Early Years
Brock was born at the Epworth Hospital, Richmond, Victoria. Brock's parents were Geoff Brock and Ruth Brock (née Laidlay). The family lived in the country town of Hurstbridge (now an outer suburb of Melbourne) and Brock continued to live there throughout his life. He attended Eltham High School in Eltham Victoria His first car was an Austin 7 that he bought for £5 (A$10). His driving skill improved greatly at this point of his life because the car didn't have brakes (or a body, which was removed with his father's axe). He ended up trying to stop the car by sliding and anticipating the line.
Peter Brock was also in the first call up (conscription) in to the Australian Army during the mid-1960s, remaining with the rank of Private before being discharged in June 1967. Although he didn't show it while on the army base, Brock was against sending conscripts to Vietnam, something the Australian Government was considering. According to his brother Lewis, while he never served in the Vietnam War, Brock believed that the volunteers should be sent there rather than those made to be there be conscription. While at the base, for fun, Peter and others used to race the ambulances they drove through the base.
Although neither knew each other then, also stationed at the Army base near Wagga in New South Wales at the time was a young Dick Johnson, who, during the 1980s and 1990s, would become one of Brock's chief rivals in touring car racing.
Read more about this topic: Peter Brock
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“Foolish prater, What dost thou
So early at my window do?
Cruel bird, thou’st ta’en away
A dream out of my arms to-day;
A dream that ne’er must equall’d be
By all that waking eyes may see.
Thou this damage to repair
Nothing half so sweet and fair,
Nothing half so good, canst bring,
Tho’ men say thou bring’st the Spring.”
—Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
“Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong women the man, many years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)