Читать книгу A Life of Pride - Alan G Pride - Страница 21

Many of my motorcycle mob come to mind: Pro Hart, Wally Williams, Ray Plusschke and Laurie Heath. Pro’s actual name was Kevin, but I called him ‘Pro’, short for ‘Professor’, because he was always tinkering with eccentric machines and letting off explosives! This was before he became a famous artist, one of the ‘Brushmen of the Bush’, painting direct and simple images of the outback. I remember a big rocket he had set up in his back yard ready to fire, only for someone else, probably a kid, to sneak in and set it off early!

After I moved away from Broken Hill, I’d sometimes visit him on my return trips. Years later he had his own gallery, full of his work and that of artists he admired. On one visit during the 1970s, he gave me two big paintings of desert mines, probably in memory of our mutual time as mine workers, while entertaining me with stories of the UFOs which (he insisted) cruised over the Mundi Mundi Plains. I was never a huge fan of his art, I must say – it was too impressionistic for my taste. His mother’s art was more realistic and I thought it much better; but she’d never sell it.

Wally Williams and I still hung out together as young adults and rode motorbikes together, and after losing contact for years, we reconnected in the 1970s. Wally came over by train to visit my home at Kenthurst near Sydney and as I met him on the platform at Parramatta , we both blurted out at the same time; “Mate, you’ve lost some hair!”

Ray Plusschke was a bit younger than I. We’d been friends at the Warkaroo Hills camps – his dad was one of the organisers – and he later trained as a draftsman. We did a lot of enjoyable motorcycling together. He loved his bikes and once went all the way to Sydney to get a brand-new Tiger 100, which he kept immaculately polished.

He once kept me out of trouble with the law. We’d been riding late on a Saturday night and were stopped in Argent Street, the main drag of Broken Hill, for a cigarette. Up came the local copper, thoroughly sick of seeing our gang racing through town like lunatics and ready to give us a hard time.

“What are you doing here, boys?”

“Having a smoke,” I muttered, fancying myself as a cool motorcycle rebel.

“Well, you’d better get moving.”

I straightened my leather jacket and blew a slow puff of smoke. “No-one tells me what to do!”

The cop reached for his pen and book, happy to get this insolent pest for loitering. Sensible Ray tugged my arm. “Come on, Al, let’s go. We’re going, we’re going.” With a moody glare at the cop, I went. After that, “No-one tells me what to do!” became an in-joke between Ray and I.

Years later, in the 1980s, I was working in my bike shed at Kenthurst when a bloke came in the gate and asked for “Alan Pride of Broken Hill.”

“That’s me,” I said. It was Ray! He’d long since left Broken Hill, married and lived in a lovely harbour-side house, which he designed himself, at Killarney Heights. He’d looked in the phone book for any ‘Alan Prides’ and came out for a drive in his splendid Mustang. We hardly recognised each other at first, but after that we kept in touch. (He would sign cards and letters to me, 'From your young friend, Ray Plusschke' when we were both in our 80s.)

Reg Appelkamp was my cheerful assistant at the mine and sometimes went riding and hunting with me.

Laurie Heath’s story wasn’t so happy. His mother, like Pro’s, thought I was a good young bloke for him to hang around with. I didn’t drink or get up to mischief (beyond riding too fast and giving occasional cheek to police). We’d work in the mines, go shooting and make trips to Adelaide together. But I couldn’t stop him from drinking too much and being even more reckless than I was. Eventually we were on a trip to Adelaide: we’d arrived at 2 a.m, had a few hours' sleep, then set off for Port Adelaide (I forget why). Laurie had a pillion passenger called Mick Terry. We were speeding down a dual carriageway and noticed some police driving up the other way. Then in our rear-view mirrors, we saw them turn and follow us. I pulled over, but Laurie just kept going and the police tore after him at great speed. I followed, and five minutes later saw the police and bystanders crowded around a nasty accident. There in the middle of the road was a wrecked car, Laurie’s bike in pieces around it, Laurie sprawled on the ground, and nearby was poor Mick Terry – stone dead. The car had pulled out in front of them and they’d smashed into it.

The ambulance arrived and took Laurie to hospital. He came out weeks later with a steel plate in his head and pins in his arm and legs, and was then sent to Yatala Jail. After release, he told me he’d never go back, as the sound of prisoners being flogged with a cat o' nine tails in there was the worst thing he’d ever heard.

But go back he did. Returning to Broken Hill, he found that his girlfriend had been seeing a bloke called Mick Vella, who lived at the top end of Argent Street. I’d earlier sold Laurie a 303 rifle for hunting and he took it to Mick’s. The front door faced right onto the street; when Mick opened it, Laurie shot him dead, then sat down and waited for the police.

While he was in Yatala for the second time, I left Broken Hill. A long while afterwards, I heard that he was dead. He’d been released from jail, got into trouble with the tax department, and shot himself with the 303.

( Some of my other Broken Hill friends also came to untimely ends, as a result of accidents. One of my girlfriends, 'Topsy', was killed falling off a motorbike. Wally dated her sister, Margaret: she was run over by a bus in Adelaide. 'Buster' Brown, leaving Topsy's place after Wally and I had gone home, ran his motorbike into a fruit truck stopped in Argent Street without lights, and was decapitated! )

Laurie and Reg with the Ford broken down in the desert.

Laurie and I on the hunt.

With Ray Plusschke outside his place, West Broken Hill 1949.

Laurie and Wally at the dusty old shearer’s hut.

Taking Bob Treglown to Adelaide on BSA B33, 1948.

Bob and I on our trip, 177 miles from Broken Hill.