'All these children wanted was a cuddle a little love and affection'
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• Since the downfall of the Romanian dictator Nicholae Ceausescu, the Hawk has heard from many truckers who have given their time and energy to take food, medical supplies and toys to orphanages and hospitals in the country.
Although CM is not able to report on all of these trips, I was moved by two recent accounts from drivers who have made the trek with relief supplies.
Kevin Fuller, a workshop foreman at TC Harrison, went over with his brother Chris, friend Trevor Adcock and Trevor's sister Tracey, who is a nurse.
TC Harrison and Federal Express leant them trucks and, following an appeal in this column, A&K Oils supplied the diesel.
Chris Fuller describes the scene as the convoy from Derbyshire arrived at an orphanage in Toplita: A woman answered the door of the orphanage and we explained that we had clothes, nappies, food and toys for the children. She seemed very pleased and kept saying "Praise the Lord".
She invited us inside, and as we went in the front door my heart missed a beat. There was a room about 15ft x 9f1 where 30 toddlers aged between one and three were sitting in three rows at the back. All of them were crying. There was nothing in the room apart from five wooden chairs, not even a picture. I had to walk round the corner; my eyes filled with tears. It was terrible.
The children had very few clothes on and no nappies. The woman told us that they had no milk and only a small amount of food.
We went upstairs where there was another room full of cots; a three-year-old child was lying dead in one of them. Next door there were 18 toddlers, all dying of Aids.
After the orphanage Chris and his friends went on to a hospital to deliver medical supplies.
As we drove up to the hospital all I could think of was who and why? All the children wanted was someone to love them. When you pick one of them up they seem to hold on to you as if they never want to let go. As the doctors shook our hands they had tears in their eyes. They said they felt ashamed, but we said they need not be.
We got back to Tirgu at 02:00hrs and took four tins of beans out of the truck and ate them cold out of the tin before we slept — that was all we had to eat ourselves that day.
The second account comes from Stuart Lewis, a service engineer with running-gear manufacturer Rubery Owen Rockwell which supplied a tractive unit and trailer as part of a nine-vehicle convoy carrying £500,000 of aid to Romanian orphanages from the people of Wrexham.
It seemed like the entire townsfolk of Wrexham had turned out to give us a send-off It was one of the most emotional moments I have experienced.
When we got on the motorway other truck drivers acknowledged us by blasting their horns or waving.
After two days of non-stop driving the convoy entered Romania.
As we approached the border there was a two-mile traffic jam caused by black market racketeers who were buying what was left in Romania cheaply and selling it at a profit in Hungary. . .
Nothing could prepare us for the horrors of the orphanages. In Popesti, there were mentally and physically handicapped children. The building smelt of decay and children sat in their beds in the dark — others ran up and threw their arms around us craving affection.
The orphanages at Oradea and Cluj each revealed more terrors of the old regime. One felt so helpless.
With parents being forced to have five children and innocent children being injected with blood — more often than not infected — to make them grow, you wondered what type of society could do this?
All these children wanted was a cuddle, a little love and affection.
We all wished we could have Put the Children in the back of the truck and brought them home with us.