I’m nowhere near as good a writer as Jazzandy, but inspired by his episodic story, I thought I’d put down my memories of the first time I went overseas with my Dad, trying to recall what was going through my mind at the time. Hope you enjoy it:
In late 1975, my Dad had had enough of being a carpenter for a local developer, and disappeared off to Yorkshire for 2 weeks to learn how to drive lorries. I was 7, and my brother 4, and we were most impressed that Daddy was going to drive these huge things that we saw on the roads. When he came back, with ink still wet on his little licence book, and started working for Slater’s Transport out of Harwich Navyard,driving a Foden S83, taking all sorts of bits and pieces up to Vauxhall’s at Luton, I pestered him to go on every trip that I possibly could, even though it meant sitting in the security hut at Navyard whilst he loaded, and again at Vauxhall whilst he tipped. My brother wasn’t so interested, especially as he didn’t like staying in the hut with strangers - on one occasion Dad actually brought him all the way home and dropped him off - this in the days before trackers, tachos, or cabphones.
Time moved on, and Slater’s lost the Vauxhall contract and closed the Harwich office, and after a year or so tramping, Dad decided to move on, and looked locally for a new job. In very short order he found one at Harwich Haulage in Elmstead Market, near Colchester. After a few months of UK work, one of the drivers moved on, and Dad found himself on a regular weekly run between Rotterdam and Sheffield - shipping out on a Sunday night, back in on the Wednesday day boat, home for Wednesday night, and then up to Sheffield, with usually a collection from Oerlikon Electrodes at Glossop, before getting home again on Friday night.
Obviously this got me all fired up again for more trips, and so in June 1978, after getting my very first passport and wangling a week off school, that Sunday night I was off with Dad. I don’t remember the exact date, but we were listening to the Argentina-Netherlands World Cup final on the radio - Google puts it as 25th June 1978. That particular week we were shipping out of Felixstowe, as they were working on the ramp at Harwich (I wonder in retrospect if it was anything to do with the Prinses Beatrix coming into service that summer?). After a brief discussion at Felixstowe as to whether we were going to Zeebrugge or Europoort, we were finally on the Viking Voyager and on our way to Zeebee. I don’t remember sleeping very much that night, but was still up at first light watching us nudging into the berth at Zeebrugge.
After getting out through the various controls, we parked up in Zeebrugge town and headed to the agents, Itrafo. My abiding memory of this is hiding behind Dad every time I saw a dog - remember the Rabies scares of the 70s? The posters all over the ports - La Rage, Hondolheid? My 9 year old brain was in full panic mode at this point.
After dealing with the agent, we headed off to the first drop - Meaf Plastics at Bergen-op-Zoom. I had always been amazed that anybody could reverse a trailer, but this one looked impossible to my eyes - reversing round a corner and in through a roller-shutter door which looked about half the size of the lorry. The Dutchman who was guiding Dad in decided to go in through the door just as the trailer reached the door, and ended up stuck, with the corner of the trailer just against his sternum, and his back against the door pillar. Fortunately he wasn’t hurt, but had to wait for Dad to pull away before he could get free. No doubt these days a full H&S investigation would be needed, but back then it was a quick handshake, and get unloaded.
We then headed over to Moerdijk, where Dad had promised me a real treat, and took me to Kanters Restaurant for my first experience of a proper Dutch Uitsmijter, and a real Dutch truckstop. After being used to places such as Watford Gap, Kanters was a five-star place in comparison, and I was treated like royalty by the children-loving Dutch. This started a love affair with the Dutch and Holland which is still going strong today.
The final business of the day was to roll into Rotterdam and park up at Ribro BV, the forwarders where we would unload the last bits, and over the course of the next 24 hours reload with groupage to take back to Sheffield. Once again, as soon as we went into the office (actually into the office, not a waiting room outside), we were served up with coffee and biscuits, and soft drinks and sweets for me. I missed out on the fun of sleeping in the truck that night, as we went round to the home of one of the forkies from Ribro, Gerritt Heenman, and his wife Jolk, where Dad always stayed when he was at Ribro overnight.
The following day, Dad and Gerritt headed off to work to get the truck loaded, and I stayed with Jolk for the day. She took me round the town (Hoogvliet), took me to meet her parents - her Dad was one half of a famous clown act named Doppie en Dodo - I can’t remember which one he was, but somewhere back at Mum & Dad’s I’ve still got a signed photo from him. Once again, no matter where we went, I was made the centre of attention and spoiled rotten by everybody we met - have I ever mentioned how much I love Dutch people?!
Before long, we were heading to the Hoek to catch Wednesday’s boat back to Harwich - whatever work they were doing on the ramp had obviously been finished. The next couple of days were spent up in and around Sheffield, including a meal out with a couple of other drivers at the Pike and Heron pub just down the road from Woodcock Freight (Woodhouse Lane), where I discovered just how long you could have to wait around when on groupage! Before I knew it, we were on our way back South, and I was due to be back at school on the Monday. Fortunately summer holidays were just around the corner, and before long I would be back in Rotterdam, learning my first words in a foreign language from Jolk, and planning to be just like Dad when I grew up. There were however more adventures to be had during the next few years though…