Muldoon to movie stars: Driving dignitaries around the capital

• Author: Chris Barclay
• Published date: 02 November 2021
• Publication title: Otago Daily Times: Web Edition Articles (New Zealand)

How did a 15-year-old who left school to join the Post Office in Temuka as a telegram boy and postie end up steering politicians, judges and foreign dignitaries around Wellington five years later? Talk us through it.

My father and brother were contractors with machinery for roading and dams in Temuka and Ashburton. When I grew up mum said: "You're not going into the contracting business, you're going to go into the Post Office". In those days you left school at 15. I transferred to the telephone exchange in Timaru as a switchboard operator but the big money was in Wellington. They were screaming out for people to go there. I got a bit sick of it after a year but my manager said, "No Trevor, you've got too much seniority, I don't want you to throw that away. I'll put you down in the public service garage, an area you'll like".

Working outside the confines of an office was key, wasn't it?

I was on the Post Office trucks, the old mail trucks and then I was made head chauffeur [in 1970] when I was 20. I was one of the youngest in New Zealand. We used to have a pool of cars. There were 25 limousines. You'd carry anyone from Post Office people to judges, heads of government departments. It was busy all the time, the place never closed.

You'd have made some newsworthy observations after midnight then.

You met a lot of interesting people but you had to be very discreet. You had to watch who you spoke to, you got used to holding everything to yourself, especially when you went to the pub of a night.

And decades later, unfortunately for us, you still pump the brakes on gossiping, don't you?

I always had a laugh to myself about a few things, I can't think of any bloody thing.

Let's get rolling with the cars then. What models did you get to gas up?

When I started they were Chevrolet Impalas, then they went to the [Canadian] Ford Galaxie and from there the Ford LTDs. They were maroon. All the others were black, a bugger of a colour to clean. You had to wash it and chamois it all off. The only car wash there was a big mop.

The job required more than your stock-standard, crystal clean driver's licence, didn't it?

There were security checks and every year we did a defensive driving course. They used to take us to the American embassy, where they'd show mock videos of motorcades and how the driver would be a target . . . all that sort of thing and what to do. Watching those you'd want to be like Scott Dixon, bloody spinning around. Then we'd go to the police college in...