Ok Sal, here I go....
1971: Graduated from ANU with a very ordinary Pass in Economic (with Credits in Snooker and High Distinctions in sex, drugs and rock & roll..).
1972: Had a job for a while, or two that I recall: one in the Department of Primary Industry, hand-counting cattle numbers and making sure the rows and columns added up.... Then I was in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics for a while, where somehow I got caught up again counting cattle. Ironic in the light of your subsequent life in the North....
Towards the end of '72 decided on the big trip o/s. You must have left already? Oz and Jenny had left a bit earlier, as I recall....
End '72 (I guess): I was on the way to Canada -- don't know what you thought of this, or if I even told you -- to work on an oil rig. I'd read somewhere that you could earn great bucks on a rig, even if you didn't have much experience (and I had none). Figures like 3,000 Canadian dollars per week seem to stick in my mind. Anyway, I was on the way there, and stopped in London on the way.
I lobbed up in the afternoon at a pub just after the reopening -- remember pubs in those days were closed in the arvo. I had a pleasant few beers, the sun was shining and London seemed like a pretty nice place. I stayed.
Where were you then? Nursing, as I recall, the main thing you did while there?
Ended up in a flat with Teik, for some reason. He was doing serious stuff, like getting his Fellowship in Intensive Care, or Anaesthetics (or both), while I just faffed around.
1972-74, London: Jobs I had over the next few years included: book-keeper in a pie factory; salesman at a Pakistani Carpet shop in the West End; courier delivering stuff all over London on my Honda 50 Step-thru; selling phony black-felt and hideous neon coloured "paintings" door-to-door that I was supposed to have done myself and be selling to cover my tuition fees (that was the cover story); selling encyclopedias door to door....
And the best job: the one in 1974, when I got a job as Butler's Valet to the Glenfiddich Lodge in Banffshire Scotland. That led on to an interview when I got back to London with the Begum Aga Khan in Knightsbridge and later with her husband the Aga Khan in Paris, which will be the subject of a separate post....
1974: Went to Torino to work for Linguarama, for around six months. [interested to see they're still going, even still in Turin]. You were still in London. During that time, two lawyer students asked me to go with them to Yugoslavia's (now Croatia's) Martinscica Island to have some fun and in return teach them some English. I said OK and asked if you could come along; they said yes. You came to join me...
We had a lovely time there and again, I have some photos, which I'll get round to scanning. This ought to be subject to separate post.... BTW, it was during my stint with Linguarama, which was owned then by a couple of English guys, that I realised that the business of teaching English was a good lurk. That's what I told Jing in 2008 when I got retrenched from Duty Free Shoppers in Hong Kong, and saw an ad for Wall Street Institute, in the South China Morning Post, looking for a Master Franchisee in Hong Kong: I said "English training was a pretty good lurk in 1973 when I did it in Italy and I bet it still is"...
1975: we started off for India in Wrangle, January 1975 from London, first stopping for some skiing in Lenk, Austria and Verbier in Switzerland.
Ray and Robin with us for the bulk of the trip (though not in the above, which was Lenk, as I recall). Remember that the car was so old that in Switzerland we were told to take it off the road, because it was too crappy for their roads. Our solution: stick some flowery Contac on the rust holes.... On the way I applied for the Department of Foreign Affairs, answering their responses from various postes restante along the way. Subject of a separate post, this trip: with input from Ray. There's a lot there....
1976: You went North to see your sister. I went to Canberra. And the rest, as they say, is history.... While I was waiting to hear from DFA, I was a telegram delivery boy, a job I nearly got fired from, for crashing their little step-thru motor bike one too many times. They threatened instead to demote me to a bicycle...... Living with Bruce Reynolds, the Artist, if you remember him, in Kingston, then back to Duffy St..... Where Teik came to live with me for a while. You came back from up north, ringing me one morning; remember that?...
Over to you to add/amend as you see fit, in Arial Purple
1971: Graduated from ANU with a very ordinary Pass in Economic (with Credits in Snooker and High Distinctions in sex, drugs and rock & roll..).
1972: Had a job for a while, or two that I recall: one in the Department of Primary Industry, hand-counting cattle numbers and making sure the rows and columns added up.... Then I was in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics for a while, where somehow I got caught up again counting cattle. Ironic in the light of your subsequent life in the North....
Towards the end of '72 decided on the big trip o/s. You must have left already? Oz and Jenny had left a bit earlier, as I recall....
End '72 (I guess): I was on the way to Canada -- don't know what you thought of this, or if I even told you -- to work on an oil rig. I'd read somewhere that you could earn great bucks on a rig, even if you didn't have much experience (and I had none). Figures like 3,000 Canadian dollars per week seem to stick in my mind. Anyway, I was on the way there, and stopped in London on the way.
I lobbed up in the afternoon at a pub just after the reopening -- remember pubs in those days were closed in the arvo. I had a pleasant few beers, the sun was shining and London seemed like a pretty nice place. I stayed.
Where were you then? Nursing, as I recall, the main thing you did while there?
Ended up in a flat with Teik, for some reason. He was doing serious stuff, like getting his Fellowship in Intensive Care, or Anaesthetics (or both), while I just faffed around.
1972-74, London: Jobs I had over the next few years included: book-keeper in a pie factory; salesman at a Pakistani Carpet shop in the West End; courier delivering stuff all over London on my Honda 50 Step-thru; selling phony black-felt and hideous neon coloured "paintings" door-to-door that I was supposed to have done myself and be selling to cover my tuition fees (that was the cover story); selling encyclopedias door to door....
And the best job: the one in 1974, when I got a job as Butler's Valet to the Glenfiddich Lodge in Banffshire Scotland. That led on to an interview when I got back to London with the Begum Aga Khan in Knightsbridge and later with her husband the Aga Khan in Paris, which will be the subject of a separate post....
1974: Went to Torino to work for Linguarama, for around six months. [interested to see they're still going, even still in Turin]. You were still in London. During that time, two lawyer students asked me to go with them to Yugoslavia's (now Croatia's) Martinscica Island to have some fun and in return teach them some English. I said OK and asked if you could come along; they said yes. You came to join me...
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| What a lovely photo! Your writing on the back says: "Outside the Cathedral in Milan, having just arrived in Italy to meet Peter. Italy, July 1974" |
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| Remember this, Sal? We were here around '73, just outside this town, as I recall... I have other photos. This one's just off the web. Martinscica Island. |
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| Your note on the back of the photo says: "Wrangle in his parking spot, and he started after a few kicks! Jan 75, Suisse". Why weren't Ray and Robin with us then? Where did they join us? |
1976: You went North to see your sister. I went to Canberra. And the rest, as they say, is history.... While I was waiting to hear from DFA, I was a telegram delivery boy, a job I nearly got fired from, for crashing their little step-thru motor bike one too many times. They threatened instead to demote me to a bicycle...... Living with Bruce Reynolds, the Artist, if you remember him, in Kingston, then back to Duffy St..... Where Teik came to live with me for a while. You came back from up north, ringing me one morning; remember that?...
Over to you to add/amend as you see fit, in Arial Purple
