Bill's Story: Memories of Outback Roads and Characters

PREFACE

Maybe I am wrong in having always considered a fair bit of ego was a necessary part of the desire to write one's life story, so I have worked to convince myself that this was not my reason, but rather it was a worthwhile thing to record some details of what was surely a unique period in time.

There was a time between the two World Wars when adventurous types travelled to way-out places and even entire countries that were somehow run by foreigners, but a working man simply worked and never had either the time, nor the money to indulge in those sorts of things.

The era of tourism as we know it today really started in the years following the Second World War in the 1950s and we were privileged to live through and participate in this window in time when it all began.

If my reasons seem insufficient to justify this story, then I must add that I wrote it because to do so and renew memories of old mates has given me great pleasure. Should it likewise give just some amount of enjoyment to the reader, I shall be perfectly satisfied.

Hazards for outback coach drivers - as defined in Macquarie Dictionary

bulldust: fine dust on outback roads

bullshit: to boast, to exaggerate

I have tried to be objective in my approach to both.

(The term bulldust is generally regarded as a corruption of bullocky's dust. The bullocks pulling supply wagons would churn up columns of dust that could be seen from many miles away, resulting in the waiting homesteaders saying, They're coming, I can see the bullocky's dust.)

B.H.

NOTE

Because all our early travels were during the years of Imperial measurements, I have tended to use them, and frankly I still have some problem thinking in Metric.

The Australian Metric Conversion Board convened in 1970 and with all major programs completed, the Board disbanded in 1981.

However, I don't think many people have any difficulty understanding Imperial measurements as many are still in use today in one form or another.

To overcome any difficulty: 1 mile equals 1.6 kilometres.

I would like to gratefully acknowledge the input of two regular Sundowners, Jan Trompp and Jack Maddock. Jan for the extensive use of her diaries and Jack (who has passed away), for his articles which have been reprinted with the permission of his ex-employer, Truck and Bus Transportation magazine.

1

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SUNDOWNER STORY

I was brought up during the Great Depression when times must have been incredibly hard, but as a child not having any comparisons, I can't say that I was really aware of hardship, although by today's standards we certainly lived frugally.

Both Mickey Mouse and I were launched into the world in 1928 almost at the end of a period of great post war prosperity and at the start of the Great Depression. It's interesting that Mickey rather than ageing looks better all the time, would that I could claim the same.

My dad had served in the Australian Flying Corps in the Great War and borrowed money to set up a Service Station (it was called a Garage in those days) on Pittwater Road, North Manly. At the foot of the hill from Harbord, it backed onto the Lagoon and Golf Course and out the front was the tramline where I caught the tram to the Infants School in Manly.

The cars that came to our driveway would all be collectors’ items today, mostly with bathtub shaped bodies and wooden spoke wheels, and when they wanted fuel Dad had to pump it by hand. It was pumped up into a glass cylinder marked in gallons and then drained down through a hose into the car.

There was no such thing as radio, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioning, or electric hot water, the sort of things we take for granted today, and we rejoiced the day when Dad bought an ice chest that relied on regular blocks of ice to operate.

Then when radio stations began to broadcast we even acquired an early radio set that in those days was always referred to as the wireless.

Getting hot bath water was a bit of a chore - like most people we had a chip heater which required starting with newspaper and then adding chips of wood or sticks.

The business had a night bell and was literally open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and I have memories of being woken up during the night with the noise of Dad hammering tyres off rims.

For all his hard work I doubt Dad was much of a business man (a bit like myself years later) and as the Depression started to bite, it appears he was working for nothing, as people were always Gunna pay, but never did as money dried up.

At least the people he dealt with in the Shell Oil Company must have appreciated his dedication and hard work because although work was increasingly unavailable, they found him a job as a driver in the country town of Goulburn.

I had never thought much about religion - at Manly our family had worked a seven day week, and were on call 24 hours a day. I had never thought of people taking time out for religious activities.

Goulburn was very different, although only a country town it supported two cathedrals. The huge railway workshops were the main employer with a mostly Catholic Irish workforce.

My mates next door, Pat and Eric Connelly said they were sad for me, as I was doomed, not being born a Catholic. They used to quote Brother Maloney at great length and I had no doubt that both God and the Pope sought Brother Maloney for advice. I had to attend Bourke Street Public School where all the kids were doomed as God had no time for non-Catholics.

I didn't realise then that for millions of people religious faith is simply an accident of birth. Our school was ruled with the cane - Mr Bombell our science master doled out reams of home work then asked for answers - a wrong answer brought an automatic two cuts of the cane. We learned things like The atom is the smallest particle that may exist, and is indivisible.

At a school football game one day I was running with the ball, when one of our teachers decided to join in, I put my head down and trampled right over him, this brought six cuts of the cane. Mum was outraged when I told her, I had to talk her out of going to the school, I was afraid of copping another six.

Bourke Street school was only one mile to walk, but when I started high school it became two miles, so I became the proud owner of a second-hand bicycle. Everyone in Goulburn cycled, a bit like China, only one person in our street owned a car - Mr Harrison - they said he was very wealthy. It was a 1928 Essex, but even he mostly cycled.

Our class were mostly from railway families, so when the futuristic locomotive 3801 came through Goulburn, classes were cancelled and we all trooped down to the railway to admire this beautiful green and gold loco.

During the battle of Britain, if you asked anyone in our class what they wanted to be, there was only one answer, a Spitfire pilot, and many of us believed we would be, as the war looked like going on forever. I had a bit of an edge on the others as Dad had been in the Australian Flying Corps in the first World War, and had just enlisted in the RAAF.

I somehow managed to pass my final exams and left school just when Dad was posted to Forest Hill airforce base at Wagga, so for a short time we went to live in Wagga.

During the war people were moved around like pawns under the control of the Department of Manpower. I was told my fate was to move to Sydney and work at De Havilland Aircraft, so Mum and I moved to live with her sister, Auntie Chriss and her husband Uncle Bob in Ryde.

Their family were strict Methodists and I had to watch my Ps and Qs. I found I had lots of old maid aunts, like Auntie Nellie who cycled around to people's houses to collect the mission money to save the poor black people.

Nellie wore elastic from her skirt attached to her pedals, just in case her skirt might blow up. She also carried a pot of pepper in case some man accosted her. This seemed most unlikely to me, and I had visions of some poor fellow being blinded after asking her the time of day.

I used to think of my Catholic mates in Goulburn as being a bit obsessive about religion, but they were relaxed compared with our Methodist relatives. Among other things it appeared God worked like mad for six days creating the earth and on the seventh just collapsed and did absolutely nothing, and we had to do the same. No activity at all was allowed, well, apart from praying and going to church. Even sewing on a button meant God would catch up with you and give you a hiding to nothing for breaking his Sabbath.

It was family folk lore that during Mum and Dad's wedding reception a recording was played of a new decadent singer called Bing Crosby. Uncle Bob demanded it be stopped or he would break the record as this was a solemn occasion.

In church they assured us of life everlasting which I took to mean spending eternity with my uncle and aunts, so it seemed a poor bargain, although the alternative was hell. The Methos were very big on fire and brimstone - although I never did find out what brimstone was.

De Havillands were building aircraft known as D H 98s better known as Mosquitos and initially as the boy I was sent all around the operation. The wings were made at Beales piano factory in Annandale. As the aircraft was made of balsa and plywood they were considered the top people in this field. The timber was glued together with a highly secret new product called contact cement.

With Russia being our ally during the war people had a very pro-Russian attitude, so much so that I nearly became a paid up Communist. Some of the Communist crowd at De Havilland's had literature about dear Uncle Joe Stalin and the paradise in Russia. No wonder the Russians fought so well, it was for their love of Uncle Joe. I made the mistake of telling Uncle Bob about the communist paradise, and he went through the roof, screaming that Stalin was the great Satan. It needed Mum on bended knees to prevent us being thrown out into the street, and I had to swear off becoming a communist.

In 1945 the war finally ended, but peace meant the end of war plane production, then luckily, I continued with an apprenticeship at a kitchenware manufacturer. With the war over Dad returned from the air force and at last we put a deposit on a house in Ryde.

Public transport was adequate, a tram service from Ryde to the city, a bus service to work, but like all young folk I wanted personal transport. After the Second World War cars were almost unobtainable and prices went through the roof. A new car called the Holden came onto the market and people lucky enough to get on the waiting list could resell them straight away at a huge profit. The only alternative was a motor cycle, after a couple of smaller bikes I finally achieved my ultimate, a Harley-Davidson. This opened up new friendships with like minded bikies and we became what today might be called a gang.  After more than 50 years I am still best mates with Ern McStravick, a member of that gang. These days Harley riders tend to fall into two groups, the hard-outlaw types, and affluent older people reliving their youth. Just like our dentist who rides with his Harley group when he is not driving his BMW.

Later, to further my education, I shifted work to Cockatoo Island to study marine engineering. Codock was an education all right, it was run by the unions and management deferred to the unions at all times. It was often a matter of all-out, we rarely asked why. The work might have been easy, but the study was dreadful, perhaps I needed Mr Bombell with his cane, for I found I was slipping further behind, the maths was simply more than I could absorb.

I was feeling completely dumbed-out when a couple of mates suggest that we should go into business. This was a big decision but helped by the fact that I was very young, immortal and knew everything. Of course, it's only as you begin to age that you realise how little you really know.

At this time a company called Redex were making a fortune convincing motorists that their engines were coking up, and Redex added to their petrol was the cure. The Redex Around Australia car trials became the greatest marketing coup of the 1950s. We decided that there must be money in its de coking business, so we hung out our shingle and started pulling off cylinder heads and grinding in valves.

We worked in the back of Bluey Campbell's service station, we were always running out of money, but Bluey was flexible with the rent, I suppose he thought we were quite mad. With our confidence building we hung out another shingle, crash repairs and panel beating. Today's bureaucrats with their rules and regulations would never allow this, but we became quite proficient practicing on customers cars.

A friend caught polio and lost the use of his legs. Automatic cars hardly existed and were dreadfully expensive. We saw it as a relatively easy exercise to fit vacuum boosters to the foot pedals and progressive action aircraft controls at the rim of the steering wheel. It worked very well, was passed by the D. M. R., and Wheels magazine gave us a four-page special write up. The article was titled Cars Modified for Cripples - there was no political correctness in those days. Our instant fame brought sales of more units and then we were approached by some top brass from the British Motor Corporation. BMC was a big manufacturer of cars such as Austin, Morris, Wolseley, MG, Riley, etc., and were later absorbed into British Leyland.

It appeared that the Federal Government was considering supplying cars to disabled ex servicemen if cars could be modified so that they could drive them. The BMC people wanted us to state that their Morris Minor was our top choice for the modification.

After we digested this turn of events, we decided to try for much more, like why not a car dealership. George Lloyd the big boss BMC said, certainly no problem, but of course, ha, ha, we will need a showroom and workshop facilities.

We hadn't made much money in business, but more importantly had made many friends, particularly among local small business people. Our bank manager blamed us for his heart attacks and literally threw us out the door. So, we left his bank, and looked for a younger manager, who still had a sense of adventure. Apart from family help we had mates in electrical work, steel fabrication, glass, hardware, and the very best of all one owned a vacant double block of land on the main road, Victoria Road, Gladesville.

With a deposit on the land and a bank loan and with help from friends we built the showroom ourselves. On paper our initial car sales looked brilliant, as our friends all called in their debts. But we were in business although it was ironic that the government never did contract cars for the disabled, George Lloyd should never have believed the politicians.

The 1950s were a boom period for car sales, wartime petrol rationing had only ended in 1950, and people were rushing to buy new cars. As few people owned a car we were not troubled with many trade-ins.

A year or two after the first car had rolled out the door we were invited to join a new club to be called the Australian Racing Drivers Club, or A.R.D.C. The meeting was held in a room above a fish shop in Erskineville, and we met some real characters. No wives or girlfriends were invited maybe because it was a very blokie turnout, or perhaps it was the toilet arrangement. This meant opening the back window and peeing into the back yard of the fish shop. A dreadful smell always rose up, I would never have bought fish there.

From this small beginning the A.R.D.C. became highly successful with hundreds of new members signing up, and was able to move to quite lavish premises in Norton Street, Leichhardt.

During the Second World War at least two airfields were built on the empty plains west of Sydney, one at Castlereagh and another at Mt Druitt. After the war these were great places for car and motorcycle races and gymkhanas. Belfred Jones secured a lease on the Mt Druitt airfield. Belf extended the main strip into a racing circuit, then did a deal with the A.R.D.C. to use this circuit for weekend motor racing.

We saw some great driving from people like Don Gibson, Frank Hann, David McKay, and of course Jack Brabham who went on to become world champion. Motor racing was not only expensive fun, it was good for business, it allowed us to mix with many influential people from all walks of life.

My most unforgettable race was in May 1954 when I entered the Great Australian 24-hour Race, based on the famous Le Mans race. My mate Bill Ford and I entered a Singer roadster.

It rained heavily during the night and the track broke up into potholes. The famous British racing driver Peter Whitehead was well into the lead when he smashed the rear suspension on his Jaguar XK 120. We snapped a front stub axle, dismantled one from an enthusiastic spectator’s car, fitted it and drove on into the night. We were beaten into second place in our class by a Morris Minor, and I guess I'm philosophical about these sorts of things, but Bill Ford took it quite hard, muttering Of all things a bloody Morris Minor. Of course, all we young fellows thought we had the ability to be world champion racing drivers, but I now realise lack of fear, rather than driving ability was our main asset.

Nearly 40 years later a friend, Janet (Bin) Allport told me that she was in David Mackay's pit crew that night, and other friends John and Jill Corby showed me an album of photos they took during the meeting.

After the race we had to strip down the front axle and rebuild our spectator friend's car, and then return later and rebuild our car. Returning home in a hurry, I came on the railway gates closed at Mt Druitt, hit the brakes and went straight through the gates. It is a mistake to forget to connect the brakes when you're over-tired.

With segregated schools, girls essentially didn't exist when I was a kid, then between study and work I never had much time for girlfriends. But one night after a race meeting Belf opened his wallet and put on supper and a keg, and then I fell in love across a crowded table. She was one of the girl drivers, her name was Doreen, I thought it was like in the Sentimental Bloke with Bill and Doreen. But then I felt my hopes were dashed when I found she was with a fellow we knew as Sexy Rexie.

However, I found she lived in Wangee Rd., Lakemba and gathered up the courage to go on a door knock. After a few setbacks I finally had a win, though the gentleman I spoke to seemed less than impressed with a young fellow knocking in the middle of the night and asking if a girl called Doreen lived there. Things progressed well with Doreen, but I had the distinct feeling that her father believed his daughter was dating some sort of idiot. She explained it was mostly little things - like spinning my tyres and throwing gravel on the front lawn, or vaulting the front fence and loosening the fence posts, then trying to explain getting home late because our MG ran out of fuel in the middle of the Harbour Bridge - unlikely but quite true.  It seems I was a slow learner, but I think I gradually improved.

Still trying to impress, one night I took Doreen out in a Packard - very smart. It stopped dead on Concord Road and I had the bonnet up when a police car pulled-in and parked ahead of us. I found the problem then convinced the cops that we weren't stealing the car. The starter refused to engage, so with Doreen behind the wheel I tried to push start it, but it was too big and heavy, so I asked the cops to help, the car fired, charged forward and missed by the merest whisker demolishing the police car.

Arnold Glass was a fellow who knew his way around the motor industry and he believed that BMC was close to collapse. He showed us a car called a Datsun (later called Nissan) that he intended to import. We weren't very impressed although it had an Austin A40 motor made in Japan. Arnold offered us the agency, but I couldn't see how this car could possibly sell, for a start everybody knew that made in Japan signified cheap and nasty.

At least Arnold was right about one thing, BMC or British Leyland as it had become was about to fold and about this time a friend at York Motors asked if I would test drive a car called a Toyota Tiara and fill out a comment sheet. The only serious improvement I thought was needed was a four-speed gearbox, (it had a three speed), and it appears others said the same thing.

A dealer conference was held in a flash hotel in the city· where we understood dealer complaints about persistent problems and poor-quality control were to be thrashed out. Instead Lord Somebody (I forget his name) who had just arrived from England got up and abused us. It appears we were just a complaining lot of sods and we should get off our backsides and get out and sell because they were providing us with the finest cars in the world. As he raved on it was becoming obvious why the great British motor industry was dying.

In the meantime, we heard that Toyota had taken on board our comments and all future cars would have four-speed gearboxes. Fancy, a motor company that listens to what people want. So, when the first cars arrived we became Toyota dealers, it was only about 15 years since our troops had returned from fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, and a lot of people were very bitter about us promoting Japanese as opposed to British cars.

It didn't help that the Toyota handbooks were a bit of a joke, poorly printed on cheap paper and full of spelling errors. They contained advice like never drive the car with the fuel tank empty. but the Japanese unlike the British were very quick learners.

Still, Toyota was becoming very successful, but as sales increased they became more demanding, it was carry more stock, more spare parts, bigger showroom, more staff.

More money? No problem, Toyota would arrange for loans but of course on their terms. How many big-time dealers are owned by the car makers or the finance companies?  If we were to go down that road perhaps we would end up owning the only thing we started with, our shingle out the front.

Doreen and I married in 1959, we had decided to build beforehand and bought a block on a hillside in what was then bush, with a view of the Lane Cove River. When Doreen's father saw it he said, Sell it right away you might get your money back, the foundation will cost as much as the house, get a flat block. And that was the wisdom of the 1950's.

The car showroom that we built was steel framed and welded using 4 inch galvanised steel tube and we decided to build our house the same way. This nearly sent our local council bureaucrats crazy, we had to talk to the Chief Building Inspector, Don Rutherford, who was a brilliant man and went out of his way to help and advise us. After that it was just a great deal of hard work in our limited spare time.

It was really made possible by the help of Doreen's father and her brother Rod. One of our great regrets is that when Rod was building his own home we were touring in the Outback and could be of little help.

At home we were looking for cheap secondhand furniture while at work trying to hold the Toyota people at bay.

On coming home from work one day I found Doreen in raptures over an advertisement in the Herald. At high school she had studied a book by H.H. Findlayson called The Red Centre, written in the 1930s. It was all about exploring Central Australia by camel, seeing Ayers Rock and living with aborigines. This book was considered a classic and studied in schools, and left her with an obsession about the outback. But who ever heard of going to Central Australia.

The advertisement stated that Redline Coaches of Brisbane intended running a coach trip of three weeks duration from Sydney to Central Australia and back, taking in things of interest along the way. They claimed to have successfully run this trip from Brisbane.

1933. My first set of wheels

Apart from the cost, 50 pounds ($100) per person, plus your own meals and expenses I couldn't see that I could spare the time. Two hundred dollars seems a paltry amount by today's standards, but in 1962 it represented nearly six weeks wages which brings home the incredible effect of inflation.

This was further complicated by a depression starting in 1961 caused by the infamous credit squeeze that brought the Menzies Government within a whisker of defeat in an election the following year.

Except for our short honeymoon I hadn't had a holiday for 10 years, simply never had the time. Although Doreen had a very good job, as secretary to a company manager, she like everyone else was only entitled to two weeks holiday per year, although she assured  me  that  her  boss  would  be cooperative. I thought it was a bit like parachute jumping - why jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane, or out of a perfectly good house to live in a tent?

Nevertheless, the cheque made out to Redline coaches for 100 pounds was sent, and so we were committed. The itinerary described the trip as a safari, and on looking this up found it to be Swahili for a long journey, usually with hunting. This was getting a bit involved, what were we going to hunt? At least we will be going in winter, as I recalled the schoolboy who wrote The climate in Central Australia in summer is such that the inhabitants live elsewhere.

It seems really quite remarkable to me to think that most people alive today were not alive in 1962 when we first ventured into the Outback, and so would have little understanding of the conditions at that time.

1953. Easter holidays with mates at Coolangatta. Proud owner of Singer 9 Tourer.

2

1962/3 REDLINE EXPERIENCES

Many people would remember 1962 as the year that Marilyn Monroe died, but to us the most important event was our first trip to Central Australia. We had to assemble at Kings Cross, it was a strange sight if anything can be called strange at the Cross. A mob of people in big hats, with billycans, blankets, sleeping bags, boxes of food, suitcases, etc. preparing to board two Redline coaches.

The driver of the first coach was Doug Fredericks, tall, dark and looking very capable and with a rifle lying across the dashboard, so it was a safari. However, we were in coach No. 2 and our driver was Brad Franklin.

I was still having doubts. I felt a bit vindicated when Brad got totally lost driving out of Sydney, he was supposed to be following Doug but lost him in the traffic.

A passenger navigated Brad from the Liverpool Highway on the way to Melbourne, and back on to the Western Highway, but it was Tennant Creek before we caught up to Doug again.

On the right-hand side of the road, about 10 miles (16 km) past Dubbo there is a stand of big gum trees, still there today. In the dark Brad eased the coach into the trees and told us to set up camp, he advised us to gather twigs and light our separate fires. We had the spectacle of 30 odd people in small groups trying to boil billies over their individual fires.

Today people expect coach companies to provide their meals, with Redline it was the reverse the passengers had to feed the driver, who was always too busy working on the vehicle to buy or cook food. The Company only provided transport and we had to provide our own food, water, tent and cooking utensils, and of course making sure the driver didn't starve. In the morning there were some sorry looking tents, it seems some people hadn't practiced putting them up, well certainly not in the dark.

After buying more supplies in Nyngan it was on to Bourke along a rough dusty road, then across the Queensland border to Cunnamulla where we saw our first Queensland houses. Brad called them Queenslanders, the houses that is, not the people. They were made of timber, with wrap-around verandas, and sitting high above the ground on wooden posts. We wondered if they were expecting to become a second Venice.

Flies caught up with us at this point - flies are like tourists they both get into a frenzy at sunrise and then settle down as the day progresses.

Brad was at home among the locals, they spoke in cliches - 'sheel be right ay', 'he's a shingle short ay', 'fair crack of the whip ay', 'we're back a Bourke ay', etc. We found that in Queensland and the Northern Territory ay is not eh - it's not a question, it's an indication that a point is being made.

Almost unbelievably the road from Charleville to Augathella was bitumen but it was narrow and broken. It was even rougher, if that was possible, than the dirt roads although it would have been a bonus in wet weather. In these Western Queensland towns, the streets were lined with bottle trees, great swollen trunked members of the kurrajong family.

Every town seemed to have some claim to fame. In Blackall it was Jackie Howe the gun shearer who set the world shearing record on nearby Alice Downs Station. As well they claimed at 7000 feet the world's deepest artesian bore. Outback Queensland is a land of bores, not the human kind who grab you and tell you about themselves, when you would rather tell them about yourself, but deep holes in the ground discharging life giving water.

Our map readers were variously quoting the next town as Bar-cal-deen, or Bar-cel-deen and Brad had to put them right with Bar-cauld-in. Those among us who were politically inclined found interest in the tree of knowledge in Barcaldine. In 1891 the striking shearers met to form the Australian Workers Union under the shade of this tree. Well-chosen too as the opposite side of the street was lined with beautiful two-storey pubs. The A.W.U. became the Australian Labor Party, and in response the local Grazier's Association formed what is today the National Party.

The road to Longreach was long, rough and dusty, had the fences been removed we would have lost the road as there was no difference between the road and the bare black soil plains stretching to the horizon on either side. This country had been drought stricken for eight to ten years and it was hard to believe that it once supported hundreds of thousands of sheep. No point in a shearer's strike now, there were no sheep left. They had been trucked out, mostly to New South Wales and were sold for as little as three pence (three cents) per head. Most never made it and were thrown off the trucks out of Cunnamulla where they were buried with bulldozers.

Brad pointed out that eventually the drought would break and with rain all these outback towns would become isolated as black soil roads are impassible in wet weather, but there was nothing to suggest that rain ever fell in this wilderness.

Longreach was the biggest town we had seen for a long time, and it was possible to climb the water tower alongside the Tropic of Capricorn and look down on the streets of the town that were all named after birds. We saw the original Qantas hangar which in 1926 became Australia's first aircraft factory producing six DH 50 biplanes that were a far cry from the DH98s that I had worked on during the war. The term aircraft factory sounds impressive but aircraft in those days were little more than sticks stuck together, covered in fabric and an imported engine bolted on the front end.

Black soil roads don't break up or pothole very much and are relatively good, the main problem was dipping down into the culverts. These were filled with rocks to prevent washing out in wet weather and were real spring breakers at more than walking speed.

I