

### NUMBER

### 41

FORTY YEARS......FORTY JOBS

1977 – 2017

by Michael Taylor
Copyright 2017 Michael Taylor

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

Cover design by Caligraphics

# Introduction

On an overcast and cold late afternoon, in May 1954, a slender young girl with long black hair and big brown eyes rode her bicycle along the edge of the busy Princes Highway in Western Victoria. Swinging around on the back of her bike was an empty billy can. The fifteen year old was on her twice weekly, two mile trip to collect milk from the local dairy. Her three older sisters had left home and her Dad was always away working, so it was Lenore's after school responsibility to keep the house supplied for her Mum.

Speeding cars would buffet her old bike as she pedalled along and trucks nearly ran her off the road but it was the big Pioneer buses that were the worst. If the theme from 'Jaws' had been created it would have been playing in her head as she heard them thundering towards her. Lenore Barclay would hunch her shoulders and try to make herself as small as possible, but there was nowhere to get off the road so she gripped the handlebars until her knuckles nearly popped and hoped the bus driver was a good judge of distance as it roared past.

It was always a relief to wheel off the highway and coast down the dirt track into the dairy. On this particular day, this day that would change her life forever, there was an old 1928, red and black Essex ute parked outside the cow shed. The owner of the ute was Raymond Taylor who was visiting his mate Rex, the dairy hand.

Ray was the local horse breaker/sheep drover/herd tester – a good looking young 19 year old lad dressed to kill in his brown trousers, white shirt and green tie on his way out for the night. He had dropped out of a Melbourne private school to follow a rural career, did a herd testing course and, by a stroke of luck, ( for me ) was posted to western Victoria.

Lenore was a shy girl still two months short of her 16th birthday, but she knew love at first sight when she saw it, and she pedalled home with a glow in her cheeks and a flutter in her heart.

They never spoke on that first meeting in the cow shed, but after she left with her billy can full of milk, Ray said to Rex, " I'm going to marry her one day" and, being a man of his word, four years later he did. They would stay in love, and stay married, for over 60 years.

Once married, they didn't muck around, or maybe they did, because ten months after their wedding my sister, Deborah Jane, was born. Seventeen months after her birth, in the early hours of an October morning in 1960, in the same small town hospital in western Victoria, (population 900) I entered the world and said to myself the three words every new born says when they open their eyes and look around for the first time......... " What the hell is this...?" And then I cried.

Sixteen years later my diverse vocational journey began, but my parents can take no responsibility or blame for my patchwork quilt of a career. They set a fine example of workplace stability and instilled in me a strong work ethic – Mum was a schoolteacher for 25 years and Dad worked for the same transport company for over 20 years before making a change of course and training racehorses for a living until retirement.

Not once in forty years, though, did they ever question my work choices, suggest a more secure path or disapprove of whatever job I was doing in whatever place I was doing it.

They always encouraged and supported me in all my endeavours, probably hoping deep down that this latest thing will be the last thing and maybe this time I will settle down!

As for my own children, as they were growing up, many times they would be asked, " What does your Dad do for a living?"- only to reply..." Umm, not really sure exactly.....HEY MUM....what's Dad's job at the moment?" Usually, she had the answer.

It is too early to tell which path they are going to take, but I also plan to encourage and support my children. They may choose to ignore the popular convention that herds workers together as a flock, and embrace the randomness and uncertainty of a diverse working life – or they may take that long term career path that offers professional and financial rewards and.....predictability. They will eventually discover what suits them best, and my advice may not be the best.

I chose the random path when I was 16 years old because I just couldn't decide what to do with my life, and why should I have to decide at such an early age? I figured the best thing for me would be to try a few different things for, say, forty years, and make a decision after that. Okay, maybe forty years was not part of my plan, but from earning $100 a week to $500 a day, from being a soldier to a stablehand to a ship's captain, from living in my car to living in a million dollar house, life has never been boring – and that was part of the plan. It's been like driving through an unfamiliar city, taking streets at random just to see where they lead, and then living there for a while and seeing what happens - which is exactly what I did - on too many occasions.

At times, I have worked three jobs at once, and at times I have worked the same job for different people, or a different job for the same people. In forty years though, I have never been on the dole - although at one very low point, as a 51 year old, I did stand in the queue before changing my mind and walking out.

If a person's occupation defines them, shapes them and gives them a sense of identity, then I have been a very confused person for a very long time. But, the thing is, a job no more defines a person than does the shoes we wear or the food we eat. The label we carry as a type of worker comes a distant second to the label we carry as a person – and yet so many people judge other people by their occupation. Fact is, there are some bad people who are lawyers, and there are some exceptional people who are cleaners - and vice-versa.

So why has the only constant in my life been change? Probably, maybe, fear of boredom, fear of routine and fear of monotony – which seems a lot to be afraid of. Or it could be an inability to commit to something long term, or it could be the fear of being found out that I really have no idea what I am doing so I need to leave before that is discovered. Most likely it is simply one very long search – a search for that perfect job in that perfect place.

Oh, it's out there alright and I'm getting very close to it – I even know what it is................ it's Number 41.

# Number 1.

I believe that school was a great concept when first invented and the focus was entirely on reading, writing and arithmetic. If you could nail those three subjects it was all you needed to make the world your oyster. Whatever that meant.

My schooling began in 1966 in Mt. Gambier, a South Australian town 400 kms south of Adelaide, famous for its Blue Lake and not much else. Mum was a Grade 7 schoolteacher and Dad drove a truck on interstate runs for Kain & Shelton, so he was away a lot – so much so that my sister and I only seemed to see our Dad occasionally for the first nine years of my life. But, he did what he had to do to provide for his family, and Mum brought us up during that time, almost single handedly, with a ton of love and care. When I was in Grade 4, Dad got a promotion to be Manager at the K & S Adelaide depot so we left our rented house in Mount Gambier, made the trek to the big smoke, and Dad was home every night and able to make up for lost time with his kids.

Starting at a new school at the age of 9 didn't bother me too much. I was able to make friends easily and it was exciting living in a big city. Mum and Dad first rented, then bought, a modern three bedroomed brick house in a dead end street in the wonderfully named suburb of Panorama. The street ended at a drive-in theatre fence and we used to joke we could see the screen from our lounge room but I don't think that was ever the case. I do remember sitting up in the big tree at the end of the street on many a Friday or Saturday night and watching the movies for free. We couldn't hear them but that didn't seem to matter when there were movies like 'Clockwork Orange' screening - it was probably best my 11 year old ears didn't hear that one anyway. At the time there were 15 drive-ins around Adelaide. I would end up visiting them regularly once I got a driver's license and do my best to coax my female passenger into the back seat - where it was so much more comfortable. During the 1970's, drive-in-theatres would be unofficially responsible for teenage sex education classes, unwanted pregnancies and all manner of sexually transmitted diseases – all delivered from the comfort of the back seat with one foot in the glove box.

Our house was very modern compared to our previous home, but best of all we had a creek on one side of the house and a massive nature reserve behind us. This was kid heaven and weekends were spent riding our bikes, climbing trees and making forts until we had to be dragged kicking and screaming inside because it was dark and our cuts and bruises needed tending to. We would ride our bikes everywhere - into the city, down to the beach and up into the hills. Television was only a habit on Sunday nights at 6.30, when we would all sit down and watch Disneyland – hoping for Fantasyland, with cartoons, and not Adventureland with stories about polar bears or monkeys.

We had a good sized backyard which was a good thing because Deb and Dad decided to start racing pigeons. A pigeon coop was built, birds were bought and trained and for a couple of years it was a real father/daughter activity. It took until about 20 years later for the truth to emerge – Deb got into it because she thought Dad was keen, and Dad kept at it only because he thought Deb was keen. Truth was, neither of them liked the bloody pigeons and a situation like this would forever become known in our family as a pigeon job.

The best thing Mum and Dad did when Deb and I were teenagers was to get us into sailing. Our first boat was a timber 12 footer called a Gwen 12. None of us had any idea how to rig it, or sail it, but we bought a' how to sail' book and made it up as we went along. We eventually progressed to a Hobie 14 catamaran, then a Hobie 16, and spent summer weekends for years sailing off Brighton beach. We named each boat ' No Worries ', which pretty much summed up our childhood.

By the time I started high school in 1973, the three r's had expanded. Now we were learning about Russian and American History, how to dissect a sheep's eyeball, how to make a wooden pencil case and how to replace any number with an x or a y. None of these things seemed relevant to me at the time, or necessary to prepare me for employment, and in fact I've never had the need to dissect an eyeball or replace any number with an x or a y since. And who the hell needs a wooden pencil case ? Looking back now, what should have been taught was finance, politics, how do females think ( for advanced learners only ), how to make an edible lasagne and how to service your car.

At the beginning of my first year of high school we had to write down our career choices. They were asking 13 year olds what they had in mind for an occupation for the rest of their life! I put racing car driver or actor, and for the next four years I was never encouraged to change my mind. Apparently these two choices had limited opportunities but I really had no idea when it came to a possible career, and they both sounded like a bit of fun. There was little or no vocational guidance at school except for a trip to the CES ( Commonwealth Employment Service ) in Year 11, so that we knew where to go when we joined the ranks of the unemployed. I enjoyed school though, mainly because half the students were female and I only got the cane once. I had spent plenty of time with sailing, tennis, martial arts, and later on, boxing, but I was never good enough at any of them to make a living. As it turned out I couldn't act, or drive a car really fast, and the only thing I could do with my hands was clap.

In the late 1970's, the common post school choices were university or an apprenticeship and I had neither the ability or the motivation for either. I wasn't a dud student, just an average one who had absolutely no idea what he wanted to do for a living. All the options were round holes and I wasn't a square peg - I was more of an octagonal one. My Science teacher in Year 11, the statuesque, but stern, Mrs. Fox, summed it up best when her comment on my school report was.......' Not working to the best of his ability. Relaxed, talkative approach...' This turned out to be a template for the future.

But, come on - this was the 70's, after all. 'Desiderata' was posted on every teenagers wall, along with Raquel Welch, but going placidly amidst the noise and haste was not part of my philosophy – although there were two words that rang true in that 1952 mantra – Be Yourself. So choosing a career took a back seat, as would many of the girls from the neighbourhood.

I had a party at home for my 16th birthday in 1976, and two things stand out. I put an exploding cracker inside my birthday cake that Mum had spent hours making and blew it up, much to the amusement of my friends. Mum was cleaning sponge cake out of the flywire windows for months, and I have been apologising ever since. The other thing that happened caused me to finish school.

My sister, Deb and my dad

On this night my girlfriend was Heather, a quiet, blonde haired girl a year older than me who I had hooked up with on a school trip to the snowfields in Victoria a few months earlier after dropping Debbie, who I had dropped Jeannette for, because that's what teenagers do.

After listening to my new Bryan Ferry and Leo Sayer records, we spent a good part of the night kissing and as a result I contracted Glandular Fever, also known as 'the kissing disease'. This was October of Year 11 and I spent the next 6 weeks in bed and was too sick to return to finish the school year. Bummer – but thanks, Heather.

So now it was decision time. Despite not being able to complete the last term of Year 11, my teachers gave me enough good grades to allow me to get my Leaving Certificate, which was great because that is exactly what I wanted to do – leave and start work.

I didn't really mind what the work was - just as long as it wasn't boring. I had just read somewhere that our life was nothing but a crack of light between two eternities of darkness. That really put the wind up me, and I realised there was no time to be bored. I didn't believe in the afterlife or reincarnation - there was only one shot as far as I was concerned and it didn't include working in a bank for 45 years.

And so, the journey began.

Ever since the age of ten, I used to go into Dad's truck depot whenever I could and drive around on the forklift. Once I turned 15 I would work there in the school holidays and do well enough to get paid, so when it came time to leave school at 16, I was pretty sure I could score a fulltime job working in the depot. It wasn't about the job, it was about not being at school and being able to earn money. I had no ambitions or other prospects, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Dad agreed on one condition – that once I turned 17 I would apply to join the Police Force. I had shown a passing interest in it at one stage, and my great, great uncle had once been the South Australian Police Commissioner, so maybe it was in the blood.

I agreed with the deal - anything to get out of school - and started work fulltime in early 1977 as a forklift driver at K & S Freighters, as they were now known. Most of my friends had another year of school to do or had taken on life changing apprenticeships as pattern makers or book binders. At the time there were two huge vehicle manufacturers in Adelaide – Chrysler and Holden, so apprenticeships were not too hard to come by. Maybe that's why the unemployment rate for males in 1977 Adelaide was only 3.9%, but 6.3% for females.

The truck depot was a 40 minute commute from home and, because I had no car, I would ride in with Dad each morning, and start work around 8 am. It was dirty and dusty work and it was hard work and sometimes we wouldn't finish until 6 pm. I was working with blokes called Bullant, The Ox and The Preacher and mixing with truck drivers like Baldy and Rocco who smoked like chimneys, used more swear words than normal words and were covered in roughly drawn tattoos of snakes, skulls and big breasted women. This was long before the epidemic of spur of the moment, but permanent, fashion statements of butterflies and dolphins on teenage girls and meaningless hieroglyphics perfectly inked onto young men still struggling to grow facial hair.

Some of the men I worked with had been in jail, and some would finish up in jail, and some would drink too much and go home and kick their dog, but I worked hard and they all treated me as an equal.

The truckies all wore the same uniform – singlet, shorts, thongs and a smoke. There were no high viz shirts, steel capped boots or gloves. There were no manual handling guidelines, 'working at heights' courses or drug and alcohol testing. Some of the older trucks had no sleeping cabs so the drivers would just stretch out across the seat to have a nap whenever they could.

As I was the youngest and lightest worker in the depot, I would be the one who rode up on the forklift to the top of the loaded truck to roll the tarps out, stumbling over the uneven load one step away from falling to the ground 4 or 5 metres down. I had experience in that role though - as a 3 year old I was with Dad on top of his loaded truck and stepped off. The concrete stopped me fairly quickly and a few days in hospital had me back to normal. Apparently.

During that first year of work I bought a beat up old 1955 Morris Oxford for $50 from Bullant. Over the next few months, with the help of some mates who knew more about cars than I did, I restored it with bucket seats, shagpile carpet, a new engine and a shiny black paint job.

I could then drive myself to work and stay behind on a Friday night with the boys to knock back a couple of West End or Southwark tallies and talk rubbish about trucks and football and women, none of which I knew very much about.

Monday to Friday, ten hours a day, I would unload trucks, load trucks and tarp trucks for about $100 a week. That doesn't sound like much money now but petrol was only 15c a litre and you could buy a new house for 20 grand and a loaf of bread for 50 cents. I'd spend Saturday night at the drive-in with the latest girlfriend, hoping to avoid any diseases or unwanted pregnancies and go down the coast surfing on a Sunday with a few mates. I liked my job but I had an unavoidable appointment coming up with the Police Force.

To be honest, I really didn't want to go into the Police Force, but a deal is a deal so once I turned 17 I had a haircut, put on my nice blue body shirt and long trousers and off I went into the city for an interview.

I was sitting in Police Headquarters under a picture of my great, great uncle and half an inch is all that saved me from following in his footsteps. I didn't meet the height requirement and was asked to come back next year when I may have grown taller. My future would have been a whole lot different if I was an inch taller at the time, but I had fulfilled my end of the bargain and had no intention of returning for another go even if I grew another three feet.

My ancestor would, no doubt, have been disappointed. Sir Raymond Leane CB CMG DSO & Bar MC, was South Australian Police Commissioner from 1920 – 1944. It was the longest time in that position of any Commissioner since the job was created in 1838 until the present day. I was only two years old when he died, just short of his 84th birthday in 1962, but I would have liked to meet him.

In 1928, 2000 men from the wharfies union stormed the wharves of Outer Harbour, on Adelaide's waterfront, determined to attack and break up the 'scab' labour that was being used while they were on strike. They were armed with bailing hooks, pipes and iron bars. As they advanced, one man walked out to meet them head on, and asked them to disperse. That man was the Police Commissioner, General Raymond Leane. The angry mob defied his order, and marched on. But Leane had a plan in place, including mounted police, baton wielding plain -clothes police and another line of defence with foot police. The rioters were effectively cleaned up, and had clearly picked on the wrong man.

What the wharfies didn't realise at the time was that the man they had picked on had, only 13 years ago as an Infantry Captain, been one of the first to wade ashore at a place called Gallipoli and faced up to a horde of angry Turkish soldiers hellbent on killing him and his men. He stared them down and was awarded the Military Cross for his actions. A bunch of angry wharfies was kids play.

# Number 2.

Once I had turned 17, I was able to sit for my truck license. Not a semi -trailer, because you had to be 18 for that one, but a Heavy Rigid truck. So I did, and that enabled me to change jobs – same employer just a different role. When interstate trucks brought their loads into the depot they were unloaded and the freight was put on to smaller trucks to be delivered all over Adelaide.

My new job was to drive one of these trucks – an old 8 ton International Acco – commonly known as a butterbox because, well, it looked like one. I had to have a cushion at my back and under my bum so I could reach the pedals as the seat had no cushioning and was not adjustable. It had a two speed diff which I had no idea how to use and was too embarrassed to ask as I thought I probably should know. But I got by and only ran out of diesel once, side swiped a car on Port Road once, and lost a pallet of timber on North Terrace, in the city, once.

Other than those minor issues I had a ball driving all over Adelaide delivering the freight. I was out of the dirty working environment of the depot and I was working by myself. Sometimes I would chug past my old high school seeing the kids in their uniforms walking between classes about to dissect another eyeball, or make another damned pencil case, and I felt very happy doing what I was doing.

Not long after I started in this job technology caught up with us. In the past if the depot wanted to get in contact with their trucks, well, they couldn't. Mobile phones wouldn't be in use for another 15 years – no-one even imagined them. We did however, have a beeper. If the office needed to contact us they phoned a special number and my beeper would beep. This meant I had to find a public phonebox and ring them up. It was amazing stuff, but why we never had two way radios I don't know.

One day I was driving along busy South Road past a used car yard when I spotted a car I just had to have. My Morris Oxford was still going okay but it just wasn't.....cool enough for an 18 year old. I wanted a car with mag wheels and this one had them. It was a 1968 two door Monaro, metallic green with a black vinyl roof and a 186s under the bonnet. It wasn't the GTS model with the slits in the front guards which looked really cool but it was still pretty good. Asking price was $1400 so I sold the Oxford, borrowed $1000 from Dad and bought it. What I'd like to be able to say is – I still have it 39 years later. Even in average condition it would be worth $50,000 - much more if it was restored. But, I don't.

Like so many other blokes of my time, we had no crystal ball when it came to cars and the love affair between my Monaro and me was like many of my female relationships at that time – committed but brief and a failure to recognise the value. If only we knew what their value would be thirty years down the track.............we would have kept them all.

As I drove my old Acco around Adelaide I came to realise how small the city was. I had been living there for 10 years and was beginning to tire of the long, hot summers and the cold, wet winters. Life was predictable, and worse - it was getting boring and so I was getting itchy feet. It was the start of a pattern that would repeat itself for a long time.

My mates from school were doing the same old thing every day in their poorly paid apprenticeships and they seemed destined for a life of normality and routine. It was like the rest of their lives had already been written, in a book that was dumped in the three for $10 bin. Nobody wanted to read it because every page was the same. I just knew there had to be something more to life – I wanted the future to be exciting and unknown and _anywhere_ but Adelaide. Not that Adelaide was a bad place to be - it had good beaches, was an easy place to get around and we even had a mall where Rundle Street used to be. I knew the place like the back of my hand, and maybe that was the problem.

One day I was at work and the K & S General Manager who was visiting from Mount Gambier called me in for a chat. He had a proposal for me which involved a management pathway within the company. It was a long term traineeship that would see me trained in all facets of the transport business with the view to one day becoming a depot manager – like my Dad.

K and S was formed back in 1945 and had annual revenues of over 5 million dollars at the time which would become 50 million dollars only 8 years later and 150 million by 1993. It is now a public company with multiple interests all over Australia, and the roads are full of K & S trucks. Had I known of its future growth would I have said 'no thanks' to the GM as I did? Of course I would have. I was an 18 year old with itchy feet and didn't want to be tied down to anything long term. In hindsight, it was a great opportunity – like so many others that would come my way that would either be ignored or jumped on, and in doing so determine the direction of my life.

Acco first truck

# Number 3.

The year 1979 would turn out to be one of those life changing years that are never forgotten – probably because it's the year I left home. I was 18 ½ and had been working for two years but I could hear the voices calling me from afar – _'... get out...get out now while you can...run away......come to Queensland....._ '

To me, Queensland was the centre of the universe. It was the land of milk and honey, always sunny and warm with palm trees, coconut flavoured cocktails, a hundred sandy beaches covered in blonde girls in tiny bikinis and it had opportunities and everyone was happy all the time and there were no winters and they had 4X beer which was cheap and tasted way better than West End Draught. It was a cross between Southern California, the French Riviera and Disneyland.

Well, that was my perception anyway. Actually, I had no idea about Queensland except for maybe the climate was better than Adelaide's and it was a long way away. But that was all I needed to know, and armed with this motivating piece of information I made plans to move there because I hadn't been out of Adelaide since arriving there ten years ago. Oh, except for a drive to Melbourne once - unsuccessfully chasing a 30 year old millionaire's daughter who had tried to seduce me in a country Victorian motel room when I was 15. She failed in her seduction unfortunately, and I would eventually give up my virginity much later in the back seat of my car to a dark haired girl, more my own age, whose name I don't remember.

Luckily for me, K & S had only recently opened a depot in Brisbane. It was only a one man operation but he was getting busier and could use a labourer to unload all the rail trucks that came in. I put my hand up and got the job. Mum was not too pleased of course, not wanting to see her young son leave home already. Dad was more realistic and encouraged me, as fathers do for their sons, to " get out there and sow some wild oats." Maybe he didn't realise I had been doing just that for the last few years with the enthusiasm and energy of a grain farmer seeing good rain after a ten year drought.

Around the last week of March, 1979, I packed up my trusty Monaro with some clothes, some pots and pans and a recipe for cooking silverside from Mum that I would never use. I put a Status Quo cassette on and pointed my car north. I was keen to get started on the 1600 kilometre drive and though I had no map, I had looked at one and made a list of the towns I had to go through to get me there which seemed to work.

As I drove across the monotony of the Hay Plains I thought about work and the choices I had made so far. The whole concept of work and jobs and career had always mystified me. You had a particular job through necessity, choice, or circumstance and rarely, it seemed, was it ever a job that made people happy. How many people did you see walking around with a big smile on their face saying '....absolutely love my job, so happy to be here.....can't imagine doing anything else...' So many people seemed to spend years and years of their life working at a job they didn't enjoy but did anyway just to pay the bills and live - while they waited for an inheritance or a lottery win.

'68 Monaro I wish I still had

These same people all had natural talents in something – in something they loved I'm sure – but weren't able to work in their natural choice. Which is just as well, otherwise there would be no cleaners, bus drivers or pest controllers. I was trying to work out what my natural choice might be when my car overheated.

It was a massive swarm of locusts clogging up my radiator, but I limped into the dry and dusty town with the perfect name of Hay, hosed them out and carried on. That was the only exciting thing that happened on my trip, but what a sense of freedom I had. I was alone, heading to a place I had never been where I had no parents, no friends and nowhere to live. For the first time in my life I was on my own, and loving it.

The truck / rail depot was on the south side of Brisbane which was good because I planned to spend my spare time on the Gold Coast. If Queensland was the centre of the universe then apparently the Gold Coast was at the centre of the centre of the universe. After a lot of driving around, I found the Blue Gum caravan park at Slacks Creek – only a 15 minute drive to work and right on the highway to the Gold Coast – and moved in to an onsite caravan.

As I would quickly discover, caravan parks are, by nature, very sociable places. They attract the transient, the poor, the unemployed, the low paid, the traveller, the immigrant and those people in between jobs. This is cheap, casual and close living and it only takes one or two trips to the laundry to make a whole bunch of new friends - which I soon did. I met a family of three daughters and their Dad from New Zealand who were looking for work. I met a woman who had left her abusive husband and was hiding out, unsure of where to go next. I met a brother and sister about my age who didn't seem to have any other family or purpose, and I met a man who had lived in the park for nearly three years and had become a very successful alcoholic after a lifetime of unsuccessful jobs.

While these interesting folks would often visit my van after work during the week for a beer and a chat, my weekends were mostly spent on the Gold Coast. I loved the atmosphere down there and the beaches and the pubs and the highrise – it was all so different to boring old Adelaide, and I had met an older woman who was taking up quite a bit of my time.

After a couple of months at work I realised one of my biggest expenses was fuel so I had the great idea of leaving my car home each day and riding a bike to work. The outlay for a new bike was more than I wanted to commit so I was able to get one on hire purchase – a $214 bike for $22 deposit and $8.90 a month for 30 months. What a deal! Going to work wasn't too bad but riding home in the dark was suicidal. Brisbane's population was only about a million people, half of what it is now, so luckily the traffic wasn't too bad.

My sister, Deb, was working as a flight attendant for Ansett and whenever she had a night in Brisbane we would catch up. I also had a mate from Adelaide come and visit, and I had met a blonde girl in Brisbane called Karen who was more my age. So between that, my caravan park friends and working 5 days a week I was a busy boy. But my job wasn't all that interesting - unloading dirty old railway wagons all day - and I didn't leave home to stay in one place. I wanted to move around, to travel, to meet interesting people, and to work at different jobs and then leave them as soon as they got boring.

# Number 4 & 5

In August, after five months of unloading rail wagons, I quit K & S, Brisbane. I put my few belongings in the boot of the Monaro and my bike in the backseat and closed the door on the Blue Gum caravan park. Then I hit the road and headed north for Cairns, which was about as far from Adelaide as I could get without crossing an ocean.

My Mum's sister, Marg, lived in Cairns so I wasn't being extraordinarily adventurous. The 1,000 mile drive was event free apart from mouldy roadhouse toast which gave me the 2nd worse bout of food poisoning I have ever had. The worst would come from dodgy chicken nuggets in Sydney nine years later. Meanwhile, I had a place to stay for free and it was at Palm Cove, a sleepy little beach settlement 20 minutes north of the city. Marg owned a restaurant on the highway called The Coachhouse, and the beach was only a five minute walk away. I spent a lot of time on the beach and most days I would be the only person there. A single shop to buy a few groceries was the only business at Palm Cove. Each morning I would walk down to the shop, buy a paper and a milkshake, lie on the beach, marvel at the serenity and contemplate my future. Actually, very little contemplating was done because, as an eighteen year old, the future was still a foreign concept to me - it would take care of itself.

Lying spread eagled on a deserted beach under a palm tree and the warmth of the North Queensland sun with not a care in the world was like being cut open from the neck down, scooped out by the hand of God, filled up with warm seawater from the mouth of a Swedish virgin and then sewn back up with fresh seaweed. Well, almost.

Today, there are no less than ten 5 star resorts fronting that beach along with boutique shops, golf courses, thirty restaurants, a surf club and, more than likely, not one Swedish virgin.

Money, as usual, was an issue though and I needed to find some work. I tried a couple of nights working as a waiter in the restaurant but after working with truck drivers for a couple of years my approach of...' here's your dinner mate, where do you want it?' was about the best I could do and was more suited to a roadhouse than The Coachhouse.

I picked up a job erecting real estate signs. Not the piddly house for sale ones but the really big ones on the side of the highway advertising a new shopping centre or highrise about to be built. My boss would give me the signs, a ute and a few tools and send me on my way. It was hard work by myself so eventually he gave me a young bloke to help out who knew less about carpentry than I did. I'm sure we contributed to the slow commercial growth of Cairns around that time because most of our signs fell over with the first hint of a breeze.

The work was sporadic and not too well paid so I got a second job as a cleaner. I was on the night crew cleaning offices. Cleaning ashtrays was the worst part, learning how to use the electric floor polisher without being sent flying through the air was the best part. I was earning enough to pay for my paper and milkshakes and petrol but I was also spending a lot of money on phonecalls.

# Number 6.

I was missing blonde Karen who I had left behind in Brisbane and I hadn't met any girls in Cairns. Based on the sound theory that a rolling stone gathers no moss and with no plan, I said goodbye to Auntie Marg and my employers and drove back to Brisbane, narrowly missing a cow on the way.

I would return to Cairns ten years later, with a much better job, a wife and a cat called Cactus.

It was October, 1979, and I was back in Brisbane about to turn 19. Late night shopping was still a novelty, blokes would still dress up in shorts and long socks and you could still fly TAA ( the friendly way ). The average wage was $250 a week, but the unemployment rate was over 9% and I needed to find a job. Joh Bjelke Petersen had been Queensland Premier for 11 years and would remain in the job for another 8 years. His mate, Terry Lewis, was Police Commissioner who would finish up in jail on corruption charges not long after Joh got booted out. Turns out Brisbane was a city full of illegal brothels, crooked cops, drugs and illegal casinos – how hard could it be to get a job?

Well, quite hard as it turned out. One of the sticking points was that I had no address. In order to save money, as I had no idea how long I would be unemployed, I decided to live in my car. This didn't go down too well with Karen who, unsurprisingly, wasn't keen on having a poor, unemployed boyfriend who lived in his car. It was no surprise that not long after making the romantic dash back to Brisbane, I saw her walking down Queen Street hand in hand with a long haired skinny bugger in tight jeans and a denim jacket. She had reached in and ripped my heart out, thrown it on the ground and stomped on it like a discarded cigarette butt. Luckily, it was only a metaphorical stomping and I would recover as soon as I met another girl. But in the meantime I had no girlfriend, no home, no job and no friends. Just as well I didn't have a dog, or he would have run off too.

Each night I would park in a dark place not too far from a caravan park. I would put my bike under the car and curl up on the back seat with my pots and pans and try to sleep. Early in the morning I would sneak into the caravan park and have a shower, then buy a Courier Mail and search for a job. I got knocked back, a lot. My biggest disappointment was missing out on a job cleaning bricks due to lack of experience. Huh? I would scrape together my one and two cent pieces that had been accumulating in the centre console of my car and buy a packet of frankfurters which I could cook up on the side of the road on my portable gas cooker. A packet could last me a few nights which was good value but not good nutrition.

After a couple of weeks of this enviable lifestyle, I took a longshot and rang up for an advertised position as a barman in a city tavern and somehow scored an interview. I had plenty of experience – I had been in a lot of bars over the last 12 months. Armed with this confidence I sat down with the portly Mr. O'Brien in his small and untidy office.

" Have you had any experience?", he asked me.

" Well, not a lot of direct experience actually working in a bar, no, but I have always been interested in a career in the hospitality industry and I am willing to start at the bottom and work my way up and I am very reliable and I would really like to work here", I said, as genuinely as I could.

" Okay, well I will give you a three month trial but you will need to get a haircut before you start....."

" I'm happy to do that", I said, even though I wasn't and, amazingly, I got the job.

Filling out the employment forms was harder than the interview. I had to make up a home address for the office girls and make sure I changed it soon as I found a place to live, hoping they wouldn't send me anything in the mail in the meantime.

I lived in my car for another week until I got paid, then found a place in New farm – a 13 minute bike ride from work.

Dear old Miss Mclean, who looked about a hundred years old, had converted her old house into four flats and, even though she was looking for an older tenant, she took pity on me and I found a home. It wasn't fancy, but it had a kitchen and a bathroom and compared to the back seat of my car, it was a palace.

Alice was barmaid royalty – a princess of barmaids. Alice was a barmaid when hospitality wasn't a part time job while you were at uni, it was actually a profession. She didn't get to be front bar top dog by spending 30 minutes doing an online Responsible Service of Alcohol course and a week in a TAFE classroom. She got there through years of dealing with drunks of all ages and all types. She knew more about talkative drunks and depressed drunks and sleazy drunks and aggressive drunks than they knew about themselves, and she knew how to deal with them all.

Alice wore her grey hair in a stylish perm, her glasses attached by a simple gold chain and she had a slight stoop from bending over beer taps for 30 years but in that bar she took crap from nobody and was respected by everybody. Alice could pour four beers in one hand, serve up a counter meal in the other and line up the next three orders without spilling a drop. Alice also had a heart of gold and she was going to teach me all about bar work.

When I had enthusiastically told Mr. O'Brien I would start at the bottom I hadn't meant the actual.....bottom. Cleaning the front bar toilets is about the lowest rung on the hospitality ladder – in fact I don't think it's even classified as a rung. But that's what I would do at 9 am every morning, inhaling the aroma of stale beer and even staler urine, before opening the doors to eager and thirsty customers at 10 am.

In South Australia, our beer glasses were schooners, butchers, or for the very light drinker – a pony. In Queensland it was simply a ten or a seven ( ounce ) and always of Fourex. The City Plaza Tavern had a front bar, frequented mainly by men, a lounge bar for the ladies, a cocktail bar ( open at 5 pm ) a bistro and a disco ( called Tommys – after the pinball wizard ). It was a modern tavern, right in the heart of the city, and was always busy, especially at lunchtime when we would serve up $2 counter meals and I gradually got the hang of pouring more than one beer at a time. It was mostly beer – no fancy drinks here mate – and it was always in a glass – no stubbies over the bar here mate – that was for the yobbos in North Queensland where everyone drank beer out of a stubby and not out of a glass that that had been dribbled into, spat into and generally mishandled by smelly, hairy blokes with rotten teeth and bad breath.

Our customers were mainly office workers coming in for lunch and the thirsty regulars who would be there every day at 10 am.

Business would quieten down after lunch and I would finish work around 3 pm. Two of the after lunch regulars were Bernard and John who owned a nearby café. They were in their late thirties, been married and had kids, but were now together. This was my first experience with a gay couple but they were nice blokes and we ended up socialising now and then.

I also made some new friends with my fellow bar staff, and a couple of them were into marijuana. I would be invited me over to their place where they would make a bong out of a plastic orange juice container which would bubble away when you smoked it which seemed pretty cool for a very short time . I was never a smoker because I couldn't really see the point and I had never tried drugs.

But, after a few beers one night at a mate's house I gave it a go and was definitely underwhelmed. I would cross paths with the drug a few more times over the next couple of years with some weird results, and getting into that stuff seemed like buying a one way ticket to nowhere, which was a place I didn't want to go. I was more into beer and drink it I did. The only bar that staff were allowed to drink in at the tavern was the cocktail bar, and I found that to be a great place to meet new friends.

As part of my training, I was to learn the art of the cellarman. He was the guy who started at 7 am every morning and measured how much beer had been sold the day and night before. He would also use a ruler to measure all the spirit bottles to make sure what was rung on the till tallied with what was used the day before. He was also responsible for cleaning the beer lines and the beer taps and hooking up new kegs for the day and ordering any stock that was required. Tapping beer kegs was an art in itself , and a mistake could result in a broken jaw or a lot of spilled beer \- neither of which was a good career move.

Colin was the tavern cellarman. He was a smallish guy about 45 with glasses and not much hair who freely admitted to me that he drank beer for the effect, not the taste. I thought his honesty was very refreshing and then realised that, after the first beer, that's probably why everyone kept drinking it. After working in the bar for a month or so and observing the pitiful decline of a man as he drank beer after beer and either became louder, or talkative or aggressive or just plain sad, I actually gave it up for a while. Not a long while, but long enough to make sure that if I was drinking, it was in the company of other drinkers so that we could all decline pitifully together. Being a barman is like being the only sober person at a party and observing people can be both interesting, and depressing.

Meanwhile, my Monaro was having a few battery problems. I was riding my bike to work most days and the car wasn't getting used much so I used to leave it up the road from my place on a hill so I could roll start it. One day in the middle of December, I was riding my bike to work and I passed a car parked half on the road and half on the footpath which was a little unusual. What was also unusual was that it was my car and even though I had been guilty of that type of parking before I definitely hadn't driven it the previous night. The attempted car thieves had rolled it down the hill to start it, then blew up the gearbox, and abandoned it like an unwanted baby.

If I couldn't afford a new battery I sure as hell couldn't afford a new gearbox so I sold it to a mate of mine, Bernie, who worked in the bar with me, for $600. He paid me half and said he would get the other half soon as he could. Yeah, right.

Losing that car was like breaking up with a favourite girlfriend. No, worse than that. It had been love at first sight and the Monaro was a thing of beauty. Now, after taking me safely for thousands of miles, she was badly injured and I couldn't afford the hospital bills. I had to give her away, sell her off for a pittance and never again hear the growl of her engine or feel the familiar softness of her seats. I was a shattered man, but, oh well....New Years Eve was coming up.

Meanwhile, Christmas day was going to be a bit lonely, so I caught a bus down to Surfers Paradise to spend the day on the beach. I liked the beach that much that I slept on it that night. The next morning, staggering bleary eyed and messy haired onto the street, a kindly man in a raincoat asked me if I had slept on the beach and offered me a shower back at his place. I figured there might be a price to pay with a currency I didn't use, so I politely declined.

I spent the last night of the 1970's working in the tavern's disco, but I finished work early enough to dance on the table to Kiss, blasting out ' _I was made for loving you_ ' loud enough to make my ears bleed. The clock passed midnight, and I dragged my drunken self into a new decade with no plan. The 70's would live on forever though, thanks to its fashion, music and cars. The bands of the 70's didn't just play music, they were musical theatre. The platform shoes, flaired pants, high waisted jeans and long hair were a unique part of that era and for some really weird reason, pretty much any car made in the 70's was really cool and would eventually be worth a lot of money. If only we knew.

Meanwhile, Colin, the cellarman, was taking January off. I was now the man in charge of all things to do with alcohol usage. For a young bloke who liked a cold beer on a hot day there was some irony in there somewhere. It was all part of the hospitality career path, though, and as it meant a payrise and finishing work by lunchtime I embraced the role with love, affection and enthusiasm.

I must have had too much time on my hands during January because I started to get restless again, and I figured it was time to make a plan. It was time to leave the familiarity of Brisbane and backpack down the coast to Sydney, stopping at all the beaches, then head home around May in time for a planned family houseboat holiday. Then, I would work in Adelaide for a few months to save some money, buy a canoe and paddle the length of the Murray River. If I hadn't found another plan by then, I might even join the Army. It wasn't a good plan, but it was a direction to head in so I decided to throw away my hospitality career and gave a month's notice. Who knows where that career opportunity could have taken me? General Manager of the Fiji Sheraton perhaps? Or Client Liaison Manager for the Hong Kong Casino? Or, maybe an alcoholic pub owner in a dusty country town.

Meanwhile, though, I was the acting City Plaza Tavern Cellarman and I had responsibilities and important work to do. On my first day in this role I woke up at 6.53 am ready for a 7 am start. Luckily, they had given me the work ute to use so I was only five minutes late. I only worked in the bar on Wednesdays now so every other day I was done by midday. That worked out well because now, having no car, all my food shopping was done on my bike, which took forever.

My social life was ticking along – I had met a girl called Gena on New Years Eve. She had a job, parents who were still together, no children, and no drug addicted ex boyfriends. This was a refreshing change from most of the girls I had recently met and I was able to take her out a couple of times thanks to having the work ute. I also had plenty of mates who would drop in for a beer or we would head off to a pub. Sometimes I would cook dinner for myself but more often I would go out for a meal. I wasn't a very good cook. One afternoon after work I cycled into the Valley and bought a backpack, a tent and a sleeping bag all for $60 – I was ready to hit the road.

I rode to an opp shop at Stones Corner and bought some clothes for $8, sewed on a button for the first time and went to the movies alone for the first time and saw a good movie for $6. So, as a human adult, I was really advancing.

Deb was in Brisbane on an overnight one night so I caught up with her which was always good fun, and she brought news from home which was usually about her varied love life. I hadn't seen Mum or Dad for ten months but occasionally I would walk down to the phone box on the corner and give them a call – reverse charges. Mum would regularly write and usually enclose $10 which came in very handy. Dad's best mate, who he worked with, had just died of cancer and technology was starting to creep into Dad's job. Like most people born in the 1930's, anything that wasn't written on a piece of paper was too hard to get your head around and, after all those years with K & S, even Dad was getting restless.

And then it was February, 1980. It was time, once again, to step into the great abyss– the bottomless pit seething with uncertainties, intangibles, unknowns and other life creatures unfamiliar to those poor souls who led a predictable life. I felt at home with these creatures. They made life interesting. They seduced me easily with their empty promises as they whispered in my ear assuring me the future would take care of itself and, so far, they had been right.

I dropped into the tavern to say goodbye to my hospitality career. Mr. O'Brien bought me a beer and perhaps regretted the time spent on training me for no long term outcome. I caught the 12.30 bus north to Noosa with nothing but the unshakeable optimism of youth in my heart and $400 in my pocket. Although my original plan was to go south, Noosa was an almost mystical place I had heard about from quite a few people, so I just had to take a look. It was a resort town, 130 kilometres from Brisbane with, apparently, fabulous beaches, no traffic lights, no highrise and a population of only 15,000 lucky people. Perhaps this place was really the centre of the universe. Perhaps I might never leave.

# Number 7.

Noosa, early in 1980. If only I knew then what I know now. Over the next 35 years it would change dramatically and yet remain the same. And yes, it is a mystical place after all. And for a 19 year old the most mystical part of Noosa was the Reef Hotel up on Noosa Hill - a ten minute huff and puff from Main Beach and Hastings Street. I had claimed a tent site in the caravan park at the end of Hastings Street backing onto the beach, next to a group of lads from Newcastle. First night there we all went up to the Reef and then I spent the next three nights at Debra's unit in Noosaville – she was a beautiful, 21 yo single mother I met at the pub who took pity on me having to sleep in a tent in the rain. Yes, Noosa truly was a mystical place, full of friendly and caring people.

For the next ten days I followed a routine. I swam in the warm, clear waters of the ocean, sunbaked on the squeaky, white sand, had cold banana smoothies for lunch, visited Debra, hitch hiked back to my tent and then made the trek up to the pub. But I had spent over $100 already so it was getting time to move on. Even the centre of the universe required money to live on, and I had more places to go, so I caught the bus back to Brisbane and went looking for Bernie who still owed me money for the Monaro. He was, unfortunately, broke.

I needed somewhere to sleep so I contacted the New Zealanders who I knew from the Slacks Creek Caravan Park all those months ago. They had a unit now on the south side of Brisbane and were happy for me to sleep on their couch for a few nights as I had picked up a few days work back at K and S. I had to walk to work though and it took me 1 ½ hours each way, but I picked up $96 for a total of 24 hours work so it was worth it. I was able to buy an air mattress to sleep on, and a bus ticket to the Gold Coast, and had money over for beer - and maybe some food if that became necessary.

The small Miami Beach caravan park was right on the beach and seemed to be free as there was no office. After one free night I was informed by the overweight, officious council man who visited the next morning that it was a council park and would cost me $18 a week to rent a tiny piece of ground for my two man tent which only had one man in it. Even though that was pretty cheap, I seemed to have the budgeting skills of a poker machine addict. After my first week as a Gold Coast beach bum I was down to just $46. That was unfortunate because I had a friend on the Gold Coast who was a hairdresser. Gary was making plans to go to Bali in six weeks and was keen for me to go along. He was also keen to braid my hair which was now long enough for it, but both ideas were beyond my current income level and totally impractical.

My days weren't expensive. I would be out of my tent by 6 am and onto the beach to hide from the council man looking for my overdue rent. A bottle of milk for breakfast, a swim and then a 30 minute walk along the sand to the CES to see if there were any jobs going. I would then walk to the Surfers Paradise post office to check mail and then walk back along the beach to Miami. So there was the morning gone, but at least my tan was free.

On a rainy day towards the end of February I hit the jackpot. Bernie sent me $30 and on the same day Mum sent me a letter with $20 enclosed.

I felt like the richest man on the coast and had dinner at the pub to celebrate. A few days later, though, all I had in the world was my tent, an empty stomach and $10. And I owed the fat camp man $15 in rent.

Even with my limited financial skills, I could tell there may be a problem here. I thought about donating blood just so I could get a couple of biscuits and a glass of orange juice, but it was too far to walk. Then, I got a job. There was a new resort being built down at Coolangatta and they were paying $5 an hour for labourers. After a few days working there putting beds together and moving furniture around, with the bus fare and a starvation diet of milk and biscuits, it was a Wednesday night and I had $2 left and the pay was weekly. I could have toughed it out but that night it rained so hard my little tent turned into a wading pool. If it was any bigger I could have swum laps.

I had spent 99% of my money on wine , women and song over the last 12 months. Now, I was done. I was hungry, cold and lonely and I was getting some strange looking sores under my arms which I figured was probably scurvy from a lack of fresh vegetables. I still had places to go and people to meet and jobs to leave, but I didn't want to admit defeat by going on the dole just to survive. Relying on the support of government money, instead of being self sufficient, was an admission of defeat – of not being able to survive on my own merits.

In a spur of the moment decision I packed up my tent, shrugged on my backpack and walked into Surfers to the bus station to find out the price of a ticket to Adelaide. It was a Thursday afternoon departure for a Saturday arrival via Sydney and Canberra for $104. I rang Dad and he wired me the money.

Hippy days with dad

# Number 8.

Around lunchtime on a Saturday in early March, I knocked on the back door of my parents' house. Of course Dad knew I was turning up, but for Mum who hadn't seen me in nearly a year it was quite the surprise. I couldn't understand why she didn't recognise me – she answered the door, looked me up and down and said, " Yes...?". "Hello, it's me, your son.....", I said, and later on saw myself in a mirror. I had a moustache, a goatee, very long, very curly sun bleached hair, skin the colour of a Somalian and I was wearing white calico pants, no shoes, a blue and white lacy hippy top and an orange backpack. I had gone away as an Adelaide truck driver and come back twelve months later as a Queensland hippy.

It was great timing for a homecoming though, as Dad had turned 45 the day before, and today was the party, which went on into the night until I crashed at 1 am while Dad was still going strong. I had returned home with nothing but a wet tent - no car, no money and no prospects. But that's the good thing about family - when you knock on the door they have to take you in.

Mum lent me some money and Deb lent me her yellow MG sports car and suddenly things weren't too bad. I spent time catching up with old friends like Olga, a dark haired Asian girl I had met before I left home, Jo, a gorgeous but slightly mixed up blonde I used to take out and Jill, a very cute and very smart American girl a couple of years younger than me who I had been exchanging letters with while I was away. Meanwhile, I was lost and adrift with a dodgy compass with no idea who I was or where I wanted to be. The rough seas of poverty were upon me again and the only safe harbour was a job. Any job would do.

Dad knew a bloke who knew a bloke who was looking for a bloke to do some work for him. Out in the country. Ploughing paddocks with a tractor. From beach bum to farmer – a natural transition. Digby owned the tractor, and the paddocks and lived in Langhorne Creek, a small town an hour's drive from Adelaide famous for its red wine vineyards. My job was to sit on the tractor all day and into the night and go around and around in circles, and, oh, watch out for that big soft spot in the middle or you will be stuck there all night. The paddocks were a long way out of town so food was brought out to me and late at night I was given a ride to some abandoned shearers quarters to get a bit of sleep. When I say abandoned I don't mean they were vacant in between shearing seasons. I mean the last time they were used was when shearers were using hand clippers, and they all had beards and hats and would come to work on a horse after a two day ride. I had plenty of company – every rat and bat from the Langhorne Creek district had taken over ownership of the building and clearly enjoyed having me as a guest. Day after day for two weeks I went around and around the damned paddocks trying to avoid the soft spots. One day I got so hungry I stopped the tractor in the middle of the paddock, walked 25 minutes to a main road, hitchhiked to a roadhouse, bought a pie and hitchhiked back to my paddock where I made a solid decision to not, under any circumstances, pursue a rural career.

I picked up a paltry $250 for my efforts, and then I drove a forklift for the railways for a week and then, after paying Mum back what I owed her, I was back where I started. It was becoming very clear to me that I could no longer ignore it, hide from it, run from it or pretend it didn't exist. It was time to face it head on – the damn future.

# Number 9.

On April 30th, 1852, 10 year old Thomas John Leane departed London on board the 530 ton ship Gloucester with his parents, three brothers, and three sisters bound for a new life in Australia.

The journey took 3 ½ months and claimed the lives of 23 passengers en route, but the Leane family arrived safely and docked at Port Adelaide on 13th August. Thirteen years later, Thomas married Alice Short and they began a family of their own. Thomas and Alice would have five sons and eleven of their grandsons see active service in either WW1 or WW2. Some would return home in glory, and some would not return at all.

The Leane's military involvement began with the South African War in 1900 and continued to the Gallipoli landing and the battlefields of France in WW1, to El Alamein and the defence of Tobruk in WW2. They earned Distinguished Service Orders, Croix de Guerres , numerous Mentions in Dispatches, two Knighthoods and a Military Cross.

They were led from the front by Brigadier General Sir Raymond Leane, one of the first ashore at Gallipoli, the man my Dad was named after and who was my great, great Uncle and eventual South Australian Police Commissioner. Both my Grandfathers were Army officers, and my great Uncle was one of the legendary Rats of Tobruk in WW2. With a military pedigree like that, it came as no surprise to anyone that I walked through the door of the Army Recruiting office in Adelaide at the end of May, 1980 - although being broke and unemployed may have contributed a little to my decision.

" Why do you want to join the Army?", was a reasonable question asked by the Sergeant who was so perfectly dressed and groomed that I initially mistook him for a cardboard cutout.

" Well, I don't have a lot of direct experience, but I have always been interested in a career in the military and I am willing to start at the bottom and work my way up and I am very reliable and I would really like to work here ", I said, as genuinely as I could.

" What do you want to do in the Army?", Sergeant Cutout asked.

" I'd like to be a PTI " ( _Physical Training Instructor_ ) I said, because that sounded like a bit of fun.

" Okay, well you can choose to sign up for three years or six years. To be a PTI you will need to join the Artillery Corps and sign up for the six years ."

" Right. Well perhaps I'll just try the three years and see how it goes ", I replied hopefully, because I was still having a little commitment trouble.

After two weeks of aptitude, attitude, psychology and medical tests I signed on the dotted line, stood to attention with a dozen other young blokes and took the oath, pledging allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors and undertook to loyally and faithfully serve Her Majesty as a soldier in the Australian Army for a period of three years.

I followed in the steps of thousands of well meaning, adventurous and wide eyed young men before me - all of us with no idea of what was ahead and even less concern. We were bullet proof, bomb proof, energetic and looking forward to a bit of an adventure – and a regular pay cheque. Before we could change our minds or put too much thought into what we had just promised the Queen, they bundled us onto a train headed for Melbourne where we would pick up some more wide eyed young men and then take a bus to Wagga Wagga in NSW, home of Kapooka, 1st Recruit Training Battalion.

Mum and Dad saw me off on the train with equally mixed emotions of pride and relief. Probably more relief, after my eight ordinary jobs and complete lack of direction for three and a half years. Mum gave me a handy going away present of.....a comb and hairbrush set............which wasn't all that handy as I was about to get my head shaved. But, it's the thought that counts.

Kapooka had been used as a military training camp for Australian soldiers as far back as WW2. The 3 storey red brick buildings that greeted our arrival were built in the 1960's to house blokes training for the Vietnam War, which only ended for Australian soldiers in 1972. Now, in 1980, being in the Army was a bit safer - Australia wasn't taking part in any conflicts and didn't look like it was about to.

Our busload of tired civilian blokes, all around 17 to 22 years old, made its way past the guardhouse and up a windy bitumen road to a carpark, just after dark. As we stumbled out of the bus there were two corporals and a sergeant waiting for us, yelling for us to line up and immediately making us feel about as welcome as a bullet. The bloke chewing gum got special attention, which was me, as did anyone with long hair, which was also me. Our suitcases with our civilian clothes and my valuable comb and hairbrush set were unloaded from the bus and then disappeared, not to be seen again for seven weeks because the Army provides you with all you need to be a soldier, and there's no need for those sissy civilian clothes. Our busload was split up and about two dozen of us marched ( kind of ) off to the barracks that would be our home for the next three months. We were now part of 22 Platoon, C Company, 1 RTB. We were no longer individuals and I was no longer Michael Taylor, just a recruit with a number – in my case 4401065 – an individual number that no soldier ever forgets.

We were allocated rooms, four to a room, two each side. My roommate was Lou, an Italian from Perth about my age, but instead of a picture of his girlfriend inside his locker he would put a picture of his car. Despite his apparent mix up of priorities, we got along well and would spend the next 6 months together. Waiting for us on our beds was a bunch of stuff including boxer shorts, socks, PT gear and some other stuff that none of us had a clue about. There were about 5 rooms along each side of a long corridor that ended at the office and the communal bathroom, and the whole place smelled like brasso and boot polish. The place was shiny clean and I was impressed by their cleaning staff, having had some experience in that field, until I realised later that we were in fact the cleaning staff. We were marched off to the mess for some dinner and once we entered in our civilian clothes we copped abuse good and loud from all the experienced, military dressed, crew cut recruits that had been there for weeks. Lights out was at 10 pm and lights on at 6 am. No exceptions. As I lay there that first night I had exactly the same thought as all the blokes that had slept in this bed before me...' what the hell have I done?' Not long ago I was lying on a warm beach being scooped out by the Hand of God and now I was in a prison - by choice.

" WAKEY WAKEY HANDS OFF SNAKEY " was bellowed out by our NCO's at 6 am, followed by " HANDS OFF COCKS ON WITH SOCKS ", just in case we missed the meaning of the first one. Aside from their obsession with the penis, our corporals seemed like decent blokes – when they weren't yelling at us – which was most of the time.

The first week was taken up with filling out lots of forms – including making a will – and no doubt signing disclaimers and all claims to compensation if injured or killed, and agreeing to donate our dead young bodies to science if the occasion arose. There was no walking, we ran everywhere like 5 year olds, but in a much more organised manner. Firstly to the Q store to get a duffel bag full of uniforms, hats, boots and good old white Dunlop Volley sandshoes to do PT in. Then we would run to the doctors and get vaccinations for smallpox, cholera, typhoid, yellow fever and almost every disease that had been discovered in the last five hundred years. We even got them for ones that didn't exist anymore because that's what the Army does – form a line, roll your sleeves up, open your mouth and get one in each arm plus an oral – three at once then run around to the back of the line for some more. Then we would run to the dentist for a quick checkup. No treatment, just to make sure you had enough teeth to be able to chew through the indigestible food found in Army ration packs left over from the Vietnam war.

Then we would run up to the barber and pose for a before photo, spend one minute in the chair getting our head shaved close to the bone as possible, then pose for the after picture – because the Army does have a sense of humour. I had lots of hair, and then, I had none. A lot has been written about soldiers and their training and how the object is to break you down, obliterate your individuality and then build you up as the perfect soldier, but blind obedience was never an expectation in the Australian Army. Of course there has to be discipline, and there has to be routine. Army training is nothing like a normal job. You can be yelled at, verbally abused and pushed to your physical limits. The reason for that is very simple – it is to save your life. At the time, none of us saw that. All we saw was a physically punishing, socially deprived, regimented environment that sucked.

Our uniforms and boots were all Vietnam era issue and most of our instructors were Vietnam veterans. On our third night we all lined up outside our rooms and the platoon Sergeant came and closely inspected every blokes face. This was the moustache check. Plenty of us had them but some would have been put to shame by any Greek Grandmother. Mine saved the cut but plenty didn't.

We had been formed into three sections of 10 men each. Our section commander was Corporal Egan. He was about 30 years old, with a cracker of a moustache, not very tall, but wiry, and tough as a woodpecker's lips. He had a wonky elbow from a parachuting accident and whenever he marched, instead of his right arm going straight back, it would bend around towards his back. Eventually we all started copying this arm movement when he wasn't looking, which was pretty funny for a while.

There was a bar on the base but we were not allowed there until week six. There was also a canteen but we were not allowed there until week four. The nearest town was only ten miles away but the real world seemed like a million miles away. We were able to devote every minute to training from 6 am, until 10 pm when there was no further talking. Sometimes there would be unpaid overtime when the fire alarm would go off at 2 am and we would all have to evacuate the building in our Army issue pyjamas carrying all our bedding with us - presumably so it wouldn't catch fire.

More likely it was so we would have to remake our beds – with hospital corners. Sometimes we would have to run back in and change into our PT gear then run back outside. Not because we were going to do PT at two in the morning, although I'm surprised we didn't, but to hone our quick changing skills. I guessed this was because there may come a time when, on the battlefield, there is a lull in fighting so we can quickly change into our PT gear, thanks to our training, do a spot of PT then quickly change back and resume the battle without losing too much time. There would be a lot of stuff we did in the Army that I didn't really see the point of.

During the day there was drill – lots of drill. Being able to march together and in time was apparently one of the most important skills for a soldier. It was constantly drilled into us that our march out parade was only so many weeks away and if our marching wasn't up to scratch there would be no parade and we would remain at Kapooka until we were old men, if necessary, until our skills were acceptable.

There was running – lots of running. Firstly in our white Dunlop Volleys, then in boots and greens. There was the obstacle course and there were the vertical ropes to climb. There were swimming tests and weapons training and shooting. We earned certificates for ' resuscitation', for 'demonstrating confidence and ability to pass the personal safety test ', and ' swimming required for survival in dangerous circumstances '. Strangely, there seemed to be quite a focus on swimming, even though we were in the Army. I learned new words like durry, furphy, goffa and fart sack and came to love backups on the hotbox. I learned to love shooting, even though the closest I had been to a firearm was watching a cowboy movie on television. The weapon of choice was the SLR – short for Self Loading Rifle – which of course it wasn't because no rifle can load itself but it was still pretty cool. We started out shooting it with a .22 round insert . This was like driving a truck with a motorbike engine. Then, we moved up to the ominous sounding 7.62mm round. This was serious stuff. The rifle gave a kick like a bad tempered donkey and blew a hole in a 44 gallon drum that destroyed it for life. I really didn't want to get shot by one of those rounds and put extra effort into my running, and swimming.

At night time, after dinner, we would be shown how to make our beds the Army way with hospital corners, how to iron and arrange our lockers the Army way – all creases the same way and every coathanger facing in and evenly spaced. We would polish our brass until our fingers cramped, spit polish our boots until our elbows cramped and memorise the weight, range and muzzle velocity of the SLR, the M16, the Bren Gun, the M60, and the M203, then time ourselves handloading a 20 round magazine of 7.62mm rounds. Then we would collapse into bed and a few minutes later, it seemed, it was time for ' hands off cocks and on with our socks'.

But at least this job was different. There aren't many jobs where you have to keep your personal weapon inside your wardrobe ( minus the bolt ). I wasn't working a certain amount of hours doing a certain activity for a certain amount of money just to make the business owner richer, and I didn't have time to be bored.

I was actually quite enjoying it all. I had made a bit of an attempt to improve my fitness before joining up so none of the PT seemed too hard, plus I was being paid over $100 a week and getting fed three times a day. This was a big improvement on most of my other jobs.

I was training with a good bunch of blokes and there was always time for a laugh – in fact a sense of humour would turn out to be the most valuable asset I could have. None of us called each other by our first name – mostly because it was rarely used. I was Recruit Taylor to the NCO's and we all had nicknames for each other. I was Squizzy ( after Squizzy Taylor, the gangster ) a bloke whose surname was Donald always got Duck, redheads were always Blue, Murphy always got Spud, and so on. There were a couple of 17 year olds in the platoon straight out of home and they were struggling. It was difficult to go AWOL because our civvy clothes were locked up and it was a long walk to town. A few tried though, unsuccessfully, and there were stories of attempted suicides going around, but they were rare.

After seven weeks the Army paid for us to go home for a few days. It was good to catch up with some friends and tell some Army stories but I was happy to return to Kapooka. A few didn't come back but they were the ones we weren't going to miss anyway. The first morning back was the 10 kilometre spew run to get rid of all the beer we had supposedly drank on our days off. We were now allowed to go to the boozer a couple of nights a week which was a real luxury, and drop into the canteen for a chocolate bar.

Whenever we went on a long run, all kitted up, or did the obstacle course there would be a photographer taking pictures which were later put up on a board near the boozer and we were able to buy them. I still have those pictures and in every one of them I am a 19 year old short haired smiling man.

Around week nine, Corporal Egan took me aside and told me that the following Saturday we would be allowed to take a bus into Wagga Wagga and have the afternoon off. He said that NCO's were not to be seen socialising with recruits but.........he would be having a beer at the Union Hotel around two o'clock. So I passed that on to a few of the lads and we spent a great afternoon drinking beer and talking about guns, football and women – some of which I could now contribute to - and told nobody about it. Some of the training staff at Kapooka were tossers, but in 22 platoon all our NCO's were good blokes.

There were two obstacles to get through before we could march out of Kapooka. One was called The Challenge and the other was the gas chamber. The gas chamber involved running in to an air tight concrete room wearing a gas mask. Inside the room were a few NCO's also wearing gas masks, and a whole lot of CS gas, a powerful form of tear gas. We then had to stand in front of an NCO, take off our gas mask, answer a few questions while trying to hold our breath, our eyes streaming and snot flowing, then put our mask back on, clear it so we could breathe and run out the other end to join the other blokes coughing and spewing and rolling on the grass. This was not a pleasant experience but did give us a great appreciation of the effects of tear gas in a confined space, which apparently was an important part of the training. It is no longer a part of the Kapooka curriculum.

The Challenge was a half day event run as a ten man section that was non stop running through bush and over obstacle courses, shooting and blowing things up as we went. Failure to successfully complete it meant failure of the whole course. We all made it through and got a photo to prove it.

Mum and Dad came to the march out parade in September to watch their short haired, clean shaven, former beach bum son snap to attention, shoulder arms and salute the 1RTB Commanding Officer. I think it would be fair to say their mixed emotions were now amazement and pride. It was a surprising transformation for the motley bunch who had stumbled off the bus three months earlier, and it gave us all a great feeling to see what we had achieved. We could march, we could shoot, we could run all day and we knew how to blow things up.

A week before that happened we were given aptitude tests to determine which of the Army's Corps we were suited for. I didn't join the Army to be a truck driver or a cook because they were jobs I could do in civvy street. I joined to be an Infantry soldier because that is not something you can do anywhere else and that is where my history was – from the Boer War to Gallipoli and Tobruk - and that is what I put my hand up for. The night before the march out, 22 platoon lined up outside their rooms and the platoon Sergeant walked slowly along asking each man which Corps he was going to. When I proudly told him Infantry, he said, "...what a waste ." I never understood why until many years later.

The morning after our march out parade, after a lengthy session at the boozer the night before, those of us assigned to the Royal Australian Infantry Corps, including my mate Lou, boarded a bus for Singleton, the home of the Infantry Training Centre, and three more months of training. I was now Private Taylor and my new job role was very simple – ' to seek out and close with the enemy, to kill or capture him, to seize and hold ground, and to repel attack, by day or night, regardless of season, weather or terrain '. As a job description it was a little unusual but - piece of cake.

The Infantry Training Centre was located 8 kilometres out of Singleton, a town in the Hunter Valley, two hours drive north of Sydney. There had been an Army base there since 1940, but Infantry training had only been going on there since 1973, after moving from Ingleburn, south of Sydney.

It was a sprawling base, and the first time we drove in there I thought it was deserted. I would come to learn that a lot of Army bases look like that. Life at Singleton Army Camp was way different to Kapooka. Here, we knocked off at 4 pm, had weekends off and could go to the boozer any night of the week. There were 35 of us in Tobruk platoon, living in two long WW2 era round roofed huts with the beds separated from each other by our metal lockers. We still had frequent locker inspections but I had asked a few girls from home to send me pictures of themselves and I stuck these inside my locker which distracted Corporal Hughes from any misaligned socks or unironed boots.

Our training was focused on weapons and fieldcraft – that is, how to engage with the enemy and not get killed in the process. Australia was not involved in any conflicts so we had little chance of testing our skills for real but we lived in hope. I came to understand why so many young men were sometimes keen to head off to war – it was a test and a bit of a lark. Those that did however, and came back, probably returned with a more realistic attitude.

If we weren't out in the field shooting and blowing things up as soldiers do, we would all assemble on the parade ground after lunch each day for what was called ' rifle exercises '. This was a 45 minute session, led by the RSM ( Regimental Sergeant Major ). The RSM in the Infantry Corps was the toughest, meanest, most experienced bloke in pretty much the entire Army. If not, the world.

Army days with dad

Our ' rifle exercises ' had us holding our SLR straight out to the side with one hand for one minute, then above our head then back to the side. If he could have somehow given us an erection ( unlikely ) he would have had us balancing it on that as well. The SLR weighed 5 kilograms which, after a while, gets really heavy. The session wasn't something we looked forward to.

There was, occasionally, some friction between the Army lads and the civilian lads in the town of Singleton – usually to do with their girlfriends. After one such incident, the RSM gathered us all together and laid down the law. He told us that we needed to show respect for the locals and do the right thing blah, blah, blah..............then he raised his voice and stated very clearly......" ..BUT IF THEY EVER, EVER, THREATEN THE SAFETY OF MY SOLDIERS.....WE WILL CRUSH THEM." We hated ' rifle exercises ', but we loved our RSM.

Lou and I would catch the train to Newcastle most weekends, stay at a pub and generally have a good time. One Saturday afternoon I fell asleep on the beach, like old times, and my back got severely sunburned. I returned to base for guard duty the next night and had trouble getting my shirt on. The Corporal wanted to charge me with a self inflicted wound which carried a stretch in the base jail, but the Sergeant took pity on me and just let me suffer the pain. It was a painful reminder of who I used to be and who I was now.

There wasn't a lot to do in Singleton and there was that animosity between the Singleton local lads and us. One weekend I finished up at a Newcastle tattoo parlour with another mate to choose a tattoo, because that's what soldiers did. He went first while I finally settled on a palm tree to go on the back of my shoulder to remind me of my Queensland days, but after watching him getting a Snoopy dog tattoo on his shoulder and seeing the look of pain on his face and the sweat pouring from his head, I quietly slipped out and didn't return.

We spent three months learning the various skills of an Infantry soldier and by mid December it was march out time again. On completion of training, my report read in part....' Private Taylor is a cheerful and enthusiastic soldier. He works hard on most occasions, however he requires some supervision.' Why did that remind me of Mrs. Fox's remarks four years ago? Had I learned nothing?

Mum and Dad were not able to make the march out parade, but when I told Dad I had been awarded best shot of the course and was to march out the front and be awarded my Marksmans Badge by the CO, he really wanted to be there. We had a week off after Singleton so I flew home with Dad, via Kings Cross in Sydney, in my dress uniform, proudly displaying my Crossed Rifles Marksmans badge that a lady in a motel had sewn on for me – upside down.

Towards the end of our training we were to write down three choices for where we would like to be posted. I wanted to go back to Brisbane, but got posted to Townsville along with a few other blokes. My training mate of the last six months, Lou, got posted to Sydney and after Singleton I never saw him again. I did hear later he went AWOL, skipped back to Perth and never went back to the Army. He must have missed his car.

It was December, 1980, and I was feeling pretty good. Unfortunately John Lennon wasn't though, having just been shot dead. There was more bad news to follow when my favourite band of the 1970's, Led Zeppelin, broke up.

So it wasn't a good month for music, but I had just survived 6 months of everything the Army could throw at me, and now I was on my way back to Queensland after leaving there broke and unemployed only 9 months ago. Funny how life goes. Our plane had a few hours stopover in Brisbane on the way to Townsville, so I jumped in a taxi and called into the City Plaza Tavern. Alice was still working the front bar and didn't recognise me. I reminded her who I was, told her about my new job, had a beer, and scampered back to the airport. I was now a soldier instead of a barman.

Getting off the plane in Townsville was like walking into a fan forced oven. The humidity was like a big wet blanket I carried around on my shoulders. The Army had told us we had to definitely be in Townsville by the 20th December, but when the six of us rocked up to Lavarack Barracks, no-one there had any clue about us. They did find us a bed though and then told us to report back after Christmas. I hopped on a bus to Cairns and spent Christmas with Marg, my Aunt at Palm Cove, and spent some time under a palm tree again. But, it wasn't the same. I wasn't carefree and lost any more.

As I soon discovered, Army life in peacetime involves a lot of waiting around. There were bursts of frenetic activity, and then.......nothing. Being in an Infantry platoon meant the training was jungle focused as the Vietnam war had only finished about 8 years ago and there was nothing else on the horizon that looked like trouble. So, in February, at the height of the humidity, we went on a training exercise to the rainforests of Tully, the wettest place in Australia, and full of jungle. We rode there in the back of a truck which seemed a bit too easy. Unfortunately, the trucks stopped quite some way from our camp – certainly from a vertical perspective. After a long, hot march, the final climb was brutal. And yet, as we crawled on hands and knees searching for the peak, Sergeant Poulsen, made not of skin and bone but of lead pipes and barbed wire, would race up that mountain carrying the laggers packs and still finding enough breath to tell us what pathetic, hopeless, useless pretend soldiers we were. He was a proper soldier and had a cracker moustache.

I had been given the job of Scout, the bloke at the front when on patrol. So for the next ten days I was the first to be repeatedly shot, blown up and perforated by a claymore mine. Luckily, they were blanks and simulations but I got the feeling that had I served in Vietnam I would have lasted about 2 ½ minutes. The jungle was wet, steep, slippery, full of leeches and humid. At night, as we stared out looking for the enemy, the darkness was so black and thick you could taste it and we may as well have just closed our eyes and hoped for the best.

It rained a lot so we were constantly wet and chafing became a problem. Towards the end of our time in the jungle, blokes were walking like they had been on a horse for ten days. Condoms were issued – one for the barrel of your rifle to keep the mud out and one for your dick to stop the chafing. You had to laugh though, because otherwise you would cry.

Our next exercise was out west, where it was hot and dry. For two weeks we would patrol during the day, set up a defensive perimeter before dark, allowing enough time to dig a trench to sleep in and scoff a quick tin of corned beef hash type 2 from our ration pack or beef and gravy if we were lucky enough to swap with someone who actually liked corned beef hash type 2.

Then we might go on a night patrol - ambush, fighting or reconnaissance - come back for a few hours sleep without taking our boots off just in case we got attacked, fill in our pits at first light, then head off again. We would end up spending up to nine months a year out bush, because that is what Infantrymen do. And this, was my job. A job that didn't seem to serve any purpose.

We returned to the barracks for a few weeks and I fell in love, again. She was only three years old but it was love at first sight, again. She was a 1978, V8 Sandman panel van, green with a red stripe, black bubble windows, a chrome roof rack and mag wheels. My budgeting skills hadn't improved over time as I only had $50 in the bank, but I had pledged allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth for three years so I was a solid prospect. I borrowed $6000 and began a relationship that would last three years and then end in tears, just like my Monaro did. Had I learned nothing?

It was a Friday evening and I was standing out on the skids of an Iroquois helicopter in the dark, anchored by a rope, flying at low level over Townsville. I could feel the warm night air on my face and could hear nothing but the loud roar of the chopper blades. We flew in fast, banked steeply and pulled up 150 feet above the Lavarack Barracks parade ground. We deployed our ropes and I jumped into the darkness, controlling my descent at about 10 feet per second. The six of us hit the ground at the same time, ditched our ropes, unstrapped our SLR's from our backs, spread out and hit the deck. We immediately came under fire from the defensive position we had come to attack. We threw out smoke grenades, returned fire and used all the infantry skills we had been trained in to avoid being killed.

The hundreds of Townsville civilians that were watching from purpose built stands were being treated to a military display. Our rounds were blanks but everything else was real and, along with marching through Townsville on Anzac day, this was a moment when I really enjoyed being a soldier.

Unfortunately, these highlights were too few, so when the chance came to take some time off in late June I jumped at it, and this is when a number of random events all conspired together to affect my life for the next ten years. I had planned to use this time off to go to the NSW snowfields with a girl I had met in Noosa when I zoomed down there for a few days in my Sandman over Easter. But she got really sick and wasn't able to go so instead I went for plan B. My sister, Deb, was getting engaged in Adelaide and having a big party. I like parties, so I decided to fly down for a few days to celebrate the occasion, and I also decided to ask along a high school sweetheart from Adelaide who I had caught up with during my visit home from Kapooka. She had agreed to come with me, which was amazing because she had really strict Greek parents ( even though she was my age ! ) but at the last minute she gave in to parental pressure and stood me up. So, bugger it, I went alone. The theme was black and white and I wore a long wig, a top hat and an apron.

It was a good party – I drank, I danced, and I met two blonde girls who were looking for a ride home and who really liked my apron. I had also met a 23 year old windsurfing instructor there and a guy who had a motel room in North Adelaide. We did a swap and I got his motel room and the windsurfer. He took the blondes home and I spent the night at Scotty's Motel in North Adelaide before flying back to Townsville the next morning.

Arriving back at the barracks I had some mail waiting for me on my bed. There was a parcel from my Noosa friend who didn't make the snow trip. She was apologetic and wrote that she hopes this makes up for it. It was a bag of marijuana. Lucky there were no sniffer dogs about or it would have been a very dishonourable discharge.

Our next exercise was in Canberra to act as enemy for the Duntroon trainee officers. It was a cushy job but so cold that our water bottles froze overnight, and the corned beef hash could be used as a cricket ball - which was better than eating it. Meanwhile, in Townsville, I stuck with bad habits and continued to spend 99% of my pay on wine, women and song. One Saturday night I went out on the town with the boys and wore the wig I had for Deb's engagement party because our short hair always identified us as AJ,s ( Army Jerks ). Late in the night I ended up back at a females house and started getting all smoochy until I could feel my wig slipping off so I shot through before I got really embarrassed.

Then, after a couple of months of letters and phonecalls, Jane, the 23 year old windsurfing instructor from Adelaide, came to Townsville for a visit, and never left. We moved into a two bedroom , high set flat in North Ward and, after living in Army barracks for fifteen months, it was great to live like a normal person again.

But the Army was not a normal job. It fed me, housed me, clothed me, looked after my medical and dental and paid for me to go back to Adelaide every year. I worked with other soldiers and socialised with other soldiers. It was blokey, boozey, isolated and almost detached from the real world. So to go home to suburban Townsville and a woman after work each day took some getting used to.

Our next exercise was Kangaroo '81 which was a multinational exercise down at Shoalwater bay, just north of Rockhampton. It was a huge area that had been owned by the military since 1965 to practise amphibious landings, infantry training and live firing exercises. We went two weeks without a shower and worked our guts out alongside the New Zealand, American and Gurkha soldiers from Nepal, who were very good and very scary.

Life in the Royal Australian Regiment went along as usual. If we weren't out on exercise there would be PT every morning involving running up steep hills carrying a rock, then maybe some weapons training or out to the range for some shooting. There was a lot of waiting around and boredom but I was taking home $230 a week so it was easy money. We had a brief period of excitement in April 1982, when the United Kingdom went to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. As part of the Operational Deployment Force we were on standby to deploy to any conflict first, but the war lasted only ten weeks and there was no Australian involvement. It would later be described as being like a fight between two bald men over a comb, but nearly 1000 soldiers lost their lives during the fight, so we were probably lucky not to go.

By the time 1983 rolled around I had to make a decision, even though I had never planned on staying in the Army. It had it's moments, and the life suited lots of blokes, but I was finding the constant authority and regulations and uniforms too much so I was happy when my time was up.

There were times when I wasn't going to last the three years. Even with a sense of humour and an easygoing attitude, life in the Army was a massive adjustment from where I had come from and there were a few occasions when going AWOL seemed like a great option. But meeting Jane had settled me down and I was glad to have seen it through. The discharge process took nearly two months and was done at the city of enlistment so we drove back to Adelaide in April.

Jane moved back in with her parents and I moved back in with mine, which was not our preferred option. I drove to Keswick Barracks every day to have dental checks, medical checks, finance checks and whatever else the Army wanted to check on before they would set me free. There were six of us waiting for discharge and most days were spent reading the paper. It was an inglorious end to three years of military service.

Apart from a dislocated kneecap playing footy and a bout of Ross River fever I caught in Cairns on a weekend off which sidelined me for six weeks, I had come through my time relatively unscathed. On the 17th June, 1983, after exactly three years as a soldier, I got my discharge papers, a payout of $2500, and I was a free man. And back to square one. In the last 6 years, I had passed up career opportunities in the transport industry, the hospitality industry and the military and I was only 22 years old. But, on the plus side, I had a cool car and a girlfriend.

Mum on her 45th

# Number 10 & 11.

So I'm back in Adelaide, 22 years old with a girlfriend, a Sandman panel van and some money in the bank. But I have no job and I'm living with my parents. And, not surprisingly, I also have absolutely no idea what to do next. There had been some talk with sister Deb and her new husband, who owned a sailboard shop, that I could work for him hiring out sailboards on the beach when I got out of the Army. But that wasn't happening for some reason and meanwhile Jane and I wanted to get a place of our own so despite both being unemployed we bluffed our way through an application and rented a unit right on the beachfront and right next to a pub. Perfect. Now, I had to find work.

After three years of working under regimented authority , I decided it would be a good idea to work for myself, so I started looking in the business for sale ads. Working out in the sun mowing lawns seemed simple enough so I borrowed $7000 from a credit union and bought a lawn round. I had no experience in that line of work, other than mowing our lawns as a kid, but how hard could it be? For some dumb reason the round I bought was on the north eastern side of Adelaide and I lived on the south western side. My first customer was a 40 minute drive away and of course a Sandman panelvan was not a suitable vehicle so I had to sell it quick. The car auctions very graciously took it off my hands and gave me what I owed on it. I saw it in a caryard a few weeks later for twice what they gave me.

I bought an old VW Kombi ute, had a sign made up, and Taylors Lawncutting and Gardening Service was born. The guy I bought the business from had already taken me around and introduced me to all his customers and so on Monday, 8th August, I set out on my first day as a self employed businessman offering lawn cutting ( how hard can it be ? ) weeding ( which one's a weed ? ) and pruning ( no idea ).

The first couple of days went well, although sometimes the customer would forget to leave the money out or offer to catch up next time, which was two weeks away. But I was my own boss, working outdoors, nobody was yelling at me and I lived right on the beach. On my third day, my first customer had a house up in the foothills of Adelaide. I got there by 8 am and it was still really cold but I unloaded my trusty side catcher mower and got stuck in. At that time of the morning the grass was still wet from the dew and kept clogging up the catcher so I took the catcher off and scooped the grass out with my hand. Unfortunately, turning off the mower first had slipped my mind and I felt quite a tug on my fingers as I scooped out the wet grass. There was no pain, yet. I stuck my fingers under my armpit, thinking there may be some miraculous healing power in that part of my body while thinking to myself, ' damn, that's starting to hurt'.

Then I had a quick look at my fingers and realised that this was no bandaid job - even if I had one. Three of my fingers were a mangled mess and I was starting to feel a bit ordinary. I turned the mower off but couldn't load it back onto my ute and I certainly couldn't drive. The owners of the house were not home so I went out to the road to hitch a ride to a hospital in the city. I walked in with my fingers still safely nestled under my armpit and said to a nurse, " Hi, I think I may have hurt my fingers ". She had a look, gave a nod, and I spent the next four days in hospital.

Initially, there was talk of not being able to save the tops of the middle three fingers on my left hand, which would have been inconvenient and a little ugly. But the skilled surgeon sewed and stitched and stuck pins in the ends of the fingers and I put them back under my armpit and luckily, they stayed on.

There was the issue of the business, however, and my long list of demanding clients who ran the risk of their homes being engulfed by grass if I didn't get back on the job. If I couldn't do it they would simply get someone else and with no customers I would have no business, and no income.

This was one of those times when the value of family was realised. For the next six weekends, my Mum, Dad, Jane and even my sister would, under my supervision, mow my customers lawns and keep my small business afloat. Mum and Dad were in their mid to late forties and up until that time I don't think I had ever seen Dad use a lawnmower. He wasn't a big gardener and on the end of a whipper snipper he was out of control, ringbarking trees and threatening rose gardens. But, despite their lack of experience, they got the job done - with a smile on their face and love in their heart. And they saved my business.

My first week back on the job solo, after having the fingertip pins pulled out with a pair of pliers ( by a doctor ) I was driving to my first customer early one morning in late September and people were all over the place dancing around and drinking! After 132 years of sailing domination, Australia had just taken the America's Cup from America. It was a huge day for Australia and I joined in the celebrations as soon as I got home. Okay, before I got home.

I wasn't making a lot of money. Jane had a part time job doing secretarial work but we were only just getting by. Living on the beach, especially when summer came, made going to work to mow a few lawns an unattractive option. So, on some days, I wouldn't. Combined with that lack of motivation I wasn't chasing up any new customers so my low income remained low. It was time for a second job and, given my bar experience of four years ago, the pub next door seemed a good option. I spoke to the manager and I think because I only lived next door, he gave me some work doing the front bar Sunday sessions which were from 11am – 1pm, and 3pm – 5pm. These were busy sessions because the government had made the sensible decision that is was safer for drinkers to cram as much alcohol as physically possible down their throats in a two hour period, have a couple of hours off and then do it again rather than have the bar open all day Sunday and drink steadily. Go figure. I'd get the occasional night shift during the week too so it was a welcome and necessary addition to my lawnmowing money.

Then, on a sunny Saturday afternoon in early February, 1984, in a park on the shore of a man made lake in Westlakes, Adelaide, I was married to Jane. I was 23 years old and she was about to turn 26. Her parents lived just across the street so we had the reception in the backyard of their house. We didn't have a lot of friends, so most of the guests were our parents friends. My best man was a mate from high school who had visited me when I first went to Queensland and Jane's bridesmaid was her sister.

We had our wedding night at a motel near the airport and the next morning flew to the Gold Coast for a week long honeymoon, paid for by the sale of our two windsurfers.

It was back to reality a week later and nothing had changed. I would go out most days and mow some lawns and work in the pub on Sundays serving cold drinks as fast as I could to enormously thirsty customers standing three deep at the bar. It was a cruisy life but.........something was missing. Mum and Dad had sold the house we grew up in for $85,000, and moved to a horse breeding property about an hour south of Adelaide where Dad's new vocation was beginning. Mum continued to commute to Blackwood Primary School to teach 12 year olds how to read and write.

Then, one day as I was pushing the lawnmower along, I realised what it was I wanted to do, what it was that was always in the back of my mind like an unscratched itch. Quite simply, I wanted to be an actor. I don't know why, or why now, but it was one of my choices when I was only 13 years old so I had been thinking about it for a while. The best place to start, I guessed, would be to do a course and actually learn how to be one. I did a week long course which taught me how to breathe, and then I did another course which taught me how to be like a tree on a windy day. Now that I was fully trained, I moved to the next step which was to apply for NIDA in Sydney. This was the National Institute of Dramatic Art and offered a four year course for theatre, film and television actors. Mel Gibson and Cate Blanchett had graduated from NIDA so it must have something going for it. They would have thousands of applicants each year for about 75 openings. Jane was happy to move to Sydney and support me while I spent four years learning how to act, so I sent away my non – refundable $10 for an application. The auditions were set for December and included a Shakespeare piece , so I did some research, chose the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, and walked up and down the beach for weeks bellowing out, '...what light through yonder window breaks, it is the east and Juliet is the sun,' in my best stage voice. Eventually I memorised the whole scene, and would never forget it.

Fortunately, for the staff at NIDA, I came across an unusual job ad towards the end of 1984, and decided to apply for it – just as a backup in the unlikely chance that NIDA fell through. In the end, I avoided what would have assuredly been an embarrassing audition by getting the job. My acting career came to a sudden halt, and so did my 15 month career as a lawnmowing contractor.

# Number 12.

The job ad was for a Trainee Murray River Captain. ' _The successful applicant must be physically fit, of good character and be prepared to enter into an extensive training programme in this most interesting vocation. No previous experience is necessary but a love of water related activities is an advantage_ '. I figured I ticked most of those boxes, so I set to work on a hand written application and then delivered it personally to Jock Veenstra at Murray River Developments who were based in Goolwa, a town near the Murray River mouth, about an hour south of Adelaide.

I found out later there had been 100 applicants for this most interesting vocation but after an interview with 58 year old Keith Veenstra, the Dutch owner of the business and his 2IC, Bill Green in their Adelaide city office, I managed to talk my way into the job. In my favour was my sailing experience as a teenager, my military experience and my obvious self discipline, motivation and organisational skills as a self employed business owner! When Keith asked me how I learned the skills to be a self employed contractor after being in the Army for three years, I simply told him I was self taught. I thought it best not to mention putting my fingers inside a lawnmower until we got to know each other a bit better.

The Veenstra family had built, and now operated, two cruise vessels on the Murray River doing five day cruises. Keith was ex Dutch Navy, and had migrated to Australia in 1951 armed with ship building skills and an entrepreneurial spirit. The Murray Queen, a side paddle wheeler based in Goolwa had been launched in 1974, and the Murray Explorer, a twin screw vessel based in Renmark was launched five years later. My new job was on the Explorer, as a deckhand, where I would be trained to eventually be a Captain, and I was to start in three weeks, which was the last week of December. The starting pay was $13,684 per year which was about $260 gross per week, not too different from the Army but better and more reliable than my lawnmowing income, and hopefully a lot more fun.

I had a $7000 investment in my my lawn round though, which I had three weeks to somehow recoup. This meant selling off my customers which was where the value was but time was against me. This new job wasn't opportunity knocking, this was opportunity bashing at my door with a sledgehammer - this could even be a career – a concept that had been unappealing and unfamiliar to me for the last eight years but one that I thought I probably should consider, so I took a hit. I managed to sell off a few customers and my mowing equipment and my Kombi ute, but I was still left with the remainder of the loan that I wouldn't finish paying off for another two years.

I had no car now and Jane only had a little old Torana that she had bought from my Grandfather a few months back. It wasn't up to long trips though, so on Sunday 30th December, 1984, I caught a bus for the 250 kilometre trip to Renmark to start my new career. We had been married for ten months and now I was committing to a lifestyle that meant I would only be home on weekends. I stayed in a motel Sunday night, as I didn't have to report to the ship until Monday morning. The headline story on the local television news that night was that book borrowings had gone up by 25% at the local library this year. I began to question my job choice already.

As I walked across the park I got my first view of the Murray Explorer tied up at the Renmark wharf, and my spirits lifted. She was huge. A gleaming, sparkling, massive white ship 52 metres long, 11 metres wide and four storeys high, with enough cabins for 120 passengers plus crews quarters down below. I found the Shore Manager bustling about and he introduced me to the Acting First Officer, a young friendly bloke also called Michael. He showed me to my share cabin in the crew's quarters and after I had unpacked and settled in he gave me a tour of the ship. Most of the 23 crew had arrived on board – there were bar staff, waitresses, cabin girls, chefs and galley staff and of course the deckhands, one of the three being me.

It was close living in the crew's quarters. Up to 18 males and females, mostly around my age, crammed two, three and sometimes four to a cabin. There were separate male and female bathrooms but no room for modesty. The First Officer, Cruise Director, Engineer, Entertainer and of course the Captain, all had their own cabins. This was a very different working environment than I had experienced before, even after eleven different jobs. I had tried transport, hospitality, military and self employment, but never tourism. As I side stepped around the cabin girls who were getting ready for work and who had nothing on but a towel, I had a feeling I was going to like it.

I soon met the rest of the crew, including the Captain, Charlie O'Hara. He seemed a nice enough bloke around 40 who had started out on the Explorer as a barman when she was first launched. My immediate boss would be the First Officer who was a 27 year old called Lindsay, but he was away working on the Murray Queen so Michael, who was normally a deckhand but had been with the ship for years, was doing his job. We set off at 10 am Monday morning with a blast of the ships triple brass horns and a full shipload of mostly older passengers for the five day cruise. I wasn't a complete stranger to the Murray River. We had been on a few houseboat holidays as a family, and my Grandfather used to have a shack and a kiosk at a little riverside settlement where we would go water skiing in the school holidays.

The deckhand's job was not too complicated – it involved untying the ship when it departed, and running out the heavy lines and securing the ship when it tied up to a wharf or to trees on a riverbank of an evening. It also included all the cleaning and painting on board which was pretty much what we did all day. First job Monday morning's was to hose down and scrub all the decks while the passengers were assembled in the dining room getting their welcome aboard from the Captain. After that, there would be window cleaning of every window on board, including hanging over the side on a bosun's chair to do the huge dining room windows as we cruised along the Murray. Then, there was the painting – there was always something to paint whether it was handrails, stairs, decks or the deckheads. The entire ship's appearance was up to the deckhands so we were never short of things to do. The Explorer usually stopped for the day by 4 pm so the passengers could go for a walk ashore and, once the ship was secured, the deckhands knocked off for the day. Most of the other crew were involved with hospitality, and they worked split shifts.

We were fed three times a day in the crew's mess and we could also go to the bar, once dinner had finished being served for the passengers, but there was a strict dress and behaviour code. The crew were encouraged to mingle with the passengers as we were all spending five days together and we would see them constantly throughout the day to chat to as well.

This type of river cruise, with it's slow pace and plenty of food, attracted an older age group than I would normally choose to spend five days with but I kept reminding myself this was a job, not a holiday.

The first night of my first cruise was New Years Eve and, although we had on on board entertainer, a few of the crew had volunteered to put on a show for the passengers. This usually involved just a bit of dressing up and miming to a song. I was roped in by the Captain's wife, Wendy, who was on board, to make a contribution and luckily I had a couple of beers under my belt so I readily agreed. After all, I had given up an acting career to take on this job, so how hard could this be? She took me down to the Captain's cabin, on the bridge, to find some dress up clothes. The cabin was huge and, one day, I planned for it to be mine. But it was early days – more than two years deck time was needed to sit for my Captain's ticket so at this point I had to be content with throwing on some boots and a colourful shirt and squeezing two oranges down my pants. I made a grand entrance into the full dining room, miming a Tom Jones song including the gyrations and hip swivelling. As the song ended I gave an extra shake and the two oranges dropped out the bottom of my trousers. The crowd roared, the Captain laughed, and I had finally found a job I really enjoyed.

I made it through the first week without making too many mistakes and caught a late bus back to Adelaide on Friday night for a weekend at home. And so the routine continued for the next few months. Every Monday we would get a new bunch of 100 or so passengers to spend the week with so this made every week different. Sometimes they would all be senior citizens – on board to eat, drink a few sherries, play some cards, sit on the sundeck and read a book, and take regular naps. Other times we would have youngsters in their 40's, ready to rip one on every night until the bar closed at ten and we all had to be quiet. And, now and then, we would have passengers our own age which made things all the more interesting.

Wednesday night was always barbeque night where we went ashore for dinner, usually in an old woolshed, and the deckhands cooked the barbie to give the chefs a night off. Just like all barbies there was much beer drinking and music and dancing. I had a hangover every Thursday morning for the next two years, along with the rest of the crew. Thursday night was fancy dress up night for everyone and many of us would get together and put a show on for the passengers. Friday night was Captain's dinner, a formal evening with live music but attendance to that was for the officers only, so the rest of the crew went to wherever their home was.

The regular First Officer, Lindsay, had returned and we got along like a house on fire. It was the start of a friendship that would last the rest of our lives. Once the ship was secured of an afternoon, the three deckhands and often the First Officer would head up the river in the ship's little speedboat and have a waterski or just go for a fish and a swim. Other afternoons, we would go ashore and all go for a run – then come back and have a few beers! As part of my training I had begun to regularly spend time on the wheel of the Explorer, under the guidance of the Captain or First Mate. There were narrow stretches and shallow stretches and unskilled, uneducated houseboat operators to contend with but as each week went past I became more confident. Before I started on the Explorer, I had a meeting with MRD's Operations Manager, Trevor Bedford, who told me the job was 90% public relations and 10% ship handling.

When I saw the size of the Explorer, I thought he had it the wrong way around, but time would prove him exactly right. This was a fulltime PR job, with a bit of ship handling thrown in.

That's because the cruise involved mixing 120 people, half of whom don't know each other, into a confined space for five days and adding alcohol. Then, throw in 23 crew, 18 of whom are young, mostly single, living together in a very confined space and working together every day among the other 120 people. Throw in some after hours alcohol in the crew's quarters, and stir the whole lot together. Then, maintain social and professional discipline among the crew while ensuring all passengers have a very enjoyable time, get what they paid for and go home happy. Making that work every week made the ship handling part of the job a breeze, as I would eventually discover.

While I was loving the job, though, my married life was suffering with my constant absence. So, in March we moved out of the unit on the beach next to the pub and rented an on site van at the River Bend caravan park in Renmark where Jane could relax and read a few books from the busy library. Now I was home on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights which was an improvement, and I didn't have to travel every weekend which gave us more time together. After a few more months though, even this arrangement didn't seem to be working too well. I had a chat to the Cruise Director, who employed the female waitresses and cabin girls and in July, Jane came on board the Explorer to work as a cabin girl. We had a cabin to ourselves and flicked the caravan, living on board the Explorer on weekends as well.

I turned 25 in October and fortunately, or not, it was a Wednesday night. The chefs made me a cake and the barbeque that night was a memorable one. As was the Thursday morning hangover. Funny how things turn out. If I was asked in high school how did I imagine my future – this career scenario wasn't in the imagining. But that's the great thing about having no plan – anything can happen.

My ship was also having a change. MRD had decided to move her home port further upstream to Mildura, a Victorian town about 400 kilometres from Adelaide and 500 kilometres from Melbourne. They were in the process of building a huge 60m stern paddlewheeler that would cover the middle part of the Murray, so the Explorer got shunted. Jane and I didn't mind – we lived on board so wherever she went we went. Mildura was a much bigger town than Renmark which we preferred and it also meant the ship was closer to the Melbourne market for passengers. We did a one way cruise in December to be officially welcomed by the Victorian Premier, and that was that. It also meant I had been with the Explorer for a year so I was due four weeks holidays. Jane and I took a trip to the Maldive Islands, which was my first real paid holiday. Then, it was back to Mildura, the Murray Explorer and studying for my First Mate's ticket.

Cruising out of Mildura presented it's own unique challenges. We were used to squeezing the ship through the many locks on the river – there were 13 of them and they had been built in the 1920's and 1930's to improve the navigability of the river, store water and regulate the flow. They probably didn't plan on a 52 metre vessel using them on a regular basis 50 years later, though. All the locks we had been navigating downstream from Mildura were 80 metres long but the Mildura lock was only 60 metres long so it was a tight fit for the Explorer.

We also cruised up the Darling River which met the Murray River at Wentworth, where we moored once a week, right outside the RSL. The Darling was over 1000 kilometres long but we could only manage 20 kilometres before it got way too narrow – even that 20 kilometres was very tight and there was no room for other boats if we met them head on, so on the tighter stretches we would send the speedboat ahead to scout for houseboats and move them out of the way.

Other than that, the routine was the same – ship maintenance, ship handling, Wednesday night barbeques followed by Thursday morning hangovers and lots of study on the other nights. Finally, June came around and I went to Adelaide to sit for my Master Class 5 with the Department of Harbours and Marine. The examiner was Captain Shipp. No kidding. It was a written and a verbal examination held over two days, and an eyesight test, and somehow I passed - but, only just. There was an engineering component to the exam and, considering that anything with more than two moving parts completely mystified me, I was lucky to have a patient examiner who helped me through.

Captain of my own ship

# Number 13.

I now had a new job. Well, I was working for the same people but my role was now vastly different. I now had responsibilities. I now wore three stripes on my shoulders and had to maintain an image of professionalism, good conduct and sobriety. I was now an Officer and was expected to have dinner with the passengers every night without drinking too much. There would be no more Thursday morning hangovers. Well, maybe the occasional one. I had taken Lindsay's job as the First Officer as he was now Captain of the new 60 metre stern wheeler, Murray Princess. I was now responsible for the maintenance of the vessel and managing the three deckhands. I was expected to do at least half of the wheeltime and most of the manoeuvres on the vessel. I got a payrise and my own cabin up near the bridge ( okay, I did share a bathroom with the Engineer ). I was 25 years old and, only recently, was mowing lawns for a living. Things could have been worse.

Meanwhile, Jane was tired of living and working on board so she resigned and we rented a two bedroom unit in Buronga which was in NSW as it was across the river from Mildura. I had now lived in South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and NSW – but had no plans to do Tasmania or Western Australia. Then again, anything could happen. We bought a Kombi van and on weekends off we went camping. I was home for only three nights a week. Once a month, though, I would have to stay on board Friday and Sunday nights as the Duty Officer, so that meant one night at week home with my wife.

Towards the end of the year, as part of my training, I began to take over every manoeuvre on the vessel and helmed the complete section up and down the narrow Darling River every cruise. So far, I had managed to avoid any collisions, sinkings, injuries, fires or any other calamities. I had the best job on the ship. Complete responsibility was with the Captain, so I was free of that burden. I answered only to him and he was fairly laid back so there was no stress. I didn't have to do any sanding, painting or cleaning – but my public relations role had definitely increased. Even though the ship had moved ports and there was now the Murray Princess doing cruises as well, we still managed to have near full occupancy each week, which made the cruise more interesting.

By the time 1987 rolled around I was ready to take the big test and in March, after six months as First Officer, I headed back to Port Adelaide for another intensive exam. I managed to pass and returned to the ship with a Master Class 4 in my pocket and a story in the Mildura paper as the youngest captain on the Murray River. Not long after that, Charlie, the Captain, took a months holiday and I took over the ship. I finally got to occupy the Captain's cabin and wear four stripes . Every Monday morning, though, when I walked into a dining room full of passengers to introduce myself as the Captain, introduce the crew and brief them on the cruise, I could see the looks on their faces and know what they were thinking – ' is he for real? '......' he is way too young '...'where's the real Captain?'....' is it too late to get off?'............! I still had my moustache from my Army days so I thought I looked old enough but obviously not – along with most of the crew being young it was a bit strange, but the Cruise Director and Engineer were older than me, although I was still their boss.

During that month we cruised downstream and met up with the Murray Princess who was cruising upstream. At one stage we came around a bend and their crew had strung a mooring line across the entire width of the river to symbolically halt our progress. This was the day before our official join up so that night I led a raid with the deckhands across country to where she was moored and crept on board. We made our way very quietly up to her dining room where dinner was in full progress and charged through putting Murray Explorer stickers on anything we could find before racing off again. It was a complete surprise to the passengers , crew and my mate, Lindsay, the Captain, and set the tone for a very merry evening together the next night.

Charlie returned from holidays and took over as Captain again, but one or two cruises a month we would swap roles and he would spend the week as the First Mate and I would be Captain. Unfortunately, we didn't swap cabins.

Meanwhile, in the boardroom of MRD, decisions were being made that would affect the whole crew of the Murray Explorer. The ship was being moved again, but this time it wasn't going to be a leisurely upstream relocation. She was about to have a name change – to the MV Brisbane Explorer. We would continue cruising out of Mildura until the middle of August, and then do a one way cruise downstream to Goolwa. All crew members were encouraged to apply for positions in Brisbane, but for many the decision to relocate the ship was about as popular as dandruff. The Explorer had done more than 80 cruises out of Mildura, with an average occupancy of 86%, and many of the local crew could see no reason for a move.

And this was no easy move. The only safe way to get her to Brisbane was to tow her there with a tugboat. First she had to cruise down to Goolwa to the river mouth, have some major structural reinforcements, then get out the shallow Murray mouth and hook onto a towline and be towed over 1500 nautical miles to Brisbane. The fact she was a flat bottomed vessel with a draught of only 1.2 metres would make the job all the harder. In August we made the one way cruise to Goolwa where she was to be prepared for a November departure to start cruising out of Brisbane in December. Jane and I were happy to be returning to Queensland, although our parents didn't share our enthusiasm. I spent a month working on the preparations then at the end of September Jane and I left for Queensland to have a holiday before she arrived. It had been close to five years since we left, and we were excited.

One of the best things about the move was my promotion. The Explorer would have two full crews in Brisbane, each one working seven days on and seven days off. I would finally move in to the Captain's cabin fulltime after nearly three years of training, hundreds of dinners with passengers and thousands of cruising miles. I'm sure there comes a time in everyone's life when it is time to take their job seriously. My time had arrived.

Gold Coast Cruising

# Number 14.

We packed up, sold the Kombi and bought a VW Passat station wagon for the trip north and then filled it with everything we owned – which wasn't much. It was only now that I was able to finally pay off the credit union loan I had taken out for the lawn round four years ago and had been paying off ever since, so at least we were out of debt.

I would be on a gross wage of $900 a fortnight as Captain, but only work seven days out of fourteen, so I was pretty happy with that. We didn't need to, or want to, live in Brisbane so we looked around for somewhere on the Gold Coast. Rent wasn't cheap, and there was no guarantee Jane would find work, so we ended up buying a huge onsite caravan with a full annexe and bathroom in a modern park in Ashmore and paid only $50 a week rent.

One of the main reasons for taking the Explorer to Brisbane was because of the huge influx of people expected to attend Expo 88 which was on between April and October and would attract 15 million visitors. The ship would do a four night cruise Monday to Friday to the Gold Coast and back and then a weekend cruise into Moreton Bay. She finally arrived in Queensland after a couple of close calls on the way up and then there was a lot of tidying up to do and crew to hire before her official welcome. Her refit had included a new bar on the sundeck which was now fully enclosed with clear rollup blinds and also a new sauna. I had helped the Ship's Manager, Chris, buy a few windsurfers and two flat bottomed punts for shore excursions and to tow the inflatable banana. Some of the old crew had transferred to Brisbane but I needed a new First Officer, Cruise Director and Engineer. My first Cruise Director lasted about two hours, because Keith Veenstra didn't particularly like her and asked me to sack her. We hadn't even started our cruises – she had just come on board to familiarise herself with the ship and meet the crew. Her replacement was a cheerful, bearded 40 year old called Jim Quinn. He turned out to be a great choice, and I'm glad Keith made the decision he did. My First Officer, though, turned out to be an overweight, greasy haired, lazy bugger. He lasted a week.

Chris had organised plenty of pre publicity, and the half page newspaper ads in the Courier Mail promised a new and exciting way to cruise from Brisbane. Twenty years later, P & O cruise ships would make Brisbane a regular port of call, but in 1987, we were the first. Our ship boasted of air conditioning, en suite facilities, 240v electricity, VHS video, a PA system and, most importantly, a photocopier.

The Mayor of Brisbane, Sally Anne Atkinson, and a brass band, officially welcomed us at Admiralty Wharf at 2 pm on 5th December, 1987. Both crews were on board, and we took the Mayor and other dignitaries and journalists for a cruise up the Brisbane River. We spent a week doing short familiarisation cruises for travel agents and journalists and on the 14th December began our regular cruising. Luckily, I had a new First Officer who knew Moreton Bay like the back of his hand -because I had no clue to begin with. That didn't help us on my very first night at anchor when we decided on a likely spot only to find ourselves high and dry a few hours later when the tide ran out. Luckily we had a flat bottom but had to wait until midnight before quietly sliding off and finding a better place.

Our 120 passengers would board Monday morning and we departed before lunch. I eventually got used to the surprised looks as I walked into the dining room and introduced myself as the Captain.

Even though I was now 27 years old, and wore my whites with four stripes and a Captain's hat, there was still some disbelief that I was the one responsible for the safety and well being of 120 passengers, 23 crew and a ship worth ten million dollars. At times, I shared that disbelief, and at times I wished I was back mowing lawns, patrolling the jungle or driving a truck – when life was more simple. But the job did have its perks. I had a bar allowance each week which never seemed to run out, I had a carton of beer put in my cabin fridge every week, ( the purpose of this was to be able to offer select passengers a cold beer when I opened the bridge for inspections – sometimes I used it for that purpose ) and I had my bed made and my cabin cleaned every morning. All I had to do was get the ship safely to the Gold Coast and back, maintain discipline among the crew, and keep the passengers happy.

Anchoring the Explorer was a new experience for me as we never anchored on the Murray. On windy nights her flat bottom would have us skating all over the place and every night at anchor required the deckhands to share anchor watch until daylight, in case we dragged and finished up on the rocks. We had two big anchors hanging off each side of the bow, but I was never game to drop them both at the same time in case their chains got tangled – which would have been very bad.

We cruised down the inside of North and South Stradbroke Islands, anchored Monday night, and tied up near SeaWorld in Surfers Paradise on Tuesday afternoon. On my first cruise, after the ship was secure, I wandered in to an upmarket hairdressers at the Marina in full uniform. The owner was Gary who, eight years ago, had offered to braid my hair and then join him on a trip to Bali. I decided to pay him a surprise visit. The last time he saw me I had nothing but a good suntan and a bad dose of scurvy so it was no wonder he didn't recognise me. Soon as he had picked his jaw up off the floor, I showed him over the ship and we had a few beers and reminisced.

Tuesday nights the passengers would get a bus to the Casino to see a show and then on Wednesday we would cruise up the Coomera River and spend the night at Sanctuary Cove which was only developed two years previously. We cruised all day Thursday and tied up to a wharf at the bottom end of the Brisbane River. Thursday night was Captain's dinner night, and even though I dined with the passengers every night, this was a formal dressup affair. I would go around to each table before dinner and give every lady a fresh flower and then get our photo taken. There would be a live band on board and lots of dancing. Luckily Mum had taught me how to dance when I was a teenager.

Friday morning saw us return to Admiralty Wharf, in the city, where the passengers would disembark and the crew would get the ship ready for the weekend cruise. Those passengers boarded late in the day and we did a night cruise down the river. Saturday we headed into Moreton Bay and stopped off at Horseshoe Bay where we got the water toys out. We would anchor that night then return to Admiralty wharf via a St Helena Island tour on the Sunday. The crew would once again prepare the ship and Monday morning we would have a changeover with the other crew and then go home for a week off. Once Expo started, in April, our Friday nights were spent slowly cruising up to the Expo site at Southbank to watch the fireworks. That was always a challenge as there were so many other boats doing the same thing, but of course we were the largest.

Even though Moreton Bay was protected from the ocean by Moreton Island and North and South Stradbroke Island it could still get very rough on a windy day.

The waters here are classed as Partially Smooth and, for a ship designed for Inland Waters, this could sometimes mean a lot of rocking and rolling in 2 metre swells and even copping spray onto the bridge windows, which definitely never happened on the Murray River. Some days I could hear the glasses breaking in the bar and the crockery smashing in the galley as we slowly corkscrewed our way across Moreton Bay like a drunk trying to find his way home.

Eventually we settled into a routine, and I too began to know Moreton Bay like the back of my hand. Meanwhile, I was still married but only saw my wife every seven days. Even though, as the Captain's wife, she could have come on board and dined and slept in my cabin on a Tuesday night in Surfers, she decided not to. Once home on a Monday, it would take a day or two for us to get used to each other again. She wasn't working so she had her own routine for a week and I guess I was used to mine too. The role of Captain is a very social one on board which I enjoyed, but it meant I didn't really want to socialise on my week off.

One break in the routine was in May, when the tall ships from the First Fleet re-enactment sailed up to Queensland from Sydney. As 1988 was Australia's 200 year celebration of the First Fleet arriving in Sydney, these ships had sailed into Sydney Harbour on Australia Day and were now heading for Sanctuary Cove. Each tall ship needed a pilot, so at midnight one night on my week off I was taken out to 'Our Svanen', a magnificent 65 year old Danish three master anchored off Coolangatta. The next morning we sailed up the coast, through the Gold Coast Seaway and up to Sanctuary Cove.

Our own cruises weren't without their excitement, mainly due to bad weather. One afternoon we were anchored inside Jumpinpin Bar, between North and South Stradbroke Island. The passengers were all ashore taking a walk over to the ocean when the wind started to pick up. It soon reached gale force, 35 knots, and even though our anchor was holding, the ship was swinging from side to side like a 1200 tonne pendulum because she was 1.2m below the waterline and 15m above. Getting the passengers back on board in our flat bottomed punts was scary to watch.

On another bad weather day we had lost power to one of our two engines. We were about to enter the main shipping channel to return to the Brisbane River when the biggest, blackest meanest looking storm hit us from the west. I had to crab the ship sideways to stay in the channel because of the wind when a massive tanker started heading towards me. To make matters worse, there was a Navy Destroyer following me in. I suggested very strongly to the Engineer that perhaps he better get that other engine working. Now.

While Expo was on for six months, our passenger numbers were very good but after October things started to dry up and on some cruises we would head out with only 30 or 40 passengers. One Friday afternoon I was so frustrated with the low bookings I sent the deckhands into Queen Street with a bunch of brochures and told them to offer a half price cruise for the weekend to anyone. They were sent back by the police for soliciting without a permit.

The writing was on the wall not long after my 28th birthday in October. Management had decided to cut back to one crew to save costs. By mid November, 15 crew had lost their jobs. As Charlie was the senior Captain, I could keep my job but would be busted back to First Mate.

After nearly a year of running my own ship I wasn't going back to the Mate's cabin so I went and saw Chris - and quit. I had been with the same employers for four years, which was, and would forever remain, a personal best. From deckhand to Captain, I had stuck with it and almost had a career. But, it seemed that my true profession was changing jobs on a regular basis, and it was time to practise it again. My own crew gave me a send off, a farewell card and a foldup golf buggy. Then I drove home to tell Jane I was now an unemployed Ship's Captain.

As a job, it had been one of my most interesting, and challenging so far. I soon got used to being told I was young to be a Captain and having to answer the same questions to different people over dinner every night. I didn't mind dancing with women twice my age and more, because sometimes I would dance with their daughter as well. I soon stopped worrying about strong wind warnings and two metre swells because I knew the ship could handle it, and so could I. It had been an interesting mix of responsibility and partying. And, I made lifelong friends. I am still friends with Chris, and his wife Anna, with Jonathan, one of the Explorer's deckhands, and of course with Lindsay, ex Captain of the Murray Princess and his wife Cathy. The rest of the crew I would never see again, except for a handful at an MRD reunion, thirty years later.

MRD put the Brisbane Explorer up for sale where she could be bought as a going concern, or relocated to another suitable location – but had no success. Soon after, she found her way to Sydney Harbour, and a new life with a new crew.

# Number 15.

There was really only one direction to go after being Captain of a ship when it comes to another job, and it wasn't up. Even though it had been a very responsible job, I couldn't quite figure out what my skills were other than being able to handle a big boat and dance with elderly passengers. I had trouble finding a job that matched that description, then after about a week of searching I saw a job ad in the paper for an Assistant Operations Manager for a cruise company. I thought that might be a good fit so I applied and got an interview.

Then I waited, and waited, and finally they contacted me and told me I had the job and could start immediately. Excellent news. Then I just had to break the news to Jane that we were moving to Cairns.

I'd been to Cairns before, of course, enjoying a career as a cleaner and real estate sign erector. This job seemed to have more going for it. The company had a bunch of boats including 30m catamarans that carried 200 people and operated half a dozen different day cruises out to the Barrier Reef. They had recently taken over a smaller family run operation that had been in business for years called Hayles, so they were expanding and had created this new role. We sold the caravan, and I drove to Cairns alone as Jane flew to Adelaide to have Christmas, 1988, with her parents. I managed to score a little one bedroom unit to rent at Yorkeys Knob, one street from the beach and then rocked up for my first day at work. Well, there was a little bit of confusion about my newly created role as the person who had created it was on holidays, and no-one else knew anything about it.

In the meantime, the personnel guy told me to familiarise myself with all their cruises – and there were plenty. So for the next six days I rocked up as a tourist and did a different cruise every day. I was being paid nearly $400 a week so I was okay with that, but the problem was they never told the crew who I was. So they saw this same guy rock up every day for a week and do a different cruise each day and must have thought I was obsessed with the Barrier Reef. When they were eventually told who I was, effectively their boss, they figured I had been going along unannounced to spy on them, which was not a good start. I had a few days off over Christmas and, as I was alone, spent Christmas day playing golf on a deserted Cairns golf course with only crocodiles for company.

The year 1989 arrived with little fanfare, and I was back to work to discover what my job actually entailed. As it turned out, I was to be the hatchet man. The company had inherited a lot of crew from the family business they had bought out and they now wanted to clear out the old stock. This was to be my job. So as I went on more cruises and operated the glass bottom boats and submersible submarine with tourists asking me questions about the reef that I couldn't answer, the crew were eyeing me off very warily, as I was searching for all the dead wood to get rid of. The whole arrangement was poorly organised and I guess I could have worked through it but....after six weeks of it – well, it just wasn't doing it for me or maybe I just wasn't up to the task – I had no defined role and little support so I did the only logical thing – and quit. They seemed genuinely surprised at my decision and I did wonder if this was a smart move, after relocating 1000 miles for the job. Now, it was time to once again revisit my old life creature friends – the unknowns, the uncertainties, the unemployed, and hope they were right about the future taking care of itself.

# Number 16.

I had left on good terms with the head of personnel so he was keeping an eye out for me but there wasn't much going on in Cairns. I put an ad in the Cairns paper advertising my skills and experience but got no response. I applied for a live-in job on South Molle Island, as if I was a single man, certain I would get it, and checked my letterbox every day for a week but nothing came. And that's the thing with job applications – you know you can do the job, in fact you are probably the best person for that job - but how can you convince the person making the decision – with just words on a piece of paper. I was running out of options, and money, so I called a guy I knew in Brisbane and he told me the Brisbane River ferries were looking for skippers.

This was something I could do, so based on this small glimmer of hope we packed up everything we owned, which was progressively becoming less and less, put Cactus on the plane for Brisbane and drove south. I didn't seem to ever have much luck in Cairns so I wasn't sorry to see it in my rear view mirror. I was almost able to drive this road with my eyes closed by now as I had done it so many times. In fact at one stage I did, as we raced south with tired eyes to pick up the damn cat from the plane.

We arrived safely in Brisbane, and rented an on site van in a crappy, crowded caravan park. The van was full of ants and the cat wouldn't stop meowing. We were homeless and jobless with not much money and no prospects. My wife wasn't a happy camper. Living like this as a single man was okay, but so far our five year marriage had seen us living in Townsville, Adelaide, Renmark, Mildura, the Gold Coast, Cairns and now Brisbane. There seemed to be a pattern here of instability, uncertainty and constant change. Any wonder she wasn't in the best of moods that night as she squashed ants, strangled the cat, and asked herself who the hell had she married, and why.

I went and saw the Brisbane Ferry people to be told there could be some work coming up but not right now. I contacted nearly every commercial boat on the Brisbane River and they all said the same. I thought the Gold Coast may be an option but then again Brisbane may come through so we were able to rent a basic unit in a slummy suburb halfway between both places to hedge my bets. We had a six month lease, and then in April, after being unemployed for two months, and with dwindling savings, I called into a cruise company in Surfers Paradise who operated day cruises to Sanctuary Cove, local canal cruises and nightly party cruises. The owners, two ex - detectives from Melbourne, remembered the Brisbane Explorer docking in Surfers and welcomed me with open arms. Their main vessel was a 25 metre shallow draught jet driven boat with a capacity for 150 passengers called the MV Entertainer. I felt like it was a step down from what I had been doing but they offered me a job so I took it.

We had four months of our lease to run so I commuted each day – 45 minutes each way. I was getting plenty of work as skipper, mainly doing the Sanctuary Cove day cruise and a couple of night cruises a week. There were only a few crew on the day cruise, mainly girls serving lunch and cleaning up, but the night cruise had a whole bunch of performers doing a cabaret show as we cruised.

After my recent unemployment scare, I thought it was maybe time to broaden my qualifications, so I did a night course in Brisbane over a few months to get a Fitness Leaders and Resistance Training qualification which meant I could work in a gym. We finished up paying out the last six weeks of our lease and moved back to the Gold Coast. After living in caravans and ships cabins for years we finally found ourselves a nice big house at Broadbeach Waters, only ten minutes from Surfers, so I bought a bike and rode to work most days.

I quite enjoyed the job and made some new friends. Jane had also picked up some work in a resort not far from our place doing room cleaning, which at least gave her some spending money. We spent time on the beach and Jane spent time in the garden and we started to settle down. We were living in a nice house in a nice suburb and we were both working. It was very domestic.

Then the inevitable happened – I got bored with my job. After five years of it, I was getting a bit tired of the commercial boating business so I began to look around. When we had our honeymoon on the Gold Coast, there was an Activities Co-ordinator at the resort who had the coolest job and I wanted it. So when I saw an ad in the paper for that same role at a big resort in Surfers, I just had to apply. I went to the resort to check it out and it was full of young holidaymakers and backpackers enjoying the pools and tennis court and gym and beach volleyball. I would be like a kid working in a toy shop – and being able to use all the toys. There was a real energy to the place and for the first time I wondered if maybe for this job I might be too old – at 29.

My gym qualification must have helped because I got an interview despite having no similar experience. It was nearly Christmas time though and they weren't going to make a decision until the New Year. I had been with Sir Bruce Cruises for nine months and they had been good employers but change is a good thing, right? Or was I just unnaturally obsessive about boredom, routine and searching for the perfect job?

# Number 17.

As you can imagine, a job which includes playing pool volleyball, tennis, beach volleyball and going on bike rides with attractive young tourists is a very popular one, but I made the shortlist. Then it came down to me and one other. And the other one got it.

I kept on cruising because I had to. I worked New Years Day doing a Sanctuary Cove cruise and then a twilight canal cruise for 100 people and made $120. But I was over it as I was hoping for the resort job, so I kept looking at the job ads. Then, in the second week of January I got a phone call from Ocean Blue Resort asking if I was still interested in the Activities Co-ordinator job as the other guy hadn't worked out. Was I? Hell yeah. I gave a weeks notice at Sir Bruce Cruises and took Jane out to the Pizza Hut to celebrate with a pizza, a garlic bread, two desserts, two beers, an orange juice and a gingerbread man all for $25.

The resort personnel manager had asked if I could host a night for them the following week where the staff dressed up and entertained the guests. Hmm...this sounded familiar and it also sounded like a test. I compered the night and did an act as Robert Palmer singing 'Simply Irresistible'. That went down well and the night was a success so they offered me the fulltime job. I finished with Sir Bruce Cruises after ten months in the same job which, for me, was quite a solid effort.

The weekend before I began, Jane and I had a short break in Byron Bay to have a chat about our marriage. It had been under some strain for a while now, mainly because of my absences and all the moving about, but we felt more settled now and talked about starting a family. I had been socialising quite a bit with the crew from the boat, and Jane wasn't much of a drinker, so I needed to spend more time at home. Unfortunately, I had now chosen the wrong job for that to happen.

The role of Activities Co-ordinator at a resort is a simple one. There were actually three of us – another male and a female, but it was a huge resort with hundreds of guests. The Activities Team were responsible for organising and running all of the activities available within the resort, and activities outside the resort like bungy jumping and paintball. This could include tennis competitions, volleyball competitions, bike rides on the beach, pool games, parties, cruises on the Broadwater, cocktail evenings, talent shows and whatever else we could think up. We would put a program together for the week and try to offer as many fun and varied things as possible. It was a very social job and I was to meet a lot of interesting people. Unlike the Explorer, most of the guests we worked with every day were under 30 years old.

My first couple of days at the resort were 9 – 5, organising tennis games, power walking along the beach and playing volleyball. And I was taking home $320 a week for this? On my third day I didn't have to start until 1pm because that night the Activities team hosted a party in the resort nightclub with a live band, so I worked until 10pm. My definition of work had never included drinking with backpackers in a bar, but this was my new life. The next day was the same, as I hosted the staff show again and rode my new Ricardo racing bike home in the dark at 11 pm. Only four days and already this job was turning into a massively social affair which wasn't supposed to be part of the new marriage plan. But I was sure I could keep it under control and a job is a job, right? The resort had a mini bus so I got my bus license and could take guests out to do fun things all over the Coast.

Jane and I had our 6th wedding anniversary in February and I spent the night watching the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, Mike Tyson, get unbelievably knocked out by Buster Douglas in the 10th round after having 37 consecutive victories. I had watched most of Tyson's fights over the years and I was shattered. So was Jane. But probably more so because I had forgotten it was our anniversary until she gave me a card.

Even though my job was an eight hour day we were encouraged to stay on and mingle with the resort guests or do some preparation for the next day. One night a week we hosted a twilight cruise on the Broadwater and it was great to be a passenger instead of a skipper. So my days were quite long and sometimes I wouldn't get home until 7 or 8 pm. I'm sure if I didn't have a wife I would have spent even longer there. We were doing okay financially, we had over $8000 in the bank and no debts but we had started to have the 'what if' conversation. As in, what if we were to split up. Jane had no direction in her life professionally, and we had made no moves towards having a family.

After three months in my new job, and not a lot of positive changes in our marriage, Jane made a major decision and took charge of her life -which is what I had wanted her to do for a long time. I didn't see this coming, though. Exactly ten years after I had done it, and at the age of 32, my wife joined the Army. It didn't mean the end of our marriage, strangely enough. We were still hanging on to that like a drowning man holding futilely onto an esky lid in very stormy seas, hoping things would turn out for the best. Jane would do her basic training at Kapooka, which now trained men and women together ( ridiculous ) and then I would join her wherever she got posted. For once, I would follow her instead of the other way around, and we would work harder on our marriage.

I drove her into Brisbane the day of her enlistment, kissed her goodbye, then hurried back to the Gold Coast to go to work. I had a friend from my Sir Bruce days who was a single guy and he moved into our house to share the rent. My time was freed up now with no obligations to be home, so I made the most of it and burned the candle at both ends until they met in the middle and then burned completely out.

The lease on the house was running out so my plan was to drive back to Goolwa and spend a couple of months with Mum and Dad on their horse property, while Jane finished her training. I hadn't seen much of my parents for the last five years, so for the third time, I left the Gold Coast to go somewhere else. I had been working at Ocean Blue Resort for six months having one continuous party and I needed a break. It was time to mature, make some sensible decisions and settle down to married life, wherever and whatever that might be. I gave notice, had a big farewell party and walked out on another job. I would be thirty years old this year and figured it was time for some stability. Who was I kidding?

I didn't hurry back, though. One thing we did do, according to plan was to buy a new car. Well, sort of a car. I had a bad habit of falling in love with vehicles, primarily based on their looks rather than their practicality. It had happened again a few months ago when I saw a red and white 4WD in a car yard in Southport. It was a nearly new Lada Niva – a Russian car that I knew nothing about but just had to have. She cost me ten grand, with a bank loan. I drove back to South Australia via Sydney and Canberra to visit some friends, and then dropped in on my old mate Lindsay, who was still a Captain.

# Number 18.

Dad was pre training racehorses for a trainer in Adelaide, but was still in the process of building fences and horse shelters on his property, so I was kept busy when I finally got back to Goolwa. I was only back for a few weeks before Jane had her training break from Kapooka so I drove up there, picked her up and we went to the NSW snowfields for some time together. When I picked her up I ran into a guy I went through Kapooka with, and who was posted to Townsville with me all those years ago. He had stuck at it, been promoted, and was now an instructor at Kapooka.

I spent September working with Dad at the stables and then, a few days before my 30th birthday, I saw her. Driving back into the property one afternoon, there was a woman standing outside the house. She was wearing a long dress and looked so serene, classy, confident and beautiful. I said hello and made some silly comment about having a 30th birthday coming up which was going to be a traumatic time leaving my twenties after ten years. She smiled.... and I fell in love. This was a bit of an issue because of course, I was married. As it turned out, so was she - so that was that. Cheryl was there because her horse had injured itself and her float was out of action so her farrier, who was also Dad's farrier, suggested that we could help out. I was happy to and headed off with her to take her horse to the vet, then dropped her home in Victor Harbour where her husband was waiting for her in the driveway. And that was definitely that.

At least it was until a couple of days later when she dropped by with a six pack of beer to thank me for my efforts. I showed her around, introduced her to a few horses and we made small talk. I think we both knew what was going on, but we were both married and that was most definitely that. I managed to see Cheryl a few more times before I left in November. She worked for the local council in the Goolwa office so it was easy for me to think up some silly reason to drop in and say hello, just to be sociable.

Jane had finished her training and received her posting – she had finished up in the Transport Corps and was sent to Queenscliff in Victoria, about 30 kilometres east of Geelong, home to the Army Command and Staff College. I drove over there in the trusty Lada Niva to rejoin my wife, find a job and restart our marriage – this time more on her terms than mine. She was now employed fulltime and I was employed not at all. We spent the first two weeks living in a motel paid for by the Army, and I played a bit of golf and had a look around. Then we found a house to rent at Ocean Grove for $145 a week – subsidised by the good old Army. I called in to a couple of gyms to see if there was any work going but it was a small town we had finished up in and work was going to be tricky for me to find.

January, 1991, dragged along like a plough in a muddy swamp. I got so bored I shaved off my moustache of eleven years just for something to do. I almost didn't need to work given Jane's income and our rent subsidy but living as a kept man didn't suit me too well. Our relationship went from ordinary to non existent fairly quickly. We talked again about going our separate ways which now seemed to be her preferred option. So, after nearly seven years of marriage, we did.

We divided up the furniture. We shared our savings. Jane kept the mighty Lada Niva, and continued to pay the loan. We would go our very separate ways and not see each other again. Twenty -five years later, I would make a much overdue phone call to her from a mosquito infested island in Queensland, and apologise for having been a less than ideal husband.

I was now a single, unemployed, homeless, carless and worst of all, moustacheless, 30 year old. But, as luck would have it, my sister, Deb, was between relationships again and renting a house with a Japanese girl in Adelaide. They had a spare room so I became a housemate. I spent February looking for a job but even though I had a bunch of experience at 17 different jobs.........well, maybe that was the problem. I also had no car so commuting was a bit of an issue. Then Deb put me on to a bloke she knew who owned a passenger boat called the Proud Mary which ran five day cruises out of Murray Bridge for just 48 passengers. He had recently brought a vessel over from Sydney Harbour to the Murray ( no, not the Explorer ) to run more cruises, and apparently they were after a Captain. The Sydney boat was an ex Blue Lagoon Cruises charter boat built in Fiji in 1972, so was not your typical riverboat. She was 38 metres long, and looked like a Navy Destroyer.

I went and saw the Operations Manager in Murray Bridge, a chain smoking bloke in his 40's called David who just happened to drive a Lada Niva. I think he and I were the only ones in Australia to do so. We had a long chat and he offered me the job – primarily as Captain of the MV Proud Sydney but also the Proud Mary on a take home pay of nearly $400 a week. That was $400 more than I was currently getting, so I signed up and started at the end of February. This time it was all about timing, and who you know who knows someone. Sure, I had the experience but he was about to advertise the position, and then I would have had to compete for it.

The other good news was that Cheryl's marriage had also disintegrated. She had been married young at 19, and hadn't been happy since. She was about to turn 23 – on the same day that Deb turned 32 – so we had a big party at our house and we started seeing each other on my days off.

I was working away again, but this time I had no wife waiting for me at home. The 38 metre Proud Sydney was a dog of a boat – more a battleship than a riverboat. She had been built 20 years earlier in Fiji, and although full of character, many of her 52 passengers complained about her cabins and facilities. I only had nine crew and one deckhand so it was a lot different to the Explorer days. She didn't cruise regularly so I would fill in on the Proud Mary doing five and two day cruises. She was a 33 metre twin screw vessel but had a fake stern paddlewheel and she handled like a puck on the ice – especially in any wind. Any of her passengers who were under 70 were considered to be young and highly active. They made the Explorer passengers look like teenagers. We had a similar routine to the Explorer with a bbq night and a Captain's dinner and I would dine with the passengers every evening before they toddled off to bed, coughing and farting, at 7.30 or so. But I wasn't complaining – I had been living off my savings for a few months and was down to $750 in the bank so I was a grateful man.

By the time winter came along, both boats were quiet so management decided to send me on a sales trip through country Victoria. I had just had six days off after a nine day stretch on the boats so they gave me a hire car, a boot full of brochures and lined up some meetings with country bowls clubs, RSL's, travel agents and golf clubs.

MV Proud Sydney

I had 17 appointments lined up in Horsham, Ararat, Bendigo and Geelong. I stayed in motels and ate good food all at the company's expense but I was pretty sure that as a salesman I was a good Captain. I wasn't a hard sell guy and while we had a good product , our market was predominantly older people who had limited income and were very particular about where they spent it. The week was a good change from driving a boat, but I don't think I would have won any sales awards.

I finally met Cheryl's parents, on the same day my maternal grandfather died - six weeks short of his 90th birthday. And, despite my lack of sales skills, I made an appearance on television in full uniform to promote the Proud Mary – on a Channel 10 morning talk show called Touch of Elegance. Then, on her 53rd birthday in July, Mum gave up life as a schoolteacher after 25 years of it to help Dad out with his horse training career.

Meanwhile I was still chugging up and down the Murray River on the good battleship Proud Sydney and the ice puck Proud Mary with 25 lawn bowlers or 34 bridge players or a group from the Sunny Shores Retirement Village Social Club. So, by the time my 31st birthday came along, once again celebrated at a BBQ night on the bank of the Murray river with 47 passengers, I decided to give notice. It had only been six months, I know, but the boredom........I just hated the boredom. The Proud Mary wasn't a fast boat so I would choose a straight stretch of river and see how long we could travel without me touching the wheel. Four and a half minutes was my best time, so I was able to do a lot of reading. I wasn't going to give the job away completely. I just didn't want the fulltime commitment - so I would Captain the Proud Sydney on a casual basis, which is all it required, and do a week a month on the Proud Mary. I planned to work one day a week at Dad's stables despite not knowing one end of a horse from the other, although I eventually worked that out reasonably quickly.

Horses were big, strong scary animals that would kick me, bite me, stand on my feet and generally push me around. But I was able to feed and water them and drive a horse float down to the beach which is where Dad ran his horses, and that was enough to contribute to the running of the stables.

I spent Christmas and New Year doing cruises, but at least I was being paid a bit more, being casual. I had worked out that on fulltime, as Captain, the hours I had to put in meant I was earning about $7.50 an hour, so any increase was a worthy increase. I had taken over the crewing, itinerary and supplies responsibilities from David for the Proud Sydney vessel, so that helped to alleviate the boredom factor. By the time March 1992 came along, I was regularly home only one week a month so I moved out of Deb's house and moved in with Cheryl to a house in Goolwa paying $55 a week each.

The winter of '92 had Cheryl and I seeking out some sunshine so we took a holiday to the Gold Coast, and of course a quick visit to Noosa, the true centre of the universe. Meanwhile, back on the river, the Proud Sydney was not doing much business so the company decided to sell her to New Zealand. I was the bunny who got to take her out through the river mouth and around to Port Adelaide. It gave me a good understanding of why so many boats came to grief in that area, but we made it through, and I added another boat onto my resume. I finished 1992 as a Riverboat Captain, but after 8 years in that industry, I was over it. Working away from home, in any job, was never ideal and I wouldn't do it again for 20 years.

# Number 19.

Working with racehorses has its positives. You don't have to make conversation with them for one. Or have dinner with them. You do, however, have to pick up their pooh which is something I didn't have to do as a ship's Captain – even with the older passengers. My day would start at 6 am feeding up to 20 horses. We would then float them down to the beach in pairs or three or four at a time so the track riders could exercise them. So it was back and forth for a few hours and then it was pooh time. Watering, feeding, rugging and fixing broken fences until about 11am and then a break until 3 pm when it was feeding and pooh pick up time again. This was my new reinvention – as a stablehand.

Wednesdays and Saturdays were racedays and we rarely missed one. Saturdays were in Adelaide and the mid week meetings at Murray Bridge, Gawler, Balaklava, Strathalbyn and anywhere else we could find suitable races. It was usually a 12 hour day for a one to two minute race per horse. But at least I was home every night with Cheryl in our little rented brick house. Two nights a week she would drive to Adelaide to do a Beauty Therapy Diploma course and on those two nights I would cook spaghetti bolognaise with tinned sauce for my dinner. For two years.

By the time April 1993 arrived I knew exactly what I wanted, and it wasn't another job. On a windy Wednesday afternoon I went for a walk on Goolwa beach with Cheryl and asked her very nicely if perhaps, maybe, she would like to marry me. Amazingly, she said yes and we planned it for June. I asked her because I loved her and wanted to have children with her, but I also knew she had been planning an overseas trip for some time to England and France and I didn't want her meeting some smooth talking Frenchman who might convince her to shack up with him in Paris, so I thought we could turn her trip into a honeymoon. We decided on a simple ceremony as we had both been married before, so we got an apartment at the Grand Hotel in Adelaide and had the ceremony in the room with our families, followed by a quiet dinner.

The next day, 26th June, we flew to Melbourne and then took a 9 hour flight to Bangkok followed by another 12 hours flying to London. And this is where it got a bit weird. Cheryl's plans included staying in the north of England to visit her Aunt and Uncle. I was pretty keen, seeing we had flown all this way, to go somewhere different, like Amsterdam. We couldn't agree, so on the second day of our honeymoon we went our separate ways. It wasn't an argument or a disagreement – in fact we had decided on this course when we booked our tickets months ago but, still, it was a bit strange. I had a 3 hour wait before flying to Amsterdam, then caught a train into the city, found a hotel room for $70 a night and went and checked the place out. That was interesting for a while until I started missing Cheryl. So much so that after a few days of it, I decided it was time to be together again.

It was ridiculous, seeing some fun and interesting places but not being able to share the experience with my wife - who was in the north of England near a place called Telford. I caught trains and ferries and more trains and arrived in Telford at midnight with a bunch of red roses and a big smile - a week after getting married.

We spent a few days sight seeing around Chester before flying out of Manchester for Paris. It was only for one night as we were headed for Switzerland and stayed a couple of nights in Lauterbrunnen up in the mountains for $130 a night before heading up even higher to a little place called Murren where we found the Chalet Fontana for only $80 a night. This was a picture postcard town with views out our window of snow capped mountains. We loved Switzerland but left after a few days on a snowy morning and caught a train down to Milan, then Genoa and finally a place on the Italian coast called Santa Margarita. We spent a couple of ordinary days there eating ordinary pizza before heading for the French Riviera and staying in Cannes for Bastille Day and the best fireworks we had ever seen. We checked out Monaco, where Cheryl lost her wedding ring, and then found it, and then scooted back to Paris for three days and London for a couple of days.

And after all that, it was back to work. Back to 6 am starts and trips to the races twice a week. By now I had shares in six different horses – Mr. Mike, Miss Deborah, Estacoux, Beach Kid, Well Designed and Sharp Mover, so racedays became all the more interesting. Owning a racehorse wasn't cheap. There was a per day charge of between $35 and $60, depending on who the trainer was - then there were vet bills, farrier bills, chiropractor bills, dentist bills, clipping bills, vitamins, floating costs to get the horse to the races and additional costs to nominate and accept a horse for a race. The prizemoney for 1st place at a provincial meeting was between $2000 - $3000, divided between the owners. It was more expensive than having children - as I was about to find out first hand. Ten days after my 33rd birthday, Cheryl tested positive.... to pregnancy. Our lives were about to change big time , for a long time.

We finished 1993 by moving into a more modern brick home near the beach and started getting ready for a baby in the house. Estacoux won his second race after 17 starts, I shaved off my moustache for good this time and we splurged $370 on a Labrador puppy we called Abby, who would grow up with our children.

The first week of 1994 had me going to the races on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. They were long days but Dad was having plenty of success and by the middle of the year he would be constantly ranked in the top ten trainers in South Australia .

Every race meeting attracts a mixture of humanity. They could be wealthy, poor, desperate, hopeful, well dressed or in shorts and thongs. There would be the professional, the novice, the hard working family man and the criminal. They all had hopes, dreams and money riding on every horse in every race. With an average of 8 races and at least a dozen runners in each, there would be 8 winners and 92 losers. That's a lot of disappointment.

But it's the spectacle and excitement, as well as the money, that brings all these people together on raceday. The magnificent thoroughbreds, muscles rippling, noses flaring, barely contain their energy as they are paraded around the mounting yard by us, the strappers. Then the jockeys file out in their brightly coloured silks to be met by the serious faces of the trainers as they are briefed on race tactics and how to run the race - which they sometimes follow. No matter how well the trainer has prepared the horse for the race, no matter how much time he has spent on its physical health and mental well being, the result of the race sits entirely in the jockey's magic hands.

Horseracing with my beautiful wife, Cheryl

As the trainer, Dad could control every aspect of the horse's life, but once he legged that jockey up into the saddle, he lost all control. For some jockeys, loyalty and honesty were plastic concepts and therefore flexible. And who could blame them. Their profession was one of the most dangerous in the world and, for the most part, very underpaid. Dad would eventually take on a young female apprentice for his stables. After he retired, she suffered an horrific race fall and lost a leg, but never her smile.

There are so many ups and downs in racing, it's a wonder we didn't suffer permanently from motion sickness. Dad had an impressive strike rate with his runners, given he only had 20 in work. Our own runners – those we had an interest in – had mixed results. Beach Kid took 13 starts before he won a race and would eventually be sold for $450. Estacoux had 34 starts and was always exciting but only won a handful for $20,000 in winnings ( split between three owners ) over a few years of racing. Sharp Mover had ability and regularly ran a place but managed only 3 wins out of 23 starts.

After nearly a year and a half working with racehorses, being bitten, trod on and kicked, I started looking around for something different to break the routine. Goolwa was only a small town so there weren't many local opportunities. I ambitiously applied for a job as a Senior Fisheries Investigator despite knowing nothing about fish and not surprisingly I was unsuccessful. March 1994 was the driest one in Adelaide for 125 years – it didn't rain for 50 days, and I was keen for some indoor work.

# Number 20.

In June, I saw an ad in the Adelaide paper for Trainers. The Quality Training Company was seeking experienced supervisors or managers who were creative, innovative and enthusiastic with preferably a hospitality background who may have previously worked with the unemployed. I was certainly enthusiastic so I applied and got an interview through my creative application letter.

The QTC ran courses for people who were classed as long term unemployed – as in a year or more. This long period of unemployment contributed to issues such as poor communication skills, lack of motivation, lack of confidence, lack of goals and ineffective interview skills. As well as hospitality training, personal development training was a big part of each course. I sat in on a couple of classes to see how they were run and then I was given a session on communication skills to do. I had never trained before but after 20 jobs I had some experience in communication and certainly in interview techniques so I bought a couple of books for research, and put together a half day session. It went well and then a few days later, at roughly 1.46 pm on the 27th June, Cheryl and I became parents to a perfect 3.5 kilogram boy we called Jackson Barclay Taylor.

Cheryl had a completely natural birth and I was there to see JB enter the world, open his eyes, look around and say to himself.....' What the hell.....? ', before crying a lot. Five days later, they both came home and our lives as parents began, a role we would mostly enjoy for the rest of our lives.

I started doing regular work for QTC a couple of days a week at different locations around Adelaide for around $150 a day. Meanwhile I kept working for Dad the rest of the time so one day I would be getting slobbered on, pissed on and trodden on while picking up horse manure and the next day I would present in a collar and tie to a class of a dozen jaded and lethargic unemployed people and teach them how to communicate. At least they didn't piss on me.

Cheryl and I had bought a block of land for $23000 in a marina over on Hindmarsh Island, across the water from Goolwa. We decided to borrow some more money and build a house on it, so for a total $100,000 mortgage, at $650 a month, we had a brand new house on our block. It would be my 25th different address since leaving home 16 years ago. Now I was married and had two jobs, a son and a mortgage. I was almost normal, and had finally settled down into a life I never thought I would.

I was getting more adventurous with my training courses. While the hospitality component was fairly structured, when it came to increasing confidence and motivation I had free reign to do whatever I thought would be effective. We ran six week courses on location at hotels and restaurants and for those that shaped up, there was employment available. In September we interviewed 38 hopefuls for an eight week course to be held at the imposing Grand Hotel at Glenelg, which was where I married Cheryl. We took 12 students, 10 finished the course, and 6 ended up with a job at The Grand.

Just after my 34th birthday, when I got my first mobile phone, I started a new course at a different venue in the city. On the first day, 4 out of 13 turned up. Attendance was always an issue, sometimes only half the class would turn up and they would be very unmotivated. Some days were a hard slog.

# Number 21 & 22 & 23.

By March, 1995, QTC didn't have as much work for me and I was over all the running around and spending my days trying to motivate people who had little or no desire to get a job anyway, so that was that. The next few years would see a continuation of the same old pattern when it came to employment and I still had no idea why. I had met people who had been in the same job for ten years and I was incredulous and envious in equal measures. I found it incredible that a person could turn up for work every day for ten years and do the same thing. I was also envious that they didn't waste energy on looking for other options, job searching and applying for jobs no matter where it was or how unsuitable they may be.

For me, it had become a habit. Whatever job I had at the time, I needed to change it, or add a second one to break the monotony. I often remembered the story of the Bank Manager. He had started work as a teller when he was 16, straight out of school. Over the years he gained promotions until, after 45 years with the same bank, he retired. A few years later he was on his death bed, and his son said to him...." Well, Dad you have had a good successful life - all those years with the bank and all the promotions - you have done so well...."

His Dad looked up at him with watery eyes, took a big breath and hesitated, before saying...." You know what son?....... my whole life, all I ever wanted to be was a postman....and I never got to be."

At least he knew what he wanted to be.

Cheryl had gone into business herself with her own Beauty Salon. Her parents had also gone in to business with a Blockbuster video store in Victor. I had taken over more responsibilities at the stables so that Mum and Dad could take time off if they wanted but I was always looking for other opportunities. One part of my day I hadn't made use of was the nights so I began to do night shifts working in the video store.

I love the movies. I would go every day if I could. I know it's all make believe – unrealistic stories acted out by impossibly good looking, egotistical, overpaid actors.....and yet. The way the story is told, the music that creates an atmosphere and the cinematography combine to capture life in a way we can never experience it.....and yet. And how many times can Jason Bourne be shot, stabbed and strangled before showing some signs of ill health...and yet. To be transported to a different world for a couple of hours and to laugh or cry or just be entertained is an experience that transcends reality, and is probably why movies are so popular.

So I was happy to talk to customers about the movies and get paid for it, even though I was working in a dying industry because in 20 years there would be no video stores. It made for long days by the time I closed up at 10 pm but it was a nice change from working with the unemployed. And if it was quiet, I watched a movie. It wasn't a major career move, but even Quentin Tarantino worked in a video store once upon a time.

As I wasn't too keen on doing five days a week at the stables and there was no more work at QTC, I was able to get some casual work as a Part Time Hospitality Instructor at TAFE.

I picked this job up through Lindsay, from my Murray Explorer days. He was working for TAFE fulltime and they occasionally used casual Lecturers.

The pay was $32 an hour which was pretty handy so I finished up doing a couple of days a week and it was only a 40 minute drive away. These students were much more motivated than my previous ones. A lot of them had paid for the course so they had reason to be, and it was a much more professional training environment than QTC. I had some training experience behind me and I had also completed a Certificate 4 in Training & Assessment. My hospitality experience was limited, but subjects like Conflict Resolution, Industrial Relations, Interpersonal Skills and Occupational Health and Safety were straight out of the book.

It was pretty clear that I was moving away from the horse training business and that became more obvious when I applied to yet another job ad – this time as a deckhand for a parasailing boat. It was weekend work and Milton, the owner, operated out of Victor Harbour over summer, and took the boat to Darwin for winter. Milton was a brave man. He threw away a good, regular job with the Tax Office to operate a parasailing business which was subject to the vagaries of the weather for it to be successful. I got the job and spent every weekend strapping people into harnesses and hooning around the bay while they floated above under a parachute. It was good fun and the customers were always happy.

The most rewarding job I had up until now though, was that of being a Dad to Jackson. He was cute and a ton of fun and nearly four years old when his sister, Charlee-Anne, was born. Charlee came into the world in the usual way, but her first thoughts on opening her eyes were....' WOW, this is great....' And she hasn't stopped smiling since. We were so lucky to have such beautiful children. Jackson would grow up to be my good mate, and I would be forever proud of him. Charlee was an ever smiling, always happy, warm and genuine kid, and she would be the same as an adult. They would both turn out to be amazing adults and, in many ways, be much better at it than me.

# Number 24.

Local work was hard to get, so when I saw an ad for a Job Search Trainer for a business called Employment Options in Victor Harbour, I enthusiastically applied. They were after someone with extensive experience in structured jobsearch training who had exceptional communication and interpersonal skills with an understanding of long term unemployment. Hmmm....so I drew on my experience with Quality Training Company, scored an interview with the two women who owned the business and got the job.

Job placement businesses were big money makers. The Government paid these RTO's to provide compulsory training for the unemployed - it was a requirement in order to get the dole. If the RTO placed a client in a job they got paid more and there was plenty of money to be made. So they employed people like me to motivate their clients and train them in resume writing, interview skills and communication skills. Luckily,I had plenty of practise over the last 20 years. So, at the beginning of 1999, I gave all the other jobs away and began fulltime with Employment Options on $32,000 a year, as a Job Search Trainer.

They had offices in Victor Harbour and at Mount Barker, about a 45 minute drive away. I worked at both places, designing and running training courses and assisting the clients in finding a job - any job. They were both reasonably small towns so it was a challenge - especially for people who had been out of work for years and had very little confidence, poor presentation and under used communication skills. One really effective exercise I used was to give everyone a written list of positive attributes - things like humorous, kind, generous, intelligent - there were a couple of dozen adjectives - and they all wrote the name of each class member on the top of that list and circled what they thought applied to that person. It was anonymous but each person finished up with seven or eight lists about themselves from others - as to how they were perceived by them - which was a real eye opener for some and generally a great confidence booster. It was an attempt to answer the question, ' Who Am I ?'. That answer usually being a mix of how you saw yourself, how others saw you and how you thought others saw you. It was a question I still had no answer for.

I also used outdoor activities to increase their confidence. The Trust Fall meant falling backwards form a one metre height, and relying on your classmates to catch you before you smashed onto the ground. I would also blindfold one of them and have them run flat out towards a brick wall or a creek - relying on their classmates to stop them. Negotiating an obstacle course blindfolded, and being guided through by your partners verbal instructions, was a great exercise in communication and got us out of the classroom.

Then Employment Options opened an office in Goolwa, my home town, and work was now a ten minute commute. I began to invite local business people in to talk to the students and tell them what was important in interviews and in securing a job. I read a lot of books and used their ideas in the training. In the end, I condensed what the unemployed needed to sell to employers came down to three things - Can Do, Will Do and Fits In. Meaning - they have the skills to do the job, they will turn up on time every day and do the job, and they fit in to the workplace culture. The last one was probably the most commonly overlooked and undersold in an interview. Every workplace has a different culture and if you don't fit in then you will not last.

Years later when I would be working a FIFO job, it didn't stand for Fly In Fly Out, it was Fit In or F**K Off. Sometimes it's a natural fit, sometimes you have to adapt and sometimes you just have to bluff. I had been doing all three for a long time.

Most of the people on my courses had not had a paid job for years. They had applied for many and had suffered countless rejections for a number of reasons – some their own fault and some through bad luck or bad timing. I was trying to help the reasons that were their fault. Their communication, interview skills and resume writing were as rusty as the Titanic, along with their self confidence and motivation.

But, for people who had been financially supported by the government for years and were continually knocked back by employers, the option to work for a living became unattractive. Why pay half their wage to their bitchy ex wife in maintenance payments just so she can go to the RSL on a Friday night with her new boyfriend and blow it all on the pokies and rum and cokes. It was not an appealing option so why bother trying to get a job? This is what I was up against, and sometimes I had no answers.

Cheryl and I had been talking for a while about moving to Queensland. The weather in South Australia and particularly the constant wind on Hindmarsh Island where we lived was wearing us down. We were ready for a change and wanted to do it before the kids started school - which, for Jackson, meant next year. As was my habit I had been applying for other jobs, even though I had one, including a couple in Queensland. Between April and August I tried out as a Personnel Consultant in Adelaide, a Principal Educator with the Queensland Racing Industry, with a ship that was going to start trips from Adelaide to Tasmania and as the National Training Co-ordinator for Sizzler Restaurants in Brisbane. Maybe I was aiming too high, because I got none of them!

When we talked about Queensland we inevitably talked about Noosa as it had been drawing me back since 1979 like some sort of geographical magnet. So I took a week off work in late 1999, flew up to Brisbane, hired a car and set out to see if I could find any work there. The obvious choice was in Job Search Training, but there was also the Noosa River which had a few commercial boats operating on it. I answered a job ad straight away for a Job Search Trainer with a business called Work Skills who had offices all over the Sunshine Coast. I had an interview which went so well I didn't look too hard for the rest of my stay up there. I never heard anything though, and returned home. Two days later I received a letter offering me a fulltime position, based in Noosa and starting on $34,000 a year. The start date was in three days.

It was impractical to accept the position so I said thanks, but no thanks. But, encouraged by the ease of finding a job up there, we put our house on the market and sold it for $130,000. In the meantime I applied for a job as Training Co-ordinator for the Hyatt Hotel at Coolum, half an hour from Noosa. It was to run their corporate outdoor training programs and I scored a phone interview but missed out on the job as I had no experience with running a high ropes course.

In November, 1999 , I left my 24th job, and our four year old house. We threw caution to the wind and the kids in the Falcon wagon and, for the fourth time in my life, headed to Queensland.

# Number 25.

We had arranged a rental house in Tewantin before we left, but it wasn't for a week, until our furniture arrived , so we stayed in a motel on the river at Noosaville. We had left South Australia with $30,000 in the bank so felt pretty flush. By the time we paid the furniture removalists ( $2000 ), paid off a few credit cards ( $3,000 ), bought a couple of new beds and a washing machine ( $1600 ), and paid the rent and bond ( $1,000 ), we weren't so flush. Still, it was more than enough to live on for a while until I found a job. Cheryl was keen to find work in the Beauty industry once Jackson started school and Charlee-Anne could go to daycare a couple of days a week. Every morning I would ride my bike down to the beach for a swim, then focus on job hunting.

And so the search began, but well paid, fulltime jobs in Noosa were like taxi's on New Years Eve - there weren't enough of them and most were already taken. For some reason, I applied for a job managing a cruise ship in Tonga. Yes, the South Pacific Tonga. It was a very similar vessel to the Proud Australia I had Captained on the Murray, but we had just moved to Noosa and here I was looking to work in Tonga! I even got an interview in Brisbane and was shortlisted down to three - but missed out due to a lack of sales experience. Phew! What was I thinking?

I applied for a dozen jobs, mostly in the Job Search field, had a few interviews and got nothing. They all seemed to be using psychometric testing instead of good old face to face interviews, so I would have to answer pages of questions like - ' _usually I am happy when I don't think about it too much - sometimes, all the time, or never?_ ' Perhaps I had just had enough of working with the unemployed - I could cover the Can Do, but the Will Do and Fits In may have been too obviously lacking.

I had met with the husband and wife owners of a charter boat called the Catalina which was based behind the Sheraton Hotel in Noosa Heads and was a similar type of vessel to the MV Entertainer I had skippered on the Gold Coast ten years ago. They offered me some work on New Years Eve working the bar on the boat. It was the big new millenium New Years Eve celebration of 2000, when computers were supposed to crash, televisions would stop working and the world may even come to an end. I was happy to take the risk of not being home to protect my family from world's end and took the work, to hopefully get a foot in the door.

Beven and Judy also ran a hire boat business from the same jetty, and in February they offered me four days a week working the hire boats, and I would also get some time skippering the Catalina to get my local endorsement. Not long after, Cheryl scored a part time job with a beauty salon on Hastings Street. We were in business. Jackson started school at Tewantin Primary, and Charlee spent time at daycare when Cheryl was working. Our new life in Noosa was underway so we set about finding a house to buy. The place we were renting was a low set red brick old place that had a strange smell about it, loud, arguing neighbours and was surrounded by an army of cane toads everytime it rained. I was riding my bike to work every day so our next house couldn't be too far away from Noosa Heads.

In March we settled on a three bedroom modern house on a small block at Noosa Parklands, not far from Tewantin. The house cost us $153,000, which we thought was a lot of money for a house. Time would prove us very wrong.

I was now skippering the Catalina as part of my job, doing wedings, charters and regular cruises, as well as hiring out boats and kayaks to tourists. Four days a week wasn't quite enough income though, so I started working Mondays as skipper on a fast tour boat that did a full day trip way up the Noosa River to an area called The Everglades. I felt like I had skippered every type of boat ever made except for maybe a hovercraft – only because I couldn't find one. And, as if that wasn't enough, I kept applying for other jobs. I tried the Hyatt at Coolum again as a Conference Co-ordinator this time, but failed again. I tried out as a Training Manager, an Employment Consultant, a Personnel Manager and even for a government job as a Workplace Training Officer in Brisbane. Why I kept looking, I don't know – considering I was gainfully employed in an enjoyable environment. It was like being a job alcoholic who just needed one more drink – just one more, that's all and after that I'll stop. I'll be fine after one more – but it was never just one more, was it?

And then, the inevitable happened - I turned 40. How could it have happened so quickly? I was now working just around the corner from where I had set up my tent as an 18 year old my first time in Noosa, so I had a constant reminder of my youth, which seemed like only yesterday. Yesterday, when my days were so very simple and the biggest decision to be made was what time to walk up to the wooden stairs and concrete floors of the Reef Hotel for a beer. Now, the Reef Hotel was all tiles and glass and poker machines and had the soul of a robot. Now, I had to go and pick up my kids from school and daycare, get home to my highly mortgaged house and start on dinner before my wife got home. What had happened in such a short time? I was probably heading for some sort of mid life crisis so on my birthday, Cheryl and I hired a very cool Cobra V8 convertible for the day, and took a drive up into the hills for lunch. That was a big help in making me realise there were some things in life that no matter how bad I wanted them - I was probably never going to have them.

But, hell, being 40 was no big deal. We were living in Noosa and I had a job, two beautiful kids, an adorable wife and 25 jobs was enough for any man. Be happy, be satisfied, stop changing jobs, do not make the same mistakes again, was a mantra I kept repeating to myself.

After riding my trusty bike to work for a year, I grew a little leg weary so I looked around for a vehicle. Never being attracted to the ordinary, I spied a Mahindra Jeep just down the road for $4500. It looked like it had just driven back from New Guinea after WW2, except it was made in India and was only ten years old. Different. Had to have it. Went from 0 - 100 in six and a half minutes as long as it was downhill but that was okay in Noosa, and the kids loved it.

One thing I had done to turn back the clock was to chase the acting dream I had back in high school. Noosa arts Theatre was the local theatre in town that ran regular productions so one day I went and auditioned for a one act play. There were very few people auditioning for the role I was after so I got it. I just wanted to be on stage and play a part, which I did, and there was a hint of acting in my performance but you had to look very hard to find it. I went on to a more challenging role in a play called Speaking In Tongues, with a very supportive cast. This role included an on stage kiss followed by a slap in the face which was always hard to prepare for when I knew it was coming. I had delusions of fame, of course, and followed up with a third play with many of the same cast but I lacked the dedication and ability to continue so instead I tried my hand at writing plays, in which I seemed to have the same problems.

In 2001 Dad retired as a horse trainer. He was 66 years old and had a remarkably successful career in an industry that was cut throat, highly competitive, corrupt, crooked and driven by money. Through all that, he maintained a reputation of honesty, ability and horsemanship that made us all very proud. Dad never made a fortune out of training racehorses, but he showed that, with a passion for something and an ability to match, you can succeed. Unfortunately, in the racing industry, honesty was not rewarded as well as it should have been. After selling their property, Mum and Dad bought a huge caravan to go touring with and would eventually finish up in Noosa to live, followed not long after by my sister, Deb.

After 18 months in our house, with the noisy, demanding, growing, beautiful kids getting older, we decided to move. Our next house was a four bedder with a pool on nearly ¼ of an acre that backed onto a forest and was just down the road. We picked it up for $215,000 which seemed like an enormous amount of money for a house - which also gave us an enormous mortgage. But Cheryl left the beauty industry and taken on a fulltime job as a legal secretary. I had been hiring boats and skippering the Catalina for three years and, while it was a cruisy job, there were times when Beven could be a little prickly, so I started looking around.

# Number 26.

I knew a bloke who knew the bloke that was in charge of the marine courses at Sunshine Coast TAFE and he told me they were looking for a trainer. I'd worked for TAFE before, had my Certificate 4 in Training and Assessment and my Master 4 marine ticket, so I went down to Caloundra to see Tony.

He was an affable little fellow in his forties who seemed to be more interested in helicopters than boats but I said all the right things and I think he was desperate for a trainer, so I was hired and quit the Catalina. It was nearly an hour's drive from home to Caloundra and the job wasn't fulltime, but I was keen for a change so I leapt right in. The courses ran for a few weeks and included vessel handling, seamanship skills, work health and safety, survival at sea and environmental work practices. We also ran Marine Radio Operator courses and Shipboard Safety courses which involved liferaft usage and firefighting, so there was a fair bit going on. The local firefighters ran the full day firefighting course on site at their base, and part of the Shipboard Safety course was run at the local pool, so it wasn't all classroom based training.

.We ran the courses at the Mooloolaba Yacht Club, which was closer to home, but any administration work had to be done at Caloundra. I had to sell the Jeep as it wasn't suited to such a long commute and picked up a cheap Ford Fairlane - probably the thirstiest car ever made - but it was comfy and had electric windows which I would keep wound down to save using the aircon which used up more fuel than I could afford.

At least these students wanted to be on the course because they had paid for it , and it wasn't cheap. Initially, there was a fair bit bit of chaos within the Marine section. Tony had been through a few trainers and there had been some changes to the course curriculum which needed sorting out. It was too much for one man so I was lucky when Peter came on board as another trainer.

TAFE had their own training vessel which looked like it had seen service in WW2, but she was a solid old girl and we would take students out from Mooloolaba and cruise up the coast as part of their navigation training. The courses were very structured - no time for running flat out at walls or doing trust falls in this course. And, there was a mountain of paperwork - I had worked for TAFE before but this time I was responsible for most of the administration, and it was not a part of the job I enjoyed. Most of our students were good - there are always 'know it alls' and big mouths and troublemakers in any group, but we had females as well as males on the courses and that helped to tone things down a bit.

Meanwhile at home I had a ten year old son and a six year old daughter, so my weekends were very busy. I was only doing 3 or 4 days a week at work though, and I was struggling to see a long term future in this role.

# Number 27.

Beven was a Kiwi. He was also moody, prickly and sometimes rude to customers. But, he could also be very generous and thoughtful and we mostly got along well. His wife, Judy, had the same attributes, without the moody, prickly and rude. I went to see Beven one afternoon and found him working inside the Catalina using an electric sander on the ceiling.

" G'day Beven, how are you ," I said, in the most cheerful and positive tone I could. He was half up a ladder, his grey hair was covered in white dust as was most of his face. He turned off the sander and slipped the dusk mask down revealing a perfect clean circle around his mouth and nose, a bit like a koala bear.

" Alright," he replied, " hows TAFE ?"

"I'm thinking about giving it away......things are a bit quiet," I said, trying hard not to laugh at his bear face as this was meant to be a serious conversation......" I heard you might be thinking about selling your hire boats and I wanted to let you know I would be interested..."

" I've had the bastards for five years and since you walked out they're just a pain in the ass, so yeah I'd be happy to get rid of them."

" Well, I know the business pretty well, how much are you looking for?" I asked casually as possible, as if I had a big bag of money out in my car which I would just go and grab if he wouldn't mind waiting a minute or two.

"The boats are only five years old, the motors are good and its all cash - you know how much they can make ..." was his sales pitch.

I also knew how much they could break down and be damaged by inexperienced tourists going aground on sandbars,but he gave me a figure and I replied with a long and thoughtful "....mmmmmm..."

" Okay, well that sounds fair enough, but how would you feel about vendor finance?" I asked.

He looked down at me from up his ladder and said, " Whaddya mean ?"

I explained to him that I would be happy to pay his asking price and take over straight away but he would need to allow me to pay off the business - shall we say... over three years?

In the end, we agreed on two years at 7% interest. Oh, and as I would be operating out of the same place as the Catalina, I would also take the bookings for their cruises and help Judy set up the boat for charters. This meant that Beven and Judy didn't need a presence at the boat shed and it meant I didn't have to pay any rent. Like I said, deep down, he was a good guy, and just like that, I had my own business. I went back to TAFE to meet with Tony and tell him he needed to find another trainer.

The business consisted of four Haines Hunter half cabins with 15hp Johnson outboards which could take up to six people each ( no license required ) and half a dozen kayaks.

It may not sound like much, but I knew how much income they could make, having worked in the business for a few years so I was confident of making it a success. I was in Noosa Heads, right behind the Sheraton Hotel on Hastings Street, looking straight on to the Noosa River – I named it Boardwalk Boats and I was now my own boss.

I started operating on Saturday 1st November 2003 and took $290 for the day. The next day I took nothing as the Noosa Triathlon was being held and despite the massive amount of people in town it didn't help my business at all. Things picked up though, and by the end of the month my takings totalled over $10,000. Unfortunately, there were outgoings. I bought a canoe to hire out for $1300, and I spent over $800 on fuel and $700 on a new business sign. In the end, my nett for the month was only $4600 - and I was the happiest man in town. I had asked Peter, my work mate from TAFE, if he wanted to work for me and he started doing Sundays so I could have a day off.

Rainy days were the only thing that stopped business. If it looked like raining all day I just closed the doors as it wasn't worth being there and no-one was cruising on the Catalina either. There were three rainy days in December and I closed for Christmas Day and still took nearly ten grand for the month. It was the busy season, though and there would be very quiet months to come so I had to be prepared for those.

There was no license required to hire my boats so quite often people would get lost, run aground, break down or run out of fuel. I had bought a mini speedboat off E-Bay as a rescue boat. It was a one seater timber boat about 7 feet long with a 30hp on the back. She flew along like something out of a James Bond movie, but was totally impractical as a rescue boat. Over time I would have a range of different rescue vessels until I was finally found out by the Water Police ( after 3 years ) who politely informed me that my rescue boat had to be an 'in survey' vessel and I could not operate without one. Before they could close my doors I found one that cost me nearly $6000.

When Beven owned the boats, he had the advantage of being able to do most of his own repairs. These were mainly mechanical, but also included fibreglass repairs and it saved him a lot of money and time. What I knew about outboard repairs and fibreglassing I could scratch onto my thumbnail. So, I had to take the boat out of the water to the outboard mechanic if it was serious, limiting my potential income, or get him to make a housecall, which was expensive. In the first twelve months, I spent over $6000 on repairs including 5 engine mounts, 4 head gaskets, 3 gearboxes, 2 steering cables, a throttle cable and a steering box.

But, that was yet to happen and when I took in over $16,000 in January, I thought I'd be retiring some time soon. But of course, with so many hires came $1400 in fuel, $1,000 in wages and more repairs plus my loan repayments and quiet winter months to come, so retirement was actually a long way off. My first year in business returned a gross income of nearly $100,000. Sounds a lot, but my outgoings were out there too. However, I was making a living, I had no boss, and I was in a happy place. Dad and I went halves in a ski boat, and we even got Mum out tubing on the river.

After 18 months of patching up the old outboards, I took the plunge and bought four new ones. They were Suzuki outboards and cost me $18,000 . I had to get a loan which added $500 a month to my outgoings , but at least they were reliable - until someone damaged them.

After two years of owning the hire boat business, I had met my commitments and had paid them off. I now owned four hire boats, a ski boat and six kayaks. I celebrated by having a vasectomy. We sure as hell didn't want any more kids - I was 45 years old with an 11 yo son and a 7 yo daughter keeping me busy. The kids loved my business. We would often take one of the boats out after school for a sunset cruise or a fish and Jackson soon became a capable boat driver. I bought a second hand Yamaha jetski for $2000 as a rescue boat ( ?? ) and this made them even happier.

At the beginning of 2006, the leasing arrangements at the Sheraton jetty, where the Catalina and my business operated from, went up for tender. Beven had no formal lease to operate there and this was about to change. The successful tenderer was the Noosa Ferry, who very quickly evicted the Catalina. I thought I would be next, meaning my business was non existent but, after a meeting with the new leaseholders, they offered me a deal. I could take over both the existing pontoons, thereby saving my business, and the annual rent would only be $50,000 plus GST plus a 4% annual increase.

Wow. Deal or no deal. This would effectively increase what I had been paying by nearly 150%. No deal. We talked some more and I was able to stay there and continue my business, although with no official tenure, for an increase of about $125 a week. Deal.

The Catalina found a new berth further up the Noosa River, so I was on my own. Nothing else really changed - I had $2500 worth of repairs in the first three months of the year resulting in a nett of $7,000 - for three months. The writing was starting to be written on the wall in big capital letters - CHANGE. There were so many ups and downs - April brought in $13,000 but June's nett was $450.Yes, for the month. The business relied on weather and tourists, neither of which were reliable or controllable. And motors kept on breaking.

The situation was made more complex towards the end of the year when old mate Lindsay came up to visit, with the thought of moving to Noosa. We tossed around some entrepreneurial ideas like a hospitality staffing agency, a menswear shop, some sort of movie making, a water taxi business, an indoor obstacle course, a 1970's themed bar and even a business in Vanuatu. We had a lot of good ideas, but pretty much no idea how to make them work.

I don't know why I was keen for a change, considering January 2007 was such a good month. I knew there were businesses in Noosa that made a lot more than I did - and there were plenty that made less - but for my little one man show, although I always had a casual employee of one, to take in nearly $22,000 for the month, was pretty good. Of course there were costs \- fuel, wages. repairs, rent, boat registrations and loan payments. But I still made $400 a day, every day of the month. If every month was like that, then I probably would have retired by now. In May, I made $29 a day. This was the nature of a resort town for any business. The saying goes that if you want to finish up with a million dollars in Noosa, bring two million.

And so, the year continued. Dad turned 72, and Cheryl was at the ripe old age of 39. And.... I kept dreaming of greener pastures and the other side of the fence - which was a much flawed concept which I had proven over the years. But, I was me and I had only had 27 jobs so there must be something better out there \- surely. That something manifested itself as a red, 1980,CJ7 Jeep.

I was looking for a tow vehicle for my boats and after getting an equity loan to redo our kitchen, there was enough left over to buy this baby. Unfortunately, I didn't consult with Cheryl regarding this magnificent purchase and if we had a doghouse, I would have been living in it. I couldn't understand because the Jeep looked really cool - no doors, no roof, but it did have some issues like no steering, no good windscreen, no good tyres and basically - no good. But the kids loved it.

New Years Day 2008 was rainy and windy and I made no money. It was much the same for the next couple of weeks and then I had to spend $4000 on a new outboard. I had been in business for over four years and had made a good living but it was getting more difficult to keep my head above water. It was turning into a struggle between weather, repairs, repayments and tourist numbers. In February I put a For Sale ad in the paper. I had no lease and no accountants figures that would reflect the true value of the business but I asked for a realistic figure of $60,000 for the business, plus equipment valued at $50,000. There were a few enquiries, but nothing solid.

Then, I got an enquiry from a bloke who owned a hire boat business further up the river. He understood the business and knew the Noosa Ferry guys, so even though I had no lease...well, he understood and saw the potential. I met with him and his wife and his son, who would be running the business, at the Noosa Yacht Club one sunny afternoon and they offered me an amount close to what I was asking. I thought about it for a few seconds, as if I had other offers to take into consideration - and took it. They got a good deal. And so did I. It was good timing - just before handover, in April, I held a little party at my boatshed - I supplied drinks and nibbles - with my last $100.

# Number 28 & 29.

It was 2 a.m, and I was sitting at home in front of my computer in the dark, eyes glued to the screen. The only sound was the rapid beating of my heart which sounded loud enough to wake Cheryl and the kids. My right index finger was hovering over the mouse, ready to click in an instant. I was intently watching a little box with a dollar amount in it, coloured green. Green was good, green was profit. Red was bad, red was loss. The amount kept increasing from zero to $820 and I clicked the mouse to exit the trade. It had taken less than four minutes.

I was trading futures online – e mini's to be exact. I had just earned the equivalent of $12,000 an hour and I had no idea how I had done it. Well, okay I had a bit of an idea – as I should have after paying $7,000 for the course that had promised to turn me into an online trading champion who only had to work an hour a day so I could spend the rest of my valuable time on board my very big boat with my very young, large breasted, blonde companion – just like in the brochure.

I had been to a seminar in Brisbane with Lindsay, who had finally moved to Noosa, all about futures trading and I was sold on the idea. Working from home an hour a day was the sort of job I had been seeking for a long time. Maybe this was The One. People were very successful at it and after all, how hard could it be? Very hard, as it turned out. Learning how to trade the e-mini S & P 500 was not a steep learning curve, because there was no curve. This was a steep vertical line and I came within a millimetre of giving up on many occasions. If it was easy, I suppose, there would be a whole heap of big boats cruising around with blondes draped over them looking adoringly at their much older, but very clever companion. And there weren't.

But first, there was a more important event to focus on and that was Cheryl's 40th birthday in May. Being flush after selling the boat hire business, I thought we should celebrate her birthday somewhere special as a family. So we did – at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. The four of us spent nearly six weeks overseas including Dubai ( where Jackson broke his arm on a quad bike ) and England. It was a great experience for the kids but we were glad to come home.

I returned home as an unemployed person, but I did have a $7000 course to start studying, and a lot of house painting to do. By mid July I had not worked for three months. After attending a one day intensive trading workshop in Brisbane, I was ready to start trading – but only on a simulation platform until I really got the hang of it. Meanwhile, my savings account was haemorrhaging after no income for three months, so I thought maybe a part time job would come in handy until I started trading for real.

I answered an ad in the paper for a courier truck driver, and got the job. It seemed a bit too easy and I was about to find out why. The depot was at Kunda Park, about 40 minutes from home and the start time was 6 am. I spent a week going on the run with another driver and was paid a training wage. The run began on the other side of Brisbane, which meant the first drop off/pickup was a two hour drive away. Then it was driving all over Brisbane doing pickups mainly, to a specific and very tight timetable before returning to Kunda Park by 6 pm. Repeat the next day and for five days take home $900 out of which I had to pay my own tax. So it was a 60 hour week for $15 / hour gross.

Family trip to Paris

I was constantly tired as my simulation trading was done at night time, but it was money and it put a temporary bandage on the financial bleeding. I had made a simulated trading profit of US$700 over the course of a month which wasn't a lot but it was a profit and I was ready to start working towards my big, new boat. After three months as an over worked, underpaid and constantly tired courier truck driver, I quit.

To trade the American market, I needed to open an American trading account, so I did with $8000, and took my first trade on the pre market on the afternoon of my 48th birthday. There were two markets I could trade on – the pre market was between 6 pm and 11 pm which were easier hours but there weren't as many opportunities, and there was the cash market between midnight and 6 a.m. On my first trade, I broke even, but I took heart in the fact that I had some idea of what to do – I had absolutely no idea how the whole concept worked but that didn't matter – did it? Our savings account was down to $16,000, so I needed this to work. There were patterns to recognise and signals to follow and in the pre market there would be a moderator online who would help with those signs and suggest when to trade. I followed his advice the next day and lost $200 in about five minutes. But it was all part of the plan – there were rules to follow and guidelines to stick to and self discipline was very important. There had to be trading parameters or it became just a form of gambling. My first full week of trading gave me a US$600 profit. I did the same in the second week just on the pre market. I had taped up A4 pages in front of me so I wouldn't forget - _'DO NOT GUESS THE MARKET'.........'STICK TO THE PLAN'.........NO MORE THAN 2 WINS/2 LOSSES PER SESSION'._

It was time to step it up a notch so I began to sleep in the spare room so I could get up at midnight without waking Cheryl, and trade the American cash market. Monday night, 3rd November, I logged on at 6 pm and sat in front of that computer for 4 ½ hours, and made two trades for a $275 profit. And that was U.S. Dollars, thankyou very much. The next day I started at 11 am and made $100 in the first hour, then lost it an hour later. But, by 3 pm I had clawed back $125 and called it quits for the day. This was like no other job I had ever had. There were no set hours, no set hourly rate and it was so immediate. I could make money and lose money in a matter of minutes and see it happening on my screen. I wasn't working long hours, but my heart was working overtime. I did 15 trades in the first week of November and made a profit of nearly US$1200. I started buying boat magazines.

The following week I sat up for four nights and only did six trades for a US$950 profit. I was starting to think the young blonde might be an option too - until things started to unravel. How much money I made or lost depended on how many contracts I traded and where I put my profit target or my stop out. The stop out was designed to minimise my losses, but it was moveable. The market, and my profits, went up and down like a seesaw, and it was simply a matter of taking a profit when it was up, or riding the loss as it went down and hoping it would swing back into the green. On Wednesday night, 26th November, I lost $600 in one hour by moving my stop out. This was undisciplined trading, so I took a few days off to cool down.

I logged on again in December with renewed enthusiasm. Monday night saw me lose $500 in the first hour. The next night I watched my dollar amount go from $200, to $500 and finally to $800. Unfortunately, it was a red amount, not a green. The market was going bananas and had lost what little predictability it used to have. The first three weeks of December hit me with a US$2000 loss.

I couldn't believe it. Everything was working as it was meant to, but the signals and the patterns that I had been studying for months were just not working as they were supposed to.

As it turned out, there was a little thing going on that would later be called the Global Financial Crisis, and my losses would be nothing compared to many others. It would be seen as the worst economic crisis to hit the world since the Great Depression of the 1930's. The situation had been bubbling along for a while, but it started to really hit the fan around September and October, 2008 – when I began to spend long nights in front of my computer trying to make money out of markets that were becoming a financial Hiroshima. I gave it a rest, and we went to South Australia to spend Christmas with Cheryl's parents.

Raring to get back into it in January, I topped up my US trading account and began trading again. The signals were all over the place and the online moderators were as well. I sat up late every night and began to break the golden rule of trading. I abandoned my plan, ripped my A4 reminders off the wall and chased money with reckless abandon. I finished January US$800 down. I began to think about finding another job to help with the cash flow – I needed to make $1000 a week and I sure wasn't making it. By the end of February I was down to seven grand in the bank and a couple of thousand in my trading account. I hid my losses from Cheryl as I was certain I would claw them back, eventually. As it turned out, I didn't. I closed my account, threw the boat magazines in the bin, and started looking for a real job.

By the time I realised I was fighting a losing battle with trading, and more information surfaced about the GFC, I had only lost about $3,000 over the last four months. I was one of the lucky ones.

# Number 30

The first time I walked into the kayak store in Gosford, NSW, I was overwhelmed, amazed and totally confused by the hundred different shapes, colours and lengths of kayaks available for sale - which was unfortunate because I was supposed to be selling them. When a customer walked in and Melanie, the store owner, looked at me and then tilted her blonde head in his direction as if to say, ' go on then, sell him a kayak', I had a brief flash of self doubt. Of course by now, after 29 times, self doubt in a new job was unusual for me. But this was off the scale. I knew the difference between a single kayak and a double kayak and I used to hire them out to pale skinned tourists a while back. Based on that, I had talked myself into a job that clearly required a lot more knowledge than I currently had or pretended to have. So, it was bluff time.

I wandered up to the prospective buyer, " Hi there, anything I can help you with ?"

" Ah, yeah, I'm thinking of getting a kayak," he said.

I nodded. He nodded. Silence. We both looked around. I nodded again, before moving things along with, " ......any particular colour?"

Following my failed attempt at becoming a super wealthy online trader, I had applied for a job on SEEK as a kayak store manager, and scored an interview in the first week of March. The owner of the business was a South African guy called Anton who, with his wife Melanie, had kayak stores in Gosford and Sydney and wanted to open one up on the Sunshine Coast. It was to be an autonomous role, so my previous experience having my own business went in my favour against the other 90 applicants who he had shortlisted to five. That was the trouble with applying for an advertised job - there was lots of competition. So many times I had done that and knew I was capable and suitable for the position but if the resume didn't read right or some small thing went wrong in the interview - there were a hundred others ready to trample over you to get the job. This time, though, I did the trampling.

The employment process took a while as he was negotiating to buy an existing kayak business on the Sunshine Coast, and things were becoming difficult. It would take nearly two months before they flew me to Gosford and put me up in a motel for a week of training in their store. About a week before I ran out of money in the bank, I got my first pay cheque.

The Kayak Warehouse opened at Warana ( a 45 minute commute ) on the 1st May, 2009. Part of the package was a work ute, which was handy as I had no vehicle of my own. I was on $2000 a month plus commission on sales. It was my first time in a commission job so I was unsure how it would go. I ended up selling 30 kayaks in May for a nett income of $900 a week. I hadn't earned a decent wage for over a year so I was happy with that. As well as a work ute, I was given my own kayak to use - I chose a NZ made Barracuda Beachcomber ocean kayak. I loved it so much and, despite retailing at $2500, it became my best seller. Even when Anton opened up two more stores in Canberra and the Gold Coast, I was always the highest seller of Beachcombers. I would paddle before work as I didn't open until 10 am, and I would paddle on my day off.

Eventually, I learned everything there was to know about all those hundred kayaks, and my selling skills improved from that first day. In August, I sold $50,000 worth of kayaks, in all colours.

I read books and magazines about kayaks, I watched videos on kayaks and I would walk through my store and dust my kayaks every day. Some were dogs to look at and dogs to paddle but most were a highly functional object of beauty, and I loved them all. By October / November, I was selling 50 kayaks a month, taking home $1400 a week and doing lots of offshore paddling in lots of different kayaks as well as the Beachcomber.

I liked kayaks so much I spent the whole year of 2010 in the same job - which was quite an achievement for me. On my days off, when Jackson was home from boarding school, I would take home a kayak for him to come paddling with me. We paddled 50 kilometers one Saturday up to Rainbow Beach and followed it up with a full day paddle south to Mooloolaba. Then, to celebrate his 16th birthday we did a three day ocean paddle to the Gold Coast. We created memories of endurance and adversity that bound us together and would last forever, thanks to my Kayak Warehouse job. Some days were boring, though. I was the only person in the store and if there were no customers...well....there was only so much dusting I could do. On other days, if we were having a sale, I could sell 10 kayaks in a day and be run off my feet.

Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, I was 50 years old.

I thought it might be a good time to settle down and stop all this chopping and changing. After 30 variations, I had a good job that I mostly enjoyed along with a work vehicle. I had a nice house in Noosa, a beautiful family and a Barracuda Beachcomber \- and I only worked 35 hours a week. Besides that, I had made a verbal commitment of two years to Anton and Melanie who were great to work for. That two years wasn't up for another 6 months. So that's when I left. I think I know what you're thinking. Why? Because it was my nature. It was that nagging thought that this............is not really me. Trouble was....after 35 years, I still had no idea what was me.

Three day paddle in my Barracuda

# Number 31 & 32.

It wasn't like I just upped and left with no plan. Kayak Warehouse was a successful business and I could have stayed there. I ended up processing the applicants for my job, interviewing them and narrowing it down to two, who Anton flew up to meet and to eventually choose my successor. She ran the place for another four years until it closed down, and did a great job.

My under prepared plan involved video and self employment. Towards the middle of 2011, Cheryl was working fulltime in a sports store, Charlee was in her first year of high school and Jackson was doing well in his last year of high school, so things were going along nicely. But I was in a rut, again, and an opportunity presented itself that took me out of it.

When I was working with Dad and his racehorses, fifteen years ago, I had used his old VHS video camera to make videos of some of the better horses, and used two VCR's to edit them and add titles and music. It was a hobby, but it was something I always had an interest in and always would. Turns out old mate Lindsay had a similar interest and while I was with Kayak Warehouse we had made half a dozen videos that he filmed, and I presented, about different kayaks. Eventually, Anton started paying us for them so he could use them on his website, and on YouTube, which have now had over 100,000 views.

The business next door to Kayak Warehouse was a surf ski business and the owner, Andy, asked us to do a video for him, which we did and got paid $800 for. So that was that. We put a business plan together and threw ourselves into it.

Our plan involved creating and producing short videos for business websites in order to personalise them and make them more interesting - "....our business is to bring your business to life through the power of online video....". This meant our potential customers were any business that had a website - so how could we possibly fail? I wasn't quite reckless enough to leave my job based on this simple premise, but.............Lindsay had a contact who had his own website / social media business and he was very supportive and encouraging plus he had a contact who had a similar business and between them they would keep us busy for decades. And, to begin with, they did. Our first client was a local curtain / blinds business and it went really well. It wasn't until one of Lindsay's contacts got us a big job in Melbourne that I decided this was going to work, and I resigned from the kayak business and Lindsay resigned from his job as a Body Corporate Manager.

So, two blokes in their fifties with good fulltime jobs and very basic skills in videoing and editing, and with very little equipment, thought it would be a good idea to start up a video production business. Sounds like the start of a bad joke but to us – it made sense. There is something very liberating about working for yourself and not being answerable to anyone but the client and each other.

I had $3000 in the bank and a credit card, which I figured would be enough to start up my half of a small business. We bought a second camera, sound gear and some lights for the Melbourne job, got some business cards and started up our own website. Thus, VizualBiz, the troublesome, bastard child of Lindsay and Michael, was born.

The job in Melbourne was an all expenses paid jaunt for a client who was a financial planner. He was throwing a weekend bash for all his successful clients at an exclusive resort just out of Melbourne. We had to video a heap of testimonials and also the Saturday night party. It was a lot of fun, and we got paid well for it.

The following month, in July, we scored another Melbourne job for a property development company. We had to shoot promotional videos for a number of their properties under development and also a profile video for the Directors.

Meanwhile, back on the Sunshine Coast we were shooting a video for a gym and another one for a massage/beauty treatment business where we put the massage table in Lindsay's pool ( the shallow end ). Lindsay was very good at shooting and editing and I fell into the creative role of writing and directing the videos. It was a good mix and we had set up our studio/office in a spare room at Lindsay's house.

Unfortunately, by September, that bogeyman of many small businesses, cash flow, paid us a visit. We both had mortgages and credit card payments and no matter how hard we tried, the consistent work wasn't coming in. So I went back to my old tricks and looked for a second income. I tried out for a newspaper delivery driver job – failed. I tried out as an airport shuttle bus driver – failed. I tried out as a bulk water truck driver delivering 7000 litres of water to domestic rainwater tanks for $20 an hour – and scored. For 20 or 30 hours a week I would deliver water to keep that bogeyman away from my door, and the rest of the time I devoted to VizualBiz.

Despite the lack of funds, I had just enough left on my bruised credit card to do a film making course in Brisbane. This led to us making a short film to enter into the Tropfest competition based on a one act play I had written years ago called 'The Last Kiss '. We auditioned actors for it and had a great location in an abandoned warehouse near Brisbane Airport. We had a ball and got it edited just in time to join the other 5000 entries. We didn't win.

We had been trying to expand VizualBiz into the training area, and towards the end of the year we scored a short, but profitable, ( $1000 / day ) job running a two day interview skills program we had put together for jobseekers. The employment agency loved the concept and had some government money to spend but we couldn't turn it into anything long term. Finally, we dropped our price and shot a dozen videos for various businesses in the Noosa Junction shopping precinct. We had become quite good at it by now and spat out unique videos for businesses as diverse as a hardware store, shoe shop, pasta restaurant, jeweller, furniture store, accountants and a dress shop.

December and January were dead quiet for business. We tried employing a salesperson to tap into the Brisbane market but he resigned before he started. We outsourced slideshow productions to a guy in India who was cheap as chips but we had trouble marketing the concept. It was very frustrating for us – we knew we had a desirable product and Social Media and the internet were going nuts but it seemed our marketing skills needed a bit of work.

On top of that, it rained. A lot. Everyone's water tank filled up and my services in job number 32 were no longer required. Another one bit the dust.

# Number 33.

In 2011, Queensland was going through a mining boom. It had begun slowly in 2005 and wouldn't peak for another year or two, but between the coal mines and the coal seam gas industry, blokes were up and running to it like a gold rush. The money was exceptional and as long as you had a good work ethic and two arms and legs you could get a job that would set you up for the future. Apparently. There were carloads of blokes heading north and camping on the side of the road waiting for an opportunity to get into the industry.

In January, 2012, I decided to join the stampede. It wasn't that VizualBiz was dead - she would come around with some good marketing CPR - we just weren't sure how to administer it. We were still having meetings with Employment Agencies that offered jobsearch training - trying to sell our interview skills courses using video - and there was interest, but nobody was signing up, so I needed to find an alternative.

The first step was a Coal Board Medical and then a three day General Induction Course - total cost $1200 - with no guarantee of work. My ever tolerant and forgiving wife had a wee bit of wriggle room on her credit card and to help out I had to break my heart and sell my beautiful Barracuda Beachcomber. My kayak had taken me safely over countless ocean miles, had suffered with me being bashed and battered by the remorseless Noosa Bar waves, had surfed like a dolphin and even forgave me for driving her into the garage roof when I forgot she was on top of the car. But desperate times called for desperate measures and she went for $1800.

During the Induction course, I met a bloke who owned an environmental business on the Sunshine Coast. His business was involved in erosion and sediment control, hydromulching and revegetation. Marcus was a Kiwi, around my age, a friendly chap who was doing the course with a view to securing work in the gas fields of western Queensland and on Curtis Island, offshore from Gladstone. I'd never heard of hydromulching, but I did have a truck license, and when he realised I was looking for work, he suggested I drop by the office for a chat.

Which I did, in the first week of February. I felt lucky to have made this contact because while there were seemingly plenty of jobs on offer with coal and gas, there were way more people desperately trying to get into them. In the last seven years, over 120,000 jobs had been created in those two industries and they were still screaming out for people, but the competition was intense. Everything related to coal mines and gas fields was on the boil, and some people were making lots of money – a four bedroom house 200 kilometres west of Mackay sold for over $800,000. Four years later, it would sell for $170,000.

Marcus already employed a dozen blokes but apparently had more work coming up so I dropped in and had an interview with his Operations Manager, Dave, who turned out to be ex Army, and Infantry as well. So we got along pretty well. He was ten years younger than me so we hadn't been in at the same time, and I was nearly 30 years out, but there is always a connection with ex Army blokes, especially if you served in the same Corps.

The interview was positive, but I didn't hear anything for nearly a month. This was a tough time. Cheryl was working fulltime but my cashflow had dried up like a rusted out rainwater tank, and getting by on one wage, especially after the limited income of VizualBiz over the last 6 months, made things difficult. Then, on a Tuesday afternoon in the first week of March, the day before Dad's 77th birthday, I got a phone call asking if I could start work the next day.

It wasn't enough to get me out of trouble, as it was only casual / part time work, but it was a lifeline of sorts. The work wasn't what I had expected, although I'm not sure what I expected given my complete lack of experience in revegetation and hydromulching, and that my last job was as a videographer. I spent the day hanging off the end of a whipper snipper clearing roadside vegetation with half a dozen other blokes, for $25 an hour. It was hot and dusty and boring and I was so happy to be there.

In the meantime, Lindsay was also despairing about VizualBiz and thought about getting into the coal/gas industry as well. There was an Expo being held at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre for employers and jobseekers in those industries, so Lindsay and I went along. There were thousands of men and women there, queueing up for information and the chance to work away and earn big money. I didn't join the lines because I already had a job, kind of.

I had a foot in the door at least, which can sometimes lead to barging your way right on in and slamming it shut behind you. Which is what I did. They had a big environmental job going on at a major roadworks site out near a little town called Blackbutt, north west of Brisbane. It involved tree planting and weed spraying and other environmental stuff, but my role up there was to be driving their water truck. The truck was used for dust suppression and watering vegetation and trees and working with the roadwork crews. About half a dozen of us went up there on the Monday and stayed the whole week in the Blackbutt motel.

We had to pay for our own accommodation and food but we got a Living Away From Home Allowance. This allowance was quite generous and more than covered what was needed. I didn't stay in the motel for long. They were share rooms, sometimes three to a room and without wanting to sound too harsh – calling this a motel was like calling a weed a tree just because it was green. It was old, very old, unclean, smelly and probably full of undisturbed asbestos sheeting. Only 1000 people live in Blackbutt, but there was a pub and that's where I moved into. It was a timber pub with a few rooms upstairs and a share bathroom, and was 100 years old. But, I had a room to myself, the bar staff were friendly and it wasn't far to go for a beer. Eventually, I would move back into the motel when a single room became available for $40 a night. It was more than two hours drive back to the Sunshine Coast so commuting was not a good option.

My day would start around 5.30 am with a bacon and egg role for breakfast from the local café. We would bundle into a work vehicle and take the 10 minute drive to site in time to be breathalysed and join in the 6 am morning stretching exercises.

Yes, about 100 blokes in their high viz gear doing stretches for ten minutes in the middle of a forest – OH & S gone mad. I would drive the truck around all day watering whatever I needed to and finish between 5pm and 6pm.

I didn't like being away from home, Jackson had his 18th birthday coming up in June and I didn't want to miss that, but I was home for weekends and I was earning good money. My working week was between 50 - 60 hours but I was taking home over $1500 a week. So, here's the thing – work locally, go home every night and bring in $900 a week if you're lucky.....or be away and earn more. Family or money? It was a juggle that lots of blokes had to deal with, and still do.

Meanwhile Lindsay was still sputtering along doing odd jobs with VizualBiz, but I was playing no part and effectively ceased my involvement altogether. Which was a shame – I really enjoyed the creativity and the whole process of putting the videos together, and we were a good team putting out quality videos, but it would seem our lack of working capital and marketing knowledge did not help make a successful business.

I almost became a local of Blackbutt. If living in a town five days a week for six months and knowing half the townfolk by their first name qualifies, then I was. It had been a big job and it had been different, and sometimes, especially at night it was also quite lonely. But all those types of job sites came to an end eventually and this one did, right about the time I turned 52.

# Number 34.

Depending on the price of gas at the time, one tanker of Liquified Natural Gas can be worth 50 million dollars. One tanker. Of course there are some costs involved to get to that stage – firstly there is the tanker which can cost 200 million dollars to build and up to $60,000 a day to run.

Then there is the gas itself. It took Santos five years and 18 billion dollars to get the first tanker away in early 2015. They sunk thousands of wells throughout western Queensland to suck it up out of the coal seams and send it over to Curtis Island, off Gladstone, to then head over to Japan and other Asian countries for their energy needs. The cool thing about this gas is that it can be frozen to -162 degrees Celsius which turns it into a liquid. This decreases its volume by 600%. It's like transforming 600 litres of beer into one litre for transportation, and when you get to your destination it gets turned back into 600 litres. The target was for one tanker to leave Curtis Island full of gas, every day of the year.

The uncool thing about it is that it's odourless, colourless, toxic and flammable. Which makes for a dangerous working environment. And a messy one. Luckily, the Australian Government has some strict laws in place to protect the environment and restore it back to its original state after any mining exploration and extraction.

And this is where we came in. The area of the business I now worked for was in the environmental rehabilitation game so who better than us to restore the land back to its former glory. Marcus had won some work to do just this so in November, 2012, a crew of us drove out to Roma, in western Queensland, to do a full day induction course with Santos. It was a long drive – Roma is so far west they should have their own time zone. It is flat – very flat, and dry, and hot. We actually went out the day before the course and were put up in a motel. The course the following day went until 5 pm with a big focus on Health and Safety in the workplace – we then drove back to the Sunshine Coast, arriving around midnight, breaking many of those rules in doing so. This was followed by some online inductions in Hazard Management, Heat Stress and Land Access Rules.

A few days later a convoy of utes and trucks made the journey back to Roma – then past Roma to a small town called Injune – and then even further out into the scrub to the site, and our camp. It wasn't quite the middle of nowhere, but we could see it from where we were.

Now, when I say camp, I don't mean tents, open fires and a bush toilet. There were a few camps dotted around the area, but they were all pretty much the same. Santos had been messing about in the area for a very long time, but since things ramped up a whole lot of new camps were built. There were row upon row of transportable buildings. Each person had their own room with a bed, a shower, a table, a television hooked up to Foxtel and free WiFi. There was a gym, a TV / Rec room with pool table and table tennis. There were laundries and there was the mess. It was a huge dining area – in our camp there were hundreds of blokes – and the food was very good and there was heaps of it. It was a bit like an Army camp, only way better. There was a bar – but they only served mid strength beer and the limit was three per man per night.

We would have breakfast between 5am and 530 am, pack up a lunch to take with us, and be back for dinner between 6pm and 8 pm. And we were paid – very well.

It was work seven days a week though, unless it rained. The work was mainly hydromulching. This was a fairly simple process where you had a tank mounted on the back of a truck with an agitator inside it. Into the tank went water, seed, mulch and a whole bunch of secret herbs and spices – mix it all together then start the pump and spray it onto the ground from the cannon mounted on top of the truck. Repeat. All day. It gets hot out there near the middle of nowhere and, after 11 hours of sun and dirt and sweat, the best part of the day is going back to your little jail cell, having a shower and a cold beer. Makes the day worthwhile, except we had to wait until the bar opened and then we would slowly sip our three little mid strength beers to make them last.

So, of course, we turned into smugglers. We were doing shifts of three weeks on and one week off, so when we drove back out to site we would take a carton of beer with us. Against the rules, yes I know, and we ran the risk of losing our jobs as well but we all did it anyway. Our rooms got cleaned every day, so we had to be clever and hide the beer so the cleaning staff wouldn't see it and maybe dob us in. That meant it wasn't cold, but the camp had an ice machine, so at the end of each day there would be a procession of blokes in and out of the ice room filling up their eskies, then squeezing together in one room to very quietly enjoy a cold full strength beer with your mates. And then get rid of the evidence. It was like committing a major crime. Every night.

We worked out there until Christmas Eve, went home for a few days and a crew of four of us returned to work. Now, as I said, the gas fields can be a very dangerous environment to work in, and for that reason there are a lot of rules. And, rightly so. In 2004, there were two LNG pipeline explosions, one in Belgium and one in Algeria that claimed a total of 50 lives. And, a year later, an underground LNG pipeline exploded in Nigeria with the resulting fire covering 27 square kilometres.

So, I could perfectly understand the Big Brother mentality out there - someone was always watching, and we were encouraged to report any safety breaches, but.............this wasn't just Big Brother, this was the whole family – Mum, Dad and Sister – looking over your shoulder and keeping an eye on things. So, being the anti-authoritarian that I was, I figured that some rules were meant to be broken, and of course this would be my undoing.

It was a quiet time out there in the New Year and we were one of the few crews working. Hydromulching can be a dirty job and if the wind changes direction the truck can also get covered. This is what had happened one hot Wednesday afternoon so we had to give her a good wash. To reach the roof of the cab, our Supervisor put a pallet on the Positrack and I stood on that with the pressure cleaner while he lifted us up a couple of metres. No worries, she'll be right. No, no, no - that is not allowed. At the same time, A Santos ute was driving past about a hundred metres away and he stopped and took some photographs. Working at Heights has specific rules and we were not following them.

Result - Supervisor sacked and I copped a permanent ban from working in the gas fields. At least I wasn't sacked, and while the company worked out what to do with me they got me to drive one of their new hydromulch trucks from Roma to Melbourne for some repairs, to keep me out of trouble.

It was January, 2013, a new year and an interesting drive as the truck was speed limited to 90 km/hr. I did the trip down in two days and then they flew me home for a few days until the truck was ready. I flew back and did the return trip in another two very long days. After I had brought it back, they did me a big favour and banished me to Curtis Island. I felt like Napoleon Bonaparte who was banished to Saint Helena Island, but my living conditions were much better.

The LNG plant on Curtis was the other end of the line from where I had been working out at Injune. There, the gas was taken out of the ground, and here it was liquefied and loaded onto tankers, bound for China, Korea, Japan and Malaysia. Curtis Island was the location of the biggest private capital investment in Australia's history and would eventually supply nearly 10% of the world's LNG. It was a big affair, and employed 14,000 people. They would use enough concrete here to build the equivalent of more than seven Empire State buildings, and enough steel to build thirteen Eiffel Towers.

I was grateful to be one of those 14,000 because the money was very good, and I had nowhere else to go. I would spend the next five months there working ten hours a day Monday to Friday and eight hours on Saturday. Our roster wasn't too well organised though. We were a crew of half a dozen, and would do a shift of around four weeks, then have three or four days home. This was the pattern from February until the end of June, when Cheryl and I took a week off to celebrate 20 years of marriage, and went to Vanuatu. I missed Charlee's 15th birthday though, and Cheryl's 45th.

Our accommodation was in what used to be an old folks home just out of Gladstone, near the town of Calliope. I had my own big room with my own bathroom and the food was magnificent and there were no restrictions on alcohol and we had Sundays off when we would walk down to the Calliope pub and play pool, and bet on the horses.

The other six days saw us catching a bus at 5.30 am to go into Gladstone, then catch a ferry over to the island, which took about 15 minutes, in time for the 6 am breathalyser and pre start meeting. There were also random drug tests. I tested positive one morning to methamphetamines, marijuana and cocaine. Luckily, so did the six blokes behind me so they put it down to a faulty test kit.

There was a huge amount of construction going on and once again we were doing the environmental patch ups. We would toil all day among the midgies and flies and heat and dust and get the 5 pm ferry back over the water and arrive back to the old folks home 12 hours after we had left feeling like very old folks ourselves. The only break in the routine was if it rained – which we always looked forward to, but were invariably disappointed. Then, as these jobs do, it was finished, and we all went back to the real world.

It was a difficult adjustment going from nearly $2500 a week to casual, local work at $25 an hour. I sputtered along for a while, also picking up some casual work with, ironically, the Supervisor who had been sacked out west with me, who now had a new job, but that's exactly what it was - casual - and it wasn't enough.

# Number 35.

Then, Dave rang me one day and said he had something happening that he thought I might be interested in. Well, at the time, I was interested in anything that involved a fulltime job because once again I was just bobbing along like a little boat in the middle of the ocean with no rudder and no sails. So whatever it is, Dave, let's do it, I'm ready. Maybe I spoke too soon.

My status had risen – I was offered the position of Warehouse Manager for an environmental supplies warehouse. No more high viz and hard hats for me – a blue shirt, clean hands, a work ute and a salary of 50 grand. That was quite a drop in money and it was 45 hours a week to take home $800, but at least it was regular.

The warehouse was being started from scratch so there was a lot of setting up to do. After first driving a forklift in a job 35 years ago, I finally did the course, ( for $500 ) and got a license to do it. It was a big warehouse and more than half of it would be storage racks that we had to erect, then truck in all the base products and make some finished product. This is where it started to get interesting. And when I say interesting I don't mean good interesting. The plan was to make our own hydromulching product, bag it and sell it. That sounds simple except for a few obstacles – mainly the making, the bagging and the selling.

Each bag of special hydromulch mix had its own special ingredients - so ideally what was needed was a big ass mixing machine that would take in all these special ingredients and mix them and bag them and spit them out the end in one smooth operation. That was the master plan - but like so many master plans this one had some flaws - starting with the machine. After time, I began to compare the machine with Frankenstein, who was hideously ugly, but sensitive and emotional. This machine too had its good and bad days depending on what it was fed. It cost its maker a lot of money and his intent was good - a bit like Frankenstein's creator, but the end result was less than perfect.

So, when the machine failed it fell upon the primitive ways of manpower to mix and bag. I had half a dozen blokes working for me and we tried a few different methods. One was to pile all the ingredients into a central mound and then mix them with a shovel and then bag them - with a shovel. We also tried the production line method where a bag would be passed from one station to the next with each ingredient being added, and then weighed at the last station to ensure quality control.

Whichever method we used to fill hundreds of bags the end result was always the same - dust. We should have been shut down for creating a mushroom cloud of dust over an entire suburb but the boys kept shovelling because there was no alternative and being paid $20 an hour was better than being unemployed and maybe we will get to work out west again soon and triple our money. I employed extra casual labour to meet our quota, including my son, Jackson, and whoever else I could find to do such dirty, crappy work.

I had the blue shirt on so I was running the show and not going home with lungs full of dust, but my heart wasn't in it.

Then, towards the end of the year, a subtle shift began. Jason, who had been a Supervisor, left and took on a position with a company who had major construction contracts in the gas fields but wanted to get into the environmental side. Not long after, Dave, our Operations Manager, followed him to the same company, with a promise that he would take me too.

The thing is - the company we all worked for was a good company and while they had these remote contracts out west and on Curtis that paid so well, everyone was happy. But to continue working locally for the same company for very average money was unattractive and unsustainable. There was very low morale among the workers for this reason and workplace counsellors were even brought in. We had many meetings to try and address this, but to go from $2000 a week to $600 a week takes some adjusting that no counsellor can help with.

True to his word, Dave, ex Army, ex Infantry, scored me an interview with the new company towards the end of the year. Some blokes didn't like Dave. But they weren't ex Army. They didn't get it. Six months ago, when I was working on Curtis, Jackson had joined the Army. After an interesting secondary school career which went from State School failure to Private Boarding School success, he almost followed in my footsteps and those of my ancestors before deciding the military life was not for him. He is now successful in a completely different industry, but there is no civilian equivalent for the bonds of the military.

In the end, it's all about the money, and job satisfaction. There is no loyalty. After five months in the job, I gave notice, trained my replacement, and left the dust behind.

# Number 36.

I was sitting inside a ten seater private plane flying 10,000 feet above the flat, brown landscape of western Queensland. There were only two other guys on the plane. I tried to look nonchalant, but in fact I was a little bit excited. The previous day I had been given a laptop, a blackberry and a bottle of red wine with an accompanying card saying welcome to the company. I had stood in front of their 40 or so office staff at morning tea, been introduced, and made a short, and at times humorous, speech saying how happy I was to be part of the team and how much I was looking forward to contributing to their ongoing success. I was being paid $150,000 a year.......and I had no idea why.

Well, okay, I had a bit of an idea otherwise they wouldn't have employed me, right? It was a combination of experience, who you know, and a bit of bluff. But, even by my standards, it was a big bluff and this time I had landed squarely on my feet.

The company was already involved in the gas fields of western Queensland but primarily in a construction role. They saw the advantages and opportunities in the environmental sector and were aggressively recruiting in order to strengthen that role. I was lucky that their first two recruits were blokes I had worked with. Dave continued his role as Operations Manager, and Jason as a Supervisor. While I still went through the formal interview process, their references were enough to get me over the line. I was to be the back to back Supervisor for Jason, as the roster was three weeks on, one week off.

We landed in Roma, and being late January, it was bloody hot. There are three different types of camps out in the gas fields of western Queensland, and I had stayed in them all. Basically they were all the same – you had a room with a bed, a bathroom a table and a tv, and the food was the same and the facilities were the same. What set them apart was their alcohol allowance – they were either dry, restricted or open slather. When you have hundreds of blokes together, it's not about the pay tv or the table tennis table – it's about the alcohol. My first camp with this company, just outside Roma, was an open slather. Which is fine, except every morning between 5.30 and 6 a.m. we all had to be breathalysed and, as we all know, those beers can linger longer than we would like. Plenty of guys were caught out and it was instant dismissal, see you later, find your own way home, you just pissed a $2000 a week job down the toilet.

The environmental work took a few weeks to get going, but in the meantime we had stolen another couple of guys we used to work with so by the time we got started we all knew each other. It was the same sort of work I had done before – they had bought themselves a hydromulch truck and a positrack and we would go out and spray all day in some very remote and inaccessible areas. It was all about rehabilitating the ground that had been messed up by the gas field exploration, and we would also put in remedial measures for controlling erosion and sediment runoff. ln previous times it would not have been required, but these days, environmental rehabilitation was big business. As were the courses. I had to do courses on Underground Services, Excavation Management, Operating a 4WD Vehicle, Working at Heights, Working in a Confined Space, Gas Permit To Work, Fire Fighting and a whole bunch of Site Specific Inductions. There were 15 different cards in my wallet to prove I was allowed to be on site and working. And, of course, Big Brother was everywhere.

Being away from home for three weeks at a time is not an ideal arrangement. Unless you are a single guy, the only reason for doing it is the money. Eventually I was also given a work ute, so there was added value there, but it meant driving out to site instead of flying. That wouldn't last long. Because of the distance of the drive, OH & S would soon have everyone on FIFO. And that's flying – not fitting in.

Charlee-Anne had a 16th birthday party in April, and luckily I was home for it. Our roster had been shortened to two weeks on and one off, which was much better but still not conducive to a normal family life. Cheryl got used to me not being there and I got used to being my own man. Not a good combination. When you work and live with blokes for fourteen days or more you can sometimes take home more than good money - like the swearing, and the drinking.

Most of our camps were of the restricted kind – as in three light beers or two red wines. We had to show our room key and be recorded as to how many drinks we had. What, are we 12 years old? There was a guy working with us called Roger, who was a non drinker. So we would pay him for a beer on his room number, and forever after, to this day, another beer is called a 'Roger'. The only time we had a break from the fourteen days straight was if it rained - which wasn't often out there. When it did, we would grab a ute and head into the Injune Hotel both for the beer and to talk to the international backpackers they employed as barmaids. When Santos took over the running of the camps towards the end of the year they became completely dry. And we were still breathalysed every morning. Huh?

The site operated on a strict permit system. This meant that you couldn't fart without getting a permit first that was signed off by three different people. If you did, and got found out, you were only allowed to fart under supervision for two weeks or until such time as you were deemed responsible enough to fart on your own. There were permits for digging holes, for operating a grinder, and for driving a vehicle in certain areas. Every vehicle was monitored - if you drove too fast or didn't wear your seatbelt or braked too heavily - bang - you were found out and please explain or be gone. It was Big Brother gone mad again and, as a Supervisor, I had to be on top of it all, including the mountains of paperwork, which caused me endless grief.

It was a fourteen day routine – breakfast at 5.30 am in time for pre start and breathalyser at 6 am. Then work all day with one break and finish around 5 pm. Back to the jail cell / room for a shower and then dinner and then phone home for a sometimes awkward chat, then a movie and sleep – wake up and repeat. Through winter, it was bitterly cold in the mornings and we would have to scrape ice off the windscreens. During summer, it was like working inside a convection oven. There were workplace accidents, and occasionally deaths. Most of the serious incidents were vehicle related, and by the middle of the year that's why there was no more driving home allowed. We all became FIFO, and eventually were able to get flown directly to and from the Sunshine Coast instead of Brisbane.

Towards the end of the year the construction and environmental phase of the whole LNG project was about done and they were about to move into the production phase which required a whole lot less people. We had the job of dismantling all the camps which was a good sign that things were coming to an end. In February, 2015, I was called in to Head Office – and made redundant.

# Number 37.

Getting a job is a result of lots of things. Sometimes it's who you know or where you've been. Sometimes it's just saying the right thing at the right time, and sometimes it's just about timing.

Timing would play a part in my next job, although I wouldn't say I was desperate for work. I had a redundancy payout which would last us a little while, but I still needed a job of some sort. Then again, maybe I didn't. When I was working out west, I had an idea. I have had lots of ideas over the years but most never happened, and those that did weren't always great ideas after all, but I particularly liked this one.

It was quite simple really – put together a pilot for a television show called 'On The Water' with me as one of the presenters – film it, successfully pitch it to the industry and spend my days mucking about on boats with an attractive female co presenter while being paid lots of money. Simple. As. That.

The show would not just be about boats and anything that floated, but about the people involved and their stories. It would be fast paced, educational and fun – it would be Top Gear on the water and be presented by people with true credibility. The fact that 85% of Australia's population lives within 50 kilometres of the ocean and there were half a million registered boats in Queensland and NSW would surely give us an audience. My first step was to pitch it to a cross section of the population to get feedback, so one night at the regular get together of six blokes squeezed into one small room trying to drink illegal beer quietly, I pitched it. The response was unanimously positive, more so as the night quietly progressed, so armed with this boost of confidence I took the next step.

This involved the process of logging onto the casting website, Starnow, which I had used to cast our Tropfest short film entry. I needed a co host with boating experience – not too young but not too old, not too tall but not too short, not too pretty, but.....pretty. I placed an ad with these parameters, without exactly saying those parameters because the main thing I wanted was a boating or water background. There had been boating shows on tv before but the presenters totally lacked experience or credibility, and I wanted to change that. I had quite a few responses despite the fact I had no idea what I was doing – as far as a tv pilot goes. Then, I got lucky.

Liz used to be a pro surfer. She was not too young or old, she was not too short or tall, but she was very pretty. I was prepared to overlook that because she also worked on tv as a presenter. And, best of all, she loved the idea, and would love to be involved with the pilot. But I was hesitant to just make a pilot and then not know what the next step was. Turns out our Operations Manager, Dave, had a brother-in-law who was a cameraman for some pay tv show and he was sure he could get us a chance to pitch to that channel. One of my mates I worked with in the gas fields was happy to invest in the idea, so I put together a script and a few stories and in February we hired a professional cameraman and a helicopter, and filmed it. Luckily, we had a 50' sailing catamaran to use as our main prop. For the last few years, old mate Lindsay and I had been sailing on this boat out of Mooloolaba, where it was based. He looked after it for the owner, who used it a few times a year, and the rest of the time we were able to go sailing on a half million dollar boat - which we did often.

Liz turned out to be fantastic – she was so good at presenting, had the marine background, and was obviously a true water girl. We got it edited and ready to go, and then Dave's contact fell through. It was like spending money on making something for someone who said they wanted it – then they changed their mind. But I wasn't giving up. My mate, Luke , had invested in this idea and Liz believed in it. I knew I had to find a job, but it was only until my ship came in with 'On The Water'.

So, when I walked into Suttons truck yard which was five minutes from my home my timing, on this day, was perfect. Cliff, the owner of the business, had a lot of trucks.

He had water trucks, skip bin trucks, tip trucks and sucker trucks that sucked out septic tanks, holding tanks, grease traps and anything else that could be sucked out with a long hose and a big pump. One of his drivers was about to take three months off, as his wife was having a baby, so he needed a replacement driver. I asked him when can I start and he said '.. what are you doing this afternoon?'

The truck was a Western Star with an 18 speed Roadranger gearbox. I hadn't driven one of these since my water truck days at Blackbutt and it took some getting used to. Before long, though, I was tapping up and down those gears like Liberace's fingers on the piano. This was a holding tank truck which meant it wasn't as grotty or as smelly as some of the others. Each day I would get a list of addresses, sometimes up to a dozen, all over the place. Most were residential houses with a pipe at the front of their yard. I would pull up, hook up, start the pumping and fifteen minutes later unhook and go to the next one. Once the truck was full which was about 10,000 litres, I would head back to empty it out. It wasn't a hard job physically or mentally and I was working by myself.

Cliff paid the award rate plus a few allowances, and I was happy with that as I was working every day and he was an old school gentleman who was easy to get along with. He was the sort of bloke that if he told someone to go to hell, they would look forward to the journey. Cliff had been in business for 30 years so not much surprised him. When I had to take a day off a month after I had been there, I told him I wouldn't normally ask but I needed to fly to Sydney. When he asked the reason for my trip, I told him it was to meet with a guy concerning the television pilot I had recently shot. Fair to say, he was surprised at that.

The guy I met with had a production company that was interested in developing 'On The Water'. I had emailed quite a few after my initial contact fell through, with not much joy, but this guy seemed very positive. The deal he offered was that they would cover all costs and take a major percentage of the profits. I would get the rest and also be paid as a presenter and a producer. I had no idea if this was a standard deal or even a good deal, but it was a deal.

I flew home and started to put together the first show, aiming to shoot at the Sydney Boat Show at the end of July. I picked up a clothing sponsor, who agreed to dress the presenters, and also a multihull sailing business who were keen to get on board and offered to fly us to the Whitsundays to do a story. The amount of potential sponsors was huge because, apart from fishing shows, there was no outlet on television for the many and varied businesses in the marine industry. Meanwhile, though, I had a suck truck to drive.

Last year, thanks to my above average income, and Cheryl working fulltime, we had bought a very nice, very expensive house that had initially been on the market for over a million dollars. Now, we had a mortgage the size of a small country's military budget, so having a job was important.

Everyone who worked for Cliff was friendly and helpful, including the girls in the office and all the drivers. This was a true family business with a great workplace culture – there were no closed doors. It was professional, but relaxed, and was a breath of fresh air after the regulations and rules of the gas fields.

It was always going to be a limited opportunity though, as it was only maternity leave, and one day in winter Cliff sat me down with a long face and told me that unfortunately, his driver was back, and there was no more work for me. Meanwhile, filming at the Sydney Boat Show had fallen through, but Chris, from the production company, assured me they would be focussing on ' On The Water' from mid August. Well, mid August came and went and there wasn't much focus.

# Number 38.

I knew a bloke who knew a bloke who worked for a bloke who had a metal fabrication business. Out of desperation, I asked if he had any work going and it just so happened he did, and at $30 an hour. This was good news except for one little problem that I tried to avoid mentioning when I had a chat with the business owner. The little problem involved power tools and hand tools and pretty much anything to do with metal fabrication. Putting me to work in a metal fabrication workshop was like putting the Pope to work in a surf shop.

But, I had bluffed my way through plenty of jobs before so this one shouldn't be any different, right? Wrong. They were nice blokes to work for but they wrongly assumed I knew what a handheld grinder was - and how to use one. I got through the first day and into the second, but at lunchtime I was seriously considering pulling the pin - if only I had a grenade. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so I persevered.

At one stage the supervisor gave me a piece of paper with a hand drawn sketch of some shelving, with measurements, suggested I might like to get started on it, and walked away. I looked at the piece of paper which made as much sense to me as quantum physics - turned it upside down and sideways and squinted for a while but it was beyond me. Maybe if it came in a flat pack I could give it a go, but this was to be made from raw materials. I felt like a five year old who had walked into the Year 12 classroom by mistake.

Luckily, they had a project going on at a job on the other side of Brisbane and they needed some more workers there which was great because it meant I would be out of the workshop and away from any shelving plans. We had to be on site by 6 am so I got a ride down with a couple of guys from Eumundi at 4.30 am. As I was new on site, like so many other sites I had been on, I had to go through the induction. This wasn't just the usual safety induction, but a whole bunch of VOC ( Verification of Competency ) questionnaires designed to see if I was capable of working with things like.......power tools. They were multiple choice questions so I was able to get through okay - until I got to the one on 'How to Use a Knife Safely '. There were actually some questions in that one that I had trouble with, and this was the beginning of my epiphany.

It was the last day of August, 2015. I was about to turn 55 years of age, I had been through 11 years of school and 38 jobs and, it would seem, I didn't know how to use a knife.....safely.

I handed the paperwork in, went outside and sat down. I didn't want to get up. I looked around at all the blokes in their high viz shirts and hard hats that all seemed to know what they were doing, where they were going and why, and realised that I didn't belong here. But there was that pesky voice telling me I needed the job and I had to get up and get on with it. I knew I could do the job ( although I still wasn't sure what I was actually going to be doing ), I just had to get on with it.

I found the supervisor who asked..." You get through all those VOC's alright?"

" Yeah mate, " I said, " ..." no worries."

" Okay, well go and find Barry - he's over at Bay 9, and he'll get you started. "

Started at what? I hoped it didn't involve a grinder. Or worse, a knife.

I wandered off looking for Bay 9 - it was a big site and I had no idea where I was. I stopped walking, took a look around, and found a group of blokes who I thought were part of our team. So I asked for Barry. They didn't know anyone called Barry. I nodded, like I expected that to be the case, took a big breath, and completed my epiphany. I retraced my steps to the supervisor, fabricated an excuse to leave the site and walked out. I threw my hardhat into the back of a parked ute, my drink bottle and esky into a bin and began the four hour walk into the city to catch a train home, which gave me plenty of time to think.

I would never again take a job I wasn't comfortable in doing. I would never again take a job just for the sake of having a job. I would never again take a job I did not like doing, or was incapable of doing. I was now unemployed again with no future job prospects - and I felt fine about it.

Besides, now I would have plenty of time for 'On The Water'. I couldn't forget about this great opportunity - having a future as a television presenter wasn't a bad fall back option. Then, a few weeks later, my Production Company man, Chris, ended up in hospital with kidney stones. Then the Production Company folded because, even though the owner was a multi millionaire, his other interests had just incurred a loss of some $300 million which was...inconvenient. I emailed Chris with a now or never message and he expressed continuing interest but would be unable to film until the New Year. After exchanging 40 emails, 20 text messages and numerous phone calls over the last nine months, I had to admit it was time to let him go.

# Number 39.

When I was a kid, every month or so, Dad would load up the trailer or the boot of the car with any old rubbish that had accumulated around the house and we would take a trip to the local rubbish dump. There was no recycling, so everything pretty much got dumped together. There were also no rules about taking something home from the rubbish pile that we thought might come in handy one day. Like an old beat up bike that would be good for parts, or an old pram or trolley that had great wheels for a go kart. It was amazing what people would throw away, and often we would come home with more than we took.

These days it is very different. You can still take stuff home from the dump - but you have to pay for it, and nearly everything is sorted and recycled. This is a good thing - just not as much fun. I had plenty of time to reminisce about these things because I was about to spend a lot of it in rubbish dumps.

It was all very well to have an epiphany and all that goes with it, but epiphanies don't pay the bills. After all this time and all these jobs, I was back to square one - looking for another one. By now though, I had a lot more experience, but I also had a lot more years on me and I was starting to worry about ageism. Confidence was never something I lacked, but job hunting at 55 years old can put a dent in it. And, I was starting to lose my enthusiasm for the whole game, especially after I had failed to get 'On The Water' up and running. But, we had a mortgage as big as a house and what a beautiful house it was - we didn't want to lose it so hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work I go.

I got a few resumes together and on a Monday morning dragged myself kicking and screaming into my car, which was a 25 year old Nissan Pulsar that belonged to my son, and headed for the industrial area of the Sunshine Coast to door knock. Probably one of the better qualifications to have when job hunting is an HR license. I got mine when I was 17 and it has helped me into a lot of jobs over the years. I am not a truck driver, but I can drive a truck, and even though there were a range of industries I could have tried for, that seemed like the quickest and easiest one to go for at this point.

Driving past Suttons, I thought I may as well drop in just to let Cliff know I was available... just in case. Like I said, timing is everything.

" I was going to give you a call last week," Cliff said, " ...our skip truck driver has left and I need a new one. When can you start?"

And that's how I came to spend a lot of time in rubbish dumps. Which, I didn't mind because I still had faith in ' On The Water' taking off one day. I had a meeting with a Brisbane based production company who were very keen to get it up and running by summer, but they wanted me to fork out a whopping amount per episode for them to film it. I would get any sponsor money that was left over, but I could see it turning into one big advertorial for boat companies which was not what I wanted. I was starting to realise that getting a show on TV, no matter how good it may be, was very difficult. It all came down to proven format and cost of production. That is why so many stage managed, selectively edited, unrealistic reality shows were on tv - they were cheap to make and they had already been proven in overseas markets, so there was little risk for the producers.

So I kept humming along in my skip truck. I would drop off skip bins to building sites, or to private houses or to big roadworks jobs where we had 20 bins on one project. I drove a lot, but I was working alone, it wasn't hard work and it wasn't dirty work. It was a simple, straightforward job with few challenges - which would become an issue in time - but for now it was five minutes from home, and I was getting paid.

Besides, I was meeting some interesting people – like the lady who lived in a tram in the forest, and the middle aged guy with wispy white hair and coke bottle glasses who convinced me that Global Warming was due to the earth oscillating past the equator of the Milky Way which it does regularly every 800 years. Then there were the siblings from Sydney packing up their recently deceased Dad's live-in shed, where all his worldly belongings were discarded into a 2 metre skip bin. I visited homes that were spectacular, and homes that should have been condemned as unliveable.

Some days I would do up to 400 kilometres, driving around the countryside, listening to ABC Classic FM, and daydreaming about the next big thing. Other days, though, I would run out of work by lunchtime or earlier and, as had happened so many times before, I needed an extra form of income.

# Number 40.

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in the summer of 2016, and I was the passenger on a jetski that was weaving its way erratically along the Gold Coast Broadwater. The driver was a 60 year old Chinese man who I had only met that morning. He spoke no English and this was the first time in his life he had been on a jetski.

I had just spent the night with Anastasia, a petite and very pretty Russian lady who I had met briefly on Saturday morning so she could give me a key to her immaculately clean unit. Okay, I didn't actually spend the night _with_ her......in fact I slept in her spare room and never saw her again after that five minutes on Saturday morning.......but......this was my reality now - sleeping with Russians and jetskiing with the Chinese.

As I hung tightly onto the straps of Wang Wei's lifejacket with one hand and tried to use sign language to say ' please slow down and, oh , look out for that big and expensive yacht ', with the other, I began to question my job choice. Again.

I had answered a job ad on SEEK for a Marine Trainer to run boat and jetski license courses.

I wasn't getting enough hours at Suttons to cover our mortgage that was bigger than a house, and even though the job was on the Gold Coast, it was on weekends and worth the drive to supplement my weekday job. The drive was two hours and ten minutes one way which was a bit far to drive home after work on a Saturday and that's how I finished up at Anastasia's place.

I had driven down in October for an interview with Heidi, the owner of the business. She was a nice young lady and had plenty of marine experience, but was keen to have weekends off. Her training room was located in a marina, so the boat and jetski would be in the water and ready to go which was a great setup. I would end up running training courses on the Gold Coast for her nearly every weekend for fourteen months.

The course started at 8.30 in the morning, so I would leave home just before 6 am. The morning was spent on boat theory followed by a practical test in the 6 metre RIB. The afternoon was taken up with Jetski theory followed by a practical test on the Yamaha Waverunner. Wang Wei had a translator sitting next to him for the theory, which worked okay, but it wasn't practical for her to join us on the jetski. We did, eventually, arrive safely back at the marina, and as it turned out, he was a safe driver and passed. My class numbers averaged around eight people each day, males and females from 16 years old to sixty years old. I rode on the back of that jetski with lots of people and, remarkably, was never thrown off.

Many students had ridden a jetski before, and many hadn't, but they all got the hang of it in the end. One student was having such a hard time, despite my instructions, that the Water Police, who were passing by, came over to see what the problem was as we weaved our way along the waterway. When it was rough, we got very wet and, at times in winter, it was very cold. We mostly stayed dry on the boat though and, most of the time, I was happy to be back on the water.

Occasionally I would drive home on a Saturday afternoon and return on the Sunday morning, but it was a 400 kilometre round trip and wasn't the sensible thing to do. I tried a few hotels and motels but they were expensive so I finished up trying out the weird concept of Air BnB.

I say weird because knocking on a complete strangers door and then going inside to spend the night in their home is, well.......weird. Air Bed and Breakfast was founded in 2008 by a couple of guys in San Francisco who couldn't afford to pay their rent, so they rented out three air mattresses to people, threw in some breakfast and started making $200 a week. Eight years later, their business has over 2 million accommodation listings in 190 countries - including the Gold Coast.

My first Air BnB was a nurse who worked night shift. She had a small two bedroom unit and lived alone with her cat. She would leave the key under the mat for me because she would be at work when I arrived. She would get home late and I would be asleep. I would get up in the morning, have a shower and leave $30 under my pillow. I stayed there a few times and never met her once.

I stayed with Denise, a divorced lady who had a cat and a jetski and the cleanest bathroom I've ever seen, but she talked too much so I only stayed a couple of times. I stayed with a couple who had taken full advantage of the concept and had a separate area built under their house with three bedrooms, a kitchen and two bathrooms with each bedroom bringing in $50 a night. Anastasia's spare room was $60 but her apartment was like a show home. There were fluffy towels arranged on the bed and mini toiletries in the bathroom. I stayed there twice and she was out both times so I spent my nights alone in her lounge room and never got to hear her story.

I stayed with Julie a few times, a lovely English lady who worked from home as a mortgage broker. She had a massive television and the biggest collection of movies you could possibly imagine. She also had a cat that wandered around constantly making dry reaching noises like it was trying to vomit out its entire stomach but couldn't quite get it out. We got along well, and she even cooked me dinner one night. There seemed to be an abundance of single women with a spare room and a cat.

No matter how many times I did it, I always found it strange to be knocking on a strangers door and saying, ' Hi, I'm Michael...you don't know me but I'd like to come in and spend the night in your house and also use your bathroom... thanks." After fourteen months of boat and jetski courses, which took me into January, 2017, I'd made 57 trips to the Gold Coast and run the course over 100 times.

I was, unsurprisingly, well and truly over it, so I left that job and started thinking seriously about Number 41.

And it had to be good, because there was to be no number 42. Finally, after forty years, I was tired of change. I have friends who used to be like me, until they were beaten into submission by the sometimes ferocious demands of life. They used to resist conforming, even when they got knocked down -they would be on their hands and knees and raise their head in defiance, only to be knocked down again and told to.....'Stay....Down...' Until, eventually, they stayed down. They worked in the same job all day, went home and watched the most popular tv shows, supported a football team and built up their superannuation until they were told they could retire. Maybe it was my turn.

I finish writing this on the 16th October, 2017 – my 57th birthday. After reading through it, let alone living through it, I am exhausted. When I chose this path at 16 years old, I never thought it would be such a long one. The day will surely come, though, when I am a dribbling old man with no hair and pee stains on my shorts, sitting under a shady tree with my watery eyes staring into the distance. When that day comes, and I hear my grandchildren's children ask........." who is that old guy?" I will hand them a copy of this book.

But now, I'm not ready to stay down. I know I've got one more in me. The big one. The one I've spent forty years looking for. It's time for Number 41.

Jackson and Charlee-Anne

###
