Thank you Harry. I asked because I remember Ray started something when he left Asian and I could not remeber exactly what. As it is not the most common name in the World I made the assumption it was the same man.
Last I heard he was living in France somewhere.
Thanks again.
David
I`m glad he is still around . He led a roller coaster of a life when he was in his prime… I remember he tipped me off on the Dunkirk -Dover Brit/Rail boat that the crew would wash the truck for beer money ,Lovely. Until a ■■■■■■ car driver refused to pay saying it was part of the service. Then it was stopped. In a way it was a good thing,they were washing with salt water!!! 
The name of his company will come to me…? It may be Silver Wolf? I know there`s a firm in Kent now with that name but they only do UK work…
Salt water wash-downs? Perfect! I remember that the Phillipino crew on the 2 boats that ran from Volos to Tartous - Zenobia (that sank) and something else with a ‘Z’ (Zafira?) - wanted to do the same but their idea of a wash-down meant pointing a fire-hose from a good distance for a bit and then collecting the money.
Silver Wolf. I have remembered overnight (it’s dreadful this getting old business) that there is / was a firm of that name out of the London area that runs southern Spain and Gibraltar and has an office in Malaga that is run by the owners daughter. They did a few jobs for us some years ago bringing safety equipment down to ships in the port of Algeciras and I had several phone conversations with the boss in London. How strange if that had been Ray Scutts and we had not realised that we knew each other!
Somewhere I have a photo of him and ■■■■ Snow celebrating Christmas in the east of Turkey! Happy days!
David
Was it Jock White ? The M/E legend. A complete alcoholic. It used to take him months to do a run to Tehran. I saw him on his last trip as a company driver. It was on the Dunkirk to Dover ferry. He was drunk when he got on. Drank all the way across & insulted all the truckers… He was looking forward to buying his first truck with another drinking partner. Last I heard they bought the truck set off for the M/E . There were sightings of them on the way down permanently happy. & they were never heard of again. I dont think they completed one trip.I was with SCA at the time driving their old Maggie road train....& that thing drove you to drink.. :laughing: I remember on the first Trip getting a blow -out on the old Fontainebleau road. The tyre people came out with a cover dropped it by the truck & left. Another phone call they came out took the case & wheel away then returned with the thing changed. They only liked Tri-Lex wheels. I was there for hours.... At the time my French was not so good & all the calls from me went to London, PCV` si vous plait … & they called the locals…It was a long old walk down that old national road to a phone…& back.
Jeez! Jock White. That’s another name I had forgotten. If his liver had been left to medical science they would still be marveling over it for the next 50 years! I never, ever saw the man sober - the only difference was the degree of ■■■■■■■■■■■ But what is for sure is that he could still drive when most of us would have been out for the count.
If my frail old head remembers right it was Maurice Grey that he went into ‘business’ with. As you say it didn’t last long though Maurice staggered on for a while. I remember having a long talk to Maurice in Syria trying to convince him that the fact that he was able, just, to make the HP payments on the F88 he had did not, of itself, garentee that he was going to be the next transport millionare!
And, God save me, I remember that Magarius road-train that SCA had. It was about the same time that the elusive Mr. Ellingham suddenly produced a Bussing ‘unterflür’ road-train on German plates that he wanted me to drive on the basis that I could speak German. I remember that he got all cross because I declined to drive it on the basis that I did not want to do time in the Fatherland for being in possesion of a stolen vehicle!
Here’s two more names that you might remember from that time:
John Baron. He had a black 140 with the ‘his’ crest on both sides of the sleeper and ‘The Baron’ on the headboard.
And ‘■■■■’ Ray Tor (I don’t think that’s the right spelling of his surname) who did Pakistan for years and years on a 240 Gardner Atkinson Borderer with a home-made plywood ‘nesting box’ buuilt on the roof.
But I’ll tell you what Harry - I’m really glad that I happened to find this place!
David
Whoops! 
I upset the swearing machine. Didn’t mean to, honest. But Ray Tor was know to one and all by a nickname that derived from the country that he ran to and I used it in no way meaning any kind of a racial slur!
David
Hes probably been called worse. I dont remember him. But I do remember the Barons truck. But I can`t place him ? I think he was a big guy, black hair,combed back. Always a black Tee-shirt also black & the regulation waistline…Its funny ,it was always the ones with the 140s who had the most to say when you sat down for a meal. They let you know how important they were…?
Rattlesnake Dave moved in the same circles as you & I. He lives in Charlton . I must know him but its not a good idea to put your mg-shot on the net,so I`ve been told.
You’re right enough there, H. The 140 boys certainly came from a different breed from us peasants - still the Crusader always gave them a laugh. It had a 280 Rolls and a Fuller 13 speed and I must say that it always got me there and back with the added advantage that it was very simple so well understood by the agricultural type mechanics that we used to have especially east of Ankara. I don’t know if you remember but on that truck to check the oil you opened the plastic grill upwards, undid two big wheels and swung the radiator ourward like a barn door exposing the whole front of the engine and the dip-stick. That used to get Geman drivers especially hysterical with laughter but when I used to point out that the motor had the easiest to change fan-belt in the business they would usually shut up!
harry:
I remember on the first Trip getting a blow -out on the old Fontainebleau road. :
My first memory of that road was equally fraught, for a different reason Harry.
Running short of diesel I pulled into a service station to fill up, sent the wife (to be 
) into the office with the DKV card to make sure they would take it. ‘Now pronounce it Day Car Vay’ otherwise they won’t understand what you are on about. ‘Second thoughts, show them the card as well, just to be sure’.
After she returned nodding I promptly put about 50 gallons in and then went in to pay. The sight of the card produced only a sad shake of the head. It took me ages to siphon all that lot out into the string of buckets the bloke brought me, then we had a big barney as to how much I had taken out. Bear in mind that I was low in the first place so didn’t want to risk running out down the road. Anyway we finally agreed and I set off roundly cursing the stupid know-all who admitted that she’d just put her head round the door and, in contravention of all instructions, had merely mumbled Dee Kay Vee to the bemused and uncomprehendingly nodding prat behind the counter 
BTW David Millar, welcome to TN and don’t take the censor machine slap too much too heart. He has a thing about words like Brit and Jerry and Taffy. Well, perhaps not 
Thank you for the welcome Spardo.
Ah! The Fontainebleau road and the dear old N7 in general.
Don’t I remember a certain stand of trees that seemed to be home to a surprising number of young ladies?
I was talking to someone young enough to believe that motorway standard roads have always been with us the other day about the old N7. I have the clearest memories of all those 3 lane bits occupied by squadrons of Berliets and Saviems with anti-aircraft batteries of yellow spotlights under their bumpers with which they contested possession of the middle lane. And do you remember when you got flashed up by every pillocking Frenchman in creation just for having white lights?
D
The three lane bit is where I got the flat. The trees were there but it was too far out of town for the working girls…( Probably saw the old shed I was driving & took the rest of the day off! )
David Miller:
The ‘H’ reg question: Wasn’t H the last full calender year of the letters? Did they not change them with J and K, at the insistence of the motor trade, so that the change of letter took place in June and it spread out the sales better over the year. If I’m right - and I by no means garentee it - that made H 1970, J Jan to June 1971 and K June 71 to end April 72 etc.
David, 1967 was the changeover year: ‘E’ lasted only from January to July 1967, and ‘F’ started on 1 August 1967, and the August changeover then lasted through to the new system in 2001, when ‘Y’ went from August 2000 through to May 2001
Thanks for that 240 Gardner. Ah well - ‘another senior moment’! I just hate this getting old business
David Miller:
Thanks for that 240 Gardner. Ah well - ‘another senior moment’! I just hate this getting old business
Me too!! Don’t suppose you’ve any pics of the Borderer with the “nesting box” have you? I stand in awe of chaps who did M/E work in motors like that!
I only wish that I did. I did take a camera on my first trip with the Crusader but it was one of those Brownie 127 things that produced pictures about the size of a postage stamp, none of them sharp, that you had to know what you were looking at for them to mean anything. I didn’t bother again. And then, and I don’t want to sound silly here but it’s true, it became ‘just a job’ if you know what I mean and there was no great impulse to be taking pictures of things. Now, of course, I regret extemely not having photos of those times and the few that I have, which other people took and gave me, I really treasure. I have given copies of all that I have to Nick Garlick for this book that is supposed to be being written and that I look forward to a lot. I do so hope that he manages to see through the bull and tell the story properly - something nobody has ever managed to do before.
Ray was some character: He had started driving the hippy bus’s to Khatmandu and then brought the Borderer. It was just an ordinary Borderer, dark blue, with the last 2 cylinders of the 240 hanging out from under the back of the cab and the famous nesting box ontop of the roof. He had built it himself and it had overlapping planks just like a garden shed but he didn’t care. He was a very shy bloke and hated the ‘5000 miles on one T shirt’ nights in the Mocamp or places where the herd gathered so he ran alone or just with good friends and never talked up what he was doing. He had been subbing for my first Middle East boss, John Ellingham, and when Bosphorus collapsed - 'just leave ‘em there and fly home’ was the cry - he kept some of the work himself. I do hope somebody else remembers him and maybe has news of him. A real diamond.
David Miller:
Ray was some character: He had started driving the hippy bus’s to Khatmandu and then brought the Borderer. It was just an ordinary Borderer, dark blue, with the last 2 cylinders of the 240 hanging out from under the back of the cab and the famous nesting box ontop of the roof. He had built it himself and it had overlapping planks just like a garden shed but he didn’t care. He was a very shy bloke and hated the ‘5000 miles on one T shirt’ nights in the Mocamp or places where the herd gathered so he ran alone or just with good friends and never talked up what he was doing. He had been subbing for my first Middle East boss, John Ellingham, and when Bosphorus collapsed - 'just leave ‘em there and fly home’ was the cry - he kept some of the work himself. I do hope somebody else remembers him and maybe has news of him. A real diamond.
Some man! Thanks for that David
240 Gardner:
380streamline:
Guest:
its took me a while but as promised heres the krupp cabbed atki’s
the picture quality is bad im afraid.
i think my scanner is giving up the ghost and its only 7 years old!
Great to see this Pic again, as shown in T&D April 1990, who was the operator of the truck?
They were called Dixon’s - I think Dixon Pork Butchers, or similar. The fleet number on the front panel shows DPB. It will probably have been registered by the factory, with its Lancs registration
They were called Dixon Pork and Bacon of Ashton Under Lyne. I remember this unit being delivered to yard. Rolls Eagle at 240 fitted. Nice to drive, first sleeper I had.
Johnny C:
240 Gardner:
380streamline:
Guest:
its took me a while but as promised heres the krupp cabbed atki’s
the picture quality is bad im afraid.
i think my scanner is giving up the ghost and its only 7 years old!
Great to see this Pic again, as shown in T&D April 1990, who was the operator of the truck?
They were called Dixon’s - I think Dixon Pork Butchers, or similar. The fleet number on the front panel shows DPB. It will probably have been registered by the factory, with its Lancs registration
They were called Dixon Pork and Bacon of Ashton Under Lyne. I remember this unit being delivered to yard. Rolls Eagle at 240 fitted. Nice to drive, first sleeper I had.
I created another thread about these some time ago. Here’s the link, and in any case I’ll ‘bump it up’ for you. Cheers, Robert
