You Can’t Judge a Book by it’s Cover… and You Shouldn’t Judge a Person by Their Truck

In-depth

28 Dec

Joanna, Mick, Molly and Fiona Courtney. The Hino and Mitsu proudly bear the names of their grandchildren.

Mick Courtney has been behind the wheel for a while now, and those wheels have been many and varied, as have the jobs he’s undertaken - not unusual in the trucking profession you might say.

But as with most people, Mick’s life is much more than just driving – and being judged by the truck he drives.

This story began when I posted my video of the recent Castlemaine Truck Show Convoy. Amongst the many comments I received was one from Mick, who said what a great show it was and how much he and his wife and daughter had enjoyed it. He also expressed disappointment that the two trucks he’d brought to the show hadn’t made the cut in the video and that maybe he should attach a Kenworth badge to his 1997 Scania and the Mitsubishi FM 618 the family had brought to the show.

This led to me having an on-line conversation with Mick in which I said that I’d not cut out his trucks intentionally. That evening I thought about it a bit more and looked at my edited video again. Yep, it was full of Kenworth’s, Mack’s, Western Stars and other ‘Big Bangers’, and I’d deleted not only Mick’s trucks, but most others that didn’t fall into the Big Banger category. I’d made a video that I thought would appeal to the masses but paid no heed to the effort that everyone else who came to the show had put in to attend.

So I put together a video which has all those trucks in the convoy that ended up on the cutting room floor – and which you can watch at the end of this article – and then I rang Mick. One: to apologise for being pretty thoughtless. And two: to find out more about the man, his family and his trucks. I’m glad I did.

……

Mick Courtney lives in Nambrok, Gippsland (V) and started out driving trucks at 21, carting livestock. He then moved caravans on the back of a truck – the best place for ‘em, many truckies might say – followed by general haulage, tippers and dogs and then back into livestock. He’s even been a driver-trainer.

He’s driven a Kenworth’s, Mack’s, Western Stars and everything in-between during the course of his career, but like anyone else he always dreamed of owning his own business.

Mick’s wife, Fiona is also a truck driver in an age when there aren’t too many females behind the wheel. Fiona got her MR licence about 15 years ago and upgraded to her HC some 5 years ago, driving for companies including TNT.

A guy said to her on her 1st day that “tits and trucks don’t mix,” and how “truckin is a man’s game”. She definitely proved him wrong. Fiona shared Mick’s dream and the couple chipped away at it until they finally got there about four years ago.

“We had a Hino FD and were buying Bobby Calves (bull calves) off dairy farms around Orbost,” said Mick. “I would truck them to the abattoirs at Cranbourne.”

An opportunity came up to buy a prime mover, an old Scania. The deal was meant to come with a tanker which did water deliveries but that didn’t happen, so Mick and Fiona – who’d seen that as another business opportunity – went out and bought their own. The water cartage took off and allowed the couple to invest in a three pen, 40 foot cow crate which Mick did up.

“The Scania is a 1997 streamline with the 450 V-8. It’s 85 ton, B double compliance rated. Back when it was new it was the biggest Scania they made. They are just a bloody good old truck and it’s got tipper hydraulics on it which makes it versatile. It is a real multipurpose vehicle,” said Mick. “The truck is just on 1 million km now, having only done 70,000 km since we bought it about 2 years ago. It doesn’t go far and it doesn’t need to work every day. I’ve subbied it to Membrey’s a few times towing their trailers and moving a bit of their stuff around.”

The Courtney’s followed the Scania with the purchase of an ex Fire Truck – a twin cab Mitsubishi FM 618.

“We have the cow crate for carting a few cows and we have a 20 foot crate for the twin cab Mitsu. We’ll pull the crates off and do a bit of hay, silage and stuff in season, so the trucks are always doing something. There’s a bloke at Traralgon who fabricates oversize steel, so l’ll hook up his flattop, extendable trailer and do oversized stuff to Melbourne occasionally for him in the Scania.”

So the Courtney’s have three trucks and only two drivers? Well, no. And that’s because two of Mick and Fiona’s three daughters – Joanna (21) and Molly (19) - have their truck licences.

Molly got her driver’s licence on her 18th birthday and three days later there were some calves to pick up at Orbost, a 5 hour round trip. So with Driver Under Instruction plates on, Molly was behind the wheel of the Mitsubishi. Twelve months later she did her medium rigid test, passing with flying colours.

“We have a good relationship with TDT (Truck Driver Training) in Sale. They were booked out for three months but when they heard it was Molly, Instructor Nicole said she’d squeeze her in – coming in on a Saturday to do so.

Nicole said it was one of the most boring tests she had been on. “I was waiting for her to do something wrong so I could write something down but she had absolutely no faults at all with the driving.”

“I wasn’t surprised,” said Mick. “She could back a B double stock crate onto a loading ramp when she was14 years old. She can do everything. She is an amazing young lady.”

“Carting cattle is of course different to general goods. While I’ve carted everything, water, milk, livestock, general. Livestock is the only freight that can tend to throw you off a straight road. You go under a low tree branch or a bridge or something and they spook. You can feel it. An old bloke who l used to work for, and who had cattle trucks said if you can drive a tray truck full of cattle you can drive anything.

“When you cart livestock driving the truck is only half the job. You have to know how to work cattle in the yards and run them along fences and all that to get them in the truck safely and effectively. Anyone can jump in a truck and put it into gear but you have to get the freight on the truck. She (Molly) is very good at it. She has a MR licence as mentioned, but she will be going beyond that for sure. The Scania beckons.

“Everything I’ve said about Molly applies equally to Joanna. She is just as adept at handling cattle. Joanna works for a company in Maffra - Future Dairies Gippsland -where she drives a medium rigid truck delivering goods to farmers from Traralgon to Orbost. Joanna has had her MR licence for about 6 months. She helps out the family business when her time permits.”

“She (Fiona) usually goes to Orbost to pick up the calves, swapping with Molly at home. Molly takes them on to Cranbourne. Then we do the water cartage to Loch Sport and other places around here.”

So the Courtney’s have three trucks and three women in the family with truck licences. I wonder if that’s a family, female, truck driving record? I can see Mick getting pushed out in the cold.

“I’ve balanced it up – sort of,” said Mick. “We have 2 grandsons, Nate and Teddy. They’re both 3 and they’re Poppy’s boys. The twin cab Mitsu has Nate’s on the front and the Hino carries Teddy’s name. So the boys have their own trucks - and don’t they know it!”

“Ashlea doesn’t drive a truck but she helps out occasionally with the lawn mowing jobs,” said Mick. “Sorry, forgot to mention that. Ashlea is our eldest daughter at 27. She doesn’t have a truck licence (yet). We have a mowing business as well as the trucks. We have seven ride-on mowers and four mowing trailers. We do a lot of yard clean-up, some work for real estate agents – that sort of thing. We’re flat out with that and Ash helps us out. It’s a love job.”

. . . . . . .

Being a family of truckies, it was only natural that the Courtney’s may want to attend a truck show.

“I rang EJ (Morris) and I said we were thinking about going and of course, EJ being EJ, he said, ‘absolutely you are!’ Molly was mad keen. We were still on the fence Wednesday, Thursday. Molly had her bags packed on the Monday.

“So we went up and it was an awesome weekend. I know Craig (Membrey) so caught up with him and had a look at his new SAR Legend and all. Had a few drinks on the Saturday night and I reckon Molly was up at dawn, ready to do the convoy through town. She was as proud as Punch to be in it.

“Like anyone else, it’s really cool if you see your own stuff on a video or TV, or if you’re in a photo. We are no different to anyone else in that respect. We watched the videos with great excitement to see our own trucks in the convoy. We went through every photo posted as well, hoping to see a cool one of our trucks.

“But nothing. I really felt for Molly and Fiona. Women in trucking is really only an emerging thing and it would have been brilliant to see them in something – not only for themselves but for their gender to aspire to the industry.”

**Joanna riding Shotgun as Molly steers the Mitsu in the Castlemaine Convoy**

“We are always in the background, we’re always skipped past because these are only Scania’s and Mitsubishi’s. Truck shows are all about Kenworth and Western stars and not really about anything else. And yet, everyone who turns up to a truck show puts a huge amount of effort in presenting their truck in the best possible light – Molly near polished the paint off that Mitsubishi.”

Mick and the girls did a convoy at Yarram recently in aid of men’s mental health. Called the Looking Good, Feeling Good Convoy, the family was keen to be involved.

“Yes, well we like to show our trucks off - the twin cab, the Hino and the old Scania. The older blokes like the Scania but all these young bucks, if it hasn’t got a Kenworth badge on it and you can’t see yourself in it then it’s not worth looking at. And that’s disappointing because we put as much effort into our stuff as everybody else does.

“I was walking back to our trucks with a raffle prize I’d won and a bloke yells out disparaging remarks about our trucks. There’s no call to do that period, much less at a men’s mental health event. I don’t understand why people would deliberately belittle someone or aggravate someone like that. For what benefit? Everyone has moments where they gets sad and a bit depressed and that sort of function particularly is one where you should come away feeling better than when you walked in.”

Supporting mental health is just one of the Courtney’s endeavours. Fiona spent time in the Royal Children’s Hospital as a baby, as has a grandson and friends children. Ten years ago the family started a fancy dress fundraiser in their town. They get bands to play for free, supply meat and salads and run an auction to raise money for the hospital. For the past three years they have also donated 5% of the money earned from both their water carting and lawn mowing businesses. To date the family have donated more than $25,000 to the Royal Children’s Hospital.

On a local level they are involved with a number of committees and even mow their local Catholic Church’s lawns gratis.

“We do a lot of things like that and not for any recognition. We just think it’s the right thing to do.”

. . . . . . .

Mick Courtney and his family are like many other trucking families. They’ve worked hard for what they’ve got and look after their equipment. That equipment may not have a ‘Legend’ badge on it but as Mick pointed out they own everything outright. They are proud of what they’ve worked for and understandably take some offence when a young bloke who doesn’t even own the big banger he’s leaning against, slags them off.

Am I guilty of sneering at old trucks? No, quite the opposite for I actually love them. But I am guilty of ignoring them and consequently the efforts of people like the Courtney’s who spend time and effort – and lots of dollars – to attend shows such as Castlemaine. And for that I apologise.

Below is the video of those trucks at Castlemaine. Please give it a like on You Tube, not for me, but to show your appreciation of their collective efforts. Mick, your trucks are right at the beginning mate.

FORGOTTON? NO MORE!