A chat with Tony Bendeich over Christmas Lunch

During a lovely Christmas lunch, Ron asked Tony “when did you first start fishing?”

…and he said “Well, I was born in 1925 at home at Dora Creek, which is half way between Gosford and Newcastle, near Awaba and Morisset. I was the 8th child of 9, and had 5 sisters and 3 brothers. My Father was a railway fettler. My Dad had a rod and reel but us kids had to use saplings with some line attached to the end of the sapling. We mostly caught bream, flathead and blackfish and of course collected heaps of Tassie Scallops. Sometimes we would boil up a chaff bag full of them.”

“When I was five we got electricity and street lights and then the travelling picture show would come to town once a month. I went to primary school at Dora Creek and then to High School at Gosford by train leaving home about 7:30am for the 1 hour trip to Gosford, returning home by 5pm each school day. My elder brothers and sisters used to ride horses but they don’t have brakes on them so I haven’t been on one since I was about six years.

“I left school in 1940 and became an apprentice in the motor trade. This was at the Ford dealer in Gosford. After working at Ford I then did motorbike repairs. I owned a 1925 Douglas, it was a 250 twin belt drive with no clutch and a 2 speed gearbox with no kick-start. You just pushed it, jumped on and hoped it fired up. I was in the Gosford motorbike club in the 40s and 50s. We had a race track at Somersby, it was a mini TT track and we raced against Newcastle and Sydney clubs.

In 1952 I went to work at the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Authority at Tumut Ponds. I did mechanical work on Yankee Dodge trucks and Land Rovers and Leyland tip trucks, Hippos, Octopus and International Tractors (bulldozers) and TD24s, they weighed 24 tonnes. While I was there I did a bit of bait fishing and lure fishing.”

“In 1955 I moved back to Gosford Ford and graduated to Service Manager till 1965 when I started my own business at Terrigal. It was the Terrigal Neptune Garage, Service Station and Repair Shop. I had the Victa Lawn Mower agency there as well. I had that for 7 years and then went back to Gosford where I bought the Ampol Service Station at East Gosford.

I was presented with a plaque from the INSTITUTE OF AUTOMOTIVE MECHANICAL ENGINEERS after fifty years of membership. I met Nancy in 1979. She lived near my service station. About then I gained my pilots licence and bought a Cessna 182. After that we bought a fast food shop at Toukley. We sold that in 1982 and moved to Lakewood and bought the Pizza and Cooked Chook Shop in Laurieton.

In 1984 we opened a second hand shop at North Haven. We sold the Pizza and Chook shop and, in 1986, we bought 42 acres at Kew near the Golf Club, built a house on it then sold it. Nowadays I can’t stand eating or even touching chicken after cooking it and selling it in the shop. We bought a block of land at Harrington and built a house on it and lived there for 15 years before moving back to Laurieton in 2003.

I had started fly fishing for about a year before meeting John Macleod at a HFF Demo Day at Lakewood Village. Some of the motorbikes I have owned were, a 1928 350 Douglas chain drive with a clutch, 350 Ariel, 500 Matchless, 650 Panther, 350 Velocette, 1949 AJS 500, I bought that one BRAND NEW, 49 Matchless 500, a Honda 750 four, also had a Honda XL 175, which I bored out to 200, 2 BSA Bantams, a Russian Cossack, a Triumph Speed Twin and a Honda Dream.”

So after lunch and a bit more talking, Tony dished up our dessert, which HE had cooked using a recipe from his mum’s cook book. We had the most delicious stuffed apple dumplings with hot custard … YUMMO!!!! Anyway, Tony just happened to have cooked five of them, so I just had to have TWO!! YUMMO !!! YUMMO !!!

I hope you all enjoy reading as much as I did listening to Tony talk and writing it down.

Jim was born at Southport near Lancashire in England at the Christina Hartley Maternity Hospital and grew up in the village of Ainsdale, which is five miles from Banks and Five miles from Lancashire.

He has one brother and one sister. His dad was a window cleaner and he also grew vegetables for the family. His mum was born in Montreal, Canada and after she married Jim’s father she became a mother with all the usual family duties.

Jim went to primary school in the village and then to secondary school at Birkdale. He left school at 15 and worked at a building firm doing roofing work with slate. He also did scaffold work.

When Jim was fourteen, he and his friends caught Rudd in a local lake on sapling rods with string lines tied to the end. Jim entered his first fishing competition at 15 and won second prize.

Sometimes lakes in England ice over and Jim saw lots of fish killed by ice, and he also saw great slabs of ice washing ashore at the beach.

Jim met his wife Julie at 17 when Julie’s family moved to the same village. Jim lived in the last house in the village and Julie lived in the first house in the village.

Jim and Julie were married in April when Jim was 22 and Julie was 21 and then they immigrated to Australia in November the same year as “ten pound poms”. They arrived at Pyrmont in Sydney in 1963 and lived at Fairfield.

Jim worked at a furniture factory and then at The Viscount caravan factory at Fairfield and after that at Liverpool.

After 20 years working at the Viscount Caravan factory and taking NO sickies Jims boss gave him and Julie a FREE holiday. They flew to Adelaide and then to Alice Springs and toured by bus around Uluru and then flew to Cairns and toured the islands of the Great Barrier Reef and then back to Sydney.

Their daughter was born in 1964 and their son was born in 1969 and they both still live in Sydney.

Jim started playing darts as soon as he could get into the pubs in England and has played in dart competitions almost continuously ever since. Jim’s highest in dart speak “pegout” is 156 which works out at two treble twenties and then double 18 with his third dart.

Jim had a display case proudly displaying his “180” badges. 180 is the highest possible score in the game of darts. Jim played for a Port Panthers team called “The Misfits”.

Jim and Julie have travelled back to England about every five years the last time was about 2½ years ago. They have also travelled throughout Europe and right around Australia three times and also up through the middle of Australia to Daley River

Jim and Julie lived in Fairfield for 26 years where Jim was a member of the Fairfield fishing club. After 26 years at Fairfield they moved to Sandy Point near Heathcote in the Sutherland Shire. Jim spent ten years in the Fire Brigade at Sandy Point.

Jim and Julie moved to Port Macquarie in about 2005.