T H E B AROS S A MAG | 47
Above & beyond
WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY BY
ALICIA LÜDI-SCHUTZ
They might look like typical blokes having
a yarn over a beer at the pub, but Dave
Gerhardy and John Reed are anything but.
The two Nuriootpa retirees have forged the
strongest of bonds through a lifetime serving
their community as police officers and now,
without fail, they meet at the Vine Inn for a
“quiet ale” every month, sharing memories
of their not so quiet lives on the beat.
“We met at the Thebarton Police Barracks,”
John says.
John, son of a Renmark riverboat captain
and one of ten siblings growing up in Leigh
Creek, happily describes himself as “a boy
from the bush”.
“I left school, then worked in the post office.
While I was there, I did my interviews and
got into the police force in May, ‘61.”
Dave, meanwhile, grew up in Lobethal with
its lush green surrounds, destined to be
a Lutheran pastor.
- Dave Gerhardy
“There was no actual police station..I lived in
the mines department. Coober Pedy was still
a frontier town then, apart from three stores,
only five houses were above ground,”
Dave talks of dust storms, water rationing,
poor radio connections and no phones. Bad
luck if emergency backup was needed.
Apart from police work, there were many
“extraneous duties” including court clerk,
bailiff and census collector; assisting with
burials and exhumations, motor registrations
and having the authority to marry couples.
“You were everything.”
When he was doing his Leaving Honours,
Dave snuck off to be interviewed for the police
force and was offered underage entry into the
job though the cadet system. From Renmark, Dave helped cover vast
station country and the Riverland down
to Swan Reach.
“Mum was pretty disappointed but Dad had a
mate who said look at it this way, he was going
to save their souls but now he is going to save
their bodies! Believe it or not, she felt a bit
better after that.”
John and Dave were at Thebarton Barracks
together for about a year before they went in
different directions, John stationed as a cadet
at Elizabeth and Dave going to the Fort Largs
Police Academy.
They laugh as they share memories of their
early days “kiddy copping”. Dave did city
patrols and John ended up out in Oodnadatta
for the final six months of his cadet life.
“It was pretty cruisy back then,” says John.
“They were short of policemen at Whyalla
which was booming, so we went up there as
‘single men’. We were both about 20 years old.
>> Left: John Reed during his
"Gasoline Cowboy" days.
Having met his future wife Gayle,
he was then sent to Coober Pedy.
He eventually joined the CIB and was stationed
back in the city before moving to Renmark
where children, Mark and Chris were born.
The duo met up again when they were
stationed at Whyalla.
>> Far left: Dave Gerhardy, 1963.
“I was living out of suit cases… always
coming back to Whyalla. I was based there
for two years.”
“I went to Concordia College and my parents
wanted me to be a minister…I didn’t really
want to,” Dave says.
“Mum and Dad had an inkling that there was
something going on,” Dave says with a grin.
"You had to expect
bad times. Let’s face it,
85 percent of our work is
usually with other people’s
problems isn’t it? A lot of
them you can’t solve, you
can only keep the peace...
you used a common
sense approach."
Tarcoola, Iron Knob and Andamooka all
the while getting involved in the community.
“We knew each other straight away, worked on
patrols and played up together - I mean, have
a quiet ale after work.”
While based at Whyalla, Dave did relief work
in the outback, from Kimba and Kingoonya, to
He was involved in some of the biggest drug
crop busts in Australia and assisted police in
NSW and Victoria. It was during this time Dave
lived through his most frightening experience.
“That’s when I got shot at,” he says casually.
“You could hear the bullets whistling past.
“We were chasing him in boats...We pulled
up alongside and he immediately pulled out
his gun and threatened to kill us….he fired
a shot and missed, then he went right inland.
He eventually got cornered and that’s when
he hid behind a tree and started firing at us.
Lucky for us… he stuck his leg out and was
brought down.
“When we interviewed him afterwards,
he said he intended to kill us.”
After 11 years in CIB, the call of the outback
was strong.
“I was asked if I wanted to go to Oodnadatta
because they knew I had fallen in love with
the bush... so we went back there with the kids,
they were only little.
At the time, it was said to be the largest police
patrol area in the world.
The couple’s little blonde sons created quite
a sensation among the remote aboriginal
communities who couldn’t believe such
a hair colour existed.