Truck me
ARTICLE BY MIKE
Soop asked for some of my trucking memories so here goes
I have tried to pick out some of either the strangest or funniest times. They took place in the 20 years between 1978 and 1998 when trucking was a somewhat cowboy affair. The relevant authorities began cracking down after 2000 and the job lost its appeal and I took the line of least resistance and towed the line by returning to working in the UK. I make no apologies for what occurred and what actually may have been reckless but this is exactly how it was, warts and all, at that time. Any names used are fictitious only for the matter of privacy and the fact I don’t want to be sued but places and events are real.
After wasting a decent Grammar school education by doing several menial jobs and looking for a direction in life I realised what I really wanted to do was travel but how to do it. Luck intervened in the guise of a schoolfriend I hadn’t seen since we left. Yet another wasted education. About to leave a car park in town in rolls this big Swedish tractor unit with Mark at the wheel. Naturally we struck up a conversation and he told me he had just returned from Marseille after delivering ships stores to some cruise liner. I knew at that moment this would scratch that itch for travel and asked him how he had done it. I went to see the bank manager and persuaded him to loan me £130 for a 7 day HGV driving course which I duly passed courtesy of a brute of an ex Royal Marines instructor who mentally and completely destroyed my confidence in two days and then in the following five days turned me into what he wanted. The bastard. I’ve a lot to thank him for.
My very first day I was told to deliver a 20 ton load of sheet steel to South Wales and this was 1973 in an old English truck. Here came the steepest learning curves of driving a truck after learning in an empty one. The first curve came climbing a short sharp hill in Chippenham. I was halfway up after rapidly changing down the six gears into first or crawler as it was known. First was selected and the damn thing came to halt and the heap of junk kept trying to pull without success, it was going nowhere. The tractor began leaping up and down on the spot like an animal possessed, still trying to pull, literally throwing me up and down in the seat like a rodeo cowboy wondering what the hell was going on. If I had false teeth I swear they would have jumped out my mouth. After engaging my well shocked brain I managed to get my feet on the clutch and brake and stop it. The answer was to reverse back down to the bottom of the hill and climb up in first gear, not an easy feat with a queue of cars behind you but I found by reversing slowly towards them they tended to get out of the way and pass by with much use of their horns and two finger salutes. Sweating like a pig I eventually pulled over the brow.
The second curve came when I was cruising comfortably and now relaxed feeling King of the Road along the M4 until I reached the long steep downhill section from the Bath junction towards Bristol. Over the brow and down I went reaching 70mph in the inside lane and fast approaching a car, checked in my mirror to overtake and was blocked off so gently applied the brakes and a bit more and more and a lot more and eventually practically standing on them and thinking ‘no God not on my first day’ just managed to slow it enough for the middle lane to clear and be able to pull out past the car. I was shaking like a leaf at this point and sweating again wondering if I had made the right vocational choice. Two lessons well learnt. One, assess the hill you need to climb before you climb it and two, understand that a 20 ton truck is bloody difficult to stop at 70mph downhill and be aware of what is behind you at all times well before you need to act.
You will all be pleased to know that modern 44 ton trucks have overcome all these problems with 16 gears and huge power to climb hills and better brakes aided by gearbox retarders which when set correctly enable you to traverse your way down the side of Mont Blanc hardly ever needing to use your brakes.
My next lesson came two years later with another company also doing general haulage. One morning I was asked to deliver some farm machinery spares to Cambridge which consisted of some heavy agricultural fork lift uprights, the part the forks run up and down, which were on the front of the trailer and behind them all down the bed of the trailer were a dozen grass spinners and other assorted spares. No problem boss. Roped down all secured I was ready to roll and looking forward to a sunny drive to Cambridge and unload the next day. Three miles down the road just outside Westbury is a railway bridge, you know what’s coming, just low enough by six inches not to allow a normal box trailer to get under. No problem with my load of course on a flat trailer. Completely forgetting the fork lift uprights on the front of the trailer with the radio blaring out David Bowie I breezed under that bridge without a care in the world at 40mph.
The almighty crashing sound that occurred alerted me something wasn’t quite right and looking in my mirror saw grass spinners flying through the air and strewn on the road behind was broken crates with assorted metal spares. The fork lift uprights had hit the bridge and stayed stationary and swept off all behind them while the trailer continued on its merry way. Luckily there was no other traffic about and nobody injured. Climbing down from the cab and surveying the mess I calculated that future work might not be forthcoming when I returned to base. Approaching from the opposite direction a was a JCB, the driver of which I happened to know. We decided the best thing was to use his bucket to reload the mess on the trailer, he couldn’t do any more damage, while I directed traffic. On return to base my assumption about my future was confirmed to be true and I left with my tail between my legs. Note to self: in future when carrying an unusual load check the height of the highest point just to be sure.
Now I have five years of experience behind me sheeting and roping trailers in the rain and high winds, and regularly handballing 800 sacks of assorted products on and off my trailer. Incidentally, while doing so loading from the rear, I calculated one day, to pass the time, by counting my paces at a yard a pace you actually walk approximately six miles, three miles of which you are carrying a sack. Sleeping in the cab across the engine cover with the use of wooden boards on frosty, snowy nights in Scotland freezing my bollocks off, I’m as fit and toughened up as I’m going to get and decide It’s time for the bigger adventure. It’s time to go International.
Next episode I will open another very different can of worms in my quest to conquer Europe.
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