Victor Leatham

VICTOR LEATHAM(Vic) was born in Heyfield, Victoria in 1950. He started driving trucks for Reg Carmody in Sale, Victoria, doing milk pick ups driving Bedfords and small Internationals. In later years Carmody bought a White 9000 powered with a GM671 towing a 4300 gallon milk tank. Vic carted from factories in the East and South Gippsland and Latrobe areas to Maffra for Gippsland Amalgamate Milk which later became Murray Goulburn.

In the winter months Vic carted spuds out of Thorpdale and papers out of Morwell through House and Medew, which later became East Coast Transport. In the early 1970s Vic moved to Sydney where he met Ron Bush of East Coast Transport and took a job with them. He drove White 9000s and 7000s for a while before being upgraded to a Road Commander. After five years Vic went to Carey's out of Tamworth running Sydney - Dubbo and later doubles to Darwin and Jabiru and North Queensland.

In the 1980s he started with Monier (later Rocla) driving cement tankers and B doubles for the next 20 years. From there he started V&S Freight, which, for the past 13 years has been based at Wagga Wagga. He had a distribution contract for a large national company, and service the Riverina districts as well as Agricultural and general freight to Wagga districts and surrounding towns.

Vic has fond memories of his days working at East Coast with Bob Dale, Bobby Swan and many others he became lifelong friends with. At its peak East Coast Transport ran with over 300 drivers. While the era is remembered as the good old days, there were plenty of tough times and hardships. However, the camaraderie of the blokes on the road made up for it, forging lifelong friendships that have lasted both distance and time. Vic recalls;

"They were the best crew of blokes I ever worked with."