Stanfield:
Found this on flickr taken by( cheese 1961) hope he wont mind.
0
no probs with the pic john you always share yours
Stanfield:
5thwheel:
Stanfield:
Found this on flickr taken by( cheese 1961) hope he wont mind.
0…and not a Tax Disc in sight!!!
David
This was taken apparently when they were for sale at auction, hence no tax disc.
And look John, despite all the transport cafe rumours they haven’t all got the same registration number 
.
I must of had a bit of grit in my eye that day when this photo was taken 
.
Regards Steve.
mushroomman:
Stanfield:
5thwheel:
Stanfield:
Found this on flickr taken by( cheese 1961) hope he wont mind.
0…and not a Tax Disc in sight!!!
David
This was taken apparently when they were for sale at auction, hence no tax disc.
And look John, despite all the transport cafe rumours they haven’t all got the same registration number
I must of had a bit of grit in my eye that day when this photo was taken
Regards Steve.
Looks like a “new” fleet 
O.K. Wheel Nut and Tony Taylor, pick yourself a decent trailer with a belly tank .
Oh you did do 
.
Regards Steve.
Excellent pics Steve, what a fine fleet they had very sad the way they fell by the wayside no doubt caused by some petty officials personal vendetta, reminiscent of that other big firm A1 TRANSPORT. Rgards Crow
Here’s that photo from another angle C/o (cheese 1961) very impressive fleet of motors
Thats a pretty impressive photo MM, I wonder if that is Stans Volvo breaking the line up, bang in the middle?? 
bullitt:
Thats a pretty impressive photo MM, I wonder if that is Stans Volvo breaking the line up, bang in the middle??
hi all,
to be honest,i have heard all the stories about dow and the registration numbers though i wasn’t aware,until i saw this image,that they were such a large player 
.
regards andrew.
Just out of intrest ,what happen at DOW,s to bring them to an end ,or did they just fold
Boatchaser:
Just out of intrest ,what happen at DOW,s to bring them to an end ,or did they just fold
Although we were at the time i suspect the biggest independant middle east firm in the uk, we did not go quite as far as some of the better known firms such as Astrans ,and transarabian, I think the furthest we went was Baghdad.
However,greed got to the bosses and they tried fiddling the taxman, the result was liquidation, putting us all on the dole.
Some of us got other International work, and some never went abroad again after Dow.
Quite a few of us that are left still have a reunion every year.
pete 359:
hi all,
to be honest,i have heard all the stories about dow and the registration numbers
regards andrew.
Burra Dah Andrew , (well I think thats how you spell it 
) I have been meaning to post this photo that I took somewhere in Hungary in the early eighties of Chris Turnbull’s Ford Transcontinental on Dave The Renegade’s thread South Wales Hauliers for over two years now but I never did get round to it 
.
Chris had a farm near Llantwit Major and subbed for Dow from the mid seventies until the firm finished in 1987. The only time that I saw him after that was one night when he was parked up near I.C.I. Heywood sometime in the mid nineties. I took him home, The Mushroom Lady made us some dinner and Chris had a shower which was always welcome. The rest of the night and the early hours of the morning were spent remembering the good old days and the people who we both knew years ago, a bit like Trucknet really .
It’s funny though as Chris always insisted that he kept the same trailer (not the one shown in that photo) which was one of the few that had “Saddle Tanks” on. Tony Taylor mentioned on the Astran/Middle East thread a couple of weeks ago that he and The Crow bought such a trailer when Dow folded and it reminded me of a trip that Lennie Frost did to Russia in the early eighties using Chris’s trailer. I did think about putting it on there and if I get time before the week end I shall try and write it down and post it.
Regards Steve.
Hi Steve,as you can see from the bottom picture,those side tanks were nothing but problems for us,one tank off the other one also being repaired.This was at Aksaray.Drivers were for ever losing the tank caps.The electric pump on the front of the trailer was always packing up,we had to change the rubber impeller many times.Do you know the reason why Dow fitted them instead of belly tanks?
hi this roger hambleton the volvo you are asking about tony and myself bought that n reg and also an m reg
the n reg was driven by frank andrews i drove the m and tony stuggled along in our daf 2600 we used to do turkey i can still remember the weekends at the harem hotel.great days!.reading your message brought a lot of memories back.
Hiya Tony, I have no idea why they fitted those tanks, they were there when I started at Dow in April 1980 although I have a slight feeling that one of the trailers fitted with those tanks was written off somewhere.
I am very pleased to say that John Roberts contacted me a couple of weeks ago to say that he was O.K. and because I had not seen him logged on here for quite a while I was getting a bit worried but it appears that he had forgotton his password. Glad to say that he has rejoined using the username of middle east jon.
He did tell me that he had been out for a pint with Ken Corrigan although Ken is still not 100 %.
John also said that he had just seen Harry Savage who has now finally retired so I hope that he told him to join Trucknet and to get some of his stories down on here
Get well soon Ken.
Regards Steve.
merlin2:
hi this roger hambleton the volvo you are asking about tony and myself bought that n reg and also an m reg
the n reg was driven by frank andrews i drove the m and tony stuggled along in our daf 2600 we used to do turkey i can still remember the weekends at the harem hotel.great days!.reading your message brought a lot of memories back.
Hello Roger and welcome to Trucknet .
I don’t think that we ever met but you and your Tony’s name was one of those names that I heard quite a few times many years ago. It would be great if you and Tony could share some of your Middle East or Commie Block driving experiences with us all on here.
Frankie Andrews was one of the blokes who I did my first trip to Turkey with, I suppose you know that he got killed when the tanker he was driving rolled over somewhere in France while he was working for Norbert Dentressangle. Sadly his wife Brenda died last year after losing her battle with cancer but before she died she gave Terry Smith a few of Franks old photos which he sent to me and I put them on a D.V.D. along with some more of my old Dow photos and sent it over to her. Terry said that she was over the moon when she received it and she passed away a couple of months later.
Here is a photo of Frank and Brenda which was taken in The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul when he was working for Dow.
Take care Roger.
Regards Steve.
i everyone,
Wow, this DOW thing is stirring some good old memories for a lot of people! Next time I chat to my dad (Tommy Madden) I will ask if he remembers what truck he had and if he can remember any good stories from back in the day. Someone mentioned Ken Singleton a few messages back, even I remember him and if I am right in thinking, it was down to him that I joined the Army 23 years ago and am just finishing now. Just like my dad, I have a driving job, for Roadways in Southampton. Oh well it is really good to see people chatting to each other about the good times.
Take care all and I will have a look at this thread regular and as soon as I get something from my dad I will put it on. I will also see if there are any photos in his house next time I go to Manchester.
See you caved in there Roger and joined
Hello mads065, I first met Ken Singleton on the 6th June 1973 on my second night of roaming in the Vitafoam factory in Maesteg. We, along with another five drivers were sleeping in the back of a thirty six foot trailer and I remember that Ken took me into the factory and asked one of the girls if she would cut me up a bed roll from one of the foam off cuts. We were all driving for Blue Dart Transport at the time and how I remember that day so well was because it was my 23rd birthday and it was also my demob day from the air force and the last day of my demobilisation leave. Ken took me under his wing so to speak and two years later when I was planning a trip overland through Africa Ken gave me his old machetti which he was issued with when he was in The Parachute Regiment. At that time Ken was driving for Portwood Drums in Oldham and he supplied me with all the Jerry cans that I needed for the trip.
I always kept in touch with Ken over the years and when I returned back to the U.K. some four and a half years later he was working for Dow and took me on a trip with him to Vienna. When we arrived back at Stockport he had a word with Roger and after an interview with Roger and then Carl I was offered a job with Dow.
I did write down the story about that trip to Vienna about three years ago and I sent a copy of it to Roy The Boy who said “it was a bit mundane” so I never bothered to put it on Trucknet, (after 43,000 words I realised that I wasn’t a good story teller).
As everybody knew Ken was a bit of a chain smoker and would often buy 400 cigarettes on the boat on the way out, 200 in Bucherest and 200 on the boat back into the U.K. It was very sad for me to see him with his oxygen mask on sat next to his oxygen bottle whenever I went round to see him. His daughter Jackie managed to get hold of me the night before Ken’s funeral and I remember that I was loaded for M.A.T. in M.I.F.T. in Trafford Park the following morning and then I had to reload at I.C.I. Macclesfield.
The funeral was at 9.30 a.m. at Wilmslow Cemetry so as soon as I was tipped I shot off down the A34 but I got stuck behind some slow moving traffic about three miles from the cemetry, much to my surprise it was Kens funeral cortege and I tagged on behind in my E.R.F. and forty foot empty flat trailer with my sheets over the back axles. I could see the hearse a couple of cars in front I had a strange feeling that Ken was smiling up at me .
It was great to see some of the other Dow lads who were there even though it was a working day and Dow had finished some seven years before although I can remember Alan Moss and Brian Ryder from the Air Freight office and young Hector Heathcote from the warehouse and I am not sure if Eric Etchells and Dave Shawcross were also there . Unfortunatly I couldn’t go to Kens wake which I think was in The Blue Bell Inn as I really did have to get back to work.
Good on yer Singo, R.I.P. Mate.
mushroomman:
Hey, I know this place! It’s between Klatovy and Strakonice in southern CZ; it changed over the years - new road with crawler lane was built parallel to the old one and the junction with the other road (187 acc to the sign in the pic) moved a bit… Susice to wherever it goes… Pribram perhaps.
Sorry, OT…
HI ROGER H ,HERE TALKING ABOUT FRANK ANDREWS HOW HE CAME TO DRIVE FOR US WAS ONE FRIDAY AFTERNOON IN A PUB ON THE DOCK ROAD IN LPOOL ,WE HAD JUST BOUGHT THE 2 VOLVOS OFF DOW AND WERE LOOKING FOR A DRIVER AFTER A LARGE QUANTITY OF ALE UP POPS FRANK AND SAYS NEVER BEEN ABROAD BEFORE BUT ILL HAVE GO, WE KEPT FRANK ON TILL WE DECIDED TO BUY 2 NEW TRUCKS
A 310 DAF & 111SCANIA HAD A WORD WITH ROGER D AND HE TOOK HIM ON.DOES ANBODY REMEMBER
KEN CORRIGAN OR JOHN OLDAKER(AKA POPEYE) .THE LAST TIME I MET CHRIS TURNBULL WAS IN DOVER MANY YEARS AGO I WAS HEADING FOR ITALY .IF I REMBER CHRIS MARRIED A GERMAN GIRL AND MOVED OVER THERE.ALBION NEVER KNEW EXISTED!