Читать книгу A Life of Pride - Alan G Pride - Страница 22

My relationship with my dad didn’t improve as I got older, it got worse and at 18, I really wanted to escape him and Broken Hill. Mum begged me to stay until I’d finished my apprenticeship, pointing out that I could get a job anywhere after that. I did as she asked. I’d already broken off a serious affair with a Catholic girl, Maree, because Mum wanted me to. Nowadays there’s not so much prejudice between Catholics and Protestants, but it was rampant in Broken Hill in the 1940s.*

By 1951, though, I’d drifted into an engagement with a nice Protestant girl, Joy; even bought a block of land in Wills Street for £175, to build a house on. As my 21^st birthday got closer, I realised I could be stuck in Broken Hill forever and I wanted adventure! So I sold the block, put off Joy as best I could and bought a ticket to England on the Orient Line ship, Orion.

[*Marilyn writes: ' Joy saw Dad off from Melbourne, so obviously wasn't too offended at his having delayed or cancelled their engagement. The Catholic- Protestant divide he talks about affected others in the family and later generations, too: Reg and Ethel were opposed to Gloria's marriage to Tom Pinder because his family were Catholics; Ethel refused to go to her granddaughter Marie's wedding in 1966 because the groom, Larry Separovich, came from a Catholic family. Dad expected his daughter Jenny, in the 1980s, to break off her engagement to Ralph Sellaro because his family were Catholics.' ]

Back then, air travel was only for the rich, not for a youth whose income for the 1950-51 financial year had been £847, including £100 tax. A bunk in a tiny six-berth cabin on the Orion’s lowest deck, near the propeller, would cost me £78; an airflight would have been about £2000. It’s the other way round now, flying is cheap and sailing is dear!

There was amazement when my friends realised I was actually going, “But, but, the LEAD BONUS!” they squawked; as though this extra money for the chance of getting lead-poisoning in the mines, was worth a lifetime stuck in Broken Hill, and “You’ll soon be back.” Well, as I’d said to the cop, no one tells me what to do. I was even more determined. I didn’t even stay long enough to sit my final exam for the driving of electrical motors, taking a letter of recommendation from my teacher instead. I had to get vaccinated against smallpox, cholera, typhoid and paratyphoid and wait to make sure the vaccines had taken. I sadly sold the Norton. We’d done so many miles together!

All this inspired my workmate, Reg Appellkamp, to leave town with me. Our plans were so unusual for Broken Hill in those days, that we got our photos and an article in ‘The Conveyor’, the mines’ in-house magazine.

The article with Reg and I, reproduced from “The Conveyor” August 1951.

And a letter of recommendation from my Bosses!