bestbooties:
klunk/■■■■■■■■
Then in 1983 when i lost my licence for three month for doin 75 mph i went on this job
Another blast from the past,I used to meet up with one or two of Daysons drivers in the Mocamp.DO WE KNOW EACH OTHER?
On one ocassion,when I was running the garage for Simon International in Stoke,I had to fly out to Istanbul to recover a Volvo F89,that some new driver we had started,blew all his running money ,then at the Mocamp decided it was a good idea to chuck a handfull of nuts and bolts into the inlet manifold then drive off down the road and see how far he could get.He got as far as the Bosphorous bridge before the engine complained.Then he had to be towed back to the Mocamp.He knew that our agent in Istanbul was Taji Kochman,a real gent,but not one to cross!Anyway,this geezer phoned Taji and said he had "broken down"and had no money.Taji came,paid the tow bill then took the paperwork for the truck and the load and the drivers passport,then told him he could have his papers and passport back when the bill was squared.We got a phone call here to say the driver had broken down,had no money and all his papers and passport had been taken!Now this driver had taken over two weeks to get to Istanbul,and had run out of money twice on the way!
Well we smelled a rat,so I was on the next flight to Istanbul,and a taxi to the Mocamp.I had taken my overalls with me and after borrowing a few tools from drivers I knew,I soon found out what had caused the problem,of course,this [zb] said he knew nothing about it!
In the restauraunt that evening,I was talking with a couple of Dayson’s drivers I knew,telling them what I was up to,and they said to me that if they told Alan Dayson this geezer was here,Alan would be on the next flight and come over and have this blokes legs off!
Apparently,he was well practiced in this sort of thing.He had worked for Dayson,and on his only trip for them,had got as far as Paulines at Golling in Austria,where he took a bolt out of the oil filter and drove round the car park untill the engine siezed,then did a runner with the money!
This so called driver decided that as he had no money and the truck was not mobile,he took all his gear out and booked into the Mocamp!
During the next day,I was comleting my check over of the engine,then getting one of the English drivers to drop his trailer and tow the F89 back to Aydin’s place.There is no job Aydin could not do!When genuine spares cost an arm and a leg,you have to work with what you have.When I showed him the damage,that was limited to one piston and bore and the two valves,and asked him what HE thought had caused it,he looked at me sideways and and asked if I hadn’t worked it out for myself!We both agreed,it was sabotage!
Aydin took out the piston,took it into his back workshop where he had an old lathe.He set the piston in his lathe,and turned up the damaged piston top and ring grooves.He fitted new rings and two new valves and rebuilt it the following day,taking some more loose nut and bolts out of the inlet manifold!When he fired her up the next day,it was impossible to say there had been anything that serious wrong.
While I had been down at Aydin’s all day,this pillock of a driver had been down town.I later found out he was in the Pudding Shop,keeping company with some unsavoury characters who HE thought felt sorry for him when he told them he had broken down and his boss had sent somewone from England to shoot him in the legs!
The first I knew about this was when I was in my room in the Mocamp,and hearing a knock on the door,I said come in,and this [zb] came in and said he had a message for me from “his friends”.With which,he put a live 9mm bullet on my bedside table and told me that this could have my name on it!
Now I’m ex army myself,and it takes more than some [zb] with a bullet to upset me,after all,it’s no good without a [zb] gun is it?!
I told him to save HIMSELF any more trouble,see me at breakfast time.
First thing next morning,we went down to Taji Kachman’s office,which overlooks the Bosphorous to the Istanbul prison.When I told Taji about the sabotage and then the bullet,he was speechless,fuming.He pointed across the water to the prison and told this bloke that his life was in MY hands,if I wished to press charges,he could get 20 years in the Istanbul slammer,with a Turk shagging him every night!That’s the only time this bloke showed any emotion,I thought I saw a tear in his eye,but I may have been mistaken.
Over the couple of days that this had been going on,I had decided that this bloke was going no further,and I’d arranged for another driver,my mate Ray Bailey,to fly out and take the truck on to Baghdad.When Ray turned up,I had Taji ,make out all the paperwork into his name and on his passport,and I took our errant drivers passport.
When we got back to the Mocamp,I gave Ray the paperwork and truck keys,and gave the ex driver his passport back,cleared to leave the country,without a vehicle.When Ray drove out of the Mocamp,destination Baghdad,and I ordered a taxi to the airport,this pratt said to me,"What about me,I’m living in the Mocamp,and I’ve no money,how do I get home?"To which I replied,“Tough luck [zb],find your own way home!”
This story has a couple of twists.
A few months later,I’d just landed in Dover from somewhere,and I’m in DFG,and who do you think I saw?Right on![zb].He did a smart about turn when he saw me,and I never got to find out who he was driving for,otherwise I would have grassed him up.
My mate Ray drove down to Iraq,and was driving through Mosul,overtaking a stationary taxi, when a blind geezer 90 years old gets out of the taxi on the wrong side and steps right under Ray’s wheels.DEAD!
Anyway,Ray ends up in jail in Baghdad for 6 months,and we have to fly another driver out to tip the load and bring the truck home.
Looking back,it would have made more sense for me to have taken the truck on from Istanbul,but hindsight is a great thing.Now you’ve just had a chapter of my book for nothing!
Sorry,I’ve slipped up here!
I would like to thank truckerash for processing a lot of my old slides taken in the early days of my M/E career.I will be sharing them with you in the future,(Or should I use them for my book?)
we were some of the richest drivers around working for George and his tricks, whatever he got up to, so did we even more.
Its true,if the boss is a crook the drivers soon learn to duck & dive .I worked for Roger Plizka on Fret Italia & became very adept at alterative ways of making a living with a truck.We always made plenty of dosh on every trip & we didn’t care who we turned over ,be it the boss ,the agent ,the deisel pump;we were highly skilled pirates.; great fun but sadly all over now.
Just one story, that always tickles me, we had some cracking contracts, and one of them for Danzas, I tipped out in Srasbourg, and awaited instructions to back load, the telex that came was for about 20 pickups all over France, all Chateaus, and small town wine houses, all expensive stuff, and Investment wines, my last pick up was Lanson Black label Champagne in Eperny, off I went and loaded 70 Cases, I rang George as it was a sealed trailer and had to go into Stratford Lift Bond, Beleive it or not this thing now weighed in at 56 tons, this is when it should only have been 32, I was worried about the overload, and wanted a wagon to come down to Dover to take it off me, yeh some chance, this was Georgies reply, “what do you want to go into the lift for” “Cant you bring it back to the yard, and we will do it there” but its over George, never mind just creep out at 4 in the morning when they are all asleep, so I did, I must admit those Scania’s love a bit of weight on them and did it go up that hill out of Dover like a rocket, 56 ton or not, the only thing that showed was a big bow in the trailer.
Next day the dayman took it to get delivered, and George rang me, “You know you are 10 cases light” on the champagne this was, anybody who has loaded this expensive stuff, knows that it doesn’t come straight out of a wharehouse, it is labeled, numbered, and loaded at the same time, so there is know way it could be short, big row followed, but it died down and nothing more was said, about 6 months later we are up George’s house enjoying his pool, when what comes out of the fridge, yeh youve guessed it “Black Label Champagne”
Alan
I was with Malta Cross & brought a loaded ,sealed container from Marsielles into the yard. Next morning all the yard were wearing expensive designer shirts from out the back of the box. The doors still had the French seals; they had lifted one of the doors from the hinges ,nicked the shirts & replaced it.
The only time I ever really taxed a load (never done much produce work etc) was when I was about 18, down in Milan with one of our drivers clearing groupage at Via Rogoredo including many cartons of very expensive North Face proper mountain jackets from Scotland…
The customs man made a point of hunting these down in the back of the tilt, and helped himself to half a dozen, being green as grass and loyal to the company 
I was a bit shocked, but though bollox I’m having one meself then 
Lovely jacket it was, but in my haste I grabbed a medium, which I quickly grew out of 
harry:
we were some of the richest drivers around working for George and his tricks, whatever he got up to, so did we even more.
Its true,if the boss is a crook the drivers soon learn to duck & dive .I worked for Roger Plizka on Fret Italia & became very adept at alterative ways of making a living with a truck.We always made plenty of dosh on every trip & we didn’t care who we turned over ,be it the boss ,the agent ,the deisel pump;we were highly skilled pirates.; great fun but sadly all over now.
Dont think he was some average crook from what I have read, I read he was a close friend of the Krays, he was a 60s East Ender who knocked about with some hard hitters… more than just an average crook really…must have tread on the wrong toe after he got out, he was assassinated according to the news reports on the web.
Things people do to get their gallon of diesel back!
Hi Routier
You have to agree, that I cant really mention on an open Forum, everything I know about him, but you are on the right track, when he found out that I had a CPC, I had from my days on Greenham Concrete, I suddenly got the job of Transport Manager, he made me an offer I could not refuse, some very heavy people used to turn up at the yard, there was more Rolls Royce’s in Surrey Docks, than Jack Barclays showroom.
Alan
Truckerash here are some pictures from the 70/80s cant seem to load them onto the site like yours
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What was the name of those trailers?, they had that shaped top so they could go on the rail wagons, and go through the tunnels, if I remember some had steel railway wheels behind the tyres as well, and went direct to the lines, or am I going mad.
Little Al.
Little Al:
What was the name of those trailers?, they had that shaped top so they could go on the rail wagons, and go through the tunnels, if I remember some had steel railway wheels behind the tyres as well, and went direct to the lines, or am I going mad.Little Al.
the shaped tilts were ‘Kangarou’ weren’t they? As for railway wheels, are you thinking of the ‘Road-Railer’?
Yup. Kangaroos they were called. Jamesons of Soton had loads. It was the Kangas that sent them bust, 'cos they thought that they were the future.
They were pretty useful for missing that bit of rock that stuck out of the mountainside on the way up to the Blanc. Just below Aosta, from memory. It wasn’t too bad at night when you had to pull half over on to the other side to avoid it. Trouble was, it was right on a bend with several hundred foot dropaway on your left and the mountain on your right. At night, you could see lights approaching from vehicles descending. I dread to remember what we did in daytime.
those kangaroo trailers were designed to be carried on the train and were a pain when they were taken by road for any great distance, they had a rail wheel between the twin tyres to enable them to be loaded on the railway truck,and they had a large ball on the front, like an upside down towing ball, which was used to lock them onto the carriage, the shape was, as mentioned earlier, for travelling through the tunnels on the train. if they were taken by road it was advisable to check the wheelnuts every day because they had a tendency to come loose, reason for this was that train wheel somehow worked the studs undone, i know, i lost a set of wheels at palencia en-route to lisbon, this was on a sgh trailer(another london firm) 3 days in the garage because the spanish hadn’t got any merriworth parts.
Yeah ,Jamesons thought that those trailers would make them rich. They were all 10m so that they were cheaper on the boat but they couldn’t get back loads for 10 m.
truckerash:
kerbut:
CarlNice to see the photos of Alan Taylors trucks. I think he used to have a Mack also. I used to know Alan fairly well as we both did traction for GBE and he bought my Globetrotter from me ( HNH 350 Y ) when I bought a Pegasso Troner which was in GBE,s colours, any photos of my old Globetrotter ? ,I did see it about 7 years ago going around Rennes painted orange.
Kerbut: taken a while, but i dug out pic of HNH 350Y
and this wouldnt be your PigsArse Troner would it? H180 KFA.
shouldnt really post it here cuz this 80’s stuff
Woo! I did a fair few miles in H180 KFA before I got my new Iveco K953PBP
So, How many ex GBE drivers are on here?
And whatever happened to Bob Cox, Steve McCloud, oh, so many names…?
Gaz Hunter
Nice to see you recognise your old truck Gaz!
Got any GBE pics yourself that you could put on here?
Gary Hunter:
[Woo! I did a fair few miles in H180 KFA before I got my new Iveco K953PBP
So, How many ex GBE drivers are on here?
And whatever happened to Bob Cox, Steve McCloud, oh, so many names…?Gaz Hunter
Gaz…
You wouldnt be the Gary that contacted me about a book you were writing would you?
If so any progress? Title? whats it about?
Rikki-UK:
Gary Hunter:
[Woo! I did a fair few miles in H180 KFA before I got my new Iveco K953PBP
So, How many ex GBE drivers are on here?
And whatever happened to Bob Cox, Steve McCloud, oh, so many names…?Gaz Hunter
Gaz…
You wouldnt be the Gary that contacted me about a book you were writing would you?If so any progress? Title? whats it about?
Heh, yep, that’s me 
The book is Trucking Hell, and is the story of 20 years in truck driving in the UK and on the continent, from snotty nosed kid to…well, snotty nosed older bloke, to be honest
It is a collection of stories, some funny, some really not funny, and is published next year by The Friday Project.
Available around July time from all good book shops etc
Gaz
truckerash:
Nice to see you recognise your old truck Gaz!Got any GBE pics yourself that you could put on here?
I have one or two…sadly not as many as I would have liked, as a messy divorce meant that i lost most of my picture collection. I have a few from the eighties, but none from earlier, and the 80s ones are mainly with my Magnum delivering to Budapest.
On the other hand I have a few earlier ones from my previous incarnation as snotty-nosed youth, when I was driving a 190/30, and indeed a Volvo F6 Daycab all over Europe, with Paul Ashwell, of Supergun fame. I’ll dig’em out and get them stuck up here