The Last Seaman

By Wayne Ward

Marty Leigh has wanted to go to sea ever since he was a boy growing up outside the Queen Victoria Markets. Despite his fathers misgivings and insistence that Marty learn a trade, Marty is determined to see his dream come true. When he is nearly seventeen, Marty takes the first step and signs up to be a deck boy. Now all he has to do is wait.

Two weeks later, Marty receives a call that he is to set sail on the SS Barwon immediately. With his young heart beating wildly, his blood racing through his veins, and his suitcase held together with a leather strap, Marty climbs his first gangway and begins a new life. All the union asks of him is loyalty in exchange for dignity, strength, and close association with his own kind. As Marty attempts to acclimate to life at sea, he has no idea that one day far into the future, he will walk down his last gangway as a bitter, disillusioned man irrevocably changed by the sea.

In this historical tale, a teenager embarks on a remarkable coming-of-age adventure where he quickly learns that it is not he who controls his destiny, but the sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jul 28, 2006
• ISBN: 9781412214070

Wayne Ward

Wayne Ward is the author of six novels all with a maritime theme, reflecting his long life at sea. Joining his first ship in 1955 he soon realised the bond that united seamen and made them warriors of the working class, the forefront of struggle against the establishment. It imbued in him a sense of belonging to a band of self-efficient men who at sea couldnt call the fire brigade, emergency services, ambulance, confessor, or respite from the fiercest and most unforgiving element on earth, the sea. Saltwater Messiahs barely ripples the surface of an era when the working class with a united voice could and did dictate terms to government and employers. Sadly, no more are the seamen who briefly coloured this drab world with their presence, their unconquerable spirit and their grim determination to right wrongs. Many renowned writers have written about the sea, some even experiencing it, Wayne Ward the latter recording an era far removed from the sterile environment of modern shipping. His three sons are master mariners, a single partner in life living on the serene shores of Wangi Wangi, Lake Macquarie.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

L IGHT RAIN LIKE A gossamer veil drifted over the grey waters of the broad, sluggish river. Its icy cloak obscured the rugged, heavily timbered mountains forming the escarpment of the river valley. To the south rose a rugged hinterland, a mountain range with its highest peaks capped in snow.

Through the mist the bow of a small trawler emerged, struggling against the ebbing tide. Succumbing to the elements and a long life of neglect wore away the name on its dented bow. Seagulls squabbled, soared, dipped, wheeled in a feeding frenzy by the stern where two deckhands in yellow oilskins worked. Pelicans, with the odd beat of their wings, observed from high above, their bellies full from the rich feeding grounds of Bass Strait.

For the men gathered in the hallway nervous glances at the clock. Bitterly cold, nose tingling mustiness of century old rising damp permeating the air. Shuffling of feet, the occasional cough smothered in a cupped hand. Even though smoking in the building forbidden the odour of illicit smoke lingered. New burn marks in the worn threadbare carpet.

Marty Leigh moved closer to the door at the end of the hallway, using his coat sleeve to wipe clear a glass panel. Only reference of the fishing boat’s passing the fading sound of its labouring motor, the shrill cries of seagulls.

Taped on a door a notice: Examination Room Group F IRR 1000 hours.

Soon the thirty-two men in the hallway would file through the door to sit their final examination, engineering three. In under one hour the ordeal would be over, a mass fleeing of the building with new titles. Relegated to musty files in mercantile marine offices their old titles of AB, greaser, ordinary seaman, fireman, boiler attendant, motorman. From this day on multi-skilled, integrated ratings, IRs.

Marty pressed his nose against the damp glass; through a mist shrouded hawthorn hedge he could make out the dark mass of Investigator Hall, their home for the past nine weeks. Mattresses teeming with influenza bugs, thriving and breeding in damp kapok. Other germs lurked which caused noses to run, throats to burn, itching in old lifejackets, smoky firemen’s suits. Breathing other people’s germs in rank corridors, in cold classrooms. Always in mind the fear if you got sick you were left behind. Failure meant a return to this terrible place, humiliation. Sickness, incarceration, misery, brain-numbing indoctrination, all secondary to the purpose of passing, becoming an IR. No excuses accepted except death. Not an exaggeration, some thought.

Mr White, Master-of-Newnham-Residences, ridiculed the mattress rumour: Everyone who comes to the college has this fallacy in their minds the mattresses are full of exotic diseases. Rest assured it is not so.

Marty like many didn’t believe him, dragging his mattress out on the balcony and scrubbing it with full strength bleach and cloudy ammonia. Preferable sleeping on bare linoleum for a week waiting for it to dry. Over the entire course he never itched or caught the flu, one of the very few who resided in the cold and damp concrete blockhouses of Investigator Hall.

On the grassy banks of the Tamar River the Australian Maritime College in no circumstances could be compared to a prison, though a large number who passed through its halls of learning referred to it as such. University level, an echelon of maritime science and training based on strict authoritarian principles needed to maintain discipline with a student age range from thirty to sixty years. Classes of hardened, strong willed and determined seamen. Seamen who fought a class struggle against authority now reduced to a grim fact of life if you failed your future at sea ended.

Dignity gouged from men through a sequence of events which made them compliant students with a schoolbag slung over their shoulders. Forced to sit in cramped desks and stare at whiteboards. Listen with failing ears, stare with weakened eyes, absorb knowledge imparted by people traditionally not trusted, and in many cases treated as the enemy. Grown men scrawling hurried notes near impossible to decipher in notebooks. Suffer in this place of academia the fear of the unknown; a common bond, the dread of failure ruled their lives.

Lecturers maintained discipline with an effective, tried and proven method of keeping ageing, recalcitrant seamen on a predetermined path. Overload their heads with engine parts, flashing lights, ship construction, stability, balanced rudders, tackles rigged to advantage, panting beams and complex marine systems. When their heads buzzed the lecturers crammed in batteries-in-series-parallel, abandoning ship in the survival pool, rigging technology, watchkeeping, first aid, fire fighting, engineering, machining. Engorged heads throbbed, exhausted bodies putty in manipulative hands. Without doubt the most effective tool guaranteed to turn men into automatons and their inquisitors supreme button pushers, hang the threat of failure over throbbing heads. Also in the armoury, expulsion.

Reality in the clear light of day simple; you learned, you applied, you attended courses. If not, you failed. Failure meant a return to the serene banks of the Tamar River. Years of a profession learned on deck and in engine-room meant nothing here. Ships in the near future would be managed by strict regimes of safety, teamwork, efficiency, cost effective work methods and standards of operational procedures. Seamen would be able to weld, reseat a valve, understand what two blacks balls hoisted on a halyard meant. Oil a main engine, and with minimum numbers commensurate to greater skills, berth a ship. Steer a narrow channel, connect a bunker barge. Men on graduation from the AMC new-age seamen, past knowledge, though of some practical use, of minor value on modern ships.

Some disgruntled seamen believed the retraining of an entire maritime workforce a carefully planned scheme between the Seamen’s Union of Australia and shipowners. Devious means to cull from the industry brain-dead veterans, chronic malingerers, drunks and persistent troublemakers. Probably the hyperbole of troublemakers, the majority with the view retraining and multi-skilling the way forward in the competitive world of shipping. Monthly stopwork meetings, shipboard meetings, where seamen gathered, agreed to survive against foreign shipowners Australian seamen needed to work smarter and longer on their ships, less numbers and revised conditions. Common knowledge that many on the government benches, without exception all those on the opposite side, harboured old grudges against seamen, supporting any move designed to weaken their power base, the Seamen’s Union of Australia. Union officials were aware, similar to their counterparts in the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom, that with the stroke of a pen shipowners could move head offices and fleet registrations to a speck of rock in the deep reaches of the Indian Ocean. Or next door to a Burger King in the West Indies, an icefloe south of Greenland where classification societies were meaningless. As a bonus the opportunity to employ third world labour ignorant of organised labour, guaranteed on low wages to work long, low leave contracts.

Sympathetic to the cause of Australian shipping, a less conservative and right-wing federal government with only a few scores to settle against the Seamen’s Union of Australia brought together bureaucrats, shipowners, maritime unions, in a display of unusual unity and cooperation. Their plan to devise a retraining program to revitalise Australian shipping, so preparing it for survival in the years leading to the new millennium.

Those graduating from the AMC would be smarter and more adaptable, safer working and more efficient seamen. A downside though to reach the appropriate strata of the level playing field their numbers halved. When discovered after a trial period ships were not going aground or disgorging oil in the ocean, numbers cut again. Even so, the hope of surviving in an environment of low-wage crews, tax-free havens, duty-free fuel, government subsidies and sub-standard ships, delicately balanced.

Invigilators late opening the door, the stay of execution excruciating, the men in the hallway growing more nervous and uneasy. Their final exam and still it did not get any easier.

Marty wiped the glass panel again, peering out into the grey murk. Sprawling grounds of the old manor house cut by a road following the course of the river. Gnarled, the ghostly limbs of ancient oaks bare of leaves stood like skeletal sentinels. Like the great elms throughout the estate as seeds these trees journeyed with the convicts condemned by British courts to a life of penal slavery in Van Diemen’s Land. It could well have been an English countryside, a cruel and constant reminder to all transported forcefully or willingly. This idyllic replica could never replace home no matter the grand landscaping and intricate stonework, sweeping lawns and flourishing beds of azaleas and rhododendrons. Outside stone walls and iron gates existed a nightmare world inhabited by heathen blacks, upon the land creatures no sane God could have created, crawling, slithering. Even though the land easily tillable and fertile the first settlers starved. Pure air, water fresh from the mountains, but still disease and contagion decimated their numbers.

Brick and slate, timber and hewn stone, lath plaster and ornate cornice, the rising of Newnham Hall by the gruelling labours of the condemned. Diseased ravaged bodies gripped hoes, mattocks, pulled ploughs to till the soil. Condemned yoked as field animals, brutally whipped to pull trains on wooden rails. Who slept unwashed and hungry in government chains riveted to their bodies for the rest of their pitiful lives. No respite except when herded into church cubicles to give thanks to God for their wretched lives and pray for forgiveness. Heads filled with God’s wrath, herded in their chains to quarry stone, fell and saw timber, fields ploughed and trains to be pulled.

Many who lingered for any length of time in these hallways and cold rooms believed in ghosts. Usually nothing more than the hint of a passing chill, gone as quickly as it appeared. Knowledge that not long ago in this place misery and hopelessness condemned both jailer, settler and convict. In this place easy to be drawn back in time, to imagine women in lace bonnets, flowing crinoline dresses. Soldiers in uniforms; muskets, fixed bayonets. Overseers of their fellow humans toiling in bondage. Blood soaked ground. Image of men hobbling in leg irons, in single file joined by a common chain.

Almost 10:00am and the door remained closed, the men growing more fidgety, uneasy. Through the glass panel he could see the soccer field, shrouded in heavy fog, bounded on its eastern perimeter by a hawthorn hedge, looming above it the brooding mass of Investigator Hall. From the nearest goal a seaman hanged himself. What terrible, irreversible depression gripped him to take his own life? Those waiting in the hallway knew. Those before them knew.

At last the door opened to allow them to pass through in a steady stream into the examination room. Some looked for desks close to the windows, others the door. Some at the back. When seated the wait began, nervous eyes drawn to the four papers face down on their desks. Within the room two invigilators remained aloof and stone-faced; chief engineer whose last ship capsized and sank in the muddy waters of the Pearl River in 1944, 3rd mate who served with the Australian National Line when known as the Australian Shipping Board, twenty-seven years ago, examiner Suresh Marcandan. In this hell it seemed impossible to avoid Captain Marcandan.

Once the dining room of Newnham Hall, the examination room expanded with the removal of pantry and kitchen walls. Behind a large polished teak desk a whiteboard took up most of the wall. Suresh’s deep brown eyes missed nothing; a movement of a piece of paper, a roll of a pencil, a hand feeling about on the floor. Sitting behind the desk with his hands clenched tightly in front of him all remembered his warning from what seemed a lifetime ago: 'If by some misfortune you chance to appear before me in your survival orals, I will ask you what is the function of hydrostatic releases. Fail the question, fail survival.’

Suresh, did not suffer fools or incompetence. Such people hid from reality, reluctant or incapable of learning the basic principles of ships built to protect them in an unforgiving environment. So prevalent at the AMC the indolent who didn’t want to learn the difference between a loll and a list, more specifically why a ship made of steel floated.

Welcome, Group F, to your third and final examination in engineering. My presence here you might find odd conducting this examination, and as such I make apologies for Mr Udo who has other important matters to attend. Remember all four papers have to be completed or attempted.

Final examination. Culmination of nine weeks intensive studies and drills. Deck, bridge operations, engineering, machining, firefighting, first aid, survival, plumbing, electrical, rigging technology, seamanship. Crammed inside their heads, new techniques and outlooks, knowledge to compete and survive in the world of shipping. For ABs gone learning from true seamen who climbed masts doubling Cape Horn in their youth. Ship construction learned by crawling through double bottoms, washing out ballast tanks and digging sludge from bilges.

In about forty or so minutes, four papers completed, Marty would be an IR, never again known as an AB. To lessen stress he tried to centre his mind elsewhere; cord, canvas, caulked timbers, ships manned by true seamen, their passing into history remembered only as glossy prints hung on walls. His old ships, nothing but memories. Minnows compared to modern ships with engine-rooms as large as cathedrals, bow waves powerful enough to swamp small mountains.

Across from him sat Bear. Easily mistaken for a bushranger in his ankle length canvas coat smelling of neat’s-foot oil, his lush beard thick and sprung like wire. Nothing much could daunt this man, but now he sat subdued, apprehensive in a desk too small for his large bulk. A few seats up from Bear Peter their group leader. All anxious even though the majority only needed forty percent for an aggregate pass in engineering. Peter, their elected spokesman, the man responsible for pinning their examination results on cork noticeboards in the dormitories. Lists of six-digit numbers meant to obscure identities, known to everyone after the first posting. Group F’s two delegates hidden somewhere.

When would Suresh commence the examination? Did he take joy in extending their anguish? Think! Let the mind roam free. First day being met by Brian Lee, the union’s fulltime representative at the college, himself an IR. Union’s influence always present; paying the rolling fund, the reading of the federal office report in the lecture theatre on the Tuesday night following the national meetings in the major ports. Sometimes an official visited from Melbourne.

Pee Wee trembled, attempting to make himself smaller so no one would notice his agony, hoping the last few hours of the nightmare would not finally devour him. His teeth chewed on a pencil, his knee banged under the desktop.

Suresh waited for the last invigilator, Dave Johnson, ex-Broken Hill Proprietary Limited 2nd mate. Dave stood in the doorway, saw Pee Wee and moved quickly through the room to stand by his desk.

Comforting hand rested on a trembling shoulder. Remember two terrified apprentices you sent aloft in bosun’s chairs northbound to Yampi Sound? We survived okay because we were taught well, Pee. Old ways, no one ever forgets those ways.

You may turn your papers over. Write your names on each header page. Print clearly. Do not commence marking your papers until you receive my order, Suresh said. Examination will cease in one hour’s time. At the conclusion of this period you will bring your completed papers to my desk.

Marks for this final examination would never be known to the trainees or pinned on noticeboards because tonight all but himself and the Tasmanian IRs would be catching flights home. Marks pass/fail would come in the mail with verification of attainment of the rank of IR, successful completion of the Certificate in Marine Operations.

Marty needed forty percent to pass, Pee Wee eighty percent. After breakfast much to their dismay Group F were required to attend a lecture in the Stables. Liaison officer Brian Lee placated their outrage. It’s not unusual and only lasts a quarter of an hour. Look, listen, remember. Dev is a good teacher and what he puts on the board can be useful information in more ways than one.

Dev, an exceptionally tall Sri Lankan engineer, beamed his dazzling smile, enjoying his ability to impart knowledge. Do not despair, my-impatient-to-be-gone friends, I will only keep you a short while. This last lesson is very important and it should be remembered as you pursue your rewarding careers at sea.

Will it be in the exam? Plaintive call from the front of the class.

May well be. Should be. Important enough to be.

Christ, tell us, yes or no?

Unfortunately I never wrote the paper. On the whiteboard behind him, he wrote quickly:

Identify two purposes of lubrication?

Name two purposes of pumps found in the engine-room?

Identify the four stages of a four stroke diesel engine?

Marty made notes in his book of the answers: Reduce friction, cooling. Ballast, bilge. Induction, compression, power, exhaust.

Dev thumped a closed fist on an open hand. Or better known as suck, squeeze, bang, blow. All of which is quite acceptable on your exam paper.

So it will be in the exam? Again from the front of the class.

Nearly all of you only need a forty percent pass. Some of you have marks so high it is only a requirement of the government you sit this final exam. What is on the board is important. I want you to remember it, imprint it in your mind. Good luck! It has been my pleasure to have taught you, to have known you.

You may commence marking your papers, Suresh said.

Those close to Pee Wee heard his plaintive voice and cringed. Why do these heartless people do this to us? I’m nearly sixty-years-old. I don’t need this. I don’t need to change. I want to do what I have always done. To be left alone to go to sea.

Easy, Pee, easy, Dave sympathised. Take a deep breath, let it out slowly. You know the answers, just get it down on paper. Breathe easy, easy.

Suresh scowled in his invigilator’s direction, Dave moving away.

Pee Wee put his hand up. Have to go to the loo.

Examination has commenced. It is not permitted to leave the examination room until after you have handed in your marked papers.

Please!

Suresh expelled an exasperated breath; he nodded sharply at Dave. Escort him from the room.

Give him an injection of rum or brandy, anything. Marty watched Pee Wee’s frantic, staggering dash for the door. On his return Dave led him back to his desk, still shaking. Jesus, I don’t know what to do, Dave. I don’t understand anything.

Yes you do. You’ve come all this way, passed your exams in your own time. Haven’t turned your papers over yet. It’s all inside your head only needing a small prompt to bring it out.

Every night I study until midnight. When I finish there’s nothing there. It’s gone. Can’t remember a thing.

Start marking your papers.

Can’t.

Dave whispered. Look, you know what a cargo pump, a ballast pump is used for in the engine-room. You know the oil in your car reduces friction. It also cools your engine.

Pee Wee swallowed and nodded feebly.

Make sure your name is always printed clearly. Don’t want to get it mixed up with someone who doesn’t know the old suck, squeeze, bang, blow bit.

Keith Nelson worked through his papers methodically, digesting each question, referring it to stored information inside his head. Quite possible, he mused confidently, this time he might attain the elusive one hundred percent.

Marty turned the blank header page. First question almost as Dev printed on the whiteboard. Fifteen marks. Now if he got his name right he could almost call himself an IR.

Diagram of a propeller shaft: Name the parts.

Closer and closer, a few more marks.

Question: Name four types of valves? Purpose of a SDNR valve?

For certain now.

Question: Explain the function of CPP and FPP?

Questions: Name the parts of a settling tank. Name three types of waste disposal systems. Draw a fire main system. Name the parts of an oil purifier. What do the following tank abbreviations stand for: DB AP FP PWT SWT. Name six maintenance schedules for a hydraulic steering system. Name the parts of a two ram hydraulic steering system. Draw a diagram and show short-break-lines, long-break-lines, hatching, tube.

Finished, though not the first. Minutes before a headlong rush between two at the head of the room to thump down their papers on Suresh’s desk, looks of relief mixed with triumph on their faces. The scraping of desks on the floor grew; stragglers began to panic.

Marty recalled the story of a seaman who only needed the minimum forty percent pass. Reaching the percentage he drew a line under the last question; in black felt tipped pen he wrote: Fuck the SUA I’m out of here. Even though his aggregate marks for the first two engineering exams in the high eighties he failed for not completing the final paper. Punishment a year’s suspension before he could return to complete engineering. Making matters even worse the AMC faxed the offending exam paper to the union’s federal office for comment.

Marty felt at ease with the final paper, thought maybe he might get an eighty. None of the questions slammed the gut like a sledgehammer or caused the brain to freeze. Some might say a piece of cake, a favourite expression of Pee Wee in better times. Though not now; nothing sweet about this hellhole, defining a CPP, control-pitch propeller, how it differed from an FPP, fixed- pitch propeller. Pee Wee knew the function of a screw down non-return valve, but unable to dredge it from his fear of failure mind, locate it in the corner where he stored it.

Once more he scanned the papers; satisfied, he relaxed in his desk. Wait a little longer in the hope his presence would bolster Pee Wee’s spirits. In ten minutes the exam would be over. Keith and Bear gone, only a few left in the examination room. Mecca, his thick red tongue jutting out the corner of his mouth, stared into space and prayed to a higher being.

Pee Wee still struggling with paper two, Marty half turned his head; in a low voice he offered advice to a distraught man. Go through the papers and answer the easy ones first. Tanks are simple, so are the valves. Easy ones first, Pee.

Just want to go home.

We all do. Hope for a miracle for the little man. Now only himself and two others remained in the room, Mecca sweating in panic, Pee Wee gagging on pulped wood from his chewed pencil. Rising stiffly from his desk he staggered, his right leg asleep. Mecca giggled, Pee Wee sobbed.

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Now deserted the hallway, the front door on its rusted hinges thrown back by a frenzied mob fleeing cerebral incarceration. Rubbish bins outside Investigator Hall overflowed with discarded text books, notebooks, reams of loose papers. Schoolbags discarded, pencil cases spilling on the grass. People talking over people, fast, excited.

Morning fog thickened to where even the bulk of Investigator Hall lay hidden in a seemingly impenetrable blanket. Marty no rush to pack his bags, catch a plane to Sydney, short wait for a Newcastle connection. Not yet, not for another three weeks. Passing the goal where a life tragically ended by a short length of rope; at least the seaman knew how to tie the knot correctly to succeed in his last endeavour.

Group F survived. Only one of the thirty-two men would fail, and he passed as an IR when examined at a later date aboard his ship by the chief engineer. When he thought back the nine weeks of challenge definitely changed his mental outlook, the course not so difficult. So why this leaden feeling, this despondency? Maybe in this cold, clinging and depressive air he felt his age. Should he at fifty-five? Not for a fit man.

Frost on the grass crackled underfoot as he passed through an opening in the hawthorn hedge. Groups of fuzzy animated images beside teetering stacks of baggage thrown haphazardly piece upon piece. Laughing, calling out to each other. Through the fog the sound of the bus taking the car park route skirting the cafeteria.

Marty could now call himself IR, AMC trained and certified to competently man modern Australian ships. Participate as an equal in ship management, work smarter, efficiently, safer. Able to compete in the world of shipping, maintain an Australian presence against great odds. Desperately he and his fellow seamen wanted to believe a future existed.

Depression came from someplace else, from deep within the core of his being, reaching a critical point in life where he now more frequently looked back into the past. Through the journey of life he pondered his achievements, wondering when he reached the end of his allotted time would there be an imprint to remind others here once a man went to sea and called himself an able seaman.

Maybe the bureaucrats got the nomenclature wrong. Should have called those retrained in these halls of learning seamen. At least the roots would have still been there to connect the ages of sail to steam, steam to motor.

Wearily he climbed the wet concrete steps of the blockhouse, through a passageway door, entering a narrow room, his home for the past nine weeks. His room bare except for a black and white stripped mattress, two striped pillows. Would he pass on his germs to the next occupant due in a few weeks? Depression deepened, what could I have done to change the course of my life? Forever changed here, his mind wrenched open and stuffed with knowledge, old ideals tossed out like the text books overflowing the rubbish bins outside Investigator Hall. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling on a length of twisted flex cable, wondering on his first day the absence of the light shade, a mental note to make inquiries to have a new one fitted. Never did. It still reminded him of a prison cell.

Not a prison. Ample and passable food. Five days a week, weekends free except one Saturday to sit for his first aid certificate. Taught by understanding and learned tutors. If in the mood, mostly approaching the weekends, you could flirt with the girls who made up the rooms and changed the linen. Lucky, you might date the catering girls who served in the cafeteria.

An empty suitcase rested on the hard metal chair on which he sat for nine weeks deciphering his scrawled and highlighted lecture notes; not much to pack, his overalls and work boots the most bulky items. Or far to carry it, across the car park, the football oval. Careful steps over a small, mossy wooden bridge spanning a brook shaded with weeping willow and silver birch.

Archers Manor would be in his new home for the next three weeks, sharing a suite with another IR retraining to become a CIR, chief integrated rating. On Monday at 9:00am it would start all over again, a new classroom and tutors, phycologists and leaders of industry, but the same fear lingered he no longer controlled his destiny.

Book One

1

E ITHER SIDE OF THE street terraces defined as separate homes by prominent masonry divisions, capped in mortar in an attempt to give each individuality. In their monotony, stretching as far as the eye could see, all were identical, built from a single plan. There were differences, some subtle, some garish, reflected by the tastes of various owners and long-term tenants over the years. Original front doors came glazed with stained glass, over the years through neglect or abuse, replaced with timber panels. Tiny front yards glistened in tiled ceramics, three concrete steps and enough room for urns and pot plants. Like rows of sentinels on ridge capping sat solid plaster orbs capped with ornate spikes, stained with mould and fouled with decades of calcified pigeon droppings.

Facades, corbels and pediments looked the worse for their long years of exposure with chunks of mortar missing. Paint peeled on many in slow decay, rusting wrought iron fences embedded in broken masonry. On stoops reposing lions stood guard, though showing their advanced years. A hardy shrub thrived for those yearning a garden, pomegranate, the seeds originating from a single plant in a churchyard close by. Agapanthus sometimes grew in tight clumps, lilies, straggly azaleas. Old enamel saucepans set under leaking gutters a favoured pot for pansies, phlox, petunias.

Only a fortunate few owned their homes, landlords unknown, shadowy figures who lived in the affluent suburbs of Toorak, Kew, South Yarra. Rent collectors furtive little men in grubby suits, rumoured their employers rich Jews.

Around the turn of the century Melbourne City Council planted London plane trees in the asphalt, their crowns now almost touching across the street. Cool in summer but cursed by the women who swept the pavement in early winter with millet brooms, though no better place to gossip and catch up on the latest scandals.

Early in the 1950’s Italian migrants arrived in their tens of thousands and changed Carlton forever. Gone the mouth-watering aroma of lamb chops sizzling in dripping, replaced by olive oil and tomato puree, pasta and rich meat sauces and garlic so strong it made the eyes water. On the streets a strange, flowing language reverberated loud and clean and alien. Men not afraid to show their emotions waved their arms and punched the air with their fists when excited, often it seemed. Walking the streets these short, brown eyed and swarthy men swaggered in the lead, their women swathed in black from stockinged feet to head scarfs knew their station, in the rear.

Marty’s parents feared the invasion, critical of the large passenger ships from Europe which berthed at Station Pier to disgorge thousands upon thousands of these odorous people in plague proportions. No one knew the extent of the immigration program to populate post-war Australian. Certainly not the women who swept their stoops with millet brooms. These foreigners swore no allegiance to the British Empire and its beautiful young monarch, knew not the blood and supreme sacrifice which made Australia a proud and equal member of the British Empire. Only a few years ago these brooding, volatile men who paraded their families down the street like strutting emperors, felt the cold steel of Australian’s best fighting men in North Africa. Because the new arrivals could speak no English, wholly ignorant of Australian culture, there would never be assimilation. No comradery or swapping of gossip to the sound of sweeping millet brooms, sharing a cup of tea at the kitchen table.

Many of the Italians gravitated to vegetable stalls in the Queen Victoria Markets. Others opened fish and chip shops, restaurants, fruit shops, spreading like an alien tide to the surrounding suburbs.

Dominating the northern sector of the city, the Queen Victoria Markets a sprawling conglomerate of substantial brick buildings and corrugated iron sheds joined together by awnings, covered walkways, verandas, large overhanging eaves. Surfaced in asphalt, cobblestones, broken concrete smeared with the juices of rotting vegetables. Big and bustling, dirty, noisy, supporting a thriving and overfed rat population. A giant that never slept and reeked of fermenting fruit and rotting vegetables, fish, hung beef, cheeses, herbs, spices, pork, lamb and smoked bacon. Competing the pungent aromas of teas, coffees flavoured the surrounding city air. Vital to the survival of the city, a hub serviced by fleets of heavy vehicles and noisy, bell ringing trams grating on their highly polished tracks sunk deep in roadways.

Within its sphere of influence the markets wore the Carlton terraces like a crown.

During the day the conglomerate reached a crescendo, its most noisiest, also its most colourful. Vendors shouted the freshness and superb quality of their produce in many tongues, dialects and wild and impossible promises. Women shopped with cane baskets tucked under their arms to be greeted by a deluge of accents, brogues, inflections. Children not yet old enough for school clung to floral aprons, begging for coconut ice, peanut brittle, candy floss, ice cream. Vendors found it impossible to perform their daily rituals of promoting their goods and chattels without pushing, cajoling, thrusting their heads close, breathing the foul fumes of garlic and home fermented wine on their victims. Reeking of the odious onion, plainly obvious none boiled the copper in the laundry or their hairy flesh feel the cleanliness of a bar of soap.

Chinese also received their fair share of racial vilification, the entire race not to be trusted. One should be exceptionally wary when conducting business. Known fact one day their immeasurable numbers would overrun the world. Rarely did any of them speak English, then only to take money. Incapable of maintaining eye contact, a legacy thought to be inherited from their forefathers forced to pay respect to white people. Rightfully required to step in the gutter so as not to impede the passage of others.

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Accessing the porch three concrete steps, the first step guarded by two reposing lions; both animals chipped and paint peeled, one with its nose missing. No plant or weed dared to take root in ceramic tile. Front door of solid oak, a large brass knocker, its fanlight glass replaced with a wood panel. The hallway teased the nose with the musty smell of carpet, the papered walls stained with rising damp; always gloomy, the only illumination a pale light filtering from the dining room. None from two bedrooms with closed doors. Light from the dining room originated from the kitchen, itself a recipient of radiance from the laundry and bathroom. In the laundry twin concrete washtubs serviced laundry needs, for bathing an enamel tub with water heated in a gas copper. Paved in brick a backyard abutted a narrow lane, occupying most of the restricted area a toilet with a rusted iron roof. Once used for the removal of nightsoil, the rear access busy with people all hours of the day and night, some legitimate, some spurious.

For Marty the lane offered a shortcut to his eyrie on Flagstaff Hill. On his way he would pass the markets; from within shouts in broken English, cheerful waving. Waving back, never stopping, hurrying to fulfil a daily ritual. Rising from asphalt and concrete a grassy hill bordered on four sides by city streets formed the Flagstaff Gardens, its centrepiece a drinking fountain donated by the Christian Women’s Temperance League of Victoria. Not for a cool and refreshing drink or panoramas of the city which drew him each day, no matter the weather. Drawn hypnotically by the ships to the south berthed in Victoria Dock, North Wharf and South Wharf, even as far as Yarraville.

Here to behold a kaleidoscope of multicoloured funnels. Funnels adorned with stars, bands, letters, symbols, anchors, rings, diamonds, bullseyes. Painted red, blue, black, yellow, white, buff, orange. Ships with white superstructure, derricks painted yellow, buff, brown and white. Masts, samson posts. Topmasts with black trucks, a forest soaring above the roofs of the warehouses. Fluttering from halyards, gaffs, ensign staffs, flags from all over the world. Pennants, international code flags with unknown meanings, house flags, pilot jacks. From funnels tall, squat, raked, cowled, rose whispers of black smoke, feathers of steam. Smoke curled from thinner stacks with t-pieces, some with h-pieces, painted silver. Sometimes two stacks, different galleys for mixed crews.

With longing he wished he could read the names of the ships, their ports of registry, imagining names prefixed or ending in Star, Sea, Ocean, Explorer, Adventurer. For hours he would sit on the grass with not one moment passing without finding something different; a movement in the port, the faint sound of a whistle. Below him the city held no interest, or the rail marshalling yards. Only ships made his sixteen-year-old heart beat faster.

≈

Setting of the sun a chill wind from the bay swept the city. Cold though reluctant to leave the grassy knoll, today he saw a new funnel, black with a large white H, the red flag on her stern British. Hotels began emptying into the darkening streets as he headed for home, their doors bolted shut, locked on the stroke of 6.00pm. Making a game avoiding bloated binge drinkers staggering on the footpath; head lowered and hands snug in his pockets he hurried on.

Tall and thin, muscles hardened from his work in the markets, a shock of unkempt dark brown hair hung over his green eyes and sallow face; his mother would brush it from his forehead, combing it with a spittle licked hand. Avoiding barbers, he liked his hair long and wondered how she would react if he came home with a tattoo from the parlour next door to the Watersiders Hotel in the city? Maybe if inscribed with Mum inside a heart she might not mind? Anchor with MN would be better, like the faded one on Steve Kloster’s right upper arm. Asking what the initials stood for, merchant navy.

Need to hurry or he would be late for dinner, crossing quickly over Victoria St from the markets. Polish boxers in training jogged by, throwing telling blows at imaginary opponents, bobbing, weaving, puffing, snorting steam from their flared nostrils. Heaviest Pole of the three suffered a knockout in the first round in his last fight at the West Melbourne Stadium, scheduled for a rematch when the noises in his head abated. Other two drank and ate too much, grossly overweight for their respective divisions. Still the Poles continued to dream the dreams of fame on the drab, cold streets of Melbourne far from their homeland.

≈

Marion Leigh set out three meals; grilled mutton chops, mashed potato, mashed pumpkin, broad beans and gravy. Wisp of a woman with fair hair so fine it seemed to glow about her when she moved her head or the light caught it. Unobtrusive she usually kept her opinions to herself, a defence mechanism whereby if she felt threatened by raised voices she would almost bury her head in her shoulders. She sat at the end of the table waiting for her family to be seated, wishing f them to hurry or the meal would go cold quickly.

Cyril Leigh as habit dressed for dinner; this evening a Harris tweed jacket, blue knit tie, changing from his grey business suit as he walked in the house at 5:40pm. At the conclusion of the meal, dishes washed, he would light the gas copper to heat their bathwater. Privileged as head of the house for the first bath, followed by Marion who would top up the tub with the last of the hot water, last bath for their son. Marty preferred to shower at the markets, an ablutions block for local and interstate truck drivers.

Cyril opened the conversation: Mr Vogel has at last told us he is retiring come the end of the year. Everyone in the office knew of course, no surprise there. Now it is official.

Marion buttered a piece of bread for her son.

Of course it will mean an upward movement of staff which will have the flow on effect of creating a junior storeman’s position on the floor, he said, concentrating where next he would cut his mutton chop.

Marty knew the direction of his father’s conversation. Dad, I like working the markets. It pays well and the more I work the more I earn.

While getting you nowhere, Martin. Without more mature direction you will fail to make anything of your life, he said, his voice a monotone. Going through life never owning your own home. Rent man knocking on your door every Monday morning without fail.

Take notice of your father, Martin, he started as a junior storeman, Marion added, a note of pride in her voice.

Progressing to senior storeman when I married your mother. We saved our hard earned money to put down a deposit on this house. Not saying working for Henry Berry in wholesale grocery is the future you seek, but I think it could well be a direction from which other avenues appear. What I am saying is with dedication and hard work you could find yourself being selected for staff in a few short years. My recommendation would bode well with management.

Each night a one-set play with the three actors performing well rehearsed roles. Not a good play either with poor light and bad acoustics. Thanks, Dad. Need time to think it out before I decide what I want to do. There’s plenty of time.

No, young man, another mistake. Time is running out swiftly for apprenticeships. Jobs requiring professional training. Are you still toying with the silly notion in your head running off to sea?

Nodding miserably, his appetite gone.

Beyond my understanding why anyone in their right mind would want to go to sea. Ships sink in very deep water. Storms put ships on rocks.

Yes, so I have heard, Marion said in support of her husband.

With all the ships in the world it doesn’t happen much, Dad.

Point I am making it does happen, and I beg to differ quite regularly. Hear it on the wireless, read the headlines in the newspapers. There is a safer and far more secure future in wine and spirits on the third floor. Could have you placed there immediately with the good fortune to come under the attention of Mr Barrack.

Dad, I don’t want to work in groceries.

Assured future if you are punctual, obedient, listen to your superiors, dedicated to learning. What is more important than the distribution of food throughout the city and country?

Cyril over many years rose slowly through the layers of clerical accountancy to the position of head clerk in accounts. Henry Berry’s wholesale grocery, bonded warehouse and head office occupied a six storey building in Little Bourke St. For health conscious Cyril a refreshing walk to work each morning, home at night. Conservative, a man fiercely proud of his commitment which progressed him from junior storeman to accounts, then to head his department. Loyalty to one’s employer, he imparted to his son, key to success and reward.

Marty in school holidays sometimes took his father’s lunch to him, a fresh salad, entering a world of bagged coffee from Brazil, spices from Indonesia, herbs from China, plywood chests of tea from India. Overpowering, the pungent aromas so strong he almost could feel his feet floating free of the highly polished timber floors. Sheer volume of processed foods stacked to within inches of the high wooden beamed ceilings, cartons, hessian bags, cotton sacks of flour, drums of cooking oil. Awesome to a young, impressionable boy. In the centre of the building a wide wooden chute connected all the floors to the loading bays at street level. Filling large orders storemen on three or more floors might be involved, each segment placed on the chute and transferred to the storemen below in the loading bays and the waiting Henry Berry trucks.

Strawberry jelly and whipped cream revived his appetite.

Henry Berry aside, regarding your future you could look strongly at a trade, Cyril continued, handing his bread wiped plate to his wife who replaced it with his bowl of dessert. Hardworking and conscientious tradesmen are never without work, also remunerated with extremely generous money.

Apprenticeships meant returning to school, a hated institution he fled on completion of eighth grade. Generous money? If he worked longer hours he could earn more money than his father.

Labouring for foreigners will achieve you nothing. Infamous for paying those not of their race poorly, their own kind a pittance on the pretext of inheritance.

Italians, Greeks and Chinese don’t pay me. Truck drivers do.

Even worse. Turn your back and your nose will tingle with their exhaust.

Marty laughed. Who have to come back the next night. I’m sure the ones I know wouldn’t.

It grieves us that you associate with people your mother and I find difficult to understand. People not like us, British stock. Those who only begrudgingly speak English with service, quite fluently when putting your money in their tills. Women never, I suppose their children only speak our language when forced to attend our schools.

Marty yawned; few hours sleep before going to the markets. Rising from the table, he kissed his mother on the cheek. Cyril finished his dessert, dabbing his chin with a linen napkin. No one in their right mind goes to work at midnight, he concluded the conversation.

≈

Cold and dark the city slumbered as he left a warm bed to pull on heavy drill pants, over his head a thick woollen polo neck jumper. Trucks from the farms now queued, their drivers dozing behind the wheel, waiting to be unloaded. Markets alive and vibrant, floodlit and noisy, a world apart from the city which surrounded it. Mantle of heavy night air choked with diesel emissions, petrol fumes and the all-pervading smell of fresh produce. Shouting, cursing in many different languages, frantic instructions to back trucks into ridiculously narrow spaces, a melting pot of all who fed the city, a polyglot of languages and aspirations. Means to make money and for many to set the foundations for new lives. Behind rows of packing cases stacked twenty high, small mountains of potatoes, onions, pumpkins, a ragged army awaited, swathed in sacking to ward off the cold. Those more frail made themselves smaller to conserve heat, pulled their coats over their heads. Their hygiene poor, unshaven, strong body odours. Among them some might be declared derelicts, a few deranged. Most homeless, living in doorways, abandoned buildings where the wind off the bay whistled through broken windows.

Offering their labours and sustaining their strength, the itinerant workforce dined well and maintained a fair degree of health on what the greengrocers, fishmongers, butchers, grocers discarded. More traditional food could be eaten in the mess halls of the Salvation Army, St Vincent De Paul, for the more fortunate offered a warm bed.

Most worked as hard as their frail bodies allowed, for their efforts rewarded small change, more from the drivers of interstate semitrailers. None thought themselves hard done by, more to life than just existence. Occasionally an accommodating woman offered herself, bedded on jute sacks reeking of rotting potatoes. Money earned bought wine and castoff clothes. Markets provided adequate food and when sick caring people who quoted from bibles took them to hospital.

Marty made friends of the Italians and Greeks, the elder Greeks troubled he resorted to the markets to earn a living, concerned about some of the people he associated with. Marty, I have a cousin who has a farm in Gippsland who will give you a real job. Learn good from Marco, put your money in bank for your own farm.

Seriousness in his face would break with a smile, a shake of his head. Thank you, I have other plans.

Like mixing with crazy bums? Winos? You’re not like those people, Marty.

School friends signed apprenticeship indentures, others completed a further two years of education to enter university or the professions. Content with his life he rarely saw or associated with those part of his childhood. With certainty he knew what he wanted to do with his life, go to sea on a ship like the one with the white H painted on her shining black funnel.

Troubled father’s disquiet with his son’s fascination, a topic raised often at the dinner table. Who are these enigmatic people who go to sea? In my entire life I have yet to encounter one. Would be at a total loss identifying a seaman if perchance I stumbled over one on my way home from the office.

Seamen are special people, Dad.

To my mind in the same category as pirates. Rogues of the open sea plying their bloodthirsty trade. Great authors wrote about the heinous exploits of such people. Are seamen of the same ilk?

Marty knew only one seaman, a man with a tattoo of an anchor with MN on his right upper arm.

Putting the mind into rational thought I would conclude employers of maritime labour would gather up men to be seamen where ships are constructed, wherever that is in the industrial world. Most definitely not in our Melbourne. End of conversation, the remainder of the meal eaten in silence.

≈

Showing the ravages of time and abuse, the green Bedford truck rusted, dented, missing the passenger door window, loaded to capacity with battered boxes of cabbages and cauliflowers. Standing on the running board, the harried driver’s voice filled with apprehension. You’ll earn your money putting your life at stake getting this lot off, Steve Kloster said.

Marty stood on the opposite running board which nearly gave way under his weight. What kind of money are we talking about, Steve?

Rate as unilaterally negotiated by the owner-driver because you bums are not organised. This be a lesson to you, mate, I can pay what I like which happens when you have no representation.

Wooden boxes teetered on the verge of collapse, straining under their rope lashings. Steve grimaced. Keep your distance when I let this lot go. I’ve got to learn not to overload this old girl. Suppose I’ve got many things to learn about this market gardening business.

When we finish, you got time to have a talk?

Talk to me now. We have to get this off.

After we finish? In the pub?

Ever been busted for underage drinking?

Some narrowed brows, but no.

Bet you have, though you could pass for eighteen. Okay, let’s get it off the truck before it falls apart, truck and load. I’ll stand you a beer after.

Risking grievous injury it took them an hour to unload the truck, a further fifteen minutes for Steve to complete his paperwork with the agent. Slowly I’m getting the hang of this. Seeing you want to talk to me real serious reckon I should do the same with you. You’re heading nowhere fast doing this for a living.

Strewn with rubbish a service lane accessed the back door of the hotel directly across from the markets, side door left open and the saloon bar doing a brisk trade. Would reckon without fear of contradiction this is the only hotel in the state of Victoria which trades openly outside of normal wowser hours. My God, what a prudish state Victoria. What an ungodly hour 2:00am. Been wondering why the sly-groggers this city breeds in epidemic proportions haven’t burned this blemish on abstinence down, not to mention the temperance harpies.

Marty passed the age criteria with a cursory glance from the publican who placed two seven ounce glasses on the bar and pulled their beers from a gun in his right hand.

What is it you want to talk about, new cargo rate?

I want to go to sea?

From what you’re doing now a career swing of epic proportions. Why do you want to become a deck boy?

Become a seaman like you.

Banjo-pickers and a few hayseeds thrown in all wanting a bit of my life, I’ve near forgotten my old profession. Life of excitement and the glamour of exotic foreign ports. What I have left behind to take up residence in the wowser capital of the world, nursing a sick father, drinking a thimble of beer in a pub with its toilet in the next block. It’s 2:00am and I have an underage kid for company. My god, I didn’t realise this is a jail sentence. While I’m having a grouch I reckon the sly-groggers should join forces with the wowsers to burn down all the pubs in Victoria where you have to walk down the street to have a piss. Possibly by what I have experienced it would be nearly all of them.

It’s not that bad.

Filling the bladder in a pub, then walking down the street to empty it in a toilet far enough from the place of ingestion to placate the wowsers having ablutions on the premises encourages drinking? Well, well, we have a definitive opinion here. Steve tasted his flat beer, screwed his face up. "Seamen get plenty of time to read at sea, a favourite of mine colonial history. Of chest thumping harpies storming the streets in religious fervour bordering on orgasmic frenzy. Brandishing their crucifixes, their cloth banners of holy temperance. Repent or die in the fires of damnation. Wash the demon drink down the sewers. In the meantime we men have to stand in line in urine soaked back lanes. Do those pumped-up bitches ever condemn to the eternal fires the sly-groggers who stuff their ice boxes with booze at four times the going rate to be sold after 6:00pm?

Sunday included? Every single one of them blind and deaf and above all very dumb. Bigoted women of Christian Temperance who put their pure little grubbing hands out for money from whom none of them care. Debaucher or demon, publican or bookmaker, harlot or seamen, to erect yet another drinking fountain in another Melbourne park. Wave their placards, making our lives pure misery. Keeping our pubs shut at night with heaven forbid the thought of opening them on Sunday.

Fountains are everywhere in Melbourne, Marty said, finishing his beer. Steve raised two fingers.

Sadly there are far too many drinking fountains in Melbourne which says a great deal for the place. Now what’s this talk about wanting to go to sea?

Steve Kloster, thirty-five, went to sea as a deck boy age fifteen. Marty first met him a week previous at the markets standing beside his old green truck, a lost look on his face, a plea in his voice: ‘Took four blokes as big as scrub bulls to load this in the paddock. No way can I get it off by myself. I need to bring them with me. It will cost my old man a fortune in overtime.’

Marty without hesitation offered his labour. ‘Quicker to unload than load. Pay me when we finish.’

‘How much?’

‘For a truck your size, ten shillings. Can of course pay lower, but I wouldn’t work for you’

‘There’s no award rate?’

‘What’s an award rate?’

‘Means I can screw you as I negotiate a lower rate with some of more your scruffier associates.’

So began a friendship and for Marty an increased yearning.

Steve came ashore a month previous in a caring role for his ailing market gardener father in Bacchus Marsh, thirty-two miles northwest of Melbourne. ‘Reared on the farm I went to school in Bacchus Marsh. Until now I never knew or probably cared the value of a market garden with twelve feet of topsoil. What grows the biggest and best cabbages and cauliflowers in the world. Being an impressionable lad I thought all vegetables needed two men to lift them. My dad’s potatoes grew as big as rock melons sucking up a minuscule of nutrients from a soil so rich if you stand in it for any length of time you’ll take root. It has made my father a good living and keeps four locals fully employed.’

His father tried to keep secret a heart condition; only in rare exchanges of letters did Steve perceive a hint of the seriousness of his illness. Paying off his ship in Sydney and with no obligations, he hung his union book up and came home to care for a father burnished the same colour of his rich soil, nine large paddocks in the foothills of the Brisbane Ranges encircling the small township. From the front porch of the three bedroom home the Lerderderg Gorge gave a glimpse of its narrow opening before being swallowed by the steep, heavily timbered mountains. Having his only son home, a son he thought lost to the sea, and still mourning the death of his wife four years previous, lifted his spirits sufficient for the doctor to predict he would be back on his tractor within a month. Highly depended though on letting others do the hard work. Steve stayed.

Do you think you have what it takes to go to sea? Life at sea at times can be tough. Something else, deck boys aren’t allowed to drink.

Tough enough. Don’t know how to go about getting away. Steve, you’re the first seaman I’ve ever known.

Yeah, we are a rare breed around the Queen Victoria Markets at 2:00am. Though it has been publicly recorded by those with warped opinions of seafarers the darkness is haunted by them in company of ladies of ill-repute. Unique nautical breed preferring the company of criminals and deviants.

How did you get away to sea from Bacchus Marsh?

Hitchhiked to Melbourne. Put my name down with the shipping master. Medical examination to end all medical examinations, plus a chest x-ray. Then you will be greeted with the deflating information you may have to wait a year before an opportunity comes to go to sea as a deck boy. If the shipping master is having a bad day, the grumpy news by the time a job does come up you’ll be too old at eighteen to take it.

You still got away.

"Around three months of hitching rides with would-be child molesters, amorous truck drivers and the odd drunken travelling salesmen before the shipping master finally got sick of me. Came charging through his door one day at around 9:30am and he gave up: ‘Sign on the Iron Knob sailing at 1:00pm. Good riddance.’ Lucky for me even in hard times I got away quickly, many never did, the shipping master not known to exaggerate."

Could do what you did. I live closer.

On the doorstep when a ship needs a deck boy for a pier head jump would be in your favour. Might do better to see the union.

What union?

Seamen’s Union of Australia. Union has its own list of deck boys, but on that list you’ll only find the kids of seamen or nephews, a kind of family thing the union makes no apologies for. Curious, what are you blokes called, lumpers?

Having a separate roster isn’t fair. Don’t know what we are called. Dad reckons no-hopers.

By what I see a fair assumption. Lumper will do I suppose until you find something decent in life. Union has no qualms about keeping it in the family, knowing the kids coming into the industry have a background of working class principles. No, I reckon you should go through the shipping master. Do the medical, then camp on his doorstep until you wear him down. Times are good now.

If I get away to sea do I have to join the union?

Can opt not to and get thrown over the side as the most preferred method of banishment. What do you know about unions?

Only what my father says. Without exception Communists agitators led by cold-blooded men who wear red ties and red feathers in the bands of their hats. Says white feathers would be more appropriate.

Steve almost choked on his beer. Your normal conservative suburbanite Melbourne family. Thank God I moved to Sydney.

My father and mother vote for our prime minister, Mr Menzies.

"Sure your family does. What do you think at sixteen? Should you vote for a man who lauded Adolph Hitler when he shot the leaders of the trade union movement in Germany? Who agreed with Britain Australia should surrender all the country north of Brisbane to the Japanese? Not forgetting helping them achieve their expansionist objectives by selling