• With the Single Market looming, and later the hard/soft
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emu, or is that ecu, we're all going to have to enjoy being Europeans. However, a British tradition of cocking a snook at the other side of the Channel will not die out so easily. Witness this tale from Seddon Atkinson: When the voice on the phone starts with the words: "My driver's stuck in Skily': it's not often the start of a good-news story.
This time it was different. Manchester-based Tate Pipe Lining had just sent its 1984 SA 301 six-wheeler down through Europe loaded with equipment to finish a pipework job abandoned incomplete by its Italian competitor.
The weather over the Alps threw rain, ice and snow at the day-cabbed 301, while at even, stop the 400-plus hp (298kw) Scania and Volvo drivers clutched their sides in mirth at the Cummins' 220hP. But the trusty 301, its Brimec roll on/off body and Hiab crane, and its two-man crew arrived in fine fettle to get on with their pipeline work.
Not so the shotgun riders. A faulty heater unit in a newish Peugeot 405 lost its coolant and then its cylinder head gasket, causing a two-day delay.
"Isn't it nice to have an operator ring in with good news," says Seddon Atkinson, without, I'm sure, the merest hint of smugness.