Part 1

Fred is the third generation of his family in Sheffield, a small rural township 75 kilometres west of Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand. It is a small service town on the Canterbury Plains, one of the last on the Main West Coast Road before you wind into the hills and up and over the Main Divide ranges to the wild West Coast of the South Island.
Fred’s grandfather came out from England as a 19 year old in 1862, working as a stockman for the Deans family, a very famous Canterbury family that established large pastoral runs on the Canterbury Plains and contributed greatly to the establishment of Christchurch city.


While travelling and keeping in contact around the world is now relatively simple, it was a big decision for such a young fellow to leave England at that age to travel to the other side of the world.

After becoming established here, his parents and 5 brothers decided to come out shortly after. Father was a butcher, as were four of the brothers and Fred’s grandfather set up as a butcher in the nearby settlement of Waddington, on land he bought there about 1870. This land is now still run by Fred’s son Derek.

Fred’s father contract harvested in the war years when manpower was short, with an old Massey 15 and like his father before him, Fred started doing contract work as well, with the first Clayson 133 into the South Island in 1965. For this he needed a truck, and he knew what he was going to buy!




                           

                            Fred in the cab of the ex-Ogylvie Mk IV he still owns


In the early 60’s, just after Fred left Christchurch’s St Andrew’s College, he was asked to assist in the building of the new outdoor pursuits lodge for the College at Castle Hill, which was not too far away from home. There was going to be a working bee on a Saturday morning and Fred was asked to be at the Lodge site, out in the wilds, to help the driver unload the truck load of building materials. (Note - for our international readers, Castle Hill is near where they created and filmed the scenes of Edoras, the fortress city in The Lord of the Rings movies - it has some beautiful and unusual large rock formations).
On the track into the site, there was a steep drop down to a bull-dozed ford through a stream and then a steep climb up out the other side.
While watching the driver come into the site, Fred couldn’t believe how easily the truck went through the stream and then powered effortlessly up the other side. What also impressed him was that gorgeous sound of a TS3 in full song. When it came time to get his own truck, he knew what he was going to buy!

His first truck was actually a Karrier badged Commer R7, a second hand petrol picked out by Gordon Dowdle, a family friend and mechanic for Midland Motors, a major bus company operating in the Canterbury area at the time. This truck was across the road from the Midland Motors depot in Christchurch at the local Rootes Group dealers - Cooper Henderson Motors.

The Karrier was used for their farm cartage and for contract work, and as with the Commer that followed, Fred found the petrol slopers ‘real good trucks’, great starters - plenty of choke and no throttle until they fired up, good pullers and capable of a good honest days work. That didn’t mean to say they didn’t give the odd bit of trouble....

One day Fred was heading into Christchurch with a load of potatoes and all of a sudden everything went dead and he coasted to a stop. The main wiring loom had got a bit close to the fan and it chopped the whole lot resulting in a re-wire job!


As the contract work increased, a second petrol Commer was also purchased, coming from Rhind’s, a transport firm operating in Lyttelton, the port for Christchurch. While it may have been a near identical truck to the Karrier, Fred found it quite different, being quite hard riding and also having an annoying clutch problem. The graphite thrust bearing in the clutch would wear unevenly, eventually becoming very juddery. After replacement, it would be okay for a while, but then the problem would eventually return. Mind you, the Karrier also had its own quirks. In winter, the carb would ice up in the mornings causing problems, but once hot it was fine.

By 1967 Fred had increased his agricultural contracting business to include 2 Clayson headers and 3 Commers - the 2 petrols and a TS3 Mk IV from Pettigrew’s Freightways in the North Island, which he got through well-known Canterbury truck dealer, Ian Giltrap.

The fleet at this stage is shown to the left.

Next into the fleet was the ex-Olgivie’s MK V artic logger that Fred still retains, and the last Commer purchased was

a four-headlight VC ex- Freightways in Christchurch.

Olgivie’s, had for many years, operated a timber mill and log cartage business at Gladstone on the West Coast and their exploits with overladen Commers are legendary.


After Fred bought the Ogilvie log truck, John Olgivie came on quite a few trips in it. One of these was a load of hay to Greymouth. Descending the zig zag (shown right) in the Otira Gorge with a load was low gear all the way, with plenty of brakes to keep the revs below the redline. This took about 20 mins from top to bottom.

For a backload, they had two packs of timber and an old boiler from the Ogilvie’s mill on the back of the artic, just over 19 tons all up. Unfortunately, it started to snow...

The road they were on is one of two passes over the Southern Alps of the South Island from the flat Canterbury Plains to the wild West Coast. This pass had some very steep climbs including the notorious zig-zag corners shown. The gradient reached over 1 in 6 in many places, (worse on the inside of corners) and towing trailers or caravans was banned. This meant dual trailer B trains had to be split and 2 trips made to get both trailers over. Many a vehicle has come to grief here


John was in low gear at the corner below the waterfall (just out of shot in the bottom left of the above photo) and he knew there was far steeper to come up the zig-zags and at the last steep pinch at the top. With a worried look, he turned to Fred and shouted “I think we’re in trouble here!”

What was needed was a bit more instant power and Fred suddenly thought of the answer. He tried to reach the cold start button from inside the cab but this proved impossible so while the truck was still struggling up the first part of the climb, he swung out the door and round the air cleaner and lay on the chassis rail up against the gearbox, holding the cold start button down until they were over the top. She was belching black smoke all the way and goodness knows how hot things got inside the motor, but she made it!


 

Third in the fleet - the ex-Pettigrew's Mk IV TS3

The Fleet!