Having retired in May 2009, partly through being totally sick of the job, and my work starting to dry up and being old enough to get my pension. We can all read about the companies who have gone to the wall I just wonder how many people have turned it in voluntarily because of the above reasons.
I started driving at 17yrs old and finished when I was 65.
My happiest time driving was when I worked for a company called Lockwood Distribution Limited (LDL) I worked there for 11yrs until another company came in and undercut the rates and left us redundant , or with the option of working for them at greatly reduced pay.
25 yrs ago we were earning £23k + and a better load of lads to work with you could never find. We were paid for what we did, and no we did not stick to many rules, but that was down to us. As long as you done your job you were left alone. (Ahh the good old days)
I then bought my own truck (took out a loan on my house) and for 15 yrs made a lot of money through a lot of hard work, and a lot of ducking and diving for loads.
But was never as happy as working for LDL.
So it comes to my question- What is the best job you ever had or have and where were you happiest.
Finally is there any ex LDL employees on the forums
Without doubt the best job i ever had was working for the United Nations in Bosnia during the Balkans war in the early 90`s. We were intially tasked with attempting to deliver humanitarian aid into Sarajevo. As the job progressed we had pushed out to further areas, investigating new routes etc and managing to get to more isolated towns or smaller areas that had been cut off due to the fighting. It was bloody hard going sometimes, over all terrains and through all weathers and some very long hours but I loved it.
I was shot at, shelled, mortared, blown off the road by a badly aimed RPG and at one stage we were held hostage for 13 hours by the HVO (Bosnian / Croatian army).
During the summer of 1993 we managed to get the first delivery of aid into Mostar on the East bank (Muslim side), as documented here…
That place was a terrible mess but then again so was most of the country!!
It was and still is without doubt the best job I have ever had. I saw and experienced things that can never happen in the real world, things that i will tell my son and hopefully any grankids about when they are old enough to understand. I still have many hours of video diary on VHS that I must get converted to DVD before I lose it all.
I did post a couple of photo diaries a couple of years ago, for those who are intersted…
Paul Martin TPT
in 9 years there i did everything
from multi drop to running to France
rigids artics
jobs in sprinters
flats euro liners
those were the days
For me the best job was while I was serving in the Army, nearly all of that job was great, from driving different vehicles most schoolboys would dream of driving, but also all the travel and adventure, from all the jobs I did in the army though, my favorite job was as a canoe instructor on St Georges Caye in Belize Central America, I was on there for 2 months and it was better than a holiday for me, I loved it. I didn’t take any pictures while on the island, but found this picture on line.
The job and it’s location was that good that I go there every couple of years now for my holidays
bullitt:
Without doubt the best job i ever had was working for the United Nations in Bosnia during the Balkans war in the early 90`s. We were intially tasked with attempting to deliver humanitarian aid into Sarajevo. As the job progressed we had pushed out to further areas, investigating new routes etc and managing to get to more isolated towns or smaller areas that had been cut off due to the fighting. It was bloody hard going sometimes, over all terrains and through all weathers and some very long hours but I loved it.
I was shot at, shelled, mortared, blown off the road by a badly aimed RPG and at one stage we were held hostage for 13 hours by the HVO (Bosnian / Croatian army).
During the summer of 1993 we managed to get the first delivery of aid into Mostar on the East bank (Muslim side), as documented here…
That place was a terrible mess but then again so was most of the country!!
It was and still is without doubt the best job I have ever had. I saw and experienced things that can never happen in the real world, things that i will tell my son and hopefully any grankids about when they are old enough to understand. I still have many hours of video diary on VHS that I must get converted to DVD before I lose it all.
I did post a couple of photo diaries a couple of years ago, for those who are intersted…
I still miss lots and would do it all again tomorrow .
i was in bosnia on op grapple5…in gorazde…i was with the royal welsh fusiliers when we had 29 hostages taken by serbs and used as hunan shields to stop nato bombing their amunition bunkers…we had a rough 6 months and like you seen lots i can tell…and some i would rather not tbh…unfortunately i never had a camera andd seeing your pictures brings the memories flooding back.lots of stories to tell,but i wont bore anyone with them…
■■■■■■■■ ,to be precise louise ---------- has never been beat and probally never will,always say the first is special .
real jobs dont think they come close
ady1:
■■■■■■■■ ,to be precise louise ---------- has never been beat and probally never will,always say the first is special .
real jobs dont think they come close
Sadly I never met Louise but I would of liked to.
As a twenty five year with ants in me pants I stumbled across a driving job in Windhoek, South West Africa (now called Namibia) driving a Nissen Diesel rigid, non sleeper, no heater. It didn’t even have four wheel drive but for three and a half years apart from a few tyres blowing out it never let me down. The engineering company that I was working for was owned by a Dutchman who was a year older than me and he had won the contract to build bases for the South African Army along the Angolan Border at the beginning of The Angolan War. The pay was very good and I had a four bedroom company house in a place called Oshakati as most of the work was between Ruacana in the west and Katima Mulillo in the east, which was about 80 miles from Victoria Falls in Rhodesia. It used to take about three days to get down to Johannesburg if you drove a 14 hour day.
It could of been the perfect job, if I had only met Louise .
jimti:
For me the best job was while I was serving in the Army, nearly all of that job was great, from driving different vehicles most schoolboys would dream of driving, but also all the travel and adventure, from all the jobs I did in the army though, my favorite job was as a canoe instructor on St Georges Caye in Belize Central America, I was on there for 2 months and it was better than a holiday for me, I loved it. I didn’t take any pictures while on the island, but found this picture on line.
The job and it’s location was that good that I go there every couple of years now for my holidays
Spent some time on St Georges in 1980…Scuba diving if I remember.
Would love to go back, saw a programe on tv the other day about Belize it has not changed a bit in all these years.
.
