hi germangeezer, the guy in the picture looks very much like Derek Garrard who used to work for Simon International and also Mavertons, Chapman and Ball and M & C. I’ve just spoken to him and he is going to look at trucknet as soon as he can and say yay or nay to it being him, but he did say he was the only driver on Simons with a beard.
Chazzer
no chazzer the guy in the picture is terry cagin i was testing ians memory, terry was a bit of a character but a really nice bloke, he was a bit of a dogsbody for jeff if anything needed doing terry was the boy.
sorry germangeezer, the piccy is a bit blurred but I’m sure Bestbooties remembers Derek.
The time I knew Derrick Garrard,he was driving for an o/d subbie on Chapman & Ball by the name of John Wischusson.I never knew him when he was driving for anyone else,he was not driving for SI at the same time I was.That guy in the pic doesn’t look stocky enough for Dedrrick.However,Terry Cagein was,he was a smashing lad that had a serious drink problem but he’d do anything for anybody.
germangeezer do I know you?
im not sure if we were there at the same time ian, i was working in the yard from early 79 till just befor the balloon went up with jeff, i left just befor he started moving it all up to stoke, in the yard in hackney i was working with bud,fritz the welder,mick rodgers gingek the turkish sprayer and jimmy hill i was only i kid then, some of the lads you probably knew there; young chris curtin (rip)fred topham in the office, the drivers lee chase,big john galland,mark the kiwi, john and peter barnett, taffy, robin pettit the 2 mad jocks who were doing greece in the 2 old silver roadways atki borderers quite a few more but the names elude me at the moment ive got so some more photos to post you might remember their names, regards paul
by the way ian those two f89s came back from saudi like that they were doing internals down there, but if i remember correctly the guy who brought them back got sacked over a missing gearbox we needed, he told jeff they wernt on his manifest and the saudis took it off at the customs jeff didnt believe and sacked him on the spot even tho everybody thought he was telling the truth except jeff who thought he had sold it on the way home!
germangeezer:
im not sure if we were there at the same time ian, i was working in the yard from early 79 till just befor the balloon went up with jeff, i left just befor he started moving it all up to stoke, in the yard in hackney i was working with bud,fritz the welder,mick rodgers gingek the turkish sprayer and jimmy hill i was only i kid then, some of the lads you probably knew there; young chris curtin (rip)fred topham in the office, the drivers lee chase,big john galland,mark the kiwi, john and peter barnett, taffy, robin pettit the 2 mad jocks who were doing greece in the 2 old silver roadways atki borderers quite a few more but the names elude me at the moment ive got so some more photos to post you might remember their names, regards paul
Paul,
Must have met you at some time then.
Yes i remember a lot of those names,who could forget Robin Pettit,(The poison dwarf),little mincing pratt with his ,“Yes Jeff,no Jeff,three bags full Jeff”.Spoke like a school teacher,gave the impression that he was clever!I inherited the F12 that he had been using in Saudi on internal work.On my first trip in it to Baghdad,got pulled off the road in Germany because of the amount of engine oil being chucked out of the exhaust.Managed to get into Austria,but it was using so much oil I had to go into the Volvo agents in Graz where the engine was stripped and the foreman wanted to know what knobhead had been running without an air filter tor a long time!
I actually got the poison dwarf to admit to me that,“When running heavy in Saudi,I found you could get another 20 hp if you took the air filter out!”
I knew Lee Chase very well,also Fred Topham,Jeff Ottway,Nick the Greek,Jeff Ruggins RIP,Black John.
I was in the Stoke yard when the balloon went up and we were raided by the Bill and Customs.It was Terry Cagein and my mate from up here Ray Bailey who was helping Terry home,when they were picked up in Dover.
Lots of memories,happy days.Have you seen my photos on the link which include quite a few of my time on SI.
Speak to you again.
yes iv been looking at ferdys site for ages thats were i got the si connection from, that was one of the names i forgot, jeff otway he was driving that battered old pale blue 88 240 for a bloke named alan if i recall doin a lot of the courtald work down to greece then he came back on for jeff, just been told very recently that jeffery has just sold up his waste firm and is calling it a day
ian were you still there when jeff bouight those ex ferrymaster step frames? 3 loads split between 2 trailers all handballed in the yard, cocoa butter on the bottom, wrappers on the top 30 tons in all, till 1 turned over inside the boat going to zeebrugge! we was there a week clearing that lot up, felt really sorry for a little pakistani man next to him he had just sold his shop and bought a brand new vw golf driving it overland home it was about a foot high when they got it of the ship!