My Life: A True Study of Murphy's Law

By John A Smyth

I know what you are going to say – this could not really happen to one man. But I swear my story is true, although there are many out there who wish to change it or conceal it. I am nearly at the end now and all I really want is for my story to be told. No more lies, no more bearing the blame for things that others have done. My story is a story of resilience – every time I fell down, I picked myself up and began my story anew. All I ever wanted was to live in a just society, provide for my family and to live in peace. When I list the places I have lived and worked - Ireland, China and Manila in particular - you will understand why justice and peace were sometimes hard to find. Yet even in Australia, trouble found me in my quiet little corner.
My story starts in Ireland, where I was a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary – the RUC. The RUC were not Catholic or Protestant. What we believed was that those who chose the violent route were the ones in the wrong, regardless of which side they were on. We were on the side of the law and we came from all walks of life.
After being responsible for the arrest of a high ranked IRA bomb-maker, an occupational hazard when you work undercover for the RUC, I found myself on the IRA hit list and quickly moved my family to Australia. Here I become involved in trade with China when they were first opening up. I hosted the first Chinese Trade Delegation to Australia. But what seemed like a huge opportunity became my worst nightmare. From working with the Chinese to manufacture mining equipment, I found myself embroiled in spy games. At first it seemed harmless, basically I was a messenger, but somehow I wound up as the main go-between China and an Australian arms manufacturer, and as a spy for ASIO and the Brits. I was eventually bankrupted by the CIA when I would not spy for them. This was the biggest heartbreak in my life – my business went broke, my investors lost huge sums of money, my family lost our home and I had to take the blame for it all. It appeared my business had simply gone broke and I could not tell anyone the truth. This secret has eaten at me for many, many years. It was at this time that I lost my wife, in spirit at least. Too many secrets and too much time away from home.
Yet even that could not hold me down. I became involved in foreign exchange in Manila to try to recover from some of my debts. It was reasonably lucrative and it seemed I would regain a position of financial security, even if my reputation in Australia was in tatters. Then I met the Sale brothers and I discovered firsthand how corruption really worked for the big players in the Marcos’ regime. Luckily (or unluckily) I was operating right at the end of his time, and my fight for justice was eventually rewarded. I was found by the courts to be the legal owner of goods stolen from me. However financially, the news was not so good. The Sale brothers, who, supported by a corrupt army, had stolen my warehouse full of goods, had already sold the goods. It was a win on paper only, yet it was a part of the greater move in Manila away from corruption and towards a more equitable system.
I returned to Australia, having by now a new wife and a small son. Yet still peace and quiet were not to be mine. I live in the bush, almost in the middle of a national park. Bushfires are not infrequent and at Christmas time in 2001, they were very bad. The NSW Premier needed a scapegoat and somehow events conspired to deliver me to him on a plate. I had to fight for my innocence yet again in court, facing libel accusing me of being an arsonist. Again I won, but too late for my reputation and with a heavy hit on my finances.
These are the stories I want people to hear. I want people to understand how I got in the messes that seemed to follow me around. So often I was cast as the scapegoat. Over and over I have proved myself, often in court, not to be the bad guy people want me to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John A Smyth
• Release date: Nov 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310641473

John A Smyth

I have had a life so action packed it is hard to believe. At one stage when I was being tested for short term memory loss, I was just chatting to the nurse about my life. She and the doctor then decided I was delusional and needed to be locked up. Luckily my GP convinced them I was sane so I am still a free man today.In the words of Dylan Thomas,"Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rage at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light."I rage against ASIO, who used me while it suited their purposes and dropped me like a hot potato when the CIA tried to take over. All too often I hear in the news about Australian businessmen caught "spying" in China. Each snippet makes me wonder how many innocents were convinced to do their patriotic duty - and were left holding the baby when things didn't go as planned.I want to warn people to think twice about getting involved in seemingly harmless things in the name of patriotism. It could cost you, as it did me, your wife and your house. For some, I suspect it has cost something even more precious - freedom.

Book preview

Chapter 1– The Beginning

I was born just before the end of the Second World War. I grew up wanting to go to sea because many of my uncles and great uncles had been in the navy. Being war-time, like many families, these ‘boys’ who didn’t come home were heroes and I was eager to follow them – to sea at least. Life was not easy after the war as even basic necessities like food were in short supply for many years. Right from kindergarten, I walked to school every day regardless of the weather. There were no school buses in those days. My primary school was the same one my father and my grandfather had attended. I still remember how we all carried pen knives to sharpen our pencils and we used to sharpen them on a sandstone block near the entrance to the classrooms. The sandstone had a deep arc worn by many knife blades. Of course now you would not give a young child a knife to carry around and you would probably be expelled for taking one to school. How times change.

At the age of 11, I began secondary school at Newtownards Technical College. From the ages of 11 to 16 I studied there, fascinated by the sciences and, most especially, by electrical engineering. My best mate Allen Lynch and I were a teacher’s worst nightmare. We played every prank possible on the teachers that we could with a 1.5 volt battery and a step up transformer, which gave us 1000 volts to play with. It wouldn’t kill a teacher but it certainly hurt.

At 16, with great marks in everything but English – I passed but I think they were feeling generous – I headed off to become an electrician’s apprentice. I was apprenticed to a company called Harland and Wolfe who were ship builders and for whom my father worked. During my apprenticeship I continued my studies three nights a week and on Monday ‘day release’ which was paid by Harland and Wolfe. I was assigned to work in the missile control compartments of the HMS Kent. It was top secret, state-of-the-art technology and to work on it I had to sign Official Secrets documents. Along with my electrical work mates, we had a one day course on possible espionage and we were shown a film about how a voluptuous Russian spy (Olga – to this day I remember her name) might use her feminine wiles to extract information from us. It was the general consensus that none of us could be so lucky. Little did I know how signing that document would affect my life in later years, nor how feminine wiles might one day indeed – to my delight – be used on me.

While at the shipyards, I started a small business on the side fixing people’s television sets. My ‘small business’ was soon earning me more than my wages and life changed quite dramatically once I had a few quid in my pocket. I started going out with a young lady called Beverley Dosser. Her father was very wealthy and he seemed to like me, even lending me his E-type Jaguar to drive his daughter around in. Hanging out with Beverley was great. Her father owned five of the Belfast dance halls and drinks went on his tab when Beverley and I were there. One of my work mates who I occasionally played soccer with used to join me drinking on Beverley’s expense account. He was none other than George Best. It was not long after that he became a great international soccer star who never had to buy a drink again. It was a wonderful time in my life.

1 My mum insisted on a studio photo before I went to sea

After my apprenticeship was complete, I went to work as an electrical engineering officer for British Petroleum – BP. I worked on their massive tankers and began to see the world. There was one time when my latest ship was in the Clyde shipyards in Scotland for repairs and I got news that my dad had broken his leg falling off an extension ladder and was in hospital. I took leave to go and see him back in Belfast. My mum couldn’t drive so while I was there I used to drive her to the hospital each day. Luckily I was not bored because there was a very happy, vibrant nursing sister looking after him. Her name was Margaret. Within a few days we were dating and I was spending all my time either at the hospital or in the senior nursing quarters external to the hospital. All too quickly the telegram arrived for me to return to the ship as the repairs were almost completed and the vessel had passed its Lloyd’s Certificate. I flew back to Scotland after fond farewells to my parents and Margaret. Margaret and I had become very close, so much so that we corresponded for the rest of my time at sea.

One trip we made was to a place called Perardi in South America – it was located up a river and in the middle of nowhere. It took well over two weeks to reach the mouth of the river and when the pilot came on board and we proceeded up river, there was nothing to see except trees, trees and more trees. As we travelled up the river, the pilot explained that this was mostly virgin jungle (undoubtedly true) and also that tigers were indigenous to the area (not quite so true). The designated point of discharge had the required mooring bollards, but the rest of the area was more like a rampart from the river to a dirt road heading into the endless jungle. Two men on the shore caught the handling ropes and tied off. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a platform with a discharge assembly on huge hydraulic rams came out of the hillside above the trees and passed over to the top of the ship's discharge points. I had never seen anything quite like this before. The ship to shore pipe connections were connected up and an operator in a small control room on the platform signalled for us to start pumping. We began to disgorge our cargo in what was the quickest docking manoeuvre, ship to shore connection and discharge I have ever seen, then or now, anywhere.

The next day at sea the Captain advised us that he had received certain information that was to be treated as confidential. The Vietnam War was now in full swing, so BP tankers had taken up certain runs for the American tanker fleet as the Americans were now persona non grata in certain countries – hence our trip to Perardi. They, in turn, were doing some of BP’s usual runs.

We returned to Hamburg where we took on cargo for Aruba in the Dutch Antilles in the Gulf of Maracaibo. Very few of us had been here as again it was not part of the usual BP runs. This trip was obviously also part of the swap arrangement with the US Government. It was a reasonably long voyage – almost three weeks from Hamburg down to the Dutch Antilles. Unfortunately, during this trip, I had a simple and stupid accident. I slipped on some deck oil and my left leg went sideways, rupturing my cruciate ligament. It was incredibly painful and I ended up with a knee twice the size it should have been. However, there was virtually no medical treatment available at sea as there were no doctors or hospitals and our location was well out of range of any air ambulance seaplane.

I was given bed rest for a while to let the swelling come down and my knee was packed in ice. However, in this condition, without immediate surgery, the ligaments contracted. As the ship was approaching Aruba, the lights of the oil refinery came into view, but all I was looking for was a hospital to see if anything could be done to help me. In 1968, the only hospital in Aruba was a leper colony so I was taken to there.

The most striking thing about the hospital was the two missionaries who were running the leper colony; one was Catholic and the other a Protestant (as was I) - both of them from Belfast! Most seamen in those days carried large boxes of LP vinyl records and I similarly had a reasonable collection. Because of Aruba's isolated location, it was impossible for the two missionaries to purchase presents for each other on special occasions. I was touched by the fact that both missionaries made overtures to me to see if they could get some LPs from me to give their opposite number. It seemed almost hysterical that the Catholic priest was trying to buy records of the July 12 celebrations, a Protestant victory over the Catholics at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, to give to his Protestant counterpart. The converse was also true, with the Protestant minister selecting all the IRA rebel songs to give to his Catholic colleague.

Much as I enjoyed talking to fellow countrymen, the problem was they weren’t doctors and could offer no real assistance for my ruptured ligament. They could only provide general care while I awaited evacuation. Eventually I was flown to Honduras and then on to a connecting flight to New York, where I was promptly locked up (it was not my first time - it wasn’t usual for seamen to run afoul of authorities in the various ports we visited and I was no angel) – this time in the small jail at the international airport. The reason for this was that during the flight I met a company director who very kindly plied me with alcohol at his pace of drinking. By the time we deplaned in New York, I was hobbling, mostly (as I remember it) because of my leg injury, and attracted too much attention because of my inability to walk properly.

On my release, I was escorted to my flight back across the Atlantic to the UK. I was advised by BP to go to the hospital at Dundee University in Scotland where I was to see a Professor Smiley who was a sports injury expert and orthopaedic surgeon. Unfortunately for me, I learned that by now there was not much that could be done for my leg, but he did suggest we could try an operation to give me a ‘back lock’ knee, which would allow me to stand and walk normally after some practice. He also asked if my leg could be photographed for his textbooks because the small curvature in my leg was a classic case of over-exercising in my earlier years. The operation was duly performed in Belfast and after about a month I was able to drive a car again and my leg slowly improved until I was almost fully mobile again.

The BP doctor did not see it the same way. He advised me that I was now considered to be medically disabled, even though I had regained my mobility. I was pensioned off and given a disablement pension of 15% for my troubles. This was absolutely devastating for me - the life I loved so much was now denied to me.

I pondered what to do with my life now. It seemed strange not having a job and having to worry about the future. Over my several years at sea, I had been to South Africa, Canada and Australia as well as most coastal countries. I considered where the best place to make a new start would be, because Ireland, and especially the North, had always had what was referred to as ‘The Troubles’. Largely because of this, I did not really want my offspring to be brought up in Ulster. Additionally, I had kept up my friendship with Margaret. With her having a Catholic father and me being Protestant, when I asked her to marry me it made sense to immigrate to Australia. We dismissed Canada because of its cold weather and South Africa because we had a problem with apartheid. We applied to the Australian Embassy in London to migrate which in those days was a simple matter. My wife-to-be was a registered nursing sister so she had no problem being accepted and nor had I with my electrical qualifications. We organised our wedding after receiving our visas to migrate and three days later we were on our honeymoon aboard the ‘Angelina Laura’, a migrant ship Australia-bound.

2 The Angelina Lauro

3 The wedding in Ireland

4 The wedding in Ireland

3 The wedding in Ireland

We ended up in Mount Isa where our son Andrew was born – a happy baby, content to sit in the shade for hours on a small lawn with the flies and dust all around.

4 Andrew and I in Mount Isa

Meanwhile, we worked with a friend we had met on the way over to build a small block of flats with money earned from the mines. We had plans for five flats, but we decided to complete two of them first so we could stop paying rent to others. It was hard, hard work. The ground was solid rock so it was with jack hammers and explosives that we excavated the foundations. We eventually finished the first two flats and both families moved in. This was luxury as we now lived on our work site, making building progress easier and faster.

I needed to do two years’ servitude in Australia to be granted citizenship and I had about ten weeks to go before I would satisfy the condition when I received a letter from my father. My mother had had cancer when I left home but was thought to be in remission. Suddenly it was back and her dying wish was to see her grandson before she departed this world.

We increased the speed of fitting out the two flats so that we could sell them prior to our departure from Australia. The sale turned out to be much easier than we thought because the bank bought both flats from us. The day after our citizenship requirement was fulfilled we flew out of Australia back to Northern Ireland.

Chapter 2 – Back in Ulster

So here we were back in Northern Ireland in 1970, I had been overseas for four years, and immediately we were aware of the tense situation known as ‘The Troubles’. There had always been a divide between Catholics and Protestants as I grew up but it had never affected everyday life to any great extent.

In the first twenty-one years of my life I had grown up with friends and neighbours of both Christian dominations. From the time we were sixteen years old, my mates and I would go on holidays together circumnavigating Ireland, either hitchhiking or, once we could drive, in our own cars. We knew every Royalist, Republican and blue song written. Along with others of our age from both sides of the border we would drink, sing songs and chase girls, far more interested in their bodies and cheeky smiles than their religion. As condoms were banned in Eire we smuggled boxes across the border to help fund our holidays. When we had any spare money on our return home we would buy butter as it cost double the price in Ulster.

The only drug in Ireland at that time was alcohol and that could be obtained at a pub or by buying local distilled whiskey at the same pub from under the counter. The only person hated by all was the customs and excise man. These were the idyllic memories I had when my family and I arrived back in Ulster, although we had been aware of some killings and some bombing atrocities by both sides as Margaret and I had been members of the Irish Club in Mount Isa. There had always been extremists on both sides but they had been a very small minority and were generally condemned by the majority of both denominations. But now there was open hostility between many on both sides.

On returning home in 1970, I was astounded by the change in religious attitudes, especially the growth of intolerance. The middle ground or silent majority had diminished beyond comprehension. The paramilitary organisations on both sides required funding and monies came from many sources - the USA, Colonel Gaddafi, big businesses, bank robberies, insurance scams and from the introduction of heavy drugs for the first time in Irish history. It had become easy to have someone killed for a fee and then to collect on their insurance.

Initially we moved in with my parents, much to my mother's delight. Our intention was still to return to Australia but we decided to buy a place in Bangor to live in temporarily and to keep it as an investment when we went back to Australia. But to buy a house meant a mortgage and a mortgage meant a job. So I applied for a shift engineer job with the Michelin Tyre Company and got an interview.

On the day of the interview, I was escorted into a very large room and introduced to a man in his thirties who had been hired for that day from the unemployment bureau. The Michelin staff member pointed to a neatly stacked bundle of timber and a wooden mallet lying on the floor, but I was informed I was not allowed to touch any of the tools or the timber. I was to supervise the labourer to erect a structure, I was handed an isometric sketch of the completed object and told I had sixty minutes. The Michelin staff member started his stopwatch and sat down to watch.

I introduced myself to my assistant and asked him about his general skills. He informed me he had never done anything like this before and had in fact been unemployed for seven years - why was I not surprised?

I began by getting him to sort the pile of timber into common lengths and sizes and to count the number of each size. Looking at the sketch it was easy to see which timbers were posts, beams and cross bracing. I explained the plan to him and got him to lay out two sides on the floor, then the two ends. We would put in the cross bracing when we stood the sections up in position.

As he started to knock the mortise and tenant joints together it became clear they were not the same sizes: this was a jigsaw. I asked if a tape measure was available and the answer was no. The only things in my pockets were a pen, a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches which I produced and handed to my assistant. I told him to mark the sizes using the match box and cigarette packet and then find the corresponding matching piece.

There was no comment from the examiner. By following this procedure, we were able to find the appropriate matching pieces without manhandling the heavy timber. This proved to be quite efficient. When he had assembled the opposing long sides on the floor, he dragged one side into a vertical position against the wall. We used the same methodology to fit the ends to the vertical side against the wall and then fitted the opposite posts to allow the frame to be self-supporting standing on the floor. It was now easy to complete the frame by fitting the last two long lengths and finally hammer the joints together. The job was complete. I thanked my assistant for his fine effort and suggested he might like to sit down and have a break.

The examiner asked if I had finished and stopped the stopwatch, noting the time on his paperwork and dismissing the casual labourer. He advised me that Michelin would be in contact with me within a couple of days. I felt confident the day had gone well and that I was almost the owner of a new home. As I was driving home I thought that this was the oddest interview I had ever done, believing it was all over. But it was not.

Three days later I received a call from Michelin advising me that I had progressed to the final interview which would be held in Stoke-on-Trent in England and would last for three weeks. I was dumfounded as I was informed that my ticket was in the post and I would be required on-site the following Monday morning - in just five days’ time.

Now Stoke-on-Trent is not the most beautiful area in England. It is world renowned for its fine pottery industry and, to a much lesser extent, as the UK headquarters of Michelin. I reported to the office as directed along with another eleven hopefuls. Somehow it felt less nerve racking than the previous interview as there were at least others in the same boat and there was the possibility of comradeship.

There was a brief rundown of what was in store for us over the next three weeks; I’m sure the majority of the blokes’ jaws fell. For myself, I was wondering what on earth I was doing here, especially after Mount Isa. The weather was freezing even though it was summer.

We were given a written daily schedule with comprehensive details of our tasks. We each had to give 2 one hour lectures, one on a topic of our choice and one on a topic of their choice. Then there was a three day exercise to build a bridge over a river in the country. Everything we did was going to be subjected to time and motion studies and reports. I could see why we needed three weeks - if we all had to give two lectures of one hour duration, the presentations alone would take three days. I had hopes that the bridge building might also turn out to be good sport. Disappointingly, this was not to be the case.

As the first day moved along I discovered that one of the other applicants was staying at the same address as me, although the trip to our accommodation was the first chance we had to have a conversation. Instantly we recognised each other’s accents; we were both from Northern Ireland. What a coincidence, I initially thought. On arrival at our dwelling, the landlady directed us both to a small back bedroom with two single beds pushed hard against opposite walls. There was only a small gap between the beds. Bloody hell!

As Kevin and I got to know each other a little better, he figured out I was a Protestant and I already knew he was most probably Catholic by his name and from the area he lived in Belfast. He jokingly suggested we should put razor wire coils in the gap between our beds; this was what he was used to, living near the Falls Road. We got on well together with the common goal of getting a good job within Michelin. I asked him if he thought it was a coincidence that we were thrown together in this lousy accommodation. To the best of our knowledge we were the only persons sharing a room. We decided this was no accident but was a test of our character in regard to religious tolerance.

On our first morning we managed to scoff down a bacon and cheese sandwich with a mug of tea in the Michelin canteen before we headed to class. Our instructor was awaiting the arrival of around half the class when we arrived. On the dot of the appointed hour the instructor began even though two interviewees were still missing. The late pair had to stand outside and await permission to enter. After around five minutes they were allowed in and told that on this occasion they could join the class as they were new in town and were staying some distance from the factory. However, we were informed, should anyone else find themselves running late again, don’t rush. Just go to your accommodation, pack your belongings and go back to wherever you came from. We got the message loud and clear that punctuality was one of their strictest requirements.

Before leaving us to our own devices, the instructor opened a sealed envelope and read out the list of Michelin chosen topics for each of us. I had to lecture on chess, which I knew nothing about, but my feelings really went out to my roommate who had to speak about matchsticks.

The instructor left us to begin working on our first lecture, our chosen topic. I had chosen to discuss the Kalkadoon Aboriginal Tribe of Queensland which was now almost extinct, save one female member who had been presented to the Queen on the Queen’s visit to Mount Isa earlier that year.

Lucky for me, Kevin was good at sketching as this was not on my skills list. I acquired four sheets of A1 heavy drawing paper and a box of coloured pencils from the front office to portray several different Aboriginal cultural events. Kevin sketched four ritual events with great skill from my stick creature sketches - I was proud of his work. These drawings included one showing their birth control method of using hot stones to cauterise the fallopian tubes of those women who were not considered the best breeding stock. In return I wrote in point form the history of the matchstick and assisted him with his chosen lecture subject ‘The History of Ireland’. No surprises there.

The day arrived to deliver our selected topics. There were fifty minutes for delivery and ten minutes of class questions. The first interviewee to speak had a PhD in chemistry, specialising in polymer chains. He may as well have been speaking Chinese. We sat there trying to look interested but gradually our collective eyelids began to close. When he finished, we politely applauded. When he asked for questions, there was a long, deadly silence. What had I just learned? Always speak to the lowest common dominator.

In turn, I addressed the class with my chosen topic. This was the first time so much had depended on a good delivery and presentation and it was only the second time I had done such a thing; the previous time was at my wedding. I could see the class was interested in my topic and were surprised, judging from their expressions. They became engrossed in the rites to manhood and in the realisation that people were able to understand the human body around fifty thousand years before us. The ten minute question time was terminated by the instructor after twenty minutes, much to the group’s disappointment. Later that day I was asked to donate the drawings for future training courses. Before handing them over I got Kevin to sign each of them and he was proud to do so.

It took two days for the class to present all their own topics. As the presentations were made I watched the instructor make notes - not that I could see them but I could hear the trigger points that caused him to put pen to paper. I was learning! The one hour class lectures to address the Michelin topics then began. Eventually (finally!) it was time to go and build the bridge. We were told to meet in class the next morning with the necessary apparel for a two night stay in a pub. We met at Michelin, boarded a bus with our overnight bags and headed to the country. I don’t remember the location; I just remember it was freezing. As soon as we dropped our gear at the pub we were driven directly to the appointed site which was not too much further on. We followed a dirt path and crossed an old stone bridge over a four metre wide river to see a large stack of wooden beams.

We assembled beside the timber stack and were addressed by a Michelin staff member. The rules were that the pile of beams was enough to build and complete the bridge; there was just one sketch of the bridge assembly. The beams were all mortise and tenant joints which could be joined by knocking them together with a supplied wooden mallet. The bridge when completed had to connect both sides of the river. There were sufficient ropes to enable the bridge to be moved across the river. The stone bridge we had just crossed over could only be used for entry and egress each day, but not used while building the bridge. There was another stone bridge we could use, however it was six kilometres downstream. In theory, the river was full of crocodiles and could not be swum across.

To me the obvious and immediate act was to have a brief meeting and select the one of us who was most qualified to resolve it or at least to suggest possible methods to achieving the goal. We had been together for almost two weeks but really we did not know each other’s backgrounds, other than that they were varied and diverse. The instructor had explained that we were being evaluated in regard to our individual personal skills and that this was not a competition between us as we were all being considered for different positions in the overall running of Michelin. Despite this, we had been adversarial, maybe not by intention but just by our natures. We were all looking to impress and qualify for a Michelin staff job in one of their factories or laboratories and that meant putting our best foot forward.

If this had been in the Australian bush we would have selected a foreman organiser, sent someone to the pub for a keg of beer and got on with it. Here we had not only a diverse set of skills and professions but egos as well. Most completely missed the point of the exercise which was to turn individuals into an efficient team.

I had a look at the sketch of the bridge and made a rough copy; basically it was two trapezium shaped sides connected together by same sized beams top and bottom. I made a quick calculation of the overall weight when completed and realised we were not going to get it across the river in its totality as it would weigh around two tons or more depending on the mass of the wood used. Moreover the bridge was not long enough to get across the river by just pulling as its centre of gravity would cross over the working bank long before the leading end would reach the other side of the river bank, thus tipping our bridge into the river. We would be unable to pull it while also supporting its weight without mid river supports.

I became aware of someone behind me looking over my shoulder at my notes. I stood up to find one of the Michelin observers and we introduced ourselves briefly.

‘Have you any ideas to solve the problem, and if so, would you like to share them with me?’ I realised it was not a polite question but information for the Michelin assessments, as the observer had a clipboard under his arm.

I explained what I had observed, my rough weight calculations, the length of bridge, the assessed width of the river and my previous interview experience of building timber work with different sized mortise and tenant joints, suggesting this would be similar or it would be far too easy to build in the allotted time.

‘That still leaves the problem,’ he said, ‘of getting the bridge across the river for all the reasons you just mentioned. How are you going to resolve that problem?’

I told him my plan of building both trapeziums then inserting a floor cross brace at each end of one. We could then pull one across the river and stand it up - which would also give us permanent access across the river. Then we could pull the other trapezium across and attach it to the existing floor plates when stood up. Immediately fitting both headers would secure and stabilise the bridge.

‘One thing you have not addressed; how do you get the manpower across the river to pull over the bridge sections as they are of considerable weight?’

‘Ah!’ I replied, ‘That was the first thing I resolved. You did not stipulate that we had to start work on that side of the river, only that we could not return if we had already crossed the bridge.’

He told me to sit down again while he spoke to the boss and to speak to no one until his return. In around five minutes he returned with another man, presumably the boss, who quickly introduced himself. He inquired if I had spoken to any Michelin staff prior to applying for my engineering position with the company. I explained I had been in Mount Isa in Australia until four weeks ago and the only people in Michelin I had spoken to were at interviews. He pondered a minute then told me to keep my thoughts to myself and just to follow the others, not to lead.

Sadly, the bridge never crossed the river; it was never even fully assembled despite a plethora of people willing to lead. There was always too much dissent among the remainder, thus progress was painfully slow. As far as I was concerned the only good thing about the exercise was the local pub, but I don’t believe I ever felt warm even though it was late summer. It was so bloody cold!

Back in class a few of the more egotistical souls wanted to hold an impromptu post-mortem on bridge building before the arrival of our lecturer, but it petered out after a few minutes of conversation, leaving only the shaking of heads.

On our last evening, Michelin put on a meal and grog for the class in a nearby pub. The next day, Thursday, we had to take our kit to class as we would be heading directly home after we individually were told our job futures. Win or lose I would be home on Friday, thank God!

The general consensus of the class was that we all must have passed otherwise we would not be going to the party. That was the only evening I did not ring home. As parties go, it wasn’t bad. The food was fine and drinking was very moderate at the beginning, but very slowly the pace increased as Michelin put one hundred pounds on the bar for our consumption, a nice gesture if you could drink the local warm brew which had been a problem for me over the past weeks. There were several sore heads in class the next morning as we sat with our belongings, awaiting our final verdicts.

Our least favourite instructor, the time and motion man, walked through the class with a number of files under his arm and entered the ante room without a word. Any elation in the class changed to foreboding instantly; we had assumed everything was in the bag, but apparently it was not.

The first person was called to the ante room by surname only; he was the PhD chemist who had put us to sleep with the first lecture. We were unable to hear any voices and wondered how it was going when a security guard entered the classroom, went to the ante room and escorted the victim from the classroom with his belongings. No goodbyes, nothing. He didn’t even make eye contact with any of us. Shit!

The same monotonous procedure continued until there were only three of us left. I think we were sweating blood, because this was an annihilation of our class. The next surname was called and there were now only two fragile green bottles awaiting their impending doom. However, this time we saw our friend stand up with the time and motion man and shake hands. He then re-joined us and sat down. As he did so, he put one arm behind his back and gave us a thumb’s up.

‘SMYTH!’ I heard. I don’t know why the voice caught me by surprise but it did. I entered the room and was invited to sit down. The instructor opened by explaining his real job description - he was a psychiatrist specialising in recruitment for different companies and agencies. For the first time in my life I was shown myself reflected as clearly as in a mirror. Some of it was not complimentary however he pointed out that some of us are more individuals than others and that this was an asset. He spoke briefly about some of my results in class, then stood up, shook my hand and welcomed me to Michelin. I returned to my seat as the last lamb entered his office.

Our instructor gave us a Michelin expense sheet to fill out for out of pocket expenses, although the accommodation, such as it had been, was paid by them. We were also advised our staff salaries would be backdated to the beginning of this final exam. I could hardly wait to get to a phone to break the good news to Margaret.

Oddly we three did not celebrate. We were certainly elated with our success but we were also genuinely deflated by the other departures (to my dismay, this included Kevin) and were very tired. I made a quick telephone call to Northern Ireland to advise my wife of my successful employment. My first words to Margaret were, ‘I got the job!’ Completely deflating me, she replied, ‘I know. The Norwich Building Society rang yesterday to say Michelin had advised them they could proceed.’ Margaret was elated with the imminent prospect of moving into our new home in Bangor. I kept thinking if I had only rung last night, today would have been an awful lot easier.

If I now thought my studying days were over, I was severely mistaken. Firstly, I had to spend a month familiarising myself with the tyre making process. Then I was sent to the Ballymena factory which was about to be officially opened to study the very heavy tyre machinery process. Finally, I was to be sent to Dundee in Scotland to study one of the prototype machines being tested there and report back. On top of all this, I had to study pneumatic logics, hydraulic logics and Telemecanique logics which were revolutionising and replacing conventional contactor control systems.

On my first day, the day shift engineer, Ivor, produced some paperwork to allow me to sign for anything I required from stores or the canteen. He was very interested to hear about the three week interview as it had not been required when he had joined the company several years ago at the Belfast factory. When I told him of the antics we had been put through and that I had just arrived back from Australia just over a month ago, he pronounced me ‘mad’.

‘But you will soon see being mad will help you here,’