Marsh - Great Australian Outback Trucking Stories

Contents

Dedicated to Ray Norris 25.5.1953 8.3.1978

A truckie through and through

Special thanks to publisher Brigitta Doyle, editors Lachlan McLaine and Rachel Dennis along with the promotions and sales staff at ABC BooksHarperCollins Australia, without whose support these stories may never have seen the light of day; and to my precious support crew of Kath Beauchamp, Craig Langley, Margaret Worth and Dave Nutz Hansford. Also many, many thanks to Scott Lamond, host of the summer edition of ABC Radio program Australia all Over.

Contents

The stories contained in this book are written from interviews recorded by Bill Swampy Marsh. The contributors are:

John Barkwill

Ted Beggs

John Bishop

Adam Bock

Tom Bullen

Lew Couper

Chris Carter

Darrell Eades

Terry Fitzgerald

Steve Grahame

David & Christine Harris

Les Heffler

Wayne Kennedy

Scott Lamond

Craig Langley

Liz Martin

Roy Moore

Karen Prato

Richard Russell

Andrea & Bob Teakle

Kristen Weidenbach

Margaret Worth

Kath & Noel Beauchamp

Geoff Bishop

Jess Bishop

Carmel Brudenell

Jack Croft

Jack Cunningham

Richard Downs

Ron Elliott

Linda Game

David Nutz Hansford

Jim (James B) Heard

Ray Herrmann

Michael King

Mick Lanagan

Jeanette & Garry Mann

Joshua Mieglich

Frank & Marie Partington

Ivan & Marilyn Probert

John Taylor

Robert Treasure

Mary & Des Wenham

... and many, many more

As a young kid in the late 1950s, I remember sitting in a picture theatre somewhere one stinking-hot summers night, watching the documentary film The Back of Beyond. The film covered the trials and tribulations that a man named Tom Kruse, along with his Aboriginal offsider, But Butler, faced during their 300-mile journey along the Birdsville Track, from Maree, in the north of South Australia, through the Tirari and Sturt Stony deserts, to Birdsville, on the edge of the Simpson Desert, in the far central west of Queensland. Toms contract was to deliver mail, general stores, machinery parts, the occasional passengers and just about anything else that could be stacked on to his faithful 1936 Leyland Badger, out to the remote station properties along the way.

The Back of Beyond was the story of mans struggle to get the job done against the most difficult of Australian conditions and environments. And Tom did it with ingenuity, humour and a quiet, calm, understated flair. On that particular summers night, Tom became a hero of mine. He could even pick up a full forty-four-gallon drum of fuel and toss it onto the back of his truck.

In those days the Birdsville Track was just that a track, and a pretty vague, rough and rugged one at that. A planned seven-day round trip could take anywhere up to six weeks. The film showed Tom battling myriad bush flies, dust storms and numerous sand dunes as well as being bogged to the axles in foot-deep bulldust and having to mend broken suspension springs or tail shafts by the flickering light of the campfire, all the while being under continual bombardment from hordes of mosquitoes. After hed seemingly survived all that, he came across a flooded Cooper Creek. But, not to be defeated, with the aid of a few passengers hed picked up along the way and a local mates rudimentary barge set-up, they walked and ferried the load across the swollen and muddy waters.

Interwoven into the script was the heart-wrenching story of a couple of young sisters whod left their remote homestead to walk out to the Birdsville Track, in the hopes of getting help for their sick mother. With them they took their pet dog, a bottle of water and a pram-like cart. After theyd walked for hours under the scorching sun, thinking they were heading in the direction of the Birdsville Track, they came across their original tracks. Theyd gone full circle, and thats when the eldest sister realised that they were hopelessly lost. So, in an attempt to save what little water they had left, the eldest sister tied their pet dog to a tree and, as they wandered off into the distance, leaving the distraught dog behind, their tracks disappeared under the hot windblown desert sands. The story was fictional, but based on many similar tragedies in outback history.

The Back of Beyond was produced and directed by John Heyer. It was commissioned by the Shell Oil Company to show a wider public the companys strong connection with Australias remote parts and its pioneering people, as well as to promote the outbacks postal and telecommunications service. It is still considered to be one of Australias most successful documentaries and is included in the book 100 Greatest Films of Australian Cinema. It certainly made a huge impact on me.

After The Back of Beyond was released in 1954, Tom Kruse became a household name. In doing so he received a Member of the Order of the British Empire MBE for his services to the community in the outback. Such was the importance of the event, the Governor flew out to Birdsville especially to present the award to Tom in person. Though, as it turned out, the Governor had to return home with the MBE because Tom had been stranded out on the track by floodwaters and couldnt make it.

Tom Kruse was born in 1914 at Waterloo, which is about seventy-five miles north-east of Adelaide. He was the tenth of twelve children. He left school when he was fourteen to work as a casual labourer on nearby farming properties. These were the Depression years and, with diminishing local work, Tom soon followed his brother Arthur over to Yunta, in the mid-north of South Australia, where he found employment in a mail-and-haulage business owned by well-known businessman John Penna.

In 1936 garage-store owner Harry Ding bought the contract from Penna and, wanting to expand the business, he bid for the Maree to Birdsville mail contract. When his application was successful, Harry put his most able driver and his most reliable truck on the run. That driver was a 22-year-old Tom Kruse. The truck was a 1936 Leyland Badger that had a 1924 Thornycroft rear end and gearbox. A newly married Tom and his wife, Val, then moved to Maree where they went on to have four children, two boys and two girls. Tom bought the Maree to Birdsville contract off Harry Ding in 1947.

The shooting of The Back of Beyond started in late 1952.

When Tom subcontracted the run a few years later, he abandoned his truck out in Sturt Stony Desert, just south of Birdsville, on Pandi Pandi Station. Then, after he sold his Maree to Birdsville contract in 1963, he went on to do general earthmoving, tank sinking dam building and general labouring work until he retired in 1984.

In South Australias 150th Jubilee year of 1986, Tom reenacted the northern leg of his old Birdsville Track run. Something like eighty vehicles joined in the convoy.