I was working as a 19 year old Station Hand for a property east of Culcairn in New South Wales and realised, if I was to have any mobility at all, I needed some form of transport. This was something that I could not easily acquire without much if any money. The Pastoral Award Station Hand rate was Eight Pounds Thirty Shillings for a 44 hour week less Five Pounds found rate. So there wasn't much chance of saving up for the purchase.
The best I could do was to ring up my father, who was living in Melbourne, to ask him if he would put my bicycle on the "Daylight Express" and I would pick it up from the Culcairn Station. A few weeks later 'Glenroy' (the bike was called) had been dropped off at Culcairn.
After the bike arrived I enrolled in the first year of Stage 1 Woolclassing/Sheep Husbandry at St. Paul's Lutheran College, Walla Walla; some forty kilometres the round trip, 25 kilometres of gravel and the rest bitumen of sorts. On my way to Walla Walla, Hedley Schoff, a wool course student would pick me up, put the 'Glenroy' in the back of his utility and we would be in Walla Walla before we knew it.
I had made the trip 25 times and had started to think there must be some better form of travel. So I looked about for a mortor scooter. I found one of these, a Peugeot, at a Lavington motor cycle shop. It was a great machine but the gear change cable, which is difficult to repair with fencing wire, kept breaking. So I reverted back to the bike.
While working at Culcairn I had been keeping in touch with the love of my life, Carole, who was working for her family at the Benalla Newsagency. We used to write to each other regularly and on very special occasions the station owner might let me use the phone to contact her. We met three times a year - the first for Easter; the second to attend the Royal Agricultural Show and the third was the end of year break for the end of the Woolclassing school year. On one special occasion I had access to a public phone without 'eavesdroppers' at the Wodonga Pig Market. Those were the days when Telephone switchboard operators would cut the phone line dead if you exceeded the three minute allocated time. It was fairly obvious that I needed a car to keep our relationship going!
The station owner's son returned to the property at the end of the year so my employment was terminated. I had to relocate to Albury and continue my Woolclassing course at night school. I gave up on the Peugeot motor scooter due to the cost of repairs.
ENTER THE GREY, TWO DOOR MORRIS MINOR, NSW PLATES BUU*732!
(This reminiscence is set in 1959-early 1960's)
The best I could do was to ring up my father, who was living in Melbourne, to ask him if he would put my bicycle on the "Daylight Express" and I would pick it up from the Culcairn Station. A few weeks later 'Glenroy' (the bike was called) had been dropped off at Culcairn.
After the bike arrived I enrolled in the first year of Stage 1 Woolclassing/Sheep Husbandry at St. Paul's Lutheran College, Walla Walla; some forty kilometres the round trip, 25 kilometres of gravel and the rest bitumen of sorts. On my way to Walla Walla, Hedley Schoff, a wool course student would pick me up, put the 'Glenroy' in the back of his utility and we would be in Walla Walla before we knew it.
I had made the trip 25 times and had started to think there must be some better form of travel. So I looked about for a mortor scooter. I found one of these, a Peugeot, at a Lavington motor cycle shop. It was a great machine but the gear change cable, which is difficult to repair with fencing wire, kept breaking. So I reverted back to the bike.
While working at Culcairn I had been keeping in touch with the love of my life, Carole, who was working for her family at the Benalla Newsagency. We used to write to each other regularly and on very special occasions the station owner might let me use the phone to contact her. We met three times a year - the first for Easter; the second to attend the Royal Agricultural Show and the third was the end of year break for the end of the Woolclassing school year. On one special occasion I had access to a public phone without 'eavesdroppers' at the Wodonga Pig Market. Those were the days when Telephone switchboard operators would cut the phone line dead if you exceeded the three minute allocated time. It was fairly obvious that I needed a car to keep our relationship going!
The station owner's son returned to the property at the end of the year so my employment was terminated. I had to relocate to Albury and continue my Woolclassing course at night school. I gave up on the Peugeot motor scooter due to the cost of repairs.
ENTER THE GREY, TWO DOOR MORRIS MINOR, NSW PLATES BUU*732!
(This reminiscence is set in 1959-early 1960's)
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