Hi Bullitt ,to be honest i was guessing the year even my wife cannot remember the exact year -and the war was not on defo,as back then i t was all yugoslavia .i worked for two fridge companies and did yugoslavia for both before and after the war i never kept any records at all…AS for knowing where i was and going and what direction i had no idea however it is 100%true.
Sandway your comment earlier about the stars and strips[previous posts]brought back my recollection of that trip .there is more to the story ,i went to greece on TFORMS and a BLUE BOOK… also company headed printed c.m.rs I had never been north of athens before ,so ,yes it was new ground for me [on your jack].i expect that is why we did the job.
ONCE inside the cold store ,thank god there were two lorries one dane and a dutch man, fridges roaring away so i new they were loaded ,after finding a office, i went in with my cmr and their sat at a typewriter are two men, i could tell by their clothes they were drivers [at this time i had not a lot of experance on european]so this was like ,jesus do you have to to our paper-work as they were typing out their own “carnets” ,to be honest i had never used one,as you know they spoke ENGLISH and i told them one i was here to load and two i did not have one of those .
are you loading for DENMARK they said,god knows i replied i did not have any instructions what so ever no numbers ,nothing.
A man came in the office and looked at my cmr then said something i assume was GERMAN/yugo.so now the other two had left and it was going to be tomorrow so we slept in the compound[i was a self-caterer]i had no idea what or where i was loading to and i did not get any sence from the office chap,i asked to use the phone and he give me,and it was useless.so i got some paper and drew a map-ish[as no doubt most of us can do ]of england and europe and drew a circle over the uk … he knew all ready but he was not telling me. eventually i was backed on to a loading bay and it was hand-ball loaded ,after about 4/5hours told to pull off i had no idea how heavy it was how many sacks ,i had no idea but it was FROZEN SWEET-CORN.
the rest was normal stuff a girl came in and typed a T1out for AUSTRIA A cmr was raised,it looked like 21,000kilos,well overweight,fridge -21it was well frozen i remember as it was soon down to temperature[a first] ,
Once out the cold store the ruts in the roads were horrendous[ i said early i was in a 95 twinsteer daf]i think that was wrong it was a daf but a 36.i tuly do not remember i drove so many different on different firms the old memory does not recall…
The crux of this story is once i got to the AUSTRIAN BOARDER like a prat i did not go to a agent ,why ,because inexperience i did not know ,so i tried to do the customs myself you all know what i mean of course i was now subject to ridicule but did not know it,and no one said [the main problem was i needed another transit TFORM ] I DID NOT KNOW,also they made out by pointing on the cmr that they did not know what the cargo was,now i do go on but remembering [sweet-corn]in english ,it was written down in yugoslav,[and they new]but they were making me squirm by gesturing for me to go back to Belgrade…
I learned a valuable lesson[ take a sample of the goods you had in the trailers]if food. i dare not break the seal on the doors to get some sweetcorn out… eventually if i am correct ,the agents offices were like little wooden sheds and no one want to know untill i think it might have been frans-mass eventually after about a few hours NEW PAPERSi think another transit t form i got out enroute ZEEBRUGGE .i know it was a long time ago but i learned more on that trip, in fact it set me up because i knew i could do the job, hahah, well ,to have many many more ■■■■ ups some self inflicted, believe me if any one could tie yourself up in knots it was a european driver,inexperienced…as you most know we were /are a dying breed i and i did not do what half the chaps did …i will no longer use your space thanks dpb
