The History Vault
This heavy-haul Leyland Hippo seen working for Roadways in the sixties, is representative of the archive of historic images hosted on www.truckarchive.co.nz The site was created to safeguard, host and display what remains of the photographic and film history of the NZ road transport industry.
Credit: Harold Hemming. M.O.W. Photographer
THE PRIME/SKY TV COMMISSIONED DOCUMENTARY SERIES Truck Files – The New Zealand Story, that aired last year on Prime and Sky had a two-fold agenda, explains producer Bryce Baird.
He says the primary objective was to educate the general public about the importance of the industry to the country and to counter some of the negative perceptions that are out there.
Simultaneously it was an opportunity to showcase the industry and make it aspirational – an industry that a young person might like to join.
“There are a lot of grey heads in our industry now, mine included, and there is a massive need to get proactive about encouraging new entrants into an industry that few young people now have access to,” says Bryce.
Convincing a TV network to air a documentary style programme about trucking was a story in itself.
“Most of the networks were only interested in a reality Tv-based approach, which relied heavily on hype and drama, and reinforces entrenched stereotypes that paint our industry generally in a poor light,” Bryce says.
“TV programming has been greatly dumbed down over the last decade. I wasn’t interested in that, so it was gratifying to find that Prime wanted to take a more in-depth look at the subject.
“There is clearly an anti-trucking bias in the news media, not helped by an educational system that doesn’t regard a career as a professional truck driver as a serious option. As an industry we need to be seen to be proud of what we do, and promote what an exciting industry it is, and that road transport offers many career options.”
Truck Files – The New Zealand Story was funded by a group of industry stalwarts that shared those concerns.
“They backed the project for the common good and our industry owes a great deal to Sime Darby, HWR, and Daniel Smith Industries who provided the key sponsorship to get it underway, and also to ETL (Emmerson), Transport Trailers, Patchell Industries, Williams & Wilshier, Summerland, three of the RTA branches, Mccarthy Transport, SML, NZ Truck & Driver, Road Metals and a few others that also helped fund it.”
However, the making of the documentary also highlighted how fragmented the historic record of the industry had become.
“A great deal of the photographic and movie record has been lost, usually because nobody knew what to do with that box of photos or cans of film when the owner passed. It was either dumped or donated to a local museum, which usually wasn’t much of a better option,” says Bryce.
Bryce’s involvement in the industry spans 45 years, and in that time he has gone from driving to writing and photography, and then videoing and archiving the industry, to documentary maker.
He joined forces with Trevor Woolston and Jon Addison in the early days of NZ Trucking Magazine, which they founded, and he came onboard as the South Island contributor for the magazine, specialising in writing feature articles and historical pieces about the road transport industry.