Donald Lawson

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at Reunion 2006.

After completing Grade 8 at primary school, Don (Storky) Lawson left to help his crippled father on their small farmlet at Haven in Victoria.  By the time he was 16 he was cutting and carting cord wood.  Don drove his mother's 1937 Chev truck and believes the local constable turned a blind eye to his sneaking around the back roads.
At the age of 18 Don attended a clearing sale and paid cash for a 56TK Bedford.  A year later he purchased a new 1957 Bedford and worked it in the local area on wood, carting hay and drummed products.
In 1959 he married Margaret Taylor and started working for Express Freight doing Melbourne, Adelaide and occasionally Sydney.  He later partnered with Ron Mills and traded in the name of Mills & Lawson until 1974.  Don also continued to do interstate trips for Express Freight.  His first trip to the west was in 1964, travelling over 800 miles of dirt in a Commer Knocker.
In 1972 Don purchased two new Atkinsons to cart polyplastic to Useless Loop but decided, a few years, later to sell out.  He spent nine years managing the loading of trucks for Brennan Holdings at Horsham.  In early 1982 Don and Margaret purchased a new Aerodyne Kenworth, the first of seven Kenworths over the next decade and moved to Mt Gambier where they traded as Greenglade Nominees.  With his eldest son Peter, they worked the Aerodyn, named Napoleon, as a two up operation.  His youngest son, Rodney, joined the team as an apprentice in 1984.  Greenglade was one of the first companies to continually run roadtrains to the West.
Over the years the fleet grew to include a blue K100E, named True Blue, a T600 and in 1995 Rodney's pride and joy, a T900, Napoleon II.  Up until 1989, most of his backloading consisted of 7000 horses being delivered to Peterborough, SA.   They designed a collapsible crate that packed away under the trailers.
He then hauled particle board as a base and toilet rolls out of Kimberley Clark for another ten years.  Don retired in 1999 but after a four year break drove part-time finally retiring in 2007 to enjoy life holidaying with his wife in a caravan and tending the garden.  Don considers that life is good.