Chapter 8: The World of Work

Age: 16 – 20

  After Ambition

By the time I get to that age,

When I’ve paid for all my dreams,

And some of them are realised,

But very few, it seems;

When money doesn’t matter,

And there’s no hills left to climb,

Will I be content to sit here,

Just wearing out my time?

Will I laugh at, or just wonder,

At the stop-start man I’ve been,

Who spent a lifetime waiting

For the lights to turn to green?

When regrets are not worth having,

And no glow in withered praise,

Will I sit and think of nothing

When I’m filling out my days?

Will I pause in sad reflection

Of neglected chances gone,

Of empty days I’ve wasted,

Or just sit and linger on?

Norm Wotherspoon 1973

The First Day: Was I nervous? In-CREDIB-ly so! Brother Les helped a lot – he said, walk down to the Bulimba Ferry, go across the river, take the tram into town, and there you are. He then left for his work an hour early so he didn’t have to travel with me. (I am being unnecessarily harsh to Les here – I had an interview at the Public Service Board at 9:00 a.m. – he started his work much earlier).

Just after 7:30., I set off to go to work, in my awful pink shirt and my only pair of long trousers. I arrived at the Public Service building, on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets (diagonally opposite where the Casino is now), and submitted myself to my very first interview. It took less than five minutes, and consisted of confirming my identity, and telling me where that I would begin my public service career with the Department of Machinery, Scaffolding, Weights and Measures. The man then told me where to go, which was a tin-roofed building at the top of Mary Street (where the Executive Building now stands).

The first workmate I met was a girl, slightly older than me, much taller than me, and certainly better looking than me. She asked what I wanted, I blushed, bringing out my amazing array of pimples, and I stammered that I was to start work, then and there.

“Oh,” she said, “you’d better see Mr. Smallwood.”

I met Mr. Smallwood, an avuncular man of middle years (about 60-ish), with a kind voice and hands that darted nervouslyabout, like little fishies swimming through the air. I think he was the senior inspector of machinery. He then handed me on to someone else, and I was set to work, in the records section. I wore a large black apron, and my incredibly sensitive secret tasks were two-fold: I had to eliminate put top secret files away in their correct places in the compactus, (a set of four or five shelf, open-faced filing cabinets on wheels that ran on tracks); and to find and destroy and fetch files for various inspectors of machines, lifts, scaffoldings, and … petrol pumps. I think I wrote 14 thrilling pages about my duties in a very long letter home. Norm had arrived in BrisVegas (Thanks Leigh, for that piece of slanguage), and was on his way towards RULING the WORLD! (Insert loud, maniacal laughter here).

My debonair self-assurance received a shock at the end of my first day – I didn’t know what tram to catch to get me home. There was much laughter (accompanied by my pimple-enhancing blushes) when someone loudly broadcast my plaintive request for assistance. Jack Tenison took pity on me, and told me that, if I were going to the Bulimba Ferry, I had best catch the Bulimba Ferry tram.

Welcome to Siberia: During my time with the Department,I learned to play tennis and table tennis, and I gained a taste for gambling – cards, races … and … roulette. I had never heard of roulette until I saw a game in Myers or David Jones – a genuine roulette wheel! I learned the rules quickly, and discovered that the house usually won. I bought the game, and introduced it to my fellow junior clerks at the Department. They bet, and I usually won. Until the Friday afternoon tea break when, instead of returning to work after the ten minutes allowed, I continued taking bets until ten to four, at which time our newly appointed Chief Clerk, Jimmy McDonnell, walked into the tea room in search of his absent staff.

The following Monday morning saw me reporting for duty at the Statistical Data Section of the Division of Occupational Safety, on the fifth floor of the State Government Insurance Office (SGIO) Building on the corner of Adelaide and Edward Streets. This small section was termed Siberia by those in the George Street headquarters, because it was regarded as a place of punishment, from which no one ever returned.

My role here was possibly the most boring job in the history of work. I had to code workers’ compensation claims, in terms of nature of injury, where it happened, how it happened, worker’s occupation, and when it happened.

For example, a foreign body in the eye was a 105, a carpenter was another three digit number, and so on. We had a daily quota to achieve, and, after a week, I could complete that task by lunch time. Kev Kelly was our supervisor, a man who hated his work, and only lived for the winter weekends, when he was the live broadcast voice for rugby league games.   

Six people worked in the Statistical Data Section, consisting of the officer in charge and his deputy, and four coding clerks. We got to know each other fairly well, in such a small team. Our little outpost was site, near two windows, in one corner of a vast open floor, where SGIO workers spent their days wandering back and forth, looking incredibly important, and carrying large and small bundles of files and papers. The really senior people either carried nothing at all, or just one piece of paper, never a whole file.

I was never very nervous with SGIO staff, possibly because they were our customers, (as we were theirs – they brought us files, and we returned them after coding) rather than workmates. Because of this, I was responsible for bringing together two hearts that thought they ought to beat as one.

Our second-in-command at that time was Col O’Brien, a staunch Catholic man of settled routines and slow, steady speech. Col lived at Wooloowin, and mentioned, quite often, that his house was just a few steps from the railway station, and, after finishing work at 5.00 p.m., he would be sitting down to tea by 5.30.

One day, Col asked me what I thought of Denise, an SGIO typist in the section we had most dealings with. (YES! I KNOW one should never a sentence end a preposition with!). I said I thought she was very nice, and he asked me if I could surreptitiously find out what she thought of him. Denise and I got on very well, and I said to her, “What do you think of Col in our section?”

Denise thought that Col was nice, and I passed that on. He then gave me what I thought was such a great line that I tried it on Margaret several years (but I didn’t use a messenger). He said, “What do you think she’d say if I asked her out?”

She said “yes”, they got married, she became an air hostess, he didn’t like it, they fell out of love, and went their separated ways. (There’s a plot for a novel or a soap opera there, I think).

Work Friends: I only made two good acquaintances in my first four years of work, both of whom became friends some years later. One was Graham Hudson, who was two months older than me, easygoing, and slow to take offence. He was an only child, with a dominant mother, and I suspect he didn’t get much opportunity to socialise with his peers during his growing years, but he had far less trouble than I in forming friendships, because he was, and is, a decent, honest, very likeable person.

One night, I followed him to the tram stop, and slipped into a seat several rows behind him. When he got off the tram at Ashgrove, so did I, but, unfortunately, he saw me. He came to me, and let me know that it would not be wise for me to follow him home. I think he was concerned as to what his mother might think, but, because he was serious, and I desperately wanted his friendship, I simply boarded the tram again for its return journey.

The other friend in the making was Barry McPhee, who came to the Statistical Data Section as second in charge when Col O’Brien was promoted to a position with the Department of Children’s Services. Barry was five or six years older than me, married, with curly red hair and clear, direct blue eyes.

Barry earned extra money with the Citizens’ Military Force, the forerunner to the Army Reserve, with the Medical Corps, based in Water Street, Fortitude Valley. (The Medical Corps seems a little incongruous, given that Barry fainted at the sight of blood, which stopped him from ever donating blood after his first attempt).

Barry was one of the most practical, logical thinkers I have ever met, then and now. It enabled him to progress his career to greater heights than even he may have imagined. He was in those days a champion squash player, turning to tennis as he entered his forties. He was a Catholic, and gave a lot of time, energy and effort to the Little Kings’ Society.

Somehow I found myself invited to his Ashgrove home for tea on several occasions. Barry and his wife Margaret was wonderfully kind and caring to me. They particularly enjoyed hearing tales of the eccentricities of one or two of my brothers.

Barry had a profound influence on a career change several years later.

I formed social friendships with three SGIO workers, Michael, Terry and Jed, through a shared interest in table tennis. Through Michael I joined a Catholic youth group based around Annerley, where sometimes played tennis, sometimes burnt sausages at backyard barbecues, and sometimes we sat in a circle with a guitar-playing young priest, singing popular folk songs (We Shall Overcome, Little Boxes, and Where Have All the Flowers Gone?). I mention this because I got on exceptionally with two girls in the group, Peggy and Lesley. They played a small but significant role a little later on in my life.

Defining the Norm: What was I like, in those four years of inching up the ladder leading nowhere at the Department of Machinery, Scaffolding, Weights and Measures? My height certainly inched up over those years, to five feet ten and a half inches, about normal height, and the pimples eventually disappeared. I was painfully shy with girls/women, respectful to my elders, and had absolutely no idea how to communicate with my peers. The only skill I seemed to have was my smart mouth, which unfortunately was wedded to a defensive, juvenile mind-set. Few people liked me, because I tried to impress people with my wit, but that, alas, usually took the form of a casual, funny, cruel, put-down. When I did find someone who sort of accepted me, I scared them away by trying to immediately build or claim a forever friendship.   

Ern still ruled my life, and I tried to be a dedicated public servant, and began to count up how much superannuation I might expect when I retired at age 65. I took out life insurance, which would mature at age 65, giving me an extra financial bonus to sweeten my golden years. At no stage did I ever contemplate leaving the safety of the public service, except the once, when I was offered a position selling encyclopaedias door-to-door. I rang Ern, and he told me not to do it, so of course I didn’t.

 I was not just a virgin with women, but with life. Ern had convinced me of my stupidity and laziness, so I had no ambitions or expectations of myself, and I accepted that any other breathing organism was smarter than me, better-looking than me, and definitely better-dressed than me, with the possible exception of oysters.

My pimple anxiety disappeared (along with the pimples) at or near my nineteenth birthday, only to be replaced with a much greater fear: by age 20, every one of my five brothers had lost all or most of their hair. I was nineteen years of age, and I had NEVER had a serious girl friend, except for my chaste and short-lived relationship with Lorraine. Certainly my body registered biological urges, but I didn’t even have a clue as to what to do with them. (Yes Aunt Agatha, I DO have a better understanding of those THINGS now).

At work, I was an adequate clerk, without ever being totally committed, dedicated or competent. Someone told me that the way to promotion in the public service was to apply for classified position in remote areas, so I submitted several applications for positions (mainly with the Department of Main Roads) at centres such as Longreach, Mitchell, and Barcaldine. Unfortunately, no one ever told me about such things as position descriptions or selection criteria, so my standard application was usually something like:

‘Dear Sir,

I wish to apply for the position of Registrations Clerk in the Longreach office of the Department of Main Roads. I have always wanted to live in Longreach.

Yours sincerely,

Norman Wotherspoon.’

My imagination, my creativity, loitered, untapped, somewhere deep below my conscious mind. I wrote home often, but my words were empty, dreary, products of the self I believed I was.

Here is an excerpt from a letter written in 1961:

‘I believe that I told you of my temporary promotion in my last letter, and it takes effect from next Tuesday. The new job, which at the time being I am learning in the afternoons at work, is very interesting, as all jobs to which we are new generally are. It is a very important one, as the clerk who is going away, Mr Saunders, is second in charge of the records section, and the man who is in charge of the records section, Mr Mackay, is third in charge of the whole clerical section, which covers about sixty odd people. It is a very responsible job, if only temporary, and it will, I think, keep me flat out for the three weeks I am on it. It consists of opening the mail in the mornings, and sorting out the letters, including the cheques, and so on and so forth. After this I have to sort papers which I then file, dealing with correspondence and, if the chief, (Mr Hilless, Chief Inspector of Machinery) wants a certain file, I find it for him. I am also to file anything on the staff files, and I think this is the most responsible job of all, for these are all confidential, and it comprises a file on every member of the Machinery, Scaffolding, Weights and Measures Department in the whole State.’

I cringed when I read that.

Even then I had a strong social justice streak, even though I never knew it by that name. For me, it was the principle of sticking up for the underdog, perhaps because I was something of an underdog myself.

The social club ran a table tennis tournament, but, even though the social club was run entirely by women, table tennis was largely dominated by males. The males decreed that it would be a men only competition, which upset all of the girls on staff, not just those few who played table tennis. (In those days, women and girls were only employed in the public service as typists, stenographers, tea ladies and switchboard operators, with a very few exceptions for doctors, scientists and the like, so they had very little clout in our office).

Norm took up the cudgels on behalf of the women and girls, only to find that his army of women melted away in any discussions with the hierarchy. This was partly due to the opposition of the head typist, Win, and the fact that very few of the girls ever had direct contact with chief clerks or other senior staff.

I won the case, and girls were allowed to enter the tournament, and were given generous handicaps, because all of the better players could beat all of the girls convincingly. Somehow, I was drawn in the first round against the top woman player, who could beat me without a start, and who was given three points a game on me. So, I won the war, but in so doing was eliminated in round one. Oh, the price of justice!

Looking back at the young Norm in those first four years of work, I realise that I wasn’t a particularly nice person, almost friendless, with little thought to the future other than to keep my job until I retired. From the age of seventeen I was constantly checking the tables that showed my anticipated superannuation payout at age 65. Ouch. I have also come to understand that I would have become much the same as the people in the Department who were close to retirement age. They were sad but gentle men, some of whom had served in World War II, others who had been too old to serve. Most of them had spent their entire working lives in this Department, rising very slowly, and never to great heights.

If major changes had not altered the direction of my life, I believe I would have become the man I wrote of in the poem that opens this chapter. Thoreau put it better, and more simply, when he wrote that: “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.”

Chapter 7: Various Brisbane Lodgings

Age: 17

The Ascot Months: There were a few significant incidents in my next Brisbane adventure, when I boarded with Margaret and Nev Lymbery, and their two small girls, Jan and Fay, at 99a Upper Lancaster Road, Ascot, right near Eagle Farm Racecourse.

It was a sudden move, precipitated by Brother Les, orchestrated by Ern, and totally unanticipated by young Norman.  Brother Les, bless him, was deeply concerned that his little brother had become addicted to gambling, in the form of threepenny blind poker and, sad to say, he was right. Because he loved me dearly (and in no way because he wanted me to get into trouble with Ern), he thoughtfully wrote home, and expressed his shock and horror that I was being led deeper and deeper into a lifestyle of vice and vicissitude.

Shortly after this Mum and Ern received this letter, I went home to Maryborough for the weekend. It was a waste of a return ticket, really, because Ern, subjected me to a lengthy and totally appropriate diatribe on how I had let him down, the family down, myself down, my job security down, and most of the western world down. He then drove me back to Brisbane, and personally secured my new boarding situation.  (I am fairly certain he sought character references from Margaret and Nev concerning their attitudes to gambling and other temptations in general). He also assisted me in enrolling in an economics/accounting course at a night school in the Trocadero Building at South Brisbane, which I believe was the forerunner to TAFE (the school, not the building).

The Lymberys had two dogs, Blackie, a black cattle dog, and Tiny, a small brown Heinz dog (57 varieties). After a few weeks, I discovered that I had absolutely no understanding of Economics or Accounting, so I spent my college evenings at the old State Library in William Street (in case the Lymberys had instructions to let Ern know if I missed any of my night schooling). Soon, however, I stopped going, because Margaret confided that she thought my stepfather was a bloody tyrant! After that I spent my evenings either running through Oriel Park with Blackie and Tiny, or playing match poker with the Lymberys and their previous boarder, Lyn Black, who was 19, gorgeous, and drove her VERY OWN mini-minor!

Lyn provided me with one of the most cringe-filled memories of my life. She clearly liked me, and on one of her visits, she asked me if I would like to go to the Gold Coast with her on the following Sunday. I was ECSTATIC! Tom and Peter and I had always discussed hitching to the Gold Coast one Sunday, but had never worked out quite how to go about it. Unfortunately, my memory got in the way of Lyn’s message, and I blurted out: “Oh yes, please! Can my friend Peter come too?” I noticed that Lyn looked at me in a rather strange manner, but, after a pause, she said, “okay.”

On the way to the Coast, I insisted on sitting in the back seat, and Peter and Lyn chatted fairly amiably all the way down and back. It was, I thought, a great day. After that day, Lyn didn’t visit the Lymberys again.

Some years later, I had a flash of understanding, and I realised that, when presented with opportunities, I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with them! And, as I write this, I cringe.

The other memorable moment at Ascot was a particular Saturday, when I decided to visit my Brother Bert at Graceville. I walked down to the Eagle Farm railway station, to find that the next train departed after the last race. I had two pounds in my pocket, so I decided to go to the races. It was Stradbroke Handicap day, and I knew nothing about racing except that George Moore was a good jockey, and he was riding at Eagle Farm that day.

I backed every one of his horses, and he rode six winners, including Kilshery, the winner of the Stradbroke Handicap.  It was a good day, and when I left, I had an extra ten pounds (more than two weeks wages) in my pocket, and I went home, stopping only to buy Margaret Lymbery a box of Cadbury Roses chocolates.

The only other happening of note was that the Lymberys had television, and we all watched shows such as Paladin and I think Bonanza. During the commercial breaks there were frequent ads for Alpine cigarettes, all of which showed a handsome young man attracting beautiful young women because he smoked Alpine. I took up smoking, though I had NO idea what I would do with a beautiful young woman when I attracted one. Most summer Sunday afternoons saw me at the Valley Baths, lying on my towel, smoking Alpine cigarettes, accompanied by much coughing and spluttering. Needless to say, the tally of beautiful young women attracted was NIL.

Nev Lymbery drove a truck for James Hardie and Company, and his income was not high, so, after I had been there a few months, another boarder came, named Jim, with his seven year old daughter Joanne. He was fine, she was obnoxious. After a few weeks, I realised that a seven year old would always triumph against a 17 year-old, so I sought alternative lodgings.

Miss Kluge, 30 Graceville Avenue, Graceville: Brother Bert came to my rescue, with the blessing of Ern. He found me a room not too far from his home, with a dear old spinster lady named Miss Kluge. She lived in a high-set house, with front verandah, and she provided full board to young gentlemen. In the few months I was there, Dave Laing came to stay. He worked for the National Bank, and came from Wandoan. He was obsessed with cricket, and we spent many hours batting or bowling in her side yard, using a large tree as the wicket. Dave damaged the tree a lot, because he was quite fast as a bowler, and I missed approximately 93.5% of his deliveries. He also introduced me to playing snooker at night in smoke-filled snooker parlours in the city, then having a lamb tongues on a roll at a cafe de kerb afterwards.

Miss Kluge had a collie which seemed to claim all of her affection, and she harboured a deep animosity to ‘those people over the road’. Unfortunately, I got talking (on the walk to the railway station) to the daughter of ‘those people over the road’, one Patricia Cox, who was a 16 year old schoolgirl, and she invited me over to play table tennis. We developed a firm friendship, and I spent many evenings over the road with Miss Kluge’s arch-enemies.

I also met a young girl, Lorraine Green, who worked in an office, and we played social tennis a few times. Once I even took her to the Graceville Picture Theatre, and once she took me to a party where I learned to dance the Wellington. Then her mother decided that she was too young for romance, and ended our innocent affair.

Lorraine

Lorraine Green. That’s who the band reminded me of, when they played their medley of old Beatles numbers. The years dissolved in the music, as she smiled in my mind.

We met, walking to the station, on one of those distant mornings which grow sunnier with passing time. She had lived her almost-sixteen years in the low blue house at the bottom end of Graceville Avenue, and I had been boarding with Miss Kluge for two months, in her faded, high-set house at the top end of the Avenue, nearer the station. Dear old Miss Kluge and her over-loved collie.

Seventeen and almost-sixteen shared the same section of road, at the same moment of time, that morning, and she smiled at me, for me. I don’t think any girl had ever smiled for me, before that morning.

“Hello,” I said, “walking to the station?” or something equally silly.

“Yes,” she replied. “You live at Miss Kluge’s, don’t you?”

She had an innocent, natural manner which set me at ease, and we warmed to each other immediately. We chatted all the way to the station.

After that first morning, we met almost every morning; I made sure of that. I would stand on Miss Kluge’s worn wooden verandah, peeping through the louvers until Lorraine went past – a minute or two later, I left the house. She always dawdled, and I strode out quickly, and caught her just the other side of Oxley Road. We sat together on the train, sometimes with her friend Kerry.

I caught different trains home for a week until I caught the right one. Her train home then became my train home. We walked together to Miss Kluge’s, sharing the day’s trivia, smiling a lot.

“Do you play canasta?” she asked.

Canasta? I’d never HEARD of it!

I shook my head. “No, but I’ve always wanted to learn it.”

On Friday night that week, I visited her home, and learned canasta. I met her parents, her brother, her girl friend Kerry, and found the game easy to learn. I enjoyed myself.

“Please please me”, sang the Beatles one Sunday afternoon, during canasta.

“I like the Beatles,” I said, knowing that she had bought the record.

Lorraine smiled, pleased, and the sun shone in my world.

“Would you like to come to a barbecue on Saturday night?” she asked.

I was cautious, afraid, and shy with my peers. “Um, who will be there? What will we do?’

“It’s just a few friends. We’ll sit by the river, and eat, and listen to music and dance a bit.”

“But, I don’t dance!” And I was terrified of any occasion that showed up my ignorance and lack of social skills.

“Everybody dances; besides, there’s a fabulous new dance called the Wellington. It’s simple – I’ll teach you!”

The Wellington WAS an easy dance to learn and to do, and the barbecue, my first adult social outing, was a huge success.

Lorraine and I held hands going home, in the back of Kerry’s boyfriend’s car, and I kissed her goodnight at her gate. It was my first real kiss, a strange, gentle, innocent sensation, with a hint of something stronger yet to come.

I was invited down to tea on a Sunday night for Lorraine’s birthday, and I gave her a little locket that was far too expensive for the occasion, and for the stage our relationship had reached. Later, on the tiny porch, chaperoned by moonlight, we kissed, long, tenderly. I felt the first, sweet, gentle touch of love.

“That was the best birthday present I’ve ever had,” she whispered, standing beside me on the moonlit porch.

I floated home, in love, in love.

“Would you like to go to the pictures?”

“I’d love to, if my mother doesn’t mind.”

We went by train to Indooroopilly, and walked across the road to the El Dorado. I took her home by taxi that night, and we stood in the porch for a long, long time.

“My mother says we have to stop seeing each other for a bit. She thinhks we’re a bit too serious for our age.” She looked down at the ground.

Bent and broken dreams crumpled, crumbled, round my feet, my head, my heart.

“All right,” I said, and smiled, sadly.

Some months later, I met her in town. We chatted, like old friends, of nothing much. She had a new boy friend, I had a new job.

She rang me two weeks later – could I meet her for lunch? Of course!

She was in love, with a law clerk in her office, but her mother wanted her to end the relationship. Could I think of anything that might help?

Not really, I told her, except perhaps to wait a little longer; that love would endure, if it were strong enough. She tossed her shining curls impatiently – “But I can’t possibly wait any longer! We love each other!”

“So did we,” I gently reminded her.

“Yes, but that, that was different.”

An empty silence followed the words. We spoke of getting back to work, awkwardly papering over the cracks.

Just over a year later, I wrote to her, because I was still lonely, and wanted a friend. The letter was returned, unclaimed. Perhaps her mother had returned it without Lorraine even seeing it. That seemed likely. Funny, I couldn’t even remember what her mother looked like. She was just a vague, forbidding shadow.

It didn’t really matter. For a time, I had known Lorraine, and had loved her. For a little time, she had once loved me. 

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’, sang the Beatles, but for me, the song had ended.

Norm Wotherspoon 1974

Miss Kluge and I parted ways, quite quickly, just after the 3^rd of April 1963. We did not part on good terms, and the fault was entirely mine. At the time, I was working in what was then the State Government Insurance Office building, which was bordered by Adelaide, Edward, and Ann Streets, and Anzac Square, with the Eternal Flame, across from Central Station.

On my 18^th birthday, I asked Ken O’Connell (who was not a friend, but the closest I had to one where I was working) if I could buy him a drink at lunch time. He accepted, and we had two beers each at the Globe Hotel, halfway along Adelaide Street towards the City Hall. Legal drinking age was 21 in those days, but the laws weren’t quite as strictly enforced back then.

After work, still in a celebratory frame of mind, I asked Ken if he wanted another drink. He said he’s like to, but perhaps not. I played my trump card – would he like a scotch (his favourite tipple, but a tad expensive for clerical budgets). He agreed, and we went back to the Globe.

I hope that all my young readers will pay close attention to the lesson I learned here, which was: NEVER, EVER take strong drink in large quantities UNLESS you have imbibed them before, and are fully aware of the consequences!

All that I knew of scotch whisky I had learned on television, so I blithely fronted the bar, and, in my most adult squeak (no, my voice hadn’t completely broken at this point), I asked for “Two double scotches on the rocks!” When I tasted the stuff, I realised that I didn’t like it at all. So, as a young would-be macho man-of-the-world, I drained my glassin two great gulps, and ordered another round.

On the following day, Ken told me that I had ordered four rounds of double scotches on the rocks – he had drunk three glasses, I had drunk five, and we left the bar after I had unsuccessfully failed to demonstrate my incredible agility in getting up from the floor unaided. He took me to Central Station, and poured me onto my train; he then asked two ladies to make sure that I disembarked at Graceville, I clearly remember this dreadful insult, and so I stood by the door from Indooroopilly Station onwards, so that no one would need to tell ME when to get off!

The two girls who lived next door with Mrs Hastie told me a few days later that they had seen me in the middle of Oxley Road, directing traffic, on my way home from my birthday drinks.

Miss Kluge was out, visiting a friend, when I arrived home. Dave Laing told me that she has prepared a special birthday dinner for me, and was MOST annoyed when I hadn’t arrived to eat it. She had thrown it into the bin.

After three days of absolutely no conversation from her except for meaningful sniffs, I spoke with Brother Bert, and he and Carmel accepted me into their home as a boarder.

Bert and Carmel, 78 Strickland Terrace, Graceville: I stayed a few months with Bert and Carmel, met several friends and neighbours, played tennis with them on Saturday afternoon at the Corinda School tennis courts (I was an untutored, ungainly tennis player, but I developed a fearsome smash from the net, which succeeded 50% of the time – pity I never learned to serve properly). Brother Les, who had moved back with them after I left Bulimba Hostel, was by this time working at the Mitchell Post Office, so there was room for little Norm.

After a few months, I moved again, but that is the subject of another chapter in my life in Brisbane before the Army.

Chapter 6: Escape from the Nest

Chapter 6: Escape from the Nest!

Age: 16

But First! More Maryborough Loose Ends![1]

During this past week I chatted with an eminent Medical Gentleman (You KNOW who you are!), and, in the course of our conversation, I mentioned that I had to leave out some incidents because, although they were happy memories, they seemed trivial.

He responded that, if they were happy, I should really include them, given that I had experienced a fair bit of gloom during my childhood. So, bowing to his (sensible) opinion, I bring you:

Flying kites on a Sunday afternoon:

One glorious, cool, windy, sunny, Sunday afternoon, when I was about seven, Ern took Les and I to the northern bank of the Mary River at Tinana, where we  met Brother Jim and his wife Peggy and her twin sister June. Jim had a kite, and he showed us how to fly it. We spent perhaps an hour there, and I was trusted to hold the string several times, as I watched the kite soar high above my head. It seemed like magic, and my spirits rose higher, I remember, than the kite itself.

Bruvver Bert’s Circus Act:

When he was 14 or 15, Bert went to a circus in Maryborough, and was particularly impressed with the sword swallower. The next day, he put on a show for Les (aged six) and little Norm (aged four or five). He had threaded several needles onto a long piece of cotton, after which he tied the ends together. Then, with suitable fanfare, his excited audience watched in delight as he lowered the cotton, with attached needles, into his mouth – and somehow let the cotton slip from his hand! Les and I were ecstatic! Not only was Bert a sword swallower, he was also a magician – he had made the needles vanish! We clapped and clapped. Mother took Bert to the doctor, and he had to eat bread and cotton wool sandwiches for a week.

Holidays with Austin and Win:  

Brother Austin was the one who missed our father most, and he felt betrayed when Mother married Ern. After a series of arguments, Austin left home at 14 and joined the railway department at a town west of Bowen. After we had moved to Maryborough, he visited for his first holiday. He stayed out late the first night, and would not get up for breakfast the next morning. Mum said, “Austin, Ern says you have to get up for breakfast, or you can’t stay with us any longer.” Austin said, “That’s fine,” and left for Sydney that day. I was too young (three or four) to pay much attention to the drama, but, when I was 11, Mum[2], Les and I flew from Toowoomba to Sydney to visit Grandma and Grandad Stabler (Mother’s parents).  

Three particular highlights stand out from this visit. One was discovering that I had all these OTHER relatives in the world – aunts, an uncle, and several cousins. A more impressive one was TELEVISION! My grandparents lived at Mascot, near the airport, and had a black and white television set that actually showed real pictures, not just test patterns! Mind you, the shows were fairly awful American pap, (Amos ‘n Andy is the only one I can recall) but, to an 11 year old, everything on television was incredibly exciting.

The best part of our visit was the way that my brother Austin and his bride, Win, showed us around. They took us on drives to scenic places, around the city, on the city and suburban trains, to Luna Park, and to a drive-in (we saw “Old Yeller, I think’). Austin and I somehow hit it off, and perhaps I confided a few things about life with Ern that touched a chord with him.

When Austin took us to the airport for the flight back to Toowoomba, he invited Les and me to come and stay with him at any time on our school holidays. The offer didn’t excite Les much, but me! Heck, I wanted to go straight home, pack, and come back down.

When Mum told Ern, he first said no, but then he thought about it a little more. I can see the brain cogs turning: ‘Hmmm, on the one hand, I am stuck with this lazy, stupid and rebellious little man, and on the other hand, I really don’t care much for Austin. If I send Norman to Sydney, Austin will find out what’s he’s REALLY like, and will regret having offered. And I will have some respite from Norman. Hmmm’.

(NOTE: The above does not in any way represent what Ern really thought. I had not at that stage mastered the art of mind reading. What he really thought was probably more along the lines of how much he would miss me for even a few weeks).

The outcome was that I had three glorious holidays of several weeks each in Sydney, with Win and Austin. I roamed the city by myself during the working week, helped Win about the house, climbed one of the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, discovered the sinful fun of PINBALL machines in an arcade, and had incredibly exciting times at weekends. Austin drove us round to scenic spots, took us to beaches, movies,  … and my cousin’s wedding. I was fifteen, and had been used to beer from years of draining the dregs from the long-necks Mum and Ern drank each night (It was my job to take them and put them in the stack beside the fence). However, the most beer I’d ever drunk in one session was about a quarter of a glass. At the wedding, however, I decided that, after years of dregging, I was a seasoned drinker, and there were LOTS of beer on tap (and on tables) and very little supervision of a 15 year old from Maryborough. Every time I met Austin for the next ten years I blushed and apologised for messing up his car!

I just hadn’t paid enough attention in physics to the theory of ancient Greek who discovered some Law of Something (Not the Law of Gravel, which Isaac Newton discovered when an apple hit him on the head with such force that he fell onto some gravel, thus skinning both knees). Anyhow this ancient person said that if you put water into a bath and then put a person into the bath, the water level rises.

I think the corollary Law is that, when you put enough beer into an inexperienced drinker, in a fairly short time the beer will also rise incredibly quickly and, for some inexplicable reason, with carrots and tomatoes in it. (I must check this with Steve – he knows lots about physics. But I think that’s fairly right). So, this Greek was drinking beer in the bath, watching the water rise, drank too much, threw up, his wife came in and yelled, “You Reeka!” That’s how it was with me, but in a car, not a bath. And no one said ‘You Reeka!’

I will always owe a huge debt of gratitude to Austin and Win for the kindness and love they showed me, not just as a shy, lonely teenager, but all through the years.

Austin suggested that I come to Sydney after I finished school, get a job, and board with him and Win. Every Saturday morning he and I looked through the many, many pages of job advertisements in the Sydney Morning Herald, and I was very keen to go. Ern said no.

One final stray forever memory about Sydney. Lawrence the Drycleaners advertised their business on their vans that drove about collecting and delivering laundry.

The vans were painted a sickening puce/purple, completely opposite to the nicely toned cream with green letters on Ern’s Mattress King commercial van. I said to Austin how ugly it was to see these vans, and I wondered why they were painted in such bilious colours.

On my next visit a year later, he said to me one day, “Do you know any dry cleaning companies in Sydney?” I replied. “Only Lawrence the Drycleaners, the one with the horrible paintwork.” He replied, “Think about it. They are painted like that, not to look pretty, but so that you will remember the name if you ever need your clothes dry cleaned.” My first lesson about effective advertising.

I Gotta Get Out of this Place! :

Somewhere I have a vague half-memory that I have mentioned elsewhere my Year 10 Junior Examination results.  If I didn’t: here they are. If I have mentioned them somewhere else: here they are again!

English: A; Mathematics B: A; French: B; Latin: B; Mathematics A: C; Chemistry: C; History: Fail; Physics: Fail.

I will admit, right here, that I didn’t study very hard at high school. I never saw the point, given that I KNEW I was stupid (and lazy) and that I would enter the workforce as a labourer on the roads, working with our next door neighbour, Bob Kruger, for the Burrum Shire Council. 

After finishing my Junior Year, I couldn’t get a job, apart from a holiday one at Woolworths, where a very buxom young maiden named Laurel caused me to blush often, by asking me if I wanted to kiss her. I was about 1.5 metres in height (around 5 feet, for those used to the old standards), with a very fine crop of pimples, which stood out very nicely when I blushed. (Did I want to kiss her, dear reader? DID I EVER!!! Alas, I had absolutely no social skills with girls, and knew little of the physical differences between boys and girls except that girls had longer hair – this WAS back in the 1950s – and bumpy bits, and boys had secret bits that apparently girls didn’t. I knew very little about sex or sexuality).

Enough of the naughty dreams of sinful things I knew nothing about!

Ern decided that, since I was unemployable, I should return to school for Year 11 at least. I did, though most unwillingly. I pleaded to go to Sydney, but he thought Austin, who was married, working as a book keeper, and studying accountancy, would lead me far from the paths of virtue into a life of moral turpitude (or should that be immoral turpitude?).

Then, in April, came the LETTER, from the Public Service Board. Each year, after results from the Junior Examination were published, the Queensland Public Service invited selected applicants to join their wonderful, SECURE, boring, SECURE, workforce. (All students had to apply towards the end of Year 10).  Those with the very best results were offered positions in January, and were sent to the most glamorous Departments. The next best were offered positions in February, to the somewhat less glamorous Departments. In March, people with average results were offered positions with average Departments, and in April those with really poor passes were allocated to the bottom of the heap Departments.

I received my letter in April, and was invited to join the ranks of the minions within the Department of Machinery, Scaffolding, Weights and Measures, incorporating the Division of Occupational Safety AND the Government Horologist! (No dear, the Government Horologist is the Government Watchmaker and Clock Fixer, not what you thought at all!).

Ern decided that it would be best for him, my mother, and me, if I went into public service. My mother agreed, and I tried to conceal my unbridled joy, for fear he would change his mind.

Ern mapped out the move to Brisbane. I was provided with one pair of long pants (my first ever), several singlets and sensible underpants, two long-sleeved business shirts, one a seasick green, the other a bilious pink, a bank account with twenty pounds($40) in it for emergencies, and a stern piece of advice which has stayed with me, ever since. He said, “You had better keep this job. It’s the only one you’ll ever get.”

Ern also arranged that I would board at the Bulimba Hostel (at Bulimba, of course), and that Brother Les, who at that time was staying with our brother Bert and his Bride Carmel at Graceville, would also board at the hostel to keep me safe from the baser temptations of life. Me! Who had never laid a hand on a baser temptation! (No dear, that ISN’T what I meant. Now please wash your mouth out).

My salary to begin with, as a Junior Clerk on Probation, would be just on SIX POUNDS per fortnight gross ($12.00). I never knew there was so much money in the world! The hostel charged one pound five shillings per week for full board (breakfast, cut lunch, dinner), so I would have …. Um …four pounds 15 shillings to spend! (Less tax, which I hadn’t known about, and less the one pound a week I had to deposit into an account of Ern’s choice, which I couldn’t access until I was 21.

Freedom Day 1961:

            Soldier, Coming Home (unfinished)

After an undistinguished academic career,

the kid left home, just sixteen;

went to Brisbane as

a junior public servant.

Mouselike in his mediocrity,

but free at last, able to pursue

his grey dreams of security.

Ironically, Ern drove me to Brisbane (and my mother, of course), where we arrived on Monday May 1^st 1961, which was Labour Day/May Day (a Public Holiday). Les met us at Bulimba Hostel, where Ern met the manager, George Lambert, a tall, forbidding man with piercing dark eyes. I’m not certain what Ern told him, but I was acceptable enough, and Ern paid my first fortnight’s board.

We then trooped over to inspect my room in a tall, two storied building. Ern wasn’t particularly to find that I was sharing a room with an elderly English gentleman, and not with Les. I suspect Les arranged that deliberately, and, if he did, I silently applauded him for it.

My mother then instructed me on how to use the particular washing machines in the laundry room, and she and Ern drove away. Les then said he had something to do, and disappeared, so I spent the afternoon most pleasantly exploring my kingdom.

I checked out the large dining room (to find out when I could eat), and the community room (large stage, piano, darts, table tennis – happy Normie!). There was even a small room used as a library, with just the sort of books I liked to read – Westerns, murder mysteries.

I looked around the accommodation buildings more closely. There were three, two long narrow two-storied buildings behind the huge front building (reception, library, office, dining and community rooms), and a third across a small street, which contained the rooms for women and girls.

There were small lounge rooms with a basic table and a few chairs at each end of every building. Those became very important to me fairly quickly and also brought about my departure from the hostel. Poker games were played in several of those rooms most nights, and I became both hooked on and reasonably skilful at poker. Unfortunately, my communication skills weren’t quite good enough, because the people who owed me money tended to not pay, whereas those to whom I lost demanded and got instant payment.

The people at the hostel were mainly transients, merchant seamen, criminals, old, retired people with little means, people, like my room mate, in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s who spent their days and their pensions at the pub in Oxford Street., and young people fresh from the country, at the start of their working life.

Although I was threatened several times by some very rough people, I only had one fight at the hostel, and it was over who had booked the table tennis table. He and I had played several times, but we had a bit of a falling out in a game, and usually ignored each other. This night, he invited me outside, and my temper took me there, though I was smaller and far less muscled. I’m fairly certain he’s forgotten the incident, ( I met him briefly about eight years ago) but he certainly belted me around, fair and square, so I can say now, “I hold no grudges, Lenny Scanlen, just the memory.” Len retired a few years ago from the position of Auditor-General of Queensland, so he certainly did well with his studies.

I went down to the river, and looked at the brown water for a while, conjuring up a feeling of mystery and romance, that gave me a brilliant first line for a story I haven’t yet written – “Night … on the river.” Perhaps I am so awed by the perfection of that first line that, like the would-be author in Camus’ ‘The Plague’, I can progress no further.

Late in the afternoon I sat on a seat outside the main building, and was joined by a young man in a clean white shirt and long trousers. He introduced himself as Colm Bonar, and proceeded to destroy every misconception I had ever held about Irish folk. At school I had heard innumerable Pat and Mick jokes, all of which gave me the definite understanding that Irish people were all as thick as two planks, just as the Jewish people and the Scots were very stingy with their money. Colm Bonar was two years older than me, and was one of the most engaging, intelligent people I had ever met in my life. I thought I had found a friend, but he was only staying a fortnight, before travelling north, working when he needed to, seeing the sights when he had money. Many years later, when I saw ‘The Dave Allen Show’ for the first time, I thought he may have been Com with another name. The same engaging (if slightly lawless) smile, sharp wit, and capacity to keep the audience enthralled from beginning to end.

Wherever you are, Colm Bonar, I thank you for that conversation. When he left me to go into the city, it was time for dinner. The meal was average, but no one cared if my hair was combed, my nails were clean, or my shirt was fully done up. After dinner (no washing up, either). The dining room became a television room. Bonus!

Les de Leon, a curly-haired man in his forties, with what I now think would be diagnosed as osteo-sclerosis (he had a permanently bowed back) taught me to play table tennis, and he was seriously good. He worked for a government department, and was a very goodhearted man.

There were also two delightful young twin girls, very petite, who worked in government somewhere, and Les taught them table tennis too. I fell in love with Pam, who wore the most beautiful dainty ear rings. (True Confessions time: Because I had absolutely no clear or clever communication techniques (except with much older people) I could not possibly tell Pam of the molten feelings I had for her. I decided that I had to somehow make her feel very sorry for me, and come to my side, her moist eyes shining with love. My plan was simple in its execution, but the results weren’t exactly what I had hoped for. At around 7:00 p.m. one night, I walked up and down the street beside the women’s hostel, singing “Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen/Nobody Knows the Sooorrrrow/Nobody Knows the Heaaarrrrt Aches’ It’s such a Dark Tomorrrrow?” [3]I thought it was going well, until a louvered window opened above my head and a most unladylike voice shouted for me to “SHUT UP, FOR GOD SAKES!”

I did make a few friends at the hostel. Eric Read (known as Junior), who was my most regular table tennis opponent. Eric worked at the Department of Main Roads, and shared a room with Joe Aldridge, who was slightly slow in speech and movement, very crooked and protruding teeth. Joe worked at Perrot’s Nursery, and was one of the nicest, most honest people I had ever met. Unfortunately, I didn’t fully recognise it at the time, and I think that I used my not-so-nice wit against Joe at times. I know that he died, I read it in the paper. Forgive me, Joe, for any cruelty in the jokes I made.

The two close friends were a young Englishman named Peter, who had invented a horse racing game played with dice and tokens on a large sheet of cardboard with lines and colours making it look like a race course. Peter was responsible for my losing my best chance to that time of learning about IT! (NO, Dear, not WITH Peter! Wait until we get to that part … of the story).

The other was Tom Haddin, a man in his early 30s, with thick glasses and a boyish grin, and a huge enthusiasm for life. We three got on incredibly well, and at one stage decided to move in together, to a flat on the top floor of a building at eh corner of Harcourt and Brunswick Streets, New Farm. Ern said no. Sigh. The flat is still there, and I look at it longingly whenever I go by.

Tom moved, becoming a boarder at a house in Mount Gravatt, and I visited him several times. Once he took me as his guest to the Belmont Rifle Range, and let me fire a couple of rounds from his rifle. I didn’t like it, but I never told Tom. The last time I saw him was on a clear evening, when many stars were in the sky, and Tom had just bought a wonderful new telescope, with tripod, to pursue his latest hobby, astronomy. I met him at his boarding house, and within we, plus the telescope and tripod, were walking up a track to the top of Mount Gravatt itself. Though the stars blazed in the trees, there were lots of trees along the way, and we stumbled from time to time. It was on this journey that Tom told me, casually, as friends do, that he suffered a condition which he called manic depression. This came not only as a surprise, but also, I regret, as a cause to be quite fearful. Here I was, trudging along a dark track, halfway up a mountain, with a man who had just told me he was crazy!

When we arrived at the top of the mountain, I became considerably more fearful very quickly. Tom was setting his tripod up in a space between two parked cars. Dotted round the area were several other parked cars. “Tom,” I whispered (remember that I was still incredibly innocent of many  - okay, virtually all – of the facts of life), “what are all these cars doing here?”

“Oh,” he replied, in a VERY loud voice, “that’s all the people who come up here to make love!”

At that moment, the two cars on either side of us roared away very fast and quite loudly. I decided to focus my gaze definitely and forever DOWN the mountainside, not turning my head at all, in any direction. A couple of centuries later, Tom had seen enough stars, and I had even looked through the telescope, but without seeing anything except blurs.

For whatever reason, Tom never contacted me again and, because his landlady either didn’t have a phone, or wouldn’t let her boarders make or take calls, I could not contact him. I went there once, but he was out.

I have often wondered whether he realised that I was less comfortable with him after he told me of his illness. Some years ago I came to terms with that, and I believe that, if Tom had contacted me again, we would even now be friends. I have only ever deliberately closed three deep friendships in my life.

Several times since then, I have started a story about that night. It always begins:

“Forgive me my madness, Tom, as I did not forgive you yours.”

Let me now close the door on my first Brisbane abode, the Bulimba Hostel, since rebuilt, and used now as either an Aged Care or Special Needs accommodation place.

And now, to fill up the rest of the page, (and to lighten the mood) I give you:

A Poem – by Little Normie Wotherspoon

I wish, o, I wish,

For a Jellybean Fish;

He could swim round my pond, like a king.

But I won’t say a word

To my Blueberry Bird,

He’s a TERRIBLY jealous old thing!

ANOTHER APPENDIX[4]

Bulimba Hostel

Joe Aldridge	Friend – had physical disabilities and slow to think and to speak – Honest, genuine, caring man
Colm Bonar	Irishman – witty, wise, mature, engaging
Les de Leon	Table Tennis Coach
Tom Haddin/Hadden	Suffered  Bi-Polar Disorder; rifle-shooter, astronomer, from Toowoomba, Thoroughly good friend.
George Lambert	Bulimba Hostel Manager
Len Scanlan	My only hostel fistfight (mainly my face hitting his fists) Became Auditor-General for Queensland
Pam	My petite, unrequited, lost love who never even knew my name!
Peter	Englishman, good friend, Enters story briefly at a later date.

---

[1] Thanks to Sabina for calling to mind that the song, “Susie Darlin’”, mentioned in the previous chapter, became a hit first for Robin Luke.

[2] As I grew older, I addressed my mother less as “Mother”, and more as “Mum”, something I suspect I learned from other children at primary school.

[3] Yes, I CAN still sing this, but I rarely do, fraught as it is with sad memories.

[4] I’ll sort out the Appendices after I have completed a couple (or three) which should fit in earlier.