Driving at 10, catching rabbits for coins: Growing up in 1960s bush NSW

When Peter Wright was 12, he embarked on a journey to drive his intoxicated father home over an hour's drive through country NSW at night, when he was faced with a flooded creek.

As the young boy eased the car into the water of the swollen Ten Mile Creek off the Bogan River in the state's Central West, he felt the torrent of water pushing the vehicle.

His father couldn't swim, and though Peter was good in the water, he knew he couldn't help his dad in the drunken state he was in.

So Peter gunned it, and miraculously, they made it out the other side.

Peter said the "good Lord" must have been watching over him on that dark, cold night.

There was another time young Peter drove his father's car home from the pub in Tullamore to their home in Trewilga.

The boy had been waiting in the cold for his father to surface from the drinking establishment, to no avail, so he drove himself home entirely in second gear, such was his limited experience behind the wheel.

Peter had learnt to drive in a paddock when he was 10, like many boys did in 1960s country NSW.

His father would start the car and then let his son get into the driver's seat, the duo working as a team to feed grain out the back of the ute for the stock feed.

"You'd get in the car, put it in first gear and your father would be cutting the bags [of grain] and you'd let the clutch off and away," Peter, now 72, told ACM.

"You go and you just steer it around the paddock feeding the stock out of the back of the car."

In his spare time, Peter used to catch rabbits and sell them for pocket money to buy matchbox toys.

He also played football for Peak Hill as a boy, an experience he cherishes.

Mr Wright's father, the late Reginald Ronald Wright, had been the local stock and station agent of Peak Hill, south-west of Dubbo, and an SP bookmaker.

Peter tells of a time when, as a young boy, he accidentally ran over the town's sergeant on his bicycle because he didn't have any brakes.

The old sergeant was reportedly a "mean and cranky old man" and had been known to have a confrontation with a young Aboriginal man out the front of the local shops.

The young Peter was frightened he would be punished for his bike stunt, and reports believing the sergeant was going to kill him.

When he owned up to his dad that it was he who ran over the sergeant, his dad paid him two shillings.

It turned out the cantankerous sergeant had been trying to fine Mr Wright for years for his bookmaking and he assumed his young boy had been trying to settle the score.

Peter remembers hiding under a bar table at the pub one afternoon while the sergeant came calling. Children weren't allowed in the pub, and his dad told him he'd buy him a cola and chips if he sat under the table quietly.

"I always wonder what would happen if I lifted the blanket up and said, hey, dad, where's my coke and chips? He [the sergeant] would have killed me," Peter said.

One of Peter's most treasured memories is meeting his wife during a card game.

"I threw down an ace and walked away with a queen, got married and had three wonderful sons and now I have six beautiful grandchildren," he said.

Two years ago, Peter discovered he had Aboriginal ancestry, after his wife convinced him to do a DNA test.

"I've got Scottish and Irish heritage in me and I've got Aboriginal heritage in me. And, yeah, I'm quite happy with it," he said.

Mr Wright had a varied career, from a grain merchant, to a farmer, and working with his father in his stock and station agency, as well as doing some house painting.

He experienced depression through his life and joined the local men's shed in Dubbo in recent years.

Now, he writes as a way to manage his depression.

He has penned a children's book about Bobby, a little boy lost in the forest who speaks with all the Australian animals, and has recently been writing stories about his life for his grand kids to read.

Peter Wright's story is part of an ACM series on older residents sharing their precious memories of childhood and growing up in the country