First drive

Thanks again Lang for the great stories.

Basil

Ron, I really enjoy your pictures and stories of your time in the Alice and the Territory, I have spent a little bit of time around there more recently and can picture where you were and try to imagine what it would have been like back then.

We had an old blitz tipper, with a flathead V8 in it, for a while. The local fire truck was also an old blitz, everytime there was a fire, they did two or three laps up and down the main street, towing it, trying to get it to start.

Lang, you sure had a more interesting time growing up, than what I did.

The first truck I drove seriously, was our Inter AA 162.

RnR.

Lang

You would get away with those things you did when you young now days you would have the water police all over you .

And great memoerys of lots of fun i hope you have put them down some where for the new genartions to enjoy. Dave

Great story Lang, you certainly had more fun than most of us, loved the picture of the dog swimming, the above pic is learning to drive pulling a trailer out through the hills to connect to the main truck, when the trailer is heavier than the prime mover things can go astray, puuled it back with the blitz.

We all have lots of stories and it would be nice if more blokes put their first experiences (driving experiences that is) on this thread - sort of a family history of the members. I know most people don't have photos but a short story is fine.

Thanks for the nice comments. Looking for photos of driving 4X4 and 6X6 Inter 190's on desert seismic work and an Albion Reiver tar spray tanker on the Derby to Fitzroy Crossing road in the Kimberleys when I was 17.

Lang my old boss had similar school holidays, in the late 50's
They'd get their pushies taken across to Fraser by the fishermen, push them across the Island's sand tracks to the beach then ride up to the lighthouse, has to be a 60k ride on sand.
Lived off the beach, fish and pippies.
Parents would get locked up by the do-gooders these days.
Had a photo of them all around a WW2 shipping mine that washed up on the beach.
Army made an exercise out of blowing it up.

Jeffo,

Yes times have changed.

OFF TOPIC

I get depressed when I see teenage ringers in the outback. They are so more confident, competent and with a work ethic unknown to city kids. Unfortunately the great majority of them are in a dead-end job. Those same guys will be doing the same sort of work when they are 60.

Sure, some of them will break out and get other jobs, start a business or even buy a property but the city kids as a whole pass them eventually in the ability to have full and varied lives, provide for their family and give their kids a big future.

So much potential from our finest youth not used for the benefit of the people themselves and the nation as a whole.

I reckon you blokes have got to be nominated for "legend" status....
Love the pics and the stories..
My first drive was on the lap of my dad, in a mini moke, must have been about 5 years old I think? Then I remember crashing the EJ Premier we had into the clothesline in the back yard at home, after serious and specific instructions were given to me and my brother to "not drive the car while we are out"!....
Then hooning around the loading ramp like a speedway at the truck yard the old man used, until I got abused by the neighbor.."(Who? me? Stop what?)
The learning to drive the roadranger in the Gardner powered Atkinson out the front on the road while Dad was working on something else...
Cheers
Richard

first truck i drove was a second hand scania 110 about mid 1978.

the boss let me drive it back to the dealers yard after we had painted it...cinch really...had a synchro box but i'd hate to think how many different types and styles of trucks i've driven over the last 34 odd years painting them

Driving a truck on the road starts usually with a licence.

As I said above, we lived at Southport which was just a country town in the early 60's. I had been driving various cars around for years - but not in the main street. A mate and I drove from Southport to Mount Isa one Xmas holidays in my Landrover for a month kangaroo shooting when I was still 15. He was older (16).

In those days you did not need even a birth certificate, the police assumed you told them the truth, so I put my age up a year and went for my licence on my "17th" birthday.

I am sure the sergeant had seen me driving, perhaps the fact I arrived for my licence test, unaccompanied, in my mother's Triumph Herald may have led to this assumption.

Constable Jamesen hopped in beside me and said "Take me to the dry cleaners." We then drove out of the main street on to the Broadwater highway just as a woman flashed by at excessive speed.

"Follow that car!"

I thought it was a trick. I began slowly, doing hand-signals as well as using blinkers - this was the changeover period when blinkers replaced hand signals officially.

"Stop all that bloody arm flapping. Follow that car!"

We caught up to the woman with the copper saying "Faster, faster" and he had me pull out beside her and toot while he waved his police hat and flagged her down. The woman adopted the standard woman's attitude when she won't let you in to a line of traffic and stared straight ahead.

"Get in front of her"

Now this was a bit of a revelation. I am sure I am the only person in history to be in a high speed police pursuit on his driving test. As we were in a Triumph Herald I suppose "high speed" is relative.

Anyhow we eventually stopped her in the middle of Surfers Paradise. The cop got out and said he would be there for some time and ask Sergeant Cook to send a car for him. Oh, and by the way, tell him you passed.

I went back and the Sergeant asked how it went, I told him the story and without further comment he wrote out my licence.

6 months later I took the 1948 Ford 3 ton tow truck from the old man's dealership to get a truck licence. Sergeant Cook himself took the test. Now, those Fords had a terrible, rough crash gearbox which I had not quite mastered. So as we drove around Southport I went smoothly up through the gears knowing I could not get back down without crunching. Timing my run to traffic lights I let the old Ford slow to nothing then stagger away in top gear.

Sgt Cook said 'OK, I will give you your licence but I won't let you drive my truck!"

There is a silver lining to the story. When I started going out with my now wife of 44 years, she told me later, that she had taken a look at my wallet and saw on my licence I was 6 months older than her. She said she would have had a hard think about getting tied up with a mere youth actually 6 months younger than her had she known my real age!