I became attracted to lorry driving.  After years of running a complex business with 100 customers buying 1,000 lines from us I fancied getting away to a simpler life.  So I passed a HGV1. Fortunately a friend rang up one day and said he'd heard I was able to drive juggernauts. He already knew I had decent business administrative experience and invited me to test his firm's costings on their regular trips to the Middle East.  His problem was that drivers went away for a month and came back with a fistful of receipts for fuel, tyres, customs duties and much more.  How could he verify what was genuine, and how many were notes scribbled in arabic for payments received.  The only way was to drive a fully loaded truck all the way there and back and work out the realistic costs and duration of the journeys.So my instruction was to pick up a load in Essex, drive to Teheran unload and bring some other cargo back to the UK, tracking every penny and every mile. I was assigned the very latest Volvo juggernaut, left hand drive; I grew a colourful beard and dressed like a proper trucker in a wooly-pully. This was, of course, a highly appealing assignment.The truck was huge. The cab floor was above my head height when I stood on the tarmac and the way up was be means of a couple of inset steps and handle-grips to pull on.  One golden rule was never to pull on the steering wheel as the long steering column offered too much leverage and could easily pull the wheel out of alignments with the steering rack.Once inside, it was the envy of every schoolboy. Sixteen forward gears and two reverse, powered by an immense 12 litre 330 hp turbocharged diesel engine.  This was Volvo's first turbocharged engine and it was so big it had to be tilted to the right to get it in.  Volvo could not make this for right hand drive trucks, so my F89 was a 'left hooker' as the parlance goes. The engine lay alongside me in the cab for a month and I became adept at embracing its virtues.  Mine was covered thickly with a neatly cross-stitched Rexine overcoat.  When you stopped at night the warmth of the engine rose quickly to warm the sleeping area of the cab; during the day this cover served to muffle the noise from the enormous powerhouse.