After more than five decades of hard yakka, veteran truckie Andy Dickson has certainly earned a holiday says Wheel editor PAUL ASLAN

Amid all the talk about the growing financial burden of keeping baby boomers on old age pensions Andy Dickson is one bloke who can proudly say he earned the right to retire.
The Kleenheat truckie retired earlier this year at 70 after more than five decades of darned hard yakka.

For 40 of those years he was a TWU member and we have just inducted him into our Veterans Club.

Unfortunately Andy's hard-earned and long-awaited retirement hasn't gone exactly to plan.
No sooner had he hung up his steel capped boots than his doctor hit him with the sobering news that he had a serious problem with his prostate.
Andy had noticed blood in his urine and a subsequent biopsy revealed an aggressive form of cancer was at play. An operation was quickly arranged and his prostate gland was removed. Unfortunately tests indicated the surgeons didn't get all the nasties and weeks of radiation treatment was ordered.
As I wrote this story Andy was feeling reasonably well and hoping for an all-clear. He certainly deserves a good turn in his fortunes. He's done the hard yards to deserve one.

As a young bloke he worked on as stockman with the State Shipping Service on the good vessel ‘Kangaroo'. The job entailed herding cattle onto the ship at Derby and Port Hedland, sailing them down to Robbs Jetty in Coogee and off-loading them for processing at the abattoir. Plenty of blood, sweat, dirt and stink in that occupation. Not a job for the faint hearted either.
I always remember my dad telling me how schools of big sharks would launch frenzied attacks on any luckless cows that fell from the Robbs jetty. He said the sea would turn red like a boiling cauldron of blood, guts and fins. I vowed I'd never set foot on Robbs Jetty again but back then sharks and stampeding cattle held few fears for young Andy Dickson.
In fact his next job was shark fishing with a bloke everyone called Sharkey Nelson.

Andy said he and Sharkey would head out from Fremantle in a 24 foot wooden boat and drop set lines about 12 miles North West of Rockingham. And Sharkey knew how to hook the frightening buggers. On one trip he hooked a giant tiger shark that was longer than their boat. "There was now way we could fit it in the boat so we roped it to the side and made our way back." Andy remembered.
"The massive fish was a huge attraction at the time. Sharkey hired a tent and charged people to come in and check it out. At one stage it was in the Book of Fishing records."

When he was about 23, Andy must have worked out there were easier and safer ways to earn a crust and decided to try his hand on dry land as a truckie. In 1963 he got a start with Mayne Nickless driving Internationals and Bedfords. He clocked up 13 years with Maynes apart from deserting them for about a year to cart for Bells, a big trucking firm in Guildford at the time. The Bells work took him all over the North West to remote towns, mines, construction sites, roadworks and outback stations. You could genuinely classify truckies of that era as pioneers.
"We really did it tough," Andy recalls. "The roads were all dirt from Carnarvon and out to Meekatharra and Magnet. There were no air-conditioners in the old Macks with their V8 General Motors Detroit diesel screamers. No cruise control, DVD's air seats or any of that fancy stuff they have today.
"The seats were bolted straight to the floor and we slept in swags on the back of trucks covered in dust and shit."

Andy's next change of jobs was to be his last. He went from Maynes to Kleenheat and must have adopted the motto, when you are on a good thing stick to it. He stuck with Kleenheart for 33 years, including seven as an owner driver. For the past few years he had been a part-timer. Andy worked out that with the casual loading he could work three ten hour days a week and gross close to $1,000. That was plenty for him and his missus. "Thanks to a TWU negotiated agreement which included a tax free $18 meal allowance and a 25% loading we were sweet." He added.

Always a union man Andy doesn't mince his words. "If it wasn't for the unions we'd be a lot worse off" "We'd all be working like Indonesians for a dollar a day and if some of those big multi-nationals ever get their way that's what will happen."
Andy Dickson and his wife Jan have worked hard and raised three good children. They've paid their taxes in full, managed to pay the bills and own their home. Now all they ask for is good health so they can enjoy a happy and peaceful retirement together. They deserve nothing less.