“All my grandparents are dead. Dad was the first of four generations not to go down the coalmine, the pit, as it’s called. I’m an only child. I think Dad wanted more but Mum couldn’t wait to get back to work.
“Dad broke the mould in his family. All his cousins became miners or married miners. Even in the seventies, miner’s sons just didn’t go to university, didn’t get a profession and certainly didn’t become one of the bosses. It was against their tradition. They were working class and proud of it.
“When Dad applied and was accepted for Nottingham University, he almost became estranged from his father. Gran was very proud, told anybody who would listen, but not my grandfather; he just ignored it all.
“After four years, when Dad got his engineering degree and joined the National Coal Board, a nationalised industry, he got a job in Yorkshire, away from Scotland, away from family. Gran attended his graduation in Nottingham, but not grandfather. I think he felt it would be a betrayal of all he believed in to attend those hallowed halls.
“Dad has told me that when he visited Scotland as a young mining engineer, my grandfather wouldn’t talk to him about his degree, his job or anything. I think he thought he’d gone to the other side; he’d become one of the bosses – one of the oppressors of the working class.
“Britain was riven with strikes in those days, especially in the mining, steel and vehicle industries. Even though most of them had been nationalised after the war, there was a definite them and us divide – the workers and the bosses. The mining unions were very strong, many somewhere to the left of Mao in their political beliefs.
“My grandfather ruled the house and his family with a rod of iron. There was always an underlying bitterness about him. His word was the law. He worked down the pit, as he had since the age of fourteen, starting as a pit pony boy until he was big enough to handle a shovel. Gran did everything else; she even cleaned his best shoes. There was no sharing of house duties in those days.
“He’d been told how his family and his community had been decimated by World War One. As a boy he’d suffered, like everyone, through the Great Depression. The ‘coal barons’ owned the coal industry in those days between the wars, and most of them were English and many had connections with if not the genuine aristocracy then the ‘new aristocracy’ the nouveau riche of industrial Britain.
“In just a few generations families had risen from almost obscurity to be part of what was then the technology centre of the world. They owned the mines, they owned the steel works, they owned the shipyards, they owned everything. Even the houses the miners lived in.
“Conditions were poor down the mine. Many worked twelve-hour shifts and were poorly paid. In Scotland, men like my grandfather literally hated the bosses and hated the English even more.
“Then after World War Two the coalmines were nationalised. The new Labour government was dedicated to wealth sharing. The workers, through the government, owned the mines. So the miners wanted their money.
“Every miner supported the Unions in their demands for more and more pay. The tables were turned and the miners became the nouveau riche of post-war Britain. Miners were paid more than schoolteachers, policemen and many ‘white collar’ professions. Miners demanded and got houses in the new council estates and the rents were low. They demanded and got a free allocation of coal every month.
“Even with their newfound wealth my grandfather remained a bitter man. He apparently had a huge fight with my grandmother when Dad received a scholarship to go to grammar school. No son of his, he claimed, would ever go to grammar school – State education was good enough for the working classes was his socialist mantra. He even claimed no workingman could afford the uniform and the extras, like books and sports equipment. The additional insult was that the grammar school played rugby; no son of his would play rugby. It was a rich man’s sport.
“The reality was that many miners were among the best-paid workers in the country and often earned more than some of the so-called professions. Grandfather finally relented when Dad’s primary school teacher went round to their house to try and change Grandfather’s mind. It turned out the schoolteacher was the son of a miner. My grandfather knew his father; they had worked together on the coalface.
“The schoolteacher, it turned out, had been to grammar school and then to teachers training college and then on to university and had then decided to be a teacher. He told my grandfather his income was just over half of what his father earned down the mine.
“Grandfather asked him why he was a teacher then. The reply left Grandfather without an argument. The teacher just said he loved his job. He liked being a teacher; he didn’t want to and had never wanted to be a miner. He wanted his own children to get out of the mining environment and get an education. He and his wife were both teachers, had two children – both were going to the grammar school.
“The mine, his local pub, the Miners Welfare, his union and the Labour Party ruled Grandfather’s life. Dad’s mum was a sweet quiet woman. I remember her crying when we left for Australia. She made me promise to go to Sunday school. Grandfather said goodbye at his house. Stony faced I remember him letting me kiss him and he hugged me for the first time I could remember. Then he made Dad cry when he shook his hand and said, ‘Don’t suppose I’ll see you again then?”
“Did you go to Sunday School?” Angus asked.
“No. We went to church though; Dad’s always been a good Christian, I think. He doesn’t talk about it, he never imposed it on me, but he and I went to church together until I went to Melbourne University.”
“Did he see his father again?”
“No. Grandfather died in his favourite pub with his friends and family, a pint of McEwen’s in his hand.”
“I’d assumed you’d always been in the military.”
“No, I went to Melbourne University to do aeronautical engineering. Someone there told me I could be an officer in the RAAF and get paid to study, so I did.”
“So you’re not in the army?”
“No. I’m in the RAAF. I’m seconded to the army at present; I have to go back to RAAF sometime soon. My job is to study army operational needs, requirements if you like, for the next generation of rotary wing aircraft. Flying, talking, listening, that sort of thing. Of course, what the army gets the RAAF will get as well, so we need to consider everything we can.”
Chapter 4.
The family gathers.
At two o’clock that afternoon Angus and Pat sat on the veranda waiting for the sound of Roddy’s plane. The day was hot and the humidity stifling. The thunderclouds, which had hung around for days, were building up again, fast. This time they looked as if they meant business.
Angus looked at the clouds. “Hope Roddy packed some sick bags; Michelle doesn’t have much of a stomach for a bit of turbulence. I think they’ll be having a bumpy trip. I had a look on the Internet. It says the weather could be interesting after about Mullewa. The last thing we need is a downpour here. The landing strip will be all right; it’ll take a lot of water. But for Michelle, it’ll be a white knuckle job if there’s much of a side wind and rain when they land.”
“How long has Roddy been flying?” Pat asked.
“More than twenty years as far as I know. He’s a good pilot as far as I can gather. I’ve never been up with him. He puts in a lot of flying hours both on business and for pleasure. It’s a lovely plane he flies, a Cessna Stationaire, which he bought new last year. It’s state-of-the-art in every way, especially the avionics. He even had big wheels fitted;