old bathurst truckies

Another old pic showing how to stack caulies,sorry about condition but tells the story. Max Booth Bathurst, in his nineties & still kicking

Thats unreal you would think they would fall off and was a tarp used to hold them on ??. Dave

Hi Dave , didn,t need a tarp.Didn,t go fast enough to catch bugs. .Was told by an old mate that it was all in the way they interlocked the leaves that held them on.Pre coles & woolies .Yet they tasted twice as good & people could make a living out of carting & growing them.

Bloody good pics, Angle. Love old colour.

If you had to sit in a bedford for thet long you would probably be the same.

Nah, bent at the hip. Half-opened pocket knife as the saying goes.

we used to pick up the odd cabbage and cauli on the Vauxhall Inn corner on our way top work.

Thanks for the great pics.
Load of caulies reminds me of loads of mallee roots.

Can I ask some dumb questions...what were the vegie box's made off ?...look like pine ?
The doo dads on the corner of the box's where the ropes run over,, were they timber with some leather ?

Andy...is the pocket knife half shut or half open

Basil

Andy...is the pocket knife half shut or half open

LOL, either way it hurts.

However, I'm not sure, Baz, as I was quoting a wise man ( ) who made a lot of sense whenever I drove the little red Beddy.

Hi Baz,
we used the timber angles and some little leather straps on them , they had many uses for holding on bricks and they were very popular with the CUB drivers for holding on the box (cartons)of beer and then came steel angles and then later on after few heads were spilt open came plastic angles.

The fruit boxs were made from thin hardwood sides and about 20mm thick ends also hardwood. Dave

And if my memorey serves me right the fruit boxes all ways had a return $$ on them. Dave

Having carted fruit and veg from the late 60's until the 80's I'll try and answer a few questions raised here.
The weight of a box of apples was about 40lbs (18kg), pears slightly heavier, oranges boxes were packed in smaller boxes but still about 40lbs. Bloody bananas weighed in about 60lbs

Apple, pear and citrus boxes usually made from pine and banana boxes some type of hardwood, ends were 1/2 inch and sides 1/4 inch. Box merchants picked up used boxes from fruit shops and resold to local growers for reuse. The original paper labels were covered with another pasted on sometimes you would find 4 or 5 labels on a box, recycling at its best.

Packing caulies was a real art the last caulie on the stack was the key one, lose that and you would probably lose a few or even most of the buggers. The leaf was left on at the farm and was not trimmed until it reached the store this helped in the stacking.

Locally never a rope or tarp in sight.

Mike