Workshop Therapy

I ran into Les Windus by chance. He was looking to offload a few sheets of pegboard and I had a workshop in desperate need of a little organisation. Being someone with an appreciation for a good workspace, the sight of Les’ neatly ordered and well-equipped workbenches immediately caught my eye. I could probably do a story just on Les’ workshop as I’ve rarely seen one so well put together and with so much obvious careful thought. And I’m also just a little bit jealous of his milling machine.

“So what do you make with all this?” I asked, after Les was kind enough to let me have a good stickybeak in his garage.

Taking me to a cabinet on one wall of his garage, Les showed me his collection of scale model remoted controlled prime movers and various trailer combinations. Starting one of the foot-long models on the bench, a built-in speaker emulates the sounds of a large diesel engine, while each individual light works just as it would on the real deal.

“I've actually modified every one of them, Sometimes you lengthen the chassis and then you've got drive train, so you’ve got to get pieces for that and get that done… then to make it a bit more of a one-off you get alloy wheels and put electronics into them — your headlights work, blinkers work, your backing light, stop lights work,” says Les.

Not happy with the standard trailers available in kits, Les has even gone as far as to fabricate his own from scratch. He has made stock crates, B-Double and road train configurations, and currently has a low loader in progress.

“And is you put a trailer on a prime mover, you've got to have lights on it too… you've got to you've got to put new wiring in and joints and so it becomes pretty involved,” says Les.

 Looking at the countless tiny parts and detailed work involved in building each of these models it was surprising to discover that, not that long ago, Les couldn’t even hold a spoon to feed himself.

“I ended up diagnosed with Guillain Barre syndrome,” he says, “which is where your own immune system starts attacking your peripherals and I was at the point where I lost all function in my hands and legs and I was in a wheelchair— it was incredibly painful, I was on pretty big doses of MS CONTIN, as well as two other pain killers, just to get myself by.”

The trucks, he says, became his form of physical therapy.

“There's so many tiny bits and pieces you got to put together. I really don't have much feeling in my extremities, so you’ve got to teach your body to work in different ways. I discovered that for really, really tiny stuff I've got to use tweezers, but that's the way getting around the issue that you've got. And so that's where it was all kicked off from,” says Les, who was able to kick his reliance on pain medication and reckons he is back to around 90 per cent of where he used to be.

Although it’s far from the only serious health issues that Les has had to overcome in recent years.

In 2011, Les - and coincidentally his brother and two close friends - were diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“Touch wood I've survived that, with issues, but you know at least I'm still here! It’s something that, boy, people need to really be careful of and make sure they get tested, because early detection is so critical in their outcome.”

But not long after came another diagnosis.

“He said you've got multiple myeloma... that's basically cancer of your bone marrow and that extends into your bones and,  let go, your bones end up like aero chocolate, was how he explained it,” says Les. “You’re likely to start breaking bones and that's generally how people pick it up first.”

Three months of intense chemotherapy followed, but 18 months later Les had to return for more. It was then, his doctor suggested autologous stem cell therapy, which involves harvesting Les’ own stem cells and transplanting them once again after massive doses of chemotherapy.

The process, treatment and recovery are far from pleasant. But even when he is describing his low moments, the impression you get from Les is one of overwhelming positivity.

“I’ve never felt depressed. I'm not sure why, but I’ve just got this thing that you've got live on with what you've got and you can't give up,” he says.

“When they diagnosed me with multiple myeloma, I thought it's only barely two years since I had prostate cancer! And to get two within a very short period sort of sits back on your feet a bit - It really does! And then you get this Guillain-Barre and it was painful, it was just so painful… but you just bite the bullet, you’ve got what you got, so just stick it in background and move on.

“Negativity is not going to help. I could have a heart attack tomorrow, could get knocked over by a bus. And one thing I've sort of maintain all along is you've only got to look, not very far, and there's someone that's way worse off than what you are.”

“And you've got to try and be positive for everyone around you as well,” says Les, who believes he would not have got through it all without the support of his wife and family.

 “To have the backup of your family is…. probably without that you wouldn't get through. So if you were to throw the towel in and say, ‘I feel crook, I'm sick of this.’ Apart from making yourself feel miserable, you are making a hell of a lot of people around you feel miserable as well. So there’s been lots of things that come along that sort of teach you a few things as you go.”