The boys are back in town: Lindsay Brothers 2025 reunion

With a £500 nest-egg Peter and Tom Lindsay bought three petrol engines Fords from their father, Victor and hauled fruit and veg from the Coffs Harbour area to markets in Newcastle and Sydney.

Lindsay Brothers was a pioneer in the refrigerated fruit and vegetable transport industry and was one of the first Australian transporters to use refrigerated trailers.

They diversified into timber and fuel transport and the petrol Fords were replaced by the venerable B-model Mack, and a fleet of Louisville’s, with Kenworth dominating in the later years. Interestingly, a driver got paid more for driving a Louisville than a B-model in the early days.

What made Lindsay Brothers so successful though were the drivers and other staff.

Lindsay Brothers motto was: Our Strength is our People. That strength and the bonds made show through more than 20 years since Lindsay Brothers ceased being a family-owned company.

As more than one said to me, “We bleed red and white.”

Last year Big Rigs was invited to Sawtell, near Coffs Harbour, NSW, to join in and witness what turned out to be one of the great trucking company reunions, being that of Lindsay Brothers employees from 1953 to 2002.

Those dates are important because they represent the era that Lindsay Brothers was owned by Peter and Tom, before Peter’s untimely passing in 1998, which ultimately led to the company becoming a public entity – and when, as many at the reunion said, “We became a number, not a person.”

Peter’s daughter, Tracey organised that event with help from old drivers, Warren (Gimmy) Gim and Frankie Thorn, along with brother, Rodney, her children and others too numerous to mention.

Cognisant of the advancing age of many drivers and blown away by the success of last year’s event, Trace decided to do it all again, roping in those mentioned above and more. The result? If last year was a roaring success, then this year went above and beyond.

Yet again the Sawtell RSL was packed for the Saturday night reunion, but the days (plural) either side were spent at BBQs, local cafés or in the Sawtell pub where 70 and 80-year-olds vied for the coveted title of ‘Last Man Standing’, putting to shame the younger pub regulars.

Friendships were rekindled and stories told from another era of road transport.

Lindsay siblings look back with fond memories

Tracey Lindsay started working in the office as “slave labour” from seven years of age.

“I did my apprenticeship at the depot there, which was also where we lived,” Tracey recalled.

“At 20 I moved to Sydney to work under my cousin, Paul (Tom’s son). In 1984 he took over the depot at Austinville and I managed the Sydney depot until 2000.

“I knew every driver in the company. To me they were family. It was a weird transition from being everyone’s ‘little girl’ to one of the bosses, but it never changed our love for one another.

“If someone played up, I had methods of making them pay – often by putting them on a run they didn’t want. They soon pulled into line.”

Rod reflected on how he initially became the only mechanic in the family.

“Dad (Peter) said to me, ‘I’d put you on in the workshop, but I would either be too hard on you or too easy – and I wouldn’t be easy.’ So, he said, rather than make me hate him, to go work for someone else, so I did my time at Kenworth.

“I started my time at Kenwood in Coffs Harbour. They sold the franchise to Brown and Hurley’s who believe it or not, are the best company and best people that I have ever worked for – better than our own family, the Brown and Hurley people. I spent 11 years with them at Coffs and Lansdale, working on our trucks at night.”

Rod said eventually he told Dad he was over this “mechanicing thing” and that he was going to go and drive an ice cream delivery truck, or something.

“He said, ‘I’m not having my son doing that. You better give notice because you start with us on Monday. You’re driving the tanker.’ So I went to Bob Brown and I only gave him two days notice instead of the customary two weeks. Twenty-five years later I apologised to Bobby for that.

Rod drove the tankers then went into the workshop and did 15 or 20 years there greasing trucks and the like – whatever you do to make them go.

“It was hard work. I did a bit of driving too, at night when the drivers were coming out of North Queensland and needed a spell. “I’d do a changeover halfway to Sydney, come back and front up for work the next day. That’s just what you did.”

“The old man and Tom made sure that we were down-to-earth and not act big-time. He and Tom used to have a run-in every now and then.

“Sometimes they would have an unholy blue and you’d think they wouldn’t talk for six months. The next morning they’re in the office having a cup of tea together. It was like that with the people who worked for them too. They would go off at a driver but once it was done you moved on.

“You never told them a lie. I can remember one of the drivers came in. He was standing outside of the office waiting to see Peter who was inside talking about the ‘dick head’ who’d crashed a truck. The old man walked out of the office and the driver stuck his hand out and said, sorry I crashed your truck, mate. Dad says, ‘are you all right?’ Yeah, apart from hurting my shoulder.

“The old man said, ‘Come up the office son and have a cup of tea.’ Then he walked into the pay office and checked the driver’s holiday situation out. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘come back in two weeks, Rodney will have the truck ready and you’ll be right to go.’

“That’s how it was.”

Tom Jones’ cousin got sacked 11 times

Johnny Woodward was 16 years of age when he started at Lindsay’s, doing parcel deliveries around Coffs Harbour

‘I was driving around doing local when Peter said to me he wanted me to get a truck license.

“I can’t, I said. I’m too young. So they arranged for me to go to Brisbane that night with one of the drivers and a load of spuds. ‘Find a Queensland address you can use, get a licence and tomorrow you can bring that truck back with general on it.’

“On the way up I passed a sign and wrote the address down. We got into Brisbane, unloaded the spuds, I used that address and got my licence.

“I went down there one day with Lindsay’s in broad daylight only to find that my residential address in Queensland was the Palen Creek prison farm. I’ve never been back to find out if there are any fines there.”

One of the first trucks he drove interstate was a Thames Trader.

“No one else would drive it so I got it, carting general to Brisbane. Up every morning and back every night, over Mount Tamborine or Mount Lindsay.

“I had a load of Mobil Avgas on the tray and general stacked on top. Now Mobil Avgas is highly flammable. If we’d gone over we could have burnt Queensland out. We did that every night for years.

“One day I go to the office and they say there is your new truck. So I got out of a Thames Trader with a built-in ‘Hill Detector’ to a V8 petrol that didn’t give a shit about hills!

“In the 60s I got one of the new V6 petrol F Series Fords and three of us used to race them. The competition was to hang them around corners so the fuel tanks would drag on the ground with sparks flying everywhere. Peter found out and told us to go drive for someone else if we wanted to kill ourselves.

“It was good fun and the business good to me. I was with Lindsay’s until they sacked me. The truth of it is Peter and Tom, if Peter hired you, you were okay. But if he went away Tom would come in and sack you. I got sacked 11 times.

Johnny said the coppers were always trying to get their licences but never succeeded.

“So, you can imagine when I went in for a test and the woman tells me I’m too old and takes it from me. I was only 80. Bloody unfair!”

Johnny told me that he has a cousin in Wales called Tomas John Woodward, now known as Tom Jones.

“Put that in your paper,” said Johnny.

Wish granted, mate.

Hard work, long hauls, no regrets

Bob Cuthel recalls coming into Lindsay’s one Monday morning, seeing Chris Lindsay and asking if there was any chance of a job.

Nothing at the moment, he said. This was on a Monday morning.

“That evening he rang me up and asked what I was doing,” remembered Bob.

“He needed a couple of loads delivered.

“So, I came in and did the deliveries, thinking that was it. He said I could come back tomorrow if I wanted. That started a 30-year association.

Bob recalls Tom and Peter as hard taskmasters but fair, and tougher on each other than the drivers.

“I remember them chasing each other around the yard with a piece of 4×2.

“The Bean Run, that’s how Lindsays started off, picking up produce all down the road to go to market in Newcastle and Sydney. The growers would ring in the morning and I would go out to see what we had and work out if we needed one or maybe two trucks. There were two big growers at Valla Beach that could nearly fill one truck on their own.

“The growers would meet us on the side of the road, throw the 25kg bags to me and I would stack them on the truck.”

To start with it was all open trailers.

“We would set a trailer up in Coffs Harbour with six-foot gates, put a tarp over the top and leave a hole in the middle of the truck where we could get in and out. And you’d be jumping in and out all day.

“There was a bloke at Wauchope turn off. He may have said he had 150 bags to pick up and by the time I got there it could be 300. Other blokes on the side of the road would give you a hand, but not this guy. He would sit up on the side of the hill in his house watching you do all the work yourself. Sometimes the load was eight or nine bags higher than the gates.

One time Bob knew he was well overweight so they sent an eight-tonner up to take some of the load off.

“We both got pulled up at a weighbridge where he was one ton over and I was two ton over. Peter Lindsay had to pay two fines instead of one.

“We’d do eggs back out of Newcastle, get to Coffs, have to unload the eggs to put bananas on and then stack the eggs back on top for Brisbane.

“Little wonder I’ve had two shoulder surgeries as well as twice on each knee. Wouldn’t change a thing though.”

The Lindsay name was gold, says subbie

Evan Jones was one of the company’s first subbies, carting a lot out of Bundaberg back in the mid-seventies.

“I don’t think there would be another company in Australia of any description that could hold a candle to Lindsays,” he told Big Rigs.

“I’ve never had one person ever say to me that Lindsay Bros. ever owed them money – never ever once in history. The Lindsay name was gold.

“There was a Servo, well known for, ‘No cash – no fuel’. They had bounced cheques pinned on their wall. A driver in bother pleaded for credit and the Servo owner asked who he drove for. “Lindsays.” “Go fill ‘er up, son, they always pay.”

Evan said it was a company where everybody was part of the family and today he’s still great mates with some of the older drivers.

“There is no friendship out there today like we had. Here we are, almost 80 and we’ve got friendships that money could not buy.”

That’s how we did it back then

Danny Ralley (aka Bert) told us that back in the day it was all about road tax and what they called the Interstate Trade Tax.

To register your truck with IS plates – interstate plates – was really cheap compared to state to state.

“But it had to be loaded in one state and delivered in another,” Danny said.

“If you loaded for Intrastate on IS plates, what was called Hot Loading, it came with a hefty fine.

“When you have a company of drivers it’s hard for them to all tell the same lie, so LB’s decided they would go somewhere around the Tugun area and find a spot where they could park the trucks to load them in Queensland.

“So, Friday you got your instructions to load out of Kirra on a Saturday morning. Everybody would be told what they were loading.

“Friday night was party night at Kirra then sleep. At 7am the growers would start turning up in their little utes and trailers. Some might have 20 cartons. Others like Ian Fraser would turn up with six tons of tomato hand-stacked at his farm. Then the growers and drivers would stack it by hand onto the truck trailers.”

Danny told us a copper pulled him up one day and wanted to see his licence and logbook.

“I got them out and he has a gander. ‘Listen mate,’ he says. ‘’I’ve just started my shift and I’m not in the mood for confusion, but can you match these up for me?’ I’d given him a Victoria licence and a Queensland logbook.

‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a matching NSW pair?’ he says.

“’Hang on’, says me…’here, check these out’. He looks at them and says, ‘Perfect mate. Nothing wrong with that one.’ That’s how we did it back then.”

More great memories from the road

Ray Dory: “I started around 1971 until two years ago when I retired. I nearly learnt something.”

Ray Thorne: “The women were a big part of what we did and without them we couldn’t have done it properly. Mother and father to your kids while you were away, she made sure the bills were paid, and on it goes. Sometimes you only got home for one night every three weeks.”

Peter Street: “I was carting bricks when Peter Lindsay rang. He’d broken down at Cudgen and asked if I could help out. I hooked up to his van – and unhooked it two years later, at which time he said, ‘Sell your truck and come drive for me.’ So I did. It was great to work for them and every Thursday night your money was in the bank without fail!”

Warren Gim (Gimmy): “When I started there were 24 trucks in the fleet – all Louisville’s and one Aerodyne. I had a VT with no bed. When you’d done your penance, loading spuds out of Dorrigo or whatever you graduated to a bunk.”

Pat Anthony: “I started driving for them in the 80s. I turned up there at lunchtime on a Wednesday in a pair of shorts, thongs and a singlet asking for a job. Mark Lindsay said have you got a pair of boots? I said, in the car and he started me on the spot. ‘Get your boots on, get in that old International over there and get into town and do some deliveries. I think it was an old C 1800.

“The first time I ever saw that old thing I was only a kid hitchhiking. Lisle I think his name was, pulled up and I jumped up on a heap of old tarps and ropes and here he sitting on an old tin drum with a cushion on it. I thought this is different. And that’s the truck I started in.”

Paul Muller (aka Mullamatic): “The first truck I drove was No 89 out of Sydney. Tracey comes out of the office, tells me to get in her car, go to the supermarket and buy every ‘bomb’ I could think of – Flea Bombs, Flower Bombs, Fire Bombs – and bomb the hell out of it! The previous driver had a bit of a reputation.

“Then they gave me No 99. I loved that truck. When they tried to give me 105 I refused point-blank. Then they tried to give me 109 and said if I didn’t get into it I was sacked. I said, bring my ute over here, I quit! I finally bowed and went into 109. Took them a couple of years to get me into it.”