Hi driveress, congratulations on passing your H.G.V. class two and I am sure that everybody on the Old Timers Forum will wish you the best of luck for the future.
Taci was an import and export agent that we used to use most of the time when we were delivering around Istanbul. Although I can remember on one trip when I had a couple of tons for Istanbul and the rest of the load was for Izmir. Taci sent his brother-in-law Saladin, who also worked for him, along with me to sort out the paperwork. When we were offloaded in Izmir, we drove to Canakkale where I got the ferry across to Gallipoli and I am not sure if Saladin got the bus or a boat back to Istanbul.
Whenever we entered Turkey from Bulgaria at Kapikule, most of the British drivers used an agent called Young Turk. More often than not, no sooner had you pulled into the compound then one of Young Turks boys would introduce himself and ask for your passport, T.I.R. carnet, your manifest, C.M.R. and your Trip Tics for your truck and trailer.
Most of these kids were under sixteen years old but we trusted them and many of them could tell you the exchange rate for the Turk Lire to the G.B. pound, Deutsch Mark or the American Dollar for that day. They would sometimes get The Chai man, who walked around the compound with a small hot water tank on his back, to give you a glass of tea while they ran over to Young Turks office to start lodging your paperwork.
We would then stroll over to Young Turks office to be greeted with another glass of chai (along with a load of sugar lumps) where Young Turk would then give us an idea of how many hours we would likely have to wait until we were called for an inspection.
You could clear yourself, which we often did when we were leaving Turkey empty or if we were using the Greek/Turkish border at Evzoni. But when you didn’t use an agent, you would often hear the words “big problema mister”, which meant that you could be parting with a lot of cash.
In Young Turks office you could always send a Telex or make a phone call back to the U.K. I don’t think that they charged more than £ 7 for their services and it saved us from all the pushing and shoving to try and get to the front of the queues.
Young Turks office was on the right.
If we were tipping in Istanbul then we would phone Taci who would already be expecting us. He would arrange for one of his staff to meet us at the Besiktas football stadium car park at 8 a.m. the following morning. One of his employees would take all our paperwork from us and take it to the customs office which was nearby. At about midday the agent and the customs men would all turn up. They would take off the seal on the back of the trailer which had been fitted at Kapikule/ Evzoni after the inspection.
One of the customs men would look in the back of the trailer and usually after a few minutes, the paperwork would be completed and the trailer would be resealed. The agent would sometimes come with us if we hadn’t been to the offloading point before and then get a taxi back to Taci’s office. If it was a nice day, I would often walk to Taci office along the sea front as the whole place had such a pleasant feeling about it. The sights, sounds and smells of what seemed like a hectic Istanbul stayed with me for many years.
The Stadium.
If we were tipping on the Asian side of the Bosporus then we would park at The Harem on the car park by the quayside. We would either cross the Bosporus Bridge the day before or if I had parked at the Londra Camp the previous night, then we would set off early in the morning before the rush hour traffic started to build up.
Taci’s lads would come across on the ferry to The Harem and meet us at 8 a.m. to do the customs paperwork. Once again, the customs men would always turn up just before midday.
Parking for trucks by The Harem.
Ferry Across The Bosporus.
Taci’s office was in the building behind the white ship.
As many of Dow’s customers were companies like Rothman cigarettes, I.C.I. Courtaulds, Ford’s, Leyland and Perkins it was very important that all the paperwork had to be in order. One small mistake could sometimes put an extra day or even longer onto your trip.
At one time, a lot of the work seemed to be going to Turkey so it wasn’t unusual to have three or four trucks leaving the yard in Stockport on a Sunday morning heading towards Istanbul, Izmir or Ankara.
On my first trip in June 1980, there were seven of us who ran together taking a drilling rig to an oilfield east of Diyarbakir. The site, which was like being somewhere in the middle of nowhere was run by some American guys working for The Aladdin Oil Company.
Another job that I remember was when we had to deliver over thirty mobile buildings to an American Air Force Base in Sinop on The Black Sea coast. They loaded three trucks a day onto extendable Broshous trombone trailers and we all set off in threes.
By the time that we were half way through Czechoslovakia, we had caught up with the three trucks who had loaded the day before us. When we were at Kapikule we caught up with another six of the trucks.
Army ■■■■■■ to Sinop.
I hope this answers some of your queries.
A fellow yabancı? Or a yerli? Where did you live, when were you there and who did you drive for, ERF-NGC-European?
