Ian Booth - International Lorry Driver
Above: Ian Booth
by Stephen Swann. Photography by Roger Holman
It’s 4.30pm on a fine mid-summer’s afternoon and I’m at the yard of Hambledon Haulage in Blandford Forum. Ian Booth, international lorry driver, is due back any minute having just done a return run to Ghent. A towering and gleaming lorry, known in the trade as a tractor, with a vast trailer in tow, comes to a halt at the entrance to the yard. A diminutive man climbs down from a cab whose interior looks as well appointed as a top-of-the-range saloon car. He is dressed in a tee shirt and shorts and his demeanor is relaxed. Looking at him you could be forgiven for thinking that he had just finished a day’s work in a high-tech office, a design studio or an architect’s office perhaps, rather than having just driven a 44-ton rig back from northern Europe.
Ian was born in Boscombe in 1961. When he left school he began an apprenticeship with an electronics firm. In 1983 he joined the army, leaving six years later to become a lorry driver. He worked for GB Express which was later taken over by P&O. Working for P&O he was based for a number of years in Paris before joining Hambledon Haulage back home in Dorset. ‘I wanted to see Europe,’ Ian tells me, ‘and I love travelling. As a lorry driver you get paid for doing just that.’
I ask him to take me through a typical week. ‘I arrive at the yard on a Monday and get away about 6.30am. I might take a contracted load via the M3, M25 and M20 to Dover, cross the channel on the ferry to Calais and if I was going to Belgium or Holland, say, I would refuel on the France-Belgium border. I would spend the night in a truckers’ parking area. I have a fridge and a cooker aboard. The cooker I use mainly for making a brew so I would probably have a meal and a glass of wine in the restaurant before turning in. I might watch a DVD, read – I’m into Stephen King at the moment – listen to some music – anything except jazz or opera but usually heavyish metal, AC/DC or Queen – or I might have a play on my laptop before getting some kip in the bunk at the back of the cab. I usually turn in at 10. Next morning the alarm goes off at six and after a wash and a bit of something for breakfast I drive on through Belgium for a delivery on Tuesday. Wednesday I could be back in the UK and running up to Alcester and Birmingham before coming back to Blandford for another contract load that might be for Germany or the Swiss border.’
British drivers are allowed by law to drive for a maximum of 4½ hours before they have to stop for a minimum 45-minute break. With a working day which must not exceed 15 hours this means three driving periods, though it is rare that they are all used. I put it to Ian that his is a lonely life.
‘It is if you want it to be,’ he replies. ‘You do get time on the ferry to meet up with other drivers in the rest area and café set aside for truckers on the ship, and at the overnight stops ashore. You bump in to someone you know or you sit down and get in to conversation. You do need to be self-sufficient to do the job I suppose, and you need to be confident – taking a big rig into a foreign city might not be everyone’s idea of a stress-free job! Above all I think you have to have a lot of patience. There’s a lot of waiting around – waiting at customs’ checks, waiting to be loaded or unloaded, waiting to get on or off the ferry and waiting in hold-ups. I must have spent what adds up to several days stationary on the M25 in my 20 years as a driver.’
What about driving standards? ‘There has been deterioration in the time I have been working,’ he tells me. ‘Today’s car drivers are not as courteous as they used to be. Speeds have got faster and undertaking is now common. Many drivers tailgate and they pull in in front of you. They don’t seem to realise that even with the good brakes I’ve got, 44 tons travelling at 53mph needs a fair bit of distance to slow down. I suppose I see an average of two accidents a week. Most of them are not serious, thank goodness, but every now and again you see something where you know some poor sod has not got out alive.’
At this point I tell Ian that I have never sat behind the wheel of a big truck. He is quick to let me put the omission right. The first thing that strikes me is just how high the driving position is, my eyes must be a good 10 feet above ground level. The next thing that strikes me is just how clean and comfortable it all looks, a real home from home, in fact. ‘There are 16 forward gears and two reverse,’ Ian says, ‘and you’ve got 480-horsepower to play with.’
Could he ever see himself doing another job? ‘Never,’ is his reply. ‘It gets in your blood. A 9-5 job wouldn’t suit me. Once you leave the yard you are your own boss and there is something about driving a big modern truck that is very satisfying.’
Even just sitting there behind the wheel with the engine off and the brakes very firmly on I knew just what he meant. In another life I could see myself as a trucker. Then I glanced in the rear-view mirror and clocked the huge trailer. It looked slightly bigger than my cottage. At that moment I decided that it would be better for other road users if I did my driving behind the wheel of a car and left trucking to special people like Ian.