Dirty Dan:
Hi all! Dont let this thread die.Some stories and pictures guys:-)
What happend to the keith the thife?Did he finnaly get his load out of customs?
Reg Danne
The Thiefs in Port Said in Egypt, I had a text off Him today, they are impounded in The Port as 20 Egyptians where killed by The Israeilis last night somewhere up the road, He’s been loaded now for 7 weeks 
& is a fair way off yet.
mushroomman:
A lot of the lads will remember John Yorkstone Paxton from Scotland
JYP was from just up the road from where I live now, near Upwood Cambridgeshire - and he definitely had a grey tilt cos’ it had his name in HUGE letters end to end Steve 
jj72:
mushroomman:
A lot of the lads will remember John Yorkstone Paxton from ScotlandJYP was from just up the road from where I live now, near Upwood Cambridgeshire - and he definitely had a grey tilt cos’ it had his name in HUGE letters end to end Steve
He used to pull a stepframe Assured Freight/Argos Forwarding tilt as I recall, did’nt have much to do with Him but used to load home for Argos some trips…
Dan its going to be hard to keep to keep this thread going most of the tales seem to have been told not surprising after 160 pages . The exception seems to be Chris Arbon on that American junk thread. I ll abbreviate his name to Carbon as that is what comes out of most truck exhausts. We ll have to wait until Keith the Thief returns from his epic trip to get some real input. Have a nice day Crow.
Hello Geoffrey, I don’t think that all the tales, even the tall ones will ever be told as most of them have been taken to the grave by now along with their owners. It’s up to people like you to keep these tales alive as you must have hundreds of them to tell a experienced man like yourself.
I hope that Keith The Thief is safe and that he is on nights out and not trip money.
Keep smiling you cheerful fellow, there is always someone less fortunate than yourself you know.
Regards Steve.
B.T.W. If any of you lads haven’t yet read Chris Arbons thread Pictures Of Old American Cabovers and Other Junk on Trucknet then take a look, his stories are a great reminder of what continental driving in the early eighties was really like.
fly sheet:
jj72:
mushroomman:
A lot of the lads will remember John Yorkstone Paxton from ScotlandJYP was from just up the road from where I live now, near Upwood Cambridgeshire - and he definitely had a grey tilt cos’ it had his name in HUGE letters end to end Steve
He used to pull a stepframe Assured Freight/Argos Forwarding tilt as I recall, did’nt have much to do with Him but used to load home for Argos some trips…
Who was the scouser with a white Iveco who pulled for Assured Freight, not a bad lad once he cut the crap. It must have been 88 - 90
Guest:
cola cowboys by franklyn wood is for sale on amazon with a price range of £59.99 to £255.88think i might wait a while
jon
you can get it of Amazon for £6.99 now.
R143-500:
Boden. you wont find them on ebay you have to go to amazon.co.uk and type in cola cowboys in the search box. I did last night and there were indeed 5 copies starting from £59.99 to £289.00 so we had better get next years round the world cruise booked
\you can get it on Amazon for £6.99 now.
mushroomman:
Hello Geoffrey, I don’t think that all the tales, even the tall ones will ever be told as most of them have been taken to the grave by now along with their owners. It’s up to people like you to keep these tales alive as you must have hundreds of them to tell a experienced man like yourself.
I hope that Keith The Thief is safe and that he is on nights out and not trip money.
Keep smiling you cheerful fellow, there is always someone less fortunate than yourself you know.Regards Steve.
B.T.W. If any of you lads haven’t yet read Chris Arbons thread Pictures Of Old American Cabovers and Other Junk on Trucknet then take a look, his stories are a great reminder of what continental driving in the early eighties was really like.
G’day Steve,
With regards to Chris Arbon, He has already written a book in which he recounts some of his travels to the Middle East. I bought it some time ago (about two years I think) and quite enjoyed reading it. I don’t know where you can buy it now, but it’s called Roadtrip Ramatuelle.
Cheers, Archie.
See here. 
Truly Steve the most interesting things about our trips were the breakdowns. We had a steering wheel attendant Graham something who pushed the range change switch down whilst doing considerable speed. the next gear change down and despite having an inhibitor switch low range engaged and ripped the centres out of both the clutch plates,our Tony who was with him towed him I don t know how many miles to wherever i don t know but Tony will remember. Now this must have seemed like winning the lottery a passing Turk driver had of all things under his bunk 2 Fichtel and Sachs clutch plates for a SR 31,amazing wasn t it The same driver also lost both the batteries in France.I ve quite a few more in a similar vein they just make us appear to be incompetent, we were nt really honest. Regards Crow.
fly sheet:
The Thiefs in Port Said in Egypt, I had a text off Him today, they are impounded in The Port as 20 Egyptians where killed by The Israeilis last night somewhere up the road, He’s been loaded now for 7 weeks
bigr250:
Probably stuck in Egypt trying to negotiate his transit tax!!Ross.
I was only joking but got it right!!
Ross.
bigr250:
fly sheet:
The Thiefs in Port Said in Egypt, I had a text off Him today, they are impounded in The Port as 20 Egyptians where killed by The Israeilis last night somewhere up the road, He’s been loaded now for 7 weeksbigr250:
Probably stuck in Egypt trying to negotiate his transit tax!!Ross.
I was only joking but got it right!!
Ross.
Latest new is that the four of them are booked on a boat to Saudi on Thursday, been a long trip for sure 
Four drivers who need to seek medical help as to there sanity, 
life is to short to be a hero ,surley they have other things to do with their life the job as an overland trucker finished many moons ago ,things will never settle down in the ME in our life time so quit now guys while you still can .
Loosewire can t disagree with you forget the adventure as Mushroomman said weeks ago.Cash is always the driver and its supposed to open all doors and speak all languages it s a question of how much.I still reckon you re Rita have anice day. Crow.
Of course money is the point of going to work Geoff, I think it would be silly to do a job for twenty five years if you really hated it. When you totted up how many weeks you were away and you divided that by the number of hours worked, then there were driving jobs available back then that paid about the same and you were home in your own bed two nights a week 
.
I had an e-mail from Dave Shawcross last week, he had just been round to see Ken and mentioned that he was suffering badly with joints, his neck’, shoulders and his legs. I am sure that we all hope that he get better soon, he was one of the best on the road was Ken.
As you mentioned Mr Crow, you had more than your fair share of breakdowns by the sound of it, well I remember back in 1980 Ken broke down near Budapest when his water pump packed up on his Fiat Unic. After having no luck at getting it repaired he decided that the only thing that he could do was to get the train from Budapest up to Vienna and try and get one from there.
He had to wait for The Orient Express and was very disappointed to find that it was nothing like what it was in the films.
Could you imagine it, Inspector Piorot sitting down for dinner next to Ken sitting next to a Fiat water pump .
Get well soon Ken.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Truly Steve the most interesting things about our trips were the breakdowns. We had a steering wheel attendant Graham something who pushed the range change switch down whilst doing considerable speed. the next gear change down and despite having an inhibitor switch low range engaged and ripped the centres out of both the clutch plates,our Tony who was with him towed him I don t know how many miles to wherever i don t know but Tony will remember. Now this must have seemed like winning the lottery a passing Turk driver had of all things under his bunk 2 Fichtel and Sachs clutch plates for a SR 31,amazing wasn t it The same driver also lost both the batteries in France.I ve quite a few more in a similar vein they just make us appear to be incompetent, we were nt really honest. Regards Crow.
Hello bruv,the driver’s name was Graham Hazelhurst,he did indeed try to change gear at high speed with the range change button down instead of the overdrive.He succeeded in his endeavour, bending the gear lever in the process.I have some pics somewhere of the repairs in Gaziantep.It happened in the hills not far from Osmanye.I managed to get the truck to the restraunt at Osmanye,dropped the trailers and towed him Gaziantep.Graham was a strange guy,he was completely bald and he wore a full wig-it must have been like wearing a fur hat in the summer,as I recall he had 2 wigs, the problem was that they were both different styles and he looked completely different in one from the other.He shouldn’t have been doing the job really.He wouldn’t eat any kind of foreign food and he had a problem at Gaziantep cos all his “English” food was in the trailer box at Osmanye,he lived on eggs and bread for 2 days.We were really lucky meeting that Turkish driver,he had just come back from Austria and brought some spare parts with him.The gods were smiling on us that day 'cos he had the parts we needed and I was able to buy them off him and his cousin who had a little workshop fitted the clutch plates and we were back on our way to Baghdad 2 days later.It’s funny how some things jog your memory.I remember seeing one of the most strange sights near Osmanye,me and the 2 Daves, Ireland and Mason were in the hills having our breakfast,when up rolls a BRS truck,the driver got out of his cab walked to the edge of cliff,produced a set of bagpipes and played “Scotland the brave”, walked calmly over to us and asked if he could share our breakfast,at the same time a Turkish funeral was going past with the coffin on the roof rack of a car.We had our collective breakfast and the Scotsman (whose name I never knew) went merrily on his way,playing Scots porridge oats or some similar screeching sound,no doubt going to sing for his supper that evening.
Steve I m not saying that the job wasn t enjoyable. The last time I went to Baghdad was in 1984 which is 28 years ago. As more and more young hopefuls came on the job as per usual down went the rates. If you didnt leave Iraq with your belly tank full obviously economics played abig part and it was increasingly more difficult to get thru Habur without being sucked out. I cant remember how many womens mail order catalogues changed hands not to mention Italian ■■■ books. i was indeed the last one of ours to go after that we concentrated on Turkey for RJ and tractors to istanbul for George Hart who was is from Northallerton. Turkish tractor imports finished in 1985 we then took em to Greece .Georges Greek venture finished up a disaster as his Greek partners ripped him off good style culminating in a Court case which he had no chance of winning. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts eh, how very true.We then continued with our good friends RJ doing many loads of rubber to Ina Oki in Zagreb and the other place in Hungary Torok balint or something like that. RJ eventually lost the work to those rate cutting bleeders LKW Walter.We did however still continue to do a lot of work to Yugo for RJ and also Dornach from Coppull run by Paul Freeman ex Thompson Jewitt and those other thieving bleeders from Preston Ashworth Preece who more than anything contributed to the downfall of Ritas favourite Co Whittle International.Sorry it s not more exciting but i dont have the poetic licence that Carbon seems to have. Spoke to Ken via Skype yesterday no further on will let you know of further developments as and when,regards Crow.BTW the last job ever to Yugo was again RJ a full trailer of cholostemy bags from Sealand Ind Est.near Queensferry under UN Licence to Belgrade 1994. I was the only Brit truck on the road thru Czech and Hungary, a brand new border at Tompa no need to go thru the village as of old .The only truck at the border was me. Met the Importers on the Jugo side 2 very nice guys who paid for everything Yugo tax and Insurance lunch on the way down to Beograd at that cafe on the right was it called Malo Beograd or something like that parked at the Nacional overnight all parking marked out and pay for it not one foreign truck there just me all the rest MAK reg vehicles.Welcomed with open arms by all the Georges and Georgina. Customs the following day at the place where you saw the M East trailer abandoned later tipped just over the bridge over the Sava river turn right not a million miles from the BIP Brewery down a side street so narrow they had to saw a tree dow so i could get round the corner 32 Euro pallets all handball into a storeroom ,then back to near the customs with one of the guys riding shotgun to ensure fair play where i sold despite what Carbon says the diesel that i d bought in Hungary at the right price to the local spivs. You had to know what you were doing.Left there and made it to the White house despite it ■■■■■■■ down with rain and the tractor spinning and sliding all over the place even with careful use of the loud pedal.Reloaded from that PVC factory up towards Miscolz and back to UK.End of my middle east and eastern block odyssey.Crow. Iforgot Corrie was also on that trip not to Belgrade somewhere in Hungary he went Sahy. As it turns out it was his last trip aswell. We all went to work for Shaw Lovell after that. Crow.
Hi fly sheet. 7 weeks long time for a load,evan for a m/e trip…
Hope all goes well.Sound prettyscerry 20 killed thats nothing to play whit…
Have a good week end all!
fly sheet:
Dirty Dan:
Hi all! Dont let this thread die.Some stories and pictures guys:-)
What happend to the keith the thife?Did he finnaly get his load out of customs?
Reg DanneThe Thiefs in Port Said in Egypt, I had a text off Him today, they are impounded in The Port as 20 Egyptians where killed by The Israeilis last night somewhere up the road, He’s been loaded now for 7 weeks
That was an interesting post Crow , I thought that you might have a lot of memories to share so keep them coming.
Regards Steve.