By Albert Slender
I have written this story of my life so that my family may understand something of the life I have endured having lived through two World Wars and the Great Depression.
When I reflect back over my life it appears to have been somewhat like climbing a spiral staircase, changing from one direction to another, where you encounter good times and hard times as you travel through life’s long journey.
I was born at Narrandera in New South Wales on the 28th December 1914 at the commencement of World War I. I was christened Albert Belgium Slender after King Albert of Belgium. The Belgians were our allies during World War I. I was the third child of my parents, Rose and Fred Slender.
My mother was born at Macorna in Victoria in November 1887. Her maiden name was Rosina Victoria Hopwood.
My father was born at Mansfield in Victoria in July 1886, his name being Frederick Slender.
My parents were married at Narrandera on 13th March 1912.
Grandma Slender died when my father was three years of age.
Grandfather Slender was the manager of Buckingbong Station, a large property of a hundred thousand acres on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River a few miles out of town of Narrandera. The author Edward G. Thwaites had written a book called The Broken Melody, in which Buckingbong Station was mentioned.
Grandfather Slender met and married my step-grandmother who was working as a governess at Buckingbong. I think they refer to a governess as a nanny these days. She lived on for a long while after grandfather died, and for a number of years ran a boarding house at Temora in New South Wale. We all enjoyed her company when she found time to visit us as she was a very kind person. Grandpa Slender had four boys during his first marriage, names Willie, Harry, Arthur and Frederick, and three children from his second marriage, names Jonathon, Clarrie and Lilly. Auntie Lil lived until she was in her nineties until she died in about 1985.
During the time Grandpa was working as the manager of Buckingbong he had an Aboriginal man working for him. The Aboriginal man thought so much of Grandpa as his boss that he changed his name to Slender. One time when I was on holidays staying with Auntie Bella and Uncle Willie Slender in Narrandera I heard of an Aboriginal boy named Jimmy Slender. He was the son of the Aboriginal man who had worked for my grandfather at Buckingbong. That is how he came to have the name of Jimmy Slender. The Aboriginals were treated very poorly by people during those early years, so I’m happy to know at least my grandfather treated them with some respect.
Grandma and Grandpa Hopwood had a farm that was about seven miles from Narrandera along the Narrandera to Wagga Wagga Road. The farm had an area of 800 acres and was called Wilga after a large wilga tree that was growing near the house. The wilga tree had a very noticeable lean to one side.
One time when I was staying at Wilga with my grandparents a car became bogged on the Wagga Road which was an all-dirt road at that time. We knew someone was in trouble as we could hear the car’s engine revving. The driver of the car came over to Grandpa asking for assistance in getting the car out of the bog. Grandpa harnessed two draught horses, went over to where the car was bogged, and pulled it out. In those days there would only be one or two cars passing along the road in a day.
On another occasion when I was there they had a crew of men come out to Wilga to cut up the hay and make it into chaff. The chaff-cutter was a steam engine with two large wheels on the back and two small wheels on the front. The steam engine had a wheel on the side with a leather belt on it that drove the chaff-cutter. The hay, wheaten or oaten was fed into the chaff-cutter and came out as chaff. It was bagged and sewn then stacked in large heaps. The steam engine was fired by wood that heated a large boiler which created the steam to drive the engine. The farm owner had to have a supply of wood ready for use.
Grandma and Auntie Millie would prepare the meals for the men. There was a long table in the large dining room with long stools on each side of the table where the men would sit to eat their meals.
I always found it interesting staying with our Hopwood grandparents. They had their own fruit trees, grape vines, and always had vegetables growing. Grandma always had a cupboard full of jams and preserves. To get jars for the jams and preserves they used to tie a kerosene-soaked piece of string around the top of a bottle then light the string. When it was alight they would plunge it into a container of cold water. The top of the bottle would fall off where the string had been tied. To seal the jam in the jar they would pass hot beeswax on the top of the jam and then paste brown paper over the top.
Our home at Narrandera
Before coming to Narrandera to live, Dad worked as a herdsman in the high country around Mansfield in Victoria.
We lived on the common, “an open tract of land free to all”. It was by a lake in an isolated area surrounded by gum trees. There were no other homes around that area. Water from the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the lake. When the river flooded we would be isolated from the town. If Dad had to go to town, he would put the sulky on the boat, then row the boat with the sulky on it until he reached the high ground. His horse, Diamond, would swim behind the boat. Dad would take the sulky off the boat then harness Diamond in the sulky and drive to town.
Diamond was a placid horse. My Auntie Bella Slender took a photo of me with my three sisters Ivy, Bobbie and Jean sitting near each of the horse’s four legs.
Dad worked at various jobs at Narrandera. He had a steam engine by the lake similar to the one that drove the chaff-cutter, except this steam engine drove a circular saw that cut up wood. Dad sold the cut wood around Narrandera for use in wood stoves and the like. He also worked as a pound keeper for the Narrandera Council. Any horses or cattle that roamed the streets around Narrandera would be impounded and kept on the common until the owner paid a fine to Council for their release.
Dad also worked on the construction of a canal. Water was pumped from the Murrumbidgee River into the canal which brought it to the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (M.IA.) at Leeton and Griffith. Uncle Willie was the engineer in charge of the pumping station.
Ivy, Bobbie and I made our own fun around the common. I can remember one time when we built a cubby-house. I wasn’t game to go in it because they claimed to be my “wild aunties”. I think they had me very scared at that time – Jean would only have been about two years old.
We Leave Narrandera to Live at Coolamon
In 1920 Mum and Dad decided it was time to pack up and leave Narrandera and try for something different at Coolamon. By this time there were five children – Ivy, Bobbie, Albert, Jean and baby Lorraine.
We first lived in a small house in west Coolamon where brother Ross was born. Dad had hired a large tin shed where he first started his motor car repair business. It was in Cowabbie Street, the main street of Coolamon. Later we were able to rent a house in Cowabbie Street opposite to where Dad was carrying out his motor repairs. I had a small bicycle with sixteen inch spoked wheels. The front wheel was buckled. I had left it in Dad’s garage for him to repair it for me. After it had been there for some time, I decided it was time to bring it home and have a go at fixing it myself. That same night, Empire Night of 1923, the motor repair shed was burnt down. I was sleeping on the front verandah opposite the garage and could see the huge flames and sparks flying. There was always petrol there kept in four gallon tins on the premises. The place was burnt out but I still had my wobbly-wheeled bicycle.
Later that year Dad moved to new premises in the central section of the town to continue with his motor vehicle repairs.
There was a showroom at the front and a driveway that led into the workshop area. I had to sweep the driveway each Saturday morning before going out to play. For me, who was anxious to go out and play cricket or football, it seemed a large area to sweep even though it wasn’t. There was a petrol bowser on the footpath at the front of the garage. The petrol was sent by rail to the Coolamon Railway Station. With two four-gallon tins in a wooden case, Dad would pick it up from the Railway Station and pour it from the tins into an underground tank at the petrol bowser. The name of the petrol was “Plume”. We would pump the required amount of petrol from the tank by hand pump into a glass container at the top of the bowser, then release it via a hose into a car’s petrol tank.
Dad had the agency for Studebaker, Rugby, Dodge and Austin cars. If he sold two cars a year he would have been lucky. He sold a very small Austin car to Sergeant Ruse, the local Police Sergeant. Sergeant Ruse was a very big man and looked much too big for his baby Austin.
Life in the 1920’s in Coolamon was a time when draught horses would plough fields, pull the wagons loaded with wheat into the Coolamon Silos, churning up the road as they went along. The horse and sulky were the main means of transport for the farmers to travel miles into town. Only the wealthier people owner motor cars. Children that lived away from the main town area walked long distances to school as there was no bus transport at the time.
People travelled from afar by horse and sulky to attend Church of a Sunday. The Church was a place where they would meet together with their friends and chat before and after the service. The topic with the men was nearly always about the weather or the amount of wheat they were getting per acre of land. They would then return home.
Housekeeping for women was a continuous round of labour. The washing was boiled in a copper stove fuelled by wood and a scrubbing board was used to get the dirt out of the clothes before rinsing in cold water. They mostly made their own bars of soap out of dripping from animal fat. They all cooked on wood-burning stoves with no temperature gauge to indicate the heat of the oven.
The kerosene lamps had to be kept clean and filled with kerosene. These lit the room with a soft glow. Candles were also in common use.
A cooler safe was used to keep milk, butter and meat fresh. It was made up with hessian which covered a two foot square framework. There was a galvanised tray on the top, filled with water, that had pieces of flannel hanging over the side of the hessian. The water would drip onto the hessian and the breeze blowing through would keep the inside cool.
Cool drinking water was obtained from a round canvas water bag about twelve inches in diameter and eighteen inches high. It had a tap at the bottom. The bag was hung in a shady position where the breeze would keep the water inside cool.
Refrigeration was almost unknown. There was only about three months of the year when ice was available. It was transported by rail from the New South Wales town of Blayney and was quite expensive.
A typical evening’s entertainment was a get-together of family and friends in a sing-along around the family piano. When one was able to play and sing the evening was very enjoyable and at no cost.
Our water supply came from a round corrugated tank that filled with rainwater drained from the roof of the house. In dry weather water was very scarce and children would have to take their own bottle of drinking water to school. For bathing we used a round tub about once a week with the same water used to wash all of us.
The big event for the people of Coolamon was the annual Coolamon Show where most of the locals entered exhibits. Mum’s cream puffs and scones were always a success at the show.
Another big event was a visit from the Circus. When the Circus was preparing for the event lots of children would be hanging around watching the big tent being put into place.
The local fire brigade had a large round tank filled with water which sat on a cart. It had shafts with buckets hanging on the side and was pulled along by men.
Cowabbie Street, the main street that went past the front of our house, had about six inches of loose dirt carried in by the teams of horses hauling wagons loaded with wheat, chaff, wool and the like to the railway station. When there was a bad dust storm it was like nightfall. You could not see very far in front of you through the dust. My mother would stuff paper or whatever she could get under the doors and shut the windows to try and stop the dust getting inside the house.
We were now a family of eight, with Ross, Victor and Olive being born in Coolamon.
To get spending money I would go searching in nearby paddocks for cast iron or bones. I would get sixpence for a kerosene tin of bones and two shillings for a hundredweight of cast iron. I would take the iron to Johnny White’s Store, a mixed business rather like a hardware store. He also bought rabbit and fox skins and had a large heap of sawdust in the yard at the rear of the store where he kept blocks of ice in the summer. The sawdust kept the ice from melting.
One piece of cast iron I sold to him was the treadle off a White sewing machine. It had the word White cast into the centre of the treadle. Johnny White nailed it above the front door of the store. He also had an ice chest in his shop. Sometimes when I was coming home from school past his shop he would give me a drink of iced water. This was something I looked forward to – just plain old iced water – a real luxury in the summertime.
As was the case in most country towns, they used live hares for greyhound racing. During those years, the men who conducted the racing would engage about twenty schoolboys at 2/- each. We would travel on the back of a truck out to a paddock. They would place a net along one end of the paddock and we would slowly merge together toward the net, yelling as we went. The hares would run into the net and catchers would be waiting for them as they became tangled in the net. The boys would always be looking forward to the next hare chase.
You had to make your own interest and fun. One time, instead of coming from school, I went rabbiting with Dickie Burrel, a friend of mine who owned a dog. We picked the dog up from his place and away went Dickie, Albert and the dog to catch rabbits. It must have been about five in the afternoon when I arrived home. I thought I might get into trouble for not coming home from school first, so as a peace offering I threw the two rabbits that I had caught in the back door first. When mum threw them out again as fast as they went in, I knew I was in trouble. In latter years mum often laughed about that incident.
All our cooking was done in a fuel stove. It was my job to keep up the supply of wood for the stove and the fireplace, but there was to be no wood cut on a Sunday – the Sabbath. One time I was behind on the wood supply and had to cut some on Sunday. Mum showed me the moon that night and said “Can you see the man up there cutting wood? He was sent there for cutting wood on a Sunday”. Try as hard as I could, I couldn’t see him but apparently Mum could.
I Lose Faith in God
At the age of eleven years I lost my belief in God and there has not been evidence since then for me to change my mind. On the contrary, there is an abundance of evidence showing it up as a big myth.
The incident that caused this loss of faith in God at such an early age occurred when Rugby, a dog I owned, was run over and killed by a motor car in the main street of Coolamon.
Dad and I were travelling along a country road in a Rugby car when we found a little black pup by the roadside. We picked him up and I took him home and named him Rugby. I had had him for about two years until he was run over by the car. That night when I went to bed I prayed to God to bring Rugby back to life. The next morning I expected to find Rugby running around, because when I went to Sunday School I was taught if you prayed to God he would answer your prayers. However, when I went outside Rugby was still lying in his box the same as when I put him there.
That night when I went to bed, I didn’t pray but instead said, “There’s no God”. I didn’t say it very loudly, though. The next night, as I was still alive, I again said the same thing but much louder this time, as I felt in my mind that God was just a big hoax.
Mum once told me about a man who had denounced God on a stage and was struck dead. I guess that story had been told many times before as people were more closely connected with religion then.
During school holidays I was able to spend time with friends of ours named Mr and Mrs Gibbons. They lived on a farm about seven miles from Coolamon on the Wagga Wagga Road. There was also a Mr and Mrs Hamblin who lived on a farm at Ganmain, a town about twelve miles from Coolamon. Sometimes I stayed with Auntie Bella and Uncle Billie at Narrandera. I always enjoyed staying with them as they lived by the Murrumbidgee River. They had a rowing boat with which Uncle Billie sometimes took cousin Max and myself out fishing. I was fascinated by the ease with which Uncle Billie rowed the boat. There was barely a ripple as he placed the oars in and out of the water. The type of fish that was usually caught was the Murray Cod, a very good eating fish.
One other thing I really enjoyed at Uncle Billie’s and Auntie Bella’s was to have a bath in a full-sized bath tub that I was allowed to fill almost to the top. They always had plenty of water pumped from the river.
There was an old brewery tower next to the house where Max lived. It had been out of use for a long time and had a spiral staircase that went from the floor to the top of the tower. Max and I would often go in and climb the spiral staircase. There was a time when Max suggested we make a parachute out of a bed sheet and jump from the tower, but when we got to the top fortunately neither of us was game to jump.
Mum and Dad were very good friends of Mr and Mrs Gibbons and would visit them about once a month. They had eight children who all helped on the farm in some way. They farmed wheat and sheep and had their own orchard. One of their daughters, Eadie, helped her mother with the cooking and the like. She was a very shy person, even though we visited them once a month. When we first arrived at their place and came inside, Eadie would be standing behind a door in the dining room. After a while she would gradually come out from behind the door into the room and talk a little. She would always put eggs, their own churned butter, their own killed meat, and sometimes fruit from the orchard into our car to take home.
Once my sister Laurie scratched the heel of her foot whilst sitting on a cane chair. It became infected and reached a stage when she was not able to straighten her leg. Mum had to call Doctor Buchanan. When he arrived he took hold of Laurie’s leg and forced it straight. In doing so he burst an artery in her leg. She was rushed to Wagga Wagga Hospital where she spent the next six months before being discharged. I think the doctor from Coolamon should have been sued.
Whilst Laurie was in hospital, I made her a table, two chairs and a dresser out of the wooden cases that were used to carry the petrol tins for our garage. I was always making things out of the wood from those cases. In 1924 Dad went to Sydney to bring back a Duplex Studebaker which he had sold to a Mr Steveson. He brought me back a Henry Disston hand saw that I later used to make the things for Laurie.
On a few occasions when Mum and Dad had to go to Wagga Wagga they took us all with them. A highlight of the trip would be to have an ice cream sundae at Picons Cafe which was built alongside the bridge across the Murray River. We could only get ice cream in Coolamon for about three months of the year. It was usually a penny ice cream. There was only one shop in Coolamon at the time that kept ice cream.
I think one of the most significant events that occurred during our time at Coolamon was the establishment of electricity for the town. When it was first installed it was very unreliable and flickered badly. Sometimes it would be out for the night. Eventually they got it right and it became a tremendous improvement on the kerosene lamp.
I had a very happy life at Coolamon. It was a life with very little money to spend. I always found plenty of things to do – playing cricket and football, making things out of wood, a swim in the local dam when there was water in it. Being a small country town you did not have to be idle. The people were very community minded and supportive.
We Leave Country Life for City Life
In the middle of winter 1927 Mum and Dad realised that the family was becoming older and that there would not be much of a future for them living in Coolamon, so they decided to pack up and try their luck in the city. All they possessed was their furniture, a big six-cylinder Studebaker car, a hundred pounds in cash, and eight children.
In July 1927 the move started – Mum, Dad, Ivy, Bobbie, Albert, Jean, Lorraine, Ross, Victor and Olive. We all had to fit in the Studebaker with some luggage. Our furniture was supposed to go to Fairfield in New South Wales to Dad’s brother Harry’s place. The worst did happen when it finished up in Fairfield all right – but Fairfield in Victoria! As they say, “life wasn’t meant to be easy”.
It was dark when we were approaching Liverpool. We could see all the lights of the city. For eight children coming from a small country town it looked spectacular as we had never before seen so many lights. We finally arrived at what was our destination for the night – the People’s Palace in Sydney. It was a place run by the Salvation Army where you could obtain accommodation at a reasonable price. Dad had booked a room for two adults and two children. Mum and Dad went up to their room and took two children with them. The rest waited in the car until Mum and Dad came back take two more up. This was repeated until we were all in the room for the night. Nearly all of us slept on the floor. The next day we all packed back in the car, and headed for Fairfield to Auntie Eadie and Uncle Harry’s place. We stayed with them for a few days until we were able to rent a house at Smithfield. I can’t remember where our Aunt and Uncle put us but I imagine most of us again slept on the floor.
Our furniture finally arrived from Fairfield in Victoria to Fairfield in New South Wales and soon we were all settled in our Smithfield home. Ivy and Bobbie left school when we were at Smithfield. Later we moved to a house in Margaret Street, Granville, then to a house on Woodville Road in Granville and finally to Blaxcell Street, also in Granville. We rented this house for some time and in 1934 we were able to buy it for four hundred pounds.
When we saw Rookwood Cemetery we couldn’t get over the size of it. The largest cemetery where we were from would have been in Narrandera, but it would have been a speck beside Rookwood.
Dad was able to get a job with Craig and Atkins, a firm of hairdressers and tobacconists in Sydney. He was employed as a motor mechanic to look after their delivery vans. He had that position for about two years, then he worked with Clift Motors in Parramatta which he had for about twelve months. When he lost that job he was not able to find another position.
Life During the Great Depression
I finished my schooling at Granville Public School which was then referred to as “the soups”. I don’t know the reason why it was given this name. My schooling was finished on 11 December 1928 at age 14 years. I was able to get a job with a grocery firm, Moran and Cato. I held this position for about eighteen months, during which time I saw the first electric train pass through Granville on its way from Sydney to Parramatta. Moran and Cato’s shop was alongside Granville Railway Station. From the rear of the shop we were able to see the trains passing through – that would have been about 1929. After finishing at Moran and Cato’s I was not able to get another job. By that time we were well into the “Great Depression” with thousands unable to find employment.
I was able to go out to Smithfield and stay with Auntie Eadie and Uncle Harry. There were very kind to me. Uncle Harry had a bakery business in Fairfield in partnership with a Mr Kelly. Uncle Harry and his son Cyril delivered the bread whilst Mr Kelly and his son Bede did the baking. I would go out on the bread run with Cyril and assist with the bread deliveries to the homes of the customer. There were not supermarkets then like we have today. Their horse “Ginger” would know the run as good as Cyril – he would know which house to stop at and which street to turn into. If we got a new customer it would only take two or three days before the horse learned to stop at the house. I enjoyed these days doing the bread deliveries with Cyril – he was a lot of fun to be with. I played cricket for the Smithfield cricket team with Cyril and his brother Ernie. We had to pay two shillings a game which Uncle Harry paid for me.
About ten years later Cyril was pouring petrol from a can into a petrol tank at the rear of his car when a drunken driver drove into the rear of the car, seriously injuring Cyril. He was admitted to a Parramatta Hospital, where they had to amputate one of his legs. Tragically it became gangrenous and Cyril died as a result of the accident.
Living on Wilga Farm
Dad was out of work, and my sister Bobbie was the only one who had a job. Grandma Hopwood paid my train fare to travel to Narrandera so as to work on Wilga farm with Auntie Ivy and Uncle Victor Hopwood. I was paid five shillings a week by Uncle Victor. We would get out of bed before daybreak. I would put the bridle and saddle on the horse “Tommy”. He was kept in the yard overnight so I could ride out early in the morning to bring the draught horses in. In the dim of the morning you could see the dark shapes of the horses in the distance. I would round them up and bring them into the yard where Uncle Victor had their feed bins ready. He liked to feed them before their day’s work which would be ploughing or pulling the combine (a machine used for fertilising the soil and sowing the wheat or oats at the same time).
After we ate a breakfast prepared by Auntie Ivy, I would help Uncle Victor harness the horses. When finished, he would lead them out to the paddock he was working in and connect them to the plough or combine.
I would feed and milk two cows and put some of the milk through a separator which would separate the cream from the milk. The skim milk remaining would be mixed with boiled wheat and fed to the pigs. Another chore of mine was to put wheat through a Gristing Machine, which was operated by turning a handle and could be adjusted to the grade desired. We even made our own porridge with the machine – having it with milk and cream was delicious.
If I had any spare time during the day I would take a wheelbarrow out to one of the paddocks to gather paddy melons. They were similar to a very small one-inch diameter jam melon. Because they were classed as a noxious weed, I would dig out the vine and place them in a small heap. Later we would collect them with a horse and cart and burn them when they were dry.
I mentioned feeding skim milk and boiled wheat to the pigs. It must have agreed with them, as when I was with Uncle Victor he killed one which weighed 360lbs at only one year old. It must have put on one pound every day since birth. We had a forty four gallon drum with the top removed. We set it up on bricks, filled it with water, then lit a fire underneath to heat the water. The pig was then immersed in the water, and if the water temperature was correct, the bristles would scrape off easily. We must have had the water too hot as we had a hard job scrapping them off. To lift the pig high enough to manoeuvre it into the drum, we had a long pole through a fork in a tree to act as a leverage to help hoist the pig.
During my time with Uncle Victor there was as mice plague. Hundreds of them were everywhere. Uncle Victor made some traps out of four gallon kerosene tins. The tops of the tins were removed, then we half-filled them with water. A wire was fitted across the centre of the top with a board attached to it. A piece of cheese was tied to one end of the board, and another board allowed the mice to run from the ground to the top of the tin. They would then run out after the cheese, and their weight would cause the board to tip and they would drown in the water. The board would then return to its original position ready for the next hungry mouse. Each morning we would tip the mice into a wheelbarrow and dump them in the paddock.
The mice plagues could be written as a story in themselves. You have to experience one of them to realise what a menace they are. However, when the plague ends, the mice seem to disappear overnight.
Grandma Hopwood died when I was staying with Uncle victor. I went to the funeral with Auntie Ivy and Uncle Victor. It was a very wet day, and water had seeped into the grave. Because of this they had to put rocks on the coffin to get it to the bottom of the grave before refilling it with soil. I was very saddened by her death as she was such a kind and gentle person.
My cousin Ernie Slender came to Uncle Victor’s place to say for a few days. Whilst he was there, Uncle Victor took him shooting. We followed a cattle track along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River. Two dogs accompanied us – a small ginger terrier and a Queensland cattle dog named Paddy. As Ernie was the guest, Uncle Victor let him use the gun, which was a double-barrelled shot gun that sprayed the shot around. The dogs would go in amongst the tress to chase the rabbits when they ran out across the cattle track. You always had to be ready to fire at them. After a while a rabbit ran out, but Ernie was too slow. He was then determined to be ready for the next one. It was not long before another rabbit ran out across the track with the ginger terrier close behind it. Ernie fired at the rabbit but unfortunately he missed the rabbit but shot the ginger terrier. That was the end of the shooting trip as we had to tell Auntie Ivy about the terrier. The dog had been a real family pet – it would sit near the baby’s pram and if anything went near the pram the dog would attack it.
I was with Uncle Vic for about eight months. Uncle Fred Hopwood asked Uncle Vic if I could come and work with him for a while. He had a farm which was about half way between Leeton and Narrandera, and I packed up my belongings (which did not amount to very much) and was soon on my way to stay with Auntie Eadie and Uncle Fred. I was sorry to leave Auntie Ivy and Uncle Victor as I was happy staying with them. Uncle Fred paid me 7/6 per week.
Auntie Eadie and Uncle Fred would go to Narrandera by horse and sulky. One weekend they would stay with Auntie Jane and Uncle Charlie Chitts who were living in the house that was owned by Grandma Hopwood. On the next weekend I would also ride in to Narrandera, on a horse called Clare. This horse was a pacing trotter, a type of horse which are usually very easy to ride. The journey was about twelve miles. I would stay with Auntie Jane some weekends and at other times I would stay with Auntie Bella and Uncle Willie.
I would leave Uncle Fred’s place on Saturday morning and arrive back on Sunday afternoon. Weekends alone on the farm were very lonely. My accommodation was a hut outside the farm house. The nights were very quiet except for the call of foxes. Often one fox would sit away from the house calling to distract the attention of the dogs. Another fox would creep in to the yard to try and catch a fowl. When I heard the foxes calling I had to go outside with a hurricane lamp to scare them away.
One Saturday afternoon before going on my riding trip to Narrandera, I went into the house to polish my shoes. Uncle Fred told me that I should buy my own shoe polish. This was in contrast to being with Uncle Vic who always made you feel part of the family.
The ride to Narrandera was a bit hectic as while I was with Uncle Fred there was a plague of grasshoppers (locusts). When riding along the road you were continually being hit on the face by them. Sometimes they would lie massed together on the road then rise up in front of you like a cloud of dust. Uncle Fred had two-acre paddocks where he grew lucerne to feed the cows. The grasshoppers almost ate the lot overnight.
I would milk the cows, feed the pigs and fowls and also gather the eggs. When fowls roam freely around the farm they make their nests in all sorts of places. Sometimes if you hadn’t found a nest the hen would become clucky, sit on the eggs, and eventually raise a batch of chickens.
At one stage Uncle Fred was working in a paddock clearing trees so that it could be used for growing wheat or oats. When I had any spare time I would ride out to where he was working and help him with the clearing. When a tree was cut down we would dig most of the soil from around the stump. We would then tie a chain around the stump, then hook a draught horse up to the stump to pull it out. If it was too big for the horse to move we would bring some timber from a stump that was burning and set fire to it to burn it out. Sometimes a stump would burn for days. The stumps that were pulled out by the horse were stacked together in a heap and burnt – a very large bonfire.
I became very lonely working with Uncle Fred. He was not a very pleasant person to work with. He was always complaining about something and was not an easy person to please. I looked forward to the weekends when I was able to go into Narrandera. I had a lot of arguments with him, and he gave me the impression that he didn’t like me. I certainly didn’t like him. Auntie Eadie was just the opposite, and was always very pleasant towards me.
I remember one time when for some reason Uncle Fred said to me, “I haven’t known a Slender that wasn’t a skite.”
I wrote home to Mum and told her I was very unhappy working for Uncle Fred and would like to return home. Somehow she managed to send my return fare home. I knew she didn’t have much money, but I sure was happy to receive it, and I was soon on my way back home to Granville.
Back at Granville
It was August 1931 when I arrived back home at Granville. The Great Depression was getting worse. People who could not pay their rent would be evicted and their furniture put out on the footpath. Those who were buying their homes and were unable to keep up their payments had to walk out and leave their homes and go and live with their parents or friends. It was hard to sell a home as buyers were very scarce. There were shanty towns set up to house people. One place near Liverpool was set up by a minister of religion, Reverend Hammond. It eventually became a town known as Hammondville.
Dad was doing motor repairs in a shed in our backyard. He also rebuilt batteries and did oxywelding. He wasn’t making much money as he didn’t charge a very high price because most people who came to him weren’t able to afford much. I worked with Dad when he had extra work. Sometimes he would pay me a little pocket money.
I used to make soap by boiling together and mixing sandsoap and Sunlight soap. I would go house to house asking people if they had any empty Golden Syrup or treacle tins. When I was able to get them I would bring them home and wash the tins clean, then fill them with the soap mixture I had made. I even had some labels printed naming the soap “White Aussie”. I would then go around to houses trying to sell it for sixpence. It didn’t sell very well as, like us, there were not many people who had spare money, so I gave that experiment away.
One day Dad bought a Whippet Roadster car which he managed to get at a very reasonable price as it had been involved in an accident. We worked together on the car, getting it into a roadworthy condition. I spent a lot of time looking for the source of any noise it made. When I was happy with it, I decided to paint it by hand. First I put on a couple of good coats of underpaint, and after rubbing it back to a good surface I applied the coats of colour. Each coat was rubbed back with fine wet or dry paper. Finally I applied a coat of paint that was thinned down so that it would dry quickly. The finished job looked very good. Some time later I went for my driver’s test in the same Whippet Roadster. At the first attempt I was knocked back by the testing officer. He had asked me to reverse down a laneway. I thought I showed him how well I could do it, but he told me to go home and next time to drive more slowly. The next time I drove slower and was rewarded by getting my licence.
I kept myself occupied by building shelves in the backyard workshop. I used any wooden boxes or timber that I could get hold of without spending any money. The shelves became very handy for storing parts of cars. Dad had accumulated a lot of second-hand car spare parts which needed to be stored. The shelves were also useful for storing battery cases and battery plates. Dad would carefully put something away on the shelves, and when he wanted it again and it was not easy to find, he used to say, “I know I put it away carefully somewhere.”
I bought a motorbike for thirty shillings. It was a single-cylinder Indian Prince bike. The engine was dismantled and sitting in a sugar bag. I wheeled it home, reassembled the engine and soon had the bike going well. I repainted it red and purchased two transfers with Indian heads on them for the petrol tank. I had good use for it for a few years and finally sold it for seven pounds.
There was a park close to where we lived. There were always a lot of unemployed men and boys there playing cricket or football. With so many people there, you didn’t get much of a game.
I started playing cricket with Granville Methodist cricket team. All of those who played in the team were expected to attend the Methodist Church. On one occasion, Jack Sandstrom (a member of the team), Reg Whitty (later to be my brother-in-law) and myself were out all day on a Sunday boating trip together. Later that day we were sitting together in seats at the front of the Church, and had to listen to a sermon referring to people playing sport on Sundays. At the time the Methodist Church was opposed to playing sport on Sundays. The three of us felt and looked guilty as we all had red faces from being in the sun on a boat in the river all day.
Whilst attending the Methodist Church I met Violet Hodgkinson. She was at Church with a friend, Edna Campbell. Another cricket player, Alan Alcock, and I went home with them after Church one night. They lived close to each other, as did Alan and myself.
Violet and Edna followed our cricket matches, and Violet later became scorer for our team. From then on, Violet and I started to go out together at times.
Working at Calmsley Hills
I was able to get work on a farm called Calmsley Hills. It was located on Cowpasture Road about five or six miles west of Cabramatta. The owner was a Mr White who ran the farm with his wife and son, Les. They had about 120 cows and 100 sheep. There were two others working there – Russ Bannon and George Cooper. The three of us were very compatible which made it easy for us as we shared a small house on the property together. Mrs White cooked all meals for us. I must say they were very small helpings, and so that we wouldn’t go hungry we used to buy some food and keep it in the house. Mr White helped his wife in the house and Les White shared the milking with us. We were paid ten shillings a week plus our keep.
Not long after I commenced work at Calmsley Hills, Mr White went to New Zealand where he bought two racehorses. One was called Simba, which had won good sprint races in New Zealand. The other was called Ga-Goola, a horse which had not won a race. He shipped Simba over to Australia first. There was a jockey that used to come over to the farm and ride the horse around a track in one of the paddocks so that it was fit enough to run in a maiden race in Melbourne. They entered the horse in the race as Ga-Goola, even though it was Simba that was actually running. Both horses were extremely similar in all ways. They had hoped to get away with the scam, and Mr White had placed a lot of money on the horse, backing it from thirty-three to one down six to four starting price. A maiden race is for horses that had not previously won a race, so Simba had a good chance of winning.
All of their scheming was undone as the horse only managed to run second. Immediately after the race, Ga-Goola (really Simba) was taken by horse float from the racecourse and left at a racing stable in Sydney. Mr White had an old horse that was taken down near a creek that ran through the farm and shot. We carted a lot of dry wood we had collected around the farm, stacked it on top of the dead horse and set it alight.
The racing stewards were suspicious about the running of Ga-Goola, especially about the amount of money that was bet on the horse. They came out to Calmsley Hills to see Ga-Goola. Mr White told them that Ga-Goola had stumbled and broke a leg whilst being unloaded from the float, and that the horse had to be shot, then burnt. Mr White took them to where the old horse had been burnt and showed them the remains. They left the farm, but apparently they were not convinced that all was not right. When Simba was supposed to be arriving from New Zealand, the racing stewards were at the wharf to examine him and found that the horse was not Simba but instead was Ga-Goola – the horse that was supposed to have raced at Flemington.
Mr White was disqualified for life. About a month later he had a massive heart attack and died. His son, Les, and Mrs White carried on with the running of the farm.
Working on the farm meant that we had to be out of bed at 4am seven days a week. We had between twenty and twenty-five cows to milk by hand twice a day. When the morning milking session was over, we would have a breakfast prepared by Mrs White. After breakfast, I would take the milk by truck to the Cabramatta Road corner and met another truck that would take the milk to the milk depot. We were about two miles from the main road where I met the truck. The Overland truck that I drove was in poor condition, and was always a problem to get started. I told Les White that it needed the valves grinding and I would do it if he wished. He was happy for me to have a go, and when the job was finished he was surprised how much easier it started and pulled loads. He was so pleased with the result that he gave me an extra two and sixpence a week to look after the truck.
The remainder of the morning, after washing the empty milk cans that I brought back with me on the pick-up truck, was spent working on a road we were making. The road ran from the farm house to the front of their property. We also sowed corn that was later used to feed the cows. When a cow had a bull calf, we used to take it to an Italian family who paid us two shillings each for them. They would always give us a drink of their home-made wine.
After lunch we would rest or do what we wanted until 2pm, then it was off to do the afternoon milking session and take the milk out to meet the pick-up truck again, and bring back the empty milk cans to be washed and cleaned to be ready for the next morning. By then it was time for the evening meal, and work was finished for the day.
On Saturday afternoons after work, I would ride my motorbike home to Granville, have a good bath and clean up, then meet Violet to go to the pictures at Granville Cinema. After taking Violet home to her place, I would return home to my parents’ place, change back into my work clothes and ride back to the farm. I’d go to bed at about 1am, then get up at 4am for the next day’s work. If it rained on the way back from Granville I would have to put on wet clothes. To start the day’s work at 4am putting on wet clothes was not very pleasant.
Russ Bannon lived at Granville and I would often give him a lift home on the back of my motorbike on Saturday evenings. One evening during our return journey to the farm, I dozed off to sleep whilst riding my motorbike. We both finished up in the gutter of the dirt road, both bruised, but otherwise okay.
George Cooper left his job at Calmsley Hills. I was able to get Norman Hayes as his replacement. I had worked with Norman at Moran & Catos and he was out of work at the time. Norm, Russ and myself made a lot of fun for ourselves. When the Whites went into town, we used to round up the cows at milking time with the motorbike. We also had a go at growing peanuts. Norm later married my sister, Bobbie.
I worked at Calmsley Hills for about twelve months. The Whites sold Calmsley Hills to Eddie Horden, a member of the wealthy Horden family. When he took over he found a family to run the farm for him. I don’t think the Whites ever recovered from their exploits with the ring-in of the racing horse, Simba. I became a member of the unemployed again. Sometime later, Les White called in to see me at Granville. He was driving a taxicab for a living. I was pleased to see him, as we had become good friends during the time I was working for him.
Back Home Again and Unemployed
So I was back home again and unemployed. It is very depressing not having employment, as it gives you a feeling of being inferior. At the time, if a position was advertised, there were always a lot of unemployed people there early in the morning hoping to be selected for the position. Some time later a position was advertised for a youth aged between 18 and 20 to work at Brown’s motor workshop in Parramatta. There were about fifty people waiting to be interviewed. Some were well over 18 years of age, but were willing to work for the wages offered. They quickly picked out six of us for a further interview. A mechanic who worked for Brown’s had an engine on the bench and asked us questions about different aspects of the workings of an engine. I was eventually selected for the job, on a wage of eighteen shillings per week.
I had been working for Brown’s Garage for about nine months, working overtime occasionally, although I didn’t get paid for it. I was getting good experience working in the garage, and felt good having a job. However, one Wednesday evening I was asked to work overtime just as I was finishing for the day. Violet and I had planned to go to the Roxy picture theatre in Parramatta that night as we had been doing each Wednesday evening. I told Mr Brown that I had previously arranged to go out that evening and would not be able to work back. He told me that if I did not work back then I could come and collect my money in the morning and finish up. I did not work overtime. When I told Dad what Mr Brown had said, he was disappointed to think that I was spoken to like that whilst doing a very good job for him for very little money. He was getting good value from me. When I went back in the morning to get the money due to me, he said he had changed his mind and would keep me on. I told him that I did not want his job, then he offered me an extra two shillings a week if I stayed. I would not accept his offer and left, as he was not the type of person I wanted to work for. He claimed to be a good Methodist, yet I knew how he was a dishonest businessman from the things that happened whilst I was working for him.
Back to Milking Cows Again
Bill Smith, who was married to my sister, Ivy, was able to get me a job milking cows on his grandfather’s dairy at Granville. It was owned by a Mr Garvoc. We started milking at 3am and milked again at 1pm. I had to wake up at 2am to start milking at 3am, and used to put my alarm clock in a kerosene tin so that it would make a loud enough noise to wake me up.
Bill Smith and his brother, Ray, had to deliver the milk after we finished milking in the morning and again in the afternoon. They each had a horse and milk cart that would carry the milk in large milk tanks fitted with taps, each one holding about thirty gallons. As Bill had a larger milk run, he used to take two thirty-gallon tanks and Ray only had one tank. They had a milk measure can fitted with a hinged lid. I would sometimes go on the milk run with Bill, and watch him fill the measure from the tank and take it into the house where he would sometimes pour it into a jug and place it in the ice chest. When Mr Garvoc left the dairy he left it to Bill, as Bill had worked very hard at the job.
I stayed with Mr Garvoc until my twenty-first birthday in December 1935.
In January 1936 I started work with the Ford Motor Company at their new plant on the Parramatta Road at Homebush. The wage was four pounds eighteen shillings per week. I worked on the first car that was assembled at the new plant. They had brought about twenty men from their plant in Geelong, Victoria, in order to instruct us on the procedure used to assemble the cars as they moved along the assembly line. My first job was putting the tyres on the wheels and then to fit the wheel onto the vehicle as it passed along the assembly line. I was on that part of the line before being transferred to the back axle assembly.
We worked from 7.30am to 5pm with a three-quarter hour lunch break in between. When they had the assembly of the vehicles moving smoothly along the assembly line, they started the endless chain moving. The chain carried the vehicles along the line at a preset speed according to the number of vehicles they wished to produce per day. This chain carried the vehicle along until it reached the end of the line as a completed vehicle. You had to work flat out from whistle blow at 7.30am until the 12 o’clock whistle when the line would stop for the lunch break. The lunch break would last from 12.00 till 12.45pm, when the whistle would blow again for the restart of the endless chain which ran to finishing time at 5pm.
I was the only person working on the rear axle assembly at first. Later, when production was increased, I had to have assistance to be able to keep up with the moving line. I was able to get a friend of mine who was out of work at the time, Reg Whitty, a job working on the rear axle assembly. By that time, production had increased to twenty vehicles a day. We were allowed twenty-five minutes for the pair of us to assemble each axle, a time set at the Geelong assembly plant. As Reg became more familiar with the work, we were able to assemble an axle in twenty minutes, so we were always able to have our axle ready to drop onto the chassis as it came past our section. Some of the men had trouble having their component ready when the vehicle was passing their section. If this happened, they didn’t keep their job very long – it wasn’t a union shop.
After changing into your overalls in the morning before starting work, you had to hand your clothes and lunch on a rack that was hoisted up to the roof as soon as the starting whistle blew. The toilets were also elevated to be near the ceiling, with external stairs leading up to them. Anyone going up to the toilets could be seen by the factory foreman. The sides of the toilets were only up about half-way, thus allowing the foreman to see who was in there when he came up to check.
Each morning there were always men waiting at the front gate hoping to get a start at a job. If any men were required, the factory foreman would go out the gate and pick out the men he wanted. They were always putting staff off and on as car sales fluctuated. When they were over-staffed they would take men from the assembly line across to work on the truck bodies. If anyone was transferred to that section, they knew their job was in doubt, as when men were put off they usually came from the truck body section.
The Ford Motor company would not employ anyone that belonged to a union as it was not a union shop. As we were still in the middle of the Great Depression, they were able to get away with it. They were able to put men off and on as they pleased without any fear of a strike by the workers. One example of this was a man who had only started in the morning. He asked the factory foreman if he could go home and change his clothes as they were his best clothes that he was wearing. The foreman told him that he started then or not at all. So he started in the sub-assembly section wearing his good clothes. As he was not able to keep up with the assembly line, they sacked him the same day.
Production had increased to a stage when we needed an extra man part-time to be able to keep up with the production conveyor, as we were holding the line up. The factory foreman, Jack Williams, who carried the nickname of “Pommy Jack”, was having a go at me for holding up production. I told him we were ahead of Geelong’s times, but he argued that we were behind Geelong’s times and that we would have to do better. I told him that he would have to get someone else as I was quitting. I took my overalls off and went to see the factory manager, Mr Wark. I told him what had happened between Jack Williams and myself. Whilst we were discussing the issue, I looked out of the office window and saw a lot of men headed by Reg Whitty converging on the manager’s office along with Pommy Jack. The manager asked Pommy Jack for his side of the story which was that we were holding up production and that our times were behind that of Geelong’s. I told the manager that we were in fact ahead of Geelong. The manager sent for the main office for the Geelong times for the rear axle assembly. The result was that we were ahead of Geelong as I had said and not behind as Pommy Jack had said. Mr Wark offered me a position on the pre-delivery section, which was ten shillings a week more than I was getting on the assembly line. I think he figured it was better if I was not working with Pommy Jack.
The pre-delivery job was to take the vehicle off the final assembly line, start up the engine and tune it to run smoothly, then take it out to the testing ground. Here the brakes, steering and all the accessories were checked to see if they were functioning properly. If we found a fault we would make a note of it for the mechanics to repair the problem. When it was finished we filled in a report sheet that was filed for future reference. We would then park the vehicle at the side of the factory for the dealer to pick it up.
There was a man working with me on pre-delivery who always drove the vehicles too fast around the test area. It so happened that he had finished checking a vehicle and was parking it at the side of the factory behind the other vehicles that were ready for the dealers. As usual, he was driving too fast and rammed the vehicle he was driving into the car in front, propelling it in turn into the car in front, damaging three new vehicles. The factory manager, Mr Wark, sacked him on the spot.
The Ford Motor Company Becomes a Union Shop
Bill Bowes, who worked on pre-delivery with me, unbeknown to the Ford Motor Company was a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). He started talking to men that were in key positions about the benefit of having a union in the shop if enough men joined, and asked if we were willing to join. I joined up, taking with me other men in key positions. His campaign was successful as all men in key positions agreed to join the AEU. Some time later one of our members, Ken Moore, had a falling out with Pommy Jack and was sacked by him. Bill Bowes and about six others including myself went to see Mr Wark about the sacking of one of our members. Mr Wark told us that the Ford Motor Company did not recognise unions. Bill Bowes showed Mr Wark the list of names who were members of the AEU and said that if Ken Moore was not reinstated all of these men would be out on strike tomorrow.
After Mr Wark had a good look at the list of names on the sheet and considered that production was at a high output at the time, he changed his attitude somewhat and said that he was sympathetic to unions and their struggle. He said he would talk to Mr Williams about having Ken Moore reinstated. From them on, a lot more men joined the union with the final result that it became a one-hundred percent union shop. Mr Wark had a room built at the rear of the factory for the union committee to hold their meetings.
A union organiser from the AEU, Charlie Cowper, came out to the Ford Motor Company to have talks with the committee members. Because of this I had the opportunity to get to know him, and I will mention him later.
Violet and I Become Engaged
In January 1937, Violet and I became engaged to be married. We purchased a block of land in Elizabeth Street, Granville. It was a very good block in a nice street, about ten minutes walk to Granville Station. Most of the homes were relatively new then. There was a paddock opposite our block with large gum trees growing in it, and horses roaming freely around. On a windy day you could watch the big gum trees swinging to and fro. About ten years later, Granville Technical College was built on the paddock.
A block of land farther out from the railway station could be bought for as little as ten pounds, but in 1935-6 not many people had a spare ten pounds. Violet and I decided to get married and the date was set for April 9, 1938. We were married at St Mark’s Church, Granville, with Violet’s sister, Alice, as bridesmaid and Reg Whitty as Best Man. After the wedding breakfast Reg and Alice drove to the Hotel Cecil at Cronulla for our honeymoon. After that weekend we returned to Granville and spent the next few weeks with my sister, Ivy, and her husband, Bill, at their house in Clyde Street. Meanwhile our house was being built in Elizabeth Street and when it was finished we moved in during June 1938 with only a white wood table, four chairs and a bedroom suite with which to furnish the whole house. These I painted over at Ivy and Bill’s and are still used by the family to this day. The house had bare floorboards but later linoleum was put down on the kitchen and bedroom floors, with newspaper underneath. Each week the linoleum had to be polished, a down on hands and knees job.
World War II Begins
Marilyn Joan, our first child, was born on August 25, 1939 at Inchneuk Private Hospital in Parramatta. When mother and child were still in hospital World War II begun on September 3, heralding in a time of great uncertainty. What would the future hold?
The Ford Motor Co started making trucks for the Australian Military Forces (AMF), having a government contract set at 10% above production cost. Because of this arrangement the moving assembly line was halted which allowed us longer time in the assembly of these army trucks. Although there was now no smoking on the production line we got a morning tea break which we did not enjoy before the war. During the war production suffered some lengthy delays as we waited for parts to be shipped out from America and the ships not always being able to get through. With no work to do things got boring.
Consequently Reg and I went to Sydney to the Army Recruiting Section. Our intention was to join the Light Aid Division of the armed forces, which involved repairing army vehicles. However as we worked for the Ford Motor Co, a number one protected industry, the army was uninterested in our services. After this setback we managed to transfer to the Department of Aircraft Production. This was another “number one” protected industry and transferring between such enterprises was allowed. However when, in March 1942, I requested that Mr Wark, the factory manager at Ford, signed my release he did his level best to change my mind. He said I had a good future with Ford and was better off staying where I was, but when it was clear my mind was made up he could not hide his annoyance and signed the release adding, “I hope this lands you in Darwin!” As Darwin was classified as a war zone this was not a friendly parting gesture.
After a period of “Aircraft Training” at a school in Balmain, Reg and I moved to the aircraft production factory at Chullora. The factory made parts for the Beaufighters and the Beaufort and Lancaster bombers. I begun in the electrical assembly section and after nine months was promoted to the electrical inspection section. This work involved checking all the electrical installations and also some of the equipment in the front section of the fuselage of the Beaufort bombers. For two years I worked the night shift from 3 to 11pm. Each working “day” was concluded by a late night bike ride home through Rockwood Cemetery. Later I was back on the day shift and was so engaged on the morning of August 15, 1945 when the war reached its end. The announcement of the Japanese surrender was met with great rejoicing and in celebration the Chullora factory closed for the day.
One casualty of this wartime period was my brother-in-law, Jim (Mead), who died from a fall from a high stack of wooden boxes onto a concrete floor. My sister, Lorraine, was distraught, confused and depressed. Lorraine came to live with Violet and myself and believing it would help her sort things out I suggested she take a job at aircraft production. Lorraine was successful in getting a position but then had to attend an interview in a Federal Government Dept in Sydney from which she was to be allocated a place to work. It was my hope that my sister could work with me at Chullora so we could keep an eye on each other. It was fortunate then that at the interview we saw Charlie Cowper who had been the union organiser at Ford. After the circumstances surrounding Lorraine’s application and her bereavement were explained he was happy to help. Charlie rang Gordon Tully, the manager of the Chullora factory, and he found a position in the electrical section for Lorraine. She started immediately but three months later was transferred elsewhere by the foreman, Mr Boston. When I spoke to Mr Tully about it he moved her back and there she stayed until she left Aircraft Production.
To earn some extra money while working at Chullora I took up repairing and sharpening lawn mowers. At first all this work was done by hand but later a three horse power electric motor was bought to do the sharpening. Nonetheless the only way I had of picking up the stricken mowers and delivering them after repair was on my pushbike. From lawn mowers the home repairs graduated to cars. In 1960 Violet took up a typing and switchboard job with the glass blowing firm Pilkingtons at Villawood. The work was enjoyable and Violet stayed there until 1965.
Our second child, Kevin Albert, was born in August 16 1945 at Hillcrest Private Hospital in Harris Park, just one day after World War II ended. Dr Champion, the doctor in attendance at Kevin’s birth, said to me, “Let’s hope this baby won’t have to go to war when he grows up.”
In October 1945, the aircraft factory at Chullora was taken over by the New South Wales Government Railways. Some of the employees left when the war ended, and those wishing to join NSWG Railways had to pass a medical examination before they were accepted for employment. I passed the medical and was offered a position in the Stores Inspection Department. The experience gained during the manufacture of aircraft was put to good use when the Railway Workshop commenced the manufacture of diesel railcars from the same aluminium alloy as that used in the aircraft.
I later transferred to a position in the Inspection Records Section. This position was held by me until May 1968, when I saw a position advertised for a Scheduling Officer at the Chief Mechanical Engineer’s Office (CME) at Redfern. I filled in an application for the position and found out that there were about twenty others who applied for the same position. Some jobs do not automatically go to the most senior application, and we had to sit for an examination for the position. A 70% pass was required to qualify for the position, and only two people, including myself, reached this grade. Since I was the most senior qualifier in terms of service, I was accepted for the position of Scheduling Officer. Later our department, the Diesel Traction Section, was transferred to Transport House at Wynyard Station. The starting time of 8.30am turned out to be a bonus as later I moved our family from Elizabeth Street, Granville, to Shortland Street, Gosford.
