Daughters buy back dad's beloved ute a decade after he was forced to sell it

Monday, 21 December 2020

Mort Cruickshank’s beloved red Braddy was a special part of family trips, weddings and the local Santa parade, until he was forced to sell it. After Mort’s death a decade later, his daughters went on a mission to return and restore his pride and joy. AMY WRIGHT reports.

Everyone in Hokitika knew Mort Cruickshank. Even if you didn’t know him through his job or community endeavours, you knew him by his truck.

The bright and cheery 1951 Jowett Bradford ute was seen on the town’s wide streets most days as he drove to work, home for lunch and back, and home again.

Cruickshank, a fitter welder, bought the truck in the early 1980s, although his daughters Donna Bradley and Claire Cameron, and friend Peter Mitchell, are unsure exactly when or how much he paid.

Mitchell does recall the trip to a farm in South Canterbury to purchase the Bradford.

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“We pulled up at the farm and collected the Bradford, and I remember that the owner had a lot of old vehicle parts and cars in varying states and the remains of what I think was a Tiger Moth fuselage,” he says.

“We loaded the pretty sad-looking Bradford onto the trailer and had a pretty uneventful drive home.

“When we pulled up in the drive, I'm fairly confident that his wife stood there shaking her head and the two girls seemed a bit dumbstruck.

“At no time did I, probably neither did Mort, understand the long-lasting effect that little lorry would have on the entire family.”

The Jowett was built in England after the war. It’s unclear how it came to New Zealand. It may have arrived in parts.

But the lorry – eventually known as the ‘Braddy’ – became a part of the Cruickshank family.

Cruickshank’s daughters recall him constantly tinkering on the Braddy in his garage, rebuilding the back deck and restoring the engine and body. Sometimes they would help him with the repairs.

“The truck was forever in the garage being rebuilt,” Bradley says.

No special occasion was complete without Mort’s pride and joy.

Bradley and Cameron have endless fond memories of Christmas Day rides and Jowett club rallies around the South Island.

Bradley will never forget the hairy trips from the coast over the Southern Alps to Canterbury.

“These were the days before the Otira viaduct, so it was a zigzag. Dad used to get me to hold the truck in gear going up this almighty hill because it would slip out of gear. It was very scary for a primary school kid. It was horrible but quite fun.”

Cruickshank was heavily involved in the local machinery restoration society, Boys Brigade and the Hokitika Brass Band.

“He was a very caring person, a helper. He liked to help people and fix things and build things, lift other people,” Bradley says.

Things changed for Bradley and Cameron when their parents separated in the mid-1990s, both later marrying new partners.

The daughters lived away from the Coast by then. Bradley’s wedding in 2005 was the last family occasion with the little truck present.

Cruickshank then told his daughters he planned to sell it. Cameron recalls she could not believe it.

“He loved it so much that I honestly thought that it was all talk. I was very shocked when he said it was gone and saddened because it was such a familiar object in my life growing up.

“I thought in the end that as long as he was happy with his decision then that was OK.”

It wasn't until much later that both Cameron and Bradley discovered it was not a happy decision. The best explanation is that the truck was sold “under duress”, Bradley says.

“We just had to trust that Dad was selling it because he didn’t want it, that he had had his fun with it and it was someone else’s turn, but we learned different after that.”

Tears and regret marked the sale, both for their father and themselves.

Unfortunately Cruickshank is not here to tell the story of his decision to sell. He died unexpectedly of a heart attack in July 2018, devastating his daughters, grandchildren, family and many friends in the Hokitika community. He was 70.

A few months after his death, Bradley and Cameron wanted to connect with their father through his truck, so decided to find out what happened to it. Tracking it via its personalised number plate, a friend of a friend managed to find the name of the buyer near Palmerston North.

Bradley’s husband called the buyer, and told him of Cruickshank’s death. It turned out the original buyer still owned the Braddy.

“My husband told the guy if you ever decide to sell it, we’d like to buy. He wasn’t ready to sell it so that was that,” Bradley says.

But a few months later, the phone rang.

The buyer was happy to sell the Braddy back for the same price he had paid 11 years earlier – $4000.

At Easter 2019, Bradley and her family travelled to the North Island to retrieve her father's truck via a trailer.

The emotional journey was compounded when the buyer’s young son asked his father whether they were “here to pick up the Braddy”.

“That rung home for me that these people had made memories with the truck like we had. It was bittersweet because I knew how they felt selling it back to us.”

Now warranted and registered, the Braddy has a new home and new memories to make on the streets of Motueka. Bradley uses it as a daily runner like her father did, and wants to keep it around for her two children to enjoy.

Cameron, who lives in North Canterbury, is thrilled her father's little truck has made its way back.

“It brings a lot of happiness to know that his pride and joy is home where it should be.”

Mitchell admits he shed tears when he heard the little lorry was coming home.

“What those two girls have done with is nothing short of a fantastic memorial to their dad … I can imagine the sense of euphoria that they will have felt finding and retrieving a vehicle that was so special to their family.”

And Mort’s little lorry rode the streets of Hokitika once more. In July 2019, on the first anniversary of Cruickshank’s death, the Braddy returned to the West Coast.

A memorial seat in Hokitika was being dedicated to Cruickshank, providing the perfect occasion for the truck's homecoming.

“Locals were thrilled to see it back on the streets again,” Bradley says.

“Dad would have been so chuffed, he would have had tears, I’m sure of it. We did it for that reason really.

“It’s a tribute to our dad.”