OldishJoda:
210Hello, my name is Andy, I responded a few weeks ago to a question made in 2008 on the 3rd of January… by TIR Original,
Whatever happened to Don (Trailblazer) Caisely ■■I thought I would put this story about Don Caisley Transcontinental Transport on this thread as he used to run out of Southampton docks… over to Le Havre between 1960 and 1973. From Le Havre ( The OK Bar was his private office wink wink) he ran down to mostly Southern Italy, Naples, Salerno, Eboli and Palermo and Catania in Sicily.
I did work with Don on and off for 6 years and have been very good friends with Don for 50 years since I was 15.
Many of the older International drivers etc on here will probably remember Don, he could be ok one day and blow hot n cold the next, lol.
But one thing he did like was local Southampton drivers and companies, he says drivers and owner drivers were first class mates and all helped each other in the 60’s and 70’s, Comrades in Cabs was a saying of his.Don came from Cranfield village in Bedfordshire and was a 1 man, 2 trailer company, 1 on route the other being loaded ready for next trip, many times by myself.
Don worked originally at the BIG ship engine maker (WH Allens) in Bedford and learnt how to be a engineer, moving on to become a mechanic on Morgan Sports cars at local Morgan dealers, and then took on driving Coaches for works outings and schools part time between his HGV driving, what are driving hours restrictions? lol.
He had a 6 wheeler Thames Trader high body on fetching / delivering coal to local coal merchants, before his International ventures, he soon got rid of Thames Trader and went for a TK with a high body.
Don first started running to Italy with a 6 wheeler TK Bedford now with a flat body and rope & sheets, in 1960, then upgraded in 1963 to a Dodge tractor unit plus the Thompson trailer with TRAILBLAZER signwritten on the top of the headboard and a Union Jack for all to see. He needed a closed in body ie: trailer due to the food he carried, Pasta etc.
Apparently Pasta eaters do not like the pasta wet when they buy it, I cannot see why as they dump it in Hot Water just after they buy it.On 1 trip the Dodge broke down near Macon, the engine was a Chrysler and a experimental one at that, it had only been in 2 days, fitted by Luton, so it had only travelled 20 miles home, then the 130 miles down Southampton then to Macon 350 miles 500 miles in total and the BIG Ends had gone. Needless to say Don read the riot act to Chryslers in Luton and they despatched a new engine, on a van, with a mechanic and a driver. Great stuff, its now Monday 0900 BST, Chrysler estimated they will be here by the latest 12:00 Tuesday…
No chance we thought… So we got the local farmer to give us a pull with this old tractor and he gave us the use of his barn. We moved out the cattle and chickens and we took the cab off by using a block and tackle that had not been used for 25 years, 3 of us pulling on the ropes, lol.
The farmers mate arrived about 2 hours after we had removed the cab with a BIG Suffolk type horse and put a rope around the horse and Barn beams and moved the horse forward and we used that to lift out the engine. (Both Don & I had been mechanics, I served my apprenticeship on Commer TS3’s) We stripped everything off the engine that we thought we might have to use again.The new engine arrived on Tuesday night Wednesday morning at approx 00:30 we unloaded it and the 2 guys from Chryslers went to Macon to a hotel that was booked for them and they said “we will see you about 12:00 midday”.
No chance, we put the engine in ourselves using the horse again, put the cab back and had the Dodge running by 06:30, we were on the road again by 09:00. We sorted the French farmer who was more than pleased with his payment. We arrived at the tunnel by 12:00, cleared customs and we were in La Spezia by 18:00 just in time to off load our load. The farmer told us on our way back that the mechanics came at 14:00 and then realized we had done the job and gone, so they picked up the pieces and leftIt was his running to Eboli near Salerno Italy, fetching the Spaghetti (Pasta) and local wine for the Italians living in Bedfordshire that he loved. The Food Inspectors and Customs men at Mont Blanc and Southampton loved the Pasta and Wine too, but it did ease the way forward very quickly, it was unbelievable how many Food Inspectors and Customs men used to appear lol. Built into the load was always extras for the takers, lol
He did some special jobs for our local car manufacturer (Aston Martin) delivering the James Bond DB5 in 1964 to motor shows in Italy, France and Switzerland.Don then progressed to a Volvo F88 and had one of the first F88’s into the UK, SNV 358G (1968) ex John Billows Kettering, Northants.
He ran this F88 for 3 months, 10 trips to Salerno area in primer paint due to not having enough time to spray it his colour whilst at home. When the work was there you grabbed it with both hands. He always had the back loads (inbound) of Cakes, Pasta, Wine, but outward loads that paid well enough to run with, had to be searched for hard.
I can remember that we used to load Whisky from Scotland 4 times a year for Rome to the Bond next door to the Vatican.In 1968 he transported the furniture of his friend Tadek Marek the man who designed the Aston Martin DB5 engine to Terracina south east of Latina in Italy and this furniture drop was the second trip for the Volvo. Whilst we were there in Terracina we had to sink a Steel Girder into the beach so Tadek could tie his boat up to it, the girder was 15 foot and we sunk it 11 foot. The boat was lovely, but the car in one of the garages was fantastic, Tadek was doing some consultancy work for Ferrari and had a Ferrari…
The villa had its own private beach and a swimming pool and a road of a kilometre from the main road, how the other half live.Don ran to Italy for 13 years in total and could read and speak both Italian and French fluently.
In late 1972…He bought himself a boat from Le Havre, sailing it across to Southampton, and spent nearly 10 months rebuilding & refurbishing it and making it safe in Hythe. (TIR… Original also visited)
In May 1973 Don again departed from Southampton Water but for the final time and with his family and 2 other seamen, they sailed themselves off to Australia and arrived safely 1 year later.
They took on the Aussie lifestyle and set themselves up living near Perth… Western Australia.Don was involved with transport ( both BIG and small ) for the next 25 years after arriving in Australia, and he is now 84.
Although well retired, he suffers a bit with his heart missing beats so has a battery pack that he connects to every 3 months that jump starts him, just like we used to jumpstart the Bedford TK.After he had sat down and retired he wrote a Multimedia Ebook book about his rebuilding of the MFV Beth and his travels to Australia.
It is called … " Voyage of a Lifetime "… put it into Google it comes up.I attach some photos of 1968 and 2013.
I hope you did not mind me putting this on the Southampton page, Don sends his regards to everyone who knew him.
He does not use a computer, new technology is not his forte, but anybody that sends messages I will pass on via Don’s youngest son.His old F88 was sold locally in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, but I never saw it again until I started to read, look, read, look, look, look at the millions of truck photos on the internet, lol.
I then found the F88 in a different colour but the right number plate, and it was superbly photographed by Bill Clowes.
It was photographed up for sale by Bill Clowes on 28 Aug 1982, Bill Clowes kindly sent me 2 photos last month of the vehicle when it was up for sale by a company called Mountford Bros Ltd. Apparently this company was closing down.The 2 photos in Blue were Dons own, the photo of Don was taken by me in Feb 2013.
Regards
Andy
OldishJoda
Hi Andy, thanks for getting in touch with me and also for agreeing to put this posting on about Don. People like him don’t enter our lives often and leave his unforgetable imprint. I’m proud to know him and to have shared his company in the past. His achievement of getting that old fishing boat sea-worthy and navigating to Australia was mind blowing and I am at the moment really enjoying his book. There are actually very few on here who had done the job early enough to have known him but there are some out there who will have and I can update them. I am sure even not to have to have known him would not let his story be uninteresting.
Kind regards,Nobby.(TIR.O.)
