Hi all. Excellent pics.Wasn’t Tye Jarvis manager for H.J Atlas and wasn’t it owned by an Iranian or am i mixed up.
I never saw Atholls motor in DTs colours,i only remember it in blue.
Who was the driver of the non sleeper scania I vaguely remember Alvin on Simons going down with a non sleeper.Mike
keith the thief:
jimbo im [zb] on a computer but my mate newmercman is gona put a picture on soon it was on french plates when i brought it but was supplied from switzerland and sold as a kenworth even had a kenworth makers plate good tool though cat 3406 attac rt9513 fuller with oil cooler rad in the front and oil pump on the box to circulate the gear oil i run a 500 143 at the time the foden run rings round it on the hills and good on squirt as well believe it or not twin air seats both heated a/c lot of spec for then
Hi Keith, mine was a demonstrator for ■■■■■■■ in Brussels and has a massive spec (for a Foden from 1991 anyway), it has heated air sprung seats with armrests and headrests, electric windows, air conditioning, trailer brake, webasto night heater which heats and circulates the coolant in the engine, fuel heater, shaver sockets, Jake Brake, air suspension the list goes on and on.
Piston broke:
I’ve always followed this thread avidly because, like so many others, it was my dream to do the Middle East but, like so many others, I never did… The stories are so interesting and very evocative but the photo’s bring it all to life…
Brilliant pics! Thanks Keith and NMM
I was the same. First Astran truck i saw was the 142 in the truck mag advert. I was a 14 year old school kid then and was always day dreaming about taking that to the middle east!
bullitt:
Hello all, great to see this thread is still going. Cant believe it was almost seven years ago when I first started it and now at 163 pages!!!
I see there are some new contributors, all the stories are still great reading!
Its good to know that the Brits are still getting down that way, enjoyed Keith the Thiefs tale of his latest jaunt.
cheers all, Bullitt.
Hello Rick, where have you been for the last eight months writing about your memories in the Yugoslav wars I hope. So when is your book “A Bullitt In The Balkans” coming out .
O.K. tin hat, bullet proof vest, Tacksi .
Regards Steve.
Hi Steve, had some personal (zb) to sort out, kept me busy for a few months. Good to see the thread is still going strong with some new contributors
As for the book, not written it yet mate but watch this space, you never know.!!
Here Crow is’nt that little Jerry (Skippys) White with The Prior fridge on?
The Athol roadtrain belonged to Dereck Rance after Him, I remember fitting them tilt covers in Dartford one afternoon after we’d come up from Thessalonica with textiles on, (easier job when loaded) thats not the origional trailer btw, I think Dereck sold it on to a Bulgy. That lorry was worked to death & overloaded wherever it went, good craic Dereck was to run with & a ■■■■ good bloke to know when you had a mechanical. He could put most blokes to shame reversing an “A” frame too.
Cant remember who s White John but I remember driving one back tractor only with a cab full of Mike Smiths drivers all ■■■■■■ after a visit to the casino in Falluja. to where we were all parked in the desert at Haswa, inc the Male Model, Pete Stackhouse to name but a few. If anything rode worse than an 89 it was those bleeding Whites.Happy days eh ,I suppose they were until our US friends knackered everything up, in the years that i drove to Iraq not one single case of aggravation from either the Police or Customs or indigenous population no car bombs nothing I m no politician John but you don t need a crystal ball to work out whats going to happen in Afghanistan once the coalition forces leave more murder and mayhem. Inthe 1800s the British fought 3 wars against the Afghans and did nt win 1 history does nt repeat itself or does it.You stay with the Canucks mate they seem to have more sense than their neighbours, regards Crow.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Cant remember who s White John but I remember driving one back tractor only with a cab full of Mike Smiths drivers all ■■■■■■ after a visit to the casino in Falluja. to where we were all parked in the desert at Haswa, inc the Male Model, Pete Stackhouse to name but a few. If anything rode worse than an 89 it was those bleeding Whites.Happy days eh ,I suppose they were until our US friends knackered everything up, in the years that i drove to Iraq not one single case of aggravation from either the Police or Customs or indigenous population no car bombs nothing I m no politician John but you don t need a crystal ball to work out whats going to happen in Afghanistan once the coalition forces leave more murder and mayhem. Inthe 1800s the British fought 3 wars against the Afghans and did nt win 1 history does nt repeat itself or does it.
You can’t really blame the yanks for the situation.It all seems to have started going pear shaped with the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the Russians had been de stabilising the whole region by supporting and arming different opposing ethnic and tribal groups both against each other and against the Israelis since at least the 1960’s and ironically it all then came back to bite them in Afghanistan.
One thing is for sure looking back I’m not sure that I would have wanted to do Asian work thinking about the actual political climate there as it stood when I started out from 1980 on.There’s no way that I would have wanted to run through Iran and/or Afghan with a truck with GB on the back after 1979 for example or Iraq in 1991 let alone now when it would be difficult to tell who’s friendly or has taliban type sympathies.
I think what you’re describing seems to have been a small window of opportunity when things were stable over a wide enough area of asia to make the job safe enough to be viable,for a while . But the fact that’s probably no longer the case isn’t really the Americans fault.
As for your experience maybe that might have been different if you’d have had anything of remotely Israeli origin on board without realising it and that booze up at the casino might have resulted in a few problems if that had been in Saudi.
Plenty of booze ups in Saudi in the 70’s and 80’s at BAC (Now BAE) in fact their club at Dahran had a Saudi guard outside and most of the illicit booze (sid) was distilled by the Brits in BAC…
Products from Isreal have been entering Saudi for many years and was just re-packaged to show produce of the Lebanon, also they now accept Ford and Marks & Spencer both of which have Jewish Links
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Cant remember who s White John but I remember driving one back tractor only with a cab full of Mike Smiths drivers all ■■■■■■ after a visit to the casino in Falluja. to where we were all parked in the desert at Haswa, inc the Male Model, Pete Stackhouse to name but a few. If anything rode worse than an 89 it was those bleeding Whites.Happy days eh ,I suppose they were until our US friends knackered everything up, in the years that i drove to Iraq not one single case of aggravation from either the Police or Customs or indigenous population no car bombs nothing I m no politician John but you don t need a crystal ball to work out whats going to happen in Afghanistan once the coalition forces leave more murder and mayhem. Inthe 1800s the British fought 3 wars against the Afghans and did nt win 1 history does nt repeat itself or does it.You stay with the Canucks mate they seem to have more sense than their neighbours, regards Crow.
I think it was Little Jerry’s White I remember the god thing on the sunstrip. I only went in one once not much room for a crowd of ■■■■ tanks in one I’m sure. Nowt good has come from invading any of them countries really has it? The whole of The M/E is a timebomb ticking away it will be Iran next they’ll want a row with. Its funny but I see very little of polotics on Canuck TV but drop into The US & its 24/7, I get paid extra to run US miles too so I’ll keep it shut for now!!! I hear Brooksy has been up visiting Ken a few times on His push bike for tea!!!
John just come back from the crusty crab where as per usual Ive stopped a few from going sour,I ve only ever driven one auto box which was for Mr Hindle it was a Renault what a total bag of rubbish ,he had 4 and also afew DAF autos I believe his entire fleet is now autos according to the new owner of the Hindle empire auto is standard and you have to pay a premium to get a manual change,I know i m a member of the old school but how you reverse a heavy load up atight hill without a clutch is beyond me no doubt i ll have to go to school and learn how the real drivers do it. Crow.CF it goes deeper than that your friends the USA armed the Taliban leader OBLaden in an attempt to drive the Russkis out which from whichever viewpoint you have succeded, more probably the Russian bear said ■■■■■■■■ to this we re offski let the Yanks sort it out. Ergo what happens next well we all know OSB is no longer flavour of the month with the resulting debacle,this ongoing feud beteen Muslims and so called Christians will go on for ever its like the Crusades all over again and theres enough evidence all over Greece and Turkey to support that. Salaam Ali Kum.Crow.
I vaguely remember Alvin on Simons going down with a non sleeper.Mike
for the next
writing about your memories in the Yugoslav wars I hope. So when is your book “A Bullitt In The Balkans” coming out 
.
But the fact that’s probably no longer the case isn’t really the Americans fault.