Murphy Down Under
Chapter 9
Someone had to die or retire
before you could get advancement in the England of those days
so many people, including ourselves, looked towards either Australia
or Canada for a better future.
Hating the cold, Canada had
no appeal for me so we applied to Australia House and in due
course were accepted for the ten pounds immigration scheme and,
after fond and sad farewells in Yorkshire and from my family
down south, we found ourselves at Tilbury Docks waiting to board
the old P&O Orontes.
We had thought to leave Murphy
behind but it soon became obvious that he was taking a hand in
the weather we encountered as soon as we sailed. We were allocated
a dining table with some people we didn't meet for a week! 'Mal
de Mer' had got them and although we sometimes saw the husband
gathering slices of bread from the breakfast table to feed his
miserably sick family, it wasn't until we had safely passed through
the Bay of Biscay and were well into the Mediterranean that we
met the people who we have numbered among our best friends from
that day onwards.
The Lambs - Harry and Ivy,
sons Paul and Phillip and daughter Jayne - recovered from their
sea-sickness and we spent a lot of time together during the rest
of the voyage.
During the rough weather when
the Orontes rolled and pitched alarmingly, the stewards put ropes
up in the corridors and ledges around the tables to prevent the
sliding crockery falling off and one lunchtime a particularly
big lurch alarmed us and we rushed back to our cabin to check
on Jackie who we had left in her cot. Our fears were well founded
as Murphy had tipped her out of the cot and she finished up jammed
under one of the bunks. Fortunately she was unharmed and suffered
no discernible ill effects.
We had hoped to leave Murph
behind in England when we started out new life in Australia but
when we arrived at Station Pier that bleak wet, grey morning
of the 6th of April, 1959, we had a feeling he was already in
residence.
The warm welcome from Vi's
sister Mary and her husband 'Strick', plus friends of the family,
Clifford and Gladys who had also come to meet us, made up for
the wintry conditions and we were soon on our way to Highett.
Cliff drove a Hillman and
lent it to me a few days later to go for an Australian driving
licence. Of course I had studied the peculiar turning procedures
used in some of Melbourne streets and could answer the questions
with no trouble. Putting it into practice was another thing altogether.
Having passed the test, the
three of us - Vi and I plus Murphy - set off for a look at the
city and all went well until I decided to keep out of everyone's
way by using the left hand lane in Swanston Street. I should
have remembered that lane was the Right Turn Lane and so we found
ourselves heading east along Flinders Street. A left turn at
what must have been Russell Street, then another left and we
found ourselves driving back down Swanston Street in the opposite
direction to the way we had intended. "OK Murph you win,"
must have been our thoughts as we scuttled back down the Nepean
Highway to Highett. He hadn't finished with us though as we had
a flat tyre before we got home and had to get the puncture mended
at Moorabbin.
My experience as a foreman
motor mechanic in England didn't count for much with the CES
or whatever the government employment agency was called in those
days as they found me a job as a lube operator - about as far
down the scale as you can go in the motor trade.
Declining this, I scoured
the employment pages of the 'Age' newspaper and after a series
of aptitude tests found myself as a trainee cash register technician.
The very first morning, I
was working away when the morning tea came round and the tray
of drinks was put on my bench. Thinking there was no rush, I
finished tightening the screw I was putting in and then looked
up to see a mate of Murphy's disappearing with the last cuppa.
You had to be quick in that place!
Six months commuting between
Highett and Russell Street to work didn't thrill me and the job,
despite the extensive aptitude tests and fidelity bond, wasn't
very interesting so I cast around for something more challenging.
I found this selling food
mixers door-to-door on a commission only basis. The sales spiel
was that this new mixer was about to be released on the market
and selected homes were being given special pre-release deals
as part of the advertising campaign. All lies of course because
the same line was used for years with no general release ever
taking place.
I did pretty well at this
- mainly because I chose to work on my own in better class areas
while the rest of the team went with the supervisor to housing
commission estates where the TVs were the only things not regularly
repossessed. In fact I won the salesman of the month award the
second month I was there and not only was presented with a mantel
radio as the prize, but earned enough commission to cover the
deposit on a new VW beetle.
Murphy was only resting because
the beetle presented an opportunity he couldn't resist. During
one week, I had spotted some land for sale at Upway in the Dandenong
hills near Melbourne and after lunch on Saturday I said, "Let's
go look at the blocks. It's raining - but that's good, as it's
best to look at land in the worst conditions."
The land was at the bottom
of a large hill and the flat area at the bottom had been bulldozed.
"How will we get back up?" Vi asked. "Don't worry,"
I replied with great confidence. "A Volkswagen will go anywhere!"
So it will - but getting back is a different matter! After turning
round, we struck a soft patch and became hopelessly bogged with
the car sitting on its underbody.
By now it was raining again,
the creek was rising, Vi was running out of nappies and milk
for Jackie who was still a baby then, and I set off in search
of help. Chris in the meantime was insisting he could see wolves
down by the creek in the deepening gloom.
A tractor was bogged in the
backyard of the nearest house about half a mile away, but the
owners kindly came back in the rain with me to fetch the family
and, after giving us some lovely hot soup, took us to the Ferntree
Gully railway station to catch a train back to Prahran. Not a
lot of conversation took place on the journey and next morning
- alone - I went back and, with much jacking to put the back
wheels on boards, running forward off them and repeating the
procedure many times, I was able to reach a more solid road and
return in our lovely new, mud-splattered VW to the city.
We didn't buy land at Upwey!
One day while selling on the
Mornington Peninsula, I spotted an old empty house at Merricks
and although it had no electricity or running water, I felt it
would be much better than the cramped sleepout we called home
at that time. I also saw a job for a motor mechanic advertised
at Moorooduc and went to enquire about that. Within days we had
rented the house and I had a new job.
We had no furniture so I spent
a day in various Melbourne auction rooms and successfully bid
for a enough furniture to set up house. Most of it was only seen
from the back of the sale room but by good luck it all matched
fairly well.
My new employer, Phil Parnell,
was kind enough to lend me an old lend-lease Chevvy truck and
I set off for the city to load our new possessions. Getting the
furniture on to the truck wasn't too hard as the auction rooms
staff gave a hand but the fridge was a different matter.
I had bought a Silent Knight
kerosene fridge from a second-hand shop in Prahran and the only
staff there was the elderly lady who ran the shop. When I arrived
at the shop with my truckload of furniture there was just enough
space for the fridge but how to get it up on the tray was the
problem. Murphy of course made sure that every passer-by I approached
had either a bad back, a crook heart or was in too much of a
rush to help. Finally I snared a reluctant helper and the beast
was loaded. It could have been a good fridge - but it wasn't!
It either froze everything in it or the wick carboned up and
it de-frosted. A delight for our friend Murphy who honed his
skill with it in order to plague us in later years when we had
similar refrigeration systems in caravan 3-way fridges.
Chapter
10
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