chatty, you've dropped something

“Chatty, you’ve dropped something”.

A brief one to let you know that after not too long being in the company of Alan Greystone, “Things” did tend to rub off on you. Although not a complete disaster waiting to happen as was Alan, I did on the odd occasion commit the odd "error". Not always completely my fault, but I sometimes added to a minor problem enough to make it a bit more of a drama.

Take the time we were again given a present of vast proportions by our American cousins. A towable Fuel Trailer. If I recall, its capacity was in the region of 5000 gallons. I’m sure that if this is wrong Yorkie will soon put me right.

The beauty of this beast was that we didn’t need to call on the Blueys so often to move bulk fuel around the Island. We had the use of an old 2500 Gallon tanker, and as luck would have it, it had a towing hook.

Task of the day, move vast quantities of Diesel from the Airfield Tank Farm back to Port. No problem, I was up for that. Off we go to the airfield. We fill both the Tanker and our new toy, the trailer.

Alan shoots off in the Landrover to get everything ready for my eventual arrival.

Not having been a driver for long, this adventure really appealed to me. Big Tanker + Big Trailer, vast quantities of fuel. Chatty, King of the Road.

Off I go, grinding gears, jerking around, making quite a job of it to be truthful. Who cares? I was on the A2. just a basic coral road graded through the “Jungle” Nobody watching or listening. I’ll have it all under control by the time I reach Port.

After about an hour and a half of slipping on the damp coral road, a couple of very near misses with the edge of the road, so many grinding gear changes that I’m truly surprised there were any gears left, I eventually pull into the Port Tank Farm

Who’s a clever boy then? It turns out that I wasn’t.

Yes, I still had the tanker. Yes, I still had the trailer. NO, I didn’t have the fuel. The bloody trailer was bone dry. Somewhere on the journey I’d done one of my dodgy manoeuvres and obviously hit quite a bump. A bump that just happened to be severe enough to make the Quick Acting valve on the trailer drop open.

On closer examination we found the exact point where this event had taken place. It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to be able to follow the trail of Diesel almost all the way back to the Airfeld. Word of the day “Whoops”

At least one thing was in my favour. Whoever had fitted the valve on the trailer had put it on the wrong way up. When the lever was up it was shut, when the lever was down it was open. It doesn’t take a genius to see that not a lot of effort was required for the valve to “Drop” open. Obviously a Yankee ploy to discredit their forefathers.

That’s my excuse, and I defy anyone to prove different!