dreva:
bloody hell you look in better nick then me ian and im 36
The Red Eye wasnât down to the camera.Iâd been up at 01,00 and done a Brighton trunk,got home got changed and went to this reunion at 7 pm!
PROWLANDS:
Excellent Ian,
And not a zimmer in sight !! you wouldânt believe nearly 35 years had passed since that photo in the Mocamp. You look fit and healthy old chap. Was that a re-union you were at, and its nice to see the old leather jacket still fits !! Canât say the same about my old clothes, mind you I can walk, donât like to but can. You mentioned another string, Iâm a bit of a novice at this stuff, could you let me know which string it is, would like to have a look. will see if can put recent pic on.
best regards.
PaulI took a test, I was made to.
On this forum,scroll down to the thread,âOld companies from Stoke on Trentâ.
PROWLANDS:
[.photobucket.com/albums/pp203/Prowlands/img033.jpg[/img][ Very interesting pictures Paul, I heard the name One Eye ( poor girl ) a lot of times, even before I had even got to Kapic. A couple of the faces look very familier but to put a name to them, well I could be miles out. At a guess could picture five, the guy in the middle be a driver from Lucas or Norseman Freight, from Birkenhead called Bob Matthews or could it be Depression Ron from Birmingham ?.
Picture eight, is that a very young Tony Gibbons also known as Big T from Manchester, I think he would of worked for Lawarabian then or maybe Tanker Bill.
Like I said, I am probably miles out.
Depression Ron is not on any of the pics,I never knew him when he had hair!
bestbooties:
Depression Ron is not on any of the pics,I never knew him when he had hair!
Thanks for that Ian, I am sure that I have seen that guy before and if itâs not Bob then I hope that some body will remember him. 
Good pics Ian,
Obviously photography interests you, all your pics are very good quality. Kenny looks as if he should be driving a barge with that beard and Phil Bunch should be in charge of a load of doormen. The reunions are good fun though, young Mattie has organised a few down here in the last couploe of years. Troublreis you spend the first half of the evening trying to recognise everyone and the second half having a nap at all the effort youâve made.
Glad to see youâve got your old Istanbul leathers on !!!
Best regards Paul
A little tale or two about Taffy, and I wouldânt speak ill of the dead, but Iâm sure he would laugh about them now as well.
The first is when Taff was running down to Tabriz with Hercules(Steve).
Once youâd got away from civilization in Turkey, and sometimes closer to home if you were desperate, the lack of toilet facilities meant you made do and mend and tried not to crap on your feet. Often blokes would drop their kecks hop up onto the diesel tank and hang their arse over the edge and hope everything ended up missing the vehicle, sometimes difficult if it was a power crap. The other way was to drop your kecks and if you had a spreadaxle trailer, which a lot of us did, you crouched down, reversed into the gap between the wheels and did the business, this allowed you to keep an eye on the world around whilst in a state of utter bliss. Now Taffy was a bit of a shy guy and liked a bit of âprivacyâ so he would drop his shorts and instead of reversing into place between the wheels would shuffle forward and grab hold of a chassis ring. Why he preferred this style of jobbying we will never know, of course we would keep well out of the way, not really a spectacle sport⌠anyway one day outside Yozgat Taffy became desperate for a crap. Having esconced himself comfortably between the wheels of the tailer in his usual position with his pure white bum on display to the arid wastes of central Turkey what should come along but an inquisitive dog that took offence at Taffyâs arse which was in explosive mode and took a bite out of it. The dog obviously didânt like the taste and buggered off, there was a horrendous scream from Taffy who was trying to wipe his arse, wipe away the blood and reverse out from between the wheels at the same time, bit of a mess really and not a vision I would like to share with you. The whole episode was worthy of Monty Python. The downside was that poor old Taffy had to be driven back to Ankara hospital to have an anti rabies injection which according to him was even more painful than the dog bite. It meant a few days off recuperating. Thereafter he always carried a large heavy duty bucket similar to a builders bucket . Iâll try and file the other story in a couple of days.
Aaarrrhhh,
The usual expression used when going for a dump was âGoing for a spreadâ or âSpread axleâ.
Do the younger drivers of today know the diference we had then between the two types of axle configuration available on tandem trailers.There was the close coupled and the spread axle.As the spread axle gave you a bigger axle loading tolerance,they were the most common on M/E.
It was pure chance that the gap between the wheels on the spread axle was just the right size to squat down with your elbows on the wheels of each axle.
It got so as I couldnât really have a satisfactory dump at home,but the old woman would NOT allow me to have a D20 on either side of the karzi at home!
I wondered how long it would be before we all got onto a subject like this 
.
I remember an old work mate of mine called Barry Longden who told me that some time in the seventies he was having a spread in the desert, I think some where in Saudi. As he was pulling his shorts up he was surprised to see the pile that he had just laid start moving. It turned out that he had â â â â on a Gerbil. 
Another guy was having a spread in the desert when a few of them had stopped for a brew.Some joker went round the other side of the trailer with a shovel which he pushed under the trailer and caught the âRichardâ,and quickly nipped off.Now being a proud chap like the rest of us,who has never looked round to see what youâve layed?Of course,zilch,nothing,no Richard.This guy really thought he was losing his marbles after enjoying a good strain and having nothing to show for it!
I hope this is the correct thread as it concerns Tahir and I see there is already a thread for that, still I suppose as Taffy was one of the founder drivers of Trans Uk Middle East this is just as good a thread⌠so
The second story about Taffy as promised,
Now if I remember rightly the winter of â75/76 was quite bad from Eastern Europe right through to Eastern Turkey and Northern Iran
Me and Taffy were running down to Abadan and making slow progress across Turkey, stuck here for a couple of days, then there for another day, sometimes only managing 40/50 miles in a day.
Eventually we had reached Horosan one very cold and snowy morning only to be stopped by the military at the back of a queue of some 30 wagons. It appeared that the conditions up towards Tahir village and beyond wereânt to good. Anyway they were allowing trucks to leave Horosan in groups of four every 15 minutes. By the time it came our turn to leave, about 2 hours later the snow had stopped, and in fact Freddie Archer had come across the top from Eleskirt on the other side of the mountain and stopped to have a brief chat and reckoned that the run up to the village, about 12 miles or so wasânt to bad, very slushy and muddy but once in the village and above got quite icy. taffy and I decided to try without chains. taffy had a step frame trailer with 12 tons or so and his beloved F88 290, I had a standard spreadaxle,18 tons and an F88.
I was carrying the snow chains for both of us as Taff had the stepframe and it was a lot easier for me to carry them under my trailer.
Our turn came , and we were coipled up with a pair of Bulgarians pulling Dapsofia tilts with brand new Merc 320âs with the air intakes on the front.
Of course the Bulgy guys, double manned as always left us for dead within 3
miles, and Taffy with his more powerful 290 and lighter load also left me behind. We were going to stop at the cafe in Eleskirt later.
Anyway the climb up wasânt to bad and the only bit I was worried about was in the village itself, because as you approached Tahir climbing, the road levelled out as you entered the village, dropped gently down round a right hand bend, then there was a very steep little incline about 30 yards long out of the village which then settled down to a steady climb to the top.
Getting up towards the village the snow at the sidesof the road was getting up to 6 feet deep, but traction was ok as Fred had said and a grader had been up ther first thing in the morning. The weather was that cold even the kids wereânt about. they often stood at the side of the road on the way up into the village trying to cadge â â â â in their own inimitable way. Approaching the village I felt good and pleased that we hadânt put on the chains, really it was the last thing any of us liked to do and if we could maintain momentum thats what we did.
Up into the village round the first bend drop down round the gentle right hander ready for a bit of power and momentum up the steep incline. Ah this wasânt meant to happen. There was Taffy at the side of the road at the bottom of the steep incline. I pulled up behind him and jumped out, not the best place to stop I was thinking!!! As i stumbled throuigh the Ice and snow to his cab he got out, He face was as white as the snow, in fact I thought heâd taken ill. Whereâs the chains, whereâs the chains, he was shouting at me and jabbering on about being held up, bloke had a gun in my face etc. etc. He was really badly shook up. Whilst we were getting the chains sorted, because we both needed them now, Taffy tried to tell me what had happened. Apparently he had been making good progress until he got to this point in the village and he pointed out a path cut into the snow bank both sides of the road. A little lad had shot out of the path across the road, Taffy had braked, lost control and ended up half jack knifed but missed the boy. He had managed to straighten out his truck and tried to climb the bank out of the village, âIt was no goodâ said Taff, âI tried three times, and then sat by here waiting for you, that was about 10 minutes agoâ. And then a guy came out from the track on the right and climbed up onto the step. Seemed friendly enoughâ and asked âProblem Collega.â I said âno problem, collega come soon with chains.â He became insistent and said again â Problem collegaâ I said â Nix Problem and with that he pulled out a gun and said âproblem collega. You buy chain off meâ. â What could I do â said Taffy. By this time I was getting worried, we had been there five minutes already and if it had happened to Taffy it could happen to me. I could just hear the sound in the distance of more trucks approaching. 'Whereâs this chain then Taff â I said. And he showed me . Iâd completely missed it in the excitement. The guy who had held him up had even given taff a hand to put it on. Only problem was it didânt fit. The blooming thing was a chain off a grader I reckon 'and even though they had laid it over the top of the tyre, It hung down either side like a pair of worn out breasts. We just had to leave it there at the side of the road. By this time a couple of Swedish guys had turned up behind us. We felt safe enough now and gave them a hand to chain up and eventually climbed out of the village and parked up at Eleskirt and had a few Efes to drown our spirits, when I asked Taffy how much for the rusty old chains he couldânt remember but said I would have paid whatever he wanted. I have never been so scared in my life.
And the moral of that story, I donât know If the same thing had happened again, we still wouldânt have put on the chains unless it seemed absolutely necessary.
Fantastic tale Paul,I could read this stuff all day long,whenâs the next one?
Keith
I rmember the story of taffy and the dog well.Was never sure if it were true but i know now it is.
Keep em coming Paul.
yeah get some more on paul
A humerous little tale possibly,
The first two or three trips to the M/E were a major learning curve, but slowly everything fell into place, thereâs no doubt about it if you were looking for trouble it wood soon find you and if you werenât it sometimes looked you out. You only got experience by doing the job, no amount of chatting to old hands, though useful, gave you all the info.
My favourite trip was Amman Jordan because the money was good. For pay purposes, from Eastern Europe through to Pakistan was organised into concentric circles and Amman just fell into the ÂŁ800 sector and it was a comfortable 16/18 day round trip.
My first trip to Amman in late summer '75 went really well, I went down on my own and met up with a Whittle guy, canât remember his name, but great bloke and good company, at the Trees truck stop near Slavonski Brod, Yugo. There used to be some big old girls on the game there, I mean big old girls with large lipsticked mouths, if I remember correctly one of them, the loudest and brashest was called Queenie. They were forever propositioning for a fiki-fiki. One of their tricks was to grab hold of the windscreen wiper arms and pull themselves up onto the bumper, lean against the cab and whip up their tops, plastering your windscreen with these vast agricultural breasts. I remember one of the girls doing this, only to pull the wiper right off and end up flat on her back in the dirt. Anyway I digress.
Me and this Whittle guy ran down to Adana together and we split up the following day, him going to Iraq and me heading south to Jordan. I had a lengthy but trouble free border crossing at Babel Hawa and Ramtha and cleared and tipped in Amman in 3 days. Made friends with the clearing agent in Amman, Abdul who very kindly invited me and another driver to his house for a meal, great experience. I left the following morning for Ramtha, the Jordanian/Syrian border. I was cleared and ready to roll in a couple of hours.
Now all you continental drivers know that when running empty with a tilt we always tied back the rear corner so that the border guards can look in and wave us on, and thats what happened. I was on my way back up towards the Turkish/ Syrian border and hoping to stop at Adana that night. It was a glorious day, one of those where life is worth living, 8 track bashing out Oliver Newton-John, I was at peace with the world. after about ten miles I became aware that something was not quite right, but couldnât put my finger on it, I kept checking the mirrors and all seemed fine, there was an occasional flapping at the rear of the trailer, but I just thought it was a torn bit of tilt flapping in the breeze, nothing was too clear as the mirror arm was vibrating quite a bit. I drove on for another 5/6 miles and as I looked in the mirror once again there appeared a length of wood waving from the back of my trailer. What the hell !! I pulled off the road, climbed down from the cab and could hear a commotion at the rear. I trotted to the back of the trailer. As I rounded the back I was greeted by the sight of a very portly Arabic gentleman clambering over the tailgate giving me a load of verbal. How he had managed to get in Iâll never know as he was more rotund than he was tall with very short arms. I had to help him get his toes onto the rear bar as his stomach was large enough to not allow him to reach forward far enough with his feet. Anyway he got down and carried on berating me with his short arms, then I was amazed to see a child climbing over the back, then another adult, a goat, another goat, a woman another child 3 more goats, it was unbelievable, who did they think I was, Noah ! That wasnât the end a car drew up behind whilst another elderly guy appeared in the back of the trailer and started passing down sacks and bales of straw. The guy in the car had a grasp of English and was talking to the short arab. Then he turned to me and said this man is not happy, you should have stopped 12 kilometers back, that is where you should have dropped them off. I felt as if I was in a dream. Why did they get in my truck I asked. It is normal said the guy. at the border they normally get in with Syrian or Jordanian driver, is like bus, but here is not bus. Apparently there hadânt been any suitable truck at the border so they jumped in the back of my tilt and assumed I would know the score. While this conversation was going on the short plump guy was across the other side of the road having waved down a truck going the other way. Within a few secs the Syrian tonka was across the road and the portly guy and his entourage were up on his backboard passing up goats and hay. The car man explained normaly when they want you to stop they bang on the back of the cab but I can see it is not possible in your camion. I asked why the border guard hadnât stopped me. Most probably friend, he said. With that he jumped back in his car, there was a blast of air horns as the Tonka moved off and I was left slightly bewildered in the middle of nowhere. In future at all the borders I checked the trailer before I pulled out, it never happened to me again but I know it happened to one or two other lads.
Looking back it was quite funny and my vision of the irate little guy trying to climb over the backboard and his fat tum stopping him being able to place his feet anywhere will stay with me forever.
As I said at the start the early trips were a steep learning curve and you just accepted the fact that anything was possible.
brilliant paul keep them coming!!!
Excellent tale Paul,get them all down,find a publisher and put me down for the first (signed) copy of the book!
With truckerash just concentrating on his Astran book,these tales of yourâs and other Trans UK guys will be lost forever unless you publish them.
Thanks guys. Never really thought about it Keith, Iâm sure there are loads of guys out there with stacks of stuff to tell. What this site has done is to stimulate the memory considerably, I had forgotten a lot of what I have written and its only when reading the various threads that it reminds you of little things that happened. It makes it sound like every trip was an adventure. In all honesty a good proportion of the job once youâd been doing it a while was mundane and boring, but as you can imagine if you are doing between 4/6000 miles per trip there is a good chance something memorable might happen. I will say to young Rugrat, Mattie, keep a diary, nothing too complicated, because what seems fresh in the mind now will have faded into nothing in30 years time, just look at the number of tales where people canât remember names or places which spoils the effect because the substance of any tale is in the detail.
All the best Paul
PROWLANDS:
Thanks guys. Never really thought about it Keith, Iâm sure there are loads of guys out there with stacks of stuff to tell. What this site has done is to stimulate the memory considerably, I had forgotten a lot of what I have written and its only when reading the various threads that it reminds you of little things that happened. It makes it sound like every trip was an adventure. In all honesty a good proportion of the job once youâd been doing it a while was mundane and boring, but as you can imagine if you are doing between 4/6000 miles per trip there is a good chance something memorable might happen. I will say to young Rugrat, Mattie, keep a diary, nothing too complicated, because what seems fresh in the mind now will have faded into nothing in30 years time, just look at the number of tales where people canât remember names or places which spoils the effect because the substance of any tale is in the detail.
All the best Paul
My thoughts exactly Paul.I maintain thast EVERY driver that did the M/E has a book in him.A lot of tales can be similar,but many are unique,only happened to that person,in that location.
After all,with all due respect to Kevin Noble,3 years M/E gave him enough memories to write âBaghdad Truckerâ.
I suppose the guys that only did one trip and found that was not the job for them could also write a book.
That is why I,along with some other contributors on here,are in the proces of writing our own acount of what the M/E meant to us.The younger drivers of today are eager to know the things that went on that could never happen in the UK,and there is not now the opportunity for any wannabe to go for it.
In 50 or 100 years time,Iâm sure this episode that so many of us were lucky enough to have taken part in,will become transport history.
On the thread 70âs and 80âs on the A45 some of the chat was about Fridged Freight, and I asked the question whether Jim McCluskey was the transport manager there. Gilbert very kindly informed me he was and said he had been T/M there till its closure in 1974, and then went on to ask if I new of the fiasco when Jim McCluskey came to subby for Trans Uk.
Funnily enough I do, but I never got to hear the final outcome.
I knew Jim was T/M at Fridged Freight and heâd got a reputation as a bit of a bâstard in that role. What I remember was Tony calling me into the office and asking me and Rupert I think it was to take Jim and if I remember the old F/F fitter under our wings and down to Tehran.
The first two days were fine, we were running Commie Bloc, into Czechoslovakia through Weidhaus. The second night we stopped at the really good transport cafe about 10 miles through the border. Both Jim and his mate were driving F86âs. the following morning it was a 7am start, Jim wasnât in a hurry to get away and said so, we had a bit of a row and eventually got away about 10, an hour later he wanted to stop for a brew up, that took 2 hours, Iâd already started to realise he didnât want to be there, his mate, I forget his name was as good as gold. That night we reached Brno. Jim kept asking if everything was going to be ok, heâd heard lots of stories about middle east work and that we needed to be careful. I remember saying weâll have to have a good day tomorrow to catch up on time, so we all agreed to be up for 5am cup of tea and away. No chance I was up at 4.30 making a brew with Rupert and knocked on Jims cab. No response, woke his mate up who said he wonât be up for a while yet, had a few shots last night. I then realised this could be a major problem, only the third day and likely to have an Alky on board, not what you need on the M/E. Eventually he came round at 12 noon and not much talking took place. Bob had said to look after them as it was their first trip. That day we managed to get through into Hungary at Mosonmagyarovar and actually made it to the service area as you came off the end of the dual carriageway dropping into Budapest, in those days the ring road hadnât been started. Jim wasnât prepared to go any further, needed a drink, when I opened his cab door he had a large number of bottles of whisky with him. I thought this guy isnât going to get to finish this trip. me and rupert had a chat and decided to Telex back home to explain, we had already lost a good day and as much I wanted to not let down Bob I could see this turning into a disaster. As it happened the next day wasânt to bad and we got down to the National at Belgrade. Jim was in his element there and had a facefull. the following morning about 11 we managed to get rolling and Jim was feeling a bit bullish until just north of Nis he had a close encounter with a gastarbeiter Turk going home to Turkey in an old Opel Kapitan, Nothing happened but it was a very close shave and we had to pull into the next layby to recover. Bela Palanca was as far as we got that night, stopped at a restaurant, and then the drinking started, it was horrendous, the whole trip was turning into a disaster, and how drunk was he when he was driving. he wouldânt drive at night, just in case he had an accident, this man was shot away and could easily be a danger to himself as well as everyone else. !0 am the following morning we persuaded him to move off, and we managed to transit the Yugo/Bulgarian border at Dimitrovgrad and made it to Plovdiv before he had enough for the day. By this time we had had a number of rows and I was all for leaving him to rot. I remember him saying â I used to be a terror to my drivers, they got away with nothing while I was in charge '. It was another night of the whisky and very little food, by this time we were nearly three days behind schedule and still not reached Istanbul. the truth of the matter was Jim was scared and didnât want to be there. I wish I could remember his mates name because he was a wonderful support to Jim. Midday the following day we were on the move again, and got to Kapic, joined queue and waited. In the morning we cleared through Young Turk and i said to Jim we are going to get to the Londra today whatever it takes. 5 hours later we rolled in to the Mocamp and I felt as if I had won a war. The idea was to have a day off there and move out. Jim was a new man, looking forward to the next part of the trip.
Rupert and I Telexed TUK to tell them of the situation. Tonyâs response was if he doesnât leave with you tomorrow, he will have to make his own way down. So no day off for us then. Come the morning 9am we knocked on jimâs cab, managed to wake him and his mate up and said we were going, are you ready? No mate we are staying for a couple of days to rest up then we will catch you up. His mate, give him his due stayed with him, but we were off, there was nothing we could do for Jim, the whisky was in control.
When we got to Tehran and telexed back to TUK they said he was still at the Mocamp and we were to carry on and they would deal with it.
Interestingly enough I donât remember what the final outcome was, so If you can tell me Gilbert I would much appreciate it
By the way thats not Roy Gilbert is it â â