Trevor
Scott
Street machines, road trips and travel hold a special place in Trevor Scott’s heart. A client at Sandybeach Community Centre, Trevor’s earliest memories go back decades when he travelled with his father, Colin. They were on the road once to Port Macquarie, a popular holiday spot on NSW’s central coast when Colin stopped for a break.
“Hey Trevor, come over here,” he would say to his young son, gesturing to him to move quietly and cautiously.
Together father and son peered across the warm bitumen road at a diamond python, stretched out sun baking. “I loved going to the beach up there, doing body surfing,” Trevor says. The family stayed in a caravan park.
An Australian Army soldier who served with the United Nations, Colin took his family on many road trips in their light brown Holden Kingswood. Trevor remembers visiting Puckapunyal Australian Army training base.
“They had a car waiting for us, we were shown the shooting gallery, target practice and we had lunch with all the soldiers,” he says, grinning.
Colin had been to Hiroshima in the aftermath of the atomic bomb attack. He told his son of his experiences in war zones.
“He used to sit me on his knee, and tell me stories. He wouldn’t tell the family everything. He had a glass of beer and would give me a tiny sip of his beer out of the glass.”
Trevor was 18 when he was told his father had died. “His heart gave out. I miss him dearly,” he says.
Now living at Mordialloc, Trevor has been attending programs for people with disabilities at Sandybeach Centre for more than 10 years. He attends cooking, art, and health and fitness programs. He likes abstract art, taking ideas from art books and changing them about. He is fascinated by the detail in Aboriginal dot paintings based on their ancient culture.
A keen traveller, he would like to go to Fiji islands and learn more of their culture too.
More than anything else, Trevor likes volunteering. “You are meeting new people doing different jobs, helping other organisations, reaching out to other people in the community.’’
He volunteers at the Salvation Army, Bentleigh, on Wednesdays sorting clothes and helping customers. “I meet new customers,” Trevor says. “They say, ‘hello, how are you?’ The other volunteers are really friendly. We learn about one another’s lives and then get on with our work,” he says.
Trevor has been to Darwin, Sydney and across the Nullabour Plain. His father’s Kingswood and a friend’s hot rod sparked his interest in cars. He joined the Street Machines Association when he was 18, still collects photos and has attended the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park. His favourite car is the Motel T Ford. He likes the new Ford Mustangs. “The old ones would be better. I saw (racing driver) Allan Moffatt and his Mustang GT which he drove at Bathurst. It was beautiful,’’ Trevor says.
A fan of air shows, he has seen war birds in action at the Avalon Air Show in dog fights and igniting the famous wall of fire.
In July he travelled with his brother Glen for 13 hours to Port Macquarie where they stayed a few nights in an old farm house on a friend’s property. “There are a lot of new buildings, new cafes, it is becoming like the Gold Coast,” Trevor says. The old caravan park where they stayed as kids no longer exists.