Cant make out the Dow reg from this photo or the location!
Seems the driver was Sean Morbey and he had been walloped up the back by an Italian lorry which pushed him into the lorry in front. Must have been a fair old shunt to do that much damage.
sandway:
Cant make out the Dow reg from this photo or the location!
Well done Sandway, that photo has been driving me mad for years and now I am certain that I finally know where it was taken. 
When I first joined Trucknet that photo was already on the site but I have no idea who posted it. Straight away when I saw it I knew that I had been there some thirty years before but where was it. 
I recognised the man in the photo, it was another Dow driver called Anthony Massey but Tony as far as I could remember drove a Ford Transcontinental and the photo shows Billy Jones M.A.N. registration number NNF 422W with his Liverpool F.C. sticker in the window with what could of been Billy in the driving seat so where was Tony’s Transcon, I presumed that it was just off the photo.
So I wondered which docks would you find four British trucks parked up and I went through all the docks in the U.K. and non of them that I could think of resembled the photo.
When you reposted it the other day it got me started again going through all the docks that I had visited over the years. It was only when I took a closer look at that pile of rubbish and thought that some of those boxes look like those Bolser wood boxes that they used to keep fish in, then the penny finally dropped after all these years and I thought, how ever did I forget that one, it’s The Fish Market in Hamburg.
It was a favourite parking place for all the Brit drivers who were delivering around the Hamburg area, it was also the place where you parked up if you were shipping back on the Hamburg to Harwich Prinz Line Ferries. Yes, you could say it was much better than parking around Aldgate and The Red Lion. 
I have tried putting on the Google Earth link so I hope that it works.
google.com/maps/@53.5463861 … 312!8i6656
I hardly recognised the place, I bet that they won’t let you park a forty foot tilt or fridge trailer there now as it looks like a parking place for travelling motorhomes.
Tony Massey was a great lad and as far as I can remember he was always very professional at what he did. He left Dow a couple of years after I had joined them and sometime later he became an owner driver doing continental runs.
I don’t know who put this photo on of Tony’s Scania so the credit goes to them.
Sean Morbey used to post on here as Uncle Plug but he has not been on for over two years now. He used to run out of the Swindon depot as he lived somewhere around there. In fact I am not sure if he was an ex Radclive driver as he certainly knew most of them.
I remember meeting him with Derick Robbo at the Mocamp once, that must of been about 1986 ish and I have never heard about that accident in Italy. I bet that he lost his accident free bonus for that year.
Great post mushroomman. Glad you got to the bottom of where it was eventually. Back in January I mentioned that Ian Morgan, ex R H Stevens driver, knew a Dow driver from Stockport by the name of Mick Downes. Does the name ring any bells.
Hi Sandway, it’s a shame that Ian hasn’t joined Trucknet as it sounds like he might of had some great memories of working for firms around the Manchester area. I can’t remember anybody called Mick Downes who worked for Dow but there was a guy called Mick Clews who lived in the Macclesfield area and on one of your posts I thought that you mentioned that Ian might of lived in “Macc”.
On the post above I should of said that I started going through all the ports, docks and harbours where I had shipped out of, delivered to or cleared customs over the years, while I was trying to find out which port it was where that photo was taken.
It’s something that I have never really thought about but after I had jotted down all the places that I could remember at the time I was surprised to see how many ports I had actually visited and I have a feeling that you might of visited more than one or two on your travels.
So I have decided to mention the ones that I can remember along with some of the customers who Dow pulled for.
Hull, when shipping out with North Sea Ferries to Euro port/ Rotterdam and Zeebrugge, Belgium.
Great Yarmouth, loading at Norfolk Line / Falcongate with oil pipes for Diyarbakir, Turkey.
Ipswich, shipping out on The North Sea Ferries freighter which only took twelve drivers to Rotterdam. The rest of the cargo was unaccompanied Ferrymasters trailers.
Harwich, sailing on the Prinz Line ferries to Hamburg and Bremerhaven West Germany. We often used Prinz Line if we were going to Poland or if we were transiting East Germany.
Ramsgate, sailing on The Sally Viking Line Ferry to Ostende, Belgium.
Dover Eastern Docks using Townsend Thoresen ships to Zeebrugge and Calais.
Portsmouth, Brittany Ferries to Saint Malo, France.
Gdansk Shipyards, Poland, clear customs and deliver with loads for International Marine Paints from Gateshead.
Schiaffino Line from Ostende/ Belgium and Dunkirk France to Dover.
Boulogne France, Townsend Thorenson to Dover.
La Coruna Spain, clear customs at the port with Massey Ferguson tractors.
Civitavecchia Italy, clear customs and deliver James Halstead floor coverings from Radcliffe Manchester.
Taranto and Bari Italy, clear customs and tip in the docks with Courtaulds textiles from their Greengate, Middleton warehouse and their factory in Coventry.
Venice Italy, tip and reload with The Royal Ballet props and scenery, had to stay there for about ten days.
Zadar Yugoslavia, deliver railway lines from the British Steel Corporation in Stockton on Tees which were loaded straight onto a ship that was going to Pakistan.
Split Yugoslavia, deliver Massey Ferguson tractors from their Urmston factory in Trafford Park which were loaded onto an Iranian ship.
Belgrade Yugoslavia, port on the River Danube where we used to do customs and offload into their warehouses with goods from the Courtaulds factory in Greenfield, Flint, Deeside and I.C.I. chemicals from their Heywood distribution centre.
Pancevo south of Belgrade on the River Danube where we used to load light bulbs from the Tesla Light factory and clear customs in the docks just down the road. If you started loading at 7 a.m. you always finished customs by mid day. All the loads went to an old woollen mill on Huddersfield Road in Birstall, West Yorkshire.
Piraeus docks/Athens Greece, cigarettes from Rothmans in Spennymoor, County Durham and International Paints at Felling near Gateshead. The cigarettes used to go straight into the bond on the docks and the marine paint used to go to the dry dock which was near by.
Volos Greece, carpet making machinery from Cobbled Engineering, Roman Road, Blackburn that had to go out to one of the Greek Islands. Cleared customs and off loaded on the quayside.
Izmir Turkey, deliver Leyland parts from Lancashire, Ford parts from Daventry, Perkins engines from Peterborough and Courtaulds textiles from Spondon near Derby.
Izmit docks Turkey, 40 foot lengths of pressed steel from the British Steel Corporation in Stockton on Tees. They were used in making truck wheels which were loaded straight onto a Libyan or it might of been a Egyptian ship.
I have recently tried to locate on Google Earth where most of these factories in the U.K. were where we loaded from but sadly it looks like some of these companies have now disappeared.
Regards Steve.
DOVER DOCKS. 1
DOVER DOCKS. 2
DOVER FROM THE CLIFFS. A
DOVER DOCKS. 3
EUROPORT, HOLLAND. SUNDAY MORNING.
ZEEBRUGGE, BELGIUM. NIGHT SAILING.
VENICE, ITALY. ROYAL BALLET TOUR.
VENICE.
This is a great pic Mushrooman - I think there are 3 Dow motors there- I’m guessing one was yours?
Just fyi, the Sealink ship is the Cambridge Ferry, which apparently sailed out of Dover between March & December 1987, incase you don’t have a date on the pic.
Looks like Tom & Jerry were out in force that day, and looks like the back end of a Bowker wagon & drag on the left - PDB maybe?
Cheers, Keith
Hi Keith, thanks for the info and now you have just reminded me of another port that I had forgotten about, Dover Western Docks where the Sealink Ferries usually used to sail from.
The trouble is that now I can’t remember if I sailed from Dover to Ostend or Dunkirk to Dover but I do remember going on to the lower deck and that there was a train parked there.
For many years I thought that it was The Orient Express but I found out a couple of years ago that it was in fact a train that was called The Golden Arrow that ran from London to Paris and it might of connected to The Orient Express, maybe somebody will know.
I never put any dates on my photos so you are correct to say that the photo was taken in 1987 as Dow finished not too long after that and if you look at the first photo, Dover Docks 1 you might just be able to make out my truck parked next to the lamp post on the right hand side.
The four of us were stuck weekending in Dover so instead of spending the day in The Albion or The East Cliff Hotel we decided to go for a walk along the cliff tops. I wonder how many more drivers actually made the effort to do something like that.
It was quite interesting walking along the tops as we came across a couple of old world war two observation posts and what looked like old anti aircraft gun emplacements and it certainly was bloody windy up there. 
I can’t remember the names of this Dow driver from the Swindon depot and his wife but we had quite a good week end.
Did you work for Tom and Jerry ?
They used to park up by The Prater Stadium in Vienna where most of the Western European trucks used to park up and at The Saint Valentine Hotel which was about half way between Salzburg and Vienna. I was once weekended with one of their drivers in Vienna called Mick, he was a good laugh was Mick.
Saint Valentine Hotel, Austria. 1980.
Saint Valentine, Austria. 2014.
Regards Steve.
kmills:
0This is a great pic Mushrooman - I think there are 3 Dow motors there- I’m guessing one was yours?
Just fyi, the Sealink ship is the Cambridge Ferry, which apparently sailed out of Dover between March & December 1987, incase you don’t have a date on the pic.
Looks like Tom & Jerry were out in force that day, and looks like the back end of a Bowker wagon & drag on the left - PDB maybe?Cheers, Keith
Yes definitely W. H. Bowker, and I think a drawbar trailer rather than a semi-trailer. Looking at the lettering, I’d say one of the pair of C-reg F7 drawbars that ran daily shuttle services between Croydon and Eindhoven:
C401 GRN Volvo F725 by Chris Gardner, on Flickr
G’day Mushrooman - no I never worked for T & J - I remember dropping a pallet off at their yard once, thats about all I ever had to do with them.
I actually used to live just up the road from Dover, and spent many a happy time up on the cliffs over looking the harbour. For me there was a real ‘buzz’ about the place - I always enjoyed shipping out -and back in - didn’t matter to me if there was a Force 10 gale blowing - I still enjoyed it.
I used to say that I wanted my ashes to be scattered from the top of the cliffs - but having gone back there a couple of years ago, I’ve changed my mind. How times change - not a UK registered truck in sight - the magic had gone.
I’ve tipped / re-loaded at a few places in & Vienna, but I’ve never been to the St.Valentine parking you mentioned.
Cheers Keith
Hi ALL, the Dover photo, kmills,sorry not me, too earlier for my most enjoyable time at Bowkers in the late 1990s the message, then, that tilt work was far easier and more time to your self than dedicated fridge work ,how foolish I was staying on fridges yes many hours spent at Dover back however most of the time trying to get some sleep whatever time of the day, I was all -ways bushed, just like Andrews liver salts ,get cleared and away, there was always some firm wanting the load like yesterday ,i never realised how different tilt work was …I did later…
I appreciate this is DOWS site, I used to work with Micky Dunston ex Dows on ACH .I think maybe others ex DOW also worked for ACH Alex??
Hi Chris, these are the only two Bowker photos that I took some time around 1982 ish going up Mont Blanc so you might of seen them somewhere on here before. I was running with one of our drivers called Jim Smethurst who had married a girl from Accrington. Jim used to work with one of these Bowker drivers at Bradley’s who he called Jag Joe.
We had all shared a table the night before at The Bakehouse and when I asked Jim why he had called him Jag Joe he told me that Joe used to have a Jaguar which he had managed to put a diesel engine in. It must have been very economical to run being a lorry driver so I just wondered Chris if Jag Joe worked at Hollin Bridge Street while you were there.
I have been trying to find the exact location on Google Earth of where I took those photos but the road has changed, I certainly don’t remember going through any tunnels around the Cerdon area although I bet that all the lads that went over The Blanc on their way to Italy will remember The Monument To The French Resistance.
google.com/maps/@46.0710785 … 312!8i6656
tourdetravoy.wordpress.com/hist … d-war-2-2/
Hi Keith, I have been thinking about the post that you made regarding the Sealink ship, The Cambridge Ferry. I thought that Sealink sailed out of Dover Western Docks but as you have mentioned that it sailed out of Dover Eastern Docks between March and December 1987 I wonder if was being used to help out Townsend Thoreson after the loss of The Herald Of Free Enterprise.
Peggy, there was a mention and a photo of Big Alex Christie on one of Rattlesnake Dave’s posts a few years ago which you might find interesting.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15072&p=171361#p171361
Regards Steve.
mushroomman:
Hi Chris, these are the only two Bowker photos that I took some time around 1982 ish going up Mont Blanc so you might of seen them somewhere on here before. I was running with one of our drivers called Jim Smethurst who had married a girl from Accrington. Jim used to work with one of these Bowker drivers at Bradley’s who he called Jag Joe.We had all shared a table the night before at The Bakehouse and when I asked Jim why he had called him Jag Joe he told me that Joe used to have a Jaguar which he had managed to put a diesel engine in. It must have been very economical to run being a lorry driver so I just wondered Chris if Jag Joe worked at Hollin Bridge Street while you were there.
I have been trying to find the exact location on Google Earth of where I took those photos but the road has changed, I certainly don’t remember going through any tunnels around the Cerdon area although I bet that all the lads that went over The Blanc on their way to Italy will remember The Monument To The French Resistance.
Thanks very much for those, and yes, I think you have posted them before. Always worth seeing again, though!
I’m afraid “Jag Joe” doesn’t ring any bells, although there were certainly a couple of ex-Jack Bradley drivers on the books. It was October 1982 when I joined, so perhaps it was someone who’d departed before I got there, although those motors were probably still on the fleet.
Hi Chris thanks for the reply, I am now wondering if I must of taken those photos in 1980 or in 1981.
Whenever somebody mentions the name of Jack Bradley I always for some reason picture in my mind one of his red International Loadstars crawling up the A56 on the Haslingden Bypass. 
Regards Steve.
ERF-NGC-European:
0
Mick Dunston if I’m not mistaken?
David
5thwheel:
ERF-NGC-European:
0Mick Dunston if I’m not mistaken?
David
Sorry! I should have said: I found the pic on line and thought to pop it on here. I’m sure someone from the former Dow fraternity will enlighten you though! robert
First photo shows TNF 102X before the demise of Dow in 87 whilst second photo shows later reincarnation. It seems John Harrison of Bellgate bought a number of Dow lorries when they were sold off. Later Ken Taylor Transport had TNF 102X but it had its problems with head gaskets eating one every trip it did to Italy.
