My story of my Dad the Truckie

THE SHOTGUN KID​

“Tales of a truck driver’s son riding shotgun”​

By Nicholas Hawtin. ​

“The Shotgun Kid”​

“My Memories and Stories as a Passenger in my Father’s Truck”​

The opportunity to Ride shot gun with my father was one of those things that my older brother and I would often argue about when it came time for the annual school holidays. He would often come up with excuses such as that I got to take the day trip to Melbourne with dad last time. Even though he spent the last school holidays on the regular weekly trip to Brisbane that took six days, my one day return trip with our father to Melbourne seemed to be a fair exchange in his eyes. I must admit that the life of a interstate truck driver was a tad more appealing to my brother than it was to me. Neither the less it was always a great get away from the small home town that we grew up in that consisted of either drinking, football, cricket and tennis and if I forgot to mention drinking as well. This town had no exceptions for the kid who like baseball and basketball. Seems funny when I look back to think that maybe I was ahead of my time as now the main interest of our youth is the sports I seemed to listed as my interests.
Being the son of an interstate truck driver was somewhat of a catch 22 situation. My father’s career meant that he was away from home pretty much six out of the seven days of a week and usually that last day was spent ether cleaning or servicing the truck. We never went without as kids, always had good family holidays for two weeks a year in the September school holidays. Usually spent in Queensland from where dad had just returned but this trip the freight was his family and six bags of clothes all packed into the back of a light blue XB ford station wagon. Which probably was just like another trip for him really? We only ever really missed out on the physical presence of a father figure in or life during our younger years. I don’t think it ever took a negative effect on us as some of the children I grew up with their fathers spent most nights in the local pub until they came home for their tea. By this time most of the children where in bed already, thus with dad being away I didn’t really think it was much different. We always learnt how to do things by either watching our father do something while he was home or then practicing it while he was not around to see our failures. On other occasions I remember having to repair the water pump that feed the water to the house from the tank while he waited patiently from a phone box somewhere on the way up or back from Queensland. I don’t know whether it must have been frustrating for him to wait for us in between doing what he asked on the phone or having to put up with our mother giving him an ear bashing about how things always break when he wasn’t home.
Looking back now as a thirty something year old father myself I have a lot more admiration for my father now than I probably did in my younger years. I admired him very much and he was a man of few words and even less affection. Not a bad thing but I suppose it’s a price you pay being alone on the road for so long that it seems to rob you of that everyday taken for granted stuff that families are made of. Although when he had something to say we listened.
Dad was around six foot four inches high, size twelve boots, and a belly that stuck out as far as his large feet. I think that he was in proportion to his size al round and being large in both ways sort of made him look a standard size to us kids. Dad was dad. People would often comment on how tall he was to us but it never really fazed me.
He has left me with amazement that whatever he wanted to do he would make happen. Destiny was made by him. Our father could have been anything he wanted but taking orders from someone was not his forte. Lucky he had flat feet and was not the armies desired list because it could have been nasty.
I am only reliving memories of stories mum tells us of him in their younger years as a couple. So many stories there as well but this is not what I am really trying to portray here. This is about my experiences of being his passenger and his son. However, for the purpose of a mental picture of him and his personality I will quickly explain how he came to be what he was.
Dad left England on the big brother programme and came out to Australia because he wanted a better life .He hated the fact that the money he earned was given to his family and he received about one twelfth of his weekly income in return .There really wasn’t much future in the Birmingham district for a child his age other than getting into mischief or trouble. With his risk taking personality, it nearly could have been the death of him.
When he landed in Australia he had ten pound in his pocket and somehow against all odds made it work for him in his new homeland and never returned to England. He had employment on farmer’s properties around the Jerilderie area on southern New South Wales. Being a kid and a hard worker it did not take him to long to get a little business going trapping rabbits and selling off the meat and skins. Somehow it always came back to money. Once a week the farmer and he would drive into town for the weekly visit. Dad would buy a soda pop and an ice cream and wait in the car while the farmer would stop off at the pub for his weekly fill. When he turn old enough to drink he thought that it was his turn to have a drink with the farmer what a laugh that was he entered into a shout and being six in the shout he thought that he has to drink six to get his money back and the rest is as they say a blur and history.
He then managed to get a job in Melbourne on the Board or works where he learnt about trucks etc. He also met and married my mother. During the time in Melbourne he managed to gamble away a fair stack of mum’s saving as he love the horse’s , so with that they moved to the country life of the Newham / Woodend district. They had a little farm but dad always wanted to try something new and thus the journey begins with the passion for truck driving.

Early Days​

With savings in hand he took himself and good friend Brian off to some town on the Victorian South Australia border to look at a truck advertised somewhere or he had heard of it through his network of friends. Money paid and he jumps up in the cab of his first truck. An old Leyland AEC mandator single drive cab over with the little sleeper box on the back that looked like the truck had bumped its head. Red in colour with the sleek white roof and matching flat top trailer bogey axle. He leaves the border town and heads for home the maiden voyage. Up over mount Macedon at a blistering pace of thirty-eight miles an hour empty. Once he arrived home safely he thought it would be a good idea to go down to the local police station and actually get an articulated licence. While down the street he saw the local constabulary enter the pub and he followed in hot pursuit. Upon asking him a time that would suit to come down and sit the driving test the officer replied” you seemed to be handling her ok coming over the hill before so just drop in and fill out the paperwork”.
With all that sorted he loaded in Melbourne with the scrap offerings from TNT for Sydney and headed off on Friday night to arrive in Sydney by Monday morning. Even the paint on the door with their name was wet when he left. My how things have changed. The Hume highway was a narrow winding road with more bends, twist and pot holes in that any man could remember. This was the true Sesame Street. No duel lane concrete highway for your aerodyne cab truck, to sit on cruise control while you listen to compact discs in your suspension seat. We worry now days about the dangers of the Hume Highway but in hindsight it was like Russian roulette every time they hopped onto the road back in the early seventies. No air conditioners in these truck just a tartan esky with cold drinks and a sandwich inside stuffed down on the passenger floor side complete with the matching thermos full of hot coffee that clipped into the esky lid .Only the rattles and wine of the trucks engine as you tried to guide it up the narrow highway. I gather at the speed the AEC ran that dad had a lot of time to take in the view. In today’s terms it must have been like a slow motion movie that played its self-over on a weekly basis. Plenty of time to read the name on the door of the truck as it passed you or even notice what is happening in the car that cuts you off at the next intersection.
Funny thing about the old AEC is that he was fined by the police using the speed tapes for doing thirty-seven miles an hour in a thirty-five mile an hour zone.

The first AEC without the sleeper box.​

The second AEC​

These where the real trucking days, the beginning of some of the greatest times and experiences in his life and in the evolution of the trucking industry. These men where the real truckies. The creators of Australian transport history, as we know it, most of these men drove trucks because they wanted to and not because that was all they could do like some today. Some of the biggest trucking companies started around this time as well such as your Linfox, TNT, Scott’s transport and numerous others that have been bought out in recent years by the large shareholder transport companies that need the monopoly.
Fuel was under sixty cents per litre and coke was in glass bottles and milk was delivered to your door. Computers were figments of cartoons and trucks were as raw as they could have been. Minimal gauges, minimal gears and minimal horsepower. How these guys ever survived the early days will always amaze me.
Back in early eighties dad scored a contract or regular lad with chemtrans to haul chemical based freight to Brisbane each week. No MSDA (Material safety Data Analysis) sheets or warning signs. These became mandatory at a later date. He was just give a little red plastic toolbox with a set of glasses, gloves and emergency sheet if there was a leak. Call the fire brigade or something like that. One trip a drum started to leak just out of Brisbane so he pulled up at a phone box and told them it was eating the paint off the trailer. The office told him to stay put. “Be dammed” he said and drove it into the yard. They can clean it up he thought. It’s their product anyway they can clean it up. It’s not part of his job description.

Loaded with Chemtrans freight destination Brisbane​

The Necessities of Trucking Life.​

Dad would carry a few change of clothes in an old blue airport luggage bag with a couple of beach towels and always the original Old Spice after shave in the white bottle which usually leaked everywhere during the trip. At least he smelt nice. Dad’s wardrobe consisted of no less than four blue chesty bond singlets with the odd white one thrown in. Multiple pairs of woollen and black size twelve socks, several blue king gee work shorts and a light blue terry-towelling hat. The thing that amazed me the most about dad’s travel bag was that I don’t think he ever got to the bottom and its hidden clothes. By the time he had worn the top two layers; he had come home and exchanged them for freshly cleaned and iron ones that mum had gotten ready for him. I used to chuckle as mum would have it all neatly laid out on the ironing board, not a crease in sight. Dad would grab a handful of fresh clothes and stuff them into the top of the bag, creasing and scrunching them as he filled it back up. Topped off with fresh towels and another bottle of old spice and he was ready to go. De -Ja- vu
Now for the dust covered esky and the thermos that usually was replaced after about six trips as it always got dropped and the vacuum glass would shatter rendering the coffee useless. The introduction of the Aladdin thermos that wouldn’t break soon paid dividends for the trucking industry. The same could have been said for the torch range that dad carried. I remember the big Jim lantern torch and how I used to push the red button to make the emergency beacon flash. I really don’t think it would have saved you in any way but the thought was there. I saw several styles of the dolphin torches come and go. Most he either left on the side of the battery box or fuel tank after using them to do a late night check around the truck. They usually stayed on the tank till the first bend then made their way under the rear wheels on the trailer. I don’t think I really ever remember one of dad’s torches ever working. They always had broken globes or flat batteries. God it was frustrating.

‘Inside the Truck’​

To take a look inside dad’s truck at glance it always looked busy. Pieces of paper with scribbled phone numbers on them, logbook with torn and folded corners lying beside the drives seat where it has fallen and cannot fall anymore. The old eighteen channel CB sitting either in a bracket bolted on the dash or in the later trucks perched up in the overhead console with the handpiece hooked up in its clip ready to bounce out at the next big pothole the truck would hit. Bag of clothes on the passenger floor, dirty clothes bag stuffed beside clothes bag. Esky on the passenger seat or in later times the Waeco truck fridge/ freezer. Usually scattered around the engine cover was a collection of a few cassette tapes that were never in the right cover. This never mattered anyway as they plastic clear covers were always scratched so much you had to open them to pull the cover slip out to see the artist etc.
The bunk was usually two pillows that that were pan caked flat and a doona all scrunched up somewhere it were last used. Under the bunk amongst the loose change that rattled its way in there was a assortment of fan belts and radio hoses. It did from time to house a child so we could gain entry into a loading site that banned children. Security guards never climbed up on the trucks as they always saw most drivers were on their own.

‘Outside the Truck’​

The outside of the truck reminded me of the Sydney harbour bridge. You started at one end and worked your way to the other, whether it be servicing or washing, there was always something to wash, grease, tighten or weld back on. The road conditions were horrendous and anything that had some form of leverage would finally break after several kilometres of vibration. If you were lucky you found the crack and welded it up. When dad came home he spent most of his time in the shed doing his own servicing and maintenance. When we kids became old enough to assist we were handed the grease gun and sent on our way. Being skinny, supple and fast was an asset to dad when it came to getting under the truck to grease all its points. He was twenty-two stone so it was a task in itself. The only thing we never learnt until later was to look for loose items or as I found out later on that if you find a loose universal tell dad, it’s easier to fix at home than on the side of the road in between two towns somewhere. I never enjoyed servicing the truck as much as my brother did but when he moved away from home I inherited the job. It’s funny as all I hated learning then is have use for my career now.
When it came to washing the truck there always seemed to be more water on myself than the truck. I loved using the pressure washer and blasting the grease off everything but as kid you don’t think where the grease ends up. It lands on the cab, the windscreen and everywhere. Dad used to give us a broom and we would scale up the back of the truck cab using our toes as grip on the exhaust mount brace to access the roof. Up here we would scrub away to our hearts content totally unaware that we could slip and fall from the roof and do us an injury at anytime.

Servicing the G88 Volvo. (Kerosene pressure washer in front)​

Once the truck was serviced and cleaned it was time to change the tyres. In the beginning I remember helping him break beads on rims and changing tyres over. The invention of the tubeless tyre was a step in the right direction. On the odd occasion the local tyre dealer Rob hill would drive over and drop off recaps or new tyres and spend a couple of hours helping dad change them. Trying to get this service today you would have to pay for it dearly. We were all taught of the dangers of blowing up split rims and the wheel keepers on the spiders. These were dangerous and frightened me every time I watched my dad work on them.

Oil changing and greasing the F1023 Volvo​

Once a year or so we would hop in the xb wagon and head over to Wilmac truck spares in Cobram and pick up brake shoes, axle bearings, s cams and a couple drums of macnaught red grease. This would take forever and watching dad struggle on his own, pulling the spider off with the duels still attached to be able to knock out the bearing cups from the wheel. This job was heavy, awkward and time consuming. I think back now and wonder how he did it on his own. The trusty crowbar was used wedged in the centre of the wheel to lever up the duels back upright. The old oversize load tin sign with grease on it was the skid to put the wheel back on the axle. This time of year drove mum mad, as he would use the kitchen oven to heat up the bearings, as they would pack better by hand.
In amongst doing the wheel bearings he managed to put new brake shoes and s cams in. Sometimes he had to install new brake drums also. All this work was done on a dirt floor in the back shed at home. Most guys now days just pay to have it done at a diesel mechanic’s workshop.
I suppose as I have mentioned before in this book it must of been lonely for him on the road with only himself or passing truck to talk to over the CB. This lead dad into a life of having little discussions with himself about where this part was, or where he left some spanner only to hear him calling himself an idiot for having it in his back pocket the whole time. On several occasions when we had mates at home they would ask “who is in the shed with your Dad?” we would inform them that there was only him and that was just the normal sounds coming from the shed. Hard for them to understand but hey that’s what he did. It was funny to us to hear him jibber on about stuff, it was just funny, like he was crazy and loosing it. Even the local church minister one day called in to have a conversation with mum about dad in the shed on Sunday mornings. We lived next door to the church of England and in the middle of sermon they would hear dad let fly at himself with a conversation so full of profanities that even the confessional couldn’t handle it. The priest asked who it was and we had to say it was only one man. If congregation was lucky on some Sundays in the middle of a hymn dad would fire up the truck and give them a blast of the throttle drowning out the out of tune lady singing in the back row. I think the priest was all set to have a little conversation with dad about how rude it was but when the six foot four , twenty two stone man emerged from the shed asking what’s wrong the priest just ask nicely if he could please start the truck after eleven. I don’t know if a compromise was found but it never stopped dad from his Sunday routine.

‘Bogged in the backyard trying to reverse out the drive in winter’​

‘Mates on the Road’​

Driving so many miles for so many years you are bound to make some form of friends whether it is from people you meet on the road or existing clients you have worked for over the years. Some of these people became dad’s lifelong mates. I would like to tell you of the few I have been privilege to meet or spend some time with.
‘Driving Mates’
Some of the most memorable truck driving mates I met where in the roadhouses or over the CB radio. The Doctor as I knew him drove the interstate like dad and drove Melbourne Brisbane route each week also. We would pass him going up head on sometimes and then on the return trip the same. Every now and then we would be heading in the same direction and would virtually tail each other from stop to stop. My fondest memory of the doctor was that all his work shirts had an extra large pocket on the front. Inside this pocket lived his travelling companion a miniature chiwawa. This dog went everywhere with him and at one stage I remember him telling dad over the radio it had just vomited on his boss’s carpet in his office. I only ever met him in person once but his memory has stuck with me.
Another trucking mate was a married couple. Cliffy Bailey and his wife ran the gauntlet in an old ford Louisville. Cliff drove for years and his wife grew tired of him being away from home and the kids. When the children had grown up and left home she went and got her truck licence. From then on they were inseparable running up and down the Newell splitting the driving shifts. It worked out a treat, as the old brown Louis never really stopped the engine as when one had to take a sleep break the other would drive. What a business match made in heaven.
There was one guy I remembered and had a laugh to myself, as I felt sorry for this guy. He owned the rig of the year in trucking life magazine. It was a beautiful silver w model Kenworth with all the bells and whistles any man could spend on a truck. Her name was desperado and lit up like a Christmas tree at night. Clearance lights everywhere. I remember the inside was all decked out with the goods and the sleeper cab had just been extended to this house on wheels. What made laugh was that he had spent all this money on his truck and at the time I was in his presence it was pouring rain. He was desperately seeking someone with a tube of silicon sealant as the newly renovated sleeper was leaking like a sieve. All that money, it still leaked.
The last driving mate I remember was a little scruffy guy with black curly hair and a beard. He was very short in stature and walk with a limp or bow legged if I remember rightly. I never knew his name but he fascinated me. Dad had probably owned a few trucks since the old AEC and was probably onto his Volvo F1023 by now. This guy still owned an old AEC and bogey trailer. So old and ancient in a rapidly changing industry. We would pass him going in the same direction on our way up to Brisbane. He would be putting along like a snail on vallium but he always smiled and waved as you overtook him. We would have been in and out of Brisbane and would pass him going home as he was still crawling up the highway towards Brisbane. The part I loved about him was the truck he drove never had a sleeper cab and to make do he would use a small cover tarp that was used to hold your cap tarps and curtains in place and keep them dry as his bed. Ever so neatly he would tie it on the rope rail of the trailer and make a little hammock. He looked like a little Joey in a pouch. So far behind the times, but so happy. Probably owned everything he had and his smiles at the other drivers as they overtook him were of an “I isn’t in debt like you are” smile. They had deadlines to make and loans to pay and he just made do with no stress. How lucky was he?

‘Cliental mates’​

Some of the people dad carted freight for became lifelong friends. The friendship they shared was as important as the load. Mr and Mrs Janke as I only ever knew them used to love when dad came out to their business in Mount Tyson Queensland. Janke brother’s at the time was a small agricultural machinery manufacturer and produce a very successful stubble mulcher that dad would top load and deliver to somewhere down the highway in lower New South Wales or Victoria. He would call them from a phone box in Brisbane to tell them when he would be there. By the time, he arrived at their factory Mrs. Janke had already cooked the roast dinner and dad was expect to stay. A nice hot shower, great meal and a couple of beers went down a treat every time he carted for them. I bet they remember these times well.
Barker brother’s trailers in Woodend specialised in looking after their clients. When dad purchased their seventh or eleventh trailer they ever made little did he know what a successful company they would become? Barker brothers always took their buyers out for tea and a few drinks after they had picked up their trailer. This trailer was flash, new gates, grain trap doors all the bells he could afford at the time. Dad picked the trailer up with his old Milestones green and gold f89 Volvo single axle lazy axle drive truck. He pulled up at the Barker brother’s house and had a meal and couple of drinks and after a few hours he called it a night. He was staying at a family friends house not far from the barker’s Brian and Marg lived a house cornering a bitumen street with a dirt road down the other side. This where dad would park the truck when he visited. He still does not know if it was the fog or the foggy eye but when he pulled up and got out of the truck he realised that he had actually driven down a vacant block of land three houses down. How embarrassing. Nevertheless, he left it there until morning anyway. About ten years later he went on to purchase his second barker trailer with was about the eleven thousandth item they had produced.
The best client dad ever had was Lex and Glenys Church. This friendship became one of the longest lasting mates he had. Our families had holidays together in Queensland each year and I have endured friendships their children that are as strong as our parents are.
Lex was a character and always saw the positive of a negative situation. Maybe it was dad and his similar characteristic that made them friends. They lived half way between Melbourne and Brisbane on a farm in a little area called Biddon, Just out of Gilgandra and was a nice little stop off and distraction for dad on the way up or back from Brisbane. Originally the lived in the Goulburn Valley area and Dad was delivering some John shearer farm equipment. They got on like a house on fire and the friendship grew. When the family moved into the Gilgandra Township after selling the family farm it became an overnight stop off. You see when Lex and family moved to town Lex achieved his pilot’s licence. So now every time dad visited they went for a fly. How convenient. One trip the plane lost pin in the trim rudder after takeoff. This caused Lex to grab the controls of the plane with both hands and a white-knuckle grip at that. Dad knew there was a problem when he saw the beads of sweat forming on Lex’s brow. One quick low circle of the town and then a bumpy landing. The broken trim rudder was trying to make the plane nosedive into the ground. It was only the sheer fact that Lex was strong enough to pull back on the controls to counter act this or they would have been in trouble.

Cafes and Roadhouses​

Food, sleep, showers and coffee always played a big part in dad’s and every truckle’s life. You always knew a good place for a feed as the roadhouse or cafe would always have two or three trucks parked there, the obligatory truckies lounge with free coffee and a television that you could never quiet hear. Some car drivers rarely dared to enter to lounge as it usually had a secret men’s club appeal about it.
I remember watching Dad sit down to eat a plate of bacon and eggs with a side of toast and pot of milk coffee as the regular breakfast at most road houses. The serves were generous and the compliments to the waitresses’ the same. Truck drivers had their own stop or roadhouse they frequented. It was like dropping in on mates.
Watching dad drink coffee was amazing to me as he always was talking to some other driver about the price of fuel, freight or police. During these conversations I would watch in amazement him tipping sugar from the sugar dispenser into his white ceramic cup. He would tip up the dispenser and empty one sugar into the milk coffee and then stir it clockwise. This process depending on the conversation might happen up to four or five times. By the time he actually took a sip, the skin of the milk would attach to the side of the cup. No wonder the truckies could drive, as if they all drank coffee this sweet, they would have been like a hyperactive child never settling.
Even the kid serves in the truckies lounge where large. Maybe they were grooming our figures early for the truckies life. I never could grasp the concept of eating a huge meal and then sitting and driving for four hours. Most truck operators had large bellies and skinny legs from changing gears. Probably the only exercise they ever got.
Another sign of a great roadhouse was the showers. Truckies always loved clean showers and hot water. Plenty of water pressure and if you are lucky even a seat to sit on in the cubical of the shower to get changed.
If you were in good luck, you knew that the roadhouse had good showers and meals by the amount of bullbars with towels on them. The truck driver would have his shower and then hang his towel to dry over the bull bar of his truck while they went to eat.
Every truckie had his own story to tell and as a kid trying to eat my over sized meal in the truckies lounge I still remember the stories that were told as much as the swear words that I learnt and use today.
I remember at the Boggabilla shell roadhouse one night, we were eating tea and I asked if I could have some dessert. Dad agreed and I ordered some ice cream while he had another pot of milk coffee. The waitress explained to me that they were all out of ice cream and I would have to choose something else. With this, a big guy bellowed out from the truckies lounge to me. “You want ice cream son? Come with me”. I looked at my father for the nod that the stranger danger rule did not apply to this guy. He walked me outside and mumbled on about how poor it was a roadhouse with no ice cream. However, all I could hear was the clicking sound of his large Dunlop thongs on his feet. We walked out to the back of this blue kenworth towing a tri- axle freezer van. He opened the doors on the back of the van and a cold fog and draught hit my body. I remember him asking me” what flavour I liked?”” pineapple, chocolate, rocky road?” I was in ice cream heaven; this truck was the Streets ice cream semi trailer. The back of this trailer looked like it had a skyscraper of twenty litre tubs of ice cream in every flavour I could imagine. I did not want to cause much fuss so I asked for vanilla. He said “Vanilla you want vanilla you get.” With this he put his fist through the top of the cardboard liner and grabbed out the tub of my dreams. “We’ll put it down as damaged hey,” he said. With eyes bigger than my belly we entered back into the roadhouse. He said to the waitress “free ice cream for all the truck drivers’ love”. I felt special and privileged, as I tucked into an extra creamy vanilla bowl of ice cream as dad thanked the driver for his generosity.
Come school holidays which most kids went with their father on trips along the highway like me the roadhouses housed the future and the present day drivers. I still do not know if we went with our fathers to spend time with them and do some father son bonding or just to give mum a break. It must have been hard on Dad to be thrown a son for two weeks. Every habit of being a slave to the lonely highway was to be forgotten. Stories were told of fathers just hoping in their trucks and taking off after fuelling up and forgetting that their child had just ducked to the toilet and leaving them behind. It always frightened me that I would suffer this fate so I always went to the toilet first thing.
You never realise the pressure’s and time restraints that the drivers where under until later in life. I do remember one time hoping in the truck and just getting a few kilometres down the road and asking dad to stop, as I needed to pee. The growling made me grow a stronger bladder instantly. I must have frustrated him with my constant questions and stops, but he was good at hiding it.
The other joys of having an interstate truck-driving father that frequented the roadhouse you always managed to get the most free things or collectables that service stations offered. A couple of our birthday presents came with the BP petroleum price tags on them. Probably a last minute gift he could grab on the run. I must say that I did enjoy the collectable years of the smurfs and I remember getting dad to pick up one each trip with my pocket money. So many smurfs to collect and so many trips per year. I was so sure I would have had the complete set by the end of the year. I didn’t count on them selling out.
Roadhouses where the meeting place for all truck orientated kind. There were guys looking for lifts home cause their rig broke down. All they had to do was wave their logbook in the air and the first truck would stop. There was men washing and polishing their trucks, Mates catching up with each other as their paths had crossed after sometime. The stories were thick and fast and usually large amounts of laughter. There was always someone with the cab or bonnet up on their truck checking fluids or god help them trying to fix a broken part with what limited tools they carried. Even if they could fix it good enough to get them to the nearest agent for their truck.
Roadhouses were the twenty-four hour cities that where either populated with trucks everywhere or deserted. Some of the late night truck stop stories my dad told made me laugh as would roll in at one or two in the morning fuel up with eight hundred litres of diesel, wash the windscreen and then go to pay but no one was there. He would look around the roadhouse only to find the attendant asleep on the floor behind the counter. Back then it might not have been so bad at the price of the fuel but if dad wasn’t honest, he could have made off with quiet a tidy sum of money in diesel. What sort of attendant could sleep through a truck coming and going in a twenty-four hour roadhouse has me totally bewildered.

Roadside Stops and Parking bays​

You could always tell a good parking bay along the road as it usually had a heap of trucks lined up with doors half open. This was the sign of a nice cool breeze that would chill the sleeper cabs on a hot summer’s day as they tried to get a break. Man it must have been hard. I used to hate when dad had to have an hours sleep during the middle of the day. I could never rest or let alone sit still. Dad would offer me to stay in the truck and be still or get out and be quiet. I usually opted to stay in the truck but I had to fiddle or look at things that would lead to some light grunts from the sleeper cab, which I could decipher as keep bloody still and quiet or get out. Therefore, I would try to open the door quietly. Not a chance, the old passenger door would squeak as you opened it. Every so sneakily I would climb down, hoping that the rocking of the cab, might put him to sleep. I would hang out round the truck waving to passing traffic till I got bored which took a whole ten minutes. Then back up into the cab to try and be quiet. My father was so tolerant.
The night time sleeps weren’t as bad but I remember stretching out across the two seat and engine cover with a few pillows as a mattress and a cushion stolen from the spare couch at home to make up the gaps. I never got too much sleep, as I always was fascinated with the sound of a truck hurtling along in the distance. It seemed to take forever to arrive and I love the noise of the engine roar as it drove buy and just as quick it would rattle off into the distance. A flash of orange clearance lights and it was gone. You could pick the old V8 Mack trucks popping along the road compared to the kenworth and the European trucks they all had a note of their own. The sound would travel across the night air for ages.
The only time we both never go any sleep was if a stock truck pulled in with the livestock rocking around in the crate making noises or the smell would keep you awake. The other was a refrigerated fridge van motor would running keeping its goods fresh. God it was annoying. How could they sleep at all?
There was one place that no one slept during the night and that was the Pilliga state forest between Coonabarabran and Narrabri. This forest was home to the legendary tale of the Yowie or Bigfoot to some. Tales where thick and fast of drivers being caught in the night out there having a sleep and waking to find their cap tarps where slashed like claws had cut them. Other tales where told of drivers sneaking into the bush for a toilet stop and seeing the creature itself. No one ever knew really about them but no one ever stopped. The legend was enough to keep them driving. One story that made me laugh was a driver had pulled in for a quick nap. His mates spotted him there and proceeded with a practical joke that would fill the roadhouses up the road for weeks to come. As he lay in his sleeper in slumber one of his mates climbed upon the bull bar of his truck. Wearing a fur coat over his head and obviously rocking the cabin and making monkey noises were enough to startle the driver out of the cabin into the bush as a rapid pace. Poor bugger he would have never lived it down.
The yowie legend is still out there today and I remember somewhere in the forest was a gravesite known as the yowie grave. It always had fresh flowers but no one knew who put them there.
Most roadside stops did not have toilets back then like now so if a driver was caught short they had no other option but to rough it in the bush. One guy got caught with a number two about a hundred kilometres north from West Wyalong. With that out of the way he jumped back in the truck and kept driving. When he was at west Wyalong he felt the need for a quick healthy bite to eat. Milkshake and dim sims was the favourite. He put his hand in his back pocket to pay and found his wallet was missing. Not good as they were usually full of notes. Obviously he had enough change in the truck to pay for the items but it had him worried. Where did he have it last? Then it dawned upon him. A quick turn around and back to that parking bay. There lay the wallet next to the number two. Wasn’t that enough to give you the ##### again. It fell out of his pocket while squatting.
Some roadside stops have ended in tragedy also for the driver. One story that comes to mind is a driver in the outback of South Australia. He pulled in to either check the tyres or maybe go to the toilet. As he jumped out of the truck he was bitten by a tiapan snake that he had either caught under the front wheel or something. They found him next to the steer tyre passed away. How unlucky could you be?

‘Dad reversing through the gates at home of the main road’​

Money​

It’s funny how times have changed at truck stop as you now pay by credit card or eftpos or god forbid if you carry cash. When dad drove he paid by cheque with a name and address scribbled on the back and he carried a wallet with no less than five hundred dollars in notes. The honesty of back then and the trust given to truck drivers was amazing. However, today is a different story. The next generation have either let the first down or are just harshly treated.
The console of his truck used to be the bearer of great gifts as a child. It always was filled with coins emptied from his pocket every time he hopped into the cab. When dad arrived home he would always tell us kids to go grab a couple of dollars out of the truck and get some mixed lollies from the local store to eat. On the odd occasion we would sneak some extra money for ourselves from the console, as there was always enough coins that we thought dad wouldn’t miss them.
The coins would be the tell tale of the road condition as you drove. If the road was corrugated the coins would make a little chattering vibration type noise. Big potholes meant coins on the floor that told us that we were in New South Wales. Nestled somewhere in amongst the coins was usually a cassette tape from some artist that he picked up in a service station somewhere cheap. Mainly a country and western album covered by poor vocal ability singers. These Cassettes usually lasted about a week before the tape player chewed them up and they ended up out the window.
Dad’s loose change is a fond memory of mine. He always had an amount of change in his king gee shorts that would rattle constantly as he walked anywhere. In summer when we played cricket on the front lawn and dad was home to play a couple of innings for England we always heard him coming. If he hit a single and had to run fast the change would rattle at a similar accelerated rate. If he was bowling and it was fast pace then the coins would tell us.

‘My brother assisting with the f89 Volvo cleaning’​

‘My trips away’ ​

So many years of travelling shotgun with dad I can only really list some of the more memorable journeys because the list would go on and on and on, but one thing I will say is that I saw more parts of Australia from the passenger side of a truck that most children my age got to experience.

‘Wildlife’​

I saw wildlife that would make the mind boggle. Wedge tail eagles out on the plains near Broken Hill that had at least a six-foot wingspan if not larger. If I hoped out of the truck I swear I would have been looking them in the eye. Watching them take flight with a whole carcass in their large claws I was in awe at their strength and beauty.
I saw snakes as thick as my arm and as wide as half the width of the road. You heard its back break in the cab as we drove over it s there was no stopping in time.
Another snake incident was at the QTT (Queensland Truck Terminal) when a Banavas Transport truck pulled up from a trip down from Townsville. There were hollers from the other drivers as a tiapan snake that had wrapped itself around the trailers rear axle probably for the warmth slithered off towards the cafe kitchen. When we arrive the snake had wedged itself behind a stainless sink in the kitchen. Truckies were tipping hot water down the wall trying to flush it out. You could see its tail and several drivers looked at the length on Dad’s arms and said” grab it by the tail. We will knock it on the head”. Dad knew a dangerous situation so the offer was declined. Not only is it one of Australia’s most deadly snakes it was hot and bothered.
There where red and grey kangaroos some stood seven feet high and others had been made road kill, on the odd occasion some characters would prop up a roo against a guidepost with its arm hanging out thumbing a ride or holding a empty beer bottle. The best I ever saw was a road kill roo sitting in a lounge chair with a hat on and a beer watching a broken television that had been dumped. You just had to be there to appreciate the humour of the scene.
Emu’s to the left and the right and the middle of the road. These super chooks would had to have been the dumbest birds on earth. I remember being on a trip with Darcy one of Dad’s Trucking mates and an emu came out of the brush up ahead of the truck and collided with the tri-axle of the trailer. There was blood and feathers every were. The funniest bit was it kept running and rubbing against the spinning wheels. So dumb, but so funny.
Another species that we saw was the water rats of the Brisbane river. These rats came in at night out of the Mangroves to feed on the dumped rubbish and tipped wheat that the trucks would empty out prior to loading fertiliser. These rats were the size of a domestic cat, in fact the cat wouldn’t eat the rat, it would eat them. Sometimes if you slept there you would hear the rats up on the motor scuffling around where it was warm.

‘Earning my keep on the road​

Going on a trip with dad was not all beer and skittles or for a kid lollies and ice cream. From time to time we had to earn our ticket to ride. Being young and fast you could scoot up on the load and roll out the huge cap tarp over it. It was pretty high up and scary but we had to do it.
I remember standing on dad’s shoulders clipping on the hooks of the curtains around the load up on the gates.
However, the best by far was the harvest when we would haul lupins, wheat or any cereal crops for the farmers. Dad would hand us the aluminium shovel and hoist us up in the trailer to spread the grain as it was being dumped by the farmer’s auger. The trailer was forty feet long and we had to shovel the grain over the flaps of the curtains to stop the grain from leaking out the sides. Then as the sections of the trailer filled we would spread it out even and try to install the cross braces on the gates. No masks, no overalls, we came out looking like a dog that had rolled in dirt. When it was full we then ran along the top of the grain and rolled out the tarpaulin for dad. Gosh we were good boys.
As dad became older and we boys entered into teen years he used us more often to help load and unload his truck. Maybe his body was getting worn out or he just enjoyed having the company. I know I liked missing the first hour of high school and feeling ten feet tall when dad would drop me off in the truck out the front of school.
There were no taught liners when dad drove trucks, just cover tarps, cap tarps, curtains, masonite boards and felt to protect the loads. Rolling these large cap tarps up was an art in its own. Together we would make it light work but on your own it was very hard. By teen years we had learnt to tie down a load with a tarp like the back of our hand. Second rope from the end, pull back around the corners, do your corner flaps and centre ropes then go down the side.
It still amazes me when helping mates move stuff on trailers such as cars or bulky goods. They always say “You’re a truckies son, tie it on will Ya?”
By the time dad and I had tarped the truck down we were covered in dust and filth to the bone. Clothes stained from dust that were ready for the a wash like its wearers. One day we were tarping down in Queensland at the fertiliser works and the truck behind us in the loading line pulled into the parking bay beside us. Out jumped a lady driver. She was in standard attire for a truckie apart from a set of rigger gloves. She roped that load down in no time at all. When she took of the gloves she was that clean she could have gone straight out for dinner. What where dad and I doing so wrong that we ended up filthy?

‘Public phones’​

Public phones were the only form of communication to home on the road. If you were lucky to beat the vandals to the phone box you could call home. Many times dad would be talking and get cut off by either running out of money or the public phone was faulty and wouldn’t accept coins. On a trip that my brother and I went on, dad pulled up in street in Brisbane to call home and tell mum how much we were fighting or giving him the #####. All we could is watch dad talking to mum and then getting cut off. With this he swore loud enough to nearly shatter the glass in the phone box and he slammed the receiver down in its holder. People where waiting behind him to use the phone and were totally bewildered when he started to laugh. Dad picks up the handset and inserts more coins. Dials the number, starts talking and get cut off again. Once more he swears and then laughs. This cycle of un-natural behaviour happened a further three more times. My brother an myself where laughing to ourselves a lot. When dad climbed up in the cab he said ‘What a great pay phone... It pays” Apparently when he put in one dollar to call home and he got cut off the phone would give him change of more than he put in. Thus the explanation to us and not the bystanders of his behaviour. That phone paid out five dollars which is better than the poker machines.

‘Police and Scallies”​

A pet hate of most truck drivers is the dreaded Scallies or police. If they weren’t hassling them for road infringements, they booking them for overweight. I think at one stage they measured Dad’s truck on the side of the road and with the driving lights on the bull bar the truck was one hundred millimetres too long. Seems totally irrelevant now that we allow B doubles on the road and he gets booked for an over length truck.
Undoubtedly he would have been one of the many that squeezed an extra tonne on here and there but boy did he bleed when he got nabbed. I suppose I shouldn’t stir the pot as it was probably loaded heavy so he could buy us that motorbike we always wanted or mum a new kitchen.
Police and Scallies (the RTA) have played a cat and mouse game with the truck drivers for decades now. Truck drivers for years have bore the brunt of the traffic infringements from the police whilst the average car driver could get away with blue murder.
A truckie had to have certain rest stops and break periods in one day. I know that the log book was a estimation of most trips but I could and still do not understand how a car driver could drive for twenty four hour straight, have a ten minute sleep and then attempt to drive for another twenty four hours with no log book of travel times. When the car driver falls asleep at the wheel and runs under the front of a oncoming truck, the newspaper headlines the next day would read, “Truck hits car and kills driver”. In general the consumer is to blame for the risk taking of the truck driver. If we didn’t want everything now, then the transport companies wouldn’t put the demands on the drivers to break the law. A vicious circle of demand.
Some stories of the police that I love were the time the local Mulwala police pulled dad over on his way to Brisbane. Dad was so wild to be stopped twenty kilometres from home that he slammed on the trailer brakes bringing the truck to a halt rapidly. The local policeman wasn’t ready for this and nearly ran up the rear end of dad’s trailer. Sheepishly he got out of the car and walked up to the trucks driver door. Upon reading the name and location on the door he said “Oh it’s you John. On your way” They realised that he did not have to have his logbook filled in because he was in a driving area that it did not have to be logged.
One to Dad.
None of dads truck bar the Scania really ever made enough top speed to cause him drama for speeding so it was mainly the RTA he had to watch out for. One time we were in Brisbane and he spied the RTA approaching at a rapid rate. As sons of a truck driver we knew what to do when Dad yelled logbook. We quickly grabbed the book and began filling in the blanks that dad yelled out. This particular day we had to do two laps of the roundabout for me to get the last time line written in. As he pulled over for the Scallie, I passed Dad the logbook that he signed and passed out the window to the approaching officer who was walking down the side of the truck looking for faults. This would happen on several occasions. The demands of the road meant that sometimes he would forget to fill it in for two trips, thus as the truck sat idle and built up air pressure before he left home he would fill it in with the best of his memory. Now days they can check with cameras your exact time and locations. So hard on the driver to be exact all the time.
I remember the story of Dad’s mate being clocked by the police in New South Wales doing an estimated one hundred and ten kilometres an hour in a hundred zone. He took the fine and fought it in court. The fine was thrown out when he informed the courtroom that his truck was road train geared and would not exceed ninety kilometres an hour no matter what he did.
One to the truckies.

‘1989 Newspaper article on Unrealistic Truck driver demands that still goes on today”​

Dad’s truck in background and he is second from left​

‘The Glass Contract’​

Dad was lucky sometimes and he scored a good run. For a little while he and a couple of other drivers were given the contract to run Pilkington’s toughened glass from their Melbourne plant to a sky scrapper building being constructed in Brisbane. In all there was about thirty or forty loads. Easy job and constant work.
On one trip he blew a steer tyre and ended up across the road, into the table drain and pulling up level with a farmer’s fence. With all the flexing and bumps of the off road drive dad was convinced he had broken the glass. To his amazement not one pane was damaged.
The irony of this was that they had to do another ten loads from Melbourne due to the fact of the construction workers. They were dropping stuff over the side of the building that shattered the panes of glass in storage down on the ground level.

‘The Marble Vanity’​

One top load dad received was a handcrafted marble vanity basin for a bathroom. It was worth a small fortune, a price of around twelve thousand dollars. Dad treated this like eggs. Wrapped it up in felt and tied it in every direction. He made sure it did not move. Upon getting it to the depot in Brisbane he was pleased to see that it was in one piece when he unwrapped it. Shame about the forklift driver. He lifted the basin off the truck and proceeded to take it into storage. As he rounded the corner of the shed the basin toppled off the tynes of the forklift and shattered into a million pieces on the concrete bellow. Saved by the bell.

‘The Fruit and Veg run’​

Running the Melbourne Brisbane run had its advantages for us when it came to fresh food. Dad would stop off at Aratula and load the toolboxes with fresh fruit and vegetables for the journey home. If he purchased it green by the time we made it home it was just turning ripe. We ate pineapples, bananas, mangos, grapes and a great varieties of vegetables. They all had a taste to be remembered. I loved the fruit stop on the way home, as dad would buy me a pineapple crush drink. It was so nice and thick that the pieces would not suck up the straw. By the third attempt to drink it with the straw, it would be abandoned and I would drink straight from the cup. It took forever to consume but that didn’t matter as the Gap range was ahead and the truck would grind to a snail’s pace that you felt like you could have gotten out of the truck and walked faster. The Big V8 trucks would round us up, but Dad just kept on trucking and knew he would catch up to them down the road. I didn’t mind too much as I had my pineapple crush to consume.

‘The V8 Scania the last truck he owned’​

‘G88 Volvo with first Barker Trailer’​

“Late Night Secretry”​

Dad work the oddest hours and some nights he would not get home from Melbourne till very late. This meant we missed out on seeing usally before he left. He would like to keep going once he was on the road because it was easier to roll out of the bunk and drive than get up at home.Home had too many distractions.
On most oocasions he would always have a pile of invoices to process and bills to pay. This usually involved Mum who found it very frustrating to do bookwork. At one in the morning with a tired and cranky Father I dont balme her. They both hated doing the books as much as each other. With my bedroom being on a sectioned off section of the side verandah and the filing cabinet just around the corner from my room, this was the office come sewing table. It was dimly lit and hard to see what they were doing and on many nights doing books, ended in little tiffs. Too tired, too hard and too late at night to be doing anything. It must have been hard on Mum to have to get up and have his clothes ready and ether cook a meal or re-heat what we had earlier for tea. It was the only time she had to talk to him about stuff that was going on. Must have ben hard on both of them. Sometimes dad would sneek in our rooms and say “ See you when i get back”. I would wait and listen to him drive off past the front of our house on the hill. I loved hearing the whistle of the turbo as he creeped the truck up the hill and changed through the gears. Over the peek and off he would go for another five days.

‘Mechanics’​

Many times the maintenance on the truck became too large a job for home so he entrusted several mechanics to do repairs. Some of them good, some of them had no idea and some of them wished they had not crossed Dad.

‘The Overdrive in the Volvo’​

While changing the gear oil in the F1023 gearbox we remove the drain plug in the overdrive section. To dad’s absolute horror the magnetic plug has a festering growth of springs, teeth and ball bearings. This was not good for the truck and even worse for the budget. Most european truck parts where so expensive the price tag looked like a phone number.
Dad took the truck on his way into melbourne to the Volvo dealer and asked them to let their head mechanic take it for a drive. Upon returning the mechanic stated that the”Truck drove like a dream” With this dad sat a little vegimite jar on the counter full of the springs etc and asked” Then what’s this out of?” With the gobsmacked look the mechanic told dad not to drive it any further. Once again dad did what he wanted and left the dealership to finish unloading and reloading for Brisbane. When he got home he rang around for some pricing and the expense that a new Volvo gearbox was going to be was amazing. A quick call to a Shepparton diesel service and the Volvo was converted to a fifteen speed Road ranger american gearbox. All dad had to do is learn to drive with no syncronitation in the gearbox and a diferent shift pattern. That box lasted the truck out before he traded it.

‘Water in the oil’​

There are two ways to do repairs when you find something wrong. The ten minute fix to get you out of trouble or leave it to a professional. When we found water leaking from the tell tale holes in the block of the scania, dad nearly had kittens. How could he afford to rebuild that motor at this time. So wat did we do? A ten minute fix that lasted eighteen months. The tell tale holes could be easily filled in and made to stop leaking by inserting a pop rivet into them. A semi permnent fix, and as more cyliners leaked we used more rivets.
During tis time Dad managed to get onto a similar motor in a rolled over truck from a wreckers. When he enquired the motor and gearbox had a value of fouteen thousand.
Dad always like to think about things so he did some more research. By contacting the owner of the wreck he found at that the gearbox was brand new and had never done any work and was another reason to consider the wreckers deal.With this he rang up the wreckers again and got another sales rep. Dad tried his luck and asked the price again, the rep cam back with a figure of ten thousand. With a savng of four grand he snapped up the deal. The mechanic who installed the new motor and box wrecked off dad’s old engine and gearbox and made enough money back to pay for the new parts and his labour. What a deal was that? A ledgend mechanic.

‘Injector pump experience’​

The Scania had a few issues hear and there but if you clocked up as many kilometers as it did each week, you would wear out too. Anyway the flexible drive disc in the injector drive pump show signs of fatigue and somehow dad got it to run and headed off to Brisbane. As Murphy’s law would have it, the disc shatered and he had to call a Scania agent to come fix the pump with new spares. With all repaired, he was on his way back towards Brisbane and was about one hundred kilometers from the capital and the injector drive broke again but in a much worse way. This time it caused a heap of damage. Dad straight away rang the mehanic who fixed it and his respnse was” We will put that one down to experience hey mate?” Not the comment dad was hoping on. So he made a call to the head office of Scania in Brisbane and explained the situation and that their authorised agent had screwed up. The company towed the truck all the way into Brisbane and repaired the damage free of charge. The damage to the injector pump as so bad it meant it all had to be renewed. But it was far from over.
On the way back home Dad paid a visit to the first mechanic. Now I wasn’t there to verify this, but an angry twenty two stone , six footh four truckie is not what you want in your workshop. Apparently the workshop just cleared of people, leaving the culprit mechanic paddling his own boat. “ Put it down to experience will we? “ said Dad as he grabbed the mechanic buy his greasy overalls. With the grease monkey’s feet about a foot of the ground and very frightened look, Dad proceeded to hang him by the back of his overalls on a hook mounted high up on a post. He left him there, dangling and kicking his feet in the beeze. No violence but problem solved.

‘Tough as guts’​

Dad was a funny fellow when it came to doctors and dentists. He managed to still eat steak with the only three bottom teeth and a couple of top ones. He hated dentists and the lack of teeth told me he had not been back in a long time. I do remember him eating pain killers once to dull a bad tooth untill he got home and had it removed.
One trip my brother went on with dad always reminds me of his strength. He fell ill on the way up to Brisbane. On the regular stop at Gilgandra to visit Lex, he left my brother with him and took himself off to the female doctor in town to be told he had kidney stones. But being fully loaded he continued on his way up to Brisbane and home eating just water and toast, meanwhile my brother tucked into a hearty steak. What a turn around. How tough was he to drive two thousand kilometers and have kidney stones.

‘Hitching a ride with Darcy’​

Darcy was another truck driver who lived in our home town and on occasions would drive interstate for Dad when he took our family on holidays. I remeber one trip dad having to run a turbo charger up to him in Dubbo on our way to Queensland for a holiday.
Darcy worked for a local earthmoving company for years and quit to work for a Shepparton interstate company called Mathesion’s transport. They had Atkinsons,Macks and Scanias A real melting pot of truck brands. You could take your pick of horsepower, roughing it or comfort.
Due to the fact that my older brother most always earnt the passenger seat in Dad’s truck on the holidays, it was usally manditory that i went with Darcy instead. Darcy was a comical character and i enjoy his company alot. I think he enjoyed stirring me up with dirty jokes that i could never understand or where too young to comprehend. Everytime he told a joke it always started in “Don’t tell your Mother”.
Darcy introduced me to so many of life’s experinces, that it makes me laugh when i think back. One thing Darcy had, was good taste in modern music and Peter Frampton or Hot August night was always played in the tape deck if we weren’t chatting.

‘Queensland beaches’​

Darcy loved to drive the coast roads from Sydeny to Brisbane on occassions. If we had spare time he woulsd stop on the populated beaches and let me have swim. The only deal was that Ihad to walk along the sand dunes ahead of him so it looked like he was trying to catch up to me. Being a bit on the nieve side i didn’t realise that the dunes was where everyone who sunbaked nude or topless was. The old boy has a method in his madness.

‘Beer’​

In the old days it wasn’t illegal to have a small beer and drive, as long as you weren’t over the limit it was OK. In summertime Darcy would carry a little esky and pull over at a pub in sometown and buy Toohey’s throw down which held about two hundred odd mill per beer. When he would stop for a break of some hours he would open up a few throw downs and have a drink. Darcy bought me my first beer ever from the ‘Wobbly Boot Hotel’ in Bogabilla. It was a throw down and i remembered leaving it sit on the dash for so long it nearly went hot. All I thought was that mum would kill me if she found out. I was twelve hundred kilometers from home and I was scared my mum would catch me. My god.
Another beer experience with Darcy was just out of Parkes. We kept on passing utes head on that were loaded to the hilt in the rear tub. Cars with trailers where overtaking us aswell. We couldnt understand what it was untill ten kilometers further down the road. A truck carrying a full load of beer failed to negotiate the bend and rolled over. There was brown bottles strewn everywhere. I would say the driver was ok but i dont think anyone had raised the alam with the police. Everyone was too busy loading up some free beer.
Gurley Pub was a popular stop for fuel, meals and a drink if the drivers were on a break. Dracy stopped in here on one of our trips for a cold drink and a yap. I had some spare change and decide i would play the blackjack card machine in the front bar. One of My first poker machine experiences. It filled in time and when patrons had a win they where paid in beer. Guess what I won and I won big. I think Darcy wormed a deal with the cute barmaid and he got a slab of throw downs and Irecieved a can of coke. Ripped off i think but not nearly as bad as when I was in Adelaide. I was playing a slot machine in a truck depot. I won the jackpot and knew I wasn’t eighteen and it was illegal for me to gamble so I took off from there and left my winnings in the coin tray for some other lucky sole.

‘The dumb singlet’​

It makes me laugh some of the stuff I tried to get away with as a teenager. One trip away with Darcy my mum had given me a little spending money and before I blew it all on lollies I thought I might buy something to remember the trip. We’ll here I am at thirty six and I still remembr it so well, so it was money well spent. Darcy and I stopped at roadhouse on the coast road up to Brisbane from Sydney and in there was a sticker for two dollars that I had to have. In the picture was a cartoon squirel with two large acorns and the caption read “ Happines is big nuts” I loved this sticker and for years couldn’t bring myself to peel the backing off it to stick to a fridge. I held it on the fridge with magnet untill i moved out of home and it made its sacrifice to be adhered to the Beer fridge.
Above where I bought the sticker was a rack of chesty bond blue singlets with ones in my size. I loved the thought of being a mini truckie so I had to buy one. Funny thing about it was the singlet had a caption written on it that took a shine to my teenage whit. It read across the front “Dont ask me , I’m just a Dumb C%nt!” But it was spelt correctly. I wore it with so much pride on that trip. It was all fun untill I got home. Mum didn’t notice for about a month but when she saw it in the wash all the time she must have smelt a rat. Rats are cunning and i didn’t see it coming but the next time I put the singlet on it read” Don’t ask me I’m just a dumb ????” The question marks where so neatly written in buy mum. I did not say anything to her about it but i never wore it again after it lost its appeal.

‘The two day , two week trip’​

One holidays I was bored and at home when Darcy came up to see mum and asked if i would like to take a two day trip to Sydney and back. She was tired of me anyway so I was on my way. Was one of the most amazing journeys I ever went on and the longest. We left on a Monday and headed up the Hume Highway to unload in Sydney. When we arrived there he made a call back to the office. With this call the whole week turned to ####. Instead of loading for home we ended up heading to Chincilla in Queensland to load watermelons for the Sydney Markets. I had one change of clothes and was about to end up in Queensland. With a quick call to Mum it was organised and off we go, not that she had a real say in it.
Loading watermelon was a amazing job to watch. The workers walked the rows in a vee like how birds fly in the air. The outter worker would pick up a melon throw to the next in the vee and so on and so on. I felt for the guy closest to the trailer as he had to catch all the the mellons from the others in the vee so it was double time for them. With twenty one tonne of watermelon loaded we were off to Sydney market. When you load melons, you load them in amoungst layers of straw which cushion them in transport. So when you finish unloading you must dump the straw in the dumpster bins and weigh off etc. So while unloading Darcy and I stuffed a couple of spare mellons under the straw to keep for ourselves. When it came to unloading the straw we had an audience of middle age italian men asking “If we had watermelon for them?” I never knew why, but I allowed them to help us dump the straw as any amount of help was great. I think I spent more time stopping them knocking off the good watermelons I have already stolen. In the end they kept the broken melons and went on their way. Darcy later informs me they weren’t poor, they just made watermelon wine. From Sydney we high tailed it down to Newcastle to pick up some steel to be taken to Whyalla South Australia. So that meant another phone call to mum to say we won’t be home for a few more days. As we crossed the the plains on our way through to Broken Hill which is a stop on the way to Adelaide, we pulled into a pub called “Little Topar” how amazing was this pub to visit. Complete with a ####atoo that swears as much as I learnt from the roadhouse’s and it guards the bar. I could not believe the wall of business cards that they had. I only wish I had one to put on there. While Darcy rested I think i read at least a hundred cards from all over the world. Our journey across to Adelaide was not uneventful. You see the roads were long and Darcy would wind the manual throttle cable out to maintain the speed of the truck. While this was going on he would hang one foot at a time out the window to cool his feet down or something. I dont know what it was all about but all I remembr is that I was kipping in the sleeper cab section and all of a sudden the truck was full of screams and swearing. What had happend was a bee had hit protruding limb head on at a hundred kilometeres an hour. This embedded a sting right in the sole of his foot. I suppose he deserved it for driving like a cowboy, but everyone is entitled to a bit of fun every now and then.
So with the load of steel gone Darcy rings and confirms the next trip and you guessd it we were not going home. Off to Brisbane with another load of general freight. Back across the Broken Hill plains again and another amazing sight to see. This time it wasn’t off nature it was of the human kind. We came up behind a slow moving car and yes this was about to be my sight for sore eyes. Here we had obviously some workers from a mission or a larger station. The first car was an early EJ holden staion wagon with no windows in the car barr the front windscreen. Seated in it there was no less that ten indigenous men. They where all in the car everywhere even in the rear area behind the rear seat. On the back of this wagon being towed was another EJ wagon with no front wheels at all on it . Holding the front up was a tow hitch that connected to the towbar on the front car. This wagon had no windows at all either and it was packed to te doors with at least eight indigenous workers. I laughed so hard as we overtook them. They looked so happy.
Out onto the Newell highway and off upto Brisbane we went like we have done before. down Tap Hill , through the Pilliga Forest and not stopping, over the Queensland border at Goondiwindi, through the Gap and we are nearly there. So once again we unload and look for our load home. Not so lucky this time either. We loaded nitro pill from the Brisbane fertiliser works for the mining town of Leigh Creek. We were carrying twenty one tonne of an explosive that is used in the mining industry. You just mix diesel,a charge and boom. What stressed me was when I started to think what trucks used for fuel.
This trip lead us on an amazing veiw of Australian history. As we made our way up the highway in south australia to Leigh Creek. There was beautiful sandstone buildings that where deralict and abandoned. Sand up to the side of the road and guide posts. The land was nearly a desert. Appaerently when the settlers came to this area it was lush and green. Once they settled, after about ten years it went into drought for about another ten years. They had no choice to pack up and leave. Funny they called it a drought and we call it global warming.
I stilll remember watching the Flinders Ranges change colour as the sun set across them. It was aboslutley amazing to watch it turn from a golden colour to a purple then to a blue.
As it became late at night I decided to grab a nap in the bunk of the old Mack. When I woke some hours later I remember seeing the white dotted lines running continuosly and the guide posts running like white dotted lines. Darcy had opened her up on the plains. I put my head back on the pillow and thought if we where going to die then I want to be asleep. I am writing this story so all must have turned out ok.
We arrived at Leigh Creek some time early in the morning to be woken by Darcy telling to take in the scenery. The excavated section of the mine was so deep that as we rounded a bend on the edge of it the headlights ran out of distance. When we arrived at the shed it made The old Mack look like a kids toy truck. The massive dump trucks that carted the product out of the mine itself towered over the truck we came in.
The best was yet to come as when they unloaded the truck, the forklift driver informed us that our twenty one tonne was only a small part of the eight hundred tonne to be blasted in one go. This would keep the mine functioning over the Christmas period.
The township of Leigh creek itself was originally situated where the mine is operating now. This posed no problem for the mining company, so they just moved the whole village. Funny part of that was they had mined everywhere and left a huge pillar of dirt on the edge of the mine. It stood tall and looked like a huge pole. Ontop of this was the remaining Fire Station building, it must have been done as a joke i guess.
On our way out of the mine it was nearly light and we passd by the township of Leigh Creek, to my surprise the whole town was fenced off by huge fences. Where they trying to keep us out or keep the citizens in?
Fortunatley this was our last stop and then we made it home. I had enjoyed it, but I dont know if Darcy could have handled another day of me asking questions.
I had many a trip wth Darcy and they where as much fun as it was to ride with my father. Sometimes it was better as i could get away with a touch more.

‘Final words’​

Many years have passed since these journies an i remember them as vividly as what i did yesterday. I still remember playing Slim Dusty’s “Lights on the Hill” with my brother on the old thirty three and a third pye two speaker record player. We knew and loved every word of that song. It haunts me today that song and so does the song “The phantom309”. I still love them though. It’s been several years since the passing of my father and Darcy too. They still live on around us in our memories and thoughts. I love nothing more than driving along at night seeing the Sydney runners all lit up like christmas trees and making their way along the Hume. It saddens me how much the industry has changed and been taken over by big corporations intent on crushing the little man. High diesel costs, different driving laws, large fines, bigger and stronger trucks make the game more competative and cut throat than ever before. If you can’t compete you loose. There is so much pressure on the driver to perform that i still can not understand how they do it. I love the trucking game, but in this day and age it would frighten me to even consider pursueing it as a way of life. I know there was amphetamines and problems back then but no where near as much as the industry has today. It’s all about having to survive. The bigger companies will be the death of the small owner operator, but lord knows i hope some of them can survive. Becuse when the stockmarket dies and the investors buy else where, the independant will be the saviour of the industry one again.
I take my hat off to those drivers from yesterday and today, their families and all they both endure.

I hope that I may have enlighten you in some way or given you a small oportunity to see how much riding shotgun has affected my life. It may have been for the better or it may have been for the worse. Although I would not of had it any other way and ‘Riding shotgun’ has made me part of what I am today. I wouldn’t change any of my life’s journey who I am today. I also know that my dad would not have changed anything either.
This was what he knew and loved and it is what I knew and loved about him.

 

Sorry could not know how to post the photos. So you only see the titles?
If you interested in the email format just contact me?? Thanks for the reading

 

if you want the book with the images just email me. njhawtin@bigpond.net.au