The Brothers Leech

In-depth

18 Aug

Some 80 years ago, at age 17, Jack Leech started a trucking business in Castlemaine, Victoria with a Maple Leaf Chevrolet. Moving to the Melbourne suburb of Fawkner and living in a wood shed at his brother's place, his livelihood was carting wood. (Fawkner would have been a different place in those days. Imagine what that wood shed is worth today.)

After the Chevrolet came a Dodge and a move back to Castlemaine where he carted billets of wood into the local foundry. This was wartime and there is a fair chance that the demand for goods and services throughout the war boosted Jack's business. From there, he branched out into general freight – whatever needed carting, Jack carted. From those early days he built up a fleet of 20 trucks.

Married to Dot, the couple raised three boys who all eventually moved into the business. The oldest, Jeff was the quiet one, followed by Graham - the mouth and lastly Owen. Today the brothers run Leech Transport out of Castlemaine.

Jeff didn't immediately follow in his father's footsteps, instead taking up a trade as a fitter and turner. "Three years of that was enough for me, so I got my licence and that was it."

Graham worked for a local wool mill for six months and then told the boss to get f***ed, because he wasn't paying him enough. The boss rang Jack and told him that his son had abused him. Jack replied, "If he did, he must have had a good reason." So it was into the family business for him as well.

Did he get paid more for working for the old man? "Doubtful. I worked a lot of hours for nothing I can tell you."

Owen, having watched his brothers failure in other ventures, wisely decided not to fight fate and, leaving school at 14 1/2, joined them in the company, serving petrol at the family owned Golden Fleece servo (now a Shell) before jumping behind the wheel - like his brothers, before he had a licence. "I figure the statute of limitations is long past, so I don't mind admitting it," he said. "As I remember, the coppers never paid me too much attention.

Jeff's first driving was at 15 from Castlemaine to Elmore to Shepparton where he hand-loaded canned fruit. "The old man was in the truck with me. Coming out of Elmore, a copper pulled us over and declared I was too young to be driving. 'No he's not,' replied the old man. 'He is learning.' - forgetting that we had no L plates on. We managed to get away with it, only because I had already started shaving and dad sort of convinced the cop I was 17. They must've found out my real age because a month later an official warning in bold red print arrived in the mail not to do it again. Back then the government didn't realise how much money they could make out of fines. Wouldn't happen these days."

Owen: "We had a big fleet of Internationals – 180s and 190s. Dad loved the Inters. They were the truck of the day. We bought the first R 200 that International in Bendigo sold. We had a few problems with it. It would grab a piston at 75 miles an hour so you would have to pull up and wait for the motor to cool down. The standard line was: 'But dad, I was only doing 40."

The boys still have the R 200 which they have owned from new, when it cost £7500.

How did the boys find working together over all those years years?

"We've had a few little hiccups here and there, but nothing much. You walk outside, come back in and it's all good. Dad was the same. You'd have a blue and then it was done and dusted."

The business has mostly been in general freight – if it's there to move, the boys will moved it.

"Seems that the work has been everywhere, except here in Castlemaine - Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide. Oh, and not the Territory - couldn't see any sense in driving through the Red Centre. We gave Perth away eventually as well. Too far. There is a big foundry in Castlemaine and we carted a lot of pumps out of there. We did all the big pump stations at the Snowy's. The old man started doing that when the Hydro came into being. Bulldozers as well. We did the Gladstone powerhouse for about seven years."

**Before the family colours came into being**

Who chased the business?

"Dad did originally and then we did a bit, but mostly it's come to us from word of mouth. We've never had to look far for work. Like many others we've done it hard at times, but we're still kicking goals. We do okay. We're into the brick industry at the moment. Probably half our fleet is doing that. We've done groceries and tombstones – we've carted thousands of tons of granite. We're talking 10 to 18 ton blocks.

“There's a market for everything and everything has to be moved. Someone falls off the perch and the family says they'd like a tombstone. No one thinks about where it comes from or what it has to go through to get that end product. We would take it to Orange, to Sydney, all over the place."

**Graham inspects the old Dodge. Who’s holding who up?**

With a heap of trucks in the fleet, do the boys have a favourite brand?

"Some have, some haven't."

"It's a mixed field,” says one of the brothers.

"You ask me and I'll tell you there's only two – Kenworth, and the rest are shit. You know what Mack stands for? Make Another Cool Kenworth! "

**Jeff’s pride & joy. His ‘81 W Model. Bought new and in his garage still.**

"Well, now you have Jeff's opinion," says Graham. "I like Freightliner and I don't mind my Macks."

"Western Star are really good truck," puts in Owen. "I don't mind Kenworth. Not much time for a Mack."

**Owen believes Western Star is a pretty good truck**

Any truck salesmen reading this now knows which brother they should talk to regarding their brand.

The brothers are all agreed in one aspect. They deal with CMV out of Laverton and their service has been 100%. "Spot on backup. Their service is brilliant from the salesman right through to the hierarchy."

**The brothers were inducted into the Alice Springs Trucking Hall of Fame in 2014**

To avoid World War 3, we incite the boys to take a trip or two down memory lane.

Graham: "It was my first solo trip at 18. I went to Coonamble in a Perkins ACCO which was a piece of crap. I came down onto this bridge and hit a huge bump. The fire extinguisher went off and filled the cab with foam. In those days you had your blanket, pillow and bag all over on the left-hand side - all covered with it. Swearing like buggery, I grabbed the gearstick and she came out in my hand. So there I am sitting in the middle of the road, going nowhere.

"I had to lift the cowl up and screw the gearstick back in, cleanup is much foam as I could and eventually got going again. I was glad to upgrade to a 190 later on."

Jeff tells a story about his first trip to Perth. "I was driving a Kenworth cab over. I got to Perth and loaded timber for the return trip. Coming home, I wanted a boomerang for Brian, my son. I pulled up and this old aborigine wanted a ride to Penong in return for the boomerangs. I ended up with two boomerangs and three aborigines. They said they'd ride up on top.

“This was before the road was sealed and with all the dust all you could see were these white eyes and white teeth looking at you from the top of the timber. The grader had been out that day and I had to keep criss-crossing the old and new surfaces. I gave them a ride they never forgot – not on purpose I must add! We got to Penong and they couldn't get off quick enough."

Owen: "I had a single drive Kenworth – a real truck – back in '72. These pricks (as in my brothers), if we were travelling in convoy, would always try to stop me passing and they always failed because I had the fastest truck."

"He always had the fastest truck and the best truck! The favoured younger brother. He's been known to shove Jaguars up the arse after a heavy night."

"Yeah, I remember trying to nick the over-riders of the bumper bar of a local Jag to replace the ones I'd crushed."

"We reckon Owen invented tailgating."

"We did a lot of convoy work and had a lot of laughs along the way."

**Benny Leech is 4th gen into the business. Here with fiancee, Sammi**

These days the business supports third and fourth generations of the family with Jeff’s son, Brian running the day to day operations. None of the brothers have any regrets. "It's what we were bought up with and we don't know anything else anyway. It's given us all a good life, albeit sometimes a hard one. It's supported all of us and our families and continues to do so. If there were any regrets, it would be not being closer to a capital city. Living at Castlemaine, there have been too many miles where we have run empty."

"I remember when a bloke tried to sell us the very first tautliner. They'll never work we said. Shows how much we know!"