Lonny Pendleton: 40 Years Behind the Wheel

In-depth

18 May

I don’t know how many lady truckies were driving Big Bangers 43 years ago, but I’d reckon there were not too many. Here is one of the few….

Lonny Pendleton came to Australia from Holland some time ago. “I can’t say when because it would be giving away my age,” she says with a smile.

She fell in love with this country and has a piece of paper to prove it. Her now ex-husband was a farmer/truckie and the couple lived in Adelaide. He had a Kenworth K125 and, when Lonnie had holidays, she would join him in the cab.

**Lonnie’s dad was a truckie in Holland**

“I used to go on those trips when we first met and then one day I asked if I could have a drive. He said, “Can you handle it?” I replied that it would be a piece of cake, which of course it wasn’t. That first trip was with 36 tons of super to deliver to farms at Sea Lake. I was sitting on the engine and he agreed to let me have a go. He changed the gears while I was steering. His instructions on that trip were to not go over 80 and to stay to the left of the white line, which looking back on it, sort of made sense as I came from a ‘drive on the right’ country. That’s how I learned to drive a truck.”

**Lonny on the roof with sister, Maria lending a hand**

“The truck was a K125 with 15 speed direct and no power steering and had 411’s in the back. It used to go alright for those days.

I did 18 months ‘apprenticeship’ with him and then I decided to be Miss Smarty Bum and said, ‘I can do this and I want my own’.

“Unbeknown to me he had gained a Cubico freight contract so he bought another truck and ‘surprised’ me with it. The truck was a single drive CK30 UD with a five speed and a two speed backend. I looked at him and I said, ‘I’m not driving that!’

“He said, ‘Yes you are! You’re doing your apprenticeship in that for six months. You’re loading wool out of Port Adelaide and if you don’t put it on its little arse you might turn out to be a good driver, so off you go.’

“So I did my six months and then the keys got exchanged and I ended up with the Kenworth. It was the start of 40 years of driving. Along the way the marriage broke up but we’re still good friends. We just live apart. I think he’s very quiet and I’m a little bit more outgoing. He’s a good bloke, not a problem.

“I drove that K125 with an 871 in it for close to 10 years. I ended up with a 290 Cummins which had power assist steering so I was over the moon. After that I had a 352, and that’s when I had the accident 33 years ago. I got taken out by a drunk driver.

“He took my side of the road. I saw him coming and I thought, ‘Oh shit!’ Of course, in a cab over there is only a small piece of aluminium between you and oblivion. If I got my head down and my legs up I thought I would have a fair chance, so that’s what I did. At the last second I dived across the engine and then the gearstick got stuck in here.” Says Lonnie, pointing to her side.

“This was just outside of Bordertown. I won’t say the name of the company. I don’t bag companies because it wasn’t the company’s fault. But obviously it was another truck. They flew me to the Royal Adelaide. I wasn’t going to make it, but I did. Fifteen months later I climbed back in the truck.”

**Lonny's last Adelaide - Melbourne trip with a tarp.**

“It was John (Lonnie’s current partner) who came to pick me up and said, ‘Let’s go for a drive into town’. At the time I didn’t want to go near a truck again but eventually he talked me around. Then came a Ford Louisville – which I still have and intend to restore – followed by an L 9000 which I’ve just recently sold. I ended up with a Ford Aeromax which I still have in the shed.”

“It gave me a good life and allowed me to be self-sufficient. If something went wrong and I couldn’t handle it I could yell out to my ex and ask him for a hand. As I said we are good friends.”

Lonnie’s 40 years on the road ended two years ago when she traded it in for retirement. Here she lets slip that she is now 70. She certainly doesn’t look or act it. From a new immigrant to our shore at the tender age of 19, she has seen more of the country than most who were born here.