Portsmouth: Hampshire's second &Ey_ population of 200,000 people.., busy ferry
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and Royal Navy port...home of HMS Victory. Not, you would think, that hard to find in the great scheme of things, particularly lfyou've just rolled off the ferry in Dover. An easy 100-mile drive down the coast: two or three hours and you're there, easy.
That's the theory. But German trucker Bernd Baltes took the scenic route, heading some 300 miles out of his way to West Yorkshire, having made the oh-so-common mistake of confusing the Pennine hamlet of Portsmouth (pop: 250) with the bustling seaport. He rolled into the village at 19:00hrs, already four hours past his scheduled delivery time, and did his determined Teutonic best to find the shipping firm Commodore Express.
Bernd was finally alerted
to his mistake and Yorkshire police, no doubt keen to get him off their patch, escorted him to the M62 and pointed south. He got onto the right motorway, eventually arriving at his destination some 48hrs late.
Commodore boss Russell Kew wasn't too sympathetic, remarking: "He should have had doubts when he started looking for a ferry firm out in the countryside." Russell does have a good point there.