Nowra's former milk boy, billy boy and butcher ready to ride into 10th decade

Former Nowra resident, Jack Taylor will be surrounded by more than 200 family, friends and fellow bike members as he blows out 90 candles at Pie in the Sky in Cowan. 

The nonagenarian is still a member of four bike clubs and will cruise into his birthday party aboard his beloved 1962 Velocette Thruxton.

Jack grew up in Centre Street, Nowra and attended Nowra Public School. 

At nine-years-old he joined he began a milk run, working seven days a week, before and after school. 

“We always went down to Tarerra to get the milk, that would have probably been three mile down the road, down along the Shoalhaven river going east to Nowra,” he said. 

Not everyone owned an ice chest so Jack had to deliver a half pint again to some people in the afternoons. 

“That was a big job around Nowra, it was a full circle of Nowra. Every night after doing the delivery, you’d have to remember what milk you had given out in the morning, and what you’d give at night, and then you’d “book in” and remember what you’d given all the customers, because you never wrote it down, you had to keep a record in your brain.

“Like - for example ‘Mrs Rhine got half in the morning, and half at night’ and ‘Mrs Dunovan got a Pint in the morning, and half at night.’ You had to remember for all the customers, it was important to have a good memory.”

At 12-years-old Jack got a job as a Billy Boy during school holidays, helping cut down trees in the Cambewarra mountains for railway sleepers and making tea for the men. 

“Every Billy was a different size and I needed to know each men’s tea preference,” he said. 

“The technique would be to swing it round a couple of times and then stop. And when you delivered the billy the man would never drink it hot, he’d let it cool down and drink it cold.

“Instead of water, men drank tea all day.” 

Jack spent his early years swimming in the Shoalhaven River, spending his two shillings at the theatre on Saturday afternoons and riding his horses and pushbikes before moving to Marrickville at the age of 15. 

He worked at a butchery until he turned 17 and snuck into the Army underage and set off for Paupa New Guinea.

Jack returned in 1946 and soon met his two great loves- his soon-to-be wife, June and motorbikes. 

Jack and June married in 1951, by which time he’d upgraded from a 1925 Harley with a sidebox to a 1949 brand new Speed Twin Triumph. 

“There were no helmets back then, we didn’t even wear googles,” Jack said.

“June rode on the back on this little foam pillion seat. She never complained. We were riding the Triumph down towards Fullers Bridge one time, it was a bit wet and I lost the handlebars and we both fell off.

“It put a little ding in the tank and I wished it could have been a broken leg!”

Jack later bought many beloved bikes, even adding two brand new triumphs to the collection at the grand age of 81. 

With an impressive fleet in the line-up, Jack has a solid plan for their future. 

“I’ll die before June does and I tell her ‘this one’s a trip to England, this one’s a trip to Japan- take your friends I tell her!” he said. 

“I just want to own and ride them. The last bike I sold was the Venom (in 2006) and I’m not selling anymore.”