Bill's Blog
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Any Mouse Replies
I received an anonymous reply to one of my postings and it's driving me crazy.
What I didn't realize was that if a reply wasn't signed, I'd not know from whence it came.
If the 'old acquaintance who forwarded the following whould give me their email address, I'd love to respond:
>>Bill, I thought you were working in a bank when I met you at Cowper street ........ I have enjoyed your tales of the early years of your life in Aust and wait in anticipation for your Aviation experiences. <<<
Will the 'old friend' please let me know who they are.
Thanks
Boggy
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Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Piddling Pete
PETE, THE PIDDLING PUP.
A poem in ten piddles and a puddle by I. P. Standing
1949 Gunnedah Intermediate High School, NSW, Australia
A farmer's dog once came to town,
His Christian name was Pete,
His pedigree was two yards long,
His looks were hard to beat.
And as he trotted through the town,
'Twas beautiful to see,
His work on every corner -
His work on every tree.
For he watered every gateway,
And he never missed a post,
For piddling was his masterpiece,
And pissing was his boast.
The city dogs stood looking on
With deep and jealous rage,To see a simple country dog
The piddler of the age.
They sniffed him over one by one,
They sniffed him two by two,
And noble Pete in high disdain
Stood still 'til they were through.
Then Pete to show the city dogs he didn't give a damn,
Walked into the grocer shop and piddled on the ham-
Piddled on the onions,
Piddled on the floor,
And when the grocer kicked him out,
He piddled on the floor.
So all the dogs from far and wide,
Decided what they'd do,
They'd have a piddling carnival
And see the stranger through.
They'd show him all the piddling posts
They knew around the town,
Then started off with many winks,
To wear the stranger down.
For they called the champion piddlers
Who were always on the go,
Who sometimes have a piddling comp
Or hold a piddling show.
They sprang these on him suddenly
When halfway through the town,
But Pete just piddled on and onAnd wore their champions down.
For Pete was with their every trick
With vigor and with vim,
A thousand piddles more or less
Were all the same to him.
And on and on went noble Pete
To water every sandhill
Till all the city champions
Were piddled to a standstill.
Then Pete, an exhibition gave
Of all the ways to piddle,
Like double drips and fancy flips
And now and then a dribble.
And all this while the country dog
Did never wink or grin,But piddled blithely out of town
As he had piddled in.
The city dogs said,"So long, Pete,Your piddling did defeat us."
But no one ever put them wise -
Poor Pete had diabetes.
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How To Get That Job In Aviation - 1954
Saturday morning at the Insurance Company of North America, Australian Home Office, Spring Street, Sydney.
"Strewth, what a day. If I wasn't working I could'a done my grocery shopping at King's Cross before the rush, now it'll be off the tram, into the deli before it closes at two, back on the tram and hope there's something goin' on tonight in Bondi. Hope I've got time to hit the Pitt Street Rhineskeller Wine Shop for a jug."
Just the three of us: Crazy Kath Sherlock in her gray Red Cross uniform, sucking Cure 'Em Quicks, and that new honey, Judy Stutchbury who won't even give me the time o'day. Y'know, the other day I asked her to type some stuff and she said that it wasn't her job? Who the heck does she think she is? I've been here longer than she has, and besides, isn't that what the girls are supposed to do?
Who's this at the door?
"Yes, madam, you want to renew your Household policy? Do you have the renewal slip?"
"No? Not a bother at all. Now what is that address again?"
Go to the ledger, find the address, find the policy number, go to the pending folder. Let's see, City Account? She must be one of our agents' shirt-tail rellies getting the 15% discount.
Good, she's done and gone.
B-O-R-I-N-G
God, 2 hours till I get off at 1 o'clock. I'll read the Herald want ads.
QANTAS
Needs Mechanics' HelpersPositions at Mascot AerodromeGood working conditions.Interviewing today at Wentworth House 10.00 am until 4.00 PM
Hmm. Wonder what Mechanic's Helpers do?
If I was in aviation, maybe Polly would let me take her out to the flicks instead of up the hill to St Patrick's to Confession where I know she confesses fooling with her court reporter boyfriend. She only takes me along as 'cover'.
(Wentworth House is no longer standing, but it was just across the street from Polly's weekly confessional and it was the headquarters of QANTAS Empire Airways, Australia's locally grown, aerial connection with the outside world. Probably because of Australia's dedication to the British Empire and her assistance to General Douglas McArthur's drive to defeat the Yellow Peril, Australia had been granted a round-the-world route. QANTAS had been flying the U.S. built Lockheed Super Constellation: Sydney, Darwin, Singapore, Delhi, Cairo, and the long leg to London. Then, London to New York, nonstop to San Francisco, Honolulu, Nandi and Sydney.)
I look for the Employment Office but instead find a sign, 'Interviews' and nearby a varnished, glass enclosed office with an old coot reading the Saturday Daily Telegraph with his feet propped up on a empty desk.
This is aviation?
"Sir, is this where you're hiring mechanics helpers?"
Bill Grove, Maintenance Foreman of Hangar 85 at Mascot, takes a look at me in my blue, double-breasted, tailor-made suit, white shirt and Windsor knotted club tie and wonders what the hell I'm doing there, but it's a slow, late, spring afternoon and there are no other applicants lined up.
"Yairs, son. Come on in."
Bill is a balding, stocky, middle-aged man dressed in a nondescript plaid suit which is not near the cut of mine. He too is having a boring day, seconded by the Personnel Department to do interviews as Saturday is their day off and managers don't get overtime.
We talk father to son stuff. His son is attending Scotts College, a GPS school at the west end of Rose Bay, where I am, at great expense, currently subletting and sharing a house.
"Why would you want to be a mechanic's helper?" asks Bill.
My enthusiasm has always been a door opener and it flows out to open this unexpected portal.
"Well sir, I've always wanted to get into aviation, in fact, it's really my first love."
This was not totally untrue as I had been the class 'drawrer' since 1st grade and could draw the best aeroplanes and rocket ships ever to adorn the covers of my mates' exercise books. I regularly buy and devour a weekly periodical from England, "The Aeroplane", and if I can afford "Flight", I buy it too. The smell of airplanes in a hangar is totally intoxicating. I dream of layovers on Pacific islands exploring abandoned Japanese Army fortifications and tunnels finding souvenirs of the war I have only read about. I also dream about 'hosties' like Pauline and how they get all gooey when talking about pilots.
"Well, you look as though you could do the job, but frankly it's a greasy, sweaty job cleaning parts that have been taken off our Connies and I don't think it would interest you for more than a week or two. But, I tell you what, if you can afford a tool box and a pair of overalls, I'll take you under my wing and see that you stay out of trouble. I need someone to work just outside my office door to take care of the Maintenance Manuals and tag the airplane parts that the mechanics have removed for repairs. When I can find them, the apprentices aren't interested and do a lousy job and the mechanics hate paperwork."
I don't have a clue as to what 'take me under his wing' means but he seems to be a straight bloke and just may have my interests at heart. Perhaps it's the Riverview/Scotts College connection - both are members of the elite Great Public Schools of New South Wales and I am after all, a Riverview bloke. Well, kind of.
I lie about my age and he doesn't seem to care. The better wages start at age 21, so for QANTAS purposes, I'm 21.
"You may have to live closer to Mascot. Do you have a bike, or a car?"
He knew I do have a tool box, but a car? A motor bike? Last time I saw my push bike, it was a year ago and it was leaning against the wall of the Public Bar of the Commercial Hotel in Gunnedah. Who knows which drunk had ridden it home.
"Ah, no I don't, but I can get one!"
"Righto then, you can start in a coupla weeks. I'll set it up. Keep your mouth shut, or tell anyone who asks that you worked in Clegg and Tyrell's Gunnedah Garage instead of working in the Parts Department. When you start, I'll check your tool box over so's no-one will question it. By the way, you'll have to join the Union and you might consider taking the evening classes at Ultimo Technical College."
I leave Wentworth House flying just a little higher than those Connies I hope see in two weeks.
Little did I know that this would be the beginning of a career in aviation which lasted over 40 years.
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Sunday, July 18, 2004
Rescued by the Brown Joeys
Rescued by the Brown Joeys
Following my departure from the Patrician Brothers' College in Ryde,my impetigo having disappeared, my Mother, a woman of few words, appeared one afternoon, packed my suitcase and told me I had been enrolled at St. John the Baptist Preparatory School for Boys in Hunter's Hill. The Sisters of St. Joseph, a Catholic order founded in Australia by Mother Mary McKillup in the late 1800s ran this small boarding school. Not as much sadism here as at Ryde - the nuns were firm, unfair and sometimes friendly.
St. John's was a three-story, brick building that housed about eighty boys and twenty nuns. It was on the main street in Hunter's Hill and at the end of a meadow owned by the Church of Villa Maria, a traditional turn-of-the- century, stone, European styled structure. This church is now called Holy Name of Mary and I was Confirmed there by Archbishop, later Cardinal Gilroy.
St. John's was built around a hollow square with Lourdes Grotto showing the Virgin Mary attended by St. Bernadette. The dormitories and the nuns' quarters were on the top floor; the refectory and kitchen, offices, chapel and parlor were on the second. The classrooms, music rooms, cloakroom and assembly room were on the ground floor. It was a peaceful setting where the Angelus was rung at twelve and six o'clock every day making us all pause and recite the prayer.
To the east was a large playing field with a concrete cricket pitch, small pavilion and an attached schoolroom for the first grade. The youngest boarders, the 'bubs' in 1st and 2nd grade had a weatherboard classroom which was surrounded by acacia (wattle) trees, which in the summer were filled with croaking locusts. St John's was my home for almost four years and where I spent many vacations and 'home' Sundays.
Occasionally however, I was able to go 'home' to wherever mother was working or rooming, and from time to time, Mary would have me to her place for a weekend. These weekends were the most special occasions I can remember. Her exciting life was my inspiration and the only thing I was proud of. Twice, I persuaded Mary to allow me to stay over not only Saturday but Sunday night as well. Mother who was concerned about Mary's soul, insisted she take me to Mass on Sunday morning. Not only was I responsible for Mary's salvation but also I was charged with the task of 'looking for impure books' that she might have hidden away. Sure I wanted to find the books - I wanted to read them too! Alas, no sex manuals or Man magazine. When I returned on Monday, the nuns would grill me about Mary's behavior. I think they were in league with my mother.
Thou Shalt Not Cry nor Pimp
I suspect that one of the aims of a 'public school' education based on the English model, was that now matter how sad or frightened you may be, you must never reveal your emotions. Boys who cried were sissies and would never be accepted as your mate. If you were injured at football, or struck by a cricket ball you were permitted to express pain, but never cry. If you must cry, then you stifled the sobs as best as you could and preferably alone, at night in bed. The only exception I had ever seen was at the death of a parent or sibling.
Pimping, or revealing your mates 'bad' behavior to anyone in authority including the 'student left in charge', was forbidden. If you were tricked by the authorities into revealing deviations from the unpublished rules you were partially forgiven by your schoolmates, but considered inept at the most important lesson and one of the primary goals of your education- lying successfully.
Life at Johnnie's
My sister, Mary, may remember me as a proper Victorian child complete with straw boater, school tie and pocket crest, short pants and long socks. What she didn't see was my lack of underclothing, the worn out shoes, holed stockings and 'borrowed' overcoat. My tie was usually food stained and Saturday afternoon was the only time we bathed. There were three private shower stalls, one conventional bath, a foot washing trough and one 'bubs' bath that was elevated so that the sisters could bathe the 'littlees'. A boarder at St. John's started in the first grade; these were the "littlees". I began there in the middle of third grade but was still bathed occasionally by Sisters Columban or Anthony. Saturday ritual included shining shoes, sorting laundry, examining our consciences and public punishment. Punishment was administered with a suitcase strap always at the ready, tucked in to the sisters' wide, military style belts. If the sister was right handed, the victim was grasped by the left arm while the flogging was conducted with the right. The performance needed a clear space with a four-foot radius as the boy usually pivoted around the sister in a circular path. Sister Columban was a nasty piece, but Sister Anthony, a beautiful, recently ordained young woman, softened the team's image. She took care of the 'bubs' and I believe that Sister Columban was less inclined to use serious corporal punishment in her presence. The routine at St. John's was rigid: out of bed at six on alternate weekdays, wash, dress and attend Mass in the school's chapel. Alternate days we slept in till seven with no Mass unless it was a Holy day. In that case we all got up at six and marched to Villa Maria. Breakfast and bed making followed Mass, then perhaps a short break and into class by eight thirty. We lived by the bell, the book and the nuns, whom we called, Nitzies. The word Nitzie had no Nazi connotation - we weren't that disrespectful or clever. It was because, if we were alone, the whispered alert, "Nit, nit," announced their approach. They would appear anywhere we considered private: the schoolyard toilet, the 'suitcase room' or the sports (equipment) room. Once during a Christmas vacation during which I found myself remaining at St. John's, Sister Clotilda's nephew Leo Doyle and I, secreted ourselves in a clothes closet to read 'Champion' a thrippennny boys' action story, twelve page rag filled with excciting stories of RAF pilots, detectives, and 'public school' boys in the Fourth Form - all English of course. We were discovered at our peaceful pursuit and made to go out into the fresh air to exercise. We all longed for privacy, but it was difficult to find.
As Mary had her mentor, Sister Agnes Joseph, I had my Sister Clotilda, pronounced 'clo-tilda'. She was an Australian born and raised in Arrarat, a mining town in Victoria, and she was as tough as her gold mining forebears. I suspect like most nuns of that period, that she entered the novitiate in her mid teens. With her pale face and white, starched wimple tight around her penetrating eyes, she could force a kid to do, or admit to, anything. She taught fifth and sixth grade and her pride was her Bursary Boys - those of us who needed scholarships to go on to secondary boarding school. St. John's was a preparatory school for St. Joseph College across the street. If you scored high enough on the statewide exam and obtained a bursary, board and tuition were paid.
On some Saturday nights the inmates would be assembled for a behavioral judgment. Some were singled out for the worst kind of punishment: denial of seeing the latest movie. We could beg and snivel for permission to attend and promise to improve our behavior in the coming week, but there was seldom any mercy from Sister Columban who, I believe, enjoyed this power. If we passed muster for good behavior, on some Saturday nights we were marched over to Joey's and got to see a real 35mm. big screen, flick. The highlight of my Primary years was "Going My Way" brought in by some St. Joseph parent with an inside track to the US Army Motion Picture Service. We all came back with vocations to the priesthood and these aspirations were strongly encouraged. With the exception of the Diamond boothers who were Jews, we all served Mass as altar boys both at St. John's and St. Anne's, the home for old nuns a short distance behind the brown playfield. That was the choicest of assignments for, as we fasted from midnight, we were starved by breakfast. At St. Anne's, and after Mass, the sweet nursing sisters took pity on us and gave us buttered crusts from the trays they prepared for the 'oldies'. The other kids had to wait till brekkie!
Compared with the games my children played in the 60s and 70s, ours we played were simple: dongers, followings, three hole, cigarette cards, countries and bottletops.
A donger was an ordinary handkerchief folded into a triangle which you whirled until it was tight with a large lump in the center. The hankie was soaked in water at the bubbler and the two thin ends held between the thumb and forefinger. This was a weapon like a blackjack and was used in the same way to hit or 'dong' someone on the head. The resulting noise was like flicking a finger on a ripe watermelon except that in this case your opponent's head was the melon.
Followings and three-hole were marbles games and had rules which changed with the participants. Usually the best or the biggest player made the rules to suit himself and 'pity on you' if you didn't beat him with sufficient humility to allow him to win the last game.
'Countries' was played with a tennis ball which was thrown straight up as far as the thrower could manage. When the ball reached its apogee, the thrower would shout out the name of a country. At the beginning of the game, each player would choose a country so that when his country was called, he caught the ball. When the country was named during the throw, each unnamed player would scatter as far as he could from the catcher until the ball was caught at which time he shouted, "Stop." Variations from here on included allowing the catcher to take three giant steps, or spitting three times advancing to the spittle point after each expectoration. The catcher would then attempt to throw the ball and hit the other players in turn. If he succeeded in hitting all the players he won the round.
Bottletops required more manual dexterity. The game resembled 'Shove Ha'penny', an English export where the players throw metal bottletops (caps) against a wall. The player whose bottletop lands closest to the wall then picks up and stacks all the bottletops on the underside of his elbow. Very carefully and quickly he brings his hand around to catch as many as he can. Those he catches, he keeps.
It was at St. John's I learned to become a public speaker and storyteller. On rainy days or when there was a lull in our activities between classes, the sisters would ask for volunteers to 'tell a flick'. This was a solo performance in front of three or four grades where the storyteller made up a story and presented it with sound effects, body language and in a voice to be heard by all. To be considered a good flick teller, the story had to have a dramatic beginning, sub-plots and a satisfactory climax and wrap-up. As I was asked not only by the sisters but also by my classmates in other spare hours, I must have been good at it. My plots were usually about airplanes, science fiction or action and adventure.
"You ought to come to Johnnies for a week or two,
They have marmalade and church parade,
And flies dipped in stew.
The potatoes are rotten, and the meat walks to you.
You ought to come to Johnnies for a week or two!"
Rhyme frequently heard at St. John the Baptist Preparatory School for Boys
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