Page 102 - moondani kyema
P. 102
ndani kyema, My Story - Ray Moore 102
While I am writing about the various ‘wheels’ that have been an important part of my
life, let’s have a look at the casual jobs I have taken on to help make ends meet.
When you make an early decision in your life that you will develop your career to help
people and not to make money, at least you know where you are going. But it does
very little for your bank balance. As a consequence, Bev has always had to work to
help us to make ends meet and as she graduated as a nurse just before we married,
she was usually able to find work in the local General Hospital, Bush Nursing
Hospital or District Nursing Service.
I also was able to find work over the years to help top up the till. This started long
before we were married when I was a poverty stricken student. I did not have any
training in a trade or profession, so I took jobs on strictly as an amateur. Here are
some of those jobs.
My friend Paul had excelled in his studies and long before I had graduated in
anything, had become a Patent Attorney. So I spent one holiday period doing patent
searches for him in the patent library. This involved reading the complicated
language of a particular patent application and then going through pages and pages
of existing patents and jotting down any reference where words were used in a
similar way to the application. Paul generously paid me for my efforts, even though
my contribution to his success was minimal. I felt a bit better when he said he was
paying me £10 a search and that he would probably get closer to £100 for it from his
client.
Another Christmas holiday, I spent a few weeks working for Mayne Nickless, who
were then simply a trucking company. Ralph Davis, one of the bosses, was a close
friend of Percy’s and I got the job through him. My role was the most lowly of all. I
was a “truck jockey”. This meant that I was sent out at 7 am with a truck to the huge
railway goods yards, and here I helped the driver load up his truck. Then I stayed at
the goods shed and helped each driver load up his truck until the huge pile of
merchandise had dwindled away to nothing. Then I was transferred to the wharves
at the docks not far away and followed the same procedure. The only rest I got was
at meal breaks and I enjoyed these. I remember thinking that I would not like to be
doing this job for the rest of my life, but I had to acknowledge a strong tinge of
jealousy when I was talking to another truck jockey like myself, who had been in the
business for years, and he was a completely satisfied man. He loved his work
during the week, and he looked forward to his weekend activities which his income
allowed him to perform. He seemed to have the secret of serenity. I admired the
man.
I used to help my wife’s Uncle Ted on his spud farm at Gembrook. Mostly this
involved going round the cattle with him, shifting the long aluminium irrigation pipes
from one spot to another, digging out silage and feeding it to the stock. Silage is
made when the hay is cut green and buried in a pit and covered to make it air tight.
Today the same result is achieved by rolling the green hay into a bail and sealing it in
a sort of plastic Glad Wrap. It turns into a rather attractive smelling pickled grass
which the cows love. The downside of this is that any silage that remains on your
boots, when it dries, smells like a sewer. I looked after the farm once for him when
he and Auntie Daisy went away for a holiday. This was a happy experience as all I
While I am writing about the various ‘wheels’ that have been an important part of my
life, let’s have a look at the casual jobs I have taken on to help make ends meet.
When you make an early decision in your life that you will develop your career to help
people and not to make money, at least you know where you are going. But it does
very little for your bank balance. As a consequence, Bev has always had to work to
help us to make ends meet and as she graduated as a nurse just before we married,
she was usually able to find work in the local General Hospital, Bush Nursing
Hospital or District Nursing Service.
I also was able to find work over the years to help top up the till. This started long
before we were married when I was a poverty stricken student. I did not have any
training in a trade or profession, so I took jobs on strictly as an amateur. Here are
some of those jobs.
My friend Paul had excelled in his studies and long before I had graduated in
anything, had become a Patent Attorney. So I spent one holiday period doing patent
searches for him in the patent library. This involved reading the complicated
language of a particular patent application and then going through pages and pages
of existing patents and jotting down any reference where words were used in a
similar way to the application. Paul generously paid me for my efforts, even though
my contribution to his success was minimal. I felt a bit better when he said he was
paying me £10 a search and that he would probably get closer to £100 for it from his
client.
Another Christmas holiday, I spent a few weeks working for Mayne Nickless, who
were then simply a trucking company. Ralph Davis, one of the bosses, was a close
friend of Percy’s and I got the job through him. My role was the most lowly of all. I
was a “truck jockey”. This meant that I was sent out at 7 am with a truck to the huge
railway goods yards, and here I helped the driver load up his truck. Then I stayed at
the goods shed and helped each driver load up his truck until the huge pile of
merchandise had dwindled away to nothing. Then I was transferred to the wharves
at the docks not far away and followed the same procedure. The only rest I got was
at meal breaks and I enjoyed these. I remember thinking that I would not like to be
doing this job for the rest of my life, but I had to acknowledge a strong tinge of
jealousy when I was talking to another truck jockey like myself, who had been in the
business for years, and he was a completely satisfied man. He loved his work
during the week, and he looked forward to his weekend activities which his income
allowed him to perform. He seemed to have the secret of serenity. I admired the
man.
I used to help my wife’s Uncle Ted on his spud farm at Gembrook. Mostly this
involved going round the cattle with him, shifting the long aluminium irrigation pipes
from one spot to another, digging out silage and feeding it to the stock. Silage is
made when the hay is cut green and buried in a pit and covered to make it air tight.
Today the same result is achieved by rolling the green hay into a bail and sealing it in
a sort of plastic Glad Wrap. It turns into a rather attractive smelling pickled grass
which the cows love. The downside of this is that any silage that remains on your
boots, when it dries, smells like a sewer. I looked after the farm once for him when
he and Auntie Daisy went away for a holiday. This was a happy experience as all I
