Into the Distance

George Bennett had an unusual background for a truck driver. Brought up in an experimental spiritual community inspired by the work of GI Gurdjieff, and with a newly-minted master's degree in American history, George spent seven years as a long-haul truck driver in the 1970s and early '80s. Into the Distance - the Lost World of Long-haul Trucking, is a rollicking account of the years he spent driving trucks across Britain, Europe and the Middle East. George describes life on the road in an era that has long-since disappeared, before technology came to dominate communications systems, and when individual drivers had to rely on their own skill and ingenuity to get out of trouble. The book is highly readable, and written in the easy style that later made George a successful magazine journalist and editor. It's full of great stories of countries he visited, and near-disastrous scrapes and escapes from dangerous situations. Each episode is introduced with a description of his latest truck, including technical details and sketches of the various companies he worked for, and the odd characters he met along the road. When George achieves his ambition to drive to the Middle East, he is able to present a fascinating view of the ordinary life of the Gulf states before the outbreak of the various Middle Eastern wars, describing locations later made famous or infamous in news reports of the conflicts. In his many journeys into communist Eastern Europe, George gained first-hand experience of how those countries worked for ordinary people. An underlying theme of the book is the toll that life behind the wheel takes on drivers - with precarious living conditions and the risk of difficulties and trouble at every border crossing - and on their families - enduring lengthy separations, and the inevitability of family estrangement - all part of the high price for being the unchallenged kings of the road.