My parents were convinced of the importance of a good job in life and their advice to both her sons on leaving school was to get a trade. They had both suffered the poor pay and conditions of dead end jobs throughout their lives, and were anxious that their sons do better for themselves. There was no question about this, “You’ve got to get a trade,” my mother often repeated.
My brother had aimed himself at electronics from an early age with his hobby interest of building crystal sets, radio control devices for his model aeroplanes and other projects you might find published in electronics magazines. He was offered an apprenticeship with Hawker Siddeley Dynamics. This company specialised in the manufacture of electronics equipment usually in response to government contracts. It was located in the secure area of the Weapons Research Establishment at Salisbury, and the guards were strict in who they allowed past the gates. The location of the company in the secure area was on account of the type of work that was involved: it was of a ‘sensitive’ nature having a ‘national security’ priority. The company provided equipment or components that were often used in rocket construction or associated equipment. It must have been a very exciting field for a young man, and a few years into his apprenticeship he was included in a team on a field trip to the Woomera rocket launch site. I believe he felt privileged in working for this company. Mind you, many of the single storey buildings in this area were surrounded by mounds of earth almost as high as the buildings themselves as a safeguard from explosion. The earth mounds were meant to be a barrier to contain any explosion that might have occurred from damaging adjacent buildings. The attraction of working in a place like that, exiting though it may have been, left a lot to be desired in terms of worker health and safety, but that’s only me.
I recall John detailing the day’s activities to his mother after work every day. While she prepared the evening meal, John would be in the dining room relating everything that happened at work, and stuck in my memory are the details of one of his first jobs. It entailed carefully measuring and constructing a technical drawing with plan and elevation views, of a nut. It must have been a very special nut. It rather reminds me of my aunt June’s first job in a tailors shop, she once worked as a young woman. One of the experienced seamstresses apparently needed a particular type of stand for a garment she was working on. Practical jokes were traditionally played on the young ones. It was probably one of the few things staff could do to keep themselves entertained in boring jobs. The seamstress asked June to get a particular kind of stand; she had to go and ask one of her colleagues for the long stand. Sure enough she was taken aside by someone who knew exactly what was required. “I know what you need. Just wait here,” the older woman had said to her, and walked off with purpose in her step. Of course, this was a joke played on all newcomers, and some time later when June got fed up standing around waiting for the woman to come back, began tentatively to ask what was going on. Her standing waiting was, in fact, the ‘long stand’! When I was an apprentice motor mechanic I was asked to get a ‘left handed screwdriver’ from the tool store. Of course, I was aware of these tricks, and knew there was no such thing as a left handed screwdriver, but when the foreman asked for it casually, then got annoyed at my refusal, becoming red in the face and demanded I go to the tool store with a tone to his voice that near made the ground shake, a certain amount of self-doubt became apparent. Maybe there was such a thing as a left handed screwdriver, after all. I went to the store, and in much the same way as June had asked for the ‘long stand’ before me, I asked for a left handed screwdriver. The storeman promptly told me to piss off, and I was the object of laughter by all concerned. Possibly, the task of drawing a nut on or soon after your first day at work has certain parallels to these experiences.
I had some trouble settling into a trade, and a strange experience took place on my first day at work, that had me puzzled. I had applied for an apprenticeship with quite a few companies but without much luck. This was ironic, because a year earlier the Department of Engineering had advertised for apprentice fitter and turners, and I had applied for the fun of it, just to see what would happen. It was John who encouraged me to do this; to test the waters as it were. As it turned out, they were willing to accept me. I had an interesting choice before me: Accept this job with a government department with its own trade training school and a guaranteed job, or do another year at school and hope for something in twelve months. This was one of those forks in the road of life that are often interesting to ponder. Where would I be now if I had taken that job a year earlier? I probably wouldn’t be telling this story for one thing. I was encouraged to ignore the offer and spend another year at school. I did the extra year, and had a hell of time getting a job a year later. The only place that would accept me was Adelaide Motors, as an apprentice motor mechanic.
When I fronted up at Adelaide Motors, with my letter of acceptance in hand, no one from the company was expecting me. The letter was signed by Ivan Wallace, one of the managers, directing me to report to the Service Manager. Both he and the workshop foreman consulted. They were puzzled. It seemed that they had interviewed all the possible apprentices, and neither of them could remember me. Well that’s true, I didn’t remember them either. But here I was with a letter signed by one of the managers requesting I report for work. I was duly put to work with one of the mechanics, and whatever happened was quickly forgotten, or at least not mentioned to me, but I didn’t forget the signature at the bottom of the letter. It stuck in my mind because it was vaguely familiar. It turned out that Ivan Wallace and my father knew each other. They were both freemasons. I took my father to task over this. I wanted to find out if he had pulled some strings, as masons sometimes do, to get me the job. He denied it, and claimed it to be nothing more than coincidence. Right, sure it was.
There were certainly some fun times to be had as an apprentice, which probably balanced the shit jobs that you would be given to do. A lot of the stuff I learned has been useful, but entering an apprenticeship was a mistake. I couldn’t get out of it fast enough. I think I would have made a better fitter and turner than ever I did as a mechanic, but that job slipped away in the previous year. I had an aptitude for working with metal, and valued the metal working skills I learned as an apprentice, but the training never covered anything in that area particularly thoroughly. I did become proficient at welding and I loved machining on the lathe and was fascinated with the mill and other machines, but this training was not intended to go beyond basic skills.
John was relating another tale in one of his after work chats with mother. He had had some mechanical trouble when driving home from work, at the end of the day. By coincidence, one of his work mates was driving past and spotted him stuck at the side of the road, and stopped to lend a hand. A temporary repair could easily be undertaken, but it required a length of string, rope, or wire to tie something in place. His friend, confident he could help, led him to his car saying he had the very thing. He opened the rear door of his car, and leaning over the back seat, dislodged it from its mounting to reveal, hidden in the space between the underside of seat and the floor of the car, a range of different sizes of wire all neatly stacked, and in their original reels. “So, what gauge do you need?” he asked, jokingly. No doubt, both of them were beside themselves laughing at the audacity of the haul. This was not just a few lengths of cable, but entire rolls of the stuff. This ‘stock’ of cable in a variety of different gauges had come from their work, and destined to supplement this chap’s hobby interests at home.
It may have been this or similar experiences that led John to try his hand at it himself. Progressively, a stash of materials began to build up in the shed at home that included cables of various types and sizes, cardboard boxes full of equipment, tools, and electrical and electronic hardware. The company wasn’t doing terribly well, and there may well have been a mood amongst the staff of get what you can before you get the boot. I had a hobby interest in photography at the time, and John brought home a light-safe photographic box for me. This was a box designed to store light sensitive materials. I’ve still got it, but haven’t actually used it yet. I wonder if John has used much of the material he squirreled away.
One afternoon John arrived home in a very distraught state. He was clearly panicked over something that had happened at work. He was concerned that some staff members were going to be ‘screened’, including himself. This would have involved an investigation into his background, his activities, and may have included the Federal Police conducting a property search. Perhaps the company storeroom stocks were disappearing faster than expected. This is the trouble when you have guards on the factory gates whose job it is to keep people from coming into the establishment, rather than checking what goes out. With his concern that a property search may be imminent and the probable discovery of the equipment he had removed from his workplace, hiding it became a priority. To avoid detection, the stuff was shifted to the Rostrevor house. I can only guess as to the pretext on which permission to store it there was granted. I suspect my mother begged her mother to find a space for it, and a wardrobe in the house was subsequently used to store the various boxes of equipment.
Of course, a related concern in the process of being screened was that any investigation might have revealed his background; his Lithuanian heritage. Although, I suspect the theft of company property was likely to have been of greater interest to the police than the issue of where his grandparents may have been born. I assume his concern was that the police would discover that his grandfather was born in Lithuania, which is located in Europe in close proximity to Russia, and that because there were certain political links between Russia and Lithuania, the police may have considered him a possible security risk or spy. (Presumably the assumption was: not true British stock equals national security risk.) Well, blow me down. I seem to recall Anthony Blunt being captain of a spy ring that included Philby, Burgess and Maclean. Blunt wasn’t the son of a coal miner, and ex-Gorbals slum migrant, whose ancestry can be traced back to Europe, like John. He was English, and a relative of the Queen to boot. Oh, did I say English, isn’t the Queen of the same German extraction as one fine American, Werner von Braun. (That name is so American!) It’s interesting how allegiances shift on a grand scale. I expect the police would have had bigger fish to fry than worry over the security risk of this employee, based on the origins of his parents’ parents.
Anyway, the stuff had been stored at the Rostrevor house for a while until Vic discovered the pile of strange cardboard boxes with unfamiliar equipment inside. He was furious when he realised what had happened, and ordered its immediate removal. There was no way Vic was going to put up with having stolen property in the house, fearing he might be in as much trouble for harbouring it as John would for its theft, should the police discover it there. Vic wanted rid of it immediately. With this in mind, certain links can be made between Vic’s demand for the removal of this stolen property, and John’s demand a few years later for the removal of Vic’s Telesonics television sets that were stored in the garage at Newton, which I might note was with my parents’ consent. Hiding stolen property in someone’s house without their knowledge is not quite the same thing as storing televisions with the permission of the owners, but that’s only me. The stuff was removed, and I’ve no idea where it went; probably to one of his friends’ houses.
My exploit into building wall and floor safes hadn’t gone well. I had advertised in the local newspapers but there were no takers. All that came of it were a few phone calls asking if I could do welding work which turned out in the main to be little more than handyman jobs: constructing and fitting steel swinging doors to the front of an old wooden garage, building a prefabricated aviary, and a few others that were more of a nuisance than money earners. Joe helped out by giving me a job constructing steel frames for his house at Terowie. They were to support the veranda roof, and though this job was welcome it was probably more of a charitable act than a real need on his part. He probably had more pressing things to do with his property than undertake major refurbishments. I never saw their installation.
When the employment office contacted me in 1980 regarding a job with the Department of Agriculture it was the end of the security business I might have hoped for. This job involved working in a gang spraying trees during a fruit fly epidemic. It was a rugged job, made worse by having to work in the hot summer sun. It was because of this experience I will never again be critical of any roadside worker I see leaning on their shovel or generally standing around by the roadside. These jobs are hard work, and the occasional rests are essential. Working in the summer sun is debilitating, let alone the physical activity of the work. It was work I could well have done without, but it provided a myriad of experiences that will never be forgotten.
Fruit fly outbreaks occur from time to time, and the government was recruiting teams of temporary workers for the eradication campaign. A mixture of foul-smelling brown fluid, that fruit flies found irresistible, was mixed with water and a pesticide: malathion. The mixture was held in a plastic tank fitted with shoulder straps and a hand pump. The idea was to carry this poisonous brew on our backs like a haversack, and spray a few shots into the trees in the infected zone. The outbreak was relatively close to where I lived, and I knew the area well.
My first primary school I attended in Australia was nearby. It was the Hectorville Primary School. I hated that school. Though, in hindsight it was not so much the school I hated, but the lack of friends in the new country, and I just hated everything about the place. The school experience there, was like shifting back in time, and may have been due to the difference in academic years between the UK and Australia. Perhaps the Head didn’t know which class I should be allocated, and I effectively repeated a year.
There was a small factory nearby where my mother and June had worked, years earlier. The FruVeg factory was a fruit processing plant located a few kilometres from this school. It had probably been located in the area for convenience to the growers, and employed local women, on a seasonal basis, when the fruit ripened. The factory was a long walk from Rostrevor and Newton, but walking-distance all the same. My mother and June took employment there in our early years in Australia. The workers sat or stood at conveyor belts stoning, inspecting or treating fruit in the various stages of its processing. My mother hated it. Then after working every day in the heat, the long walk home in the sun left her parched, red-faced, and exhausted. There was nothing else to do but collapse on the bed when she got home. The chemicals used in the factory affected the skin on her hands. Her fingers were particularly bad resulting in chronic dermatitis. She often had to apply ointment or paint lotions on her fingers for years after she quit the job to control the problem.
The protective gear the government provided during the fruit fly programme included a grey dustcoat that helped keep the spray from our clothes, and rubber gloves that were impossible to wear in the heat and because they retained the chemical on our skin rather than offering protection from it. The gloves progressively filled with the stuff. Respirators were available, but management frowned upon their use. Wearing them would have given residents the impression we were spraying something dangerous, and that was to be avoided. Despite the obvious dangers of the spray, the outward impression of minimal environmental impact was encouraged. The respirators were damned uncomfortable to wear, and weren’t worn for that reason than any other. Spraying with the wind at your back seemed a better strategy.
Such a well-organised government campaign may have impressed the public. Keeping the nasty fruit flies from the State seemed like a good thing, but at what cost? This particular pesticide had received differing reports regarding its toxicity that it should have been withdrawn for that reason if no other. In some parts of the world it has been used to control head lice, but that’s no proof of its safety. DDT was overused until it was banned. Malathion has been responsible for wildlife destruction and cases have been documented of it causing death in humans, and yet the South Australian government continued its use, and advised residents they could eat treated fruit a week after spraying.
There were five people in each team. There was a ganger whose responsibility it was to supervise the work of the other four; we worked in pairs. While one guy sprayed the trees the other followed him around opening and closing gates, fielding questions from residents, generally looking out for him, and after a time when the tank emptied the roles were swapped. It may have seemed like overkill having two men doing this, but it worked very well. The ganger seldom got involved in the spraying, except if someone was off sick. His main job was to keep track of the areas of land that had been sprayed, and to drive the others from one spot to the next. The poisonous over spray seldom fell on the ganger, and for this there was a pay benefit! Getting into the swing of things didn’t take long, and surprisingly the weight of the pack became more manageable with experience.
I gasped the first time the backpack was put on my back. It was heavy but the other guy assisted by lifting it while I arranged the shoulder straps comfortably, much the same way as assisting someone put on an overcoat. The first time he did this I didn’t realise how much weight he was supporting, and when I said I was okay to go, he let it settle onto my back. I was shocked by the weight, and had to lean forward to counterbalance it. It almost winded me, and the pressure from the unpadded shoulder straps digging into my skin didn’t help. I set off at a very brisk pace with the intention of lightening the load by pumping out as much of the fluid as quickly as possible.
After about the third day into the programme the sound of gunshot rang out. The loud crack echoing around the treetops was the last thing I would have expected to hear in a quiet residential suburb. Initially I had no idea where it had come from until a second shot was fired. It came from the neighbouring block where the other two guys were working. I had just turned the corner of the block when I spotted them running. In fact, they were being chased from a large property.
This took place in a residential suburb to the north east of Adelaide, not too far from Newton and Rostrevor where I lived. The land in this area had once been predominantly agricultural in nature with orchards and small crop farms servicing the city markets. Most of the agricultural activity had given way to the pressure or temptation of selling out to residential development of the expanding Adelaide suburbs, but a few isolated patches of agricultural activity remained mostly as market gardens. In fact, the Rostrevor house contained the remnants of one of the orchards that once existed with two old apricot trees growing in the back yard. They produced a great harvest each year, and I got fat as an eleven year old by pigging out on them when we lived there. Although, the mild depression I was going through back then didn’t help any. I hated Australia when we arrived. I missed my friends and the fun I used to have in Scotland, but that’s another story. The carefully ploughed market gardens that remained in the area were often tended by Italian migrants. It was from one of these market gardens that the owner shot at us.
Before commencing the eradication programme a letterbox drop was done advising residents that spraying would begin in a few days. It’s possible the owner of the property had limited English skills, or may not have read the notice, and the arrival of a group of people out of the blue may have seemed more like trespass than government workers going about their duties. It was also probable the owner was sensitive to his livelihood being threatened. The spray packs we used sent out a narrow stream of fluid, which fanned out only as it got past about three metres distant. With densely packed foliage in large trees that type of spray pattern was perfect, but with smaller trees there was a high risk of the spray passing between the branches and missing the tree entirely. The stream would then continue someway into the distance and drop to the ground in an indiscriminate manner, and could well spray rows of cauliflower, lettuce, strawberries or whatever else was growing. It would have made the crops worthless or poisonous if harvest time was near. It could also have been the case that everything had been well maintained by the owner having treated his crops for all the various bugs and diseases, and the last thing he would have wanted was for some uninvited strangers strolling onto his property making his fruit and vegetables unfit for human consumption, by dowsing them in poison. He was angry and reacted in the most effective way he knew how. Shoot the bastards.
This particular plot of land occupied the majority of a residential block, and when the two who were spraying it had done the few residential properties on the block they found themselves at the back of this market garden. Rather than walking around to the front, knocking on the door of the house to announce their arrival to the owner, they simply stepped over the wire fence and began to wind their way through the block spraying every tree they came across as they went. On a first visit they should have explained what they were doing to give the owner an opportunity to object, but by the time they were near the house the job had mostly been done. The owner had told one of the guys to stop, but the other one with the pack was out of earshot and kept on spraying regardless. The owner was enraged and went for his shotgun. He was still spraying when a shot was fired into the air. That was enough to get the message across that they were less than welcome and should stop what they were doing. Both of them stood staring at the owner as he cursed them in Italian and broken English. They couldn’t understand much of what he was saying, but when he began waving the gun around they fled. They dropped everything and ran for their lives. Another shot was fired for good measure, but they were well on their way out by then. The two of them skedaddled on out of it, and the owner who by this time had dropped his now empty shotgun was quick to grab something else. He chased them from his property wielding a machete. If it weren’t for the fact this was a real life drama, the appearance of the ‘Keystone Cops’ racing around the corner to the rescue would have been fitting. The pair scampered off in different directions hiding behind houses across the road. I saw enough of the drama to realise that a quick retreat from the scene was advisable.
The police were called, and the property owner was arrested. His little rural property was now just a dot on the landscape of mostly residential suburbs. Discharging a firearm in a residential area is not something the police were going to take kindly to even if the gun was pointed in the air, and intended simply to scare off the intruders. I’ve no idea why anyone would have need of a shotgun in the suburbs. I hope it was confiscated. An arrangement was made with the owner not to spray his fruit trees with only the ornamentals near the house being done. He eventually became known to be rather friendly offering the two who did the property snacks and drinks whenever they called.
There was a good deal of staff turnover in this job. New people were always coming and going, and some of them were rough. I wouldn’t doubt that some had very shady backgrounds. I can imagine them using the opportunity of going onto people’s property mainly to look around to see what was there with a planned return visit in the early hours of the morning to remove any items of value, rather than an interest in spraying trees for fruit fly. There was one guy we nicknamed ‘Animal’ because of his behaviour. He was actually one of the quieter types, who just got on with his work, and mostly kept to himself. According to his workmate he was good company and good to work with, but he did have some unusual habits; hence the nickname. A few examples are worthwhile.
We were having a tea break and resting in the car for a few minutes before setting off again. Animal was in the back seat next to the window. He had slouched down, hanging his head over the back of his seat as though settling in for a nap. He was lying back generating spittle at the back of his throat, and after a few minutes had accumulated enough to blow a huge gob onto the car headlining, directly above his head. He continued to lie there with his head resting on the back of the seat watching his slaver developing stalactites each gradually growing longer, reaching toward him. Before they broke he raised his hand, and with a finger massaged his phlegm into the headlining. As though fascinated by his art work he sat up and turned to the window next to him, and spat twice more onto the window and watched the changing patterns as the slimy spittle slid down the inside of the glass.
It had been our custom in this job to call into the nearest pub at lunchtime for a counter lunch and a drink. The days were often hot, and the coolness of the pub was a welcome refuge. We pulled into the hotel car park on one occasion, and walking between the parked cars one of the patrons had left a dog in their car. The owner was thoughtful enough to leave the driver’s window down to allow a good air flow for the dog, but it was an aggressive little bastard, and the window should have been more shut than open. I had learned the hard way that strange dogs can’t be trusted. There was a friendly-looking dog I came across on the same round, and I had stretched my hand out to pat it, and quick as a flash it bit me. I’ve still got a scar clearly showing on one of my fingers. On another occasion, I got the freight of my life when rounding the corner of one of the houses on a property we were spraying. I was walking up the narrow path, between the side of the house and the perimeter fence, which effectively turned the space into a narrow corridor, and rounding the corner of the house, came face to face with the biggest Alsatian dog I’d ever seen. It was quietly stretched out on the back lawn. My appearance took its attention and it raised its head. For a few seconds we were both motionless, staring at each other. I didn’t have a clue as to what to do. Then quite suddenly it leapt at me. In one sleek movement it transformed from being at rest on the ground to the full flight of an attack. I barely had time to raise an arm to protect myself. Before it reached me, its securing chain drew taught leaving it straining at the end of it. It stood, taller than myself, on its two hind legs snarling and growling. No doubt, the other folks in my gang had gone through similar experiences. Anyway, this little monster in the car park was silent and hidden inside the car until we were adjacent the open window when suddenly it almost jumped through the window at us. It gave us a hell of a scare with its barking, snarling and general viciousness. Animal stopped in his tracks, turned to face the dog, and sent a huge well-aimed gob through the open window. It must have been a good aim because the dog backed up momentarily. At the end of our break, we wandered back to the car the same way we had come. The car and dog were still in the car park following our lunch break. For good measure Animal sent another sticky mass flying through the open window to attach itself to the dashboard or upholstery that the owner may well have taken for dog slobber.
We had stopped for afternoon tea near a park and a few of the men took the opportunity to rest on the grass in the shade. We had been there for about five minutes and were waiting for Animal and his offsider to join us. I could see a couple of people in the distance doing some door knocking, and progressively getting closer. They were either Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, and probably thought we were souls waiting to be saved. They made a B-line toward us. Just at that moment Animal came trudging around the corner carrying the pack, and spraying the street trees as he went. The two clean-cut young men in their smart suits approached him. They were too distant for me to hear the entire conversation. I just heard the occasional raised voice, and Animal telling them to fuck off. It was enough to cause them to turn abruptly on their heels and hurry up the street in the opposite direction, encouraged by a few shots from Animal’s spray pack on the ground behind them as they hurried off. Obviously, there are times when evangelism misses its target.
I was given the job of ganger in the subsequent year of the programme. I wasn’t liked by two of the men in my gang. One of them had been doing this kind of work for many years, and had developed various short cuts. One shortcut was to mix the brew in the usual way using the correct quantities of bait, pesticide and water, and then tip about a third of it out to make the pack lighter. I considered that if everyone else could carry a full pack then so could he. He objected, saying he’d always done it that way. I watched him do the job properly, and I’m sure he hated me for that. I expect he tipped out as much as he could get away with when I wasn’t watching.
The other was a young English bloke. He was a bit of a smart aleck. One day his offsider spoke to me, and warned me that this bloke had said he wanted to ‘do’ me. I don’t know what had upset him. Maybe he just wanted to test himself. Anyway, fore warned is fore armed, as they say. Later that day when we had stopped for afternoon tea he approached me. I was sitting in the driver’s seat having a drink and a snack, while the others were lingering at the back of the car or sitting at the side of the road. Anyway, this guy approached the car and attracted my attention.
“What is it?” I asked through the open window.
“Can you step out of the car, a minute, please?” he asked.
So, this was the showdown, I thought. I wasn’t going to be gutless about this. I opened the door smartly, almost but not quite violently, causing him to back off a bit. I stood away from the car in a mildly arrogant stance but without seeming flustered; as though I were annoyed at my break being interrupted, which was true anyway.
“Yes, what is it?” I snapped.
“Em,” he hesitated, “Oh, I just wanted to talk to you about…” bla bla bla, or whatever story he invented on the spur of the moment. I think my instant exit from the car took him by surprise, and perhaps my tone put him on edge, and he backed down with some comment about a work related issue. He was very quiet in the days that followed, and later asked to be transferred.