When Des, son of EJ Sykes and Selina Wilkes, was four, in Euston, his parents left him alone for a short time in a sulky. The horse bolted into the scrub, and Des was thrown out. He received a rocking horse as ‘compensation’, he recalls fondly.

Des also recalls how, at the age of five, he would travel on the mail coach, from Euston, to his Uncle William's Hotel at Gol Gol; the 100 km trip took 14 hours, stopping at all the outback stations;

Several times, from Euston, I went down to Gol Gol, by coach, to where my great grandmother (Gran Minogue) was. The coach driver was Angus McCormack, well known in the back country, with three (horses) in hand. We left Euston at night and a bed was made for me among the mail bags in the back of the buckboard. We called at all the stations… along the river. I slept there most of the time. We had two mail changes and I remember still the beautiful fruitcake and tea that was served at those mail changes, and the smell of leather and horses.
Later on we achieved a buggy and pair (of horses). We left Euston when I was about five. Maureen was two – this attack of pneumonia sent us (back) to Wentworth.

In 1892 Charles McMahon purchased the Swan Hill to Wentworth coach service from the Burton Bros. The service flourished and McMahon was known to keep up to 170 horses at the Gol Gol mail change (on the common) and some 200 horses at Wentworth. (History of the settlement and development of the Wentworth Shire)

Charles McMahon was Des’s godfather, and owned two hotels in Wentworth.

For a long time and well before the motor vehicle came into action, my godfather, and a forebear of the Atkinson family, Charles Coldebury McMahon, ran most, if not every one of the district coachlines, e.g. Wentworth to Swan Hill, and up to Wilcannia. … Mr. McMahon more than once was the horse judge at the Royal Sydney Show. During the Boer War was the offical buyer for the Australian Cavalry contingent engaged in South Africa. He sold most of his horses to the army during the Boer war.

His coach line and his leadership should not be hidden by the quite false naming of "Cobb and Co.” which did not, so far as I can find, have anything at all to do with the coach lines of most of the far west of N.S.W. These magnificent coaches had a comfortable passenger sedan with padded seats and all mod cons.

This was mounted on springs of huge leather belts about five inches wide, with polished brass buckles, slung between the front and rear sets of wheels. It is a great pity indeed that not one of these has been preserved there, in the town which was the centre of their activities.

I have a very clear memory during 1906/7, when living at Tara, the home of my grandparents (Town Clerk F. W. Wilkes and his wife Christina), hearing, each week or so, the fanfare of the coach horn sounded by the driver on the box seat behind his five steads warning all of the imminent arrival of Her Majesty's Mail at Wentworth from Pooncarie and all places North, as far as Bourke.

Des tells a great story about the Christmas pudding at Gol Gol in 1915.

Des’s education
Des was educated at the convent school in Wentworth, and also the public school for a year or so, because his father, EJ, was friendly with the headmaster at that time.

Des describes a two month trip (around 1915) to Sydney, via the home of EJs parents, at Telegraph Hill, near Goulburn.

We had a marvellous time there. Aunt Angela Sykes who later became a nun (Sister Mary Casimir) was a marvellous cook. Cakes, sweets and general food was very much to our liking, and everybody else for that matter. So we had a very happy few days there, then went on to Sydney… We called in at Picton, (to see) JJ Kelly (this is John Kelly, who taught EJ in the 1880s), who married Aunt Kathleen (Sykes – sister of Sister Casimir), who used to be at Morpeth. JJ was headmaster at the Superior public school and arrangements were made for me to go over in June, to go to school for 12 months and try to get a state bursary.

While in Sydney we met Jim Loomes, who married Maisie Wilkes. They lived at Kyama.

He started secondary school in Picton, NSW, in 1916. Picton is between Goulburn and Sydney, about 20 km west of Appin, where his grandparents, William and Sarah Sykes, lived between 1827 and 1837.

The first time, dad took me over. I was thirteen. He drove me from Wentworth to Hay in the Tmodel Ford. We arrived in Hay about half past eleven at night, and about a mile out of Hay, the horn, which was an electric horn, started blowing. It was an enormous noise and he couldn’t stop the damn thing. So we went in to Hay… with this horn blaring out until he got right into the town and dad got out and yanked the wires apart.