Page 24 - Transporter Talk Issue 195

MEMBER REPORT
Having watched too many war films, my concern focused on our ferry crossing, a journey we were going to make while the country was at war. All I could think about was those old black and white war films showing navy ships being torpedoed and sailors in the sea often drifting for weeks until found, or worse never found. I didn’t realise at the time that the Argentinian navy did not have the capability of reaching our shores.
One dark and miserable night in March 1982 we boarded our coach in Worcester, well I say coach for such a long trip it was devoid of all modern amenities, video games, air conditioning, it did have a toilet I think but that was temperamental at best. Oh yes and the radio worked intermittently as well.
We embarked the ferry and left the coach to explore the ship and after several hours our sea journey was complete, it went without a hitch and no Argentinian submarine was sighted during the voyage.
Through the morning, we travelled through the low countries until we reached West Germany that afternoon.
We ploughed on till the evening using Autobahns and quiet country roads to achieve our destination. At this point of our journey, I had expected the roads to be filled with old air-cooled VWs but they were a rare sight even then. The Germans had well and truly embraced the water- cooled era. Another factor I was to discover later was that our European cousins would change their cars more frequently than we did in the UK.
I think it might have been government initiatives, or it was simply cheaper to purchase a new car on the continent. In fact, it was rare to see anything over ten years old on the roads.
We must not forget that although Britain was fighting a war in the South Atlantic our trip was during the height of the cold war. Germany was split into two and West Germany into three parts each controlled
24 | Transporter Talk Issue 195