Half a century later, Mrs Gertner is driving off into the sunset.

Mrs Gertner has been one of the first points of call for RACV roadside assistance, which is managed in the Ballarat region by Eclipse, for 25 years. 

Prior to that she was in administration for an equally long period, managing warranties and invoices for all manner of vehicles, including tractors.

General sales manager Neil Doolan said Mrs Gertner had been part of the Eclipse family for the entire 22 years he had been at the business.

Upon clocking up 50 years with Eclipse this month, Mrs Gertner decided it was time to hand over to someone else.

“Often I had the two-way radio at home so – two weeks on, two weeks off – I was on call 24/7,” Mrs Gertner explained.

“Sometimes I have had up to 100 calls a day. The average is up to 50 calls a day and one of our KPIs is we have to get someone there in an hour 90 per cent of the time.

“When I started doing it, the RACV would walk in to tell us they’d had a call and we’d send out a mechanic. Then it would be rung through and eventually the two-way radio. I can remember our call sign was BJ3KP. 

“Last Sunday I handed over the PDA to Heather Milne. I then yelled out at the top of my voice ‘I’m free!’.” 

Mrs Gertner started at Eclipse as a 16-year-old.

“I was at Loreto Commercial College and there were two women at Eclipse Motors who were going to get married,” she said. “Back then, when you got married you went off to have children. So I went to Eclipse and never went back to college.”

While she hasn’t kept count, the number of motorists Mrs Gertner has helped would stretch into the hundreds of thousands. 

Now she wants to devote that attention to grandchildren. 

“I could write a book on my experience,” she said.

“You get every type of person and every single type of car calling out for assistance, even a Rolls Royce and a Bentley once. Except for Fords,” she joked. 

“They never break down.”