Nice pic, Ron. This fits with another pic (below). No. 139 came from Holland. Robert
Potted biographies of characters from that era.
A-J. Geoff Collins never worked for Trans Arabia, but the following may (or may not!) be of interest.
Geoff Collins
I first met Geoff, and his business partner Ginger (Tom McNeill) when we were ‘subbing’ from Crescent/Sealand, living in our trucks outside the terminal.
They had been making decent money over in Jeddah, double manning Ginger’s Daf, but unfortunately Ginger had borrowed a ‘cherrypicker’ to do a job and bent it! Despite his promises to pay the repair costs back, the company that owned it were not convinced, so Geoff and Ginger did a moonlight flit across to Dammam, where they knew Peter Best and Trevor Cooper who were already subbing from Sealand.
Geoff’s truck was currently held in Germany - they had sent a driver with a load for Saudi. Without going into detail, it wasn’t strictly legal. However, that hadn’t been the problem. The driver ‘Budgie’, also had various fake currencies with him. He made the mistake of exchanging some counterfeit Deutschmarks in Germany. He went to prison for 2 years and the truck was impounded.
Budgie was eventually released and the impounded truck and its load given back to them. The crisps in the trailer were long out of date, but the rest of the cargo, which will remain nameless, was still in good condition. I understand they sold it back in England rather than trying to carry on to Saudi.
Ginger drove his Daf. Geoff went to work for a Dutchman, driving a cement truck off the port. (Haway man, look at the clip of me, I look like a little flour grader!) He then bought a Fiat and joined us working for Sealand and Caravan.
Geoff and Ginger were from South Bank, Middlesbrough. Their childhood was one of poverty. They were contemporaries of Paul Daniels and said that he had stolen his catchphrase of ‘not a lot’ from them. I later became good friends with Geoff’s younger brother Eric, who also came out to Saudi. Eric went to school with Roy, ‘Chubby’ Brown.
These Teessiders had an amazing sense of humour. Ginger had an endless fund of jokes. They also had a teasing side. I remember waiting on the port to load with them. We were in Ginger’s Daf. Geoff casually said ‘I believe that you can get a big discount on your electricity bill if you have more than eight appliances in your house.’
Geoff and Ginger were in the driver and passenger seat, I was on the lowered top bunk.
‘Oh right’ I said, ‘we’ve got a kettle, oh, and a toaster.’ We then went through Hoover, food mixer etc.
Geoff appeared to have a bad cough at this point. When we got to the eighth item, they both collapsed in laughter and said ‘didn’t you do well…’ Yes it looks obvious now, but I’d been had!
They were both masters of ‘finding’ trailers, which they then sold to ‘Big Jim’ at Sealand. Jim was an American. Sealand had recently imported a fleet of Dodges from Elizabeth, New Jersey. The Philippino drivers had also arrived. This meant our work started to drop as they took over the ‘Line Haul’ (trunk in English) to Riyadh. Big Jim’s diplomacy was fairly basic. ‘I’ll shoot a couple, then I just have to show the rest the rifle!’
As long as Jim had a copy of the passport of whoever sold him equipment he was happy. By this time we had started for Behring/Caravan and had moved to their yard. G&G got hold of two low loader trailers. Where and how I don’t remember, but these were great for moving heavy equipment for Zahid. One day they weren’t in the yard any more. ‘Santa Claus bought them!’ Was the reply when asked.
Next thing they were painted in Crescent/Sealand colours. Geoff and Ginger called Jim ‘Santa’.
When Joe, the transport manager employed originally through Jeff Litwin, of Simon international, argued with Jeff, went mad and used a forklift to destroy all of Jeff’s trucks in the yard one night, the American owner of Behring realised he needed a new transport manager. Geoff wanted the job. He knew that controlling the freight was where the money was. Unfortunately for him and Ginger, Peter Best got the job.
Geoff and Ginger decided the good times were over - this would be about 1980/81. They sold as much as they could to ‘Santa’ and headed home.
Ginger bought a used car lot. He still lives in Middlesbrough but is in poor health.
Geoff bought a night club, ‘The Venue’. He then invested in property. In partnership with his sons, he owns a lot of property in Middlesbrough and drives a new Rolls Royce. Not bad for a poor boy from South Bank! I head over the Pennines on my motor bike for a visit once or twice a year and we’re still good chums.
Sadly his brother Eric died about 15 years ago. One of my stories is in his memory, we were good friends.
John.
ronhawk:
Hello Pete I think you are right there was a transport company just across the crossing on the left side , the council put a weight restriction on that Road and maybe they moved ■■ I carnt recall there name but it sounds familiar ? Thanks for your interest Ron. I should know the name ?
Hi Ron,Yes that is the same crossing and sure it was Guymers,need Curnock to confirm! On another topic Talbot Stead tube works another one gone its T.K Maxx distribution centre and bus garage is it an Antique/reclamation place now? Cheer’s Pete
Morning John! Thank you for posting your genuine memories on a thread where these M/E-stories belong!
I will correct the register.
For the two ‘new’ NGC’s posted by RH and RH (Ron and Robert share same initials) I now discovered that these
chassis were not the same…so quite challenging to verify four NGC’s.
ERF-Continental:
Morning John! Thank you for posting your genuine memories on a thread where thes kind of M/E-stories belong!For the two ‘new’ NGC’s posted by RH and RH (Ron and Robert share same initials) I now discovered that these
chassis were not the same…so quite challenging to verify four NGC’s.
The white mudguards are a bit of a giveaway I suppose! 
Robert
Quote Captain Mainwarring? LOL
This is a great thread as I said before its the only place I get to reminisce and I can relate to I only had one experience with a MACK truck it was a brand new one that arrived on one of the SARAMAT ferries … it so happened that it was during my time in the office “recovering” from being in the nick … I had been sent into the port to “supervise” the unloading of all the trailers etc all was going well till it came to driving off this long nosed Mack tractor unit it was big and red !!! anyway got it cranked up ok but was VERY unfamiliar with the controls etc from memory it was a fairly big ■■■■■■■ (memory !!) please bare in mind it was night and in the hold of the ship it was dark I just could,nt find the flamin hand brake how was I to know it was a yellow button you had to push on the right hand side of the dash anyway once on dry land I gave it the gun up to the SARAMAT compound later that night followed by a brand new Merc saloon car which was one the first of its size to arrive in Saudi so I was told and to drive it with care ■■?
Wonderful!
In general, why Saramat and especially TransArabia had preferences for the normal control Macks,
whereas their F-series were available, with and without bunk?
Backsplice what was the gearbox on your Mac ? Ours had the transfer box two sticks high & low range a bit agricultural so different from the ERF , B , on par with the " A "with the Daved Brown I never saw the dog on the front of T/As?? The double de clutch was slow to get the cogs lined up , Har Har Ron
Toni Cope ■■ If you where unfortunate to have TC in front you could never get past him ? He would go into the edge of the black stuff ,and through all the debris up in your windscreen the swine , dam good driver keep well away , one lad from Aldridge His name was Ronnie Hinton RIP he was a really nice man we got on well together , In Damman , I took his mail to his home when I was on leave And the next week It was tragic ,what happened to him he had an heart attack and died on the beach in Damman. TC was with him and I think Dennis Purchase ■■? Another good driver from Walsall , I was back in Jeddah when this happened, the poor lad went home on the same flight as he was going on leave only in a box , we all sent our heart felt sympathy to his lovely family , Saudis heat was a killer , Ron
Tremendous good posts, even for us now far away from that scene and in our comfortable lifes!
Ron, was it an option to exchange the Mack-engine and replace them with ■■■■■■■■ I assume the
chassis was good and ‘only’ the Mack- exhaust-brake caused severe damage. Should be done in a
jiffy with your ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ JD and JC around?
A -J !!! What a good idea , I would have loved to do this , looking at the discarded ■■■■■■■ in the photo what a waist these engines should never be scraped , looks as though every thing was at hand apart from the inclination , certainly there was plenty of room to accept the engine and fuller G box " necessity is the mother of invention " Ron
They do say ? That in the dead of night sometimes you can see a road train thundering along this high way with 95tons of oil on its back ,Ron
Tina Turner would sing: “Burn baby, burn”!
Van Steenbergen had some Macks…NR4D out of army surplus but soon the Lanova-engine (named after
the invention from Franz Lang, a German engineer, so LAng and NOVA for new) was replaced by guess
one time…■■■■■■■■■■ Also their later Krupp Tiger (with 2-cycle Krupp) got a ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ soon.
Quite some discussions after the purchase of a FAUN 68 when Van Steenbergen ordered a chassis but WITH
■■■■■■■ as first installation and NOT the air-cooled KHD. The chassis came without engine and Denonville
placed a HB-600 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ some Faun-operators followed that initiative. Van Steenbergen had bad
experiences with KHD installed in their Minerva’s…as the Knight-engine (as in their Daimler) was exhausted.
Their Foden kept the Gardner but was very hard to keep operational, weight, RHD, noise etc. Other chassis
had ■■■■■■■ (White) or (International, Kenworth and GMC) got ■■■■■■■ from the first operational day.
Ron…what about John Davies…is he also keen on the TA-thread and register?
ERF-Continental:
Tina Turner would sing: “Burn baby, burn”!Van Steenbergen had some Macks…NR4D out of army surplus but soon the Lanova-engine (named after
the invention from Franz Lang, a German engineer, so LAng and NOVA for new) was replaced by guess
one time…■■■■■■■■■■ Also their later Krupp Tiger (with 2-cycle Krupp) got a ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ soon.Quite some discussions after the purchase of a FAUN 68 when Van Steenbergen ordered a chassis but WITH
■■■■■■■ as first installation and NOT the air-cooled KHD. The chassis came without engine and Denonville
placed a HB-600 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ some Faun-operators followed that initiative. Van Steenbergen had bad
experiences with KHD installed in their Minerva’s…as the Knight-engine (as in their Daimler) was exhausted.Their Foden kept the Gardner but was very hard to keep operational, weight, RHD, noise etc. Other chassis
had ■■■■■■■ (White) or (International, Kenworth and GMC) got ■■■■■■■ from the first operational day.Ron…what about John Davies…is he also keen on the TA-thread and register?
Hi ERF continental, I saw JD a few weeks ago and told him about this thread his reply was I don’t know anything about computers! bit like my Dad could fix anything mechanical truckwise but could not work the remote for the TV! Cheer’s Pete
Pete, good you jump in and feel free to inform us how we could make things more easy for JD.
Perhaps together with Ron Hawkins, Jerry Cooke, yourself and available registers that finally a
long planned booklet is available. With winter coming…perhaps some pages with fleet-info or
as started with TA-staff, that makes the brain more alive again and stories come in …
Again, thank you for your reaction!
A-J
Ronaldo you old repro! We haven’t spoken for a while. How the devil are you? Still swopping tea and cake with the neighbours I trust! Ha! Ha!
I am much impressed with your apple crop. Glad to see you have at last, come round to my way of thinking when it come to gleaning although, if I remember rightly, you taught me some of the finer points of the art! ( More tittering!)
Mind you, I think I stole your thunder when I soft soaped your boss Tony Twankit into giving me an ERF lighter which you had been trying to get your mitts on. And I didn’t even smoke! ( Even more tittering!) If you promise me you will take up smoking again I just might sell it to you!
I am really pleased to see this thread has gone from strength to strength and made all the better for a bit of meandering.
I attach a few pics here. One of the for mentioned lighter, a couple of some of your girlfriends wearing sassy up the bum thongs, ( taken on the old Abqaiq Road which had fallen into disuse following the building of the new road), one of you posing in front of a big one with that lovely perm you used to have (lucky bar steward!) and an interesting picture of a typical Arab overtaking manoeuvre.
Stay well.
PS. I might call in on you again soon. I need to stock up on apple pies for the winter. PPS. Do you need any rabbit quarters. Guaranteed to break your dentures!!
Regards.M.
PS. Some more drivers names for the Trans Arabia list…based in Dammam…Ago…Manny…Matius the pan… More will come to me later. Maybe!!
I only know JD from him visiting my mates yard,also ex Jones’s,I have printed some pages off this thread and will pass those on to him at the Jones’s reunion later this month and I will ask him if he has any photo’s! Cheer’s Pete
That would be top! Thank you very much in advance for your co-operation and fingers crossed we all
might read/see more in some weeks!
Nice weekend, A-J
ERF-Continental:
That would be top! Thank you very much in advance for your co-operation and fingers crossed we all
might read/see more in some weeks!Nice weekend, A-J
Not a problem A-J as we have to preserve as much memories as possible,have a good weekend as well,Cheer’s Pete