This story comes from around 1991, I’ve worked this out from the car I was driving at the time. As you’ll see the car plays an important role in the tale.
I had a job running abroad that was a four weeks on, six days off deal, because of that I hadn’t taken any holiday that year. My kids were young and with a week off up to ten times a year, the mrs and I had taken them to all the theme parks and did a few Butlins weeks here and there, but was still entitled to two weeks holiday, which i decided to take over Christmas, I got back from my last four week stint a few days before Christmas, so my holiday never started until my six days off finished.
The first week and a bit was good, all my mates were off work, so there was plenty of socialising and we got round to seeing all the family we wanted to see. then everyone started back to work and I was stuck at home, it wasn’t the weather for going away and the bank balance had took a beating over Christmas, mainly due to my attempt to get in the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s largest Scalextric layout. I was seriously considering knocking the wall down between the kitchen and dining room to give my son and I a bit more room to use all the track I had bought for him.
I then got a phone call off a mate asking when I was shipping out, I told him I was off for another couple of weeks and we left it at that. A couple of hours later he called back and said a mate of his was stuck for a driver to do a trip and asked if I was interested, I mentioned it to my beloved and she ran upstairs and started packing my case! I phoned my mate back and got the bloke’s number, called him and got a few details of the job. I had to meet him at his yard, which was near Chelmsford, about an hour away from where I lived, so I arranged to go and see him the next day.
I got to his yard and couldn’t find anyone around, I waited for an hour or so then got the hump and started on my way home, at a big roundabout I was waiting behind a few cars for a gap to appear, the car in front of me pulled away, so I looked to my right, saw nothing coming so pulled away. BANG! I hit the car in front, for some reason the bloke had stopped, even though there was nothing coming, I had mangled the front of my car, both headlights and indicators were smashed, the grille was busted and the bumper was all bent, the bonnet and wings were ok, but that was no consolation. The other bloke’s car was a mess too, I don’t need to go over the conversation we had as I’m sure you can imagine how that went. We swapped details and I carried on home, now ■■■■■■ off big time as I only had third party insurance and was looking at a good few hundred quid to get my car sorted out. It was an Orion 1.6i Ghia, in black for those of you who wish to picture the scene, the other car was a beige Triumph Acclaim, I know what you’re thinking, all the signs that he would do something stupid were there.
So, I get home and the mrs tells me that the bloke had rung me. I want reveal his name for reasons that will become apparent as the story unfolds. The next step was now to meet him at the yard later that evening, he ddn’t need to see me beforehand, the recommendation from my mate was good enough for him, wish I’d known this earlier as my car would still be in one piece. Anyway I packed my stuff into the car, said my goodbyes and set off to the yard. Upon my arrival I could see that there were no units there now, on my earlier visit I had seen a couple of tidy Turbostars there, but now there were none. It turned out that my lorry was just being serviced and had been fitted with four new back tyres and we had to go to the garage to pick it up from there and then I was to go to Watford to pick up my trailer from there. So I threw my bedding and case in the bloke’s car and off we went.
At the garage I waited in his car while he sorted out the bill, he came back and said it would be a while, they were out on roadtest at the moment. Just then an old S reg Merc pulled in the yard, it was quite tidy and he remarked on that, I agreed and noticed the badge on the door, 1632, this meant it was the big V10 and we had a little chat about that, he seemed to know quite a lot about this lorry and then it dawned on me that the lorry I was waiting for was in fact not a nice newish Turbostar, but this old dog of a Merc, I had serious reservations, but as I was stood there with all my gear and no car to escape in, I was kind of stuck, telling the bloke ■■■■■■■■ was going to look bad on my mate, so I decided to get on with it.
I gave it a bit of a wipe down inside and looked around, it was in pretty decent nick to be fair and then I noticed there was no night heater controls, so I asked the bloke about that, he then gave me a gallon of some liquid and a red evice that looked like a gas stove and said that was the night heater, ok, not what I was used to, but heat is heat. So I set off to Watford to pick up the trailer. I arrived in the yard, found the trailer, banged under it, hooked up and pulled it off the bay to close the rear flap and seal it. The trailer was a stepframe tilt, it looked in pretty decent shape and was from the TIP rental fleet. As it was my first time with it I thought it would be a good idea to have a roll around underneath and make sure all was as it should be, check the brakes and adjust as necessary.
It was at this point that I got another sign to turn around and go home. Instead of the twelve wheels and tyres I was expecting, there were only ten! The center axle only had the outer wheels and tyres. I was taking down a load of antiques, well it looked like a load of junk to me, old window frames and doors and that kind of thing, but it wasn’t heavy and my reload was going to be a full load of tyres, so again it wouldn’t be heavy, so I shrugged my shoulders, pulled up the brake and got on my way.
By now it was dark and the temperature was dropping, I cranked up the heater and settled down for the run to Dover, except cranking up the heater had no effect whatsoever, all I could get from the heater vents was tepid air at best. The big V10 in the Merc was not really working hard and with a 19litre capacity it wasn’t going to be running too hot anyway, I suspected the thermostats had been removed as well as the temperature gauge was running on the low side, but this was the least of my problems as the cab felt like it was made from a net curtain as there were drafts coming from everywhere, I was bloody freezing.
The next step was drama free, I arrived at Dover, I already had my paperwork so checked in with the ferry operator, stood on the steps and got my T form stamped, went back with my stamped up piece of paper and got allocated a lane for the boat to Calais. I ran through the usual procedure on the boat of dinner in the driver’s lounge and a visit to the duty free for a carton of B&H and waited for Calais to appear on the horizon before going back to the Merc, getting my paperwork together and getting my FF10 ready for the Douanes Benevolent Fund collection before I could leave the dock and get down the road.
I debated on running the corridor and down through Belgium, I was going Swiss as I was light, but before I left Calais I noticed that the lorries from Belgium, Holland and Germany had snow all over the front, but the Italian and Spanish lorries didn’t, so I thought it best to avoid the Ardennes and run down to Reims and across the RN4, but that was going to be tomorrow’s problem, my destination that night was the first services past St Omer. I made it that far with no problems and settled down for the night, it was a bit chilly so I fired up the burner thing and jumped into bed, it kicked out a surprising amount of heat and I was soon in the land of nod, only to awake a couple of hours later freezing my ■■■■ off, I hadn’t used enough fluid and it had ran dry, I also had a banging headache, which I assumed came from the fumes, so I cracked the window down a bit more, refilled the heater and got back under the covers for the rest of the night. I awoke in the morning, cold again as the poxy thing had ran out of juice during the night and my headache had got worse. A cup of murky brown liquid from the vending machine in the services did little to warm me up or help with my headache, but that was the best I was going to get there, so I set off towards Reims and looked forward to lunch at the Centre Routiers.
Within five minutes of leaving I ran into the snow and it was coming down good, but the roads were well salted and I could still make good progress, except for one thing, I was absolutely freezing, my legs were going numb with the cold, I went through my case and got a few pairs of socks out and started stuffing them into any gap that looked like it was letting cold air in, but I soon ran out of socks!
My hands were also going numb now, I could only get ice cold air to blow through the vents and the exhaust was getting smoky too as the temperature gauge was barely above the bottom mark, so I blocked off the radiator at the next services with a ripped up cardboard box, it did little to help, but even a little heat was better than none, at least the windows stopped misting up and I could no longer see my breath, I also purchased a sleeping bag and a pair of them silly moon boots, they were two sizes too small, but as I had lost all feeling in my trotters it didn’t matter anyway. The Les Routiers sleeping back was placed over my legs, I had my coat on and also my work gloves, not something I would usually have dreamed of doing, but a dirty steering wheel was the least of my worries.
The rest of the day was spent driving, stopping every hour or so to thaw out and then driving again, I made it to the French/Swiss border at St Louis and parked for the night, I walked through the border to a little restaurant ran by a Swiss ex M/E driver, had dinner and got pickled so I could spend the night in a drunken stupor instead of waking up cold multiple times, I had given up on the burner thing by this point as I had come to the conclusion that it was the source of my headache after running it while coming down the road in a vain attempt at getting some heat into the cab. It was tll snowing as I staggered back to the lorry.
Sunrise came, but couldn’t be seen as the snow was still falling, I paid my tax and set off for Chiasso, it was a pretty crappy day to be out on the road and my stop at every service area to thaw out method was adding to my frustrations. The Holding compound before the border was open and I spent a couple of hours in there before being allowed to head down to the border. I bumped into a driver I knew and sat in his warm cab as we waited for permission to leave, he offered me his top bunk that night, but unfortunately he was only going as far as Milan, whereas I was pushing on a bit as I was delivering just south of Pescara and I wanted to get cleared and tipped the next day, as anyone who has been there will know, this would involve a good long drive, which was not going to be much fun at all in the Iceberg on wheels, but I was more concerned with getting it over and done with asap than I was with driver’s hour’s regulations. Not that anybody cared about them much in those days.
I arrived at customs in the early hours of the morning, I had anticipated warmer weather, but I was wrong, it was still snowing and still bloody freezing in the Merc. I was stood in the reception area of the agent’s building waiting for them to arrive, one because I wanted to get sorted quickly and two, because it was a lot warmer than sitting in the cab, I had my extra sleeping bag to ward off drafts as I was driving, but it was only a cheap and nasty thing and it didn’t make much difference when I tried to sleep. It only took a couple of hours to get the magic stamps on my papers and I set off in search of my delivery.
The town I was delivering to must have been the only town in Italy without a snack bar, so I broke all the laws of international lorry driving and jumped in the trailer to help them unload, at least it warmed me up a bit. During one of the many coffee breaks they had I was leaning against the wall waiting for them to come back, the miserable gits never invited me in for coffee! A Jeep pulled up behind the trailer and a young bird jumped out and started gobbing off at me in Italian, I was pretty good at it myself back then, so we ended up chatting for a moment or two and then she asked me where the driver was, I told her she was talking to him and then she started speaking English to me, it turned out she was English and was working as a nanny to he local doctor. During this conversation I learned that she had just split up with her boyfriend and was bored and lonely and wondered if I fancied going out later that evening. Being spoken for, I of course declined, saying that I was loading on the other side of the country the following morning, but she forced her phone number on me, saying if I was ever in the area and we’ll say no more about that…
Once empty I made my way across country to Latina, parked outside the factory and bedded down for the night, I went across on a motorway that had a lorry ban on it and had murders at the peage, I played dumb and just kept waving the 30,000lira fee at the bloke in the booth and he eventually got bored and let me go. I think the ban had something to do with the weather, it was of course still snowing, but I’m not sure, it could have been a weak bridge, whatever, I was way past giving a ■■■■ by this time.
No need to set an alarm, I was going to be woken up from being cold long before that could start beeping at me and sure enough that was what happened, I went to the security gate and gave them my load number, only to be told to come back Monday, it was Saturday morning. I told the security guard that I was loading today as I had been told that by the bloke I was doing the trip for, this was met with a typical Italian response and again I was told to come back on Monday, the factory was shut and that was that. I felt like crying, not only was it still snowing, but I had turned down the chance at charming my way into a nice warm bed the day before. I drove off in search of a phone box to find out what was going on.
Nobody was answering the phone number I had been given, my mate who set me up with the trip was out on a trip himself, so I had no choice but to sit and wait until Monday, so that’s what I did. I dropped the trailer and did the tourist thing, went and saw the beaches where the US troops had landed, visited something to do with Mussolini and then made my way up to Rome for a tour of the Coliseum, as I was travelling light I never had a camera, which was a shame as this was the most touristy thing I ever did in the times I ran over the water. I was on my own as well, so it wasn’t much fun, but at least I wasn’t sat in that poxy Merc freezing my ■■■■ off. It was still snowing on and off too just to compound my misery.
I seriously considered coming home, but you can’t do things like that, even though the bloke had took me for an idiot and given me this heap of junk to drive, you can’t go around doing things like that, so I sat with it.
Monday came and I was first though the gate, being awake all night freezing cold helped there. I was loaded and on my way in a couple of hours or so and felt a lot better, t was still snowing and freezing cold, but at least I was heading in the right direction, the hilly terrain and a heavier load also allowed the engine to get a little warmer and I could drive without gloves for the first time. I was still stopping every hour or so to get a hot drink inside me, but it wasn’t as bad as it was on the way down. I made good time and it was still daylight as I rolled down the big hill towards Bologna.
Then disaster struck, well nearly, it was still a disaster, but it could’ve been a whole lot worse. I felt a vibration coming through the lorry, due to the loss of feelings in my extremities it was hard to tell where it was coming from, but something was definitely wrong somewhere, so i pulled into the next services and had a good look around, my initial suspicion was a wheel bearing, so I had a feel around the front hubs and they didn’t feel too hot, I checked the tyres, they were ok, in fact apart from the two that were absent from the trailer, they were all in good shape, especially the brand new ones on the drive axle. So with nothing standing out I set off again, by the time I got to Parma the vibration had got a lot worse, I had been trying different things as I ran up the road to try and identify where I should look and I had decided that it was possibly that the propshaft had lost a balance weight as the vibration was more pronounced under acceleration.
The best way to inspect the prop is to slide underneath, so I did, I could see any signs of a missing weight, so I pulled myself back out. It was then that I noticed the wheelnuts laying in the back passenger side wheel, eight of them and the two that were still attached were side by side! Oh ■■■■, now I’ve got a problem, the holes in the rims were oval and the studs were in a right mess. I also noticed that the wheelnuts were flat faced nuts, not the cone nuts that should have been fitted to locate the wheels in place. It turned out that the tyre fitter had somehow managed to put the wrong nuts on when they changed the rear tyres. A phone call was made and as usual, nobody answered.
I had another number, this one for the firm he was subbing the load for so I contacted them, told them the problem, told them what it needed to fix it, new rims, the proper wheelnuts, new studs and probably a new drum too, told them where I was and said I’d call back later to get an update. The bloke on the phone seemed to know what he was doing and I went back to the lorry to wait for someone to show up. It was still cold, but at least it had stopped snowing. As the evening wore on I realised that nobody was coming out that night and retired to the services for an evening on the Peroni. I managed a few hours sleep that night thanks to the vast quantity of alcohol I consumed.
Sat in the restaurant the next day nursing a hangover and a very welcome Latte Machiatto I noticed a van pull up next to the Merc, two old boys jumped out and started getting tools out of the van, I almost jumped with joy and ran out to the parking area. My joy was shortlived, they had brought along a torque wrench and nothing else. It wasn’t a completely wasted journey for them though as they learned how to use every swear word in the English dictionary in their short time in my company. I went back to the phones and tried in vain to contact the owner of the lorry. Back on the phone to the bloke who sorted the load out, he apologised for the confusion and promised that the two old boys would be back with all the stuff I needed to get going again now that they had seen what I needed, the very same stuff I had already told him I needed the day before!
Another night in the restaurant on the ■■■■, by this time I had blown all my own money and was delving into the running money, not that I cared, I should’ve been sat at home playing Scalextric with my boy by now, not stuck in Italy with a self destructing piece of junk freezer on wheels. The next afternoon the old boys turned up with two new rims to replace the ones they took the day before, a new drum and set about putting it back together, this time withe the correct wheelnuts too, which was a bonus. I had already got them to check the other side just in case the tyre fitter had put the wrong ones there, but they were as they should be, so I was on my way again within an hour of them arriving. I had arranged for more running money with the bloke whose load it was and I had to pick that up from an agent at Como.
But all that could wait, I had another destination in mind, Carisio. I needed to speak to the bloke who I was doing the trip for, I was promised that I would be loaded and on my way home on Saturday morning, that was a lie, then I had the problems with the lorry, which I know wasn’t directly his fault, but it certainly wasn’t my fault and I wanted a bit more money than we had agreed upon once all that was taken into consideration, my lack of contact with him despite numerous attempts to reach him on the phone had done little to make me feel any better about the whole thing.
I rolled into Carisio that night, had some dinner and attempted to phone the bloke again, I eventually got through to him and then things went from bad to worse, he had obviously had a drink and started hollering down the phone at me, I told him to FO and said he could find his POS lorry in Carisio, I was getting a lift home with a mate. And that is what I planned to do, but first I got a room. I was still frozen to the bone and I needed a decent night’s kip, the most I had managed in the previous week was a couple of hours here and there. I went up to the room, ran a bath and sat in it most of the night, draining out the water as it cooled down and topping it off with hot water, it was the best feeling in the world, finally I was warm.
During the night I had thought about things and decided to give the bloke another call before I abandoned ship, I got through straight away and he started by apologising for the night before, we reached an agreement for a bit of extra money and in light of his Lord Lucan behaviour I insisted that he meet a mate of mine and give him the money before I left Carisio, he reluctantly agreed and I called my mate and set up the meet. My threat to leave the lorry was just that, a threat, so I made my way up to the agent at Como and picked up the promised money. It had started to snow again.
I managed to get through Swiss that day and parked for a few hours sleep at Mulhouse, when I inevitably woke up freezing cold I set off again and then it was big licks to Calais, I had a green card when I got off the boat, so apart from a brief phone call to the mrs from the wheelhouse I was good to go, she confirmed that I had been paid the money that we had agreed upon and I took the lorry back to the yard, parked it up, got in my poor mangled car and drove home, I have never been so glad to pull into my drive in all my life.
