THE WALLABY TRACK WITH LIONEL MUSSELL

We were living in a caravan at Vi ’ s dad ’ s farm and her brother , Sydney , told me that Ernie Taylor , who ran a little garage nearby , was very busy and could be looking for help . Ern gave me a temporary job to help him and his apprentice catch up with a back-log of work and the temporary position lasted more than three years .

Murphy had a ball at Taylor ’ s garage . One vehicle that gave him great pleasure was a little MG sports that must have had metal fatigue in every part because whatever you did to it , something broke . Studs sheared , nuts stripped and oil seals leaked . We did an engine recondition on it and when reassembled , the motor wouldn ’ t turn as the pistons were too tight and so we tow-started it only to find the clutch was slipping .

When we heard its distinctive exhaust note approaching , everyone had their heads down and tried to look too busy to see what was wanted ! There was just Murphy and me left in the workshop one night as I finished a job on that car and I needed to

move it to another position . This meant pushing it over the large inspection pit and Murph saw to it that one front wheel missed the plank over the pit and the car dropped on to its front axle .

It happened to be right under the chain block used for lifting engines so I quickly put the hook under the front bumper and lifted the car up . As the owner came strolling down the driveway , the bolt holding one side of the bumper bar broke and the car dropped down with an almighty thud . We hated that car !

One of the apprentices was nicknamed ‘ Prawn ’. One day , Prawn was working in the pit and as I walked past I accidentally dropped a large socket spanner on his head . It wasn ’ t Murphy who copped the abuse when he had recovered sufficiently to swear !

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