The life and times of Australia's "Nullarbor Kid". True stories from his past.

The Impossible    The Impossible Dream, It was 1948 World War 2 was over a short time ago.

 We four boys were in our teens, living in Ramsgate a suburb of Sydney the largest city in Australia.

Ramsgate was on the edge of Botany Bay where Captain Cook landed in 1770.

We boys would dream the dreams of youth each morning and night going to work and coming home, looking with sightless eyes at the endless backyards slipping past the train window, restless for adventure, an explosive energy that only the young can feel.

We four had the same goal and that was to be a driver

We were not sure what we wanted to drive, car or truck in fact it didn’t really matter, just to be able to drive.

World War 11 had just ended, and we all had jobs we didn’t like. We had all obtained our driving licence within the last year and felt very grown up as we were at the beginning of a new age.

People our age before this time, did not have much of a chance to drive a car, as we were born and grew up in the great depression and then six years of War. A car was a luxury in those days and very few people even knew how to drive. It was usual to use the train, bus or tram to go to work.

The motor vehicle was fast pushing the horse and cart out of the way. Even though, every suburb still had a public horse trough at the main intersection.

 Every suburb had its small Butcher, Grocer, and Fruit shop within walking distance of home. This was before refrigerators and super markets so food shopping was done each day or two with the help of an ice chest at home.

We could feel a new freedom in the air, an expansion of our horizons, something we couldn’t put our finger on, but we wanted to be a part of it.

 No more getting a job, any job and being there for the next forty years and then retiring. There was untold adventure awaiting us, out there, all we had to do was grasp it. What it was, well we were not sure, but what better way than driving…anything.

We would all meet usually at Lukes Milk Bar next to Rasmussens Haberdashery store on a Friday night about 8 pm.  Listening to each other complain about the weeks boredom at work while drinking double helping milk shakes and chewing Violet Crumble Bars till about 11.30, All of this not helping our acne to improve and then each would wander home still dreaming the dream.

One Friday night Frank was last to arrive and we could see as he came through the door that he was busting to tell us some news. “Guess what?” he shouted. “I’ve heard there might be a driving job going over at Liverpool” as he hurried over to our booth. A driving job, wow, could it be true? A driving job was something we all dreamed about. To drive anything full time was our burning ambition. We all started talking at once “Where?” Who?” “Driving what?” “Wait on, wait on “said Frank walking over to the counter “while I order and I’ll tell you what I know.”

He  ordered his usual double malted milk, while we all were calling out “Come on hurry up will you” and started to clamour “Forget the drink come and tell us now.”

“Hang on hang on, I’m thirsty “said Frank.

Our eyes shone and smiles lit our faces in anticipation as Frank sat down and started to talk. 

“It’s like this, a mate at work lives over at Liverpool and down the street from his house there is a small timber mill.”

“Yeah, yeah go on” we urged. “Hurry up, stop slurping through the straw, drink it later.”

“Well “he continued wiping his mouth “they bring up logs from Kangaroo Valley down near Bowral a hundred miles south from here for the mill each week and the driver of the timber jinker left to go back to Dubbo.

My mate says the truck has been sitting there all week, hasn’t moved.” We all just stared at him not saying a word, each of us lost in his own thoughts  picturing  ourselves sitting behind the wheel of this truck, a truck , a big truck. 

We had all tried to get jobs even at parking stations just to be able to drive even for a few yards and in different cars, any thing just to be able to get behind a steering wheel, to put it in gear and let the clutch out slowly and feel the power you could control, the feeling of freedom you could command if only you could be let loose. It was intoxicating and then we would always end up with a sigh coming back to reality.

We all started to talk at once and after a lot of thought and excited discussion it was  decided, why not, we would  go over that night and try for the job at the owner’s home before anybody else heard about the job. 

Frank and Russel had motor bikes, Frank’s was an A.J.S. 500 c.c. Russell had a 500c.c.B.S.A. which they only used at the weekend because it was too expensive to use all week on our low wages and they had to pay the finance company for an other year. Ron and I were going to ride pillion with them and help with the cost of petrol.

By the time we all had our dinner that night and met back at the milk bar it was after 8 pm.

When Ron and I walked back to Lukes Milk Bar, Frank and Russell were waiting outside sitting on their bikes ready to go.

On the way over to Liverpool which was about an hour  away and riding in tandem and discussing who will go in first by shouting across to each other ,no helmets or goggles in those days, in fact we taught ourselves not to depend on goggles as they were dangerous if it rained, impossible to see. Ron suddenly realized that we would have to be able to tie a proper knot to hold a load on the truck. Some thing we hadn’t thought about.

Frank shouted out that he knew the type of knot used on trucks it was called a ‘sheep shank ‘and when we reached the owner’s house he would show us how to tie it.

It was after 9 pm at night in a very quiet suburban street when we roared down and parked under a street light just outside the owner’s house still shouting at each other and then realizing to lower our voices as the street was dark and deathly quiet. It seemed every one was in bed.

“There’s the truck” Frank said softly pointing down into the empty block of land next door to the owner’s house. We three made a move to have a closer look.

 It was a big modern G.M.C. 6X6  ex army prime mover with a timber jinker attached, hard to see in the dark but we were attracted to it, wanting a closer look.

‘Better not “called Frank quietly and beckoned us back. He produced a long length of string and proceeded to tie one end to the handle bar of his bike and the other down around the foot pedal and started to demonstrate a sheep shank knot that by looping it a special way it would tighten itself. We all had a practice which took some time till we all felt that if we were asked to do it, we would be ok….kids.

It was now after 10 o’clock, later still, but we were not aware of the time only that we had an important interview and that maybe one of us might get lucky. Here’s hoping.

Because Frank had heard of the job first and knew how to tie the knot it was decided he would have first chance that was only fair.

Then after much pushing and shoving and some heated words, second third and fourth lined up and followed Frank to the front gate. There we waited in line outside the fence while he went up to the darkened house and knocked on the front door. No answer, so knocked louder and longer, after quite a long while a light went on in the house and the door was opened by an elderly lady in her dressing gown with curlers in her hair.

We heard Frank say something to her about a driving job he had heard was available.

She half turned her head looking inside the hallway and angrily called something out to someone inside, there was a curt muffled reply and the lady shook her head at Frank and then slammed the door shut.

Frank stood there for a second or two then the inside light went off and he turned and walked back to us waiting at the front gate shaking his head and we all walked dejectedly back in line to the bikes across the road under the street light.

We couldn’t hear what had been said at the door, but we knew it was a definite no.

As we walked across the road we could see the ex U.S.Army  6x6 G.M.C.truck way down in the dark beside house. but we had lost our enthusiasm for a closer look and just climbed onto the bikes and began the long ride home each  lost in his own thoughts, not a word said.

I don’t know about the others but I was doing mental arithmetic, working out how much money I had left for the week after paying my share of the fuel.

We found out later huge tree trunks carried on a timber jinker truck were not tied down by ropes but were chained down with a mechanical “Dog” and chain. A hooking device, that tightened metal chains.

So the tying of ropes and knots would have been useless….kids.

But we kept trying…. Kept looking ……Still dreaming.

I was the youngest of the four of us by six months.

In less than a year, I had my first driving job. Then some time later I helped Frank get a start. Russel and Ron never did.

I was one of the lucky young ones to join the pioneers of long distance road transport in Australia. It was a time of upheaval over quite a few years when we forced the government to abolish unjust taxes protecting their rail system, and the free movement of freight through out the country.

I obtained the impossible dream driving all over Australia, helped to build and operated the first low loader car carrier, ever seen in Australia, fortunate to have one of the earliest  home made sleeper cabin built  on  one of  my early trucks  to tackle the Nullarbor Plain from the Eastern states  to Perth ,2000 Klms of dirt track, then later on as a team of  two drivers on a non stop shuttle service between Sydney and Melbourne on Kenworths powered by V8 Caterpillar motors, four hours on, then four hours off sleeping in a vibrating bumping  bunk all this between the 1940,s and 1960’s.

Captain Cook landed on the shore of Botany Bay on the east coast of Australia in 1770 a pioneer from the other side of the world. Then a young man 170 years later living on the opposite shore of that same Bay had the chance to also be an early pioneer crossing that land from the east coast to the west coast, land that Captain Cook had discovered but not seen. Surprisingly, years later I found that I was a descendent from the same County where Captain Cook was born. What a coincident.

During those years I met so many interesting people, and was a small part in the birth of a new industry. The Impossible dream for me came true. The troubles we had, the danger, the hard work, the long hours, the hilarious situations and all the memories of The Impossible Dream that did come true would fill a book. So I wrote one.

Starting to write it on my 72 birthday, 28^th October 2003

I still smile at the thought of those four young boys over 50 years ago in leather jackets on motor bikes under a street light, late at night playing with bits of string noisily pushing and shoving each other around having disappointments but determined to chase a dream.

Would I do it all again you ask..… You bet!!!

---------- Ray Gilleland

From; "My Way on the Highway", Copyright 2005 Ray Gilleland

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