Brian Wilson

Brian (Spec) Wilson was born in 1940 at the Bridgetown Hospital and started working in the timber industry when he was 14 years old at the local mill.

Moving around and working in various places during his youth Brian ended up returning to Yornup to help his parents run the store. His father also had a carrier business and would pick up goods from the railway station in Yornup and deliver them to the locals.

Brian returned to working in the local timbers mills as a benchman and on the lever and brought a lend lease Chev truck to start carting firewood, despite never having a driving test of any sort.

When the mill started to run out of logs Brian would load mill logs with an old crane and bring them in for processing. Owning several different types of trucks Brian delivered logs to the Bloxsome and Lipple Mill as well as the Greenacres Mill eventually taking over the lease on the Bloxsome and Lipple Mill.

It was during this time Brian started to cart Karri logs to WA Chip and Pulp in Manjimup which he still does today although it is now Blue Gum Plantation Timber. Now days the majority of deliveries are to the Bunbury Port where the logs are chipped and in field chipping deliveries are stored to be exported overseas.

Brian expanded into carting goods to Perth along with sawn timber, livestock, wool, potatoes etc and returning with general freight.

Brian, his drivers and his trucks also had stints of taking freight up to the north of WA during a time when the North West was expanding into the oil and gas fields initial stages of development

Brian married Daphne in April 1963 and along with all the children they are still involved in the business today with Rodney supervising the farming properties. They still live on site of the old Yornup store and have done so for over 46 years with the business office right next door.

Brian and Daphne did take some time away from the business to travel around Australia including Alice Springs and Cooper Pedy and would like to travel more into the future.

Wilsons now employ over 100 people on a full time basis with over 40 trucks and 90 machines working to process and deliver logs and woodchips around the Lower South West of WA.

ReUnion 2017