Tow truck driver Albert ‘Noel’ Atkinson, 94, farewelled by Gympie community

A pillar of the community, who helped rescue numerous car crash victims across the Wide Bay, has been remembered after a long life spent building businesses and friendships.

Tow truck driver Albert ‘Noel’ Atkinson, 94, was farewelled by Gympie community this month.

Before the ‘Jaws of Life’ were invented, tow truck drivers like Noel Atkinson and their trusted winch were the only hope for victims trapped after serious car crashes.

His role in saving lives and limbs was among the many memories highlighted after the 94-year-old passed away peacefully.

Born Albert Noel Atkinson, he was known in the Gympie community as a reliable tow truck driver, panel beater and marine salesman with a passion for motorsports.

Noel (as he preferred to be called) was farewelled by a crowd of friends and family this month after a long, happy and memorable life.

Noel was also the president of the Gympie Golf Club and Gympie Rotary Club during his lifetime.

His son Peter Atkinson, whose journalism career began at The Gympie Times, delivered the eulogy at his father’s funeral.

“Dad was a man who built businesses and friendships, who made things from tilt-tray tow trucks to new golf greens; who fixed things when they were broken and who helped people when they needed his help the most,” Peter said.

“(He) was grateful for the many blessings he had.”

Noel Atkinson was also the also president of the Gympie Rotary Club for a period of time. Photo: The Gympie Times

Noel was the seventh of nine children born in Gympie Hospital in 1927 and spent his childhood on a farm in Glenwood.

“Dad was just a boy when the world went to war in 1936, and just past his 18th birthday when it ended, so his formative years were spent helping keep the farm operating,” Peter said.

“It was there he learned the value of hard work.”

At the age of 18, Noel began his own small business repairing cars in a small shed he built by hand, with parts of that original property forming his 70-year work address.

When the business grew and Noel decided to purchase the only tow-truck in Gympie at the time, A N Atkinson and Co was born.

The business saw Noel attending crash scenes all over the region, regularly using his winch and cables to free drivers trapped in their vehicles after head-on crashes.

“He saved many lives and countless limbs in those days before the Jaws of Life,” Peter said.

In 1952, Noel married the love of his life Myrtle, the “pretty lass” who worked in the clerk’s office at the Gympie Court.

Together, the couple lived at Louisa St where they raised their three children, Lynn, Young Noel and Peter.

Peter said Noel and Myrtle lived independently at the family home until they were both 92.

Max Krogh submitted this photo of Gympie competitors in the first inter-club car gymkhana held in Pine Rivers in 1956 (from left) Keith Hodges, Mick Gay, Viv Burton, Noel Atkinson, Col Atkinson and Allan Kelloway. Car clubs from Toowoomba, Ipswich, Brisbane, Beenleigh, South Coast and the Brisbane MG Car Club competed. Gympie scored 11 trophies out of 13, with most won by Mick Gay.

“He loved and valued that pretty girl from the courthouse even more at the end of his life than at any other time, and loved his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and those who helped enrich his life,” he said.

“We take great comfort that after a wonderful life, Dad died peacefully in a place where he felt safe and secure.”

Noel’s niece Margaret Atkinson remembered her uncle as a very kind and generous man who was admired by many.

“(He was) a very respected businessman of Gympie … loved and remembered always,” she told The Gympie Times.

Wide Bay MP and former police officer Llew O’Brien also shared a tribute post on Facebook, saying he knew Noel from a young age and described him as a “true-blue” Aussie.

“It was sad to say goodbye to another of Gympie’s great men,” Mr O’Brien said on social media.

“Many of the tragic motor vehicles crashes that I attended, I did so with Noel at my shoulder as the always reliable and very resilient local tow truck driver.”

Originally published as Tow truck driver Albert ‘Noel’ Atkinson, 94, farewelled by Gympie community