This is the story of one quite memorable trip I did back in the early 80’s when I drove for Fred Archer from Ipswich.
One Friday afternoon Fred gives me my running money for the following weeks trip,not as much as usual as I have to take a M/E trailer,the belly tank of which is filled with red diesel.
Monday morning I bounce down to the yard and pick up the empty trailer and set off for Leicester for the first collection.It’s at an export packers and I have to load a 5ton industrial machine shop drill for Sofia,Bulgaria so it means a strip out,which is a good start to any trip.I get them to put it in the middle of the trailer so the weight will be ok and strap it down.Then it’s off down to Fulham,London to load some electrical supplies.
I am within a couple of miles of the place when I get pulled over by the police.
They say I am leaking liquid all over the road,so I assume it’s oil leaking out of the drilling machine,only the smell has a distinct diesel odour to it.
It turns out the belly tank has split and I’ve lost the lot! I manage to convince plod that the tank was almost empty when I started and they leave me to it.
While the electric stuff is being loaded I phone the office and tell them the good news,they tell me to get some putty or something from Halfords and try and repair the tank,so I walk down to the local Halfords to see what I can get.
The only stuff they have is no good for diesel tanks so that’s that.
After loading I make my way over to Ilford ready to load the rest in the morning.
Next morning I load at the M&S Shipping depot at Ilford where they tell me that another of our drivers has also loaded there late the previous afternoon and that he has left a message to say he’ll wait for me at Gieselwind truckstop in Germany.He has loaded for Sofia,I have now loaded for Bucharest,Sofia and Zagreb and am ready to leave just after lunch.
I arrive at Dover and put my carnet into customs and wander off for a cuppa.
When I go back to customs they inform me there’s a problem with the papers,the carnet does’nt tally with the manifest,so it’s over to M&S’s office to sort it out.Only it will be in the morning,'cos the staff at Ilford are just going home and it won’t be sorted until around 10am the next morning,great,this is a bad omen,and I’m not even out of the country yet!
Next morning M&S have sorted everything and so it’s back to customs to get the carnet stamped and the trailer sealed.Eventually I get onto the ferry to Ostend at lunchtime and four and a half hours later I’m getting the carnet stamped by the Belgian customs.The rest of the evening is a non eventful drive through Belgium down to the Aachen border where I go through the motions of the tank-shine etc.
It’s now Thursday and I’m a day behind schedule,but in those days it didn’t really matter,there were no mobile phones,no satellite tracking and no fax machines,the only time you contacted the office was when you were empty or in dire trouble.Bliss.
That afternoon I reach Gieselwind and of course the other driver is long gone,so I have a meal and a shower and drive a bit more until I’m too tired.
Next morning finds me bright and early at the Waidhaus border crossing into Czechoslovakia and for once everything goes smoothly and I’m through within two hours.On reaching Prague the TIR route that was signposted takes you to some very low bridges,so you used to have to go through the weight limit to avoid the bridges and hope you don’t bump into the local plod!
The road down to Bratislava is usually going to cost you money anyway,as the police would pull you in two or three times and nick you for speeding.After a few trips I got fed up with giving them backhanders and so told them I would pay at the border,this way they would stamp your visa and when you arrived at the border you had to pay the fine,or they wouldn’t let you out of the country.At least that way you got a receipt!
Later that day I arrive at the Komarno/Komarom border into Hungary and again am through with the minimum of fuss in under four hours.
I drive a couple of hours down the road and park for the night.
Saturday dawns bright and sunny and after making a cuppa I’m on my way and not far down the road I find a fuel station which accepts DKV,so fill up and save my running money till later.
The TIR route just before Budapest takes you miles out of the way and so I continue on the main highway,passing the infamous Hotel Vienna (don’t ask)on the way into Budapest.You have to be very careful traversing Budapest or you could end up in the centre surrounded by low bridges,but,as I’ve been through here a couple of times I now know the way.
The weather is getting hotter and hotter,it’s now 34c,and how I’d love a cab with aircon!
Around 4pm I arrive at Nadlac,the border with Romania,and join the back of the queue of around thirty trucks.It’s a steady crawl,stopping and starting every hour or so until at around 10.30pm I am at the border.All goes well until cabin control,when the half drunk customs man wants to relieve me of all and sundry from my cab! After almost an hour of this he walks off with a couple of cans of Coca-Cola and last Tuesday’s newspaper and me promising next time to bring him ‘Nice Eenglish Parker pen’,and so at around 1am I drive through the border into Romania.
When it’s dark here it’s really dark,they don’t have street lighting except in the big cities and even the houses are pitch black,no signs of life.So I’m driving down the road from the border,very tired,when all of a sudden I have to swerve to miss a haystack!Suddenly I’m awake and wondering where the hell I am,when I realise it’s a horse drawn cart loaded high with hay,not a light on it.
I suppose the horse must know it’s way,because the old boy at the front is sound asleep!
After this I realise I must pull in somewhere and call it a day,before I kill someone,or me.So a little further down the road I find somewhere to park and pull over and set about de-bugging the cab (why are their bugs so much bigger than ours?) and sleep comes quickly.
Sunday morning and the sound of something tearing or ripping wakes me.Then childish laughter.It turns out to be some kids ripping off the GB stickers from the front bumper,such simple things can make these kids happy,after all,they have nothing else,Romania is a very poverty stricken country and is one of the saddest countries I have seen.
So,it’s up and put the kettle on and on the road again,I’ve got a lot to cover today as I want to be in Bucharest tonight ready to clear and unload Monday morning.The temperature is even hotter than yesterday and driving with both windows open as well as the roof hatch just makes it seem like I’m sitting in front of a hairdryer!
I had been told that the road down through Pitesti had been partly washed away a few weeks before by a bad storm,so I will have to go via Brasov and Ploesti to Bucharest,which is a bit further mileage wise but can’t be helped.
It is while driving through Brasov that I get pulled over by plod in an unmarked car,it turns out he’d caught me speeding in a trap,his Kodak is mounted on the passenger seat! He asks for the disc and my passport and studies both intently,though I would guess he can’t understand either! and then says I must pay a fine.Now I don’t have any Romanian Lei,their currency,and so offer him a couple of D-marks.Only by this time a small crowd has gathered round in the middle of town to see what’s going on.Now even the most bent copper is’nt going to accept a bribe in front of so many witnesses and so he insists that I pay in Romanian currency,and so I explain to him (though he doesn’t understand a word I say) that I don’t have any of his mickey mouse money and that he either takes the D-marks or he can get stuffed!The exchange of words is getting quite heated now and I’m wondering if he’s going to arrest me when he jumps in his car and is just about to roar off when I hammer on the roof with my fist and shout ‘Passport!’ at which point he throws my passport out of the window to the ground and roars off.
The gathered crowd cheer and pat my back and say ‘Verr gudd!’ and so I get back in the truck and drive on.
As I reach Ploesti the next bit of fun starts,there is a sign to Bucharest to the right,and another pointing straight on! I’m thinking the one to the right must be another long diversion,so decide to carry straight on and into the town.
I’m driving along merrily minding my own business and looking at the shops, which are empty,when all of a sudden the road goes round to the left and onto a small flyover.Oh god! was that a 1.5ton weight limit sign I just passed!!
It may well have been,for as I drive onto the flyover,which is very narrow,I feel the whole structure shaking beneath the truck and as the road goes round to the right I see out of my mirror dust and bits of concrete falling to the ground,this could be a good time to find religion,but which one?No time for that.
I drive off the other end of the flyover in one piece,and as far as I can tell the flyover is still in one piece too! As I get to the edge of town I reach a T-junction and it is now obvious that the road coming from the right is the one I should have used,but no time to ponder that,there is a sentry hut beside the junction and a bleary eyed soldier has just emerged and realising where I have just come from! So I drive away as fast as possible,despite his shouting and waving.
It is now only 60km to Bucharest and as I drive in to the outskirts of the city I notice a watchtower a few hundred metres ahead where there are some frantic goings on.Sure enough as I approach they all come running out and stop me and start shouting at me about Ploesti something or another,I shrug my shoulders and look innocent and say ‘It wasn’t me!’ and after half an hour they let me go.
I find the hotel where I must park as there is a Turkish agent there who,for a couple of packs of Marlboro and the taxi fare back,will come with me in the morning and sort everything out.
I park amongst some Jordanians who are sitting around their chrome cookers drinking chai.
Monday morning again and the Turkish agent is sitting alongside me guiding me to the customs compound.On arrival I am instructed to drive in and park alongside the ramp,avoiding the crater.And what a crater!There’s a ■■■■ great hole right in the middle of the yard that is about 3 feet deep!
With the papers cleared I am ready to open up the trailer and unload,which doesn’t take long as it’s just a few cases of whisky for the British Consulate and some electrical bits.Getting it sealed again takes longer,as the man has seen my cassette box laying on the seat and tries his utmost to get me to hand over an Elton John tape as he is a big fan.Unfortunately for him,I’m not,and so he goes away empty handed.
With the trailer now sealed and the carnet stamped I’m ready to go.
I drive out of Bucharest and am just on the outskirts when I come up behind one of those bend in the middle loading shovels trundling down the road.The road is straight and there is nothing coming the other way so I pull out to pass him,as I go past he looks across and smiles,so I smile back.It was at this point that he must have realised he needed to turn left.So he did.Straight into the side of my trailer! There was a bang and I saw something fall off,so I pulled up and walked back and found my trailer box sitting in the road with all my food squashed.Luckily that was all the damage,no tyres damaged and the tilt was ok but the shovel driver was in tears and kept saying ‘verr sorry’,I tried to calm him down and tell him it was ok,I wanted to get out of there before the law turned up because pound to a penny I’d end up paying and getting the blame.So I scooped up as much useable food as I could and left.
I arrive at the Giurgiu/Ruse border with Bulgaria and complete the formalities and am through within an hour,not bad!
By this time the afternoon is wearing on and I’m getting tired and start looking for somewhere to stop for the night.It is then that all of a sudden the road stops.It’s a dual carriageway but it just stops! I sit there thinking I must have missed a turning or signpost or misunderstood one,which is quite possible as the Bugarians use the cyrillic script where half the letters look upside down or back to front! Just then I see another truck coming towards me but all of a sudden he turns off,only to emerge on my left from a farmyard! So,I drive into the gate he has just emerged from and follow the tracks and sure enough I am back on the main road again,although now it’s single carriageway.
A few kliks further on another truck is coming towards me,falshing his lights.
It turns out to be the other driver who left a day before me,he’s tipped in Sofia and is heading to Romania to load for home.We put the kettle on and make a few sausage sarnies and have a chat.He tells me there’s a fuel station twenty odd kliks down the road where I can get diesel for a good price.
We wash up and bid our farewells and a few kliks further I pull in for the night.
After a nice cuppa to start the day I find the fuel station and fill up.
I arrive in Sofia and eventually find the customs depot,which turns out to be next to the railway station,and put my papers in.I am told it’s too late today and to come back in the morning at 8am.So I wander across the road to the big hotel opposite and have a couple of beers,not much else to do.
Next morning I am back in the customs office and first in with the papers,and within an hour am instructed to drive in to the compound for unloading,which I do.
I start undoing the tilt when a woman comes trundling out on a small forklift,small being the operative word! I try to explain to her she’s going to need something a bit bigger as the drilling machine weighs 5tons.She takes a look at it and wanders off,returning five minutes later with another woman,well,I say woman.This one looks like one of those East european olympic shot putters with arms bigger than my thighs! Maybe she’s going to lift it off,or push it off!
It turns out she’s the supervisor and speaks pretty good english,so she explains that it’s no problem as they have a small mobile crane for such jobs.
The only problem is that they’ve leant it out to someone and it won’t be back until the following morning!So I do the tilt up and pull outside to the parking again.
Later that evening I again wander across to the hotel for a few beers and meet an English rep for an engineering company who’s trying to cut a deal with the Bulgarians. I offer him a cheap drilling machine but he’s not interested.
The next morning I am once again back in the customs compound undoing the tilt,the crane has arrived,though by looking at it I’m not sure whether that’s up to the job either.It looks like Noah may have used on ark construction!
But it does the job and I am soon sealed up with carnet once again stamped and saying goodbye to the good people of Sofia.
It’s then a short run down to the Yugo border at Dimitrovgrad and sort out the formalities once again.As I only have a couple of small packing cases in the trailer the transit charge is small and I am through within an hour.
Driving in Yugoslavia is an absolute nightmare,and certainly not to be undertaken in the dark,but I must be in Zagreb tomorrow morning or I will be weekended,and so I push on through up past Nis and pull in to the Hotel National in Belgrade for a steak and chips,but no beer as I’ll be driving through the night.It’s almost 800km from the Bulgarian border to Zagreb and I need to be alert.
I leave the National late in the evening and drive on through the night and the fog that is getting thicker and thicker.As day breaks I pull in for an hours sleep,I can hardly keep my eyes open,but am soon back on the road.
A little further on the traffic comes to a crawl and it becomes apparent that there has been an accident.As I reach the scene the full horror becomes apparent,a car has run up the back of a tipper truck and sliced the roof off.I catch a glance at the poor victim still in the drivers seat,his head almost severed from his body,a scene which still makes me shiver to this day.
I eventually arrive at the InterEuropa depot in Zagreb and put my papers in,I then climb in to bed and catch up on some sleep while they clear them
At lunchtime I get up and find out what the delay is,they have been looking for me to put the truck on the bay,so I explain that there are just a couple of small cases which can be carried off,which they do,and I am at last empty.
Time to go off for the reload.
But that’s another story 
Great stuff Keith, get typing on the reload story. 
YES I agree with coffeeolic it was a wonderful read and can we
have the reload side to finish it off. . once more thank you for
the LDLS please write some more.
Nice read KW…ill bet you had more than steak at the national in belgrade :laughing: used to be running alive with gorgeous women..and all for a few deutch marks of course i always declined..no doubt as you did.. :laughing: :laughing: but lets have the return load..i note you are from belgium..i used to run with a guy from there..called John..although we always referred to him as the abbo` short for aborigine…well thats what he looked like…
have a nice day
Are you loaded yet? I have had the customer on the phone 
Yes, Good Story KW.
I seem to remember the Abbo, Bob. I think he was at the company at the back of the Total, near TACK. driving a white Magnum
The reload…
I send a telex (remember them?) to the office and they instruct me to load at a place called Celje,which is roughly 70km from Zagreb,if I make good time I may get loaded today (Friday).
So I’m driving along merrily when I notice the distinct lack of other trucks on the road and then a few kliks further I’m waved into a parking area that’s full of trucks.It turns out that there is a driving ban between 14.00 and 18.00 on a Friday in this area and so after arguing with plod I hand over a modest sum of money and put the kettle on.Well loading today is now a no,no.So it looks like I will be stuck here for the weekend after all,which means finding a decent place to stop with a restaurant handy.
At 18.00 I move off and drive into Celje to look for the factory,but all I find is a furniture shop with the same name as the company I have to load at.
So after parking alongside the shop it’s kettle on again and open a few tins for a bit of camion stew,which consists of a tin of stewed steak and a tin of new potatoes,but it tastes ok.
Saturday morning and I walk into the shop to see if they know where the factory is where I must load.It turns out it’s all the same company,and the shop sells furniture that is made in the factory.
The factory however is some 15km away,and after getting directions I set off to find it,maybe there is somewhere good to park for the weekend near there.
When I arrive at the factory I wander in to see if they have a shower I can use and somewhere to park,but the gateman asks me where I am loading for and I tell him England.He then instructs me to back up to the loading door and within an hour they start handballing packs of flatpack pine chairs into the trailer while I take a much needed shower and shave.
Two hours later I am loaded and driving out of the gates,I have to go to the Intereuropa office in Maribor to make the papers,it’s about 55km to Maribor and the office is open until 5pm,so I should get the papers sorted today.
But all good plans etc.etc. On the way I am pulled over by a motorcycle plod who tells me in broken german that there is a driving ban between 15.00 and 19.00 today. I’m sure they make them up as they go along.But he shows me a leaflet that confirms it and so I park up in the middle of nowhere and await 7pm.To make sure I don’t move he rides past every hour or so until 7pm when I drive into Maribor to find somewhere to park.
Sunday morning I get up and put the kettle on and then decide to have a wander into town for a look around.As I walk into town I pass the offices of Intereuropa,which turns out to be just around the corner from where I’ve parked,and not only that,the office is open! So I go in and tell them where I have loaded and the man say’s if I go back to the truck and get my blank carnet he can make the papers today.So that’s just what I do,and then continue with my sight seeing and partake in a nice bag of chips from a street vendor,complete with mustard(?)
I have to be at the customs compound just on the outskirts of town at 3pm exactly,as the customs man will arrive then and seal the trailer and hand over my carnet,if I arrive any later then it will be Monday morning.
Suffice to say I am there well in advance of the deadline,and,sure enough,the customs man arrives and performs the task.
By 3.30pm I am on the road again,there is another driving ban this evening which starts at 20.00 and so I have to make the border before then.
As I don’t have an Austrian permit it means going back via Hungary and Czecho and so I head for the border at Gorican about 120km away.I reach the border with time to spare and it’s relatively quiet so I’m through in an hour or so,good going.
After driving an hour in Hungary I pull in for the night just next to Lake Balaton and hit the pillow.
Monday morning and it’s another glorious day with the sun up high already and the lake filled with small sailing boats and swimmers,Lake Balaton is a popular holiday destination for many of the Eastern Bloc countries.
A few hours later and I am back at the Komarom/Komarno border crossing at the back of a queue of a dozen or so trucks,mainly from Somat,the Bulgarian state transport company and it takes two or three hours before all the formalities are completed and I drive onto Czechoslovakian soil once again.
I drive up past Bratislava,which is within spitting distance of Austria,what a tempting sight it must be for the Czech’s,all those decadent capitalist goods so near,yet so far.
Driving up towards Brno I decide to pull in at a new services to use the toilet and maybe try their coffee.Parked there is a Mercedes day cab from the company of Davies,behind which is a stripped down tilt on which is a smashed up Merc unit from the same company.There are two drivers there and apparently one of them had left the UK a few weeks previous to drive down to Eastern Turkey to rescue the other one who had been involved in a smash.They were now on their way home but were in a bit of bother,they had been on the beer the previous evening in the services bar with the local police chief and eventually crashed in to bed at around 1am.They had then been rudely awakened by the services manager at 10am who was complaining about the state of his pristine new tarmac.The stricken Merc on the trailer had leaked diesel all over the place and it was making a nasty mess and lifting the tarmac.They were trying to get hold of the police chief to come to their aid,but apparently he was somewhat hungover!
We had a coffee together and I left them to it.
I carried on until the other side of Prague before calling it a day.
The next morning the temperature had dropped and rain was imminent as I headed once again to the Waidhaus border and back to civilization.
The border was very busy and this time it takes me a good six hours before I am through the barrier and back on German soil.A steady drive across Germany see’s me pulling in for the night between Frankfurt and Koln and a decent meal again,camion stew is ok but a nice schnitzel with pommes is much better,along with a large stein of frothing beer!Then it’s shower and bed.
The rest of the trip was the usual mundane procedures at Aachen and then over to Zeebrugge for the night sailing to Felixstowe.
The following morning I drive off the ferry and put the papers in for clearance and phone the office. “Drop that trailer there boy,I’ve got another one here for Greece and you’re booked on the boat out of Dover this evening” came the reply,and so a quick visit home to get some clean clothes and I’m off again.
But that’s another story 
Thanks for the reload story Keith, nice one.
KW:
But that’s another story
Now you see when you put that at the end you just know we are going to ask.
Coffeeholic:
Thanks for the reload story Keith, nice one.KW:
But that’s another storyNow you see when you put that at the end you just know we are going to ask.
Yeah, come on KW we love it…
Yes many thanks for the reload story ,and please when you can
let us have some more storys about your travels on the road
thank you once again.
Excellent story KW
Yes brilliant…i`m confused about the telex…was that before or after the fax 
…and what did you use that tickertape for ■■..got me thinking i might have to write another of my exploits…trouble is.theres so many i dont know where to start or which one…another thought…how about a re-union for the old M/E uk drivers…now that will be interesting…
have a nice day
reading this old post kw and where is the greece story come 6 yrs no reply
truckyboy:
Yes brilliant…i`m confused about the telex…was that before or after the fax
have a nice day
Truckboy…Tickertape…I think the early Telex machines punched holes into a tape and each hole represented a letter or number as you were dictating the message, you then put the tape into a clip dialed the numbers and the tape fed through as the message was being sent…On the subject of fax…The first one I saw was on the UAE border in either the late seventies or it could have been around 1980…Can any one remember when they were first used?
ATVB…RDF
Cracking story Keith which probably rang so many old bells for a lot of us .
Six years and three months to do a Greece 
, we all hope that you are on night out money and not trip money but when you finally get back can you please tell us all about it .
As regards The Faxsimile Machine the first one that I can remember appeared around about 1984 I.I.R.C. in Dover Eastern Docks
Regards Steve…
Reddesertfox:
Truckboy…Tickertape…I think the early Telex machines punched holes into a tape and each hole represented a letter or number as you were dictating the message, you then put the tape into a clip dialed the numbers and the tape fed through as the message was being sent…On the subject of fax…The first one I saw was on the UAE border in either the late seventies or it could have been around 1980…Can any one remember when they were first used?ATVB…RDF
On the Telex machine,one could “talk” live if you were a good typist,or as was more often,a message would be typed out on the tickertape which was then clipped into a sender which sent off the message at a better speed than typing “live”.
At the “Harem” hotel they would let you use the telex machine yourself.
I had finished m/e and was working in engineering at home in the UK when the first fax machines came out.
I finished m/e in '86 and had been working here for at least 12 months before we used the fax of a local company to send some illustrations of some special steel sections we wanted from Italy.Shortly after this,fax machines were more readily available and we bought one for the firm,this must have been in '87 or '88.
brit pete:
Yes many thanks for the reload story ,and please when you canlet us have some more storys about your travels on the road
thank you once again.
I see another book coming!
I shall have to get mine finished,there’s another one right behind!
Hi boys
mushroomman:
Cracking story Keith which probably rang so many old bells for a lot of us
Six years and three months to do a Greece
As regards The Faxsimile Machine the first one that I can remember appeared around about 1984 I.I.R.C. in Dover Eastern DocksRegards Steve…
Steve I think you are about right in saying 1984 I remember the agents sending faxes across from French and Belgium ports before you shipped and the theory was you would be cleared before you landed All you had to do was produce your paperwork for the customs to tie things together and away you went. well that was the theory.
Regards Keith
It is great to go back a few years on these forums. I had forgot that one, even though I commented on it 6 years ago. A great diary of days gone by from Keith.
My memories of Telex and Fax apart from reading them all in the National while looking for mine were when was working in the office around 1984. Everybody will remember ringing in with weights and values, but occasionally we would load tanks in the UK and send them to Belgium for them to unload. On a weekend the office would be closed so I used to type the details up on the Telex, print it off and fax it through to the agent and the haulier in Brugge
dessert driver:
Hi boysSteve I think you are about right in saying 1984 I remember the agents sending faxes across from French and Belgium ports before you shipped and the theory was you would be cleared before you landed All you had to do was produce your paperwork for the customs to tie things together and away you went. well that was the theory.
Hi Keith, I remember being told that by one of the clearing agents in Dover, it was what they had planned for the future. Drivers were falling about on the floor laughing , it was just unbelievable.
Regards Steve.