Jeff Glover
Jeff Glover was born in Blyth Hospital South Australia on the 25thSeptember 1944 and lived in Yacka, South Australia as a child. He started work at 15 years of age in 1960 working for G Hall and Sons at a drink factory in Adelaide on Norwood Parade. They had a fleet of Bedford body trucks for delivery around Adelaide.
Jeff started working on the trucks as an offsider when they bought a new Leyland Comet prime mover in 1961. It was the first semi trailer prime mover truck he had ever driven, doing trips out to the country town of Maitland on the York Peninsular, about 180 kms from Adelaide. He did this for a few months at the age of 16 years old after getting his driver's licence in 1961.
He left Adelaide in 1962 and went to Oodnadatta for three years working on a cattle station called Todmorden, working cattle and they had a World War II Chevrolet truck that he drove which was used as a camp truck in the stock camp.
He left Oodnadatta in 1965 for Kingoonya in South Australia in a Commer with a Perkins motor and drove the mail truck from Kingoonya to Coober Pedy for a few months, delivering mail to the sheep stations on the way until the boss went broke.
In 1966 he arrived in Alice Springs and got a job on the oil rigs with Oil Drilling and Exploration who had two Peterbilt trucks which were rig trucks used to shift the rigs from place to place. Jeff's job was as an 'offsider' until the end of 1966.
In January 1967 he started working for D.R Baldock in Alice Springs driving a Leyland Buffalo from Alice to Tennant Creek, tracking general goods up and copper concentrate back to the railhead in Alice Springs right through until 1969.
1969 saw Jeff working for Tom Corry who had Ivcor Transport which was part of Co Ord Transport. They had three Mack Cabovers, three Fodens and one Volvo G88 Prime mover. The Macks and Fodens were body trucks and there were two Flintstone R Model Mack body trucks which were traded in on the Cabover in 1970.
He left Co-Ord just before Cyclone Tracy in 1974 then in 1975 straight after Tracy hit Darwin he bought his own C1800 International prime mover truck and got the contract carting transportable huts to Darwin to start housing the people who had lost their homes. He bought his truck from Sally Mahomet who used to be a cameleer in the early days of the Northern Territory.
In 1976 Jeff started carting cattle with the International towing two single axle trailers from the cattle stations all around the Alice Springs district. In 1977 he bought a B Model Mack, about a 1965 model, with a bogie rear axle, carting sand and gravel as well as the cattle.
In 1979 he managed to buy a new R Model Mack with air conditioning which was a god send! In 1981 he traded the R Model in on a new 1981 Superliner, still carting cattle however by this time he had three single deck cattle trailers and two semi tipper trailers. He was flat out over the next few years with cattle carting, shifting oil rigs and carting building products to Ayers Rock in Hi-Tippers for building the new Uluru village, now called Yulara.
Eventually he sold his truck and trailers to Dick David who used to own RTA Transport in Katherine, ex Buntine Roadways in 1984.
Between 1984 and 1989 Jeff drove for different companies doing casual trips. In 1989 he bought back into trucks again carting tippers and ended up with two side tippers, selling out again in 1997 for the last time.
Since then Jeff has still driven road trains for companies like Jeff Gilbert Transport from Adelaide to Darwin and to Kununurra and Wyndham carting general freight and fruit from the Ord River Farm like watermelons back to Adelaide. He still does a bit of driving for A & F Transport in Alice Springs, casually in his road trains.
The early years' driving to Darwin was on the old WW11 army built narrow bitumen road. The government started widening it in 1968, taking over ten years to do the 1500 kms from Alice Springs to Darwin.
Jeff recalls braking down in the Leyland Buffalo out of Baldock just south of Wauchope in 1968 with a load of copper of 55 tonnes after a gudgin pin failed. Lorry Kerin came along in a B Model Co-Ord Mack of 212 H.P which had 55 tonnes of copper as well, so they hooked up Jeff's truck behind on a rigged drawbar and towed him all the way back to Alice Springs with a 110 tonne payload. It was a very slow trip at about 15-20 miles per hour for 350 kms. Both trucks had three trailers behind them!
Jeff Glover did all of his road train driving mainly in the Northern Territory except for trips to Western Australia, Kununurra and Wyndham and to Mt Isa in Queensland with a few trips to Brisbane and cattle trips to Adelaide but has always lived in Alice Springs.