John Rowell

Editor's comment

Hi folks,

The above picture was taken by HC reader John Rowell, when he got his ex Davis Brothers Scammell home after it had languished at Rush Green Motors’ yard for about 40 years.

To extricate the Scammell from the Hertfordshire yard, the tree, which had quietly grown over the 40 years, was sawn off at bonnet level and the lorry and its remaining trunk and roots were lifted out of the ground by a mobile crane. When John took the picture, he’d already sawn away the tree below chassis level and had started having a ‘go’ at the top!

This picture is real caption competition material, so send entries in before 21 May and I’ll award a prize to the funniest. How about: ‘A real chip off the old cylinder block’ as my entry.

To finish off my tales about the time my Scania sales colleague, Tony Martin and I spent on our trip over to the factory in Sweden, I’ll tell of the hospitality we enjoyed.

Because the trip was to replicate the occasion that our best customers were to enjoy, the hospitality was ‘top drawer’. We were treated to dinner in a dining room in a theatre which had its own balcony from which we could watch a show after we’d eaten. When I say top drawer, I mean top drawer – the dining room was reserved for Scania execs and their guests when not in use by the King and Queen of Sweden and their visiting dignitaries. The excellent cuisine and fine wines were wasted on the likes of Uncle Tony and me, but what a wonderful experience.

Following the meal, we ventured out onto the ‘Royal’ veranda to catch ‘the act’. It was all a mystery to us two as the comedian spoke only in Swedish. Every two or three minutes, he would slap a bunch of ripe bananas on his head and shout something like ‘Shishta banana’, at which the audience burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter!

Being fuelled by the best wine that France could produce, we decided to leave our banana-toting friend and look for more ‘basic’ entertainment out in Stockholm city, which we found in the ‘Black Cat’ night club and grill – we never did find the grill! After downing a slack handful of unbelievably expensive beers, we decided to commence the weaving journey back to our hotel, in 25 degrees of frost – how sobering was that!

The next day we were taken on a guided tour of the city with its fabulous architecture and many islands – by Scania coach of course.

For lunch we stopped at a most unusual restaurant, which was described by our guide thus. Years before, it was decided to bridge two of the islands together; but after several yards of bridge were made, for whatever reason, funding for the project ceased and so did the bridge, which was left jutting out over the Baltic sea. Being a resourceful lot, some Swedes decided to build a first class restaurant on it, which of course gave us diners a view to die for.

The other memorable thing about this meal was one of the dishes, which sported some granulated orange ‘stuff’ on a bed of something or other. Being ‘Hungry Hectors’, we piled into it, only to spit the contents of our mouths into our hankies – it was caviar and not the concentrated orange concoction that our taste buds were expecting. I have a theory that caviar is something that we are all supposed to lust after, but in reality find to be a salty, fairly unsavoury and expensive mess.

Over the months, I hope I’ve given you a flavour of just some of the things that made that trip so memorable for me and made me such a fan of the Swedish marque.

Cheers

PS: Parry Davis has pointed out to me that the Leyland Hippo pictured on Page 60 of April’s HC actually belongs to him and not John Rowell – you have my apologies, it won’t happen again – Ed.

David Craggs, Editor