Juggernaut: Trucking to Saudi Arabia, Robert Hutchison. Paperback 216 x 138 mm (portrait), 332 pages including 12 pages of photographs. ISBN 978-1-908397-86-7. Now in stock at Old Pond at £12.95.
In 1986 professional writer Robert Hutchison became a passenger on a 10,000-mile trip through fourteen countries in a Scania 111. He was sampling the life of the long-haul trucker.
The truckers’ world was one of long days and nights on the road away from their families, hair-raising tales of accidents and the extreme danger created by murderous driving. He grew to understand why truckers put up with the life – not just for the money and the excitement, but also for their pride in coping whatever the circumstances and for camaraderie. There was, too, the beauty of mountains and lakesides and the strangeness of the desert.
Robert’s trip with Graham Davies of Whittle International took him through Cold-War Europe to Turkey and then through Iraq during the Iran–Iraq conflict with twenty-mile border queues and frequent police shakedowns. Finally they delivered their cargo of machinery and ovens for making plastic pipes to Al Khobar in Saudi Arabia before heading home after 31 days on the road.
This journey was undertaken when the golden age of transport from Europe to the Gulf was coming to an end. Robert’s accurate record, first published in 1987, is full of interest, drama and humour, telling the story of a remarkable breed of men. This is the first paperback edition and it includes an additional item: a 12-page section of colour photographs taken by the author during his journey.
Robert Hutchison was for many years a correspondent for the Sunday and Daily Telegraph. Among his other books are two dealing with financial crime and an exposé of the extreme right wing of the Catholic Church. Born in Canada, he has lived in Switzerland for over fifty years.
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