoy that he was in were heading for Baghdad and I seem to remember that he told me that the big old Mercedes that he was driving had been used as a taxi in Munich.
He mentioned that they slept in the cars for many of the nights and that they all drove very long hours. The money was fantastic for a student, cash in hand paid in Deutsch Marks and after a couple of days stay in Baghdad, they were flown back to Vienna. It seemed like quite an adventure for a young student at that time.
I wonder how many accidents those convoys actually caused over the years as I often remember one of them pulling out from behind me, leaving his offside indicator on and then another couple of cars would be following closely on his tail. As another vehicle would come towards us there would be a mad scramble to get back onto the right side of the road, often involving a screech of brakes and with the oncoming driver having to take evasive action. They would all pull in sharpish and then the same procedure would happen again during the next gap in the oncoming traffic.
Does anybody else remember those convoys of Zoll platers and can any of our Continental Cousins explain why they used the ‘Columbus Egg’ for exporting second hand vehicles. The vehicles must have been registered before so why didn’t they just re-register them.
Seeing Simon’s marvelous photos have had me searching through my photo shoe box again as some of those photos do look very familiar. I hope that you and Simon might recognise a couple of these places although some of my photos look like the colours are fading with age, but aren’t we all.
Another couple of reasons why you should never drive in Romania at night time.
mushroomman:
Does anybody else remember those convoys of Zoll platers and can any of our Continental Cousins explain why they used the ‘Columbus Egg’ for exporting second hand vehicles. The vehicles must have been registered before so why didn’t they just re-register them. ?
Zoll is German for Customs - a Zoll Plate was an export plate
great read that MM. thanks for posting… 
I may be wrong but I think German plates were issued the person rather than the vehicle so when they changed cars the plates went onto the next one which was why they needed the Z plates when selling cars for export.
George Fardell has died. Just seen this post by Andy Maclean aka Jazzandy. RIP George.
This photo was taken around 1972 in Iran Container Company days. It was outside the Pension Fenninger in Walserberg, Austria which was our home base.
The other drivers are Steve Trybowski (still alive) and ‘Mad’ Michel Vranjes plus girlfriend.
Have now settled into winter quarters in the northern part of Almeria province in Spain. No thanks to Mr Macron who held up our departure for many weeks. We also have a good WIFI connection thanks to a generous neighbour.
Recently ‘mushroomman’ posted another comprehensive article. Thanks Steve, I always find your anecdotes so interesting.
Unfortunately we’ve had the sad news of George Fardell’s death recently. George was certainly a character, eccentric in many ways and the first to admit his prowess as a lorry drive left room for much improvement. There were many stories of his escapades. One was that he was somewhere in Yugo looking to pick up a load and that he got in a pickle trying to position his lorry. As he couldn’t reverse to save his life he drove down a flight of steps as that was the easy option. Of course it may have only been a single step but hey don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Another little anecdote comes to mind. I was halfway between Zagreb and Belgrade when I saw George coming towards me. He immediately pulled up effectively blocking the northbound lane. Obviously he wanted me to stop so I pulled up in front of him nose to nose. Caused some confusion to the other road users but George didn’t care. I asked him if there as a problem. He said he was on his way to Sarajevo to pick up a load. But George I said, the turnoff for Sarajevo was 30kms back. In his well educated voice he said, ‘I know old boy but I missed the turnoff and I’m looking for somewhere to turn this lorry around’. I only hope he didn’t drive all the way to Zagreb to find enough room for him to do a u turn.
I have to admit towards the end of his Promotor days we didn’t see eye to eye and was mainly my fault. I did visit him at his home in Lympstone after he left Pro’s but didn’t keep in touch with him after that.
I’m glad I knew and worked with you George. Rest in peace.
Very sad news about George. One of life’s great characters! I had intended to visit him after a few phone calls we had together not so long ago but unfortunately Covid happened and my visit didn’t materialise.
George was a very pleasant companion to run with. “We who our Fardels bear” (as Shakespeare said) - where fardel means “burden”. When I laughingly quoted this he told me that he’d waited all his life for this phrase to be pointed out to him but he never in a million years expected a lorry driver to know the quote…
Somewhere I saw a film of George being interviewed about Rhodesia and he gave a most uncompromising reply to the BBC (I think it was). Wish I could find it again.
RIP George!
And that must be “George”!
I visited the National circa 1990 - for the first time after leaving Promotor in 1986 - when Yugo had massive inflation and which is almost always a precursor to war… George (not this one) one of the waiters at the National came over and said “Hello George, long time no see George”.
I was quite gratified they remembered me after so long because although I left Pros in 1986 I had been going back and forwards to Moscow without having needed to be rescued - unlike some other drivers - so I’d not been to the National for about 5 years or so.
I should explain we called all the waiters George (or Georgina - just one, very tall Georgina) and they in turn called us George.
In the washroom were a row of cracked mirrors and in the corner of one of these was a small sticky label which read “Expertly repaired by George Fardell, The Manor, Lympstone”. Good old George!
Happy days!
The swimming pool across the road from the National was a great place to hang out and see the sights. Some superb physical specimens were on view in micro bikinis - always let down somewhat by the broken noses and what looked like duelling scars - that so many women seemed to sport.
Met up there with some Yugo bloke who invited a couple of us to a party that night. At his house he had weaponry all over his walls, guns and those sticks linked with chains and swords… We became distinctly uneasy… We survived however…
