Work seemed to be very busy, I did get a lot of the evening or whole nights work, but I never minded as it got me learning more about markets and the way they worked, sometimes I have
been in Covent garden unloading and I would see another Rokold trailer ,unloading,naturally I would go over to see who it was and it was never any one I knew it would be another owner driver
so I would try to get chatting -as you do ,well I did,and the response would be the same from the other driver, ohh are you one of the Northampton temps!i used to say yes, yes !I am the new boy just started driving , just finding my feet,and then move on , away from him. And leave it at that,and go about my other deliverers.
So all was still going great one afternoon I was asked to be in for 5 pm and bring your gear with you ,washing gear, change of clothes sleeping bag passport, that was all he said .another supermarket run as normal and I thought a collection some where in the morning ,once I parked my car Alan came round the obligatory hand shake , and his big smile,he was always smiling,i nicknamed him [Cheshire ] to my self , and said to me when you get back tonight there will be a owner driver here about 11 pm you are to go with him on a trip to Holland, he will not go without you , you have a short run tonight! and will be back easy as far as time, and so I was .I was buzzing. Brilliant ,so I thought this is the start, and it was,the driver PETE he seemed fine he explained it all where we were going ,it sounded unbelievable [at the time it was for me], first we did the tachographs ,and I said what about the 5 hours I have done on this disk, he said ohh just put it away, no one will give a ■■■■ about a quick trip you have just done,you have not been stopped have you ,no! I replied ,he said it will be fine forget it , and I did. First time I had done anything illegal with the tachograph , I was learning…
After a few delivers at the markets we were empty,and started to make our way down to Dover for shipping out on the Townsend Thorsen Zeebrugge ferry.
It must have been around 3am when he pulled into a lay by and he said its time for a kip[sleep] the cab had two bunks, as with normal in most lorry s that did European trips .It seem after 5 minutes and Pete was up and he had the small gas cylinder stove with a kettle boiling on small wooden shaped shelf that fitted on the dash board, I was completely amazed ,undeliverable ,and he said I only have coffee, that is fine I said bursting for the toilet, looks like a Lennie, but not on the wheels.
And next,still amazed he had a small type of mesh with a wooden handle and was toasting some bread .That was the clincher for me, if you can do your self tea ,coffee and toast ,what more do you want .I much later on found a device for toasting bread on the small gas stove, you can by them today 2014called a DEFUSER. Look it up.[goggle].
After having the snack/breakfast educated me by telling me that is how you live once abroad you look after your self as much as you like,and you use all facilities provided by factory’s boarders, wherever you can ,he said hygiene is somewhat not our standard but always remember ,that it is you that is the foreign visitor in another country .and if you respect that you will never go far wrong, I did learn that in a early working life he had no idea how ,anyway
Good advice, I did not elaborate on where I had actual travelled to it might have just taken the wind out of his sails,but he was all right with me .
I did ask about the Tachograph card and he said we are starting fresh from now where we are and he took the two tachograph discs out of the tachograph head and tore them up .he said if you do not get a police check through the night, then no one else is checking lorry s [or so every one thought]
who knows what you are doing. god knows where he booked off on his previous card. Well I did not worry , I was only a passenger -ish. so he said he would just use his tachograph card and use mine later if needed when back in Dover ,or ,wherever so that meant we now had 15 hours to do collection and get back to a port for the ferry back to England.
On arrival at Dover I am all eyes . I was going to start writing all that was done [procedure] when with a empty trailer you are shipping out.
SHIPPING OUT ====
First peace of paper or booklet you needed was a TRAILER GARNET. That is the trailers own passport. it is a customs required document for all Country’s in Europe. It means that temporary excise duty has been paid. And the chassis number is used as well as whatever number the company uses for their own purpose and it cannot be changed, also on the trailers front are two photographs of the trailer in sealed plastic holders also legal requirement however [never needed in England by our U.K .trailers however all foreign lorry s within the U.K.] needed them ,but I must point out at that time in the 1980s early 1990s that EUROPEAN lorry s driving over in the U. K. was very limited as Self drive i.e. foreign drivers actually driving. Quite a lot of European trailers were shipped over on ferry s to be hauled by UK drivers…
also the customs never bothered about the trailer garnet on foreign trailers .NEXT the ticket office passports were looked at by to them.
Two drivers one lorry,oh.!! you will have to pay for the extra bunk bed and food,first obstacle. Apparently when the ticket was booked,
two drivers were not mentioned.[i could be a hitch hiker]
So then they rang after the office , to get conformation. It was all-right in the end however I did produce my HGV .but they still wanted conformation… And that practice was in still force all the years I crossed the channel from whatever port and country , a named passenger ,for a second drivers ticket… to stop people even then bringing any one to the UK,because if there was any problems , with the police ,immigration abroad, and trying to get in here the fall back was the Ferry company they were held responsible…
So then round to the customs, having no goods to clear a “transit empty “form has to be filled in and stamped,as Belgium is in Benelux there are different boarder controls needed ,not a lot. so it is easy to enter and transit. Then off down to queue up for boarding ,there were two types of ferries for Zeebrugge one freight only ,slower and limited cabins .and the other normal but smaller than now roll on ,roll off that was a faster crossing ,as drivers ,we also had a bunk,and drivers only eating lounge.[privilege].as all you ex m/e .commie block men would know very well…
Loading of the lorry s was a job done by shore staff on the dock and once inside by the ships crew
……=…
,[[just a diverse peace of information, what I did not know at the time when I was using… TOWNSEND THORESON ,AND LATER P and O ferries to ZEEBRUGGE one of my old ship mates was working on the same ships as a bosun, quartermaster .and we never bumped into one another .we were definitely on the same ferry at the same time as when the HERALD OF FREE ENTERPRISE SANK IN THE ZEEBRUGGE HARBOUR on march the 9th 1987 WE HAD BOTH CAME OVER THE DAY BEFORE IN ANOTHER FERRY. And we did not meet up un till 2005 .He was a lucky man as crews used to rotate to the two different ships .i did not know of anyone personally who died.he sadly knew all the crew…
So the ships crew parked you up then proceeded to put chains on the lorry from the deck to stop any movement. Then out we got, went up the stairs to the drivers compartments, and I can tell you I am, ecstatic I never ever thought I would set foot on a ship again ever. just being there brought a lot of memories back[good ones] but I did not let on to PETE he would not a given a rats arse anyway. It did not take long to suss him out , a Ladies man…when round the table eating he never stopped flowing from him .where he had been what he did. chatting to the stewardesses . Then we went to our cabins and had a sleep for 3 hours how bad was that, and getting paid for it ,well,that was the way you had to look at it .I could not believe that for years some drivers had had jobs like I was now privy to,not all that ■■■■ we used to do, and a lot of them were young men. Well good luck to them but I was envious of them that is all they new ,i expect it was the luck of the draw where you lived and the company you worked for.
After the sleep,up for tea and sandwich,all free. And then duty free ,what a bonus. But did say to me
be careful how many cigarettes you buy as you are only allowed 200 hundred that is the U K. limit
also you can buy them on the passage home, also all the men buying large quantities of cigarettes
are going home or on long trips ,not back to the UK like we will be so point taken and I waited for the return ferry. after a call over the ships T ANNOY “all drivers proceed to the lorry s”off we went.
Once down in the lorry deck there seemed a lot of lorry s to the amount of drivers who went up into the passenger area so I mentioned it to Pete ,ho arr , he said a lot of the men .do not leave their cabs they get in there own bunk and get to sleep quicker, also if there is a snorer in the same cabin you might just as well give up. Also you get longer in bed.
It did after time turn out to be a practice that all shipping company s on all routes rule out as a non practice to be used after the 1987 disaster at Zeebrugge ,in fact all drivers had to report with ticket to the stewards office well for a start .as the loss of drivers life s trapped in the cabs was very high .however `that was to come later.
So we start winding our way out of the ships bowl’s and into the ■■■■■■■ rain in a very orderly queue. For the first bend in the road , all lorry s off from different countries I had never seen so many ,what I noticed straight away all the nice hello s,nodding,Pete telling me who was from where etc all smiles ,fu-k me as soon as we got of the ship it was one for all no quarter given horns blowing, Jesus they were like Jekyll and hide. When we eventually got parked up outside the customs and immigration office ,[all in one] it was like a football crowd coming out of a match. no order at all ,so I just stuck with Pete and no one was saying anything to each other,it was strange however I was learning that was what I was there for.
Ye, I got my passport stamped. My first foreign stamp. They do not bother now ,well they did not years ago, for drivers.i asked for mine to be .
First stop Pete said was diesel .it was the second cheapest in the Euro union , Luxembourg was the cheapest and it still is to this very day,how .f-ck knows ,but it is.
He would not let me drive until I had got my eye in so to say, he told me.
After 10 minutes we were at the first garage, it was packed with nearly all the lorries off the ferry ,so we queued again ,I can see now why the big rush to get first was to get to the diesel stop first.i did not have any idea that years after I would know that place very well indeed.
After years, I had got it all sussed out , driving down to Dover the more lorry s you overtook they would be behind you whatever queue in the dock you took I would more or less know if they were going for the Zeebrugge or Calais ,as the same companies usually kept to there regular trips to the same countries… you knew you would always be in front of them ,and be at the diesel tank stop n at ZEEBRUGGE before them, how? Because you would be in front of them in the queue at Dover and get on the ferry earlier than them, and we were mostly empty going in to Zeebrugge so quick customs at Dover, and better position on the ferry for getting off to the diesel and the horrible coffee. always luke -warm but drivers used to love it, afraid I never did. .
It was the practice of all the different nationality’s while filling up was to have no sense of hurry at all ,they were like mad men to get to the diesel then once there they would put the fill up hose in the tank and f-ck off,[automatic fuel cut off]into the garage shop that had chairs, table, and free coffee and not a care in the world .i expect it was something I would have to get used to.but as fridge men we never had time to toss it off,we always had a strict timeline…
We were at lest 1hour there …mind you Pete was as bad as the others once at the diesel tank,he was then speaking in pidgin English , lots of back slapping, and the now classic hand shaking ,it was like a epidemic, they were all shaking hands, if they knew one person, and you were near, you all got a handshake .that was to me , well different, being English how many times in your life do you shake hands,very little …it was a new form of greeting I would become very at ease with after time.
All I could hear was lots of WE!E, SAV!A,MESSU!E ] then unintelligible rubbish .it was if I had been transported to another world, however after time I found that the Belgians, and the French used a lot of the same words in their greetings language,also handshakes .
Also the new smells of strange cigarettes , lots of different snacks in the shop ,nothing English ,for a while yes ,i was like a kid in a sweet shop.The total garage at Zeebruge had a resturant out of the rear it took me years to know as I never had time to mess about ,diesel in ,then me out… You were able to buy all different kinds of goods for a lorry,not seen in the U k mostly for owner drives. one thing did catch my eye was like the small well made wooden very neat table top ,that would fit around the inside of the windscreen like a small writing desk with little small draws ,for all the pens , on the passenger side of the cab i thought how good a idea. they were labelled up for all the European makes of lorry cabs.[[little did I know then that I would know more about them] and deliver some to the same people in the garage…
There was a air of I will get going when I am ready! no sense of hurry at all,as I could then see
that Pete was blending in, I expect you do as they do!..unless you were all on the same firm and running together,or just widening his circle of [I met you before mates].?
When at last we made a attempt to get moving, the tank full of diesel all so the tank under the trailer that runs the fridge engine ,that uses RED diesel ,even more cheaper than England, as that diesel is tax exempt in England for Agriculture use only ,however it was used legally by hauliers using refrigerated trailers,as no direct profit is made from it…[more on diesel later]
Once clear of Zeebrugge ,you never went through the actual town, I was on the learning look out, all the different signs ,road marking and of course wrong side of the road ,well for me,however it did not seemed normal,well it was .Pete made a point for me to keep well sat back in my seat as not to block his view from the inside mirror .as that was his now important mirror for all his overtaking if he needed to.
The direction signs I were seeing were way far beyond the distance from where we going. I thought we were going into Holland I had no idea of where we were as Pete seemed to have no map,and I did not have one .however he knew the road and did not need a map we soon turned off the main highway [like our Motorways] and headed for Antwerp. I did notice that on top of the road signs there was a large green E number I found out later the E number on the signs are main transit through routes to all countries through out Europe…
We passed a most famous truck stop [with EUROPEAN DRIVERS] called Lockern .on the way out of Belgium towards the Dutch boarder The Boarder when we arrived was just like a pull in lay bye
with a few brick huts [agents offices] and a coffee shop.no fuss,a small trading estate building uparound the area go forward 20 years and it was massive…
.then roof tiles for Marley with a commer 6 Wheeler so iv’e had ■■■■ as well.Started doing international straight after that with a GUY big J then ME.Moved to Holland in the mid 7os.Lived up here now for 6yrs[so i could spend my last days in a stress free environment]Snow and Cold is easier to handle than ■■■■■■■■ and bureaucracy.