Hello Sheeplady, I don’t know if you worked for Astran in 1980 but if you did can you remember an Astran driver who used to drive a Jaguar ?.
Regards Steve
mushroomman:
Hello Sheeplady, I don’t know if you worked for Astran in 1980 but if you did can you remember an Astran driver who used to drive a Jaguar ?.Regards Steve
Hullo Steve,
Did he have a Stepframe box with it ? 
Cheers, Archie.
Archie Paice:
mushroomman:
Hello Sheeplady, I don’t know if you worked for Astran in 1980 but if you did can you remember an Astran driver who used to drive a Jaguar ?.Regards Steve
Hullo Steve,
Did he have a Stepframe box with it ?
Cheers, Archie.
He could of done Archie, I don’t think that he left it at The Zoo 
.
SheepLady:
If this is you … give us a story
My goodness, was he born old…
mushroomman:
Hello Sheeplady, I don’t know if you worked for Astran in 1980 but if you did can you remember an Astran driver who used to drive a Jaguar ?.Regards Steve
Yes I did work there then Steve - but cant really remember. What model of Jaguar? See if that jolts my memory. How come you know about this anyway! Or is this another angle to the “Do you remember where this is?”!
Reddesertfox:
SheepLady:
If this is you … give us a storyMy goodness, was he born old…
That’s a nasty comment
SheepLady:
mushroomman:
Hello Sheeplady, I don’t know if you worked for Astran in 1980 but if you did can you remember an Astran driver who used to drive a Jaguar ?.Regards Steve
Yes I did work there then Steve - but cant really remember. What model of Jaguar? See if that jolts my memory. How come you know about this anyway! Or is this another angle to the “Do you remember where this is?”!
Hi Alison, I think that I spoke to Trevor Long once or maybe it was twice in 1980 but I do remember him telling me a story that had happened a few weeks before. It seemed that Trevor was back in the yard and was after a lift home and somebody who worked there who drove a Jaguar offered to give him a lift. As they were a bit low on petrol they pulled into a garage and the two drivers were allegedly spell bound watching a young girl in a micro skirt who was filling up her car in front of them. They were mesmerized that much that the guy who owned the Jag actually filled it up with diesel 
.
I just wondered if you or anybody else had heard of this story as it seemed a bit strange to have a Jaguar sitting in the yard for three or four weeks at a time, mind you I suppose that you wouldn’t use that much petrol over the year.
Regards Steve.
mushroomman:
Hello Sheeplady, I don’t know if you worked for Astran in 1980 but if you did can you remember an Astran driver who used to drive a Jaguar ?.Regards Steve
I thought they all did 
Wheel Nut:
mushroomman:
Hello Sheeplady, I don’t know if you worked for Astran in 1980 but if you did can you remember an Astran driver who used to drive a Jaguar ?.Regards Steve
I thought they all did
One would, wouldn’t one!
Steve - I’ve got this image in my mind now of an old dark Jag parked in the yard… but I’m not sure if you’ve planted it there! Hadn’t heard that story before and I’m sure you know that if Trevor said it, then…
Trevor was a good ol’ sort… I think I’ll have a photo of him somewhere.
SheepLady:
Reddesertfox:
SheepLady:
If this is you … give us a storyMy goodness, was he born old…
That’s a nasty comment
Not nasty…Just naughty…
[Nobody can be expected to remember the names of every driver who went down that way in the seventies and eighties but eventually somebody may come along and say I remember that incident or I remember that, was that you .
I am always fascinated when I read about how people like yourself struggled to do the job in the early days so please share your stories with us.
Maybe you can remember a few more Lancashire companies like Jenkinsons of Salford, Eric Hunwick and David Duxbury who I am fairly sure you may of came across on your travels.
Regards Steve.
[/quote]
I’ve got a photo here of a Jenkinson truck, Trevor the driver was a good mate. At one time he went out with Penny who worked in Michel Whittles office. We did allot of work for British Aerospace. I’ll tell more about them later.
Mostly though names were never mentioned, we’d mainly just meet up in the middle of no where, have a cup of tea together, then off on our way. One nice touch was at the top of Tief mountain, I’d stopped very late at night, so I put a note on the window. Do Not Disturb. I was awoke late in the morning with a cup of tea. Cant remember now who from.
Right so. After I got back to Jeddah with ten bob in my pocket, parked up on a bit of waste land for three days, a few dead donkeys laying around for company. Some one told me I may be able to get work and sent me in the direction of a firm called Gulf Link.
GulF Link had loads of test demic trailers, mainly about 28ft long with 850 tyres on them, mainly on the metal. They were so old that the necks weren’t long enough and the truck and trailer chassis met on anything less than dead flat ground. They were all painted maroon. They had two very old scammel prime movers and there idea was to connect a trailer on the back with a dolly and draw bar, with another trailer on the back of that. More about that later.
So GL lent me about fifty quid and my next job was to jack up a few trailers and get three spare wheels, then heave them onto the trailer on my own, all in 130 deg heat.
The load was six cable reels, I’m told seven tons each. They were just fastened on with a cable threw them and they would rock back and forth. Trouble was, they would rock to the edge of the trailer and if one fell off it would turn the truck over as well. I had to stop a few times whenever I found a bulldozer or what ever, to push one back on.
I took that 1200 miles to the Qatar border, having changed three wheels on the way.
When I got back to Jeddah, The GL guy asked where the trailer was. So I said, at the border as you said. He Looked shocked!! He asked if I’d not seen all the maroon trailers down the desert. I was the first to ever get one there.
So I did a few more, then flew back home for a holiday, with a couple of grand in my pocket.
Welcome to this thread hlb, I for one am looking forward to some new pics and stories from yourself.
Post em up mate!! 
bullitt:
Welcome to this thread hlb, I for one am looking forward to some new pics and stories from yourself.Post em up mate!!
As I said earlier, only a few photo’s cos I kept putting the film in wrong. Then there was the time Saudi customs took the film out of the camera. 
Anyway I’ve no scanner at the mo.
GS OVERLAND:
ashbarns:
Hi Folks
Did anybody get the answer to where Gavins tyre shop was ■■
I cant see the answer anywhere.
I think it may be one of the villages in Doha that you see when running back to the border on the way home but got no idea what it may be called.
Give us a clue Gavin before its lost amongst a new set of photos.
daveWell done Dave. You are right. It is Al Karanah Punchery on the Salwa road heading back to Abu Samra. The name is written in Arabic on the block wall. He had a good line of nuts and bolts for tyre patches but nothing for tubeless repairs !!
GS
Wish i was clever like you Gavin, i thought it just said “kilroy waz here”.
Did you say the prize was 1hr FREE dive lesson.
Dave.
Reddesertfox:
Getting back to the ME Where is this then…
Hi Foxy
I think its Oman, some where en-route between Muscat and Salalah, near the Yemen border.
Dave.
ashbarns:
Reddesertfox:
Getting back to the ME Where is this then…Hi Foxy
I think its Oman, some where en-route between Muscat and Salalah, near the Yemen border.
Dave.
It could also be the old road to Abbah though it looks a bit to posh.
I’ve found some great photo’s of the road, though it looks tarmacked here.
So about the great Gulf Link road train.
They started putting it together as I was leaving with another trailer. First was the Scammel prime mover, about 30ft long, then a draw bar and 40ft trailer with two containers, then a draw bar and a low loader with one container on the neck with sleepers supporting the other end, then another container tilted over the back wheels with more sleepers.
It must have been about 130 feet long.
I met up with them again at the top of Tief mountain on my way back. They’d got part way up the mountain, but found a bend they could not get round. It took them the rest of the week to sort the mess out. Dunno what happened after that, I moved on to better paid jobs. Did they ever get to Doha??
Maybe some one can answer this question. Another job I did, was some containers from Jeddah to, cant remember where. But me and another bloke took them, after about three trips, he got fed up of them, so we looked in the back of the containers. Fire bricks, 8ft high and 8ft wide, 40ft long, no pallets or anything.
Any one know what it would weigh, we re-conned about 130 tons on the trailer. Don’t know, but we had to go very slow.
ashbarns:
Reddesertfox:
Getting back to the ME Where is this then…
Hi Foxy
I think its Oman, some where en-route between Muscat and Salalah, near the Yemen border.
Dave.
Not this time Dave, By the way, did you do Salalah ?
davemackie:
New week new photo, where is this.
Dave.
Hi Dave, is it in the Caransebes area on your way to reload maybe in Hungary 
.