FELIX BRENNAN.

 

‘Sydney"....Migrant Camp,Bunnerong Hostel,onwards.I have dates, times, names,evidence and addresses for all things and people mentioned,plus google earth urls....and more names etc that I have not mentioned. Gelignite explosion and a narrow miss....?(chlorpromazine  and  Largactil, name)

(In retrospect, I actually don't blame Rosetta for any of her actions, particularly, as she was not totally responsible as she suffered from a mental illness. (Bi-Polar type and borderline personality disorder ----perhaps not so borderline..)Although at the time I thought she was doing it all deliberately, as I was unaware. So I was not that sympathetic, but I was remiss on what do about it all, the only compensation was the fact that we were not in love- so to speak).

       On arrival in Sydney we awoke to the sight of the Harbour Bridge through our porthole.  The locals called it the coat hanger and it did look a little like one.  We were in Sydney, the future scene of many joys but also of great tragedies. We were both only nineteen years of age and already had two children and one other on the way, and our total finances amounted to about three dollars.  We were checked through customs,  by a most unfriendly fellow and then bussed to our hostel, or rather camp.  We were in for a big dose of culture shock but we settled into the hostel pretty well.  Our units were essentially partitioned rooms in a big aircraft hanger with common bathrooms.  The food at the canteen was barely edible but it was included in the tariff, which wasn't that cheap, considering you had to cook extra anyway.  Rosetta didn't like the hostel or food or anything at all to do with the place. And we didn't make many friends except for one Irish family over the hallway, the O'Neills, and one guy I met at the bathrooms James, who had a mentally ill sister. The camp cook was a big Yugoslavian, whose experience wasn't cooking, that's for sure. The entire camp was surrounded by a wire fence, which gave it a prison type of appearance.  Most of the people, in the camp were British and Irish, the was another hostel at Daunt Avenue for the ‘Wogs’, as the Aussies derisively called non English Speakers, and Europeans, in those days. They seemed to have a derogatory word for every body. I never fully understood that......The average wage was about 18 pounds, less tax, and the hostel was about 10 pounds and uneatable food so most had electric fry pans..So it was not so economical to live there and the Commonwealth hostels ltd seem to run it as a business...

 

     I started work at B.M C. car factory, where I made some reasonable money. Well 25pounds per week,($50), if I worked a half a day on Saturday. I worked in the parts stores and we supplied the assembly line.  It was a soul destroying job but the Australian Employment Office thought my experience in the Crown Agents, as a Clerical Officer, would qualify me for opening crates, and humping crank shafts.  I soon moved to Life Insurance and from there to book sales, where I was to stay, except for a two, year break, for many years. A third daughter was born in the October of that year in the Women's Hospital on Crown Street Sydney, and Rosetta's behaviour was not improved by it.

(During the time here Rosetta was telling me that a acquaintance of mine, from the European Hostel,a Dutch guy,Rudy ', I called him, was proposing to her and apparently had been 'visiting' her when I was elsewhere working, especially when I spent some weeks working in the grapes in Mildura. Rosetta said he wanted her to leave me and  marry him!!!!???? Why this happened I don't know but it was going to be the start of these strange events again, which accelerated later. In fact was part of  a lifetime pattern of behaviours that wouldn't be apparent for years and years in retrospect, but extended back to England, where she was 'overly friendly' with some young men, and even well before we  were married. Rosetta never really changed her behaviour on that scene since before we were married.. The marriage was just something we had to do at the time for both of us. We would both rather be in a different situation but were trapped by circumstances and lack of support and money. I think the marriage proposals may have been somewhat delusionary but one never knows, but he was definately 'visiting' her, whilst I was not there and when I was working in Mildura, up until the end of April.)

I should have left the marriage here but I was stuck financially and I didn't want to leave the kids.

(There was also ...an event not worth repeating here.. .

As I mentioned, I spent some time picking grapes in Mildura, Victoria.  A group of us including a few Spanish guys, from the ‘European’, Hostel, hitched out to Mildura, in order to make big money in the vineyards.  Unfortunately I caught pneumonia, from sleeping by one fire and not between two.  I wasn't used to Aussie Bush Ways yet.  By the time I got to Mildura I also had pleurisy as well.  My grape picking days were going to be delayed as I had to go into hospital, Mildura Base Hospital.  I was quite a novelty in there and I was treated pretty well. I always remember a nurse named Janine Grelis, who was particularly kind and friendly.  Anyway whilst I was in there, my traveling partner, Manolo, had met some people that had put him up, in exchange for Spanish lessons.  We had split up into pairs so we could travel better.  I was with Manuel because he couldn't speak English, and I spoke Spanish.  Anyway on being discharged I moved into the quarters with Manolo.  The quarters were really empty rooms belonging to the Mildura Art Gallery, but there were cooking and bathroom facilities.

       The managers of the gallery were a Dutch couple called the Van Hattums, a very friendly couple indeed.(google)  They even lined up a job for us with a local farmer.  I ended up speaking a little Spanish and Manolo a little English.  We didn't last long at the grape-picking and were soon on our way back to Sydney.  I let Manolo take the first ride, as he couldn't speak much English.  I then hitched with several rides to Sydney, arriving back at the end of the grape season or late April.

      I next joined the book-business and did very well my first week. I can remember my manager,who I had great respect for as he was a Jewish refugee from Germany to Canada after the war, Lou Laakmann, paying me my first pay cheque of about 70 pounds, a lot in those days, when the basic wage was 15 pounds a week. I worked hard at the business until I was given a promotion and had enough money to get into a flat.  So after nine months in the hostel, we moved to Maroubra Beach.  It was excellent for the family, for the beach was at the bottom of the street.  Here I learned how to surf, and the family spent many hours on the beach, after all it was free.  After we left the hostel I was surprised a few days later, by police at my work.  I walked into the office and Dave Largay, my manager called me into his office.  There were policemen in there to interview me and they were Australian Federal Commonwealth Police.  They said that I must accompany them to my home, which I did.  When we got there they looked around for some items.  It seems that when we left the hostel, camp, Rosetta had taken some stuff with us, amongst our own. This amounted to a blanket and a tin ashtray.  I would have thought the Australian equivalent of the F.B.I. would have had better to do with their time.  I also owed some back rent at the camp, but that wasn't police business.

       Anyway they took me downtown to their headquarters in Brisbane St, Sydney.  I was taken into a little room, with a table and chairs and a light hanging down over the table.  I thought I was in a Humphrey Bogart movie.  Well they questioned me, wanting to know all about my political beliefs, which were left of centre really, and when I told them I had been locked up for demonstrating against nuclear weapons.  They told me I was a security risk and shouldn't have been allowed in Australia.  As far as I was concerned they were quite welcome to deport me as long as they were paying the passage, about $4,000 in today's money and that per person.  Well my friend Jim turned up and they suggested he join the police as he was in the reserves.  I was let go and told to keep out of trouble or words to that effect.   

  

      I left the book selling, for a while and did various jobs, colour matching, chemical operator, building worker, salesman, but I really did not make enough money to live well.  I also was giving Rose far too much money for food, and it was being wasted on junk and stuff.  (I was surprised many years later, when I found out actually how much less it was to feed a even bigger family.) When I did have money I drank, and even had parties at home, organised by the managing couple living in the downstairs flat.  In the morning there would be drunks sleeping all over the lawns, but this was Australia and that was not unusual.   At one point I got Rosetta a job stamping hides, at the same tannery in Botany,--Baileys, where I was a colour matcher. However she could not handle the job and we both ended up getting dismissed.  Especially after I told the manager, a certain Mackay, that he deserved a whack around the head with a brush, in front of the employees on the factory floor.  We were paying half of the money to the day care for the three kids anyway. She earned about 17 pounds a week and at least 7  pounds went to the day care. They were always complaining about the kids as well.  Saying they weren’t properly ‘toilet trained’, unruly and that they were peeing here and there and everywhere.   Rosetta could only do one job and that was shop assistant.I was also selling encyclopedias at night time as well; I always seemed to have to do two jobs to make ends meet. Sydney was expensive and even one wage hardly made it at my age.....I then moved to ICI where I was working 3 shifts in rotation, and many times doublers. I began to wonder if the pregnancies were something to do about not having to work...plus other reasons of course.

       During this time Rosetta's mental condition worsened, and she took a lot of Bex and Vincent APC which were addictive and eventually withdrawn.(  Australia developed its own pain killers such as BEX, Vincent’s APC and Veganin. They contained a mixture of aspirin phenacetin and caffeine or codeine and were popular ). She was becoming somewhat paranoid and depressed again.  I didn't understand what was happening;  I thought that she was being lazy, negative and telling lots of lies.  So I put up with it and kept drinking, when I could afford it, self medicating I suppose. ---good job it was inexpensive and I couldn't drink much. I used to spend time with the kids though, change the babies nappies and feed them. I bought a twin tub washer for her to wash the  nappies in but it broke down...and so I sent it back. When the guy came to  collect it the top fell off and there was a couple of inches of baby poop...covering the machine. Apparently nappies were being washed in there without the poop being emptied out first. This was shades of London where nappies were left in buckets hidden under the sink until they turned black............She was also picking the quicks of her fingers again, especially the thumbs until the bled and I could never figure that out.( All signs of  mental deterioration).

Around this time I wanted to start a band, and I could read music had trained on the trumpet, and the viola, but not on the lead guitar. I bought a guitar, a Burns Bison, and amplifier and along with two other guys we started taking lessons at Sol Greens, who was well know in the music industry, and a friend of Slim Dusty. We found a drummer, who had one time been in a local band, who had eventually made it big. How he dropped out I don't know but he was handy for us....I wrote a lot of songs and we were making some progress, but it probably would have been better if I had done the singing not the lead guitar, as I only knew about 20 songs.. We called ourselves 'The Beowolves' after the Anglo-Saxon saga Beowolf, which I was familiar with. We never really got off the ground due to all kinds of extraneous influences...plus money and time constraints. I heard one of my songs on the radio some few years later and recognised it; So one of the guys must have done well and taken my songs with him.......I didn't mind at all.

It was quite a musical apartment block, that we lived in, for Helen Reddy, the singer, 'I am woman', lived up above us.  She was quite helpful, on a couple of occasions and even took Rhi out with a medical mental health friend of hers.  I didn't go, as I was not invited, but I think it was about Rosetta's problems and difficulties. I wasn’t told anything about this by Rosetta, either. One occasion one of our  kids and the little boy downstairs from the manager's flat, were accused of going into their flat and damaging dresses in the closet, but I suspect it was an adult that did it for whatever reason, probably jealousy...it wasn't Rosetta. A year or so later in Brisbane, we went to a pub she was giving a show in and she recognised us in the audience and came over for a chat. I think this was before she won the contest and moved to New York.

 Rosetta's behaviour becomes strange and somewhat ......

  Later when Rosetta seemed to be in 'high spirits', strange uninvited people were coming to the parties, that were held in our flat.  Some of the attendees even remarked on how 'high' Rosetta was and put it down to alcohol, but she drank very very little; Perhaps it was counter indicative.The parties has started in the flat downstairs and migrated upstairs as we had more room. Some men were bothering Rosetta, so myself and a friend Jim Roche had to go to one fellow's shop in Matraville, and warn him off; Tangy, I think his name was, or something like that.  I came home early one day and saw him running out of our flat. He was the start of many mysterious people, that she knew, both men and women. (In retrospect I think they were people from some group.)  On another occasion I caught them both together in the bathroom at a party with the door closed? I had to roust him out of there! Plus there were other lesser situations as well, which were in general common view, where she had been somewhat indiscreet.

At one party some of the guys had to chase off a couple of visiting American Sailors, in uniform, one of which she was 'kissing' in the stairwell, with one blocking the view, according to what the guys told me later...This may have been the cause of the outburst from one of the other women in the flats.

On another occasion the 'drummer', '?',who was to be the drummer in my band, came out of her bedroom in the morning and lay down on the couch in the lounge room. I had spent the night after the party in there, on the couch, but he seemed sneaky, so later I asked Rosetta about it as the kids were in the room also. Her answer was, 'I thought it was you'?????? I don't know whether he had been in there long or not. Some weeks later, I was home one day when he paid a surprise visit and he asked her whether she was pregnant. Actually she was but I did ask her though, why he would ask a question like that and she said she had no idea; Perhaps the girl downstairs had told him, and I didn't put much store into it due the period of weeks. Also early pregnancy is a most useful form of contraception, for some people. It was almost all beyond my understanding and control, and I was at a loss to know what to do about it....What could I do? There are more but this is enough to indicate the situation...and of course who knows what I didn't know? Or didn't see?

(Many years later when I was studying psychology at the University of Queensland, I learned this behaviour is typical of a 'High Condition' in some forms of depression; personality and bi-polar conditions. No doubt this is why she had bottles of chlorpromazine, which were mostly full. Highly sexed promiscuous behaviour, that is, and it was all compounded by Rosetta having some intellectual problem). (Bi-Polar and borderline schizophrenia, schizoid personality disorder..)

 One of my neighbours, from one of the other flats, came and talked about it with me as his wife, Beth-May,Rosettai's friend, was apparently promiscuous, and also having some problems  mentally. He said, 'Tony we have to trust them don't we? Perhaps I wasn't that concerned about it all, enough, or I knew that it was really beyond my control, and was bewildered about what to do about it all. She even went out with this girl a few times, when she was on a high..

In fact one day Rosetta said we are going to the Coogee Bay Pub and Beth is coming with us. So we went down to the pub and on arrival a young lodger from our flats turned up..I thought it was a coincidence until when we were walking home Beth-May and Trigger ran off holding hands. I said to Rosetta..'You knew about that arrangement didn't you"? I didn't tell her husband although I knew he had a different relationship than mine.

Some later Trigger surprised attacked me for some unknown reason at the flats...I was down and out so speak...'King Hit'. Helen Reddy was one the  people tending to me as I was on the floor..I charged him with assault at Graceville police station, as he had form. One has to bear in  mind that our marriage was a 'forced one' so we were really more like fellow travelers, or room-mates than husband and wife, so complete loyalty on either side, in either way, was no different than flatmates sharing an apartment, and having a sexual relationship only. However I didn't want strange people coming around and bothering her when we had children in the flat. I did not want her affairs in the house with the children. All my life I worked long hours and shift-work, or did two jobs, so I was rarely home in the evenings.

We had  never ever told each other we loved each other quite the contrary, we both felt trapped in circumstances we didn't want, and I was broke most of the time. As I would only take a few dollars for myself and give the rest to Rhi, and at this time I was running to work at ICI to save two bus fares. If we were at home in the UK we may have been able to separate and divorce, with help from our families but we had been thrown out and rejected and now we were ten thousand miles away in a  strange land and no support.

       Some time later, in Bondi Junction a young girl came up and greeted Rosetta. I asked who she was and was told, "Oh that is  Jim's ( he is the one who came  with me to warn off Tangy), sister, she's schizophrenic".  I asked how she knew that and was told some story or other.  It is amazing how I never did put two and two together until many years later. Another symptom was that she told whopping stories, and I believed them for years and years. In fact one day a girl,,from another flat, came up and smacked her face, and called her a 'Pommy Moll'!.  I asked what that was about and was fobbed off with another story, but it may have harked back the parties.  Rosetta had yet another pregnancy, although she was supposed to be taking the pill.  She seemed to have a problem with pills, and was rather haphazard in taking them, for one reason or another; Perhaps even deliberate. Rosetta was of course really a tragic figure, suffering from a mental illness, which she hid from me, for all of our marriage.   Some years later, I heard one of my songs on the radio,in Brisbane, but I never followed it up.  It was quite a musical apartment block, that we lived in, for Helen Reddy, the singer, lived up above us.  She was quite helpful, on a couple of occasions and even took Rosetta out with a medical mental health friend of hers.  I didn't go, as I was not invited, but I think it was about Rosetta's problems and difficulties. I wasn’t told anything about this by Rosetta, either. One occasion one of our  kids and the little boy downstairs from the manager's flat, were accused of going into their flat and damaging dresses in the closet, but I suspect it was an adult that did it for whatever reason.

At this time I went with Jim Roche down to the CMF militia to  join, and as I wanted to be a commando I was training to swim a mile everyday. One day Jim suggested we walk down and see a mutual friend of ours Robert,who was an officer in the CMF, Australian Army, and would have had to interview me anyway.He told me something that really hit home, when I told him that I was applying, or had applied, to Portsea Officer Training. He told me that on the Army Camp the officers would be bothering my wife sexually, and this would disturbance would not be allowed on base housing, an he strongly advised me against proceeding with my application for Portsea OTS.....And as this was happening to me now, I decided against continuing with the application... My friend Jim must have told him what was happening with Rosetta at this time and as his sister was schizophrenic and knew Rosetta; He probably knew more than I did about her condition.For she never admitted anything to me at all. In retrospect I could imagine what would have happened on a base with the other wives and officers and I would have been forced to resign my commission. Just after this the Australian Army was sent to Vietnam so I had a narrow escape, for me and my family , perhaps Robert knew and was saving me that move..

 

While living at Maroubra, my cousin visited us; Sean Rowlands, was his name and he worked on the S.S, Ionic, which was visiting Sydney at the time.  This was an opportunity for me to get back to England, for he offered me a berth on the ship, but I couldn't desert the family, even though Rosetta's behaviour, and mine, made it clear that there wasn't much of a connection left. Sean took us all for a meal on the ship and he spent an afternoon with Rosetta, when I was drunk. I could never hold much, and usually passed out.  He told me I wouldn't be losing anything by leaving. He said she really wasn’t the type, and didn't seem loyal to me at all, and was overly friendly with him. He said her parents would probably bring her and the kids home, as they were in business. I couldn't do it, for I didn't think like that, and the ship sailed for Liverpool, England. I was left to face my karma and pretty bad it was too. Looking back it would have better for all if I had taken the opportunity and returned to Liverpool? I suppose I was just trying to do the ‘right thing’, rather than the logical and beneficial one.  This was something organised by my Great-Auntie Annie and Uncle Joe, as they were close to my father and had heard about my plight apparently..I have tried to do the right thing so many times with the family and each time it did not produce the desired result.;

The flat was an old place and damp and fungus started to grow, on the walls in the lounge room.  We move into one of the bedrooms and turned it into a lounge room. I complained to the landlord, but nothing was done about it.  Australian landlords do not like to spend money, only extort extortionate rent for dumpy dwellings. The Immigrants were the greediest by far though.

I also joined the local branch of the ALP and was put forward as a delegate to the Federal, State and Youth Councils, however I was a little too aggressive or dedicated so my job was being the minister of propaganda and sticking up posters..........In the end it all backfired on them as I supported Whitlam as opposed to Caldwell and Whitlam won.I was also  a Union Delegate at the same time....very young.....barely able to vote.

 

Yass- Gelignite explosion.

     Whilst living in Maroubra I became friendly with some new tenants upstairs, the Reid brothers. They owned a construction business and I was in need of a new job, so I joined their company.  They were connected with a left wing political party and had backed a fellow militant, for the Presidency of the Builder's Labourer's Federation. So I got on with them very well and I think their Uncle was on the Barrier Industrial Council in Broken Hill,a very powerful organisation.

     Anyway we went down to Yass and then inland to where there was a small creek.  This was to be the site of the culverts we were building.  We rented an old house, which had been used as a pen for sheep, consequently it was full of sheep dung to a height of about six inches or more.  We dug it out and made the place habitable and somewhat cosy with an open wood fire. We sat around at night and told stories somewhat like my days in the Lake District. Unfortunately we had no mattresses so we were sleeping on the bare springs. Also we were washing in the creek which could be a little risky. For on one occasion the youngest brother Phillip and I were bathing in a pool when Phil got leeches all over his buttocks.  So we had to be more careful after that.  We also were cooking our own basic food, on the wood fire, it was quite an adventure.

     The area had been mined for gold in the old days and the streams were still full of iron pyrites, fools gold.  Digging in the stream bed was heavy going and there was a lot of rock.  So it was decided to blast the rock out of the bed. So with a pneumatic drill we drilled holes and charged them with gelignite explosives.  The eldest brother Maurice was in charge of the blasting and after we had drilled the holes we blew out the rock.  On the last occasion we had about fourteen charges set.  So we wired them up and then took shelter behind the compressor.  We counted them as they went off sending rocks far up in the air, which landed all around with thump thump.  We then went back into the river bed to check it all out.  I was standing next to Maurice when there was an explosion right next to us, and there was dust and rock shrapnel flying around everywhere.  Maurice had counted wrongly and there was a charge that hadn't gone off. At first I didn't realise what had happened but Maurice started talking and then I realised something was amiss.  His face was full of blood and his legs were also bleeding, plus he was moaning in pain.  I was standing alongside of him, shoulder to shoulder, yet I was unscathed.  Our shoulders may have been even touching, but the drill hole set the direction of the explosion.  I attended to Maurice as best I could and then I sent young Phil off to the neighbours for help, but he rolled the truck and had to run to the farmhouse.  I didn't know how to drive the truck, even though I did have a rather unused driving licence.

 

       Eventually help and an ambulance came and the other brothers John and Frank turned up, they were the executives.  An ambulance arrived and I was elected to ride with him to Sydney, which was a four hour ride.  A ride I didn't enjoy for I had to keep talking to Maurice and stop him checking himself out.  He had lost one eye and was injured in the other plus he had broken his leg.  He didn't know this in the ambulance but he was checking his eyes and asking me questions, which I found hard to duck.  I don't know why I was elected to travel with him for I could have been in shock myself. Anyway We arrived at the Sydney eye hospital and I left him there with his brothers and went home.

 

       I later went back to Yass but an Industrial Inspector closed the job down, so I came back to Sydney again.  The company wanted me to keep working but I knew if the job was closed there would be no insurance, so I went back to Sydney and unemployment.   I often think that I was so lucky that the blast went the other way.

     I organised a rent strike in the flats, after the landlord wouldn’t fix the damp. I had big signs hanging outside my windows, reading, ‘Abolish 5A Leases’, which was the section residential tenancies came under. Eventually, after a Court appearance, we had to leave Maroubra, due to fights with the estate agents and unpaid rent arrears.  There would always be this problem for my income and the rent required, were not widely different. So we moved to Maroubra Junction but it was tough going financially, as always. There we had a small, unfurnished place, full of unhappy old people, who had been released from rent control.  I had a row with the landlords and ended up punching one of them, in the eye several times, after he came bullying and insulting the old people. The police came but nothing eventuated. It didn’t look that my fortunes were going to change anytime soon. So I had to think of other options for earning a better living.

 Queensland and sugar cane cutting.

I decided to move to Queensland and go cutting sugar-cane, on the tropical plantations.  For I had heard one could make good money at that job.  I had seen the movie,’ Summer of the Seventeenth Doll’, when I was a kid, and it all seemed so romantic and adventuresome. So with my last pay from the job, I bought tickets for the entire family.  We had enough to get there and survive for a week.  Rents would be a lot cheaper than the extortionate Eastern Suburbs of Sydney.  I may even have enough for two weeks, or more, I thought.  I knew jobs would be no problem, and I was always lucky in that respect.

       The trip up was about thirteen hours and uneventful.  We had to sleep on the train and arrived in Brisbane the next morning, where we had to change trains to get to Mackay in North Queensland.  We had a few hours to kill in Brisbane so we went to the movies and saw "The Vikings."  After that we eat some food in a park and in the evening boarded the train. The train was pretty modern and called "The Sunlander."  It was no so dramatic, but it was unusual to be on a train, going through the main streets at Rockhampton.  After a long journey we arrived in Mackay in the evening.

 

       I had miscalculated our arrival time and everything was shut, no real estate agents, boarding houses, or anything. I had enough for a week or so in a boarding house and jobs were plentiful. I called a cab and we checked out a few motels but their tariff, as it was a resort town, would take all my money, unless I paid a week in advance.  So I decided to go to the Catholic Church and see if they could help us for the night.  So I talked to the priest and asked if we could spend the night on the floor of the church hall.  For in the morning I could find a job and accommodation.  He said no, he could not possibly help us and we could not stay in the church hall.  I said that there were three children and baby Tom, in arms, but no luck and the door was closed in our face, literally (No room at the Inn, lots of compassion there.) The taxi driver was not surprised, and I told him to take us to a park for the night, it was a tropical climate and very warm; So there would have been no real problem, it would be like camping out.  However he jumped in and offered to put us up at his own home.  His wife was also charitable and even gave the baby a cot with mosquito netting.  The next morning I went and signed on for a job and picked up a few groceries from the Salvation Army. (Those old Salvos again!) Luckily I landed a job, on a cane farm, in Carmila. Whilst I was there the family moved into a caravan and lean-to, next door to our taxi driver on Walker St. North Mackay. I had previously gone to the radio station to have my story and job request broadcast.

" Migrant thinks Mackay taxi drivers are fantastic", I think the story went.

     Down on the farm the work was very tough, but I was up to it.  I lived with two other fellows in a farm house and we looked after our own cooking .We worked from dawn to dusk with a break in the middle of the day.  It was hard going at first but I soon got into it.  We were cutting plant cane and it was green and full of sharp leaves.  We first had to strip the trash with a forked stick and then chop it down.  I think we were cutting over fourteen ton a day and as it was 86 cane lots of little hairs worked their way into your skin.  We worked so hard that I used the opportunity to give up smoking, for I didn't like rolling my own, and town was miles away.

    After a time I didn't miss them at all, only at "smoko", when I was taking a break did I even think of them.  I had lots of scratches on me from the cane and snakes and spiders to worry about.

 

    In fact one day we were having a comfort break, In the adjoining stand of cane, when my partner told me to be very quiet. I asked why and he replied, that a snake of the most venomous kind, was crawling over his feet, on its way to mine.  I kept very still and my old courage under fire kicked in.  The snake passed, harmlessly, as it was not threatened.  My partner had fought against the Japanese, in New Guinea, so was a tough old bird, that's for sure.  Anyway the cut finished, I was paid off, and I headed back to Mackay on the train.

 

  Unfortunately my pocket was picked, by two girls, working the train. On arrival back home at the caravan I found Rosetta covered in insect bites, so I decided that unless I got a good cane-cut we may have to move again.  Our Landlord on Walker St. was a Freemason so he got me on to the council work crew, that way I could pay his rent, about twice the going rate! My wife didn't like the way he always happened to be working, when she was taking a shower, under the house either. One day he appeared with his Masonic Apron and regalia on.  This was to impress me no doubt, but I just thought he looked like a tit. So after knocking back a cut of standover cane, and a few weeks on the council, I decided to go to Brisbane.  I went on the dole, for the first time in my life, and then hitch-hiked the 700klms to the South. 

 

On arrival I checked in to the Salvation Army Home for men, mostly drunk men.  It only cost two shillings a day and we slept in dorms, on top of all our valuables I might add.  I made a few friends in there, namely Mike Burns, Roy Kinchin and of course crazy Miles.  There was something wrong with him for he wet the bed and had to stay outside until his mattress dried.  I soon had a job tying steel on a construction site and was making pretty decent pay, enough to bring the family down and get a flat.  It would be a couple of weeks before I had it organised though.  In the meantime I was hanging out with my new, found friends, drinking a little too much I might add, as money was no problem now.

     One particular night I ran into a spot of bother.  I had been drinking with my friends in a South Brisbane pub and we had become noisy and rowdy.  The pub had a corridor from one street to another and we were running through it howling as loud as we could.  This attracted some notice so we decided to split up before the police arrived.  For having filled ourselves with the pub's beer we had now outworn our welcome there.

 

      After some time, I was feeling hungry and adjacent to the pub was a small square, which included a restaurant.  Outside a middle-aged Aboriginal woman was begging, and she asked me for money.  I told her that I would buy her a meal but wouldn't give her any money.  I then committed a grave error and took her into a "White" cafe. I was joined at the table, by a pretty young woman, who chatted away with us.  The Aboriginal was suspicious but I wasn't and I continued blithely on.  Anyway I paid my bill and we left.  As I left two khaki clad figures accosted me, and one asked what I was doing chatting up his girlfriend.  I said that I wasn't chatting anybody up and that I had been approached about going to a party.  The larger of the two policemen, a Scotsman, pushed into me and said, " why are you pushing me?" He then did it again and said "you're coming with us", and they grabbed me by the arms and marched me off.  They wanted to know why I bought the Aboriginal woman a meal and took her into that restaurant.  I said" because she was hungry" and I said no more for I was thrown into the back of a taxi and taken to jail, The old Brisbane Watch house was built out of wood and the cells were also wood.  I wasn't told what I was charged with, and the company, in the cell, were drunker than I was,  by far.

       I could hear people screaming and shouting and some were being given a good hiding by the police.  I could hear women telling the police to leave them alone and I could hear a voice shouting, "Khaki Nazis".  This was my friend  Burns, from Ireland.  I asked an officer what my charge was, when he did his rounds.  I was told drunkeness, which was partly true, but I knew the real reason was I had violated an unwritten apartheid, by taking a Black into a White restaurant.  She also had been arrested at the same time that I was. (Queensland was a pretty unenlightened place in those days.)

     The next morning we were trooped down to the magistrates court, where I pleaded guilty.  For if you pleaded not-guilty it becomes complicated so I was fined and that was that.  Mike was the case before mine, it seemed he was a little slow leaving the pub. Miles also was arrested as well but Roy wasn't.  Anyway it was a lesson for me to be careful of the Queensland Police in the future.

 

      Soon after this Rosetta and the kids came down and I booked them into the Woman's Salvation Army until we moved into a flat, a week or two later. She said the landlord up there was 'perving ' when she used the shower under the house....he was a big local Freemason.........and used to come out parading his mason's apron and regalia.

     The other lesson I learned on this trip was racial prejudice; for on the job people wanted to fight me just because I was a Pom.  I was quite surprised at the virulence involved and I could see that they were in no way superior to me.  One fellow used to sing derogatory songs about the "Rousabout being a Pommy Louse," and this kind of stuff.  It seemed to me that this was an aculturated place and their opinion of blacks and other races was similar, without jealousy involved. No wonder the people in the Southern States called Queenslanders, "Banana Benders".

     Anyway we moved into a flat, in King St.Annerley, and stayed in Brisbane until the work ran out, and we decided to return to Sydney.( Burns moved in as a lodger for a few weeks and crazy Miles came as a visitor).

Soon we were all on the train to Sydney, and on arrival, the family had to sit in the park, while I got an apartment. 

(On arrival in Sydney I camped the family in Belmore Park next to Central Station and then went off and found a job.

I got a job working with the same building company as Brisbane..’Roof and Building’ run by a Plymouth Brethren group,and was sent out to ICI at Beachamp Road as a painter..

I then went back to the park and took Rose and the kids to Taronga Zoo. I found a grassy bank to put the suitcases on and left them to visit the Zoo and I would go and find a flat... I looked in the paper and found a flat in Dover Heights, on Military Road, near North Bondi. It was in an older house on the hill but had two bedrooms and a big kitchen. I would put the power on the next day. So I returned to the Zoo by the ferry to look for Rhi and the kids...I couldn’t find them so I went to the office to enquire about them. A worker came out and started shouting at me for leaving them on the grassy bank and going off..However I would have liked to see him arrive in Sydney with a wife and kids and a baby, and then get a job and a flat in less than one day....and using only public transport...

 

 I had worked at ICI so I knew my way around it...However the union rep was a lazy bastard and the work was not getting done...so they fired me...I could have reported the Union Rep for not doing his job but I wasn’t a ‘dobber ‘ as the Aussies say. I was so pissed off at this that I went into town and got a job selling encyclopedias with P F Collier’s.  I thought screw working as an ordinary labourer or painter anymore..

Whilst working in this job we moved from Military Rd, Dover Heights, where we had a large ground floor apartment...to a flat over the chemist shop on the corner of Glasgow Ave, opposite the pub.

We were constantly getting behind with the high rent as the weekly bills would mount up and the only money available was the rent.!!!!!!!!..It was a constant cycle, as the rent was equal to the basic wage, plus there was separate gas and electricity. The only alternative would be to move a couple of hours into the suburbs and live in a sub standard dwelling. As on a working wage in Sydney at that time it was impossible to afford the rents unless both partners were working and Rosetta was incapable of holding down a job, or managing her money anyway. Also if my deals were turned down or cancelled I could end up with no money for the week and this happened frequently, until I was promoted to ‘overwrites’ and always was paid  no matter if my sales went through or not...)