Lindsay Knight

LINDSAY KNIGHT was born in Mannum in 1950. He was educated at Purnong and Swan Reach schools in South Australia. On leaving school at 14 he worked in onion gardens until he was old enough to get a driving license which he did on the day after he turned 16. In those days that license enabled him to drive anything. Lindsay was soon driving a Perkins powered Commer on interstate. He recalls New South Wales and Victoria police weren't happy having a 16 year old driving a semi in their state but there was nothing they could do about it.

Lindsay eventually he bought his own Ford F 700 series tipper to cart grain and do council work and later worked between Purnong and Adelaide. In 1969 Lindsay moved to Kingston-on-Murray SA. After he sold his truck he worked for the late RI and RJ Smith transport, who in 1971 became his in-laws. In 1977 he bought a Volvo N7 and 36' Fruehauf bogie trailer from them and worked Waikerie to Melbourne.

In 1978, after Lindsay's father in law was killed in an accident, he took over the running of the business and upgraded to two Volvo G89s, slowly progressing to a brand new F12 in 1981. Finding the upkeep too expensive with the Volvos he changed to Kenworths in 1985. In 1987 Lindsay bought three Road Commanders and ran out of Renmark working for Robinvale Transport. In 1991 Lindsay bought his first new Western Star, followed by many new ones, bought from Wakefield Trucks. In July 1996 his Western Star Heritage won "Rig of the Month".

Lindsay managed to go back to one truck which he operated as a road train towing two refrigerated FTE's loading wine each week at Buronga for Townsville and Cairns and returning with bananas out of Innisfail into the Adelaide market. He operated this as a husband and wife two up team which worked very successfully. Lindsay's last truck was bought in 2003 and the business was sold in 2004 due to ill health.

After he recovered Lindsay couldn't stay off the road. He took a job driving tankers for Booth Transport which he is still doing today.