At the age of 15 years and 9 months I ran away from my home in Canberra, as the situation at home had become untenable.  I decided to hitch hike to Sydney to try to start a new life.  The distance was about 176 miles.  My older brother, an apprentice car mechanic, gave me £3 (Three Pounds).  He wished me luck.  

After walking for about 3 hours, I was about 20 miles along the shores of Lake George when I was picked up by a Protestant priest.  He had two young girls with him who he introduced as his daughters.  I was carrying my worldly possessions in a small suitcase which the priest put in the back.  He asked me where I was going. I said "Sydney"; he asked me "Why?".   I said I had run away from home and would never go back.  He did not ask any more questions. 

The priest dropped me at Goulburn in NSW, nearly halfway to Sydney, at a service station where I bought a coke because I was thirsty.  Evening was fast approaching, so I started to hitch hike, hoping to get a ride.

No luck. Night was falling, and I was about 4 miles out of town.  No houses, no lights, no cars.  What to do?  It was a cold night.

I looked around and saw a large tree.  Climbing the fence, I decided I would sleep there the night under cover, it didn’t look like rain.  I took some of the clothes out of the suitcase and put them on.  I was very warm

I am not sure what time it was. It was very dark. I heard snuffling sounds.  Very scared, I curled up tight.  Maybe a kangaroo? ... I don't know.  I covered my head and tried to sleep.

More noises... very, very scared ... rustling sounds.  “What is it???”  Eventually the sounds went away.  I fell into a very tired sleep.

Day light came.  I looked around and saw I had climbed into a paddock full of cows who had come to investigate the strange goings on.   I thought "Hope there is no bull!"

I took off my extra clothes, climbed back over the fence, put my thumb out and continued to hitch hike.

My next ride, about an hour later, was with a woman who said she was going to Marrickville in Sydney.  Would that suit me?  I said, "That is where I want to go".  I am guessing we arrived in Marrickville at about lunch time.  I remember lots of traffic, noise, people everywhere...it was very busy, very scary.

Eventually I gathered enough courage to ask if there was any accommodation nearby.  One man said there was a place called 'The Hubb' which was for men only.  I found the place and asked for a room.  £1 (One Pound) per week, no food, no grog, no visitors, no knives or guns allowed.

I moved in, asking where I could buy something to eat.

A man dressed in lady's clothing standing in the kitchen asked me what I was doing there.  I told him I was looking for work.  I had never seen a man in such clothes.  He, she, was confusing me.  I asked him why he was dressed like that, as I’d assumed The Hubb was ‘mens' only’ accommodation.  He said he liked to be dressed like that.  This made no sense to me.  He also said The Hubb was home to alcoholics, drug addicts and unemployed men and that I should be very careful. …

... To be continued ...
 
Lou Sigmund
15 July 2024

25th June 1996. I left Braeside about 8am driving my truck out of Melbourne. I headed north up the Calder highway to Echuca. After Echuca, I made my way along the Murray Valley highway driving west. I had various deliveries to do at Kerang, Swan Hill, then Tooleybuc across the Murray River in New South Wales.

It was going to be a long day and a lot of kilometres, but I was used to it and had done the same trip every two weeks for a couple of years.

It was a bit foggy around Melbourne, but the day got better, weatherwise, as I was leaving town. I enjoyed driving, I knew the vehicle I was driving, I knew the roads I would be travelling on like the back of my hands. It was another glorious day out in the country.  But I never got too complacent out on the highway.

You just don’t know what the next bend or kilometre will bring. Roadworks, accidents, trees across the road, and idiot drivers. The P for perfect, well experienced drivers that have been driving the highways in their specially built powerful cars for over a month now.

I came across one such driver near Lake Boga. I was heading towards Swan Hill, minding my own business, on time, enjoying the scenery. I regularly check my speed and the gauges on my dashboard to make sure everything is working right, including my speed, fuel, oil, temperature and the driver.

My dad, who was also a truck driver, told me when I first started driving. “There are three vehicles on the road, one behind you, one in front of you and the one you had to watch the most, was the one between those two.”  Very good advice I thought. There were also other vehicles on the road to watch out for too. On this particular day, there was nothing ahead of me and nothing behind me, but there was a small car in the oncoming lane, waiting to turn right into a rural property. There was only one lane going each direction, the road was in good condition, it was dry, and I was approaching a slight bend. Habit had taught me to look at the driver of the other vehicle and make eye contact if it was possible. With the eye contact, I knew that the oncoming driver had seen me and wasn’t on the mobile phone or looking elsewhere instead of keeping their eyes on the road. The other driver did see me and make eye contact, as I was saying to myself, “stay there, I am coming through”.

Unfortunately, a perfect P plater I spoke about earlier, came around the slight bend, probably driving at the set speed of one hundred kilometres an hour, obviously not paying attention to any other vehicle on the road. Ran into the back of the car turning right into the property, pushing that car into my path. Legally, I was entitled to be driving one hundred kilometres an hour.  According to the speedometer, which I had checked recently, I was travelling somewhere between ninety-five and one hundred. I hit the brakes and took evasive action; I had no chance whatsoever of not running into that small car. I hit the car, pushing it down into the gully at the side of the road.

When I finally came to a stop. I got out of my truck; I saw the young man up on the road leaning against his car on the verge of the oncoming lane. I yelled, “Where is she?”. He replied, “Under the truck”.

I ran around the back of my truck and along the left-hand side. The whole car was under the truck with the left-hand side wheel resting on the small car’s front passenger seat. The radiator was dripping down the front of the female driver, who was obviously seriously injured. If not dead. The front right hand side wheel was up against the car driver’s door. The car was destroyed completely, the back seat was gone along with the boot and back wheels. All crushed under the truck. I had pushed the car down the embankment, at the same time driving over the top of it.

(I was told later that the car being under the truck and supporting it so to speak, had probably saved my life, otherwise the truck may have rolled over with me in it).

The young P plate driver stayed up on the road.  He made no attempt to come down to the crash scene. I told him it looked as if the lady had died, but he wasn’t particularly interested in offering any assistance to any of us.

By the time I had looked at the lady and realised there was nothing I could do for her, I turned around and saw two other guys approaching the scene who said they had called emergency services. I recognised the vehicle they were in because it had not long overtaken me.  It was a bright red commodore. They told me they had just passed me and that when they did, I was doing well under the 100 K’s. The driver of that car told me he had said to his passenger, “that guy hasn’t even seen the car in front of him was stopped and turning right”. They didn’t actually see the accident, due to the slight bend, but the driver pulled over to come back because he could see what was going to happen.

Whilst they were looking at the scene a plain car with two police officers arrived. One of them said “You’re okay, we just clocked you doing ninety-six with the red commodore waiting to overtake you, what happened?”

Shortly afterwards an ambulance arrived.  The paramedics checked the lady first, they told me she was still alive but not expected to live. I was devastated, I had killed someone that was neither their fault nor my fault. I had never had an at fault accident or even a speeding fine in years of driving trucks. The paramedics asked me if I was okay physically, I said, “I think so”.  I hadn’t had chance to work out what cuts or injuries I had. I already knew I wasn’t going to be okay mentally.

Several other cars and trucks had pulled over at the scene. Looking across to the laneway the lady was turning into, I noticed a man and woman standing, looking very emotional. A policeman went over and spoke to them. He then came running back to the scene yelling to everyone to start looking under the wreckage. There had been two young children in the car.

(I have probably stopped reading this at this time. I am having trouble typing it at the moment. Even after the twenty eighth anniversary of the event two weeks ago.

I have been told by many experts, the best thing to do is to keep talking about it. I still have trouble doing that).

The two people standing up on the laneway were the lady’s husband and mother. She had gone into Swan Hill to pick up her two young sons from childcare.

Thank the lord we never found the two boys.  The police spoke to the father again and asked him to call the centre or friends to find out if they knew where the boys were.

It turned out it was the older boy’s fourth birthday and a get together was being held at the victim’s property. Ironically, a friend and parent of other children had talked the victim into having a party at her house in Swan Hill, so she would look after all the kids while Mum went home to collect foods and drinks and bring them back to her place, instead of everyone driving to Lake Boga.

Other police arrived at the scene and took me and the P plater to Swan Hill Police station. I never saw the P plater again. I made a statement and was told to wait in the police lunchroom, have a coffee and wait for my daughter and wife, who would be driving me home, to arrive from Melbourne.

I had a coffee, and the TV was turned on, so I watched the six o’clock news.

Big mistake. First story of the night, footage of my truck on top of a small white Sigma car.
A few hours later, my wife and daughter arrived to take me home. That was a long drive.

As we passed the accident scene, there was a huge tow truck trying to remove my truck off the car, with other tow trucks and police around the scene. My boss was also there with another truck trying to transfer what was salvageable from my truck. All the contents had been thrust up against the front. I was amazed at how round 20 litre drums of oil had become rectangle shape from the pressure and force of the impact.

I felt better after the police still at the scene told me I had done everything right in taking the evasive action that I had taken. However, I had still killed a wife and a mother of two young boys whose lives would never be the same again. 

I felt a whole lot better late the next day after hearing from the police. The lady had been taken to hospital via ambulance. Doctors at Swan Hill thought that maybe there was a chance they could save her.

The air ambulance was called, and the lady was taken down to Melbourne.

About two weeks later, I received a knock at the door at home. A gentleman introduced himself as the husband of the lady in the accident. Next thing he said was that he did not blame me in any way, that he wanted to check on me to see how I was coping. Wow. A preacher and farmer, he explained his wife’s condition to me, and said that it was early days. She would be in hospital for a long time. She had just about every bone in her body broken, internal injuries and brain damage. She was a vegetable but alive.

He told me how they were great believers in the good lord, who would decide the future of his wife and the rest of the family.

The woman standing with the husband at the accident was his mother-in-law who was here on holidays from Norway. She had gone back to Norway to sort things out at home, then she would be returning to Australia with her husband to help out for as long as was needed.

I spoke on the phone many times with the husband, who explained to me how it came about that the two boys had not been with their mother on that tragic day. He told me his wife was getting better, that she appeared as if she had had a stroke.

Twelve months later, she was still in hospital, she had to learn how to walk again and had no memory of the accident. She remembered her older son whose fourth birthday it had been, but she knew nothing of her younger son. She didn’t know or remember him at all.

The last time I spoke to the husband by phone, he gave me all the progress his wife was making. He said he had a copy of the police footage taken at the accident scene, but it was on the mantle piece and that he had never watched it. He also said this was the last conversation we would have, because he wouldn’t ring me anymore. For my benefit. He felt it was too upsetting for me to keep talking about the accident. I presume it didn’t do him much good either.

About ten years later, whilst at church talking to another church member, I told him about the accident, mentioning that I would love to know how the lady and her family were going. He asked me her name, because his sister played the piano/organ at a church in Swan Hill. I told him and he said, "leave it with me".

The next evening that same church member rang me. He said I had given him the wrong name, but his sister knew straight away who he was talking about as she was a member at the same church and had been for many years. She remembered the accident, how the church and community in general had helped to support the family. The sister had rung the family and told them about the conversation I had with her brother. They said they would love to see me again, gave their new address and phone number and a date was set.

We met at their new home in Swan Hill.  The lady still looked as if she had had a stroke, still couldn’t talk properly.  She had been in hospital just over twelve months in Melbourne and had to learn everything again, how to read, talk, do the housework, look after her family, and now knew her younger son too. The two boys were much older now. I cried, along with my wife, when the older boy said “I remember Mum, you dropped us off, then went home to get my fourth birthday stuff. Then never came back”.

We remained in contact for a while, then all got back on with our own lives.

Please, could everyone do me a favour?  When someone tells you about an horrific accident between two vehicles, regardless of what type of vehicles they are, not everyone is physically injured, but every normal person is injured mentally.

I hate it when the news readers say “the truck driver wasn’t injured” after similar cases to mine.

Thank you for the opportunity to write and talk about this tragic event in my life.


 
Tom Barnaby
July 2024

​It was 1957 and atomic weapons tests were being carried out at Maralinga in Central Australia. The fact that the effects of radio-active fallout were not well known was shown by the instruction to those on the ground to turn their backs when the explosion occurred. The presence of Aboriginal people living in the surrounding area appeared to be ignored.

At that time, Peter MacCallum Clinic had an energetic Scotsman as head of the Physics Department. He was concerned at the possible fallout from the Maralinga tests, as strontium-90 was one of the by-products of atomic fission. It is sufficiently similar to calcium that any residual strontium can lodge in bones and possibly cause bone cancer. For Dr. Martin, that was enough data to make testing for fallout, even as far away as Melbourne, an appropriate project for a cancer clinic.

​He entrusted the carrying out of the weekly aspects of the project to me, the most junior of the five physicists and in my first year.

The workshop men at Peter Mac constructed a revolving arm on a four-legged stand and this was placed on the rooftop of the Little Lonsdale Street building. Cheesecloth ‘sails’ were clipped to the arm. A month or two later, a water collection was organized.

Each week, the cheesecloth needed to be replaced and the rainwater collected.  This required going up in a lift three or four floors, a short set of stairs, out onto the roof and up a small ladder. No wonder I’d been given the job!

The cheesecloth and water were taken back to the lab where the cheesecloth was burned, the water evaporated and wiped out and burned and any radiation from the two sets of ashes was measured by a Geiger Counter and recorded. These weekly readings were taken for about eighteen months.

The results were significant. The background count for rainwater was 6 counts/minute. On the week ending 24th. October 1957, the measurement was 600 counts/minute. These peaks occurred two or three times, each time being about a fortnight after a test.

​Dr. Martin invited me to give a paper on this project at a Radiation Biology conference. An interesting experience to be speaking in the Public Lecture Theatre at Melbourne University when I’d been a student there only two years before! There were a couple of questions at the end from prominent people but our case was pretty water-tight.

Twenty seven years later in 1984, an article appeared in ‘The Age’, headed
‘A-test equipment faulty’
A former government advisor said that measurements of radio-active fallout at Maralinga had been inadequate. The fallout estimation had been based solely on ground level measurement using sheets of ‘sticky paper’ that collected radio-active dust and battery-powered pumps that trapped fallout in filter papers.

​The cross-examination revealed some of the papers lost their stickiness due to heavy rain and the air pump became clogged with dust. The batteries also usually failed after 12 to 24 hours.
​
These could have led to underestimation of fallout from the tests.’

I had a smile.

 
Carmyl Winkler
July 2024