• A violent storm in Holland last year led to
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a strange windfall for Westerrnann (UK) driver Anthony Bryant. His drawbar rig was blasted by a gust of wind on a bridge during the storm and it fell on to a van, blocking the main A2 route into Amsterdam. The crash, just outside the town of Hertogen Bosch, caused one of the biggest traffic jams in Holland.
Bryant returned home after the chaos cleared (the van driver was not seriously injured) and thought no more about it until he got a call from the town's authorities earlier this month.
It turned out that on the night of the accident, Hertogen Bosch was holding its traditional annual festival. It had often been disrupted by outsiders from the North but, this time, the truck had barred their way.
Bryant was invited to the town by a grateful mayor and greeted by a full civic reception. He was interviewed on national radio and television and even received a personal welcome from the Dutch prime minister.
"The mayor gave me a map of the town marked with the 11 festival centres and told me to visit them. At every stop we were given free meals, free drinks, guided tours and the works," says Bryant.
"The prince of the carnival, dressed in a blue peasant-style smock decorated with the town's frog emblem, met us for a reception, complete with brass band. Me and the wife were asked to put on costumes and we then paraded the streets, stopping at every pub. All the girls were kissing me.
"That evening at the hotel I was the first outsider invited to be a member of the Oeteldonsche Club. They gave me a special scroll and presented me with a fantastic gold medal, which had engraved on it my truck lying on the van. Then everyone sang the British national anthem before bed."
Bryant is no stranger to adventure. He ran a small haulage operation out of Saudi Arabia into Tehran and Baghdad before the Iran-Iraq war made life impossible. He spent time on the Falklands helping to build the army bases, and endured a gruelling stint building barracks in Algeria. But he has come across nothing quite like Hertogen Bosch. "It was amazing," he says.