He said, how much do you drink?
I said I thirty maybe forty beers and a few scotches. He said, what a week? I said, no, a day, and he just shook his head. I've just had a shower. Remember the towers come off me. I'm running around the middle of winter, Adelaide, winter out in the backyard, burying bedding, sleeps in cocaine. I'm worried that the police are going to walk in the door at anymore.
And I've rest it for indecent exposure. I'm Andrew Rule. This is Life and Crimes, yet again, and yet again, we're going to talk with Rod Helsted. Last week we heard about his adventures in Sydney, from Aubrey to Sydney. This week we're going to hear what.
Happened after he hit out in Adelaide after getting not even a tip off, getting a hint that life could be a little bit dangerous if he stayed around Sydney.
Now, how long did that last? That middleman running stuff up and then the highway.
It's funny when I started writing this book, it corrected my memories in that stuff that I thought, you know, I've been doing this for three years. Actually turned out I've been doing it for maybe four months. Oh yeah, and one thing runs into another and what have you?
I started, how did you correct yourself? Did you find diaries or no? No, it's all my memory. Oh everything's everything. No, I didn't keep anybody. I was just wondering how you were able to correct yourself from four years to four months.
Only because the timelines. When I started writing it, I'm going, well, I knew I'd spent six months in Western Australia, but then I started thinking, well, how long did I live in Hawthornton. I must have been there for buddy three years. Well, in fact it wasn't. It was probably not even a year.
Just explain where that is.
It's a big old had Hawthorn and Hawthorne is a large property on I think it was about two and a half acres. The front of the property has got to be Iron Gate. It's in Rosendale Avenue in Molara. And when you drive in the gate and down to the house the house, it's you drive past the house on your left and that's the gatehouse and that's got
five bedrooms and two bathrooms. Good and and then you go down to the big house and it's got I think it had something like twelve bedrooms and you know at a ballroom, and who that originally was owned by originally, but it was owned for a long time by the shipping line that used to P and O p and A lines. Yeah, and that's the house that the captain and the directors of the company and their friends would
stay and when they are in port. Really yes, And how how the how my friends ended up taking the lease on the house. I have no idea what sort of friends were they. They were a mixed group. One was a boat builder straight they weren't in the game. One was a boat builder, one was one was an attorney.
One was a journalist there I can't remember his name, but here he wrote in about tracking the trucking industry didn't work for one of the main There were all sorts of There was a tennis court there the front.
You rented, you had a room or a sweet I.
Lived in a room for a while, and I thought I'd lived there for months. It turned out it's probably there for two months or something. But that house was really interesting. We used to hold parties there and people well in the house and the ballroom, you know, I mean Cher has been to a party at that house.
Yeah, I've run into people who have been very friendly.
With shir Yeah, there you go, there you go. I wasn't no, I didn't see. She wasn't there when I was there. The Average White Band, we turned the ballroom into a ping pong room. So we've got a table set up and we're playing ping pong back and back and forth. And I'm playing ping pong against Allen, I think. And John was sitting on one of the bean bags rolling a joint or some so. And there are a
couple of other people in there. And one of the girls burst into the room with this guy, two guys, and she said, boys, I've got the manager of the Average White Band here. I'm going to take him upstairs and we're going to have some fun. This is the lead singer, can you look after him? And the lead singer of a major band. He's well and truly cut as well, I must say. On the Booze and.
WB known by their un known by their acronym.
That's right. Anyway, We said, yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be right. Get out of the way, and he's sort of there and said just sit over in the corner there John Riley my joint. Will you sit over in the corner that it doesn't get in the way. We're playing serious game. He wasn't used to being spoken to her this way, so he stuck around long enough to grab the joint,
and then he disappeared. And when we finished our game of a ping pong or whatever you call it, me and gone into my room, and there he has collapsed on my bed, flaked out. So we decided we'd tared him up a bit. So we put a tennis cracket in one hand, a long handled feather duster in the other hand. We squirted some what do he called a toothpaste on his thing. We got some sugar and sprinkled it down and having his fly and dropped it down some down there. And we got whipped cream and put
that in various places and what have you. And I might put a motorcycle helmet on his head. And then we were retired to various places to get a bit of kip. I went upstairs to know whose room it was, but I found a nook and I lay down had a sleep, And the next morning, apparently I didn't hear this, but he woke up and in a rage you know, all this sugar and stuff made him. It's like crazy.
He's belleted and roared and he's come out of the bedroom, knocked the door off its hinges, and unfortunately a blake called Michael from the bushes. He lived in a cardboard box up in the garden area. Yeah, Michael was harmless, you know, totally harmless. Anyway, he knocked Michael out, and Shirley, the house mother, called us all down. He just took off. We don't know whether singer of the Average White Band went,
but it wasn't with us. And Shirley called us down, and she said, and I wrote a note and put it on his chest and the note said you are now known as the Tasty Morsel. And Shirley said, I want you all to write on a note you are now known as the tasty so I can determine who did wrote. And I've got my left hand and I'm right handed. I've got my left hand on trying, and then we're all doing the same thing, laughing about it all. Yeah, it was quite funny.
Trying to think who he was called. Were very famous.
I knew his name for a long time, Alan somebody maybe. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
They were so famous that there were send ups of the name. You know. I had a friend who was a very funny Greek guy who played Berzooki in a traditional Greek band at weddings because it was good money. And he called his band the Berzoki Band, the A.
W B.
Average wog band, that that was the Greek guy's I joke. Yeah, funny guys.
So anyway, I was. I was living there. Yeah, I had Hawthorne and something gone wrong with a shipment that arrived, and I got a call from Gator and we had a red phone in the house and I go, Roud, there's a call for you, And I went over and there he said.
Yeah.
He said, listen, can you meet me at that place where we you know, we exchanged those squash bags. And I immediately heard something in his voice and I thought, I'm no longer for this planet if I'm meeting and I said, I can't mate. I said, I'm sorry. I'm getting on a plane going to Tasmany very shortly, and I got out of there and I got a plane back to South Australia and I stayed there for a year and a half. It all cleared up what was
that about. It was about a shipment of tysticks that I had picked up at the airport that I was paid for with in kind. It was with thirty thousand dollars where of goodies, and I then just delivered it to my mate and he then I didn't know what happened to it from there, but he then took it up to the central Coast and stored it in a
house was for rent and stupidly didn't check. He must have got word from one agent, yeah you can do that, and didn't talk to another agent who showed a couple through the house to rent and what's this big box? And of course they called the police and the box is gone and the box is worth millions in today's terms. So he's trying to work out how that could have gone off and he just wasn't thinking straight. And I
was first man in his sight or something. Who knows, and he rang me nothing to do with you, No, no, no, no, I didn't know where it went.
So this is gator rings. Yes, and you just went straight to the airport. I thought, I'm off straight the airport and you told him you're going to Tazzy. You flew to Adelaide and you stayed in Adelaide. Why did you do that? You sort of had a target on your back, Oh yeah, or possibly on your forehead.
Yeah yeah, yeah, and not the last one either. My sister was working in a pub there, the Broadway Hotel, and I'd been there a couple of weeks before, just to say good ador. I had time on my hand, so I flew over there and she introduced me to a blake called the Gouger. It was interesting. I did a lot of drinking with the Gouger's right. Every day. Every day I just drank. I didn't do any business.
What did you use for money?
I had a lot, Yeah, had a lot of mone What sort.
Of money had you made in that time in Sydney? How long were you in Sydney and working on the drug thousands and so in this era, I was a kidne I made three grand in a year you made you made fifty.
On one weekend, I made thirty thousand, which was more than the chairman of the BHP.
You made a year's salary for the.
Chairman of BHP.
Yeah, you got thirty thousand for two days work. Is that right? So you were obviously taking big risks you would have done twenty years in or whatever, fifteen years and five serious jail time. That's the risk you were taking. And they paid you well and there was no problem until there's a consignment goes missing, which is nothing to do with you. Do you think the other block that put it in the rented house is just a dial or did he set it up?
Who knows?
What do you think?
I don't know. I've never even thought about it. It would be pure speculation. I don't know who put it in the house.
Oh it's not nobody union box.
It's in his garage. He gives me my pay. I'm off right, right, and he whatever he did, he did right, paid cash for you. No, no, I didn't paid cash. I got paid sticks. Oh okay, I got paid sticks which I sold and made.
So eighteen months in basically one pub, and you get very sick of that pub in Adelaide.
Oh no, not at all.
Nod you like a drink, Oh help, not as much as you did. I wasn't as sister, not as thirsty as you.
So I used to sit at the bar with the gouger from about ten in the morning.
Till what was he using for money? Your money.
Yeah. I held him out a bit, you know, And he was punting. And then we started an sp book. We started the book and the gouger would sit in the pub and the bets and he'd bring him straight through to me on the payphone. I was up in my house that i'd rented up in Allgate, up in the hills, and i'd write the bets down. So on there one Saturday and I'm riding the bets down. I've just had a shower. I've got a towel wrap round. I'm a big bugger, you know. It's bigger than I
am now, ninety five kil isn't it. And the gouge rings me and he says, I've got some bets. I said, hang on a minute, there's someone at the door. The blake was at the door. I'd break my own rule. I've had some cocaine I was selling for a friend, the only time of salt powder. And there's the result of it. And I let this bike in. He shut up the cocaine and fell on his back and swallowing his tongue in my kitchen and I.
Say, as you tell us this, you are holding up to the microphone a hand that's only got four fingers because one thirty and the seventh one once knocked off at the first at the first joint, which is why you're telling this story. You've poked your finger down his neck.
Then he's straight. Well, he's choking, so I want in diamond my finger. He chewed down on the finger. Thought I prised his mouth up and I got the finger out, and I thought, I'll knock him out. And when I got the finger out, he chewed it right down to the bone. Didn't chew the finger off, just chewed it down to the buck and chewed the tendon off. And did it hurt. No, No, you don't think about stuff like that while it's happening. Nothing hurts while that's happening.
Fear doesn't come into it while it's happening. It all comes at the plain, and the fear come hard towards right.
And then you had to go to apostle.
And then I rang the gouger while this blake's vibrating across the floor chewing a finger and punching me in the head. I've got the phone stuck under my ear, and I said, I get an ambulance up here. I've got a blake's overdosing on cocaine. And then I prized his jaw appen, which is you've got to be bloody
strong and desperate to do that. And the minute I got my finger out, he relaxed, and he's land up against the wall and he's wiped his face in his bloody Your blood, yeah, my blood, I said, not your blood, mine, I said, listen, get out the ambulances on this way. The copers won't be far behind it. So then I'm running around. I've just had a shower. Remember the towels
come off me. I'm running around the middle of winter, Adelaide, winter out in the backyard, burying bedding, slips under cocaine, worried that the police are going to walk in the door at any moment.
And I've reached it for indecent exposures exactly see. And who turned up the ambulance.
No one, no one. I just got everything buried, and then I threw some duds on and I raced down. I went to the Orgate hospital. They dressed it, and then I got in the car and I drove down to the Broadway and I said to the gouger. He said, everything all right, and I said, well, no, not really. And I was shod him the finger, which is all bandies up. And he said, I said, I can't believe the police didn't arrive and the Amblace didn't arrive. I said it, I didn't call them. I said, you didn't
call them. I said, I told you Blaker's buddy possibly going to die. He said, we'd have buried the body.
Oh is that right? Yeah, this is the goucher the go and he's a pretty hard case.
For she was a very hard case. It was a good blake. But he killed too man in his time. One punch death's or he punched somebody and they'd just fallen the wrong way. And I think he carried the weight of that. I remember him saying to me when we were our caps one night. Don't ever kill anybody, he said, just stays with you for life. You don't ever shake it. He's dead. Yeah, I haven't killed anybody, and I don't want to kill anybody. And I don't
want to have to dispose of a body. I think it's just it goes against the way I was raised. So I'd have to drop myself in it, you know, come up with some story. But drop myself in it, and anyway, I'm glad it didn't work out that way. But then I ended up in Flinder's Medical Center because I wake up the next morning. They said, change the
dress in every two hours or something. Put this powder on it, and of course I got drunk and went home and just didn't wake up ten hours later with my hand under my NAIs and stinking, and I immediately went down to Flint's Medical Center and I had septa seemia, so they put me under and scraped the skin and flesh away and down to the bone. Your surgeon came to see me afterwards, and he said how much do
you drink? He said, you're aware that you came out of the the anesthetic twice and I said, yeah, I know that. I said, you're telling the nurses, you're impressing them about the new Mercedes you sport. He just looked at me, stunned, and he said how much do you drink? I said, oh, I don't know, thirty maybe forty beers and a few scotches. He said, what a week? I said, no, a day, and he just shook his head.
He was and you'd come out of the a a seat because your body.
Yeah, he said, we put more. I can't remember the drake, but we put more of that into you than we've ever used on any patient in this medical center.
He said, yep.
There were two moments in time where it's sort of jumping forward a bit, but where I break on the record, and that was one and the other was when they pinched me in Wagga eventually pinched me in Wogan. I end up in jail, and when in my core case they said that the New Sophial's Drug Laboratory has analyzed this marijuana miss Hols it was caught with, and it has got the highest level of THC content of any drugs ever analyzed in this laboratory. Oh is that right? Yeah?
Only ever saw a good day. I shouldn't. I shouldn't make fun of it. I'm actually if anybody is the ideal candidate as a campaigner against drugs, it's me. I hate the bloody things. I don't dislike field graum marijuana. It's got its medicinal services and properties, and I don't know that I've never known anybody to go with their trolley smoking dape. More people on booze as you well know. But as to powder acid, the marijuana they grow these
days using chemicals to I hate it. I despise it, and I despised and Rex families, not just the individual Rex family. So I'm a I'm a big Andi drug.
Campaigner and you know from the inside out. Yeah, so that's Adelaide. You've lost a finger. You've gained a friend who's maybe I don't know if he's an asset to you or not.
The gouger, the gouger introduced me to Bob Hawk. We got on.
Yeah.
Well the gouger was a shearer and a labor party man. Yeah, Mick Young, Mick Young, Mick Young. He introduced me, and Mick Young took me to Mick Young's house for a labor thing one night, did he yep? And when he was head of the trade union, he burst into the door of the Broado Hotel one afternoon lunchtime.
Goager, here you going there? We're going down the port for a drink.
And Gougers said, Bobby said, I'd like you to meet my friend, right, He said, here, you're going right, and I right on me And I'll tell you what. When you're in Bob's company and you were talking with him, you're the only person in the room as far as you're concerned. He never took his eyes off you, and he was genuinely interested. He was a very interesting man. I've never seen anybody hold a room the way Hawpit
hold of room. So we went down the port and we got on the turfs here and there were blacks off from the getting a fridge or get him a TV. You know, they were all working on the docks, and Bob graciously declined on each occasion.
Yes, he was home, really South Australian. And what happened next.
Left Adelaide, went to Aubrey, met a girl, got married, and it was good for a while. It was good for a long time.
Actually, we're still on the booze.
Yeah, yeah, I was still drinking.
You're in Aubury, you're on the booze big time. You're married. I think your father in law doesn't love it, because you'd be described yourself with a critical light at that time. You're a smart ass.
He would have seen me as such. Yeah, and quite frankly, you know, yes I was, because I remember a good made of mine saying to him years and years later when I save it up and back in Aubury. He said, when you were living here in Aubury at that time, he said, you were the most pompous person I'd ever met in my life. And I was stunned to hear it. But on reflection, that's exactly what I was. I was so full of myself, you know, the Blaker has been everywhere and done everything.
Yeah, I was a bore and which, by the way.
Is the worst insult you can ever offer a man. Yes, you're a.
Bore any version of that word. Really, And you got interested in acting at some point? Was that much later? That was later, But that's all part of the game. There was a bit of an actor, A hell of.
A lot of acting in the in the d trade, in bar work, just in being you know, in winning. There's a lot of acting in winning. Some people call it people pleasing. I don't call it that. That's a deliberate attempt to make people like you that always comes to disaster. It's so obvious. It's about fitting in, being entertaining, and allowing the other person to get their bloody word in you. If you're going to talk all the time and over the top of people, you are a.
Bore, you know, fully yourself because you've had ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs. What happened next?
A mate from North Queensland contacted me and said I've got this stuff and can you move afore me? And I'd retired. I got out of the game. I hadn't been pinched and not even been questioned about it, and I said, yeah right. I wanted to make some money because I was working as a barman, getting barman's wages.
And when you go from thirty grand in two days to barman's wages, the temptations too strong and I got pinched and police pistol in my head in Wagga and I ended up in court and ended up being given a year on the bottom and six years on the top. I got the year on the bottom because of the incredible bloody argument my barrister put up. They wanted to give me eight months which mains straight to maximum security,
with a year to silver Water. I was in silver Water for about six weeks, got transferred from there to go directly to Manus Prison farm in Tambaramba via Golban for one night, but the screws were on strike out, spending four days and nights in Golban and the first day that I was in there, they released me into Sea Yard. And the stuff I saw in Sea Yard was so vile. What these guys weightlifting and what have you?
What they were doing with these three white boys. I called the screw over and I said, if you don't get me out of this yard now, I'm never going to leave jail. I'm either going to get killed or I'm going to stay here for murder because I will go over there to those weightlifters and I will tear into them. Now, how many am I going to do?
The serious boys? So the screw very kindly sent me up to the library and I spent three days in the library and then I'm transferred to Manus Prison Farm, where I did the remainder of my sentence, which was about four months. Hopefully I was in there for twelve months. But if they say you've done something wrong with you stepped out of line, then they can extend it and send you back to the bay. I mean, I had six.
Years on the top, so it could have ended up. Yeah.
I mean some of those guys who were getting booze brought into the perimeter fence and going running down there after dark and grabbing it, and one of them offered me a beer, and one of the other guys said, no, don't you doddy touch it. He said, you do anything wrong, He said, you get shango back. I was looked after. I mean, I was thirty years of age, obvious, baby or anything. But these guys, if they like you, they'll steer you right, It's like, and why did they like you?
I was genuine. Now I'd look them in the eye, I'd tell them the truth. I refer umpire a game of footing in there. One of the most dangerous hour and a half.
Is that a fact?
They looken't like the whistle being blown on him.
Oh they didn't, were they were? They a little bit rough?
Oh the blakes are coming up and chesting me and saying, you know what do you think you're doing? That's not a free kick. And I said, mate, I'm just I couldn't play because I had a crooked legs, so I couldn't run off.
Oh that's not good.
And you don't run.
Anyway, No, you don't run's refereeing. The most dangerous time of your very dangerous life was umpiring a game of reels football at tumb on a prison fan.
There was another time we played a game of a cricket against the town Is on the town Oval. Yeah, and I played in it. Oh yeah, and I whacked a few balls and what have you. But this this other guy has gone crack and he's hit a massive six over the fence and into the trees and bushes, and well, every ey that was blake playing again says we're fielding. Every fielder on the field started running for the fence.
Convicts.
Yeah, screws are blowing their whissels right there, can't anybody go over the events.
A couple of them may not come back. Yeah, Oh, how funny is that? Now your book is.
Called take My Advice? I'm not using it published by published by Allen.
And how many years in the making.
Well, Barry Humphreys suggested I write it twenty six years ago. Yeah, I'd thought about writing a book well before then. But he's saying that to me.
Prompted me an AA meeting, was it? Yeah, at the end we're at Bundo Beach, Bundo Beach. Yeah, I don't talk too much about AA. We ourselves, we don't use to publicize ourselves. But saved my life, so I'll say that, and you know it's a piece of history. Barry, Yeah, Barry's always alcohol. We're very yeah, and I have to you.
Know, I met some wonderful people there. But he suggested that. So that was twenty six years ago. And then I got saber and built businesses. And I started one business, a pressure washing business in aubury when I was sixty two. Started with five grand, and I sold it eight years later. It maybe a million dollars. I didn't get a million dollars for it. I got six figures for it, mid six figures, and I owned a house out of it ditch,
had no debt. But yeah, I may well over a million dollars off that five grand, purely by getting out of bed early and working and by selling by marketing. Marketing is the key to body business success. Yeah, I don't know you're there. They won't come.
So possibly your next book might be about how I turned five bucks into whatever. You know now, I dare say. We could go on a lot, but you can't tell every story that's in the book, because there are dozens of stories in the book, and this is just a select sample of them. Where did the title come from?
An AA meeting. Did it, Yeah, it's not my thought. Somebody said that really early on? Did that? He said take my advice, I'm not using it, and I heard it. That's the title. The reason this book is with Alan Arman is because I was at a literary event at Aubrey Library and Chris Masters was speaking yes and he was talking about a particular businessman and he's involvement in crime. And I went up to him after as I said, you're on the money, and he just looked me up
and down. He said, how would you know? And I told him about my history with Gaeta and say Fith and we had a chat for about ten minutes and I told him I was intended writing my last story and he said, if you have any trouble getting a publisher, give me a call, and he gave me his card. I was sitting at home ten years later on a Sunday watching the show that Masters put on about Robert Smith, and I thought I still got his number and I look at my phone. There it was. I sent him
a text three o'clock Sunday, AVO. A minute later I got a text back sent me the first thirty pages, which I did half hour later. I got a text back, do you want me to approach my publisher or do you want to do it nice a year please? And he's the one who introduced me to Elizabeth Wes, the publisher. Yes, and but for Chris, I'd still be knocking on doors.
I shook his hand last night at a riper Blakes but yeah, great reporter and yeah, very gutsy, gutsyutsy, great family full of Yeah. Yeah, yeah, well that's so wonderful young you and Chris Masters.
I just want to say thanks to him, because that sort of help is invaluable, and to yourself too, and to Bill Gray and to all the other people who have stepped in and give me a leg up. You know, I don't mention Blake's names. They might not appreciate it, but there are people in the radio game who have really through introductions of people. Don't know. I looked at my phone recently, got four thousand names in there. Two thousand of my clients, but two thousand of my No. Personally,
what do you doing that? You sold your business in aubury? What are you doing now? Book in the book? That's it? By copy?
With that? Yeah? Oh well, I promise and that's all I'm talking to people listening to us out there. Yeah, won't regret it. Rod Helsteed, thanks for coming in all the way from Aubrey and we hope to see you again.
Yeah. I want to thank you.
Andrew.
Thanks very much for having.
Me, Thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for true crime Australia. Our producer is Johnny Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to Heroldsun dot com dot au forward slash Andrew rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news podcasts sold at news dot com dot au. That is all one word news podcasts sold And if you want further information about this episode, links are in the description.