Open Writing

Life is a lottery. I won first prize in my choice of parents but I won the supreme first prize in my choice of a wife. Her family call her 'Mary'. My family call her 'Louise'. I call her 'Skipper' and I adore her. There have only been brief references to her in this book, such as 'a certain beautiful girl' when I was in Tripoli.

We migrated to Australia together. It was a cultural shock. Like most English migrants, I expected Australia to be 'England but with sunshine'. I was wrong: Australia turned out to be a country with its own individuality and character and attitudes and customs. The only similarity to England was a recognisable English language and place names such as Herne Bay, Dulwich, Mile End, Malvem and many others.

Australia was, in fact, a foreign country, but a complete surprise to me when we arrived in 1951 was the antipathy towards British migrants shown by many Australians. I discovered that I was either a pom, a pommey, a bloody pom or a bloody pommey. I had never heard the word before, and the first time I was so addressed I was obliged to ask the Australian what the word meant. He thought I was being smart and explained in very colourful language.

I made a big mistake in trying to obtain employment in Personnel work. One Personnel Manager said, "Huh! I suppose you want my bloody job." I was incensed at his attitude and replied, "Only to start with. After that I'll be your Boss and probably fire you." At the Ford Motor Company, a Manager patted me patronisingly on the shoulder and said, "Oh, no! Now we can't have a pommey in charge of Aussie workers, now can we?" I gave up.

Tonbridge School meant nothing; service and a commission in the Guards counted for nought; first class references from the IPC were less useful than toilet paper. The Skipper and I had a Board Meeting, with the result to try any job to start with and then study part-time for a qualification. I sold office equipment or, more truthfully, I tried to sell office equipment. The Manager told me, "Go to the Electricity office; if you can sell anything to the buyer there then you're a salesman. He's the toughest bastard in Melbourne."

I made it my first call. "Good morning," I said. He glared at me. "This is my first day on the job; the Boss told me that if I can get an order out of you, then I'm a salesman because you are the meanest, toughest, bastard buyer in Melbourne." What did I have to lose? He burst into a great roar of laughter and gave me an order. "By God!" he said, "That's the best bloody approach I've ever heard." Delighted, I went straight back to the office and gave the Manager my order. There were no congratulations. "What the hell are you doing here? Get out on the road," he yelled at me.

I walked all over Melbourne. One day I actually sold a filing cabinet; unfortunately it was the wrong size, but it was a filing cabinet. The Manager and I parted with his encouraging words,
"You'll never make a bloody salesman. Clear off." This was useful information as I was able to cross the word 'Salesman' off my list of employment possibilities. This added to the first elimination, namely 'Personnel Officer'.

I then obtained employment in the Ampol Petroleum Company. I lasted longer there, about three weeks, when the Manager called me in and shouted, "You're fired!" Well, that was pretty explicit and succinct, I thought.

"Why?"

"Because you're bloody hopeless. You will never, ever, be any good at accounting work." I left and discovered from an employee that the Manager's son had been given my job the next day.

I then obtained employment in the Victorian Government Land Department. The first ritual in the morning was to observe the Supervisor. On arrival he took off his coat and hung it up, then put on a very shiny blue jacket with hundreds of pins stuck in the lapel. The pins were for pinning Land Tax assessments together, not that I ever saw him doing so, probably because his next move was to put on an eyeshade and there he sat, without movement until the tea break.

My job was to calculate Land Tax assessments. The first day I did twenty. At the end of the day, the Supervisor stirred and whirled into frantic action. "Here you are, son," he said. (What a nice man, I thought, What? No pom or bloody pom? Just a paternal 'son'?) He continued, "Put your name at the top of this list and next to it the number of assessments you've done then pass it on to the next bloke." I did so. The next day I did forty assessments. The following day I was becoming used to the work and did seventy. Then eighty.The next morning one of my fellow workers came up to my desk, rather aggressively and demanded, "Listen, sport, 'ow many bloody assessments are yer doin' a day?"

"Well, sport, about seventy or eighty. Why?"

"Bloody hell! Yer dobbin' in yer mates, yer know." I was surprised to discover that I had any.

"Dobbing in my mates, how?"

"Well, we only do about twenty a day, yer better cut 'em down to the same."

"But hang on; twenty? I'll be bored out of my wits just doing twenty. How the hell am I supposed to pass the time? Buy an eyeshade and snooze?" I pointed to the Supervisor with his head nodding and chin dropping onto his chest.

"Fer Christ's sake," said my sporting mate, '"ow th' hell do yer expect us ter get any overtime if we do seventy a day? Doin1 twenty we can come back at night an' get paid O.T. Yer better cut it out a bit. We don't want any smart-arse, bloody pom rockin' th' bloody boat."

I resigned after a fortnight. I wrote a brief note to the Supervisor, "Dear Sir, I wish to resign and by this letter give you one week's notice to teminate on Friday, 14th of March'. I went to the Supervisor; he did not move. I waved the letter under his nose. No response. I pulled off his eyeshade; success. His bleary eyes blinked up at me and I handed him my letter. After searching for his glasses in the drawers of his desk and asking me if I could see them, I pulled them out of his top pocket where they sat in state among the pins. He regarded my letter, looked at me and said, "No, no, son; that's no way to write a letter of resignation. Here, take a pen and I'll dictate one for you."

My one-line letter was then extended to a full page, with a
profusion of heretofores and aforesaids and herewiths. He finished just in time as I feared that writer's cramp was about to hit me. I left the Public Service.

The Skipper and I had another Board Meeting and decided to try private enterprise. With our dwindling meagre capital I bought a panel van, contacted a Dry Cleaner and arranged to pick up and deliver clothes for dry cleaning at 33% commission. I worked the streets with Guardsman-like efficiency and found that I soon had one district after another looking so smart that there was nothing else to dry clean. I even picked up boots and shoes for repair with a 5% commission from the local cobbler. It paid for the running of the van. The populace became so well shod that all they needed was a bit of a shoeshine.

All we needed was money. This thriving enterprise paid for our food but not the gas, nor the electricity. Then Allah was generous and presented a man to me who was a bigger fool than I was. He bought my van, my rounds and even paid for the goodwill of this massive, corporate conglomerate that I had built.

Yet another Board Meeting brought a momentous decision. We bought a Milk Bar and Newsagency. Now we were both mad. Previously, I thought that it was only I who had lost my marbles. With the hours that we put in, we should have been millionaires. The Skipper said that she always wanted to marry somebody who owned a sweet shop, and now her dreams had been met.

But, alas, the bills were not met. The profits were not so good, partly because she always had a bar of chocolate under the counter. She, being a very pretty girl, was immensely popular. The local males were always dropping in for her to make a milk shake for them, but turned their backs on me and left if I stepped forward to serve them.

The wives were also dashing in, to drag away their husbands, but the Skipper was so charming that instead they stayed for a chat and an ice cream. Suddenly, somebody arrived who wanted to buy the place. We sold. After another Board Meeting, we decided to leave Melbourne and move to Adelaide, in South Australia, to start again.

In Adelaide I obtained work as an accounts clerk with Vacuum Oil Company, later to become Mobil Oil. It seemed that the sensible thing to do, if seeking a career in commerce, was to study the science of business, to see what made industries function. I started to study Accountancy part-time.

At last, I found tutors for the examinations, who taught me how to study; how to pass exams without actually failing. Twice, to my astonishment, I topped the State. Especially I enjoyed the Law subjects, Commercial Law, Company Law and, most of all, Taxation Law. After several years, I finally exhausted the examiners, who gave in, and I became a qualified Accountant. Later, I took more exams and became a Chartered Company Secretary. It was then time to leave Mobil Oil and launch myself into the commercial jungle as an Accountant. I did so for the rest of my working days and survived.

It took us five years to settle down in Australia; another five to understand the Australians and to make them our friends. By then, 'bloody pom' was rarely heard except with a big grin of friendliness, which made me laugh. All rancour, on both sides, had disappeared. Australia was home to us now; it was our country. Twenty-five years ago we took out Australian nationality.

And that — is Shun's story.