hi Colin, yes that is Nigel, always raiding my box.
i have no idea where he is now.
Dave.
davemackie:
hi Colin, yes that is Nigel, always raiding my box.i have no idea where he is now.
Dave.
Hi Dave, I think that I have asked you this before but I never got a reply, Is the guy with the long black beard asleep on the beach in the chair Mick Eckersley ?.
Also the name Keith Headley has cropped up recently, that rings a distant bell, was he from Lancashire ?.
Regards Steve.
Dont no about camion stew but that Kavala beach looks hard work!! 
Hi Steve, Re: Keith only met him a few times, don’t know where he was from, on another thread it states that he is no longer with us RIP.
On the photo, one on the front looks like Howard Leighton, on the back not sure, doesn’t look big enough to be Mick, maybe Ned Kelly.
Dave.
colin.f.whitetrans:
Dont no about camion stew but that Kavala beach looks hard work!!
Yes Colin it was, especially if you were struggling to get the fire going for an evening beach time barbie 
.
Sorry Dave, it’s not Howard Leighton, I think Howard was a bit taller.
The guy at the front who was also sat next to the fire was a Welshman called Dave, who’s wife had a pub near Wrexham.
Can you remember if Mick Eckersley used to have a red Volvo F 89 ?
I dont think Nick Kelly was there that day and Nick had a lot more skin around his stomach .
Regards Steve.
B.T.W. Dave, I met up with Ken Corrigan last year, he still hasn’t changed and looks very well for his age. He certainly looks better than that old Fiat that he used to take down to Turkey .
Hi Steve, I have just spoken to Pat Seals on the phone, he confirms that Mick had an F89 red in colour, also that Keith Headley was from Heywood, his funeral was at Bolton Crem. Pat was there.
Dave.
Hi Steve
A barbi and sunbathing■■? I hope you used all them tins with no labels
Bigleggy & Bestbootie, I agree with you two, eat out when you can, makes you feel more cilvilised, and you have more chance to talk to female company. I love stews, but proper stews with chunks of beef and vegables, or when I was in the army on maneouvres, snare a rabbit and put it into a stew, I was taught to cook chicken with all the feathers on, incase it in mud or clay wrap in newspaper, place in the pit fire and coverwith soil, and leave for a couple of hours, when cooked you peel the mud casing off, and all the feathers come away a leave a very tasty chicken. But to tip any old rubbish in to a pot, and rave about it, I question your taste buds, you poor little ex- boy scouts ha ha ha. I worked for a good firm, and took with me £60 to £100 worth of food with me, but once out of the east, I would look for a restaurant, even in Turkey, Lale’s Restaurant " Pudding shop", or the fish ones all under the bridge in Istanbul, yum yum, I loved mussels in batter Sandman Norman
Eating from the trailer box kitchen in Hungary.
The built in kitchen I knocked up in my 142,(Weekended in Italy on this one.)
The kitchen packed away.
Ian, you would have loved our fridge, washbasin, and cooking stove and all the storage space inside for the food, air -con to keep you cool, when cooking. The passenger seat could be locked, but it would swivel when un-locked, so you could wash or cook with ease. One of my mate, used to to give all of his night out to his wife, so she thought he would not be out on the town enjoying himself, he used to buy cheap soya meat substitute, I said are you a vegy, he said no its cheaper, I soon stopped sharing meals with him. Sandman Norman
Not exactly a camion stew story but in the mid 80s my dad bought 250 tins of food with no labels on. My mum opened a few to see if there was anything she could use in the bar food of our pub but there was nothing anyone would eat.
This was the era of live aid and my school was having a collection of tinned food to send off so my dads idea was to get a printer mate to make up some labels and got me and my sister to take them to school and they got the local paper involved and we was pictured in the paper under the headline local publican helps the needey in africa.
God knows what the starving of africa made of the old crap we sent. thats if they ever got it
KR79 , When I had my accident in Turkey, I was in Londra camping,and a mate on the same firm as me, gave me, about a dozen tins of food, it was ex-army surplus, mostly sardines, when I checked the date on the tins, it was 1943. Later when I done a nother trip, I threw them out to the Turks, when I was on my return through this villiage, they chuck them back at me. My mate Bill Thomas, always tells the story that he saved me from starving, by giving me tins of john west best salmon, I remind him, that he is a tight old bar steward, and it was ex-wd 1943 condemed sardines,that the Turks would not eat, he gives a big grin and shrugs his shoulders. Sandman Norman
Id say you would want to have a decent toilet nearby if you ate a tin of them sardines a proper sit down one not the continental bomb aimer specail.
Norman Ingram & kr79
That answers something I’ve always wondered – What is the maximum life of canned foods ?
I believed for many years that it had an almost infinite “shelf life” if the cans weren’t blown !
I remember reading (somewhere ?) that in WW11 the British Expeditionary Force were carrying canned rations with a WW1 date on the cans !
Hi Steve, regarding the photo on the Kavala beach. The guy in the foreground with the towel over his knees looks very like Gordon Crisp RIP. Who drove for Taffy Davies for many years and ended his driving carreer with Brian Haley of Braintree. The one with the long black beard looks like Mike Benn, who drove for David Duxbury for a few years and then others to and from the M/E, this photo of him was taken in my cab one night in Baghdad.
.
It’s all very well to have cammion stew but you also have to have the kitchen labourer’s. on this occassion we had master cook Alan Bremner and washer uppers Billy Thomas and Les Naylor on route to Zarafshan.
Alan bremner certainly knew how to kit out a trailer box and cook up a meal.
On one occasion i had a stone thrown at my windscreen and had shards of glass in my eyes luckily there was a medical centre at the gold mine and they treeted me there. After treatment the doctor said that i would have to keep the bandages on until the next day. i said ok but how do i get back to my truck , so she arranged the site security to take me back to my truck where alan Bremner was waiting to feed me with my dinner. Proper Mates.
Regards Jamie.
A Scot Lost in the Valley’s.
Hi Jamie
Cracking photos, im sure you had many a good meal out the box but having your eyes in bandages must have made it really interesting tho!! I bet you had a good crack that night 
Best Reg Colin
Reg the only reason he had his eyes covered up was because it tasted better that it looked Ha Ha Ha
Hi Norman, here’s one for you.You were asking a while back about one of Barton of nottinghams drivers,■■■■ Barton well here he is sitting down on the left foreground ■■■■ Brierley himself RIP. This photo was taken just off the tapline in Saudi one morning. We had just finished breakfast when a german driver approached us and offered us a bottle of whiskey. my mate George Hope did not have to be asked twice so here he is brandishing his trophy. the only other driver that i recognise is Kevin Llewelin on the right foreground.
regards Jamie.
A Scot lost in the Valley’s
Hi Jamie, Dave Mackie asked ages ago if anybody had any info on Mick Eckersley. Well, I think that the guy who I am getting mixed up with was Mike Benn who is shown in your photo. The Mick who I am thinking of worked for David Duxbury and then had a red Volvo F89 which I think he owned, he came from Lancashire and carried on doing Middle East. They are all brilliant photo’s and remind me of what it was like back then, keep em coming .
I presume that the next photo with Billy Thomas is the same Billy who pulled for Hick’s in South Wales in the 80’s ?.
Did he only have one leg or was that one of The Hobbs Brothers ?, who ever it was you have got to admire them for their courage.
B.T.W. Jamie, Marc The Bubbleman posted a photo a couple of day’s ago on The Scrapbook Memories Thread of a Hick’s D.A.F.
I am sure that it’s The Plater driving it as I can see the relection of his glasses what do you think ?.
Best regards Steve.
mushroomman:
Hi Jamie, Dave Mackie asked ages ago if anybody had any info on Mick Eckersley. Well, I think that the guy who I am getting mixed up with was Mike Benn who is shown in your photo. The Mick who I am thinking of worked for David Duxbury and then had a red Volvo F89 which I think he owned, he came from Lancashire and carried on doing Middle East. They are all brilliant photo’s and remind me of what it was like back then, keep em coming
I presume that the next photo with Billy Thomas is the same Billy who pulled for Hick’s in South Wales in the 80’s ?.
Did he only have one leg or was that one of The Hobbs Brothers ?, who ever it was you have got to admire them for their courage.
B.T.W. Jamie, Marc The Bubbleman posted a photo a couple of day’s ago on The Scrapbook Memories Thread of a Hick’s D.A.F.
I am sure that it’s The Plater driving it as I can see the relection of his glasses what do you think ?.
Best regards Steve.
Steve,
Non of the Hobbs brothers had a wooden leg.The eldest brother Dai, passed away in the Londra one night.
Alan was the quiet one with the beard and the youngest was Bobby who I spoke to about 12 months ago.He’s now working for some firm in Gloucester.It’s strange,the only drivers on Hicks that I really got to know were the Hobbs brothers.
The only Billy with a wooden leg I can remembe,we’ve covered this before,was Billy Hamm(RIP) from Bolton who used to drive the Mack for Chapman and Ball.I didn’t know there was a Hicks driver with only one leg!