FIRST TIME TRUCKERS-20

Having left the British Army in 1982 with a class 3 licence, (2 axle Straight truck) I worked for a few local company's but wanted to drive those big trucks that traveled to places as far as Saudi Arabia, Russia, North Africa and all over Europe. That was still a long way off, I had to gain some experience first. Some thing that modern young truck drivers seem to overlook! I managed to get a job with a local hauling company in my native Somerset, "R T Keedwell" They put a yard shunter back on the road for me! An old Volvo 86, top speed was no more than 45mph due to the diff having been changed for its roll as yard shunter. The cab was rusted out with holes all over the place; one hole at the bottom of the door was so big I could see the road through it. The Volvo 86 sleeper was a metal frame that folded down from the back of the cab and had definitely seen better days, with no window in the driver’s side due to me hitting a tipper trucks wing mirror on the narrow roads of Somerset. I would normally spend all week on the road driving from the Somerset levels peat bagging plants to destinations as far as Liverpool and Manchester, Not far in today's standards but when you have no window, holes and a crap heater in the English winter its not pleasant, at night I would stick sheets of cardboard around the windows inside the cab, they went all round the cab! With no night heater and it was unheard of to leave your truck running all night! It was a good Army sleeping bag that kept me warm, both at night and when driving. The work was hard manual flatbed work, unloading 20 tons of peat bags by hand and then reloading with 20 tons of seed potatoes for farms in the south west, its funny how farmers all ways found a reason not to be able to stay and help unload! 6 months later I found a better job with a timber mill but I don't regret working for Keedwell as it was my way in to the real trucking industries.

A couple of years later I got my first break on International trucking, when I worked for a Dutch company out of Eindhoven, Tony Tromp. Not the best of company's but like the company in Somerset it was a way in and I was grateful for the job. My first trip was to the Middle East in an old Daf 2800. He was on hard times and was struggling to survive having just gone bankrupt when he lost his contract with the Philips group. We had to do all our own repairs and maintenance, my first job was to change a differential on my truck, outside in the yard in sub zero weather and a snow storm! That was a great introduction to international trucking and a test of what you can expect to do once out of modern west Europe. We regularly ran to the Middle East through the old East Europe and those country's were still under the grip of the Russians, It was like a time warp as nothing had been allowed to be modernized since the end of WW11, the roads were still mostly 2 way and rutted and pot holed, no public telephones cafes were very few and far between, but those that did exists were Mecca’s to truckers from all over Europe. Most drivers had large boxes fitted to the underside of the trailers; these were mobile kitchens complete with gas burners, pots & pans cold boxes and storage containers full of food. It was perfectly normal to see drivers on the side of the road with home made canopies attached to the side of the trailer covering a couple of guys sat on stools cooking up a "Camion Stew". It was unusual for West European drivers to run in teams but most East European trucks all run as teams. This was not for efficiency; it was so that the other driver did not defect whilst in the west as both families would end up in prison should one driver defect. after two and half years the UK tax man caught up with me and asked me to return to the UK and start paying tax, the option if I did not was that I could end up on the wrong side of the law.

Returning to the UK with a wealth of hard earned experience under my belt I was able to pick the company's that I wanted to work for so the next couple of years was spent hauling bulk powder around the UK & Europe for a company "Cyril Knowles" out of East London. Then I moved to Ralph Davies an infamous company with a reputation for running hard, mostly on the Spanish run but with some Italy and Germany thrown in as well. Our main contract was with IBM out of Scotland, delivering computers in refer trailers to Spain and Portugal in less time than airfreight could do it. Our other main loads were fresh fish off fishing trawlers in the north of Scotland that had to be in the Spanish markets within 48 hours! And no team drivers here! Impossible? Ask some of the old drivers who used to do it. After a couple of years we began branching out to other countries farther a field such as the Ukraine and Turkey. Later the company began running as far as China overland from the UK, an epic journey across the frozen wastes of east Russia and Kazakhstan both winter and summer, that's not for the faint of heart. Unfortunately I never got to do that run as I had moved on to my next job but I can say that I was able to do a few runs to Moscow from the UK before moving on to another exciting job.

Having prior Military service I was recruited by the British Governments procurement department "Crown Agents" to work as a driver on its newly formed Emergency logistics Team. A unit set up on the same lines as a military transport unit. From the Boss down it followed the same structure as a special military unit. Funded by the government and running under the banner of the United Nations high Commissioner of refugees we could cross the front lines that the regular UN forces were denied by the Serbs in the newly started war in Yugoslavia. As civilians we could travel behind the lines delivering humanitarian aid to refugee camps and city's and towns that were under the hammer of Slobodan Milosevic and his henchmen. With our teams being all ex military we were able to make some very useful reports on our return to base from our trips across the lines. It’s a whole book of stories to give any justice to this period but just to say that we lost 55 drivers killed during the 4 and half years that we were doing this work, from 1992 to 1996, which included a stint in central Africa during the war in Rwanda and Zaire and followed in 99 with a year in the Kosovo war. I must add that the 55 drivers that died were from all of the UNHCR teams working in the former Yugoslavia. That includes the Danish teams, The Norwegian teams. The Italian Team. And other NGO teams working under the UNHCR banner.

A three year spell back home in the UK with a variety of jobs all in the trucking business was a welcome break from the past years working in war zones, but the bug was there and as soon as things started hotting up in the Middle East we were preparing ourselves for another stint in a war zone. our call came in the March of 2003 and our old team was back together this time working for the American Government, supporting their department of state with logistical equipment, trucks and SUV's hauling all there needs from Kuwait to Baghdad & other destinations all over Iraq. As the new interim government under General J Garner, ORHA was to organize the rebuilding of the country, the name has since changed twice but our role is still the same to provide truck convoys and drivers to the dept of state in Iraq. Although we are employed by the KBR Company our role has all ways been separate from the main KBR role of supporting the US Military, though we still work closely with all of the Military in Iraq.

Having had various jobs in Iraq such as a Convoy Commander, A transport coordinator based at the British Brigade HQ in Basra, Truck driving on convoys & for the past 12 months a VIP driver at the state department's transit camp at the Baghdad Airport.

I am looking forward to starting my own trucking business based on Vancouver Island in the spring of next year. As well as sitting down and finish writing a book relating to "Trucking in a War Zone"

Jonathan has the ambitious project of documenting his job experiences as a "TRUCKER IN WAR ZONES".

The book is to be called "Slowing for the Rough Stuff", an illustrated hardback covering the work of the civilian trucking teams working in war zones around the world. Lots of black humor as well as sad stories.