Chapter Twelve
Truck Driving.
1955-1959
My mates lift the bike off me as they smell flesh burning, saying that I should put butter on the burn. As we don't have any butter, they pour engine oil over it. The next day, the doctor goes mad at us and says that the treatment was right alongside us. Cold water. For weeks the burnt area won't heal and the slightest bump knocks the skin off. It forms another scab and no hair will grow there.
The knock on the side of my head causes me to black out from time to time. It happens once at a friend's place during dinner and at the pictures when we go to see The Blackboard Jungle. I'm worried that I'm going to die from delayed concussion like Doug Pulford did, when he fell off his speedway bike. But after awhile, I get better. I sell the Whippet and buy a near new Bradford Station Wagon, which I use for transporting my speedway bike.
Up north at Opononi, a dolphin has made friends with the local people. Then one day we hear that Opo has died.
My stay at Brian's has only been temporary, to help me through the bad times, and now I go boarding (H62) with a family called Calhoun in Sylvan Ave, Northcote. This is down by the harbour and at high tide the water comes in over the footpath. One night I come home from the pictures and I'm surprised to get my feet wet as I walk down the path to the back door.
(This area later becomes the motor way to the new harbour bridge.)
I shift house again (H63) and go and live with Gwen and Ted Howarth at 17 Birkenhead Ave, Highbury, in the middle of the shopping centre. Next day, while riding to work, I come across a chap laying on the road, with his motorbike going around in circles. I stop and help him up and he tells me that he has taken the corner too quickly and has come off. Lou Shilton and I become close friends.
During a mud race with the N.S.M.C.C. I'm riding my speedway bike and I'm nearly one lap ahead of the field. As I come out of the mud onto the hard, the front wheel rears up and I come down heavily on my back, onto a hard lump of clay. It crushes a vertebra in my spine and I'm in a lot of pain for