<<Rewind 2012: Stropp Gray - The ‘Loser’ Wins!

In-depth

6 July

Prologue: Back in 2012 I was wandering around the starting line for the Convoy to wend its way through Castlemaine to the showgrounds at Campbell’s Creek, where the truck show has been held for all but one of the past 30 odd years.

There amongst the throng was one Andy (Stropp) Gray, with his dad, Lenny sitting shotgun in Stropp’s C509. Maybe the Dumbledore artwork attracted me to start yakking with Stropp, but whatever it was, I was glad I did.

Here is a story that would gladden the heart of anyone who has been trodden on and spat out by the System.

……

Andrew (Stropp) Gray, wife Diane and dad, Len from Ceduna, SA attended the Castlemaine Truck Show for the first time after constant badgering from cousin, Dion.

With Dumbledore, chief wizard from the Harry Potter books plastered on the sides of Stropp's Kenworth C509, the red beast is hard to miss. Stropp's first new truck, the 509 spends its days carting drill rigs to Maralinga and beyond, or hauling grain in harvest season.

Trucking is in the Gray DNA, beginning with Stropp's great-grandparents who were wood merchants in Bendigo, supplying the mines using a horse and dray. The family business ventured across the Nullarbor in 1972 when they were building that highway. They got to Perth, turned around and came back as far as Ceduna where they have been ever since.

Stropp got an exemption from attending school at 14 - a teacher standing him up in front of the class and telling his mates that he would amount to nothing. At 18 he bought his first truck, a 1418 Benz. Two years ago he took that teacher a load of water and charged him $350 for an hour and a half's work.

Stropp said, "Remember how you stood me up in front of the class all those years ago? Eight trucks – this is the last one to be paid for, everything is owned. I've got a heap of earthmoving gear as well. And this was the easiest $350 I've ever earned."

At one of his children's parent/teacher interviews another teacher expressed surprise at Stropp's success, having thought he would never amount to anything.

Stropp's reply was succinct. "I'm getting a bit sick of people slagging the industry like this and making out you're a no-hoper. Who delivers your milk? Who cleans your shithouse? Who carts your groceries and grain? Somebody's got to do it and it's an honourable profession. At the end of the day, stop slagging the industry and saying that we're only a lowlife and making people think that way. Because we're not! Somebody's got to do this for the rest of your life, my life and my kids’ life.”

She turned around to me and said, "I've never heard you talk like that. How would you feel if I bought a few kids down to your yard, show them through your trucks and explain what you just said to me?"

"I thought she'd bring a couple of kids down – she came with 68 in two buses. I spoke to every child as they came through the truck and they all went away with a better appreciation of the job we do and hopefully, when they get drivers licences, respect for the limitations of trucks."

Len Gray's view is that it is far too easy to gain a truck licence. "When we were kids we used to have to go down and wash and grease the trucks of a weekend. That was out of your own love so you could get a job driving the things. When you showed that you were confident enough the owners would put you in a truck."

Stropp interjects here: "Twice, at 16, the coppers had to come down and see dad and tell him, "Get him out of the truck – he hasn't even got a car licence yet."

Last year Stropp parked up six of his eight trucks. "I got sick of the red tape and of drivers who don't respect the trucks. On top of that, with the mining boom, the wages people were asking were just untenable. Owning them, I can afford to leave them in the shed. Whether they come out again or not – who knows what the future brings."

Eight trucks, excavators, owns his own home - Andy 'Stropp' Gray mightn't have been one for the schoolbooks, but he's been bloody great at business!

Postscript: Wherever you are now Stropp, I hope you’re still winning, mate.

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