After nearly 35 years of service it's time for me to go. Before I go any further I would like to thank the organisers of this get together, and especially the ladies for the work they've put into organizing the food and drink which is usually a pretty important part of any get together, so on behalf of my wife, family and myself I thank you ladies very much, and anybody else who helped in any way.  Well I've got a fair bit of stuff written down here. Some of it will no doubt be boring to some of you, while on the other hand it may contain particles of interest for some others. Seeing that this will be the only chance I'll get to have a bit of a say, I wouldn't trust myself to say anything straight off the cuff, in case I balked, so I reckoned it would be better to read it off the paper than miss the opportunity altogether. So I'll try not to make it sound like I'm reading it. But if I do sound like a parrot we can't be worried because speech-making is just not my thing.

It all began on the 18th August, 1941. Although the office records say 19th August, 1941, they may be right but what’s one day in 35 years. Reg Needham, the forestry officer who was in charge of Bruthen at that time, was milking the cow when I approached him and asked him for a job. The cow in those times was a pretty important part of the works. She wandered the streets and back lanes all day and night scrounging what food was available, which seemed to be ample in those days. Anyhow quite often one man was detailed to go find the cow. Usually after searching the riverbank and camp park and perhaps the long paddock down yonder, the cow was duly driven home and milked. Some of the main cow finders and milkers were: Bill MacCallister, Jack Freeman, maybe Fred Stevens occasionally.  Well so much for the cow, since then there hasn't been any Forest Officers with cows but we have had turkeys, chooks and dogs.

Well back to Reg Needham. He was Mr. Needham to me. He said I could have a job cutting wood at Colquhoun. You see the war was in full swing and all forest workers were cutting wood to send to Melbourne and for burning into charcoal to use in motor car gas producers. You see petrol was a luxury item. I received two and a half gallons a month to run my car. I had an Austin 12 at the time. It was Friday when I asked for the job and decided I'd be a woodcutter. On Sunday Mr. Needham came and told me not to go woodcutting but to go with Dan Kelty and Jack Dudley out onto the Little Dick Range where they were doing some road work. So Monday morning came and I mounted my bicycle, which was a fixed wheel with a hand brake on the front wheel, and fell in line with Dan and Jack. There were very few words spoken, but by following Dan and Jack I reached the place of sweat and toil, which happened to be the far end of Martens Road where it connects up with the Little Dick Range Road; and here stood the Caterpillar tractor TD35 International and the Britstand drawn grader, narrow steel wheels and all. And that's where I first started to learn all about working for the government, and when my career with the Forests Commission began. My job was to carry an old axe (we called it a grubbing axe) and cut the roots that were protruding from the edges so if the grader blade hit them they would tear out of the ground and Jack Dudley was not so likely to get thrown off the grader. However, sometime after that Jack Dudley left the job to go cutting sleepers and Bill Stokes took on the grader operator's job. (I might mention here that the fortnightly pay at that time was £9/3/0) It was not long after this, while we were re-forming the Old Sugar Loaf Road somewhere north of Deptford that Bill Stokes left the district and I graduated to the grader operator's job. We missed Bill a lot because we used to travel to our camp in his motor car which was a 1927 Chev Tourer. I saw a wild koala at this camp, it fell down out of a large silver top tree. Dan and I ripped and grubbed and winched trees out and re-formed a lot of old roads for about two years. By this time the Bruthen district had acquired a second tractor, a little T20 International kerosene motor job. 

It so happened the driver of this machine, Fred Wilson, passed away, and once again smart young Bob Mclean who was then about 25, was promoted to tractor driver. Our camp was then at the top of the big lift on the old Nunniong Road. There was me, Bill AhChow, Roy James and Ted Cosy. We were making a track from Woodhouse Creek to Timbarra Settlement via Campoven Gap. To make the track we cut the logs with axes along the line of least resistance and then we hooked a log behind the tractor and dragged it up and down a number of times. I might say it wasn't a very big log. I think the tractor was only 18 HP so needless to say the track wasn't very big either, anyhow it was only for horse traffic. Bill Ah Chow and Ted Costello used to patrol these tracks occasionally, and keep them usable (all axe work of course, no chain saws). 

It was while I was on this job that a rumour spread to the effect that we might be getting a bulldozer. Meanwhile most of the crew were slogging on the the wood-cutting and charcoal burning at Colquhoun. There was George Havers, Don Havers, George Lambourn, Cecil Cross, Jim Hardwidge, Jack MacNamara, Norm Petre, Len Garland, Dickie James, Fred Stevens, Percy MacNamara and Jack Armstrong, Well one evening as I was walking out of the yard, the boss said to me "How would you like to drive a bulldozer, you're the most likely bloke we've got.It looks like we'll be getting one." I said "I dunno, I suppose I could give it a go." "Well" he said, "think it over", which I did and decided to give it a go.

Bob Vincent
Abt 1975
Source: Daughter Karen

In about a week along comes a brand new "Cletrac" DDH No. 66 I think. It had to be driven out to the camp by the fitter Abb Cowell. Then it was handed over to me. We were camped at the Playgrounds at the time and the first job was to make a side cutting down to the Tambo River and then build a bridge across the river. Well after digging holes and making beautiful ocean waves all along the grade line with a straight blade for a couple of days and getting nowhere, the boss suggested I get someone to help me put the blade on the angle and try that, so this was done and after that I didn't have near so many problems. I have heard said in recent times that it's just as easy to put in a side cutting with a straight blade as it is with an angle blade. Don't you ever believe it, not even with a tilting bull blade. Well a couple of blokes from Orbost came to have a practice drive (one named Allan Hammond comes to mind first) just in case they got a dozer in their district. After breaking the hydraulic pump clean off the machine within the first or second week we eventually got a goat track down to the river. Then it was decided that the site was not suitable for a bridge anyhow, and the whole project was abandoned. At a much later date we put the road down the other side of the ridge to where the bridge now stands. After many more weeks of learning the hard way we gave the Cletrac to Mount Taylor, and Don Havers was sent over there to operate it. Along came a new HD7 Allis Chalmers No.108 with more problems. One was the new dozer had a hand operated master clutch, while the Cletrac had a foot clutch. I had many frustrating hours learning to manipulate this extra lever but at least it did have better hydraulic equipment (Garrwood). Whilst the Cletrac had Britstand (the worst ever made). One of the first jobs I did on the HD7 was to fill in the air raid shelters at the Bruthen school (they were put in by tractor and scoop by Dan Kelty) for by this time the war had ended.

Another job was building a bridge at Dave Hall's Creek, which is on the Nicholson Creek Road. After a few broken stabilizers and replacement of clutch plates and bent sprocket shafts,  this HD7 was replaced with another one the same ( No.138).  I remember this one quite well because it arrived from Brookwood workshop with the tracks so tight that it would hardly pull itself along level ground in first gear. After many more roads and dams and the first four or five miles of the Angora Range Road and another clutch plate or two, it was decided that the old HD7 No.138 had had it, so along came a dirty big Cletrac FDE with the rotten Britstand equipment and a foot clutch again, one clutch pedal on either side of the cockpit. There is a big story on how we got it to the job. However, this was the beginning of the end for me as a dozer driver. This thing had no muffler and the noise was deafening. I gave it away after three months and joined forces with Hughie Warren who was the fitter at the time. Abb Cowell had long since moved on. In 1965, after 24 years, I was asked if I would like to become temporary-permanent. Of course I said "yes" and I’ve been temporary- permanent ever since.

In 1953 I nearly tossed the job in, for various reasons, some health, and some other, things were getting me down, and I told Jim  Westcott, who was the officer in charge at the time, "I'm thinking of tossing it in Jim. " He said "It would be a pity to do that as you only have eight years to go to get your long service leave. "Only eight years, and I groaned again "Uh". Well that 8 years went and another 14 years after that, before before the crunch came.

I had quite a few exciting or anxious episodes while I was driving bulldozers, and quite a few hair-raising experiences after I took on repairing them. I've done my back in 8 or 9 times during my career and I've been wearing a cursed steel back brace almost continuously for the last 20 years. This much nearly brings me up to the present, or a little over a year ago anyhow, when the powers that be put certain pressure on me and said, you are to work from Orbost from now on, send us a detailed list of your furniture and we will send a van to do your moving. I knew I wasn't going to do this so I had to explain to this effect that my physical condition was such that it wouldn't be worthwhile selling up and moving at the time, because I expected to have to give up my job at any time from then on for health reasons. The events that took place during the last three weeks of my employment proved beyond doubt that I couldn't stand up to working at the Orbost workshop. I said to myself this is it, I am going to give the job away and I put in a claim for compensation. Well after several visits to Melbourne and being examined by nine orthopaedic specialists and being interrogated by solicitors and a barrister, and one or two visits to the VPSA office to keep them in the picture, there was a settlement reached. This took just over one year to get through, and I think I can say I have finished with that now. I'm only waiting for the Forest's Commission to cough up some long service leave pay, and things will be just about sewn up.

Staff in The Bruthen District During My Time

Cyril Wylie, Reg Needham, Norm Endacott, Allan Eddy, Jim Spiers, John Kellas, Don Beale, Jim Westcott, John Slater, Frank Halloran, Joe Morley, Len Laing, Frank May, Keith Gidley, Tom Morrison, Joe Adams, Chris Muller, Nancy Morris, Merle Dudley, Jim Blain, Monica Duke, Jeanette Sells, Glenise Warden, Leonie Liddell, Dan Kelty, Jack Barrett, Fred Stevens, Charlie Wain, Bill MacCallister, Jack Freeman, Cecil Cross, Jim Hardwidge, Lew Shields, Bob Cross, Allan Cross, Rudolf Calvi, Gus Calvi, Joe Calvi, Fred Stanbridge, John Murphy, Maurie Coleman, Ernie Lambourn, Dusty Klienetz, Jim Boucher, Gordon Stevens, Jim Stevens, Jock Hopkins, Nick Raftupoulas, Goldie Troake, George Miller, Tom Lancaster, Geoff Lancaster, Bob Lancaster, Alf Angel, Billie Williams, Jack Lees, Ian Lees, Ian Noble, Mac Denholm, Dick Denholm, Dave Denholm, Billy Binns, Russell Binns, Peter Binns, Monole George, Bill Morgan, Ron Lowe, Bob Lowe, Phil Morgan, Ted Aucote, George Aucote, Steve from Omeo, Plonk Seears, Ron Keys, Jack Mclean, Cyril Spalding, Stuart Spalding, Keith Spalding, Bill Stokes, Bill Ah Chow, Ted Costello, Jack Howe, Harry Tennant, Roy James, Vic Christian, John Storer, Neil Greenwood, Rocky Marsden, Charlie Curtis, Allan Mclean, Gordon Mclean, Arch Trevanion, Nicki Sztynder, Ricki Struhs, Ivan Jenner, Geoff Jenner, Jim Larkins, Jack Dudley, Bluey Smith, Maurie Stephenson, Len Angel, Kevin Angel, Alex Havers, George Havers, Don Havers, Bill Elphick, Ken Doyle, Frank McNamara, Howard Heath, Fred Wilson, George Lavender.

Some Roads that I Broke Out while I was a Dozer Driver

Playgrounds Road.
Playgrounds Road to Mount Elizabeth.
Re-formed old road from Collins Bridge to Mount Elizabeth.
First 6 Miles of Angora Range Road.
Big Creek Road.
Re-formed old Haunted Stream Road from Omeo Road to Dog Town.
Formed the road from Stirling to Fork Town which we called the 5 Mile Spur Road.
About 6 Miles of the Fork Town To Turntable Road.
Fire Break Road.
Nicholson Creek Road.
Pipe Dump Road from Little Dick Range to Tambo Crossing.
Shadey Creek Road.
Ash Range Road.