Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

PROLOGUE

At the instigation – or dare I say "nagging" – of certain of our sons, it was suggested that some of our seven grandchildren may find interesting our memories of the way life was when Bessie and I were their age, some 60-odd years ago. Whether this will be so, I have serious doubts, but nevertheless we will, by recording these memories, perhaps enjoy some satisfaction, knowing that we have acceded to our sons' wishes and, further enjoy the luxury, if we wish, of promptly forgetting the long distant past, knowing the job is done, and get on with our present day happy life together.

My writings will not be a biography, "warts and all" or otherwise. Perish the thought of pouring out your soul, your inner thoughts or stupid actions of the past to anyone. Even your family. This screed is not a confessional or my analysis of my life. I am setting out to give our "breed" some insight into the life and times of the '20s to possibly the '60s, or maybe later, at which point their memories can take over. Anyhow, that is my plan. God knows how it will turn out.

So, let us make a start.

SURF BEACH     13/10/93

MEMORIES

1925-32

LINDSAY JACK CLEWS. BORN 27-9-25 to OLIVE AURORA CLEWS (nee OPIE) and LINDSAY GEORGE WILLIAM CLEWS at the Memorial Hospital,   North Adelaide.

We lived at a village called Muston on American River, Kangaroo Island. It was not really a village, just two or three houses clustered around a jetty and the Post Office, which was a room in our house. Mother was the Postmistress. The only reason that Muston should exist at all was because of the salt lakes, some 12 kilometres (or thereabouts) inland. Salt was scraped off the lakes and taken by rail to Muston, where it was shipped on the S.S, Kapoola to Adelaide. That was why we were there. Dad was the train driver – the only one on Kangaroo Island – boiler maker, fitter and turner and general maintenance man.

I think it is of some interest how Len Clews got to Muston. (He was always called Len). He was born and bred (1892, I think) in Chatswood, N.S.W., where he worked for a company called Muston & Co. which owned the salt deposits on Kangaroo Island. He joined the A.I.F. when W.W.I. broke out, saw service in Egypt, Palestine and finally in the trenches of France. While carrying explosives used for destroying barbed wire entanglements with two other mates, he was hit by shrapnel. The other two were killed outright. As a result, he was eventually repatriated to Australia, where his wife had died in childbirth while he was in France. Finding it difficult to settle back in Sydney, he decided to move to Perth, which had appealed to him when leaving for overseas. However, his ex-employers asked him to stop off at Kangaroo Island on the way. He never made it to Perth. While on holidays in Adelaide, Len met Olive. They married towards the end of 1923, moved to Muston and lived there for the next 10 years.

Our home was in some ways situated in an almost idyllic position, with scrub at the rear and looking down some 100 yards or so to American River, which is not really a river but a tidal estuary. Alongside the jetty was a small beach. While Dad was at work, Mum and I seemed to spend quite some time on the little beach. My mother had an extension of the Post Office telephone bell set up by the beach so that when it rang, requiring her to do things to the local switchboard, we would go back to the house and she would carry out her “Postmistressly” duties. Obviously no one was too impatient or in a great hurry in those days on Kangaroo Island.

Dad had a 12 foot dinghy used for fishing the King George whiting for which this part of the world was famous. We used to dig up a few cockles on the sand banks at low tide for bait, and Dad would row out and find a sandy bottom to drop a line. If he didn't get a bite within about 2 minutes we would move on. Any whiting under about a foot (30cm) went straight back. He would catch about a dozen in 30 minutes and they went into the well in the boat, where they remained alive and well until required for the pan.

The river was alive with all types of marine life. Stingrays, sharks and "fiddlers", which looked like a ray but with a thick tail and no barbs, and when grabbed by the tail would tow we kids through the shallows at what seemed to be a great rate of knots. I vividly recall seeing a shark at least 2 or 3 feet longer than our dinghy glide past our family in the boat, in such shallow water that half its back was exposed, only about 6 feet away. One memorable experience I had with Dad was the day he speared a manta ray, which was about 12 feet across. We were towed at great speed for about a mile when the rope broke and we saw our harpoon disappearing in the distance. Dad said the rope snapped, but I suspect he may have cut it as he realised he had taken on more than he could handle, particularly with a little kid in the boat.

While we were never short of fish, we certainly did not have a corner store. A mixed business man would call once a week with groceries, vegetables, bread, etc. Mum baked bread every other day. We had a cow called Buttercup, and made our own butter and grew a few fruit trees. All water came from rainwater tanks collected from the roof. Towards the latter part of our time there, Dad installed a windmill which charged batteries -For electric light. Such luxury! There was no ice or refrigeration but we managed with the Coolgardie Safe water cooler. Of course, we had chooks (I nearly forgot) and Mum had a pet lamb which enjoyed racing up and down a long linoleum-covered passage, usually ending with a great skid. Whether it ever ended its days on our table I have sometimes wondered, but I doubt it.

In 1928 (11th December) our family became a foursome, with the arrival of my sister Heather Lucy. I don't think that this momentous event, disturbed my way of life particularly and I have never heard reports of my nose being put out of joint.

At about this time, and here I am very vague about dates, my maternal grandmother came to live with us. I remember her as a little old lady with a white lace bonnet, who was always losing her glasses and complaining to me that she could not see to find them because she had lost them, which to me, as maybe a 3 year old, was absolutely hilarious. Another one of her party tricks designed to amuse a 3 year old was to try and shake tomato sauce from the bottle, without removing the cap. I found this highly amusing. Grandma Opie (nee Besley) was the only grandparent we two children ever knew. After 2 or 3 years with us, she fell and broke her hip. She died at our home soon after, from pneumonia. She was taken to Adelaide for burial and I remember my mother being most affected by the fact that the captain of the S.S. Kapoola flew the ship's flag at half mast all the way to Port Adelaide.

While Muston was fairly isolated, my parents seemed to enjoy a reasonably active social life. Without TV or radio, nearly all homes had a piano and parties always included a lot of singing. Mother could play the piano quite well. Country dances were always on, but travelling was a bit of a problem due to the atrocious state of the roads. We had a 2 seat plus "dicky" seat "Hupmobile" which was Dad's pride and joy. I was told by my parents that on one excursion we hit a bump, which hurled me right out of the car into a burnt bush, on my head. The blackened pom-pom of my bonnet indicated where I came to earth. (No one had heard of child restraints). I suppose the manner of my landing could explain a number of things to some of my friends! Visits to Kingscote, the principal town on Kangaroo Island, some 25-30 miles away, happened quite rarely, and I suppose only when a clothing shopping expedition was called for.

At age 5 or 6 it was time for my formal education to commence, so off to "school". The S.A. Education Dept. took care of this by correspondence and Mum became a school teacher. I don't recall too much of my first year's education, but it seems that at the end of 12 months I graduated to Grade 2.

My mother, quite a strong-willed person, was very much a city girl and really never assimilated to country life. She missed the bright lights. Dad, on the other hand, an easy-going bloke, ("Anything for a quiet life" was one of his favourite sayings) fitted in very well. So, when it was decided that, as a result of the Great Depression which was gripping the world, the salt lakes operation should suspend work, my parents decided (or Mum did) that 10 years on Kangaroo Island was long enough and that we should move to Adelaide. The management of Muston & Co. wanted Dad to stay on and maintain the operation indefinitely for 10 pounds per week. This was about the equivalent of a Bank Manager's salary and was extremely generous. He was obviously held in high regard.

In 1932 we said farewell to Muston.

About 40 years later, Bess and I spent a week at American River and went in search of Muston. No jetty, no railway line, no house. But it was still there! A great big mulberry tree, still bearing fruit, which I used to climb as a little kid, and get into trouble for getting fruit stains on my clothes.

The only other things remaining are the memories.

1933-39

On moving to "Town" (as it was always called by we country people) my parents took out a 2 year lease on a home with a shop attached, on the corner of Woodville and Port Roads, opposite St. Margaret's C. of E. church. I believe they paid 250 pounds for the stock and goodwill of the shop, which was a mixed business selling vegetables, groceries, milk, bread, sweets, etc. The house was quite a substantial home of 6 rooms, with a large backyard.

Mum and Dad, then in their early 40s, worked their guts out and built up quite a thriving business. The shop was open from 7am to 11pm every day. Twice a week, Dad would drive our Ford "T" model van to the wholesale fruit and vegetable market in the city, leaving home at 4am, to buy produce for the shop. He would also make home deliveries of groceries, fruit and vegetables by pushing a 3-wheel cycle with a large box up front around the suburb of Woodville, while Mum managed the shop.

At this time, Australia, like the rest of the world, was in the grip of the Great Depression. Woodville, the home of Holden Motors, felt the effects quite severely, particularly when Holden cut production to 2 days per week. Having in mind that the approximate wage for an assembly-line worker was about 5 pounds ($10) for a five day (48 hours) week, working only two days made life quite a struggle. Also, it is worth remembering that there was no such thing as the "Dole". There was some system of ration tickets for families without any work, which entitled them to certain basic foodstuffs, e.g. bread, potatoes and some meat. My parents, like other shopkeepers, had what was called a "Tick Book" where customers bought some goods on credit and paid at the end of the week, i.e. on pay day. I never heard them ever complain of bad debts, and that says something of the character of the people during those hard times.

I was enrolled in Grade 2 at Woodville Primary School at the beginning of 1933 and naturally found it all very strange. Primary school education covered 7 years (Grades 1 to 7), classes were mixed and at Woodville there were usually about 60 kids per class. Like any real red-blooded Aussie kid (age 7) I immediately fell in love with our Grade 2 teacher, one Miss Clark, who, showing absolutely no consideration for me, left to get married. As a student I was probably a bit better than average, but certainly not outstanding. I have a book, "Kidnapped" by R.L. Stevenson, presented to me for being Dux of Grade 5, which must have been a good year for me. At the completion of Grade 7 all students sat for a public examination called the Q.C. (Qualifying Certificate) where I scored 532 marks out of a possible 700, which says it all for me as a student. To obtain your D.C. 350 marks were required.

Life at primary school was quite pleasant. The hours in class were from 9am to 4pm with an hour break for lunch, plus morning and afternoon recess. Our behaviour was strictly policed and discipline was no real problem. This was mainly due, I suppose, to the threat of corporal punishment dealt out either by the class teacher, or in really bad infringements by being sent to "the Office" – i.e. the Headmaster's den, where the ogre himself dealt out savage "cuts" (a cane to the fingers) with reckless abandon – or so a small boy's vivid imagination ran. What corporal punishment that was dealt out – boys only, by the way – did not really seem to have any lasting or harmful effect on our characters, as I recall. In fact, getting the cuts was considered by most kids as a kind of "badge of honour". We shared a desk with another student – of either sex. From Grade 3 onwards we had to write in ink. As ballpoint pens had not been invented, we used steel nibs dipped in ink wells which were fitted into the desks. Our writing was dried with blotting paper. It was a great honour to be named as "Ink Monitor" whose task it was to top up the ink wells before class each day. Girls with long plaits were always in dire danger of having their braids surreptitiously dipped in the ink wells of the desk behind them by some fiendishly minded small boy. Very blond plaits were by far the most satisfying.

Woodville Primary had no oval for sport. Our playground was asphalt-covered open areas between classrooms. However, we did play sport against other schools, mainly Australian Rules football, on a Saturday morning. I can still recall the thrill of being chosen in the team, and being handed my brown and gold guernsey on a Friday afternoon, in class, to take home for the Saturday morning game. I felt at least 10 feet tall. During 1936 or '37 some far-sighted members of the Port-Adelaide District Lacrosse Club gained permission to introduce the game into our school. An enthusiastic group of 11 and 12 year olds were given lacrosse sticks, a team was formed which was based at the nearby Woodville Lacrosse Ground, and we competed against other school teams on Saturday afternoons. Aussie Rules on Saturday a.m., lacrosse Saturday p.m. I was sports mad. I played lacrosse, with some interruptions, for the next 22 years and I am a Life Member of our club (now the Woodville Lacrosse Club). It is a great game, played mainly in W.A., S.A., Victoria, U.S.A., Canada and the U.K. Apart from ice hockey it is the fastest team game in the world. It is said that the only reason they have a referee is to keep the police from interfering.

Our primary school students were an interesting mix of society, I would guess equally divided between blue collar and middle class parents. I know of some of the children of the former group who did exceptionally well in later life and some in the latter class who performed very ordinarily. I am not sure what that says about our schooling, but I suspect that primary education is not overly significant in framing our future life.

Heather and I enjoyed a fairly happy life. We were well fed, clothed and loved by our parents. We had few problems at school; in fact, Heather was a brilliant student. She topped the Port Adelaide district (probably about 20 schools) with her O.C. results. Our pocket money was 3 pence per week, which was spent on a comic paper. Occasionally, we were given 6 pence (5 cents) to attend a Saturday afternoon matinee at the Woodville picture theatre. That was a great thrill. Sundays, when the weather was fine, Mum would take us to the beach at Semaphore while Dad looked after the shop. We had no car, so we travelled to the beach on the open top of a double-decker bus. A further delight to us on these visits was lunch. This consisted of a pasty and an enormous pickled onion. The pasties, a meal on their own, cost 3 pence each and the onion a penny (1 cent). A great favourite with kids in any sweets shop was the ha'penny (½ cent) or the penny tray. There was an assortment of lollies you could select for either a ha'penny or 2 for a penny. Kids were introduced to the decision making process early in those days.

Pre-decimal currency was known by fairly colourful terms. They were as follows:

½ penny     (ha’penny)           - a “sprat”

1 penny                                    - a “brownie”

3 pennies   (thruppence)       - a “tray”

6 pennies   (sixpence)           - a “zac”

1 shilling    (12 pence)           - a “deaner” or “bob”

2 shillings (24 pence)           - a “two bob”

10 shillings (120 pence)         - a “½ quid” or “10 bob”

1 pound      (240 pence)         - a “quid”

I wonder if our present day currency will ever acquire such quaint nicknames.

After living in the shop on the corner of Woodville and the Port Road for 2 years or so, our landlord, Mr Blunt, decided to increase the rent for a renewal of the lease. Our parents took exception to this and told him what to do with his lease and moved to another shop on the opposite side of the Port Road. This was an old shop, with living quarters behind and above the shop, where they carried on the same type of business. The accommodation was fairly primitive (e.g. toilet at the end of the back yard) and for we kids, chamber pots under the bed were necessary. Our mother was far from impressed with our living quarters, and was no doubt planning to do something about it, when she received a 10 pound ($20) inheritance from the will of some relative. She invested this in a Star Bowkett Society which in fact was a type of Co-operative Building Society. Members pay into the society a regular sum, until such time as funds accumulate to the point when money can be lent to certain members in order to buy a house. The lucky member to receive the loan was decided by drawing the numbers out of a hat (or something) and of course when the first draw of the society was held, out came Mum's number. With the funds lent by the society, our parents bought a newly built solid brick 3 bedroom home on a 60ft. (8.3m) frontage, for the princely sum of 800 pounds ($1600). This home, at 11 Koolunda Ave. Woodville, was opposite the oval used by the Port Adelaide District Lacrosse Club, so by chance, my future sporting career was given quite a boost.

Our new home was really a "Bed & Breakfast" dwelling, as we still had lunch and dinner at the shop. Apparently, our move across the Port Road worked out very well, business-wise. Our old customers followed us and we were now on the same side of the road (which was 2 one-way roads separated by a plantation and storm drain) as the school, which generated a lot of revenue from the school lunches and pocket money of 400-500 children. Mum "invented" the first milk and banana ice-block, sold for a penny each, which became the rage with the school kids. They became quite a money spinner and she had problems keeping up the supply. I suppose it was also a good way of using up slightly over-ripe bananas. Heather and I would do our homework in the living room behind the shop and at about 8.30 pm Mum would walk us home to Koolunga Avenue, a distance of about 2 or 3 kilometres, leaving Dad to run the shop. I still have unpleasant memories of those walks on winter nights.

Towards the end of 1936 it was decided to sell the shop. I think our parents had had enough of the 7 day a week slog (that was about a 115 hour week) and a holiday was called for. Dad bought a Chevrolet sedan, a '34 model, and a 2 berth caravan, and when school broke up in December we headed for Sydney. The only stock Mum took from the shop was a carton of P.K. chewing gum and a carton of chocolate frogs, to take on our big adventure. The first day's travel could be classed as something of an anti­climax, as we camped that night at a park at Glen Osmond, fully 12 miles from home. Our parents had not quite got the hang of packing up a caravan, but at least it was a start on what turned out to be a wonderful 6 weeks' trip, particularly for we 8 and 11 years old children. And we did have our P.K. and chocolate frogs, which Heather and I thought was terrific.

          I don't recall very much about the trip to Sydney and back, but it must have been a joy for Dad, who was reunited with his six sisters and their families in Sydney. He had not seen them since the end of the war, when he left for Kangaroo Island about 15 years earlier. I do remember going through Canberra in torrential rain and not being overly impressed with the place. I had no idea that I would be seeing it again 25 years later for reasons other than a holiday. Our arrival in the C.B.D, of Sydney was quite an event, caused by the fact that caravans were almost unknown outside South Australia, which is still the home of the caravan industry. We parked in George Street and caused minor havoc to the traffic, as literally hundreds of pedestrians milled around the van, peering through windows and generally admiring it. Returning from Sydney around the coast also had its moments, particularly the Great Ocean Road. Travelling south put us on the outside, and the sheer cliffs on our left caused Mum a fair amount of anxiety, to put it mildly. In fact the road was very dangerous. It was mainly unsealed and narrow to the point that when meeting on-coming traffic in certain places, one vehicle or the other had to back up into cut-outs in the cliffs. Reversing a caravan in this situation was no joke, but Dad was a very cool customer and there was no real drama.

At the conclusion of our odyssey the main priority was for Dad to find a job. By now, early 1937, the worst of the Depression was over and with the economy picking up, Dad found work at a nearby brickworks, without much trouble. He was mainly employed emptying kilns and stacking bricks, very menial hard work, but I think he considered a 48 hour week quite an improvement on his time as a shopkeeper. We continued to get a lot of use from the caravan. During school holidays it would be taken to the Esplanade at West Beach, some 6 miles from home, where we stayed while Dad commuted to work in the Chevy. He was earning about 5 pounds per week and, although he held a Boilermaker's and Engine Driver's certificate, decided to improve his employment prospects by doing a Fitting and Turning course, part-time, at the School of Mines in Adelaide, which he successfully completed.

My primary school education finished (Year 7) at the end of 1938 and I bade farewell to good old Woodville Primary School. Mother, always the ambitious one, wanted me to continue my secondary school education at Prince Alfred College, one of the leading church schools in Adelaide, very upper crust. How she ever imagined they would manage to scrape together the fees for P.A.C. is beyond me. That problem never eventuated, however, as I dug my heels in and insisted I was going to Woodville High School, where most of my friends were continuing on. So at age 13 I started high school, doing a commercial course which consisted of English, Maths, Geography, History, Book-keeping, Shorthand and Typing, i.e. 7 subjects. The school itself was a vast improvement on the primary school. We had an oval used for football and athletics and a very large assembly hall. While co­educational, the classes were quite separate, as were the out-of-class facilities. There was a male Headmaster and a female Headmistress. A general assembly was held weekly, with girls on one side of the central   aisle and boys on the other. Uniforms were compulsory, albeit a little less strict than those of college kids. For example, school caps were seldom worn, whereas the college students wore straw "boaters" for summer and caps for winter. We public high school kids were a bit more laid-back.

The high school catered for about 500 students. Like the primary school, they came from a mixed socio-economic background, but there were certainly a lesser proportion of kids from working class or blue collar families than was the case in primary school. The reason for this difference was the S.A. Education Department Technical Schools. They concentrated on subjects like Woodwork, Metal work, Cooking etc. and the children of tradesmen or the kids who showed little aptitude for scholarship generally did their secondary education in Tech. Schools. As a result, secondary education created three class conscious groups. The children of wealthy parents went to colleges, the middle class to high schools and children with a blue collar background went to technical schools.

About this time, our parents decided to upgrade our accommodation, sold 11 Koolunda Ave and bought 12 Oval Ave, which was directly opposite but on the other side of the oval. It was a much larger home among a better class of housing. The previous owner was the headmaster of the primary school. One feature that stays in my mind was the large enclosed sleep-out, which adjoined my bedroom, where the family piano was kept. That sleep-out and the piano, together with a wind-up gramophone, became an after school meeting place for our friends. We young teenagers were just beginning to appreciate music, and of course we all danced. In fact, most of my group of friends were taught ballroom dancing. We went to a class in Adelaide on Friday nights where we learned to dance correctly.

On a Monday morning in September '39 (war had been declared the previous night) we 13 year-olds were told by our Geography master that we kids thought that the war would not affect us, but not to kid ourselves as there was a good chance that most of us would be involved eventually. How right he was. Mr Rose was that master and the last I heard of him was that he was a P.O.W. in North Africa.

Sport kept us very busy and I dare say out of trouble. Football on Saturday mornings, lacrosse (I was now playing 4th grade for the Port Adelaide Lacrosse Club) Saturday afternoons and, during the summer, tennis on Sunday afternoons. After school in the summer we would push our bikes 4 or 5 miles to the beach at Grange for a swim, which would quite often include a swim of 1 mile from the Grange jetty to the Henley Beach jetty, with the necessary 1 mile run back to Grange along the beach and then the ride home to Woodville. There were no such things as gears on our cycles, they were still to be invented. I suppose, although we were not aware of it, we were doing a mini triathlon sometimes 2 or 3 times a week.

Academically, I must have had a reasonable first year at high school. While I don't recall working very hard, I don't think my parents had to stand over me to get me to do my homework. However, after the final exams, I was told that I was to advance to 3rd year, thus giving 2nd year a miss.

So ended 1939.

1940-43

Australia was very seriously at war. The 6th, 7th & 9th Divisions of the A.I.F. (all volunteers), some 45,000 troops, were fighting in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Syria. R.A.N, ships, destroyers, cruisers and corvettes, were in action mainly in the Mediterranean hut also in the Indian Ocean. R.A.A.F. personnel were flying in England and North Africa, so in total we had about 60,000 volunteer servicemen on active service overseas.

At this time Dad decided to join the air force, where his fitting and turning qualifications could help keep planes flying. Not surprisingly, although he was only 48 years old, he failed the medical examination. Probably his W.W.I shrapnel wounds and deafness had a bit to do with it. However, in order to do his patriotic bit, he left the brickworks and got a job in the government munitions factory, where his skills were put to good use manufacturing 25 pound shells for the artillery.

The war, at this time in 1940, had very little impact on we 14-year-olds. My friends and I naively hoped that the conflict would last, until we were 18 so that we could join the force, and watched enviously as older brothers in uniform came home on their final leave before embarking for overseas. For many, unfortunately, it was indeed their final leave.

Having advanced, without too much effort, to 3rd Year, this 14 year-old decided that serious study was not for him. 3rd Year was Intermediate Year, which involved a public exam at the end. To gain an Intermediate Certificate it was necessary to pass at least 4 subjects (English and Maths being compulsory) of the 7 subjects in the examination. The Intermediate Certificate, while not being a particularly prestigious qualification, was necessary to get any reasonable type of job, so as a result students were expected to apply themselves to their work more so than in 1st and 2nd Years.

Our class of about 50 kids was made up of 2nd Year kids who had progressed normally to 3rd Year, "veterans" of 3rd Year who had failed the Intermediate and were having their second, or in some cases their third try at it, and the last group, of which I was one, were those kids who had come straight from 1st Year. Being a "smart arse", on the first day in class I claimed a desk in the back row with a couple of my mates, as far as possible away from the teacher, and having previously decided that life was for living and study was for the birds, I proceeded to have fun. Our class teacher, who took all subjects except English and Geography, was Mr Ivan Coward and it seems he worked me out quite quickly. As I remember, I lasted one day only at the back of the classroom and, rather surprisingly to me, found myself posted to a desk in the front row, right in front of Mr Coward's table where he could reach me with a minimum of effort. For me, things were not going quite as planned. When I didn't react promptly to his instructions, more than once I found myself sitting on the floor, the result of a well-aimed blow in the direction of my right ear. After a while, to prevent the embarrassment of floor sitting, and being some sort of realist, I decided that my early study planning must have been a bit faulty and that some sort of cooperation with Mr Coward might not be a bad idea. In fact, it turned out to be a very good idea. At the end of the year, when I tremblingly opened the "Adelaide Advertiser" to see how badly I had done in the Intermediate Examination, I was amazed to discover that out of the 50 or so kids in the class, I was the only one who had passed all 7 subjects.

To this day, whatever success I achieved in my life, I believe that Ivan Coward had a great influence. He was into athletics and played lacrosse and in the following year at school coached me for the Senior Cup in athletics. He had made me see that with a bit of effort on my part I could achieve far more than I thought I was capable of. Ivan Coward enlisted in the R.A.A.F. and while I was away in the Navy we occasionally corresponded. He was shot down over Darwin but escaped, with burns, from his crashed plane. After the war, he returned to teaching and ended his career as the highly respected Headmaster of Norwood High School.

Another teacher of whom I hold fond memories was our
English teacher, Miss Maud Nicholas. I was a great disappointment to her, as she had me earmarked to win the Tennyson Medal, awarded to the top student in the English Intermediate Examination in South Australia. Needless to say, I didn't make it, and rather felt that I had let her down. I think it is the ambition of every English teacher in S.A. to have taught a Tennyson Medal winner. She was a mother figure to we 15-year-olds. She must have been about 50 and had a cottage in the Adelaide hills, where, from time to time, she invited the students, boys and girls, from her Leaving English class. There were about a dozen of us. Her influence is still with me, exemplified by the way I shudder when I hear well-educated people say "all of a sudden" in lieu of "suddenly" and the word "got" (an ugly word, she would say) instead of "have". And as for "haitch"! She was quite a character, much loved by her ex-students away at the war, from whom she received a good deal of mail.

As mentioned previously, Ivan Coward decided that he would spend some time coaching me for the annual athletics carnival. He was a keen amateur athlete and a member of the Adelaide Harriers Club, the top athletic club in S.A. With my addiction to sport – lacrosse, football, tennis, swimming – I was very fit and fairly fast on my feet and had stopped growing at about 6ft (180cm), so naturally I entered myself for every event. I was obviously not short of confidence in this area. The heats of the events were run off on the school oval the week before the finals, which were held on the Alberton Oval, home of the renowned Port Adelaide Football Club. Parents were invited to attend, I qualified for the finals in all events except the high jump, at which I was hopeless, so I was in for a busy day at the Sports Day, as it was known. In the 100 yard hurdles, I had beaten all the finalists in the heats, so I was not concerned about winning, but I was trying, at Ivan's urging, to break a long standing record. With this in mind, I took off like a runaway train, knocked over the first 3 hurdles and finished an ignominious 3rd. Once again, I felt I had let down my teacher/coach. Things from then on, however, improved. I won the 100 yard, 220 yard, 440 yard, 880 yard, broad jump and triple jump, and walked away with the Senior Cup, which was presented to me some days later in the assembly hall before about 500 kids and teachers. This, I think, was the high point of my time at Woodville High School, and I think that Ivan Coward was also pleased.

As a 15 year-old in 1941, although only in my 3rd year at high school, my time there was coming to an end. In those days, a bank manager was, in the eyes of my parents, the epitome of a man's career. I remember them saying, "You could earn as much as 10 pounds a week as a bank manager". Predictably, therefore, when offered the job of a junior clerk in the English, Scottish & Australian Bank (now the A.N.Z.), I became a bank clerk. I started work on the 1st September 1941, being paid the princely sum of 1 pound 17 shillings & 6 pence ($3.75) per week for a five-and-a-half-day week. I was given the job on the undertaking that I pass my Leaving Certificate exam at the end of the year, which was not easy, as I was no longer at school. This problem was overcome with the help of a classmate friend who did his homework at our home each night, partly to escape two or three young brothers who made study fairly difficult at his home, and partly to help me stay with the work until the exams in November. I think the suppers that Mum supplied also helped. At the end of '41 – or maybe January '42 – when the Leaving results were published, I found I had passed, thus achieving two fairly important goals. Firstly, I kept my job at the bank, and secondly, qualified for admission to the University of Adelaide.

My duties as a junior clerk at the bank were many and varied and mostly fairly mundane. They included delivering bank statements on foot (as the bank bike was broken) to all our customers within the square mile of Adelaide, in order to save postage. I had to take orders for lunch to a cafe and collect same. This I enjoyed, as I was on a commission from the cafe and received a small envelope weekly, for my percentage for taking business to them. It amounted to 3 or 4 shillings a week, i.e. 30 or 40 cents, but with the best malted milk shakes in Adelaide available at the "Black & White" milk bar next door to the bank and costing 6 pence (5 cents), to which I was particularly partial, the commission came in very useful. I should have said earlier that the bank I started work at was the Town Hall branch of the E.S.& A., the busiest branch of any bank in Adelaide. We had a staff of about 15, commenced work at 9am and finished when all books were balanced to the last penny, which was generally about 6pm, and about 1pm Saturdays.

Other duties included filling ink wells (I had become an "ink monitor" again), replacing blotting paper, keeping the petty cash box, buying postage stamps, collecting mail from our box at the G.P.O., sorting out cheques deposited with us into their applicable bank and delivering them to our head office, which was about half a mile away in King William Street, and generally being kept frantically busy. Lunch was eaten while I worked. The main time consumer was the "by foot" delivery of bank statements all over Adelaide, and it soon became apparent to me that I could do this a whole lot quicker on a bike. Not having any money was a bit of a problem, but this was overcome by Mum lending me the 15 pounds ($30) necessary to buy a Super Elliott 3 speed geared road racer, the last word in bicycles, and as a result I became the fastest delivery boy in the city. I repaid Mum at the rate of 10 shillings ($1) per week, but I was not much out of pocket as I saved bus fares by riding to and from work, a distance of about 12 miles (20 kilometres) per day. I also paid rental to Mum and Dad of 10 shillings per week, which left me with 17/6 ($1.75) to spend. During the winter, the ride home from work was almost always after dark, so the bike was equipped with a generator set run off the front wheel that provided lights "fore and aft", which were required by law.

As I was, albeit shakily, finding my feet in the world of commerce, the war was not going well for us. Our troops in North Africa were doing it the hard way after being kicked out of Greece and Crete, but held their own magnificently in the defence of Tobruk. We had occupied Syria, but only after a grim struggle with the Foreign Legion, who were fighting with the Vichy French. In the Mediterranean, we had lost several of our destroyers with worse to come when the cruiser "Sydney" was lost with all hands – about 600 – off the coast of W.A. Casualties in the R.A.A.F. were quite severe in the U.K. and over Europe, and all in all the mood at home was quite sombre. Conscription into the Army became law at age 18, but the A.M.F. (Australian Military Forces) was not for overseas service, but for the defence of Australia and Territories, which included New Guinea. At this time, when the whole picture was fairly bleak, Japan hit Pearl Harbor and rolled apparently inexorably south, including the capture of the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore, where our 8th Division A.I.F. was stationed and where we lost about 12,000 troops as P.0.W.'s.

With the continual advance south of the Japanese and the bombing of Darwin, Broome and Townsville, Australians realised that they were at war. Petrol, meat, butter and clothing were rationed and could only be bought with the necessary ration tickets, which were issued from government offices and post offices. Bomb shelters and slit trenches were dug in most back yards, while the A.M.F. Militia placed barbed wire entanglements along some of our beaches, dug trenches and manned machine gun emplacements. Regular air raid exercises were carried out when the sirens sounded, while the few cars on the road at night had their lights dimmed with black paint, leaving only a horizontal strip about 2cms wide for visible light. All homes had to have black-out curtains, and during the exercises air raid wardens would patrol the streets looking for light escaping from windows. Due to the lack of petrol, many cars converted to gas from charcoal which, as it was produced, was stored in a huge rubber bag carried on the roof of the vehicle.

The Home Guard (Dad's Army?) was formed, consisting of old soldiers from W.W.I and other men and boys who were either physically unfit for the Services or were in essential industries and thus barred from joining up. Naturally, Dad joined the Guard very promptly, and used to come home from the drill hall grumbling that, with a few exceptions, they wouldn't know how to fight their way out of a wet paper bag. They were armed with old Lee Enfield 303 rifles left over from W.W.I. We young blokes – 15 and 16-year-olds – were undergoing a fairly frustrating time as we were not quite old enough to join up. My friends and I all owned .22 rifles and used to ride our bikes some 60 kilometres to Mannum on the River Murray on weekends, camping out, and shooting rabbits. We all agreed that should the Japs ever get to South Australia, we would "go bush" with our rifles and give them a hard time. Romantic thinking, I suppose, but we were all fairly good shots and that was the mood of the times.

I was now 17 and the time had come to start working on my Mum to get her consent for me to apply to join the Navy. Parental consent was necessary if you were under 21 years of age. I knew there would be no problem with Dad, but with Mum it was a different matter. She had lost a brother, my uncle Les, in France and several close friends at Gallipoli. The one thing I had going for me was that I had decided on the Navy. I would not have made first base had I chosen the A.I.F. Dad had said that if I was determined to join up, the Navy was the way to go, as "You always have something to eat and somewhere to sleep". Having done his time in the trenches in France, he knew what he was talking about. When I was about 17-and-a-half, I eventually wore Mum down with the argument that if I delayed much longer I would be "called up" (conscripted) into the A.M.F., and she grudgingly signed the papers. With these in my hot little hand, I dashed down to the Naval Depot H.M.A.S. Torrens at Birkenhead, lodged same and waited to be summoned for my medical. Much to my mother's dismay, and as I had anticipated, this happened within a week or so. (I had convinced her that it would take months, when coaxing her to sign my application). Being extremely fit, I had no fears regarding the medical examination and with my application to join as a Signalman, I was full of confidence. Then came the first of many surprises that I was to experience in the Navy. The doctor confirmed what I had been told years before, during a school medical, that I was hopelessly colour blind and would never make a Signalman.

1943-46

I don't remember why I wanted to become a Signalman -probably some romantic notion – but when I was classified as completely unsuitable, since I couldn't tell the difference between red and green, they offered me some alternatives. I could join as a Cook, Stoker, or, as I had an Intermediate Certificate, a Supply Assistant. Further, and they must have been short of S.A.’s, if I joined this branch I would be sent to Sydney to H.M.A.S, Penguin for training in 2 weeks' time. I couldn't sign quickly enough. So, on the 5th June 1943, CLEWS L.J. Official Number PA4064, Probationary Supply Assistant, 2nd Class (the latter because I was 17 years old), classified by some as the "lowest form of marine life", mustered on the Adelaide railway station with a mixed group of about 15 other characters, aged from 17 to others in their 30s, boarded the Melbourne Express and waved farewell to my tearful mother and rather proud looking father and sister.

On arrival at Sydney, two days later, we were bundled into the back of a truck, which deposited us at H.M.A.S. Penguin for 2 month's training. This depot was a converted hospital overlooking Balmoral Beach and my main memory of it was the all-pervading smell of boiled cabbage. We were  issued with uniforms and hammocks, introduced into the mysteries of lashing and hanging a hammock, subjected to a series of vaccinations, inoculations, etc, and worst of all, introduced to the Petty Officer, who had the unenviable task of drilling and marching us. I am sure he hated the job, because he gave us hell, which I think made him feel better. We had rifle drill, bayonet drill and I couldn't really believe we would be using bayonets a lot at sea. Everything was done at the double. For example, following P.T, in shorts and singlets, we would be allowed 7 minutes to race up 3 storeys to our dormitory, change into full uniform and be back on the parade ground for more drill. We did some target shooting where my days at Mannum chasing rabbits paid off. I finished 2nd in the class of 30 to an ex-A.I.F, Infantryman who had transferred to the Navy. Our class was made up of all sorts, with past occupations ranging from farmers, clerks, tradesmen, a bank manager, lawyers (Frank Galbally), etc. I felt sorry for a couple of the 30 plus year olds who had come from sedentary jobs. The pace at which we were pushed must have nearly killed them. We also went back to school, with theory on how to keep supplies up to a ship and the necessary paperwork involved. Some sailing was included in our training and this I enjoyed.

After about three weeks of this, I decided to go down with dry pleurisy which put me in the sick bay for ten days or so, and as a result I completed my training with the class that started a month later than the one I had commenced with. (A new batch of recruits started monthly). For the first month of training no leave was allowed, after which we could "go ashore" after 4 o'clock, but for we under-18s leave expired at 10pm. It was known as "boys' leave". Our pay as "boys" was 3/6 (35 cents) per day. This rose to 6/6 (65 cents) per day on reaching 18. On one of these "runs ashore" I met all of Dad's five sisters, who had gathered to look me over, and who I had last seen in 1936 on our big caravan trip.

Anyhow, towards the end of August our training was complete and we were given a few days final leave. As far as the South Australians were concerned, this consisted of two nights on the train to Adelaide, and for me, one night sleeping in my old bed (not a hammock) and then two more nights on the train back to Sydney. Some "leave" indeed. The Western Australian's and Tasmanians missed out as they lived too far away, and in those days there was no thought of air travel. On arrival back at Sydney, to my surprise I was singled out by the R.T.O. (Rail Transport Officer) who had with him all my gear (hammock and sea-bag). This was handed over to me, together with instructions to get back on the train, as I was to carry on to Cairns to join H.M.A.S. Wagga, which I knew to be one of about sixty corvettes in service with the R.A.N.

Needless to say, this 17-year-old was delighted to be given a sea-going draft, as probably about a third of our class was posted to shore bases around Australia, and that was the last thing I wanted. So I was back on the troop train with about 500 other soldiers, sailors and airmen heading north. Now these troop trains were hardly luxurious. They were what were commonly called "dog boxes", with eight troops to a compartment, four facing forward and four facing aft, with overhead luggage racks. There was always intense competition to see who slept in the two luggage racks; personally, I preferred the floor which was shared with one or two others, while the rest tried to sleep sitting up. There were two toilets and hand basins per carriage, serving probably 80 personnel. Hygiene was obviously not a priority. We were issued with army type mess gear i.e. knife and fork, tin plate and mug, and were fed from army kitchens on railway stations along the way. The menu was the same each day – sandwiches, usually beef or cheese for breakfast and lunch, and stew each night for dinner with a mug of tea. The Army blokes considered this to be normal, but we Navy types were not impressed and realised how well we were looked after. Now this sort of living was not too bad for a couple of days, but in my case I had spent 4 out of the last 5 nights going to and from Adelaide on a train, and did not realise that for the next week I would be doing the same thing. Two nights to reach Brisbane and, would you believe, 4 more nights to Townsville and another day to reach Cairns. After about 9 days without a shower I was not nice to be with.

Our troop train must have had a very low priority, as we were shunted on to sidings time and time again to let other, faster trains through, thus the ridiculous time taken for the trip. When we stopped it would take about one minute for the troops, mainly Army, to jump off the train and start a two-up game (Swy). As we took off again there would be one helluva panic, troops gathering money and chasing the train, some just making it. It was always good to watch, very entertaining, and we didn't lose a single soldier.

Our flotilla of escort vessels – mainly corvettes with the occasional assistance of some sloops or a destroyer when extra large convoys needed to be escorted – were served by our "Mother Ship" the H.M.A.S. Platypus which was permanently tied up to the Cairns wharf. She supplied us with our stores — victuals, mechanical, ammunition etc – and on our return from a convoy we berthed alongside her. Having survived the train journey, I was picked up from the station, deposited on the wharf with my gear (hammock, kit bag, tin hat and gas mask) and directed to the second ship outboard from the Platypus. The Wagga – all corvettes were named after country towns – looked fairly good to me after the train trip, so with my gear I stumbled across the Platypus and another corvette and reported aboard my first ship. The coxswain knew that I was due and took a few details, then directed me to the Miscellaneous Mess (Supply Assistants, Cooks, Stewards) to which I headed, completely bemused but trying to look quite nonchalant, where I quickly discovered that no one had time to talk to me as all hands were involved in taking stores aboard. All was hustle and bustle as we were due to sail in 3 or 4 hours' time; this situation, I was to find, was very much the norm between convoys. Successfully keeping out of everyone's way during this organised chaos, I managed to find the showers, after which I felt that life might just be worth living.

Now a little about corvettes. They were a 900-odd ton vessel with complement (crew) of 95-100 sailors. They were designed not only for escort duties but most of them were also fitted with mine sweeping equipment. The Wagga was not thus equipped, which meant that we were never involved in this tedious and somewhat dangerous task. Our flotilla's job was to meet the convoys of ships travelling north inside the Barrier Reef, which was submarine proof, and take them out through the Grafton Passage just outside Cairns and escort them across the Coral Sea to New Guinea, which generally took about 48-50 hours, depending on weather, the size and speed of the convoy (a convoy's speed is the speed of the slowest ship), and whether our destination was Port Moresby, Milne Bay or Oro Bay. These convoys of troop ships, tankers and general cargo vessels usually numbered about 10 or a dozen. This number could be handled usually by 4 corvettes, whose job was to patrol in zig-zag fashion around the convoy using ASDIC (anti-submarine detection equipment – echo sounding) in order to protect the convoy from Japanese subs, which were fairly busy in the Coral Sea. Our ship (J315) was armed with one 4 inch dual purpose gun on the fo'c's'le, an Oerliken quick firing 1 inch gun aft on Y deck, with 2 machine guns on the wings of the bridge. Our main "teeth", however, were about eighty 400 pound depth charges, which could be despatched from 4 throwers (2 starboard, 2 port) or rolled off the stern from 2 sets of rails. This is what corvettes were designed for, to protect shipping from submarine attack. They could cruise for about 10 days without re-fuelling, and were quite slow (18 knots, max.) but could manoeuvre in a very agile manner when under air attack. There is a painting in the War Memorial, which I stumbled across, showing the Wagga's Oerliken gun and gunner in action during an air raid in Milne Bay. This raid happened just prior to my joining her, but when I did, she still sported a few shrapnel holes around the bridge area from near misses.

Corvettes were renowned for their behaviour – or lack of it – at sea. It was claimed that they could "roll on wet grass" and they did not only roll but could pitch at the same time. Now to me, who had no previous sea-time to my credit, this behaviour was, to say the least, quite disconcerting, and just to prove it, for the first six weeks I was sea-sick from the time we left the shelter of the Barrier Reef for 2 days until we reached Port Moresby or Milne Bay, and of course it was repeated on the return trip. After the first 6 weeks the sea-sickness stopped and to this day, while I have sailed on many different ships, I have never been sea-sick again. This problem did not preclude sufferers from carrying out normal duties. I used to work below decks in Central Stores, with the ever present smell of fuel oil, and a jam tin by my side, which needed emptying quite often. Stokers who also had this problem took their jam tins with them while on watch in the engine or boiler rooms. I had quite a few mates.

At this time, it seemed that the war tide was turning in our favour. Most of our seasoned A.I.F. troops had returned from the Middle East and with the assistance of some militia units had stopped the Japanese, for the first time, on the Kokoda Trail just beyond Moresby. This win was quickly followed by a battle for the air-strip at Milne Bay and once again, while it was a very near thing, the Japanese were forced to retreat back up the south-east coast of New Guinea.

Needless to say, there was an enormous amount of shipping heading north at this time, which kept us extremely busy. During October, for example, we spent 28 of the 31 days at sea. It was quite common to sail  into Cairns, head straight alongside the fuel lighter moored in the middle of the river, re­fuel then head once more for Grafton Passage for another convoy, without going alongside the Platypus to re-victual, collect mail or step ashore. These long periods at sea were not too bad as long as the weather was reasonable. A corvette's mess deck is not a pretty sight during rough weather. A "mess deck" is the living area for the sailors, that is, a place to eat and sleep, and during heavy weather with the ship more often than not sailing through waves rather than over them, everything became wet. Water would find its way through the deck head (ceiling), wetting clothes and bedding and this, combined with spilt food, smashed cutlery, etc, made life a little tedious. While the cooks did a marvellous job, there were times when it became impossible to prepare hot food in the galley and this did not improve morale at all. Rough weather is very tiring as you are continuously bracing yourself against the rolling and pitching of the deck, and I. found that I could drop off to sleep sitting at a mess deck table or wherever. We did not have much time for sleep at sea. The Supply Assistant's routine was normal work in the stores – either victualling or central store (tools, nuts, bolts, machine spares, etc) – from 6am to 4pm, into the hammock by 9 or 10pm, wakened at midnight for the middle watch as lookout on the wing of the bridge until 4am, back into the hammock until about 5.30am when all hands were called to close up for down action stations, after which it was time to think of breakfast and another day. With only 4 or 5 hours in the hammock a day, it was no wonder we could drop off to sleep while sitting at a table. It was also a good thing that we were young.

My little black book (log) in which I recorded our activities reveals that I crossed the Coral Sea in the Wagga on 22 occasions, and there were times when we sailed in idyllic conditions with the tropical sea like glass. These were the "nervy" convoys when the situation was ideal for submarines, and while keeping lookout watch on the wing of the bridge, peering through night field glasses for periscopes from 12 to 4 in the morning, there was no need for the Officer of the Watch to remind us to keep a sharp lookout. Rough weather, therefore, had its good points, as it made the chance of submarine attack less likely.

When a "contact" was made by one of the escorting ships with the aid of the echo sounding equipment, all hell would break loose. If you were in your hammock, you grabbed your anti-flash gear, "Mae West" (inflatable life jacket), a helmet (we slept in overalls) and raced like a mad thing midst the strident ringing of the alarm bells to your designated action station. (Predictably, the first such alarm found me seated comfortably in the "heads" [dunny]). My station was on the after starb'd depth charge thrower where we manhandled the charges on to the thrower, ready to fire when the ASDIC operators signalled that we were over the "contact". Some false alarms resulted from signals being received from objects other than submarines, for example a very compact school of fish or a sunken ship, but an experienced ASDIC operator could generally tell the difference between a false echo and the real thing.

On one memorable occasion when we were about 100 miles out of Cairns with a convoy heading south, a "contact" was made at about 11 o'clock at night. The convoy with 3 corvettes took off flat out for Cairns, while we were given the job of keeping the submarine involved. Now we knew that the Japanese long range submarines sported, apart from torpedoes, a 6 inch gun and as our heavy armament consisted of a 4 inch gun, the last thing we wanted was for him to surface. The hunt went on all night, and as dawn was breaking our ASDIC operators reported noises of a submarine breaking up, and we knew that we had won this one. With only 6 or 8 depth charges remaining it had not happened too soon, and we were all very thankful when we stopped circling and headed for Cairns. There was no exuberance, so beloved by Hollywood on such an occasion, among the crew. We were all very wet and tired, and when we secured action stations the mood was rather sombre and I believe all members of ship's company, with at least half a brain, were thinking of the 60 or so Japanese sailors that died a very nasty death, several hundred feet below us. That night we had leave ashore in Cairns until midnight (I had turned 18 by this time) and I was, incongruously it now seems to me, in view of our activities of only a few hours earlier, at a dance. I was dancing with a civilian lass – a rare breed in Cairns at this time – when she posed the usual question, "What ship?" I replied "Wagga", and to my amazement she said, "Oh, you sank that submarine last night". So much for war time security! The full details of this particular action became known to me as it turned out that I was the only member of ship's company who could use a typewriter, and on our way back to Cairns I was employed in typing out the Captain's report. My commercial high school studies had come in useful at last.

At the end of '43 we headed south for a much needed refit, arriving in Melbourne 3 days before Christmas Day, and from there home for 2 weeks' leave. During this leave, much to my embarrassment, I became sick with a schoolboy's disease – scarlet fever – and was bundled off to the Northfield Infectious Diseases Hospital, at that time run by the Army and known as the 121st A.G.H. There I developed acute sinusitis and spent a few very uncomfortable weeks. On being discharged, I found, much to my disgust, that the Wagga had sailed north without me and I was drafted to the local shore depot, H.M.A.S. Torrens. I was most uncomfortable while working in the clothing store at Torrens, and missed being at sea very much. I just could not wear being in the Navy and going home to the family 2 nights out of 3, and felt very unsettled. Of course the family, particularly Mum, thought it was great and dragged me off to the Methodist church every Sunday to show me off to her friends. Fortunately, this purgatory only lasted for 7 weeks, when to my delight I was told to pack my gear and get on a troop train for Sydney to join H.M.A.S. Whang Pu, which I did on 21st April 1944.

The Whang Pu, a vessel of 3,200 tons, operated pre-war along the China coast and was requisitioned by the Royal Navy when Japan entered the war. She sailed to Singapore and was being fitted out as a submarine depot ship. As the Japanese took over the Malay Peninsula and then Singapore, she sailed for the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) laden with evacuees. Surviving several air attacks she eventually made it to Fremantle, where she was taken over by the R.A.N. When I joined her in Sydney, she was being loaded with all the necessary equipment to build a naval depot on an island in Madang Harbour on the north-east coast of New Guinea, to service light patrol vessels known as "Fairmiles". The equipment to build this depot included trucks, jeeps and a bulldozer, as well as building materials. Halfway through loading, the good old wharf labourers went on strike. The war effort meant little to those safe, stay at home sods. Anyhow, we were due to sail in 3 days, so the Captain told us that if we could load the ship within the 3 days allocated to the wharfies we could have a night's shore leave. We achieved this in less than 2 days, had our night's leave ashore and sailed on time.

Our trip north as I recall was fairly uneventful, with the exception of the Coral Sea crossing when heading for Milne Bay. We ran into a hurricane and to avoid foundering we had to head south-east when we should have been sailing north-east. These Chinese coastal and river ships were quite flat-bottomed and were not designed for heavy seas, so we had to head into the storm to stay afloat. I remember feeling very superior at this time as about half the crew were violently sea-sick, and as I had overcome that problem on the Wagga, I quite enjoyed the wild weather and the ample supply of food at meal times.

We eventually arrived at Madang after stops at Brisbane, Townsville and Milne Bay, 6 weeks after leaving Sydney. Madang had not long been captured by the Army and while a few Japanese snipers were still operating and being hunted down, there, under canvas, was the Salvation Army offering mugs of tea and coffee. We were very impressed. The little island in Madang Harbour at which we berthed and on which we were to build the depot was covered with 2 metre high kunai grass, and it was decided that it was necessary to burn it off before work could start. That decision turned out to be only half smart, for as soon as the fire got under way we came under fire. It turned out that the island had housed a Japanese 3 inch anti-aircraft battery and when they had departed they left a lot of unexploded shells in the grass. These did not remain unexploded once the fire hit them and as a result we experienced a very lively night, keeping out of the way of shrapnel. I suppose the Japs had the last laugh.

Life at Madang was fairly dull. We built the depot, serviced Fairmiles, and sat in the rain at the pictures on 10 litre drums – it rained every night at 8pm in Madang – with our ground sheets around our shoulders, our army slouch hats pulled down over our ears and our feet covered by very serviceable army boots. We played some water polo by the ship's side, with a sailor each end of the field armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun to frighten away the sharks. According to my discharge papers, I sat and passed an exam in December '44 to become a Leading Supply Assistant, probably the equivalent of a corporal in the Army. My pay was increased from 6/6 (65 cents) per day to 7/6 (75 cents).

After about 12 months in Madang I was given leave to go home for 10 days. The problem was, of course, how to get home. I managed to organise a flight on an R.A.A.F. Dakota (D.C.3) with about 20 other chaps from the three services. We sat facing each other on a wooden bench, no seat belts or anything like that, as it was designed for delivering parachutists. It had taken part in Australia's first parachute drop of the war over the Ramu Valley, in central New Guinea. The co-pilot conversationally told us that they had a somewhat dicey starboard engine. He may have been right, but it was the port engine that stopped dead, soon after take-off. We limped back to Madang airstrip and were told to reappear, same time, tomorrow morning. Not wholly convinced that this was a good idea we nevertheless fronted up again next morning. There were no problems in becoming airborne and while I knew our route to the first stop at Higgins Field was over the Owen Stanley Ranges (10,000 ft plus), it soon became apparent to us all that D.C.3's lacked the ability to fly that high. This problem was simply overcome by flying through the mountains via the valleys, and I can assure you that looking out of a plane, when on both sides all that can be seen is the precipitous side of a mountain just a little beyond the wing tips, is an experience you could well  do without.

On landing at Higgins Field, an airstrip built on the very tip of Cape York Peninsula, we were met by ladies of the American Red Cross, who plied us with fresh milk and doughnuts. Having always been a milk lover, this was something special as it was the first fresh milk I had tasted for a year or so. These ladies were the first white women I had seen for the same period of time. While up north our food, while far better than army food, was not the greatest. Apart from tinned food, we used dehydrated potatoes, onions, eggs and milk. Fresh fruit was just a memory as was fresh meat. We consumed large quantities of lime juice, which helped slow down prickly heat and probably helped with vitamin C deficiency. It was compulsory to take Atebrin tablets every day to prevent malaria, which they didn't, but apparently helped. We all developed a pleasant shade of jaundiced yellow due to these tablets, which was a small price to pay if they kept malaria at bay. The most effective propaganda put out by the Japanese came from a lady called Tokyo Rose, who we used to enjoy listening to on the radio. She broadcast in a sexy American drawl and assured us, among other things, that there was no better way of becoming sterile than by taking Atebrin. Now while it was a punishable offence not to take Atebrin, it was hard to police, and a certain proportion of servicemen of the thick-wit variety who had definite ideas and plans of busily propagating the species when they got home, avoided the medication. As a result, they went down like flies with malaria and Tokyo Rose's propaganda had served. I suspect that a proportion of the "Baby Boomers" generation may have been the result of returning ex-servicemen who had religiously taken their Atebrin, mistakenly believing Tokyo Rose's garbage. Who knows?

Due to the unattractive food, we gradually ate less and less and in no time had trimmed down considerably, which with the continual heat and humidity was not a bad thing. About 90% of ship's company smoked and at 2/6 (25 cents) for a carton of 200 cigarettes, or 2 and a half cents for a packet of 20, why not? There was never any suggestion that smoking was a health hazard and in fact in the Royal Navy there was a free issue of cigarettes. Of course, the Royal Navy also had an issue of rum each day, but we in the R.A.N. had to get by on lime juice. At the end of the war when supplies were available, the R.A.N., when in port, issued a bottle of beer twice weekly. The idea of course was to cultivate a friendship with a non-drinker, but they were fairly scarce.

We flew from Higgins to Brisbane and I then travelled on to Adelaide by troop train to be with the family for 10 days or so. I don't remember many details of this particular leave, but I do recall that I upset Mum by not being able to cope with what appeared to be huge meals. My stomach had shrunk, I had lost about 12 kilos and had not been overweight to start with. I was very yellow from the Atebrin, but I was quite fit. She was worried by my appearance and was quite sure that large meals would put things right. With time on my hands I looked up some of my ex-school friends who, for one reason or another, were still civilians. This proved to be a mistake, as I quickly established that we no longer had anything in common. We just did not speak the same language. My three close friends, Woods, Forrest and Hawson, were all away in the Navy and Air Force and I just felt that I was not in the "real world". This was ridiculous of course, for "civvy street", as we called normal life, was the "real world" and I had been, and was going back, to "elsewhere", where I felt at home. Being in this unsettled state, it was not difficult to kiss my parents and sister goodbye and head off by troop train for Sydney. Looking back now, I realise I really was a mixed up 19 year old, but having discussed my leave experience with other sailors I discovered I was not unique.

In Sydney I took passage in a large Royal Navy assault vessel, the 10,000 ton H.M.S. Empire Arquebus, with about 2,000 R.N. (Pommy) sailors. This ship was equipped with landing barges for beach landings and the accommodation for the troops was basic to say the least, being designed for short stay purposes – probably across the English channel for the invasion of Europe. We were crammed like sardines in the sleeping quarters, in 3 tier bunks well below the water line, and with typical English lack of ventilation – they never envisaged that these ships may at some time operate in the tropics – the atmosphere during the night was putrid. We were not in convoy and with one corvette escorting us, the H.M.A.S. Glenelg, we took off for Manus in the Admiralty Islands. I don't remember enjoying this trip over much, especially on one night when the Glenelg made a contact and went about chucking depth charges around. Below the water line, as we were, depth charges make a lot of noise and vibration, and the thought of an "unfriendly" out there, while being cramped in with 2,000 other sailors, just did not appeal. I must admit, however, that I did enjoy the 11am "up spirits" (rum issue) which we had in true R.N. style for the week that the trip took.

On arrival at Manus, which incidentally is the largest harbour in the world, I was victualled into H.M.S. Lament, the R.N. naval depot, for a few days while the Glenelg refuelled and then I took passage in the Glenelg for Madang and the Whang Pu. I was very happy to go aboard the Glenelg after the Empire Arquebus, and because of my ex-Wagga days I felt very much at home in a corvette. It turned out that one of the ship's company had been a year ahead of me at high school and I had known him quite well as a kid –“Flip” Fuller by name – so we did a bit of catching up during the trip back to Madang.

Back on the Whang Pu nothing much had changed. We were servicing a flotilla of Fairmiles as well as being a store ship for other small ships. Don Woods, probably my best friend as a kid, showed up on one of the Fairmiles, on which he was a Signalman. Don, a few years later, was our groomsman at our wedding. He was turned in to our sick bay with a bad dose of tropical ear, a very painful infection caught from swimming. Most of us who swam suffered from it from time to time. I was fairly fit except for the normal malarial attacks, prickly heat and dermatitis, but nearly everyone enjoyed these problems. I played a bit of water polo, tried my hand at boxing and generally kept fit. I had three inter-ship bouts; lost the first, drew the second and won the third. At that point I discovered that to win, one had to take a fair amount of punishment, so I wisely retired while in front, deciding to devote my sporting ability to more peaceful pursuits such as lacrosse.

Early in '45, out of the blue, I was drafted to another ex-Chinese river boat, the H.M.A.S. Ping Wo, also sometimes known as the Winged Po or Flying Piss Pot. She was at the time undergoing a refit in Melbourne so, with my gear, I was bundled on to a Martin Mariner flying boat of the U.S. Air Force, which flew me down to Townsville and thence by rail to Melbourne. We flew over the Coral Sea all the way to Townsville, which was a far more comfortable experience than my previous flight south through the Owen Stanley’s in the old Dakota.

The Ping Wo, a ship of similar size to the Whang Pu, i.e. 3,000 odd tons, was fitted out as a supply vessel for smaller ships operating in the New Guinea region. Our departure was slightly delayed by yours truly, who, with perfect, timing, decided to go down with a heavy attack of malaria. I vaguely remember being carried ashore on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance, and regained consciousness to find myself in Heidelberg Military Hospital. My main memory of this episode concerned the daily inspections carried out by the colonel in charge of the hospital, who stalked down the ward following the redoubtable figure of the very large matron. He was always attired in full Light Horse uniform and carried a horse hair-switch, which he tapped with each step against his highly polished riding boots. As he entered the ward, the order would be given – “All patients, sit at attention!" – it didn't matter how lousy you felt. At these times, I felt very pleased that I was in the Navy.

I caught up with the ship in Sydney and we headed north, but not without a further delay. We were refuelling in the Brisbane River when peace was declared – V.P. day, as it became known. Almost the whole of ship's company headed for the city, where the celebrations were unbelievable. It was a very good day to be in uniform and we had a ball. Australia had had six years of war and the released emotions on this historic day had to be seen to be believed.

From Brisbane, our cruise north was a pleasure. No blackout at nights, no dawn action stations and all in all a very relaxed atmosphere. Although the war was over there was still plenty for us to do. My log shows that we made about 20 voyages to and from Port Moresby, Milne Bay, Madang, Finschhaven, Alexishaven, Manus and Wewak, closing down shore depots, moving stores, etc. I recall one incident of stores being shipped – from Madang to Finschhaven and, in particular, cases of sacramental wine belonging to the Padre. Now it is a well-known fact among sailors who store ships that a wooden crate, when dropped on its corner, will split. It just so happened that one of the crates of wine was so damaged and a few bottles broken. While clearing up the mess with my mate Roy Noseda somehow or other two or three unbroken bottles vanished, but were found later that night in a quiet corner of the "flight deck" where Roy and I discussed the meaning of life, etc. etc. until the early hours of the morning, as we steamed south to Finschhaven. Next morning when we reported for work, our Paymaster Lieutenant took one look at us and ordered us back into our bunks – a very understanding officer.

Early in '46 – about March, I think – we had finished our clearing up jobs around New Guinea and were ordered south to Sydney. All hands, with the exception of the permanent service sailors, were in a high state of excitement, anticipating their long awaited discharge back to Civvy Street. The system for discharges was basically dependant on length of service and as I had only about 3 years to my credit I knew that a lot of personnel would get their "ticket" before me. Some of my mates had served 5 or 6 years, so while I knew it would not be long, I was not over-excited, but wondered vaguely what I would be doing until the big day. I was soon to find out. Signals came aboard as soon as we docked, drafting, about 80% of the crew to their home shore depots to await discharge. The remaining 20%, of which I was one, were told to store ship for passage to Hong Kong to hand the ship back to its original owners, Jardine Matheson, a very large English shipping company. The bad news was that we had to store ship for an additional 200 personnel, R.N. (Pommy) sailors who were taking passage to H.M.S. Tamar, the shore depot in Hong Kong.

Our 6 or 7 week voyage to Hong Kong was a real "slow boat to China" job. We cruised via Brisbane, Townsville, Thursday Island, where we had engine problems and had to limp back to Darwin, Tarakan on the east coast of Borneo (now Indonesia), Manila and thence to Hong Kong, where we arrived on the 8th June '46, and unloaded with few regrets – very few, in fact – our 200 R.N. passengers. These people, in the main, were a very motley crew. They had no idea, as far as we (the Australian crew) were concerned, of basic hygiene as required at sea, and particularly in the tropics. At the end of the working day, the first thing our crew naturally did was to head for the showers, albeit salt water, but we did have salt water soap. Our R.N. passengers were obviously stunned by this behaviour and their ablutions consisted of washing hands, face and knees. Bathing the whole body was apparently restricted to Saturday nights. In no time they suffered from prickly heat and various forms of dermatitis and rashes, and the level of body odour on the mess deck was very high. We did our best to educate them, even to the point of pinning up a notice in the galley where food was served, with the subtle message - "No wash, no food". I should stress that there were exceptions to the very ugly picture I have painted, but many came from some very tough areas of Scotland and England. Unlike the Australians, they were nearly all conscripts and hated the Navy. I have vivid memories of a couple of Scots from the docks of Glasgow, who used to spend their spare time beating their foreheads against the steel bulkhead in order to create the calluses necessary, apparently, to deliver the renowned "Liverpool Kiss", which is a head butt into an opponent's face. At Tarakan, where we spent 24 hours, the Surgeon Lt. Commander warned all hands that due to the Japanese occupation, the incidence of V.D, in various forms was estimated at 95% of the female population and for obvious reasons all shore leave ended at 6pm. That night we saw any number of these morons sneaking ashore with one thought in mind. A couple of weeks later, when I attended the sick bay at the shore depot in Hong Kong to get an insect removed from my eye, I met quite a few of these characters again, all being treated for various types of V.D., not in the slightest bit fazed by their condition, and in fact I gained the impression that they treated it almost as a badge of honour.

Soon after our arrival in Hong Kong, most of the Australians were sent home, as they had done their job of delivering the ship to the original owners. As I was now the senior Supply rating aboard, there was no way I would be sent home until the job of handing the ship over was complete. In fact, the job was totally mine, and for a 20 year old Leading Supply Assistant this turned out to be quite a task. In theory it was quite straightforward, purely a matter of transferring all stores ashore to H.M.S. Tamar, getting a receipt from their Supply Officer and sending these receipts back to Navy Office in Melbourne. However, during our time in the New Guinea theatre, somehow or other we had acquired all sorts of items from the Army, U.S. Navy, the R.A. A.F., etc. and this material, because it was not "Pussa" (Navy) issue, would not be accepted by the R.N. types in Tamar. I took this problem to our Captain, one Lieutenant Commander Sam Smith, whose one aim in life was to get rid of the ship and get his discharge. He told me to get rid of the stuff and he wasn't the slightest bit interested how I should do it. Rather than heave it over the side, I located some Chinese types who would buy anything, and as a result for a couple of months I always had enough Hong Kong dollars in my pocket for a bottle or two of Carlsberg Danish beer.

During our stopover in Tarakan one of our officers, making a good fellow of himself to the Dutch residents, broke into my cold room and pinched two cases of butter for them. As I had to account for all stores I was quite cranky, and told him that unless he signed a statement I had prepared, saying that the butter had turned rancid and had been disposed of over the side at sea, he was in trouble. While balking at this idea initially, he was finally persuaded and signed on the dotted line. This snotty nosed Sub-Lieutenant hated the idea of being told what to do by a mere Leading Supply Assistant and was never very friendly towards me afterwards. I was devastated. I had been at sea for nearly 3 years, and was not prepared to take much nonsense from young Sub-Lieutenants who were overly excited about being an officer.

After the bulk of the Australian crew went home we were reduced to about 10, all key people in their particular branch, and it was at  this time  that Hong Kong was about to be hit by a particularly nasty typhoon. We had about 6 or 8 hours' warning of its approach and the routine for ships was to leave the wharf and moor to a storm buoy, in the centre of Victoria Harbour. We were attached to the buoy by two very heavy steel hawsers and to assist them in doing their job the ship's engines were used to ease the strain on the steel hawsers. Unfortunately, we were in the throes of having a boiler clean, so only one propeller was in action when the typhoon struck; it could not provide full assistance to the lines, which snapped. We dropped both anchors and with our one engine steaming full ahead we drifted astern at about 8 knots (15 kilometres per hour), swinging wildly on the end of our anchor cables. How we didn't collide with any of the other ships during this performance was quite remarkable. The force of the wind was measured at 120 odd m.p.h. (200 kilometres per hour), which I became vividly aware of when Bob Adams our P.O. Shipwright made the mistake of opening the steel door of the P.O.'s mess and stepping outside ahead of me – and to my surprise, disappeared. Making sure that I didn't repeat this act by grasping a steel handrail, we found Bob draped around a stanchion with, as it turned out later, his leg broken in about eighteen places. Soon after this episode, the wind dropped to about 100 kilometres and by sheer luck we slammed broadside on to a wharf, to which lines were quickly secured. There were quite a few lives lost as a result of the typhoon, both on the harbour and ashore. Our Captain, an old China coast hand from his merchant navy days who knew about these things, assured us that we were quite lucky to have survived, and to celebrate he entertained us all in the wardroom, where I surfaced next morning with a very sore  head.

Political pressure to "bring our boys home" was being applied at this time and as a result our crew, with the notable exception of the Captain and I, was shipped home. Thus began an interesting, albeit lonely time, as I carried on the tedious job of paying the ship off in a necessarily, at times, somewhat unorthodox manner. The ship's owners at this time brought a Chinese crew aboard and took over the victualling. I moved into what had been an officer's cabin and enjoyed the best food in years. No one knew how to treat steak like our new Chinese cook. He was an absolute wizard. Sam Smith our Captain and I developed almost a father and son relationship. He was a very big Scotsman, red of hair and complexion. Before the war, he was one of an elite group of sailors known as Huangpu river pilots and had sailed the China coast for many years. I never heard him make mention of any family and at that time he must have been about 50 years of age. It was most unusual for a mere Leading Hand and a Lieutenant Commander to relate as we did. We had a Jeep attached to the ship for our use and at about 4 in the afternoon he would say, "Come on Clewsy, let's go for a swim", and we would drive around to the other side of the island to Cheko Beach. This, incidentally, is where I trod on a bit of barbed wire entanglement left by the Japanese, which caused me some problems at a later date. Quite often, he would take me to "Tiffin" – that is a few drinks followed by lunch with some of his old China coast mates at the China Fleet Club. There I met some very interesting characters. He tried to talk me into taking my discharge from the navy with him in Shanghai, where he was going to re-establish some sort of business which he owned pre-war, and apparently wanted me to be part of   it. Fortunately, I suppose, at this time I was becoming a bit homesick, malaria was hitting me more and more often and the barbed wire scratch on my foot was developing into a tropical ulcer, which was being treated daily at the sick bay in H.M.S Tamar. Added to all this, I was sick of not hearing an Australian accent and the thought of civvy street was becoming quite attractive, the end result being  that I did not take Sam up on his offer.

Early in September '46 I had completed paying-off the Ping Wo, which was now no longer an H.M.A.S. ship, bade farewell to Sam and took passage on an P.M. fleet tanker, first stop Brisbane. These ships had white officers and a Lascar crew, so I was treated as an officer with my own cabin and steward, which made it a very pleasant trip south. The only memory of this voyage that stays with me is that I turned 21 during the trip and I made the mistake of mentioning it to one of the officers. There were about ten of them, with everyone insisting that I should have a drink with them to celebrate gaining my majority. The 27th September 1946 was a long hard day for me.

On arrival at Brisbane naval depot it seemed that no one knew what to do with me. I suggested that, considering my length of time in the Navy I was due for discharge; however, they couldn't find any recent demobilization signal concerning me. While beginning to feel somewhat unwanted, I insisted that they keep looking through their records, and then – jackpot – the missing signal, over 6 months old, was found. It was issued prior to our ship leaving Townsville, so it seemed that I should never have gone to Hong Kong and should have been a civilian 6 months ago. I was to find out later why the signal didn't reach the Ping Wo before we left Australia. Anyhow, I was packed off down to Melbourne for "demob" where I was subjected to a medical examination, which I failed to pass because of the tropical ulcer on my foot, and as a result I was chucked into the sick bay at Flinders Naval Depot. The hospital was divided into 4 bed sections and I found myself sharing a section with 3 wild Western Australians, survivors of H.M.A.S. Perth which had been sunk in the battle of Sunda Strait. They had spent the rest of the war on the Burma railroad. They were very tough boys and a whole lot of fun. I think we gave the medical staff a very hard time. As part of our treatment to recover from our tropical related problems – dermatitis, malaria, ulcers, and in the case of the Burma railroad boys, beri-beri, dysentery, etc. – we were issued daily with a bottle (750 ml) of Coopers Stout to improve our appetites. These we would stash away in our lockers for 3 or 4 days and then after lights out we would have a party. I remember the appearance one night of the duty M.O., obviously called by the distraught sick bay attendant. He took one look at we four, sadly shook his head and walked away without saying a word. One good thing to come out of my time in F.N.D. sick bay resulted from a very heavy attack of malaria, which occurred while getting treatment for my foot. They tried what was then a new drug called Paludrine, and from that time on I never experienced a really bad bout again.

While laid up at F.N.D, I received an order to report, when fit, to a certain Paymaster Commander at Navy Office on St Kilda Road. Now, let it be said that during my three and a half years in the Navy, I had not ever so much as spoken to anyone as exalted as a Pay. Commander – they wear gold braid on their caps – and as for stepping foot in Navy Office, the Holy of Holies, the very thought concerned me no end. In fact, I wasn't sure that it would be preferable never to be discharged from hospital! The reason for my anxiety was of course due to the albeit necessary, but nevertheless from time to time, unorthodox methods used to hand the ship over to its original owners, or as it is known in the Navy, "paying off" the ship. I had had an unblemished record in the Navy and I had been issued recently with a Good Conduct Badge (sometimes called "Undetected Crime Badge") which, incidentally, was worth 3 pence (2½ cents) per day. While lying in bed with these thoughts running through my head, I was almost convinced that 1 may finish up on a charge of some sort, as I couldn't imagine why such a personage would wish to speak to me.

Anyhow, putting on a brave face I headed for Navy Office and was shown in to the Commander. He proceeded to explain to me, in an apologetic manner, that it was never intended for a 20 year old Leading Hand to be given the responsibility of paying off the ship, and in fact a Commissioned Warrant Officer had been on draft to the Ping Wo, but had somehow managed to miss the ship. He further went on to say that, he wanted to thank me personally for the good job I had done and wished me well in Civvy Street. I think I walked out of his office about 2 feet off the ground, not because of the praise, but because I wasn't going to finish up in gaol.

So ended my naval career on the 19th December 1946. To coin a well-worn phrase, those three and a half years were "the making of me". I had changed from a callow 17 year-old into quite a mature person and had experienced things that a person who had not been in the Services would never encounter in a lifetime.

To coin yet another well-worn phrase – “I wouldn't have missed it for the world".

1947-83

I don't recall having any great problems reverting to civilian life and I was soon back at work in the bank. Now the policy of the E.S. & A.'s management was based on the assumption that all returned servicemen would be completely unsettled and slightly screwed up as a result of their experiences, and in order to overcome this, most of us were placed on relieving staff duties. This involved moving from branch to branch, replacing staff who were on leave for usually no longer than 2 weeks in each country town or suburb. I never could work out how this was going to fix the supposed problems of we returned men, and in fact it had the reverse effect on me. I didn't take too kindly to living in seedy boarding houses, wondering how I was going to get my washing done and working under some managers who treated you like a freak out of school junior clerk. Added to all this was the fact that I had become re-involved with lacrosse, and after one game in B grade I was promoted to A grade. I began taking the game fairly seriously. In those days banks were open on Saturday mornings, and although I had acquired, a second-hand motor bike, I had problems quite often in travelling home in time for the afternoon games. Another worry was my study. I had enrolled at the University of Adelaide to do a Commerce course, part of an Economics degree, with a view to qualifying as an Accountant with the Australian Society of Accountants, and when in the country, there was no way that I could attend lectures. So at this stage, I was becoming somewhat disenchanted with bank life and was ready for a change.

After about a year of relieving duties, I made it known to the bank management that because of my university work, I wished to be restricted to city and suburban branches. While they didn't like being told – it just wasn't done in those days – they agreed, and for the next 12 months or so life became far more agreeable. While I was away in the Navy, the family had sold our home at Oval Avenue, Woodville, and had built a new home on the esplanade at Tennyson, which was the nearest beach to Woodville and of course well known to us. Heather and I both had friends at Tennyson, which was only 4 or 5 miles from our mates at Woodville and our home, during the summer, became quite popular. Life in general was very pleasant. Dad still worked at Finsbury where they manufactured 25 pound shells for the artillery during the war, but now, in the same factory, he was a quality control inspector for Kelvinator refrigerators. Heather and I jointly bought a yacht, a "French Snipe", a 19 foot (6m), Marconi-rigged sailer in which we had a lot of fun.

Early in '48, the ulcer on my foot flared up again and one Saturday afternoon I was wheeled into Ward 8 of Daws Road Repatriation Hospital. On this particular day, Bill Hawson (ex Able Seaman), one of my best mates, and I had planned to go on the "Gulf Trip" on the S.S. Minnipa. This cruise had the delightful reputation of 6 days (for 6 pounds, $12) of wine, women and song, and we had decided that that was for us. Now, as my mate was embarking on the cruise ship, I was being wheeled into hospital on a stretcher and I could not see the funny side of life at all. My cheerfulness rating must have been about 2 on a scale of 10, and while the Sister in charge of the ward who was admitting me rated 11 out of 10 for good looks, it seemed that her cheerfulness rating was similar to mine. It turned out that she did not take kindly to the messing around involved with admitting patients on, of all times, a Saturday afternoon. As I recall, we clashed in a fairly genteel manner and have occasionally been doing so for the next 46 years. We became engaged on Easter Monday and married on the 27th December that year.

It was during '48 that I was offered a job, which had better prospects than the old conservative E.S. & A. Bank, with a fairly new semi-government organisation, the S.A. Housing Trust. My immediate boss was one Marie Williams, later to be the wife of John Burnett, and I found her to be a very pleasant person. After only a few months, because of my accountancy training, I was given the job of assisting one Milton Hand, who was in charge of the Costing Section. This department dealt with the Trust's builders' payments as well as arriving at economic rents for our newly built rental homes, and was staffed by three people, Hand (a qualified accountant) Heather Ziesing (clerk) and myself. After about 6 months, Milton Hand, was offered a job with one of the Trust's builders and the question was, could an unqualified person take charge, or should the job be advertised? It was decided that I could have the job on a 6 months' probation arrangement. Thirteen years later, I was still in charge of the section, with a staff of 12 clerks working for me. During this time, the Trust had grown enormously, producing about 3,000 homes a year plus flats, schools and shopping centres, and in addition to rental housing we were producing homes for sale. Our General Manager, one Alex Ramsay, told me that he had visited the Victorian Housing Commission who were producing only about 2,000 units per year, and their Costing Section had a staff of about 60, as compared with our dozen bodies. I had worked out how to achieve satisfactory results the easy way, with a minimum of red tape.

While at the Trust, I had eventually become a fully qualified Accountant the hard way, doing all lectures and tutorials after work at the university and the old School of Mines (now the S.A. Institute of Technology). I have vivid memories of making my way on crutches along North Terrace to the railway station at about 9pm, during one period when my foot was playing up. They were hard days for Bess and I. We had married with my wage of 6 pounds ($12) per week, and owned a motor bike and a block of land at Tennyson, which I had bought for 250 pounds ($500) with my deferred pay from the Navy. After our children arrived Bess, with kids in car, supplemented our income by working for the District & Bush Nursing Society. I was in and out of hospital with my foot which was becoming a real nuisance, but that problem was solved in April '54 when gangrene set in, and with only a few days to spare, I left the offending member at Daws Road Repat. Hospital and became a monoped. A couple of months after getting my first artificial leg, I was able to play doubles tennis and life became a little rosier.

On my return to civilian life, lacrosse had become a big thing with me again. I became A grade captain in '48 and held that job until '54. In 1951, I was selected in the South Australian team to play in an interstate carnival, and thus achieved one of my ambitions which I often thought would be thwarted by my unfriendly foot. After getting my prosthesis, I helped out by coaching and playing in goal for our young B grade team. My association with Port Adelaide Lacrosse Club continued after my playing days were over, as Chairman and in other administrative positions, and covered a period of 22 years. I remain a Life Member of the club.

Bessie and I had put our marriage forward about 6 months to take advantage of an offer by my cousin Alison Parker (nee Stewart) to "babysit" their luxurious home in Fitzroy, while they went on a 12 month world tour. This was too good an offer to let pass, as we had nowhere else to live and had planned to find a flat while we desperately tried to build our home on our block of land at. Tennyson. Now building a home immediately after the war was quite a problem. Virtually no building had been done during the 6 years of war, and as a result there was an enormous back­log of demand for housing, fuelled largely by the return of hundreds of thousands of ex-servicemen and women. New homes were restricted to 10 squares, that is 1,000 square feet (93 square metres), if you could find the materials. We had a two bedroom home designed for 999 square feet and despite knowing any number of builders through my work at the Trust, who were very helpful, at the end of the year we were still struggling towards its completion. We eventually had the use of a sleep-out in Beverley, where Bessie's parents had bought a home, and for the three of us – Jane Louise was now with us – it was something of a come-down from the luxury of Fitzroy. After a few months we happily moved into our new home which, much to our horror, had worked out to be more expensive than we had imagined, and from memory was something like 2,000 pounds ($4,000). For a solid brick home with tiled roof and a new innovation – a hot water system – I suppose it was a fair price. We had few "mod cons." For washing, Bessie had an electric copper and a scrubbing board. Refrigeration consisted of an ice chest, with the Ice Man calling with a block of ice 2 or 3 times a week. He was a great source of local gossip. Our newspapers were delivered daily by our eccentric newsagent, who, when he saw nappies on the clothes line, refused to collect any money for the papers. He probably singlehandedly boosted the "Baby Boomer" era in our district. T.V. was still years away, so our home entertainment came from the radio and a record player on which we played our 78s.

While my salary with the Trust was increasing – probably only keeping pace with cost of living increases – we had no money to spare and lived from one payday to the next and one Child Endowment payment to the next. To help out for a while, I found a Saturday night job at the "News" printing office, putting the coloured supplement manually into the "Sunday Mail". This soul destroying task went from 6pm to 3 or 4am Sunday morning, and used to earn me about 3 pounds ($6) which was enough to pay off the War Service Home mortgage we had taken out on the house. By 1954, our family was complete and we had outgrown our little 10 square house. We sold this and had a 4 bedroom house built by the Trust, about half a mile further north on an estate the Trust had developed. We were still only one street removed from the sea front and the beach was our kids' playground. I managed to pick up some part-time accountancy work and Bessie continued with her D.B.N.S. duties which all helped to keep us solvent, and as a matter of principle we never ran into debt.

By the end of the '50s I was getting itchy feet at the Trust – I had advanced about as far as I could go. My immediate boss was only about 10 years older than me and seemed set for life in his position. As a result, I started reading the "Situations Vacant" pages in the "Advertiser" and applied for 2 or 3 managerial positions. I may have been aiming a bit high as I found out that, while I headed the field in the aptitude tests that the "head hunters" used to sort the applicants out, I was considered, at age 34, to be too young. This, as it turned out, was a blessing in disguise, for out of the blue the Managing Director of Orlit, at 1,000 homes a year the Trust's largest home builder, invited me out to lunch and asked would I be interested in managing a contract of 200 homes for them, which they had won in Canberra. This involved a family conference with Bessie, which lasted about one minute flat – we made the decision to go. The only other problem for Peter Hurn, the M.D. of Orlit, was to get the blessing of the Trust's General Manager. At this time, I was considered a key member of the Trust's staff, and he did not want to upset their relationship with the Trust. Fortunately, Alex Ramsay, being the sort of person he was, gave the green light, and we were on our way to a new life. I joined Orlit at the beginning of June '61 and immediately felt comfortable with the staff. I had known most of them for about 10 years and we had argued and negotiated their claims many times. I won some (for the Trust) and they won some. I respected their professionalism, and had years before decided that they were not a dishonest company, as were some other builders I had dealt with. My commencing salary was 2,500 pounds p.a. ($5,000), which was exactly double my Housing Trust wage of $48 per week, at that time considered to be reasonable for a qualified accountant. In addition to this generous wage was the provision of a company car which I could change over every 2 years, a company telephone and 6 months' rental of a home while we became established in a home of our own.

My father asked, when he heard of my new job, "What do you know about building a house?" I knew very little, and to overcome this failing I was joined by one Sid Johnson, as my Building Manager. He was ex General Foreman on Orlit's Elizabeth projects and had been responsible for completing up to 10 houses per week in this mushrooming satellite city. Now, while Sid knew how to build them, I knew how to cost them, control contracts and tender for new contracts. I also knew about negotiating and financial management. In theory this combination should prove to be a fairly formidable team, and while the daunting sight of the grassy paddocks which were to become our first building sites (and eventually the suburbs of Downer and Watson) stretched before our eyes from the Lyneham motel, where for 6 weeks we shared a room and got to know each other, there were times when we wondered. For this 6 week period, while our families were winding down our lives in Adelaide, Sid and I spent the days and often a good part of the nights – negotiating with building material suppliers, sub-contractors, unions, the Dept. of Works, the National Capital Development Commission, etc. Our room at the motel became an office, where we shamelessly bribed the various receptionists with the odd box of chocolates to take messages, do some typing and generally act as unpaid secretaries.

While still with the Trust, I was asked by our General Manager to spend a couple of days with a Mr Peter Funda, an Associate Commissioner of an organisation I had never heard of, in Canberra, the N.C.D.C. Their Commissioner, John Overall, had been senior architect with the Trust before moving to Canberra and, knowing the benefits of long term housing contracts, had decided to introduce the scheme to Canberra. Anyhow, my job was to spend some time with Mr Funda, briefing him on the mechanics of long term housing contracts, the tendering process, progress payments, rise and fall provisions, etc. Little did I realise that those 2 days would prove to be very valuable, for subsequently when the N.C.D.C. called tenders throughout Australia for their first long term contracts, Orlit was successful. In later years, I seemed to become an unpaid consultant to the N.C.D.C, for quite often I would get a call from Mr Funda, saying that they had run into difficulties of some sort with their contracts and could I spare some time to help straighten them out. The goodwill Orlit gleaned from this friendly relationship was enormous.

When accepting Orlit's offer to "look after" a 200 house contract, Bessie and I were very aware that it could be a 3 year job only, and decided that should that be the case, we would not return to Adelaide with our tail between our legs, but with tons of optimism and my qualifications we would find a job in Sydney. As it turned out, we need not have worried. We had barely started the first 40 house allocation of our 200 house contract when I successfully tendered for another 50 houses. So now we had 250 to build.

We were being told repeatedly that we wouldn't last 6 months in Canberra, not only by uninformed tradesmen, but also by members of the Master Builders' Association, the Merchants' Association and the unions. While this was a bit of a worry, it weighed particularly heavily on Sid Johnson, who didn't have too much faith in the figures I continually produced, showing that we were doing very nicely. Only after the first year's operating profit statement was produced by our Head Office in Adelaide, which confirmed my figures, did Sid stop worrying. At this point it became obvious to us that the long established builders had been having a collusive ball for many years, and our arrival on the scene with a genuinely competitive tender had thrown the cat among the pigeons and rather spoilt things for them, as well as saving the government a great amount of money. Naturally, the N.C.D.C. was delighted with the result of the introduction of long term contracts, and for many years their housing program used this system.

Canberra Branch soon became the "jewel in the crown" of
Orlit, with our profits outdoing all other branches throughout Australia. In 1965, following the death of one of our parent company's directors, to my surprise I was invited to join the Board of Directors of Orlit Holdings Ltd. This involved attending monthly board meetings in Adelaide, being responsible for Sydney and in part responsible for Brisbane, as well as from time to time, as a Director, visiting Melbourne, Perth, Darwin and Alice Springs. We even built a few government houses in Queanbeyan and 64 in Albury-Wodonga.

Looking back, our family life was quite busy in those days. We had bought a 4 bedroom house in Godfrey Street, Campbell, for a little under $16,000, and with our children very involved in sport, Bessie working part-time at David Jones and my job keeping me very busy, life was never boring. Bessie and I became quite involved with our children's rugby and cricket and often found ourselves acting as unpaid babysitters, transporting teams all over the state – sometimes Bessie heading in one direction and I in another, but we enjoyed it. When we left Canberra, I was one of many Vice Presidents of Royals Rugby Union Club and Chairman and Life Member of City Cricket Club. After 15 years at Campbell, our children had mostly left home and we bought a smaller 3 bedroom home at Somerset Street, Duffy, where we lived for the next 4 years.

Orlit left its mark on Canberra. When we arrived in '61, the population was 55,000, there were no lakes and in fact no bridges over the Molonglo. When that river was in flood, the only way for people on the north side to get to Kingston, Manuka etc, was via Queanbeyan. At one stage during the '70s I had successfully tendered for two 300 house contracts, which contractually required handovers (completions) of 10 houses per week, i.e. 2 houses each working day. While the government housing was our "bread and butter", we embarked on a private "Spec" housing programme in order to have an alternative, should the government work downturn. This involved buying land by auction, either singly or in groups of blocks, from as few as 4 and up to 36. The land was fully serviced with roads, water, sewerage, etc. and the auctions which were held in the Albert Hall were always quite entertaining.

By early 1980 the company had a problem with our Melbourne branch. We were not only losing money on the operation – about a 250 house a year programme – but were also losing some key personnel who had been with us for years. Anyhow, it transpired that the Manager, who by this time was also a Director, was the root cause of the problem, and his behaviour was such that it was destroying the branch, its staff and what had been a very profitable division of the company. He was given his marching orders and as activity in Canberra was slowing down considerably, I volunteered to try and put things right.

I took over as General Manager of Victoria in March '80 and found the branch to be a shambles. Our top Foreman had left to join another company and our Accountant, a brilliant young man, had submitted his resignation. On my appointment, these matters were rectified. The Foreman re-joined Orlit and the Accountant withdrew his resignation. That was the easy bit. The morale of the staff was at rock bottom, with my Marketing and
Sales staff feuding with the Construction Department. My predecessor had managed to engineer this situation, working on the divide to rule theory. They were at the point of sending memos to each other, rather than using the house phone or crossing a passage to the other's office, to give or receive information. One of the first things I did was to invite them all to a party in our home, which we had leased on the sea front at Frankston. With a mandatory champagne as soon as they walked in the door, Bessie and I soon had them at least talking. I introduced a compulsory weekly meeting in my office, where all grievances were to be aired, with me as adjudicator. After a while, I began to- see signs of team work showing through. After several weeks of concentrated costing, I found to my dismay that on existing prices we were losing on average about $300 for every house built, whereas we should have had a gross profit margin of $2,000 to $3,000 per house at least. My predecessor had apparently never done any costing, and he was a qualified accountant; his practice was to be driven around the sites, fixing prices from a slow-moving car. At these prices, there was no mystery as to why we were selling so many houses.

In Melbourne, there were two major lessons I had to learn, matters of which I had no experience in Canberra. The first was marketing. I had a Marketing Manager, a. Sales Manager and about a dozen salesmen on staff, which was a complete departure from Canberra, with a sole real estate agent selling our private houses. The second lesson to be learnt was land development. In Canberra, I used to put my hand up at auctions to buy fully serviced blocks. In Melbourne, we had to deal with land vendors – sometimes market gardeners – and with the expert assistance of a civil engineer, after having bought the land, we had to deal with councils, Board of Works, Dept. of Roads, etc. etc. and employ professional land developers to build the roads, kerbing and gutters, water supply, gas and electricity supply, sewer and stormwater mains, street lighting and telephones.

After a couple of years, I had turned the profit situation around and we were firmly established as the second largest home builder in Victoria, headed only by A.V. Jennings whose head office was in Melbourne. We had 10 groups of display homes, fully furnished and almost surrounding the metropolitan area, and we were turning out a gross profit of about $1 million per annum. Bessie and I were enjoying our life in Victoria. I was working in a fairly harmonious atmosphere at the office, with a crew that generally liked working for, and was fairly proud of, the Orlit name. We had bought a home at Bareena Drive, Mt Eliza, on the Mornington Peninsula, and enjoyed the company of our neighbours, who we still count as friends. At Christmas time we put on a party for the staff's children. At Frankston, Father Christmas arrived by sea, while around the pool at Mt Eliza, he also showed up.

Meanwhile, our company had been taken over by Long Industries, the largest home builder in N.S.W. and life for me began to change. One by one, our Directors retired and were replaced by Long Industries Directors, I attended monthly board meetings now held in Sydney, which to me was becoming a farcical exercise. I would be met at the airport, driven to the Head Office; at Toongabbie, have lunch with the other Directors and at the meeting find that all decisions had previously been made without any input from me. I would then be driven back to Mascot, then it was home to Melbourne. Things came to a head in August '83, when Sydney decided that Melbourne should follow the Sydney pattern, do away with display homes and contract housing, concentrate on "spec" housing and, at the same time, sack most of the staff. This was a patently absurd path to follow, as anyone with any experience in the Melbourne housing scene knows full well. Melbourne is a contract housing city while Sydney is used to "spec". I had experience in both cities and knew this for a fact. Being in Sydney on leave, I made an appointment to see Eddie Long the Chairman in order to put my case for retaining the status quo in Victoria, but on arrival, at Head Office I found that he had discovered another appointment, and that I was to talk to the Managing Director, Peter Dransfield, instead. This did not please me at all, particularly when it became clear that Eddie had instructed Peter not to budge. The outcome was that I gave them 4 months' notice of my intention to resign as from 31st December, 1983, and undertook to prepare Stuart Campbell, my Accountant, to replace me as General Manager. While only 58 years old, I was retiring a couple of years earlier than intended, but I was aware that my retirement benefits were sufficient for us to live on, before taking this step. After 23 very fulfilling years with Orlit, I parted company on good terms with the new owners. Ironically, some 6 months after my retirement, I received a letter from Peter Dransfield, which stated that the profit results from Melbourne for the year were such that they had reversed their policy and concluded by saying: "...so it seems you were right after all, Lindsay". It was nice of him to send that letter, which I value.

Bessie and I remained in Mt Eliza for another 2 years, at which time we decided to return to one of our old "stamping grounds", the South Coast, and be a bit closer to our family. We have now been at Surf Beach for 8 years and we hope to live here for a good long time.

CONCLUSION

This screed is a brief precise of my memories, with accent on the "brief". There is no way one can begin to fully detail all memories of a 68 year life in about 20,000 words. At least I have complied with a couple of our children's wishes and I hope they did not expect more. Unexpectedly, I have enjoyed scribbling away, which from time to time uncovered long forgotten memories, some of which were even worth recording. Should any of our grandchildren ever bother to read all this, I hope they will appreciate the sacrifice I made in forgoing several games of golf to get it finished, appropriately on April Fools' Day.

L.J-C.       1/4/94