Chapter 10

Hello Team!

Well, it has taken quite too long a while, but here is Chapter 10. I intend to complete Chapter 11 and post it within a week, so keep me honest with that!

With warmth,

Norm

Chapter 10: In Which I Win the Lottery!

Age: 20

Early in 1965, a little-publicised event changed my life forever. An anonymous Commonwealth servant put his hand into a wooden barrel borrowed from Tattersalls in Melbourne, and drew out a small wooden ball with 3 April painted on it. That was my birthday date, a winner in the first draw for National Service in the Vietnam War. Lucky Norm.

A month later I received a letter from the Department of Labour and National Service, directing me to report for a medical examination, which was held in an office somewhere near the corner of Adelaide and Creek Streets in Brisbane. My eldest brother assured that I had no chance of passing the medical, because of my flat feet. (Apologies to all those who thought I had a perfect figure – you should have checked out the feet!)

At the medical, two young my doctors gave me a brief medical examination (including an embarrassing moment when they asked me to cough while one of them was … oh … never mind!). Finally, they asked me to walk three times round the small room we were in. One said “Very flat feet.”

So, I thought, Jim was right, at least, until the other replied, “A few 20 mile route marches should sort them out.” They both laughed.

Brother Jim was outraged, and wanted me to take the matter higher, to get the decision reversed, but I had been brought up to obey the law, AND I was looking forward to a break my boring workday life.

A couple of weeks later I received a letter advising me to present myself to Brisbane Airport with a list of clothing and personal articles, at 0800 hours on 30 June 1965. I wrote a letter home with the news.

I rang my mother, and said I would come home for a weekend before I went into the army, but she said that she and Ern did not want me to stay with them. I could, however, stay for one night with my brother Jim, and my mother would meet me in the Maryborough Botanical Gardens to say goodbye. When we had our meeting, she said that I could write to her from Vietnam if I wished, but not to include Ern in any letters- he didn’t want to know anything.

As usual, I accepted this arrangement, because of my automatic obedience to my stepfather’s wishes/edicts. Although I felt hurt, and very much abandoned by my parents, it did not diminish the love I had for them. What I felt instead was that, once again, I had done something wrong, and was, rightfully, being punished. Silly twit!

On a cool, windy Wednesday morning on the last day of June 1965, I stood, shivering, beside a chain wire fence at Brisbane airport. A below-strength sun filtered down onto the many young men who comprised South East Queensland’s contribution to the first intake of National Servicemen.

The day passed in a blur – a roll call, boarding, flight, bus trip, another roll call, and allocation to different platoons, a walk around Kapooka Recruit Training Battalion grounds (just outside Wagga Wagga) in wintry darkness, medicals, armfuls of uniforms, mess kits, blankets thrust into our arms, dinner, roll call, allocation into huts, ablutions, roll call, program for the following morning, and, finally, bed. So began our first day in the Army.

Very early next morning we were woken by a corporal with a foghorn voice telling us to get up, in disgustingly crude terms (beginning with the words, ‘Wakey, wakey, hands off …). He then explained and demonstrated how we were to keep our bedspaces and clothes cupboards, where every item of equipment would be placed, how it would be folded/polished/ironed, and that we would maintain our gear in our spare time.

 Then we had two minutes to dress and get to our platoon parade ground, 50 metres up the hill. After a hasty shower and a hurried breakfast, we began our 12 week recruit training program.

I don’t intend to say a lot about recruit training, because, let’s face it, when you spend 12 weeks in a usual routine of getting up very early on cold, cold winter mornings, marching about a lot, learning to shoot and bayonet and grenade things, running about with packs on, becoming obsessively neat and tidy, spit-polishing boots until they reflected the person with the spit; being yelled at a lot; learning to obey orders without thought or question, no matter how silly they seem, then, it doesn’t make for a particularly interesting narrative.

I don’t intend to bore you with detailed accounts of the daily hut, locker and kit inspections, either, except to say that I got into strife many times for my natural tidilessness[1], [2]

There were a few stand-out moments; at least, they stood out for me.

Firstly, as a 20 year old who had little experience of interacting with his peers, I found it incredibly difficult at first to be lumped together with large numbers of people, ALL of whom were approximately my own age. (The first intake of National Service was drawn from that pool of people whose 20^th birthdays fell between January 1 1965 and June 30 1965).

On our first night at Kapooka, after lights out, there was some anonymous chatter in the darkness of our hut, and someone asked people to give their names. When I said ‘Norm’, another voice chimed in immediately with, “I knew a Norm once – he was a wanker.” This brought about a general chuckle from the assorted beds (I forget how many – I think 20, but it may have been fewer), and a deep desire on my part to strangle the man. (No, I DID not know him, and was NOT that particular Norm of whom he spoke).

A greater shock came from my first visit to the toilet block. There were many urinals, and many toilet cubicles, facing each other in two lines, without doors!  A Recruit Training Battalion has no place for false or real modesty. But, one learns to cope with life as it is, not how one wants it to be.

The cargo net exercise almost defeated me. The activity was to climb a set of footholds nailed to a tree, and to jump about 10 feet (just over three metres) into a cargo net. Little Normie, ever terrified of heights, stood, quivering, on the platform staring down into the cargo net while every one else jumped. Eventually I got the corporal to push me, then immediately climbed up twice more, closed my eyes, and jumped.

One afternoon a week we played sport, and, because I had played a few games of soccer in the back yard at home with Brother Les, I signed up for that. The coach/referee was our platoon commander, a lieutenant who was, quite clearly, a soccer fanatic. It took him perhaps two minutes to realise that I knew nothing whatsoever about the game, and to banish me to something else.

Fortunately for me, I escaped any further participation in any sport (perhaps the instructors all realised that I had no sporting ability/experience whatsoever).

At the time we were paraded to select our sports, the platoon sergeant asked, firstly, if Recruit Wallace, K. J., would come forward. Recruit Wallace, small and cheeky stepped out, and was told he would be playing rugby union. This intrigued me, so, after I was thrown out of soccer, I wandered down to the rugby union area (rugby league was not, in those days, played at Kapooka).

It became very clear to me that Ken Wallace was a star. He was fast, he was elusive, and he could kick, pass, and tackle all with great skill and timing. He had noticed me standing on the sideline, and, since I was in his hut, he came to me after the trial game, which his team won fairly easily. From that we became mates, and I learned that, until his call-up, he had been the A Grade half-back for Western Suburbs Rugby League team in Brisbane. (I never checked the accuracy of his story, because he was clearly brilliant at the game, and he was the first ‘friend’ I had made at Kapooka).

An incident concerning gloves almost led to the violent death of one recruit, who shall be nameless (no, it wasn’t me). Our training took place in the three months of winter – June, July, August – and it was ALWAYS bitterly cold at 0500 hours (a bit of military time, that). Our platoon sergeant, who seemed to have a heart colder than winter itself, said to us in our first week that the canteen sold warm gloves and, if we each purchased a pair, we could wear them for drill parades (except for those involving weapons). That resulted in a rush on gloves at the canteen, but they had LOTS of them.

The next morning, we all assembled for parade wearing gloves – EXCEPT for Recruit Nameless. When the sergeant saw that, we had two minutes to return to our huts and put our gloves away. I doubt if I have ever seen so many vengeful stares focused on one person before or since.

Two members of our platoon soon developed reputations for being last on parade, clumsiest at drill and weaponry, slowest to gain understanding of all matters military. Alas! One of them was me.

We had a session one day of ‘how to determine the height of a tree by the length of its shadow from a long way away’, or something like that. After our individual and combined guesses, the corporal called on Recruit Wotherspoon to pace the distance to the tree. I set off, marching proudly toward the tree but, after ten paces, I heard a voice I did not know say, quite loudly, “Geez! He walks like a bloody fairy.”

I didn’t do very well with weapons. Although I threw grenades the least furthest, and my bayoneting skills fell far short of perfection, it was with the SLR rifle where I under-excelled most. It was awkward for a left-hander to fire a rifle right-handed, and I had the happy knack of missing targets a lot, or just grazing the outer edges of them. I had even greater trouble dismantling and mantling[3] the rifle.

Henry Reed wrote a poem (Naming of Parts) that I have always liked, and I have read many analyses of it, in which people interpret it as being about war, peace, sex, nature etc. I most like the following one:

‘John Nevill's comment says it all. It conveys well the disorientation
felt by any sensitive person on being drafted into the armed forces and
subjected to mind-numbing instruction, however necessary.’ [4]

We had two brief excursions from Kapooka. Six weeks into our training, under the watchful supervision of our Sergeant and corporals, we travelled by bus to Falls Creek, where I first saw and played in snow. On the way home we toured Canberra briefly, which impressed me mostly for the large numbers of roundabouts, which I had never seen before.

On another night, those who wished were permitted to visit Wagga Wagga for a pop concert featuring a trio of teenaged brothers from Brisbane, the Bee Gees. That was some years before they became world-wide famous.

For me, the highlight of my time at Kapooka was the day I spent being assessed for selection into the Officer Training School. I applied because we were told that those who applied had a full day away from training.

So, at the civilised hour of 0900 hours, I reported to the appointed place, and was asked to shower and change back into my uniform. I thoroughly enjoyed the joy of a hot shower without the pressure of time, and was last back to the meeting room. Apparently, this was designed to identify those who were best able to shower and change in very limited time. After that, the day was filled with group exercises of how we could get a platoon across a raging river using only three differently sized pieces of board, how we could build something to climb over a barbed wire fence, and such stuff. I stood in the background a lot, smiling and agreeing with stuff, but without a clue as to how the tasks could be done.

At lunchtime in the Officers’ Mess, with fine food AND wine, we were each lured into conversation by the psychologists who had been observing us through the morning.

My man asked me about the latest book I had read, and I launched into fervent praise for Catch 22, which a friend (with a sense of humour) had given me to take into my army career. After my first reading, I thought it was one of the funniest books I had ever read, but I suspect the psychologist understood it to be what it truly was – one of the great anti-war novels of our time.

Following lunch, we completed some other boring tasks. Recruit Wotherspoon did not get invited to attend Officer Training School as a result of his day off. Many years later I read my file at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, and saw the comment on my performance; it read ‘Not up to this level’. Sigh. I would have to agree with that.

Toward the end of our training we submitted our orders of preference for the Army Corps for the next stage of our career. I chose Intelligence Corps first, because it sounded nice (after my officer selection debacle, this was NEVER going to happen) and my second choice as Infantry, because we were given to understand that this would take us back to Brisbane.

In September 1965 I arrived back in Brisbane as a private in 6^th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment[5], and my Corps training began.

I arrived with a core set of skills that included how to: Present Arms; Quick and Slow March in time; form part of a straight line on parade; a sort of slow learner’s ability to put together and take apart rifles, and to shoot badly with them, and the ability to obey shouted orders instantly. Not to mention the skills necessary to spit-polish boots, wash, starch and iron my Army greens, and how to make belts and belt-buckles glisten with multiple applications of Brasso, shoe polish, spit and elbow grease. There was also something we had to do with our hats, but I have quite forgotten that, perhaps because I have never cared much for hats.

[1][1] Yes, I did invent that word – untidy does not do justice to my flair for neatlessness.

[2] You guessed it! Neatlessness is another of MY inventions.

[3] I imagine this is the opposite of ‘dismantling’, but am too lazy focused on the writing to check the dictionary.

[4] J.M.Sykes  at http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2000/04/naming-of-parts-henry-reed.html

[5] Based at Enoggera Army Barracks.

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Hello World!

Sorry that it has been so long between posts, but I have been both very busy and VERY lazy. The dreaded procrastination gene has reared up and laid me low.

However, I am almost finished Chapter 10, and it should be posted within the next day (or two).

Recently I asked for people interested in forming a writers' group to a meeting at my home, and we are now meeting every two weeks. One of our optional tasks is to write something on a selected theme each week. 'Rainbows' was the topic for our last meeting, and I excelled myself by writing the TWO different pieces below.

Rainbow

I’ve been climbing this rainbow for too many years,

Through the wind, through the rain, and the pain and the tears;

Thought when I reached the top it would all turn out fine,

All the treasures and pleasures of life would be mine.

But at the top of the rainbow I suddenly found

That life’s pot of gold was still down on the ground;

So I started descending that slippery slope,

Through the halls of despair and the caverns of hope.

This part of my journey was hardest by far,

All light suddenly vanished, like a fast-falling star.

Inside the rainbow there’s nowhere to hide,

I thought only of gold, down that long, awful slide.

All friendships forgotten, and love turned to dust,

Rainbow gold keeps on calling, and answer I must;

But the fabulous pot was all empty of gold,

Filled instead with the bitter-sweet memories I hold.

So I woke from my dreams of my ambitious youth,

With a sense of awareness, this vision of truth:

Don’t follow the roads to the rainbow’s false ends

The riches of life are in families and friends.

Little[1] Red[2] Riding Hood[3] at Rainbow’s End

 Little Red Riding Hood woke when the early morning sun peeped through her lace-curtained window. She jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

‘Goody’, she thought! There had been a tiny rain-shower, and there WAS a rainbow! This was her day for finding the pot of gold!

She dressed quickly and carefully packed some of her most secret possessions into her bright red back-pack with the sunflower and bluebell designs all over it, and skipped into the kitchen to have her breakfast.

“Hello Mummy and Daddy”, she said to her parents, who were eating toast and drinking tea (and swallowing half a bucket of medicinal pills and vitamin tablets).

“Hello Darling”, they said, as she filled a bowl with Fairyland Magic Cornflakes.

“What are you going to do today, my daughter?” asked her mother.

“Oh”, said Little Red, “it is SUCH a lovely day! I think I shall wander through the woods and pick some flowers, AND find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!”

“Do you want me to pack your picnic basket, darling daughter?”

Little Red looked up at her mother with wide, blue, innocent eyes, and said, “Oh, no, Mummy. I am taking my pretty red backpack with the bluebells and sunflowers. And I can buy my lunch with the pocket money I have saved.”

She finished her breakfast, cleaned her teeth and washed her hands, put on her backpack, and kissed her parents goodbye.

After she hurried out through the garden gate, her father said, “Well, we had best get dressed quickly, since she took her big backpack.”

 Her mother sighed and said, sort of sadly, “I suppose we should’.

Little Red wasted no time walking through the woods – she was out for Adventure today; Adventure with a capital ‘A’. Before long she came upon two distressed little children, holding hands and crying.

“Why are you crying?” asked Little Red. “Who are you?”

“I’m Gretel”, said the little girl, “and this is Hansel. Our stepmother has sent us out in the woods and we don’t know how to get back home again. And we’re SO hungry and tired.”

“Don’t cry, children,” soothed Little Red; “I know a place where you can have lots of food and a warm bed for the night, and maybe for the rest of your lives!”

The children cheered up at once, and, with each of them holding one of Little Red’s hands, she led them to a beautiful cottage a little further into the wood.

“Oh!” said Hansel, speaking for the first time; “It’s made of all sorts of lollies!” And he immediately started to break off bits of marshmallow, honeycomb, white chocolate and rocky road, and stuffed them into his mouth.

“I have to leave you here”, said Little Red, “but there is a lovely old lady who lives in here who will REALLY look after you both. Just tell her that Little Red brought you here.”

After saying that, she skipped merrily off into the woods, knowing that the wicked witch of Lolly Cottage would pay her quite a bit of money for sending two more victims into her clutches. 

She decided to wander past the house of the Three Bears, because she knew that they would be out having their morning walk at that time. Just as she arrived, she saw her friend Goldilocks, who was evidently casing the cottage.

“Hi, Red,” said Goldilocks, “do you know who lives here, and if they’re at home right now?”

“Goldie, you are in absolute luck. This is the house of three bears, and it just so happens they are out for their morning walk. AND I know where they keep their good stuff – money, jewellery, and socks and bonds. Let us pop in for a profitable visit.”

The girls entered the house, and quickly found and divided the loot. Goldilocks, however, spotted three bowls of porridge on the dining room table, one VERY large, one medium, and one very small.

“That porridge looks SO delicious, and I am SO hungry,” she said. “Should we have some?”

Little Red shook her head. “I’ve already had breakfast, and, if you want a clean getaway, you had best leave now. The bears will be back soon.”

Goldilocks decided to take her chances, because the porridge looked absolutely delicious.

Red quickly left the cottage and went on her way. She knew EXACTLY where she was going next, and soon arrived at the cottage of the seven dwarves, knowing full well that the little men would be out at the mine, and Snow White would be home alone. She retrieved her specially prepared apple from her backpack and knocked on the door.

When Snow White opened the door, she saw a sweet little girl wearing a red cape with a matching hood, and who offered her a bright, shiny, delicious-looking apple.

“Excuse me, Miss, but I am doing market research for a special new breed of apples which are supposed to be the sweetest and most nutritional apples ever grown. Would you like to try this free sample?”

Snow White was much taken with the little girl, and the apple was SO tempting. She took a bite, and immediately fell senseless to the ground.

Little Red gave a satisfied nod, and continued on her way to that part of the forest where she knew Prince Charming would be practicing his knitting skills.

“O, noble Prince!” she cried, flinging herself in tears at his feet. I have just come from the cottage of the seven dwarves, and saw dear Snow White prostrate on the ground, with a bitten apple beside her. I suspect she has been poisoned, and the only remedy to wake her is the kiss of a handsome prince, and they don’t come any handsomer than your royal self.”

Prince Charming, a gallant but very stupid man, thanked Little Red, and hastened to the stables to his great black charger, Monarch.

Little Red meanwhile sought an urgent audience with Princess Cinderella. She whispered in the Princess’s noble ear that she was the bearer of sad and tragic news; that Prince Charming had taken himself off to the Dwarves’ cottage to a secret love tryst with Snow White.

Cinderella almost fainted with the shock – she thought her marriage was a guaranteed forever-after one, but she gave a small bag of gold to Little Red, then hastened to the stables to her grey steed, Faithful.

Little Red took a moment to telephone the News of the World with the story, and to negotiate a suitable payment.

On she went, thoroughly happy with the way her day had progressed to this point. Soon, she spotted a great silver wolf in a Fairyland Council uniform.

“Well, HELLO, Wolfie!” cried Little Red. “How long have you been on the straight and narrow?”

“Hi, Red,” said the wolf, “It’s actually a condition of my parole. When I was in jail I had to learn a trade, and now I’m a building inspector for the Council.”

“Right now I’m off to inspect three new houses. Want to come along?”

“Sure,” said Red, “Because I want you to come along with me after that. How long will these inspections take?”

“Usually it would take the rest of the day, but I’ve got a bit of a scam going with two of them where the houses aren’t really up to scratch.”

“So it’s going to be an inspection from the outside, an envelope filled with a few dollar notes, and the rest of the day free? Count me in.”

“Well, Red, you can’t have any of the cashola this time. This is MY scam.”

“I don’t want any of the money, Wolfie. I just want to check out your technique.”

They arrived a few minutes later at the home of a very nervous little Pig, standing beside his house made of straw. Wolfie said a few words, and exchanged a building safety certificate in exchange for a fat white envelope.

They repeated the procedure at the new, stick-built home of a second pig.

At the brick house of another little pig, Wolfie actually undertook a thorough inspection, under the watchful eye of Mr Practical Pig, a local builder. He then gave the Certificate to the pig, but this time there was no cash-filled envelope.

“So,” said Wolfie, “that’s me done for the day. Where are we off to Red?”

“We are going to the end of the rainbow. I heard that the leprechauns refill the pot from time to time, and today could just be my lucky day.”

Wolfie smiled and said, “You’re a bit too smart to believe in those old fairy tales, aren’t you, Red?”

Red smiled back. “Maybe this ISN’T a fairy tale, Wolfie.”

They reached the end of the rainbow just on lunchtime, and found a rusty old pot that was totally empty except for a crushed cigarette packet and an empty coke can.

“Ah well,” said Red, “At least we had a pleasant walk, and I brought some lunch. Would you like to share?”

Wolfie nodded his head eagerly. He was REALLY hungry.

Little Red reached into her backpack and her hand came out holding a snub-nosed automatic, which she pointed at the wolf.

“Whoa! Wait a minute,” said the wolf; “we’re in the same business, you and me, Red. And I’m nearly happy to even share the graft I got from the pigs this morning.”

Little Red smiled a nasty little smile. “Sorry, Wolfie, but business is business. I have an order for a genuine silver wolf fur, and so, my friend, you are expendable. No hard feelings.”

Her finger tightened on the trigger. Wolfie stood, terrified, unable to move.

Suddenly, a loud twang filled the air, and, at the same moment, an arrow knocked the pistol from Little Red’s hand. “Damn!” she said, “My meddling father!”

Her father, Robin Hood ran across to her, closely followed by Maid Marian.

“That’s the last time, Red!” He said.

“we’ve taken Hansel and Gretel home, given their father a bag of gold, fixed up the witch’s cottage, soothed the three bears and handed Goldilocks to her parents for punishment, sorted out the mess you left with Cinderella, Prince Charming and Snow White, and are now sending you off to a nunnery.

And so, after many years of tantrums, tears, furious arguments and escape attempts, Little Red became the Blessed Sister Margarita of Sherwood.

[1] Perhaps I should have used the more correct ‘Vertically Challenged’ here, or at least, ‘petite’.

[2] Not intended to reflect in any derogatory or discriminatory way on any person of differing cultures or colours.

[3] Used in this instance only as a surname, not in any way to indicate that this family name should be interpreted to have any connotations of or connections with unsavoury and/or criminal persons.

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Chapter 9: Finding Friends:

Dear Book Club Members,

I am sorry that this has taken so long to get to you. However, there ARE reasons! Obviously, my natural tendencies to procrastination spring to mind.

But, the grieving process for our darling Mumma Dot/Nanna Dot is not a short term matter. And we have spent much of our free time over at Jim and Mumma’s home, sorting through her stuff – photos, stamp collections, food, pot, pans, crockery, linen, clothing, knickknacks, mementoes, etcetera. All of which brought back memories. Which in turn gave us each our individual  reflections, sad and happy.

Plus I have been through a bit of a down time.

However, here is Chapter 9.

I have to warn you that, there may be stuff inhere that may not agree with your own values and beliefs. I do not write stuff to offend, but I do believe you have the right to see my life as it actually IS, not some air-brushed, sanitised version.

You have the right to hold your own opinions, but, you signed up for the truth about my life, and I have tried to give you that.

With much love and warmth,

Norm

Regarding Dorothy Margaret Richardson

I loved our little Mumma Dot/Nanna Dot, who died on 11 January 2011. Jim and Margaret asked me to write and read a poem in her memory. I did so, and read it at her funeral service on 14 January 2011.

Farewell Mumma /Nanna Dot

The journey’s over, little Dot, it’s time for us to part;

But our memories ensure that you will live on, in each heart.

You loved your children dearly, as good mothers tend to do,

You loved their children deeply, their children’s children too.

You were fiercely independent, didn’t always like advice;

You liked to smile & laugh at jokes, the naughty & the nice;

You played your weekly lotto games, you loved a little bet,

And you’d mutter, “Gee, I’d murder for a beer or cigarette!”

You loved to do the puzzles in the papers, Woman’s Day;

And you really loved to travel, overseas & far away.

Your cats were all so dear to you, each one a special friend,

And Don Lane, The Lanky Yankee, was for you, the Prince of men!

Mumma Dot, Dear Nanna Dot, it’s time to say goodbye,

There is love for you in every heart, and tears in every eye;

We thank you for the life you led, the love you had to give;

You will never be forgotten, as long as we shall live.

Chapter 9: Finding Friends:

Thank You, Captain Jim, Thank You, Bernard Dunne

Age: 18 – 20

Every job I have held in my life came about by chance or circumstances, never by design or desire. The one ambition I had, from childhood, was to become a radio announcer. I had no idea of how to achieve that goal, and I suffered from a serious lack of initiative. My proactive skills lay dormant and unused, submerged far below my conscious mediocrity. I wanted someone to take my hand, lead me to a radio station, seat me at a turntable, and tell me what to do.

One day in 1963 I saw an advertisement in the Brisbane Courier-Mail for the Brisbane School of Broadcasting, that promised to train suitable candidates in announcing and copywriting, and to help me find work in that field. I wrote for an application form, completed it, sent it off, and was summoned, in due course, to an interview at Radio Station 4BC, on the corner of Adelaide and Wharf Streets.

Captain Jim Iliffe owned the Brisbane School of Broadcasting. He was an ex-World War II fighter pilot turned Children’s Television host, a very popular personality, with a huge handle-bar moustache a friendly smile, with a genuine warmth to him. Ten of us came for the interviews, but he only selected four, including me, as having suitable voices for radio.

The course ran for several months, and was very much based on practical activities and exercises, supported by notes. I kept those notes for years, until about 25 years ago, when I lent them to an interested someone who has yet to return them. (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!).

We did group activities in the station auditorium, wrote advertising copy for homework, and spent many sessions alone in a vacant studio, cueing up records and ads, playing them, reading copy (sometimes our own), and giving our phantom audience station identification and time checks. I loved it. At the end of the course, we all made audition tapes, supervised by Jim, and he sent them off to various Queensland radio stations when they had vacancies for cadet announcers[1].    

Jim had one-to-one chats with each of us both during and after the course. He and I had coffee one afternoon, and he suggested that I join a theatre group, to get more experience in projecting my voice.

Enter Bernard Dunne, a junior clerk with the State Government Insurance Office. He and I had chatted when we swapped files between our sections, and I was intrigued by his natty dress sense and his general flamboyance, which seemed a tad out of place in the grey environment of the public service. One day he had mentioned to me that he was a member of the Brisbane Arts Theatre, which didn’t stir much interest in me at the time.

I asked Bernard about how one joined the theatre the day after my chat with Jim Iliffe. It so happened, said Bernard, that the theatre was holding auditions for a series of one act plays within a couple of weeks. So began my less than illustrious career as an actor.

My first audition was a triumph for my ego. I sat around a wall in the cottage next to the Arts Theatre, with about thirty other hopefuls, and was called upon to read a little speech (in front of the rest – I was SO nervous) for each play. Four one-act plays were cast, and I was given a role in three of them.

After the first rehearsal, I went with my SGIO friend Bernard and a couple of others from the theatre down to the Cubana Coffee Lounge for a late (cheap) dinner. It was exciting, but embarrassing, because the other three were VERY theatrical, with unusual voices and expansive gestures. Bernard wore a hat with a flower in it.

I remember much about those plays for two main reasons. Firstly, because this is the only theatre program I have somehow managed to keep across the years. Secondly, because it was here I first met several of my first true friends.

About the plays. I missed out on ‘Queer Street’ produced by Gerard Kennedy (later to become well known as a nasty criminal in a show called ‘Hunter’, then even more well known as a detective in ‘Division Four’, a long-running crime series)

Catherine Sparkes clearly saw my potential when she cast me as the Town Crier in ‘Three Knaves of Normandy’. I think my total words were along the lines of “Oyez, oyez, oyez, here come de judge!” (probably more like, “make way for the judge”, but the three x Oyez were DEFINITELY part of my big scene.

Donal Saunders (christened Donald, but he thought the shortened version was more theatrical) directed ‘The Bushrangers’ Christmas Eve’, by Kylie Tennant, in which I played a bushranger, Alf, in a rugged band of incredibly evil men which set upon Mrs Caroline Chisholm’s party of young girl immigrants. The play ended with us joining in the singing of Christmas carols with the ladies, and helping them in their chores. I think my part was restricted to a few rough ‘Righto Boss’ type rejoinders, a few group ‘yeah’s’, and, of course, part of the Carol Choir.

My major role, an absolute triumph, was the second lead in ‘Blue Murder’ directed by Rene Vance. It was a sort of spoof on Sherlock Holmes, with John Bowstead playing the Holmes character (named Vague), and I was his support (named Witless, a name that many have used many times since, whilst nodding in my direction).

In those two or three months of rehearsal and performance, I met many wonderful people, three of whom became close friends – Don Saunders, Ron Phillips, and Peter Hitchener. Both Don and Ron have died, but Peter, with his Mother Bunty, his sister Wendy, and his stepfather Fred Parks, are still the closest friends I have, outside my family. More on those friendships later.

One night at rehearsal, Lindsay Clayton, a girl I REALLY fancied, but was too shy to ask out, asked me “Are you one of us or one of them?” I had absolutely NO IDEA what she was on about, so I stuttered (even as I blushed) “Um, what do you mean?”

Lindsay then threw me thoroughly out of my comfort zone by asking, with an in-your-face, direct stare, “Do you prefer going out with boys or girls?”

I was 19 years old, and there was absolutely NO WAY that I was going to tell this gorgeous girl that I had never been out with ANYONE, boy or girl. I simply said, “Why, girls, of course!”

“Well then”, she replied, “you’re one of us, then.” Which puzzled me even more. It would have been wonderful if Lindsay had then asked me out, but, as it happened, she was enquiring on behalf of another girl in the cast who was too shy to find out for herself. [2]

Although Lindsay’s comments amazed and perplexed me, I had no intention of asking her what the heck she meant, because it was obviously something I ought to know.

The next person who tried to extend my life education was a petite and beautiful young woman with dark hair and dark shining eyes. Marguerite and I shared several cups of coffee in a favourite long-gone coffee lounge, and one evening I had dinner with her family at Belmont. (This was when one could STILL take the train to Belmont and back to the city). Marguerite patiently explained to me, several times, using French words that I never fully understood (so much for my Year 10 French studies), about men loving men.

I think my mind was clouded by a tale I had read in school, about the great love between Damon and Pythias, where one offered to be executed in place of the other, whereupon the king let them both go free. That, to me, was about the love of man for his fellow man. Marguerite was on about something a fair bit more carnal.

When I suggested that she was joking, she lost her cool a smidgen (I won’t go so far as to say she stamped her foot – Marguerite was very much a lady); but she did quite testily ask me if I had never noticed how Don and Robbie held hands when they moved between the Cottage to the other rehearsal room a little way along Petrie Terrace.

Just a few days later, and ONLY because I was looking for it, I saw Don and Robbie holding hands as they walked along the street. My mind was totally confused (this is someone who had not yet come to grips with any practical experience of heterosexuality – I had absolutely NO ‘hands on’ experience with any heterosexual people of the opposite gender - so you can imagine the chaotic thoughts that roamed around my mind).

It took Wendy Haupt to lay it on the line for me about Don and Robbie and other theatre friends. Wendy, the daughter of a Magistrate, I think, invited me to be her partner at the Trainee Teachers’ Ball at Cloudland, for which I hired a dinner suit (I still have the photo of us decked out for the ball). Afterwards, I took her home by taxi to her Clayfield flat, and we sat on the back porch until dawn, while she explained in quite graphic detail about homosexuality, and that many of the males in the theatre were actually ‘camp’.[3][4]

It was past daybreak when I left Wendy, and I arrived home at Brother Bert’s place, where I was then boarding, around 7:00 a.m. I had some concern as to what Bert and Carmel might say to me (and, more importantly, what they might report back to Ern), but I was saved by the Beatles.

They had arrived in Brisbane in the early hours of this very morning at the end of June, 1964, and Bert thought that I had gone to the airport to scream and wet myself on their arrival.

For those wondering how these incredible revelations affected my relationships with gay or lesbian people, it possibly made me regard them in an even better light, BECAUSE:[5]

1.   Right through my formative years, I was taught to treat ALL other people with respect, which I did, most of the time, with the possible exception of my brother Les, and the definite exception of myself.

2.   I was aware that I was a stupid, lazy, uninteresting person, and something of an outsider. My friends in the theatre were also outsiders, and they offered me inclusion without judgment, friendship without conditions.

3.   They were fun and interesting to be with, and this possibly made them even more interesting. As soon as the grapevine shared the news that I was square (heterosexual), almost everyone respected that, and didn’t ask me embarrassing or leading questions.

4.   Now, I have mentioned in this chapter three particular beautiful women, each of whom spent time with me, and asked me to coffee and balls. Why, then, did I not ask any of them out? The only reason that hits me (with considerable force) is that I saw myself as a boring, ordinary individual, with no idea of what to say to girls (or, in many cases, to boys). I realised it would only be a matter of time before they saw me as the stupid person I was. AND I would be bald in a couple of years!

Let me move on from that pathetic, pity party analysis, to comment on the three particular friends I met in my first month in the theatre.

Donal Saunders worked in the public service, but he LIVED for Brisbane Arts Theatre (BAT)! He was known to most people in BAT as Batsy Saunders. He smoked compulsively, drank hard, had an utterly evil laugh, and didn’t look after his teeth very well. I thought he was a very good comic actor and skilled director, who told the RUDEST jokes, and we got on very well.

One day he asked me if I wanted to move into a flat with him in Llewellyn Street Kangaroo Point. At the time my relations with Bert and Carmel (who I loved and love dearly) were a tad strained, as they sometimes get when a younger brother moves in with a young family for a temporary few weeks, which stretches into longer than three months, and no end in sight.

So, I moved in with Don. The first night after we had moved into the flat, two of his theatre friends arrived with a flat-warming present – a carved marble cherub which they had removed from a grave at the Toowong Cemetery. We made our first unanimous decision in our new home – we made them promise to take it straight back and replace it where they had removed it from. These two men both fell in love with a Peter Sellers film, ‘Dr Strangelove, or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’. They saw it at every suburban theatre where it was shown. Each time they took with them two large Coca Cola bottles filled with claret, to enhance their viewing pleasure.

One of them, now dead, found his fame and fortune in an Australian soap called ‘Sons and Daughters’, I think. The other one dropped out of my world many years ago, but, an army mate told me last year, in a lunch-time conversation, that his ex-wife had a brother who was incredibly gay, and it turned out to be the same man I had known.

Two weeks after we moved into the flat, the landlord told Don he had made a mistake, and we had to move out. (Perhaps the landlord had seen our flat warming gift arrive and leave). Don found another flat, at 28 Chermside Street, Highgate Hill, right beneath Torbreck, which for years was the tallest (and one of the few) block of multi-storey unit buildings in Brisbane. The rent was higher than we could jointly afford, so a third person, Ron Phillips, was invited to share with us. Don’s special friend Robbie also spent most of his time there. Robbie was a young, and truly gifted, pianist.

This began a wonderful stage in my life. I had the theatre, with all of its assembled characters, castings, rehearsals, performances, and parties; and home life was pretty much the same.

I developed a taste for Marsala and coke; for the first time in my life I heard, and liked, classical music (first I fell in love with Tales from the Vienna Woods, by Strauss, then Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony); I developed theatrical affectations in my speech; my conversations outside the theatre revolved around the theatre. In short, I took to wearing a superficial mask that wasn’t really me. I liked this new me, because it was far more interesting than the real me.

At work, I achieved my daily/weekly targets, but the time and effort spent in the Statistical Data section had become a necessary drudgery that provided the income to pay for my dilettante lifestyle.

Ron  Phillips spent his whole working life with Queensland Railways, and was a complete gentleman with a gentle sense of humour which led to his being called “Pixie” Phillips by his theatre friends, in a friendly and endearing way. I doubt if Ron ever made an enemy in his life. He had a round head, with extremely receding hair, glasses that glinted in sunlight, and an impish, boyish smile. He was a gifted actor, and particularly so in comedies, farces, pantomimes. I was privileged to know him, and to call him friend.

Flatting with Ron was something of a double-edged sword, however, because, whilst one had his friendship and humour, he had a fetish for neatness and order, and woe betide anyone who did NOT do the Ron-allocated share of the housework. I shared another, larger flat with Ron after I returned from Vietnam, with Graeme Pinniger and Gary Smith, who were then, and are now, wonderful friends of mine and the Love of my life, Margaret.

Don, Graeme, Gary and I were not particularly tidy[6], and we generally fell far short of Ron’s standards in completing our tasks, when we completed them at all. Ron, usually took over if they weren’t done to his timetable (which was usually every Saturday morning), and he would stalk through the flat, mumbling and grumbling about the inconsiderateness of others. Graeme had a car, and usually managed to find important duties in other parts of the world on Saturday mornings, but I had no excuse, and usually helped Ron when the guilts attacked me.

Ron taught me how to eat a boiled egg without having any eggcups, a valuable skill in our New Farm flat, and one which will stand me in good stead should I ever forget where the eggcups are.

By the time I had returned from Vietnam, Don had left the public service, and was working as a barman at the Embassy Hotel in Edward Street. He had left the theatre, and was involved in a relationship with an older man who treated him unkindly. Don smoked too much, drank too much, and became something of a caricature of the man he once had been.

The evil laugh remained; the teeth were fewer in number and more deeply stained; he still told as many jokes, mostly rude, but the eyes seemed almost empty of feeling, as though he had lost something precious.

He didn’t have, or want to do, much with most of his old friends, he worked, he drank, he smoked, and went home to his partner, and none of it seemed to make him happy. Because I spent six years away from Brisbane from the beginning of 1969,

I did not know that he had died until several years after his passing. I would have liked to have attended his funeral, but one cannot arrange events as one might wish. From the little I saw of him after Vietnam, I was left feeling as if a dear friend had died, long before he left us.

Rest in peace, Donal Saunders, you brought joy and friendship into my life for a brief time.

Ron bought a house in Guthrie Street Paddington while I was away in Melbourne and Townsville (from January 1969 to June 1975), and our darling daughter Jane attended her first New Year’s Eve Party there in 1975, at the age of 9 months. Ron brought his aging parents down from Rockhampton to live with him for several years. After their passing, and his retirement from the railways, he moved to the Sunshine Coast, and lived there until his death.

It was a beautiful funeral, and I was able to renew friendship with Graeme Pinniger, Gary Smith, Bill Weir, and other Arts Theatre friends.

Ron Phillips had a profound impact for good in my life, with his gentleness, his non-hurtful humour, and his caring regard for family and friends. We miss you Ronnie, but we hold you in our hearts.

Bill Weir I met early in my theatrical career, and, I believe, he is the longest-serving paid-up member of Brisbane Arts Theatre to this day. He was mostly involved in backstage work in my time there, as Stage Manager and other important roles that never seem to gain the acknowledgement they deserve.

I think from the time I met him, Bill worked in the areas of his personal interests – books, records, film and video (and, nowadays, CDs, DVDs, and other technological marvels that store books, music, films, plays …).

After my triumphal success in the one act plays, I moved on to a major role in a play written by Ernest Emmanuel. Ern and his wife Ellie became lifelong friends of mine and, in time, of Margaret’s. Ern and Margaret had known each slightly, years earlier, when they both worked in the Queensland Housing Commission, on the ground floor of the SGIO building. So, without knowing it, we three who were to become friends all worked in the one building in 1962! Sadly, Ern passed away several years ago, at a good age, but Margaret and I still visit Ellie, and their daughter, Denise, though not as often as we should or would like, at their West End home.

Ern wrote a play, ‘Bush Town Story’, in which I played a pipe-smoking city slicker, Todhunter, visiting his dear friend Muggeridge (played by Peter Hitchener) in a small country town. I accidentally discharge my host’s rifle, and we think that I have killed Horsey, the town drunk, although it transpires that Horsey was just dead drunk. However, Muggeridge and I decide to hide the body while the police come looking around, and this was done on stage by we two sitting under a table with the sides and back blanketed off, me with pipe and rifle, Peter with a concerned stare, and Horsey propped up between us, all facing the audience. 

Horsey was played by one Charles Muir, who EVERY night, as we sat silent and serious-faced, tickled both Peter and me in the arm-pit region, while we struggled to keep our faces stern and straight.

Which brings me to the Hitchener family. Peter Hitchener was a trooper in ‘The Bushrangers Christmas Eve’ and I was a bushranger. Despite being on opposite sides, we shared a similar, absurdist sense of humour, and an ambition to be radio announcers.

It didn’t take long for us to become friends and, within a few short weeks of knowing me, Peter asked me home to dinner with his family. He and his widowed mother Bunty (Alison Beauchamp Hitchener), lived in a small flat in Oxford Street Bulimba, just a few blocks from my first home in Brisbane at the Bulimba Hostel. Peter’s sister Wendy lived there when she was on holiday from St Hilda’s School at Southport, where she was a boarder). Peter was working for one of the Big wool companies – Elder Smith Goldsborough Mort, (or the other one whose name I forget for the moment), after finishing his schooling as a boarder at the Southport School.

We met after work on a grey and rainy afternoon, took the Bulimba Ferry tram, then the ferry, and ran up Oxford Street through increasingly heavy rain, and arrived, wet through and laughing, to be met by Bunty at the door.

I had been somewhat nervous at meeting Peter’s mother, because, I had a feeling she wouldn’t like me (which is what I thought about most new people I met).

There is a scene in the film, ‘Sleepless in Seattle’, where Tom Hanks tells a night time talkback host about meeting his late wife for the first time. He says something like: “It was like coming home, but to a home I’d never been to.” That was how it was for me, entering the Hitchener household. I had never felt so welcome, so unconditionally respected, in my life. Since that night, the Hitchener family has become my family, and our friendship continues to this day. When Bunty married Fred Parks in 1971 (I think) and I married my Margaret the same year, the family circle just grew a little wider, but no less loving. Here is an amazing fact – I have never had one argument, angry moment, or less than worthy thought with or about Peter, Bunty, Wendy or Fred in the 46 years we have been friends.

Bunty may be a tad cranky with me for telling what I see as the truth about the Hitchener/Parks family, because she thinks I credit them with too much praise. I can but say Bunty, that there are not words enough to tell you each and all how much you have helped/supported/loved/nurtured me, and the Wotherspoon family.

Bunty and her children lived down near Texas, until her husband Nat died. He and his brothers owned some properties, which were tied up for legal reasons, as I understand it, for some years after Nat’s death. I don’t know a lot about the situation, except that Bunty, ever proactive, moved to Brisbane, and worked with Queensland Newspapers, in the Classified Advertising Department.

I have no idea how I was so simply and completely accepted into this close-knit family, but I was, and we spent many happy evenings and weekends laughing, listening to records (particularly the Tokens – The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Them – with a 17 year old Irish lead singer, Van Morrison, and a hit song, ‘Here Comes the Night’.) We talked, smoked, and, on occasion, drank beer. We invented our own standing/running jokes, that launched us all, Bunty included, into fits of giggles. “M’took, M’took … a herd of stampeding elephants” can even now bring the smiles, though we are possibly too staid and serious to give out the gut-wrenching guffaws. Who am I kidding? I can STILL guffaw with the best of them!

I wrote my second song, late on a Sunday night after a wonderful weekend with all three Hitcheners. Early on the Monday morning, just before leaving, I recorded on a small, very primitive tape recorder.

It was a sad song, because I didn’t want to go back into the ordinary world, away from this family which had adopted me.

     Blue Sunset

Blue sunset tonight,  

As dusk on the river falls.

Tears hide the light

As my heart hurtly calls

To you, my love,

Come back to me,

Make everything all right.

But she won’t return, though

My heart yearns so much,

In the blue sunset tonight.

Why did she go?

I know, I know;

I treated her so badly.

Now she won’t come home,

I’m all alone;

I know it’s goin’

To be a blue sunset tonight.[7]

As to Bill and Graeme and Gary, we are still friends, and our friendship circle has expanded easily to include the Love of my life. Although we do not see as much of them as we would like, we do manage to catch up more than once a year. It is amazing how friendships can last for nearly fifty years, and be as strong, even stronger, than they were in those early years.

Back to the theatre. I played parts in many plays in those salad days of 1964-65. I was something in an Elizabethan play directed by Gerard Kennedy, which I mainly remember because of a statuesque lady named Judith, who was the star of the play, and of whom I was in awe.

I had a leading role in a Donal Saunders produced play in which I played a Cockney, with the memorable line: ‘A bit o’ butter’s better for the biter’. I didn’t make a very good Cockney.

Ian Austin cast me in three roles in his production of Sean O’Casey’s Irish tragedy, Juno and the Paycock. There were several brilliant leads in this play – Ian Austin was incredibly good as Joxer Daley, Les McWilliam as the Paycock, Gwen Smith as his wife, ‘Juno’, Bill ? as their son Johnny, and I think Patricia Smith as their daughter, who became pregnant to the English lawyer, played by Hugh Buckham.  I mention Hugh because, 40 years later, he acted in a play in which our son Timothy played the lead role of the King of France.

I had three roles in the play – a coal block seller (crying ‘Blocks! Coal Blocks!) offstage; an IRA soldier leading Johnny off to his execution; and  a concerned neighbour comforting Juno after her world had collapsed.

I was the Wicked Coachman in Joan Whalley’s production of Pinocchio, for the Lord Mayor’s Pantomime in December 1964. I have a magnificent photo of me in that role.

The last role I played was in Paul Sherman’s production of Macbeth, which featured some truly wonderful actors, including Lenore Caton, Carol Burns (later to become a star of Prisoner) as two of the three witches; Paul himself as MacDuff, and Michael Caton (of The Castle, The Sullivans and other shows) as the drunken gatekeeper. One night, the actor playing Macbeth was ill, so Paul played Macbeth and MacDuff, except, of course, in their sword fight scene. Paul is something of a legend in his complete knowledge of most of Shakespeare’s plays, word for word. He has also written several books on aspects of Australian history, and is a fascinating character, someone I have been privileged to know.

I think I had a part in The Mayor of Muckadilla, written and directed by Alan Denby, and possibly a small role in Our Town, a beautiful Thornton Wilder play, with Brian Cannon as the Narrator, Patricia Jones as the lead role, and Ernie Nichols in another major part.

Two other important events stand in my memory from 1964 to the first half of 1965.

At one of our Chermside Street parties, with much alcohol, witty and largely gay conversation, I had my first personal, practical experience of heterosexual connection. A young woman from the theatre, a few years older than me, asked to see the view from the window of my bedroom, the small sunroom at the back of the flat.

We went into the room, she closed the door, grabbed me, and, in the next ten minutes, guided me into the mysteries of man/woman stuff. I do not claim that I was seduced against my will, because I know that I was a willing, if inexpert participant, and found it urgent and in part enjoyable. But, in truth, somewhat disappointing.

Those of you who know me well may have sensed that, beneath this rugged, rough exterior lies a sensitive, romantic soul. Although I knew next to nothing about the intricacies about The Act, it had always been, in my eyes, something which happened after two people built a relationship based on mutual interest, friendship, and then deepened into something more serious.

What happened on that night was not romantic; it was a one-night stand. I found out later that my partner in my loss of innocence was someone who simply enjoyed sex. As it happened, I was the only straight man at the party, and I was chosen because of that. Again, I was a willing, if bemused player in that game.

The other important happening was a young lady named Anne, who had attended All Hallows School, and was a qualified Speech and Drama teacher. Somehow I found the nerve to ask her out for coffee, then to a theatre show. We held hands a lot, and, because Anne was a Catholic, I went with her, several times, to church. She lived with her parents at an Albion address that I still remember.

Because I KNEW that I was nowhere near good enough for Anne, I wrote a poem for her, gave it to her, and, a few weeks later, she told me she had met another. Sigh!

 For Anne

This happiness will not last long,

A brief moment of bliss,

A treasured hour or two;

And then it will be gone.

But, while it still remains,

Let us be happy,

For I have never known

A sweeter time than this.

---

[1] I sent off 4 or 5 audition tapes, and was successful with one, but the news came on the day I was called up for National Service.

[2] Lindsay went on to marry Barry Otto, nowadays a noted actor, and their daughter is Miranda Otto, who is even more famous than her parents.

[3] For my younger readers, ‘camp’ was the old ‘gay’. I’m not sure if it was used for both sexes, so I don’t mean to insult anyone by omission.

[4] After I had worked out who was camp and who was square, I realised that I was the ONLY straight bushranger! (Well, I thought it was amusing).

[5] One of my purposes in writing this … document, is to continue the process of understanding how I came to be who I am today. This particular piece of personal philosophy is something which I worked out some years ago, and have shared with many of my TAFE students.

[6] Graeme and Gary would possibly dispute this, and certainly nowadays they are tidier than ever Ron was.

[7] You guessed it! I can and will sing the song if asked.