What is or was your job ?

On ocassion took Rex Batterbee and Albert Namatjira out to Hermansberg, Rex was a noted artist living on the east side and taught big Al how to water paint, blacks were not allowed to stay in town after dark but Al used to stay over at Rex's house, One trip I bought an aboridgine back from Hermansberg who had been "sung" to the hospital, they died anyway, used to take an old queensland blue cattle dog with me for company, threading my way through the bush old Blue farted, it was so bad, (y'all know what thats like)I had to stop the bus and get out, old blue looked at me with an inocent look, the Aborigine was out of it so knew he wasn't offended, when len wanted to get away from the bussiness he would take a load of freight to Darwin with me as offsider, then fly back to alice, he had the TAA agency, leaving me to come back on my own, neither of us thought anything of it being young but one time I got scared I was taking 2 trailer loads of aviation fuel to daly Waters I was chugging around an uphill bend and ahead of me was one of the big bushfires they have up at the top end to burn the tall grass off, either side of the road the heat was intense, just hoped I didn't have a leaking drum. Every couple of years would take off south for a few months to another driving job for a change, Woomera, the Snowy, bit of sheep carting, always go back to the territory though where all my mates were.

I drove the fastest truck at the snowy, a Leyland Hippo 'cos I jammed a tennis ball between the engine block and the cold start button on the injector pump, got busted, too much soot. At the end of the 1950's I waas carting scrap metal from darwin to Adelaide, buy 20 odd ton of produce direct from the farmers to sell in Darwin, from Alice down I gave a lift to an english girl, after 8 days of digging out of sand and mending tyres with a double action hand pump, sometimes running a hose between two tyres one with 90psi evening them out to 45psi each, we got to Pt Augusta covered in red dust and were smitten with each other, she came back to alice for a while, kurt johannsons wife daphne gave us an engagement party at the RSL club, never had a girlfriend before, English girls weren't as fussy as Aussie ones, my old mate, Peter Wheatley aka wheatbix aka sailorv, decided after 10 years of driving road trains, federals, Diamond "T"s and later leylands to leave the NT, sold my pride and joy, a '53 customline, bought a suit, tie, some shoes and we both headed overland to adelaide in his flash Dodge kingswood car, he went on interstate and I caught a ship to the old country.

Got to london and got married, took a carreer assesment test, they said I should be a shepard! Got a job driving the S.A Government Consul around, also other big wigs from Oz, your road tax dollars at werk! pig iron Bob menzies was there often, saw a lot of famous people and got into places that I would not have got into, couldn't make it in England, had a child(?) went to Canada to work on cars, Have to have a government license to work on cars and have 5 years in the trade, so faked references for 5 years and took the exam, got my ticket but Canada proved to a lot harder than England to make a living, had to get back to Oz or starve so went back to England to take advantage of the free fares for English people to got to Oz, making room for the middle east and carribean people to come, worked on Jaguar cars for a year, had another child(?) bought a Gardner4LW diesel, had it crated and shipped with us as personal luggage, sold it to a farmer in adelaide for a water pump, paid my fare, drove a 9 yard concrete mixer for Pioneer then some interstate for Devito.

My English Rose was starting to wilt due to the heat, the roses all had left her cheeks, I watched them fade away and die, so said, I'll take you home again Kathleen, bough a inter 180 semi and did interstate for 2 years and caught the ship via the Panama canal back to England, ship full of English people having done their 2 year stint and heading home, went back to working on jaguars, had another child(?) With the U.S in mind where they paid 50/50 on labour rates I went to all the Jaguar schools and though the wages were poor theydidn't care how long you took to do a job, paid 10 pound a week, rent was 10 pound a week so overtime big time. I experimented with ways to do jobs ,ie, the book called for 16 hours to throw a clutch in and XKE and I whittled it down to 5 and a half hours, got hired in London by a dealer in Seattle in Washington state, took 6 months to get a green card, had to be squeeky clean, just as well they didn't check marulen!! Didn't care for Seattle so headed for the promised land, CalifornIA.

wouldn't it be great if a profesional could put all these great stories and unique pictures from the forum in to a book and the proceeds go to the Tarcutta museum,

YES IT BLOODY WELL WOULD BE!

Well Ron.....
Why don't we do just that!...
Wouldn't it be a great read!
We are from all walks and we do all have a story to tell

Surely we can get something together, not only to preserve some of the great yarns, but have somewhere to store them too!

What a great mark to leave in the dirt!!

As i have said before...
We are here for a good time, not a long time..
Like one of my mates said..."I'm tellin you Chocs, ya only get one contract..ya don't get a second chance on this deal"
There is nothin like hearin or readin a good yarn..
Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story either!

I know for a fact there is a few of you who have enough info and certainly the passion to tell the story...
What about it...

So c'mon you jokers...
Get the typewriters goin!
if ya can't type...
gimme a ring and i will type it for ya...or at least find someone who can!

Righto......
What do ya think.....


chocs

Some very interesting stories here, mine isn't that interesting.
I first "drove" at age 11, Dad had his blitz tied to a tree, the winch hooked onto the Maple Leaf bogged with a load of logs, I had to turn the key, pull the starter handle then the hand throttle out then switch the key off when he waved to me. I skited about that at school for weeks.
By 14 I was driving the blitz on the roads and often backing the "Mape" into our yard for the night.
Left school at 16 and Mum got me a "nice" office job, that lasted 14 months, then I went working for Dad full time, falling, snigging and carting logs for a couple of years. Then I went to Mt Isa and got a job with Mt Isa Transport driving a ks5 (2 speed change on the floor) with a 24' trailer, it was there I got my 1st class plant operator ticket on their 8 ton Cranvel crane (had to master a Fowler on the road first)
Came back to Brisbane to J N Nicholson where I drove cranes, agitators, then B61's and a brand new Flintstone for around 5 years.
Did a short stint with IEM then into partnership on a B model, that didn't work (but I did) so I got a Flintstone of my own, mainly subbied for Western Tpt, when they sold to Bell I went as a towie for Fluid Freight where I was always in strife for useing the putty road, I just told 'em, "it's the only way into Sydney that I know"
Gave the road away in 74 and ran a local tpt for 5 years, carting parcels, bricks, hay, anything, then sold to the opposition and drove a crane locally for 4 years.
Back on the road in a new W model (first sleeper I ever had), how times had changed, 1 gear stick, power steering, Air con, heater, cb, uhf and vhf radios, radar detector, I was hooked for 5 years.
I started a Smoko van here late 89 and had 2 going within the next year, mid 90's the local meat works closed and the town went dead, so I went back driving and the wife ran the van till we sold in 99.
My hip was giving me grief and I ended on a disability pension till retireing age.
Did a lot of road train work with cotton seed and grain, also stock feed pellets in the drought, anywhere west of Warick will do me, don't wanna live there, just like the lack of traffic mainly

Very interesting reading ron and BK, you guys deserve a good pat on the back for your efforts. You did it hard in those days
Thanks, Regards Billy

Jeez you blokes tell a great yarn!

Ronhorse, just out of intrest, my old Father in law has a couple of rex Batterbee's paintings and one from Oscar Namatjira.
Turns out The FIL's grandfather was one of Rex's next door neighbor!
He was a builder in the Alice- name " Dick Sweet, he built the flying doc base

Chocs, glad you liked the idea for Tarcutta, I feel it will really take off with being more accesable to people and run with integrety. Australia is unique in that there were no manufacturers there so people had to use their own inginuity often to build a vehicle to suit their needs with what was available or just to get a truck.
heres some more drivell (press esc key here) In seattle I bought a 1957 Cev station wagon for $75 with a bad radiator, made a long roofrack and loaded her up and took off, wife and 3 little girls, bit naive in a strange country, be normal in Oz!!! Worked in S.F. for a year, discovered that if a British car stopped running you could buy them for next to nothing (Lucas, the Prince of darkness) I could buy them, have them running sweert and sell them for good money, However the Unions were very strong on the West coast so no 50/50 on labour rates and no working at home, so one Friday night after work loaded up the old chevy and headed for Ohio, They said, you will never get over the Sierra-Nevada mountains with that load in that heap of dog doo, well, the old 283 proved them wrong, never getting over 30-35 mph going up but through the Donna pass and she took off, through Reno at 4am,like the middle of the day! across the Bonnyville salt flats I though of giving the chevy a run on the measured mile like the fastest Indian, worked in Ohio for a school year at a sports car dealership, an Englishman, a Scotsman, a Kentuckian and me, built the place up, the owner sold it to a store owner, he saw what we were making and cut the rate, we all took off, left it dead, Greed doest work!!!

loaded up the old Chev and took of south to Miami and up the coast to to Virginia Beach where we lived for 4 years, British cars were getting poor in quality and Jaguar bough out the V12 so could see the japs were going to take over the foreign car market so switched to them, I wanted to get out of repair work, never liked it anyway, had enough cash to buy a new house outright in the U.K. taking kathleen home again, no more kids, got clipped after the last one! sent the old mongrel dog ahead for 6 months quarantene, took a near new '72 Mustang fast back over to make a dollar, discovered the duty was 100% so sold it to some Arabs, I had in mind to buy a Foden tipper and work it, to operate a truck in England you have to have an A or B license, I applied to the Ministry and they refused saying that it would cause "wastefull competition" by this time K had realised she had become too Americaised and couldn' stand the pettyness of England (thank God) so dog and all returned to the U.S.