My Story
My writing journey began in 2015 when, with my partner Bill, I headed off to Alice Springs. We were on our way to volunteer at the National Road Transport Museum (NRTM). Mum, who had been widowed for near on 10 years, doesn’t drive, so I decided to write a blog so she could join us on our adventures. That was the first time I had written for an audience just for fun. Before that, my writing involved creating school documents and writing student reports. All of those would be returned from various proofreaders full of red marks, leaving me to believe I couldn’t write. (By the way, I currently refuse to use AI for corrections, and I think my loved ones are sick of proofreading my work, so you are warned – there will be grammar errors and typos ahead!)
In 2022 and 2023, while volunteering at the museum, I was assigned the task of editing stories of the truck drivers for their Wall of Fame. I was also asked to write short speeches for each of the inductees. I loved the challenge of choosing a snippet of someone’s life to share with the audience and I was truly excited to be involved in recording people’s stories. I remember speaking with a truck driver who had been through the most horrendous ordeal on what should have been a regular day at work. I felt honoured to be trusted to share and record his story. That feeling prompted me to pitch the idea of a Haulin’ History column to the Truckin’ Life Magazine crew. Thankfully, they liked the idea; I enjoy chatting with older drivers and recording stories of a by-gone era.
My Book
This revealing and inspiring book takes us into private meetings held during the ten day Razorback Truck Blockade of 1979. The blockade was a stand for the removal of unfair, biased rules and regulations which forced drivers to pay a road user tax. It was a battle to stop the unjust incarceration of hard-working truckies. Anecdotes and memories of hardship, deception, larrikinism and camaraderie tell a quintessential Australian tale – the underdog taking on government and corporations. It reminds us what we can achieve when we refuse to take no for an answer.
Although the Razorback Blockade occurred in 1979, the discrimination against road transport operators started as early as 1931. Laws and regulations were put in place to favour state run railways. Failure to pay taxes under those laws often resulted in drivers being unjustly incarcerated.
After decades of bribery, avoidance, unsuccessful lobbying and protesting to have the law removed five owner-drivers said, ‘Enough.’ Ted ‘Greendog’ Stevens, Barry ‘Sleepy’ Grimson, Colin Bird, Spencer Watling and Jack ‘Dynamite’ Hibburt parked their trucks across the Hume Highway, south of Sydney and refused to let any other truck pass until the government acted. They were soon helped by Carle Goodfellow and many others. Within hours, governments passed laws to make their actions illegal but it was too late, all hell had broken loose.
Within days thousands of drivers, the public and even media personalities were supporting the drivers. Blockades were in place across every mainland state; jobs were lost in the manufacturing industries, and the public was asked not to panic buy.
With only CB radios and landline phones to co-ordinate the action, communication was always going to be challenging. When messages failed to reach the men who became the official Razorback Committee questions were asked, ‘Was it just an innocent mistake or a deliberate tactic?’
Contact Kath Gilbert
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"History is often created by the necessity to make things better."
Denis Robertson, founder of Roadmaster Refrigeration
