andy c I’m glad to hear that things have improved massively since I last worked for the Dutch. Horses for courses ,Andy. The bottom line is ; If you like being at home a lot don’t go to Holland looking for an easy life. Glad to hear about the sick pay.When I worked for DeRooy on the Dutch side as soon as any UK driver got sick they washed their hands of us & we had to revert to NHS & UK sick pay ( zero )
Thats the reason iam still there cant get them benifits with most uk hauliers and the job suits me ,see a lot of guys come and go mainly go after a few months , i always tell them the truth you dont big money for doing nothing !
But Andy, you are one of the drivers on Viz that have the The Knowledge.What you do overnight would take some drivers more than a week to get rid of. You are are either a Market Man or you aint ,& its as simple as that. 
things have obviously changed a great deal then. My dad was a driver for 20 years you see but had to pack up in 1995 due to ill health, so ive not had anything to do with the transport scene since ive started driving myself. He used to ship out of harwich to hoek alot and vice versa doing markets as they did back then and i remember he used to get alot of offers from dutch companies to go and work for them for good money but he didnt want to be away from me and my family all the time. I work for the same company my dad did now who still do alot of euro work but i cant get a look in due to a large amount of our friends from eastern europe doing that work. So this was the reason i asked about the dutch companies as i see this maybe my only route to doing euro work and like i said i only remember what they were like when i was kid. In fact i remember a few of the visbeen blokes back then were english when they had red dafs with the white writing! I even remember one guy who had a blue tilt city visbeen trailer! My eyes arent completely shut to what would be expected as long hours and being pushed to the limit is normal where i work now and ive being doing markets alot lately! Ive probably seen you in there Andy C if you have been down Western International and Spits!
They had the red cabs when they were in Hoddeston. They then moved to Colchester & changed the UK side to Dailyfresh & white motors.
well FINALLY got a letter back from Kogeko about 6 months after applying! There response we regret to inform you that you live to far from our transportation and customer routes?! Whats that mean?! I thought they had loads of brit drivers!
scaniav8power:
well FINALLY got a letter back from Kogeko about 6 months after applying! There response we regret to inform you that you live to far from our transportation and customer routes?! Whats that mean?! I thought they had loads of brit drivers!
I think they are trying to say ‘you’ve got no chance mate’, but not quite so bluntly. 
Simon:
scaniav8power:
well FINALLY got a letter back from Kogeko about 6 months after applying! There response we regret to inform you that you live to far from our transportation and customer routes?! Whats that mean?! I thought they had loads of brit drivers!I think they are trying to say ‘you’ve got no chance mate’, but not quite so bluntly.
a blessing in disguise i think! Found a job doing regular with an english company now anyway. 
andy c:
Thats the reason iam still there cant get them benifits with most uk hauliers and the job suits me ,see a lot of guys come and go mainly go after a few months , i always tell them the truth you dont big money for doing nothing !
im amased at people who seem to know everything about nothing.
post kogeko is a good company, if your willing to work hard you will earn great money, the old saying , no pain no gain. i worked their for two years, without any problems and earned a lot more than i would in the uk. i now live in canada and would not hesitate to work for them again if i was to return
harry:
I don’t know why you bother with these foreign firms. For conditions & pay you can’t beat a good English firm. And you are paying into your state pension which is more than you get with the foreigners.
How do you work that out Harry? If you are working legally for a foreign firm you are paying into their system, pension included. It is added to your UK one when you retire and you are no worse off. Probably better. When I retired at 60 the UK requirement for a full pension was 44 years whereas the French only needed 40. Because of wandering the world a bit I only had 37 UK years but my 3 French ones brought me up to their pension threshold. So now I get a French pension to add to my soon-to-arrive UK one.
As far as pay is concerned you must have been exploited if you didn’t get comparable rates. I certainly got the same money as my mates at Gauthiers.
Just after this thread was started a funny thing happened.
I was tramping on heading for home, north-bound up the A1. Not far before the A66 split I passed a Post Kogeko wagon. As our cabs drew level, the driver of the (LHD) Post’ wagon bibbed his horn and waved to me, I didn’t get a good look at the driver because I hadn’t expected it. Shortly after that I pulled off onto the slip road and slowed right down so that the Post’ wagon could pass me. Again the driver bibbed his horn and waved to me and, as we passed drivers side to drivers side, this time I got a good look at him. I still didn’t recognise him though.
Was it a TruckNet UK member ?
I meant to post this at the time, but got side-tracked and forgot all about it.
im amased at people who seem to know everything about nothing.
i worked their for two years,
tut-tut…speling…speling…
PS. And I saw the way you worked… 
Blip all the Gatzo’s , & run until you get a 24 hr enforced break.
Spardo That was then ; This is now. ( Maybe )
Thing must (may) have gone downhill fast then Harry, it’s only 5 years (come December) since I retired.
And just as a matter of interest for those who think Western Europe is overrun with Easteners when I was at Gauthier’s there were 2 foreigners, me and Manu (Portuguese) and he was naturalised. I asked the boss the other day and as Manu and I are both retired he has one foreigner out of about 120 drivers - a Dutchman. 