Doug’s cycling life starts in his early teens with the Malvern Star championships. Doug wins the Arrow Consistency Cup and gets his photo in local papers. In Coolgardie he races the Widgiemooltha-Coolgardie (75km). In Norseman it is the longer Norseman-Higginsville (129km). In Kalgoorlie as Secretary for the Eastern Goldfields Cycling Club helps organise the Menzies to Kalgoorlie. Many tales of Hubert Opperman, a later friend and political colleague of Doug’s. In later years Doug was patron of the League of WA Wheelmen from 1959-1976.
Doug starts as a newsboy and tells us about the local papers, their offices and staff like Mr Martin of the Daily News and the Mirror’s Ted “Cherry” Hancock and J J “Boss” Simons who founded the Young Australia Football League. We learn about how the boys would make extra money from the crossword competitions.