John Goodwin

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at Re Union 2010.

John Bernard Goodwin was born 28th March 1923, in Sydney NSW. and educated at Morisset Primary School and Gosford High School. He joined the Army on the 1st July 1942 and was discharged on 27th April 1948.

In 1950 John bought Morisset Hospital bus service from Foggs comprising of a Chev bus and ran it till 1953.  In this time he also purchased Sunshine Bus Service from James Ward thus adding a GMC bus.

John then built up the service by adding to the fleet his first new bus, an SB Bedford with 33 seats, in 1954.  This was followed by adding a new Bedford van with PMC body and 46 seats, a VW Kombi to do hospital runs with 8 seats, a new Bedford Val coach PMC body with 49 seats, an Albion ex-government double-decker Comeg body with 46 seats and an ex-government AEC double-decker Comeg body with 46 seats .By this time the business consisted of service runs, school runs, day tours as well as local and interstate extended tours such as Melbourne Cup tours etc.

It was on a school day tour, on the 15th March 1973, when he lost his life. Four children got into difficulty at Mooney Beach (near Catherine Hill Bay) NSW. He was able to rescue 3 of the children and bring them back to shore. He went back out in the surf and got to the fourth child but he disappeared and lost his own life. His body has never been found.

His wife Jean ran the bus service for some months then sold it. It continued to grow over the following 10 years to 8 vehicles, then to 20.  In the time of running the bus service John's passion was speed boats and water skiing. He raced a speed boat, powered by a Chev Corvette 300CI engine up and down the coast of NSW. The boat was called Robyn after his niece.