Background
It was sometime in the mid 80's Dad had his massive stroke and ended up in a hospital for quite a while.
Chapter 10a(Word)
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I had worked in the private sector as an employee, and also a self-employed person, for a time. I had been searching for full-time employment, again, from 1981, after more than 4 years working for myself. In August 1983, after all my efforts to gain full-time employment, I was successful in my appointment to the Australian Public Service.
I commenced in Section A Companies of the Tax Office. It was, at the time, located in the Centrepoint building in the middle of the capital city, Sydney.
Due to privacy and security, I can't say much about the kind of work I did in that area. However, one important thing that one of my fellow workers attempted needs to be mentioned.
He was married to a Filipina woman. I believe in those days and even now there were and still are a lot of attempts to get Aussie fellas to marry Phillipino women. The total point of the exercise is so they can get into the country. Sometimes when the women are successful in "tying the knot" with an Aussie bloke, they subsequently dump their man once they have secured Australian citizenship.
I know Nate Fogg* was hoping he could be successful in getting me interested in marrying one of these women for the above reasons. One wonders, even now, what sort of "cash consideration" he would have received for his "match-making?"
Fortunately, nothing ever came of it and only a couple of years after this God brought the right one along for me right here in "Down Under" land.
During my time at Tax, I was given a new kitten. He came from a home near the church I was attending in Dundas Valley, Sydney, at the time. He was a reject from a litter of purebred Persians. As it turned out he was exactly the same, except for his, this time, long fluffy tail - as Pinny, from years before. Same colour, same loveable nature. A full Persian - he was chucked out of the litter for some unknown reason by his mother, a Queen Chinchilla cat. So you guessed it - enter "Pinny II." I only had him for a short time. Just long enough to get him de-sexed, then somehow he disappeared.
Once again I was heart-broken. Some months "post-Pinny II", a girl with whom I worked in the Tax Office offered me another kitten. I felt like I was being unfaithful to Pinny II's memory, to even consider another cat. The new kitten would be my first female and a lovely Tortoiseshell one. So "Mitty" and I got on really well. The one who had given me the new kitten was also a Veterinary Student and arranged at the appropriate time for "Mitty" to be de-sexed at a reduced rate. Seeing the females cost a lot more than male cats to be spayed.
Prior to moving back home to Ryde, I purchased a little blue budgerigar I called "Bluey." Mum and I shared him. You could always tell whom "Bluey" was mimicking with his chatter. There was a distinct difference between my voice copies and Mum's voice copies he was doing. He gained quite a repertoire of sayings between the two of us.
I only had "Blue" for a short time and one weekend I went up north to Queensland to visit some old friends. I was gone for about a week. On my return, Mum sat me down, very gently. I was imagining something really tragic had occurred, and I was right. It was also during the time my Dad was in Coorabel Rehabilitation Hospital recovering from his first big stroke.
Mum put her hand on my shoulder and leaning down she quietly shared that "Bluey" had passed away. I don't know if it got too hot or what happened. However, I believe he lived a normal length of time for budgerigars in a normal environment.
I may have still had "Bluey" the budgie by the time "Mitty" came along. Sometime after Mitty came home and we all got settled, she also disappeared. I had heard there was a Greyhound trainer in the area, who may have been picking up stray cats, or cats he could nab, somehow.
He was, I understand, most probably using the kitties to "blood" the greyhounds for racing purposes. I had no proof of this, and I hoped I was wrong about my suspicions. Maybe both Pinny II and Mitty ended up down that culvert in our gutters as old Saggy might have been lost in, all those years before.
From the time I commenced work in the Tax Office in August 1983, I actively sought promotion, because back in those days, I was still a confident, enthusiastic, new public servant. After 14 applications, and only 1 interview for promotions within the Office, and 5 applications to, and 3 interviews for other areas of the public service, I had 2 offers of promotion from 2 different Departments. I elected to accept the promotion to Concord Hospital as it was a lot closer to where I lived. Later on, I was to realize it had been God's design for me to choose the Concord Hospital promotion.
For a time I was also involved in politics. Out of the blue, I had a kind of a breakdown. Perhaps a delayed reaction to the shock of my car fire, from a couple of years before but I am still not sure what caused this event.
Following the breakdown, I still went to work. However, apart from that, I quit political involvement and I quit the church. This went on for about six weeks or so. Here is what happened in that "dropping out" time.
I began to listen to a radio programme very late on Friday and Saturday nights. It was from Midnight to 5 am, on one of Sydney's oldest Radio Stations, 2GB. The programme was hosted by Jim Wiltshire, brother of Brian Wiltshire, a long-time announcer on 2GB, whose programme preceded Jim's on the 2 nights. I was hooked on "The Night Club" show, as it was called.
There were segments where listeners would call in on the "Open Line" to participate in quizzes and so on that Jim was running. In my "hooked" condition, I became one of his most frequent callers. Sometime along the way, it was decided to invite the top callers, individually, to go into the city, and be a "Guest of Honour" on Jim's programme. I was "tickled pink" to be invited to the show as I had always had visions of getting on the radio one day.
During the week before I was to "appear" on Jim's show, his producer rang me at work and asked me about my life and my working history and so on. I had some idea from listening to previous shows, what they had in mind to do with my information.
It would be in a segment known as "In The Limelight" where the Guest of Honour's story was interwoven into a skit or play to be read by the host and the guest during the show. With some very funny outcomes. Especially as I decided to go to air in the play - "cold turkey" I guess you could call it or "unseen." Meaning I had not pre-read the script before going LIVE on the airwaves with Jim.
I was picked up from home by a taxi, at around 11 pm on the said night, and driven into the city, 8 miles South East from my home. I had gathered some funny records and some poetry to play or read, in the session. These included "The Goon Show", and songs like "The Purple People Eater", and my favourite artists at the time, "The Carpenters." The entire programme was recorded and I have always been glad to have that recording. Unfortunately, some of the Files I have now created from that recording, other than the 'Biby's Epitaph' are too large to include in this Chapter. I had a link to an old website where the recording of the show could be heard. Sadly that has now gone but I will eventually be getting up a new place for these to be heard once more.
As a result of appearing on the "Night Club" programme, I later had the opportunity as a volunteer to read newspapers on the air, for "Radio Print Handicapped - 2RPH"- for a few months, on Sundays, also during the break from church and so on. We had to go in and get the Sunday Papers, and cut them up into the news articles, to be read on the programme. This was a voluntary activity, and for the listening pleasure of the blind in our city.
It was really funny at times, reading the articles on the air, as you would get the odd article that might seem queer or humorous due to the content of the article, but you were not permitted to show any emotion in the reading. A couple of times, the announcer had to take charge and move over to my co-reader to carry on as I dissolved in laughter - off the air of course.
I still had aspirations of being upgraded to "Announcer" at RPH but sadly that never eventuated. I did have some fans who called the station and I have only just realized while writing this, they would have been "print handicapped" ie blind, so if something could have come of it, they would never have known how ugly I really was, haha.
Author Notes
Midi file is me reading a poem by 'Mr Anonymous' in cockney rhyme style from Arnold Silcock's collection of his 'Verse and Worse' Book on the Night Club Programme.
Pictures: "That was then, this is now" Left My brother Joe and I, with old Pinny; Right: Myself with PinnyII, nearly 20 years later.
N. F. the name has been changed* was the guy who tried to match me up.
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