A real Mr Fix-It

Peter Vawdon’s mind flourished at a young age. As a toddler, he used to navigate and crawl along the kitchen tiles, sit and unscrew the cupboard handles and take them apart. Early in his teens he used to pull apart his motorbike piece by piece and then put it all back together again just for fun.
Any spare time he had, you’d find him nestled on a stool in his Dad’s garage fiddling with his tools or crafting a piece out of wood with a pocketknife.
He was drawn to anything mechanical that forced him to think. Some would say he was born with oil in his blood.
“My first bike was a Panther CC. I stripped it down so it had no mudguards and no lights,” he said. “I just loved using my hands.”
At 63 Peter has just clocked up 10 years of volunteering, three days a week with Mecwacare, a community group that looks after residential aged care.
The Beaumaris-born, Pakenham local grew up with three brothers – Rod, 61, Phil, 60, and Mike, 55 – among the sandy dunes, bushland scrub and gum trees and lived next door to Royal Melbourne Golf Course.
“We used to jump on there for a hit or two, but people never believe me when I tell them Beaumaris was all bushland back then,” Peter said.
The house Peter lived in with his three brothers, Mum Margaret and Dad Lorie – who was a returned serviceman – was an “absolute beauty.” The double-block was purchased in 1947 from a spinster. At first the lady asked for $100 for each of the blocks.
After consulting with his agent, Lorie was only prepared to offer $50 for the land. The lady sold it to him out of respect, for he had fought in WW II as a commando. In 1987 he sold it for $450,000. Today their house is a mansion worth millions, equipped with a tennis court and swimming pool. But, back then the four kids made most of their gigantic back yard and had a flying fox tied between a tree and the back verandah. The kids from Scouts would all come by and games of football and cricket would ensue.
“Back in those days, it was great fun,” he said. “We used to like going to the golf links, into the swamps getting golf balls. We’d hide in the scrubs and find the lost balls.”
After gaining a Year 11 qualification from Sandringham Tech he then headed to Richmond Tech to pursue a career as an apprentice mechanic. It wasn’t long before he outwitted his peers at his first job with Humphries Motor Mechanics in Caulfield.
“When I first started, within the first month I did an engine re-build – the whole works,” Peter said. “My boss explained verbally how to do it, so I did it from memory and for an apprentice it was an extremely hard job to do.”
Most of the apprentices at his workshop were left with the tasks of sweeping floors and cleaning the tools – but not Peter, he was right in the thick of it. And he loved his job.
Peter married, and the couple had two boys – Luke and Aaron – but after 12 years they divorced and Peter never re-married.
For Peter, working as a mechanic made him tick along with a smile on his face. He was a workaholic. If he wasn’t tearing apart cars that sat on hoists in the workshop, he was building a fence from scratch or correcting a faulty roof gutter. It’s the type of ingenuity that pushed Peter’s mind.
But something wasn’t right. Fatigue set in for Peter during his work days and he wasn’t feeling “up to par”. His whole life suddenly changed after a frank discussion with a local doctor.
“I finally realised how bad I was. I was pushing myself and working long hours thinking I’ll get through it, but it wouldn’t go away,” he said. “I had a frank conversation at the doctor’s one day and he put things in perspective and said “I don’t know how you’ve been working like you have for so long.”
Peter had been told he had Crohn’s disease and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Then he had the arduous task of explaining this to his boss, not through fear of his reaction, but seeing it as an admission he could no longer work full-time as a mechanic.
“It was pretty emotional,” he said. “Loving my work and having to face up to the fact I can’t work. I was told to think of it as an early retirement.”
That’s when Peter decided to take up volunteering. He first approached the Cardinia Shire Council, working with young kids, but that didn’t work out. It wasn’t until an interview with Mecwacare in 2000 at their head office in Malvern that he got the ball rolling. He’s now done work with an aged disability group and has helped cook, taken running exercises and muscle relaxation classes, participated in outings to sports clubs, hotels and Phillip Island as well as organising trips to the movies and ten pin bowling.
Even in retirement and volunteering while battling his disease, Peter still leads a hectic but controlled life. He once volunteered for a local school aiding their mechanic’s class restoring go-karts and old cars.
“I decided if I was unable to work, I’d do some volunteer work to put something back to the community. I assist staff with all activities – cooking and relief driving,” he said. “I really enjoy volunteering. You get to meet new people and make new friendships.”
Every now and then Peter veers toward his love of piecing together difficult parts – as he did as a mechanic – and will assist in making wooden toys, onion boxes, bird feeders and tool kits. You only need to look around his house to notice his handy ingenuity: he built his decking, fixed the plumbing on his double door garage and restored his entire fence line nail for nail.
“I would encourage anyone not working – or who has some spare time – to give volunteering a go,” he said. “I realise I can’t work full-time as a mechanic, and I love it and for me it’s still challenging and very rewarding.”