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Back of Beyond mailman dies

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Former outback mailman postie Tom Kruse in front of his restored Leyland badger mail truck he drove on Birdsville Track, South Australia.
Neil Dowling
Contributing Journalist
1 Jul 2011
1 min read

…in South Australia aged 96.

Kruse and his wife Valma were the subject of John Heyer's 1954 prize-winning film "The Back of Beyond''. He also featured in a film about the restoration of his original mail truck, a Leyland Badger, and its commemorative mail run in 1999.

His Leyland Badger, which he used to deliver the mail from 1936 until it broke down in 1957, remains on display at the National Motor Museum. Kruse delivered the mail and supplies every fortnight to stations between Marree and Birdsville.

Tom Kruse was awarded an MBE in 1955 for services to the community in the outback. In 2000 he was inducted into the National Transport Hall of Fame and in 2003 he was officially acknowledged as an Outback Legend by Australian Geographic magazine.

Neil Dowling
Contributing Journalist
GoAutoMedia Cars have been the corner stone to Neil’s passion, beginning at pre-school age, through school but then pushed sideways while he studied accounting. It was rekindled when he started contributing to magazines including Bushdriver and then when he started a motoring section in Perth’s The Western Mail. He was then appointed as a finance writer for the evening Daily News, supplemented by writing its motoring column. He moved to The Sunday Times as finance editor and after a nine-year term, finally drove back into motoring when in 1998 he was asked to rebrand and restyle the newspaper’s motoring section, expanding it over 12 years from a two-page section to a 36-page lift-out. In 2010 he was selected to join News Ltd’s national motoring group Carsguide and covered national and international events, launches, news conferences and Car of the Year awards until November 2014 when he moved into freelancing, working for GoAuto, The West Australian, Western 4WDriver magazine, Bauer Media and as an online content writer for one of Australia’s biggest car groups. He has involved himself in all aspects including motorsport where he has competed in everything from motocross to motorkhanas and rallies including Targa West and the ARC Forest Rally. He loves all facets of the car industry, from design, manufacture, testing, marketing and even business structures and believes cars are one of the few high-volume consumables to combine a very high degree of engineering enlivened with an even higher degree of emotion from its consumers.
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