would you be Gordon Benn .
Dave.
Hi Dave! sorry for the delay, had a bar b, yes i am the same Gordon Benn, isort of dropped out. not been around for a while in the same circles but now with this internet thing am amazed to find so many of you still about. I have only bumped into two of the old crowd in recent times, (at work that is), Dave Davenport and Alan (Tikka) Whittaker. What you up to nowadays?
Hi all another pic I found TIR donkey carts I expect every driver knows the road but I bet mushroomman even knows the name of the horses 
The first time I went down this hill I was in a convoy followed by a driver (Norman?) from I think AWW we were doing their work -shipping Merlees-Blackstone engines from Stamford to Riyadh. We were all descending the hill quite slowly when I realised Normans 1924 Merc was along side me making a bit of a noise, I wondered what was going on and slammed on only for Norman to wave me on. I stopped at the bottom of the hill to find out what the problem was, Norman said that he was using the exhaust brake when the truck jumped out of gear, killing the engine. Instead of slamming the brakes on and stopping to sort it out he had re-started the engine and the tried to put it back in gear (crash box) he realised that he had gained a lot of speed and had to swerve around me to avoid crashing. A quick change of underwear and he was on his way-but he wouldnât use the exhaust brake again 
Gordon, I am not that far from you, that is, if you are still living in KL,. I now do night trunks out of Carnforth to Bathgate.
Hope you are keeping well.
Still see Pat Seals on occasion.
Regards,
Dave.
Gavin McArdle:
Hi all another pic I found TIR donkey carts I expect every driver knows the road but I bet mushroomman even knows the name of the horses
The first time I went down this hill I was in a convoy followed by a driver (Norman?) from I think AWW we were doing their work -shipping Merlees-Blackstone engines from Stamford to Riyadh. We were all descending the hill quite slowly when I realised Normans 1924 Merc was along side me making a bit of a noise, I wondered what was going on and slammed on only for Norman to wave me on. I stopped at the bottom of the hill to find out what the problem was, Norman said that he was using the exhaust brake when the truck jumped out of gear, killing the engine. Instead of slamming the brakes on and stopping to sort it out he had re-started the engine and the tried to put it back in gear (crash box) he realised that he had gained a lot of speed and had to swerve around me to avoid crashing. A quick change of underwear and he was on his way-but he wouldnât use the exhaust brake again
Looks like Rumo.
Dave.
Gavin McArdle:
Hi all another pic I found TIR donkey carts I expect every driver knows the road but I bet mushroomman even knows the name of the horsesHi Gavin Mc, itâs good to see your back.
Itâs Transylvania in Rumania, slightly before circa 1980, I think that the horses names are Bill and Ben, not sure about the third horse was it Shergar
I thought it might of been another Bromilow convoy photo before they got the Scammels.
Have you seen our Dad ? he drives for F Troop.
Best regards Steve
.
Hi Dave, live in Grange over sands now( its full of old people you know) my eldest boy still lives in KL. He was out in Doha for a few months at end of last do with LARS putting up new masts for the government. He was at the hotel bar one night and thought he recognised an extremely large aggressive looking gentleman covered in tattoos and sporting a shaved head. His description was âlooked like him out of apocolipse nowâ. Mat went to the bog and on his return his two mates were talking to the guy. One of his mates said he had just mentioned that Mat had said his dad used to drive down that way and the guy wanted to know who he was. Mat said âhis names gordon benn but some know him as bennyâ. The bloke told him that he knew Mat from a trip he had done with me many years previous to Ankara. It had ended that night in the Telex with a punch up with the turks in the bar because they wouldn,t leave Mat alone (he had blonde hair). Weardos. Turned out to be Ritchie Thorn
I remember another rumble we had in there when one of the drivers (think it was young Phil Houghton) pulled the belly dancer and legged it with her, she was a tasty bit of totty not like the usual boilers they seemed to get. Her minders went mad and a bit of a ruckus ensued but they never found them. Just as well as they would of topped the lad. Great days eh?
Just looking at Gavins picture and i think its the last set of mountains decsending to Adana, cant remember what the pass was called but it was a killer if its the right one, used to be littered with wrecks. I must have been one of the first to drive down the new motorway they built to bypass, it was just as steep and all they really did was take the sharp bends out. The local Tonkas and buses would not use it though as they would have had to pay the toll about ÂŁ2 then. Benny
Just had another look at picture, yeh it does look like rumo, is it sibiou? Benny
Hi All It was Rummo either Sibiu or Sebes I canât remember, up near Oradea. Steve I think your right about the horses names except for Shergar it was in 75 before he went missing!! I was going to claim that I was one of the origional M/E boys and this was our motors but I thought you would think I was taking the p*** (SAS in camoflage gear )
Here are some more Rummo pics taken some where south of the country (Pitesti?) I was returning home when I came into a town and found all the roads closed, I stopped (it was safe to do so in those days) and discovered that Ceaucesceau(?) -Whatsisface- was paying a visit and all the town were out partying (probably compulsory) I was taking these pics when a copper came up and tried to confiscate my camera as it was illegal to take pics of Whatsisface I stuck my camera in my pocket and told him that as Whatisface hadnât arrived yet I hadnât taken any pics of him.( in English a bit of German an a bit of Shouty with much arm waving, Iâm fluent in that) it worked and he cleared off. Do you think he was after a cheap camera
I used to use Rummo a lot (because of lack of permits) and usually used Oradea because no one else did but after Whatsisface was deposed it got quite hairy.When a certain gentleman who has quite a reputation for clearing pubs at closing time got mugged at Guigui(?) I thought what hope do use lesser mortals have? I stopped and started to use the ferries to Greece instead.
Before she was tall enough to knock on cab doors 
Her brother?
God theres loads of them!
Looking back through some of the recent posts Iâve missed some comments (iâve been working! -agency- while the regulars catch up with their holidays) Some one mentioned the size of the Foden head lights. Do oyu remember the idiots at the Saudi borders who made us disconnect spot lights incase we dazzled the locals, when they had -in most cases - their own lights wired up so that when they remembered to operate the dip-switch one light went up and one down and vice versa. I took the lens out of my Lucas spots and left the terminals attach to the plastic ring, this did not satisfy the man, I asked him what the problem was and he reckoned the spark could jump between the terminals and would dazzle someone. I had to disconnect the wires and tape them up 
The Foden was the last truck in, just imagine his face when he saw the headlights, we nearly had to use smelling salts He wanted them out and was going to smash them but calmed down a bit when Kelvin stuck some tape on them and made a smaller aperature. I donât know why the lights were so big, they werenât any better, perhaps someone at Fodens had cut the holes too big
Re: turning left at the Mirrors for Kuwait - Iâm pretty certain that was the way I went - or did we go in via the Dammam road and come back via the Mirrors? My memory is playing tricks now 
This would have been about 78
Gavin
Gavin McArdle:
I
God theres loads of them!
Hi Gavin, I think that I might recognise this picture .
The old memory is going a bit so you might have to help me here but I think that this group of drivers often used to travel through the Commie Block in the early eighties. At their gigs they were known as The Preston Morris Men but we really know that they were subbies for Whittles of Preston and they did this to supplement their rates 
.
It was not only the British drivers who preferred to travel in convoys in those days, as you can see in this picture other countries drivers also liked to have a bit of company when they were on the road.
Rumanian Truckstop 1980.
However, some drivers did prefer to travel alone as we all did at one time or another.
TURK SCAMMELLS, SOUTHERN TURKEY.
]
I think that this driver might of been going for a spreader .
I hope that Harry can try and make the pictures a bit clearer .
Regards Steve .
If you went for a âSpreadâ under one of those,thereâs a chance you could get â â â â â â on,(or â â â â â â off!)
bestbooties:
If you went for a âSpreadâ under one of those,thereâs a chance you could get â â â â â â on,(or â â â â â â off!)
Yes , and then you`d get the Hump.
Hi all, re the pic of Whittles subbies- I had some good friends on Whittles - âCalamityâ Ken Graham & Kieth White among them, so I can safely upset them by saying you could be right IIRC they had to make sure they had blown their diesel across before getting their gear on.
Re the 4 scammells - just think - 4 carnets - 4 triptycs, 4 tanks to keep full, sounds like hard work & no he wouldnât have been going for a spreader - he was wearing 7 day sh** trousers
Keith White did a couple of trips for Bromilow before going on to Whittles he bought one of those cancelled OHS lhd Sed-Aks and to my knowledge contary to common opinion never had the slightest problem with it.
The mention of Robbos tattoo sometime back caused someone (mushroomman?)to mention âone eyeâ. I last saw her it must have been in the early 90âs with a German driver he said that they were together and he had taken her to Germany to see if he could get her eye fixed and was trying to save up the money to do it. He was making a collection I donât know if it was a scam or not.
Does any one remember her partner in crime with only one arm? Absolutely gorgeous but one arm finished above the elbow- Alan Ball christened them âNelsons Daughtersâ
Gavin
Now a short history lesson-please pay attention as I shall be asking questions after. Because of the great rush to the M/E in the 70âs and the shortage of German permits a new route was opened in 75 - Harwich to Hamburg or Bremerhaven short German transit (not using Helmstat) then DDR-CZ-H-RO-BG. In 76 2000 permits were agreed for this route, by July 4500 had been used and the Hungarians would not issue any more. We did not have any German permits and the wait for the train was reportedly 6 weeks, Bromilow looked at his maps and decided that we should transit Russia around Hungary he got permission (A long story- Iâll tell it if any one wants to know) when he applied for permits but not the Hungarian ones Newcastle refused saying he must have micky ones ,he told them the story and they said for every trip that we did through Russia they would give us a German one. Alan Ball did 2 trips, Robbo & Duf Webster each did 1. They went into Russia from CZ, across to Lvov and then down to the NEof Rummo-1500 Kâs so I was told. I did not do any, I canât remember why, I may have had the last issued permits and stayed in Saudi doing internals or we used to do the multi wine collections in France for Pickford-Cotralli in Cherboug, I also did a couple of trips to Porto in the late 70âs I remember clearing customs in the building in the middle of the road down by the river, I canât find my passport for that time.I remember shipping out to Saudi just before Xmas in 76 using the first road permit.
Now the question :- how did other firms that also used the eastern bloc route manage? Wait for the train or micky permits or stay home?
Gavin
Hi all. no reply to my question - does that mean no-one else had problems at that time , or no-one believes me?
Gavin
Hi Gavin,
I used the short transit German permit on a number of occasions shipping from Harwich to Hamburg. I never bothered with Bremerhaven. The border crossing into DDR was Lauenburg/Holst and into Czech I mostly used Zinnwald but this was dodgy in the winter because of the very sharp right and steep hander on a hill that was nicknamed half shaft corner. I used to then turn right at Hermsdorf and go through Plauen to the border which came out opposite the Cheb Hotel.
I cannot recall any problems with Hungarian permits but then I had an ECMT book and always used the Komarno border into Humgary as I found Raika could be busy a lot of the time. Even when they finally closed the Komarno border to trucks I used the new one they built at Medvedov.
I found this route down was as good as any because one could get across into DDR quickly and then run your heart out.
Gavin McArdle:
Hi all. no reply to my question - does that mean no-one else had problems at that time , or no-one believes me?
Gavin
Hi Gavin, when I saw your first post I thought that I would wait on the bench for a while to see what kind of response you received. Straight away it reminded of a time when I met Peter The Plater and Robert Hobbs in London while we were all waiting to get a I.I.R.C. a twelve month Bulgarian visa from their embassy in London.
Apparently, in the mid 80âs a RUMOUR was started in the Mocamp about a Super Highway that the Russians were building across the U.S.S.R⌠It was still under construction but once it was completed it would knock two days driving time off the trip to Istanbul.
A couple of months later somebody said that they had read an article in Newsweek Magazine about The New Russian Super Highway and had seen a picture of the service areas where all the trucks were washed while the drivers were having a meal.
Of course it was only a couple of months later that a driver turned up at The Mocamp and claimed that he had used this route on his last trip but he thought that it was over rated and much prefered to transit Yugo.
Now I think that Bestbooties mentioned Robert Hobbs some time ago, so if he has still got Robertâs phone number it would be interesting to see if he can still remember this story.
I realise Gavin that this was a long time after the trip that you mentioned, somebody must of tried these routes out in the early days and probably the reason that they were not successful was because they were not economically viable, it certainly must of been an interesting trip and I wish that I could of done it.
As regards Hungarian and Czecho permits, I can never remember having a problem with them or with them being in short supply, only the Yugoslavian ones that always seemed to run out anytime after October and thats when drivers used their initiative .
Best regards Steve.
mushroomman:
Apparently, in the mid 80âs a RUMOUR was started in the Mocamp
Now I think that Bestbooties mentioned Robert Hobbs some time ago, so if he has still got Robertâs phone number it would be interesting to see if he can still remember this story.
Best regards Steve.
Now I remember this rumour,but how many rumours were going around on that job?
I never heard of anyone that used it.
Steve,you have a PM.