28: Mastering the Mileage

0:02Hello and welcome to Mat's Trucking Great Podcast. Mat Ireland sat here once again. Now, just before we start, I'd just like to say once again, a big thank you to all of our sponsors, everybody who's donated via Patreon and buy me a coffee and anybody who's sponsored just an individual episode. Every little bit really does help. And also, if you can, rate and review the podcast wherever you listen to it. It really does help with the algorithms to make it a bit more visible to everybody. So once again, thank you very much. And if you get two minutes just to rate and review, that'd be really much appreciated.

0:33So today's episode, I'm sat with a good friend of mine, Bernie Martin, and we're going to have a chat about Bernie's career in transport. Hello, Bernie. How are you? Good afternoon. Thank you. Yes, I'm fine. Thank you. Excellent, mate. Excellent. Right. So as I always ask my guests, how did you get into transport? Well, my father was a lorry driver. Okay. So all I ever wanted to do from about five years old was to drive a lorry. Fair enough. Who do you work for? Various companies? Yes. When I left school, I had a gap year which lasted from finishing school on Friday to start and work on Mondays.

1:08The gap weekend then? The gap weekend. Yeah. And I worked for a firm called Prentice Aircraft and Cars as a mechanic. Okay. I'd done my apprenticeship for five, six years. Yeah. Wound up on the heavy haulage side of it. So they weren't aircraft related then? Despite the name. Yeah, they did originally do some aircraft, but eventually they just turned into a garage on Felixstowe Road. Right, okay. They had the main dealership for routes vehicles, which included comma carrier. Yeah. So I did quite a lot of work on comma two-strokes. Yeah, just on the spanners. On the spanners. Yeah. The day I was 21, I was out driving heavy goods, so I didn't have to take a test or anything.

1:52Oh, okay. So yeah, just grandfather rights. Yeah. You didn't need to do a test. No. I had been driving them for years in the yard. You could drive them in the yard. Yeah, yeah. And to be perfectly nice to back them in the garage and that sort of stuff. You're just used to it. I was a good driver before I ever got a... You had to do a car test, I presume, obviously. Yes, I did. I did that. At 17, were you? Yes, I got my car license to go on the road at the 10th of June and passed my test on the 3rd of September. Yeah. Didn't have any lessons. You just knew how to do it. Yeah. Yeah. It became natural.

2:25Fair enough. So did you, I'll take it, you used to go with your dad at any opportunity when you were young? I spent a whole life with my dad. Yeah. On the lorries. And we had an old Estote Bedford. One time he had an Albion. Yeah. TK Bedford. When I first started, I went to work for a firm. It was just called Green and Skinner. Yeah. Now since sadly ceased trading, haven't they? Yes, they have. Long established company, weren't they? Green and Skinner. Yes, they were. I mean, I had an old Dodge, four-wheel Dodge. Yeah. I was there for a long, about six months or so. Then I went to Orwell Roadways in Ipswich, which incidentally was my father named a company.

3:07Okay. Because he worked for a hedge in Woodbridge. Yeah. And he named the company Orwell Roadways. Right. I went there for about six months. They wouldn't give me an Arctic because I was only 21, 22 years old. Yeah. And then the job came up at Page Brothers at Cable St. Mary. Yes. And I was with them for about four years. Yeah. Started off with a Leyland Comet. Yeah. And then I had a big J-Guy. Yeah. An Arctic. Oh, yeah. Finally. Yeah. The Leyland Climate was an Arctic and so was a big J-Guy. Yeah. I was on contract to LEP Transport. LEP or LEP, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I really loved it. Yeah. So was that containerised at that point?

3:52No, it was all... You just loading... Just trailers loading. Yeah. What, unaccompanied trailers? Yes. Yeah, at the time, yeah. Right, okay. So unaccompanied trailers from the Netherlands. Yeah. Come in. In Germany places like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd tip them and load them and send them back on the boat. Get your trailer board on the back. Yeah. Put the cable all the way through the ceiling cord up to the front. Yeah. Yeah. And then I had a lovely little job turn up. I got headhunted on the beach at Felixstorch. Yeah. AC Lloyds. It was the oldest recorded transport company in London. Right.

4:25Okay. And I went with them until they went bust about four years, I suppose. So who headhunted you then, Bernie? A lady who used to run in transport, which is her name from a long time ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been a days now. They'd obviously heard of you somehow. Well, they knew me because I'd been pulling some trailers. They had some trailers. Right, okay. And a lot of the trailers we pulled were for a firm called Gelders in Holland. Gelders, yeah. so they knew me through pulling their trailers. Yeah. And Gelders wanted me to go and work for them. Mm-hmm. But I had to move to Northampton.

5:04Right, okay. Which I didn't want to do. Yeah. So it meant she, they went bust, and then I did a couple of odd jobs with different people. So you took the job for Lloyd's? Yeah. Yeah. What, based in Felixstown? Oh, yes. Yeah. And then Gelders wanted you to work for them. They wanted me to go direct. But out of Northampton, so you just stayed at Lloyd's? Oh, yeah. Got you. And eventually lawyers went bust. Yeah. They got together by a young bloke who thought he could rule the world. This is a familiar story in transport, isn't it? Yes, it is. You're going to take over the world and, yep, all those pear shapes.

5:40And then I went to work for a firm in Utherston up near where you live. Yeah. Called Clover Transport. Clover Transport, yeah. I had an old ERF. Went back downhill again. had an old ERF and drove there. I didn't have any nights out. I said I wouldn't have nights out in it. Yeah. And eventually, because when I was at AC Lloyd, I wound up with a Volvo F8. Right, okay. They had two. They bought two. I had one down in Philistone, located one in London. Yeah. Because we did the long distance. Yeah. So was this a time when digs were still quite prevalent? Oh, yes. Did you choose to stay in the truck at that point?

6:23Well, we did because we had a sleeper cab on the truck, in the Volvo, obviously. Yes. Then I went on the ERF and I wouldn't have no idea. Because it was a day cab. Yeah, it was basically London. Yeah. And then they got offered a job by a very good friend of ours, Bob Carr, taking two trailers down to Iran, to Tehran. Yeah. Bill Dunck drove one and the guy who was running the transport wanted to take the other one. Yeah. So they had two Scammell Crusaders, which they went on, and they asked me if I'd go and run the office, which I went in the office for four or five weeks, I suppose. Whilst they're doing that trip.

7:04Yeah, but one of Billy Dunk had an accident down in Czechoslovakia, down near Sarajevo. Yeah. And obviously, being a Scammell, they couldn't get the bits. Yeah. So I went out in the car with a new radiator and all the hoses in that. Had you been abroad at this point in your life? I'd been on holiday just not working. Yeah, yeah. So, no, I went down and fixed that one. And as he'd been away a long time, his wife was getting a bit upset. He came home in the car and I came home. I brought the lorry. You brought the truck home. So, when you'd been on holiday abroad, where'd you been? Like France and Italy and a place like that?

7:42We'd been to Holland and Belgium. And my ex-wife's father was Danish. so we did have a holiday up near Copenhagen. Right, okay. So I drove up there. You used to doing a bit of... Oh, yeah. But then going east must have been quite an eye-opener in the car. It was different. Going through the east of Germany? Yeah, well, I went to east Germany. At the time with the car, you could go down to Yugoslavia and that sort of stuff, so you didn't go east and blah. Right. But if you were going to Czechoslovakia to recover the truck, would you not have gone through east Germany into Czechoslovakia that way?

8:14No, because you could go down to Austria, Yeah. So you didn't go into Germany. Into East Germany. Got you. Oh, then round through Austria into Czechoslovakia. Yeah. Got you. Then another job came up and they said, would I die factory going? And that was to Aberdeen on the Persian Gulf. Yep. By that time, I'd got the Scamble Crusader with a slipper cab and everything. Yeah. So you were back on the road. Yeah. You'd come out of the RX. I didn't like the office that much. No, don't blame you. Well, it was a problem because when you've been working with guys for years and then you've got to start giving them instructions and all that don't go down and they try to take them.

8:55That's the miggy. Yeah, and it's the age-old thing, isn't it? The former driver going to the office can be the best thing or the worst thing because they know the job, it's difficult to pull the wool over their eyes. But equally, you seem to get resented instantly just because it's almost like you've stepped up the ladder and you're now not one of them sort of thing, isn't it? It's a classic scenario. It's happened so many times. So then I went down with a guy from Dis, down to Aberdeen down on the Persian Gulf. Yeah. And reloaded back in... Do you remember what sort of time of year it was when you did this?

9:35It was in the summertime. It was vaguely hot then. Yes, it was. We went... Because the Scamwell, I presume, had no air con. Oh, but you wind the windows down. You wind the windows down, let some hot air in, and you get covered in dust. Yeah. Everything was dust. But that opened my eyes, and then I did another trip and took the person we were talking about earlier. John Overton. John Overton. Yeah. He had the other scammel. Yeah. Which wasn't a sleeper scammel, but had a bed in it. Right, okay. And that was about three weeks before Christmas. Yeah. We went down to Istanbul. Yeah, so just a local then.

10:08Just a local. Yeah. We did that and came back. Again, that was down through Yugoslavia, going overland that way, wasn't it? No, we didn't. No, we didn't. We had to go Romania and Bulgaria. Right. Because you had to Czechoslovakia. Yeah. And then... Yeah, so through Capitan and Drivo. Yeah, we had to get the train from Cologne to Ludwigsburg. Ludwigsburg, yeah. And then drive to Czechoslovakia. Yeah, so Austria, Czechoslovakia. No, not Austria. Czechoslovakia. Couldn't get permits for Austria. Right. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania. Bulgaria. Bulgaria and into Turkey, down to Istanbul. Yeah. What were the border keys like?

10:54Can you remember? Were they pretty bad? No, there was much hold up because there was a lot of problems in Kapikula going into Turkey. Yep. But we wasn't too bad. Yeah. In fact, the food trips I did down here to Istanbul, I didn't get... Nothing major. Nothing major, but some of them... It's quite lucky, really. Well, some of them, you only got to get there and there's a problem with your paperwork. That's it, yeah. And you could be there for a week. Yeah. But, you know, Bob Carter was very thorough with his paperwork. Well, he was, yeah. And for anyone who doesn't know, my very first book was about Bob Carter, who ran Trans UK.

11:31the first ever trip that the company did Bob accompanied them in his car so he had an idea of what border is what where you need to go who you need to see and he wrote the drive as a handbook just so they could take with them now did you ever get one of these handbooks? No because you're a subcontractor subcontractor I did that on another trip to Istanbul and then the company Clover Transport decided in their ultimate wisdom to do a trip for another company in Felixstorne down to Damascus. Okay. You can't remember who that's called? I can't remember who it was, but it was a fatal job. The trial I got, I got a problem with the brakes before we ever went.

12:17So I went down to Damascus and done it in Damascus and came back and loaded in Yugoslavia. And I had a bad accident in Prague. Right, okay. serious accident they sent me home with a big concrete thing around my neck they thought I'd broken my neck right but it wasn't you know luckily touch wood I haven't had any problems which they said I would do so what happened with the truck then did you well it got completely written off right okay so what you fly home they flew me home and then I don't know ambulance picked me up in Heathrow and brought me back home climbing but you're alright essentially And I had to get a hacksaw out of the garage to cut the concrete off my neck.

13:02So the truck and trailer were just left? Well, no, because you had to go and you had to get that stuff home. So they'd come on to another lorry, pick the load up, what was left of it. Yep. Because it rolled over. Right, okay. I think they brought the trailer home. They couldn't find a unit. Right. Anyway, after I'd got recovered about three or four weeks, I flew back out to Prague to try and find a unit. Yeah. Which I went to the embassy and they helped me. And eventually it was too bent to bring on the trailer. They had to cut it to bring it home. Right. But we had to get it home to get it written off.

13:44Right. Yeah, to get your insurance pay out. Yeah. So he got that back and my wife was very upset about me having an accident and that sort of stuff. And she didn't want me to go back. So then I went on to just doing Holland and Belgium for quite a long time. What, still for Clovers? No, I came off that in the end and I went to work for, I went to work for my mate Brian. Brian and Norma, which is now Brian. Yeah. I worked for him for seven years. Brian did the trip down to Baghdad and while he was away I ran the old truck I'd sort of ran it myself when he came back I obviously had a new one and he wanted to go and start an office and some warehousing which he did and basically I'd done a lot of work for a firm in London and all they specialised in was furs ok the biggest furs sales in the world were in Hudson Bay in London.

14:43Okay. But they wouldn't release the furs until they were paid for. Yeah. On a Friday afternoon, so it was always a late Friday, so all night Friday loading. Yeah. So you'd get like a hundredweight sack, you'd get 5 ,000 furs in there, 5 ,000 skins in there. Yeah. And they all had to be counted. Yeah. And stamped. Yeah. They were not on the ear. Yeah. And they had to be in Frankfurt for 8 o 'clock on a Monday morning. Right. So you had to ship out Sunday day and then catch and then drive overnight to deliver these. Because obviously the first ones there were the first ones to go into the dresses.

15:23Yeah. So I did that for... So was this still for Brianors then? It was for Brian. Yeah. But we, you know, Brianor, but Brian, Norm were not... It was Brianor Services, we used to be called. Because there's... So Brianor is Brian and Nora, isn't it? Norm. Norma, sorry. amalgamation of their name. And then there was a Manfred. Yeah, well, what happened was I'd got these loads down here and Manfred was starting up on his own in, would you believe, Brian's back bedroom? Yeah. He worked for a company. And he lodged footwoods, didn't he? I don't think he did. No, his wife and... He had a wife and two children, which they lived in Felix.

16:09so he started up on his own as Brian Orr Freight so Brian and Nora had Brian Orr services and Manfred started up Brian Orr Freight yeah because he wanted the name and I suppose there was communication about getting the start in the US missus yeah when Brian and Norma I did a trip to Yugoslavia for them and then I went on doing these first because they'd known me for quite a number of times so this is for Brian Orr services for Brian and Nora and not Brian or Freight. Yeah. I've done some work for this firm in London through a guy up in Eicham in Norfolk. Anyway, when Brian and Norma decided to knock it on the head and just keep the one truck, I went with Manfred.

16:58Right, okay. And never looked back. Yeah. Best job in the world. Yeah. This episode of Matt's Trucking Great Podcast is proudly sponsored by Creasy Drainage. If you're dealing with block drains, flooding or drainage problems, Creasy Drainage is the team to call. They provide professional drainage services for homes and businesses, including drain unblocking, repairs, septic tank emptying and CCTV drainage surveys. They're known for fast response times, honest advice and getting the job done right the first time. For reliable drainage services you can trust, check out Creasy Drainage. The details will be in the show notes.

17:37I mean for truck driving I mean he knew I knew the job and he left me a load I was left alone 100 % we're still mates yeah and the transport manager still comes over here and there's a beer with me yeah do you can you remember what year roughly that would have been when you swapped from Brino Services to Freight or not was it arse of luck in the 80s I guess the truck I had was

18:06HPV 755V So that's a That's a very early 80s Reg isn't it Would it have been new or second out No it was new when he knew When Brian bought it It was about 6 months old when I got it Yeah Then I went As I say went to work for Manfred And he brought a truck down because he had dealings with a company up in Staffordshire, Quick Fate, and they basically had lorries and trailers as drawbars, not drawbars as such, but... Wagon and Drakes. Wagon and Drakes, yep. And they wanted to get rid of the unit. Well, he brought the unit down, had it painted, and I had that. Yeah. Had it for quite a long time.

18:52So you were Brian Hall's first driver? No, I wasn't. No, I was... The first drivers he had, one was a man and one was a woman. Okay, yeah. Quite unusual at the time. Yes, it was. Again, going back to Bob Carter, he had Christine. Yeah. He employed her. But yeah, they were very few and far between, weren't they? Yeah, she did the continent and everything like that. Yeah. Eventually, she got married. Came from the wall pit. Okay. Yeah, and I went to work for Manfred. And to be honest, it's the best driver in the world. You couldn't not wish for a better boss. Yeah, so was it a lot of distance? Obviously, it was European work.

19:28Was it mostly Germany? Because Manfred, I presume, is German, isn't he? Yes, he is. But most of the work we did was, I did a lot of work in the Frankfurt for Danzis. Yeah. I was in a contract. I had a trailer with Danzis. No, if I remember right, because do you remember Jerry Keating? Yeah. I'm sure he had a Danzis liveried Volvo for Brynors as well at one point. I've got a photo of somewhere. I don't know, probably. I think. so obviously a big customer was Dan's for Brian it was yeah I mean you know I mean I was on contract so I was just load every load on Tuesdays and then ship out and get back no did I where do you load from around this area or London area and then had Manchester we used to go up there occasionally so I guess it depended where you load as to where you'd ship out yeah well normally out of Felix and then we loaded back the Danza and delivered and reloaded and that's all I did yeah and then that sort of came through an end at the end from other different jobs and with Manfred yeah doing Frankfurt again different places because that's where the first went to to Frankfurt so I'd done about 18 months two years down doing that for the for Brian what yeah Brian or services and then Brian or freight I did about two years doing Danza's work and that sort of finished and I started doing Italy and Greece and I did that for I don't know 10 years I just did Italy and Greece I used to do nearly all the Greek work yeah did you like it?

21:01yeah I loved it yeah I loved going to Greece I loved it but then was that overland or you get the ferry from Italy? oh no you get the ferry from did you go Bari? no Brindisi? no or server up Ancona Ancona Ancona so the long boat then It was, but it was... By the time you paid the tolls for diesel to go down to Bari and Brent Dizzi, it was cheaper to use... The Ancona. The Ancona. Plus, you get a longer break. You're not going to have a blowout when you're on the ferry. Well, not only that. If you worked it right, you could get down there Friday morning. Yeah. The time you got to Harry's truck stop, which Hugh knows very well.

21:43Aspergerus. Yeah. Once you got there, he was finished till Monday. Yeah. Plus, Harry was absolutely fantastic at helping you with places to find and that sort of stuff. Yeah. But I did some work up to Solanithi. Yeah, yeah. Thessalonica, what they call it. Thessalonica, yeah. Yeah, I loved it. Yeah. But in Manfred, I got involved with a local policeman in Clayton. So I lived in Clayton. Yeah. And him and his wife, she was Romanian. Yeah. And they started up Ipswich A to Romanian. Okay. As I lived in Claydon and he knew me, we asked him if I'd do, if I was interested in running down to Romania.

22:25Right. So I had a well-known man, and he said, yeah, I said, all the diesel's paid there and back. Yeah. The ferries are paid both ways. Mm-hmm. So, you know, you get a load from Germany, you're getting a load brought back for nothing. Yeah. I said, I'll take me fortnight, so that's only costing you what I think. Yeah. And I did seven trips and seven years down to Brashen. One a year. Yeah. To Brasov, yeah. And that was... That must have been rewarding. That was fantastic. Because obviously at the time, Romania would have been just... Yes. This is after Ceaușescu had been got rid of? Yes, it was.

23:01And the people I went to in Romania, where we stopped a family, and most of them spoke English because they worked in Scrooge. Yeah. And, you know, the one thing I said I wouldn't do was deliver to a warehouse. It all went to where it had got to go. Yeah. Because there was so much thieving going on for warehouses. Just out of desperation, I guess, because these people just literally had nothing to do. Yeah. Just one instance, we took a load of soup down there, what had been donated in big cans, what they use in restaurants. Oh, like the catering cans, yeah. They were a couple of three weeks out of date, and we got to the border going into Romania, and the guy said, oh, you can't take this.

23:55You must go back to England with this. It's out of date. So the guy who was with me, who was Randa Policeman, was arguing with him, and I went off and found a lady who was in charge who spoke really quite good English. Yeah. Brought her down and took one of these big cans of soup off the trailer and said, would you like this for your children? She said, oh, that would be absolutely lovely. Thank you so much. I said, now, can you explain to me why, if it's good enough for your children, why it's not good enough for people who've got nothing? Yeah. And we got through with it. Yeah. Not a problem, you know, but it was just knowing how to handle these people, you know?

24:34Yeah. Yeah, that was good. Yeah. That was good. And that was lovely to see. I mean the orphanage was unbelievable it must have been pretty harrowing really it was I mean one the orphanage we supported most was in the place called Codlia we went there every year and we took a load one year we had a lot of Mr Kipling's cakes that had been donated everything was donated yeah and we delivered these cakes to these children and they helped us unload because they got a forklift truck up and that handled and on the Sunday somebody saw this lady selling the cakes at a market. Yeah. And she lost the job and got fined.

25:15Yeah. Because, you know, that's unreal. But that's how they were. It was just desperation, wasn't it? Desperation. Yeah. But I remember when I was growing up reading about various aid trips that people had done and whatnot, but reading about it and actually seeing it will be two completely different things because although there's photographs in the magazine, you're not going to get any sort of sense of the real desperation of these people. We can't imagine what it's like to literally have nothing. Well, you can't because, you know, the hospital, we delivered some beds and that to. There was a baby ward there and the ladies would have the baby, just get up the next day and walk away.

25:59And that was it. End of story. Yeah. There was a baby orphanage up in the Son of Senegorgia. when they got to three or four they'd be sent to another orphanage and when they were 16 they were pushed out yeah you know that's the same for themselves you know the one we supported in Codlia was quite good yeah but we went to another place a place called Zarnesti which was a hospital for people with dementia and that sort of stuff yeah there again they used to get the people to come and help you offload the trailer all they got was slippers and pyjamas they ain't got anything else they shoot us around this place it was very harrowing because the room was about 15 foot by 15 foot I suppose it was full beds in it no heating no window no window just a hole and say I mean in the winters in the room it gets cold yeah And they took us to another room upstairs where they've had a problem with a patient and got a cage open.

27:09So that was... Yeah, I was quite happy. Unreal, yeah. I mean, this is what, 30 years ago roughly? In the 90s you were doing this? Because you had a DAF? No. Was it before that? No, I didn't live with the DAF. Was it late? Yeah, I'm just trying to think because we've been here 26 years. Yeah. so it's going to be 30, 35 years ago so sort of mid to late 90s into the 2000s so it's even more recent no it's going back into the 90s into the 90s yeah yeah so I haven't done have I done it since I've been here I can't remember probably I have yeah yeah yeah but it was when I was at school I wasn't very academic no yeah I was I never bunked off yeah I went to school every day yeah Learn the basics from even like a lot of stuff that we learned like algebra.

28:05Yeah. I've never used it since. No, same as me. And that's one of my favourite arguments for, you know, alternatives to education. I've never needed algebra in my life. I can't remember even how to do it generally. No. And like history, I mean, yes, that's okay. I was interested about the kings and queens. But wouldn't it have been more interesting than learning about what happened in the war and things like that? I don't know. I think so. Make it more relevant. But the one thing I did get to do, I took a man you might possibly know, Tom Cunningham, does that mean you're about? Tom Cunningham, a photographer.