A Life of Pride. Alan G Pride
a drive in my Model T, so we packed up some leftover chicken pieces in a cardboard box, took a bottle of soft drink and off we went. Pro’s sister rode with him in the cab; his brother, Bob, and I perched on the sideless tray with Bob’s girlfriend, Grace. Pro was driving a bit erratically. He took a bend in Oxide Street far too fast and though I hung on, Bob and Grace went sliding off the back onto the road! They hit the dust with Bob still clutching a chicken drumstick and Grace screaming. Luckily they weren’t hurt, so we helped them back up onto the tray and kept going. It was all great fun to a bunch of teens, no safety rules and lots of optimism and good luck to keep us alive.
Sunday morning races were held on the main road going out of Broken Hill toward Sydney, the 'Mad Mile.' The 'racecourse' ended at the point where the train line crossed the road, and a lookout would be posted to warn of approaching trains. Lots of people would come to watch – it was certainly more fun than church! My friends and I were right in the thick of it and I often won.
I eventually sold the Model T to Pro, and typical Pro, he painted it with yellow and black stripes, dotted lines around the doors, and under the dotted lines, ‘tear here to open’ – just like a Cornflakes pack. So we both ended up with lots of petrol coupons for our bikes. Seven gallons should have been enough, but once we had our licenses, we started going on longer and longer trips and racing our bikes against each other.
The bright lights of Adelaide, the nearest city, beckoned us – over 500 kilometres from Broken Hill on terrible roads, all dust and corrugations. I’d knock off work at the mine mid-afternoon on a Friday, go home for a change of clothes and tear off to Adelaide. A stop half-way in the tiny town of Oodla Wirra, fill up with petrol, check the tyres and have a pie, then into Adelaide in the early hours of the morning. I loved speeding and hearing the roar of my own motor, which meant that I’d go through some of the tiny outback towns raising a hell of a noise at 1a.m. This infuriated a local cop, who made it his mission to catch me. But the police bikes weren’t as gutsy as mine and I got enormous joy from having him eat my dust. Once, my ego got so oversized that I went past his police station standing up on the bike, with my pants down!
Sometimes I’d be caught, by him and others. I was so blasé about it that my regular speeding fines, which arrived by post, were also paid by post instead of my bothering to attend court. I had my own income now and would do as much as I could get away with.
Aunty Maud would leave the sleepout door unlocked at her place in Adelaide so I could crawl into bed, wake up covered in dust and have a wash, before heading out into the weekend. Then on Sunday afternoon, back to Broken Hill for work on Monday. I must have been late getting back too many times, though, as Wally and I, motorcycling back to Broken Hill from a trip out of town, were once unexpectedly rained in; this made us late for work and I was told that I'd be docked a week's pay if it happened again.
Chapter 12
The Joys of Motorbikes and Girls
Part of the attraction of Adelaide was our discovery of GIRLS. I don’t recall any proper sex education back then, it was probably just advice to abstain. But once hormones hit, most of us would no more have ‘saved ourselves for marriage’ than do today’s teens.
I’d already been propositioned, by an attractive young married neighbour. I was about 15 and she was probably bored and lonely, but I was too embarrassed to go along with it. Came 16 or so, though, my friends and I started chasing girls our own age.
And they laid down the law; “If it’s not on, it’s not on!” Condoms were the only reliable contraceptive for us, but getting them could sometimes be embarrassing. One of my friends wanted some, so I went with him to the chemist. Broken Hill being a town where lots of people knew each other though, it wasn’t easy. The first chemist had a girl behind the counter whom we knew, so we awkwardly bought sweets and kept going. The next chemist said in an outraged voice: “This is a Catholic establishment! We don’t sell that sort of thing here!” Even more red-faced, we hurried out. I think we had luck at the next one, but not surprisingly we sometimes turned to 'Tiger', a friend who was cheeky enough to buy boxes of condoms and resell them individually, at a huge profit.
And then, where to keep them so that our parents wouldn’t find them? I remember one weekend when we were planning to race off to a dry, sandy creek- bed out of town with our girlfriends for an evening’s bliss (our families probably thought we were at the cinema). My friend’s girl had agreed that this would be THE TIME – but where could he store the vital rubber ‘till then? I suggested: “Put it in your bike headlamp!” So off we went, each couple taking a blanket to their private love-nests along the creek. But when we regrouped later, he and his girlfriend were in a terrible mood – he’d forgotten the vital screwdriver to re-open the headlamp!*
I soon had the luxury of two girlfriends in Adelaide, as well as one in Broken Hill. One of the Adelaide girls was a lovely nurse who only had the weekend off occasionally. We’d go on hill-climbs, or rides, visit motorcycle shops, or race our bikes (I still have the certificate for winning a motorbike race at Sellicks Beach in 1950, a ‘Three Mile Event at an Average Speed of 95 Miles per Hour’ on my 500cc Triumph.) This probably wasn’t great entertainment for the girls, but I was very self-centered.
Other weekends I’d spend in the town of Mildura, about 260 k’s south of home, with my Broken Hill girlfriend.
The road then was mostly dirt and potholes. I had my 1916 Harley Davidson, an old-style bike with no proper pillion. It only had a luggage carrier on the back, so I strapped one of my mother’s cushions onto it and off we went. We bumped through Sandpar sheep station about 60 k’s out of Broken Hill, and stopped at the shop there. A bit after this we started hitting an area full of sandhills, a very tough ride. I’d charge up the sandhills with my girl clinging on behind, we’d just reach the top, then I’d lose traction and skid down the other side. Eventually, the dunes got so tall that she would have to jump off and push while I revved the engine. Not very pleasant, because she’d be getting sprayed with a rooster-tail of sand from the wheel! As soon as I got traction I had to keep the bike under power to reach the dune crest, so I’d be sitting there with the engine idling, waiting for her to catch up. No way to impress a girl! She was doing the same sort of job I’d done on the trip to Quinyambie station, minus the shovel and roll of carpet. Why she kept going out with me, I don’t know.
The main attraction of Mildura, when we’d finally arrive, was the chance to be together away from the goldfish bowl environment of Broken Hill, staying at a nice boarding house run by the broad-minded Mrs Lamprey. She'd feed and house an obviously unmarried young couple without criticism. Once, we’d set off for home on a Sunday and ridden a long way, before realising that we’d left a condom under the bed! Crimson-faced, we raced back on the pretext of having forgotten something. She smiled at us and said, “Don’t you worry dears, I took care of it.”
*This bloke was quite a comedian. He had a fox-terrier which he'd taught to walk on its forelegs with its bum in the air, so that when people asked him why the dog walked like that, he could answer, “Isn't it obvious? It's so's I can use his arse for an egg-cup.”
1946 to 1951 were such a busy five years, I wonder how I crammed in so much. Working at the mine Monday to Friday, technical studies five nights a week and some Saturday mornings, buying and selling, riding, driving and socialising. In those years I owned at least 12 motorcycles and 3 cars. My first bike taught me not to buy any car or bike in pieces, because if it’s missing just one obscure piece, it would (long before the internet) take forever to find that piece. The 1934 BSA I kept for 5 months, making a profit on the £6 it cost me, by simply fixing its oil leaks. Then the 1916 Harley, followed by a 1929 Harley 750 with an overhead inset and 9 side valve exhaust – for 12 months.
At that time I was going to dances at the North Broken Hill community hall. I was chauffeuring my girlfriend of the time home, she wearing a long dress she