Some ME pics NOT scanned from a book!

OUT OF HOURS TRANSPORT PHOTO FORUM (MEMBERS ONLY)
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They weren’t scanned 'cos I took 'em myself! Not all the same trip!

Yours truly (then 20 something) in front of GKO190N at the Orxy depot, Oostende 1975. Nice lumpy load of spares from Cat at Grimbergen in the tilt.

My mate Derek Greenaway who I took for his first trip out of Devon, never mind England. He now owns Cannon Commercials at Heathfield, Newton Abbot.

GKO190N in Turkey (note local D1000 - then backbone of the Turkish transport industry)

190N at head of a parking que Near Prague. Behind is an Alan Altug 89 - driver Pat Seal - then Alan Warner’s Oryx 89, then Daf 2300 owner dirver who later left the truck in Qatar and Derek Greenaway drove it home, then Ken Searl’s Orxy 89 then a Simons Marathon who’s driver’s name I have forgotten.

Do It Yourself funeral seen in Turkey

GKP423N with it’s driver Ian Johnson who’s dad was a ministry man in Kent! Looks like he was wearing his mum’s cardi too!

GKO190N surfing the sink-holes on the desert crossing from H4 to Turaif with 2 20 footers on a skel. You can clearly see from this photo why the best time to do the soft bit about 2/3rds of the way across was first or last thing when the low sun showed clearly where the soft stuff was. At midday all of that sand whould have been glaring white and you did not see the soft till you were in it.

Lunch in the desert. Line-up is one of the double-drive 89’s, driver Butch Levett. My uncle Rijk Voskuil’s 110, Jimmy Cadwallader’s hard-charging Vabis 76 from Middle East Forwarding, my truck and an Oryx 110 the name of who’s drive I can’t remember for the moment. Figures are (L to R) me, Butch, Rijk and Jimmy up on the roofrack.

The tyre man at Aydin’s garage opposite the Mocamp

A proper rope and sheet job.

One of the Orxy Oshkosh Desert Prince’s. They had four of them that took trailers on down over the desert from Doha to the Emirates or Dubai

The backbone of Saudi road transport

A sad picture. The tractor of Brian Lamb who died on the desert between Saudi and Jordan on it’s way home pictured at Harem Square, Istanbul. I believe the truck was that of Jimmy LaMar.

The dumped Daf that derek Greenaway drove home complete with Wilhire trailer. At Girisun in Northern Turkey.

Some years later UMU930S at the end of the Tapline in Saudi. Driver, me!

More years later (but no thinner!) the Fridco Daf at Brindisi with yours truly. Pic taken by a very nice lady hitchhiker that I had brought back from Greece.

I find some more later. Pics that is :sunglasses:

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:smiley: Good pics, and nice to see them, thanks. :wink:

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David Miller Great pictures. Shame about Brian Lamb. He was a mate of mine on the Italy run in the old days. He used to be two`s up with Tony on Sammy Williams Scania Wagon & drag. I think they had a couple of containers on it. Tony was greedy. Sammy worked out that that truck was doing about 1 to the gallon. They had Brian & Tony in the office & presented them with the evidence. They fired Tony but they told Lambie that he was innocent & could stay. Brian told them that if they fired Tony that they would have to fire him too & jacked in. Next I heard ,he had bought his own truck doing Saudi. The story goes that on his first trip he is in the desert with the air-con full on. Gets a blow-out on the trailer . Without thinking, stops and jumps out the cab to fix it. With the extreme in-cab low temperature & the sudden desert heat he had a heart attack & died before he touched the ground. I heard he was pulling a fridge & they brought him home in the back…?
These days The law with air-con is that it cannot be lower than -9 C% than the outside temp…Poor old Brian. Always immaculate.

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David Miller If you were on Grangewood ,I wonder if you remember a tubby Essex lad on there. He emigrated to the States & came back. Before he went he drove a Kenworth on the Italy run. When I met him we were doing the Boston to Algeria shunt with swinging beef…Good bloke. ( Told me the story of ` Oven-Ready Freddy ) :laughing: :laughing:

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Headache gone… :laughing:

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Thanks very much for the pictures, is there any chance of some more getting posted PLEASE, ta very much

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Thanks for sorting that Merc pic H. I’ve been looking at it on the slant for 30+years and it’s been giving me a right headache!

It was such a blow about Brian. He was driving for Oryx when he died and you’re right, it was jumping out of an A/C cab and then digging a motor out of the soft - don’t remember if it was his or somebody elses. The fridge bit came in because he died in the no mans land between Saudi and Jordan and because he had been alive when he left Saudi the Jordanian wooden-tops would not let the body enter Jordan. So someone ran down to the Embassy at Amman and they kept his body in the fridgebox for the several days till it got sorted. We had met him running back with Jim LaMer and various others including a fridge on the tapline and by the time we got to the Oryx depot at Doha the news had come through that he had died. It knocked me absolutely sideways for days - I just could not believe that I’d never hear that laugh again.

Brian once told me one of the funniest stories that I have ever heard. When he was on Sammies he was tipping Birmingham Fruit Market when it was on the origional site at the bullring and he’s never been there before. In those days, as you will remember, the plod in Birmingham rode grey Velocette motor cycles with leg-guards and they rode them wearing their Plod helmets - and a right sight they looked I remember. So Brian pulled up alongside one of these Herberts to ask the way. He waived the CMR out the window and Plod, being the Scania was a lefthooker made the assumption, before Brian could speak, that this driver was foriegn. So speaking as one might to a complete idiot he said to Brian (in a strong Brum accent) ‘You’ pointing at Brian ‘Follow me’ pointing at himself. Brian followed him into the market and the Copper stopped and pointed ‘Market’ he said and Brian replied in perfect Essex ‘Cor, thanks mate you’ve saved me loads of time’ and drove off leaving the Plod looking like the twit he was.

I do remember the lad that went to the States but I don’r remember what he was called - wasn’t one of the company drivers. That horror of a Kenworth. I did a Rumania with it when my F12 was in for test and after that refused to even shunt it in the yard. It actually belonged to a lad from Gloucestershire who we called ‘BJ and the Bear’ who had read too many American trucking magazines and hocked his soul to buy the pice of ■■■ from whoever was importing them at Chipping Sodbury. It had a screaming 2 stroke GM that boasted several horsepower but in fact wouldn’t pull a black man off your mother (as they say in Devon). Needless to say he went skint in double quick time (2.3 mpg even then was not a garantee of success). and Mr. Chipping Sodbury got the truck back.

Ha ha! Old ‘Oven Ready’! What a bloody laugh that was - at least for the rest of us. Actually I was there having come accross on the same boat when Port health opened the trailer. They didn’t laugh at all!

David

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You know, H, we have just got to have met - and probably drunk beer together. i was doing Algiers on Grangewood with Lamb from North Devon Meat. That meat market there should have been on an advert for food hygene shouldn’t it?

David

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Brit Pete. I’m off on a trip tomorrow but when I get back next week I’ll have a sort through my drawers - Ooo Err Missus! :laughing:

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I was doing Algiers for a mate of mine…Ex-Sammies, Pete Lissenburg. Grangewood had packed up & that outfit out of Buntingford (whose boss was called Biffo) were in there pretty strong. They had a showman’s name. Noel was the star at the time. Yeah , he was a nice guy. Light coloured hair ,wife & kids.Might be, Ray…? When it came to hygiene I think the Fish Market down in Athens took the biscuit :laughing: :laughing: I ran all the way down there once with a quarter of a trailer of swinging beef for the yanks. Urgent!! Pulled out all the stops ,when I got there they didn`t even offer me a cup of coffee…Peasants. It was thru my experiences of the commissaries & staff that I never bothered to visit the US. Sheer ignorance :unamused:

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Just looking at those pics you can see the massive air-con units on top of the cab…A few drivers had mini heart attacks getting out the cab without thinking… I remember that B`ham story from Brian… :laughing:

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any of you fellas remember any of the lads from sammy williams’s place in brum – gus baldry, brian white johnny train ■■?

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Just looking at those pics you can see the massive air-con units on top of the cab

And the worst was that as they were retro-fits and not built into the airducts of the cab as they are today and they were fitted onto the roof hatch the stream of cold air came straight down onto the top of your bonce so that you jumped out into +50ºC with a -10ºC brain! But we were ever so pleased to have 'em!

I’m on a trip today back mid-next week. Take care one and all.

David

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Have a good trip & wind the windows down before you stop. :wink:

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vernonbish777 There were a few Brian`s on Sammie’s. There was a Smith,a Smart ,& a Lamb… Brian Smart emigrated to Canada & became a tugboat captain on one of the lakes. He was ex-commando. Not a man to cross.

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Good Pics :smiley:

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Great pics and nice to read the exchange of memories between you and Harry, more please.

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This pic of GKP423N appeared in Truck magazine in the late 70’s.

Fantastic pics Dave,keep 'em coming.

And could the outfit from Buntingford you mentioned be Funstons by any chance?
Remember the trucks were dark purple with red,orange and yellow stripes and also remember seeing a tilt of theirs with Pif-Paf on the side,some sort of fly killer they took to Saudi.

They are still going,all fridge work now though.

Ran to Italy with one of their guys when I first started international,he had a brand new F12 Globetrotter fitted with the sink,cooker,fridge etc.
Made my Scania 112 look a bit basic.

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Excellent photos.

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KW Yes it was Funstons. The driver of that F12 was a big guy. He used to talk to that truck like it was a horse or something. He was going thru a divorce at the time. He was always making urgent phone calls to lawyers ect. from public phone booths in Algeria,France & Spain.