As I previously explained, I have spent the bulk of the last five years living in the UK faffing about with houses.
When you are refurbishing property you can spend a lot of time waiting. Waiting on planning permission, waiting on builders, waiting on material, waiting on loads of other things. For waiting, read lying around on the couch watching the telly, because you cannot do anything.
It was during one of these strenuous days of leisure that I saw a man on the telly moaning about a shortage of lorry drivers.
It seems that when the UK left the EU it discovered that all the lorry drivers were Polish and they all went home.
So, there was a massive shortage.
Ah! I thought, that’s the answer. I will get off the couch and get myself an HGV licence and help save the country.
Visions of driving big rigs all over the continent with my fully set-up sleeper cab, stocked full of thick chocolate bars, filled my imagination. Think of all the glorious countries and towns I would drive to. Apparently it’s called ‘tramping’ in the haulage industry.
I have always enjoyed driving even if the furthest I had driven in years was from Amwaj Islands to Awali. However, I would occasionally drive to and from Riyadh just to view all the pretty colours of the sand dunes.
Anyway, I applied for a provisional licence. It took a while as I had to have a full medical to ensure that I was fit again after my recent health issues.
Then I had to study for and sit three – yes, three – theory tests.
When I had passed all of these I was allowed behind the wheel of a big rig.
In the past, to drive an articulated lorry – which is HGV class – you would have had to pass the HGV class 2 test first for rigid body lorries and, after two years, you could then apply to take your HGV class 1 test. However, the shortage of Polish drivers had made the government skip the waiting time and allow candidates to pass, go straight to class 1 to drive fully-articulated 44-ton lorries.
I thought there would probably be a couple of days in the classroom too before being let loose in the driver’s seat. Nope! When I turned up, the instructor told me to get behind the wheel and off we went.
Fifteen minutes later I was driving a monster through a city centre. After 14 days I had passed my test and had a piece of paper to prove it.
I went around the haulage entities telling them I was available. Surprisingly, they weren’t all clamouring for my services, I can tell you, but eventually one brave company decided to let me loose in one of its vehicles.
Right I said, can I go tramping? Not quite.
I spent a bit of time on the ‘milk-run’ side of the business, driving from Glasgow to Manchester and back during the night. 6pm start 6am finish. Twelve-hour night shifts came as a bit of a culture shock to someone who had spent the last 40 years in offices wondering what to have for lunch.
Let me tell you, there is no glamour in lorry driving. And, if you have heard stories about them being well paid jobs, then it’s probably down to working 60-hour weeks.
I managed to stick it out for about three months, just enough time to recoup the training costs and pay for a well-deserved holiday … golfing in Thailand. Now, that’s a case of driving off in style!
jackie@jbeedie.com
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