Life as young apprentice, 1950s style

Back in the 1950s, armed with honours in maths, physics and English but unable at that time to head away to uni to do the engineering degree I so badly wanted, I did the next best thing available to me in our isolated rural community and indentured myself as a motor mechanic’s apprentice.

My employer had a mixed mechanical agency, including cars, tractors and farm machinery. The car franchise was neither Holden nor Ford and, even in those days, the competition between those two was pretty intense, but nothing to the chiacking I used to get from fellow apprentices employed at those franchises.

Still, I was able to get my own back in a couple of ways. I could take the engine out of a VW sedan, replace the clutch and put it back together, then drive the car back out in 17 minutes, something totally impossible in the two ‘big’ six-cylinder cars.

In 1957, I entered an apprentice-of-the-year competition and managed to come in first, nationally. The prize I won was a Volkswagen toolbox, something worth on the top side of £50 (about 17x my then wage!). That was not only my prize but my pride and joy, until I went off to Brisbane where someone else decided they needed it more than I did!

Funny thing, money. I could have gone off to work as a docker or tailer out at a local sawmill, where I could have earned up to £4 a week. It would have led me nowhere that I wanted to go, hence the apprenticeship. The penalty was a drop in income. I earned the princely sum of £2-11-6 a week. I mentioned to a shop assistant complaining about earning $15 an hour that I started on the equivalent of $5.15 and she said, “An hour…?” When I replied, “No, a week,” she really did give me an unbelieving look!

As the apprentice, especially in the early days, it was my task to clean up any dirty equipment before it came into the workshop. There was a concrete bay out the back of the workshop, set on the south side, which meant it was generally out of the sun, and facing into the raw southwest winds and rain squalls. Those two on their own were manageable but when a black frost was added to the mix, it became a wee bitty cool. My hands tell me all about it, nowadays…

There was one morning when a farmer brought in his PTO-driven hay baler for a major service. Every nut and bolt on it – and believe me, there were at least 120 – had to be squirted with Penetrene to give us any chance of undoing them with our spanners and sockets. The workshop floor was kept pristine, so out the back it went on the morning of the coldest frost in history – I am not an exaggerator – so I could spray all those bolts without making a mess. At one stage, I had to climb up inside the bale chute to get access to several bolts. Offset in the work bay and with the sun actually shining in, I went to sleep. I can tell you, when the senior mechanic decides to come along and swing over the flywheel, thrusting the wadboard down the chute at you, full wakefulness and evacuation come PDQ!

Mr Smith brought in his tractor for a gearbox repair. He drove it into the garage nose first but we wanted it reversed in. The farmer selected reverse and drove out backwards at a pretty fair clip, stood on the left brake, pirouetted the tractor on that wheel, then came back into the garage, almost in a continuous movement. I was impressed and determined to do the same at the first opportunity. When I tried it, the manouevre went perfectly, except I hadn’t allowed enough room for the nose to swing. A front wheel slammed into the reinforced concrete wall, the axle pivot pin sheared and the nose of the tractor dropped, performing a bright red arc on the concrete before I could bring it to a stop. There are things you need to practice in the paddock first, and this was one of them!

I realise a bit of this will be ‘passing to the keeper’, can visualise a number of men scratching their heads over PTO drives, differential braking and wadboards, so will make this last little bit easier to understand, for all.

When I first started, I was tall enough but skinny as a rake. One of the jobs we had not only gave me a chest and shoulders, it provided me a strong back. My boss had a major oil company franchise, with oils and power kerosine mainly sold in 45 gallon (200 litre) drums. We had no loading ramp, so two of us put the 200+kg drums on their side, then lifted them onto the tray of the delivery truck. One morning, just as Mrs Jones walked by and we lifted a drum of engine oil, my mate Bill – under huge pressure, obviously – farted. Now, it not only startled the dour Mrs Jones, it caused us to giggle – and drop the drum.

The street had quite a slope, and the damned drum began to roll away. The two of us chased after it but it careened down past the poor lady and slammed into a fence, thankfully without breaking. Mrs Jones walked by and glowered at Bill. As she went by, she said, “How dare you break wind before me!” Bill was far from the sharpest tool in the cupboard but he delivered the best repartee I ever heard. “I’m sorry, Ms Jones, I didn’t know you wanted to!”

There were some tough times but there was always humour. Thank God for that. It makes everything brighter.