Nice stories in your last post Efes. I had forgotten Paul was with the broken down crane. I have reposted some of the photos from that job when we collected the Coles Cranes from Iskenduren and Mersin and ran them back to Baghdad. I believe their were five of us in convoy. Chick Steadman, George Fardell, Ramsey Patterson, myself and Paul Linscott who we collected as we passed through Salopi heading to the ports. On the way back we collected Paul’s damaged crane from behind the hotel where he stayed in Salopi. For some reason I always thought the crane was in Cizre! There may have been a sixth crane. In one of the photos there is another guy shown. Can’t place him though.
A year or so back I asked, here on Trucknet, if anyone knew the name of the driver in the photos. I knew his first name was Alan but couldn’t remember his surname. Unfortunately nobody did so recently I did the usual and stuck it on a few Facebook sites and hey ho we now know its Alan Grant. Alan worked for Promotor in the early to mid 80’s. I did a Ford clinic with him and a few other drivers in southern Germany in 82 and a few years later we were together again in Libya working on a two venue medical show held in Tripoli and Benghazi.
It seems towards the end of the 80’s Alan bought a couple of lorries of his own and worked out of LST Lamberhurst hauling frozen lambs. Don’t know if he packed up when the Lamberhurst factory closed down? Good, steady and nice guy to work with. The photos were all taken in Libya.
With reference to Paul Linscott, he came across to us(Motorvation) after falling out with Promotor and did a fair amount of work for us as afree-lancer. At one point around the mid/late 90,s Marshall flogged him a ■■■■■■ old caravan that he was throwing out. This was as a result of Paul losing his digs so Marshall suggested that he could park the caravan inside our gates at Shoreham railway station(Kent) free of rent on the condition that he always made himself available and acted as security at night when he wasn,t away working as driver. This was a typical Marshall con-trick in an effort to get the maximum out of Paul but the problem was the local Shoreham village pub was only a short walk away from the yard and rapidly became Pauls second home! to the extent that at the end of each evening he would stagger back to caravan so ■■■■■■ that he couldn,t possibly have performed any security duties whatsoever! Slowly but surely Paul started to drive his little car to the pub instead of walking with the inevitible result. One day, completely blotto he decided to leave the pub and go for a drive. The car was found up side down in a ditch with Paul nowhere to be found! Not sure but I think he was supposed to be on a job next day and his non- showing was what resulted in a parting of the ways. He left the caravan in our yard and in spite of repeated requests to move/get rid of it he never did. The scrap man was called in the end and when he opened the door he said that only the mass of cooking grease and fat was holding the walls of the van together! We still saw him occasionally, on the opposite side of the road from our yard entrance there was a burger van in a lay-by and Paul would sometimes call there for breakfast but I cant recall us using him again after that.
Couple more from FB Buzzer.
Buzzer:
Couple more from FB Buzzer.
Thanks Buzzer. Both lorries loaded and ready for trip to Saudi in 76. GYX 764N was assigned to Carl Dehnert and LGU 666P was assigned to Stevie Smith.
I have attached a couple more photos of our lorries. Don’t remember them being posted before.
Like your Paul Linscott story Nottsnortherner. Good old boy, pity he became a bit of a pain later.
Did you find those photos of yours Efes? Hope the new boilers up and running.
BPV 607Y…THATS ME !!! and it looks like my wife in the passenger seat holding my boy so that dates it to around 83/85. There was a couple of occasions when they accompanied me on a conference job on the promise of nice hotel accomodation once at the venue!
Correction ! My missus reckons more like 85 or86 and it pays not to argue with SWMBO !!
Nottsnortherner:
Correction ! My missus reckons more like 85 or86 and it pays not to argue with SWMBO !!
SWMBO? Excuse me while I google that!--------Oh ye… She who !!!
Another one of Promotors sales leaflets. I always thought we sold ourselves short in this field. It would have been nice if we could’ve done an annual one but cost had to be taken into account but then it may have led to more business. Yes, thats right! Its the chicken and egg conundrum.
sandway:
Another one of Promotors sales leaflets. I always thought we sold ourselves short in this field. It would have been nice if we could’ve done an annual one but cost had to be taken into account but then it may have led to more business. Yes, thats right! Its the chicken and egg conundrum.
I always thought that the design of logos etc was somewhat lacking. Were these brochures “inhouse” designed? They look rather amateur even for the day…
As to fixing the central heating - it’s fine now - but alas SWMBO refilled the cupboard before I had a chance to look for my photos despite my request to leave it so I could do it and sort some things out. Ho hum!
I have some rather fine photos of when there was a huge storm at sea and the ferry seemed to fall over… All the trucks broke their mooring chains and fell on top of mine… I think it was “Charlie The Hat” was sleeping in it at the time and was unaware of the storm… That night during the ferry journey back to Dover I gave up trying to sleep as I kept being tipped out of bed. When I went to grab a cup of tea I was rather alarmed that the crew were wearing life-belts. While in the canteen the ferry suddenly keeled over a very long way sideways… A very long way… There was massive crashing sound and it went over even more. More than I thought possible to stay afloat… and stayed like that for what seemed a very long time. I think like everyone I wondered if it would just fall on its side… Happily the ship did right itself but all the engines went dead and the ship appeared to have no power and were being buffeted every which way. The crew were pretty ashen faced…
The lorry decks were a real shambles with many trucks lying on top of others… It took much of the day with a crane setting the trucks upright again to offload us all.
Something similar happened to Chick and me when we were on the ferry to Ireland at the time of the Fastnet race which ended in tragedy for so many yachtsmen 19 of whom drowned. I can date it; August 11th, 1979. There was a terrible storm at sea and some of the trucks broke their chains and all sorts of things were sliding around below decks smashing into trucks. On this occasion we missed any damage.
Promotor driver John Preece with one of the old pavilion guards at the Baghdad Fair. Could be 86/87. This is one of my favourite photos of John in a pose that was so typical of him. Unfortunately due to his mood swings we also saw the other side of his character but John in that photo is the way I shall always remember him. Wish we knew where you were now my friend.
Click on John to see him jump out at you.
OK Efes. Enoughs enough. You gotta find those photos of yours. You gotta put you foot down and tell that wife of yours to stop hiding them. My shoebox is not bottomless you know but I’m glad I’ve still got a few photos of John in there. Don’t know if you noticed but behind John is part of the Saftcrest stand. Now get down to the boiler room and find those photos.
ps. Glad I wasn’t on board when the weather played up. Never wanted to be a sailor.
Promotor driver Roger Oakley was with the company during the 70’s leaving in the early 80’s I believe. I didn’t know him well only meeting him three or four times. He drove rigids and as far as I know didn’t have a class 1 licence. I think Nottsnortherner confirmed that in a post a while back. However, I have come across a photo of a Bosman Volvo lorry in which somebody indicated the driver was Roger. I have since been in touch with Christian Bosman who confirms it was our Roger at the wheel. Year, going by the reg, was somewhere I reckon from 96 to 2000.
Unfortunately Roger is no longer with us.
Micky Martin operated as an owner driver under the name MARTINFREIGHT and was a Promotor subbie for three years or so from about 74 to 76. He also had other companies he worked for but he did a lot of eastern bloc work for us especially Yugo. He travelled to Iran as an owner driver as well as other destinations. Micky tells me he bought the Scania 110 new, it came with a M/E spec and he did 360,000 miles in it in three years or so. Best lorry he had he reckoned. On one trip he was stuck on Tahir in eastern Turkey for three days with temperatures down to -32 degrees. I have attached a photo Micky took on Tahir in 75 when the weather was a bit better.
In the first photo of him standing in front of VGF 891M his Scania he is on the right wearing the hat. It seems Micky is a bit of a squirrel as he still has that hat. On the left is Promotor driver Mick Mitchell. However, I am pleased he did stash things away as he has given me part of a newsletter Peter Calderwood (Mr Promotor) put out in 75. We have seen part of it on here before, that being the drivers list, but not all of it. Its a load of gobbledygook really but makes interesting reading but one thing I recognised immediately I saw it was where Peter had initialled a change of units. His initials, PC, are very distinctive as was his signature, something I would see hundreds of times during my association with the company.
I have attached all of Micky’s photos and thank him for letting me post them on here.
sandway:
Promotor driver John Preece with one of the old pavilion guards at the Baghdad Fair. Could be 86/87. This is one of my favourite photos of John in a pose that was so typical of him. Unfortunately due to his mood swings we also saw the other side of his character but John in that photo is the way I shall always remember him. Wish we knew where you were now my friend.
Click on John to see him jump out at you.
I may have found an address for John in Weston super Mare… How far is that from you Sandway? I’m pretty sure it’s him “John Leonard Preece”. Can’t find an email address for him. Perhaps he never made it to the digital age? I am fairly certain that it’s “our man”. I may try the old fashioned letter to see…
A letter in the post. Let’s see if anything happens.
The following tale is of how things can go disastrously wrong even when planned down to the last detail.
By 1976 Promotor (Europe) Ltd were going from strength to strength in their own small way. They were never a big company but had a diverse range of customers who provided the drivers with a wealth of varied and interesting work. From the early days in 1970 handling Fords development and promotional work to spreading their wings in 72 to far flung destinations as diverse as Moscow and Tehran. Bob ‘Supercube’ Heath has told us in the very early days Peter Calderwood subbed some work from Astran until he got established which didn’t take long and also picked up work for a UK importer bringing Tiger Tyres back from Pirot in Yugo. By 75 the number of units had increased to twelve and a number of rigids were still required for car movements. Come 76 everything was going swimmingly, but that autumn a job would bring Promotor almost to the point of extinction.
The exact year is open to discussion but I understand from John Smith, a driver who was working for Simon International that it was 76 or according to our own Nottsnortherner possibly 77. But I believe it was 76 as our P reg Afro Camion lorry was still looking quite new and that would have been registered in August 75 and there are no pictures of later reg lorries. During late summer Peter bid for and won a contract from Westfield Homes in Kent to transport frames for mobile homes to a site south of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. There were, it is believed, ten trailer loads in total.
These loads would have to be transported on stripped down supercube trailers and would be semi wide loads but not wide enough to require an ■■■■■■. I don’t know the weight on each trailer but looking at the few photos from that time I doubt they exceeded 12 ton. There would be very little chance of finding any kind of return load for these trailers so the job was priced to run back empty. As Promotor didn’t have enough trailers some were rented in and we have pictorial evidence that at least one unit was hired from Brighton Van Hire. We also know that at least one of the loads was pulled by a subbie.
As I didn’t join the company till 78 much of the information concerning this job has been gleaned from people who were around at the time, ( not just Promotor personel) or responded to my request for information on Facebook.
By 76 Promotor had appointed Bob Charlton as transport manager but he had been replaced by Joe Alexander before the big job started. The company needed to employ extra drivers and Joe knew a couple of guys with M/E experience who could start almost immediately. One was Ken Brazier and the other was Ray Scutts. Ray had worked for Astran and later had two or three of his own lorries but I believe that venture failed. Certainly they brought experience to the job but some of the existing Promotor drivers also knew their way to Saudi and beyond. I don’t have the full list of drivers who took part in this job but I know that Stevie Smith, Ken Brazier, Ray Scutts, and subbie Big John McFall were there. I have also been told by Promotor driver John Evans, who wasn’t on the job, that Billy Proudlove may have been another one. Another possible driver is Carl Dehnert as he was the designated driver for GYX 764N and that lorry is shown loaded and ready to go in one of the photos.
Peter Calderwood was a planner and there’s a very good chance it was he who put the basic plan together. It was simple enough. Load ten trailers and haul them down to Riyadh . What could possibly go wrong. Permits weren’t a problem, finance wasn’t either. Loads were wide but not too wide. Hire in trailers, units and subbies as needed. No, there was nothing that could go wrong as long as you had the right men for the job. Hmmm… Yes, you’ve guessed it! Nine of the ten drivers were fine dependable types who, if they had set out on their own, would have completed the job in their usual quiet and determined way. But unfortunately the tenth driver was chosen to be team leader. It is here I have to inform you that I cannot name this driver. A name has been mentioned but as I don’t have the full drivers roster for the trip and I’ve only been given hints of who it was its best I keep it to myself.
It was decided to stagger the loads and split them into groups of pairs who would leave a few days after each other. The team leader and another driver set off with the idea that they would arrive first and make sure everything was in place for the rest when they arrived. Customs clearance and cranes were required to be ready so as each pair arrived they would spend the minimum amount of time waiting. However, the first pair only got as far as Belgium before a halt was called. The story goes, and it may be just hearsay, but the chap in charge bought an American car using the running money, drove it back to the UK where he sold it before making his way back to Belgium and the other driver who was tasked with looking after the two lorries. By this time the second pair of lorries had caught up and they then made slow progress down to the National in Belgrade. By this time others drivers with a bit more momentum caught up and most of the ten loads ended up parked around the hotel there.
It then transpired that the team leader met a Bowkers driver returning from Turkey who told him the Bulgies were no longer issuing transit visas at the border. After wasting more time discussing what to do the team leader declared he would take everyones passport and fly back to London and obtain them there. Why they didn’t go via Greece is anyones guess, although I have a sneaking feeling one or two of them did just that. Anyway, six or seven drivers were left mooching around the National doing nothing and that was really getting under the skin of Big John McFall as he was an owner driver. However, things then took a turn for the worse when the police carried out a routine passport check at the National. As our drivers didn’t have theirs they were all placed under house arrest.
Whilst all these shenanigans were taking place other Promotor drivers were very busy on the exhibition work in eastern europe and one of those drivers called into the National on his way to Bucharest where he found most of the loads parked up. This was about four weeks after the first pair left the UK. There was no sign of the team leader as he had flown back with the passports by then. He spoke to Big John who wasn’t at all impressed and then left next morning for Bucharest. He returned to the National almost a week later to find most of them still parked there. He didn’t hang around and made his way back to the UK where he was concerned enough for the state of the company that he arranged a meeting with Billy Heath, road foreman at that time who suggested they had a private meeting with Peter, the boss.
I don’t have the full chronological order of events after that but what we do know is that Joe Alexander was flown out a few weeks later, accompanied by another driver George Fardell. Joe was to sack the team leader, sort out any problems and get the job back on track. I don’t know where Joe met up with the convoy but I understand there were more problems as they made their way to Riyadh. I mentioned earlier John Smith of Simon International. He says he was driving in the desert somewhere near Riyadh when he came across a Promotor lorry that was empty and on its way home. They both stayed the night there and left next day which was Christmas day. He said the driver knew what he was up to and they ran together for a few days. As they departed on the first morning John took some photos of the Promotor lorry disappearing ahead of him. Thanks for letting me use those images John.
One casualty of this trip was Big John McFall. Even though he was a regular Promotor subbie driving a lorry he bought from the company he never did another trip for them. Another well known little ditty or popular story is that one of the lorries lost part of its load on H4 but continued on to the destination where the driver obtained a clear signature. I think that just about sums up this disastrous job that almost saw the demise of the company.
There is a lot more to this story of course and maybe some of the facts I have been given are not as accurate as I would like but come on you guys who were around at the time. Do you have any recollections of that job or even photographs. If so I would love to see or hear about them.
Some cracking posts ^^^^^^^^ from Sandway there, again 
- much appreciated! Robert
Guys,
I love this thread. Please keep it up.
Particularly interested in the car transport side as well as the work carried out for Ford at Dunton. (I am in there regularly now - some place!!)
Thanks
Steve
Just had contact from Roger Graber who apparently had a major operation for something or other but is recovered and alive and well although not quite as mobile as he used to be and moves now with the aid a zimmer frame or some such.
Good to hear that Roger is still going strong. I saw him last at Mick Twemlow’s funeral a while back
Roger called to ask me where Promotor had their depot in Spain (where Staggie lived on a campsite nearby). Does anyone know? This was before my time.
No answer from my letter to Preecy as yet (if it indeed was “our” John Preece I wrote to…)
I’ll keep you all posted.
Efes:
sandway:
Promotor driver John Preece with one of the old pavilion guards at the Baghdad Fair. Could be 86/87. This is one of my favourite photos of John in a pose that was so typical of him. Unfortunately due to his mood swings we also saw the other side of his character but John in that photo is the way I shall always remember him. Wish we knew where you were now my friend.
Click on John to see him jump out at you.I may have found an address for John in Weston super Mare… How far is that from you Sandway? I’m pretty sure it’s him “John Leonard Preece”. Can’t find an email address for him. Perhaps he never made it to the digital age? I am fairly certain that it’s “our man”. I may try the old fashioned letter to see…
A letter in the post. Let’s see if anything happens.
A message from John L Preece in Weston super Mare today saying he’s the wrong John Preece. Did anyone know what the “L” in John’s second name stood for? Lindsay?
There was another John L Preece of Sutton Coalfield but he died in 2009. He was living with a family of Preeces (brother?) so I don’t think this is our man either… I also checked Australia
Sadly there are lots of “John Preeces” so he may be in with those. I found his second wife, Rae, listed in Lancing in 2002 electoral roll but after that nothing. She married John in 1988 in Shoreham.
So sadly I’ve drawn a blank. Shame!