i got loaded at fords of dagenham as usual…full load for the istanbul Car factory, and set off…caught the ferry to Zeebrugge…spent the night in Stefans…the shell station…had a few beers (as you do) and met up with a few brits…one of them asked me if he could run with me as it was his first trip…so i told him he could follow me…and no knocking on my door at unearthly hours in the mornings…i used to do my trips whereby i would work quite late…basically until i felt tired…or better still…i ran into fellow brits on the beer.and would cancel…when i awoke in the mornings i would have a cuppa…then a shower…then breakfast…so would normally set off around the 10 am mark.and i didnt want to upset my way of doing things…he was quite happy to tag along and learn from the professionals…and at the end of the day could achieve quite a lot and get alot of mileage under our belts…often overtaking sleeping drivers on the same route…however a lesson was soon to be learned…we arrived at Aachen the belgium /german border where we had to fill in a form (tankshein) to declare how much diesel we had in our running tanks…of course the brits always lied and wrote down 50 litres when in fact we would sometimes have 400 ltrs…it was also a place to do our carnet and get the trailer seals checked…my trailer had 2 boards missing at the back on the roof…and it not only had been raining very hard for hours…it still was…and there must have been approx 100 litres sitting up there…well this german customs didnt like me, cos my papers were in a bit of a mess…sort of screwed up…and the germans liked them to be all neat and tidy…i mean after all its only paper…so he wanted to be awkward …so decided to walk around the trailer…when we got to the rear end…he told me to open up the back…so i told him i was on T.I.R. and that the English customs seal would be missing when i got to Turkey…but he wouldnt listen.and it was his right to insist…so i carefully opened up the leather straps…pulled the cord out…and dropped the tailgate…well i was a bit fortunate in having a small step attached to the tailgate so as to make entry into the trailer that bit easier…so he grabbed hold of the sheet so as to help himself up…as he did so my new found friend who was tagging along walked out…and at that moment about 100 litres of dirty cold rain water fell…i ran…and the german was soaked from head to foot.i looked at my mate …he looked at me…and we creased up double with laughter…and couldnt stop…and then we had an audience who did the same…im still laughing as i write this..he did look sad..and stormed off into the office..with me following saying finished`
i was eventually hauled before the boss and told to pay for the cleaning of his uniform…and a fine for letting it happen…well it wasnt my money anyway …but worth paying just for the laugh…i got re- sealed and we set off to the main barrier…where we had to hand in our declaration of fuel…i went through ok without a check…and stopped at the parking area with the intention of having a snitzel and a coffee…but my friend seemed to be taking a long time…yes he had been stopped and the german wanted to look into his diesel tank…he had twin tanks and although one was getting a bit low had decided to switch over so one tank emptied into the main running tank…but thats ok if your running…but he did it whilst still and of course the main tank was full to the brim…so as the german checked his paper work showing 50 litres…when he lifted the cap…it all ran out…over the customs mans uniform and highly polished boots…starting another fit of laughter…so eventually he had to pay a cleaning bill as well…but his bill was higher than my one (being diesel) which wont clean…but after wards he said that i wasnt teaching him the ropes very well…as this wasnt a very good start…but we had more fun and laughter on the way…more later
Very good truckyboy and very funny 
but not for the
guys who got drenched. I look forward to reading the
next story 
.
Nice one Bob. Wasn’t it a coincidence that every GB truck that went through Aachen, or any other German border, only ever had 50 litres of fuel on board. Shows why us Brits are good, takes a lot of skill to arrive with exactly 50 litres in the tanks. 
wonderful justice for mucking you about but a shame your friend
got caught out, keep em comeing please as these are
wonderful stories that realy show life as it was when only
the few and not like now the many , were going over the water
to those far flungoutback places,