Transcript: Mr Pat Cullen recalls driving the police to accident scenes in his car in Liverpool

Description

Mr Pat Cullen was born in 1912 and was [media]interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960' project. Here he describes his early days in the motor industry, which included driving the police to accident scenes.

Transcript

PAT: Left school when I was fourteen and started working for a fellow named Billy Norman in the main street of Liverpool, which was down near the post office there was a garage was at that particular time. How I got the job as a mechanic, my dad bought a new Buick motorcar to bribe this fellow to give me a job.

INTERVIEWER: From Norman?

PAT: From Norman's. That’s how I started in the motor game. I was fourteen then, that was in 1927, when the first Model A Fords came out.

INTERVIEWER: There wouldn't have been too many cars in Liverpool then?

PAT: No, very few. In fact, the police didn't have a car. And while I was only fourteen or fifteen, I learned to drive an old tow wagon, very well, and when there was any accidents, which was unusual, that there were accidents, I used to drive the police in the tow truck to the accident. Two or three years after that I went for my license. They were quite amazed, to think that I'd been driving around with the police, with no license. [1]

References

Catherine Johnson (ed). Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900–1960 (Liverpool: Liverpool City Council, 1986). http://mylibrary.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/Electronicbooks/Lookingbackatliverpoolanoralhistory-1900-1960.pdf

Notes