2: Turning The Tables with Trucker Squeak (a.k.a Ryan)

8:23Ryan:Yeah, it was, yeah. And luckily I was mates with the guy who was doing the hanging out of the window. So I definitely don't want to get on the wrong side of him. That's for certain.

8:33Mat Ireland:Oh, bless you. So what about you? Do you have any funny memories or friendships, things that you've done once you moved to school, once you moved to Suffolk?

8:45Ryan:Nothing really strikes me off the top of my head. I became good friends with a lad called Richard Butler and his dad has actually got a couple of trucks and I used to go occasionally in the summer with him. He had a FL10 eight-wheeler rigid, and I'm sure he had a very early FH, version 1 FH in 94, and he's now got three, I think it's three FH. I'm sure he had the first Volvo Aero in Suffolk, I believe, as well. Really?

9:12Mat Ireland:I believe, yeah.

9:14Ryan:It's all just local work, bulk work. Yeah. But, yeah, Richard still drives for his dad, so I see him out and about on the road now and again. So that was always good fun. And he's a farmer as well. What's the name of that company? Give them a shout out, they might listen in You never know, JT Butler

9:29Mat Ireland:JT Butler

9:30Ryan:Hello Richard, if you're listening

9:34Mat Ireland:So do you think, was that your first taster into trucks, was it?

9:39Ryan:It probably was, to be fair My older brother, I mean by this point he'd stayed in Weymouth He didn't move with us And he'd become an owner driver But he only had a van at the time, I believe and it was him that got me into trucks really because obviously my dad had nothing to do with him. Although my dad was very keen on buses. He had a bus licence, which I didn't realise until recently. He was a very religious man and I'm a definite atheist because I used to get dragged to church in Weymouth every Sunday. If there's one way of putting somebody off something, it's forcing them to do it.

10:12Mat Ireland:Yeah, absolutely.

10:14Ryan:But I think there used to be a church that he went to where the vicar was a keen bus enthusiast and he had a collection of them and my dad used to drive them for him just on excursions.

10:24Mat Ireland:Oh, right, I see.

10:25Ryan:So I've got a whole load of his old bus slides because I'm not sure what to do with them. But he would also photograph trucks and planes and boats and all sorts of transport stuff. He was a keen photographer. So, yeah, he used to take quite a lot of truck photos occasionally because his job sort of changed a bit. Although he was based in Minsbeer, he would travel all over the UK to all the bird reserves. So in case you take pictures on his travels, not the share of us, but just a sneaky look when we could sort of thing. So, yeah, I think my mum and dad, they'd lived elsewhere. They'd lived in Hornsey and they'd lived, I'm sure, in Morecambe before I was born.

11:06Mat Ireland:That's from coast to coast. So that's going from the east coast to Hornsey.

11:10Ryan:Yeah, yeah.

11:12Mat Ireland:Over to the west coast.

11:13Ryan:Yeah, and I'm sure they had a neighbour, one of them. I should have asked my brother this, really. They had a neighbour and I'm sure he drove a Scania 81 rigid. And I think Nick, my older brother, used to go with him and that's where the fascination with trucks came from. So he got obsessed with them because obviously he's my older brother and there's truck models and truck toys everywhere. I got into them. So that's where my interest in trucks came from was my older brother. But yeah, I would have thought going with Richard and his dad would have probably been the first time I've been out. The first sort of, yeah.

11:46Ryan:Yeah, I would have thought, I can't think of anything before that, really.

11:50Mat Ireland:And so just so that obviously your parents travelled a lot through moving. So obviously we know that they started off over on the east coast there in Hornsea, which is East Rydney, Yorkshire, isn't it? Yeah. Then they moved over to Morecambe.

12:06Ryan:Yeah.

12:07Mat Ireland:And then they've then ended up in Weymouth. Yeah. And then they've gone on to Suffolk. So was all them moves, was that because of Dad's job?

12:17Ryan:Yes, yeah, it was, yeah. I mean, my mum was originally from, I think it was Chicklade on the A303. She was from there, and Dad, I think, was from Bournemouth. So they were sort of from the Dorset area originally. I don't know how we end up moving. And they might have even lived in other places. I'm not too sure. Yeah. But I know of them too. And then obviously, yeah, Weymouth, where I was born, and then up to Suffolk. And then my dad retired in Suffolk, so that was the end of the move and about, basically. So I've still got a little bit of family left in Dorset, but not a great deal. Dorset and Wiltshire.

12:51Mat Ireland:Yeah.

12:52Ryan:My oldest sister lives in Sussex, and then all the rest of us are just all fairly close to Suffolk.

12:59Mat Ireland:Yeah.

12:59Ryan:Where do you class as home? Do you still think of Weymouth as home or Suffolk?

13:04Mat Ireland:Yeah.

13:05Ryan:Well, it's funny, because obviously I now live in Beckles. I've got my own house. I love where I live all that sort of stuff but anytime I go to Dorset which isn't very often now sadly every time I see that sign that says welcome to Dorset I just get this warm feeling of like I'm back home sort of thing although I can you know the Jurassic Coast all that there's no way I can afford to live back there and I just have to start all over again again and all that sort of caper so as nice as the dream is to think yeah I'll move back there one day I can't imagine

13:38Mat Ireland:i will no it is a beautiful part of the world though isn't it oh it is stunning yeah it's so nice and we you know we're just summertime summer holidays just down to the beach like every single

13:49Ryan:day as kids yeah all i seem to remember is just going down the beach with mum and me and like my

13:54Mat Ireland:younger brother and sisters so as a lorry driver i'd never done weymouth i'd never never been there in a lorry or delivered there or anything which sounds strange doesn't it people assume that you've been everywhere but i'd never been there and um we've got a touring caravan so my wife and my two children we decided we would go to weymouth one year this was a few years back and you know we we also do holidays abroad you know spain italy france turkey whatever but this going to weymouth for this two weeks in this caravan yeah was the best holiday i've ever had yeah it was

14:27Ryan:absolutely brilliant it really was yeah i mean there's not really a huge amount of industry out of way i mean you've got the fishing no if you're on a fridge and it's kind of it's it's not on the way to anywhere is it so that's right and there was very briefly a row row ferry that ran out it was called the wayborg and i think it only ran for about two months in the early 80s i think because my dad actually has a photo of that very vessel and i think only ran for two months it never took off which is a shame really because it you know if you've got a port there you can and send stuff out but yeah i wonder why i don't know i guess perhaps you can be competing with portsmouth new avon all the all the better established ones i guess yeah so but do you think that would maybe ruin the the the landscape and things like that of weymouth if we started

15:17Mat Ireland:yeah you know yeah probably because i suppose weymouth relies probably quite heavily on tourism

15:22Ryan:i would say so yeah yeah definitely i would imagine all that beachfront and all that is

15:27Mat Ireland:yeah yeah so that's interesting though a little piece of history there with with the uh the roll

15:33Ryan:on roll off but do you does your dad still have that picture do you think we could put that on to the instagram page yeah i've got it because my dad passed away last year so when we're clearing out all his stuff just found all these photos so i was like right i'll i'll start scanning them so

15:48Mat Ireland:yeah i've got the picture uh here somewhere so i can easily put that online yeah so there's one for the listeners to look out for yeah have a look on the uh instagram page or the facebook

16:00Ryan:page one of us will stick that up for you to have a look at yeah yeah definitely so then let's move

16:06Mat Ireland:on to um your first job so you've left school and and obviously matt's going out into the big wide world yeah what was your first your first proper job so just to re rewind slightly at school you

16:19Ryan:do work experience yeah i presume people still do it and my family my family convinced me to do something for two weeks which wasn't truck related and it took a lot of convincing but in lacing there was a dog kennels so i managed to get a placement there okay i've always loved dogs so looking forward to blah blah and about three or four days before i was meant to go they said they couldn't take me for the two weeks for whatever reason so i was like oh right now now what do i do now luckily family friend Steve Birch he owned a company in Felixstowe called Haven Logistics so they're a third-party agent to unaccompanied ferry trade I mustn't say ferry trailer because I'll get in trouble with Mason so unaccompanied trailers coming in from the continent so so he he said like last minute you know yeah come and have two weeks with me you know it's not a problem so he was at the time so this was like getting towards the late 90s he was the agent for LHT who I don't think exists anymore DeLessie who definitely do and then there's one or two others that just sent the odd trailer here and here and there so I went for two weeks work experience with him when I left school he said he'd give me a full-time job and I was doing a like a work placement would it be from college i did my i did my mvq level two in organizing road transport operations and so so once a fortnight i would go to rtt training in ipswich at gippeswick hall and go and do this like course and yeah that's where i met my mate lewis his dad is paul roland's who will pop up later on and he's been on the previous podcast people know so this is where I first met Lewis and we used to spend the whole day pretty much chatting about the transport company we were going to have, what trucks we were going to run.

18:12Ryan:And also, and also where we were going to have, we were going to have, I think, Volver FHs and Renault Magnums. And we were going to specialise. Oh no. Yeah. Tell me we were young. What a truck. I love the Magnum. Do you know what? I, I, especially if Dominic's listening, because I like to wind him up. I do have a soft spot for the Magnum, but I didn't enjoy driving them. I love the concepts. I love how different they are. And I would love to write a book on them if I can get enough material. But the ones I drove, it was just like, no one put your cup. There was just this rounded dashboard. I mean, this is a later one as well.

18:53Ryan:Yeah, yeah. And like the early ones, I think, were probably better. So, yeah, that shows how naive we were, I suppose. And, yeah, we're going to specialise, I think, in Switzerland and Austria. that's what we're going to do and it's just like flipping it and um that thankfully never

19:08Mat Ireland:never got off the ground never took off that never took off lewis lewis was doing a forklift

19:15Ryan:course of some description because he was a forklift driver at mason's paper in it's which when they when they existed um so i passed my course within about six months or so so off i went uh but i've kept in contact with lewis i'm still in contact to this day I was at Haven until I was 17 as soon as I passed my car test I would then go out round the docks delivering the mail and taking all the paperwork down for the ship's bag just taking my camera out taking photos of trucks and what not and Steve obviously knew I was going to leave at the first opportunity I could go driving so he just knew that and I eventually managed to get a job with Alan Ross Removals in Saxon London

19:55Mat Ireland:Oh yeah, this is a second man

19:58Ryan:was it or is it sort of being like a removal man and they they had a van so if there's like they did like the odd pallet stuff here and there so i could go i could go and do that if you've done if you've not done removals it's bloody hard work yeah i take my hats off to anybody who does removals because it is tough it really is it is a sorry to interrupt here's a question for you

20:20Mat Ireland:you see how um i'm writing as you're talking i'm writing stuff down to to ask other questions but but we've gone a bit too far. But with the removal thing, the removal trucks, when you see those guys out on the road, there's obviously normally two of them or three of them in a truck. And they have the sleeping pod up top, don't they? Quite often, yeah. Most of them. What's the reason behind that? Do you know? Because why do they not just have a normal cab with two bunks in it? Why do they have that pod on top? I presume it just gives them a bit more space.

20:52Ryan:And then you see some of the specially coach-built ones. I mean, Hamilton's removal's at Parleston here. They've got like a P-cab Arctic tractor unit, and it's got like a top-line conversion on it. It's a really weird-looking thing, but it's basically a low-down driving position with a massive cab. I'll have to try and get a picture of it somehow. So presumably that's been made. So I guess that means you've got your seats, because if you've got three or four people, They all need seats and seatbelts. And then you're going to need enough bunks as well for them to sleep in, potentially as well. I mean, back in the day, a lot of people used to sleep in the back because there's plenty of removable blankets and things like that.

21:35Ryan:But I never did a night out with Alan Ross because it's all pretty local. I was only there three months and it didn't really work out. So whilst I've been at Haven, we used to use a company called NC Cammack & Son. So Jim's company from Earl's Code in Essex, he had from like a 310 Mercedes van right up to an Arctic. They had everything, proper, everything, proper oil company, flats, curtain ciders, tilts, you know, it was there.

22:06Mat Ireland:That sends shivers down my spine when you say that word.

22:10Ryan:Yeah, they're not the best things, are they? No. I think that's a polite way of putting it. I think people have a very rose-tinted view on tilts because they are, if you see one now, which is very rare, obviously, It is great to see one, but you won't want to be working with it every day. No. Can you imagine it?

22:28Mat Ireland:Like, in the wind and the rain, and you've got to pull...

22:31Ryan:Oh, God. It's not a lot of fun, is it?

22:33Mat Ireland:No.

22:34Ryan:Even if you pick up...

22:35Mat Ireland:Even if you pick up... I could call it a ferry trailer, but what did you call it? An unaccompanied trailer. That's it. An unaccompanied trailer. So, I mean, even if you pick one of those up, even though they're on curtains, you strip it out and you've got to take all them boards out. Yeah. All the... You know. So for new drivers, that's probably as close as they will get

22:56Ryan:to understanding what a tilt is. Yeah, but obviously the difference between a Euroliner, especially if it's got a sliding roof, obviously the tilt, obviously the whole canvas covers the whole thing on a frame, but it can be stripped completely down to a flatbed. That's the beauty of it. Yeah, that's the beauty of it, yeah. But obviously if anything needs to be lifted out the roof, you've got to push that entire tilt either all the way or part of the way to get the stuff out and it was yeah so so i i phoned up camax asked if they had any jobs and they did luckily i i had a week off basically between alan ross and camax whilst i was sorting the job out blah blah blah i i went with my mate jerry who works for a good friend of mine simon um just just to go for a ride out of the truck for a week to get a bit of experience and yeah i I got back home, started on a Monday.

23:46Ryan:I had a Mercedes 310 curtain cider van. My God, was it slow. Oh, God. It was – so Jim had two. There was a curtain cider, and John, he had a tilt version. So he had the tilt. I had the taut. Right. Yeah, which was a godsend. I didn't want that blooming tilt.

24:04Mat Ireland:Yeah.

24:05Ryan:And my first ever job – so really, my first ever general haulage job at the age of 17, I had to go to Johnson Mathie in Sudbury, who manufactured paint, and I picked up however many pallets it was, it wouldn't have been many to go on the van, and I had to deliver Dagenham and Broadstairs. So I was like, right, okay. So anyway, went and got loaded, and all weekend, because I knew I was going to Dagenham, it's like, well, this is London. So I had an A-Z, the Haven had bought me as a leave-in present, this London A-Z, and I just, honestly, I studied that thing so much. And when you look at it realistically, Dagenham, you come off a 25, go down the A13 a little bit and you're there, aren't you?

24:49Ryan:And you're there, yeah. But I was so nervous and excited. I spent all this time looking at this A13. Anyway, it got worse. On the way down there, I think it was on the A12, wherever I was, Trondon down there, the phone rang. Hello, Matt. Yeah, well, we've got a collection out of SE1 for you. I said, oh, no. So I went to Dagenham first Then I went into SC1 I don't think I'd ever I might have been to London But definitely not driving I'm used to rural Suffolk And here I am in a van I'll tell you what it was It was about Six packs of juggling balls That were going to Sweden Kid you not It was a collection for Schenkers or scans bed because yeah

25:37Mat Ireland:yeah yeah

25:38Ryan:it was about six or eight packets of juggling balls from some bloke's house that were then going back to scans bed at Grey's after I tipped Broadstairs and it just no yeah I was just like what who want you know they could they fit juggling balls

25:53Mat Ireland:yeah

25:53Ryan:send them as a why are they not

25:55Mat Ireland:going as a parcel like

25:56Ryan:I know they're just mind-boggling it's just like can't they buy juggling balls in Sweden yeah

26:04Mat Ireland:Scansped, that brings back some... I remember my dad pulling... Which way around was it? Did they go to then DB Schenker or something, was it, after that?

26:13Ryan:Yeah, Schenker's bought Scansped out. So they were like a grey colour, weren't they? And a badge of blue and red from memory Scansped.

26:21Mat Ireland:I've got somewhere a model truck and trailer with a tilt on it of that Scansped somewhere.

26:29Ryan:Yeah.

26:30Mat Ireland:I'll have to see if I can dig that out.

26:31Ryan:Yeah. Well, that was quite regular. They were a regular customer, Scansped, as I found out. So, yeah, that was my first day. And then off we went to Scansped. They used to have the Europe Flyer. Europe Flyer still exists, but they would basically trunk a trailer virtually overnight from Sweden nonstop with urgent stuff. And quite often I'd go in there and I'd take – it wasn't foil, I don't think, But it was something going down to Red Roof or a couple of other places. There's a food company down there. I can't think for the life of me of their name. But I used to do that regular. And it was normally on a Friday, get Cornwall on a Friday from East Anglia in my free 10 van.

27:14Ryan:But I was happy as a pig in a proverbial. Off I'd go and just wheeze my way. You got your A to Z. Yeah, got me A to Z. wheeze way all the way down a red roof and tip and then empty back all the way back and then drive home and then first time go to the pub it was just and i was i was just absolutely in my element then i then when i was 18 they put me through my seven and a half tonne license um yeah more the same especially on a friday blooming cornwall on the front i used to be able to get from i'd run down the scansburg yard lot on a thursday night park there and i could do there down the Cornwall tip and then I'd get I'd normally get back as far as is it Countess Services on the 303 at Andover

27:56Mat Ireland:oh yeah I know what you mean yeah used to be at a park I don't know if you can still park there I haven't been there for years but used to get back get back to there

28:02Ryan:have my time off and then just run back up to Colchester on the Saturday morning

28:05Mat Ireland:and go home so was that that must have been a sleeper cab then that yeah it was yeah yeah

28:10Ryan:and that's what I did my first ever European trip in as well they oh really yeah they phoned me up one day they said right you've got a choice for loading tomorrow. You can either go to Scotland or you can go to France. Just like, well, there's no competition there. That's 100 % France. This is what I want to do. And they turned around. They genuinely said, oh, we're so glad you said that because we didn't want to send the other bloke. Because they had another guy there who had – that was my second seven-and-a-half ton. I started on a G-reg, 814 tilt, which was king of the road. And then I got given the R-Edge 817 Tilt, which was just a flying machine.

28:48Ryan:And I absolutely, twin bunk, 817, rocket, you know, third lane, 70, 75 mile an hour everywhere. Cloughing. Oh, my God. And, yeah, and they said, this other guy was a lovely bloke, but he was useless. They didn't want to send him to France. I was like, no, I'm off. And off I went. I went to a place called Charms in France, which was down near Epanol, sort of heading towards the Swiss border.

29:12Mat Ireland:so was that um your first ever night out as a driver will have been in that initial g-reg

29:19Ryan:in the g-reg half then yes although i did i did do a night out such in the back of an escort van because i didn't i took one drum of paint to aberdeen i think it was which i probably could have round tripped but i didn't load it till like eight or nine in the morning so by the time i got up there and i can tell you exactly when it was that was the day before we had the eclipse in was it 99 2000 whenever we had the full eclipse yeah was it 2000 was it yeah something like that i can't remember exactly but i went out there the day before and the eclipse happened as i was coming back past newcastle and it just went a little bit dark and then and that was that but that's so that was sort of my first night i mean night out i took my sleeping bag and slept badly in the back just uh that was kind of my first night out uh but my yeah my first proper proper one And I'm pretty sure it was at Welford Truck Stop in my little 814.

30:15Ryan:I'm sure it was. And I was just, I was made up, you know, I'm doing a night out.

30:19Mat Ireland:Yeah.

30:20Ryan:I'm a proper, proper big trucker now, yeah. Yeah, I felt like I did that.

30:23Mat Ireland:I felt the same, yeah, my first night out.

30:26Ryan:Yeah, yeah, and I absolutely loved it. And, yeah, so, yeah, I did that first trip to France. And that was so easy as well. That was back in the day when you'd go down to Dover, just jump on a ferry within an hour normally and go. It was tip and reload at the same place. So Camax used to do regular France for a company called Train. They used to make air conditioning units. And they'd have three or four going out a week, mostly the charms, but then they'd do other places as well. I got back and Jim said, you know, how do you like it? I bloody loved it. And he went, oh, good. He said, because I might be sending you to Switzerland in two weeks.

30:59Ryan:And I thought he was joking, and he wasn't. He wasn't. I phoned up one Friday. I tipped wherever on the Friday. and they said, right, you're going to such and such in Ware in Hertfordshire and you're loading your load for Switzerland, shipping out Sunday morning. I was just like, bloody hell. And this is going to sound daft now as well, right? So when I started driving, I always said to myself, I'm never going to sleep in a truck on a Saturday night. How things changed.

31:28Mat Ireland:Why did you say that to yourself?

31:30Ryan:I've no idea. I really don't know why. I don't know what I was thinking. I think I must have just thought I could get around anywhere. and be home for Saturday night to get me washing done and whatnot.

31:41Mat Ireland:I think we all do feel like that, though. Even now, I feel like, yeah, I don't think I could do a Saturday night out. Thinking about now what you've just said there, it does make sense. Because you sort of like, you do a week away. You want to go home Saturday. You don't mind running back out Sunday. But you want Saturday at home, don't you? Yeah.

32:01Ryan:So, I mean, in the end, as it happened, a mate from work was getting married on that Saturday night. so I went down for his wedding and then just went to the truck Saturday night slept in it up early doors Sunday down to Dover so then I had to clear customs at Dover initially or get me get me paper books start T-form yeah get my T-form done in Dover over we went down to Lille and then that Mon Charleau on the Mer heading downwards Luxembourg parked up somewhere I can't remember where I parked up in Belgium anyway the following morning's like right I think I got up at three o 'clock because i want to get down to the border and i think i was maybe tipping at eight o 'clock and as i was coming down towards the border i i knew that the swiss border wasn't open all night so there's there's trucks parked on the hard shoulders i just thought oh these these are just waiting for the border to open and then then the first lane there was trucks parked up and everyone everyone's slowing down and as i got nearer the front there's all these people in high vizzes and uh so oh so come to the stop and this bloke came along and i opened the window and hello mate you're right so oh you're english yeah yeah we've come out here to support this protest he said um border shut we've blockaded it so if you want to park up there's some coffee and croissants at the front uh coming up yourself so so yeah my second ever trip into a blockade and it was all over trial it was that they they were having a meeting in switzerland that day to discuss driver's housing it was and they basically wanted us to work less you know to save lives and they had a they had a a low loader there with a destroyed daff from where the guy had fallen asleep and got killed.

33:34Ryan:Oh, right. Just to sort of show that. And, yeah, there I sat. I went and had some coffee and croissants, went back to bed. And then there's rumours of, oh, it's not going to open until lunchtime. Oh, it's not going to be until tomorrow. And I'll always remember as well, there was a Jeff Gilbert driver there, and he was chatting with someone else. And I always remember him saying, I've been out three weeks now. And I was just thinking, bloody hell, he's been out in that truck for three weeks. That would have been a free series scania, I think, as well. But that's just what European was about. You'd get weekend and you just didn't go home.

34:07Ryan:But yeah, we eventually got through. There's a chap called Mart who worked for a company called 182000 in Manchester. And he had a Magnum. He was at the border. Obviously, I'd never been there. I had no idea what I was doing. That was at St. Louis. And I saw him and I went and asked him. And he basically told me exactly where to go and what to do. and without him, I'd probably still be there now. But yeah, so if Mark is, or if anyone knows a chap called Mark who used to work at this company called 182000, send him my regards because he helped me out at that border all them years ago.

34:41Mat Ireland:That's crazy.

34:42Ryan:So yeah, once I was tipped in Swiss, there was a whole load of plaster of Paris sculptures from the Alien films. They were stunning bits of art. They really, really were. Once I was tipped there, I then went back up to expedite as an epinol and I spent about six hours on the bay waiting the loads. And so it's only a seven and a half tonne. It wasn't taking so bloody long. But yeah, eventually got reloaded. Off we went back to the UK. And then I did another couple of trips to France. I did Belgium, first trip to Germany as well, all in this level seven and a half tonne. And I was just absolutely 100 % in my element.

35:18Ryan:I loved it.

35:20Mat Ireland:Oh, wow. That's amazing. I love stuff like this. i mean i've never done european work i've only ever done uk work certainly not in a seven and a half tonner but that's crazy oh it's brilliant um so what we'll do now is um we're gonna break this up into two parts so we'll stop this this section now uh and on part two we're going to come back and talk to you about moving from your seven and a half ton up to your class one and then following on to where what brings you to today all right yeah no problem so uh i'll hand back to you you can say your little piece for uh the outro and uh i look forward to speaking to everybody and listening again on the second part yeah thank you very much squeak it's been the most

36:03Ryan:enjoyable brought good few memories back so um thank you ever so much for listening everybody i hope you've enjoyed it part two will be coming very soon thanks for listening

36:23Thank you.