RAA’s longest-serving patrol retires
From fixing a broken-down vehicle in the middle of a lion park to breaking into cars in less than 15 seconds, RAA’s longest-serving patrol Chris Bennett reflects on what it’s like to spend half a century helping members on the road. Images: Jacqui Way
Imagine a time when indicators weren’t compulsory on cars and you didn’t have to wear a seatbelt behind the wheel. It was in this era that 16-year-old Chris Bennett scored his first full-time job as an apprentice mechanic with RAA.
Fifty years and a whole lot of car safety features later, Chris – now 67 years old – has put the brakes on his yellow patrol van. He retired earlier this year, with the title of our longest-serving patrol and employee.
As you’d expect, new car technology isn’t the only change the former Henley High student has seen in the past five decades.
“The biggest was definitely the first computer RAA ever got. It was about the size of a car,” he laughs.
“Back then, we also didn’t have mobile phones to get in touch with members, so that made for some pretty fun times on the road. Mr Google is the best thing in the world.”
But it’s probably down members’ driveways and in garages where most of Chris’ memories come from.
“It’s one of the best parts of the job – getting to make a member’s bad day a good day. I’ve had a lot of them shed a tear on my shoulder and would even get hugs from little old ladies,” he says.
Members have made it clear that they feel Chris – like many other RAA patrols – is a knight in shining (yellow) armour, and they often show their appreciation in more than just words.
“I had a regular customer who made his own fresh crumpets and it wasn’t uncommon to go home with a box of 24,” Chris says.
“There was even a young chap – a professional fisherman down the Coorong – whose Holden ute’s gears jammed one night. After fixing his car, he opened the back of the ute, which was full of fish… that night I went home with a few big, beautiful mulloways.
“It’s one of the perks of the job you’re not really supposed to receive these days,” laughs Chris, pictured below in his RAA Patrol uniform in 1974.
Some callouts were a little, shall we say, scarier than others, like one at Two Wells where a member had a couple of big cats in their backyard (we’re not talking about the domestic type).
“It was pitch black and, as I was taking the battery out of the member’s Ford Capri, I heard a loud roar. He laughed and said, ‘don’t worry about it… that’s just my pet lion’.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but I was at a lion park,” laughs Chris.
But forgive him if he doesn’t remember you by name.
“It’s funny because I was averaging up to about 4000 callouts a year so you get regular customers come up and say, ‘I remember you’.
“I’d always start with, ‘what sort of car do you have?’ I’ll always remember the car, but not a face,” he laughs.