Harold Les Turner

Harold Leslie Turner better known as Les was born at Homebush New South Wales on the 17th January 1927 and passed away on the 1st April 2007. In the early 1930s his grandfather Walter Turner use to work as a mechanic and drive a solid tyre Thornycroft truck with a load of produce from Richmond and Wilberforce area to Sydney Markets.

Les started in trucking watching his father in transport and repairing vehicles. In the mid 1940s Les joined the army then transferred to the Air Force (Air Field Construction) driving trucks. He left the air force in 1946 and purchased his first truck, a 1946 Ford tipper. His first job was carting ashes from Balmain Power Station to Homebush Bay for fill. He realised there was no money in tipping.

Around 1949 Les purchased another late model Ford V8 truck and started carting general freight from Sydney to Melbourne and Perth. This is where his business know as Turner's Transport began. In the 1950s he realised he needed bigger trucks and purchased a Style Liner Federal with a bogey strap trailer and then went on to purchase two Reo Gold Comets with strap trailers and worked mainly between Sydney and Melbourne with general freight.

In 1957 Les won a contract from Metal Manufacturing at Port Kembla to cart copper tube to

Melbourne. He purchased a new Reo Gold Comet F22 R Model with a new wolf strap trailer. He drove this truck himself doing one load per week until the early 1960s. There was a hand full of owner drivers doing this run until TNT Transport came in and cut the rate. Les refused to do it cheaper and quit that work.

Les was then approached to cart Stanton Pipes at Yennora not far from his house in Fairfield New South Wales. This began a long relationship. Stanton Pipes where purchased by Tubemakers Pipe & Steel, then BHP and then Tyco Water. Though all the changes he

retained this work from 1963 to 2007 carting all over Australia and employing over 100 owner drivers with his own trucks and machinery doing specialised carting until 2007 when the family sold to Simon National Transport in Toowoomba.

In 1997 Turners Transport won the national award for the most outstanding Contribution to

the Road Transport Industry from Australian Trucking Association. Les retired in the late 1980s and continued having input with son Don Turner continuing the company till 2007.

Much of the success of Turners Transport was the loyalty, passionate and hardworking

management of staff and sub-contractors, and owner drivers.