If there’s a more colourful character in the trucking industry, I’m yet to meet them.
Enter Jack Blake, a man with a story longer than the Bible – and more interesting too.
But today it’s all about his trucking story. More on the rest at a later date.
Jack tells me he grew up in the industry and spent every weekend washing trucks for John Carson Transport.
It was just something that he did with pride, being around the trucks, and as a young fella he was hooked.
Eventually, as it usually goes, Jack progressed to driving them for a career.
The first truck he ever drove was John Carson’s G89 Volvo, carting hanging meat from Melbourne to Adelaide, which kept him busy for a few years on the highways.
Jack was driving from the age of 19, doing mainly interstate, and spent most of the 80s and 90s running over to Perth and back.
I have heard from good sources that Jack has done more kilometres in reverse than some have in drive, but I’ll leave that for the campfire conversation.
Once he’d done interstate, he sought a seachange and went over to the UK for 11 years, doing all kinds of things.
Jack was a regular on the Neil Mitchell radio show, where he’d ring in from the UK with updates on his travels.
Currently driving a Kenworth T909 for Graham McKay Earthworths, he carts gravel, stone and pre-coat all over Victoria and the lower parts of NSW.
According to Jack, the best place to eat would be, without a doubt, at the George and Kids fish and chip shop in Stawell.
They have excellent food and you’ll always get a yarn out of George, he assures us.
The best part of his job is that he is left alone to get the job done, which he says helps as you get older.
The advice Jack gives new drivers is to listen to experienced drivers who try to give you advice.
If blokes or ladies have been in the industry a long time and they want to help you, and if they have taken time to pass their knowledge on, then you should give them respect, he says.
- For more great pictures from Darryl, and the chance to be profiled in Big Rigs, visit his Facebook page here.