Encounters: The man from Swan Valley

By SUSAN BUCKLAND

Some people make places. For me the Swan Valley in Western Australia will always be associated with scrap metal dealer, truckie and poet John Taylor. I didn't know my way around. He offered to show me.

Left to my own devices, I would have discovered the wine-growing descendants of hard-working Dalmatians who immigrated to the Swan about the same time as their cousins started planting grapevines west of Auckland. And no doubt I would have stumbled upon some of the inventive individuals who have given away life in Perth for the fertile spaces east of the Swan River. But seeing the Valley without John would have been like eating bread without salt. He added flavour in his dinkum Aussie way.

For a start there was his car, a red jalopy of indeterminate age and full throttle. He flung open the door and invited me to sit on a dust-coated seat. It gets pretty warm during the Swan Valley summer. John said this day was a humdinger. He turned on the fan. Gum leaves shot out of the grille and off we went.

Did I mind if we made a quick detour, John wanted to know. Some bastard had flogged his mate's work of art, a 3m-long goanna made of aluminium. But earlier that day John had tracked the culprit down and got the goanna back. His missus would be home in half an hour to keep an eye on it. Meanwhile, he just wanted to double check it was where he left it.

The goanna was pinioned with ropes on a trailer in John's front garden. It was splendid. Gleaming silver in the sun, he soared like a brontosaurus. He had a panoramic view of a property crammed with scrap metal of every kind. Cast-off conveyor belts, railway tracks, hulls of boats. You name it, John had it somewhere in his sea of metal. He brings it in on his fleet of trucks from all over Australia. It's a great business. But now, he says, the local bloody politicians want him to tidy up his backyard.

That's the problem. Your district fills up with the cottage-industry crowd, growing their organic vegetables and making extra-virgin olive oil. You get more tourists coming, especially in spring for the Valley's annual festival of art, wine and food. Next thing, the powers that be want to manicure the countryside and move scrap-metal yards out of sight.

But not all the arty crafties in the Valley get up John's nose. He shares his passion for metal with Antonio Battistessa who creates masterpieces from forged iron. We went to Antonio's studio, 2000sq m of metal-sculpting equipment and works of extraordinary art in various stages of completion. Some of Antonio's art will ultimately be beyond price, says John. And for posterity. The goanna would have given an approving nod.

John's missus is Jude. She's an artist, too. She designed the cover for John's book of poems, Swan Valley Yarns. In the preface, John has written of the need for vision, of fending off the urbanisation of the Swan Valley and of preserving the natural character of its vineyards and agriculture.

He gave me a copy of Swan Valley Yarns to fly home with. The truckie's life on the road rumbles through the verse. Not surprising for a man who bought his first truck as a teenager. On our tour of Valley attractions he took me for a reverent moment to a yard of monster truck trailers. One of his poems, The Swan, has a message for those who would turn his Valley into an urban playground.

Take away the truckies

Living on the Swan

Ban businessmen and subbies

"The Swan" relies upon.

Tidy up the characters

No more wearing thongs

Catalogue and itemise 'em

Show 'em where they went wrong.

When you've got 'em squeaky clean

You'll have destroyed "The Swan".

He is no John Keats but that earlier John would appreciate his earthy message.