I have to return to add my story of Tony Baker I was saddened when he became ill and only managed to speak to him over the phone. I was traveling along past the salt flats heading for Ankara it was the turn of winter and the snow was melting ,and the roads were slushy ,when I spotted a MC trailer in one of the water hole laybys next to the lake I pulled up and there was Tony on his hands and Knees in 2ft of mud at the back of his unit what you doing I said ,lost my snow chains he said ,he had driven in to get some fresh water got stuck tryed to fit his chains but lost them.I turned round backed in with my trailer and pulled him out.We spent the next hour looking for the chains we looked like a couple of tramps covered in mud, and never found the snow chains ,but spent the rest of the day in fits telling other drivers.God bless him a nicer guy you could not meet.
Reddesertfox:
Mmmm. The Afghan hound probably died after contracting a nasty disease…….
Jamie, do you remember the story of Tony allegedly breaking into Mervyn’s house one Sunday afternoon and went upstairs to find Mervyn in bed with his lady… Which prompted lots of WTF is happening from both sides….
Tony promptly locked himself in the wardrobe and refused to come out until Mervyn agreed to put winter tyres on the truck.
Hi reddesertfox I think I must know you,not a lot of people know that story but its true you must have known John McClung as well.I had been over to Mervyns with a spare wheel I had borrowed in Tony Funstons pickup it was a about midmorning and Tony B and McClung and Mervyn said we just off down the road for a drink lots of work going on in yard so they said we wont be long I explained I had Tony F’s pickup thats allright just a quick one.I should have known better,I had to ring my wife and Tony F to come over and rescue me we had been in the pub all night.The story of Baker climbing up the ladder into Mervyn,s house and locking himself in the wardrobe was a hot topic of conversation.You cant retell these stories to any one other than guys from that era they just wouldn’t believe you,oh happy days Hughie
I don’t have the power of recall you guys have although things come back to me reading your comments which are Brilliant!!
I did the Middle East run’s in the late eighties and early Nineties, and although the route was laid and the job getting a bit easier but still
A challenge I enjoyed every minute of it.
I tended to run by myself after being showed the ropes from my Peers but always enjoyed the company of fellow drivers
and the stories.
The first trip I did was with an old M/E hand and he said to me when we were shipping out " you see the guy in the corner sat by
himself, This will be you in a few months" I asked him what he meant ? and he said the guys on the run keep themselves away from
the Euro drivers as they have a totally different outlook on the job.
I never sat by myself I must add but after a while I did see what he meant.
I look forward to chatting over old times and coughing on the diesel fumes with you all and if I can find them I have some pics from
my travels not great but doing nothing were they are now.
Jake Brake.
Had a life once, but now I am older I’m buggered if i can remember where I put it
Tony Baker the loveable rogue, he always lusted after Mervyns second wife Brenda and it was no secret. one summers day Tony and his wife were invited over to Mervyns house for dinner. Mervyn and Tony got plastered as normal and fell asleep in the sitting room. Tony’s wife was sitting outside reading a book whilst Brenda prepared the the meal in the kitchen. Tony came through into the kitchen on his hands and knees as he could not stand up, he crawled over to Brenda and gripped her ankles, he then started sliding his hands up her legs and kept saying I’m going to f+++ you Brenda as he tried to pull himself up. She knowing that his wife was just outside the back door reading her book kept egging him on and asking him what he was saying the more he said it the more she asked him , until his wife stuck her head round the door. She promptly grabbed a wooden spoon and laid into him calling him all the names under the sun.
There was never a dull moment when Tony was around.
Ray Usher AKA Norman the Conqeror was on one of these jobs moving medical trailers around the uk with an opposition company to dave buttons outfit.
Regards Jamie.
To be quite honest Tony Baker probably deserves a thread all to himself if only as an obituary which would run into page after page but to recall my first meeting with Tony (and Usher) it was in the londra in Istanbul about midnight after stopping to help a couple of other lads Dave Goddard and Peter (his second name escapes me) who had been struggling up Balu with a piston problem on an 88 with a healthy Scania on the back, after using the ramp in the Bulgi camp at the bottom to swap units we caught up with the others they had been traveling with eg Tony, Ray and I seem to recall Ritchie Thorn sampling Raki in the restaurant. My only memory of the rest of that night involved lots of the aformentioned beverage and jumping off the tables while they were hosing down the floor in the restaurant shouting Geronimo then waking up the next afternoon with no idea where I was (again) and finding Baker sprawled half in half out of the bunk of Mervyns new Man still with his boots on covered in mud where he had been carried across the truck park and accidently dropped. We managed to get to Kapic that night where everyone immediately went for a hair (or many) of the dog. God bless you Tony life was never dull when you were around and theres a couple of more incidents that trip which I shall save for later.
Chazzer
We were in Baghdad in the winter me Noel (Funstons,Baker, McClung and some more dubious characters we had pulled the trucks round in a circle as the wind was cutting across the desert at Abu Graib and was a bit parky.Most of us had some alcohol in the trailer boxes which was being consumed in vast quantities when Baker disappeared shortly reappearing rolling an old truck tyre then another and another piled them up in the middle chucked some diesel on them and then set fire to them lovely bit of heat more alcohol consumed Baker poking the tyres to create more heat and flames when even he realised that the heat was now begining to melt the tilts you have not seen anything more chaotic than all of us trying to move the trucks out of the way without hitting each other.
Never a dull moment with Tony
a bit of an amendmant to my ealiar post about ray it turns out ray carnwell did m/e with a blue 141 on contract to davis turner from mid 70,s to 83 ish he packed in doing it when a car full of turks hit him from behind and ended up under his trailer wheels just over the turkish border it happened in the early hours of the morning while ray was asleep in his cab.he ran allover not just iran and when he watched destination doha he new most of them.i work with a friend of rays and he,s hoping to get some pics off him so as soon as i get em i,ll post em cheers
From my side, one last story on the infamous Tony Baker who left a vacuum in so many of our lives.…
Back in the mid 80’s, Tony allegedly loaded petroleum storage tank, steel spheres back from Doha to Cambrai in France. I understand that the spheres had been shipped out but were the wrong specification and had to be returned. It was a full tilt strip down as the load was just slightly wide, but not enough to require wide permits in Europe. Transit through Saudi & Jordan was fine and the decision had been made to transit through Syria to Turkey rather than using the Tartous to Volos ferry as Astran felt that the extra width was nominal and would not be a problem in Turkey.
The first problem, started at Darra as they were not used to foreign loaded vehicles being in transit from Darra to Babel Hawa which resulted in a convoy to Damascus customs, then another convoy to Aleppo, and then another convoy to the Babel Hawa border all of which involved loads of backsheesh and took about five days. Tony was so happy to get out of Syria and felt that entering Turkey was a breath of fresh air, however the first words he heard from the Turks was “Problem Arbi - Çok Para”
Even though Tony had an excellent command of the Turkish language the Polic were a constant nightmare requiring backsheesh (charitable giving) every 100 km and at every TIR Kontrol.
From entering Bulgaria all the problems were over and Tony eventually arrived in Cambrai France
He parked at the customs house on the day England played France in the world cup and beat them…The French customs had all taken portable TV sets into their offices to watch the match and after the game were seen throwing the TV sets into the cars with Tony asking them in his broken French had they enjoyed the game…….That evening Tony went to the local restaurant to celebrate “Baker style” and was last seen walking around checking the diners food and getting the locals to drink a toast with him. As the glasses were raised Tony said…. “F— the French and may all your babies have bald heads”
Great stories guys keep em coming. Much better than all falling out.
Just a quick query regarding your trip GS. You said about running empty to Italy and i have noticed other drivers sayng they ran abroard empty to load would it have not been possible to load in the uk for italy then reload for the middle east and help with the costs. Or was there a reason you couldnt do this.
kr79:
Great stories guys keep em coming. Much better than all falling out.
Just a quick query regarding your trip GS. You said about running empty to Italy and i have noticed other drivers sayng they ran abroard empty to load would it have not been possible to load in the uk for italy then reload for the middle east and help with the costs. Or was there a reason you couldnt do this.
Hi KR79
The main reason for running out empty to load was because as usual, loading instructions were normally only received a few days beforehand, and it was difficult to co-ordinate a load out at such short notice. For me,priority was always Astran loads, so to avoid any problems, once in posession of loading instructions, it was get to the place to load ASAP…to put it into perspective, Astran would pay the equivalent of what we would normally back load from the Commie block home for, so that we would run back empty to Rotterdam to load back for Doha…
GS
Thanks for clearing that up GS i thought it would be a logical enoung reason.
By the sound of things nowdays they wouldnt be so generous with the rates.
The chap standing on the cab roof looks quite like a chap they stop to talk to in destnation doha i think he was giving them advice about where to cross the desert
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Was the suitcase on the top bunk for the drivers clothes or the permits ? and whats that hanging from the tow hitch ?
The more i look at that photo , the better it looks.
How on earth did that truck make it to the M/E without top spots,cab flags,bullfighting spears etc,ect ?
Totally blingless motor - quality.
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the driver on the roof was frank white , and i also think that he is the same driver that the doha drivers talk to in the doha movie , maybe i`m wrong
JAWS:
Hi TC
Roger has described a 68 spec trailer to a T including the spread axle toilet seat, but I think your asking for the G at the beginning of the number plate.
The Transit plate you asked about was fitted to both ends of the vehicle. I think I still have one some were. If you want a close up of it I will try to dig it out and take a close up photo of it for you if you want. I think the Trailer you are talking about also had Arabic (I am not sure which trailer had it on it may have been Rabbit’s Trl) on but I will have to SMS Chris to see when he is in the UK so that I can ask him if he has any photos of the vehicle you are trying to Model.
I may take a little time to gather the correct information but it will be worth it.
Regard Jaws aka Ian
Hi Ian
Pics as promised, not quite finished yet, but nearly there.
waiting for the last of the decals, so it should look pretty good when they are on, thanks for your help with the detail required
The chap standing on the cab roof looks quite like a chap they stop to talk to in destnation doha i think he was giving them advice about where to cross the desert
Was the suitcase on the top bunk for the drivers clothes or the permits ? and whats that hanging from the tow hitch ?
The more i look at that photo , the better it looks.
How on earth did that truck make it to the M/E without top spots,cab flags,bullfighting spears etc,ect ?
Totally blingless motor - quality.
[/quote]
the driver on the roof was frank white , and i also think that he is the same driver that the doha drivers talk to in the doha movie , maybe i`m wrong
[/quote]
I Thought I recognised that reg no. I bought this at Gaydon last week .Any clues as to who may be driving this ? Also what period did the livery change , I’m assuming pre Destination Doha days ■■ .I’m sure the ex Astran drivers on here will know.
Reddesertfox:
To my knowledge the Astran livery changed to Red & Yellow in the early eighties which is post destination Doha
they were also red/yellow in the early 70`s , i have a number of pics with some scania 110 / 140 models , also red/yellow , but i think that these colours were the early demo colours from scania , because these models also had the scania decals on the doors on both sides
