It's hard to recall when I’ve felt more popular than I do right now, driving very slowly and carefully – no sudden braking and absolutely no jerky movements – into Cobham services on the M25.
Some people wave. Others toot their horns. The cashier from the Shell station rushes out in greeting.
Cars edge in behind us, following in our wake. One poor woman, Sarah Leslie, 40 – desperately trying to get home from Gatwick Airport but thwarted by an empty tank – runs straight across the forecourt at the sight of us, weeping with joy.
‘I just want to get home to see my kids. My tank’s on zero. Please, please, please can you help me? I’m desperate!’
To be fair, it’s not really me everyone’s so thrilled about. Rather, my very shiny 40-ton ride – a vast Shell petrol tanker containing more than 27,000 litres of diesel, driven by a lovely chap called Richard Chambers who has kindly agreed to have me along for the day.
Jane Fryer spent a day with a tanker driver — and was mobbed by grateful motorists
Richard, 53, has been a fuel delivery driver for Hoyer Petrolog UK for 21 years and now takes HGV drivers through the surprisingly arduous training programme, but has never seen a week like this.
‘Some of us have been followed for miles by huge queues of cars, all desperate for fuel,’ he says.
‘People are filling up plastic water bottles and bin bags and all manner of ridiculous receptacles. Petrol is a highly volatile material! It’s astounding. Madness.’
But of course the biggest madness is that – as Richard and everyone at any fuel distribution company will tell anyone who will listen – there is actually NO shortage of fuel.
‘Last time it was toilet rolls,’ he says, referring to the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis. ‘They stripped the shelves and stockpiled it.’
And now we are experiencing a similar situation due to the crazed panic buying, hoarding, forecourt fights and petrol mania that has, at times, seen up to 60 per cent of filling stations across the country closed due to a lack of fuel.
‘What are they doing with it? Where are they going?’ he asks. ‘We drive all day, every day and there’s no one extra on the roads. Yet we can’t deliver any more. We’re all working flat out.’
And he’s not joking.
Long queues for petrol at an Asda in Bristol this morning as the fuel supply crisis continued
At the vast Hoyer depot in Grays, Essex, that serves Shell, BP and Esso garages all over the country, as well as airports, the working day starts at 4am. Shifts average 12 hours – but are often far longer – and ‘we go home when we’re finished’.
It goes without saying they’re horribly short-staffed, everyone has been offered overtime and, when drivers turn up at petrol stations, they often can’t get anywhere near the vast underground tanks due to all the horrendously long queues.
To add insult to injury, Richard’s own car – a very smart green Jag parked outside the Hoyer Portakabin – is dangerously low on fuel.
‘If I can’t get some this weekend, I won’t be able to get to work on Monday.’ But despite all that, he couldn’t be perkier. ‘I LOVE my job. Just love it! My alarm goes off at 2.30am and I jump straight out of bed – if I didn’t my dear wife would kill me – into the shower, dressed and out,’ he says.
He arrives at the office at 3.30am, whips through his paperwork, enjoys some very lively banter with fellow drivers, carries out the 130-odd safety checks on his lorry and then sets off – first to the refinery and then zigzagging across the country. Due to safety concerns, no phones of any kind are allowed in the cab, so it’s Radio 2 – ‘Ken Bruce’s PopMaster is the law’ –
