The Silk Road and Beyond - Ivor Whitall

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questions that had lain dormant for months came flooding back. How do we get there, what ferries, food, visas, inoculations, currency, how long, etc, etc, etc? Judging by the blank look on Billy’s face, he’d not the foggiest idea either, but it turned out he’d organised a meeting with a Jenkinson’s driver called Clyde, who was going to give us the benefit of his vast knowledge and a run down on all the nuts and bolts. That evening I told Jenny, who took it remarkably calmly and even offered to go into W.H. Smith and buy me some maps.

      A week later we were sat in Edgar Jenkinson’s office nervously waiting for Clyde’s pearls of wisdom. Having just returned from Turkey he’d have the latest information. I’d got a pen and paper handy and after the introductions it was, ‘OK Clyde, it’s over to you.’

      ‘So you’re the drivers that are going to Kuwait?’ He said with a certain air of superiority.

      We nodded in unison.

      ‘Which way are you going?’

      I looked at Damien, he looked at me.

      Edgar interjected, reading from a piece of paper.

      ‘The route is Belgium, Germany road/rail, Austria, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.’

      There was a long drawn out silence as we paused for Clyde to impart some of his infinite knowledge and wisdom. We waited with bated breath until finally, as if someone had wound him up, it came out like a torrent.

      “The Austrians are like the SS and the Yugo police stick out their lollipops to stop you and administer fines.”

      ‘I hope you’ve got tankschein.’

      ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

      It lay unanswered as he continued unabated.

      ‘Watch your speed in Germany and don’t go over your hours, it’s a 1000DM fine. The Austrians are like the SS and the Yugo police stick out their lollipops to stop you and administer fines.’

      It came thick and fast. Was this a wind up?

      ‘Make sure you get a Bulgarian visa as they don’t always issue them at the border.’

      He was talking so rapidly, it was impossible to write anything down.

      ‘Make sure you don’t stop for Turkish police as they are all bandits. Don’t stop in lay-bys or you’ll get broken into and the Kurds all carry rifles.’

      With that he got up, picked a cork-strewn hat off the peg and walked out. It was only then I spotted what I later came to realise was, for some, the Middle East drivers’ ‘uniform’: fake leopard skin clogs, large wallet hanging from a silver chain attached to his waist plus an ‘Ozzie’ hat!

      ‘Well I’m no wiser now than when we arrived,’ I said to Damien.

      ‘No worries lads,’ said Billy, more in hope than expectation. ‘You’ll be fine.’

      We eventually got our booking through for a Felixstowe–Zeebrugge sailing on 16 April.

      chapter five

      TALK ABOUT A VERTICAL LEARNING CURVE!

      This is it, one of the most exciting days in my short life. I’m off to Kuwait. My mind was in turmoil as I drove down to Jenkinson’s yard to collect my load and the associated documentation.

      The trailer, a tilt, was already packed with 20 tons of ‘special’ cement for the oil industry. Over the past week me and Jenny had purchased over £30 of assorted provisions, including tinned food, dried milk and sugar, along with a new Calor Gas cooker and a large water container. The bedding was ‘pinched’ from home, and I’d packed enough clothes for at least a month away. As a special present to myself, I even spent £180 on an eight-track cassette player, not realising what crap they were! Finding sufficient room to stow it all away was the real tester.

      Standing in Edgar’s office as he proceeded to hand over a pile of documents from a tick list, to say I was confused would be the ultimate understatement. The sheer volume was more than enough to distort the shape of my brand new imitation leather briefcase! There were transit permits for a variety of countries, a Euroshell card for fuel, a carnet for the load, a carnet for the unit and one for the trailer. There were completed CMRs (Convention Relative au Contract de Transport de Marchandises par la Route), a type of international transport delivery note, and blank CMRs, also a manifest and manifest translations. There were numerous ancillary documents that I hadn’t a clue what they were for and, of course, my pristine new passport with the newly franked Bulgarian visa.

      ‘Edgar?’ I asked, as he proceeded to hand me £755 in traveller’s cheques. ‘Just one question. What’s this about a train across Germany?’

      I knew there was little point in browbeating him about the rest of the trip, as he appeared to know as little as me.

      ‘Ah, right,’ he said, digging in a drawer. ‘According to my information you make for Eifel Tor Goods Terminal. I understand it’s near Cologne. Tell them you are on account for Jenkinson’s, we have a block booking on that service. Then you drive on the train and it travels overnight to a place called Ludwigsburg in southern Germany. There you disembark, and Bob’s your uncle.’

      Damien hadn’t turned up, which didn’t surprise me, so it was a shake of the hands and good luck wishes all round as I set off on my great adventure.

      ‘Tell Damien I’ll meet him at Felixstowe,’ I shouted out of the window as I drove past Billy standing on the office steps.

      I had an uneventful trip down and, other than a feeling of apprehension, I also felt a frisson of excitement at the thought of facing the unknown. A coffee break in Corley Services didn’t do me any favours as a couple of ‘know it all’ likely lads spotted the TIR plates and decided to regale me with a particularly negative tale about a mate of theirs who had been involved in an accident in Turkey. ‘Not his fault mind you. Was imprisoned in an Istanbul jail for two months, didn’t get back for seventeen weeks and the final nail in the coffin, his wife had divorced him. Almost suicidal now, poor guy.’

      Feeling the same and thanking them for their joyous tale, I made my excuses and a hasty exit.

      “Within a few months I’d realised that it’s usually the guys who’ve not done the job that tell the most lurid tales.”

      Within a few months I’d realised that it’s usually the guys who’ve not done the job that tell the most lurid tales. Arriving at Felixstowe Dock at eight thirty that evening, I followed the signs for Transport Ferry Services, the precursor to Townsend Thoresen, and parked up for the night. Sleep didn’t arrive easily, as my mind was awash with the ‘dangers’ of the unknown, circling, like Red Indians around a wagon train waiting to attack.

      I must have drifted off eventually because, as I pulled my curtains in the morning, parked alongside was Damien. It was seven o’clock as I tapped on his door and waited, and waited. Finally, a pair of bleary bloodshot eyes peered out from behind the curtain.

      ‘C’mon, we’ve gotta book in,’ I said.

      ‘Be with you in a minute,’ he responded lethargically. ‘I didn’t get here till four.’

      The curtains closed and he disappeared from view. After a quick swill down, and still no Damien, I fetched my briefcase and headed into the TFS office, explaining I was shipping on the account of J. Woods of Salford, while at the same time opening my briefcase and dumping the contents on the counter.

      ‘According to the ship’s manifest there are two of you,’ stated the clerk. ‘If I could deal with you both together it’ll be easier for us.’

      A quick return and thump on Damien’s door elicited a load of verbal abuse from behind the curtains as he once again pulled them back and wound the window down. Before he could continue to vent his spleen I said, ‘Either you give me your paperwork so I can book

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