Over time, through familiarity, I merged with the wallpaper. I became privy to amazing family dramas that enabled me to see disputes did occur in other families, but most occurred without the violence I was used to. Issues of inheritance, sibling rivalry, religion, unsuitable suitors, politics, neighbourhood disputes and sport, beside the vexatious issues of life on a dairy farm, were all played out without physical violence and only moderate bad language.
Although I had a good car and was well paid, I dealt with my personal isolation by going out almost every night. I rarely managed more than five hours sleep because although some farmers started as early as 4.30 a.m., most started around 6 a.m. My coming and going was of little concern providing I was there for each milking and that I completed the testing and book work. Without a place within my own family and only this tenuous connection with the farm clients, I was a free agent. My belongings easily fitted in an old blue suit case held together with a leather strap.
Some of my friends might have envied my freedom. Inwardly, I craved the opportunities and stability I saw in the best of the families I visited. I was unhappy sleeping in a different bed every night and always being the visitor. Spare beds were invariably worn out and sharing a bedroom with other people’s children is not homely. I was bored with the repetitious nature of the job but powerless to change it, or so I thought. A few of the families were exceedingly kind, a fact I was grateful for.
During my free time during the day I visited my mother regularly or called on friends. One day as I was leaving my parents farm, I was hailed by two men I presumed were lost because they waved me down as if for directions. They introduced themselves as Senior Detective Bell from Dandenong and Senior Detective Seymour from Warragul. They wanted to know what I was doing one day the previous month when apparently I was seen in the bush opposite the Glen Forbes Butter Factory. I explained that, assisted by Roger, I had cut six feet of pipe from the disused piggery milk line to make a tow bar for the Hillman Husky. I tried to tell them I had obtained permission to do so from Sam Pearson, the manager of the factory, but they seemed uninterested. I gave them all the details of where and how we had got the pipe and felt that would be the end of it. Undeterred, they then went to see Roger, from whom they obtained a similar story.
To my amazement, we were charged with stealing the pipe. I couldn’t believe it since I had permission to take the pipe and the pipe line belonged to the factory. I did nothing. I did not tell my father or my mother, thinking it would resolve itself when fully investigated. We were soon summoned to court. It never crossed my mind I should see a solicitor because I had no money. On the appointed day, I dropped into the local newspaper to speak to the owner, Mr. Tom Gannon. I did this because he knew of me and my involvement with the Young Farmers. I begged him not publish the story. It was a mistake I explained. He assured me he would not.
The bench was occupied by three Justices of the Peace. The charge of stealing was read to the court and I was asked to explain. Apparently, we were charged because the police thought we had been involved in stealing the contents of a house at Kilcunda the same day we had been seen taking the pipe. Detective Seymour then spoke in our defense, saying he had obtained character references for us both and that the pipe was worthless. He also confirmed I had permission and that we should not have been charged. Accordingly, the magistrates said there would be no charge so we were let off. Relieved, we went home.
The next week the headline on the front page of the local paper shrieked ‘Honest Boys Let Off’ in the biggest print possible. My father went into overdrive. He could be heard all over the district. All that concerned me was the ribbing I was sure to receive from everyone who knew me. Roger’s father laughed the whole thing off. That was the beginning and end of our crime career.
On the visits to my mother our conversations were mostly of her problems and her concerns for the younger children. She was happy with her place in the community but financially things remained embarrassingly bad with accumulated bills and Stan’s continued abusiveness. She was worn out and would leave if she had any way of supporting the children. She was concerned the grass had overgrown the area around the house, making it dangerous for the little children, Ross, Pam and Geoffrey. I bought a lawn mower and gave mum a little more money.
A family I herd tested on Phillip Island offered me other work on their farm. I enjoyed their sophisticated approach to both farming and life in general. Jeff and Ros Wilkinson had received private school education and travelled the world. Our friendship grew into my minding the farm while Jeff was away showing his stud pigs at the Royal Melbourne’s Show in September. I worked the testing to accommodate that time and, indeed, was by now doing extra piecework for others in the hours between one farm and another.
The most common advice offered by the farmers and almost everyone I knew was that I should settle down and keep herd testing. In other words, suspend your curiosity and accept your lot without question. I should be grateful for the job I was doing and don’t aspire for more. They were entitled to dream but I should not. It was a form of condescension that made me angry. I remain wary of people who expect others to do things they would not.
I had a girlfriend, Kay. We spent many nights of the week dancing while on other nights I was out with my mates drinking to excess. I wanted to belong somewhere and dealt with the frustration by filling every moment with activity, either by working or socialising. I doubt anyone knew the turmoil of my thoughts. I was angry with my father, worried about my mother, brothers and sister and dissatisfied with my work. I was an observer of family life, not a participant. Who, I wondered, gives a damn for me?
My girlfriend was not only beautiful, she was an excellent dancer. Despite having no formal training, she frequently won the ‘Belle of the Ball’. It was wonderful fun and we were also good at rock’n roll. Her father played the drums as part of a band for the smaller dances. He seemed to enjoy the excitement of it all as much as we did. Her family was very hospitable to me and because her father was so much fun, we always had a hilarious time. Once when we were all around the table for a Sunday dinner, he was giving cheek to his wife Betty. In reply to his taunts and teasing, Betty turned from the stove and poured a saucepan of custard over his head. He sat there with an amazed look on his face before slowly wiping the custard from his eyes as it flowed over him. We kids just rocked with laughter. He was a genuine clown who had a theatrical take on all aspects of life.
Kay and her mother made their dresses, as did many girls at the time. They were beautiful concoctions of colour that accentuated their figures with numerous petticoats that occasionally fell to the floor while dancing. I realised we had gone over the top when one night I turned up in my recently acquired, near new spotless 1959 FC Holden sedan to pick her up for the district final of the Miss Gippsland competition. I was met by her younger brother, who instructed me to take the back seat out and replace it with a stool. Her grace arrived and sat enveloped by her magnificent new gown in the back seat. It proved worthwhile for we won, or at least she did.
By the winter of 1961 I was bored to tears and restless. I resigned from the Phillip Island and Archie’s Creek Herd Test Association. The lack of a formal qualification, together with the boredom of repetitive manual work, had generated the fear I was destined to a life without choice, one laboring job appearing to be little different from any other. How I felt about anything had become irrelevant and an unaffordable luxury. Life, it seemed, was a matter of survival. I had learned I could do almost anything I put my mind to and I became unconcerned by what I did, provided I was paid.
The atmosphere in the community was subdued because of the almost daily reminders of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was in the news, the threat of communism to the free world the subtext.