NEVER A DULL MOMENT

Kalgoorlie’s golden years through to the seventies including life in the WW1 trenches

by

CHARLES, NANCY & RON MANNERS

Compiled to Commemorate WG Manners & Co’s 100 Years on the Kalgoorlie Goldfields 1895-1995

Completed and Published in 2002 to celebrate Australia’s “2002 Year of the Outback”

2002 Mannwest Pty Ltd Unit 3/31 Hood Street Subiaco, Western Australia, 6008 Telephone: +61 8 9382 1288 Email: mannwest@mannkal.org Web: www.mannwest.com

© Ron Manners

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data.

Never a Dull Moment: Kalgoorlie’s golden years through to the seventies including life in the WW1 trenches.

Bibliography.

Includes Index.

ISBN 0 85905 174 9

1. Manners family. 2. Gold mines and mining - Western Australia . Kalgoorlie Region - History. 3. World War, 1914-1918 - Personal narratives - Australian. 4. Kalgoorlie (W.A.) - History. I. Manners, Ron (Ron B.), II. Manners, Charles Brown, 1894-1966. III. Manners, Nancy Jean, 1903-1980.

994.16

Printed by: Advance Press Pty Ltd

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my parents Charles & Nancy Manners who lived in Kalgoorlie until my father’s death in 1966.

With so many others of that whole generation, they quietly and modestly kept the Goldfields’ spirit and tradition alive, during several long decades of a declining gold-mining industry.

This persevering generation, by “keeping the flag flying”, made it possible for subsequent and significant nickel and gold discoveries to be supported by the most remarkable regional mining service centre in the world - Kalgoorlie.

Ron Manners 2002

The Cover Painting

The design of the cover is a copy of an original 1964 painting by the late Mr Stan Bullard, former Engineer of the Great Boulder Gold Mine.

The Government of the day had asked various Shires around the State to present them with a painting of their district to hang in Parliament House. The Kalgoorlie Shire had organised a competition and a painting by Mr W. Terrell was chosen.

The painting by Mr Bullard depicts the old and the new of those times. It shows all regional roads leading to the Goldfields as they do today, the water pipeline once referred to as the eighth wonder of the world, our pastoral and wool industry, our unique buildings, the churches and the mines.

It also shows the changing of the Trans train to the Indian Pacific and the changing of the old Express train to the Prospector.

Mr Bullard left the painting in the Shire office (now the Office of Croesus Mining NL). It remains in the care of Ron Manners and Mrs O. Daws JP as guardians.

Acknowledgements

My wife, Jenny, has patiently lived with this manuscript and many drafts strewn around our home and welcomes its completion. Sincere thanks to Ross Louthean, Dr Chris Ulyatt, Bob Halligan and Jayni Manners for their editorial assistance, and to Reynolds Graphics for the cover design. My Personal Assistant, Judy Carroll also deserves a medal for bringing together my previous attempts to complete this book.

Notes

1. Government policies for inflating the currency have made it difficult to convert the figures quoted into today’s purchasing power. The Australian pound (£) was converted to $2.00 in 1966. The pound consisted of 20 shillings (20/-) of 12 pence (12d) each. As a guide, the male average weekly wage in 1912 was £3.

2. Many measurements have been left  in Imperial Measure.

One inch    =25.4 millimetres

One foot (12 inches)    =304.8 millimetres

One chain    =66 feet = 20.12 metres

One yard (36 inches)    =0.914 metre

One mile (1760 yards)    =1.609 kilometres

One acre    =0.405 hectare

One gallon (8 pints)    =4.546 litres

One pound    =0.4536 kilogram

One hundredweight (112 pounds)= 50.8023 kilogram

One ton (20 hundredweight)    =1016.05 kilogram

100"F (Fahrenheit)    =37.8°C (Celsius)

Gold weighing is often still carried out using troy weight.

24 grains =1 pennyweight (dwt.)

20 pennyweight =1 ounce troy

12 ounces =1 lb troy

1 troy ounce=31.1034 grams.

“For books are more than books, they are the life

The very heart and core of ages past,

The reason why men lived and worked and died.

The essence and quintessence of their lives. ”

AMY LOWELL

Illustrations ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    vii

Introduction by Ron    Manners.    ..    ..    ..    ..    3

Remembering My Parents by Ron Manners.    ..    ..    7

Part 1 “Life on the Mining Lease” by Nancy Manners ..    19

(The English Stevens and Swiss Tamo link)

And the Sausages Cheered!    ..    ..    79

Sonogno, Switzerland ..    ..    ..    83

Part 2 “Then Came the War” (World War I, 1914-18) Contents    93

Illustrated war diaries of Chas Manners and Dick Fryer-Smith, his friend and fellow forward scout/runner. ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    104

Part 3 by Ron Manners - Contents    ..    ..    ..    179

Kalgoorlie in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. Later impressions and interviews. (Dates of writing shown in brackets)

Pictorial Tour of Chas Manners’ Life (2002)    ..    180

Plaza Hotel & Norman “Nobby” Dorsett    ..    202

Kalgoorlie’s (Coolgardie’s) first    Expo, 1899 & 97

Years Later, the 1996 “Expo”    ..    ..    ..    204

Aviatrix Amy Johnson Captured Kalgoorlie’s Hearts

(2002)  210

The Chamber of Mines (2001)    ..    ..    ..    218

Central Norseman (2003)    ..    ..    ..    221

Marjorie Harvey (1994)..    ..    ..    ..    222

Claude de Bemales & Fred Meyers (1990)    ..    237

The Noble Pickle “As Good as Gold” (1994)    ..    242

Growing up on the Goldfields (1993)    ..    ..    248

The Museum of the Goldfields (1993)    ..    ..    265

Get a Hat (Unmentionables & Drill Rigs) (1993)..    283

Kalgoorlie Looking Good Feeling Awful (1978) ..    294

Kalgoorlie’s Centenary and Courage (1993)    ..    302

Good Buildings Never Die (2001)    ..    ..    310

Pleasures and Problems of Delving into History (1991)    312

When President Hoover Sat At My Desk (1992)    320

When Miners were Heroes (Booklaunch 1992)    331

Two Riots on the Goldfields (2003)    ..    ..    336

Breaking Records and Dreams (2002)    ..    ..    344

Page N o.

Part 4 The Changing Face of Our Family Company,

W.G. Manners & Co., Over Its First 108 Years ..    348

Conclusions & Acknowledgements..    ..    ..    389

Bibliography    ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    391

Appendix I    ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    393

Appendix II    ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    398

Appendix III    ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    411

Index    ..    ..    ..    ..    425

Glossary

grub-stake… to supply prospectors with provisions & equipment in exchange for profit share.

Hannans… old name for Kalgoorlie.

Rising… working upwards from a level in a mine.

roll-up… a meeting of “diggers” called to resolve issues.

Stope… underground excavation from which ore has been extracted

Tribute…the tributing system operating on the Golden Mile for many years. Companies allowed parties of miners to work privately on certain underground sections of the mine. The miners did not receive wages but got the gold they won, after paying the company for materials supplied, cost of treatment and a royalty on gold recovered.

Illustrations

Cover Painting (particulars on page iii)    Front    cover

Kalgoorlie Regional Map (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    1

R.G. Menzies in Kalgoorlie (MA)    ..    ..    ..    5

Chas Manners, RSL Cartoon (MA)    ..    ..    ..    6

Great Boulder Dump (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    9

Shovelling up a Lip (EGHS) ..    ..    ..    ..    9

Sketch from Chas Manners’War Diary (MA)    ..    ..    10

Nancy and Chas (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    12

Goldfields Culture 1930 (MA)........ 14

Hannan Street    1930 & 1961    (MOG & TW)    ..    ..    15

Hannan Street    1938 & 1961    (MA & TW)    ..    ..    16

Hannan Street    1919 & 2001    (MOG & MA)    ..    ..    17

The Stevens Family 1907 (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    18

Winding Engine Drivers Certificate (MA)    ..    ..    21

Great Boulder Retreatment (EGHS)    ..    ..    ..    22

Horseshoe Slime Dump 1934 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    22

Kalgoorlie Mining Properties (MA)    ..    ..    ..    25

Life on the Golden Mile (MOG)    ..    ..    ..    26

Jack Taggart and J.P. Stevens 1906 (MA)    ..    ..    30

Coolgardie Safe at the Mining Hall (MA)    ..    ..    38

John Wills & Co, Trafalgar 1909 (EGHS)    ..    ..    41

Trafalgar Town Site Super pit (kindly drafted by KCGM)    41

Gold Escort 1886 & Alluvial Diggers 1900 (BATTYE) ..    47

Kalgoorlie Primary School, Students 1926 & 1977 (MA)..    51

120 Piccadilly Street 1980 (MA)........ 53

Stevens Family 1928 (MA)..    ..    ..    ..    ..    54

Keogh Family 1993 (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    54

Nancy’s Geological Sketches 1923-4 (MA)    ..    ..    57

Nancy’s Geology Notes 1923-24 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    58

Ballarat Agricultural College 1912-14 (MA)    ..    ..    60

Charles’ and Nancy’s Wedding 1929 (MA)    ..    ..    61

Agency Agreement 1925 (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    64

Sydney Harbour Bridge takes shape 1929 (MA)    ..    ..    66

Gardner-Denver rock drills (MA)..    ..    ..    ..    66

DeHavilland Hercules Aircraft C. 1931 (MA)    ..    ..    70

Miners’ Acetylene Lamp (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    70

Three Kalgoorlie Banks as Neighbours (KM)    ..    ..    74

Kalgoorlie in Flood 1948 (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    75

James Stevens with sons 1935 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    77

Jessie Stevens with daughters 1935 (MA)    ..    ..    77

James and Jessie Stevens (MA)..    ..    ..    ..    78

Clarinet and Tongs (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    81

Sonogno, Switzerland (MA) ..    82,    84, 86, 88, 89, 90

Tamo Death Certificates (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    91

Tamo Poetry (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    92

Pages from Chas Manners’ war diary (MA)    ..    ..    94

Blackboy Hill Camp 1917 (MA)......... 97, 98

Training Schools Claremont & Blackboy Hill    1970    (MA)    99

Sixteenth Battalion 1917 (MA)....    ...    ..    100

Ship Mates O’mine, Troop Ship Borda (MA)    ..    ..    101

Dick Fryer-Smith & Chas Manners    1917 (Fryer-Smith    Family)    103

Blackboy Hill and Codford (England) (MA)    ..    ..    105

Paul Mclnemey (MA) ....    ..    ..    ..    ..    110

Battle Scenes from France (MA)    ..    ..    ..    113-116

Ypres Mud and Trench Feet (AWM)    ..    ..    ..    121

More Battlefield Mud (AWM)........ 122

Maps of WWI Battlefield (Department of Veterans Affairs) 123-124 Group Photo from the Battlefield (MA)    ..    ..    ..    124

Walking Knee-deep in Slimy Mud (AWM)    ..    ..    129

Aussie, Soldiers’ Magazine (MA)..    ..    ..    ..    130

The Red Barron (AWM)    ..    ..    ..    ..    134-137

Trench Doodling by CBM (MA)    ..    ..    ..    141

Diorama Images (AWM)    ..    ..    ..    ..    144-145

Marie & Mother (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    150

Doreen (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    152

Convalescent Grand Concert (MA)..    ..    ..    ..    156-157

Chas & Friend (MA)............ 164

ANZAC day - Kalgoorlie 1931 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    166

Australian War Memorial (MA)..    ..    ..    ..    167

War Observed (Sir Norman Angell)    ..    ..    ..    168

Tarrawingee Town Site (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    180-181

Denmark Farm (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    182

Avoiding Wet Feet (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    183

Susie’s Cal(f)ve! (MA)     184-185

A Kiss (MA)............ 186

Rejected Once Again (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    187

Blockheads of Europe (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    188-189

Do You Want Courage? (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    190

Patch of Spuds and Career Change (MA)    ..    ..    191

Kalgoorlie Social Life 1923 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    192

Essex Six-1924 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    192

Serving With Two Mayors (MA)    ..    ..    ..    193-194

RSL 1931 (MA)      194

Chas, Nancy, Ian I and Frances (MA)    ..    ..    ..    195

Justice of the Peace (MA)..    ..    ..    ..    ..    196

Golden Square Lodge 1939 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    197

St. Paul’s Church 1953 (MA)........ 197

Staff and Clients Party 1955 & 1964 (MA)    ..    ..    198

Good Equipment With Good People 1950 (MA)..    ..    199

Fuller’s, Friend & Farming (MA)..    ..    ..    ..    200

Nancy & Chas 1963 (MA) ........ 201

Last Photo of Chas August 1966 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    201

Plaza Hotel (MA)............ 202

The Weaker Sex (MA).......... 203

Kalgoorlie in Paris 1900 (MA) ..    ...    ..    ..    204

More Paris Expo (DOME) ..    ..    ..    ..    205-207

Goldfields Mining Expo 1996 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    208-209

Amy Johnson (CASTROL Australia)    ..    ..    ..    210

Amy Arrives in Kalgoorlie (MA)    ..    ..    ..    211

Amy Goes Underground (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    212

Triumphant Parade (Bob Tierney)    ..    ..    ..    213

Amy - Love was Elusive (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    214

Chamber of Mines (M A)    ..    ..    ..    ..    218

Gold Specimens (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    ..    220

Central Norseman (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    221

Harvey Family 1953 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    222

Royal Wedding Gift (MA)    ..    ..    ..    ..    222

Musical Evening at No. 7 (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    224

Goldfields Wildflower Show & Visitors (MA)    ..    ..    230

Kalgoorlie Digger 1936 (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    235

Goldfields Spring Festival 1997 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    236

deBemales & Fred Meyers (MOG & MA)    ..    ..    237

“Good as Gold” Pickles (MA)........ 242

WA’s First Aircraft (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    246

The Matthew Family (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    246

Speed Trials 1927 (MA).......... 247

Golden Mile & Subsidence Area 1958 (MA)    ..    ..    248

DeHavilland “Dove” & Crumpled Maps (MA) ..    ..    252

Subsidence Maps 1958 (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    254-255

GMK Underground Photos (MA)    ..    ..    ..    258

Underground Conveyor in Operation (MA)    ..    ..    259

From Underground to Boardroom (Financial Review) ..    259

Air Crash Commemoration 1997 (MA)    ..    ..    ..    262-263

More Than Leadership (MA) ..    ..    ..    ..    264

Tourist Itinerary and Map (MA)..    ..    ..    ..    267

Not Suitable/Adverse Report (KM)

270

Blood & Jazz (MA)

.. 272-273

The Museum’s First Opening 1968 (MA & EMU Souvenirs) 275

A Collection of Keen Supporters & Brochure (MOG) .. 277, 279

A Museum Takes Shape (MA) ..

.. 280-281

The Best Bit I Ever Had & Davies Drilling (Vaughan Burt)282, 290, 291

Keogh Road Sweeper (Con Keogh Jr.) ..

285

Maraca Reference (MA)

289

Lang Hancock (MA)

294

Geopeko (MA) ..

309

#39 Porter St. (MA & MOG) ..

.. 310,311

Hoover’s Desk (MA)

321

Essential Reading (The Miner) ..

335

Two Riots (MA)

.. 338-343

Deepest Drilling (MA) ..

.. 346, 347

Hannan St. 1895 (MOG & Battye)

348

North Kalgurli Shaft c. 1902 (MA)

351

Golden Horseshoe 1901 (KCGM)

.. 352, 353

Golden Horseshoe - Three Views (EGHS)

.. 354, 355

King Battery - 1901 (EGHS & MA)

.. 356, 357

Cobar Mines & WGM & Co. (MA)

.. 358, 359

WGM & Co., Kalgoorlie Expo - 1930 (MA)

.. 360, 361

#77 Maritana St. & Crusher (MA)

.. 362, 363

Bart Jones Snr (from Off Like Flies Ainslie & Garwood) .. 364

Chas Manners 1940 (MA)

365

Radio Gold Mine & Equipment (MA)

.. 366-373

Grand Opening Hon. (later sir Charles) C.W. Court obe mla (MA)374-378

Trucks & Cars (MA)

.. 379-382

88th Anniversary (MA) ..

383

Goldfields Mining Expos (MA) ..

.. 384-387

One Hundred Years of Letterheads

388

Tamo-Stevens Family Tree (Jim Keogh)..

.. 394-397

Chas’ War Poems

.. 398-400

Red Baron Press Clips ..

.. 402-406

Abbreviations

MA

= Manners Archives

KCGM

= Kalgoorlie Consolidated

EGHS

= Eastern Goldfields Historical Society Inc.

Gold Mines

Battye

= Battye Library

MOG

= Museum of the Goldfields

DOME

= Department of Minerals and Energy

TW

= Tom Williams Photography

AWM

= Australian War Memorial

KM

= Kalgoorlie Miner

Kalgoorlie Regional Map

INTRODUCTION

By Ron Manners, Nov. 2002

Never a Dull Moment follows two earlier books with which I have been involved.

The first, So I Headed West (P.435-437) covered the Manners 1853 transition from Scotland to the Eureka Stockade, and then the Ballarat, Broken Hill, Kanowna and Kalgoorlie sequence which gave the book its title. It concluded with the death of my grandfather W G Manners in 1924.

The second book, Kanowna’s Barrowman - James Balzano (See P.432-434)) brought to life the wheelbarrow travels of this old friend of my father, Chas Manners. My colleague George Compton and I felt that Balzano’s original chronicles of the early Goldfields “diggings” were worth sharing with generations of Goldfielders.

Both books have been well received and generated encouragement to bring together this third volume, Never A Dull Moment.

This book was started in 1995 to commemorate the centenary of the arrival of my grandfather, W G Manners, on the Kalgoorlie Goldfields as one of its first mining engineers, and to celebrate continuation of the businesses that developed from the one which still bears his name. W G Manners & Co was said to be the oldest established firm in Kalgoorlie, when it moved to Perth with the Mannwest Group in 1999.

Strong links are still maintained with Kalgoorlie and our Company motto is “Serving the Goldfields since 1895”. Although the nature of the business is constantly changing, along with the technologies used, we are proud of the part it has played in our mining industry.

My mother’s story “Life on the Mining Lease” gives her personal impressions of Goldfields life spanning the first sixty years of that century.

This is followed by a brief background on her grandfather’s origins, in the south of Switzerland, where the Sonogno town records still display the letter from her grandfather, warning the Swiss of the hardships of life on the Australian Goldfields.

My father, Chas Manners kept a meticulous daily diary of his World War I adventures and I recently traced a similar diary of Dick Pryer-Smith who was his fellow runner-field scout and best friend.

Pieced together, these two diaries give a vivid impression of the bloody battlefields of Prance. Chas’ first-hand impression, as one of the first on the scene of the crash-landing of Baron von Richthofen (the Red Baron), was the highlight of one particular day.

Other interviews and anecdotes help fill in the fifties and sixties, the greatly under-reported years of Kalgoorlie’s history, and help bridge the gap between then and now.

A review of W G Manners & Co and the evolving Mann west Group, gives some idea of how the whole nature of business has changed over the past century.

Confronting the daunting task of sifting through the mountain of archive material was a continuous challenge. The dominating feature of this review of the past 100 years has been the escalating rate of change taking place, and to me this was good preparation for the next 100 years.

I hope you enjoy this quick skip through these selected events from Kalgoorlie’s formative century.

It was the very nature of these goldfields people that gave me the book’s title “Never a Dull Moment”.

[Note: 1 feel a strong desire to now commence a book covering the remarkable events that followed the mid-sixties nickel discovery and subsequent resurgence of gold and the effects on the Kalgoorlie region and its peopled would feel less of a spectator in such a book.]

Visit of Prime Minister the Rt.Hon.R.G. Menzies (later Sir Robert) to Kalgoorlie, May 1958.

Inspecting nuggets shown to him by local prospector Edward Gardiner (RHS).

On the left is Thomas J. Martin, J.P. of the Kalgoorlie Gold Cleanup Co., an associate of Claude de Bernales

Remembering My Parents

Charles Brown Manners

(born Tarrawingee, 64km NW from Broken Hill NSW

May2?, 1894; died Esperance WA, November 20,1966) by Ron Manners

My father was one of nature’s gentlemen who seemed to have maintained an ideal balance between leading a full life and supporting his family without doing anything spectacular or accumulating any money. I clearly remember the single piece of paper he always carried with him. It gave him his daily financial balance so that he was sure of being able to meet his business commitments.

His education at the Ballarat Agricultural College was interrupted midway due to the collapse of the family’s farming venture at Denmark (Western Australia) and he later returned to Kalgoorlie, where he had spent his childhood, to take over the family business when his father WG Manners developed cancer in 1923.

There were no mineral or market booms to lift everyone out of the survival tedium during his years of business on the Goldfields.

The special quality I remember of my father was his “quiet persuasive style”. An early example showed up in his war diaries where he had been unsuccessful on his first two attempts to enlist at the Albany recruiting office. On his third, he drew attention to the astigmatism in one of his eyes (that they had given) as the reason for “turning him down” and he explained; that’s why he wore glasses and he then challenged everyone to a rifle marksmanship contest. This led to their investigating his skills with a rifle and discovering he was a local champion.

He never lost his marksmanship skills and much later, even though I was a member of the High School Cadet Rifle Team, he could always out-shoot me.

My earliest memory of his “persuasiveness” was when I was caught “smoking” cigarettes aged nine. Fearing that I was about to be severely reprimanded, I was absolutely delighted when I was invited to “have a proper man’s smoke” and my father presented me with one of his prized cigars. This was like being initiated into a gentlemen’s club and I was enjoying this without realising the full implications. My father then encouragingly said, “Now I expect you to finish the whole cigar”. That was a very effective cure for smoking.

Another time, my newspaper-round and my hobby of making “one-valve radios” for sale, had caused me to reduce the priority of scoring good exam results.

To re-focus my mind on study, sometimes difficult for a 14-year-old, Chas drove me out along the Lakewood Road, south of Kalgoorlie, where we parked in full view of one of the large “tailings dumps”.¹

For hours we just watched a lone figure working his way around the top lip of this huge dump. That solitary man, with his shovel, was tediously turning up a lip of “tails mud”, all the way around the 5km perimeter. By the time he got back to where he started, the “tails” level from freshly pumped tailings had increased to match the top of his previous lip so he simply continued around again turning up a fresh “lip”. (See photo next page)

After allowing me to absorb this example of abject boredom, Chas said, “That’s what happens to people who don’t pass exams”.

In 1953 when I was 17, I saw this “quiet persuasion” coupled with his tendency of never accepting advice at face-value.

I had just suffered a serious car accident with nine broken bones in my crushed right arm, and, even in my sedated state I clearly recall his refusal to accept our family doctor’s verdict that the arm had to be amputated just below the shoulder.

“No Alan,” he said to our family doctor, “I know that you and I are good friends but this time I would like a second opinion and I will take Ron to Perth tomorrow to see if there is/ any chance of saving his arm”.

I say a quiet “thank you” to rqy father each time I complete any task that is easier with two hands than with one.

The accident caused me to abandon my piano playing career and my search for an alternative instrument led me to the clarinet¹.

Father took me shopping for a clarinet and was told by the music shop proprietor “No good, his bent hand will never fit the clarinet keys”.

Dad’s quiet response was “How much would you charge to modify the keys to fit his hand?”.

The answer was about £5 on the normal price of £48 for the clarinet (an interesting comparison to today’s price for a clarinet).

That same clarinet brought me many hours of enjoyment and probably sent many guests home early.

About a year later we were favored with an order for a two tonne International utility truck from one of our best truck clients Barton Jones Sr of Hampton Hill Station.

1. Since retreated by the Kaltails Tailing Retreatment Project (Normandy Mining Services and Goldcorp).

Great Boulder Mine Slime Dump c.1932 Surface lip formed by hand shovel.

Note the commencement of tails re-treatment by sluicing at near end.

Shovelling up a lip of “tails mud” in the formation of “slime dump”.

Bart’s specific request was “that it be a blue color”. This created a problem for us as we only had a green utility and as times were tough we were unable to order another utility until our stock unit was sold.

Dad’s quiet response to this predicament was “Ron, I suggest you paint it blue”.

Good lateral thinking, and armed with a large can of blue paint and a “velvet mitt” that the paint salesman told me “would leave no brush marks and will look as good as a ‘spray job’ I converted the green utility to blue. Business really is all about making people happy ....

I didn’t realise what a wide circle of friends Chas had, until he died and I was confronted with the huge crowd at his funeral in Perth.

Chas Manners ’ “trench doodle ” endpapers from his World War I diary.

Nancy Jean Manners

(born Trafalgar/Kalgoorlie WA December 23,1903 died Perth WA September 3,1980) by Ron Manners, November 2001

For our family, my mother always appeared the “source of all knowledge”. Even distant relatives were directed toward her for particulars of “who married whom” or “whatever happened to so and

so”.

In the fifties and sixties it was common for students to leave High School at 15 after passing the Junior Certificate, and then complete the Leaving Certificate in one year (normally two years), at the Kalgoorlie School of Mines. This had the effect of getting students into the “useful subjects” a little earlier and some of my friends were entering the mysteries of geology this way. They were discussing this at our home one day when mother started asking them some geological questions.

They “freaked out” at this display of knowledge from an unexpected quarter and the word quickly got around that “Ron’s mother knows all about geology!”.

Several years later, when I enrolled at the Kalgoorlie School of Mines, it was pointed out to me that my mother was their first woman to study geology and chemistry (1923-24) and that she received credit passes.

She had difficulty enrolling as there was concern about bad language in the classroom; however, she promised not to listen.

Several years later, my cousin Kevin Sclanders (now Kevin Sanders, a New York based TV investigative journalist) had just interviewed our then Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies and asked “What was the greatest influence on your skills of speechmaking?”.

Menzies’ one-line answer was “Read Walden!”, before abruptly changing the subject.

Kevin’s efforts to find out who or what Walden was, had come to nothing and in desperation he asked my mother.

Nancy disappeared into her library and emerged within minutes with one of her “literary classic series” containing a full summary of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, and she went through this with Kevin to find out exactly why Walden had assisted in developing Menzies’ eloquence.

Nancy had a remarkable ability to accept inconvenience with good grace, and I remember this from the time I sold her refrigerator. Kerosene refrigerators were popular in Kalgoorlie at that time when we had a mixture of non-standard DC and 40 hertz AC electricity. As International Truck dealers, W G Manners & Co also sold the Defender brand of kerosene refrigerators. This was a great beast, made by Electrolux.

We had run out of stock and rather than lose a sale, I rushed home to “borrow” my mother’s refrigerator and when she returned later that afternoon, she found the contents of the fridge neatly stacked on the kitchen floor. Unfortunately, there was a few days delay in replacing her fridge and during that time our diet consisted of a priority list starting with those items with the shortest shelf life. Nancy remarked philosophically “I’m glad we’re not in the business of selling houses”.

Nancy moved to City Beach in Perth shortly after Chas died in 1966. One of my great regrets is that Chas died just when Western Mining Corporation was changing the fortunes of the Kalgoorlie area with its nickel discovery at Kambalda 50km south of Kalgoorlie. He would have enjoyed observing these exciting developments emerge, along with renewed vigor in the gold mining industry.

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Che ColbficlDs lUustral Society

Presents

(By arrangement wjth J- C- Williamson Lid )

I he highly successful and delightfully entertaining Comic Operetta,

“Lilac Domino.”

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Kalgoorlie Town Hall,

Tues. 8th, Wed. 9th, I hurs. 1 Oth. Fri. 11th. Sat. 12th. Apl.

and at

Boulder Town Hall,

Monday, !4th April, 1930.

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lira. HiteM*. MJ» SYLVIA WATSON, L A.E . h T i' h.

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f.ifetettn br HAllUV 15. SMITH. Music by CHAS. CL'VILLI Kit. tWacaJ by T. C. FAIHLBY

Local Charities to Benefit.

Goldfields Culture 1930

Hannan St. (facing West) c.1938 (Note the two trams)

Kalgoorlie’s Hannan Street (looking east) 1919

Jim & Jessie Stevens with their “first three of seven" Nancy, Jess & Alan 1907

Life On The Mining Lease

By Nancy Manners (nee Stevens)

[Exactly as written by my mother in 1979...RBM]

Just after my 75th birthday on December 23, 1978, my daughter Frances asked me to write about some of the interesting things from the “olden times”, or the “middle ages” as my grandchildren often call the period when I was growing up.

From the amount of complete change that has taken place in invention and in science, this is almost correct when I think back to my childhood. Whether this is altogether for good - only the future will be able to decide - but this is the world we live in - and that other is the past. Let me quote a little verse I learned at school and which I feel is

so true;

“Not great things make men happy, but peace of mind and congenial employment - to watch the com grow and the blossoms - to draw hard breath over the ploughshare and the spade - to read, to think, to love, to pray, these are the things that make men happy.”

(Ruskin)

However, as these few notes are only for my own family, they are sure to be more personal than otherwise. The present day grandchildren can have no idea of the different way of life we had in this new century - so some of the stories may be hard for them to believe.

During all this time the influence of my mother Guiseppa, known as “Jessie”, has been the biggest thing in my life - and any spark of goodness in me has come from her. She had very little schooling and a very hard life as a child. Her father had died suddenly on their small farm in Daylesford, Victoria and her mother was left with seven young children. Her mother was English and her father Swiss. Her father’s brother Stefano and wife lived in Geelong and as they had no living children at that time, they offered to take the twins aged five (my mother and her twin Florence), promising to care for and educate them. Unfortunately they did neither and on their uncle’s death seven years later, my grandmother brought them back to Daylesford, determined to do the best she could for them. Even with so little education, my mother had the strongest faith, and was extremely wise. She stood firmly by what was right and fought hard against what was wrong.

My father (Jim Stevens) also had a great influence with the family, even though we lived in quite primitive conditions on the Goldfields - he would never countenance rough behaviour or bad manners at the table or at any other time.

He also gave us a love of good literature and especially of good music. He had brought his violin and some prized books with school books with his few personal possessions when he came to the Goldfields.

My father had been brought up on a farm in Victoria and his father also died young and left a young family. Like so many families in those days the children were separated when a parent died. In most cases a relative or close friend would take one or more of the children to help out. There were no pensions or Government grants for widows. Hence, so many people drifted from brothers and sisters, and in many cases lost touch permanently. My father went to friends who had no family, and grew up on their farm in the Murray River districts. When the gold rush started in W.A. he came by ship to Fremantle. It must have been a very uncomfortable trip - they came as strangers without any friends here; but the sheer excitement and adventure were the magnets that drew them to the Goldfields which were opening up.

They travelled by train to York and there the railway ended.¹ From there they either walked or rode in wagons all the way to Kalgoorlie. I do not know how long this journey took - however all those men were young and they had all their lives ahead - so what did time matter?

Strangely enough, my father never went back East. The Goldfields became his home, and the gold fever never left him.

My mother must have had adventurous spirit as well because she came along from Melbourne to visit her brother William who had settled in the mining town of Paddington north of Kalgoorlie. She had no idea of the size of W.A. or exactly where Paddington was but just came in faith to visit her brother. At this time my father was also working in that town and he and William knew each other as they were both in the local brass band.

They both came to Kalgoorlie for a Band Concert and this was how my parents met.

They were married in the Anglican Church in Kalgoorlie (on the site of St. John’s Cathedral) and lived in a small house on a mining lease not far from the Lake View Gold Mine where my father worked as a “winder” driver. He had studied and worked on mines and gained his Winding Engine Driver’s Ticket. This job was a very responsible one as he was at the controls taking the men up and down the shaft in the “cage” to and from work underground. The mines worked three eight hour shifts each day - but my father always had the day shift driving. I

I. This establishes James Stevens arrival in Kalgoorlie in its discovery year of 1893. By 1894 the railway was extended to Southern Cross.

"The Mines Regulation Act of 1895'

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Winding Engine Driver’s Certificate

Retreatment - Great Boulder Tailings being reclaimed by mechanical shovel for retreatment - 1906

Retreatment - Great Boulder The race or launder to transport slimes to the pump and retreatment plant - 1933

Horseshoe Slime Dump (Slimes Treatment Plant in middle distance. Photo c.1934)

might explain that in those days it was not unusual for people to build and live on mining leases near their work. It was always understood that if by chance gold should be discovered on such a lease the settled people would just have to move, meanwhile they paid no rates or rent.

However, our family stayed for nineteen years and today that whole area is covered by a huge slime dump. “Slime” is the residue left after gold extraction and is formed in a pyramid-like structure which sets as hard as cement. The biggest was the old Horseshoe Dump called after the mine of that name. It was later retreated and a fabulous amount of gold was recovered from this old residue.

Our small home was hand built and how we managed to crowd in is hard to believe - but we did. The seven of us with our parents lived quite happily for all that time.

All of us were born in that house and we were a close and affectionate family.

We always had to be careful with our cash - but then who was different?

Our home was in a constant state of enlargement - and as the work had to be done after-hours and at weekends there was often a half finished ceiling or an open ended room to let in the weather, and piles of timber and corrugated iron were all over the place. White wash (lime) was used extensively for hessian linings and the roofs were nearly always painted red.

Some outside walls were also red, and later on we children drew pictures with chalks or crayons on this red iron. Homework and tables often graced these walls.

In fact I used to stand a row of bottles and with a stick in my hand I would “teach” them. With all this mess, my dear mother never complained, as she was so glad to think that the improvements were slowing taking shape.

Finally a double-width verandah was added to the front with green cane blinds to keep out the sun in summer. This would give plenty of space for open living - beds - meals and play space. One special memory remains with me. One Sunday morning we were all about doing various things while my father was reading Marie Corellis’ “God’s Good Man”. He read out one portion aloud for some reason, and we all became so interested that he went on reading while we listened spellbound.

The reading went on - we all forgot about lunch even my mother -and so he eventually finished the book.

Next Dad decided to build a large kitchen to connect with the back of the house. It was joined by a covered section which we always called the “vestibule”. This space contained a large table with a long stool along one side and chairs for the rest of the table space.

(Dad insisted we stand at the table for our meals until our tenth birthday - to make us tall and have straight backs. This was done for the first two or three children, but was overlooked as the family grew.)

When building this kitchen, it was found that a huge rock was in the way in one comer - but nothing daunted my father, he built the room around the rock, and made a huge cupboard on top of it.

That cupboard was used to store all sorts of things - on top - on the shelves - and as the bottom shelf was so large we children often played in it as it was more like a small room.

The “vestibule” and the “cupboard” were our very special places always. The kitchen became our real living room with its big wood stove which always seemed to have a kettle of boiling water, and pots of hot food and Mum’s lovely baked custards and apples and all sorts of puddings in the oven - to say nothing of beautiful scones and pies that were always on hand. Pasties too were very appetising and tasty and when meat was in short supply she made very savoury ones with sliced potatoes and onions.

We had a dado round the inside walls also painted red and our smallest boy Ted used to draw ships and other pictures. When Mum praised his efforts one day, he replied, that he didn’t think she knew much about ships if she thought his drawings were so good.

Ours was a very active kitchen. My father would be playing his records on one end of the table and Mum ironing on another part. Someone would be folding nappies while I was doing homework and Jess using the hand sewing machine in another part of the room. In the daytime the baby was always bathed in front of the old wood stove and while Mum fed whoever was the baby at the time, she would sing the old hymns or recite the poems she had learned at school, like “We are Seven”, “Lucy Grey” and “The Wreck of the Hesperus” - and to this day, her words and advice still ring in my ears and have the same deep meaning.

Those truths said all those years ago in the old fashioned past mean exactly the same in this scientific year of 1979 - and will continue to be true forever.

Many problems, anxieties and griefs came into our lives but we learned that anything can be faced if we trust God and have faith.

I was the first born of the Stevens family - when the little house had four rooms.

The township of Trafalgar had been established - with its school, Post Office, Railway Station (opened in 1902) to link it with Kalgoorlie a few miles away. There were shops, hotels and several churches too.

There had been a cyclone just a day or two before my birth and all the telegraph and telephone lines were down. My father after being reassured by Mum that she “could not wait until morning” went down to the Post Office phone which was out of order. He then set off on foot to Boulder where our Dr Bridgeford lived (about five miles away). The Dr had to bring his horse and buggy (and my father) back to our house - and in due course I arrived.

Looking back, I marvel to think of a young woman in such circumstances being left all that time. I suppose some neighbour was with her. However, here I am seventy-five years later.

The Water Supply from Mundaring was opened in the early part of that year 1903 - but as we lived on a Mining Lease the pipeline did not come our way so we had to buy water by the 100 gallons. The water man had a tank on his cart, and after filling at the general “stand pipe” brought it to the house and hand-pumped it into our tank (railway engines also filled up with water at these stand pipes, for steam).

We had to be very careful in the use of water for it was expensive.

There were no gardens except perhaps a geranium in a pot and this would be watered with the bath or washing up water.

Later on we had rainwater tanks and this helped when we had enough rain to fill them.

The next child after me was Alan, a joy for my parents for they wanted a boy. He grew to be a fine big man and was in the RAAF in World War II.

There was a slight disappointment when I arrived, but when Dad saw me he said to Mum “Now you have your Nancy”, so that was my name. Mum had been fond of the little daughter of a dear friend named Nancy and Mum thought it cruel to call a baby by such an awful name but her warmth to that girl made her decide if ever she had a daughter that would be her name. My second name Jean was after an old girlfriend of Dad’s. Strange?

I was told when I first saw Alan I said “Frow him in the corner” -so it seems I resented his taking my place. From then on there always seemed to be a new baby and I became mother’s help, and more like a grown up every day. In fact I never was young until after I was married, because life was such a serious and sensible sort of thing, and my mind had no chance to be full of anything the least bit carefree for many years.

However, these things teach us patience and make one appreciate when things run smoothly and well.

When I was four years old a Mr and Mrs Rowe opened a boarding house near us. Boarding houses were an essential part of life in the early days of the Goldfields. There were so many single young men working on mines - and most lived in camps near their work - but they had to be fed.

The boarding house catered for their meals and supplied a cut lunch (crib).

The Rowes had no children and took a great fancy to me and I often had an outing to town with them. This was my first memory in childhood.

One fine day they took me on a special trip to town by train - then on to the Livery Stable which was just near where Hannans Club is now. They hired a horse and sulky and we went to Kanowna twelve miles away. I sat between them wearing a little white beaver coat and a bonnet with a heart shaped brim which also had a small white ostrich feather at the top of the heart. The coat and bonnet had been a present from the Rowes.

I can remember how splendid I felt. The outing was somewhat spoiled because I was so afraid - sitting up so high and watching the movements of the horse’s rump, which I thought showed he must be galloping all the way and it was the greatest relief to be back on the ground again. I guess the poor animal had been going at a very quiet trot

- but not for me.

Another memory was hearing my father say that he and Mum had their first meals on a door, and I of course pictured them sitting on the floor with a door lying between them. Years later when the subject came up he explained he had made a table from a wooden door.

One neighbour had two small sons. Whenever they visited I was sent out to tell them stories while the grown-ups talked. When my small store of fairy stories ran out I had to invent more, and this went on for several years, much to my disgust, as I felt old enough to be more than a story teller.

A wooden two wheel bike which stood on a wooden stand near a window in the sitting room, was big enough for a small boy to ride, but could never be used in the usual way because ordinary tyres would not fit it. This was the present given to the elder boy at his birth and it stood in that stand until both boys grew up. What a present to give a new baby

- but what a museum piece it would have been today.

My father who was very musical, though mostly self- taught, decided to take singing lessons from a German teacher in Kalgoorlie. He was Arthur Heschler but his stage name was Arthur King.

Dad had a very fine bass voice and an impressive appearance as he was quite handsome and was 6ft 3 ins. tall.

He was a member of the Boulder Liedertafel and the Goldfields Operatic Society. The former gave many concerts in the Boulder Town Hall when men wore white tie and tails and looked splendid. Sometimes he would take me to these concerts - because I was the only one old enough for night outings. I felt very important sitting in the front row right near the singers - and later I was taken backstage. Those early years were rich in music and acting. Dad took part in the Mikado and La Fille de Madame Angou and other operas and oratorios.

We heard later from neighbours that when they first heard Dad rehearsing on the front verandah they thought he was some sort of crazy man.

Dad was also in the Brass Band and played in concerts in the old Car Bam in Boulder Road. Later they held summer concerts in the Rotunda at Victoria Park in Croesus Street.

Starting school at Trafalgar was my entry into the big world. I was five and had a teacher who was my ideal from the moment I saw her. She was Miss Elizabeth Clapp, and I decided I would be a teacher.

She had a bowl of grapes on her table, and as we marched out on that first day, each of us was given a small cluster. These were like gifts from heaven.

Our Headmaster was Mr H. Thomas who lived with his family in the school house next to the school. His small daughter, too young for school, used to come in to our classroom some mornings and sit on a tiny chair. She was such a sweet thing, with a mop of golden curly hair and all the pupils treated her as a little doll and she was something very special. Several years later she died, and I thought of her again many years later when her father was a member of a panel to interview hopeful young teachers-to-be, of which I was one.

He was also Inspector of Schools much later and came to examine my small class at Trafalgar, then again to examine my first real class as a “real teacher” at Kalgoorlie Central Infants School in Dugan Street.

So life goes on and contacts made. The other children had come by this time. Jessie (later Jessie Sclanders) was the next daughter - a dainty fair little thing who was always treasured. She was not really delicate but we felt she needed special care. Then Ada (later Ada Ding) who was so different. She was dark, bright, friendly and always outgoing. David was the next son. As a baby we nearly lost him as he seemed so frail. A neighbour suggested he was hungry, and he was given Allenbury’s Food which soon gave him strength, and pulled him through. There were no infant clinics in those days.

Jack Taggart and J.P. Stevens 1906

Edith (later Edith Keogh) was our next girl - a sweet little thing with naturally curly hair. Ted was the last child and our special youngest boy — always so serious, quiet and shy.

David had been in my first class as a monitor at Trafalgar. He had a fist fight with his best friend who could not see why he had to call me Miss Stevens when I was Dave’s sister.

Much later, once again I had my brother Ted in my Infant Class at the Kalgoorlie Infants.

He was shy and he had primed me not to ask him any questions in class as he would be embarrassed. He had an idea that he would not live to grow up, and consequently would not do any homework for what did it matter?

He was sent to the office day after day for so many spelling mistakes. However, my Head, Miss Kinnear who knew Ted’s attitude suggested we ask our Doctor to casually remark that Ted was in such good health and would grow into a fine strong man.

The Doctor was always visiting the house on account of Dad’s bad health and the ruse proved successful and from then on Ted was a different student and did grow into a strong man who went through World War II in the RAAF in North Africa and Europe.

Back to 1909.

At the end of my first student year at Trafalgar school mother and the four children we had at that time (Nancy, Alan, Jess and Ada) went for our first trip. Mum had met a Rose Thomas on board ship when she came from Victoria.

Rose worked at the Government Hospital and when her holidays came she decided to go back to Victoria to visit her relatives. She suggested that Mum and the children visit our Grandmother and Mum’s twin sister in Daylesford. Rose was a good organiser and practical in every way. We children always called her “Auntie Rose” - as we knew no other close relatives.

Dad was to have his meals at the boarding house. Seeing that he had “batched” for so long before he even met Mum this seemed no problem. The plan worked out well. We set out by train to Perth, and all stayed overnight with a friend of Rose’s at Cottesloe - then boarded the “Kanorona” next day.

This trip was a real adventure and my chief memory was to see the rolls of toilet paper (a new idea to us). I confiscated a large amount so I would have plenty of drawing paper.

Among the things I cannot remember is how we travelled to Daylesford after leaving the ship at Melbourne. Rose had gone on to

Bendigo. My impression was of arriving at Granny’s house at night and being put to bed. When I woke next I could see a large rain-barrel over which grew a huge fuchsia with masses of red bells hanging over the water. This was a wonderful sight. I will never forget the beauty of green trees, grass and flowers in and around Daylesford which is the exact opposite of the dry earth we have (or did have then) in Kalgoorlie.

Granny’s house was a wonder. It was the place of the birth of all her children. It was full of knick knacks.

Granny lived with Mum’s twin Florrie who had become a typical old fashioned spinster. My joy was to see the garden and pick roses, violets and hyacinths to decorate my cubby house in the old bam. After coming from Kalgoorlie where water was so scarce, this seemed the nearest place to Heaven.

Creeks were everywhere and lovely fems were thick I saw cress growing in rich black soil on the banks of the creek. While we were there a fall of snow occurred, about the only time I have ever seen snowflakes.

I started school in Daylesford and walked a mile or so with other children.

One day at school I felt ill and the teacher told me to go home.

Auntie Florrie said there was nothing the matter with me and packed me off again next day. However, the teacher noticed spots and so I was again sent home with chicken-pox. The Dr was called and he told me to watch out for a tiny feather which may come out of every spot. My convalescence was spent watching for these feathers to emerge.

When any of us were naughty we were sent to bed, and remained in our bed the whole day.

Poor Florrie must have suffered through our intrusion.

Her little sitting room was out of bounds to children. It was something from a Dicken’s illustration. Pictures had pink bows on the frames and numerous ornaments were displayed everywhere. The special attraction was a glass case containing artificial wax flowers, among which were special pet beetles which Florrie fed with sugar.

Being the eldest and all of six, I was allowed in that room every Sunday afternoon to write a letter to Dad. I wonder what sort of letter I wrote at that age. One of my Trafalgar schoolmates wrote to me and enclosed two halfpennies. I had to pay four pence at the P.O. to get that letter, and this really shook me. We used to buy a school bag full of cherries at lunch time for a penny. We stayed on for six months, and Dad began to think that Mum was so happy in her old home that she would never want to return. How wrong he was. Mum was waiting for Rose to accompany her back and again help with the children.

Rose was with an Aunt who was very ill and Rose did not like to leave her. The Aunt also had a son somewhat older than Rose and on her deathbed she persuaded Rose to marry him and settle down on the family property. After the Aunt’s death she married her cousin - but later at the birth of her child she died, so Mum lost her best friend.

Mum made the trip home without any support. I do not remember much about that trip till we reached Kalgoorlie.

One can imagine how glad she was to get back to her own home, despite the heat, dust, and lack of garden.

When we left Trafalgar Dad had a clean shaven face - but when he met us at the Station with a full beard. He took Ada in his arms and she screamed and would have nothing to do with this strange man - until she grew used to the fact that he was her father.

Life then settled down to quiet again.

We did not often go to “town” but had simple interests and amusements such as counting cars that came from the Lakeside Racecourse and passed a good distance from our house on their way home to Kalgoorlie or Boulder.

We also watched funeral processions which were very impressive to small children. The horse drawn hearses always had black plumes at each comer of the glassed-in section.

Folks were either buried from their homes or the church (mostly from homes) and the long processions passed up over the hill - through Kamballie on to the Boulder Cemetery. Those going to Kalgoorlie went the whole length of the main street, then over a hill and on through Brown Hill and so to Kalgoorlie. What a long, slow journey this was.

One of our little classmates (Winnie Merritt) passed away after a very long illness and all the Sunday School girls who had known her were ushered in to her home to view her before going on to the funeral.

We all wore white frocks with a black ribbon across one shoulder, and tied in a bow at the hip.

We marched to the end of the main street, then went on in “cabs” -a horse drawn vehicle with two facing seats which could seat about six people. The step was at the back for entering or leaving. This was a most harrowing experience and took so long. It was nearly dark by the time we got home. For nights afterwards I could see scary things.

Of those camps where the single men lived - it was interesting to think of the different types of men who lived in them.

One camp not far from us was occupied by Bob Roach, an artist, and we would stand in awe when he was having a spring clean.

Everything came out of his camp for an airing and he would stand his easel and paintings where anyone passing could view them.

Another man was a great knitter. He made whole sets of baby woollies and sold them.

One night we were startled by the sound of crackling and shouting. A nearby camp had caught fire - probably from smoking in bed. The Fire Brigade was pointless because it was a voluntary organisation and there was no water supply there anyway (In Trafalgar town we had a fire bell and hoses but no water).

The occupant was burned to death and next morning we watched the police remove a sheet of iron bearing something covered with canvas.

The boys had fun sliding down slime dumps or chasing pigeons from open cuts and old disused holes. I remember another incident; the grocer’s shop was a long way from our house, and on the way home with purchases, Alan noticed a number of pound notes in a clump of weeds beside the path. He gathered them and rushed home to give them to Mum. She placed them on the mantelpiece till Dad came home. In the meantime, a man who lived further from the store than we did but used the same path - called to ask if we had noticed any money on the way.

He had lost them from a pocket (or perhaps was not quite sober). Anyway Mum was glad to hand them over. Next day he brought us our reward - a little white nanny goat - we called her Isabel and many a pint of lovely goats milk we had.

Christmas was a very big event with various parcels stored away in the “cupboard”. One year I was hoping for something special but as I already had a book called “A Garland for Girls” I hid it, thinking that if Santa Claus saw that I had something he would think I did not need another present. He left me a ball.

Our favourite spot for playing was the “flat” quite a distance away. It was the dried-up bed of a section of ground where slimes had originally flowed over - and the clay was firm.

It could be marked into “houses” by using a stick. We decorated each “room” with colourful bits of china or glass which we were always collecting.

Father developed rheumatism and was frequently confined to his bed and suffered great pain — a great worry to Mum.

He was having one particularly distressing time and my constant fear - through being the eldest - was that he might die. So I watched her cooking and decided I would be able to make a stew and jam tart the same as she did - thinking that this would tide us over.

Dad became worse and was sent to hospital and during his stay there a Minister called at the house. We were quite sure he had come to tell us the worst - but were so thankful when he only wanted to enquire where someone else lived.

Dad recovered, but recurring bouts of illness, and later developed heart trouble that eventually caused his death - but that was not to happen for many years.

Being sick, or having a new baby was not pleasant in the worst summer weather in those days. The only way to try to get a breeze was to hang a wet sheet in front of an open window - or a doorway and hope for the wind to blow.

We had no electricity until we moved to Kalgoorlie so we used candles and kerosene lamps for all lighting.

There was an excellent Head Teacher at Trafalgar school. He was James Flanagan. His influence was wonderful and we all loved him -even though he was very strict.

He proved a good teacher can exert discipline, respect and a great power to build character. He gave scripture lessons which were included in the Curriculum - and how well he explained the Psalms and other portions of the Bible. The lesson on Faith (Corinthians 13), is with me still. I was in VI Standard which he taught. He called me out of class and told me to go to the Infant Room and ask Miss Mincham to lend him her smallest child.

He then stood the child up on his old fashioned high Teachers’ Desk, then standing back, called to her to “Jump”. She immediately jumped into his arms - then he turned to us and said “That is Faith”. We did not ever forget that. Dad would gather us out of doors on fine evenings and teach us part songs - which he would conduct. On one occasion he asked me to sing “Old Folks at Home” as a solo, and as it was out of doors to put my heart in it. This I did - though knowing I had no voice for such a thing. Shortly afterwards, an old gentleman (Mr Seaborn) called at our house in a very agitated state - even with tears in his eyes -to tell us he “had heard the angels sing”.

It is nice to remember that at least once in my life someone has enjoyed my singing.

Some years later that same dear old man used to take the train to Kalgoorlie and visit the Infant School to bring me his empty tobacco tins (round red ones) for my pupils to store their counters. These were small squares of cardboard which I painted with red ink on one side and left white on the other - finally cutting them into 1 inch squares. Each child had twelve. Those were days when nothing except pads and white chalk for blackboards were supplied by the Education Department. A teacher just made what she needed. This old man had a flowing white beard and a very bad limp - and my children thought he was Father Christmas.

We had an old fashioned Edison Phonograph, with the attached horn, and as our collection of records increased Dad would invite friends for a “concert”. Dad’s “winder driver” days were over by this time and he and his partners had a “tribute” on the Central Boulder Lease. Some of his crushings were good, but mostly quite poor - although hope never failed him. When a good one happened he would buy lots of his favourite records - the old cylindrical Blue Amberol kind.

He wisely chose all sorts of records as he knew that everybody would not want to hear a whole evening of classics. He had comic songs, Harry Lauder - Abba Dabba Dabba and many others. But we also had Gounod’s Serenade, Meditation from Thais, Softly Awakes My Heart, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth, and all the best orchestral, solo, band and just everything. All could recite Prologue from Pagliacci. This has given the family a great love of all good music.

My mother’s eldest sister Elizabeth married a young German before Mum was married.

They moved to South Africa, then on to Germany and then to U.S.A. The sisters wrote occasionally. The family had a very pleasant surprise (long before War I) when a Christmas parcel came from America. It contained a set of serviettes with cotton to embroider the comers for Mum. A copy of “Pilgrims Progress” for me and a “Life of Lincoln” for Alan and coloured rag dolls to be made up for Jess and Ada (the other children were not bom).

My ideas of “helping” were not always successful. One time when mother had to go to town by train I decided to carry on with her work. The washing had to be done so I began this task.

All garments then were of heavy material, and wmng out by hand - and as my strength was not sufficient, you can imagine the result. My determination to have everything on the line by the time Mum came home, was carried out and I set to work to wash the kitchen floor. Mopping up water on the floor had not registered with but dear Mum praised me when she returned - though I shudder to think what she thought when my work had to be gone over. I just remember being happy.

We children were often praised by Dad too.

We would stand behind his chair and he was not supposed to know we were there. Then he would ask Mum if “the children had been good today”, and Mum would give a glowing account of each of us.

Near us lived an elderly widow from Cornwall. Her small house was on top of a hill and she spent most of her time sitting inside at her window, watching people on the leases and in the township on the other side of the railway line. She had a very good view of the Railway Station platform and knew who caught what train, and what time they came home.

She could not read or write. She was the eldest sister in a family of eight boys. In England at that time, education was not compulsory so she just stayed at home. She spoke with a very broad Cornish accent, and Mum used to send me up to read any letters that came for her - and then I had to answer them. This was a big “thing” as we settled down to relaying the news from Australia back to Cornwall.

When I wrote at her dictation (in my own language) it was easy enough, but I had to read them back to her in “Cornish” before I stuck down the envelope. This was the hardest part. Anyway this went on for some years - so it was worth doing.

One day she proudly showed me an unopened letter which had been stuck in the back of a large picture of “St. Michael’s Mount”, Cornwall. The letter had come to her by mistake many years before, and instead of returning it she had put it away safely behind the picture.

She gave me bound copies of the works of Pope and Cowper, and a beautiful book of etchings and the information on the “Great Men of God” about all the Old Testament Prophets.

These books had belonged to her husband who must have been a very well-read man.

She told me many tales of life in Cornwall. The highlight was when she saw Queen Victoria, passing over the strip of land that joins the Cornish coast to the Mount when the tide is out. She said the Queen wore a blue frock and a white sailor straw hat, and that the next season everyone had a similar hat.

This dear soul exemplified my idea of “ignorance” and yet she was the kindest and most loyal person. She helped mother greatly, and took a special fancy to my youngest sister Edie. Education does not always make a person who is as kindly as this one was.

Years later a cyclone struck our area and blew a whole room off her house. She later moved to Boulder. During my teens, as a young teacher I visited her as often as I could. On one of my last visits (about the hottest day that summer) she gave me a lemon drink which she had kept cool in her “Coolgardie Safe”. (There were no ice chests or refrigerators). The standard “cooler” was a wooden frame covered with canvas. It stood in a tray of water and had another smaller tray of water on top. Strips of flannel were in the top tray and drew the water down the side of canvas, and the air cooled the food inside.

Abandoned “Coolgardie Safe” on display at the Australian Propsectors & Miners Hall of Fame

(see text)

Note: Water tank on top to percolate water over the hessian cladding and the water tray at foot, to prevent ant access to food.

However, when I had almost finished this lemon drink I noticed an ant in the bottom of the glass but could only go on and finish it as she would have been so hurt if she had known.

One of my greatest adventures happened in 1915 when I was twelve and Alan ten. We visited a farm at Popanyinning (near Pingelly) where father’s brother Charlie and his wife and family lived. The whole family could not go, so it was decided Alan and I should make the trip for the Christmas holidays. We set off by train for Northam as first stop. The tickets and our money were placed in a small calico bag my mother had made, and tied round my neck.

We were met at Northam by a friend and taken home for the night. In the morning she put us on the train for Spencer’s Brook where we changed again for the last leg to Popanyinning. My heart was pounding the whole way as Alan would get out of our compartment as often as possible at the various stations to see what was going on down at the engine. (He was always interested in such things).

Mum had told me to send a “wire” as soon as we arrived - but in the excitement of meeting my Uncle who had driven in his horse and sulky, and was also doing the weekly shopping, the “wire” was overlooked until I remembered it when we were on the way to the farm.

I was embarrassed, but Uncle Charlie kindly turned back and the “wire” was sent.

This was our first time away from home and I felt like a real grownup. It was also our first experience of farm life. There were cases of home grown peaches - and to this day whenever I smell a peach I go back in memory to Popanyinning.

Having fresh lamb, cream, fruit and milk and vegetables was such a treat for two children from the Goldfields. We were taken to a country Christmas Tree held in the bam at a nearby farm. This was a great thrill, especially as we were each given a present from the tree. I did not know that there are always extra parcels just in case. I went out with Uncle on a kangaroo shoot and was saddened when he shot an animal - the first and last time I have ever witnessed such a thing. We had kangaroo steaks after and I felt sick to think I was eating this (though it was very tasty and kangaroo tail soup next day was also delicious). For politeness sake I could not refuse.

The first World War was going on at this time, and now I will go on to 1918 when the following incident took place. This links us up for ever with the family at the Popanyinning farm called “Allenbrae” where we spent such a happy time.

There were three children Fred, Freda and Elsie. By 1918 they were all at school - a one teacher school called Lol Gray Soak some miles from the farm. The children drove to school and home in their horse and sulky.

On Armistice Day, when the news came through the war was over, every school both large and small closed so the children drove straight home to their parents. As it was so early they were allowed to drive to an adjoining farm to collect half a sheep - which they shared whenever an animal was killed for food.

Before reaching this farm, a wheel of the sulky struck a root and Elsie was thrown out. The other two raced to the farm and the people drove over for Uncle Charlie and then drove him, with Elsie, to the Pingelly Hospital. Nothing could be done there and Uncle Charlie was advised to take her to Perth by train to a specialist. The wheel had passed over the little girl’s body.

After the usual delays Uncle Charlie with Elsie in his arms was on the train for Perth. One can imagine his anxiety and sorrow. Just before they reached York, Elsie looked up into his face and asked if she could say her prayers - they repeated the Lord’s Prayer together and she then closed her eyes in death.

The end of this terrible tragedy was that he left the train at York and with his little lifeless daughter prepared to wait for the next train back to Popanyinning. Exact details of the next few hours I do not recall. She was buried at York and Uncle Charlie went back to Popanyinning alone. He then walked the twenty miles back to the farm to tell his wife what had happened.

Later he said that terrible walk saved his sanity, and he also remembered the many kindnesses he had received in that dreadful time of grief. He would never forget Armistice Day 1918. But for the rest of his life he remained what he had always been - a devout Christian, and a wonderful friend, husband and father. This country is full of stories like this one, and shows how character is created and kept.

Another sad incident. It happened on the verandah of the Trafalgar School about the same time. Two boys who were best friends took a rifle from home and went off to play in the school ground when school was closed. They thought the gun was not loaded, and one said to his friend “Hands up or I’ll shoot”, the other boy in a playful mood would not do this and his friend shot him dead.

The whole town mourned. Everything that was Trafalgar has gone now and only a huge slime dump marks the spot. However in its heyday it had everything a small town could wish.

The old school at Trafalgar developed a fine garden and competed with other schools in Flower Shows.

John Wills & Co. Lake St. Trafalgar - 1909

There was great excitement when the first Trans-train left Kalgoorlie for Port Augusta and Melbourne. We could see the streamer of smoke from the engine as it passed through the bush a few miles from our schoolyard.

Many years later my husband and I motored out to Trafalgar to watch the last camel team to leave for that part of the bush for loads of sandalwood.

Now the cutters go out by truck, and there is still a flourishing industry in sandalwood for export to Asia.

We had a tuck shop near the old school - owned by a Miss Blacklaw. When we had a penny to spend, we would spend a half-penny at lunch time and the other half-penny after school. Sweets were much cheaper then.

Money was hard to earn and carefully spent.

One pleasant memory was going with my friend Ida Williams to Boulder and waiting while she had her piano lessons on Saturday mornings. When she passed her exam her parents gave her a gold “bamboo” bracelet which were all the rage then. When she felt specially generous towards me, she would lend it to me to wear home for lunch.

My one wish was to have a cameo ring which I had seen in a catalogue - but that never came to anything, and strangely enough jewellery never meant much to me as I grew older.

Going to Boulder and Kalgoorlie had always seemed an adventure - but later on I had to go to Kalgoorlie every day when our class passed out of Standard VI. Many fights had to be broken up by the guard when the State School boys found themselves with the Christian Brothers College students in the same carriage - which had two long seats facing each other lengthwise.

During the war, schools had concerts to raise money for the soldiers.

A well known lady came from Perth to be in charge of practice and with her came young “stars” from the city - among them Frank Parry (later founder of Parry’s Stores). He sang, danced and recited and in fact could do anything - being very versatile, as well as self confident.

Late that year I paid my first visit to the dentist. We did not know so much about fillings then and consequently many teeth were lost through neglect.

When any of us were ill we would be taken to the doctor in Boulder and our prescriptions would be made up at the chemist there. When a repeat was required and if a train was not available at the time, we would walk through the mines to Fimiston, then on down to Boulder - wait for the mixture, then walk all the way back. No wonder we were all good walkers.

There were so many distressing sicknesses in the family while we were growing up - and in those days folk did not send for a doctor unless it was absolutely necessary. Home remedies were tried and mothers nursed children night and day instead of sending them to hospital. Injections were not often given and antibiotics unheard of.

When little sister Edie was six months old, she developed pneumonia and was in a critical condition. I had to stay home from school for about a week to help Mum nurse her. Mum was exhausted. This happened at the time I should have been taking the Scholarship exam as I was the right age. After the “crisis” period which I think was the tenth day - the baby improved and then recovered.

An epidemic of diphtheria broke out in the schools and three of our then five caught the sickness (one girl at our school died).

Alan, Jess and Dave were the victims. They were all taken to the Infectious Diseases Hospital where the Eastern Goldfields High School was built later, facing Federal Road. This was an isolated place and was looked on with horror by most people.

When the third child was taken from home 1 can remember that this was the first time I had ever seen Mum break down.

She cried and said to the doctor “Please take the other two as well”. Ada and I didn’t contract the disease.

However, they all recovered, but it was a dreadful time for my parents. They were only allowed to go to the fence and look through the ward windows. Alan made a great impression on a Sister Mellowship who called him “Wee, Sandy McGregor” and gave him an inscribed book. She even came out to Trafalgar to visit him later, to make sure he was well. Jess looked like a little fairy when she came home with her fair hair and pale cheeks - she was really a picture dressed in a little violet velvet dress with a white lace collar and cuffs. Her homecoming was quite an event and Ada and I gave her all the toys and treasures we possessed. As she got better I think we gradually confiscated them - but at the time she could have had the earth.

Little Dave had been in a sad state before he became ill, as days before he had walked barefoot into hot ashes left after rubbish had been burned and his feet were badly blistered and on top of this he caught diphtheria.

When Mum saw him through the window at the hospital he was bandaged on both legs and was tied down on his bed - and I remember Mum breaking down for the second time.

No visitors were allowed to come to our house until after the Health Inspector had fumigated everything, and when they did come, each one recommended a new gargle for Ada and me.

What we put in our throats was nobody’s business - even had them painted with kerosene.

Just before Edie’s birth mum was having trouble with her teeth and decided to go to the dentist in Kalgoorlie (Bob Matheson).

After examining her he told her to come back the following week when he would take out fifteen teeth. She went down Hannan Street and bought a baby shawl for her coming infant and then went straight back to the surgery and asked Mr Matheson to take them out right away, as she said she would not have the courage to come back the following week. Those were the days before dentists appointments. He took them out and gave her a tot of brandy and she wrapped her face in the baby shawl and went home on the train. We were shocked to see her like this, but all she could say was how kind Mr Matheson had been. From that day he was her friend.

Several years later Alan was suffering from acute earache for several days and nights and I was sent to take him to our Boulder Doctor Irwin. This man we found out later was a heavy drinker and this may have been the cause of his saying to me “Tell your mother to put warm oil into the ear”.

Mum did this but there was no relief, and a friend suggested we take him to Dr Richardson whose surgery was at the lower end of Hannan Street. Mum made this long trip by train and foot and when Dr Richardson examined his ear he said it was a Mastoid which had to be operated on immediately, as the thing was burrowing towards the brain.

Alan was taken to a private hospital and operated on that afternoon.

This may seem a journal of woe but it is meant to show how different life was and what enormous strides have been made in the practice of medicine in the last fifty years.

In 1916 and 1917, I was in the Standard VII and VIII at the Kalgoorlie Central School where we were all taught to knit socks, scarves and balaclavas for the Red Cross war effort.

My small talent for drawing began to show up, and I was given the task of making large dental charts and diagrams for a visiting school Doctor Roberta Jull, who was about the first woman doctor in W.A.

We were taught a new way of shading in pencil drawing - diamond shaped formed by crossing lines and sometimes recrossing many times to get quite dark shading. Several pictures of boxes and suitcases and other objects that I did were chosen for an exhibition.

In that year the school held a display on the Kalgoorlie Oval -dancing, maypole and other exercises. The girls wore white frocks, and red hair ribbons, white socks, black shoes with a red rosette on each. Boys wore white shirts and pants (they weren’t called shorts then).

The proceeds from this show went to the French soldiers.

We had some really wonderful teachers - a Mr Woods who caned girls and boys alike till we left Standard VIII - but he taught us thoroughly. There was also a Miss Mary Bemasocchi who stood no nonsense with us. How important are good teachers?

She had been born and bred in Daylesford from where my own mother came. Both had Swiss fathers. Years later the same Mr Woods became our neighbour in Croesus Street when he was Head Teacher at Kalgoorlie Central. He looked so different and indeed was different after all that time and I hoped he did not remember ever caning me.

After my two years at Central our class was transferred to Eastern Goldfields High School opened in 1914. This was the first high school outside the metropolitan area. In 1918 the original students were commencing their 5th (leaving) Year, and as we had been at primary school those two years we were an odd mixture to classify. We were called Junior Commercial and began learning shorthand, bookkeeping and office procedure.

We also had elementary French and Geometry. It was an unusual course as high schools at that time did not teach Commercial subjects. Our teacher was a fine man - Richard Bone. During the year he left to join the forces, and the usual speeches and presentations were made.

However, after a short time he returned to us as his eyesight was not good enough, and he was a very welcome addition to the school staff and a blessing to his students.

Most of us wanted to be teachers so we did not take the University Exams but concentrated on the Education Departments “C” Certificate at the end of our second year. We would then be eligible for a monitorship in a Primary School.

Two friends in that year were Maijorie Lazarus (Mrs Frank Parry of Parry’s) and Rosalie Cleghom who became wife of a Labor Premier of W.A., Mr John Tonkin.

We were at Eastern Goldfields High when World War I ended on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, and I remember we congregated about the front entrance - in normal times we were never allowed to stand about, chatting. The boys threw ink and tore up school books but nobody minded as we were all so glad peace had come.

Years later I discovered that my future husband was still drilling and doing routine duties on that day somewhere in France. Their Battalion (Forty-Fourth) had not been informed of the cessation of hostilities.

We often watched the escorts taking gold bars from our banks to the Express for Perth, where the precious metal was sent to the Mint to be made into sovereigns and half sovereigns.

Paper money was not used as much then as it is today. Policemen with guns accompanied the escorts and these activities were a great novelty. Kalgoorlie streets are wide. This was necessary so that camel trains could turn round easily in the early days.

During my High School days, our family was having a hard time keeping me at school. My father’s health was worse and he was “tributing” but had to miss so much work. His crushings had not been good, and my one fear was that I would have to leave school. My dear mother did everything to help with studies and she gave me any clothing she had which could be cut down to fit me. My only ambition was to be a teacher.

Fortune was kind to me once again.

This was the last year that monitors were accepted at sixteen. Next year one had to be eighteen and Training College was compulsory. It would have been impossible for me to go to college and I was requested to go for an interview with a panel of Department Heads for a monitorship.

One member of the panel was my old Head Master from Trafalgar. By this time he was an Inspector of Schools.

It was either good luck, or he was kindly disposed to me, for the outcome was that I was appointed monitor to my home school Trafalgar in March of the year. From being a school girl one day, and a teacher next day was a big step - and girls had to put their hair up when they became teachers at that time.

Another blessing was that I had no expense for travelling - as I could walk, even home for lunch.

I was allowed to watch the working routine of the teacher of third and fourth Standards for a few days, then given about twenty children of Standard II on my own. It shocks me now how little I knew of anything, let alone teaching.

A Gold Escort leaves the W.A. Bank, Kalgoorlie in 1886. Note how the coach front sags with the weight of gold. This was the year that Chas Manners arrived in Kalgoorlie.

My Head was a Mr Darragh. He was Irish with a strong accent. He had been my teacher in Standard IV and I had been terribly afraid of him (mainly I think because of his speech and rather wild appearance) and now to work under him you can imagine how I dreaded giving lessons in his presence, when my only experience had been watching the other teachers at work.

Monitors had to give a “Criticism Lesson” in front of the Head once a week - notes were made in a “Criticism Book” and later discussed, bringing out good and bad points. I dreaded these. One lesson was singing. My only help was a tuning fork and when the stage was set for the lesson my voice left me through panic. Mr Darragh was most understanding and walked to the door saying as he went. “We will have this lesson some other time Miss Stevens”. I wished the earth would open up and swallow me.

When my final report was presented when I applied for an Assistant position at Kalgoorlie Infants, it was a most pleasing tribute from the same Mr Darragh. He had remarked that I had a “prepossessing personality”, and I had to look up that word in the dictionary. What a teacher!

There had never been much time to read, although when at Kalgoorlie Central in Standard VIII we were given free passes for a year to the Junior Library at the Mechanics Institute and how I relished Gene Stratton Porter and Ethel Turner and the like.

My shyness was not helped while I taught at Trafalgar, because I did not have as much personal contact with the rest of the staff as was. They spent the lunch hour together, chatting in a social way while I was away on foot going home for lunch. However, they were all very kind to me.

After a few months with my small class, the school numbers decreased and my small group was combined with the 3rd and 4th Standards and my job was to assist wherever necessary. Mr Darragh admired my drawing, and asked me to decorate the blackboards in our small school hall. The only chalks I had were dull, so different to the brilliant colours obtainable today. The resulting pictures were on view for a long time. I was given the job of teaching drawing to the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th classes.

During this time my father was ill so often, and calls on the family were very great.

It was suggested by a friend that he should go to Perth to consult a man who specialised in rheumatic cases with herbal medicines. This was Tawfik Raad - a Lebanese herbalist. Dad was so crippled he could hardly walk. Good fortune smiled on us once again for out of the blue the mail brought me a first class return ticket to Perth.

At that time the Education Department granted these passes every second year to Goldfields teachers as a special bonus for teaching inland. Mr Darragh had included my name on his list. That made the idea of Dad’s trip to Perth come true as I could go with him and see to his wants.

Our first night was spent at the old Federal Hotel in Wellington Street (here we came upon our first indoor plumbing and I was so frightened when the flush sounded as if the whole Swan River was bearing down on me).

A friend recommended a quiet guest house in Claremont. Dad had treatment (with medication) from Tawfik Raad. He was put on a diet and advised to visit the mineral baths which could be had at the South Perth Zoo.

This we did, and consequently most of our time was spent in travelling. We came by train from Claremont to Perth - then by tram to Barrack Street Jetty where we caught the Ferry for the Zoo. Dad went to the baths, which were run by a Swedish woman. I waited in the Zoo.

We were very happy to find a slight improvement in Dad’s condition, and though his actual recovery took a long time the trip was a wonderful success. When Dad could actually walk without help it seemed like a miracle.

During the year a most unusual thing happened, the like of which never happened again until 1978. Teachers throughout the State went on strike. The rest of the staff from Trafalgar caught the train from Kalgoorlie each day, and I could see them alight at the station each morning. On this particular morning they did not arrive so I though it must have been an unexpected holiday, so I stayed home. Next morning we read in the “Miner” that they were on strike. So I have been a striker.

The Prince of Wales (later Duke of Windsor) visited W.A. and stayed a short time in Kalgoorlie. Everyone who could, went to see him and the schools sent troops of children.

During the next year I transferred to Kalgoorlie Central Infants as an Assistant on Supply. This was more or less on probation as I had no college qualification. A supply teacher was paid a higher rate for each teaching week but got no pay for Christmas holidays or those lasting a week during the year. After two years experience and good reports the teacher became a permanent assistant. This is what happened to me. My Head Teacher was Miss Kinnear, and with a wholly female staff my life from then on, until 1929 when 1 resigned to be married, was full of happy memories.

One special person was the teacher of the 1st Infants, a Miss Shiel. She was on long service leave when I arrived. She was the perfect infant teacher and a wonderful pianist. She gave us all so much pleasure with her music and was so well trained and in practice, she could sit down and play almost anything from memory

She was the organist at the Roman Catholic Church in Kalgoorlie for many years. Her experience and wisdom were a great help to all staff.

I can never repay her for advice which helped me all my life. Infant teaching was such a joy, and from this period on - though there were still many problems - life was good.

Each year I was learning - but my handicap was I was too shy and I was also very ignorant for my life had been so restricted and I knew practically nothing of the world outside.

The children did not know this - they were so dear, and “childlike” without the rough manners and “clever” attitude that exists now.

Both small boys and girls would wait for me at Maritana Bridge and so proudly carry my basket or hold my hand as we walked to school.

They would creep in before the bell rang to tell me little things about themselves, their pets or families, with such affection simply because I was “their teacher”. I wonder where a lot of that feeling has gone now.

During my early period at Kalgoorlie Infants, our Rhythm Inspectress, Miss Ware came to examine our dancing and exercise classes.

As no member of the staff except Miss Sheil could play, she was called on to accompany all these lessons.

Miss Ware commented that she hoped when she came the following year that each teacher could play for her own class.

This worried me - but I found a teacher willing to coach me at eighteen to play simple tunes in 2, 3 or 4 time. I had no piano so I went in early before school and stayed late to practise.

The cleaning lady brought me candles as there was no electric light. However, when Miss Ware came next year, I played for my class, and on “Parents’ Day” I accompanied my own class for singing. I had never touched a piano key before in my life.

This story seems to be all “I” - but it is supposed to be my story so please forgive me.

Nancy Manners (nee Nancy Stevens), third from right with her expupils, from left, Rene Turner (Chambers), Marjory Wright (Varney), Laurel Henderson (Varney), & the current Principal, Ben Turner. Photo taken at the School’s 81st Anniversary in November 1977

Dad’s health was by this time much better and Mum kept everybody in order.

Alan and Dave were apprenticed to fitting and turning on the South Kalgurli Gold Mine where Dad also worked. Jess was a homebody. She was a very clever dressmaker and her job was to sew for the family.

Ada began teaching after the usual course at the Claremont Training College and was appointed to a country school at Dumbleyung. Edie took a commercial course and did office work, and Ted was apprenticed at the Kalgoorlie Electric Power Station as an electrician.

I will go back to the time when the family moved from Trafalgar to Kalgoorlie. As time went by, the distance from our varying jobs and schools became a problem.

With two teaching friends I attended night classes at the Kalgoorlie Central School. One male teacher, Norman McLeod was taking his “A” Certificate and to help his history studies he decided to lecture at these classes to benefit other students as well as himself.

I was grateful to Norman McLeod for inspiring my history sense. In his first lecture he gave us a chart which divided up the various reigns and periods from 1603 - to the then present day. I still have that picture in my mind and it helped me pass my “B” and to this day I much prefer to read a historical novel before fiction.

Attending these classes meant that I had to catch the train home to Trafalgar quite late.

Thinking back, it seems unbelievable a girl as young as I could do this safely. Very few people left the train at that hour, and I had a long walk past an old abandoned mine - then down a hill and across to the other side to our house.

Mum would leave a lamp burning inside a window. Conditions were so safe then.

After a while I went to stay with one of the other teachers and it was then that my parents decided to move to Kalgoorlie.

The distance to the mines was no further from Trafalgar, than from Kalgoorlie, So after twenty years in the little house we moved to another small house at 120 Piccadilly Street.

It had been unoccupied for some years and was badly in need of repairs and paint - but the whole family got busy. The old home was dismantled - some of the iron and timber sold - and the rest carted in to be used for the additions Dad made from time to time.

One thing we had to leave was a boiler Dad had bought from an old mine.

The external “camp ” where the three Stevens boys slept at the 120 Piccadilly St. home.

(Craig, Sarah & Scott Manners in this 1980 photo)

The Stevens Family at their 120 Piccadilly St. home in 1928 Rear - Ada (later Ada Ding), Dave, Jess (later Jess Sclanders) Alan, Nancy (later Nancy Manners)

Seated - James and Jessie Front - Edith (later Edith Keogh), Ted

The most "productive ” family member was Edith Keogh, pictured here celebrating her 78th birthday in 1993 with sons Wayne (Jack), Aidan, Ted, Jim and Con Jnr.

The old boiler called the “Zeppelin” was used for the children’s cubby houses as it stood on a good strong wooden stand - and that was about its only use.

Meanwhile we three teachers began to study in earnest for our “B”. We took turns going to each others homes each weekend and also the School of Mines for Chemistry and Geology.

We did two years at Chemistry and got that off our list, but only one year of Geology was not sufficient for our “B” Certificate. We took Maths too, but could not manage this. We had a brilliant lecturer who could not understand why we were all “at sea”.

In desperation we asked senior lecturer Dr Bertie Moore to coach us but though he did his best to clear our problems, we gave up and dropped Maths.

The three of us passed in all our subjects. I had to wait for two more years before mine was granted as I had not taught the required number of years.

During this year father became conductor of the Presbyterian choir which had plenty of singers, and he threw himself whole-heartedly into his work. It meant two nights out each week and I was encouraged to go with him. Once when we were discussing the anthem on the way home from church he mentioned I didn’t have a voice (which I already knew) so I asked him why he always wanted me to go along with him, and he said “Because I like your company”.

The family joined the church, all except Mum who was always working in the background and we met so many people who became our life-long friends.

One of Dad’s old friends was an elderly Scottish bachelor - Alex MacDonald. He was a very refined man, but very shy.

Several years later he was ill in Hospital and Dad asked me to visit him. We had a red climbing rose, so I picked a bunch and took them to him. He was so embarrassed as I don’t think he had ever been given flowers before. At all events he never forgot this simple offering, and some years later again he sent us a wedding present. It was a chiming mantle-clock which is still chiming and telling the time faithfully after fifty years.

I wrote earlier of our old Edison Phonograph which played the cylindrical Blue Amberol records but we also had “wax” records. These were blank and could with the use of a special needle be used for recording either music or voice played or sung into the “bell”.

Dad therefore had many recordings of us singing our part songs, or of himself singing or playing his clarinet. The best thing about these records was that they could be placed on another gadget which, with a turn of the handle, would shave off that recording and another could be made. Hence failures could be blotted out forever. We had a fun listening to unrehearsed arguments made while the original was being recorded.

Dad was a great admirer of Scottish poet Robert Burns, and was very clever at imitating dialects. Hence he could recite Bums. He made recordings of “Tam O’Shanter” and the “Cotter’s Saturday Night” and what we children could remember most, is these poems in their dialect -often not understanding the meaning of the words till Dad explained them. He also had many recordings of Negro spirituals.

The Schenk family from the Mount Margaret Aboriginal Mission brought a party of girls for a holiday at Esperance many years later when we had a beach cottage there. Dad played the spirituals to them. They were a very musical group and later Dad gave them the Phonograph and the records.

The following year when they came back to Esperance where the mission had their own holiday house now, they came to sing these spirituals learned from the records, as a special surprise for Dad - only to hear that he had passed away several months before. However, he had given them a lot of pleasure and his music was still with them. Our friendship with Mr & Mrs Schenk and family lasted.

The Manners family was very active in the Church at this time. Charlie was Superintendent of the Sunday School. Dad introduced us after church one Sunday, and he offered to drive us home. Some time later, Charlie thought I would make a good Sunday School teacher and persuaded me to do this. At that time I was so busy teaching all day and studying at night and over the weekends that it was impossible. Each time we met in the street the subject was brought up, until I began to dodge him.

But when my exams were over I became involved in the Sunday School so Charlie and I often met.

His father, W.G. Manners (WGM) had died in 1924 after a long illness. The whole church, and indeed most of the people of Kalgoorlie grieved at his loss - because he was a man of wide interests, and very much admired. My father held him in the highest esteem.

1 regret not having met W.G., except for seeing him attend a congregational meeting after the service one Sunday when he was so ill he had to be helped - notwithstanding this difficulty he stood up and spoke about the matter in hand.

Strangely on the day of his funeral which left from 7 Croesus Street (later my home for thirty-seven years) we three students were

Nancy’s Geological Sketches 1923 - 24

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Nancy's geology notes, Kalgoorlie School of Mines, including lecturer's comment.

1923 - 24

returning from studying together in a sulky - and we had to wait while the procession passed.

At that time I had not met any of the Manners family.

Charlie carried on the small business his father had established in Kalgoorlie. He had not been trained in business, for he had wanted to be a farmer. Their father had bought a property near Albany (at Denmark) and Charlie worked with other brothers there. He had spent several years at the Ballarat Agricultural College to fit him for this but when World War I began Charlie and brothers Harley and Stan enlisted. By the end of the war, the farm was more or less abandoned because the one son (Bill), left in charge had been notably unsuccessful, so the family moved back to Kalgoorlie. By this time W.G.M. was in such bad health he sent for Charlie to take over. With the help of his father’s mining friends, and the qualities of integrity and hard work Charlie slowly built it up to a solid enterprise. He had the responsibility of his mother and his younger brother George, who was a clever lad, and had to be supported while studying at the Kalgoorlie School of Mines and later at the University.

At this time I came into his life.

The School of Mines held dances at the R.S.L. Hall.

At one of these functions, Charlie asked me for a dance, and I think that really began our friendship. Right from the very beginning we were serious as we knew our union was meant, but with our personal efforts and financial problems - we also knew it would be a long wait.

For five years, we carried on with our own lives until circumstances allowed us to set our wedding date for September 19, 1929.

Those years were rich and rewarding and our love and respect for each other never dimmed - and it grew stronger for the next thirty-seven years when we lived in Croesus Street. We had struggles, problems and grief, but through it all found that we loved God even more than we loved each other - and that nothing could shake our Faith. These words I found in my book of poems from High School.

Not great things make men glad, but peace of mind and congenial employment - to watch the com grow and the blossoms - to draw hard breath over the ploughshare and the spade - to read, to think, to love, to pray - these are the things that make men happy.

Ruskin

These words have meant so much to me always and I know they express Charlie’s feelings too.

^    ^ >ji ^    ^

Ballarat Agricultural College attended by Chas Manners 1912 - 14

Chas Manners (rear, second from left) and fellow class-mates at Ballarat Agricultural College August 20, 1913

Charles’ and Nancy’s wedding Sept. 19. 1929

Some Incidents, Places and People

While I was teaching at St. Andrew’s on Sunday and the Kalgoorlie Infants, a tragic incident happened in Kalgoorlie which caused the whole community the deepest grief. The Minister at Wesley Church was the Rev. Pearson whose wife was in the District Hospital in a serious condition, suffering from a brain tumour. This couple were admired by the whole community - and as they had a family of young children, the members of their congregation formed a roster to take the children to their homes to help their father.

One couple in Lamington had the youngest boy for that Sunday afternoon and their children took him for a walk in the outlying bush.

The boy fell down a disused shaft. The other children rushed home for help and from then on the whole district was out in force. Night came on, and equipment from the Mines Department, Police and private people was brought into action.

The search went on all night and into the next day. Life had to go on, with shops opening and schools and lessons continuing, but no one could concentrate on anything but that little Pearson boy.

In our classes we prayed for a miracle. Cars, trucks and everything else were put at the disposal of the searches.

A miner (Billy Batten) from the South Kalgurli Gold Mine volunteered to go below and investigate. He was lowered by ropes and eventually found the child on a ledge which had broken his fall and must have saved his life.

He had crawled along a drive which made it more difficult to rescue

him.

Crowds gathered round that shaft and when word came the boy had been found, those standing there sang with all their hearts “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” with the deepest sincerity and thanksgiving. The whole town was more prayerful than ever before.

Billy Batten had taken an apple in his pocket, as he knew the child would be frightened after spending all that time in the darkness, and when suddenly seeing a face with a miner’s lamp on its forehead, panic would have been the result - so he held out the apple.

The child suffered severe head and other injuries and was in hospital for months. His mother was mercifully spared ever knowing about this tragic incident as she passed away some time later without regaining consciousness.

Just a word or two here about our wedding and honeymoon in 1929. We left Kalgoorlie by train for Perth immediately after our church wedding at 2.30pm in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Thursday September 19.

(We had planned for Wednesday September 18 but found there was to be a musical afternoon that day, and we would both be needed to help. Charlie was to recite and I was to help the Guild). Hence we chose the next day - and how fortunate this was, because the most severe dust storm enveloped the town on the Wednesday.

Our wedding was really a family affair though the church was crowded because Charlie’s family was so well known, and I had lots of friends.

We even had (though unknown by me until I saw them at the church, per favor Mona Hicks) - a red carpet from the church door to the wedding car, and two white satin cushions for our kneeling during the ceremony. The choir of which I was a member provided a choral service.

It really was a lovely wedding day with the sun shining down on us - as a good omen.

The little family reception was held at 7 Croesus Street and from there we left for Perth.

Next day we boarded the Katoomba at Fremantle and started off on our trip east.

We made a short stay in Adelaide where we visited a Mr & Mrs Ted Midwood who were ex-Perth insurance people. It was this Ted Midwood who gave Charlie his start in business in Kalgoorlie - the agency for Colonial Mutual Fire Insurance and although we did not actually see the Midwoods again until 1966 - they remained our very dear friends until their deaths.

On arrival at Melbourne we stayed with Charlie’s relatives at Beaconsfield for three weeks. Charlie’s mother had five sisters, four lived in or near to Melbourne. The other sister, Agnes Sanders, was already in Kalgoorlie at this time.

One sister Jean had been crippled as an infant and spent her life in a wheelchair. Despite her disability, she ran her millinery establishment in Ballarat for many years. When our visit took place she had retired and lived with her sister Annie Blaikie and family at their Beaconsfield Guest House. She lay permanently on a specially constructed bed on wheels, and spent her life like this, until her death.

She was a beautiful soul, and the real centre of the family.

We went on to Sydney where we were entertained by the then Manager of Goodyear Tyre Co. Ted and Nancy Jaffrey. One highlight was to go across the Harbour in their car, on the Punt to Taronga Park.

Messrs. W. G. Manners & Co.,

(Colonial JHuhtal Jjtre ^Insurance (Eo-^Ctit.

SAMSON’S BUILDINGS, 33 BARRACK STREET, PERTH.

68 Boulder Road,

KALGOORLIE.

Dear Sire,

I have the pleasure to confirm hereby your appointment ae Chief AgentB of this Company at Kalgoorlie, and trust that the relations now opened may continue long and satisfactory.

Commissions will he allowed to you as hereunder, viz:-

Fire    25J6,    Motor Car    1%,

Marine    lOjg,    Mines,    lOjg,

All other Departments    20%.

In addition you wilT receive the coBt of all Postages, Tele-~~" grams etc. which have beer, incurred in connection with the business of the Agency, and which will not be less than £25 per annum.

You will be good enough to pay all premiums you may receive on account of this Company into our account with the Commercial Bank of Australia Limited, and I am authorising the Bank to honour your eignature to cheque endorsements. I enclose this authority, which please hand to the Bank after attaching your signature.

I would be particularly pleased if you will kindly confer with Miss Heath on all matters dealing with our business, and as much as possible I would like to see the methods as followed by Miss Heath in the past adhered to.

T shall at all times be happy to hear from you, and with the best of good wishes,

I remain, dear Sirs,

/few

Jic .   -/r.

Yours ^^ithfully,

A/i

\j f,b4 Aa.aaNiN'IAj

■    MANAGER.

i⁷

jncl. (; •

Nancy refers to the significance of this 1925 Agency Agreement

The Sydney Harbour Bridge construction was only just beginning and had a small span completed on each side.

A most interesting couple, a Mr & Mrs Willets (of a mining firm) invited us to their home for dinner. Mr Willets was an American, his wife Russian.

The meal overawed me and afterwards the maid was sent to bring down their two children to be presented. It seemed their routine was that the children lived more or less upstairs and only appeared to join guests when invited. It was beautifully formal, but not exactly our way of life.

We also had an introduction to Mr & Mrs Bruce Smith. Bruce’s brother was Manager of the Commonwealth Bank in Kalgoorlie and a close friend. Bruce was the Costing Clerk in Charge of the Department of Government financing in Martin Place Sydney.

Bruce took us home one evening for dinner and to meet his wife.

It was one of our most remarkable evenings in our whole lives and never again have we enjoyed such a fantastic experience.

These two people could not have been more different in interests and personality.

Bruce was a reserved, conventional accountant type, unspectacular - while his wife was like an exploding firecracker - but a nice one. Their house was unusual - being small in area on the ground, but three storeys high. It had the quaintest little garden packed full of every kind of flower and shrub and herbs galore. No room for any lawn, every inch crammed with plants and all beautifully cared for.

Bruce’s wife was French and had an abundance of reddish hair -beautifully done. I remarked on her lovely hair and she showed me all her paraphernalia for hairdressing (not so many women went to the hairdresser in those days).

Then she explained all her secrets of colouring and arranging her hair. One thing I remember, was that she dissolved camphor in boiling water and used that somehow -1 never tried it anyway.

Her kitchen was the tiniest room - with everything to hand. She was very proud that she could stand in the centre and, simply by turning round, could reach anything she wanted without more than a step.

There were cupboards, shelves and walls of hanging utensils, everywhere. No room for more than one person. As they had no family - this was no problem. She kept talking while preparing our meal and when it was ready went to the foot of the steep staircase which led to the dining room above and whistled a bird call which was the signal for Bruce to come down and carry up the trays of food.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge takes shape. A favorite view for “honeymooners” to Sydney 1929 - 1930

Later we were taken to the top floor where Bruce had his own special room where books, gramophone and other personal hobbies were kept. He played the clarinet and spent a lot of time there enjoying his own peace and quiet.

At 11.00am each day, she would hang a white towel outside the window of this topmost room - and Bruce would do the same from his high office in Martin Place. This was their own private signal.

She had been an orphan, brought up in a convent. As a small girl she was always imitating people, and one visiting priest suited her talent for mimicry.

During a performance, she was caught out by one of the nuns, and summoned to the Mother Superior expecting to be punished severely. However, they decided she had such talent that it should be cultivated and used in the service of the French Secret Service. From that time she was trained in all the arts and subjects for her future career. She was taken to museums and antique dealers, galleries, and all sorts of places -both aristocratic and seedy - and given lessons in foreign languages, dancing, acting and any subject that would broaden her education.

When she was older she was sent on missions, and was once disguised as a boy, and had to smoke cigars in this role.

One mission took her by sea to Russia, and this time she was “unofficially” married to the Captain for this journey.

Her love of beautiful old furniture and antiques was one result of all this training. She talked of ormolu clocks and lapis lazuli decoration as if they were onions and potatoes.

She certainly gave us much to think about, and I often wondered how their life ended.

In the first years of our marriage, we had many business visitors from overseas. Air travel was not so common then and visitors mostly came by ship to Sydney or Fremantle and passed through Kalgoorlie by the Trans-train going either way. During the break Charlie would bring them home for meals and relaxation - sometimes for short stays - and sometimes for anything up to a week.

We made many life-long friends.

One visitor was a Scotsman named Jack Bowie. He was manager for Gardner Denver Rock Drills for the S.E. Asia region - which took in Australia.

He often visited Kalgoorlie and was charming to our small son Ian. Several years went by, with these friendly visits - till a new manager arrived in his place. Jack had died. Walter Marshall had come out from England to take his place. He eventually visited Kalgoorlie and he became a family friend. On one of his visits he received word from Head Office that Jack Bowie’s widow would be passing through from Sydney to Perth by train and it was arranged that Walter and Charlie should meet her at the train then come home for afternoon tea before catching the express that evening.

We prepared for a gentle sort of widow, and wondered how we could sympathise and yet steer the conversation away, as we did not know any details of her husband’s death.

As soon as we saw her, we realised she was odd. She was dressed very severely and smoked the whole time she was with us. She talked the whole time in a cloud of haze - in a rambling way - but had no conventional conversation at all. She only drank black tea and did not touch any of my afternoon tea sandwishes - still hardly able to keep her eyes open for smoke.

She carried a very large handbag in which she told us had Jack’s ashes, which she was taking overseas. Meanwhile the air was thick and as she kept on talking there was no opportunity for us to say anything. When the time came for us to take her to the station she left our home. (We had left Ian with my mother thinking it might upset her to see a child about - but I doubt she even knew what a child was).

Our last view as she leaned out of the window with a cigarette in one hand and the large handbag clutched in the other - was a picture of a person with the most sinister expression on her face.

We went back home in a state of shock - and could not find words to describe our feelings at meeting such a strange woman. Months later we heard more of the Bowie mystery when Walter had news from Denver in U.S. It seems Jack had met his wife in Shanghai - she was a mixture of Russian and Chinese.

They married somewhere - and from then on she went everywhere with him - and more or less took command.

The firm sensed this but could not put a finger on details. However, on one visit to Australia as the ship was leaving Brisbane, Jack went overboard. Possibly they had had a difference of opinion. However the ship turned back and his body recovered. He was cremated in Brisbane and Mrs Bowie took possession of all his papers, maps, and other papers and was on her way to leave Australia with all this information when we met her in Kalgoorlie. She got as far as Cairo on the ship when she was

interviewed and arrested as a spy (for Germany). The evidence was that she had pushed Jack overboard in order to take his papers to Germany.

She was taken into custody - but we never did hear what eventually happened to her.

Another visitor was an American representative of Mine Safety Appliances company in Pennsylvania, Graham Bright. Our first son was four at this time. As we were the Kalgoorlie agents for the battery operated cap-lamps used throughout the Golden Mile, our business interests kept us in close contact.

This man was quite elderly, quietly spoken and cultured. He had recently lost his wife and had a growing family of five in Pennsylvania. His firm sent him on this long overseas travel to help his readjustment.

He showed us pictures of his family and their home and seemed very interested in our son Ian.

That year had been a particularly wet one in the Trans-line area, and there was an exceptionally large number of brightly coloured beetles appearing. These beetles were of such vivid colours people were collecting them. We happened to have an assortment and showed them to Mr Bright. He remarked that his youngest son David who was eight years old would be very interested as he was already collecting butterflies. We gave him a small package to take back.

He had to got to many other countries - including Russia - before returning home and months later we received a letter from David to Ian thanking him and asking that he write back. As Ian was so young and could not yet write I answered the letter in his own language and thus began a correspondence and exchange of snaps and small books. When Ian was old enough he wrote his own letters. Meanwhile Mr Bright exchanged Christmas messages with us and gave us family news. In this way we felt both our families were very close.

In our letter of 1939 - we had to tell him that our Ian had died unexpectedly, and his answer was very sympathetic.

From then on, he and I exchanged letters and news right up till after World War II when his daughter wrote to tell me of his passing. He was a most interesting and pleasant man who had worked with Thomas A. Edison while he was perfecting the new batteries for flashlights of all descriptions.

He lost his eldest son in the battle of Guam when the Japanese first attacked the Island, and later the U.S. Government launched a Navy

Chas stepping off a DeHavilland Hercules (3 engine, 14 passengers)

at Forrest Airstrip.

Half-way home from an Eastern States visit. C.1931 “Bring your own blankets! ”

Miners’ Acetylene Lamps

Simple design and robust in construction. Manufactured in cast Gun Metal or Aluminium.

Suppliers to the principal Mining Fields throughout Australia.

Write for Quotations — State Quantities. PINNACLE ENGINEERING WORKS PTY. LTD.

42 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.

Selling Agents:—N.S.W. and Q!d., McPherson’s Pty.

Ltd.; Victoria; Miller & Co. (Machinery) Pty. Ltd. Local Agents in West Australia.

The Standard Miner’s lamp of the 1930’s

Destroyer Escort “Bright” in honour of Lieutenant Paul Bright. His father sent us the account with pictures from the Mine Safety Appliances News. Young David also joined the U.S. Navy and was on active service in the Borneo area - but did not come to Australia.

When our letters ceased we felt we had lost a dear personal friend.

Kalgoorlie is surrounded by abandoned open cuts and shafts which have been worked over and left without protection. They are so numerous that their presence is taken for granted and though some accidents do happen, in general Goldfields children seem to have an extra sense, and take great care when walking or riding bikes. However, occasionally the public is shaken by some happening, and fences or other guards are placed about the openings.

When our son Ron was twelve and daughter Frances nine, several families with young sons decided to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night together at a spot near the Mt. Charlotte Reservoir - at the eastern end of the town.

For days the boys had been collecting old motor tyres to have a fine bonfire.

My husband took his utility with a load of tyres and our family. With other parents and children, they soon had a huge construction, complete with the “Guy” on top. Needless to say all the crackers were pooled, and when darkness came there was a very colourful display and much noise and applause.

As the fire died down, and as that area had no street lighting to show us the surroundings - the people moved about to find higher ground from where they could look in all directions to see other huge fires which dotted the area from the mines to Boulder and back to Kalgoorlie. We moved about with the others until we came to what we thought was a small dump - but in reality it was a circular mound surrounding an old open shaft.

One young boy, wanting an even better view went to the very top of the dump and tried to jump across. The next thing we heard was a scream and saw a small figure wearing a white shirt, disappearing down that dreadful hole.²

The onlookers were stunned, and my husband rushed to his utility which he raced to the nearby Mt. Charlotte Gold Mine which fortunately was working three shifts - for help and equipment.

A friend Jack Kostic who also lived on the mine came back with other help, and by this time the police and the Mines Department were there to help. Jack went down with ropes and gear and worked for a very long time until he finally located the boy who was brought to the surface - injured but alive. (In such cases the battery operated cap lamps worn on the head are of the greatest assistance).

His recovery took a very long time, Jack often visited him - and nearly a year later when he was allowed home his parents sent Jack a watch from their son.

This was a Guy Fawkes Night none of us would ever forget. Fortunately the sale of fireworks is now banned.

This is a story of our church work which ended up being the reason Charlie came into possession of the building on the comer of Maritana and Brookman Streets. This was our business premises for nearly forty years and owned by our son Ron who carried on the firm of W.G.Manners & Co. - being the third generation of our family to operate the business.

He has built new offices since, but still owns the comer property which is at present leased to the State Housing Commission, [correct when written —ED]

In 1928 when Charlie and I were busy with our own duties as well as church work, St. Andrew’s pulpit became vacant and as Ministers were hard to come by, the Presbyterian Assembly in Perth sent us a Church of England Clergyman who was highly recommended. He was an elderly English gentleman very cultured and an outstanding preacher.

Hamish McKenzie had the degree LL.B. (Doctor of Laws) and having an attractive personality, soon became everybody’s favorite. He reorganised our order of service and had plenty of new ideas.

As Charlie was a very active member of our Board of Management the two men met often and became good friends.

After a few months Hamish told Charlie in strictest confidence that he was soon to be married and would like Charles to assist him find a suitable home. After looking at several houses, McKenzie saw the building on the comer. It had formerly been the Bank of Australia (which had merged with the Bank of N.S.W.) and had been unoccupied for a long period as Kalgoorlie was then in a deep depression.

It did not impress Charlie at all as being suitable, but Mr McKenzie was emphatic that with alterations this was the perfect home. He asked Charlie to negotiate with the Bank and the papers were drawn-up, signed and sealed. Charlie was not at all happy about this purchase but Mr McKenzie was determined.

Meanwhile Mr McKenzie had improvements made to the Church furnishings - new carpets - curtains and other things and decided we should have a wonderful Christmas Tree for St. Andrews. The bride-to-be was Miss Ivy Mawby, a teacher from Princess May’s Girls’ School in Fremantle. She proved a nice, sensible person and soon won our hearts.

She was taken to inspect her home-to-be. One look at the huge empty Bank building, decided her to refuse to even think of living there

- so Hamish just told Charlie that the deal was off - no problem.

This put Charlie in a very awkward position, so he decided that if he could raise the money he would buy it for himself and move his business from the building he had been renting on Boulder Road. It was very hard to arrange this as his business was small and not at all financial

- but with the help of friends the building became his. Mr McKenzie and Miss Mawby were married in a quiet ceremony with only Charlie and the wife of our School Inspector (Mrs Mary Blair) as witnesses. It was all so secret - why we never knew - Charlie was not even allowed to tell me of this wedding.

Later they rented a home near the Maritana Bridge. It belonged to the State Railways - but had also been unoccupied for a very long time.

Mr McKenzie had boundless ideas - which may have sounded well in theory - but were not at all practical. He pictured this house as open house for all and sundry - seven days a week - forgetting his new wife would be mistress of the temporary manse. He was the least domesticated person. The house was always full of people at Mr McKenzie’s invitation

- and most of us could see the writing on the wall.

However, the Christmas tree plans went ahead - most arrangements made by Mr McKenzie - expense no object.

The grounds were large - and it was to be an open air evening affair. Electric lights were placed through the area and mingled with the living Christmas tree. There were presents for everybody. Plenty of refreshments for the children and lager for the men. My father (the Choir Conductor) was called on to be Father Christmas - and a most impressive one he proved to be. He was 6’3" and sister Jessie had made him an outfit of scarlet trimmed with plenty of cotton wool, and a good healthy looking beard.

When the guests assembled lights extinguished, and from the outside fence, which had a ramp arranged for Dad to walk up and appear at the top of the fence with a huge bag of goodies across his shoulder, -a spotlight was suddenly flashed on him and it was breathtaking. Then as the other lights came on and he walked down to the lawn - on the

Three Kalgoorlie Banks As Neighbours

(by O-S.C.)

Later in the year 1896—just over TO years ago — lot No. 50 of the then young town of Kalgoorlie, — situated on the south east comer, at the intersection of Brookman and Mari-tana streets, was vacated by die occupiers Edols and Ann-strong. The area had been used for stables, but progress had now come to change a H that.

The lot had a frontage on Marltana street of two and a half chains, and to Brookman street of one chain — 165 feet by 66 feet .

Early in January 1897 R. B. Peel was aide to effect a sale of this potentially valuable site for $4000 to a consortium of banks: The Bank of New South Wales, the National Bank and Bank of Australasia. The banks had agreed to an equal subdivision, a one third part each, with a frontage of 55 feet facing west on Mari-t-ana street, and a depth of 65 ft. on which “to br i well-designed and conunodiou* hanking premises in scone or brick” and of a permanent nature.    __

Hie Bank of New South Wales took the corner site, and

budT (later) that good looking structure wnxti is now owned by the weil-knows weal firm of W. O. Manners and Co. (The purchase of the old Bank of New South Wates property for W. G. Manners and Co. was affected in 1927 by the late Charles B. Manners whose death at Esperance was reported only a few weeks ago.)

The National Bank, nest door, had os architecture of quite 8 different style, while the Asla built a single stored structure cm its portion of She original lot but an upper portion was adder later.

Many changes have taken place smce those early days of the sale but there was certainly scene justification for ‘bufldmgs of a permanent type.’ In 1927 the Bank of New South Wales effected a merger with the Western Australian Bank and the local branch of the N.S.W. took over the handsome building of the W.A. Bank in Hannan street. Thus their budding on the Mari tana street comer became meant.

The Bank of Australasia and the Union Bank completed s merger (50-501 in 1951 to become the Australian and New Zealand Bank. As the UsSob had good premises in Hannan street, opposite the Post Office, these were chosen for the combined b: siness. The Kalgoorlie taek-over was July 17 1952.

m due course the Commonwealth Bank siezed its chance to vacate premises is McKenzie's Buildings and move across I the read to the building that ! previously horsed the ‘Asia —

■ which they altered somewhat 'and made additions.

In Western Australia the banks followed -up the gold discoveries right from the very hegixmmg; the first one established being the Commercial at Southern Cross in 1889.

The Western Australian Bank openep at Cooigardle in January. 1894, followed a week later by the Commercial and Union. The Union had bad luck

ithere, for they lost their first bulding in a disastrous fire. In September, 1895, they opened In Kalgoorlie. replacing the first- verv rough bui’dtng by the | fine one that, as mentioned, became the A.N.Z. on July 17, 1552.

r jost how mucn gold has passed through the hands Of the various banks in KalsoorBe 1s unknown, but an Indication as to the amount can be obtained from the fact that the value of Golden Mile Production to D c—fr:-r, 1966, exceeded $596 million.

George Spencer Compton’s history of Kalgoorlie’s Banks on the comer of Maritana and Brookman Streets Kalgoorlie Miner, December, 1966

The rains fell on Kalgoorlie, February 22nd, 1948 (275mm in 24 hours)

Comer Brookman & Maritana Streets

Flooding of the Kalgoorlie Railway Station (as seen from Maritana Street Bridge)

inside and across to the tree, where the presents were distributed - the whole show was on in earnest. A piano, hired for the occasion, was on the front verandah - so a good musical programme was enjoyed. Nothing as elaborate as this had ever taken place in our church’s history.

There is a long story following this evening - and our association with this Mr McKenzie was very disappointing. It is not necessary to go into the details here. My reason for including this story is to explain how my husband came into a most unexpected and inconvenient ownership of the comer building. However, it has served us well for all those years and who knows what a bright future may be in store if the town of Kalgoorlie should reach fresh golden years again.

Our Mr McKenzie stayed on for a further year or so until events proved he had a history of unusual behaviour and very strange actions. Eventually his health broke down, his marriage did not last, and Miss Mawby went back to teaching - and he went back to England.

He was really Sir Hamish McKenzie - his earlier family history we never found out, but in the months following the Christmas tree the church received all the accounts for the party, and the church furnishings.

SECRET OF CONTENT

I have found that when one is alone, one can draw on a thousand things, one has enjoyed in the past, either in one’s own experience or in reading.

The great thing is to cultivate a well stored mind, for with this in one’s head one can never feel dull. The stores to draw upon reach snowball proportions. And the cumulative effect in middle age is really quite delightful.

Mary Seaton speaking in a B.B.C. Talk about enjoying one’s own company.

Jessie Stevens with daughters Jess (Sclanders), Edith (Keogh), Ada (Ding) and Nancy (Manners) - 1935

And the Sausages Cheered!

Remembering grandfather James “Pom Pom” Stevens (Part of a Birthday speech Jan 8, 2000) by Ron Manners

Firstly tonight, hearing cousin Bob Stevens’ magnificent singing voice reminded me from whom it was inherited. It was from our mutual grandfather. Bob’s grandfather was also Con and Jim and Aidan and “Jack” Keogh’s grandfather, we all shared the same grandfather, his name was James “Pom Pom” Stevens. The reason he was called “Pom Pom”? He was a prospecting, clarinet playing, blacksmith and a winder-driver at the Mt Charlotte Gold Mine. In addition to all those things he was a choir-master and used to go around the house singing “pom, pom, pom, pom”, emulating the bass part of some musical masterpiece, so we simply knew him as “Pom Pom”. He did have a remarkable singing voice and it’s true to say that Bob and his three daughters have inherited all his singing talent.

One vivid memory I have of old Pom Pom was when I was aged five. It was down at the old Esperance home where he was living with our grandmother. I was awakened around 11.00 o’clock at night. Old Pom Pom had just come back from the pub and was making enough noise to make me curious. The large combined kitchen-dining lounge-room, dominated the three-roomed house and that room featured a spittoon in each corner. To me, at age 5, Pom Pom appeared to be about 7ft tall, his impressive beard, appropriately stained from his mastery of the art of chewing tobacco. Whenever he came through one of the doors in the corner of this room, he used to aim for the diagonally located spittoon.

These days, there is great admiration for sporting prowess with putting golf balls in holes or basketballs in hoops, but I tell you, that spittoon skill was really impressive. He never missed.

Anyway, this night, Pom Pom came in carrying two large paper bags, at that stage I didn’t know what was in the bags, but he made a bit of noise, knocked a bit of furniture around, went around the room and took down from the nails on the wall every picture from the lounge room and then methodically hung up strings of sausages from the paper bags. He surveyed his handicraft and being quite happy then went over to the mantelpiece which held his phonograph, with a cylindrical record and a big horn coming out the front; cranked it up, put on a Souza march, got his old clarinet out.

He then stood on a chair, stuck the clarinet down the phonograph horn and played some of the most magnificent band music imaginable. Not knowing I was hiding in the comer, he finished the first number and magnanimously bowed to the assembled multitude of sausages. He knew they appreciated his playing, so he gave them three encores. I will never forget his close attachment to that musical instrument — that is a vivid memory.

A couple of years later old Pom Pom died. That was before the days of refrigeration and in Esperance they just stretched him out on his bed for a couple of days till all the family gathered to work out the funeral arrangements.

I heard them all talking. They were talking about how much he loved his clarinet and they decided to bury his clarinet with him in his coffin.

Even at aged 7,1 felt that this was not the preferred plan. So I went into his bedroom. He was lying there peacefully and I thought to myself

— would he be happy with that plan, knowing that there is life left in this clarinet?

“Wouldn’t you want to see some one continue to play it and get some more enjoyment out of it?” I think he said “Yes”.

So, the next day as the relatives gathered - “Where’s his clarinet?” They wanted to nail the coffin lid on.

No sign of the clarinet; nobody knew!

Anyway, years later I pulled it out from hiding, learned to play it and have since managed to send so many guests home early from parties

— it remains one of my treasured possessions. It’s upstairs in our library, mounted, framed with one of his homemade blacksmith tongs.

^    ijc    ^

Inscription plate reads ... James P Stevens 1869 - 1945

Sonogno (circled)

A Series of Coincidences Lead Me to Sonogno, Switzerland (The Tamo side of the family) by Ron Manners,October, 2002

“A man is never more his single separate self than when he sets out on a journey. ”

John Dos Passos

In 1982, coincidence No. 1 found me simultaneously “between marriages” and “between careers”, so this provided me with an excellent opportunity to explore the world for three months.

My intention was to spend time visiting all the free-market economic “think-tanks” around the world with whom I had been corresponding for so many years. Two back-to-back economic conferences (Zurich and Berlin) formed the commencement of this program, but a month before departure the Zurich conference was moved forward by one week (due to some hotel complications). This challenged me as I had never before been confronted with a “spare week”.

Talking to my travel agent, Murray Quartermaine, I suggested flying to London for a week’s business, but he laughed and asked if I had ever considered the advantage of a few days to see the Swiss countryside. Why not hire a car and just drive around? Didn’t I have a friend or relations to contact in Switzerland?

This started me thinking that I may have some long lost relatives there, as I recalled my mother telling me that her grandfather had come from somewhere in Switzerland.

A quick check in the family records located the old family name of Tamo and the village name of Sonogno at the top of the valley Verzasca in the Ticino Canton of Southern Switzerland.

Co-incidence No. 2. The very next day the Perth Sunday Times featured an article on Alpine travel in Southern Switzerland, so, accepting the invitation in the article, I phoned Claudia Furgler of the Swiss National Tourist office in Sydney and asked her if I had any Tamo relations in Sonogno.

In a classic example of how a potential tourist’s inquiry should be answered, she said, “Give me your phone number and I’ll phone you tomorrow morning with an answer to your question.”

That night she phoned Switzerland and the next morning replied: “although you don’t have any relations still in Sonogno, the Tamo name

Sonogno

Village

is very well-known and the priest looks forward to meeting you on your arrival.”

Why the priest?

“Because the Church kept all records of those times and the priest was looking through the files. However, you should also write to the nearby Tourist Office in Tenero as they might also commence a search.”

I did obtain replies from both the priest and the Tourist Office, but I must add that I have since been told that it is regarded as bad form to make inquiries from a distance like this without sending the equivalent of US$20 to cover search fees and postage.

Co-incidence No. 3 was my meeting a charming executive of a Swiss alloy-steel company on my first night in Zurich. She was uneasy about my travelling to Sonogno on my own as she felt I would be confronted with a “language problem” in my quest for knowledge.

She was correct; there was not a single English-speaking person there, nor was there anything resembling a photocopying machine.

When we subsequently arrived in Sonogno, I was greeted as something of a V.I.P. as they had already assembled early records and related Tamo correspondence. After several days with the priest (Don Adelio Martinoli), the whole story was explained to me. I have since confirmed some dates and relationships in my letter to Don Adelio of November 8, 1982 (Appendix 1).

Pietro Tamo (bom 1836) and his brother Stephen Tamo (born 1840) set out from Switzerland with many other southern Swiss men to travel to “the gold rush”. This was at a time of extreme economic depression in the south of Switzerland, compounded by a severe drought.³

My V.I.P. status resulted from the fact that Pietro Tamo had built the Sonogno Church before he left for Australia in 1855, aged 19, and that he came from a famous family of artists, craftsmen and poets.

It seems that he set out for “the gold rush” with his brother Stephen and it took them almost a year to travel overland to Capetown (there was no Suez Canal in those days).

It was in Cape Town that fate intervened, and Pietro’s brother got on the wrong ship—as he simply asked if that ship was going to the “gold rush”. Perhaps he had no idea that the world had produced two simultaneous “gold rushes”—one in California, the other in Victoria, Australia.

It seems that Pietro’s brother Stephen, after spending time at the Californian gold msh, then arrived in Australia two years after Pietro and, from perusal of my summary of the various Death Certificates recently obtained, it would seem that Stephen’s time in Australia was filled with even less joy and happiness than Pietro’s.

The Sonogno priest showed me a letter from Pietro, which he had written back to the village. Although Pietro was aware of the bad conditions in Switzerland at that time, he urged that no further Swiss people should come to Australia because of the hardships experienced by those who had made the trip. He outlined the harsh, dry conditions experienced in Australia. He was referring to the Victorian, Ballarat and Daylesford areas, so I am not sure what he would have thought if he had ever visited the Western Australian Goldfields.⁴

An examination of the various Death Certificates (p.91) that I hold for the Tamo family members in Australia, showing their premature deaths and, in particular, Pietro’s death at age 43, would explain his strong language in his letters back to Switzerland.

The Sonogno Church

There appears little doubt that Pietro Tamo was responsible for “building the church”. This was how I was introduced around Sonogno, as the direct descendent of “Pietro Tamo, the man who built the church.”

I remember asking at that time how someone that young (he was only 19-years-old when he left) could have managed to build a church, and it was explained that they started in their trade or profession at 10-12 years of age and most had managed to achieve much by the age of 19.

It was also explained to me that the church was something of an embarrassment to those responsible for it, because it was built with great optimism, expecting as they did both great prosperity and a large population increase in the area. Neither ever did transpire. In fact, adverse conditions reduced the population quite sharply after the church was completed.

During the visit I was ceremonially presented with a book of paintings and poetry by Piero Tamo, an acclaimed Swiss artist and poet (1899-1966). He was a relative of great grandfather Pietro. In the church

Ten years later, in 1992 Edith Keogh visited the Sonogno Church with her son Ted. Edith is pictured above during that visit.

Tamo’s Church - Interior (1982)

hangs a painting by Piero Tamo which was described by the priest as, “an original painting, but of a famous Swiss painting that has particular religious significance”.

So how did I get to be related to Pietro Tamo?

Pietro’s eldest son, William, later “followed the gold” to Kalgoorlie where he was working at the Paddington Mine (60 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie) alongside my future grandfather, Jim “Pom Pom” Stevens. They were both in the local brass band.

William’s younger sister, Jessie, visited her brother William at Paddington and was subsequently introduced to Jim Stevens and circumstances and subsequent events produced several prolific goldfields families; Stevens; Sclanders; Ding, Keogh and Manners (see Appendix 1).

Painting by Piero Tamo hangs in the Sonogno Church

Death Certificates:

An Australian politician once made the idiotic comment that “life was not meant to be easy”. But if one ever feels like giving way to despair, then one would do well to reflect on the following tragically short lifespan that was not all that uncommon in Australia in the late 1800’s.

Pietro Tamo

Bom 1836, Sonogno, Switzerland.

Arrived in Australia in 1856, aged 20.

Married, aged 32 (to Alice Kendall, bom London, England - 1847) and fathered seven children.

Died, ag^3^ri Daylesford, Victoria, Australia.

SUMMARY OF TAMO DEATH CERTIFICATES

Name

Parents

Died

Age

Cause

‘Pietro Tamo

Pietro & Guiseppa

1880

43

Heart Attack

‘Stephen Tamo

Pietro & Guiseppa

1888

48

Heart Attack

Agnes Tamo

Stephen & Agnes

1874

154

Convulsions

Elizabeth Tamo

Stephen & Ellen

1878

7 days

Convulsions

Mabel Tamo

Stephen & Ellen

1891

15 months

Marasmus (wasting disease, loss of body weight)

Agnes Tamo

First wife of Stephen

1874

31

Pthisis - T.B.

Charlotte Tamo

Annie

1889

6 months

Diarrhoea/

Convulsions

‘Brothers.

PITTORE E POETA

GIUSEPPE

BISCOSSA

The cover of the presentation Tamo paintings and poetry book.

PART 2

/ Then Came The War

w. i "fay:    sui aJtit s

(World War I, 1914-18)

The illustrated war diaries of

Chas Manners and Dick Frver-Smith,

 . ... .  .....

his friend and fellow forward scout/runner.

, ~

Tu. 7 I u^lxm S -*■ .x>-lZ^L

CONTENTS      PAGE    No.

ft io %ZT "    ■    '$ZZ:-

World War I - Foreword (RBM)    ..    ..    95

^ * * *    r

fi 19    jb    *#*21

TJUBackground (RBM) ......   102

*    „    I

W|i| Diaries (CBM & DF-S) ..    ..    ..    104

w

4

> :

Observed (Sir Norman Angell)    ..    ..    168

TIlIB    __    _____

Editor’s Afterword; World War I (RBM) ..    ..    169

Pages from Chas Manners’ Pocket War Diary.

The miniature “mapping pen ” writing certainly conserved space but gave my several secretaries a few challenges ... RBM

World War I

Foreword by Ron Manners

What started out as a simple task of assembling my father’s First World War diaries, expanded into a larger task. As I became immersed in details of life on the battlefield, it focussed my mind on, what Australians owe the veterans of each of the wars that our country has fought.

Above all, we owe them our freedom, our right to live as we wish in a nation, however troubled, however divided at times, that still remains one of the best countries in the world.

Most importantly, for putting their lives on the line to protect Australia, we owe them our gratitude and remembrance. Regrettably, amidst the clutter of modem life it is becoming difficult to take “timeout” to say thanks.

The following personal war diaries of two young Australians are sandwiched between a few introductory and closing words so that the context of the World Wars is understood. What caused World War I? How did Australia become involved? What was the link between World War I and World War II? What was Adolf Hitler doing during World War I? Was he preparing for World War II?

In 1913 a 24-year-old penniless vagrant named Adolf Hitler, becoming tired of painting picture postcards for sale in a Viennese poorhouse, moved to Munich where he continued to pursue his artistic interests. His life as a struggling artist came to a sudden end in 1914. The Austrian heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarejevo by a Serb terrorist. Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28. Russia mobilised against Austria. German Kaiser Wilhelm II mobilised German forces against Russia. France and England entered the war soon after, against Germany & Austria.

The Austrian and German people were swept away by war fever. People roamed the streets and demanded action. As described by Jacob G Homberger⁵.

“German Nationalists were singing: Heil der Kaiser! Hail das heer! We must gather all men of German tongues into one Reich and one people.

An everlasting master race will then direct the progress of mankind!”

They could have been speaking for Adolf Hitler, who felt this same elation.

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:⁶

“I am not ashamed to say that, overcome with rapturous enthusiasm, I fell to my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being allowed to live at this time”.

Hitler, an Austrian, joined the German army and obtained the rank of corporal. He served as a regimental messenger, saw combat, was seriously wounded, and ultimately awarded the “Iron Cross” for personal bravery and general merit.

Hitler therefore was one of the links between the two World Wars as is the fact it is governments that declare war on other nations and not citizens of one nation against citizens of another.

Not many governments appear to be without the authority to declare war, but Switzerland is worth studying. Its government appears to have the brief to arm the people and to maintain vigilant and capable defences without declaring war on others. This sounds like the United States of America as originally envisaged by its Founding Fathers. This may have been the original intent. Unfortunately the role of governments have expanded and the roles of Adolf Hitler and Franklin D Roosevelt in creating circumstances leading to World War II will be explored in the Afterword to the following War diary notes by my father, Chas Manners, and his friend Dick Fryer-Smith.

5}C    5fC    >fS

“Good old stew” at Blackboy Hill, April 21, 1917

Lieut. Aberle saluting in front of the 28/16 Btn Blackboy Hill, June 19, 1917

Blackboy Hill - March 2, 1917 (Chas Manners, centre rear)

Platoon No. 4 N.C.O. School, Claremont November, December, 1916 No. 9 School

OFFICERS & NCO’S; 28/16 BTN ;2nd BRIGADE A.I.F. at Blackboy Hill W.A., April, 1917 Standing: Cpl Hutt; Cpl C H Hoare; Cpl Manners; Cpl Hill, Cpl Gardiner; Cpl Sleep; Cpl Ford; Cpl O ’Rooke Sitting: Sgt Grimwood; Sgt J Johnson; Sgt Stubbs; Lieut Aberle; Lieut Muir; Sgt Roberts; Sgt Cockburn; Sgt Parker

r.fc $ Jxlitti

4.    -fr - £ A*-*?

if&LUlff* %>) v'. HF^A^fjteL g. mj£l

Shipmates of Chas Manners, Sailing on the Troopship “Borda”

Background to Chas Manners’ Arrival in France For Active Service

After several unsuccessful attempts to enlist at Albany, (Western Australia) and being rejected each time “for defective eyesight”, the 22-year-old Charles Manners (CBM) challenged the recruitment office staff to a marksmanship competition and was “subsequently allowed” to enlist.

1916

He attended training camp at Blackboy Hill (Western Australia) where he first met Dick Fryer-Smith, as co-tenant of the same army hut. They met again and again during the war, and remained firm friends for the rest of their lives. In 1917, they sailed on troopship Borda arriving in Devonport (UK) 57 days later, on 25th August.

At Cape Town local residents and troops were being entertained by Peter Dawson a famous Australian singer of that time. Dawson “turned on” five encores and gained from the audience a rousing cheer when he announced the presence of Australian soldiers in the audience.

Thirty-nine days into the voyage they crossed the equator and each soldier was presented with a traditional certificate by King Neptune.

A severe epidemic of food-poisoning struck hundreds of the troops [not including CBM] and severely weakened them. Authorities became alarmed at the continuing distress, and discovered by analysis of the vomit and remaining food, that arsenic had been mixed in with the food. There was obviously a scoundrel with evil intent on board, but if his identity was ever discovered it was certainly never revealed to the passengers.

After 42 days out, they arrived at Sierra Leone on the West African Coast where they spent four days.

The ship was darkened at night for six weeks of the voyage.

Letters from CBM, sent his best wishes back to his father in Kalgoorlie, and to the rest of his family at a farm at Denmark, near Albany.

After arrival at Devonport (UK) on December 25, 1917, Chas and Dick travelled by train to an army camp at Codford, Wiltshire because there had been a large number of mumps cases on board the ship, so the troops were placed in isolation tents for a month. Three letters from brother Stan awaited Chas in the UK, written from hospital because Stan had been gassed.

Military training seemed unending and Chas noted “after a few more training schools we will at last be sent to France for some action. I expect this at the end of September”.

Editor’s Note

1. These excerpts from CBM’s diaries cover only about 15% of the total diary notes available.

2. In tracing through the notes, there was difficulty in correctly identifying the Battalions in which CBM served. He apparently started with 28/16th Battalion, then 16/44th Battalion, and 25th reinforcement of the 16th Battalion, then 13th training Battalion of the 44th and it seems both CBM and Dick Fryer-Smith transferred to 16/44th at the same time. Dick Fryer-Smith’s diary shows that they transferred from the 16th Battalion to the 44th Battalion on December 3, 1917.

3. Names have been checked in Bean, CEW, 1937 Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18, Angus & Robertson 1937 where often conflicts or no reference was found.

4. During 1995 I was fortunate in locating Mr Tony Fryer-Smith, the son of Dick Fryer-Smith. Tony and his sister Julia have kindly made available details of their father’s war diary.

Dick and Chas were fellow field scout-runners, and although they shared the same duties, at the end of each day they reported on their different experiences. Their diaries cover vivid impressions of the bloody battlefields of France, including the shooting down of the famous Red Baron.

Extracts from their two diaries now follow, the authors are identified with identified with “C” (Charles B. Manners) or “D” (Dick Fryer-Smith) following the date entry.

Dick Fryer-Smith. & Chas Manners near Codford Training Camp,

June 1917

Off to Battle

As I commence so shall I proceed.

Striving to furnish words for you to read.

To mark, to learn and inwardly digest, or any other thing you may think best;

When you’ve scanned the ink stained pages thus, and they can prove no further use to you, another purpose will they nicely serve, a fate presumably they well deserve; by being used to stoke the old home fire, that it may blaze and burn and be, a hearth of extra brilliancy.

For those at home and those abroad must forge ahead with one accord.

In truth, we both the fire at home require.

CBM

Chas with C.H. Hoare (seated) at Blackboy Hill Training Camp April, 1917

Codford Training Camp, England Rear: Frank Woolfe (Denmark, W.A.); Chas Manners Front: H.F. Thomas (Perth)

Jack F. McIntosh

World War I Diaries of

Chas Manners and Dick Fryer-Smith

4/12/17 C

Au Revoir to Blighty (England) for a while. Sailed from South Hampton at dusk, enjoyable short voyage across the “pond” in a first class cattle boat. But what does a soldier care? Le Havre hove into sight and we soon had soil under our feet and the fact that it was French made it the more welcome. From the port we marched six miles to our new temporary home, the Third Divisional Base Depot (DBD). Thursday to Saturday was spent undergoing various tests and being properly fitted out to strafe the horrible Hun. During our stay, which proved all too short under such agreeable conditions, we were fed like fighting cocks. A vast improvement on the 13th Training Battalion at Codford.

6/12/17 D

We march up to the most talked-of Bull Ring to go through a gas course, a dirty job, but very necessary.

7/12/17 D

Another trip to the Bull Ring for more experience. In the evening Van Raalte, Chas and self get leave to proceed into Le Havre. We spend the first hour looking for a suitable food joint. After Van has practiced his French on one or two polite gentlemen of that nation, we hit upon a very comfortable cafe and partake of a delicious, though expensive meal.

9/12/17 C

Astir quite early having received our marching orders. Weather is rather disagreeable and roads very sloppy. Loaded like camels but smiling and joking we set out for the station six miles away. Active service conditions in earnest. At last we emptied and packed ourselves into the troop train like nails in a box.

9/12/17 D

We are travelling in cattle trucks, thirty in a truck with all equipment. Heavens! What a crowd. Man soon adapts himself to these circumstances; so after a few growls we find ourselves settled very comfortably. It is a wonder some of us are not under the wheels. We shall be under each other if we attempt to sleep. Oh! What a night. Shall I ever forget it. As the song says;

Cold was the wind

That blew through the cracks

Hard was the timber

For the repose of our backs...

Crushed though we were

There was room and to spare

Twixt the top of our truck and ourselves...

10/12/17 D

About 11.00am we heard the guns for the first time. Arrived at Caestre about noon....our destination. After marching three miles through the village, we get to our camp. Tents in a square, and a very muddy square at that.

13/12/17 D

Heavy bombardment of Hazebrouck from Ypres district between 9.30 and 5.00pm, some fifty shells. Weather not so bad, but hazy. Our last day in this camp.

14/12/17 D

We marched to Bulford camp near Neuf Eglise. We are now in Belgium and see some of the ruin caused by the enemy. We are here drafted into Companies and Chas meets one or two old cobbers.

14/12/17 C

Joined up with the Battalion at Bulford camp met Billy Currie and Jack Blaikie 27 Battn. Only here for the night. Having humped pack some 15km, feel like resting here longer.

On the move next morning again. Battalion just out of the firing line. Shifting back further in reserve. A matter of 6-7km. Unbeknown to either of us [brother] Harley and I were both moving toward each other. They were shifting up from Boulogne. We met that evening for the first time for over two years. Stan [another brother] was in his section too.

15/12/17 D

We marched to Wakefield Huts, between Locre and Dranoutre. Put in five days here, Chas and self in D. Coy. Dougdale arrived about the 18th and we immediately buttonhole him for the latest information.

16/12/17 C

Harley and Stan moving up into line today. Our time together very short. Met Lt Walton Blare and many other old mates. Cpt. Jimmy Peat’s grave in this vicinity, intend hunting it up. Am in his old company. Many of the boys knew him well.

On move again. Marched 11km. Camped overnight at Jesus Farm. Bitterly cold. Everything frozen. Some good skating. We settled into small dug-outs, trenches at La Vissie. Each dugout fits two.

22/12/17 C

Good day for observation. Aircraft very active. Throwing some very heavy stuff about. Spent all night laying barbed-wire around the field.

Spent a very happy Christmas. Snowing galore. Everything icebound. Artillery swapping Christmas greetings. Received my first wound; a severe cut on fore-finger; opening a tinned pudding.

24/12/17 D

Whilst in these trenches we do guard duty all night, two hours on and four hours off. The nights are very cold but fine, for which one ought to be thankful.

At 8.00pm on the 24th Dec, Christmas Eve, Doug and self have orders to move up to machine gun post under Corp. Pringle. Thinking it to be rather a strenuous stunt, we are not actually pleased, but after getting our orders, and a couple of tins of preserved fruit, our spirits rise a bit. We arrive at the machine gun post very tired, having shuffled many slippery yards of duckboard in the winding maze of trenches. Then after a sip of rum from our new companions’ bottle, we discussed the job.

It now appears that we are better off than the rest of the Company, as we only have an hour and a half of guard duty to do, with just the weight of a revolver to accompany us. I do not think I shall ever forget this, my first one and a half hours on the machine gun post, not on account of excitement, but the whole appearance of the surroundings and my sense of important duty. I feel very conscious on this Christmas Eve of 1917. The evening air is still and crisp, occasionally punctuated by the slow measured barking of the German machine guns, which is followed-up in turn, right down the enemy line. After this, a brief silence and one notices the grave beauty and solemness of the long lines and heaps on the parapets with their nakedness clothed in snow.

Suddenly the silence is rudely broken either on the right or on the left by the sharper rattle of our own Maxims. One sees the vague or shaiper shadows cast by broken trees, and they ridiculously appear to have the form of a man. One takes a second look and again tries to pierce the deeper shadows. As a cloud slowly screens the moonlight, one’s senses are sharpened by the leap of a rat on the parapet. In such like manner did my relief pass on that Christmas-eve.

Spent the last couple of days out on a bombing post, one has to slide and skate along the roads to get back from one place to another. Have not seen Dick for a couple of days. Having a very quiet life, plenty of work after dark dodging stray bullets.

27/12/17 D

Dougdale and myself are detailed for gas guard, during which time we discussed many things. Doug is clever, and a thorough gentlemen in every sense. Chas is billeted further down the road, and hops in for a yam occasionally, on his way to the line in a wiring party.

1/1/18 C

A very quiet commencement to New Year, mostly on wiring work all night. Have to assume prone position, stray bullets rather plentiful and very annoying.

9/1/18 C

More wet weather. We are quite handy to Belgium towns Locre and Dranoutre (near Hamel Hill) and generally slide into one or the other during the evening.

10/1/18 D

After Chas and self paid the dentist in Baillieu several visits, we were on a working party to Masnieres, passing on the way, two huge craters caused by the mine explosions on Masnieres Ridge in 1917.

13/1/18 C

Met up with Paul Mclnemey⁷, who is now a one-pip artist. He joined the Battalion a couple of days previously.

19/1/17 C

Went on a route march during morning. Past 16th Battn billets. Caught up with Lt Aberle (our original Lieutenant from Black Boy Hill training camp WA). Met a Percy Manners from Victoria Park.

27/1/18 (Sunday) C

An early start to our marching today. Passed along the way a French establishment with two bold signs painted on the window “Bock Beer, very good”, but it was the other that caught the amusement of our group “English spoken, Australian understood”.

Being on the move all day one is apt to lose sight of Sunday being the one day set aside for rest and meditation. Sunday cannot very well be observed when lives and liberty are at stake; it’s generally the busiest day of the week.

Paul Mclnerney’s Reunion with Old Friends

(Portion of an Article in Westminer Vol. 1 No. 1, Autumn, 1967 - reproduced with kind permission from W.M.C. Resources Ltd)

“Paul’s long journeys, however, have also had their happy, personal side, for last year when in Luxemburg for a week-end, he thought back forty-eight years to when he was a young soldier in the Australian Expeditionary Force in World War One. The armistice had been signed and while waiting for repatriation, he was billeted in a Belgium village with a family who had two small daughters.

They all became so friendly that Paul spent his spare time teaching the girls English. And throughout all the years since then they have by correspondence kept in touch with Paul and his family. This, however, was his first opportunity to see them again. He took a car to the village where they lived, and knocked on the door of the house where he had so long ago been billeted. Two smiling, grey haired ladies welcomed him: Paul’s ‘young’ English language pupils.

“Do you remember the way to the room you slept in?” they asked. “Then go upstairs and look inside.”

The room was furnished with the same bedstead, the same table and chairs, the same wash basin and jug, the same pictures on the walls, even with the same kerosene lamp he had carried upstairs when going to bed. It was a reunion which will last in the memories of both Paul and his lifelong Belgium friends; for it was not only a memorable meeting but a celebration of Paul’s seventy-first birthday.”

[Appendix II contains Paul Mclnerney’s obituary by

Sir Laurence Brodie-Hall, AO, CMG]

Didn’t get any sleep last night so today has been a hard one. Just as dinner came on the scene, Jerry opened up with “Minnies”⁴ and “Pineapples”⁵ and made things very hot. All our stew and dishes were either filled with mud or blown to ribbons. The dugout stopped a “Mississippi”⁶ and had it been occupied, all hands would have been “vappo”⁷. Miraculously there were no casualties. It is a wonder though as many of them were 6-10 yards distance from us. We hastily made preparation for a further visit from Fritz but fortunately, the raid he no doubt intended to make, was postponed. He then put over a lot of gas but bagged nobody. Little instances such as these are a boon as they break the monotony which is worse than all the Jerry strafing.

1/2/18 C

Had a peaceful night for a change but oh so cold. The Jerry started strafing about 7.00 this morning and mixed some gas with it. Poor Nicholson and Disson had to be taken away on stretchers. They encountered a shell all on their own.

2/2/18 C

Expect to be relieved tonight, but prospects do not seem too good. Am in for eight days no doubt. Got a gutful of gas myself this morning, just enough to rob me of my voice.

Thirteen Platoon have taken unto themselves the name of “The Duckboard Harriers”, rather appropriate too. Still can’t raise more than a whisper and as this is not quite a silent post, the lads reckon I’ve the “wind up”.

5/2/18 C

Came back to Nieppe this morning. These few days away from the strafing are most welcome. We reside next door to the church which has been hit with the Boche’s shells in several places and is now without windows. It is such sights as these that will remain with me. I happen to see the Padre coming out and revenge was written on his face, no doubt reflected from his heart. It is cruel to see such places in ruins. Actually fire these days is far too accurate for such shots to be accidental, and when churches and places of worship are made into targets and laid in heaps of broken stone by the intentionally, direct shells of the enemy, can God be anything but against them.

4.“Minnies” is the shorterned version for “Minnenwerfer” = German trench mortar.

5. “Pineapples ” slang term for a Mills Grenade (named after the inventor) which had

segmented squares all over them.

6. Presumably a bomb

7. “Vappo” = vaporised.

Up at the front line again like a caravan of camels. At 7.00pm we hit our destination and feeling somewhat fatigued, crawl into our respective burrows with as much satisfaction as any rabbit that has just finished a 100 mile scamper to avoid being caught. Although we are surrounded by a large number of our batteries, which incessantly send forth a belching barking sound, a gift unsavoured by the enemy in front, we sleep the sleep of the just and only stir in the morning to enable the application of a well-established fact “the troops must be fed”. As relieving Quartermaster for the Platoon, I must “shake a leg” and issue out their grub and “collect their socks”. While in the line, every man has the opportunity of securing a clean pair of socks each day. As a guard against Trench Feet, cleanliness and dryness of the hoofs is essential. At the moment this is one of my duties and each morning I hump the wet socks to Papot Baths, about 5km away, exchange for cleans and return. Great care is taken of the feet for the above disease is quite simple to get. On my way I pass through Ploegsteert and Romarin and sometimes call at Nieppe. These two former places, were they Australian towns that had suffered such devastation, would convert the most astute conscientious objector to a man’s way of thinking and could bring home to these unwholesome, undesirable specimens of humanity, by such spectacles of destruction, the reality of war. Really, the condition of many of the French and Belgian towns cannot be imagined and one eye-full of such sights is sufficient to cause a human’s blood to boil and make him want to fight on, no matter what the odds. Lt Crawley (A Coy) was killed out on patrol tonight. He was the idol of the company and loved by all. Most unfortunate.

18/2/18 C

Russia and Germany box-on again. May Germany contract the same trouble as Russia suffers. What a big factor it would be in drawing nearer the grand day of victory.

America is gradually drifting her army into France and has even now taken over many sectors. What a difference we hope they will make as regards the day of peace. If their deeds prove as good as their words, the war is “all over bar the shouting”.

24/2/18 C

By the way, it’s Sunday, but who would have thought it. There is much of a muchness about every day to us that we feel quite pleased with ourselves if we happen to remember the name of it. As for the date, this little book is invaluable to me for that reason if no other.

Gas mask in Use - Our (Barbed) Wiring

Trenches in Snow - No Man’s Land

Chas Manners’ Photos

Somebody’s House

Chas Manners’ Photos

Up at 3.00am on working parties for the last three nights, feeling rather second-hand. It is snowing a bit this morning and the order that no blankets are to be taken in, together with the apparent promise of a cold spell, does not give us a healthy feeling.

3/3/18 C

Well, here we are keeping the Hun back again, and of course we didn’t do a perish during the night. Gee, she’s cold and not a blanket to be had. Here’s one by the name of “Snowy” offering his next pay for one. Judging by his name, one would naturally conclude that he required more clothing than the remainder of us. However, as is generally the case when things are not too juicy, the language is 120° in the shade, and flows like molten metal from the mines. So guess we manage without the blankets, as long as we’ve a stock of human braziers.

14/2/18 C

Dick and self left for Boulogne early this morning. Got opportunity of leave late last night. About 30km by motor, had a glorious time, saw interesting sights, had glorious feeds. Got back 10.00pm.

16/3/18 C

Dick has gone away on a week’s guard at Brigade Headquarters. It is a day off today, all busy washing and blancoing equipment. We are toy soldiers once we get away from the line. Am warned for Brigade NCO’s School.

17/3/18 C

Getting kit together and polishing up. Must leave for Watherdal at

1.30am. Goodbye to boys for three weeks. Not keen on this stunt one bit. I shall have to put my head down as they are mostly Sergeants or Corporals and Sgts Yeates and Folly are amongst the number. Both of these were Staff Sgts Majors at Claremont School when I was there. Capt Rockcliffe is in charge and may not make things too willing.

21/3/18 C

Passed through Coulombrie on way to gas demonstration. 44th Bat billeted here last April and are all well known to the inhabitants. Greeted by all hands as the “Eggs are Cooked” or “Cat-Battalion”. Warned to “stand to”. Something exciting seems to be happening. Maybe “Otto” has commenced his march on Paris!

22/3/18 C

Up at 4.30 this morning. Have to rejoin our Battalions urgently. That’s the end of the new NCO’s school. Fritz evidently has commenced his big offensive.

At 5.00am we are warned to get ready to move off with full kit. Gee, it can only be for a route march or else a false alarm. About 9.00am we find out that it is dinkum all right. We are to entrain for some destination. Now the rumour begins to spread “the Huns have broken through”, “we have to line the coast” etc. At 12.00 noon we move off and the old Madam fills my water bottle with cider.

We travel to Caestra again, and I wonder if Marie⁸ is still there. We turn to the left and march to St. Sylvester Chapel, billeting in a large bam next to an estaminet, (beaucoup hock⁹ for sale) and one can easily see this by the wet look of many of the fellows. There is very little sleep and Chas and myself find our way into a decent little joint where we get eggs and chips.

24/3/18 C

On the move again today. Something big going on at Somme. All sorts of mmours flying about and looks as if we are moving that way. Being Reserve Division we are in for a lot of shifting about so expect to move further tomorrow. Went in search of a feed-very hungry. Eggs are all that a fellow can get, so had 7 of them. Feel a new man.

24/3/18 D

Lorries to Blaringhem, passing through Cassel and many other beautiful towns. The towns in themselves are not beautiful, having very narrow streets, but the outskirts are breathtaking with beautiful gardens and chateaux. What bom artists the Frenchmen must be.

Everyone is on the move and one gets too tired to wonder. Here I am to be unlucky enough to be called out to guard a straggler and the march becomes more weary still on account of the slowness of our charge. At last after winding and marching up and down many hills, we see some of our own Bttn in billets, and heave a sigh of relief. “Here at last, thank God!” but still we march, and pass more soldiers, other companies billeted in old farms with the crooked old madam and the pigs laying in the manure heap outside the kitchen-dining-sitting room all in one. These good people sleep with their cattle. It is wonderful to me how they manage to keep their health; you ask them and they smilingly reply with a sense of vacancy (as we perhaps ignorantly see) “Mais ce ne fait rien”, “What our fathers did, will do us, Messieurs”. They are anyhow wonderfully philosophical.

At last we come to our D. Company’s billets, right at the end of the Battalion. Chas and I camp in an attic near or over the stables and after

a rest, stroll down to a canal nearby for a dip. The water looks very inviting, but just a bit cold, but here goes! That may be the coldest swim I can remember. That water was cold. The old Regimental Quarter Master revelled in it, while the madam watched from the far bank with great amusement at the mad Australians’ sense of enjoyment. I don’t think these French are over-fond of water. We feel much refreshed after the dip, and now intend to hunt for food. Here luck is with us, as the village nearby has beaucoup bread, and we walk slowly home, hugging our French loaves with a very keen edge to our already partly appeased appetite, lately having disposed of ham and eggs.

25/3/18 C

Had to “stand-to” all day. May move off at any hour. The Boche are bombarding Somme and it looks as though that is our destination. Poor Aussies again, always go where the fight is hottest and hardest. Weather turning cold. Had another feed of eggs.

26/3/18 D

The morning is spent in preparations and there is a sense of the importance of our next move hovering about. “We are now attached to the fourth army and move off at midday”. Thus speaks the skipper, Captain Bremer. He speaks also of the necessity of every man preparing himself for a big campaign, and I feel a glow of importance, and begin to wonder where it will be. “We are now awaiting word from Army Headquarters as to our movements, whether north or south”.

About 3.00pm we leave Blaringhem and move off; after the colicky feeling wears off, the wits begin to banter and help to liven the march. “Brevity is the soul of wit”. We soon settle down to a good swing and with the help of songs and whistling, time flies and the kms are soon covered. It is 5km to Arques, where we entrain once more. Crowded trucks, a slow train, cheerful men, and a full moon. What a glorious night, and one begins to think and wonder why the good God allows war. All is so peaceful here. We are just passing through a pine forest and the moon shines down on the earth, and the shadows of the pines flash along the side of the trucks laden with men, whom God may see fit to sacrifice.

We travel all night and few sleep. This evening the tide of events for us is taking some important change so we watch and many pray. We pass through Arras in the early hours and see the ruins of the station and many large buildings; Fritz has been bombing here quite recently.

27/3/18 C

Fired upon by enemy aircraft. Motor transport took us from here to Franvilles where we alighted about 9.00am. Wasted no time in getting on march. After an hour’s tramp, dumped our packs on wayside and got into fighting order. We are not far from old Fritz. He has pushed in a good way. Believe we are somewhere behind Bapainville. Got into position along banks of Canal de la Somme, after passing through Hulques, Sailly about 4.00am. By gosh it’s cold. Any amount of wounded. Things have been pretty willing and promise to continue. So two of our company hopped over tonight. Did good work. Sixty odd rounds fired. Left the position in evening and after being on move a couple of hours dodging shells on way, we finally got back to Sailly drenched to the skin. Some of the shells, in their course, must have punctured clouds. We got under shelter but were too crowded to get any rest. May be wanted as reinforcements at any moment.

27/3/18 D

In the afternoon of the same day, we arrive at a little village of Franvilles, and here is every evidence of the advancing Huns. The villagers with their old-fashioned carts and wheelbarrows and every possible and impossible conveyance are hurrying to depart, with phrases such as “Allemands no bons”, and “C’est la guerre!”. It is terribly sad to hear this and know that perhaps in a hour or two the village will be as silent as a grave; it is even now awaiting its death knell.

Even this minute the hum of a German plane is heard hovering overhead, seeking for information, and we have to crouch against the wall to be as invisible as possible to this means of observation.

We have a little spell here, awaiting orders from Brigade, and about

11.00am we move off toward the advancing Boche. The country here is beautiful and we see it laid out before us in long undulating slopes, and our road winding up and down, now and then completely lost to view. Right ahead I can see an occasional shell burst, but too far away to hear. Our cheeriness has the damper put on it by the order suddenly passed along to open out half Platoon with connecting files, at distances of 50 yards. A little further, and the order comes to prepare in fighting order, packs to be stacked on the side of the road. We found (No. 13 Platoon) a small cleft in the side of the road formed by a fall of sand and place our packs down, wondering if we shall ever see them again. The whole Battalion now formed up in skirmishing order, in a semi-circle on a slope of a hill with rifles loaded. One or two shells begin to fall, and although falling well over, they are coming closer, the Boche is finding range. A shell bursts on the top of the ridge, and one chap is thrown up and lands back in the shell hole; The stretcher bearers come at a run and take him away.

At 5.30pm we “fall in” and march on toward the village. Even now, although shells become thicker every hour, there are civilians loath

A typical illustration of the difficulties encountered in the Ypres sector

in Belgium, 1917-10, in transporting supplies to the forward areas. A

mule team is here seen getting out of the mud on a track near

Potijze Farm E00963 Australian War Memorial

The mud and slush throughout the Ypres sector in Belgium kept the feet of the troops in a continual state of dampness and caused the complaint of “trench feet” to become fairly general. Members of the 19th Australian Infantry Brigade are here seen taking advantage of a rest at Dragoon Farm, near Ypres, after the Battle of Passchendaele Ridge, 1917-10-12, to bathe and oil their feet in order to obviate the

malady.

E00942 Australian War Memorial

Belgium. 1917-10-29. Five Australians, Members of a field artillery unit passing along a duckboard track over mud and water among gaunt bare tree trunks in the devastated Chateau Wood, a portion of one of the battlegrounds in the Ypres salient.

E01220 Australian War Memorial

Stuck in mud. Transport difficulties.

Christmas, 1917.

H00944 Australian War Memorial

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The map on this, and next page, reproduced with the kind permission of the Department of Veterans Affairs, from their publication “Beaucoup Australiens ici” by Dr. Richard Reid

“The two poor chaps marked with white dots were both ‘sent west’. They were killed right next to me in both cases. ”

Chas M. - France, May 1918.

to leave their homes. Oh! God, how sad it is, and one wonders why, and when it will cease; the bursting shells make death a ghastly business from which there seems to be no quarter. One would need to be as empty of feeling as these whistling curses flying overhead, to appreciate war, or take it unfeelingly; an impossibility, yet one thinks and wonders.

It is just slaughter and the guns do the work. There are old women and men wheeling their belongings away on a wheelbarrow, or staggering along with their burdens, with sad yet philosophical expressions on their careworn faces. Their phrase of “C’est la guerre!” expresses this feeling. Oh, it is indeed cruel.

We pass through the village with a short spell midway and hear the bursting shells cut up the roads, and the Diggers are taking over possession of the “Deserted Homes”; cooks, and signallers creeping into cellars, hunting out old mattresses to make themselves as safe as possible, and adding a little comfort.

This is the point where we have to look for the Boche, and in artillery formation, with fixed bayonets, we move on into the covering night. There are a few patrolling lancers ahead, and these dim figures move along the crest of the hill, occasionally giving the password. One or two men are lying wounded on the side of the track, (it is not a road, and this shows the close proximity of the Hun). At 3.00am we, (No. 13 Platoon), move down to the bank of the Canal de la Somme. It has started to drizzle, slowly the morning breaks and finds us dug-in, in a narrow body trench, filled with grass, about a foot deep. At about 20 paces apart, we are thinly holding the line, a tenth Brigade sent forward in advance of the fourth Army Reserve.

In spite of climatic conditions, we are very comfortable and hope that the war will end some day. Chas is always most cheerful, a great companion to have.

28/3/18 D

Fritz has evidently discovered us, as one or two shells are falling in our vicinity, and we get behind the willows. One may not go far in any case, as we are between the canal and its overflow creek. Jack Schultz was pretty close to one burst, but lucky no one was hit.

After a hot stew, we load up our gear, and move off to the village in readiness to move over the top. We are half-way through Sailly, and the shells are flying thickly now, and we wonder what is on the cards. Then the order comes through to return to the village, and as the dust gathers we take up our abode in a cellar to await the result of a stunt; three companies of the 44th are to take a position and D. Coy. are to relieve them if successful, and if not, we are to await further orders.

It is a wild night, pouring with rain, and we wonder what it is to be. Get what sleep you can is the order, and so we wait, rather crowded, one or two hunched up in corners, others stretched out on the floor with perhaps a little hay, a few wisps underneath their heads. All are in full fighting order, and overhead the shriek of shells is heard, sometimes dying far away, and again too close to be comfortable; and now and again a man prays as he awaits the inevitable, and outside our friends are moving forward in the darkness, to they know not what, perhaps death, or worse, and their success or failure means much to us. Oh, God! How can a man sleep; and yet bodily fatigued and perhaps resigned to fate, we close our eyes and doze (some of us perhaps). It is worth mentioning that on either side of us are cellars full of choice wines of France, and there they remain.

29/3/18 C

Good Friday proves a bad day for us again. We are on the move before dawn, taking up a position on nearby hills. We have to dig ourselves in quickly as Fritz is already in a good many miles, but it won’t pay him to advance further. Heard today that Ostend and Zeebrugge have fallen into our hands. Also Lens and Till¹⁰ have been evacuated. Excellent news. We have Fritz stopped here now. Cannot understand him coming so far. Couldn’t have met with much resistance and the Tommies have a lower position than ever in our estimation now. Moved into a new position about 10.00pm last night and worked until 5.00 this morning on new trenches. At daybreak, we shifted into a wood in rear and tried for a few moments of sleep. Are surrounded by howitzer (18 lb) batteries and they are socking it in. Couldn’t sleep as enemy artillery opened up. We climbed quickly up the slope of the hill and started digging in. Shells dropping thicker and faster every minute. Talk about keep your head down, digging in pretty fast. It is brother Bill’s birthday and I shall never forget it.

Our lads are getting smacked right and left, can’t get down fast enough. Cpl. George Barrow in charge of our section was killed only a few yards from Dick and self, a piece of shell pierced under his shoulder blade. We helped carry Barrow to his last rest. He was a fine fellow. Others were killed; many wounded. Capt. Bremmer Commanding Officer of Co. got a Blighty shell, Chas Sleep also.

It rained during afternoon, we are wet to the skin and cold and frigid sitting here in our hole. Dick and self console and agree that our opponents are “dirty dogs”.

The affair quietened down toward evening, but we start work at dark. Must finish our trenches tonight. Eleventh Brigade complimented

10. Till Trench was an important front line trench.

on holding the line. During bombardment Jerry made an attack on our front but ended back where he started. Believe Yanks and French are doing something big today.

31/3/18 D

Things are quieter today. We have been working until past midnight digging the trench on the top of the hill. Charlie Sleep is badly wounded we hear, and hope it is not serious. Ted Roberts is posted as missing, he was last seen going out with a wound in the arm, but never arrived at the dressing station.

31/3/18 C (Dead Horse Gully)

Blimey I’m tired. Last decent sleep was on the 25th, Stan’s birthday. Feel as if I could sleep on a barbwire fence for a whole week. Got a bunch of eight letters last Friday night and haven’t had a chance to read them properly yet.

4.00pm. Well things have been different and quite a relief to get a rest. We have congratulations from King George for having stopped the German advance. We lost a fair number of men in doing so, but hundreds and hundreds of dead Fritzes are laying out in front of us. He should never have advanced as far as he did but maybe he hasn’t come to stay. But may the Tommies, who didn’t stop them, come and try their hand at pushing them back.

1/4/18 C

April Fool’s Day and none bigger fools than us. Covered in mud from head to foot, no wash, no shave for days now. A bit of sun today and a chance to get things dry. Have to move somewhere tonight. Just as we get a bit of comfort we’ve got to leave it behind. Our officer, Mr Yule transferred to “C” Company. Bad luck for us. We also seem to lose all our good commanders. Most of the lads haven’t much room left for joking. Today’s available fun was put aside.

2/4/18 D

We moved up to old French trenches, with Cooper in charge, a boy not fit to wear uniform, in charge of men. Cooper swears and curses, and runs.

3/4/18 C

We are all here enjoying the scenes of the Somme, and lending our hands to carry on the wholesale slaughter of poor innocent souls. This is not a war but a scientific means of murder and dastardly destruction. The little village of Sailly, lying at our feet, crashes and crumbles, smoulders and burns as the shells bury themselves into its midst. One by one they sing and scream through the air seeking a mark on which to smash and burst. We leave these tunnels tonight and dig in a mile or so from here we are thankful to see the last of this place.

Rained heavily today and we are drenched.

But as we can’t get any wetter,.... the next place must be better.

We ’re damned happy and light-headed.

Rejoicing that we have started on our task.

Another home to make and find.

With the hours of early morning drawing near.... along a sunken road we dump our gear.

And get to digging bunkholes in the bank, along the track where we lay and do a perish until mother night comes back. Through the cold and wet hours of morning and the dangerous hours of day,....

we are cheating deadly bullets and the shell and shrapnel spray.

4/4/18 D

Chas and self fix up a straw dug-out on the side of the road, very damp, and we are not sorry to move into a picket post in an old orchard, about 1 acre area, with old hedge around. Here we dig in during the night, and cover our dugout, with branches for camouflage.

We are only 200 yards from the Hun and it is devilish wet. We have to get what rest we can, often lying in a pool of water. Chas and I do first relief of guard, and it is a pitch black night. We dig a small manhole for a listening post and await results. One does not go to sleep on these posts. It is a wet dark night, and we are apparently the only beings alive, all is so deadly still. No lights show the Boches position....he is too close, within 200 yards.

5/4/18 D

Rained all day. Chas and I remained in dug-out asleep when we are not writing. A great liking for philosophies has taken a hold of me, and I attempt to write poetry. Chas feels the same. We do our guard at night and our two meals are brought during the hours of darkness, as no one may venture out to the picket post in daylight.

Walking knee-deep in slimy mud along a communication trench at La Basse Ville, forward of Messines, in Belgium, 1918-01-24. The photograph fairly illustrates the conditions encountered in the trenches of this low-lying area during the Winter.

E01497 Australian War Memorial

Drawn by Chas. II. Goald. ALAS! IN WONDERLAND, a Ires Bill ami die Kanj-aroo were walking in a land .mposed of quantities of mod and very little sand. _

[ this were cleared away." they said. “Oh ! woeldn t it b : grand)"    _    ....    ...    .

>o you suppose." the Aussie said, the war will last a yea . id will we transport doty ret and he allowed to clear

6/4/18 D

A party of Germans advanced in front of us today and attempted to mount a machine-gun, under cover of enfilade fire from Hamel and Villers-Bretonneux. Our two Lewis guns, under Diver Hughes, opened fire and Hughes knocked six, driving them back; they had other casualties from our rifle fire. Scotty McNall, only a lad, killed by a bullet through the brain,..the second of our section to be killed within a week. Jack Christie takes over the section. Lieutenant Madderfold wounded in the hand and goes out.

A rotten night; our dugout is flooded and Chas and I have to roll up in our oil sheets outside, as best we can. This rain is worse than anything. Glad to have some work to do these nights. We have great difficulty and amusement in extracting Way from his hole to do his sentry duty.

7/4/18 C

Witnessed some thrilling air duals today. Two air fights in the one day, right over our heads. Three Boche three-deckers chasing a single-seater British Spotter. The RAAF pilot put up a brilliant and brave fight, but he had no chance and he was brought down in flames about 100 yards away, and burnt to death.

We were more successful with the other fight with a plane outmanoeuvring two Boche pilots.

9/4/18 C

Had an opportunity of going across to the aeroplane I witnessed fall on Saturday. Came an awful crash. Poor chap burnt in his seat and lies buried where he fell! “No grander death could heroes wish to die; than such as claim these gentleman that fly”.

11/4/18 C

The wet mud is by far the worst thing we’ve to contend. The mud is everywhere and the runners have to make sure they get through every time. Dick and Jack Christie are also runners to “C” Headquarters and we have to wander forth on an urgent job at the most unearthly hours of night and day no matter what elements prevail.

We are entering our 16th day of this most strenuous job. The German advance has been checked here all right but he seems to be making headway up north. News is not very cheering but, we’ve a lot of hard fighting before us. We look to the Yanks to come forward and wave their magic wand as it were. We get so little news, just enough to fill us with a yearning for more.

We had to go back to the death-trap of a picket post again last night, after a somewhat strenuous climb and tramp across the hills, as the usual road was too dangerous. To improve our spirit and progress we were favoured with an inky black night, a boisterous gale of a wind and rain possessing the usual wetting qualities. However, after an exciting couple of hours ducking our heads to cheat the passing bullets and seeking cover to prevent being the best of targets to the screaming shells that at periods fall thick and heavy, we hit our home of a week past, welcoming it only for the opportunity it afforded us of dumping our weighty paraphernalia.

The “hole” is now large enough to accommodate the three of us; Jack Christie, Dick and self, in which we bide away the weary hours of daylight from 5.00am to 8.00pm. An eternity it seems.

15/4/18 C

Our efforts have resulted in our dugout being the select one of No 13 Platoon. A rain-proof room, straw on floor and so securely covered that a light can bum in absolute safety. The striking of a match in the open would spell disaster so we are well set up and secure.

Fortunately this position has been unobserved owing, no doubt, to the careful precautions we take to conceal our presence, for we are within 300 yards of the enemy strong-post. We remain unmolested by his artillery whilst the posts on our right and left are constantly strafed. 17/4/18 C

Five of us now go out all night putting up barb-wire entanglements in front of our post, coming in at day-break to smother up in our earthly abode until the next spasm of darkness when we proceed with the good work. Day by day we live through times that will never be forgotten. Last night, six of us were out scouting, crawling along like reptiles and just as ready to pounce onto anything of interest that may chance to cross our path, but we returned empty-handed and successful as we got the scent.

18/4/18 D

We go out scouting for a prisoner and after crawling over 100 yards of ploughed field, we find the object just gone, and return empty-handed, much to the chagrin of Yule, the Platoon Commander.

19/4/18 D

Chas, Christie and self with Treasure, go out on wiring parties every night along the bank of the Canal, without a covering party.

20/4/18 D

We finished the wiring last night. At 9.00am the rest of the Coy is relieved; nine of us remain, having volunteered for a raiding party. We

load up with bombs and await the hour,...2.00am just after the moon sets in before dawn, about one hour of darkness in which to do the trick.

We crawl out to our position and find by the sudden bursting of a Verylight that Fritz is apparently aware of our intention, and return after waiting for a good half an hour for an expected barrage.

19/4/18 C

Very quiet today. One gets fed up when all is very quiet on the Western Front. It helps one to keep happy when the guns are going strong and heavy. Tonight we finished up the barb-wiring exercise.

21/4/18 D

Arrived at our position on Flying Fox Hill at 7.00am next morning to find no breakfast, no meal for 48 hours now. We dig in. Meal at

11.00pm.

Germany’s best airman, Baron Richthofen [known widely as the Red Baron, Ed.] brought down today, much cheering from us all on the ground.

21/4/18 C

Today we actually witnessed the fight that resulted in Baron von Richthofen, the famous Hun aviator being brought down. Very thrilling, but the British airman led the fight right through and von Richthofen met his Waterloo. We will always remember this place as the Brick Kiln as von Richthofen’s plane crash landed near an old brick yard with a huge chimney stack. Many have been killed in its vicinity.

It was not a bad landing, except right at the end when the plane came to an abrupt stop. None of us assumed that the Red Baron was dead and we were all silent for minutes, waiting for him to climb from the plane. When this didn’t occur we abandoned all orders and, realising the significance of the event, all ran toward the plane.

I think that Cpl Jack Homewood [Rivervale, WA] of B Company 44th Battalion and Alex Grant [also of Rivervale], of our Battalion got there about the same time as I did and we were busily souveniring buttons from the Baron’s tunic when a South Australian Padre arrived and made the request that all these things “be put back”. Everyone in our Battalion ended up with a piece of the deep red fuselage material that had become so identifiable with the Red Baron and his legendary downing of 80 of our allied planes."

I must write more about the events of today, but I think the most surprising thing of all is that, due to his rank amongst the world’s best airfighters, his death today was treated like that of a true war hero, rather than as an enemy.

11. CBM became interested in the events surrounding the Red Baron’s death, refer photos. Additional correspondence in Appendix 11.

service in 1915 f t*wW ,u - ?omed tbe ww® m

He w as awarded the Pour le Merite, the Blue Max*

vtcnnanv s highest decoration, and bv the time of his death was credited with 80 victories.'

On the morning of 21 April 1918, four of voo Rtchtaoftnh Fokker triplanes attacked two British TmxmassaUBi aircraft over the Somme. British Sopwith Camels went to

their aid. and von Richthofen closed on a Camel Sown by Lieutenant Wilfred May, a Canadian on his fits* operational flight.

There is considerable controversy about wtat some claim that another Canadian. Captain Roy S3 or, von Richthofen from ^md kilh^to Others

ISeve Australian machine gunnera firing Whe

»sgjss£ssr**«-

(Australian War Memorial)

Australians inspect remains of von Richthofen’s Fokker Triplane (Australian War Memorial)

Richthofen's room showing trophies from various ‘kills’.

Note the aircraft radial-engine light fitting.

(Donated by German War Museum Kongenluft 1477)

(H13502 Australian War Memorial)

Aire, France. An elaborately engraved brass plaque mounted on a wooden propeller forms the shape of a cross over the grave of 2nd Lieutenant John (Jack) Hay, No. 40 Squadron, FRC (Royal Flying Corps) at a cemetery just outside the town. The inscription on the plaque reads “The earth holds not a finer gentleman ”. A grazier in civilian life, Hay was shot down by the German flying ace, Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, during an air battle on 23 January 1917. Aged 28, he was the only Australian of the Red Baron’s eighty-nine victims. (Donor C. Goddard)

(P02118.002    Australian War

Memorial)

Baron Manfred Von Richthofen, the “Red Baron”

(A03158

Australian War Memorial)

A posthumous photograph of Captain Baron Manfred Von Richthofen. The special value of the photograph is said to be that it shows that the wounds in the head could not have been caused by fire from the air. (forfurther particulars see Appendix II) (A03I58 Australian War Memorial C. 1918-03.)

Bertangles, France. 1918-04-22. The remains of Baron Von Richthofen’s Fokker Triplane at the aerodrome of No. 3 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps, near Bertangles. The famous German airman was shot down and crashed in Australian lines while flying a Triplane very near the ground on the tail of a British Scout. Only one bullet - believed to be from a Lewis gun attached to a battery of Australian field artillery - was found in his body, and that through the heart. It was a dramatic event, [for further particulars see Appendix II] (E02044. Australian War Memorial)

France, 1918-04. Remains of the Late Baron Von Richthofen being carried to vehicle by six pilots of No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps. Most evidence shows that Richthofen was shot down on 1918-04-21, by Australian guns on the ground, and No. 3 Squadron salved and buried his body a couple of days later. (Photographer J.R. Alexander, 3rd Squadron Australian Flying Corps, Donor J. Alexander) (P0073/01 Australian War Memorial)

We two are the stiffest things on two legs in the whole of France. We have just been transferred to Hell from Paradise, as we were not in this peaceful looking, inviting town two solitary hours before it was converted into a hell fire. The bombardment of Bony commenced at 3.30am and we had to evacuate a darn sight quicker than we came in. Buildings crashing down and shells falling thickly along roadways. Poor chaps being killed and wounded to right and left. Place filling with gas. Everything is excitement and bustle. However we got out, fortunately with our lives. Bony is crowded with troops, many hundreds gashed and killed. Dick went back to Platoon and I went back to hospital. Plenty of “grub” at the hospital but it won’t last long as I go back to Battalion tonight.

The battalion is back near the Brick Kilns and we are just across the canal from them. They are coming back further at any time now. In these back areas it is a dam sight worst than in the frontline, as this is where Jerry puts all his big stuff and most of his gas. Most of our causalities accrue behind support lines.

27/4/18 D

Scotty Aitchison turned up, he is an old friend of Chas and they had a long yam. This is the last that we see of Scotty. There are big battles waging up North, the First Division is there.

30/4/18 D

Marched back to Le Houssoye. Linked up with Chas again as we are both attending the HQ signalling course.

5/5/18 D

I move up into reserve. Chas is in advance guard. Our new dugout is on the slope of a hill, just below the spot where Richthofen fell. Chas again suffering from severe symptoms of Trench Fever.

12/5/18 C

Any amount of our Yankee cousins about. Quite a good stamp of men. Supposed to be 500,000 of them in France. Should soon make a big difference.

14/5/18 C

Learning signalling today. Very interesting and this knowledge will always be useful.

16/5/18 C

First review before Brigadier Cannon this afternoon. 44th is best Battalion in Brigade.

Doug Haig is going to have a look at us this afternoon [General Sir Douglas Haig, Commander in-Chief of the British Army in France..Ed.] 19/5/18 C

Church parade this morning. Got word of going back to line. Am going up with advance party. Jelly Belly (alias Col Clarke) announced on parade this morning that the Brigadier was so pleased with our performance on Thursday afternoon that he had presented the Battalion with 50 French Francs. What generosity some of these peanuts are blessed with. All this money between one thousand men. What a handsome gift!

20/5/18 C

Had a glorious march through some exquisite country. Marched into a beautiful summer’s evening. The fields and hills magnificently green and then we passed through Amiens. The cathedral is perfect. The city is quite deserted though, and very much battered about. Arrived at Villers-Bretonneux about midnight and came right through to the frontline. We are taking over from the 16th Battalion. Met cousin (Bob McMullin) and camped with him during the night. I am on the same stunt, a company runner.

24/5/18 C

This village, Villers-Bretonneux, took a great deal of getting, some two weeks ago, and we must not let it slip out of our possession now. The 51st Battalion, WA, were in that stand and lost a number of good men. The streets have seen much hand-to-hand fighting and traces of some very dirty work are still to be seen. This has been quite a busy and prosperous place but is now a total wreck. Every house, shop or factory without exception has been smashed. The streets are littered with furniture forming barricades and barb-wire entanglements are in evidence in every direction. Alas poor Villers-Bretonneux once so gay and pretty is now a cruel picture of work, wrought by war. Oh! but these everlasting signs of devastation and disaster, of bloodshed and slaughter tend to knock a chap silly. If we didn’t shut our eyes to it all there would be little hope of carrying on.

26/5/18 C

Today is [brother] Harley’s birthday. What sort of time will he be having? Would like to get a line from him and hear news of [brother] Stan. It seems ages since I heard of them. Fritz put a lot of gas over last night. All night long the artillery on both sides were extra active. We nearly got blown to Kingdom Come today but were fortunately spared.

Another year of my life is completed and done with [CBM’s birthday - Ed.]. The coming one promises to have more action in store for me than I require in civvy life over a period of ten years.

One day this will be over and I will sneak away into the bush somewhere in dear old Aussie and live down the memory of this bloodthirsty butchery.

2/6/18 C

Enemy is making some great headway down south and by reports have crossed the river Marne. If they don’t stop soon, I guess the Aussies will have to be sent down there. “Jock” says he’s got a great surprise for the Australians. Suppose it’s some big hop over the sandbags. The worst is that the heads think we are a blood thirsty bunch and that we are never in our element unless we are rushing in where angels fear to tread. The cap, assuredly, does not fit, but there’s nothing else left but to wear it. Our reputation is our misfortune and more’s the pity, may be the death of us.

9/6/18 C

Today, a typical Sabbath on the Western Front. Many have lost count of the days of the week without even worrying about the date. No difference is made on one day from another. The war proceeds just the same and one is just as likely to “collect” on a Sunday and it’s quite as easy to be gassed. The ambulance cars are just as active. The death dealing pieces of machinery are just as effective and both sides seem to enter into the struggle with the usual keenness which, in spite of the four long weary years of suffering and slaughter that have passed, does not seem to diminish but rather the reverse, growing more intense as the days pass by.

It is as well for it is essential to final victory. We are up against a keen, cunning race. But we are keener, if not as cunning, and as treacherous as our enemies. More, we have not abandoned God.

In all the many trials encountered in the course of duty, the lighthearted crisis-saving comments of the Aussies can always be heard. It indicates a philosophic spirit in adversity which will surely endure. If a man can face the trials of life in and around the trenches with unquenchable optimism, there is not the least doubt that he will rise superior to any of the comparatively petty troubles of civil life and in years to come will meet misfortune with a shrug and the old familiar ability to “get on with it”.

Dick, Woolfe and self have made ourselves as comfortable as possible in a small dugout, dozing, with nerves at very high tension. Everything is in readiness for moving up.

OUTH-EAST OF COMPIECNE

MAIN BLOW

NOT YET STRUCK.

s Reserves Intact and Waiting.

OR AMIENS ?

Mirror understands that as covered only a distance of five days’ fight is regarded in miii-less successful

a particularly losses have they were in

attack Riippreirhi's

In the

1NESDAY, JINK 12, 1918. ‘ LOOM AT THEIfi

THE WONDER-B MUSIC.

nay oi -ms'inm

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Trench doodling by CBM

Chas, Frank Woolfe and myself are taking on Coy running for this stunt. It will be our first hop over, as we are all from the same Bttn. I hear that Billy Hughes [Australia’s PM] spoke to some of the chaps yesterday, and that he is to watch the stunt from Tower Observation Park outside Sailly le Sec. Chas went forward with advance guard.

We arrived at the deserted village of Hamelet about 7.00pm, all cigarettes out and perfect quietness has to be maintained. Marching through this village in connected files I noticed that the church spire does not lack ventilation, a 5 inch shell having penetrated and passed through.

The Battle of Hamel

This village has not escaped the effects of the German love of destruction, and may suffer long before all is finished. Chas meets us and guides us to our dugouts about a mile from the frontline; this is our dwelling until 2.00 or 3.00am on the 4th. Here we are given all information known, and receive 48 hours dry rations, 280 rounds of Mark 7 ammunition, also five bombs each, and aeroplane plans. Being runners we carry less ammunition than others. Dick Woolfe and self are to run with the Skipper, with orders not to lose sight of him whatever happens.

There is great disappointment amongst the Yanks, orders having come through from Pershing that they are not to hop over on the 4th of July (anniversary Day of Independence). In spite of this, some are determined to come. They want a fight and by heavens they will get it.

4/7/18 D

At 3.00am we are asked to load ourselves with what we consider much useless material, spade, pick, bombs, rifle, ammunition, tucker and sandbags, besides equipment and accessories. One can hear the rumble of our tanks and we pray that Fritz does not. We come to the frontline, and after repeated orders, slight whispering is still heard. It only takes a few minutes to be guided or to find our allotted positions, in this case between the barb wire and trenches, gaps being cut in the wire for passage of troops. This has been done and marked out earlier in the evening. I feel in the highest state of excitement and many thoughts race through my head. Where will I be wounded, is the main theme which I try my best to forget. The R.S.M. is alongside me, Dick Woolfe the other side, and the Captain in front. I am trembling with the thought of unknown excitement. Then we are lying down waiting for the barrage to open. Only a minute to go by the R.S.M.’s watch, the longest of a man’s life, I guess! Does the uncertainty of the thing make one feel like this?

About this time I distinctly remember a Sergeant in front of us giving his Section a sip of rum. Two minutes later he was dead, killed by a piece of one of our own shells.

Zero hour. A thousand lightning flashes behind us, a mighty rush of air, and then shells shrieking overhead and bursting with a blinding flash. The barrage had opened! It is 4.00am on the 4th of July and the Battle of Hamel has begun. I feel as if my heart will burst out of my body, not on account of it swelling but the strain is so great. Shells are bursting everywhere, right where we are lined up. One shell has lighted up now, and we stand crouching forward, waiting for the word to advance. God! what a suspense. Shells bursting behind us everywhere. I feel my self knocked sidelong and find later that the top of my rifle has been blown off as I held it on my back. “A lucky escape”. Many are killed here, some of the Yanks among the number.

At last the barrage leaps forward, and the order is given to move. We do so, willing enough with a sigh of relief. The big strain is over and my heart feels its normal size again, although still beating like a kettle drum. The sandbags are rudely placed on the ground, perhaps a bomb will go rotating through the air to lose itself or burst harmlessly amidst its larger kin in the barrage. On our left is a never-to-be-forgotten sight. The village of Hamel, until now in German hands, is under concentrated fire. Every kind of shell mainly incendiary, making a blazing inferno. Once it was a picturesque French village, later, a series of heaps of charred timber and bricks. Behind the village is the hill our Bttn. has to take. The Captain is wildly excited and has me rushing everywhere with various orders. One poor beggar called out asking me to ease his leg. This I do by raising it with a rifle under his jerky instructions. Looking up after this operation I see figures of men, everyone slowly advancing, the R.S.M. rushing about waving his revolver, meanwhile yelling to the chaps to keep up and fill in gaps, many wide ones growing owing to chaps collecting in bunches, but no Captain! At last I see him forging right ahead with great agility for one of his stamp; then making a rush to reach his side before he gets out of sight again, I find myself entangled in the barb-wire. As German machine gun bullets are getting pretty thick, I get pretty annoyed and hasten to extricate myself from its coils. It is still dark, and I have a job to find the Skipper.

I manage to discover him at last rushing at three Fritzies. On bailing them up, my bayonet drops off with the top of the rifle! They are no trouble, only in the devil of a funk. Tumbled thoughts of souveniring entered into my head, but I don’t quite appreciate myself collaring even a German’s watch, etc. Perhaps if the Skipper had not rushed to new fields, I may have ratted the blighters. I had to follow the Skipper anyhow, one’s sense of life preservation holds good.

Dawn is breaking and the Germans are manipulating their machine guns to some devil’s tune. The apparently cumbrous tanks are well ahead doing fine work, and the village of Hamel is a mass of burning and tumbled down buildings. Prisoners, shell-shocked and dazed, passed us with shaking arms upraised in deadly fear of death, on their way back to HQ. We have the last slope in front of us and can see the tanks attempting to climb again and again until successful. A short spell here, waiting for the barrage to lift. I am disgusted because the Captain sends me back with a message to HQ. I would much prefer to go to the last objective about a hundred yards further on. Nicholson returns with me, and we see many terrible sights on the way. One’s excitement now cools off and one finds the one-hour-old battlefield most depressing. Small groups of men digging new trenches have got to work, and stretcher-bearers are looking for the wounded, and too often finding the dead. We get to HQ all serene and mighty tired. Questions are fired at us right and left. Frank Woolfe is back here and informs us that Ted Taafe and Chas are wounded, Chas not badly, thank God. Poor old Taafe has lost an eye and many others have gone West.

Our return is pretty exciting and we have to duck at times, and after some scouting we find the last objective, now in our hands. We make our report and hop into a dugout, bolting a small snack of grub whilst we can. The Germans are shelling the trench and we have to keep very low; the beggars have the range to a “tee”. About two hours later there is a call for runners, and I go down with a lad who is sick. It is getting pretty warm now, as the German artillery is ranging back. On my return I collect a small piece of shrap in the leg; nothing to go out with and one is lucky to be alive.

About 4.00pm the Germans are observed preparing for a counterattack. Everyone is on the alert, awaiting anxiously for the next move. We are short of bombs. Their fire is very heavy about 6.00pm and about an hour later A Coy on our left fire their SOS and are seen retiring to a shallow trench about 30 yards behind the frontline. Our artillery and machine guns open up with the fury of the devil. There seems to be a curtain of steel and lead tearing through the air over our heads. Dick Woolfe is firing like the deuce into the gloom awaiting orders. These come as expected. We are to go back and get a message through to HQ by B Coy who are in reserve. This does not appear difficult, but we have a job to find their station in the dark. One will never forget this night. Hamel is now behind us, a burning ruin. The Germans are now pouring a few shells into the ruin. These shriek overhead and land with a crash. Now and again an occasional gas shell with its shriller shriek tears through the sky and bursts with a dull thud, the sound of which serves to put the wind up one and all, the more on account of its deadliness. One is right glad of another man’s Company on the top of these awful nights. On our return, I go back to HQ again with Nicholson who is none too well. My leg is getting stiffer. We will have a job to find our way this time I imagine, but keeping well out from the village have no difficulty in picking our lonely way, hurried on by an occasional shell. The Germans have now a hold in our line and have to be driven out before dawn.

Frank Woolfe returns with me in Nick’s place. He is mighty disgusted when 1 inform him that he must go cautiously and not walk into the Germans who are holding our line on the left of D Coy. Both parties are firing Verylights and as one or two of these land at our feet, we wisely hop into an old communication trench just in time, as the bullets begin to get mighty close. With every nerve on the alert, we creep up the Communication Trench and listen for voices, and are not sorry to hear Dick Woolfe who is manipulating a Fritzie machine-gun with good effect. Under the command of Mr Gaz, a party of men bomb their way into the German-held trench, killing many and capturing about 80 prisoners, incidentally relieving seven or eight of our own chaps who were captured by the Germans earlier in the day. Having had no sleep for 48 hours, at 8.00am on the 5th July, after dragging five or six dead bodies over the top and dumping them, I am very thankful to crawl into a bunk after an acceptable tot of rum, and fall asleep at once. After four or five hours of this bliss, I wake and finding my leg pretty bad, have to go out to Advanced HQ to rest it. Here I remain feeling fairly safe until the evening of the 6th, when the Battn. was relieved. Marching back to Allexville to our old resort. Here we compare notes and find that many of our companions have “gone West”. It takes about three days rest with plenty of sleep to recover from our strenuous three days at Hamel.

4/7/18 C

Even though the Yanks withdrew from our Battalion at the last moment, after receiving instructions not to fight on their Independence Day, we still managed to recruit enough volunteers to fill the gaps. Things were very willing for us last night and we made it all the way through, and gained our objectives, but what a lovely war! Here I am with a lump of lead in me and now out of the action. Got a few souvenirs and Tim Healy (also from Denmark, WA) got a similar smack and came out with me. Being able to walk, I went looking for a dressing station. Fritzies were running everywhere. “Mein Kamerad, mein”, we were met with this comment on every side. From the dressing station we set off for F9 about four miles. Ambulances were too much in demand so had to foot it. Rode on a tank some of the distance then to C.C.s, about 30km on motorcycle. Am now back at No. 1 area General Hospital at Rouen after very tedious ride in train.

By Jove! This is hard to take. Sheets and a bonza bed. Felt very crook on it last night, a bit better now. Was x-rayed this evening and am exceptionally lucky. Bullet didn’t penetrate through chest wall , was making direct course for heart. Doctor does not like interfering with it so possibly I will have it attached to my anatomy for the term of my natural. Do not think it is a Blighty bullet. Have to be very quiet. It is painful but might have been a thousand times worse. Some of the chaps are in a horrible mess. Would like to hear news of Dick and mates now. Wonder how they got on. The Yanks and aeroplanes were a great assistance and the former more than retrieved their reputation with the Australians.

8/7/18 C

Tim Healy went to Blighty (UK) this morning. My wound is healing rapidly under treatment and the Captain not going to operate. This will enable it to get better providing the lead does not give trouble. The nurse in charge of our ward is just bonza, quite a dinkum Australian herself and she makes life very pleasant for us. Although this is an Australian hospital, it is seldom that Aussies come here and we are consequently receiving royal treatment.

10/7/18 C

It is raining hard these last couple of days and we are not envying life for those in the battle areas. There is nothing worse than an existence up there under wet weather conditions.

It isn’t the foe that we fear. It isn’t the bullets that whine. It isn’t the business career of a shell or the burst of a mine. It is isn’t the sniper who seeks to nip our young hopes in the bud. It isn’t the Huns! It isn’t the guns. It’s the mud.

13/7/18 C

This is a very pretty hospital. Situated in the centre of the racecourse on the edge of Rouen. I would very much like to get into the town and have a look around but alas, I am to be held for observation purposes, as the missile is still in there.

Marie

18/7/18 C

Marie lived in Belgium just over the French Border. She wasn’t exactly beautiful. Very small was Marie, with corresponding hands and feet, quite unlike the majority of women one meets in Belgium and the north of France. Her face, not even pretty, arrested attention! With a complexion almost sallow, it was necessary to look at her very carefully

to find out wherein lay her charm. Well, one soon discovered a pair of wonderful black eyes in this 19-year-old Belgian girl. And with those eyes, she had a quiet, peaceful expression and a quick vivacious manner. It was Marie’s misfortune to be a cripple - not that she seemed to mind. An early fall had resulted in a hip disease, and she walked with a perceptible limp. One wondered if that was the reason for the peaceful expression. Looking at her, one gained the impression that here was a person whom the ordinary cares of life would not worry. Her sweet placidity seemed a thing eternal. People suffering from deformity or chronic illness, seemed to fall naturally into two classes - the first being of the peevish, complaining order, the second (which embraces Marie) quite happy and cheerful with the atmosphere of calm, which is, perhaps the compensation that nature accords to some of those, with whom she has seemed to deal harshly.

Marie and her mother used to dispense coffee to the troops at the price of one penny per bowl. The coffee, I might mention , was quite decent. I used to drink a lot more than I needed, for the pleasure of watching Marie. Incidentally, before closing time, it was customary for all present to drink a final bowl - a coffee Doch-an-dor-Isn in which Marie and her mother joined, but for which no payment was accepted. We soon came to understand the friendly custom and ceased to proffer small change. Marie could talk a little English and delighted in extending her vocabulary. She told us about the Huns, one of whose officers was billeted in her house, when first the flood of invasion swept over Belgium. Apparently these Barbarian enemies had not treated them badly. The tide of invasion ebbed, but has again rolled on and that house wherein we sat and talked and drank coffee, in all probability again shelters Huns.

Marie had an older brother who died fighting against the invader, when the war was yet in its early days. A younger brother was always present of an evening, but the extent of his English was only sufficient to enable him to accept a cigarette. I never saw him refuse one, and the number of issue fags he consumed was something prodigious. Well, well! I am very, very glad the war is not being fought in Australia but very, very sorry for France and Belgium. Glad that none of our fair Aussie sisters have to dispense coffee even to friendly, foreign troops. Glad that they never hear the sound of distant drum fire rolling through their native atmosphere, nor wonder how the battle rages and whether it will cease, or roll in fury to their very doors. Sorry for these French and Belgian folk whose quiet life has been so rudely disturbed, on whose peaceful fields such horrors are daily being wrought. Sorry for the people who tilled the land that is now gaping with wounds. The thirsty land that

absorbs the red rain, shed over it. Yet earth is beneficent. It takes into itself these ghastly human wrecks - absorbs them into its being.

I sometimes think that never grows the rose, so red, as where some buried Caesar bled.

And every hyacinth, the garden wears, dropped in its lap from some once lovely head.

This flow of blood will someday be arrested and dammed back to its source. The eternal circle of the seasons will roll on, unfolding its processes, healing the wounds of the sorrowing lands. The generation now striving and amazedly watching the conflict, will pass on. The conflict itself, will cease to be a living memory. And Marie, too, will sleep. But that time is not yet. Just now, I wonder how many Maries there are in France and Belgium and sometimes I wonder whether Marie and her people escaped that second tide or.....

Poor little Marie! Poor Belgium! Poor France!

5/8/18 C

A month today since I left the village of Hamel safely in the hands of those less fortunate than I. For one is terribly lucky to get away from the line for a time. Most of my gear has been lost and many items I badly wanted to keep. Luckily I jammed as much as possible into my tunic pockets before the stunt and consequently still have my much valued safety razor, my diary and wallet and photos and my precious little Bible. After being wounded I collected a few good souvenirs. My watch keeps excellent time. The scarf Doreen¹⁰ made for me before I came away was always well in demand, and I would like to have taken it back home with me. I wore it round my throat. It was cold and overcoats were left behind as being out of the question. But it served the same purpose admirably. But it did not come out of the stunt with me. It was wounded with me. The shot passing through it where it was tucked in round my chest. And in all probability it marks the place where I was “stouchered”, that shell hole that I crawled to, for machine gun bullets were making things unpleasant above the surface.

Doreen’s Scarf

Just before the dawn On that chilly July morn As patiently out on the tape we lay It was worth its weight in gold It was keeping out the cold Ah yes! It went with me into the fray

Up till I got the crack That set me spinning back And put me firmly off the fighting roll When some passing cobber Quickly pulled aside my clobber And gently plugged some dressing in the hole

Dear I wasn’t feeling clever But the stouch was thick as ever When I set off for the boys a bit ahead By now my veins were flooding it was all so quick and sudden There was nothing hadn ’t blood on And my scarf had freely added to its red

A streak o ’ dawn was breaking When my heart seemed stiff and aching And I felt and found my chest was cold and bare But I dinkum lost my scarf Was back there in the strafe Lying where I got my issue. Somewhere there.

So upon the battle scene There’s some faded red and green That stayed to see the finish of the burl And it fills me with regret When I picture it there yet Weathering the wind and wet That scarf you made and gave, my little girl

Cont.

Cont....

Its companions day and night Other relics of the fight Tell tales of a greater loss than mine Gazing o ’er that battlefield Wooden crosses are revealed Simple symbols of a sacrifice divine

We move back to left of Hamel and get wind of a big stunt, according to rumour the last big attack in which all AIF will take part.

8/8/18 D

The Coy. rise, feeling more at ease and we follow our own advancing fire. We have to descend into a valley and up the opposite rise; the atmosphere is thick with smoke-shells, and we cannot see any more than two yards ahead. Dick Woolfe and I keep together and slowly advance, picking our way by the flash of bursting shells ahead. We have lost all trace of the rest of the Coy. HQ and decide to keep straight on.

There is an enemy “wizz-bang gun”¹⁴ firing along the road on our left, and the shots get pretty close; it must be firing point-blank up the road; but of Fritz himself there is no sign. At last we see someone ahead and form a skirmishing line with some of the 42nd and our own men. We come across a few enemy dugouts here, and yell at the Huns to come out and if he is not out in a few seconds, a Millson is hurled into the opening, and that is the end.

At last things are quietening down a bit, and as the dawn breaks over the battlefield and the smoke clears away, we draft ourselves out and join our own Companies, find our allotted positions and by 10.00am have a long narrow trench dug, with any cover we can lay our hands on. How our friends in England and Australia would look, could they see these shelters, a narrow trench four feet deep, two wide, damp and musty; an oil sheet over sticks on top, with earth and grass camouflage thrown over it. Beneath, one spreads a rug and there you are!

On our left flows the Canal de la Somme, with the tall swaying poplars lining its banks. How these poplars have suffered, blasted and lopped by shell-fire; they cannot retaliate, but what could they not tell! On the far side the bank rises very steeply, forming a long hill about three quarters of a mile from our position, and we can see a division, or remnants of a division, advancing along the ridge in artillery formation, and we watch “as they advance” the concentration of German artillery fire, shrapnel with this distinct little cloud bursting over the bowed heads

14. Wizz-bang = high velocity shell.

of the advancing troops, the white smoke of gas shells, spreading with deadly slowness, and the quickly disappearing smoke of the “heavies” amid a cloud of dust and soil, tom out of the ground as if a mighty scoop had been swung into the earth and the contents cast up to the heavens. We watch these poor beggars advancing; dropping, returning wounded, yet still advancing, until a bursting shell from a Fritz heavy makes us seek cover for safety. A few minutes later runners are called for, and Dick W and I go back over the battlefield with 16-20 Hun prisoners. We collect quite a number of prisoners on the road, and questions are flung from all sides by advancing diggers. A finer sight I have never seen than all these men and guns advancing. From the top of any rise we come to we can see miles and miles of men, guns, ammunition, and rations, moving up to carry on with the big push, and we get some idea of what is happening. The observation balloons are advancing in the air; here we get an idea of how fast the advance is moving. The prisoners are no trouble, but some of the troops wish to souvenir them, but they h’ain’t a skerrick left! Back and back we go, and some we see who will never fight again, and 1 cannot but feel fed up with it all.

Dick Woolfe wants to shoot the blighters, as Battalion Headquarters have moved from their early morning position. However we go on, passing an army moving up the lines. We pick up some wounded men, and make the Huns carry them back to the Dressing Station. At last we come to the village of Caestre, and I leave Woolfe to rest, and take the prisoners onto the cage, report, handover, and return to Woolfe. He is resting outside some Army Service Corps chaps dugout and this friend in need comes to light with coffee, a loaf of bread and some jam. I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a meal more. We have been going since 12.00 last night until 12.00 today, moving nearly all the time and this is our first snack in the 12 hours and we have walked over 25-30km. After this meal and a short rest, we return to the Coy. and have a couple of hours rest; and we don’t suffer from insomnia these nights.

The next few days are spent in advancing, and (for runners) plenty of carrying despatches backwards and forward. We learn the troops advanced 15km the first day, and took a good haul in prisoners and guns. The Germans have started bombing the roads at night time, about 8.30, they fly over, drop low down a flare bomb, which lights up the country for about 30 acres or more, and then he drops his deadly pills, six of them as a rule. One evening as we are moving up, a plane comes over, drops his flare and then the bombs come right along our advancing line, killing and wounding. Dick Woolfe is among the later, having his lip cut open by a piece of flying bomb. We move onto the side of a valley and on our right there is a battery of 5.9’s. I wander across and find dear old Reg Cockshott, going for his life. We had a long yam

together, and saying goodbye wondering when we will meet again.

We dig in on the slope of the valley and await orders to move. The idea is that our Battn. move out behind the Germans and drive them with bombs, back toward our lines. With this ahead of us we wait for orders to move. Between 8.00 and 9.00pm, the Hun planes come over, and we are in the midst of bombs all night long. It is an absolute hell and very little shelter. How thankful I am to see the dawn, and all suspense is over as the considered stunt has been abandoned and we retire to reserve.

Meanwhile Back At The Western Front

12/8/18 D

We miss Chas muchly, he is now in hospital at Rouen and we are also, to some extent doing a fair bit of recovering.

21/8/18 D

We go up to the front again today, after two days spell, and over the top in the second wave toward Bray-sur-Somme. About midday I have to go on a run to the platoons, and am chased by a Hun plane, at least the beggar had the Lewis gun onto me and I made a break for cover. We dig in above Bray, and I go reconnoitring with the Captain.

23/8/18 D

This evening we prepare for another advance to take place early tomorrow morning. About 2.00am we start and moving in single file, advance toward the starting point. The enemy is not restful tonight as they keep sending over gas shells. Moving down into the valley on the Bray-Corbie road, the machine guns opened fire, and we have to crawl and there is just room to move on the stomach without being seen. One poor beggar turning over raised himself, apparently, and was hit in the stomach, his cry for help as we move down into the valley full of gas, is appalling, and I feel a coward.

We put on our gas masks and move through a deserted village, taking up our positions on the other side of the valley still wearing masks. At last our barrage opens and we move ahead. One of our shells lands on a large dump of Verylights, and these ignite and fly in all directions. It is a most beautiful sight but we have very little time to watch it. We move on up the hill and see no sign of the enemy, although his machine guns are rattling like the devil, and a few big guns drop a shell or too behind us. We arrive at our position at the top of the hill feeling very tired, but with no fighting, as I have not seen a single Hun, and we commenced to dig-in. The runners’ job of returning falls on me, and I take Frank Woolfe, as he and I are the only ones left now; both Chas M. and Dick Woolfe are in Hospital, and a newly appointed runner has been blown up, and evacuated with shell-shock.

Frank and I dig and dig and about 5.00pm we are down far enough to sit in our little trench. It took about five and half hours to dig this and we are only there for about a quarter of an hour when the Hun lets loose again, and we are living in a hell, the whole valley is a mess of bursting shells.

Their yell for stretcher bearers and runners is heard, and we wearily yet warily rise and crawl over to the Captain’s trench, receive orders to tell the platoons to leave their trenches and form up in old French trenches in their left. The place is an absolute pit of bursting shells but we are too tired to be cold-footed, and leave our gear, and run as fast as dead legs can carry us to give the orders, runners by jove, yes, we run! Frank warns the signallers and the two front platoons and I am taking the two far ones. I get there somehow and throw myself down on the edge of the trench and jerk out the orders, leave them and go onto the next, I have no thought of being hit, yet I see men in every trench wounded and killed. At last I find them and after giving the orders run back. The shell fire begins to die down, but gas and machine guns still continue the game.

28/8/18 D

We move over the top in open formation, under light machine gun fire and we reach our position with a few casualties. I find that I can hardly walk, and have to get to the doctor somehow. My eyes are also very bad. What is it I feel? “This is my very last experience at the frontline”. We arrive at the advanced Dressing Station, I lie down and know very little more.

Somehow someone got me into an ambulance car and back to the Dressing Station. Here my bums are dressed but my eyes are practically useless. They put me in another car and I’m off again.

A bed at last; how gratified I feel, and how nice it is to be cared for by nurses once more. I spend about five days here, eyes getting worse. On the sixth day, sent onto another hospital. This time a real bed in an American hospital. Three weeks at “peace” here and then the Yank Doctor decided that I had better be transferred to a British hospital as he is not certain how to treat these bums.

Put in five days at the British hospital at Le Havre.

4/10/18 D

Although I am not feeling fit, I will be glad to leave tomorrow as I hear this is their verdict. We hear our chaps are out for a well-earned rest, but return in a short time. March from hospital to camp, feeling pretty shaky, more like riding in an ambulance than walking. Put in about four days re-fitting at the AIF camp.

N' 11 Convalescent Depot Concert Party

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I fall-in with 601b of kit and march to the Station. Quite a number of 44th Battn. chaps are returning. Sergeant Betts and I are camping together. Charles Manners turns up and we greet each other like long-lost brothers, and then the beggar stays behind to get his teeth fixed. The old cattle truck once more....

13/10/18 D

I am feeling rotten, but have a two day journey to the Divisional Wing. A long drag up hill to the camp which consists of a few tents on a bleak hill site. I fall out and see the Quack, who orders me to stay behind on special diet for dysentery.

17/10/18 D

I leave with a small party, still feeling shaky, to re-join the Batt. They are outside Allenville, preparing for more stunts and collecting the returning sick and wounded, to make up the numbers to prepare the company for more fight.

23/10/18 D

Reported to the Doctor that I was feeling rotten. Down with rheumatic fever, taken to hospital. As the Brigade Field Ambulance Hospital is full I at last get to number three Australian hospital at Abbeville with a temperature of 106 degrees according to the nurse, and greeted with the news that I am to be shipped out for Blighty (UK) that day. Goodbye France.

Chas Completes The Story ...

26/8/18 C

My chest, after a few physical exercises is not too good. Giving a great deal of pain, but probably due to stiffness. I guess I shall find a great change when I join with them again. They are constantly in action and are doing some great work. Soon the enemy will have lost all his last March’s gains and we will be hoeing into the old Hindenberg line. That is where the line should begin to tell. We have a huge map erected in the camp with the line marked out with little flags. It is very interesting to follow. Some wonderful headway has been made since August 8th and it’s Jerry’s turn to get the wind up now.

4/9/18 C

The cross-country comes off today and I’m giving it a fly. Have not trained as I should have done. There were close on a thousand competitors. All those who travel the two and three quarters miles in less than 25 minutes, score two points for their camp and, under 28 minutes 1 point. There were about 100 home before me but I did it in 21 minutes. Better than I reckoned on. But now I’m so stiff, can hardly walk. Will certainly train for the next cross-country in a fortnight’s time in the off-chance of still being here. [That is, at No. 11 Convalescent Depot, where approximately 6,000 men were being physically prepared for going back to the frontline - Ed.].

8/9/18 C.

Life here at the camp is “what you make it”. It is well-run under the Colonel of the Depot and our own camp commander, Captain English. Both of these gentlemen are first raters and appreciate us colonial troops. A state of affairs very uncommon with English officers.

9/9/18 C

We appreciate such men who temporarily have charge of us. My friend, Jarvis, another Canadian who sleeps in the next bed, won the heavy-weight wrestling yesterday. He is a fine character and I get him talking about his country after lights out at night. Although two years my junior, he turns the scale at 14 stone and is only 6 foot 3ins in height.

13/9/18 C

I have just heard that Dick is a casualty. Nothing official but I am afraid rather reliable. Badly gassed I have been told. Poor old chap. What a rough spin our chaps are getting.

There’s a soul in the Eternal Standing stiff before the King There’s a little English maiden sorrowing There’s a proud and fearless women Seeing pictures in the fire There’s a broken battered body on the wire

Anon

16/9/18 C

I have been in contact with men from Canada a good deal of late and find them all right. Also some from South Africa but never seem to pull along with them quite the same. They are a different class of people and suffer from swelled headedness and over-confidence. A girl that welcomed us and waves us all farewell at Durban writes openly of their indifference to the call of war. They have nothing to skite about.

Oh God, could we show these The path that the Anzacs went Could they rest in their beds at night time Or live in their damned content?

Could they talk with a sneer of Australians When one or two get drunk?

I’d rather a drunk Australian than a wealthy Durban Funk

They’re coming in tens of thousand And here’s to their honour today..

Here’s to their Sister Dominion Who is showing us the way.

21/9/18 C

The wrestling is a great pastime and one witnesses some keen contests between Tommies, New Zealanders, South Africans, Canadians, West Indians and Australians. But the colonials always win and of the victories the Diggers easily hold the record.

Boxing is another sport where we usually win, in this particular camp.

When a Digger was asked by the Padre to think of his wife when tempted to drink, replied that when the thirst was upon him, he was absolutely devoid of fear.

23/9/18 C

The work of our “birdmen” cannot be overstated, as we only have some vague idea of what “ascendancy in the air” means. Its interpretation grammatically helps, but we now realise that it spells ultimate victory to the side that attains and keeps it. It is as essential to us arriving at a glorious peace, as being mistress of the seas. Now we could, at the worst of times, always hold our own aloft, but America’s entry into this arena of the European upheaval has made for the Allies, everything that could ever be wished for in the air, possible.

25/9/18 C

And before long we will have the German capital whining for mercy. “Berlin or bust” is a motto that every airman has decided to act upon. But they will not bust. They are too good for that. Berlin will bust. Jarvis went away this evening. His base is at Etaples. We have had some great times together. It is the way of war. Good friends come and go like an endless chain. When they return we are gone.

27/9/18 C

Today the monthly sports are held and it is one day in the month that the colonial soldiers shine more than ever. For they never fail to carry off the majority of the prizes. Today the Diggers and the Canadians won every event except one.

29/9/18 C

Something gives me a feeling, and maybe I am not isolated, that something decidedly grand is about to happen for the Allies and that the end is not so far away.

30/9/18 C

Well, back to the frontline, and not before time too.

Splendid news today regarding our victory in Bulgaria. It will make you all quite happy at home. It’s going to lead to further important issues in this fighting business. It will be at an end very soon.

2/10/18 C

We are in our last stunt before a promised spell. By the time this 90 days are over there will be little if any fighting to do. Bulgaria being right out, makes all the difference. Turkey and Austria will be the next to shy, and then Hunland will have to face the music single handed.

4/10/18 C

It is rumoured that the Emperor of Germany has issued orders for all his troops to change their socks. He can evidently smell “de feet”.

5/10/18 C

Up at an unearthly hour and make preparations for an early start for Le Havre. This time travelling with a train loaded with German prisoners. Many trains laden with them have been passing through each day. Further evidence that we are winning the war.

On arriving at the base about midday, the first friend I collide with is my good mate Dick, he who should have gone to Blighty, so I was too surprised for words. Dick had bad luck not getting across and, although it is great to be together again, I was sorry he was not home with his dear people in Bedford (UK). He has been at the Base for a week already.

7/10/18 C

They are fitting us all out with new gear, we didn’t realise that our other stuff was all worn out.

11/10/18 C

Quite a big batch of 1914 men marched in here last night. Many of them from First Army Service Corps They all knew Doug and Gordon well. What a grand time is in store for these chaps, and they have earned it. Judging by the news that’s going around we will not be many months in following suit and taking a boat for home sweet home.

13/10/18 C

The big batch of Anzacs left here for Blighty this afternoon. Also a draft for the Battalions and Dick is on it. One of the coldest nights we have had. The poor chaps going up in cattle trucks with only one blanket per person have my sympathies.

14/10/18 C

Had an afternoon in Le Havre on leave. The weather was bad so I was obliged to knock about on my own. It’s very hard to find company that just suits me. Guess I’m very hard to please.

15/10/18 C

There must be something wrong with the water in France, seems to decay the best of teeth. Have lost more than half of mine. Many of us are having the same trouble. I’m realising the truth of “one tooth in the head being worth two on the table”.

Have been chosen for Quarter Guard. On duty every alternate 24 hours. First guard went on today, we mount at 9.00am in morning. Am not keen on it for it is a fortnight’s stint and I’m desirous of rejoining the 44th as most of my friends are back there now.

16/10/18 C

As guards we seem to be punished more than the prisoners. No resting boxes. The guard room consists of two leaky tents, it is quite a disgraceful state of affairs. Everybody is sweating on peace but it may be a long way off yet.

Why will General Foch ’s Armistice, when granted, resemble pigs’ tails?

The end of a lot of swine.

Moved off today about 3.00pm. A repetition of the journey of last December 9th. We head toward our objective under cover of darkness and have a great deal of buckshee [free] fun finding room to drop our bundle. Many had dropped their bundle on the way. It is a cruel march.

29/10/18 C

Reached Amiens 9.00am and ascended a mountain for the purpose of getting to the Divisional wing. Only have another 4km march to the Battn. We reached this resting place late in the evening, weary and footsore devoutly declaring nevermore we should go to any more wars.

30/10/18 C

Back amongst my old acquaintances, but many unfortunately are not with us. Dick Woolfe is here. Wally Davis also, but Dick has gone to hospital again. Out on parade all morning from 8.30 to noon. Am only just re-sampling what the Australians are having to put up with after doing such grand work in the line for all those months. It is useless making a song about it at all. We are getting absolutely no rest and are nearly driven mad with the “carrying” on of the dud-heads that always hang-out behind the line ready to pounce on us when we come back for a period of rest.

1/11/18 C

Yesterday was a big day. Hard at it from early morning until tea time and today there is an all day route march on. Full marching order. Heard that Dick has departed for Blighty last Monday. He has acute rheumatism so it will be quite a time before he returns now.

2/11/18 C

Same old stunt again today. But we are permitted to have the afternoon to ourselves, spent in writing letters. We are billeted in a little shanty of a room where we have rigged up a table and plugged up some of the many large holes in the wall.

3/11/18 C

This morning we are at our most industrious as we are cleaning and polishing, for tomorrow there is some inspection stunt. Competition for best platoon in brigade, so much work is entailed in making necessary preparations. Berty White and George Burn came back today. Two old stagers of D Coy. Signals Section.

4/11/18 C

We have a very cosy little dugout between half a dozen of us and what little time we do have to ourselves we try to spend in as much comfort as possible. We get no assistance or encouragement from those responsible for our welfare. Their object seems to be “get every man on parade and keep him there as long as possible”. We learn nothing there, and gain nothing by what we do. The only outcome of such treatment is discontent. One can safely predict a little trouble in the near future for the war will not last long now, and when that is finished we will expect the end of such piffle.

11/11/18 C “Armistice Day” [The simple two word entry for this day...Ed.]

Back to England

19/11/18 C

Left France at 10.00am with an incredible mixture of emotions.

[CBM’s diary continues with notations through to the end of December covering various army duties in the UK, including a period as Officer Relieving Sergeant of Embarkation Wing. He recounted meeting “Peter Pan”, a Miss C Warlow of Bedford who wrote him many encouraging letters whilst he was at the front. The letters were treasured by Chas for the rest of his life. He described her thus “She is the hardest case I have ever yet met and one of the wittiest and dearest of her sex. I would like to claim much more of her time”. ...Ed.]

10/12/18 C

Poor Third Division gets rather a bad spin for many of the “would be” Anzacs fail to see why we should be allowed to journey home the same as the other Divvies. Of course, any man who argues that the “Eggs are Cooked” is not as much entitled to everything that is going, as any other Digger is certainly not in his right mind. The real Anzac, or the men who came early in to this fray, never begrudges another man anything. In his estimation, everyone who has done his bit, has played his part and by the mere fact of coming to such a well advertised death trap has proved himself to be as much a man who started out on the

holiday jaunt in the first days of war, when the horrors of the game were an unknown quantity and everything was a promise of a picnic [The above comments and the reference to “Eggs are Cooked’ are explained fully in Captain Cyril Longmore’s introduction to his book of the same name, subtitled “The Story of the 44th; War, as the Digger Saw It”. Details in Appendix II].

25/12/18 C

This Christmas is a great contrast to the last one and also the one before, however we have enjoyed it all and it will always be worth remembering.

27/12/18 C

I am starting to think of the days that I will be enjoying in Australia soon. Will not regret bidding farewell to this country, for it will be a treat to return to a place where the sun shines on both sides of the road.

29/12/18 C

Have a splendid chance of getting three months leave on full pay to study agriculture. Almost feel inclined to take it although it will delay my return home. I have no real desire to stay in this beastly hole if I can not gain either in knowledge or experience. Will wait until [brother] Harley returns tomorrow and discuss the matter.

30/12/18 C

Had a letter from [brother] Stan who is returning to France.

31/12/18 C

This is the last day in the last year of the War, and the last page in my dear little, well worn, pocket notebook.

Note:

More CBM poetry in Appendix II

OFFICIALS OF THE SUB-BRANCH President: Captair R. R. Gifcfcs Vke Presidents : Dr. A. B. Weteer, Mr. C. B. Msnners Hon. Treasurer: Mr. F. Bradshaw, Hon Seat? : Lt. -CoL T. C. Fairley. M.C. Institute Caretaker; Mr. T. H. Mitchell

E D I T OR I A L

By the- -tine tills paper gpes to press we will have passed Armistioe Day with all its attendant worries,its memories and Its meetings*

That 11th hour of the 11th day of the 1tth month will ever remain in the minds of all true British subjects as a day when we must,for our very existence sake,think in Empire and ta$e care to carry our thoughts into actions.

This Snpire of ours can only live in    hannony    and    in prosperity

by living together,"by buying what some other    part of    the    empire can

produce and which you cannot.

Gan we carry on this coming year with a firm desire to emphasis this aspect of Imperialism 1

The launching of the Goldfields Comedy Company in lta Initial production of Ian Hay's "kiddle Watch" which was played in the Kalgoorlie Town Hall on the 9th and 10th of this month.

Great oridit was and is due to Mrs Berthodl    and    the cast for

the excellent show put up and to Mr Berthold    and his    staff for the

excellent stage work.

The profits from this show go to 'swell- the General’ a/c and soem of it will be devoted to Anzac House.

Next Month we will have the Children's Ward Christmas Tree to organise again and it is hoped that as many as can will do all in thier power to maktthis a successful function.

Anzac Day - Kalgoorlie, 1931

Roll of Honour Australian War Memorial

War Observed,

By Sir Norman Angell (1933 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate)

Norman Angell created considerable controversy in his 1909 book The Great Illusion, arguing that a European war would be economically disadvantageous for victor as well as vanquished.

The Great Illusion had a tremendous impact on the intellectual community of that time, leading to the establishment of various study centres and the journal War and Peace.

Angell joined the UK Labour Party and became an MP.

His re-written book The Great Illusion 1933 (Heinemann) helped him win the 1933 Noble Prize for Peace.

From his original The Great Illusion

“Are we to continue to struggle, as so many good men struggled in the first dozen centuries of Christendom - spilling oceans of blood, wasting mountains of treasure - to achieve what is at bottom a logical absurdity, to accomplish something which, when accomplished, can avail us nothing, and which, if it could avail us anything, would condemn the nations of the world to never-ending bloodshed and the constant defeat of all those aims which men, in their sober hours, know to be alone worthy of sustained endeavor?”

From Norman Angell’s subsequent book Why Freedom Matters (Penguin 1940)

Part 1

The Enemy Within and Without

Chapter 1

Why this Book has been written

“We fight for the survival of political and intellectual freedom. Yet we have so little feeling for that freedom, or real understanding of what is involved, that it has been very fashionable in recent years to deride and belittle it. That disparagement shows that this generation does not grasp the significance of the thing for which we fight. The purpose of this book is to recall what political and intellectual freedom means, and how vital it is for the survival of any humane civilisation.”_

World War I; Editor’s Afterword

by Ron Manners July 1996

What caused World War II?

Even after that, have we learned anything?

Germany’s second defeat and the aftermath.

The postwar German Economic Miracle and its lesson for Australia in the 1990s.

Nine million fighting personnel were killed in World War I and five million civilians died during the Occupation, from bombardment, starvation or disease.

Our gallant soldiers, who risked their lives for family and country must have felt confident this war, called the “Great War” was a one-off event in the World’s history. Their sacrifices, discomfort and six-shillings (600) per day wages were to them a small price to pay for victory by the Allied forces. Would they have believed that within their lifetime it would be “on again”? What went wrong?

We know individuals don’t declare war on individuals of other nations, but that their governments do.

How was it that political leaders refused to learn from the lessons of World War I? As a child I remember being given the one word answer to the cause for World War II. It was simply “Hitler”. But was it really that simple?

Many people have searched the public record for an explanation of the link between the two World Wars. A study by Jacob G Homberger¹¹ reviewed several learned explanations and links it directly to the clumsy policies of the Allied victors of World War I.

The vast changes that the First World War was to bring began to occur even while the War was still going on. In February 1917, the Tsarist Russian State collapsed, and a provisional government was established. But in October, this gave way to the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, who promised Russians what they yearned for - peace. In January 1918, Lenin concluded a peace treaty with the Central Powers. The Eastern Front had ceased to exist.

Professor Ralph Raico (Professor of History at the State University of New York at Buffalo) explains in the Hornberger study that with Russia out of the War, German divisions in the East were then shipped to the Western Front in a race with time. The Germans calculated that they had reserves and resources for one last offensive before the Americans arrived to decide the outcome of the war. In March 1918, the Germans threw everything they had left into a final attempt to crack the Western Front.

For the first few weeks, it looked as if they might succeed, but years of fighting the whole world had sapped Germany’s strength. There were already over a million fresh American troops in France, with thousands more arriving daily. Their offensive was halted, the Allied counter offensive was launched, and, in September, the German High Command advised the Kaiser to seek an armistice. As Germany’s few remaining allies were knocked out of the War, Berlin was ready to discuss peace terms on the basis of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points. On November 11,1918, Germany signed the Armistice Agreement, and the guns fell silent.

America had won the War for the allies, but instead of letting Europe find its own way to a compromise peace, American power had swung the balance decisively in favour of Britain and France. Among the consequences was the fall of the Kaiser and the old Germany, which Woodrow Wilson, (believing his own propaganda) considered the epitome of evil. But Professor Raico draws attention to the writings of the diplomat and historian, George Kennan, who wrote wryly after the Second War :

Today if one were offered the chance of having back again the Germany of 1913 - a Germany run by conservative but relatively moderate people, no Nazis and no Communists - a vigorous Germany, full of energy and confidence, able to play a part again in the balancing-off of Russian power in Europe, in many ways it would not sound so bad.

The model regime Woodrow Wilson insisted on as a peace condition of negotiating the Weimar Republic - was to careen from one crisis to another until, finally, in 1933, it succumbed to Adolf Hitler.

In 1919, when US President Woodrow Wilson appeared at the Paris Peace Conference, his popularity and prestige eclipsed that of any world leader before him. Now he was ready to create his New World Order, his real aim in steering America into war. But, like virtually all American leaders who have dabbled in international politics, he knew practically nothing of other countries and peoples. What Wilson did possess was a little bundle of abstract principles; democracy, self-determination of nations; and, above all, his cherished dream the League of Nations. By applying these few principles, he intended to solve, once and for all, the complex, age-old problems of Europe, if not the whole world.

The purpose of such a Peace Conference should have been to make peace with the defeated nation. But vengeance was the order of the day at Paris in 1919. The Peace Treaty would be written by the victors and then imposed on the Germans.

During World War II the Allies concluded a series of secret treaties among themselves to divide the spoils. Now, at Paris, each of the Allies claimed its share of the territorial plunder, mainly in the form of the Arab parts of the Turkish Empire and the German colonies. These were accordingly parcelled out, the victors preserving their pose of virtue by calling them mandates instead of colonies.

Woodrow Wilson probably convinced himself that as long as the League of Nations came into being, it did not matter what injustices he agreed to and, when presented with the treaty of Versailles, German delegates at first refused to sign. They were then threatened with a resumption of the war; since they were now disarmed, having put their faith in Woodrow Wilson’s promises, the Germans had no choice but to acquiesce. They insisted that this was no true peace treaty but a dictated peace. Many veteran diplomats present understood and were filled with foreboding; Germany would abide by the treaty until the day that it became strong enough to tear it up.

Woodrow Wilson signed the Treaty of Versailles, including the Covenant of the League of Nations, and the treaties with the other defeated nations, on behalf of the United States. However he was later unable to gain the two-thirds majority needed in the US Senate, thus the United States never signed the Treaty of Versailles. A few years later, under President Harding, America declared the war with Germany ended, and never joined the League of Nations.

Generations of school children were taught that it was the dreadful “isolationists” who torpedoed Wilson’s project of a League to outlaw war thus paving the road to World War II. In fact, it was Wilson himself who started the world on the road to another war by helping to cobble a vindictive and unworkable peace.

As for the League, its real purpose was to lock in the borders of 1919 - to preserve forever the balance of power at the point where Germany and Russia did not count and British and French imperialism were triumphant. It is not surprising most patriotic Americans wanted their country to have nothing to do with the League of Nations. This led to the American people, in 1920, showing their hatred for the whole rotten Wilsonian system of economic control, and War and meddling abroad and they voted in Warren Harding who achieved the greatest landslide in any Presidential Election to that time. He simply promised a return to “normalcy” but too many institutions had changed, and too many special interests had been awakened to the scent of wealth and power at the taxpayer’s expense.

Robert Higgs, in his indispensable work, Crisis and Leviathan; Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, writes of the aftermath of the First World War;

“Legacies of wartime collectivism abounded; the corporatism of massive governmental collusion with organised special-interest groups; the de facto nationalisation of the ocean shipping and railroad industries, the increased federal intrusion in labor markets, capital markets, communications, and agriculture; and enduring changes in constitutional doctrines regarding conscription and governmental suppression of free speech.”

“Looming over everything was the ideological legacy”, Higgs concludes - “the change in fundamental ideas. Americans might have despised him as a self-deceiving fraud, but Woodrow Wilson had changed their country permanently. When the next crisis came - the Depression and another European war - Wilson’s methods would be resurrected and vastly amplified by a president who had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson administration, Franklin D Roosevelt”.

Robert Haupt² explained;

“World War I was a collision of ignorant forces that put the world onto the path of this century’s fatal expansion of state power. For the first time in modem times, we had full mobilisation: all resources of capital and labour put at the mercy of the state, a fateful precedent.”

“Among all the things that changed in 1914 was the idea that the money a man earned was his own; from then on, in war or peace, the State would get a slice of the pie, or should we say the apple?” [i.e. the advent of taxation..Ed.].

Haupt refers to the task of repairing countries after the ravages of collectivism (socialism and communism) as “the Western project”, and he states;

“And if socialism is no longer the threat to ‘the Western project’, what is? A note sounded early in our conversation came to mind. We

2. The Shape of Political History, a Robert Haupt review of Prof. Robert Skidelsky's book The World After Communism; A Polemic For Our Times (Macmillan, London 1995) In the Australian Financial Review Nov. 1 1995.

had forgotten, Professor Skidelsky had said, how similar in spirit were Roosevelt’s New Deal and Hitler’s National Socialism.”

“One difference between Hitler and Roosevelt was that Roosevelt was constrained by a working constitution and Hitler was not”.¹²

As World War I defeat was looming, German life began to disintegrate. Marxism had already prevailed in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917, but Marxists were not willing to settle for that triumph. They intended to spread their control to Germany and the rest of the world. Capitalising on the chaos of war and Germany’s journey to defeat, Marxists began fomenting revolution in cities all across Germany. It was in this time that Hitler’s deep-seated and malevolent anti-Semitism became a driving force in his life; Hitler, like many other Germans, associated Jews with Marxism. From Hitler’s perspective, the Jews and Reds were traitors to the Fatherland who, by instigating riots and insurrections on the homefront, were helping the enemy to defeat Germany.

Woodrow Wilson demanded the abdication of the Kaiser before America would agree to an armistice. This demand accelerated the disintegration of German society. Government after government across Europe fell to socialist revolutionaries, many of whom were Jewish. Finally, on November 9, 1918, the Kaiser abdicated and relinquished power to the socialists, led by a former saddlemaker, Frederick Ebert.

In his biography Adolf Hitler (1976) John Toland points out;

“It was the end of the German Empire, begun in France on January 18,1871. It was also the end of an era. Forty-eight years earlier Bismarck had achieved his dream of unifying Germany and in so doing had created a new image of Germany and Germans. Overnight the political philosophy on which the majority of Germans had based their conservative and patriotic way of life had apparently disintegrated with a lowering of the imperial flag.”

But, as Toland observes, perhaps the greatest shock for the German people was to find Ebert - a Socialist sitting as the new German Chancellor. When Germany agreed to terms of the Allied armistice, Woodrow Wilson required the German representatives to assume responsibility for the war. Little did he know that he was finding for Adolf Hitler the tool by which he would later claim that the socialists -the “November criminals” - had sold out Germany to the Allies. Thus, in 1918, Adolf Hitler, who would become leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party), was assisted by the Allies to reach the highest echelon of political power in Germany.

So where did American Foreign Policy go wrong?

Professor Raico explains how between 1898 and 1919, a certain idea of America was “let go” and another put in its place;

“The older idea was of a nation dedicated to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of the people who comprise it. Crucial to this image of America was their traditional foreign policy; its aim and limit was to keep America strong enough to prevent attacks from abroad, or, if they occur, to fend them off, so that the people could return to their peaceful pursuits. It was a foreign policy custom-made for the American Republic”.

“The new idea of America, nurtured by McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and brought to fruition by Woodrow Wilson was of a nation made immensely powerful by its free institutions and dedicated to projecting its might in order to achieve freedom throughout the world. In this conception, they would be perpetually entangled everywhere on earth where they could “do good”. Under this new regime the American people would not be allowed to return to the peaceful enjoyment of their rights until the whole world was at last free. This was - and is - the foreign policy of America, and it represents Empire, which is the negation of Republic. At the end of the 20th Century, many Americans are wondering if they will ever regain the power to choose between the two.” [i.e. Empire or Republic..Ed.].

Even with an imperfect foreign policy, the American forces were most welcome by the Australians in France in 1918.

World War II evolved and in 1945 Germany again lay in ruins, the vanquished victim of mankind’s most grotesque war.

What followed is the story of how a handful of economists defied orthodoxy and produced the economic success story of this century. This story contains parallels and lessons for Australia of the 1990s and new century, where political leaders, Labor and Liberal, appear not to have the faintest idea of how to avert national bankruptcy.

World War II had shaken the German economy to its very roots; it destroyed one-fifth of all housing, decimated the transit lines between regions, reduced industrial output to one third of its 1936 level and annihilated or displaced a huge percentage of the working-age male population. While the defeat belonged to the Nazis, the immense destruction belonged to the entire German nation. The shocking reality was that war-scorched Germany was to face its greatest economic crisis in the years after 1945. The post-war devastation was the combined effect of two principal factors, outlined by US political commentator Thomas W Hazlett in a feature article in Reason magazine, April 1978;

“First, a tremendous inflation broke loose - the predictable result of prior history. Under the Third Reich, the German government had financed a colossal industrial build-up to accommodate the designs of the Nazi war machine. The tremendous industrial expansion was paid for with rampant monetary expansion. All the screws of the Nazi State had to be tightened to their breaking point to suppress the resultant inflation; the guns of the Gestapo turned on blackmarketeers and others who sought to evade the officially proclaimed prices of goods and services”.

“Enter crisis-source number 2: Allied control policies. In an effort to forestall the inevitable realignment of money and prices, the Allied commanders of France, Britain and the US slapped on an extensive control network which fixed wages and prices at pre-inflation (1936) levels. The economically obvious occurred; goods disappeared from legal markets and were sold illegally at prices far above the official prices. Severe misallocation of resources took place”.

“This stupendous gap between the legal and illegal prices grew to such proportions that a general collapse of the currency ensued. People resorted to barter, and German cities typically saw a mass exodus on weekends as city-dwellers flocked to the countryside to trade with the farmers in kind. The economic system was reduced to a primitive condition. In the Eastern Zone, the Russian formula was basic; loot everything of value. In the Western Zone, however, there was a different problem; total indecisiveness.”

German economist Wilhelm Roepke said, “Among the victors only Russia could be said to have had a German policy at all.”

The Western Zone was afflicted by an acute case of disarray, and government policy fluctuated from the vengeance of the French, reformist zeal of the British Laborites, and bewilderment of the Americans. About the only consensus to be found anywhere was to rely on economic controls.

The Allies attempted to administer the German economy through a patchwork assortment of price regulations, allocation details, and rationing. By 1946 the mechanism had reached bankruptcy and another German economist, Ludwig Erhard, reported, “All attempts at mending matters were frustrated, not only by the prevailing conditions of devastation, exhaustion and disruption, but also by the supposed experts, in and outside Germany, clinging tenaciously to their reliance on controls.”

During the dark days of the Hitler epoch, a liberal⁴ economic resistance movement had developed at the University of Freiburg, including Roepke and Erhard and it was from the nucleus of these individuals that a new and exciting intellectual debate started spreading around academic institutions and government sectors in Germany. These men helped construct one of the most comprehensive political-economic doctrines of this century; the German name being Soziate Marktwirtschaft, translated as “a socially conscious free market”, stating that totalitarianism is the evil to be most guarded against and that the only way to protect people from tyranny is to promote freedom. This theory spread freedom across political and economic lines and espoused a policy of non-control - by either the state or individuals - a policy of individual choice. Their conclusion was that free markets, and only free markets, provide the incentives, efficiencies, and freedoms that can lead to a vital and progressive society. This Freiburg approach of laissez faire; government was to be active only in promoting competition and protecting free markets from monopoly, public or private.

In 1946 Wilhelm Roepke, probably the most eloquent and vociferous of the “school”, set down a precise format for German reconstruction. The plan was to create a new currency, to decontrol the economy, and to let the German people produce. Roepke proposed a currency deflation of 100 to 1. It ended up being 100 old Marks for 6.5 new ones. Roepke also advanced the radical concept of free trade -unilaterally, if need be, - to put German exports back into the world market.

Finally, Roepke called for an end to the Allied bureaucracy, as he put it “a deflation of Allied administration which ought to be as drastic as that of the German currency”.

Roepke side-stepped the Allied bureaucracy and in his notes explained;

“It was strictly laid down by the British and American control authorities that permission had to be obtained before definite price

4. As in “Classical Liberal ” and not in the U.S. sense of Liberal = Socialist or Australian sense of Liberal = semi-Socialist. ” changes could be made. The Allies never seemed to have thought it possible that someone could have the idea, not to alter price controls, but simply to remove them.”

With strong support of one American, General Lucius Clay, the German free market exponents were able to blast through the inertia of Allied supervision.

This Erhard did. Simultaneously, he instituted currency reform, which halted rampaging inflation, and moved to cut taxes and restore economic freedom. He did all this by one simple edict at midnight, on 20th June 1948, all on the surmise that although the Allies prohibited him from making any changes to their existing controls, there was no law that said he could not abolish controls.

Erhard had taken a giant step, and it worked. Ludwig Erhard then went on to become Economics Minister in the Adenauer Administration (1949 - 57) and then Chancellor (1963-66).

Erhard was already aware of another historic success model that worked; abolition of the laws governing trade in Britain that ushered in the industrial revolution.

Contemporary analysts might regard the German policy as harsh in that it left few rewards for those who did not seek to take care of themselves. While Government expenditures on social welfare through transfer payments were comparable to those of other European nations, the Germans abstained from further economic intrusions via “full employment policies”, subsidies, and income redistribution. In fact the tax policy was shifted to reduce the burden on upper-income brackets.

If the harshness of the policy was great, so was the positive record of accomplishment. Industrial production and national income skyrocketed. Industrial output increased 50% within the year, and national income (in constant prices) was restored to the 1936 level in just over a year (it had fallen to 20% below this figure). Unemployment peaked at 10.2% in 1950 but dropped steadily - to 6% in 1952, 3% in 1956 and 1% by 1960. The German free market experiment had produced the economist’s Garden of Eden; full employment without inflation.

The German experiment flies in the face of the failed Keynesian economic policies that Australia has followed and provides powerful evidence for economist Milton Friedman’s conclusion - that with the high costs and impossible delays of information gathering, “fine-tuning” of the economy is mythical. In rejecting the Keynesian formulas, Erhard consistently balanced budgets in the reform period. Where are our Australian leaders who will learn from history and take Australia on such a giant step toward prosperity and full employment?

These measures are lessons for Australia as we end one century and start a new one.

Our socialists of both parties, are probably left wondering how the massive rebuilding and subsequent growth of Germany took place without the stimulus of government spending or loose credit. Miraculously, it was financed by the simplest and most direct sources; savings, investment, and “overtime”. Under these German free market policies, tax credits were liberally granted to savers. Investment tax credits provided incentives for corporations to plough profits right back into capital expenditure - almost tax-free. And workers working overtime were allowed to retain almost one hundred percent of all extra pay.

Tom Hazlett, in his feature article in the Magazine Reason (1978), draws attention to this “German Miracle” as a valuable addition to economic history and the science of economics itself. He shows how, when the aspirations of a productive people are fully set free, a tidal wave of entrepreneurial zest and drive can lift a nation out of economic despondency.

The story of the “German Miracle” contains much more than economic data. It is a compelling human drama involving courageous men and a powerful idea. These men were heroes of the rebuilding of Germany. And now in 1996 - carrying the dismantled Communist East Germany into a market economy, Germany, again needs heroes of similar stature to give their nation an injection of de-regulatory free-enterprise.

Out of the desolation of Hitler there arose a philosophy so profound in its appeal against authoritarianism: that a few men and an idea were able to break the chains of State control and grant a nation a truly new lease of life. It is a refreshing tale that shows us how intelligent men, a committed ideal, led against incredible odds, to an economic victory. It is a tale that deserves to remain in our thoughts, and become implanted in the minds of indecisive political leaders in Australia, who seem so intent on taxing and regulating everything that moves in our once prosperous country.

Ron Manners July 1996

PART 3

Kalgoorlie’s Golden Years 1893-1966 by

Ron Manners

This is a collection of skip-or-read, self contained segments, of varying interest to different people, so please be selective.

(dates of writing shown in brackets)

CONTENTS

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PAGE

A quick pictorial tour of Chas Manners’ life (2002)    ..    180

Plaza Hotel & Norman Nobby Dorsett    ..    ..    202

Kalgoorlie’s (Coolgardie’s) first Expo, 1899 and ninety seven years later, the 1996 “Expo”    ..    204

Aviatrix Amy Johnson captured Kalgoorlie’s Hearts (2002) 210 The Chamber of Mines (2001)    ..    ..    ..    218

Central Norseman (2003) ..    ..    ..    ..    221

Marjorie Harvey (1994)    ..    ..    ..    ..    222

Claude de Bemales & Fred Meyers (1990)    ..    237

The Noble Pickle “As Good as Gold” (the Davidson family) (1994) ..    ..    ..    ..    242

Growing up on the Goldfields (1993)    ..    ..    248

The Museum of the Goldfields (1993)    ..    ..    265

Get a Hat (Unmentionables, Drill Rigs and Regional Centres) (1993)..    ..    ..    ..    283

Kalgoorlie Looking Good Feeling Awful (1978)    ..    294

Kalgoorlie’s Centenary and Courage (1993)    ..    302

Good Buildings Never Die (2001)    ..    ..    ..    310

Pleasures and Problems of Delving into History (1991)    312

When President Hoover Sat at My Desk (1992)    ..    320

When Miners were Heroes (Booklaunch 1992)    ..    331

Two Riots on the Goldfields (2003)..    ..    ..    336

Breaking Records and Dreams (2002)    ..    ..    344

A Quick Pictorial Tour

of Chas Manners’ Life 1894 - 1966

By Ron Manners, Nov. 2002

Place of Birth:

Tarrawingee, 64 km N.W. from Broken Hill, NSW, May 18, 1897; where his father was the Engineer for the Tarrawingee Flux and Tramway Company (contracted to mine limestone and transport it to the Broken Hill Mines via their private railway).

In Search of History:

In 19921 visited Tarrawingee in the hope of finding people or places of interest. This is what I found..................

All that remains of the Tarrawingee townsite and residual artifacts. Limestone quarry in distance.

Remnant foundations for the limestone crushing plant.

Chas as junior farmer age 12, with big broth, Bill (centre) & mother Margaret (right) at Denmark, W.A. 1907

The Manners ’ farm at Denmark struggled for years but ultimately failed.

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In 1923, an abrupt career change when Chas was called from the farm, to run his father’s engineering business when W.G. Manners was struck down with cancer.

Found Kalgoorlie’s social life an improvement to “tilling the soil” .... 1923.

Obtained some “merchandise lines” such as Essex car dealership, to supplement struggling engineering firm. Chas photographed here with 1924 Essex Six in front of the former Victoria Park, in Croesus St.

Back- i'-OW—Cts. W. D. Jones, !'. N. Tippett, A, Bingley, P. C* Hunt, L. «J. Bennit, v B. Manners, and A. u. P'lulpoit. /■jro/tf RoW’—is■ E-. W. l ike, L. A. Atman, i be Town Cl k (C. E. Ib vies, J.P.), His Worship the Mayor (E. E. Brimage, J.P.), Town Treasurer (R. G, C. Shaw), Crs. C. U. Elliott and H. A. Kingsbury.

Kalgoorlie Municipal Council - 1933

Returned Soldiers League Office Bearers -1931

Chas as agent for the new Morris Oxford Six -1931

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The installation of Chas (centre) as Worshipful Master of Golden Square Lodge - 1939. The assembled members were a veritable

“Who’s Who” of the Goldfields.

Names and program details are included in Appendix III

Chas & Nancy were active in the church life of the Goldfields.

(see Appendix III for particulars of St. Paul’s 60th Jubilee 1910-1960)

Above photo 1953

Staff pa rty - 1955 Nancy & Chas with the “W.G. Manners & Co. Team”

Clients Party - 1964 L-R; Len Beilby; Noel Hicks; Herb Hansen; Colin Smith; Chas; Merv Andre; Dennis Hicks; Horrie Shugg.

Chas, always happy when “surrounded by good equipment used by good people

Chas delivering a new International bulldozer to Clem Sampson, the prolific damsinker. c.1950

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Above - “Back on the farm at last”. Our first ploughing - Esperance 1963

An ambitious young New Zealand builder was drawn to Kalgoorlie during the excitement of the 1969 Nickel Boom. Guy Dufour’s first job was the Goldrush Motel at the top end of Cheetham Street, a project I managed from construction, onwards, but only half the motel was completed due to Local Council bungling. I was impressed with Guy’s work so I asked him to build a new office for W G Manners & Co at 45 Brookman Street, which he completed in 1970. His next venture was far more ambitious; a nine storey hotel in Egan Street, complete with a rooftop swimming pool.

Unfortunately the Nickel Boom ceased abruptly in 1971 and he was “caught short” half-way through the project, leaving a partly completed, windswept shell which stood on the block for years until it was auctioned one Saturday morning at the Palace Hotel, Kalgoorlie.

Apart from me, there was only one other bidder; a mystery man. After taking him to around $200,000, just as I wondered where I would get the money if it became mine, I looked deeply into his eyes, which told me he was going to have it at any cost. It was his, without further intervention on my part.

When the bidding was over I asked about this quietly spoken, determined man and was told “that’s ‘Nobby’ Dorsett, he owns the Auto Motel chain and half of Bunbury.”

Nobby Dorsett also asked someone who I was and when told, he smiled quietly saying “So that’s Charlie’s boy”.

Ron Manners 2001

Chas Manners had no money when he was invited to Ted Dorsett’s 1920 wedding in Denmark (WA). To avoid embarrassment he quickly penned the above cartoon and presented it in a simple frame as a wedding present to the happy couple.

When Ted died in 1990, his brother Norman “Nobby” Dorsett remembered the circumstances and presented the framed cartoon to me when he visited me in Kalgoorlie on October 14,1990,60 years after the cartoon was drawn. Since that day I have valued the friendship that has continued and “Nobby”, now 98, continues as a shareholder in Croesus Mining NL, and never ceases to ask searching questions concerning our plans and ambitions.

Ron Manners 2001

[Since writing the above, Norman Dorsett passed away on March 19, 2002, shortly after his 99"' birthday ...—RBM]

Kalgoorlie’s Early “Expo” Involvement

These two original certificates of participation in the 1900 Paris International Exposition were among my grandfather’s papers, showing his support for the “Expo” project.

This followed W G Manners’ earlier involvement as engineer for

the Golden Crown Mine at Kanowna, one of the 235 Western Australian Mines participating in that Expo.

H. H. H Thk Marquis John, Victor,Louis Jerome^De BONANATE

When these certificates were framed for display in 1990,

Lee Ranford and John Terrell from the Department of Minerals & Energy kindly assisted with further information of the three major International Expositions in which our State’s mines proudly participated.

One of these mines was the Hannan’s North G.M. Co. Ltd, now, 100 years later operating as a tourist and visitors mine at the Australian Prospectors & Miners Hall of Fame.

RBM July 2001

Western Australia was a proud participant at various international exhibitions held around the tum-of-the-century. Those staged at Coolgardie in 1899, at Paris in 1900 and Glasgow in 1901 were major showcases of the industrial development potential of the State during the era.

A government report, which came to light recently, provided some graphic evidence of the grandeur of the display mounted by the Government of Western Australia and local industry for the Paris Exhibition.

The ornately decorated “Western Australian Court” featured products as gold, wheat, wool, timber and pearl shells. The minerals section alone contained more than 250 samples provided by mining companies and prospectors throughout the State. Several public servants including Mineral Curator, Mr A G Holroyd¹, accompanied the display to Paris for what was proclaimed as the world’s greatest-ever exhibition. The event attracted some 48 million visitors.

In his report after the event, the President of the Royal Commission (Paris International Exhibition), the Hon H W Venn, MLA, went to great lengths to justify the State’s participation - and the cost of 29,762 pounds - in the exhibition.

He said Western Australia no doubt reaped a good advantage by being the only Australian State represented at the Paris Exhibition.

Mr Venn said: ‘To have made a show in Paris, as a show only, would have been a wilful abuse of public money and to have decked our Court in gaudily labelled manufactures and gimcrack for the delectation of a gaily dressed crowd would have been criminal. There was none of this. The Western Australian Court, through her exhibits, conveyed an object lesson to the world of the wondrous resources of the State”.

He continued: “The intention of the exhibition was to draw attention of the great moving world of travellers, investors and crowded populations to the treasures of a new world; to touch their minds and fill them with a desire to embark their families and the fortunes in a country offering them cheerful homes, where the climate is unequalled, where the laws of liberty and freedom vest them manly independence, where the rights of property are respected, where the future of themselves and their families are assued in a land where racial strife is unknown, and in which certain prosperity awaits the thrifty, sober, industrious and law abiding”.

The accompanying photographs show sections of the Western Australian display at the Paris Exhibition in 1900.

... The above notes and following photographs kindly made available by Mr JohnTerrell of the Department of Minerals and Energy, Western Australia (Feb 1995).

Note 1:

Arthur Holroyd was first to identify Kalgoorlie’s Gold bearing telluride ref p.75 “Kanowna’s Barrowman” - James Balzano

See Appendix III for Holroyd’s letter and the Minister’s invitation letter.

Replica headframe amongst the minerals display.

A century later the “Expo”spirit is still alive and well in the Goldfields..........

Goldfields Mining Expo 1996

Official Opening by Ron Manners,

Executive Chairman, Croesus Mining NL 23 October, 1996

There are only two types of people in Australia;

Those who perform and produce, and;

those who sit around and criticise the first group; you could call them Australia’s “nattering nabobs of negativism”.

I’m happy today to be addressing people from the first group, including some of Australia’s greatest performers; whose performance in service to the mining industry has resulted in our industry going out and successfully competing with the global mining community.

I say competing; as it is a race with the prizes going only to the successful.

Already Latin America is attracting 30% of the entire world’s mineral exploration budget and you are out there increasing Australia’s market share of that expanding market.

A surprisingly large share of this global mining expertise comes from Kalgoorlie and it is a credit to the quality of services developed here by our numerous entrepreneurs.

“Quality” is the theme for this Expo.

Quality is simply, doing common things uncommonly well. Companies and organisations exist to enable ordinary people like us to do extraordinary things.

Despite so many obstacles, Australia’s gold production for last year is up 11% to 276 tonnes and will rise again this year and next.

It is not hard to find gold and pour gold bars but to do it profitably is difficult. I know how hard that is, and it is impossible without the breadth of quality services that you have developed.

These services enable the junior mining companies to compete successfully with the mining giants. This was revealed recently in J B Were and Son’s study by Robin Widdup where he stated that since 1989 Australian junior companies have found 25 million ounces in new gold deposits versus only 13 million ounces by the majors, despite the funding balance being stacked in favor of the latter.

Twice as many ounces being discovered by the juniors; with the back-up of your quality services.

This is all part of the wealth creation cycle and we will get more of it if we can successfully compete in the new global mining world that beckons us.

If access to land for exploration in Australia becomes too difficult because of Native Title then there is plenty of world out there where our skills are very welcome. Actually, I call the Native Title Act the “Naive” Title Act, because it is supposed to help our Aborigines but instead it is only helping their legal advisers (don’t get me started).

We should pressure our politicians to instead, support “wealth creation”, as it is the only means of delivering an attractive future to all Australians.

Those whom we should regard as national heroes are our entrepreneurs and one of the basic requirements of wealth creation is a legal, regulatory, and taxation environment that encourages entrepreneurship.

An entrepreneur is a specialist in taking risks. He effectively “insures” goods, ideas or workers by buying their product (or their skills) for re-sale, before consumers have indicated how much they are willing to pay for them.

In a more personal way, whilst not all of us own the business we work with, we are self-owners. The concept of us owning ourselves and being our “own person”, builds a strong ethic of entrepreneurship into our own lives, as full-owners and initiators of our own goals and actions.

This marks us apart from that other category of people, who aren’t here today, the people who have only a sense of “entitlement” to the fruits of our labour.

We must always be vigilant to identify and curb these value-destroyers. Every new tax, every new bureaucratic delay, every project shelved, every bit of land sterilised by edict; all destroy value.

They think that because they have the ability to tax us out of existence; that automatically gives them the right to do so. There is a big difference between having the ability and having the right and we must continually remind them of this fact.

To add value we must build on our strengths, taking our incomparable resources and skills in exploration and mining, and adding further value to these and their related businesses.

In opening this Goldfields Mining Expo, the largest Expo of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, I wish to deliver a majestic hymn of praise for the intricate network of services that stands behind our industry.

I live and work for the day when all Australians will recognise your achievements.

We all cheer for our athletes who “go for gold” against the best the world can offer.

One day we will see the same enthusiasm for those who, every day, “go for gold” in this value-adding and wealth creating challenge.

THE SPHERE

AUSTRALIA TODAYS! Miss AMY JOHNSON'S

AMAZING SOLO FLIGHT in a D. H. GIPSY MOTH!

{Standard, except for extra tankage)

“The Sphere” - June 7, 1930

Amy Johnson Flies In; Kalgoorlie 1930

With big eyes and dark hair she may not have been beautiful in the classic sense,

but Amy Johnson had a total sense of direction in her life which men found irresistible.

She enjoyed men’s company and lived in a man’s world. Something rare and defiant in 1930.

This all added to her qualifications as head-turning hero material.

Today, we take for granted the experience of sitting in air-conditioned luxury whilst we fly non-stop from Australia to Europe but in 1930 such a feat was not only unthinkable but anyone suggesting it would have been regarded as either mad or a very imaginative science fiction writer.

The record books of the thirties were being rapidly filled by the extraordinary feats of great names in aviation like Amy Johnson and her husband-to-be, Jim Mollison, Bert Hinkler, Beryl Markham, Jean Batten and Amelia Earhart. This was the last great pioneering era of flight and the world made heroes out of those who succeeded.

Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia, is perhaps the most famous and best remembered aviatrix of all.

In 1930, when she left England in a Gipsy Moth named Jason, she was virtually unknown. Six days later she was at Karachi and had broken the record for that flight. The press sat up and took notice. In just 19 days she was in Australia. The Daily Mail newspaper awarded her £10,000 , King George V made her a CBE, a hit tune was written for her “Amy, Wonderful Amy” and the public idolised her.

All this no doubt made it easy for Kalgoorlie’s Castro I Agent, Chas Manners, to say “yes” when he received an urgent telegram asking if he could spare a day to act as host to Amy Johnson. She was to visit Kalgoorlie as part of her Castrol sponsored tour of triumph.

Being Taken Seriously

When Kalgoorlie’s underground miners were told of “a woman” coming to visit them underground, there was plenty of light-hearted banter.

When Amy Johnson arrived, her questions to one “gun miner” were; “How does your rockdrill work?” “If you strip it down I’ll show you how to make it drill faster!”

Amy’s practical engineering knowledge enabled her to show them that “by grinding this bit off here and some off there” they could increase the efficiency of their rockdrill.

Amy Johnson “shows them    The    underground    miner    commented

how”on the 1600 feet level.    later,    “Never    met    a    woman    like    her

before!”

Triumphant Parade

Amy Johnson’s arrival on the Goldfields on July 4,1930, aroused the most remarkable scenes of enthusiasm.

“Huge crowds assembled everywhere along the route to cheer themselves hoarse and “Johnnie" should long remember the typical Goldfields welcome that greeted her everywhere yesterday. ”

WELCOME AT BOULDER “The Boulder Town Hall was just one packed mass of humanity when Miss Johnson arrived, and the police had difficulty in forcing a passage through the crowd for her to enter the hall. Her appearance upon the stage was the signal for further wild outbursts of cheering. ”

WELCOME AT KALGOORLIE

“Miss Johnson’s arrival at Kalgoorlie was eagerly awaited, and as soon as the two mounted troopers preceding the official car, came into sight, the air was again rent with cheers. The party proceeded along Hannan Street to Porter Street, turning back along Hannan Street, to Wilson Street, to the War Memorial, where Miss Johnson was met by the president (Mr. W.T. Barnes) and officials of the Kalgoorlie sub-branch of the R.S.L. After depositing a wreath upon the monument, she returned to the Town Hall for the official welcome.

There was not even standing room inside the spacious building. The floor of the hall was packed to suffocation, and the dress circle was crammed to the doors with people. Anther great ovation signalled Miss Johnson’s appearance upon the stage.

The Mayor, Mr B. Leslie, said he was totally at a loss for words to suitably express the feelings of the citizens on this auspicious occasion to welcome Amy Johnson. (Cheers). No words could express their admiration for her feat in flying direct, without aid or assistance, from the Old Country to this sunny land. Many wonderful feats of aviation had been performed but Miss Johnson’s surpassed all those. He called for three cheers for the visitor and these were given with a will.

The drive back to the Palace Hotel from the Town Hall was made to the accompaniment of further cheering, the whole route being lined with enthusiastic citizens, men, women, and children, all anxious for a glimpse of the famous Johnnie. ”

Above extracts all from Kalgoorlie Miner - 5/7/1930.

Other items, including Amy Johnson's Perth visit, are in Appendix III.

Amy Johnson

A Legend; Surrounded by Mystery

- love was elusive -

“When a woman wants to make a mark in her profession, she must do something rather better than any man has ever done before,” said Amy Johnson as she left England (May 5, 1930) to try and break Bert Hinkler’s record flight to Australia.¹³

From where did

this 26-year-old

daughter of a Hull Chas kept this photo of Amy with the    ₍ y ^ ^    herrirm

many press-clippings of her adventures    merchant pluck this

(personally signed at left)    enormous courage?

Some say that if

the Swiss businessman she met at 18 and loved for several years had not married someone else, she may not have taken to the skies at all. “She did so because she thought she might be killed in the melancholy irrationality of the affair’s aftermath, she felt that this would get through to her lost lover”.¹⁴

She later married a fellow “flying ace” who turned out to be a philandering drunk,¹⁵ leading into an inevitable divorce.

With that background of intrigue it was natural that her untimely death during the years of World War II would lead to intense speculation.

On Jan. 5, 1941, Amy encountered foul weather while ferrying a much needed war-time aircraft from Preswick to London and ran out of fuel.

Late in the afternoon, lookouts on HMS Hazlemere sighted a parachutist landing in the Thames estuary followed by an aircraft, engines silent, crashing into the sea.

Frantic efforts were made to save Amy. The captain, Lieutenant-Commander Fletcher, dived into the boiling sea and reached Amy, but then disappeared.

A launch picked up the body of the captain but Amy was swept away and was never seen again.

Supplimenting, the various rumours that Amy had made a secret landing to pick up a boyfriend, or that she had flown across to France for a brief rendezvous with a lover; was the report from a seaman aboard the trawler Herne Bay, that following her parachute descent into the Thames, he saw two figures in the water.

It wasn’t until 1988 that Roy Nesbit, the aeronautical historian and author pieced together the facts for “Aeroplane Monthly”.⁴

There was no logical reason for Amy to be over the Thames Estuary. The flight should have taken one hour and Amy had been airborne for about 4.5 hours.

To cap it off, Amy was in a hurry to arrive at her destination, to be at the first anniversary party of the Air Transport Auxilliary, and despite the bad weather, to not be there would have been out of character for Amy.

Roy Nesbit feels that with his research, he had proved that Amy was the victim of a combination of cruel circumstances, starting with a “meteoralogical inversion” (cold air below, warmer air above).

Her aircraft would have been in danger of icing up, so she did what experienced pilots do; fly higher above the cloud blanketing the countryside.

Rather than diving beneath the cloud over Oxfordshire to get her bearings and risk the hills and radio masts, Nesbit insists that;

“There is absolutely no doubt that she would have turned east where she knew Hatfield, her base, lay, to fly on to the flat lands of East Anglia where it would be safer to dive beneath the clouds.

Here is where Amy would have met her worst piece of luck. Documents reveal that a line of barrage balloons stretched across the seven-mile width of the Thames Estuary, tethered to small boats.

They were flying high enought to poke above the unbroken 300m cloud base. Any experienced pilot would have thought, as Amy did, they were a marker for land.

4. “The West" Jan 6, 1988.

When the cloud closed in, the balloons should have been reeled in but German mines dropped by plane into the water had blown up one of the boats, killing everyone aboard and the crews of the others had abandoned the vessels. ”⁵

Nesbit insists that no blame can be attached to anyone due to the confusion caused by the falling German mines.

Well what about the mystery of the two people seen in the water following the parachute descent?

The “other person” was probably Amy’s suitcase, that was recovered.

Yet Another Possibility

In 1999 there was a startling confession by an 83 year-old former soldier.⁶

Tom Mitchell, of Sussex, claimed that he “shot down Johnson’s aircraft during a routine flight in 1941 because she failed to signal correctly that she was flying a British plane.”

Mitchell, a former anti-aircraft gunner, said he was one of four soldiers ordered to shoot the plane down when Johnson gave the wrong codeword over the radio.

“We all thought it was an enemy plane until the next day when we read the papers and discovered it was Amy Johnson,” Mitchell said.

Mr Mitchell, who admitted a sense of guilt about the flying legend’s death, decided to end almost 60 years of silence because he felt that he could not die without offering his own version of history.

An archivist with the Royal Air Force Museum in north London, Peter Elliott, said there was no way of knowing if Mr Mitchell’s claims were true.

Perhaps we will never know the truth?

5. “The West”, Jan 6, 1988

6. “The West”, Feb 8, 1999.

Why Wasn’t Amy at the Wheel When she Flew into Kalgoorlie?

Why Didn’t She Fly in Fler Own Plane?

After completing the London - Australia solo flight and landing in Darwin on May 25, 1930, Amy, sponsored by Castrol, embarked on an Australia-wide “triumphant tour.”

Arriving in Brisbane, in front of 20,000 people, a strong gust of wind caused Jason to hit a barbed wire fence and crash. (Jason was Amy’s beloved DeHavilland Gipsy Moth that had been freshly painted, green, for the flight to Australia.) Jason’s wings were damaged but fortunately Amy was not.

From then on she flew the balance of the Australian tour as a passenger of another flying legend, Major de Havilland, piloting a Hawk Moth, another of the successful stable De Havilland planes.

Amy’s doctor had also given her some strong advice that she had already suffered enough nervous strain and that she should save up her remaining strength to deal with the vast crowds and receptions that confronted her in the weeks to come.

Meanwhile Jason was repaired and taken on his own tour.

(July 2001)

The Chamber of Mines of Western Australia (Inc.) Ninth Annual Meeting - Kalgoorlie, 29th March, 1910. Richard Hamilton - President

A regular Executive Council Meeting of Chamber in Kalgoorlie Circa. 1954 (from left bottom around table) (l)H.B. Newman (Burge) - South Kalgurli; (2)G.W. Brain (Gerry) - W.M.C.; (3)R.C. Simpson (Ray) - G.M. of Kalg; (4)E.K. Penrose (Ken) - W.M.C.; (5)J.E. Manners (Joe) - Boulder Perseverance; (6)G.F. Deas (George) - Chamber of Mines; (7)G.H. Jennings (George) - Chamber of Mines; (8)R.J. Agnew (Dolf) - L.V. & Star; (9)R. Ince (Bob) -L.V. & Star; (10)A.A. McLeod (Alec) - Nth Kalgurli; (11)L.E. Elvey (Edgar) - Gt Boulder; (12)J. Holly (Jack) - Gt Boulder.

On wall above R.J. Agnew is a painting of Richard Hamilton - President of the Chamber from 1901 to March 1943.

The Invisible Hand of the Chamber of Mines

Local historian Norma King published an excellent article on the historical beginnings of the Coolgardie, then the Kalgoorlie Chamber of Mines and subsequent 1901 merger, and ensuing events (Kalgoorlie Miner, Jan 5 1985).

Her headline was Mine Owners Began Chamber to Protect Their Interests, but history has proved this organization to have benefited the broader community, with many benefits flowing through to the State of Western Australia.

Their stated intention of “protecting their interests” produced other more significant consequences.

These unintended consequences of producing a more efficient industry that managed to survive through incredible adversity, enabled an efficient, adaptable workforce to seize opportunities that have subsequently occurred when major discoveries and marketing opportunities presented themselves.

This has been a classic example of the “Invisible Hand” as proposed by the 18th Century economist-moral philosopher Adam Smith.

Smith in his Wealth of Nations explained it as follows:

though the sole end which they propose from the labours of

all the thousands whom they employ be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life which would have been made had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants; and thus, without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society , and afford means to the multiplication of the species.

Note:

Appendix III contains several pages from the Chamber’s 1905 Monthly Journal. The May 1905 Journal gives advice that, if it had been read and understood by Brian Burke’s State Government, could have saved Western Australia the financial agony and loss of reputation that resulted from the “WA Inc. Disaster” of the 1980s.

Ron Manners November, 2002

Z++iJtt/y /9c

In November, 2002 Central Norseman Gold Corporation Limited poured its five millionth ounce of gold confirming the Norseman Goldfields status as one of the largest and most enduring gold producing centres in Australia.

Central Norseman Gold also holds the record as Australia’s longest continually operating gold mine now in its 68th year of operation. Testament to the quality of the field is that the record annual production of 137,023 ounces that was achieved in calendar 2002 confirming that the Norseman field is far from being depleted.

Central Norseman Gold Corporation offices, with mill in background,

as it looked in 1961

Of course none of this production would have been possible without the workforce and service industries that invested the human capital into the operations over the past seven decades. This celebration today recognises and congratulates these people for their contribution.

Inland Western Australia was pioneered by the gold discoveries and developments of the 1890’s and today over 100 years later gold mining remains as one of the most important industries to the Western Australian economy. At today’s gold price Norseman has produced over $3 billion dollars worth of gold. It has an enviable dividend history with 51 dividends declared so far totalling $63.7 million (dollars of the day). Its directors, managers and workforce have included many notable mining industry identities that have gone on to make great contributions to the Australian mining industry and Central Norseman remains today a great incubator and training ground for our mining industry.

Through nearly 70 years of mining booms and busts, fixed gold prices and even a world war, Central Norseman has survived and prospered and I am convinced that our Norseman operations will continue to produce gold for many years to come.

To the miners, managers, investors, suppliers and explorers, to their families and to the Norseman community - thank you and congratulations, five million ounces of gold produced is a fantastic achievement and one that you should be deservedly proud of. I look forward to joining with you when we pour our 6th million ounce.

Ron Manners Chairman

Croesus Mining NL 1 March 2003

Ken & Marjorie Harvey at the Kalgoorlie Railway Station in 1953. Sending one of their two sons, Ross (later Dr. Ross Harvey) off to school in Perth.

Their other son, Greg, was also a boarder (at Wesley College).

ROYAL WEDDING GIFT

The inscription reads: “Presented to H.R.H. Princess Elizabeth and Lieut. Philip Mountbatten on the occasion of their wedding, by the loyal citizens of the Kalgoorlie and Boulder district of Western Australia - 20/11/1947. ”

The seals are replicas of the Kalgoorlie and Boulder Municipal Concils, the Kalgoorlie Road Board, Chamber of Mines and Chamber of Commerce.

An Interview With Mrs Marjorie Harvey

by Ron Manners (December 1994)

RBM :    Marjorie, congratulations on your 88th Birthday and

thanks for agreeing to reminisce about your family’s time on the Goldfields in the 1950s. I remember you and your husband Ken were my parents’ closest friends at that time. You shared many common interests with Nancy and Charlie, and your initial comment was that my Father was “over the top”. What did you mean by that?

Mrs H.:    Well he was over the top, because he wouldn’t ever

miss a chance to invite somebody to his house. He was a very hospitable man and a community leader of course, so he really wanted to open his house, and Nancy was a good hostess and a very good cook. Charlie was proud of his house, his wife, his family too, so the house was always crowded. You must remember that?

RBM:    Yes I do.

Mrs H.:    He would squash everybody in. He didn’t just invite

the mothers and fathers, he would also invite the brothers and sisters and all the children as well, and; he would also invite their dogs.

RBM :    Especially if the people could sing or if they could play

a musical instrument.

Mrs H.:    Well, even if they couldn’t- it didn’t matter. I think

Friday nights were when he did this mostly. I remember they had a patch of lawn out the front - nice green lawn and the men would stand out there and smoke and the women would go inside and gossip.

These meetings were either wildflower meetings, church meetings, or everybody belonged to the Historical Society. By the way, the gossip was always “good gossip”. It was telling of people in need.

If there was someone in need, Charlie would be the first there. He would not hesitate to go down to his workshop and pick up the nails that fell on the floor from old cases and he would save “nails and string”. Your mother would get very over-powered by all these nails and string. He didn’t throw one thing away.

RBM :    Was that an ethic of that era? I remember that they

would open envelopes, split them and then lay them flat and use them as writing paper.

Mrs H.:    We hadn’t long been over the Depression and then the

war, and we were short of everything and people made everything “do” as much as they could and that’s why we survived, because we were “thrifty”.

No. 7 Croesus St. Kalgoorlie, 1948 featuring Bill Thomas at the piano.

Mrs H.:    The men would go and pick things. Somebody had a

“fig farm”. Was it Davidsons?

RBM:    Yes.

Well they had a sort of a “farm”. They had lots and lots of fig trees.

RBM :    Yes it was more like an orchard. They used to take the

figs, tomatoes and onions to the local pickle factory. They were all bottled at Davidson’s “Good-as-Gold” Pickle and Tomato Sauce Factory on Lionel Street near the comer of White Street.¹⁶

Mrs H.:    I know your mother, your father, myself and Ken would

make hundreds    of bottles of jam and sell it in aid of the Royal Flying

Doctor Service. The jam didn’t keep very long though, and then of course we had to save all the beer bottles as we didn’t have any suitable bottles.

Ken made a handle with a steel ring around it (like a horseshoe). He made it very hot and he would put it over the stem of the bottle and he would cut the bottle so that we would only have the lower half of the bottle left.

RBM :    They used to put the hot ring around the bottle and then

put the bottle under a water tap.

Mrs H.:    Yes, and then after putting the bottle under the tap, they

would then file    the new glass surface smooth so that we wouldn’t cut

our hands. After filling with jam, we covered each jar with brown paper. So that was the jam jar, and they were very big of course. We sold hundreds of them. They were quite dark and kept the light out.

Mrs Russell was included in this lot - she was a neighbor of yours.

RBM :    Yes, they were living at 11 Croesus Street.

Mrs H.:    Are you still living in Croesus Street?

RBM:    Yes, we are still living at number 7 - the old family

home.

Claude de Bernales

Mrs H.:    We    were talking about Claude de Bernales and Charlie

said, “Oh de Bernales, he was a ‘shrewdie’, so shrewd that the others couldn’t catch up with him”.

He had branches and bank accounts in all the outlying districts -Kookynie was one of them. He owed Charlie a lot of money and Charlie went to de Bernales’ beautiful office² which had this enormous timber desk and thick carpet on the floor. A cigar box was on his desk.

Charlie walked into his office and de Bernales said - “Oh Charlie I am pleased to see you - have a cigar”. So Charlie had the cigar and Claude said, “Now how much do I owe you?” I don’t know how much was owed but he said, “Certainly”, and wrote out the cheque with Charlie watching. It seemed all right as Claude folded the cheque and shook Charlie’s hand. Charlie then walked out, “pleased as punch”.

When he got home, Charlie mentioned to Nancy, “I have that money from de Bernales”. She opened the cheque which was made out on Claude’s “Kookynie account” and was made out a month in advance. The Kookynie branch only opened every alternative month. They did eventually get the money, but Charlie had to go a 100 miles to get it from this little branch.

RBM :    There is more?

Mrs H.:    Oh no! - this might be libellous.

RBM :    Relax, Claude’s dead already.

Mrs H.:    Mr de Bernales had found a really good vein of gold at

Marble Bar. This became a good mine, one which could be depended on, and he was slowly developing it. He would go up to Marble Bar and get a “sugar-bag” of real gold and he would then “seed” his other mines and he’d make an announcement “Look what I have got” and “Here’s a sample from ‘so and so’. This occurred with the Dorothy Paget Mine and he would then sell the shares in England.

Do you remember the Dorothy Paget?

It had street trees, it had a huge machinery shed. It also had the first double stainless sink I’ve ever seen in a house. Even the Mine Manager’s and all the engineer’s homes were well-built, all the footpaths were properly formed, all the surrounds protecting the trees from the rabbits were in place and the engine rooms set up like showcases, de

2. De Bernales ’ office later became part of the Goldfields Pensioners Lodge in Kalgoorlie, the main buildings of which were demolished in 1987 to become Burnings car park. The proceeds of $300,000 were given to Anglican Homes and led to the building of the 40 bed "(Jack) Tinetti Lodge ”.

In the same year, de Bernales’ office was shifted to the Museum of the Goldfields (see P.265) where it houses various special exhibits.

Bemales then sold all the shares in London without the mine ever turning a teaspoonful of soil.

They named the “mine” after a racehorse. It was a couple of hundred miles from Kalgoorlie.

RBM :    What was the link or the relationship between de

Bemales’ “worst mines” that he sold complete with fully furnished houses, all dressed up for public floats; and the “best mines” that he operated with small efficient teams? Was there a reason for this?

Mrs H.:    Well - overheads of course, and show. He would take

people to show the “mine” or where it was going to be, and he would take along his whisky and his cigars and put his best collar on, but he would never take them to the mine that was producing.

RBM :    So he obviously wanted to keep the best for himself and

float the worst off to the public. This appeared to be his vision of success and it is fortunate for Australia that we also had mining entrepreneurs with a more legitimate vision of success.

Life On The Goldfields

RBM :    You mentioned that my parents never dropped their

standards. You talked about Nancy wearing hats and gloves?

Mrs H.:    Yes, that’s right. It could be blowing a hurricane, dust

everywhere but that didn’t make a bit of difference. She wore a hat and gloves. Even if she only went down the street, she always changed her dress. She always wore her very best dress to church.

She would be working in the kitchen and there would be a knock at the door and she would have on an apron and her sleeves rolled up, but she would take her apron off, roll her sleeves down to answer the door, the perfect hostess.

RBM:    They probably didn’t embrace the new culture of paper

serviettes or napkins?

Mrs H.:    Oh goodness, no paper serviettes, and the butter knife

was there always. No dipping your spoon into the sugar either. Definitely not!

RBM:    Your husband Ken was an inspector of mines. Was he

inspecting the mining side, or the machinery side of it?

Mrs H.:    The machinery side, and his office was in Boulder.

RBM :    As a machinery inspector for the Department of Mines,

did that take him to every mine in the State?

Mrs H.:    No, not the State. From Esperance to Port Hedland,

and at this time the country was opening up with iron ore and he had to

inspect foundations of big engines. He was a marine engineer, so he knew about foundations and stresses and did the sums and mathematics for the engine beds for the mines. There were some big mining plants being relocated in 1956.

RBM:    I remember you accompanying him on these trips. You

had a covered trailer. It was a camping trailer?

Mrs H.:    Yes,    that’s right. Home-made of course. I remember

the grocer in Kalgoorlie used to make us parcels for each day, for lunch, breakfast and dinner. Because we were away from everywhere.

RBM:    Was that Sheeds?

Mrs H.:    Yes, at the top end of Hannan Street.

RBM :    Sheeds and Femies were the leading grocers    of those

days and I remember that home delivery was their speciality.

Mrs H.:    I would just have to ring them with my    order    and    they

then brought it    my house via a young boy on a bike.

I made up a menu for the five weeks and they put these into parcels and Ken put them into “weekly” bags. One would be marked “first week”, “second week”, so that it wasn’t such an awful lot of sorting to do.

There were no refrigerators, you remember.

RBM:    So that was for a whole five weeks? Was it mainly

canned meat?

Mrs H.:    Yes, but when we would get to Port Hedland we would

get fresh fish and meat and sometimes on the stations we would buy meat, but we made it a point of being independent of station people.

Sometimes the ladies would ask me to stay overnight, but Ken would never let me because in those days they liked visitors, as they, the station women, were lonely. Ken would go on a mine, past the station, out near Nungarra along that river, I remember they were very lonely and so were their little children.

I remember visiting sheep stations and although you initially felt that you may be intruding, after a while you had difficulty in getting away.

RBM:    During that period Marjorie, were the Goldfields towns

relatively quiet?

Mrs H.:    In the 1950’s the nightlife of Kalgoorlie was just stirring

again. They had just had a Depression and a World War and lost a lot of their sons, only old men and kids left really. The young ones had gone.

Well, the War finished in ’45 so there were only five years between that time. But people during the 1950s were building houses, planting lawns, getting into the Repertory Club, the Historical Society and all these social activities. It was like living on an island.

Kalgoorlie was absolutely separated from Perth. There was of course the train and the road but it still felt to me as if I lived on an island. We worked very hard at entertaining ourselves.

We would get up early because of the heat and somebody would host a coffee morning and play mahjong, then go along to somebody else’s house for lunch. We were never idle and worked for many good causes.

Dave Thompson began the Wildflower Show. Do you remember that one?

RBM:    Yes, it evolved into the Kalgoorlie Community Fair, that

still runs as an annual event.

Mrs H.:    This    is how it started. One night at church, it was

announced the Royal Flying Doctor Service would have to cease as they didn’t have the funds and unless we could raise something to help them, they couldn’t continue.

Dave Thompson called a meeting in your church - the Presbyterian Church. He said he wanted to establish a Wildflower Show, and to get the naturalists involved and get the Government botanist up. “I would like the Government to arrange free rail for the flowers and transportation from the outlying stations,” Dave said. They decided to go along with his proposal and started working very hard.

Consequently, Dave wrote to every State School in the south and in the north and there were very few who didn’t respond because the flowers were put on the train and transported free.

RBM :    Which areas sent the wildflowers?

Mrs H.:    Yes, they came from Hopetoun and Albany in the south,

where they picked orchids, and from all points north. The Government botanist found more than 100 new flowers. It was a one-day affair and they then sold the flowers. It later became a two-day affair and then every school in the Kalgoorlie community attended the show as a form of botany lesson. It turned into a four-day affair with lectures for the children.

RBM:    The real big day was the final day when everything was

sold. People came from far and wide.

Mrs H.:    Yes, they raised thousands of dollars (pounds in those

days) and they actually kept the Flying Doctors in the air. The Kalgoorlie people really wanted to see the wildflowers from other places, they were so beautiful.

Nancy (centre) working at the Goldfields Wildflower Show to support the Royal Flying Doctor Service, c.1952 ... see page 229

Another regular visitor to Chas and Nancy’s home was A.E. “Monty” Montefiore, Chief Engineer for Bearing Service Co. (represented on the Goldfields by W.G. Manners & Co.)

c.1951

We had a flower room and the women unpacked flowers and put leschenaultias together, then they would have an orchid display in one area, wattles in another and kangaroo paws in another. The Chief Government Botanist couldn’t believe what he saw; all these flowers.

It was great fun and we all worked like mad. In the end, all of Kalgoorlie helped, because nothing succeeds like success. I don’t know what it is like now or if it has finished now.

RBM:    Yes    it has finished and I will have to track down how it

then developed into the Community Fair.

Mrs H.:    Well, one can’t pick    wildflowers now.    In the 1950s

one could go    out on the byways and    highways and pick    wildflowers.

Certainly in the Murchison one could pick what one liked. Those people who served with the Flying Doctor were magnificent, they sent down boxes and boxes of everlastings and Sturt peas.

RBM:    It’s illegal now.

Mrs H.:    Yes, one couldn’t do it now. The flowers    are protected

now. We had reef leschenaultia, we didn’t think we were doing any wrong. It is hard to imagine that we were doing anything wrong.

RBM :    Now    Dave Thompson - what was his background. I

can only remember him being retired?

Mrs H.:    Wasn’t there a night school and he was the Head Master?

RBM :    Mr and Mrs Thompson tutored me in maths.

Mrs H.:    She    was a school teacher and a great student of the Bible

and mathematics and Dave was the secretary of the Tramways and I think administrator of the night school. His flair was organisation. He was methodical to the last degree. A very small, frail man.

RBM :    They    lived in this huge house at 11 King Street, Boulder.

Mrs H.:    Yes it was huge. It was a doctor’s house. I think it

actually became two houses which had all these chimneys.

RBM :    This    was all part of the “Do It Yourself’ culture that has

always existed on the Goldfields. This was manifested in so many ways. Were there other examples of this Marjorie?

Mrs H.:    Well, for example, the Wildflower Show people began

to save string. When we bought parcels they were always tied up with string, and everybody I knew kept it. Over the year you had quite a big ball of string to take to the Wildflower Show, where they would have to cut the flowers and tie them in bundles. We didn’t ever buy string and we saved boxes and tins as well.

Everybody also saved cans, you know, jam tins, for the Wildflower Show. After the first year we had a good foundation.

They made items out of sugar bags. They dyed sugar bags and they would tease the end of them and they made all sorts of table cloths and runners. It is very “in” now but in those days it wasn’t.

We made aprons and bleached calico, they made table cloths for the trestles. It would be somebody’s job to bleach it and it would take about a year to do this.

RBM :    Marjorie, was Kalgoorlie supporting a big sporting

culture in the 1950s?

Mrs H.; People went in for garden flowers, grew pots of flowers and every Race Day they’d take flowers in bloom and put them around the grandstand to make it look lovely . There was no garden at the Race Club.

RBM :    Was it just private people doing this? Would they really

take a big pot with them to the races?

Mrs H.:    Yes, that’s right. They would take pots of phlox, pansies,

daisies and petunias as they were so proud of their racecourse, which was all dust, of course.

RBM:    No grass? It’s hard to imagine.

Mrs H.:    Yes, no grass. But there was an area for the blacks and

one for the whites. You could tell the difference because the seats for the white people had rugs over the seats and the blacks didn’t have any rugs. They then built a grandstand, but I don’t know what happened after that.

Everybody put their pot next to their spot as if to say “this is my spot”. I, for instance would have a pine bush and somebody else would have a pot of pansies. It would look lovely, and they would all wear their best dress with their gloves.

RBM :    Those same people wouldn’t believe it if they saw the

racecourse today, as it is all grassed.

We all tend to forget that facilities such as these now exist as a result of the efforts of past generations.

Mrs H.:    The races in the fifties was a very popular Goldfields

pastime.

Another thing they did was Bonfire Night. Do you remember that?

RBM :    What a wonderful night every November 5th was,    but

again this is one of life’s pleasures that has been declared “illegal”.

Marjorie, do you remember all the burning tyres on Bonfire Night?

Mrs H.:    Yes, everybody liked to have a go at tyres.

RBM:    That made for more spectacular bonfires.

Mrs H.:    They were huge, and when they got too hot for you,

you simply moved back.

Mrs H.:    Do you know the story about the boy who fell down the

mineshaft on Guys Fawkes Night (bonfire night).¹⁷

RBM :    Yes,    I do. I was running through the bush next to him

when he disappeared down the mineshaft with a “sparkler” in his hand.

His name was “Nabs” Bryson. This was one of the many miniadventures of our youth that seemed to keep us busy, like other strange habits we had like blowing-up “things” with gelignite and generally having very “vigorous” bonfires.

That particular Bonfire Night we saw this “sparkler” disappear down the shaft and some of us were sure that there was a fellow holding it but none of us were sure who it was. The adults then lined us up and counted everybody and found “Nabs” Bryson was missing.

It was fortunate that we had some adults present to seek help from the Mines Department and they fished him out of the shaft.

Mrs H.:    He    wasn’t seriously hurt was he?

RBM :    Yes,    he was knocked unconscious, draped over a piece

of timber protruding from the side of the shaft and if he had missed that timber, he would have been killed. If he hadn’t remained unconscious he probably would have struggled and fallen off the timber to his death in this deep shaft. It was a remarkable incident.

RBM :    He was taken to hospital and    we    spent    the    next    few

weeks visiting    him. He had several broken ribs.

Mrs H.:    :    You were only young - teenagers weren’t you?

RBM :    We were all at primary school so that would    put    us

around 10 or 11, just old enough to “fix” explosives and make bombs. One of my friends, Bryan Davies, probably would remember more about that than I do.

The Miarket Gardens

Mrs H.:    Can    you remember the “market gardens” out along the

highway near Kalgoorlie?

RBM :    That is still called Somerville.

Mrs H.:    They were the best vegetables I    have ever    tasted    ,    there

wasn’t one bug, one butterfly or one aphid.

RBM :    I’m sure it is the rich soil that gives that full    flavor.

Somerville is now rapidly turning into a residential area. There are not many of those market gardens left.

Mrs H.:    I    think they were mainly Yugoslavs living there.

RBM :    Yugoslavs and Italians.

Mrs H.:    They produced good vegetables and very cheap.

RBM :    In those days all the fruit and vegetables consumed on

the Goldfields were grown and produced locally, as was all the milk and bread.

Mrs H.:    I especially remember the nectarines. These people used

to get up and water by the moonlight and we would buy our vegetables and they would wash them straight out of the ground, washed and fresher than fresh.

After that Charlie would say “Come on, please all come back with myself and Nancy”. So we would go back and have a party:

There wasn’t very much alcohol either. Very little. Maybe the occasional bottle of scotch was passed around but that was about all. Australians weren’t wine drinkers then.

RBM:    I guess there wasn’t much refrigeration to keep beer

cold, so I suppose whisky was the popular drink of the day.

Mrs H.:    Well, I don’t really know. I used to drink a cup of tea!

We would make lemon syrup which we turned into lemon tea. I think the men used to “doctor” it a bit and the girls wouldn’t realise. We were so very simple people. Now even children are sophisticated.

RBM :    Marjorie, what influence do you think your time in

Kalgoorlie had on your boys Ross and Greg? They were there a relatively short time but do you think that the Goldfields contributed certain qualities to them?

I ask this because they are both remarkable fellows, and I’m curious about the influences on their lives.

Mrs H.:    Yes, I do think there was a big Kalgoorlie influence.

They too felt as if they were on a desert island. It was like a “ghetto”, you pulled your weight.

We lived in the magistrate’s house, which was made of corrugated iron and lined with hessian and every tenant that went into it, patched it up. The hessian was wallpapered and when the “Esperance Doctor” (the night breeze) came in, the hessian would blow out and all the dust would fall onto the floor and sometimes the paper would crack. A roll of paper was left in the house to patch the damage.

After any storm or strong wind you made another patch. The person doing the patching usually initialled their “patch”. It was great fun!

RBM :    This was the magistrate’s house? Is that the house where

we used to visit?

Mrs H.:    Yes, next door to the Chief of Police in Victoria Street.

RBM :    He was on the comer of Victoria and Shamrock Street.

Mrs H.:    Yes,    he was on the comer with a stone house, as he was

very important. We were in the magistrate’s house. We had a front verandah and beautiful stables out the back with half doors, chaff sheds and buggy sheds. The whole of the back was for horses. The stables in fact, were better than the house.

RBM :    Why    were the stables there?

Mrs H.:    Well, because it was a goldmining town, and there were

no motor cars when it was built about 1904. He had to frequently visit mining sites such as Kookynie and for this purpose he had his own fleet of horses. It was a very big yard if you remember.

RBM :    I remember you having a camping trailer in there. That

house is still there.

Mrs H.:    Yes    I have a picture over there, of our old house at 40

Victoria Street in Kalgoorlie and directly across the road lived Tony and Anna Bullo, with their two sons Vic and Wally.

Oh, what a good chat this has been.

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| A DIGGER FIRM |

At Your Service

All Mining Machinery and KeqoisiteS- Electric Kefrigerators and Washing Machines.

“The Kalgoorlie Digger” 1936

Goldfields Spring Festivals and Insect Zappers

(the Goldfields Spirit Still Exists)

Memories are great to recall, particularly in front of a young audience, something I did at the Goldfields Spring Festival in Kalgoorlie on October 30, 1997.

Here is a summary of these comments.

I am sure that the team that put the first festival together; 13 years ago, had no idea of what they were starting and how it would evolve into one of the most successful examples of how Goldfields people throw their weight behind voluntary activities.

Whilst our capital city cousins, the coastal huddlers, sit around their TV sets drinking beer, Goldfields people go out and create their own excitement.

I can actually remember Kalgoorlie before TV arrived and when in Perth I was fascinated at how people sat around drinking beer and watching TV.

Anyway, we decided to buy one of those electronic insect zappers (like they have in the butcher shops).

We stuck the zapper on a table on the back lawn and invited our neighbors around and sat watching it all night, drinking beer.

I also remember that the insect zapper program was better than many of those seen on TV. Here today, your program has something for everyone. It is a smorgasbord of voluntary endeavor, and I congratulate you all, you are like busy bees.

The bee is more honoured than other animals, not just because they labor but because they labor with and for others and they also have a lot of fun doing it too.

Today, we see the true Goldfield spirit in action.

Ron Manners

Claude de Bemales standing behind the famous Golden Eagle Nugget in Hannan St., Kalgoorlie, 1931.

There was no real gold boom of the 1930s. It’s just that Kalgoorlie was the only place where people could get jobs.

There was only one entrepreneurial promoter at that time (unlike the 1890s gold boom). This time it was de Bemales.

Fred Meyers (right) at the Goldfields Mining Expo, 1990, telling me how he first met my father Chas at Claude de Bernales’ Paddington Consols Mine.

Fred was de Bernales’ accountant at that mine, and warned Chas to be particularly careful with his dealings with Claude.

Fred and Chas remained firm friends from that time. RBM

From notes made during a discussion with Fred Meyers, in Kalgoorlie on June 30,1991 by Ron Manners

Fred Meyers, bom Victoria Park, W.A., 19 July, 1916.

Fred’s grandfather Meyer (no“s”) moved over from Ballarat and Fred’s father was bom at Broad Arrow.

Fred left Perth Boys College and worked and trained as a chemist (pharmacist).

He later joined Peters (Ice Cream) and learnt the refrigeration trade. During his time as a refrigeration mechanic he completed a correspondence course in accounting.

When de Bemales opened up all the mines around Kalgoorlie in the early ‘30s, they required competent book-keeper/accountants to maintain records on each mine.

About 1934 Fred joined de Bemales on the Lochinvar Gold Mine at Paddington (re-opening the original Paddington Consols which closed in 1908).

De Bernales had 45 mines operating in the region at that time. They were all controlled by Australian Mines Management and Secretariat Limited (de Bemales Management Company) of London House, 321 Murray Street, Perth (later became the office of Noyes Bros, and then the State Electricity Commission Building). It was at Paddington that Fred remembers first meeting Chas Manners in 1934. “I remember Chas Manners arriving one day and announcing that he was from W.G. Manners & Co., agent for Crompton-Parkinson Electric Motors etc. Chas seemed to be a reasonable fellow so I explained to him our instructions that all supplies must be obtained through the de Bernales central purchasing office, unless of course there was a serious emergency.”

I had to explain this to all the leading business people from Kalgoorlie such as Vince Burkett.

I always felt guilty about not being able to give the locals a “fair go”, so over the years we managed to create quite a few “serious emergencies”.

The Lochinvar operated from 1934-38 but Fred left before the mine closed and went and worked underground on the Grace Darling, then with WMC on the Mistletoe Gold Mine at Bullfinch where he was the accountant/winder driver/first-aid-man and he had the only motor car on the staff so he used to drive the mine manager to the bank etc. (1939-40).

Fred then moved to the Paringa in Kalgoorlie where he had just completed working for Chas Manners on the Paringa annual stock take. (W.G. Manners & Co. had the contract for stocktaking on several local mines).

From the Paringa Fred joined up for WWII (Air Force), was trained to be an instrument repairer, then became an instrument maker and was posted to the Boulder base where he was instrument maker in charge.

The Boulder base housed 800 people.

The Air Force in W.A. then decided to start a refrigeration section in W.A. to become independent of the several refrigeration suppliers at that time.

Fred was then posted to their Hay Street, Perth refrigeration headquarters and took over supervision of refrigeration maintenance within W.A. He was then posted to New Guinea (Madang) then to Bougainville, in charge of refrigeration of both the Air Force and Navy.

Fred tells a good story about the refrigeration repairs he did on the frigate HMAS Diamantina:

Methyl chloride (no longer used due to poisonous nature and fire risk) had leaked from the system following the ship’s ceremonial firing of all guns to welcome on board the Admiral.

Fred verified the area of leaks by using soap and water (couldn’t use flame) and tightened up the flare nuts.

He put a large sign on the ship stating “do not fire the guns again” as he realised that flare-fittings should never be used in a situation where there is any vibration (all fittings should be shatterproof, silver soldered).

This caused somewhat of a furore on a ship that was supposed to be ready for war and as the ship’s captain couldn’t believe the ship designers would be so stupid to make such an elementary mistake he asked Fred to write a report on this matter. Fred duly lodged a typewritten and signed report which went right to the top and Fred almost got court-martialled for insubordination.

However, after that settled down an order came from above that the Diamantina and all other ships in the Australian Navy had to be refitted, replacing all the flared joints with silver soldered joints.

After the war Fred returend to Kalgoorlie and arrived out at the Paringa to find that his job had been taken. This didn’t deter him as he had a half-hatched plan anyway to go into business, this time as a refrigeration engineer servicing the Kalgoorlie area.

His business prospered and continued until approximately 1980 when he retired.

(from a taped interview with Frederick Henry Meyers, 10A Hinemoa Street, Kalgoorlie, 1990.)

A few things about Claude de Bernales. I was employed as mine accountant at the Atlas Goldmines Retaliation in 1934. This was a goldmine found by Alan Hays and the Bemales group took an option over it. The mine was located approximately 60 miles from Wubin, this side of Paynes Find. This is in the Yilgam area, the Murchison.

The mine manager was George Foley. I well recall we had a staff dinner at which Claude and Sir William Campion (W.A. Governor) were present. Afterwards, I was discussing the exploration working plan and assays with Claude and Bill. The plan showed many T’s, that is traces of gold in the early development and Campion remarked “a lot of tea”. He was English and from a tea drinking country. I pointed out we were coming into gold values and assays were now showing two penny weights. Bemales put his monocle into his eye and had a good look at the plan and turned to me and said “If you put a nought after the two when you send the report to head office, (head office was London House, 321 Murray St, Perth), it will make it very interesting for the shareholders”. When he saw my shocked look, he added “You can always say it was a typographical error”.

I have a photograph somewhere of him taken with all mining employees before they left. We diamond drilled and put a test parcel through the State battery but values were not good enough owing to the “Government regulated” price of gold, that is ten pounds in those days, and we moved to the old Paddington Consols Mine at Paddington which had closed down in 1908. The town had 7 hotels, a brewery, cool-drink factory, 6 boarding houses and its own cemetery.

A young lad from the East got a job there as a blacksmith’s striker. He got married and their firstborn died and was buried in the Broad Arrow Cemetery. He later became the Mayor of Kalgoorlie and was knighted by the Queen. I refer to Sir Richard Moore. We did considerable exploration work on the Paddington mine renamed Lochinvar Goldmines. We found the continuation of the Paddington lode but the price of gold was not good enough to cover expenses of the type of mining of that day and consequently the mine closed.

Today, it is being worked by Pancontinental very successfully because of modem methods of extraction and gold price. After the war I tried to get Bill Trythall and Bill Powell interested in Paddington but they were tied up with the Two Boys Mine at Higginsville.

One Sunday I took Ray Simpson out and explained a few things. Ray was formerly manager of Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie. The next thing Pancontinental took over. I gave them a lot of photos of mine, taken at the Lochinvar which they copied. The next town about 2 miles further on was called Broad Arrow. My grandmother was a nurse at the big hospital. My father and his sister went to the local school and Dad’s best mate was Walter Lindrum whose father had one of the many hotels. Wally and Dad learnt to play billiards in the hotel by standing on wooden fracture boxes. Walter Lindrum went on to become the world’s champion billiard and snooker player. He is buried in Melbourne and the grave top is formed like a billiard table, the pockets take flowers.

The local school is relocated in Tupper Street, on the way to Boulder. I would like to see a plaque put on it. It is now a pre-play school. The last teacher at Broad Arrow was Henry Harris. I had photographs of hospitals, schools etc and loaned them to a guy who was doing a book. Never got them back.

I married the post and station mistress, Miss Mary Beaten in 1939. Mary passed away in 1977. I have a married daughter in Gosnells, Marilyn, and a son Edward who controls the Goldfields Commercial Security for these goldfields.

I have a large Cutler writing desk in my home. It was Claude de Bernales prized possession and he gave it to my grandfather in appreciation of his help to him. It was through Bernales I came to these goldfields and I have never regretted it. Claude had a house in George Street, off Boulder Road [now owned by Bill Robinson], It was called the White House. He organised the Kalgoorlie Foundry and Western Machinery Company. His office is [now] in the museum at the top of Hannan Street. He was initiated into Freemasonry on these Goldfields. When asked to give a donation to poor and distressed masons he said “I have no money on me but will give you a cheque tomorrow”. It brought the house down.

He walked into the Tattersall’s Club up in Egan Street and said “Gentlemen, I owe many of you money. I will pay you someday”. He did. He built London Court in Perth and Overton Lodge in Cottesloe. He brought money into Australia, particularly Western Australia when we were in a mess. The depression of 1929. His gold mining activities helped get Western Australia back on its feet. I “dips my lid” to Claude. We have a street named after him on these Goldfields.

Fred Meyers.

Products have maintained a standard of Quality that has been approved of by the Goldfields people for 36 years. Don’t accept a substitute. Insist on

COOD-AS-COLD Tomato Sauce, Pickles and Vinegar.

“ Look on the back of the Label ” for results of the unique system of bonus distribution.

The Noble Pickle

by Ron Manners

Comments at the Re-launch of Kalgoorlie’s “Good As Gold”

Pickles

Kalgoorlie Racecourse May 7,1994

Before explaining the pickle’s noble tradition, let me tell you something of the people behind the “Good as Gold” brand of pickles.

I’m glad John Matthew asked me to say a few words, because the long friendship between our family and John’s family covers four generations.

My grandfather W G Manners was a friend of John’s great grandfather Mr H W Davidson.

My parents Charles & Nancy regarded John’s grandparents Walter & Bernice as close friends over a long period of time. My sister and I used to call them Uncle Wal and Aunty Bernice. Walter and Bernice were worthy representatives of that bygone era of elegance.

1 regard John, Betty and his mother Floy as close friends. Floy, incidentally, from her base in Sydney became one of Australia’s best known photographers. In those days, colored photos were hand colored and I’ve always assumed that this led to the development of Floy’s artistic skills.

The fourth generation link was created when John gave my son Scott his introduction to the real estate business and encouraged Scott to complete his Real Estate Sales Representative’s Licence.

Well, if John and Betty’s pickle venture is as successful as the original “Good as Gold” brand they will stir the stomachs of a whole new generation of Goldfielders.

Some more good news is that, unlike the previous State Government’s dubious dealing in their P.I.C.L. (Petrochemical Industries Company Ltd) venture, we taxpayers won’t have to pick up the tab in the rare possibility of “Good as Gold” failing.

If dubious or corrupt are too harsh words to use for the State Government’s P.I.C.L. venture I can only suggest that anyone who regards it as less than dubious, probably has less than half a brain.

The essential difference between this “pickle” and that “P.I.C.L.” is that here John and Betty are risking their own money, whilst the politicians risked our money. They may have won, but we certainly lost.

Going back, I certainly can’t remember John’s great-grandfather, but let me mention a few events that I can recall about John’s grandfather Walter. As a kid I remember running around the catwalks over the vinegar and pickle vats at their factory on the comer of Lionel and White Streets. I will never forget the smell of that fermentation coming from the vinegar and pickle vats. Pickle sniffing was better for us than the glue and petrol sniffing of today.

I also remember having bundles of pickle jar labels and tomato sauce labels and trading them at school for cricket cards.

Walter was blind during the period I knew him and my sister Frances and I often wondered how he managed so well. Was he really foxing?

One time when Bernice was out of town and Walter was staying at our home, we switched a tube of shaving cream for his toothpaste tube to see if he really was blind. That was the first time we had ever seen a human-being frothing at the mouth.

Walter was an incorrigible inventor, and on another occasion at our home when Walter and Bemice were visiting for a meal, we sat down to the table; now I must mention that this was in the days when soup consisted of the product of boiled bones and all sorts of meat off-cuts, resulting in a thick layer of animal fat floating on top. Our diet has changed considerably over the past 20 years but from personal experience let me tell you that the Russians are still sipping bowls of fat just like we used to.

Anyway, back to the home meal. As the soup was served a comment was made that one day someone would invent something that would enable us to skim the fat from beef soup.

Half way through our soup, Walter asked my father if he had a round tobacco tin and a small hammer with a rounded end? The answer was yes, so immediately they both disappeared into the workshop and Walter went about tapping the bottom of the inverted empty tobacco tin (without the lid) until it formed a cone which eventually burst, leaving a small hole in the centre.

They came back inside the house and proceeded to experiment by placing the tobacco tin, this time open side up, into the pot of soup on the stove. Up came the fat, through the hole in the cone and was then trapped in the tobacco tin, which was easily emptied. Four applications of this device removed all the fat and this treasured object was used in our kitchen for many years.

Of course by the time we got to the rest of the meal it was completely ruined. I think I inherited my limitless patience from my mother.

Another prized Walter Davidson invention, one that went on many picnics was his automatic reversing campfire toaster.

This consisted of a long metal tube handle with a rod running down the centre, and a large knurled knob on the handle. The wire frame at the toasting end held the toast at approximately 60° to the handle tube and when one side was toasted, with a quick pull and push of the knob, as you turned the handle over, it reversed the angle, allowing you to toast the other side of the bread.

Not all of Walter’s inventions and energies were focussed on small items. This original 1915 photograph (page 246) shows Walter and the local syndicate who built the first plane to fly on the Goldfields. The photo shows the plane assembled for display inside our Kalgoorlie Town Hall.

There were many other memorable inventions, and I hope that they get full coverage in Floy’s forthcoming book on the Davidson family. I’m sure that Floy will cover the meeting of Walter and Bernice in Toledo, Ohio, on the banks of Lake Erie, because it’s one of the love stories of the century.

Well, before mentioning the tradition behind the noble pickle, let me wish John and Betty every success in “pickling a winner”. I’m sure we will all give you our support by putting chutney on our muesli, pickles on our porridge and that we will learn to enhance our romantic moments with the legendary effects of your “Good as Gold” recipes.

Now for some brief pickle history. William Shakespeare was a great believer in pickles, in fact he once said, “Unquiet meals, make for good digestion”.

One hundred and fifty years later Samuel Johnson, when compiling a new edition of Shakespeare’s works, spoke out against pickles by saying “A cucumber should be well-sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out as good for nothing”.

King James I of England mentioned pickles with some reverence when he was discussing bravery, by saying “He was a brave man who first swallowed a pickle”.

So you can see that over the years pickles have been placed on a pinnacle, that dissolved into a precipice and slid into an abyss, but I suggest that from today; pickles will be once again raised to their well-deserved pinnacle.

Let us drink to the noble pickle!

FOOTNOTE:

With apologies to Shakespeare, Johnson and King James I.

Western Australia’s first aircraft, on display in the Kalgoorlie Town Hall. April 26, 1915.

Walter Davidson, RHS front row, with his father Mayor H. W. Davidson, centre front row.

Kalgoorlie School of Mines students designed and constructed the plane with assistance and encouragement from Kalgoorlie engineer, Eddie Geere and local financial backers. This photo includes all those mentioned above.

The remarkable story of the first flights and the Prime Minister’s attention being drawn to the strategic significance of its potential during WWI; was detailed by historian Norma King “Kalgoorlie Miner”, Jan 18, 1985.

Betty, Floy and John Matthew with Scott Manners (rear centre), at the 1994 relaunch of “Good as Gold" Pickles.

Celebratory cake in foreground.

1. State Championship. she Start.    2,    Section    of    Crowd    and Grandstand,    S.    Groop of Officials.

4. Start of Motor Cycling Championship.    ■».    The    Winner,    State    (^orjtioadi?,    sad    balder    of    Australian Kmw4»—A. CotUm sod bis ^Chrysler Car.    €. W. Annear, Winner of Two Handicap

Races, and L. Roberts, Winner. Eight Mile Championship. Bath on B.S.A. Machines.

Kalgoorlie’s International Annual Speed Trials ... 1927

Panorama of the “Golden Mile ”

View from the Ivanhoe Headframe - c.1961

The Boulder Perseverance main shaft and winder room, the scene of the 1958 major subsidence referred to in the following presentation.

Growing Up on the Goldfields

Address by Ron Manners At the Geotechnical/Geomechanical Australian Conference Kalgoorlie ~TvH(T £2„    \9? 3

Looking around here tonight I’m convinced that I have an excellent audience.

The late Adlai Stevenson once commented “The best audience is intelligent, well-educated...and just a little drunk”.

Tad Szwedzicki asked me to say a few words about geotechnics and geomechanics in relation to the local goldfields, a pretty safe subject for me considering my remarkable ignorance of such technical topics.

I understand however, that geotechnics is the application of technology to geomechanics in an endeavor to prevent unexpected movements of earth and rock in relation to mining. It also has the side benefits of increasing productivity and saving lives.

Now having covered the subjects of geotechnics and geomechanics I would like to go my own way and open with some comments about growing up on the Goldfields and how that equips one for dealing with similar unexpected events, then in some way link it with it my only first hand experience at ground failure on the Golden Mile, and how that assisted one of Western Australia’s most remarkable, but understated success stories, Mr Stan Perron.

Now let’s go right back into the dim dark past when at the age of six I was living with my parents in Croesus Street Kalgoorlie.

Back in those days we had to make our own fun, as you may have read somewhere, there was no TV then.

Croesus Street was a very quiet street and very few people actually knew where it was, up there at the Mt Charlotte end of Kalgoorlie. There were only eight houses in the street and on one side was the old Victoria Park; a rather delightful park at that time.

In the park’s corner, where the current playground of the Infant Health Centre is, there was a large goldfish pond full of goldfish. The pond, incidentally, was the original Kalgoorlie public swimming pool but I can’t remember back that far.

Early on Sunday mornings, I was joined by a couple of similarly-aged companions. We used to go fishing with cotton reels, bent pins and soft bread as bait, and always managed to haul in some goldfish. We didn’t take them home for eating, we just thew them back as we were just in it for the sport.

Nothing unusual about that but, I recall one morning we arrived to find a pyjama-clad man floating face down right in the middle of the goldfish pond. With our lines out we hooked on to his pyjamas and pulled him over to the edge. I guess in doing this it we built up a bit of speed and by the time his head hit the concrete side he was moving fast. I have always worried about this but I still presume to this day that he was dead before he hit the pond wall.

Again, only being in it for the sport, we of course threw him back. Now at the age of six it didn’t really mean much to me but I can recall when 1 mentioned our adventure over the breakfast table, I was impressed at the speed with which my father made several phone calls and rapidly disappeared for an hour while the matter was sorted out.

There was another incident, that runs on from that, still over in the same park, some two years later when I heard some blasting. Asking my mother what it was, she said that they were probably blasting tree stumps over in the park. That sounded like something that I should get involved in, so I dashed over just in time to see a pair of hips with crossed legs, sitting in the rotunda.

Just this pair of hips sitting on the bench and the rest of him was all over the ceiling of the rotunda. Someone else walked up and told me that he had observed what had happened. He saw this fellow sitting reading the newspaper and thought that he was smoking. The smoke must have come from a lighted fuse as obviously he had a stick of gelignite in his mouth. I can remember quite vividly helping the undertaker scrape all the pieces off and load them into a chaff bag. I can remember also the look on my mother’s face when I got home with blood right up to my elbows. She was somewhat horrified and gave me a good scrub up.

I didn’t tell her about the collection of vertebrae that I had in my pocket. Needless to say, I was a ten minute hero at school the next day, with my adventure story and my grisly evidence.

That leads me to a third event that occurred about eight years after that, when I was 15!/2-years-old. A friend and I would take our old unlicensed motor cycles out into the bush after High School and practice, while we counted the days to getting our driver’s licence. This particular day we saw dust rising, not far ahead, through the scrub, and when we investigated we came upon a scene that remains one of my permanent memories.

Airlines (WA) Ltd, later, McRobertson Miller Airlines (or MMA as we called it), was the fore-runner of Ansett with daily flights from Perth using De Havilland Dove planes. Their capacity was nine passengers, a pilot and an air-hostess.

That day, on its approach to Kalgoorlie, the plane had snapped a wing off and fallen like a stone from the sky.

Unlike in the movies there were no flames, no smoke, just stark evidence of the explosive effect of impact on the plane, the passengers and their possessions.

We immediately claimed our finders privileges. My prize was the set of fabric backed pilot flight maps which looked as though they had been compressed diagonally in a hydraulic press. I also retrieved one half of the pilot’s headphones, the other half was in a thousand pieces; and of course, there was the inevitable collection of vertebrae.¹

Now, when I hear people say that there is nothing for young people to do on the Goldfields, I think back at my frantically busy youth where there always seemed to be plenty to do and I feel sure that these wonderful opportunities still exist for today’s young people.

Now all that proves is that life is full of unexpected events and that is exactly what geotechnics is supposed to deal with.

Now let us skip another six years to bring us to 1958, when I had my first direct contact with mining geomechanics, again with an unexpected event, this time involving the Golden Mile. It created a business opportunity for our family company, WG Manners & Co, but it also created a much more significant business opportunity for another person.

The event was a spectacular subsidence on the Perseverance Lease, within a few metres of the main Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie administrative office and the Boulder Block Hotel, which many of you will remember.

At 2.00am on April 27th, 1958, the tree covered area simply subsided, leaving a large surface cavity.

This gaping void took some of the floor of the winder house, almost to the chair of the winder driver.

This vast hole was quickly filled with 70,000 cubic yards (yes, the old imperial measurement) of residues from the South Kalgurli Dump.

This 70,000 cubic yards was placed quickly by the first Euclid Twin Power Scraper that we had ever seen in the State and I’ll comment later on the significance of that point. As this tailings residue was being placed, salt water sprays were used to wet and consolidate the fill. Later, pipe spears were driven into the fill near the winder and more salt water used.

The Mine Management decided to replace the winder in its original position, so it was necessary to stabilise the area to reduce further incidents like this.

1. See also Plane Crash Commemorative Service p.262 - 263

A De Havilland “Dove ” with boarding passengers at Kalgoorlie Airport - 1943.

“My ‘souvenired maps’, still severely crumpled after 50 years of being

stored flat. ”

Movement had occurred in the top 500 feet of the Main Shaft and was obvious when looking at the alignment of the Shaft timbers.

After the “heavies” from the mine’s Kalgoorlie office, their head office and the Mines Department had been and gone, they looked for somebody “dispensable” to inspect the many cavities underground, to report on the present situation and recommend action to stabilise the area around the shaft.

One of their bright young mining engineers of that time, Peter Dunn, the “Assistant to the Underground Manager, Eastern Leases”, seemed ideal because of his youth and agility and they decided to throw him this challenge, with a view to early advancement if he managed well. He must have, as within a relatively short time he was elevated to “Section Underground Manager”.

Peter later went on to become the chief mining engineer for Westpac Bank, and more recently the Chairman of Beach Petroleum and its parent company, Claremont Petroleum and he was featured on the front page of last week’s Financial Review detailing their successful $44 Million damages claim against the Independent Resources Group and former Directors. (See p.259)

Peter has helped me by providing his file notes from the 1958 subsidence.

The mine management allocated Bill Woosnam to accompany Peter Dunn on his underground inspections, to crawl around under broken timber and fallen rock, and to look into old workings. Peter commented that his sometimes rash enthusiasm was balanced by Bill’s extensive experience in Welsh coalmining and many years underground on the Golden Mile.

The two of them saw places that hadn’t been visited for decades. They confirmed the cause of the subsidence to be a two foot slippage of a block estimated at 300,000 tons (imperial), this being caused by the previous management allowing mining of the Lake View Lode, and “F” Lode adjoining it, on the east, between the five and nine levels, without sufficiently substantial pillars.

If you can imagine two thick saucers standing vertically rim to rim.. .there are the ore bodies. The zone between is barren rock, shaped like a discus. The “saucers” were mined leaving inadequate support so that the “discus” of 300,000 tons slumped vertically two feet.

The Lake View Lode stopes, from surface alongside the winder, to the five level (523ft) were filled, as was the “F” Lode “saucer”. The opposite “saucer”.. .Lake View Lode.. .was empty prior to April 27, the day of the subsidence.

Plan view of collapsed surface area near the winder room. Identified as “contour of subsidence”.

Cross-section showing surface collapse down to cavity to be filled.

When the “discus” block slumped, crushing the slender pillars previously holding it in place, an opening was created, allowing the old sand fill to run into the empty Lake View Lode below the five level.

A vertical pillar then fell into East Lode allowing sand to pass into an empty stope.

These movements of sand drew material right through from the surface under the winder room.

Peter’s task was to recommend procedures to stabilise the area around the Main Shaft. This meant filling all stopes and cavities by the best means possible.

Unknown to him, the Board of WMC had assumed that hydraulic fill was the obvious way to go. Luckily the culture of the company at that time was “the best idea wins regardless of who proposes it”. With so many inaccessible drives, cracks and faults, it would not have been possible to contain or control hydraulic fill.

Dry “fill” from the Trafalgar residue dump was used, mainly tipped down existing winzes and shafts and through open stopes. Underground, it was conveyed to the place to be filled, and this is the part that W.G. Manners & Co enjoyed.

In the relatively quiet 1950s, our company had been mainly involved in converting many of the old steam driven winders on the Goldfields to electric operation, involving some over-speed and over-wind protective devices that were remarkably sophisticated for those times. These winder conversions were coming to an end, so we were looking for something else on which to focus. We also had the import agency for Mavor and Coulson Inverted Trough Conveyors which we could fabricate locally into multiple sections with transfer points to cope with the numerous bends in the underground drives.

We were awarded the contract for supplying 24 conveyors of various lengths, all operating 18 inch wide belt operating at 400 feet per minute.

To conserve space we imported Christian Motorised Conveyor Head Pulleys which contain the electric motors inside the head pulley. This was the first time they had been used in Australia. Another first was the use of high speed “throwers” which we fitted to the end of some belts to provide a high velocity throw into some of the larger underground cavities. We modified designs used by Co-operative Bulk Handling in their ship loading facilities for grain.

In some of the confined locations underground, pneumatic filling was used. Unfortunately, the General Superintendent was shown the trial of this method and it was so successful that he ignored all the other recommendations and decided that it was the way to go. I recall his technical staff eventually persuading him that the energy consumption would send the Company broke!

In total about 450,000 tons of material were placed by those conveyers during the operation, which was completed about three years after the initial subsidence. The operation was managed during that time by Phil Fraser.

One other point from Peter Dunn’s notes that may be worth mentioning is that he clearly remembers seeing old stopes, recorded as being mined 15 feet wide, but which were then nearer 30 feet wide as rock had peeled off the walls. This hazard is one that remains as a challenge for the current “Super Pit” operators.

Now I would like to finish by mentioning one of those success stories that so often have their beginnings in Kalgoorlie. This one involves a quiet, modest, achiever called Stan Perron, whose Goldfields roots go back to his early youth at the Boulder Central School.

In 1958, only weeks before the Perseverance subsidence, Stan had used the proceeds of the sale of his ilmenite mining venture to purchase a Euclid Twin Power Scraper.

This piece of equipment had a 250 HP engine front and rear which could self-load 40 tons of dirt and carry it at 30 miles per hour with a single operator. He purchased the Euclid, contrary to the beliefs of others in WA that it could not be employed successfully, and his foresight paid immense dividends. Stan recalls “It was something I had been admiring for some time. I didn’t have anything for it to do when it arrived, and everybody thought I was making a big mistake in buying it.”

Within two weeks of its delivery, the Perseverance cave-in occurred, and Jim Langford from Western Mining Corporation contacted Stan to see if he could render any help. Within 24 hours the massive machine was on site. It was the largest and most powerful Scraper in the world at that time and was immediately put to work, loading 100,000 tons of material from the nearby slime dump and transporting it about a mile to fill in the mine. The whole operation took just ten days and news of this achievement spread far and wide, including a feature article in Time magazine. I can still remember the thrill of watching that monster operate, when I went out to deliver bearings and other items for Stan’s support vehicles.

Stan’s more recent comment was “In those days, to even move 2,000 tons in a day was a major operation. It involved cumbersome excavators loading a fleet of trucks and then a bulldozer to spread it around at the other end. All this would cost about five shillings a ton. With our machine we moved 10,000 tons a day with one operator at a cost of one shilling and six pence per ton”.

One of the 24 conveyors in operation being observed by Rod Fletcher (left) and Bill Woosnam (centre)

Beach wins damages of $44 million against fraudulent directors

ly BMA SKOtfN

THE Federal Court yesterday awarded damages of $44.45 million to the battered Beach Petroleum NL in one of Australia’s largest and most complicated civil fraud htiga-tioos-

Justice von Doussa found that there was a conspiracy to defraud Beach and its parent company Claremont Petroleum try its former directors over Beach's 1989 acquisition erf a 46 per cent share in a United States oilfield.

He further found that under the Trade Practices Act,

Beach was entitled to recorcr Mr BAGOT and Mr DUNN ... a huge win for Beach all losses arising from the Burbank Oilfield transaction.

Thirty five years later, Peter Dunn played a major part in restructuring public companies and corporate recovery. Pictured above, as Chairman of Beach Petroleum NL in the successful prosecution of former directors - “Financial Review”, June 11, 1993

This overgrown “toy” brought in plenty of business after the Kalgoorlie achievement. The success that followed opened up fields of work and contracts which enabled rapid expansion, and within two years Stan owned a further four machines. The fleet of five Euclid Twin Power Scrapers, was a pacesetter and carried Perron Brothers’ name to the fore in earthmoving. They were sent to work on dozens of operations both private and governmental, eventually giving Perron Brothers a virtual monopoly in WA for this type of earthmoving.

During 1960 and 1961, Stan travelled to the USA and other parts of the globe, observing modem trends in earthmoving, each time returning home to add further know-how to his existing company operations or acquiring more modem equipment. These improvements created further expansion and wider activities for Perron Brothers. During this period, a contract of which the company was particularly proud, was the earthworks for the 1962 Empire Games Stadium in Perth. To appreciate the size of this job one has to envisage constructing an enormous stadium; all from sand and in six weeks.

By the early 1960s, WA was moving through a mining boom, placing massive demands on Stan’s earthmoving business. Realising that this potential made the business an attractive proposition, he decided to approach Thiess Bros with a proposal to take-over his total earthmoving operations. Thiess Brothers were well established in the Eastern States, but had yet to extend to this side of the continent. In May 1961, after some negotiations, he sold the entire business for the equivalent of £765,000 in cash and shares. At that time the equipment fleet included 8 motor scrapers, 15 heavy bulldozers, 10 graders and 3 transport loaders.

Stan remained as State Manager of Thiess for two years before launching himself into further equally exciting challenges, among them being the establishment of the Toyota Distribution in Western Australia, with which he is still involved, together with becoming one of Australia’s largest and most successful property developers. The Hyatt Hotel in Perth is one example of the properties developed and owned by Stan Perron.

A small side story to finish on, is the little known fact that Hancock and Wright have a third partner in the Pilbara Iron Ore deposits that have done so much for Australia.

Their third partner is Stan Perron who on March 15th 1959 was asked by Lang Hancock and Peter Wright for £1,000 to match their contribution, to fuel Lang’s Auster aircraft and for pegging costs. This would enable them to go north and peg some iron ore deposits in areas Lang knew of. They were to be equal one-third partners. They felt that the State Government having just changed from Labor to Liberal, might release the land to private enterprise. Prior to that it had been under strict Government control.

Stan tells the story “The following Saturday morning, Peter Wright came to my office to collect the £1,000. But overnight, I had gone a bit cold on the idea and compromised by giving him a cheque for £500 for a 15% interest, providing they required no further contribution for the next ten years. I personally typed a letter setting out the conditions and handed it over with the cheque”.

At this point Lang Hancock had kept the exact location of his iron ore discoveries secret for about seven years, not divulging it to anyone except Peter Wright. Stan sensed that Lang must have had a fairly accurate idea of where iron ore fields were to be found and so he took the gamble.

The Commonwealth Government iron ore embargo was eventually lifted as a result of a relentless campaign by mining interests, supported by the WA State Government, and the success story of the Pilbara iron ore is now well known to all of you.

Stan modestly says of his investment with Hancock and Wright “From my £500 investment, I have recouped my earlier losses in mining, many times over, and my 15% share in Tom Price royalties still returns me about $1 million annually”.

Incidentally, Stan does not measure his success in dollars, he measures it in the ability to achieve things and to generate opportunities. There is a great flow-on benefit to the whole country from people like this.

Let me now suggest that in Kalgoorlie’s 1993 Centenary Year we should be proud of the success stories we have seen emerge from this region.

People such as Stan Perron, or Charles Warman of Warman Pump fame, or Sir Arvi Parbo, Sir Laurence Brodie-Hall, Roy Woodall all of mining industry fame, Wally Unger of Glindemann & Kitching, the innovative drillers; the team behind Eltin, the team behind Ausdrill and the many other Kalgoorlie-based companies which are now operating all over the world. Each of them travel the world as effective ambassadors for this region, as I hope many of you will.

I hope that our Industry will help many of you make your mark similarly in your field, and that the Kalgoorlie region will continue to be the launching pad for many more success stories.

Ceremony relives the 1951 air crash.

The story of the “Dove" air crash that claimed the lives of two crew and five passengers was re-told 46 years later at the crash site, west of Kalgoorlie - Feb 23, 1997.

Pictured are Wendy Carter and Rip Hayhow of the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society, unveiling the plaque (below)

Dove Plane Crash Kalgoorlie 1951 Ron Manners’ Comments at Crash Site Ceremony 23/2/97

“I turned up here, after school on an illegal motorbike which my father didn’t even know about. At 15V2 you’re not supposed to own or ride a motorbike. I saw a puff of dust coming in from this direction and I’ll never know how many minutes after the plane crash that I arrived. You don’t hear a plane crash if you’re riding a noisy motorbike.

It was “spooky” coming across this scene because in the movies all the plane crashes show the plane burning but there was no fire at all here. It was complete silence. No soundtrack behind the “movie” as you normally hear, there was just total silence.

It was gruesome, with human fragments everywhere and my first reaction was to souvenir something as the guys at school the next day would never believe it. I guess I came across this moral dilemma. Even at 15*4 years you realise that you’re invading private persons. I had this problem of what wasn’t personal but was identifiable, so I took each of these maps I’m holding. All signed by C.M. “Robin” Hood, the Pilot; they were very crumpled. They looked as if they had been diagonally put through a hydraulic press and, after 46 years of storing them flat, they’ve still got the crumples. They have been useful maps. I used them right through the Nickel Boom as they had a lot of detail that the Geol. Surveys maps didn’t have then.

There was other evidence. I know I took a few vertebrae to show around at school the next day where I was a “24 hour” hero. Every kid at school has his day I suppose, but I’ll never forget the gravity of the situation here and my absolute feeling of helplessness. There was just nothing I could do to help these fragmented mortals and because I was like an illegal immigrant on an illegal motorbike I just couldn’t make my way to the local pastoralist and do anything. I guess I expected the “mob” to be here 5 minutes later. So I got out of here really fast.”

More Than Leadership

No effort is spared in our organisation to train our community leaders for both the present and future; and we have never been backward in telling of this. While it is desirable to have excellent leaders in any community, it is imperative that a community worth leading is maintained. Should Junior Chamber Australia devote time to “character development”, as well as leadership development?

We are fortunate that we live in a state made up by the people rather than a state that exists to control the people. However, this does present certain dangers, for the control of our state comes from within its members. Consequently, any decline in the character of the individual insidiously wears away the structure of the democratic state.

If the erosion has begun, then it is time Junior Chamber stepped in to help rebuild the structure. If it has not yet begun, then we must do all in our power to prevent a decline ever starting; not only because it is right, but because we have the resources and capabilities that point to success.

However, this should not be an emotional issue as some people would have it be. (Success is never linked to anything else but objectivity). It is simply a protection of man’s inherent right to live in and enjoy the benefits of a society.

One’s society is a mere “melting-pot” which its members continually take from and add to. Ideally, the cup should runneth over, but unfortunately the Australian vessel is badly in need of replenishment. Are we to continue in the present vein until there is nothing left or will we take up the challenge in front of us?

Myles S. Hesketh

From Australian Jaycees Enterprise, Aug-Sept. 1966.

The Museum of the Goldfields (From humble beginnings)

Address by Ron Manners To the Museum of the Goldfields Meeting April 7,1993

Let us think of this as a competition tonight.

I have been asked to speak.

You have been asked to listen.

It’s my sincere hope that I finish first.

As a backdrop to the beginning of the Museum Project I would like to mentally transport us back to Kalgoorlie 1965. This was before the discovery of nickel at Kambalda, when gold mining was falling apart in Kalgoorlie. There was a very low level of economic activity here. Most of the young men of the day, my classmates at the School of Mines, had nearly all gone off to seek more exciting careers in other parts of the world.

It was into a Kalgoorlie in that mode, that the young persons’ organisation, the Jaycees, started up a local chapter (or club). A most impressive group of dynamic individuals made several pilgrimages from Perth, to instruct us in the aims, objects and methods whereby their challenge of encouraging self-improvement could have some effect on the young people of this area.

There was no Kalgoorlie College. There was no formal training on project management or presenting oneself, so the seed of Jaycees fell on fertile local soil.

Just a word or two on Jaycees, which can be likened to a service group like Apex Club but with the accent on developing their members.⁷

Whereas with Apex, developing better citizens is a by-product of community development, with Jaycees the accent is reversed and community development was regarded as a tool to develop better citizens.

With that in mind Jaycees had a strict rule that only projects containing a significant element of self-improvement could be adopted by the local chapter. Members who conceived a project had to prepare a detailed business plan for presentation to the full membership. The

1. See More Than Leadership p.264

project would only proceed with voting support from the members.

The first three presidents of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Jaycees were Gilbert Ralph, from Western Mining Corporation, myself and Vic McCabe, the 6KG [now Radiowest] radio station manager.

Among the initial projects formulated and executed by the Jaycees was this tourist map of Kalgoorlie, and the tourist itinerary which listed various local points of interest worth visiting. It’s hard to believe that no such items existed until we put them together in 1965-66.

Another item was a distinctive “souvenir of the Golden Mile”. This consisted of a sealed can of Kalgoorlie “dirt” with instructions on how to pan-off any contained gold. This item was quickly declared illegal by the “Gold Stealing Detection Squad” as a possible “tool” for illicit gold transactions.

Tonight we need only speak of one Jaycee project that developed from this nucleus, and that is the Museum Project. I will outline the several phases between the original thought and the eventual reality, and ask if we were successful in the dual challenge of producing a community facility, and at the same time developing our members.

Upon receiving Irene Spottiswood’s invitation to speak tonight, I exhumed several old files and it was certainly something of a walk down memory lane, with many old Kalgoorlie Miner cuttings and correspondence relating to the project, and to the various people involved in its initiation.

The Museum Project was an easy one to sell to members as a concept, and with input from many people I put together a proposal that I was sure could not be argued against.

For as long as I can remember, various local people, had been saying that something should be done about starting up a museum. Jaycees was all about actually doing something rather than talking about it.

Kalgoorlie is rich in history and wherever you go in Australia people or their relatives often seem to have originated from Kalgoorlie. This provides them with a good reason for revisiting from time to time. However at that time there was no local rallying point for educating us about our history, for attracting tourists, or for helping newcomers to the district to become more easily assimilated.

The original concept of the museum was that it should be a focal point of the district, so that associated traditions could be on show and easily available as a source of information, a centre of knowledge

Possibly Kalgoorlie’s first tourist itinerary and map (we couldn’t find any earlier versions)

Provided by the Jaycees in 1966. Map drafted by G.M. Ralph

incorporating both history and modern developments in commerce, industry and other walks of life.

By serving the community in this way the museum could become a centre of culture, and a honey pot for objects of interest, records of the region and in particular, the stories of the people and their involvement in our community.

The Original Museum Proposal

This is how the Museum Project originally kicked off.

During the 1965 Christmas break, the late Frank Green of Westland Autos said to me “Why do most people around here usually talk about things without doing anything about them?”

He was referring to a point raised by Peter Engelbrecht at a recent Jaycees' meeting, suggesting the establishment of a Golden Mile Museum.

Peter had said that for as long as he remembered there had been talk of such a museum but no-one seemed to be doing anything about it.

Frank Green’s comment lead us to spend the next day cruising Kalgoorlie-Boulder looking for a suitable building.

Of four located, the old British Arms Hotel won (at 3.2 metres wide, said to be the world’s narrowest two-story hotel) because it was immediately available, and close to the scene of Paddy Hannan’s partner’s original gold discovery. The adjacent house was also available for option, giving additional land for further displays.

We located the buildings’ owner, a Mr Percy Pilpel, a regular visitor from Perth. The negotiated price was $2,800 and we secured an option by parting with our own cash deposit, being $100 from each of us.

Frank and I knew that if we couldn’t get the project off the ground we would either lose our deposit or end up having to buy an unlicensed abandoned hotel.

At the January 1966 Jaycees' meeting the museum project was presented and adopted as being a suitable Jaycee activity, as members would gain experience in negotiating with Local Government, State Government and local service organisations.

When I now look at my January 1966 proposal² put to the Jaycees, I can only smile at our youthful enthusiasm and our estimate for completion of the project within three months.

The experience in discovering why a relatively simple, worthwhile

2. This proposal is included in Appendix III with a floor plan of the British Arms Hotel.

project, in reality took two-and-a-half years to complete, has no doubt prepared us for the red tape we would face in later life.

Of all the various proposals for any Goldfields facility of those times, this was one that I felt would receive 100% support; even with my vivid imagination, I could not conceive that there could be a single soul who could oppose our idea

I was wrong.

The type of negativism that we were confronted with is shown in the Kalgoorlie Miner, 21/7/66 and 22/7/66 press clippings, (Not suitable as a museum. Cr Bennetts objected etc.)

Another example was the Chamber of Commerce report that the building presents too many problems Kalgoorlie Miner, 21/7/66).

We countered this criticism by slowly and surely shaping public opinion of the merits of the project.

We staged a series of events, one of which we titled The Blood and Jazz Project. (Relieving the public of cash and blood to the music of a visiting jazz band - see photos).

From this sort of activity flowed tremendous support, we had 400 visitors to the British Arms building during a Rotary conference, and a flood of enthusiastic letters was subsequently received from these visitors, supporting our project, This was followed by an increased momentum in donations from the Chamber of Mines and the Chamber of Commerce. The project was moving at last.

The long, hard haul was then ably piloted by two Musuem Committee chairmen, Gavin Bunning and Tim Flobson, the Committee secretary Gilbert Ralph and the various Committee members made up from the Historical Society, Local Government and the Chamber of Mines and Chamber of Commerce. To them goes full credit for keeping this project on the rails by hard work and unending patience.

Looking through the project file it is fascinating to see the tremendous enthusiasm generated by the Museum Committee over this formation period. Enthusiasm brought the Premier, David Brand, to Kalgoorlie for a special visit, when he briefed Jaycee members on the best tactics to be used in gaining assistance from the Tourist Development Authority and the W.A. Museum Board. He told us to keep reminding them that they were the W.A. Museum Board, not the Perth Museum Board. He also explained how best these bodies could work together with the local authorities (three at that time).

If I can digress for a moment and just expand on Premier Brand’s first visit on this project.

We decided to contact the Premier who enthusiastically accepted

Not Suitable A* A ' Mnstum

fuse of to British Arms :ifi Gotrtdge temes ss for & goldfish maseun: Ho a&fmed 'tot to tog had bees left ope used ss a toilet and ws had condoms.

to to tsosfei & site

if w&tsble mmtim were pi&sed tore

a gtSe to ]

he wmmrnm.^

Or. Wilson also ms favour <rf to Brtofc

■ site, god mmmted to oM memhrsaoe Home to Wftsc®

street.

Although It h&d % -A to im, be #d to BrtS&sb *n» ws of to goldfields*

‘‘My idea of a j recreate to p®si days of to

‘Kalgoorlie Miner’ My 22, 1966

ADVERSE REPORT ON HOSTEL AS POSSIBLE MUSEUM SITE

Building Presents Too Many Problems, Local Chamber 01 Commerce Told

Hie British Arms Hostel presented to many problems to be commended as a site for a goldfields mascara, the Kai-g-eerlie Chamber of Commerce was told yesterday.

A chamber executive member, Air. T. Hobson, -was reputing on a meeting held recently to discuss arrangements to to setting spefai

pice was to high.    j

The building was in a bad; state of repair, with doaes off! -hinges, windows loose and \ years.    plaster broken in practically ;

Hie chamber yesterday de- eyery room. Many of to etof dded to fire its support to to trim! fittings and to wktogj ' ' * of establishing a in to building would have to ; ayer, it deferred ustU after a report on - to next meeting of to museum steering commit-

The large number of rooms- ta to building would f also make it hard to -supervise} to displays and prevent pilfer- i tog, he safaL TJototoately, to proposal; to toanctog to museum was! meeting wim opposition from! the mm and eiiire councils off algoorilo. '    I

Unless this opposition could j be overcome, ft was dotihffujf whether sufficient money could} b® found to go ahead.

to be

not find another touiMkig m to mmm si*Ii couid be

The British Arms was available for real at f? a week or could be bought to $2800

1

‘Kalgoorlie Miner’ My 21, 1966

the invitation to visit Kalgoorlie and suggested that he meet us in the bar at the Palace Hotel on a specific date.

Gilbert Ralph, Frank Green and I expected him to arrive with an entourage, but he arrived on his own, and over an orange juice explained how happy he was to have this opportunity to visit Kalgoorlie and that his early working life was spent underground on one of the local mines.

We then visited the British Arms and he clambered all over the broken floorboards and rickety stairways with us, sharing our vision of what could be, rather than what it was at that moment.

He briefed us on tactics and then Gilbert Ralph, whose car we were using (he was the only one of us who possessed a car with four doors and a rear seat) asked where the Premier would like to be taken. The Premier said that he had nothing particular to do until the train left at 9.30pm that night so Gilbert took him home for dinner and then delivered him to the railway station.

The informality of David Brand’s initial and further contact with us has left a lasting impression.

The Premier’s enthusiasm also brought him back to Kalgoorlie to address a public meeting, and he later sent senior members of the W.A. Museum Board to Kalgoorlie to address a public meeting. Later, he sent senior members of the WA Museum Board to Kalgoorlie to address a joint Local Government-service club meeting, to explain how a local museum should be an interesting focal point where students and visitors could quickly assimilate our colorful history, rather than be a dusty archives repository.

Enthusiasm brought offers of items from display from as far away as London and Malaysia and offers of financial help came from many unexpected sources. These included $600 from the family of the late Claude de Bernales (plus to our delight) $400 from Mr Pilpel himself, thereby effectively reducing his sale price of the British Arms to $2,400.

Surprisingly, the main obstacles in the committee’s path were firstly spreading the enthusiasm to our three Local Government bodies.3 While none were actually against the project it was necessary to gain mutual support during a period when the relationship between the Councils was not always cordial. The project was almost torpedoed when the Malcolm Uren Report recommended that the focal point of this whole Goldfields Project be shifted to Coolgardie. It was later decided by tourist authorities to develop Coolgardie separately.

Other main obstacles were several local citizens who, for reasons

3. Kalgoorlie Municipal Council, Boulder Municipal Council and the Shire of Kalgoorlie

Jajeew To    t.₍ Xs,W|

Sireef Appeal

1    KWgoorile    .    SouMe?

i 522SL?®¹ •* poM<% Bed to

to-morrow m«3ag. wU, be wlunteeclng so jjagt to s <3rive tor new blood win be Md v    >®«2    noon    on

McK Kao's corner, WosSe tv,-: Jaycees bleed, fee visiting Westpon jass fcaijd wfe play selections from fee back o' a truck- ¹⁵ °rajene^»

52 ^'J** «*sy®ees will eon-Cuv« a street appeal to raise to? the Golden ME* Museum project,

Worthy Causes To Benefit

Two worthy causes are to benefit from fee Jaycees “Blood sod J&zz" project in Hanaaa street, this morning The mm Is to gam further blood doners for fee Red Cross and also mlse funds for fee Golden Mile Museum. ’Jay-

eees* will be purely donating

blood on MeKenrtes comer and fee visiting Westporf J&sz Band has offerer! to play appropriate mu sic.^^^v^

ITEMS OF NEWS

Jaycees Appeal jyoubiy

Successful i/WS6

Public enfensSalm⁷ran high; on Saturday mommg during; fee- Jaycees "Blood and J&ar; project. The appeal was atosed* at recruhin₂ blood donors for; fee Red Cross as weal as rais-i lag money lor fee Golden MHef Mtiseuna, Thirty-sis new blood I donors were registered in ad-j ditkm to fee eight Jaycees who? donated their blood publicly m\ Safer day morning. The coEec-i tm\ for the museum raised; over $111 and fee visiting West- • port- Jaas Band, who assisted; in fee appeal were warmly applauded by a large gathering; os MeKensSe’s corner.

The Westport Jazz Band, from left Bob Dixon, John Archer, Phil Batty/Ross Nicholson & Bob Anderson

of their own, were not in favor of the Museum. I have a very selective memory and can only remember the names of the people who supported us, but I can remember on one occasion at a meeting in Kalgoorlie on March 16, 1967, at which senior personnel of the Tourist Development Authority announced that the Museum would be given official recognition as part of the overall Kalgoorlie-Boulder-Coolgardie tourist planning for the future. One of the local knockers leapt to his feet and moved that the funds earmarked for the museum could be better spent in sign-posting the district.

For a few moments the project looked like going on the rocks but fortunately his motion was lost.

First Official Opening

This took place in 1968, and as you can imagine was a joyous event for all concerned.

In 1978 there was another significant celebration to mark the 10th anniversary, where those with an involvement over this period were brought together to witness the progress made. The Museum Board Chairman at that time, Mr Doug Daws stated that the museum was unique in a number of ways;

“Its formation was unique because of the way it started with very little cost to the community. It has never needed subsidy from Local Authorities or Government, but has paid its way by income obtained from a modest admittance fee”.

This brings me to the present situation, where as a Government Department, the Museum does not charge an admittance fee, because if it did, the funds would simply go into consolidated revenue rather than remain with the museum. This is a strange situation when people, 50% of whom are visitors to the area, walk in with money in their hand expecting to pay but are told that it’s “free”. However, they are also referred to the donation box, on this basis they pay an average of only 14 cents per head.

I am aware of the old socialist cliche - that says “The public has already paid for the museums and galleries, with their tax money, so why should they pay a second time to see them?” The answer to this is that taxes already paid may have contributed to the original buildings, but the maintenance and expansion of these services are being paid for with borrowed money. If the users don’t pay, the burden falls entirely on the non-users, and that is hardly fair.

If we are to keep pace with the expansion and modernisation of

Preparing for the “first” Opening Day in 1968, just in time for the 75th Anniversary of the original Discovery of Gold in June 1893, by Flanagan, O’Shea & Hannan.

our museums and galleries, we had better look at a better way of financing them, and how better by charging an admittance fee for other than school groups?

A major argument against entry fees is that attendance will drop, but why should they? Competing private attractions charge three or four times what would be regarded as a normal entry fee, and still they are well attended. This illustrates that people are prepared to pay if the value is there.

The good news is that the New South Wales State Government has already instructed their museums in 1991 that they are at liberty to charge reasonable fees for admission, and to raise other revenues from user charges.

Another good model for our State Government is Britain in the early 1980’s. The British started five-year plans with small annual reductions in budgets, while allowing institutions to keep and spend any other monies raised. Suddenly, there was an incentive to be entrepreneurial.

Free admission to our museums and galleries may have been a wonderful tradition. It may be “nice” if that could continue, but unfortunately, to do so in the face of rising costs and increasing demands, combined with bankrupt Government coffers, that alternative is no longer available for us.

The Ultimate Opening

So much has happened since the original building opened in 1968 that the finished product was again opened in June 1989, at which time I burst into print with a Letter to the Local Editor (Kalgoorlie Miner June 21, 1989), as follows

“Taxpayers may get some value for their money...

Sir,

May I congratulate those dedicated individuals who have brought the Museum project to such a successful conclusion.

Predictably, at the official opening, we heard the politicians congratulating themselves for spending other people’s money.

The vote of thanks to the taxpayers (whose compulsory donations matched the many other voluntary contributors) was not heard.

However, one positive aspect is that this time the taxpayers may

A collection of keen supporters of the “Museum of the Goldfields” Rear: Ron Manners; Bill Cleverly; Keith Quartermaine; Barry Bracegirdle; Ian Kealley; David Blight.

Front. Tess Thomson; Jill Moffat; Liz Millward; Pam Moore. Photographed outside the museum at the farewell for Jill Moffat, March, 1990.

get some value for their money, as the museum has the potential to be self sustaining - unlike the majority of projects where taxpayers see their money being spent against their wishes. ”

Over the many years numerous people, including Jill Moffat and Pam Moore, together with their dedicated staff, have by careful selection of material, presented us with an ever changing and vital presentation. In looking back if I were asked if the whole project has been worthwhile, they have given us the complete answer, that with an annual attendance of 130,000 the project is most certainly worthwhile for the region and the visitors who represent 50% of that total. It has certainly matched one of the original objectives of the Jaycees in establishing a worthwhile community facility.

What of the other question, whether it fulfdled the role of training our Jaycee members in the procedure of conceiving an idea and putting it into action? I can only speak on behalf of one of those Jaycee members who, upon reflection must certainly fall into the “slow learner” class.

I find that over the ensuing 25 years I have continually made the same mistake of letting my enthusiasm convince me that a project can be completed in an unrealistically short time. It then becomes bogged down in the sticky web of bureaucracy. It then needs all sorts of emergency rescue missions to salvage the project. During this process I manage to make myself thoroughly unpopular in some quarters, but usually manage to get the show on the road - eventually. Perhaps it has taught me never to accept “no”, for an answer, or in the words of local philosopher George Compton “null bastardo carborundum” (don’t let the bastards grind you down).

So from a personal point of view I am very thankful to have had a part to play in this Museum Project as without it, I may never have learned something of the art of “performance through persistence”.

Footnote: Dec. 2002 (nine years after writing the above story).

Reviewing the story of the Museum of the Goldfields, as we proceed to publication, reminds me in many ways of another more recent project with which I have been involved for the past 7 years. The Australian Prospectors & Miners Hall of Fame (or popularly referred to as the Australian Mining Hall of Fame) is nearing completion, and when its story is told, it will be equally interesting to observe and be surprised from which quarters the support and opposition came.

Museum of the Goldfields site brochure designed by Paul Morgan

1998

A Museum Takes Shape - A Well Travelled Headframe -

As shown on John McSweeney’s 1989 business card, it was originally Asarco’s Big Bell headframe. Dawn McSweeney’s father, Les Atkinson, went from Laverton to Big Bell in 1937 to supervise construction.

V.J. (JOHN) McSWEENEY

Si. AA.LM.M. M iM-W Mining Consultant

PHONE (09) 32S 8665 FAX (09) 221 3146 TEiEX AA 926S6

SUTJE 41 A. 50 NASH STREET EAST PERTH. WESTERN AUSTRAUA 6000

When the Big Bell mine closed, the headframe was relocated to Lake View and Star and became the Ivanhoe headframe over the Ivanhoe shaft on the Golden Mile. Photo November 1961.

Erection nearing completion, with siteworks for the new building in preparation - July 1988

-

: ■

The new Ivanhoe headframe complete with viewing platform, alongside museum buildings - May 1996

RESEARCH SHOWS NEED FOR EXPANSION.

After careful consideration, we have decided to expand in certain areas. This is intended to provide an even better service to customers:

The mam moves are: —

PERCUSSION: One more new KT42 Schramm rfg with another under construction will bring our total of heavy percussion rigs to six.

CORING: Another 840L Foxmobile has joined the ranks to bring our number of dual purpose rigs to two.

SERVICE: A Cherokee 4 Aeroplane on permanent standby, including our own pilot, makes the distance and time between base and problems smaller. PERSONNEL: Two more supervisors, one more fitter and one diesel mechanic have complimented an already efficient staff.

The decision to increase our services, has come about only after complete research was carried out. Through our experience we have found that to better serve our customers, we must offer better exploration drilling facilities.

We hose to be able to offer these increased services to you.

Contact OAVIES DRILLING PTY LTD HI-3 BOURKE STREET.

KALGOORLIE 6433 Phone: 311480, Telex: 91793.

"OUT OF TR^WEST"

THE DAVIES DRILLING ORGANISATION.

MINERAL EXPLORATION SAMPLE LEADERS.

SPECIALISTS IN A SPECIALIZED FIELD.

HIGHLY TRAINED - WELL ORGANIZED - SUPERBLY EQUIPPED. MAKE YOUR ENQUIRIES TO KALGOORLIE 21 2400 W.A.

DAVIES DRILLING PTY LTD. 163 BOURKE STREET.

Get A Hat

(Unmentionables, Drill Rigs, and Regional Centres) Address by Ron Manners To the Kalgoorlie-Regional Industrial Centre-Conference October 25,1993

For a guy who is more interested in the future than the past, I really can’t understand how I keep being cast in the role of having to delve into the past. In this respect I’ll be quite happy when Kalgoorlie’s Centenary Year is over and I will be able to concentrate entirely on the future.

In tonight’s brief visit to the past, let us revisit the early fifties when Kalgoorlie was struggling to maintain any viability, and then jump to the sixties when the beginning of the Nickel Boom gave us the opportunity to pursue this regional centre concept for the first time since the early 1900’s.

The early fifties for me was when my father was running our family business, W. G. Manners & Co, and he had an unexpected heart attack.

This brought “young Ron” out of the back shed where I was acidifying Oldham miners’ cap-lamp batteries and unpacking crates of Timken roller bearings, to be confronted with this new responsibility of running the family business.

Our main business partner at that time was Noyes Brothers, the Australian subsidiary of Crompton Parkinson and their State Manager, Syd Webster conferred with my father on his sick-bed and passed judgement on me in words something like :

“Young Ron is not much use to anyone at the moment but if you can find someone to run the business for a year we will take Ron away to Perth, Sydney and Melbourne and try to knock some sense into him, and deliver him back to you as a useful individual”.

Training in those days was totally unstructured and consisted of doing everyone’s job in an organisation whilst they were away on their annual two weeks vacation (as it was in those days).

It’s not a bad way to learn, to be thrust into the firing-line and take everyone’s calls and make their visits in the field. I had the opportunity of becoming an instant two-week expert on such things as electric motors and switch gear, electrifying steam driven mine-winders, to marketing non-ferrous metals, materials handling equipment and Lockwood master-key systems.

All was going smoothly until one day I was called into Mr Webster’s office where he announced that he was sending me on a diplomatic mission for the company and that it was important that I present myself positively and overcome my natural tendency to be shy. So that I would look the part and not disgrace the firm, he insisted that I should take a trip into the city and “get a hat”.

At age 18 1 had never been a “hat person” but feeling that a great deal was expected of me I made the purchase and receiving instructions from the “gentlemen’s outfitters” on just how to wear a hat and when to take it off, and the important part it plays in making a statement that you are, in fact, on a very important mission.

Of course this convention of dressing the part is really a load of rubbish. One of my favourite philosophers, Henry David Thoreau asked the interesting question of “How far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes”. He even distrusted any enterprise that required new clothes. But as long as it remains a convention, we are stuck with it.

Well, with hat in hand I presented myself back to Mr Webster’s office, where he briefed me on this new challenge.

He said that the firm had been fortunate in being appointed State Distributors for a new product made by Lee-Acme, and that there was a great need for this item in every one of Perth’s important buildings.

This was to bring me in contact with every big company in St. George’s Terrace. He explained that in years to come I would remember how I played a major part in solving their problems.

I could see that he had a technical file that he was about to present to me, and he certainly had this wonderful way of preparing my appetite for the challenge.

He then outlined the plan of attack. I was to go to the Head Office of each of the companies that he had listed and ask to see the head girl.

For the first time I “smelt a rat”.

“What is the product we are selling”, I asked.

He replied “They are Lee-Acme Sanitary Incinerators” (Later I found out that in the “trade” they were given a far more colorful name, which in this present company would be unmentionable).

Now, please bear in mind that this was in the days before disposal plastic bags, and that without proper disposal facilities the ladies were prone to dispose of their unmentionables by flushing them down the toilet, in turn creating huge plumbing problems, huge plumbing bills and general pandemonium.

Well, on receiving this news I just about shrunk through the floor, but I did have the presence of mind to ask him “Why the hat?”.

He explained that if I got too embarrassed, I could use the hat to pull down over my face.

Well, the best bit of advice that I could give anyone who is shy, with a tendency to stutter and totally lacking in self-confidence would be to get a job selling Lee-Acme Sanitary Incinerators.

I ended up in more ladies toilets in Perth that I care to remember.

I measured up for, and supervised the installation of more of these units than they ever thought possible.

There was a huge requirement for this item and most of them managed to pay for themselves, in reduced plumbing costs, within the first week.

I learned later that the firm had been sitting on this agency for three years and that no-one would get involved with it. In that sense I was being set up, in a rather good natured way.

Strangely enough, Syd Webster and 1 are still very good friends. He comes to Kalgoorlie every year for our Croesus Annual General Meeting, and after all these years, as a shareholder of Croesus Mining he is still my employer.

Now we skip forward 13 years to early 1967, just after Western Mining Corporation had discovered Kambalda, and that brought other exploration companies to the Goldfields for the first time in my memory.

Although most of us were very proud of Kalgoorlie’s position as a regional service centre at that time, we had been in survival mode, an era where we would do anything to survive. Local engineering works took on all sorts of challenges, some successful like the Keogh Road Sweeper made by Con Keogh (Sr.). So successful in fact that they were exported as far as South America — from Kalgoorlie. Other ventures less successful, like the Bert Rogers Boat Building Enterprise, that didn’t quite master the art of building boats that floated.

KEOGH ROAD SWEEPER

SERIAL NO.

SERIES

MANUFACTURED BY KEOGH'S ENGINEERS WILSON STREET, KALGOORLIE.

The Goldfield’s attitude was then, as it is now, “no job is too difficult”. So when the Nickel Boom came on us, slowly at first, we were presented with new challenges and I was on the door-step of International Nickel (INCO) when I heard that they had sent a geologist, Barry Krause, from Sudbury, Canada to establish an exploration office in Kalgoorlie.

I asked what W G Manners and Co could do to assist?

He had two requests :

1. “How can I get some air-conditioning into this place”?

His office was in Hannan Street next to the Town Hall [where Ansett Airlines had their office until 2001]. His was a serious enquiry about air-conditioning, as at that time there were only a few Aquacool evaporative air coolers around Kalgoorlie. They were large evaporative coolers with a roller drum covered with rubberised horse-hair rotating in a bath of water.

What he wanted was reverse-cycle air-conditioning, and until that time, Kalgoorlie had 40 cycle electricity which had precluded the use of conventional refrigerated air-conditioners, without extensive modification. That was an easy request and was quickly organised.

2. His second request was a little more challenging. He wanted a drilling contractor as he wished to place a contract for several thousand feet of deep percussion drilling, and he wanted it done in a hurry.

I clicked my heels and promised to report back with a drilling contractor.

It took me about a day to firstly find out what a drilling contractor was. Western Mining Corporation did all their own drilling and that was the extent of exploration around here.

But I did manage to locate one. He was a local pastoralist, Harry Davies who had a old “mud-puncher” that he had used for some water well drilling.

I knew Harry so I asked him to come along with me, but Harry nearly freaked out when I told him the scope of the contract and he calculated that it would take him about six years to complete the contract with his rig, if he could get down at all.

I could see Harry was not in a winning mode so remembering my earlier experience, I gave him this bit of advice, I said :

“Harry, get a hat”.

Harry, complete with new hat, then fronted up with me at International Nickel’s office the next day. Anytime the discussion got a bit technical I would step in and say that “we had that point under control”.

The INCO chief was so impressed that he signed Harry up on the

spot and drilling was to commence about a week later.

As we left the INCO office, Harry said to me “Where do I get a drill rig?” Don’t laugh, Kalgoorlie didn’t even have television in those days, and there were certainly no suitable drill rigs available in W.A. Back we went to my office and spent the rest of the day phoning around Australia in search of a rig.

We found one, in Queensland, a Schramm 42 but it was track-mounted. We didn’t know at that time that it had been sitting in Evans Deakin’s yard for about three years after being imported from the U.S. for a test which it had failed. Nevertheless, in about 10 seconds W.G. Manners & Co became the Western Australian Schramm drilling rig agent, and Harry was duly signed up as our first client.

Harry made a few calls and located a second-hand International truck with delivery instructions for the truck to be sent to Evans Deakin Engineering Works in Sylvania, south of Sydney, to where the track-mounted rig was to be despatched. The truck was too short so the chassis had to be lengthened.

Their estimated time for lengthening and transferring the track-mounted rig to the truck was one week so we were at least coming close to our promised deadline of commencing drilling in Kalgoorlie within a week.

So far so good, and the next day Harry put a proposition to me. As I had got him into this, the least I could do was come to Sydney with him and help him drive the rig from Sydney to Kalgoorlie.

Everything sounds simple when reasonable people are dealing with each other, so off we went to Sydney, expecting work to be completed and the rig to be an in a drive-away condition.

No such luck. By the time we got there the rig was still on tracks. It had been in the weather so long that the bolts all had to be cut off, one by one.

The truck was there but the wiring was not of a standard that would allow licensing in Sydney.

There we were, Harry and I, so we pitched in and went to work alongside the Evans Deakin team, Harry helping with the drill changeover and I confined my activity to re-wiring the truck.

We stayed at a nearby hotel known as the Sylvania Hotel, where after three nights, we ran out of money.

A bit embarrassing, but it was not much use asking for some money to be sent over as nobody had any money in those days, so we asked the hotel owner if he had a truck in need of re-wiring or anything else useful we could do to enable us to continue staying at his hotel.

No, he didn’t have a truck to be re-wired but he did need two musicians to accompany his very popular piano playing singer, Charles.

If we performed on a seven night per week basis he would allow us to live in the staff quarters.

It was a great three weeks. Harry played the gourd (up under your chin etc), and I played the maracas.

I was so proud of being able to hold down a serious job like that for three weeks that I asked the Manager for a reference, which I still have. (See facing page).

Work continued every day on modifying the rig and about the only communication we received from the West was the daily telex from Barry Krause of INCO threatening to cancel the contract if we were not on the job by the next day. We telexed regular replies but nothing sounded believable, apart from our new careers as professional musicians.

We only hoped that we really did have the only available drilling rig in Australia, suitable for that contract.

Eventually we did drive away from Sydney in that newly painted bright red drilling rig, looking very much like an over-grown fire engine. We left amidst the cheers of the Evans Deakin team as we had made sure that the job received top priority, and I think a few of their other jobs had been quietly accumulating.

Licensing the rig also became a nightmare, as the authorities insisted on including the value of the drill-rig in the value of the truck, and there was no way that we could raise that kind of money. We decided to take the risk of driving it to the West on a temporary “N.S.W. only” permit.

Out on the open road we soon purchased a road map, and as I hadn’t been to Mittagong we had to go that way. Harry hadn’t been to Canberra, so we also went that way. We saw a lot of the country and caused a lot of traffic jams as we backed our monster out of various one-way streets. We also avoided the main trucking routes, to minimise contact with traffic checkpoints. Then we eventually hit the long dirt track and crossed the Nullarbor and that is when we had our first real set-back.

One night, whilst “boiling the billy”, we looked up at the large pine box strapped to the back of the rig, in which were stowed all the Mission-brand down-hole-hammers and drill bits. We noticed the bottom of the crate had burst and the crate was empty. Perhaps $50,000 worth of vital components. No insurance, no cash to purchase replacements, probably no such thing as replacements in W.A. at that time.

Two very serious characters conferred around that camp-fire as we compared our alternatives of either arriving back in the West with a useless rig or re-tracing our tracks and looking for the missing bits and

pieces. We chose the latter and two days later we picked up the last of the missing items.

They had “leaked out” of the crate one by one, each now covered in dust and looking completely useless to the passing traffic, but each item we picked up and checked off on the invoice list lifted our spirits.

Maraca Reference

phone 522 8011 tt fi»*

Millets

“SYIVAMA” HOTE mm

Cnr. Port Hacking Road & Princes Highway, Sylvani

Daring his association with oar Orchestra as First Maraca, Mr R. 3. Manners discharged his responsibilities with unbelievable finesse.

Only on rare occasions was he known to have brought disgrace to the fine reputation acquired over the years by our Sylvania Hotel.

It is therefore with only a little reluctance that we are pleased to recommend Mr. Manners for any higher calling in the entertainment field.

3a assured that Mr. Manners will not be forgotten by the Sylvania.

Tours faithfully,

MANAGE.

■ Orm-in Bottit Do?*. • Saimiot Pool • Cti fcutan* for 600 • Di«i»f Raon 4 Ssbc* Bw Soric* • WotM CUss Aecoow ConwotKBa • Buwu Foncfiom • Portici • Awiwnrie • C*teiai Ota Sptoollty

I-

“Make Friends with Millers”

Some musical moments result in this 1967 “career reference”; see previous page

So then we turned again for home and crossed the Nullarbor for the fourth time.

Harry Davies contract with INCO was a success, so much of a success that he was awarded more contracts and he bought many more Schramm rigs.

That really brings me to the theme of this conference, that of Kalgoorlie as a Regional Industrial Centre.

Harry accepted the challenge of providing a service. He risked his money and reputation and out of that first Schramm drill rig developed Davies Drilling¹, a firm that emerged at that time as the largest percussion drilling contractor in the Southern Hemisphere.

I know that there are many success stories to come out of Kalgoorlie, some of them are here tonight, but I thought you might enjoy this simple first hand story of how one of our success stories actually got started.

If it encourages more of us to take those first steps with confidence, the first steps are always the hardest, then the Kalgoorlie tradition of accepting the challenge will continue.

Perhaps the Davies Drilling success story all came from Harry Davies getting that hat.

DAVIES DRILLING PTY. LTD.

EQUIPMENT INCLUDES LATEST

'Now trading in 1995 as the successful public company Grimwood Davies Holdings Limited

DAVIES DRILLING PTY LTD 161 BOURKE STREET, KALGOORLIE Phone 212400 Telex 91793

DAVIES

CARTOON

"OUT OF THE WIST"

THE DAVIES DRILLING ORGANISATION.

MINERAL EXPLORATION SAMPLE LEADERS.

SPECIALISTS IN A SPECIALIZED FIELD.

HIGHLY TRAINEO - WELL ORGANIZED - SUPERBLY EQUIPPED. MAKE YOUR ENQUIRIES TO KALGOORLIE 21 2400 WA

DAVIES DRILLING PTY LTD. 163 BOURKE STREET. KALGOORLIE WA. 6430 PHONE 21 2400

DAVIES

CARTOON

"OTP l»«6LINe,WSSY- K)N DEEP ARE WEf

SPEAKERS SUPPORT FREE MARKET ECONOMY

THE

NICKEL

BOOM

(LATE

I960’S)

 had such a

dramatic effect on the Kalgoorlie region that I would like to deal with it in a subsequent book.

HOWEVER; when this “boom” collapsed in the early 1970’s Kalgoorlie was left “high and dry” with the majority of local businesses overextended.

Continued on p.293

Progress Stunned And Restricted

Kalgoorlie's growth as a mining centre has been stunned and restricted by the “egalitarian

roficies of      -    ”    ••    '    ~    ‘    ‘    '    ~    ‘    --    -

Citdang.

polit ies of successive governments,” according to Queensland driling consultant.'Mr Ron Kitchi

By 1977 things had become so desperate that a two-day seminar was organised to “remove    some

obstacles and regain momentum.”

With key support from Mayor Ray Finlayson and the School of Mines’ Dean, Dr Odwyn Jones, much was achieved in setting the tone for deregulating many of the transport and other regulations that had been working against the region’s interests for so many years.

A concious decison was made that longer term benefits would flow to Western Australia if, instead of simply breaking these rules and regulations, we should have them abolished.

Twenty-five years later, I look back and say, “What a good idea that was.”

Many people living today have no idea of the suffocation of enterprise under the regulations existing at that time.

Several similar seminars have been organised since 1977.

Introduction to; “Kalgoorlie (and Australia) Lookin’ Good, Feelin’ Awful”

Lang Hancock said it in two 1978 Speeches;

The Executives Association of Australia - Sydney Sept. 22,1978 The Australian Retailers Association - Melbourne Sept. 25,1978 Portion of which is reproduced below ....

Freedom

“It all comes down to this basic premise: if you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom and in fact all freedom. Freedom is something that cannot be passed on genetically. It is never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it. Once freedom is gone, it’s gone for a long, long time. Already, too many of us, particularly those in business and Lang Hancock flying over    industry, have chosen to join our

the Hamersley Ranges 1974    government’s march to socialism rather

than fight it.

Often I am concerned that corporations have abdicated their responsibility to preserve the freedom of the marketplace out of a fear of retaliation, or a reluctance to rock the boat. If they have, they are feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat them last. You can fight Canberra and you don’t have to be a giant to do it. In Kalgoorlie there’s a small family company run by an individual called Ron Manners. He is also the President of the Kalgoorlie Chamber of Commerce.

Working through the Chamber of Commerce, Ron Manners has produced a document called “Australia Lookin’ Good, Feelin’ Awful” (or you could call it “The Case for Governments Getting Out of the Way”), and followed this up with a specific 15-step policy on how the government could best get out of the way or “release the handcuffs” as he terms it, from the Mining Industry.

It is impossible for Doug Anthony¹ or any of his advisors to knock

1. Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for Resources

over the logic presented in these documents and more difficult for them to reply to his demands for monthly reports on what progress they are making along these lines.

In the 12 months since publishing these documents, Manners has been inundated with requests for copies as they are forming the basis of strategy for many other industries in other parts of Australia to push the case for de-regulation of their various industries and regions.

They are using the same tactics as Manners in showing how every Government intervention into peaceful, private activity tends to make things worse, rather than better.

By bombarding Canberra with logic in this fashion, it is putting the bureaucracy on the defensive and making them think twice about erecting any more hurdles, so with a bit more pressure of this kind we could even have them dismantling some of the existing hurdles.

As Manners reminds them “a predatory government casting a pall of toxic uncertainty will not revitalize investment in the Australian mining industry”.

Why don’t more of us challenge what Manners called the arrogance of officialdom? Why don’t we set up communications between organisations and trade associations? To rally others to come to the aid of an individual like that, or to an industry or profession when they’re threatened by the barons of bureaucracy, who have forgotten that we are their employers. Government by the people works when the people work at it. We can begin by turning the spotlight of truth on the widespread political and economic mythology that I mentioned.”

“Kalgoorlie (and Australia) Lookin’ Good, Feelin’ Awful”

Summary of Background Paper by Ron Manners President, Kalgoorlie Chamber of Commerce For “Kalgoorlie Economics Seminar” June 11-12,1977

Contents Page

What Went Wrong?

Problems

Deadly marriage between politics and science.

Government over-regulation.

Gutlessness of business.

Supporting our own destruction.

Misuse of power by some unions.

Where Are We Now?

My Vision

The Correct Role of Government

Government and Commerce

Commerce is unpaid government servant.

How Much Regulation is Too Much?

The Achilles heel of the regulators What’s the cost of regulation?

The hidden costs of regulation Adverse effects on employment Contradictions of government regulation Who will protect us from our ‘protectors’ Minerals and energy

Survival

Call for an ‘Economic Impact Statement’

Put the regulators and anti-mining lobbyists on the defensive

Benefits to Kalgoorlie of De-regulation

Less regulation = more freedom Improved freight service Improved air travel Freedom to trade

More exploration means more mines and more people What Can We Do?

Public opinion - educate and communicate

Discriminate in financial support

Repealing laws requires greater skill than breaking them

Minor amendments to mining tax laws

The benefits of limiting government powers

[Interesting to note which aspects have changed in 24 years...Ed. Dec. 2002]

Lookin’ Good, Feelin’ Awful”

Seminar Background Paper by Ron Manners President, Kalgoorlie Chamber of Commerce June 81977

It is difficult to restrict my comments only to the Kalgoorlie scene,

as:

(a) I have just returned from interviewing 27 Australian businessmen, now living in South East Asia. They left Australia “as a result of the rapid increase in the heavy-handed bureaucracy”. Rather than allow themselves to be kicked around the groin, on a daily basis, they have elected to live in an environment of greater personal and economic freedom, elsewhere.

(b) If you think Australia looks bad from within, you should try looking at it from a distance and sensing the acute embarrassment of having people from other countries politely laughing at a country and a people who had everything going for them, but have seemingly “blown it all”.

(c) It is impossible to divorce Kalgoorlie’s problem from the problems of both Australia and its mining industry.

The causes are the same, and if nothing is done, the ultimate outcome will be the same.

The fortunes of Kalgoorlie, the mining industry and Australia are, through the reality and nature of economics, linked to Australia’s national behaviour.

What Went Wrong?

We all know that Australia is potentially one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and that it should follow, that all of us should be doing very well for ourselves, in this land of plenty.

Particularly those Australians living close to the source of Australia’s wealth, in mining and rural centres such as Kalgoorlie.

Contrary to this assumption, recent studies show that:

(i) The average worker’s standard of living in some Asian countries (with no natural resources of their own) will be higher than his Australian counterpart within the next five years.

(ii) Australia has the fourth weakest internationally traded currency (the three worse are the Italian Lira, Pound Stirling and the Greek Dracma).

(iii) If you had converted your Australian dollars into Swiss Francs eighteen months ago and held them at zero interest:

Today you would be 45% better off!

(Note that Australia’s currency controls make it illegal for you to protect yourself in this way, against inflation and other government policies). [This was true in 1977..Ed]

What worries me is what I am going to say to my children, when they ask me in a few years: “Why did your generation let this happen to Australia?”.

Of course Australia is not in trouble all over. One pocket of prosperity is Canberra - a crazy place where although there are few real jobs, they are all busily employed and it’s Australia’s fastest growing centre.

A good summary of what went wrong, appeared in the January [1977] issue of Readers Digest “Australia’s Big Spending: A Sobering Story - (How Spending crippled a Nation)”.

This article appeared in all editions, other than the Australian edition, probably because by reading it we may have lost our faith in the ability of governments to solve all of our problems.

Problems

1. Deadly Marriage Between Politics & Science

Central to any problem existing is the “deadly marriage between politics and science”. To quote Eugene Guccione (editor of “Mining Engineering”)',

“To repeat: politics is one thing, science is another. In politics we are all entitled to our own opinions - be they Liberal, Labor or any other opinions. But no-one is entitled to irresponsible opinions on any aspect of science - from medicine to engineering, from nuclear physics to economics.

What is pulling the plug on the mining industry and on other industries is not the environmental movement, or the consumer movement, or any of the pressure groups you read about in the papers. What is pulling the plug, is the deadly marriage between politics and science.

So if we want to win, the long-range goal must be a complete separation of politics and all aspects of science, - a separation similar to that of church and state. There are many reasons which make the separation of politics and science an absolute necessity. To prove it, let’s trace how politics created the energy crisis, the so called air-pollution crisis, and the financial-economic crisis....”

2. Government Over-Regulation

My own personal file on the bureaucrats and various government departments that I have to deal with as a businessman is thickening on a daily basis. I feel that I have got enough evidence of their utter absurdities, to blow them right out of the water.

(A later section of this paper covers the high cost, to consumers, of government regulations).

3. Gutlessness of Business

Whilst businessmen large and small indulge in all manner of “low profile” resistance against the bureaucracy, there is an unfortunate but understandable reluctance to go “high profile”.

Some of our business persons, instead of telling the Minister for Productivity a few home truths, such as the necessity for less bureaucratic red tape so that business may actually proceed, instead turn around and applaud the inexperienced Minister’s speech!

If lily-livered business people aren ’t enlightening the Minister on production, what chance is there that the Minister’s public service advisers will be able to do so?

“National Miner” - 16th May, 1977

The full text of this 26-page paper is available on www.mannkal.org

Click on publications (sorted by date).

The paper concludes with these comments......

What Can We Do?

1. Perceive public opinion as the root of the problem, not ignorant or malevolent legislators. Then educate and communicate.

2. Discriminate in financial support between organisations, institutions, and individuals that are part of the problem and those that have potential for doing something about it.

3. Identify which government regulations are working against consumers’ interests and your freedom to trade, and to take necessary steps to have such legislation repealed.

4. Press for two simple amendments to the taxation laws which would be of benefit to the Kalgoorlie region.

a) Re-introduction of Sect 77D deductions would once again encourage investors to contribute risk capital to exploration companies;

b) Exploration expenditure, by any company (or individual) should be made tax deductable from profits from any source.

At the present time companies like the Swan Brewery (or even mining companies without a profitable mine) are unable to deduct exploration expenditure from profits from any other source. This means, at the present time there is no incentive for anyone other than established mines to risk funds in mineral exploration.

This would not be asking a favor at someone else’s expense as every Australian shares in the benefits flowing from profitable mining.

5. Increase your awareness of the benefits, to all Australians, of business and industry taking a firm stand and rolling back some of the excesses of governments, both State and Federal.

To close with a touch of wisdom, Prof. F.A. Hayek (Nobel Prize Winning Economist), put his finger on the problem by saying

“The answers to pressing social questions are to be found in principles that lie beyond the scope of technical economics. What must be understood are the crippling effects of excessive government regulation and the vital but fragile link between economic freedom and personal liberty”.

Note:

This “rekindling” of Kalgoorlie’s energy, the bringing together of the community in an effort to identify the “impediments to progress” and taking steps to do something about it, has re-occurred several times over the subsequent 25 years.

Each time, we “repositioned” Kalgoorlie to take maximum advantage of the circumstances and opportunities that each economic cycle presents to the community... Ed.Dec 2002.

We will look at several such “cycles” and “seminars” in a future book as there will be many more “peaks” and “troughs”, yet to face Kalgoorlie.

Address by Ron Manners To Geopeko¹ “World Class Exploration Conference December 1, 1993

■ Kalgoorlie’s Centenary and why I hate history.

■ Why we must strive to shrink Government down to size.

■ A few thoughts on Kanowna.

■ A brief commercial in support of struggling local writers.

■ Concluding with a word on courage.

The year 1993 year has been one constant procession of old mates revisiting Kalgoorlie after many years of absence trying to justify why they left, for better or for worse.

Here are three brief examples of how the past has been revisited this year.

■ Shot off the chooks feet.

* 50'" Birthday party — how he originally lost his virginity.

■ I thought your name was John.

[These stories deemed unsuitable for publication. Ed]

How have we managed to get any work done in the centenary year when there has been a constant procession of people wanting to talk nonsense like this?

That is one of the reasons why I hate history, you are expected to re-live it. I am really more interested in the future because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life. History is often interesting, it is colorful and it is a useful roadmap to the future, but you cannot use the past to pull you forward. The past is an anchor and sometimes an interesting thoughtful anchor.

Understanding the past may help us cope with the transformational change that all of us will see over the next seven years as all this technology that we have been playing with starts coming together and drives us at a speed which will see our companies shed 50% of their people, pay the remaining staff double and generate three times the productivity.

This is now becoming the accepted management wisdom and that’s why they call it the Vi + 2 + 3 rule.

1. Geopeko's parenthood & evolution is detailed on p.308

Just get set to have the ride of your lifetime as the bureaucracy is dismantled in business just as it is starting to come apart in Government.

Forget about President Clinton’s catch phrase of “re-inventing Government”. He will find that Government as he knows it will gradually be phased out. This hopefully will follow successful business lines, as “empowerment” and de-centralised management using new technology, will render the rigid lines of management obsolete.

This will unclog the arteries of Government, and of business, and there is no country that needs this more than our own.

There will be a realisation that the only good political system is one that is designed to protect us from our political “leaders”.

There is a role for all of us to play in this too. Public bureaucracies never plan their own demise. We must do it for them, arguing on the grounds that Government ownership of property and involvement does not promote an effective allocation of resources, but that it actually prevents it.

We should not have to listen to our politicians with their masterful grasp of communication style, explaining to us “how they are creating jobs”.

What nonsense. It is simply not possible to create employment without employers and every effort Governments make to stamp out employers with every new tax, new law, or Mabo madness which they introduce, simply further restricts employment.¹⁸

Monash University has just released their findings from a survey made of the “Greatest Management Challenges” and it showed that 43% of all employers regarded Government regulation as the greatest challenge facing their business today.

All this while the political communication machine reassures us that every new 100 public-sector jobs will create another 75 private-sector jobs.

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that 75 private-sector jobs create the 100 public servants?

After all, which sector really supports the other?

Every Government announcement about bad news is inevitably wrapped in sugar and spice so we often don’t even recognise the bad bits.

The art of communication is all in the way we are told the message. It reminds me of the Alitalia Airline pilot who announced to the in-flight

passengers:

“Ladies and gentlemen I have some bad news and some good news.

The bad news is that we are lost. The good news is that we have a fantastic tailwind”.

Meanwhile, back on the Goldfields, we do manage to have some fun by “tweaking the tails” of the bureaucrats, as it is often easier to do this as a small company.

For instance we have never filled in a Government statistical form, in particular, the quarterly and annual exploration forms that some of you may have seen.

I appreciate that we need reliable statistics but the mining industry realises that Government information is not only wrong, but it is three years too late. So they contract this task of collecting accurate information to one of the leading accounting firms.

These questionnaires we do fill-in because they are brief and they ask only questions that are of benefit to the industry.

When the frustrated bureaucrats do not get our Government forms they often phone us and are put through to me, as we don’t have a department handling such matters.

I defuse their abuse by explaining that despite whatever threats they make, we are not prepared to go to jail just by giving them some information that has not been released to the Stock Exchange or to our shareholders.

We explain that the Stock Exchange regulations prohibit us from releasing such information.

The only way we will help them is to send a quarterly or annual report and they can extract any information they like from this published material. If they want the forms completed they can do it themselves.

I am however a bit worried about blokes like you who do fill in all these forms. You make it hard for us while we are doing our best to batten the bureaucrats down.

Incidentally, the maximum penalty for not completing these forms is $100 which is about 20% of the cost of completing the forms, but they have never been cheeky enough to inflict any penalty.

Let’s talk about Kanowna, as I notice that this features largely on your program.

As a Centenary effort, I have helped by assembling two books and this made me realise that I have had a long involvement with Kanowna as a prospector. Someone from Geopeko has suggested that I may be responsible for introducing Geopeko to the Kanowna area in the first place. Only your records would show if that’s correct. A check through my files last night showed, that over many years I had the greatest difficulty in getting anyone interested in our Kanowna Consols area on the traditional mining field at Kanowna. The ground included the Sunbeam and the Sunrise reefs and a major portion of the Ballarat Reef and the Kanowna Deep Leads.

On the south side of the Ballarat Reef it was called the Prince Oscar and the north of the Ballarat Reef was called Q.E.D.

Most of the 400,000 ozs taken from the Kanowna Deep Leads had come from the Cemetery and the Fitzroy Leads which were on our ground.

Just for the record here is a brief summary.

In 1977 I earned (as Mannkal Mining, my private company) a 50% interest in Kanowna Consols from the George Compton, Jack and Brian Otway Syndicate.

We proved up a series of targets and having reached the limits of my capabilities (as sole funder), armed with an independent geologist’s report I proceeded to look for a joint-venture partner.

In May ’78, we offered a 50% interest to Geometals NL at $10,000 cash. Rejected. Sturts Meadows Prospecting Syndicate NL were approached in February ’79. Golden Valley Minerals NL (February ’79). Newmont Aust Pty Ltd (May ’79) conducted several inspections with a view to a joint-venture but they would not accept our terms because of our insistence on a $4,500 initial cash payment. Further discussions with Sturts Meadows in May ’79 who felt that they would be interested but only if Newmont was the operator.

Amax Iron Ore Corporation made three visits in Jan/Feb 1980 and we concluded a “Heads of Agreement” for a formal JV which gave the syndicate $6000 cash back. Amax undertook an exploration commitment of $470,000 leaving the syndicate with a 5% free carried interest plus a 35% contributing interest.

Hampton Trust Limited of the UK expressed interest in acquiring our contributing interest for $40,000 but this was ultimately rejected by their consulting geologists Layton & Associates.

Hawk Investments Limited in March 1980 made a miserable offer for our contributing interest, followed by similar miserable offers from Arcadia Minerals NL in April ’80 and Mintaro Slate & Flagstone Ltd in May ’80.

Sundowner Minerals NL in July ’80 got as far as signing two sets of documentation and at least this time we received $1000 cash deposit prior to them withdrawing because of board problems. The company decided to concentrate on oil and gas exploration.

Northland Minerals Ltd proceeded (in Sept/Oct 1980) to enter into a draft documentation but it was eventually blocked by their board as several board changes were to take place over the next month.

Welcome Stranger Mining Co NL then (Oct ’80) entered into a similar agreement but at a better figure, just in time for Northland Minerals Ltd to take Welcome Stranger over during November ’80.

During this time Amax was proceeding with costeaning and drilling programs but they withdrew a year later with their interest reverting to our Kanowna Consols Syndicate.

During the next 12 months, undocumented efforts by me (meaning that I have lost the files) brought a few more companies to Kanowna, culminating in two main contenders, those being Canyon Resources Pty Ltd, whose man on the ground was David Gellatly, who had all sorts of stories about a new company they were about to float, called Delta Gold NL.

The other contender was Geopeko who offered a $400,000 exploration expenditure to earn 65% equity.

Ian Calder’s lengthy telex (no faxes in those days) of April 1983 outlined Geopeko’s terms and they were accepted by us.

The only reason that I mentioned approaching these 16 companies before Geopeko got involved with our piece of ground, is to ask how many other companies have looked at ground at Kanowna since 1977? It surely must be several hundred and that simply places on record again the remarkable achievement of the discovery of the Kanowna Belle ore body.

This also makes me reluctant to ever drop any ground at all.

As far as I know, that was the first time that I had any dealings with Geopeko and the dealings were satisfactory as it has resulted in considerable follow-up business.

The next venture was Mt Monger where Geopeko actually discovered the first of the several ore bodies that have subsequently been mined. Incidentally, Geopeko don’t publicly claim the credit for that discovery, but there is no doubt that this was the case.

Polar Bear at Norseman was out next joint venture with Geopeko, followed by Cataby Mineral Sands (still alive and well).

Gundockerta (east of Kanowna) is progressing well and recently the Melita Prospect has been joint ventured. We hope to do something with you on Mayday North as we think this is more our size than your size.

No-one hopes more than I do that one of these joint-ventures suddenly erupts into a raging success and places our company under intense pressure.

We are in the right frame of mind to accept a challenge like this.

We have enjoyed our relationships with Terry Ballinger, Ian Calder,

Julian Hanna, John Bunting, Rolf Forster, Bob Baxter, West Walmsley, Ray Twist, Doreen Hoyes and the rest of the team and we think we could work well with you on a big one.

Now, apart from enjoying all this, I also enjoy writing about it and it helps to have an understanding wife who is also a teacher of the English language and a willing proof reader.

Jenny has also told me the secret of why women like silent men. Why?

Because they think we are listening!

One of the reasons I enjoy writing is that it is the only profession where no-one considers you a dill if you earn no money. But before you write you have to do a little bit of living.

The philosopher Thoreau once said, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not yet stood up to live”.

Man is a plant which bears thoughts, just as a rose bush bears roses and an apple tree bears apples.

Man is capable of doing everything in excess and getting away with it, so to enjoy the flavor of life, take bloody big bites.

Moderation is for monks.

Our pioneers that we in Kalgoorlie are honoring in our Centenary year realised that life was not only what one did every day.

Their vision was grander than that, as was evidenced in their choice of what articles they took with them on their long lonely journeys.

Of course, you will have to read these books to capture the spirit and the reasoning behind why they joined the Goldrushes.

The first book “So I Headed West” is based on notes from my grandfather who arrived at Kanowna in 1895, as the engineer on the Golden Crown Mine.

He linked the great rushes together by travelling from Ballarat to Broken Hill to Kanowna and to Kalgoorlie, hence the title “So I Headed West”. The book covers the era of the sensational gold finds here in the 1890s which precipitated a boom that is hard to comprehend.

In 1895 alone, £50 million was subscribed for Western Australian mining companies which were being floated in London at the rate of one per day, and that rate continued for two years.

That £50 million converted into today’s dollars means that the one year’s “capital raising” would be roughly equivalent to $12 billion.

Chapter 19 is called “Share Sharks and How They Do It” and it is interesting to note that a century later, the rules of investing have not changed.

The book is about the people, what drew them here and how they handled the challenges.

The other book “Kanowna’s Barrowman - James Balzano” includes the notes of a remarkable Italian guy who came here as a prospector via the Californian, New Zealand and Ballarat rushes and developed into an astute observer and recorder of the people at work and the people at play.

This book is worth the price simply for the Chapter on “Kanowna’s Deep Leads” by my co-editor, geologist George Compton. Both books are wonderful insights into how our Australian culture developed. (They make great Christmas presents too).

I commend these books to you for two reasons.

Firstly, to store all these books at our home Jenny and I have had to move our furniture out into the backyard, so we need to sell some books so we can regain our home.

Secondly, I commend these books to you simply because I know you will “bloody-well” enjoy them.

In concluding can I commend you all on the thrust of this technical seminar. Success, as in the past, depends on knowledge and courage.

It depends on knowledge, without which we are fumbling and stumbling in the dark. It requires courage to act on our knowledge, courage that grows from the individual heart and not from majority vote. A great deal of success is often lost for the want of a little courage. This whole Centenary Year is dedicated to those who have kept the flame alive for prospecting, investing and mining for the 100 years 1893-1993. It is dedicated to people like you, and I wish you every continued success in your pursuit of wealth and its wise application.

1. Geopeko was one of the most active explorers in Australia during the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s and began its life as the geological (exploration) division ofPeko Wallsend Limited (Peko).

Peko was taken over by North Broken Hill Limited in the late 1980s and the merged entity was then known as North Broken Hill Peko Limited (NBHP).

Because of the confusion in the marketplace with BHP, the company name was later changed to North Limited.

The name of Peko's exploration arm was changed from Geopeko, to North Exploration in the mid-1990s.

Rio Tinto Limited took over North Limited in the late 1990s, mainly to acquire the assets of the Robe River joint venture. The dual listing of the merged CRA Limited and Rio Tinto occurred in 1995.

During the North Exploration/Geopeko involvement in South America in the early 90s, there was some degree of mirth among the locals as it was explained that “Peko” in the local language indicated a “very small penis ”. Further confusion ensued when it was discovered that “Peko”, when pronounced with an Australian accent, actually meant “large penis”.

Could this be the reason for the name change from Geopeko to North Exploration?

Terry Ballinger, Geopeko’s Managing Geologist, presenting the guest speaker with medicinal fluid and a mounted sample of ‘Kanowna Belle ’ conglomerate. December 1, 1993

Ray Twist, Geopeko’s Senior Geologist, left.

A great exploration teacher, with willing student at Mt. Monger, S.E, of Kalgoorlie. July, 1985.

GOOD BUILDINGS NEVER DIE (2001 and a 100th Birthday)

In 1911, the Kalgoorlie Brewery installed these large boilers (right) into their Porter Street premises, using the traction engine on the left to put them in place. The veranda posts of the Roads Board Chambers can be seen at left. Wesley St.Paul’s church is visible in the background.

Former Council Chairman, N.H. (Norm) Johns and CP (“Digger”) Daws, entertain staff and guests at Croesus Mining’s re-opening of the former Council building on July 24th, 1995.

There were many stories told about true and alleged events during the building’s past 95 years.

The Pleasures and Problems of Delving Into History

Address by Ron Manners

At the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society Inc., Meeting May 15,1991

One of the signs of a great society is the diligence with which it passes culture from one generation to the next.... Winston Churchill

History is now becoming of great interest to me, despite that fact that I find it most difficult and frustrating researching the past.

It would have been much easier if I had listened more carefully to the many things my father used to tell me, but I was then more interested in “hotting up” the engine of my Holden “ute” to make it go faster.

Perhaps along with advancing years I sense some responsibility to get as much down on paper as possible, having experienced difficulty in bridging two generations in attempting to complete some notes made by my grandfather W G Manners.

When it was realized that old WG (as I’ll call him), was dying of cancer at the ripe old age of 60, my father “stood over him” and asked him to write down some of his memories for the benefit of his family.

WG then sat day after day, on the front verandah of our home in 7 Croesus Street and produced a set of 10 small handwritten pads. These were handwritten on the reverse side of “bought notes” from the firm S. Madorsky Stock and Share Brokers, 152 Hannan Street, Kalgoorlie.

That was in 1924 and some 26 years later I can remember my father, Charlie setting out to bring together old WG’s notes and put them together in a form for circulation to members of the family.

Dad didn’t ever complete this due to other pressures, so it is left to me some 40 years later, or 66 years after the death of my grandfather, to finish the job, and I feel that with the increased level of interest in Goldfields history it may warrant a wider reading, as it tells of the people and lifestyles of those interesting times in Australia’s formative mining history.

It’s funny how it is only when you become interested in history that you try to understand it, and the reasons why it is important.

There must be more cynical quotations made about history than any subject other than politics. I know that Napoleon Bonaparte once said;

“What is history but a fable agreed upon?”

Voltaire said;

“All our history...is no more than accepted fiction.”

Lawrence Durrell said;

“History is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living”.

Sigmund Freud said;

“The history of the world which is still taught to our children is essentially a series of race murders”;

and Edward Bigbon said;

“History is little more than the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind”.

I don’t quite agree with these wise men, as it seems they have missed the ingredient of truth.

Perhaps a better quotation is from George Santayana who said

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat

it”.

History is a sacred kind of writing because truth is essential to it.

Language is the archives of history.

My talk tonight is called “The Pleasures and Problems of Delving into History” and it is the discipline of “getting it right” which I find creates the problem of frustration.

You can often be quite sure at the time that what you are saying or writing is correct but then find out many years later that you are completely “off track”.

A few personal examples are;

1. In 1986, I decided to celebrate the 88th anniversary of WG opening his first engineering office at Kanowna (that was two years after he arrived in Kanowna from Ballarat as the engineer for the Golden Crown Mine, and one year after commencing his own consulting firm.)

I thought I was pretty clever finding amongst the old boxes of family history a street map of Kanowna on which was marked “Manners”, along with the other locations of various landmarks.

We then proceeded to pour a concrete slab and put a plaque on the top explaining the event. We gathered 50 or so friends together on the day; had a party and gave a rousing cheer for the early pioneers.

Now five years later I find a letter written by my father’s cousin Bill, explaining the various notations on the map and it revealed that we have got the plaque in the wrong place. That’s not where he started in business, but it is where the family actually lived in Kanowna.

You might say that doesn’t matter, but the plaque says “this plaque commemorates the 88th anniversary of the establishment on this site at Kanowna, the first office of W G Manners & Co. Mining Engineers”.

So despite my best intention I’ve blundered, and the concrete obelisk is not easy to move.

2. I’ve always been told that WG erected the headframe at North Kalgurli Mine.

It’s common knowledge that the headframe was transported from Wiluna so I presumed that he must have erected it at Wiluna.

Keith Quartermaine now tells me that the headframe was designed and erected at Wiluna about five years after the death of my grandfather so now I can only assume that the headframe in question that he erected must have been the original one at North Kalgurli which no longer exists.[since verified-Ed]

3. In WG’s handwritten notes it was not clear whether the mine manager of the Golden Crown Mine was Jonathan Bray or Gray. You’ve no idea how many people I have asked to try and verify this, with absolutely no success.

It was only in March this year that I read in the Kalgoorlie Miner that Keith Quartermaine had completed an index for the old Goldfields book Those Were the Days.

The copy of this book I was using was one of the originals without such an index, and now with the benefit of the index, I quickly flick through and find that there is no question that it is in fact Jonathan Bray who was the manager of that mine.

4. The situation can even be worse when you deal with subjects at some distance from Kalgoorlie and as the first part of WG’s writings cover his early days in Ballarat and Broken Hill, I’ve had to rely greatly on much appreciated assistance from the Ballarat School of Mines, the Ballarat Historical Society, Sovereign Hill Organization, the Ballarat and District Genealogical Society and the Public Records Office of that city as well as the Creswick Museum and surprisingly Professor Kett Kennedy of the James Cook University of North Queensland at Townsville who is one of Australia’s noted authorities on the Broken Hill area. I needed his help to string together some of the names of obviously significant individuals mentioned.

I’m so glad that I’ve referred the manuscript to these people as they have saved me from several minor bouts of embarrassment.

One such error was where WG had referred to his own father managing the Queen Victoria Gold Mine at Ballarat and the Smeaton Reserve Gold Mining Company at Smeaton, a suburb of Ballarat.

The Victorians were quite irate about that, as Smeaton is quite separate, being some 30km away from Ballarat, and I have no doubt that WG spoke of Smeaton being a suburb in much the same was we would loosely describe Broad Arrow or Bulong as suburbs of Kalgoorlie.

5. One of the best photographs I have of WG is with a group of senior mine staff and he is sitting alongside a person, obviously the mine manager by the name of J McDermott.

The other gentlemen in the photograph are all named but with names not familiar.

I sent a copy of this off to a much younger Jack McDermott in Perth, asking if he was some relation and if he could explain the location and details of the photograph which was undated.

Jack has explained that it is in fact his grandfather and the location is the Cam & Motor Mine in Rhodesia in 1911. This explains why the other names were not familiar to me.

On the plus side of the frustration aspect, I recently met someone from Rhodesia/Zimbabwe who advised me that two books have recently been written about the early days on the Cam & Motor Mine and he is sending me copies of these.

6. One of my problems has been a remarkable lack of photographs or engineering drawings. (I had absolutely no engineering drawings at all, although WG featured largely in the design and erection of many of the early mining plants the King Battery, the Golden Horseshoe, Sons of Gwalia and many others). This was explained in a note that I recently found, detailing that he had a very serious fire in his office just after World War I and he lost all his early records.

You can imagine my reaction last month when Len Harmalin and Norma Latchford, (research archivists at Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines) contacted me saying that they had located some early engineering drawings done by WG and asked me if I had the originals?

I was in their office within four minutes flat, and they kindly obliged with copies of the three detailed drawings showing the Golden Horseshoe Plant design which WG designed and erected in 1901.

Finding such “jewels” make the search worthwhile.

The idea of completing WG’s book started coming together after the celebration we had at Kanowna in 1986 and I started tracking down and indexing the interesting bits and pieces and reading the notes in some detail.

Incidentally WG was with Father Long at Kanowna the night before Father Long’s announcement; so when this book hits the shelves it will be the first time that you’ll be able to read the real story of Father Long’s “sacred nugget”.

Gathering up these details, I then visited Peter Bridge from Hesperian Press in Perth, and let him read the first draft.

He encouraged me and suggested I tidy it up and put it all together and see him in about three weeks.

It sounded easy and it probably would have been easy for someone who knew what they were doing, but here I am three years and about 1000 hours later and I’m only now just managing to solve some of these blind alleys.

Talking of research solving the riddles of the past, I’ve appreciated meeting and spending time with Denis Cumming this week and I wish him every success with his much needed book.

Denis will stress in his book the example of why mining fulfdls the three requirements for our country’s successful future.

.. The value added aspect,

.. Export oriented,

.. Enables us to convert the “lucky country” into a “clever country”.

I think Denis will appreciate W G Manners’ observations on the development of the politics of envy in Australia. In direct conflict with what should be a morality of achievement.

This cult of envy and resentment has developed into what we now call our “tall poppy syndrome”, the desire to reduce our highest, down to the lowest common denominator.

Any civilization is the sum total of all the achievements of its people, and as achievement becomes increasingly discouraged, scorned and even persecuted, the forward momentum of a society is quickly halted, and then ultimately reversed.

I visited the Soviet Union last September (1990) with a group of economists and saw encouraging signs of people throwing off the burden of a suffocating Government.

As yet, we don’t see similar encouraging signs in Australia.

W G Manners’ book is not an official mining history of the industry, it is a simple story of his quest for daily bread. He saw himself as a steadfast battler caught up with interesting events and swept along by the early mining legends and colorful entrepreneurs.

When we are actually living through an era, we often fail to comprehend the significance of our times, and it is the passage of many years that enables these strivings to be seen in true perspective.

WGM it now seems, is credited by others as being the first mining engineer to visit Broken Hill and the Northern Territory. He describes the day the first woman arrives in Broken Hill.

One of the pleasures I’ve experienced in this project is that it has enabled me to meet and get to know a grandfather who died 13 years before I was actually bom.¹

This again brings me back to tonight’s title “The Pleasures and Problems of Delving into History”, and whilst this all started as a discipline of duty to complete this book, it has now turned into a burning passion, so the pleasure of passion becomes the persistent problem.

The pain of tracking down these details has become a pleasurable pastime and the main problem is that it has absorbed far more of my life than I had ever intended.

What’s Next?

Now that I have carved out this space in my life and now that I’m coming to the end of the WGM saga, I’m about to start assembling some of my father’s bits and pieces [this became Never a Dull Moment-Ed] and I must say that apart from his World War I diaries (when he described seeing the Red Baron shot down), Dad didn’t write a great deal, but there were a lot of activities in which he was involved. This covered a long period of economic difficulty where the Goldfields developed a distinctive characteristic of innovative persistence, and I can’t help wondering if our new generation will handle tough economic times as well as those folk who held the town together. They kept the place going so there could be a Nickel Boom and another Gold Boom.

Kanowna

WG’s two chapters on Kanowna, Kanowna at its Peak and Kanowna’s Decline, make interesting reading and in my father Charlie’s book I’ll cover in detail the 60th anniversary of Father Long’s announcement at Kanowna, held in 1958, together with the 1956 commemorative ceremony where 200 people were present.

Those functions stimulated considerable interest in Kanowna. At that time the street signs were all refurbished and this became a great tourist attraction.

If I live long enough to get around to writing anything myself I think I’ll have a chapter called Kanowna’s Rebirth, covering what is currently happening at Kanowna, where the activities of the Kanowna Belle Partners are rapidly bringing Kanowna back from its “long sleep”.

Perhaps the Kanowna Belle Partners (North Broken Hill-Peko and Delta) would respond favorably to an approach from the Historical Society to assist with re-surveying and erecting new street signs, in time for the 100th anniversary of gold being discovered at Kanowna which will be 12th October 1993. [This did happen-Ed]

If you would like any assistance with an approach to these companies I would be delighted to work with you.

In closing I would like to thank your Society and several members in particular for your greatly appreciated assistance in the past and warn you that in my next book project I’ll be delving into an era where many of you may be asked to assist with first-hand impressions, so I hope you

don’t mind my friendly voice on the phone from time to time.

Also to prepare myself for this new writing experience I signed up for a two day “writers seminar” about a week ago, and one of my friends from Queensland rang home while 1 was attending this seminar on writing and hopes that he’ll now be able to “read my writing”.

At that seminar we were asked to write a brief poem on any of the Goldfields paintings that were displayed at the Boulder Town Hall. I wrote this little piece which was based on a John Sztermula painting showing a bush road, and this is how I’ll conclude tonight;

“I took the road less travelled by and that made all the difference”.

Robert Frost wrote the lines so many years ago,

but they just came back to me as down the road I go.

Just when I’m about to solve the reason for these tracks

I come to this fork in the road so another mystery to uncover

what was on these old-timers minds in their quest, to seek and discover?

1. Another subsequent pleasure is the tremendous feedback from so many sources following publication of “So I Headed West". As one example I reproduce Richard Hartley's Letter of November 26 1995.

Dr Hartley became aware ofWGM’s leather-bound Patent Register from its mention in the above book.

la Creekview Close Rossmoyne WA 6148

26 November 1995 Mr Ron Manners Croesus Mining NL

Dear Ron

Thank you very much indeed for allowing me to look through and copy parts of your grandfather’s patent register last week. I found the register extremely interesting with its contents exceeding even my most optimistic expectations and I thought you might be interested in a note about why I found the register so interesting. William George Manners’ (WGM’s) register provides a marvelous opportunity to analyze the full range of patent applications from lapsed applications to completed re-registered patents during a period of great creativity in the mining industry.

There are an impressive number of prominent mining engineers among WGM’s patentees including George Klug, George Ridgway, Frank Moss, Albert Wauchope, David Bigelow and Edgar Taylor to name but a few. At least one of the patents made a significant global contribution to the technological development of the industry. This was George Ridway’s “Atmospheric Filter” which was one of the first successful continuous vacuum filters for slimes. It was used at Great Boulder where he was assistant manager, was made under licence in the USA, and was used successfully in a number of mines in the US and Mexico. Initially it was as good as, or better than, its rivals, the Moore, Oliver (both American) and Butters (South African/American) filters but eventually the Oliver model won out, mainly I think, because its inventor was its manufacturer and he consistently improved it over 20 years. Another notable patent in WGM”s book was David Bigelow’s rock-crusher shearing toggle which sheared off when an unbreakable object got between the jaws of a crusher and was used by a number of Kalgoorlie mines. (He was manager at Lake View and later Oroya Brownhill for Bewick Moreing).

Anyway thanks again for the chance to look into what is a fascinating microcosm of Kalgoorlie mining in the 1900’s. I shall send you a copy of anything I write which uses material from it. Last year, 1 took some months off from my doctorate to write the first volume of an industrial history of WA (to 1940) for the institution of Engineers and the Heritage Council. As mining naturally figures prominently in it I thought you might like the enclosed copy as a token of my appreciation.

Yours sincerely

Richard Hartley

“When President Hoover Sat At My Desk”

Ron Manners - “After Dinner Address”

WA School of Mines Geological Symposium Kalgoorlie June 6, 1992

I see some familiar faces that I last saw in Broken Hill a couple of weeks ago...trying to stay awake through the technical sessions in the daytime but finding it difficult on a “full tank” of red wine from the night before.

Well, nothing technical tonight as we will touch on a little history whilst we discuss the circumstances of how President Hoover came to be sitting at my desk.

For those who are not students of Goldfields history, let me quickly outline Herbert Hoover’s involvement here.

He left Stanford University in 1895 at the age of 21 and came to Australia the following year, employed by Bewick Moreing & Co. to evaluate and manage mines.

Hoover arrived in Western Australia on the SS Victoria, which berthed at Albany on May 13, 1887. A fellow passenger was the Polish geologist Modest Maryanski who was the first person to understand the geological significance of the telluride gold minerals identified by Holroyd on the Golden Mile.

Maryanski is said to have taught the young Hoover much during that voyage.

Hoover spent two periods in Australia, 1896-1898 and 1905-1907¹.

The original Sons of Gwalia mine at Leonora was formed in January 1898 and Bewick Moreing took over on March 17, 1898. Hoover managed the mine from June to December that year, at age 24. He was only three years out of college, so he was obviously showing some talents, even at the beginning of his career.

“When President Hoover Sat at My Desk” may sound like a very presumptuous title and it reminds me of Harry Browne, the free market economist, whom I’ve met on several occasions.

One of these occasions, in his introduction as a guest speaker, it was claimed that he had made $5 million by selecting gold as his prime investment before the dramatic price run up to $800 in 1980.

With an introduction like that naturally he received a standing ovation as he walked to the microphone.

/. J. Raeside’s “Golden Days" P. 59.

He hastened to point out several minor inaccuracies in the story;

1. The investment hadn’t been in gold, it had been in silver.

2. It wasn’t him, it was his brother.

3. He hadn’t made $5 million, he’d actually lost it.

However Harry Browne had accurately predicted the rise in the price of gold and had alerted readers of his newsletter to this possibility, so he still claimed to be a hero, but for a different set of reasons to those that outlined in the introduction. So you can say that apart from the minor inaccuracies the story was quite correct.

So it is equally correct to say that President Hoover sat at my desk. The minor variances are that President Hoover didn’t know that his Mine Manager’s desk at the Sons of Gwalia Mine would later be sold to Jack Boyland, the Senior Inspector of Mines, or that Jack would complain to me one night in the Hannans Club that he was retiring and moving to Perth, and that his new house in Perth was far too small to accommodate this magnificent Cutler desk (not a roll-top), a huge Cutler oak desk, complete with those great deep drawers.

Hoover wasn’t to know that I “took it off Jack Boyland’s hands”, and that several visitors from the US during the nickel boom would offer me great sums for that desk, and that I would knock back these offers, much to my later regret after the nickel boom had collapsed.

These contacts have also lead me to being a guest at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California, where Hoover subsequently became a benefactor and Trustee.

As a matter of fact Hoover didn’t even know that he would be elected to the US Presidency during the times when he was comfortably seated at “my” desk.

So all that nonsense, of course, makes me a first-hand authority on Herbert Hoover, but my grandfather W G Manners knew him and worked with him, so that also helps.

That means that any time a visiting American historian arrives, and that includes George Nash, Hoover’s official biographer, they head up to my place and pay homage to Hoover’s desk. They then return home and continue to bombard me with old newspaper cuttings and other memorabilia, knowing that it must be of great interest to me, due to my intimate relationship with the late President.

They all think they are obtaining some information on Hoover from me but of course it’s like a good joint-venture, both parties win and they always contribute some little known facet of Hoover’s personality or his achievements and all this comes from being stuck with a desk that I could have turned into money instead of all these moments of great glory.

So how do I feel about this historic figure with which fate has joined me in this intimate fashion? It’s easier for me to judge how other people feel about Hoover.

Most historians and contemporary Americans either hold him in low regard and blame him entirely for “The Great Depression” or they allude to him with reverence and dwell on his “heroic deeds”. With all the material that has been written about Hoover, much of which seems to have found its way into my collection, one could conclude that he is something of an enigma.

Tonight, let us examine the four questions hanging over Hoover and reach a conclusion on the questions that have concerned historians for the past 60 years.

1. How did Hoover get to become President of the U.S.?

2. Did he cause “The Great Depression”?

3. Was he a scoundrel?

4. Did he write the erotic love poem to the Kalgoorlie barmaid?

1. How Hoover became President

His background was ideal. It read like the magic formula for a folk

hero.

He was born in a village called West Branch, Iowa. Orphaned at age eight. Worked his way through Stanford University, graduated in 1895 when he left America to become involved with heroic ventures in Australia, China, Europe and Russia. At the age of 22, when he applied for the Australian position, which required an experienced mining engineer minimum age 36, Hoover is said to have grown a mustache and faked his age. All good stuff in growing a legend.

Because of his long residences outside the US, he was out of touch with American politics and not tied to either major party. He was thus untouched by the scandals of the former administration. All of which sounds as though he would make an ideal candidate for WA Premier or Australian Prime Minister.

One of Hoover’s key assets in his career and his politics was his wife, Lou Henry. They met at Stanford University, where Hoover was in his final year doing geology (not mining engineering), and Lou Henry was in her first year of geology. He was not a good student, being particularly poor in English.

In 1898 she subsequently became the first woman to graduate in geology at Stanford, and is claimed to be the first in America (her story is detailed in Norma King’s book Daughters of Midas).

Lou Henry’s other strengths were English and languages, and she subsequently played a major part in collaborating with Hoover and a team of translators to produce the first English edition of De Re Metallica, published in 1912. This is said to be the world’s first mining textbook, originally published in Latin in 1556 by the eminent German scholar Georg Bauer, whose name in Latin was Georgius Agricola.

It was common knowledge locally that during the time Lou Henry spent with Hoover on the Goldfields, she was assisting with the preparation, typing and presentation of his reports.

There is a strong suspicion that Lou Henry had a major part to play in transforming her husband from a relatively weak student of the English language into a powerful and eloquent public speaker and author. It is also safe to say that Lou Henry may have been the magic ingredient that, together with his folk-hero formula, led Hoover to the White House.

2. Did Hoover Cause The Great Depression?

In 1930, President Hoover was asked if a panic existed. In true politician style, he tried to minimize it and replied, “No, it is just a depression”.

With the benefit of history and hindsight, we can at least clearly identify who and what did cause that depression. Like most depressions, before and since, it was caused by Government manipulation of the money supply. Government ballooned the quantity of money and credit in the economy. A boom resulted, followed later by the painful day of reckoning.

The “Austrian School” of Economics from Von Mises, to Hayek, Rothbard and Lawrence Reed, has long observed the close relationship between money supply and economic activity. When Government expands the money and credit, interest rates at first fall. Businesses (or Governments) invest the “easy money” in new production projects and a boom takes place in capital goods. As the boom matures, business costs rise, interest rates re-adjust upward and profits are squeezed. The easy money effects then wear off, and the monetary authorities, fearing price inflation, may even contract the money supply. In any event, just altering its growth to a lower track is usually enough to blow over the house of cards.

We have seen a similar scenario in our own country over the last few years.

Whilst President Herbert Hoover did not cause the Great Depression, he certainly perpetuated it, caused mainly by his “fatal conceit” of thinking that centralised decisions by a centralised Government could overcome all difficulties.

He played a part in suppressing the free market. He forced businessmen to keep wage rates high in the face of falling prices, creating unemployment. He adopted deficit spending as a deliberate policy. He spent billions on public works and created a Reconstruction Finance Corporation to prop up shaky big businesses and thus prevent a quick and orderly adjustment of the economy. He also championed the nation’s first Federal Welfare Legislation.

Much as Australia’s Prime Minister Billy McMahon paved the way for Whitlam in his money supply and spending patterns, so did Hoover pave the way for Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 election, by spending and taxing too much, by boosting the National debt, choking off trade, and putting millions of workers out of work.

The crowning folly of the Hoover administration was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of June 1930. It was the most protectionist law in US history. It virtually closed the borders to foreign goods and ignited a vicious international trade war.

Then when farming went to pieces, rural banks failed in record numbers, dragging down hundreds of thousands of their customers.

Having regained half the ground it had lost since the previous October, the Stock Market tumbled on the day Hoover signed the Tariff Law, and fell almost without respite for the next three years.

With the economy flat on its back and millions in despair, Congress then passed, and Hoover signed, the incredible Revenue Act of 1932; this doubled the Income Tax for most Americans and the top bracket went from 24% to 65%. Corporate and Estate Taxes were raised, New Gift, Petrol and Motor Vehicle Taxes were imposed and postal rates were savagely increased. Economics Professor Murray Rothbard estimated that the combined fiscal burden of Federal, State and Local Government taxes nearly doubled during the period, rising from 16% to 29% of net private product.

Under the weight of all this Government intervention, is it any wonder that the second phase of the Great Depression saw conditions worsen dramatically, which set the pattern for Roosevelt’s New Deal, where he proposed spending $10 billion (although revenues stood only at $3 billion).

Among the other things Roosevelt passed was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which levied a new tax on agriculture and then used the revenue to supervise the wholesale destruction of valuable crops and cattle.

In their bureaucratic wisdom US Federal Agents supervised perfectly good fields of cotton, wheat, and corn being ploughed and healthy cattle, sheep and pigs being slaughtered and buried in mass graves. Roosevelt’s Secretary of Agriculture personally gave the order to slaughter six million baby pigs before they grew to full size. It seems that one of the biggest problems in ploughing this cotton under, was convincing the mules to trample the crop, as they had been trained to walk between the rows. Does that indicate that the mules were in fact smarter than the politicians?

Roosevelt’s next disaster was the National Recovery Act of 1933 which was passed on the urging of big business. It cartelised industry and put Government in control of production and pricing. All that the National Recovery Act achieved was to boost business costs by 40%.

Roosevelt then threw thousands into unemployment lines by enacting a Minimum Wage Law, which boosted business costs further and priced the least-skilled workers out of the job market.

In 1935 the Supreme Court outlawed both the National Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, but just as the economy was lifting again, Roosevelt brought in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. This gave such privileges to labour unions that they ballooned their membership by a factor of five. This brought in an era of boycotts, strikes, seizure of plants and widespread violence, pushing labour productivity sharply down and unemployment dramatically up. On the eve of World War II, 10 million Americans were jobless.

All of this demonstrates that without Hoover’s initiatives, the damage caused by Roosevelt’s “New Deal” policies would not have been so devastating.

Hoover himself said in 1933, “In the end the President has become increasingly the depository of all national ills, especially if things go wrong”.²

The West Australian of June 22, 1992 alluded to the Australian economic similarity under the headline “CAUTION, OSTRICH IN CHARGE’ and stated :

“Politicians always try to talk up a bad economy. Witness PM Keating’s repeated announcements that the recession is over, the upturn has begun, and so on”.

Here’s how Herbert Hoover reacted to the onset of the Great Depression.

As the market began to fall in October 1929, the US President described business as “fundamentally sound”, and that a great revival of prosperity was “just around the comer”. In January 1930, he declared the trend of business was “upward” and in March “the crisis will be over in 60 days”. By May, he said the country had “passed the worst” and would rapidly recover.

Perhaps the Hoover experience is telling us what can go wrong if we put a geologist in charge of the economy?

[How could I get away with saying this at a geological conference....Ed.]

In brief, the Hoover Administration doubled the income tax rate, pushed tariff rates to ruinous levels, attempted to cartelise industry and the agricultural sector and sought to keep both prices and wages far above market levels.

Any one of these actions following the Stock Market crash would have seriously impaired business recovery, but together they acted in concert to bring the economy to its knees, and in the process, threw nearly a quarter of the American workforce into the unemployment queues.

I have dwelt on this topic in some detail because it is so relevant to Australia in 1992.

3. Was Hoover a Scoundrel?

Early comments from my grandfather don’t seem to stack up with

2. ,4s quoted in Hoover’s Memoirs 1952.

George Nash’s official biography, one volume of which covered his life as an engineer.

Many of the articles about Hoover are in direct conflict with one another, and it has been suggested to me that the financially well-endowed Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association has a brief to acquire and destroy all copies of a book printed in 1932 called “Hoover’s Millions And How He Made Them” written by James O’Brien. I understand that I have one of only three copies of this volume in Australia.

I cannot vouch for the complete accuracy of this book, but it is well researched and cross referenced, and it does provide a balance to many other books on Hoover which generally tend to concentrate on distancing Hoover from “The Great Depression”.

O’Brien’s book covers in great detail Hoover’s involvement with the local mines;

Sons of Gwalia,

Golden Horseshoe,

Lancefield,

Oroya Brown Hill,

Lake View Consols, and

Great Boulder Perseverance.

It also contains a summary of the 98 corporations and 35 syndicates promoted and managed by Bewick Moreing under Hoover’s leadership.

In total they appear to have lost £64 million for their investors, an incredible sum in those days.

Very few of these companies paid a dividend, at a time when it was not unusual for local gold companies to pay healthy dividends. This is in conflict with Hoover’s own 1948 definition of mining - which he describes as “the art and practice of operating mines profitably”.

The book (p 20) tells us of some hostility from the local Mine Manager’s Institute when Hoover took over as manager of Sons of Gwalia, because the Institute refused to recognise, as a mine manager, anyone who had not had three years practical experience in the management of a mine.

The book also tells of a repeated pattern of Hoover’s management style when he went on to greater things after leaving Australia for the last time.

To quote one section of the book where O’Brien refers to an article in Australia’s “Bulletin” magazine (this is the same Bulletin that features Trevor “Pierpont” Sykes’ articles on mining and investment and is in surprisingly similar style).

“We give an extract from the Sydney Bulletin (P. 19 April 13,1911). It is illuminating insofar as it shows how the people of Australia, who knew Hoover and his methods well during his seven years in that colony, sized him up.”

“At the Oroya Exploration meeting in London lately, held with the object of inducing shareholders to put up £100,000 more cash to develop five mines, because the market was not favorable for floating them at once, Chairman H.C. Hoover was in great form. The Youanmi mine in W.A. covered 4,000ft. along the proved ore-body. At the 80ft. level (down to which a wildcat might fall from the windlass without hurting its spine), the reef was 1,156ft. long, 5ft. 6in. wide and worth 50s a ton. This body for every 100ft. in depth would yield a profit of £60,002. At the 170ft. level, the shoot was 480ft. long and worth 50s, showing a profit of £40,000. They wanted to open cut at 300ft. and if the ore-body didn’t lose its character (sounds like the lapse of a servant girl), the mine was worth over £300,000! (Prolonged applause.) The Meekatharra was another phenomenal property. Above the 160ft. level (the wildcat might crack his spine or break his legs falling this far), there were 47,000 tons of ore, which would give a profit of £42,000 and every 100ft. of extension in depth would mean another £30,000. If the 250ft. level was as good as the 150ft, the profit above that depth would be £72,000! (Applause.) Hoover then transported the shareholders to the Babilonia and Los Angeles mines in Mexico, where the revolution is coming from. The Babilonia was worth £45,000 and the Los Angeles £20,000 per 100ft. of depth. Another wave of the hand, and the Oroya illusionist took his spell-bound hearers to the Maikop oil field in Russia, where —. But, anyhow, the total profit was £252,000 (on paper) and with an expenditure of £25,000, another £120,000 could easily be earned, or £372,000 in all. After there was only one dissentient, a deaf man, and the shareholders upriously agreed to subscribe for 200,000 new shares at 10s, making the capital of the Oroya Exploration Company £250,000. Nobody thought of asking what the directors meant to do with the balance of £75,000 of new capital. Possibly it will be deposited with the Birbeck Bank”.

.. The Bulletin, Sydney, April 13, 1911, page 19.

“For the information of our readers the reference to the Birbeck Bank applies to a bank of this name in London, which had failed some little time previously, and in which the depositors had lost all their funds, having been robbed by the directors.”

“The reader may think that we have not quoted correctly from the speech of the Great Engineer, rest easy. The writer has not the capacity to put so many false statements and promises into a whole volume that Hoover put into that short speech, even if we had the desire to do so, so we give a copy of his speech, taken from the Mining Journal, London, exactly as Hoover had it published in that paper.”

All this material from his early days contrasts greatly with his writing style from his books dating from 1935.

In his “Challenge to Liberty” (P.67) I find that his definition of fascism matches up with our recent W.A. Inc. (State Government) and Federal Government experiences.

Does this sound familiar?

“Fascism, as distinguished from socialism, preserves private property and enterprise as implements of bureaucracy...which is frankly interpreted to mean government dictation of economic life.

This whole, openly represents a regimented economy dictated by government through bureaucracy”.

So for those who think we are suffering under the heavy hand of

socialism in West Australia, by Hoover’s definition, the problem may instead be fascism.

George Nash (Hoover’s biographer), when asked about Hoover’s “marked sensitivity to criticism”, which may include minimising some of his early escapades, commented that “Hoover would go to extraordinary lengths...throughout his life, to rebut alleged misrepresentations”.¹⁹

In Australia we have seen scoundrels become heroes, and more recently, heroes become scoundrels.

There is often a blur between being a hero and being a scoundrel.

Perhaps if a man is cast as either a scoundrel or a hero, he does not necessarily have to exhibit this same quality in every act.

Perhaps there are similarities between Herbert Hoover and Claude de Bemales, where it is possible to be a hero close to Kalgoorlie and Australia where we received the direct benefits of various capital raisings, whilst from the English investors viewpoint, they may feel quite differently.

So from where we sit, let’s remember Hoover kindly as one of our early mining legends.

4. Did Hoover really write that poem to the Kalgoorlie barmaid?

Perhaps this is the most intriguing question haunting the historians. Did Hoover pen those erotic verses, recalling his time with a Kalgoorlie barmaid whilst poor Lou Henry, his fiancee, was alone in Sacramento.

The poem is well known and I will only quote one stanza.

“...and I clasped you close my sweetheart, kissed you, strained you to my breast...

And a tide of bliss swept surging through the currents of our blood”.

This poem was also put to music and published in “Great Australian Folk Songs” by John Lahey.

Our own local historian, Norma King, can’t accept it as Hoover’s; as she says “he was such a straightforward fellow; this is so unlike him”. The poem also mentioned the Bougainvilleas in Kalgoorlie’s then-famous Victoria Park, and Norma King suspects that these Bougainvilleas were not even planted at the time of Hoover’s periods in Kalgoorlie.

George Nash, Hoover’s official biographer mentioned this poem to me in a 1988 letter, where he said “I am skeptical about the attribution of this love poem to Herbert Hoover. In fact, I have found no corroborating evidence and have concluded that the story is apocryphal”.

Lionel Bowen, our former Deputy Prime Minister also wrote to me, presumably having received an official inquiry from the U.S., asking specifically about Hoover’s desk and the poem.

My only comment about the authenticity of the poem was that our barmaids have been known to inspire visitors, and if Hoover could only see our present crop of barmaids he may have been inspired to write a whole book of poetry.

Now that we have dealt with the four great questions overhanging the life and career of President Hoover let me conclude by explaining how the Hoover connection has affected my life.

I think all of us appreciate having a range of choices. Having Hoover’s great big desk has given me the opportunity to exercise my freedom of choice.

My wife Jenny tells me that by looking at someone’s desk you can get a clear impression of the state of their mind.

Having Hoover’s desk has enabled me to choose between having my mind in a small or a large mess.

So at last 1 have someone to blame for me having an enormous messy desk.

It’s all President Hoover’s fault!

When Miners Were Heroes

Book Launch of “So I Headed West”

Address by Ron Manners to the AusIMM Annual Conference, Broken Hill, N.S.W.

May 18,1992

Can any of you remember a time when miners were heroes?

When they were proud of what they did, without apologising.

When all their attention was focused clearly on the task in hand and the striving to succeed.

That was a period before we submitted the terms of debate to the values of those who are openly hostile to mining, and in fact hostile to the whole free enterprise system.

This book belongs to an era that existed before the anti-industry lobby gained access to taxpayers’ money and used it against us.

If they had “Australian of the Year” awards in those days, they would have given them to people who created enterprises, cities, wealth and employment.

They were the creative dynamos.

Essington Lewis, W.S. Robinson, George Fisher, Maurice Mawby and many others who engineered projects in arid wilderness, all over Australia, conserving water and building prosperous and permanent productive communities.

People like that don’t get awards now, because the enemies of enterprise have hijacked the debate.

Just imagine the reaction of those men and many of the earlier mining heroes if they were confronted with having to fill in a 200-page Environmental Impact Statement or a Notice of Intent to mine.

Imagine their disbelieve if we tried to explain to those early miners how our generation has stood by, picking our noses, whilst the bureaucracy has diluted the almost sacred “miners right” down to a tenuous Licence or Permit.

The “miners right” was what the early pioneers fought for.

I wouldn’t like the job of explaining how the captains of our industry allowed a clause to become compulsory in today’s tenement transactions, which states “this transaction is subject to the prior consent of the Minister”.

This clause is in direct contradiction to the inalienable property rights that W.G. Manners’ father and our other mining pioneers fought for at the Eureka Stockade.

In my observation of the industry I can’t help wondering what men like Tony Grey of Pancontinental could have achieved if the impediments and hurdles of the politocrats had not been erected all the way along the course. Worse still, to think of all the people that the anti-industry lobby has burnt off along the way. These people we will never even hear of.

If these hurdles were in place 100 years ago, Australia would never have had the honor of having the highest per capita productivity in the world (in 1901) and there would never have been enough flesh on our bones to support our debilitating welfare load, or our economically isolated Canberra environment, or even our new $100 million embassy in Beijing.

At least we have the distinction of being taught in schools around the world as a example of how inappropriate policies can reduce a resource rich country from top spot, down to 24th spot, in one easy lesson.

If may not sound as though I’m an eternal optimist but I am, as only eternal optimists remain involved in the mining industry.

Eternal optimists turn adversity into opportunity and one surprise example is our former Federal Welfare Minister Blewett, who discovered that the one thing Australia excels in, is providing welfare to its population, whether they want it or not. He set out to export our welfare providing expertise to the newly emerging nations of Eastern Europe.

That’s the last thing they want from us.

Wouldn’t we rather be exporting something that we could be proud

of?

Now what’s all of that got to do with history and this book?

This book “So I Headed West” by my grandfather WG Manners is on the menu for today.

I never met my grandfather as he died some 13 years before I was born. However, in assembling his handwritten notes and researching various aspects, I feel that I have come to know him well enough to appreciate his sense of values, which simply reflected the values of that time, when miners were heroes.

I know that his emotions would have been roused if he were to reappear today and ask for some explanations of how we put ourselves on the defensive like this.

I think he would put me “on the spot” along with many others here today, for not participating fully in the intellectual war taking place between pro-market and anti-market forces.

The consequence of not waging this war is serious, because if the debate is dominated by those who dislike and distrust mining and free-enterprise then our industry faces a slow but certain decline.

Fortunately, there are some encouraging signs (but not many).

A select few of our industry’s leaders are learning to put our industry’s real significance in clear terms, with pride and dignity. These leaders, some here today, have started the gigantic task of raising our industry’s profile and there are signs that the tide of public opinion is turning. If we get behind these leaders we might manage to turn the ship around, and our country desperately needs that.

Old WG Manners (I’ll call him WGM) was one of the first two engineers to graduate from the Ballarat School of Mines and after working in Ballarat, headed off to Silverton and arrived in Broken Hill in 1886 where he worked alongside H.H. Schlapp and other early pioneers. After working on the BHP Mine, he then transferred, at age 23, to the Block 14 Mine, as the engineer.

He later surveyed the railway line north from Broken Hill, out to Tarrawingee, for promoter J.S. Reid and became the first engineer for the Tarrawingee Lime and Flux Company. He then headed west as engineer on the Golden Crown Mine at Kanowna in 1895, and then opening up his engineering business in that same year.

He then moved to Kalgoorlie in 1900 and our family business, still called WG Manners & Co, continues to serve the mining industry, (celebrated its centenary in 1995). Now managed by my eldest son Ian [correct at the time of writing-Ed], who now has the distinction of being a fifth generation Australian with a direct involvement in mining.

The same family company sponsored the public mining float of Croesus Mining N.L. in 1986, and I’m happy to confirm that it too, continues in good health.

That’s old WGM’s story in a nut-shell, but in the book itself there is an amazing mixture of humor, pride, disappointment and tragedy as the story traces Australia’s formative mining history.

Books from that era of our early mining days are fascinating in the sense that they reflect the absolute modesty of those who were going about their daily professions with dignity and pride.

In preparing the book I have been guided by the devastating words of one critic who commented about another book, several years ago by saying;

“The covers of this book, are too far apart”.

Instead I’ve made this book a concise personal visit to the humble beginnings of mining in Australia, a “tour” through the emergence of important mining centres at Ballarat, Broken Hill, Kanowna and Kalgoorlie.

Some of WGM’s stories of the early company flotations would make the 1980s entrepreneurs green with envy.

For instance, to get things into perspective, in 1895 alone, 50 million pounds was subscribed for WA mining companies, which were being floated in London at the rate of one per day (that rate continued for two years).

Converted to 1993 $s that one year’s raising would be roughly equivalent to $11 billion.

I could quote a lot of interesting items from the book but let me simply say that I am proud to be here with you today and I commend the book to you for two reasons.

1. We have crates and crates of books at our home in Kalgoorlie and my wife Jenny won’t be able to get her car into the garage until someone buys some books.

2. The real reason I commend this book to you is that you are all genuinely interested in Australia’s mining enterprise and its future. That’s why you are here today.

To know where we are going, we must know from whence we came.

To plan the future we must know and understand the past. This book is that kind of road map.

Friends; I also commend the book to you because I’m sure you will “bloody-well” enjoy it.

‘So I Headed West’ — essential reading

By Julian Malnic

A NEW mining history book by WG, Manners is the most significant since the late Had-don King’s The Rocks Speak. It provides a first person account of the birth of Austin- j lia’s massive mining industry. Told by a man equally conversant in drawing, engineering and poetry; So I Headed Bfes/ spans the development of Ballarat, Broken Hill, Kanowna and Kalgoorlie.

These centres sprang from discoveries and became hothouses for “creative dynamos” as his grandson Ron Manners describes the wave of innovative engineers and steelsmitbs who built the mines, mills and transport systems in these remote spots.

For those wishing to refocus on the purpose and pride of the mining industry in these days of urban quandary, the book also provides a humorous and refreshing colorful visit to historic times.

W.G. Manners — the son of a veteran of the Eureka rebellion and bom on the Victorian goldfields. the sixth of nine children — became the country's greatest mining engineer but relates the firsthand account of achievement with a single-sighted modesty and a strong appreciation of the colorful people with whom he worked. It contains many original photos and letters-

Beyond many lighthearted accounts are important tales of growing unionism, the stock exchanges, Kaigoortie’s water pipeline and the sequence of technical developments that built major mining houses from prospectors' interests.

In his recent launch of the book, Ron Manners who has much the same spirit as his grandfather, breathed a strong burst of revival into the industry’s pride saying: “Many of our leaders, some here today, have started the gigantic task of raising our industry’s profile and there are signs that the tide of public opinion is turning. If we get behind these leaders we might manage to turn the ship around, and our nation desperately needs that”

the Miner July 1992

A mining magazine covered the 1992 Sydney book launch. “W.G. Manners, a modest person, would have felt uncomfortable about being described in such glowing terms. ” R.B.M.

Two Riots on the Goldfields

By: Ron Manners

February 2nd, 2003

Most of Kalgoorlie’s riots within my memory, have involved vigorous public protests about Mining Acts Regulations, or the dreaded additional Gold Tax, but there were two major riots, many years previous to this.

The first, the riot of 1919 was reported in detail, by a first-hand witness, W.G. Manners, in chapter 26 of So I Headed West. That story, already told, explains how Kalgoorlie’s already colorful image was enhanced when 600 fully-armed men marched on the mines at 3 o’clock in the morning, during these riots.

When the book was published in 1992, my Uncle Bill Manners wrote to me saying “if you think that was a riot, let me come to Kalgoorlie and tell you about the riot of 1934.” The 82-year-old Bill Manners kept his promise in 1993 and took us on a conducted tour of the 1934 riot areas, presenting me with his original photos [reproduced in the following pages] and told us the following story:

“It all started over the long weekend for Australia Day in 1934. There was a lot of anti-Italian feeling in the goldfields at that time and this was caused by the strong rumour that Italians were coming to the fields, getting jobs on the mines and “slinging back” to the shift bosses. The Italians also contributed by going around in groups, congregating in Hannan Street, looking the passers-by up and down, particularly the females, making comments in their own native tongue and then laughing. I experienced this myself on a few occasions and I could well understand why the girls were upset. That anti-Italian feeling was wide-spread.

The actual riot erupted on the Sunday night. A chap named “Bluey” Jordan [George Edward Jordan] ventured down to the Italian quarter which was virtually a no-go area for Aussies. The popular pub down there was the Home From Home operated by a chap named Gianotti and it was virtually a home from home for the Italians. “Bluey” Jordan, who played football with Railways, liked his grog and became involved in a brawl in the pub which resulted in him being punched by an Italian barman and fracturing his skull when he landed on the footpath.

I was courting a lass in Lamington Heights at that time and on my way home I noticed flames over the town, and obviously from a large fire. I went into town and found it all centred on the Home From Home. I saw an Italian try to back a car out of the hotel garage, him being pulled out of the vehicle and it being pushed back into the blazing garage. The mob went mad. They burnt every establishment with a foreign sounding name and looted everything they could carry away.

The photos I have, show the wrecked Home From Home, the All Nations Hotel, the Cornwall Hotel, the International Club, the Kalgoorlie Wine Saloon [now the Amalfi Restaurant] and the complete destruction of Ding Bat Flats.

One photo shows the Jordan funeral, the largest procession in Kalgoorlie history and one of the Special Police marching, armed, in Boulder. From memory, I think the special train of police, about 200 and all armed, didn’t get a very warm welcome.

On the Monday, a mate of mine and I went into Kal and were invited onto a tram for a free trip to Boulder. The tram driver protested about the crowd and was pulled off the tram to make room for a few more passengers. When we got to Boulder the Italians, also “armed” were entrenched in a drain and bullets were flying in all directions.

I heard the swish of one which flew over our heads and immediately decided that retreat was better than defeat. I can’t remember how we got back to Kal. but we did in very smart time.

Reverting to the funeral, the procession down Hannan Street was estimated to be one and a half miles long. The photo shows only part of it.

I can’t recall if anyone, apart from Jordan was killed. There were all sorts of estimates at that time and many were wounded but naturally didn’t report it to the police.

One photo shows an Italian family dining amidst the ruins of Ding Bat Flats.

The funeral was bolstered by the participation of the Fire Brigade of which I think Jordan was involved. They certainly had a busy weekend trying to put out fires all along Hannan Street with hoses cut off almost as soon as they were extended.”

Note: A study of the Race Riots of 1934 illustrates just how far Australia has come, in

respect to inter-racial harmony over the past 69 years.

Here are further reading references on this 1934 event:

Golden Destiny, Martyn & Audry Webb, City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, 1993 - page 655.

Goldfields-Esperance Magazine, Feb. 9,2002 ‘Images of Local Riots’

The Mining Chronicle, 1997, ‘The Goldfields’ Racial Riots of 1934.

Kalgoorlie Miner, Oct. 27, 1994 ‘Fond Farewell to Quiet Hero of Race Riots.

Kalgoorlie Miner, Jan 14,1995, ‘Race Riots are Etched in George Hinchliffe’s Memory’

Gianatti’s ‘Home From Home’ family hotel. The 1934 riots started here.

The ‘Kalgoorlie Wine Saloon ’, Hannan St. (now the site of the ‘Amalfi Restaurant’)

Ding-Bat Flat was the living area beside the Boulder Subway, just east of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder railway line.

The funeral procession of G.E. “Bluey” Jordan, extended for 1.5 miles and was said to be the longest in Kalgoorlie’s history’.

“Reserve ” Armed Police marching in Burt Street, Boulder. Recruited from the many unemployed in Perth, they welcomed the free ride to Kalgoorlie and several days’ pay.

A family of innocent victims gathered with their remaining possessions on Ding-Bat Flat. The animosity was between the “British ” and the “Italians

The drain, that was used by the Italians, some of whom were armed, as a trench to defend themselves.

It was a wonder more people were not killed.

The drain-trench with Golden-Mile Mine dumps in background.

Cornwall Hotel

Breaking Records & Dreams Australia’s Deepest Mineral Drilling

(A reader could win $1,000  see explanation at the end of this

story.)

Notes by Ron Manners December, 2002

This book, Never a Dull Moment has set out to tell stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

The setting is Western Australia’s Goldfields during some pretty difficult years; prior to the 1966 nickel discoveries and subsequent gold renaissance, (1980 to the present time).

I have kept this example, the deep drilling at Hannan’s Lake, till last, as it embodies this spirit of achievement.

It combines capital, people, perseverance and courage.

From 1934, Western Mining Corporation (now WMC) had investigated the possibility of a southerly extension or repetition of Kalgoorlie’s Golden Mile.

Kalgoorlie Southern Gold Mines NL was formed in 1950 to plan the program and investigate equipment to carry out the deep drilling involved. This included inclined holes to over 1500 metres.

Gordon Buller was sent by WMC to South Africa and other countries to study deep drilling techniques and equipment being used.

Initially, a Boyles Bros. BBS-4 diamond drill was used and further developments are recorded on page 70 of Graham McGoggan’s book History of Drilling in Australia.

“By mid 1955, the BBS-4 drilled several holes, the deepest being No. SE4 to 6,333 feet, and two others beyond 5,000 feet. A 5,000 foot surface inclined hole would be drilled in about six to seven months, including moving, site preparation, setting up and dismantling. This would be with three two man crews working round the clock for five days per week. Gordon Buller had been the drilling foreman since 1952.

Still deeper holes were required, and Jim Langford approached Mindrill and together the FI50 drill (nominally 150 horse power) with a power shift torque converter transmission with 4 speeds was developed. This machine had to suit the company’s ‘A’ frame mast, and provide 60 feet pulls with a single line. The hoist was to be bolted to the baseframe and the head had to be racked back to clear the hole for hoisting. The brakes would have water cooling. This machine was the largest angle hole diamond drill in the world.

The drill was supplied to Western Mining Corporation in 1959. The Kalgoorlie Miner reported “An important stage in the search for a new Golden Mile was commenced when a hole was spudded in four miles south of Boulder on an island in Hannan’s Lake. The diamond drill will penetrate more than 8,000 feet.”

The first hole drilled with the new machine in 1961 exceeded 7,000

feet.

That historic drilling mast stood proudly on the Hannan’s Lake Island when Croesus Mining NL, the company that I had recently created, acquired those mining properties from CRA Limited in April, 1987.

Many Australian and international visitors continued to pay homage to this remarkable monument of courage and innovation from three decades earlier, and the drill cores from those holes continued to add so much to our knowledge base of the area’s well concealed, lake covered geology.

This proud drill mast continued to silently witness our company’s relentless drilling, during dry and wet seasons, as we continued our search for that elusive “southern half of the Golden Mile”.

Then in June/July, 1991 some mindless vandals, set off gelignite charges at each base of this proud structure, and gleefully watched it topple.

So now instead of a proud tower giving testimony to civilisation’s creativity, we have a crumpled tangle to remind us that despite all the creative achievement surrounding us there is ever present that minority “lowest common denominator” who, being incapable of creating anything useful themselves, seek satisfaction in destruction.

Naturally, I am keen to have these people mentally examined and I feel strongly enough about this to now offer a reward of $ 1,000 to the first person to provide evidence to the police that will lead to a successful conviction.

This offer holds good till January 8, 2005 and it will be necessary to quote the following police report details.

OFFENCE REPORT COMPLAINANT ADVICE SUP

Fiease use the number listed below in full to identify this report'

• when writing or contacting police

• when communicating with your insurance company, etc.

CONTACT YOUR LOCAL POLICE FOR ANY INFORMATION OR TO ADVISE OF DEVELOPMENTS REGARDING THIS OFFENCE

d d in m y y hours

Regimental No.

Offence report number 0 7 O J2. \ 9 "2. j j I Q \ J

G4£ 2XI

unence repon nunoa j v / ,    j    ^    t    ;    j    »    i    ;»    [    (    ©    A

This offence wiii receive appropriate police action / inquiry as determinated DjTvou    __

by the officer In charge of your local police and or C.I.d. office.    wr£    matter    STD    [TO

FOR FREE SECURITY ADVICE CONTACT THE W A. POLICE OFFICE OF CRIME PREVENTION ph 351 9222

The angle headframe being erected for the first time. Hannan’s Lake, mid 1950’s.

Two views of Kalgoorlie’s Hannan Street (looking east) at the time of W.G.M. ’s arrival in 1895.

(Note 1st generation Exchange Hotel).

PART 4

The Changing Face of Our Family Company, W.G. Manners & Co., Over Its First 108 Years 1895 - 2003

by

Ron Manners Feb 18, 2003

W.G. Manners, the son of a Ballarat prospector, started the “business” in 1895 when he travelled from Broken Hill and arrived at Kalgoorlie-Kanowna.

There he commenced business as a self-employed consulting mining engineer and contractor. His first contract was to design and construct the Golden Crown mine at Kanowna.

One hundred and eight years later, I’m trying to summarise the endeavours of the various generations in just a few pages, so I will confine it to a pictorial coverage as intricate details have no place in a brief summary.

In these days of instant success stories and subsequent corporate collapses, I am amazed that any business can survive for 108 years without either being remarkably successful or “falling off the perch”, although it has come close to doing the latter on quite a few occasions.

When W.G. Manners & Co. moved to Perth with the Mannwest Group in January 1999, it was the longest continually operating business entity in Kalgoorlie.¹ Our W.G. Manners & Co. staff levels over the 108 years have ranged from 3 to 48 and back down to 3 again on several occasions.

Some remarkable people have worked with us over the years; many having gone on to pursue remarkably successful careers. Likewise, our clients have been equally as interesting, and their requirements and input have shaped and continue to shape the nature of the ongoing business— a business which must continue to change if it is to survive.

The nature of the business has swung like a pendulum: moving between pure mining consultancy to periodic merchandising ventures during those periods when mining came close to extinction.

Repeatedly, mining was resuscitated, as were the mining regions themselves. W.G. Manners & Co. participated in each of these resurgences with enthusiasm.

1. Research shows that there is only one business with a longer record in the whole of the Western Australian Goldfields, that being Moran’s Store in Coolgardie, which commenced trading (as Councel’s Store) on 28 November, 1892) — about 10 weeks after the discovery of Coolgardie. This business started before Kalgoorlie was found.

The chart in Appendix IV shows the equity and management changes over the 108 years, but currently, in 2003, as part of the Mannwest Group, W.G. Manners and Co. finds itself directly involved in mining activity, through my involvement in Croesus Mining NL, DeGrey Mining Ltd and mining-related activities such as the Australian Mining Hall of Fame in Kalgoorlie.

Mining’s future is not clear—especially in light of the following three ongoing problems:

1. Continuing land access difficulties, which greatly inhibit the ability to explore for new ore bodies.

2. Indifferent governments who see more votes accruing to them from their continued “indifference” and who are therefore unwilling to show leadership.

3. A hesitant industry leadership that prefers “political correctness”, at a time when an articulate self-assured approach may be a far more effective way of restoring the industry to its pre-eminent position.

There is an intellectual war taking place between pro-mining and anti-mining forces, to which the mining industry should be contributing a vigorous defence of its social role, instead of apologising for its own existence and activities.

The consequence of not waging the war of ideas is serious. Ideas do matter, as Lord Keynes said, many years ago;

“If the debate is dominated by those who dislike and distrust free enterprise [for which, read; ‘mining’], then industry faces a slow, but certain, decline.”

If the top management of an enterprise can’t maintain the legitimacy of its activities, what can it expect of its workers and shareholders?

Coping with unpredictable commodity markets is fine—we’re accustomed to that. But when the main threats are created by people who should be vigorously propelling the industry forward, you realise that their abdication of leadership has placed an unfair burden on those who stand ‘below’ them—the dedicated band of middle management, who, with their untiring energy and ever-improving technology, carry the industry forward against great odds.

We are under attack by enemies of our industry and history shows that, in times of war, appeasement is not a sustainable option.

Historical knowledge is indispensable for those who want to build a better world, and compiling this book has helped me to decided what I personally want to take from the past and what I should leave behind.

Please join me in this quick historical flip through the past 108 years.

North Kalgurli - Original Main shaft c.1902

W.G. Manners & Co. [WGM]

Brief Summary of Mining Plants Designed and Erected 1896 - 1924

Golden Crown Mine - Kanowna 1895-6.

Golden Horseshoe (100 Head battery, treatment and roasting plant) -Kalgoorlie 1901.

Brownhill (Redesigned plant) - Kalgoorlie 1902.

North Kalgurli Headframe (Original main shaft) - Kalgoorlie 1902. Lake View Consols (Redesigned plant) - Kalgoorlie 1902.

King Battery (Complete plant) - Hampton Plains 1903.

North End Mine (Redesign expansion and install powerhouse) -Kalgoorlie 1906.

Sons of Gwalia (New 10 head battery, plant, boilers, assay office, etc.) -Leonora 1907.

St.George Mine & Treatment Plant - Mt.Magnet 1908.

Cobar Mines (New plant) - N.S.W. 1909.

Cam & Motor Mines (New Mining and Treatment Plant) - Rhodesia 1911-12.

Ida H Mine & Treatment Plant - Laverton 1914-15.

Sundry redesign and relocation of existing mines and plants 1915-1924.

-Seale vein «One

Cattm

Golden Horseshoe Gold Mine - Kalgoorlie 1901

ECTIONS or— PLANT--

General Manager - J. W. Sutherland. Design & Construction - W.G. Manners

Golden Horseshoe - from south west.

This gives a panorama of the lease from Main Shaft (left) to No. 2 Shaft (centre), with treatment plant and roasters as designed by W.G. Manners.

Golden Horseshoe - Portion of plant from south east. Note tailings wheel in No. 1 Mill, c.1901.

It also shows the Great Boulder elevator and Lidgerwood cable-way. In the foreground is the Horseshoe tailings belt conveyor, elevated over the loop-line and main road. - 1911.

Golden Horseshoe - from the east. The Horseshoe Main Shaft is inside the fenced area, centre right, and the tailings wheel foundation from No. 1 Mill is in mid-distrance left. The costeans have been used to test a future open cut area. Photo taken 1979.

[Note - this area no longer exists, having been mined as part of the “Super Pit”.]

Excavation for King Battery - 1901

Located mid-way between Kalgoorlie and Kambalda on Locn. 48.

The completed King Battery, with a capacity to treat 100 tons per day - 1902. The 20 head battery was fed by rail links to surrounding mines 8km SW (Merry Hampton) and 5km north (Hampton Boulder/ Jubilee).

Most of the early mine plants erected by W.G.M. have been demolished due to subsequent mining operations, but the old King Battery tailings wheel foundation still stands at this popular picnic spot just off the Kambalda Road (1km north of the White Hope mine, close to “Hunt’s tree”). This project was not one of W.G.M.’s favorites as he noted that he did not enjoy taking instructions from the English engineer sent out by the Hampton Plains company; “their engineer insisted that we build the plant upside down. Instead of building the battery at the top and letting gravity take the ore through the plant, they insisted the battery be at lake level so we had to lift the ore up to the cyanide vats.”

Cobar Mines - N.S.W. 1909

S!je {Soban.

J^alaoorUe Jffi her.

FSACS PSQGSE38, PATSIOTL«iI

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 1909.

WZDSESlhtr. FEBRUARY 24, 19C8-

$oiar J^jlevald

A V1>

NrMAGSB ADYBBTI8KB.

" sox am, ass

H? W Q Maneer*, fcha cental ting engineer acd patent attorney, who latoiy com* to Cobar is eoeaecticB wits the propoted new plant on the Ccbar Gold Miss*, ha* fbush*d hi* work and props*** raturqisg to Sydney about the middle of Marsh. Iav*n-tor* ifeoald tais this opportunity of coa*aHicg him os patent matter*, teas earing the cost and iacosTsnienc* of rUiting Sydney. Hi* iaag «xp* ri*sce a* a registered patent attorney, ftbsald •aabb him to safeguard -to. iutarsat of threats?*, while a personal ia?«rriew is often the means of ersidiag errors. He will sspply all information free of charge. Address, Osfear Gold Minns.

FBIDAYj FEBBDABY 26, 1808.

Inventors hare an opportunity at the preseo t dase of obtaiuicg’f-aB ssiorraatif'-s is relation to patent matters, as Mr. W. G. Manners, consulting engineer and patent attorney who has jest completed his hasiness in connection with the Gubar Qc’d Mines, is rosining til! shout the 7th of March and will be pleiwsd to supply intending patents With *J! parifealars required far obtasn-iag patents is *ey part of the world, Mr. Manners has bad a long and valuable experience as a raining esgiaeer and patent attorney, and his nressnce in the sown will be the means of saving trouble sad cost to patent clients, who will find a persona! terar a great advantage Is .safeguarding their interests. Preset address, Gobs? Gold Mines.—0

PATENTS.

W. G MANNERS. Registered Patent Attorney, Mining Engineer,

*4 BOULDER-RD.. KALGOORLIE. TEL. r t it.

NEWS AND NOTES.

Mr. W. G. Manners, who returned from fee eastern Stares last Saturday,, ass designed a sew plant for the Opter goldmines. nod a reeds-stmetios -of the Occidental Gokl-jsjisisg Company³? plan*. Both of these schemes are sow under eos-sideitstiea by the directors of the respective companies, and . will he proceeded with early next- year. Cobar is very quiet it the present time owing to the decline in the price of copper^ the Great Cobs? mine, and fee Qaees Bee, which are copper mates, feeling fee deeiiso stoat, .The former, however, under fee expert- management of the lately imported Americas engineer, Mr. Bellinger, promises good results when fee alterations to fee plant are ©■Seeted, and the- process of treatment sow being- introduced is m fall Operat-ios, The most- iiiterostisg feature, so far as the field is concerned, is fee Moors filtering plan? in weak c-n the Oecmental goldmiae. Scleral slight alteration? inm>feie&d fey fee metallurgist, Sir- Chappie, have made this plum & great success, so much so that the small clast designed. to treat 50 tons per day easily coses wife 150 toss, and, la addition to treating fee whole of fee sl'kao®- produced daily fey fee battery, also treats TCLOOO tons of sc* cumulated slimes of an average value of si dwt., at a profit of 5/ per tom Owing to fee oxidised ores being almost exhausted, mi. a ■slight _ increase of the copper contents is the lower levels, it k proposed to install tab© mills and feme the whole of the ore.

Cnr. Egan Street & Boulder Road, Kalgoorlie 1899 - 1909

#68 Boulder Road, Kalgoorlie 1912 - 1925

3&4m^kanbers<K ¹925 -1928

P.O. Box 33.

W. G. Manners & Co.

(Late Maughan & Gurner).

3 and 4 Mines Chambers,

New and Secondhand Machinery Merchants . . .

MARITANA ST.. KALGOORLIE

Insurance and General Agents.

Goldfields Representatives

Goldfields Diamond Drilling Coy.

William Adams Co., Ltd.

J. R. W. Gardarn Co., Ltd.

J. S. Corden & Co. Propty., Ltd.

The Colonial Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.

Agent for:

The Essex Super Six. The Hudson Super Six. General Mining Supplies. General Station Supplies.

All Classes of lnsoraaoe effected, including:—

Fire, Personal, Accident and Sickness, Fidelity Guarantee, Plate Glass, Employ era’ I.ia-

MHtr, Workmen’- ”------

tioa. Motor Car.

C B. MANNERS, Manager

Back to the Goldfields Program 24-Sep,.7.,927

Kalgoorlie Expo - 1930s version

This photo, taken in the Kalgoorlie town hall, shows the W.G. Manners & Co. booth featuring their range of merchandise at the time.

Presumed to be a “domestic consumer item” expo, as none of the mining equipment sold during that time was on display.

The text from the signs read:

* The Oxford 6 (Morris car) was priced as follows:

Tourer £385 Roadster £399 Aust Saloon £470 English Saloon £535

* The Morris Motors Limited sign lists ...

The Isis 6/the Oxford 6/the Cowley/ the Minor and the commercial 30 CWT truck.

* The baby car class, the Morris Minor is priced:- Tourer £208

Roadster £216.10/-Saloon £245

* The Castrol sign lists among their achievements, providing oils for:-

First flight across the Atlantic King’s Cup Air Race - 1st, 2nd & 3rd.

Amy Johnson (visited Kalgoorlie 1930)

pwvim    s.,    b    ti,

saww*    <r.    <s    amuu    sn

SAtraofflJE -L - ■    —___

Sr. J.    .

e/o Hotel,

Dr. to W. G. MANNERS & CO.

m m SS8® RAND SACBDiB! ®£&H*!5 mum m GESDUL AGES1S ^ «C, IjBbc RsiSs* mi Bsta « Sssi.

'6 5 Si

8y ails Tyra

An old receipt presented to me by former Kalgoorlie Mayor, Ray Finlayson. (His father, John Alexander Finlayson, moved to Ora Banda on April 25, 1932)

W. G. MANNERS & CO.

Qeneral and Insurance Agents

Cm. MARITANA AND BROOKMAN STREETS

Telephone K379    KALGOORLIE    P.O.    Box    33

Chief Agencies:

Noyes Bros. Ltd. Clackline Firebrick Coy. William Adams & Co. Ltd. Goodyear Rubber Coy. Gourley Oil <& Colour Works Ltd.

Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd.

Colonial Mutual Fire Insurance Co. Ltd.

Ljuldltclds Agents for:

Gardner Denver Beck Drills, Mine Car Loaders, Crompton Parkinson Motors, Morris Pulley Block and Hoist Symons Cone Crushers, Ross Feeders, Renolds Chain Equipment Goodyear Conveyor and Transmission Belts, Texropes. Industrial and Household Paints, Everything Electrical, Meters, Switches, Starters, Controls, Accessories and Appliances, Metals (Phosphor Bronze, Brass, Copper, Aluminium), Goodyear Air and Water Hoses.

All Mining Supplies

Cnr Maritana & Brookman Streets, Kalgoorlie 1928 - 1971 (from a 1938 advertisement)

SYMONS PATENT CONE CRUSHERS

STANDARD TYPE FOR FINE REDUCTION SHORT HEAD TYPE FOR FINER REDUCTION

52 Installations in Australia in Mines, Quarries, etc.

Recognised throughout the world as THE REDUCTION CRUSHER

MANUFACTURING COMPANY

BUSH HOUSE - LONDON, W.C.2

Representatives :r. Austraiia :

NOYES BROS • 'MELBOURNE) LTD.

MELBOURNE. SYDNEY. BRISBANE. ADELAIDE. NEWCASTLE. BROKEN HILL. HOBART. LAUNCESTON. PERTH - • KALGOORLIE (W. G. Manners & Co.)

From ‘Mining Handbook of Ausralia ’ 1939

The late (and greatly missed) Bart Jones, Snr of Kaloorlie’s prolific and enterprising Jones family, at his 90th birthday¹ party, gave me the full story of the International C.20 truck that he had purchased from my father Chas. Bart knew that I had been asked to say “a few words about Bart” and he wanted me to “get it right”.

I remember my father talking about losing some sleep because he was worried about letting Bart down because he was unable to deliver his International C.20 truck on time. He knew that Bart needed the truck to deliver firewood to support his family ... and I am sure Dad needed to make a sale to support his family too.

Because World War II was in progress at the time, it was impossible to get trucks, everything having been diverted to the war effort.

Then Dad became aware of an opportunity. Previously he had sold a C.20 truck to the Kalgoorlie butchers Linton & Reeves.² This truck was said to be the first dual-rear wheel truck in Kalgoorlie at the time.

Linton & Reeves had been unable to get an allocation of petrol, so they had fitted a couple of wooden shafts out front and had been pulling the truck around with horses — until they wore the tyres out and couldn’t

1. 1991.

2. They were located in Hannan Street alongside Sheeds.

get any replacement tyres. As part of the war effort, the government had requisitioned all available tyres for the local trams. This allowed horses to drag the trams around to transport the local population. The trams, of course, were also starved of electricity because of fuel shortages. In fact, the only thing there were no shortages of were shortages themselves, this all being part of the war effort.

Chas moved quickly and bought back the butcher’s truck and got in touch with Bart.

“Bart, for £150 I can supply you with a truck immediately. The good news is the truck’s engine is in almost new condition (hardly used at all), but the bad news is that it’s got no tyres.”

Bart, who unlike the butcher, had a petrol allocation, said “Charlie, the lack of tyres is the least of my problems. I’ll take it, as it is, so I can get on with delivering my firewood!”

Bart got hold of some old worn-out tyres that didn’t fit the rims, and bound them all securely in place with rope and hessian, and away he went.

That C.20 truck is still resting out at Hampton Hill Station at Bulong, and I guess, in a sense, it is officially truck No. 1 of the Jones family’s Hampton Transport fleet that runs on all roads of Western Australia today.³

The Radio Gold Mine at Bullfinch, operated by Jack & Bill Barr -

1955.

During the 1950s there were over 100 privately owned gold mines (or “gold shows” as they were called) operating around Western Australia.

For many families it was a way of life, much like farm life in rural communities. Without a Gold Tax, Goods & Services Tax, Business Activity Statements, etc. these private miners were able to concentrate on the real business of producing.

Today they seem to have disappeared, along with so many small businesses. By the time they feed the taxation monster and fill in all the forms, they find there is not enough left to justify their efforts.

Could that be why we don’t see these privately operated enterprises any more?

Not a good photo of a mine-winder control room, but it does remind me of all the “conversions” we did.

We managed to convert most of Kalgoorlie’s steam powered shaft winders to electricity by the end of the 1950s.

The overspeed and overwind protective devices were thought to be sophisticated at the time, but would only be “collectors items” now.

Displaying our latest products at the Kalgoorlie Community Fair - c.1962.

Note the Mobilco 36” mobile circular saw on display; being superseded at that time by the “new” chainsaws.

Serving

"c MANNERS

& CO.

MINING AND GENERAL SALES ENGINEERS

KALGOORLIE

WEST AUSTRALIA Telegrams: "Manners" Kalgoorlie

P.O. Box 33 Kalgoorlie

Phones: K700 & K379 (After hoars K700)

{industrial Review and Mining Year Book, J969

1969

Gardner-Denver Mayhew 1,000 drill rig near the almost completed Silver Lake headrame at Kambalda. Nov. 1966

Drill Testing arranged by WGM & Co.

A new Ingersoll-Rand 3-Boom drill jumbo being tested prior to going underground at Mt.Charlotte Gold Mine. 1968.

Junior Servicemen; Craig, Ian & Scott Manners.

(left & below) Mobile Rock Scaling Platform designed & supplied by WGM & Co. Pictured here at Mt.Charlotte Gold Mine, 1967, Roger Willis of WGM & Co. in dark overalls. Similar platforms also supplied to Mt.Isa Mines, Q.L.

DaSy Jfeicg, Thtcrtday, August 6, 1970 21

BUSINESS WORLD

aod there are plenty of headaches.

Boom keeps equipment suppliers on their toes

By Ro«i Loutheoa

A keen ear to the ground is a necessity in the competitive field of mining supply.

Since th'e mineral boom got under way three years ago a prosperous but highly competitive mining equipment and machinery supply industry has built up in Kalgoorlie.

—    -    •    never dull

Spare parts also play a The Manners head-

The organisations involved deal in a field that is made up ol fact, speculation, fiction and

secrecy.

One Kalgoorlie

mining

inking has had to expand with his premises is Ron Manners' who operates as W. G. Manners and Co.

The company’s activities are split into three groups. — exploration, mining and engineering.

first two sections involve hire and sales. Equipment worth more than 5150.000 including loading machinery, drills and generators, is available.

"Miring is not a normal industry in that people can always see what their requirements will be." Mr Manners said.

The company also undertakes mining engin-

designed and bull. _ rock scaling tower lor Mt Isa Mines in Queensland.

: he expensive.

A company urgently wanted a switch gear for a ventilator system so that certain development operations would not be held up lor one week.

It was brought in by-air and the bill was

"This is an example ol weighing the cost ol getting parts quickly against possible Toss of production." Mr Manners said.

Getting sufficient In-    thimble to

formation from com-    "    '

pany statements and town talk causes many headaches lor Mr Manners and his competitors.

Though they are not always told what '

ed to supply equipment for new projects.

proposal Is a good example.

Once the smelter is confirmed then one group will build residential blocks, which are a vital requirement In Kalgoorlie.

,__________ the cor

ner of Maritana and Brook man sts and was formerly a bank.

The only clue to this now Is a vault at the side ol his office, which houses the diamond drill bits.

Most people realise diamond drill bits are expensive, but few know that they have a re-sale value as the diamond chips can be extracted from the worn bit and reset.

Ron Manners checks diamond drill bits in an aid bank vault which now forms part of his office.

Diamond drill heads vary in size

Size does not neeessar ily govern price, which can be as high as $1000. Nor does it give a gauge

terrain can render a kit useless after a few feet of drilling.

In the years before Kambalda Manners “

day’s standards dull existence.

It had few competitors but now manufacturers, distributors and suppliers are on the job seven days a week.

Manners & Co was established by Mr W. G. Manners who came ft-om South Africa to Kanowna in 1898 where s upervised the erection of several shaft heads.

In 1903 he started the business in Kalgoorlie and it has been handed down from father to son and now grandson.

In addition to his family business Mr Manners is also well known as a successful prospector.

He has prospected both individually and on a partnership basts, and Is known to have sold several promising areas to new and established exploration companies.

MAI’s

profit

Mining and Associated Industries Ltd last week reported a net profit of $9506 for the year ended June 30, 1970.

Directors also announced they had purchased a 25 per cent interest in W.G. Manners Pty Ltd — a private company formed to acquire the mining and exploration supply business of W.G. Manners and Co, Kalgoorlie,

MAI sponsored the recent flotation of Theseus Exploration NL and holds 600,000 shares out of the public issue of 3.1 million shares. (A further one million shares are not to be listed till November 1971). MAI have an option to subscribe for a further 15 per cent of the total issued capital of Theseus — some 723,530 shares.

The nickel boom was almost over before it began.

A Queensland public company announced their intention to acquire a 25% interest in W.G. Manners & Co. but they had run out of money before settlement day.

MINISTER OPENS NEW PREMISES

Ingersoll-Rand distributor, W. G. Manners and Co. Pty. Ltd., has opened this new showroom in Brookman Street, Kalgoorlie.

The extensive, modern premises also includes a new office and a large and well-stocked warehouse.

The official opening of the premises was performed by the former W.A. Minister for Industrial Development, Mr. Charles Court.

Ingersoll-Rand Director, Mr. J. J. White-law, who attended the opening ceremony, said the new premises would provide l-R customers in the area with improved services end facilities.

“The miner, the industrialist, the trader, the financier and the banker, if they play their role correctly, will do more to achieve world understanding and peace in a generation than the politicians and diplomats could do in a hundred years. Why? Because they are closer to reality, closer to their opposite numbers, closer to the community in the countries where they operate. In other words, they have more to do with real people than with institutions.”

... Hon. C.W. Court, OBE, MLA.

Minister for Industrial Development

1971.

W. G. MANNERS

SUSHSTt ssV-TC'S O'

TOSHIBA ELECTRONIC CALCULATORS

y ^rirSriep*01T""tSe^iwriwr*! o »fKe-ralct

-» us'Kiarai” p££5»?s*

jeoefcJ- » roppiy of beifc & new werefw.Ee by hot end cold e!r which hnrins e celling height 'THB

s^asaisrcs    —“™

SERVING THE MINING INDUSTRY FROM KALGOORLIE

COMPLETE COMPRESSED AIR SERVICE SALES — SERVICE — HIRE DIVISION • DIAMOND BIT DISTRIBUTORS • MINE VENTILATION ENGINEERS

UUU ottice opens

SgaSfV % ITfr-S.'JUWVW, tt i HANIMEX PTY. LTD.

W-A. OieSribtstars 331 MURRAY ST., PERTH 217415

A HUGE RANGE OF SUPPLIES

Bearing Service Pty. Ltd.

♦.Beaumont

AIR-CONDITIONING

in W. G. Manners new showrooms, designed, manufactured and in- j stalled by . -

CLIMATIC

AIS-COWfTIONIIifi PIT. UD.

77 Belmont Ave„ Belmont, WA Telephone 651033

Mr. Ray Connop

Climatic Air Conditioning Consultant wifi be ct W. S. Manners ors Monday, January 25th, to give Kc-lgocnls residents FREE advice and quotations on—

IBeaumont

AIR-CONDITIONING

W.G.

MANNERS

&C0.

i

Designed and built by

GUY DU FAUR CONSTRUCTION

78 BROOKMAN ST., KALGOORLIE Phone 213875

j—»flMFoT

ARE PLEASED TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH THE GROWTH Of W. 6. MANNERS AND COMPANY, AND WISH TO CONGRATULATE

I THEM ON THE OPENING OF THEIR NEW PREMISES AT BROOKMAN STREET, KALGOORLIE

1* ptecsed to be atuxicmi »ith

W. 6. MANNERS 4 COMPANY

Congfsiiilafe Ebea. on tbs opening er their

NEW OFFICE AND WAREHOUSE FOR

FISt INSURANCE (0. LID,

FOX

MANUFACTURING

COMPANY,

PERTH

.. THROUGH THE AGES Closer

to on '    ^5

ideal

Crompton Parkinson

uafd«Sr « S3 SnSTcSSng If Motors and Control

Men and SW*    *«■«.

* Manners A 'Jo is    tar? oorrcBeo ■

women in ssrsrw'c ^sST-fT *x3TZ., the team

itu

Cbarteur mine erf GJS-

■ntsten - rarbtar rort ’■ | dr iOtoo >muirl»    /f.

ntataonrfy OrwKBr pr»-clatared ~lneers«ill-R»nd

ROCK-MEN REMEMBER BROOKMAN'

KiWoar An Mi

3ftn‘

alw cgnr uad Ipoirf^to Kxfe.ortfe m

"SB,"

3^=s-;

i efieojg?"*

r-T'-’^sSs

mnim .ton* • vrighl corf

M MUlfU >np>Hil

Nickel find

W&gfi

xoft-urt l«-n» I old rrvinlo? Industry. draplle the Bwcb-

A. |

LIQUID AIR

WJC PTY. LTD.

274 HIGH RD., MYAREE PHONE 302311

MANUFACTURERS ond DISTRIBUTORS of

• MDUSTSUI AND MEDICAL GASES

• GAS WHDW6

• CUTTING EQUIPMENT

• aECTBC WELDING MACHINES

• BKTBOttS

eresest bj®f Ss«S ej e

jgOCTtM^wgiMWWf

' Jc?5*r titpSSiBn »

s-sa

OBTAINABLE IN KALGOORLIE

W. 6. MANNERS

• 45 BrooKman Street is the new address for W. G. MANNERS & CO. in Kalgoorlie.

• 46 Brookman Street is the new headquarters for Ingersoll-Rand mine and rockdrill equipment

in Kalgoorlie.

• 45 Brookman Street is the new centre for hiring Ingersoll-Rand rock-drills and compressors

of ail types.

Brookman Street! That's the Street! Remember Brookman Street, Kalgoorlie!

P»8» 22 THE ABSTSAUAS WINER Wandas June 7,1971    ____

Manners keep right up with the march of time

From Ross Louthean in Kalgoorlie

In the and the early 70s there vtgs tittle to instill imagination on progfesswe thinking into the business mind in KaJgoorBe.

The fetter 60s and the 1970s have proved a different matter, but several businesses took a long tkng t<3 show enterprise, white currently some others appear to have over-shot the wave of prosperity.

One company conspicuous for its successful march with the times HWG. Manners and Co Pty Ltd, a firm essentially dealing in mining and exploration supply.

The firm nas expanded in several directions sod recently moved into an impressive new building which cost $90,000,

The man st the helm of tfrrs development is the firm's chief Mr Ron Miner's who fas feacome well known' in business circles not only for tvs business operations, but for his successful prospecting.

He hss just returned to Katgoorite from a three month ■world tour to s«a what developments have been taking place in the mining supply business.

Ron Manners (Jett) with W.G. Manners' Supply Manager, Bill Warwick.    Ross    Louthean    Picture.

He went to several countries and had s took at mining operations at Kirura >n northern Sweden and Sotftsury in Ontario, Canada and at new mating machinery in Japan.

What hit him in the aye was the working attitude of the foreigners.

In these countries rewards come as a result of hard work.*’ fte said.

"Hera {Australia?. we seem to think we deserve the rewards anyway, and that you »% not obliged to work hard tggetthesn-

However, on the bouquet sde he did come home more appreciative of Australian mming operations. Though some of the overseas mines he s*w were fat bigger he considers Australian mines to be jus* as efficient and safe, H not more so.

But the impression he gamed from overseas investing concerns of their attitude to Australia was depressing. If not somewhat frightening.

Some organisations —

including Swiss banks - have been doing a lot of sums. Some of their answers were not encouraging. 'There appears to be a universal doubt as to whether, with our high costs both of labour and infrastructure, we can develop a tot of our resources profitably.*'

He said that rf Australia was going to be Serious to the long term about needing overseas capital in development then some existing tax barriers would have to be removed.

"We think we have a feneastie country, and w* let ourselves get carried away. We always look at the good thmgs-"

And in Mr Manner's opinion tbs is not good enough, and he fsofs that with the decline of agriculture, Australians ar* gening carried awsy about how the mineral wealth ks going to be the new backbone O# national stability.

He said: "We've got to take tote consideration that the mining industry at the

moment employs about 3.per cent    of    the    national

workforce.

'There is a chance that this great saviour and new-found wealth may not be as big as expected by the general public unless there is some re-thinking by Australians on what they think foreign companies will thinft of this country in the long term,"

H<s travelling bags brought back plenty of information on new mining equipment but so fijr there has not been time to have a dose analysis of their worth under Australian conditions.

Being a major operator W.G. Mariners Js 3 good barometer of .the mining supply business. Conditions at the moment are pdw, when Comparing them to the high turnover of the boom period.

Mariners were prepared for the downturn. According to industrial chartists 1371 was to be a year of the dtp for mining and exploration supply •

The reasons being the void in activity between the phasing exit of gold mining end the bringing of new nickel mines into production.

The forecast chartllr* shows s cfsdoal recovery in 1973 with a progressive upward movement in the years to come.

Some Kefgoorlie businesses anticipated 5 decline in trading, but did not expect they would have to apply the brakes so herd. As « result there « some pessimism, however, most firms dealing with the mining and mineral exploration bus ness - except contract peggers — seem confident that things wriH improve in the long term.

Mining supply is a-business which does nut always being immediate remits.

Ron Manners explained it this way. "The time between firs contact with a diem and tfw siting can be as much as two years."

The operations of W.G. Manners we split into three groups — exploration, mining end engineering. The first two sections invoK-e hire and sales .

Spare pans also pfey a big role m the business, and it can be expensive.

In one instance las a company urgently wanted a switch gear for a ventilator system so- that certain development operations would not be hekJ op for one week. It was brought in by air and the biff was $500.

Knowing what equipment to order involves a certain amount of crystal baft gazing and g clcrse wareb on local events.

Manners and Co was established by W.G himners ■who came from South Africa to Kanowna m 1898 where be supervised tbs erection q# several shaft hssids.

in 1903 he started the business in Kalgoorlie and it has been handed down from father to son, sod now to grandson who has been active in the business since 1353-

W.G. Manners end CP is a member of the Martnwest group of companies which also iodudas Hen try Must) Pty Ltd which is an underwriter, investor, promoter Snd other facets of merchant banking activity; MeHjfca Minerals Pty Ltd, and Maouksi Pty Ltd,

TRACKLESS VEHICLES MAKE SUCCESSFUL DEBUT AT KAMBALDA

Two big trackless vehicles have made a successful debut into the decline mining scene at Western Mining Corporation’s nickel mining complex at Kambalda.

The success of these units is obvious because recently Western Mining grdered two similar tracks through the lqcal agent, W. G. Manners and Company.

In early July, Western Mining took delivery of the first two large Koruna trucks and introduced them into the highly mechanised Otter-Juan Shoot decline mine.

A W.M.C. spokesman said that the machines had more than trebled the load capacity for trackless haulage from this mine, which slopes from the adit entrance at a grade of one foot in every nine..

These low profile machines are made by the Swedish company. Mining Transportation Company AB of Kiruna, The Kiruna range of trucks range from capacities of 15 tons to 150 tons. The K500 units operating at Kambalda have a 35-ton hauling capacity.

The Kiruna truck is equipped with Volvo diesel engines and each of the Western Mining vehicles have two Volvo 250 h.p. engines.

The basic concept and advantage of the Kiruna Track is that the load-carrying section of the vehicle is ‘:taiIor-made” to suit its particular operating conditions. There are more than 300 standard body designs available, each with its own specific characteristics design for the type of material the truck is to carry.

Due to the light and simple construction of the Kiruna truck, it has a low tare weight in relation to its pay load.

Usually the vehicle is capable of carrying twice its own weight, while a conventional high-built track of similar capacity generally can only carry a load equal to its weight.

This results In a low cost for each ton-mile.

Because the Kiruna truck is a low-slung vehicle, it has a low centre of gravity. The low-slung construction means that a greater range of loading equipment can be used. The rear body with a low rear edge can easily be loaded in narrow and lew tunnels in underground mines.

The possibility of manufacturing certain components of the truck in Australia is being examined. This has resulted from the interest in the Kiruna truck range being shown by Australian mining companies.

Above: Lennart Anderson from Sweden, discusses operational features with Don Walding and Barry McCahon, both of Western Mining Corporation.  _

MANNERS AND MINING

Although W.G. Manners and Co. came to Kalgoorlie in 1898, the firm was bom in the same year Paddy Hannan made his historic strike.

W.G. Manners, operating a consulting mining and engineering practice came to the Goldfields via South Africa and Ballarat.

Over the years, the firm has served mining and exploration in the region and will continue to do so.

The Manners range of mining and exploration equipment is chosen from the most advanced and proven products available for these purposes.

And, as in 1898, they are supplied with old fashioned courtesy and service in 1978.

[mg] manners

| aoth 4NMTEBSUEY f

As Volvo car and truck dealers. June 1979.

From left; Val Moyle, Lyn McLennan, Mike Fitzgerald, Ron Manners,

Robyn Cunningham.

RE:    RATIONALISATION    OF    OUR    "MANNWEST    CROUP"    OF    PRIVATE    COMPANIES

DUNN & BRADSTRtET, GPG BOX A44 PERTH W.A, 6001

Phooo 21 2700-

CABLES “MANNKAL" P.O. BOX 33 45 BROOKMAN ST. KALGOORLIE WEST AUSTRALIA 6430

a) W.G. Manners & Co Pty. Ltd.- ceased trading from September 1 as a result of the Motor Vehicle Dealers licensing Board, cutting off our supply of new cars.

This company had objected to Government Licensing of Motor Vehicle dealers as being incompatible with free-enterprise, in that it restricted the consumers choice.

The bureaucrats action in threatening our appliers with legal action if they continued supplying us with vehicles, was in response to our company refusing to pay '’protection money” to buy government granted protection,against competition from other independent dealers (ie..the licensing schemes protect large establishment dealers from up and coming smaller dealers).

The state government’s bureaucrats action in closing down this company was regretted as we had developed into a most effective team and had become Volvo’s longest continually serving dealer in West Australia. The bureaucrats unfortunately see their empire budfeng plans as being more important than the continuation of mutually acceptable relationships between companies, their staff, and their clients.

The car franchises and related stock were sold to K & D Houghton trading as Boulder Motors Volvo, on September 1.

tis company's name has been changed to Coming & Going Pty. Ltd and as it has    no    further function, liability    or    assets,

will be struck    of.

b) W.G. Manners &    CO    (WA) - commenced trading on    September    1

as a wholly owned    operation of Mannkal Pty. ltd,    and on    that

date acquired stock, and outstanding debtors from W.G. Manners 4 Co. Pty. Ltd.

This new entity is continuing the traditional mining engineering business which has been operating from the Goldfields since 1898 wS W.G. Manners & Co.

c Our other two operating companies Chasraann Pioperties Pty. Ltd (development & management) and Mannkal Ptv. Ltd

(mining exploration 4 investment)~continue unchanged.

88th Anniversary Celebration at Kanowna -1986

Jenny & Ron Manners with oblisque erected where it was thought to be the location of the original W.G. Manners & Co. business. (Later research proved this to be the W.G. Manners Kanowna home.)

Craig & Sarah Manners with Harry Kitson (Director of W.G. Manners & Co.)

(m^ manners

[

1986 SSth. ANNIVERSARY

W. G. Manners & Co. was established in 1898,tiweeyears after W. G. Manners Esq. arrived in Kanowna (near Kalgoorlie), as engineer cm the Golden Crown Mine.

years later, the business has evolved as the MANN WEST GROUP, comprising Mannwest P/L, W. G. Manners & Co., Mannkal Mining P/L, Chasmann Proper ties P/L and Croesus Mining N.L, and we invite our friends and colleagues to join us in an 88th Amaversary “Survival" Drink

/£$e#srulcta&

198A

This celebration wine bottle label describes the other related companies to emerge from the original W.G. Manners & Co.

Note: The label was printed shortly before Croesus Mining NL listed as a public company.

Ross Louthean & Doug Daws with our newly recruited caplamp sales lady

Craig Manners (Managing Partner) centre, with clients at the 1988 Goldfields Mining Expo (Michael Ivey, rear & Bob Rogers, right)

Craig Manners at #45 Brookman St., 1989

manners

4 Co.

W.G

1988 — 90th ANNIVERSARY

c

J

MINERS

CAPLAMPS

★ Oldham Miners Caplamps

SUPPLIERS OF:

★ Safety Helmets

★ Safety Belts

★ Battery chargers

★ Vehicle Logos and Stickers

★ Advance Safety Signs

★ Wet Grinders

★ Fertan Anti Rust Treatment

★ Dingo Loaders

★ Spray Nozzles

★ Lakos Separators

★ Altair Air Filters

★ Fume Extraction Equipment

★ Noise Control Equipment

★ Home Ventilation Fans and Lighting

Phone Craig Manners on (090) 21 2700 or Fax (090) 21 7724

7 CROESUS STREET KALGOORLIE WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6430

Scott Manners, Managing Partner 1989-1991 on minesite with client, rear.

Ian Manners, Managing Partner 1992-1997 with clients at the 1992 Goldfields Mining Expo

P.O. BOX 33 KALGOORLIE. WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6430 PHONES (090)212700 "TELEX AA91399

gIVANNER5sCO

Service to mining since 1 B95

One hundred years of letterheads

Conclusion

Was it worth locking myself away for these 2,500 hours, just to sort through all this “old stuff’ and put a cover around this book? Only the reader can answer that question, but from my point of view, I have found the experience a fascinating one.

It is only when you condense 100 years into one book that you see a noticeable pattern emerging.

What makes Kalgoorlie interesting is the constant coming and going of its people, and wondering how the less permanent population should be judged by those who remain in Kalgoorlie for the longer haul.

Most arrivals in Kalgoorlie have the right attitude, they “give it their best shot” and everyone benefits from their input.

Others, however, arrive with a lot of noise and soon after depart, leaving a trail of broken promises and a string of debts behind them. In a way, they remind me of this notable comparison with Napoleon:

“they came on the scene rapidly, were incredibly successful short-term, then departed suddenly and left the region poorer for their efforts.”

The people that really deserve more of our attention are the “unsung heroes” of the Goldfields, some of whom have been covered in this book.

Kalgoorlie’s “social fabric” has been made great by all those people who set about to invest their time and energy in Kalgoorlie during their time here. In particular, we should acknowledge, the hundreds of people on various committees who are working for Kalgoorlie on a voluntary basis through the various historical societies, cemetery boards, camera clubs, boy scouts, YMCAs, and so on.

I don’t know if anyone has ever counted the number of voluntary committees on the Goldfields, but there could be as many as 1,000, as almost everyone I know has specific interests—ranging all the way from homing pigeons, brass bands, through to the collecting of military memorabilia.

Most of these people are working through sheer dedication and enjoyment. And they do so without government grants, taxpayer support or public recognition.

Their behaviour stands in stark contrast to a more recent trend among committees which, as their first priority, ask “how do we get a government grant?”

Now, looking at this text as it goes to the printer, I ask myself, “What is the goal, or purpose in writing this book?”

There must be a purpose in assembling a book. Never A Dull Moment is the third in a series.

The first, So I Headed West set out to explore, through my grandfather’s eyes, the humble beginnings of mining in Australia. That book was a “personal tour” through the emerging important mining centres of Ballarat, Broken Hill, Kanowna and Kalgoorlie during the late 1800s.

These personal experiences provided an insight into how Australia’s people and country developed.

The second book, Kanowna’s Barrowman - James Balzano was written primarily to rescue James Balzano from undeserved obscurity. In the book’s introduction, I suggested that a Balzano barrow race should be run in memory of this remarkable prospector-historian.

So now, in addition to making available his writings about the earlier gold rushes, as of 2002, there have been nine annual Balzano barrow races involving a total of 2,765 participants which raised $640,000 for local charities.

So what is the purpose of Never A Dull Moment? It is twofold;

1. To give recognition to the quiet achievers who kept Kalgoorlie’s spirit and tradition alive during some difficult decades. This enabled Kalgoorlie to fully participate in both the nickel boom of the late 1960s and the subsequent and ongoing resurgence of the gold industry.

2. To produce a “marker” in my own archives, which enables me to isolate the post-1966 nickel boom and subsequent gold boom material. I am hoping that someone will capture in words the incredible impact that those subsequent years have had on Kalgoorlie and its people, with the “ripple effect” spreading far and wide.

Such a book needs to be written with some urgency, while so many of the “players” are still alive.

In conclusion, let me thank the many people whose assistance and encouragement have enabled me to complete Never A Dull Moment. I hope they share my satisfaction and relief in its completion.

Ron Manners.

February, 2003.

Bibliography

Ainslie, Trish; Garwood, Roger. Off Like Flies. Plantagenet Press, 1990. Blainey, Geoffrey. The Golden Mile. Allen & Unwin, 1993. Brodie-Hall, Sir Laurence. Brodie. Access Press, 1994.

Close, Sandra Eleyn. The Great Gold Renaissance. Surbiton Associates Pty Ltd , 2002.

Colebatch, Hal. Claude de Bemales, The Magnificent Miner.

Hesperian Press, 1996.

Drew, Jones, Russell, Whyatt & Ralph. Five Millienth Milestone.

A Celebration to Honour the Workforce of Central Norseman. Croesus Mining NL, 2003.

Ed by Compton, George & Manners, Ron. Kanowna’s Barrowman - James Balzano. Mann west, 1993. Cumming, D.A. Mines, Miners & Metallurgists in Western Australia. 1991

Gentilli, Joseph. The Settlement of Swiss Ticino Immigrants in Australia. University of Western Australia, 1988.

Griffiths, Max. Aboriginal Affairs - A Short History 1788-1995. Kangaroo Press, 1995.

Hamill, John. The Strange Career of Mr. Hoover Under Two Flags.

William Faro, Inc., 1931.

Hartley, Richard A Guide to Printed Sources for the History of the Eastern Goldfields Region of Western Australia, 2000. The Centre for Western Australian History, The University of Western Australia.

Hartley, Richard G. Industry and Infrastructure in Western Australia 1829-1940. Heritage Council of Western Australia, 1995.

Hoover, Herbert. The Challenge To Liberty. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935.

Jones, Faye & Jeff. Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Kalgoorlie Publishing Pty Ltd, 1994

King, Norma. Daughters of Midas. Hesperian Press, 1992.

Laurie, Kris. Kanowna Heritage Trail. Heritage Council of Western Australia, 1993.

Louthean, Ross; Wilkinson, Doug. Kanowna’s Renaissance.

Resource Information Unit, 1992.

Manners, Gladys E. Voyage Of No Return (Manners and Relations). 1981.

Manners, Ron . My Elusive Career. (In Prep.)

Manners, Ron. Mannerisms (1979-1983). 1983.

Manners, W.G. So I Headed West. Mannwest & Hesperian

Press, 1992.

McGoggan, Graham. History of Drilling in Australia. The Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.

McLaren, Glen. A Centenary History of the Western Australian School of Mines. Curtin University of Technology (Western Australian School of Mines), 2001.

Morgan, Margaret. Mt.Margaret: A Drop in a Bucket. Keith & Margaret Morgan, 1986.

Nash, George H. The Life of Herbert Hoover the Engineer, 1874-1914. George J. McLeod Limited, 1983.

O’Brien, James J. Hoover’s Millions and How He Made Them.

James J. O’Brien Publishing Co., 1932.

Parbo, Arvi. Down Under. The Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, 1992.

Quartermaine, M.K. Technological Survey of the Golden Mile. Western Australian School of Mines, 1981.

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. Random House, Inc., 1957.

Reed, David. A Century of Scripping. Eyres Reed Limited, 1996.

Reid, Arthur. Those Were the Days. Barclay & Sharland Ltd, 1932.

Sharpe, Will & Marjorie. What An Experience. Boolarong Publications, 1989.

Von Mises, Ludwig. Human Action. Contemporary Books, Inc.,

1949.

Webb, Martyn & Audrey. Golden Destiny. City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, 1993.

MirtcA.    id

199O

A Goldfields pioneer dies

The Goldfields lost another of its pioneers with the death in Perth last week of Mrs Nancy Manners.

Mrs Manners was bom in 1903 at Trafalgar, at that time a thriving township near the existing Fimiston Oroyo tailings dump.

During her initial career as a Goldfields teacher Mrs Manners — then Nancy Stevens—taught many of the now well-known local identities.

They included the now-retired Kalgoorlie town clerk, Mr Doug Morrison, and town councillor George Hinchttffe.

In 1929 she married Kal-goorlie businessman, Charles Manners, and together they witnessed many of the economic contrasts in Kalgoorlie between 1929 and 1966. j

Mrs Manners is survived by a daughter, j Frances, in Perth and a | son. Ron.

Mr Ron Manners, who| operates the family business in Kalgoorlie, described his mother as a quiet person who influenced others by example, rather than pressure.

An earlier picture of the late Mrs Nancy Manners.

William

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Elizabstfi

Charles

Alice

Tamo-Stevens “family tree” Section 1 of a 4 part sheet.

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Chart prepared by Jim Keogh using information from Nancy Manners and other family members Section 2 of a 4 part sheet.

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The Dream

{from the battlefields of France - July, 1918)

I was dozing after supper, and white in that happy state, i dreamt I died, went up above, and stood near Heaven's gate.

I saw StPeter with his keys, and lined up in a row, a lot of folks who wished in thro’ the Golden Gate to go.

Said Peter, “Ere I let you pass, you must be free from sin, so let me hear what you've to say, and p'raps I'll let you in.'

First came old Muss, the Dago, with his little tale to tell, “Gooda morning" Fadda Pedro, da fisha, da prawna I sell, Letta me in gooda Fadda da Peda, I tella yer what I do;

I cooka da fisha, da chippa, da prawn, da steaka, da oyst for you. Said Peter, “We need no cooking here, so you will have to go And help Old Nick, your cobber, in the cookshop down below.’

And then to try his luck came a Fritz from Germany, he started yellin, "Kamerad!’ soon as Peter he did see.

“Ach! Vader, Vader! led me in, I shust comes from der Var, doze-plinkin tinkum Diggers, I don't want to meet no more.'

Said Peter, "If the diggers always give you such a scare, you'd better do to hades, you won’t find any Diggers there."

Next came a brawny Scotchman, in a merry mood was he, he’d been out with Johnnny Walker, it was very plain to see. “Why, Peter, mon, is thart yer set? Y"er lookin' braw the' day;

I'll come inside, Yer Ken, that's if I dinna hav' ter pay.

Jes' like old Harry Lauder, I’m a wee bit fou th' nou.’

Said Peter, That's a good job, for just now we re full up too.”

And then came a Politician, he began to blow a treat, with promises of every kind he tried to bluff St.Pete.

Said Peter, “All your promises a seat up here won’t win, only those who work and do things have a chance of getting in. You'd best put up for Develtown, it’s your sort they desire, your wind will come in handy there for blowing up the fire."

And so they passed on, one by one, so far, sad to relate, not one had yet succeeded getting thro' the Golden Gate.

At last there came a Digger, like the rest his fate to meet, when old St.Peter turned him down, didn't he go off a treat. “Blimey, aint a man stiff, can’t get in the bloomin’ joint fancy cornin' ‘ere from Aussie, and then getting’ show’d a point."

"I'll toss y’r up," said he ter Pete. “Whether I goes in or not eads I win an' tails yer looze, it's the only chance I've got.” SIPeter smiled, said, ‘Very well." It all seemed fair and square.

So the Digger took a penny, sent it spinning thro’ the air, it came down HEADS, the Digger won, St.Peter stepped aside. And thro’ the Gates of Heaven strode the Digger full of pride...

But here’s the little sequel, old StPeter never knew, it was a double headed penny helped to get the Digger through. Whether here or up in Heaven, it’s fair dinkum, there’s no doubt, you’ll find that it's a darned hard job to keep a Digger out.

CBM

SPOTTY

(from the battlefields of France - July, 1918)

“Spotty was a pal of mine, a ginger eaded bloke, an everlastin' gasbag and as stubbin as a moke, e give us all the pip, 'e did, afore it come to war.

Asportin’ of 'is bits of French, what no one arst ‘im for.

‘E says to me, “Old Son,” says he, you won’t stand ‘arf a chance, When we gits in conversation with them demmorseis of France.

I says “You dose yere face,’ ‘E says “All right, Bong Swar *

“Don't ‘urt yerself Mong Cher, Ami", then “So long - Oh revoir.”

When we got our marchin' orders, you can bet we wasn’t slow in singin’ Tipperary, it’s a long way to go.

On the Transport ‘ow, ‘e swanked it, with 'is parleyoooing airs, till I nearly knocked ‘is ’ead off cos ‘e said “I'd mal-de-mares."

When we landed what a Beano, ‘ow them Frenchies laughed and cried, and I sees old Spotty swellin' fit ter bust ‘imself with pride.

A blowin’ of ‘em kisses and a singin’ “live la France ”.

Till the Sgt Major copped ‘im - then e says “Kel - morvay - chance."

But we didn't get no waitin', where we went nobody knows.

And it wasn’t like the fightin’ that yer sees in Picture Shows.

We ad days of ‘ell tergether, ‘till they told us ter retire,

Then Spotty’s flow of language got the water carts on fire.

But ‘im and me was lucky, fer two thirds of us was dead,

With the greasy black maria's and the schrapnel over ead.

And every time they missed us, w’en the fire was murderin' ‘ot,

Old Spotty, says, “honcore - honcore." That's french fer “rotten shot.”

But then at last there come the time. We got 'em on the go,

'Im and me was fightin’ at a little place called “Moo”.

A lyin' down tergether in a ‘ole, dug with our ands.,

Fer yer gits it quick and sudden if yer moves abart or stands.

We was sharin’ arf a fag, we was, yes, turn ‘n turn about, when I felt ‘im move teroids me and e says “Oh mate, I’m out’

“Is eyes they couldn’t see me ‘nd they never will us more, but 'is twisted mouth jist whispered “So long, Oh-revoire’

There was no one quite the same ter me for 'im ‘nd me was ‘pals.

If I could ‘ave “im with me now, yer could keep yer fancy gals.

And whatever place e's gone to, I don't arst nothin’ more.

Than ter line up with ‘im later, - So long, “Spotty”. “Au-revoire.”

CBM

THE BAG PIPES

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*

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«. 'TJte    Pipe    $

Xi A-—

(from the battlefields of France - July 1918)

“MacGregor will die before morning”,

The Doctor said, leaving the tent.

“Give the brave fellow all that he wishes”, And the nurses knew well what he meant.

They granted Mac’s only desire,

Just to hear the sweet bagpipes once more. And next morning the Doctor was amazed When he found Mac sitting up by the door.

2n±

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a

They declared they had given him nothing, Neither medicine, liquor nor food.

Just the pipes were kept playing and playing, For they seemed to be doing him good.

The doctor entered the case in his note book, “A remarkable recovery”, he said.

And then turned to the rest of his patients, And found, every one of them dead!

CBM

OBITUARY

flaul jfHciitmw

1895-1969

The news of Paul’s sudden death on September 23rd at Nairobi, where he had flown with his wife, Audrey, for the wedding of their daughter, Robin, was hard to believe. He had always seemed so indestructible, and at 74 still had the energy, vitality, enthusiasm and sincere bonhomie that made him such an interesting and lovable character.

Paul’s life was destined to be full of incident and he lived it to the full. Soldier, sportsman, business man, gardener, amateur scientist were some of the activities around which grew a host of friendships, warm, intimate and permanent. Among his great qualities was his ability to stay young at heart, and his gift of the common touch. Young and old, man or woman, rich or poor, people in high places or those whom success had passed by, they were all friends to Paul, and everyone liked and admired him in return.

I shall remember Paul first for his joy in living and then for his intense loyalty, to his country, his work and to his friends. He came to W.M.C. at 66, when most men have retired, and gave six years of wonderful service to the company. He retired in December last year. Having attended to the backlog of domestic chores that had accumulated, he arranged to come in two days a week to assist the Engineering Department. That was Paul!

To Audrey, his widow, and to Susan and Robin, his children, I send deep condolence from all who worked with him in Western Mining.

Westminer Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 4 - Spring 1969

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'USED TRICKERr

RED BARON

ft

A- D. GRANT. River vale: I was interested Is a Cha nnel 2 programme about the Red Baron during the Great War.

Quite a lot w

Most of his victims were shot down by trickery.

and dive at a terrif-

This way he could act be seen or heard and hi* victim had no chance.

He would leave his base and fly at a great height over our lines, then tarn and attack our planes

I was in the 44th Battalion and we were near the Somme River. We

towards us from the German side, flying low.

The first was British and the one following.

was German. When flying over oar lines the German was gaining and they were only a few hundred metres up. t We watched them disap-' pear behind a hill The front plane was dodging In all directions. After** time the German returned towards us. on his way back to Ms base. One of our Lewis guns opened fire and fae-crashed to the ground.

1 was the first to reach him and the plane.

He was still strai his chair and Me reached u p and his Iron Cross

Oldest guest of the night, 87 - year - old singer Mr. Alexander Dunlop Grant of Rivervale.

I had that ribbon fob years and then lost St A man from Collie was «oon on the scene and; ripped parts from thefe plane. Then the mob ax4 rived and tore every buty ton off his coat and any-*

; thing else they could: find. They even pulled off his flying boots.

WORLD WAR I ACE SHOT DOWIS! OVER 80 ALLIED PLANES

By C. A. A1USON

Although it is nearly 40 years ago that 1 Ntaiof h© was shot down, German air ace Baron about Germar#o|r ace Manfred von RicHihofen is still remembered Baron McrursS⁵* vcb as one of the greatest of aU war-time fliers,

The Baron shot down over S3 allied 5ft ^ i-Wenios planes, the greatest taily of laiis ever S'S**® F^an'ti recorded. His countryman waiter r^cwct- sub-breach. Mr. C. A. ney allegedly has over a hundred kills to | Ailisoa to contribute his credit, hut this number has not yet been * the fotiomng article, substantiated.    'r'"~ri

Bora ot Prussian Tanker,thes forming sn in attempt soifeai morsiag and under strict-; unci: the Bre^n was desfin--re^in control for Germany of , orders to break away for home;

Sri rS *    *««•    *    «<    »•«.    .

. . Ior a    c*™'    _    ipiane or got mui trooUr.

touxa a Uhlao roj.mens «.(0fiicial gm

jilsis was to discourage young' ■caching miuury „gc, Dur- ₅_ moi}UJ -is, „ September?'*** tow try to* to do a» a* the Jirsc u months ot :hc ;7_ RtCillftoien secured Ms first    «*    flight

#ar he served lsr the Russian Sofifefai SI4CKS, a 3riusb F.E.J Acsirs* fees* ardent. May. tod Western iroms, earmog-two-seater, sod fro® tisea osi**®* down* a German mans

lro°Cf    -    * t»

5eetor*    .    I    ivtthe    a*

’4e then irsmierreu :o fee Fly-    JJ    ,dT ««*£*•£•>:    Isa    two    Ssssdaus    as-

•g Sennce me uu*i.fed as an ^g5!?Sl*2 oll£S Ma> ^    ad

acral ooserver ano boms-san- rf®⁵ ®    -    manner of aerossties ia

er. it was'0Mhh capacity seat-;®    h^JlLXh*    f«opts so lose his uurroer.

he shot down hts first vseten,    'Ida *2 ^,.*^.^1 Then from above dived    Roy

f-rencn carman. rut w the    jf ^ rljf ³‘f^ Brown, to make the third    of a

rules then prevailing, be wasj**** "**1°*    ''    line of cratilv darting pauses

uruHe to claim it    IHfr*    ■    w    .*..,,'200    fees    above    the 33rd Abs--

He rtmme.1 to action on the    v£* *2£t^Sfsraii*n Fkld &msrT <* &*■

•■vestera Front in March and -    Dmskm.    A burst of fee

.• -noorr    cown »    »«»»--^ a    gaoner    in    the

French psane, fTeine ones more.*"    "    “    b    rrsaiches spismejs Sysg-

wmi '    •    ■ nv the re-    oeraonou* «^tce. from tJje GenJliia ^

«' or . c-    'h*¹'2?    dS"**®*    tiaic    *»    8rt!*tl    °Peocd!

.*tt •■-scum rnusr tai' behind    at *®.®ae °‘ as a^gsr a WStfeer*B* fire wish Mr t»*m|

German lioes.    fe*    promotion    recetveu    y^^

y, -rfs?    ?    A Moment's Neglect

Xv "et^fcke.-’*®⁵®*® ® * -fflontfe. incktdagj For a aoaeS's aegsect—3. *« '•acrc    iSSrffaw in one day.    ibre**    of hit owe rule «

* f —    "    ‘ .T->. was an ni* -ercrs » .datfivigSance—the German

,, e day. as w« U a iagssatieM    re—said wRh his life, and s

"J_: after leave that the Barca re-paid w.jffe his life, asd with s eshmd Ms irsi woasd in ai-!sfe»d csiot at Efts castrate, j most three years of war. a bsi-: Ricathsfes’s place gEided itHfR fct furrow 011 the fo^sead. Tim aad Landed opngm among the SBhdued bks for 2 few weeks; trenches on lbs .sstskim «f' arM alao -prsseded s lofig teas Sasily-ie'Src. spell, as it. soofc him eight _Ua4er the kstn^ksns of ai mosfbs to n-ffieh up anoiher 23'British pilot, Utte.- F. I- W.! .vimories.    iMeiSeA who has also    heesi

r*.    « T> ,n    jshc« ttews, Ridit&rfen’s    Issdyi

tmm SGulG    ] was removetl from the    pisae

Then, ffla April 21. Rkht-iand takes to nearby Bertscg-j 'bmea sagged tc his    iastilcs.

combat, a thrilling sod sar.g- Here a posi-txionem exasurs-amary affair in which a    num-;atios    revealed    thar    be    bad

>tset of the participants    werefdkd    from a    ~M£&c bsHet

jAssnfittt, The fracas began-woand whiefc save:«d his-‘when four of Rshthofcns;breast from the right S3 the J asrdstaffei jumped two    Ais-lieft.    the situation of    fee    ea-

traiian reeasfiemaBee planes, trance and ejel wounds being i The uneven combat was; such that this coaid not havej ifKSiced by Captain Royjbeen caosed by fire from the) Brown, a Canadian command- i ground.”

ing 209 Squadron, and be; He was buried with fdlj ;dived wife hts men to the;military honours m Bertangiai ^ rescue.    |cemetery and lay there until,

i fhis is turn brought Richt-j !925. when his body wasj ihsfen and the rerrmmder ofibrought back to Germany aad.i Ibis followers into the fray and?after a stale funeral, re-i isot® a tresjendous dogfight; interred at Mercy cemetery in) was in process, watched wsihj Berlin.

great interest by Australian; So passed Baron Manfred troops on the Moriancoort I von Rkhrhofen, Germany’s r jdge IjSOO feet below. j grea test air ace—-is the words .Another Australisa, Lieut.-; of a noied British newspaper. May, was also in the fight, re-i "a brave man, a decent sdver-eemng his baptism o:    tke^sary. and a ma sobl«naa.“

IN 28 months ran Richthofen shot down SO Allied airmen in dogfights over the Western Front, more than any other fighter pilot on either side.

Hi* command of the celebrated "Flying Circus” woe sot only the kkMisatkm of Germany but the respect and admiration of every Allied airman for a gallant and redoubtable foe.

RED KNIGHT OF THE AIR ”

K • On April 21, 1918, a group of Australian soldiers scrambled across a muddy field near Corbie on tfce Western Front to where a red single-seater plane lay crashed with its tail in the air. Slumped in the cockpit was the body of a man, his head resting on the butt of his machine-gun and blood clotting round a wound in his chest. An officer emptied the pockets of the man's German Hying uniform to identify him. He found papers and a gold watch engraved with the initials    Then    he    realised    that    the    dead man was Manfred ran Richthofen, the

almost legendary "Red Knight of the Air" and the greatest fighter ace of World War I.

swooped low to enable him to spot

The designs of Dutchman Anthony Fokker had been eagerly snapped up by the German Air Turning point came when his Force after Britain rejected them. ™ Bodcke began organising groups of fighter planes — the Jagdkaffeis — that were to indude

Von Richthofen, as aristocrats: young cavalry officer, brought to. aerial combat the skiS and patience of an expert hunter. He was never reckless and he stalked his victim through the sky with cold and perfectly-timed calculation.

When he died, according to one British air authority, “the whole spirit seemed to go out of the German Air Force.”

Manfred voa Richthofen was bora in Breslau on May 2, 1892, scion of an ancient Silesian family that had been ennobled for service to Frederick the Great of Pnssss.

He entered a military cadet school st the age of II. By 1912 he was a cavalry officer in the Uhlans, celebrated as the best shot and finest horseman is his regiment.

Outbreak of World War I la 1914 found von Richthofen's regiment stationed on the Russian frontier. Like his fellow-officers, he dreamed of a short, sharp war full a# gallant cavalry actions.

The reality was far different, a monotonous nightmare of trench warfare, mod ami snow. Four months as a staff ofiJcer brought vos Richthofen's restless spirit to breaking point.

Cavalry was already becoming outmoded. Only the newly-forming air force, ran Richthofen decided, offered any scope for his banter’s instinct for individual combat

At last, after many vain applications for transfer, he was ordered to report to Cologne for framing as an air observer. By June, 1915, be was dying reconnaissance missions over the Russian litas.

The planes were ramshackle two-seaters, unarmed except for a revolver that ran Richthofen nursed in his lap while the pilot

PARADE

Page 22

Russian artillery and troop movements.

It was a tame life compared with the exciting stories from the Western Front, where the new Fokker single-seaters were breeding a race of airmen who flew and fought alone in the skies.

They were the first to master synchronisation so that the pilot could fire a machine-gun between the blades of the propeller.

The Fofckers outgunned and osdtew the Allied Moranes. Nieu-ports, De HavjJlsods and Marfya-sidts. The German fighter pilots Boelcke and Immeimann became the first reai aces of aerial warfare.

Von Richthofen yearned to share is their exploits. Not till November, 1915, was be accepted !o? training as a pilot-— and then he crashed ignomjniousiy and wrecked bis plane on Ms first solo flight.

The mstructois shook their

Mads. The young cavalryman had no mechanical Instinct, they sakL He had beset go back to his horses.

By June, 1916, von Richthofen was back cm the Russian front, and stiR la old two-seaters.

Nobody could have guessed ffsat within a year he was to be Germany's hero, tbs dinner goes of die Kaiser, and t be scourge of the Allied air forces in the Wes.

the cream of Germany's pilots.

Boekke wm given a free hand in selecting Ms men. In August, 1916, to the astonishment of him-self and Ms comrades, voa Richthofen was summoned to join lagdstaffcl No. 2 at Bcrtmcourt in France.

Bodcke’s judgment was soon triumphantly vindicated. Two weeks later ran Richthofen shot down his first British bomber, la a month he was recognised as second only to Boekke is the squadron.

Then, on November 23, 1916, in the closing days of the Battle of the Somme, von Richthofen scored the first sensational victory that made his name a household word m Germany-

His Victim was Major L. G. Hawker, commander of the Royal Hying Corps Ho. 24 Squadron, a seasoned veteran who had already sent 26 Germans crashing in lames.

Von Richthofen’s 220 h-p. AS>a-tross could outclimb and output Hawker’s DHJL But the experienced Englishman had woo his

battles by dunking faster and store coolly than his opponents.

This rime he ms his match. Like a professional hunter, ran Richthofen aasdpated his every move till he sal with the teal of Hawker’s plane clearly in tbs sights of his Spasdsu gun.

Even then fee held his fire riB the range dosed to barely 50 yards. One long burst, and Hawker, shot through Use bead, dived headkmg to pile ia wreckage in the square of a deserted village.

The victory spread von Richthofen's fame through the British

July. 1960

ABiet extolled German flyer, Manfred now Richthofen, a» “Worthy Opponent”

and German air forces alike. "The totq^cst Hun i ever met,” was the tribute of ooe R.F.C. pilot who taasaged to escape him.

The heyday of von Richthofen’s career began with fcb promotion to command Jagdskffel U in January, 1917. It was then he adopted the all-red color that made his plane unmistakable in the skies.

Apr* 1917, was his most sensational month, la four weeks be shot down 21 British planes, despite the rata and snow that grounded both sir forces foe days at a time.

Von Richthofen was now a national hero. He lunched with the Kaiser at Imperial Headquarters, He was coasilfed by Hin-desborg and the Chief of the German Air Force, von Hocppacr,

Oa leave, he was the guest at official banquets in Bedim he in-

The new British Sopwiths, Bristols and De HariUaads were better than any German aircraft. Throughout 1917 they swarmed in increasing numbers over the German lines.

Os Jaly 6, 1917, voa Richthofen himself had a bite- experience of their menace when he was wounded and shot down is a confused melee over CourtraL Having see* foar of hh comrades go down in games, voa Rkh-thofea deterra joed to get the leader of the Sopwitbs. It was the oak tee that he recklessly *

Outranged by the British guns, von Richthofen was struck by a bullet in the head. As be lay heipkis axsd temporarily blinded, his nkae spiralled cxazSy down from 12,000 to 2500 feet.

He pulled it out of the dive just in time to crash-land is a field one sign of the breakdown of her whole vast military sysiem.

As be climbed into his cockpit a sergeant asked him to autograph a postcard, “'What’s toe harry?"* asked von Richthofen. “Are you afraid I won’t come back?"

He dsd not come back. In a swirling dogfight with a group of

By early 1918 only von Richthofen remained alive out of the original Jagdsiaifel pilots. His red plane still rode the sky undefeated, stiB feared and respected by every Allied airman,

A hunting holiday In the forests of East Prussia restored von Richthofen's health. By March. 1918, be was back in Franee to lead hh

•'Circus" in Germany's last desperate offensive of the war.

Factories worked night aad day to equip his squadrons wish the new Fdfcker tnpianes. Germany was combed tor daring young pilots—one of them a burly young man named Captain Hermann Goeriog.

On the morning of April 21 von

planes to ham for British aircraft over the Ancre valley. The day before he had brought down fab ttth

spected aircraft factories, bunted wild boars oa die estate of the Prince of Pless and was seat on propaganda tours of the Balkans.

Hordes of pressmen and cameramen swarmed round his headquarters in France, where the wails were lined with the shattered wings of enemy planes and lit by a candelabra made from a British engine.

British officers toasted “the baron” ia their messes. There were even rumors that a special “AcU-Richthofen Squadron” bad best formed to hunt down the unconquerable “Red Knight”

Jo June, 1917, von Richthofen was given command of a group of four Jagdstaffeis. with a roving commission that earned the group the famous nickname, the '‘Flying Circus.’*

Von Richthofen’s job was to shift his crack squadrons quickly to any threatened point on the Western Front. Asks, vrith the psaues pouring from British fac-toriesrit was a desperate task.

July, I960 of mud and shell hoses. For a month he lay in Courtrsi hospital, with an open wound six inches long in his skulL

Ignoring an order to go on leave, von Richthofen returned to the front. He found German Air Force morale beginning to crumble under the unceasing attacks of the more numerous and better equipped Allies.

Against doctors’ orders, voo Richthofen insisted cm still leading his Eton m the air. His tally of victims went on mourning, though he often landed so exhausted that be had to be lifted from toe cockpit.

The technique of air warfare was changing. The British now used masses of planes to support their ground troops by bombing and strafing, instead of relying on individual exploits.

Germany, starved by years of blockade, cooid not replace her losses of men and machines. The decide of her air force was only

parade

Scpwifh Cartes, von Richthofen swooped in pursuit of one British plane while another dived uo--observed on his own t»L

Australian machine - gunners opened up on him from the ground. Tito persaine plane pumped fire into him from behind. The “Red Knight” was dead before Ms aircraft hit the ground.

Both the Australians and the Canadian pilot. Captain Roy Brown, claused the Stos&km victim- But medical examination showed almost certainly that the fatal shot came from the air.

So fbeanaa was ever buried with more honors than Mafibred von Richthofen. Topping toe masses of flowers that hid bis coffin was a wreath from the British Air Force, to “our valiant and worthy opponent"

la 1925 Ms body was exhumed from the little French cemetery wfiere the British had reverently kid it, and returned for toe solemn pageantry of a public funeral in Berlin.

Page 22

Mystery Rkhtbolen’s Deatk

INQtHBY BY HISTORIAN

AU3TRAIJAN FIRST AT CRASH sceise

MeSxmme, J’ol? $.—An Americas historian has written to a GamberweH (Tie.) widow seeking details of the death of Germany’s Great War air ace Baron Van RtehfoOfaa.

The German “Bed Knight", who was credited with 8b Allied ;inHs", crashed into Australian lines in Prance mor« than 45 years ago.

The circumstances of Richthofen’s death are still c&ouded with mystery tboogbt it is generally recognised that he downed by Australian Lewis

Mrs. E- Cranswick, of Cam-berweSL who received the letter at the week-end, learned for the first tlzne that her late hasfaabd was one of the first to reach Richthofen's crashed aircraft

He was Cspk Wilfrid Hilary Cranswick. who served in the 2/48 2nfan£ry Battalion under his then stage name of WU£nd Hilary.

Mrs. Cranswick received the letter from Pasquale CariseHa. of Wakefield {Massachusetts). 3 member of the American Aviation Historical society.

It stated that her husband, who died four years ago, was one cl three men who am red on the scene seconds alter the German ace crashed.

"Ebd he teH you what toot place and did he inform you who the other two men were?" the writs asked.

Mrs. Cranswiek said her husband had neves mentioned the incident to her but had talked of it with their sons.

One of them, Mr. Dudley Cransrwcfc, will seek, information from 2/48 Battalion records in a Wd to answer the query.

German ace remembered

CANBERRA, Toes: The Australian war memorial has been presented with a telescopic gun sight from the famous red tri-plane of the German air ace, Manfred von ftichto-fen—better known as the Red Baron.

The sight was presented by Mrs N. Gotniw, of Sydney. Her husband was a corporal with the 44th Battalion which had been at the spot to France where Von Richtofen was shot down.

The German pilot was credited with having destroyed 80 Allied aircraft during the Great War, _

Diggers shot down Red Baron - historian

CANBERRA; British claims that as Australian shot down the legendary Red Baron have come as no surprise to Australian historians who always believed a digger should have taken the credit

THE KALGOORUE MINER, TUESDAY NOVI

Australian War Memorial curator 0/ military technology John White said yesterday their researchers concluded long ago Australian ground fee brought down Baron Manfred voa Richthofen. Germany's top scoring fighter pilot of World War L

Charles Sean's official histories eves named those thought responsible as Sergeant Cedric Popkin and Gunner Robert Buie.

Bat the British histories just as emphatically say be was shot down bv Canadian pilot Soy Brown, a member of the Royal Flying Corps.

Now, British historian Normas Franks has claimed it was the Australians all along, citing newly discovered accounts to hand the credit to Sgi Popkin.

Mr White said eyewitness accounts reported Baron von Richthofen's Fokker Triplane continued flying low over Australian positions for some 30-40 seconds after Brown's Sopwith Camel stopped firing.

“It was then seen to manoeuvre violently ami the aircraft basically fell out of the air." Ik said. -When his body was examined. he had been struck by one bullet and that ballet wooid have been almost instantaneously fatal."

“EGGS-A-COOK!”

THE STORY

OF TUB

FORTY-FOORTH.

WAR—AS THE DIGGER SAW IT.

By Many

Mr Cyril Longmore, a League member for over 36 years, a past member of the State Executive and at one period president of the City of Perth sub-branch, died on Sep* tember 22.

Mr Longmore served with the 44th Battalion with distinction in the 1914-18 war and was awarded the Order of Leopold and the Croix* de-guerre,

A journalist of considerable ability, he wrote the history of the 44th Battalion (“Eggs a Cook”) and was well known to ex-servicemen for his “Non Cora" column in the old “Western Mail.” He was a director of the R.SJL. Trading Co. from [1922 until its liquidation

1921

THK COLORTYPE PRESS U St, Gkorgb’s Court Prrth

-a***

178    “EGGS-A-COOK!”

“C” Company, received his issue from a machine gnn in front of the wire, where Lieut. McDermott, a n»wly promoted officer in the same company, was killed.

A Fitting Climax,

It was a fitting climax to the fighting career of the Battalion. They had been in action for nearly two years, had lost in battle fonr hundred and thirty-three ail ranks killed, and one thousand three hundred and forty-six wounded. Had never lost a trench.

On only one occasion had they failed to do exactly what they set out to do (that was the 13th March raid). Had captured hnndreds of German prisoners, yet in the whole two years had lost only eight prisoners to the enemy!

The Battalion on October 5 was moved back to a village near Amiens. They were now among civilians for the first time since March, afteii six months in the war-shattered areas, which had created a longing for civilian companionship.

The Armistice.

There they rested. Sick and wounded rejoined and rebuilt the companies.

Then on November 11 came the Armistice, and the war was over—to the indescribable relief of the_

fighting men.    CHAPTER XXII. (Conclusion).

LOOKING BACK.

Looking back on the part played by the Australian Corps on the Somme from August 8 to October 5, 1918, a period of sixty days, it is safe to say that never has a more strenuous or successful campaign been fought in bistory. In spite of anything written to the contrary, the Hun was a brave and skilful fighter, and there was never a mistake made by his opponents that he did not take full military advantage of. Although at the time it seemed that too much was being asked of the troops, the results proved that the Corps Commander’s judgment was correct, and that it was better to keep tired troops pushing even to the extent of the last ounce of their physical powers, than to allow an equally tired enemy the opportunity of reorganising his forces and defences.

Certain it is that the fighting troops were always backed up by a wonderfully efficient organisation directing their movements in front and supporting them from behind—supply, transport, and the hundred and one other details pertaining to an Army in the field worked just as smoothly and effectively as though the front was stationary.

Demobilisation.

During the waiting period prior to embarkation for Australia, time was passed by educational and sport-ing stnnts.__

theRrjheman

Losing Touch

by Donald Boudreaux

I know two veterans of World War II. Both are exceptionally fine and patriotic Americans. One, call him Bill, flew as a navigator on a B-29 bomber based in the Pacific. The other, call him Joe, fought as an infantryman in Europe. Fortunately, neither was injured during the war. Although alike in many ways, a notable difference between Bill and Joe is that Bill is forever and with great relish recalling his bomber days, while Joe steadfastly refuses to mention his wartime experiences. Odd as it may seem, this difference between Bill and Joe contains an important lesson about big government and democratic politics.^.

Politicians, Like Bombers, Seldom See Their Victims . . .

I once asked Bill why he attended so many reunions with his former crew members and why he never tired of recollecting his war years. And why does Joe say absolutely nothing about his time in the army? Bill’s response is revealing. “Joe fought in combat, face to face with the enemy. He saw lots of blood and guts and death and suffering. But for me, the war was great. Nothing bad happened to me. My buddies and I flew lots of missions over Japan and nearby islands. All I ever saw were little puffs of smoke on the ground where our bombs hit.”

Reflecting on Bill's response, I realized that politicians and their bureaucratic ap-

Dr. Boudreaux is Associate Professor of Law and Economics al Clemson University.

pointees are much like bomber crews: they wreak much havoc, but seldom experience first hand the consequences of their actions. As a result, political activity is generally pleasurable. But if governing were more like infantry service and less like bombing runs—that is, if politicians witnessed firsthand ail the suffering unleashed by government taxation and regulation—politicians would surely be less enthusiastic about their schemes.

Agricultural subsidies are a good example. Farm-price supports inflict all sorts of harm on millions of people. Consumers pay unnecessarily higher prices for food while taxpayers dole out more in taxes to support and administer these programs. These higher prices and heavier tax burdens, in turn, have a significant injurious secondary effect: fewer resources are available for producing other worthwhile goods and services. Also, poor people shoulder a disproportionate share of this unnecessary wealth destruction because they spend larger percentages of their incomes on food than do wealthy citizens. In short, the nation is a poorer and more unjust place because of agricultural subsidies.

Politicians know that agricultural subsidies are destructive. Washington’s unremitting stream of partisan bombast and simple-minded sound bites should not be taken as evidence that politicians are stupid. They aren’t. Most politicians are quite aware that agricultural subsidies confiscate enormous wealth from large numbers of people in order to give it—after much skimming by the bureaucracy—to a small number of politically influential fanners in a way that works against the public interest. Yet there appears to be no end in sight to such wasteful programs.

298 THE FREEMAN • JUNE 1994

Some observers succumb to utter cynicism and argue that politicians are inherently evil. While I don’t deny that representative democracy tends to select peculiar types of people for political office—perhaps people who are, typically, a bit more hungry for power and fame than is the average citizen—I don’t believe that politicians’ character flaws are responsible for the interest-group feeding frenzy that today characterizes democratic government.

Few politicians are indifferent to human suffering and misfortune. Most politicians in the United States come from solid middle-class backgrounds, have loving and beloved families and dear friends, and wouldn’t dream of mistreating people they deal with personally. I daresay the personal values most politicians possess differ imperceptibly from the personal values motivating most of middle-class America. This is why, with straight faces, nearly every politician can look squarely into a camera’s lens and insist that he or she is a good person who only wants to do what’s right. Friends of liberty do their cause no favors by exaggerating the moral shortcomings of politicians or by portraying them as inherently stupid, fiendish, or sinister.    v

Nevertheless, politicians do many harmful things. The reason, I believe, is that— like the destruction wrought by bombers— the ill effects of most political acts are like little puffs of smoke. Politicians seldom come face to face with people whose suffering is perceptibly caused by government policies.

Of course, politicians do see stacks of statistics, charts, and graphs telling them (if they choose to pay attention) of the higher food prices caused by agricultural policies, as well as of the many other maladies inflicted by their programs. But such figures are faceless. These figures are to politicians what little puffs of smoke are to bombers: bombers know that tremendous human suf-

of his or her interest-group clients, the political game would be far less biased against consumers and other persons who are not represented by lobbyists strolling the halls of government power. Unfortunately, the nature of interest-group politics is that only those groups with relatively few mem-bers can organize effectively to conduct fering occurs just beneath the little puffs of smoke, but because the bombers don’t encounter this suffering up-close and personal, they are largely unaffected by it. Likewise, statistics, charts, and graphs seldom cause remorse or regret for politicians. It is relatively easy to harm others when you never see your victims face to face.

. . . But Politicians Do See Interest-Group Beneficiaries

The problem of faceless victims of government is compounded by the fact that there is a class of people that politicians do see face to face on a regular basis: members of organized interest groups. Interest groups are persistent in seeking special privileges from government. And such persistence pays off, partly because politicians are not diabolical miscreants. Most politicians are just like you and me: They are often willing to go out of their way to lend a hand to familiar and friendly faces. Politicians no doubt feel proud and gratified when familiar farming lobbyists shake their hands warmly, slap them on the back, and thank them for higher price supports. Just as politicians care little about victims they never see, they care very sincerely about those with whom they are in daily face-to-face contact.

It is human nature to favor friends and familiar acquaintances over unnamed, faceless others—other people encountered by politicians only as data points in various reports. The longer a politician remains in Washington (or in a state capital), the more his or her circle of friends and acquaintances comes to be composed of interest-group representatives and other politicians, all of whom are forever seeking special favors. In addition, extended time in office inevitably causes politicians to lose face-to-face contact with the folks back home—the ordinary folks, that is, rather than the special-interest groups.

Conclusion

If every politician actually saw the faces of his or her victims in addition to the faces

face-to-face political lobbying of elected officials. Consequently, without some fundamental change in the scope of government or our political institutions, most citizens will continue to be victims of the policy bombs forever dropping out of Washington and state capitals.    Q

GOLDEN SQUARE LODGE, No 31, W.A.C,

Hiiirii    Mow:    Bro. J. M. WarHnginii, Bro. h, ,1. Hieks, Bro,    I*’. .4. Davis, Bro. C. F„ Tewy, Bro, \V, is. Moore, Bro,    \Y.

lih'l'etl, Uro. S. L. Wilson (Tyler), Bro, .1, F.    C'orHe, Hw. A. J. T. Morrison, Bro, H, (». K. Miles, Bro. T, Clarkso

Bro. K. t„ Allison.

Third Bow. Bro. J. B.    Bro. I.. A. Booth. Bro. K. A. Burton. Bro. D. (1. (HMter, Bro. A. B. Webster, Bro. C.

Bui lie, Bro. A, K. OavJdsori, Bro. C. E, Walker, Bro. SI. (!. Hunter, Bro. .1. 15. Manners, Bro. B. Scull, Bro. ,h .fensen, Bro. B. F. Thorne.

Second    Bow    (Past Minsters): Wor. Bros. <5,    T. CHoneni.s.    It. Scdtlon, 'J'. Hollins, \Y. H.    Davidson, P.G.Swd.B.; N'. I,.    Smii

K.    It. Muiutlr. P.G.SM.; (>. S.    Witekeit, W.    H. Green, 15, A. Jensen. It. Banks, F. G. Clack.

First    Bow    (OfBeers): Bro. 1. A. Salimmd (S.U.), Bro, A. B. CowJe tl.GA, Wor. Bro. I>, Thomson, 1*3.0-11. tC.liavB.v    SI\vtl

B.W. Bro. H. Palmer, P.,f.G.W. (Treasurer),    Wor. Bro. K. A. Illingworth iJ.I’.M). Bro. C. It. 1), Austin    f.S.W

Wor. Bro. C. 8. .Manners iW.M.j, Bro, AV, It. Davidson (JAY,), V.W. Bro. T. fi. Hrewis, B.G.C.. Wor, Bro

H.    IlUdge ' Secretary). Wor. Bro. T. Webster tl). of C.i. Bro, 1. Barton    (Organist), Bro. t>. W. Kirk    <J

Seated    in    Front:    Bro. K. 15. Davidson, Uro. J.    W. ftedpat h,    Bro. .S. J- Saunders, Bro, F. B.    Hicks, Bi o, .1. H. Waiinvrigh

V)

(ialtien Square llobge

(Seremony of tfJnstallatio

°f

ro. &L arles <43 rotvn (to a

(JBnrsippfui faster JZlect) and (investiture of Officers

MASONIC HALL. KALGOORLIE. TUESDAY, 1st AUGUST. 1939.

'Hot. Bro. K. A ILLINGWORTH

I    ?

1 COMMEMORATION |

«    i

I *f |

60th JUBILEE

Dedication of St.Paul’s bell.

From left, Rev. K.D. Johns, Rt Rev. Fred McKay, OBE, Mod. Gen. Presbyterian Church of Australia & Mr Roy Mills, Session Clerk.

c.1970

Qfparti#«t tf Piars, Prrlk, #8-4-09.

Sir,

It is the desire of the Government that the Mines of Western Australia should he well represented at the forthcoming Faria Exhibition, and in as attractive a manner as possible, so as to fully demonstrate to the gathering which will be collected there the vast resources the Colony possesses in Mineral wealth.

In order to secure this object, it is hoped the different Mining Companies will permit their exhibits uow in the Coolgardie Exhibition to be placed, at its dose, in the hands of the Government for transmission to Paris at the proper time. The Government will be able to have these taken over and placed in position at the Faria Exhibition without any expense to the Exhibitor, when every endeavor will be made to dispose of such in the maimer desired by the owners.

I have the honor, therefore, to solicit through you the aid and co-operation of your Company in this respect, and can assure yon that nothing will be left undone to make the Western Australian Mining Court worthy alike of the Mines themselves, and the Colony generally, in the event of that support being afforded.

I have the honor to be,

Sir,

Tour obedient Servant,

Minister of Mines.

A total of235 Western Australian mining companies responded to this invitation to participate in the 1900 Paris Exhibition.

ilwkr the SRdil Ptirougt o! iik Uksi flKtralui fiwsr»w«l.

t The Western Australian International Mining and Inoustriac—   I"⁻    —y

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(THE TvAl

MISS AMY JOHNSON

uinns thTs whim

DUE AT O'CLOCK

arrangements FOR TWO HOUR STOP.

' Miss Amy Johnson trill atr ire at the Kalgoorlie aerodrome at 10 © clock this moraiag aad Mr. C. B. Manners, who is in charge of the arrangements, states that owing to the short duration of her stay on the goldfields it trill be impossible to carry oat the original programme. The welcome at fee aerodrome by the official reception committee and the function arranged by the executive of the National’ Council of Women have, therefore, been can? celled, together with the civic reception.

The following programme will be carried out, providing the special aeroplane piloted by Major de Havilland is not. behind schedukd

Immediately upon arrival Miss Amy Johnson n?iU. be ec’ive’ed ikmg Burt-street id in? Boulder Oily Tow's Hal! to attend for s few minutes a ©ubfie welcome to be held st 1.0. minutes past lo o'clack. Miss Johnson trill then proceed iione Burt-streef to the Donaldson War Memorial, upon which a wreath provided by the Boulder R.S-L, wilt be placed.

An immediate departure will then made for Kalgoorlie along Lane-street and Maritana-street. turning east into Hannan-street to Porter-sfcreet, then returning .down Han ta-street to Wilsen-street and on to the War Memorial at the railway station, where Miss Johneon will place a wreath provided by th« Kalgoorlie B.S.L.

F©1 lowing this as immediate fern will fee made to the Kaigoorlte Town Hall to'attend a public welcome, which is runcd for 10-30 o’clock- This wtli complete the official programme and Miss Johnson and party will then haeh at the Palace Hotel prior to returning to the aerodrome to make their departure for Perth.

At the aerodrome the public are requested to park their cars outside the aerodrome enclosure and assist the authorities in every way to keep the aerodrome clear so that art immediate departure esa fee made by Mis? Johnson to visit Bouidsf and Kalgoorlie mumcinah*

When proceeding from the aerodrome to Boulder City it is desired that motorists refrain from passing the c^r .conveying the honoured guest.

Every endeavour will be made daring the Brief time available to afford the public*, every opportunity to see the gallant English girl who is wor! d- renown ed Tor her

solo

iff tiaVfe

DEPARTm FROM ADELAIDE

14JNCH AT CEDUNA.

Adelaide, July 3.

Am&r Johnson left Pa rah eld at 7.40 this morning in a Hawk Moth, piloted by Major De Havilland. She salted at Ky&ncuita, where a presentation was made of a silver pin tray. She had lunch at Ceduna and left at

1.30 for Forrest.

LAMPING AT FOMgST

FLIGHT ALONG TRANS-LINE

Forrest, July 3.

At exactly 5 o’clock this afternoon, in glorious sunshine, the Hawk Moth piloted by Major de Havilland and conveying- Miss Arav Johnson from Adelaide to Pertfi, landed at Forrest. A graceful j landing was made, A minute j later the smiling face of the famous} 8ier emerged from the cockpit, and] a few seconds more found Amyl sotting foot for the time ©a] Western Australian soil.

From advices received, it was anticipated that Forrest would fee reached at 4.30 o’clock and long before that hour the small but eager population scanned the sky for the first glimpse of the Moth. • The occasion was reminiscent of the dav when Hinkler; whose record solo night from London to Australia was actually threatened by Amy, passed through on his -visit t© and from Perth.

The trip from Ceduna was uneventful. There the take off wav made at 1.30 p.m. and a course gel for Cook which Is on the main air route. Contrary to cxgecta-taons a© landing was made at (Jook, which was passed at 3.15 p.m.. and the trans-AusSralian railway laaq fallowed right through to Forrest. Residents of the railway camps at Hughes, Deakin and the 632 miles, were favoured with smiles and waring from Amy, who was flying very low. The railway gangs oat j at tbeir work on the kxw was also favoured and all can at least say they saw Amy Johnson.

The loss of one day at Adelaide,

ae to the heavy raans, ss regrettable. but Amy may truthfully claim that her visit to South Australia coincided with excellent pastoral downpours. To snake up the lost time consider at,ion was

iven to departing from Forrest this

teping and flying by night to KaJ-. >orl»^ but this idea has been ab*pdoned. Daylight to-morrow will find fee Bawk in the air again, ; and., with a non stop t,im, it is j

exp&Jted rhat. 'KaJgaacIie will  be. i

reached at. 10 a m.

Miss Johnson must be reflecting upon fee contrast between her entry into each of the States previously visited and her entry into Western Australia at Forrest. The absence of crowds, ceremonies, etc., must be a welcome change and after enjoying the glorious air ot fee Null arbor Plain and the comforts of fee airway’s hoetel, she should land at Kalgoorlie much benefited. Miss Johnson is fee guest of fee

We« AtfrwaJiaa A«ar*yi ylule at torieik

MISS AMY JOHNSON

'J Jutij *t^O THE KALC<

AMffAl III PEBTH

TUSfULTTOUS TOLCpME.

Perth, July 6.

Miss Amy Johnson, piloted by Major do Havilland, arrived at Maylands aerodrome at 12.30 p.m. yesterday and added to her experience of Australian weather an-1 Austei>ltan crowds. The weather was fairly fine during the morning feat, as the day wore on, there was a constant- succession of fierce rain squalls which mad* things extremely uncomfortable outdoors, whilst the crowds waiting her arrival at the Savoy Hotel in Hay-street and at the Suhixeo aerodrome won Id have overwhelmed her entirely in their exuberance but for the strenuous efforts of the police.

There was a comparatively small rrowd_afc the May lands aerodrome when Mass Johnson's 'plane landed, She was officially welcomed by the Governor* Sir Wily am Campion, the Premier, Sir James Mitchell and tbs Lord Mayor. Mr. J. trank fin. After a few brief speeches and pleasant response by the famous visitor a move was made for the city ia motor ears. Everyw here along the route Miss Johnson was hailed wsi'tii delight. Perth street* are always crowded on Saturday mornings feat they were ©ingested yesterday and when the motor ear j carrying the lady turned into Hay- j street from Barrack-street, it was | ; 'xrtmediately surroamded with a j j dense throng. With the aid of two ! I troopers it gradually reached the | Savoy Hotel but there the crowd i surged forward in a solid compact mass and it was only by the united efforts of a number of constables, headed'by Inspector Johnstone, that the intrepid girl was able to reach I he building in safety. So fierce was the crush that many women collapsed and fainted and in one instance a girl had to be removed to hospital where she remained until today.

As soon as possible*after entering the hotel Miss Johnson appeared on the balcony from where die waved to the crowds.

lu the afternoon Miss Johnson at-tonded fhe Aero Club’s carnival and

afterward'- vhiied the ^uhaaeo

; Q#5*mrodrome. "Last evening Mi?s Johnson was welcomed by, the National Oonncil of Women and the Women's Service Guilds, at His Majesty's The afire, where she was presented with six panels of West radian wiidfiowery in handsome leather portfolios

WEEK END ACTIVITIES.

Perth, July 6

While the police were endeavouring to force a passage for Mias Johnson to the entrance of the Savoy Hotel one young man so far forgot himself as to attempt to kiss her. He was rewarded with a smart back-handed smack in the face and escaped with that, as it was impossible for the police to attempt an arrest In that crowd.

Miss Johnson spent to-day fairlv quietly. This afternoon she was takes for a river trip by the commodore of the. Koyal Yacht dab. and was subsequently entertained at tea. advantage being taken of the occasion to present her with a loving cup made of polished jar rah. This evening Miss Johnson was present at the Ambassador's Theatre where a concert ia aid of the unemployed was in progress. The building was crowded and she was accorded a great reception.

DEPARTURE FROM KALGOORLIE.

Afc 7.15 o’clock on Saturday morulas the Hawk Moth, piloted by Major de HaviH&nd, took off from the KaLgoorsie aerodrome to convey Miss Amy Johnson to tho coast. Before taking her departure, the intrepid aviatrix referred in eulogistic terms to the welcome accorded her on the goldfields, and also to the organising arrangements made by Mr. G, B. Manners, [ goldfields representative of Messrs.

I C. C. Wakefield and Co., Ltd., upon whom the duties evolved. The tribute wag certainly well d^erved, j for Mr. Manners worked inde-; fatigably so that her stay on the j goldfields would be enjoyable and J that everybody would have a j chance to see the famous young air-j woman. Everything went off , smoothly and the programme re-f fleeted great credit upon Mr. Mau-j ners.

M.S W. PEACE SOCIETY

! LIFE MEMBERSHIP ACCEPTED.

Sydney. July 6.

Miss Amy Johnson has notified the New South Wales Peao* Society of her acceptance of au honorary life membership of the society.

MONTHLY JOURNAL.

31ST May, 1905.

lor more than a decade past, there has been awakened in England an uneasy sense that Australia is passing into the possession of a party, which, if it proceed forthwith actually to confiscate all private property, will with cheerful certitude undertake great and rash experiments, to the jeopardy of all social interests.

Blontblp Journal.

3 ist MAY, 1905.

State Socialism.

Mr. Walter James, ex-Premier of West Australia, and now Agent-General in London for this State, has something to say lpon the great question of State Social-sm which the Prime Minister of the Com-nonwealth has lately raised, and which hopes to make the main issue at the lext Federal elections. Now, when a nan occupying the responsible position of Mr. G. H. Reid openly declares, “ It is my rrave duty at the present time to prevent A.ustralia from going down to the depths if socialistic chaos ' ’; when he indicts the Labour Party as ¹ bent upon overthrowing as soon as possible all the foundations upon which our industrial system and our rational prosperity are based ’ ’; when he characterises the ideal of that party as the aggrandisement of a class, and that class not the whole community of workers, but “ a section which has been desperately fighting to entrench itself behind a privilege of the worst kind, and which challenges the right of other workers to earn their living under conditions of freedom and equality and, finally—not to multiply quotations—when he affirms that “ Anyone who has watched the evolution of the Labour Leagues in Australia cannot help seeing that they have resolved upon a polic\- of absolute Socialism, of the destruction of individualism and private enterprise, and of making the country one huge Government establishment, of which the Labour Leagues shall be rulers when the Prime Minister proclaims these views on the public platform, they cannot but cause profound disquiet in Great Britain, in her capacity alike of motherland and creditor. They must do so all the more because already,

It is apparently to allay these very natural feelings of uneasiness on the part of a people to whom Australia—in more senses than one—owes so much, that Mr. James spoke comfortable words in the course of a recent address on the agricultural development of Australasia. ¹¹ The Australian voter," he said, “ is not socialistic ; he only judges every proposed measure upon its merits." The logic is condensed, but obvious. Parliament is a reflex of the voters’ opinions ; the voters are not socialistic ; therefore Parliament cannot be socialistic, and will not place socialistic enactments upon the Statute Book.

Now, what Mr. James has to say upon matters Australian is usually worthy of consideration. But in his present position it is demanded of Mr. James that he be optimistic, and that, as far and as emphatically as he can, he represent everything in Australia as of and for the best. Possibly he may be right in saying the Australian voters are not socialistic, if he refers to the great majority of the voters who do not take the trouble to record their votes. But he is certainly wrong, if he speaks of those who do exercise their prerogative at the ballot box, if he means the men and women whose votes have put the Labour Party into the position of power they now hold in Federal and State Legislatures ; for it cannot be gainsaid that, in proportion as the Labour Party has waxed strong, so has Federal and State legislation tended openly towards Socialism-Facts are with the Prime Minister and against the Agent-General.

History, if studied aright, points the same way. Political policy is a matter of evolution. It is not something forced upon a nation from without—except oi course in the case of conquest and com' plete domination by a superior power ;

This reflective material is referred to in the footnote on p. 219 *The Rt Hon. G.H. Reid was the Colonial Secretary

I

I    31St May, 1905

MONTHLY JOURNAL.    I7>

[ kat jt is a growth from within, and snnnes from a nation’s conditions and environment To the student of history Australia adords perhaps the most instructive instance of natural development, because the least hampered or interfered with from outside. The broad lines of Australian politics can be easily traced. State Socialism had its origin in the great and sudden influx of population in the ’fifties, when private enterprise was absorbed in the search for gold, and Government action was demanded to meet the needs of the new-comers. Manhood suffrage and its democratic developments are the direct outcome of the character and experiences of the early pioneers, drawn from all classes of society and working side by side on a footing of practically perfect equality. Protection, the fiscal creed even to-day of the bulk of Australians, originated when the alluvial fields were over-populated and employment had to be found for the thousands who could not support themselves on the diggings, who were unfitted for agriculture, and who must have starved in default of industries to give them work. Viewed in this light, it is easy to see why Victoria, the scene of the vast alluvial rushes of the early days, is still the chief stronghold of Protection in Australia.

In a previous article we traced rather more fully the origin of State Socialism, and indicated generally the objects set before itself by the Labour Party and the methods by which it is sought to gain them. Some supporters, even some members, of the Labour Party disavow Socialism altogether, and declare that their aims are not socialistic. What they say may perhaps be true of themselves personally, but it is certainly not true of their party. Mr. Watson, the leader of the party, and one of its most able and moderate members, has stated expressly that the party ¹¹ stands for collectivism against callous individualism.” And the Queensland Worker, the most influential Labour organ, thus describes the objective of the party :—“ The Labour movement must frankly recognise that only in measures approximating to a co-operative commonwealth can relief be found. It must drop all pretence to be Statesmanlike, and continue to be agitative. Nothing short of a policy of straight-out Socialism, vigorously and persistently pursued, can be of much avail.”

In face of these official declarations, to quote no others, it must be taken for granted that the ideal of the Labour Party is Socialism in some shape or another, and it may therefore be well to enquire what particular brand of Socialism finds favour with the bulk of the party, and therefore what will be the trend of the party’s policy. Australia has to make up its mind on this point clearly. The term Socialism is one that covers many meanings. It may indicate anything from a platitude to a revolution. In a sense every form of State action is Socialism. Mr. Watson some time back used that debating society trick to justify the ideals of his party. The State, he said, ran the railways, carried the letters, interfered with individual liberty in a thousand ways for the sake of the health and safety of all. All legislation was State Socialism, and how could anybody object to an extension of so beneficent a system ?

Admitted that State Socialism of the above kind, as limited by the general common sense of civilised humanity, is a necessary and good thing, it is perfectly certain that the Socialism at which the Labour Party aims, nebulous as it may be to the minds of many, goes far beyond that—it is something much more than a platitude.

Another form of Socialism is the revolutionary rubbish preached by ranting orators on the Yarra bank and in the Sydney Domain. These people would destroy everything, religion, family ties, authority, government, and bring in an era of social chaos. It is a misfortune for the Labour Party that some of its scurrilous organs indulge in language which gives colour to the idea that it advocates something of this kind, that its members are as anarchistic and as atheistic as the scum of the French revolutionists in 1792. A few rabid extremists of the Labour Party may hold these views, but the immense majority have far too mneh good feeling and common sense to do so. Socialism, with them, is not synonymous with revolution of that kind.

172    MONTHLY    JOURNAL.    jist    May,    1905.

Regarding its real aims, which lie somewhere between these two extremes, the Labour Party has two faces, and talks with two voices. Most members of the Labour Party would deny that Mr. Reid describes their aspirations fairly. They do not contemplate the confiscation of private property, at any rate not immediately. It is Mr. Watson’s business, as responsible leader of the party, to make its policy, if not attractive, at least not alarming ; and he does his business very well. He admits that collectivism is the ultimate goal, but he protests that it is such a long way off that the immediate steps taken in its direction need cause nobody any apprehension. Thus speaks the soothing voice of Mr. Watson, who, while he commends State Socialism to his own followers by its liberal promise of shorter hours and higher wages, and various other visionary benefits, seeks at the same time to lull hostile criticism by postponing it to a distant future.

On the other hand, Mr. Tom Mann, outside the Federal Parliament, talks different language and in very alarming accents. Here is his view of the present conditions of the working classes in Australia :—

“ Like the savages of thousands of years ago. who could not get nuts or roots for themselves, or kill the wild animals, and found it necessary to kill someone or die, so citizens at the present time were debarred by the ruthless cruelty of their fellow creatures from getting proper food, clothing, and shelter. Was this a time for peace with the exploiting faction ? Not for an instant. There could be no alternative on the part of every intelligent man and woman bnt to fight those who had brought about this horrible degradation. The people were told that the interests of capital and labour were identical. It was a lie. Let them point to any other real cause of poverty, of general physical, mental, and moral degradation, than those terrible capitalistic monopolies of any country in the world. The struggle of the intelligent worker must be for the overthrow of those monopolies.”

That is Mr. Mann’s account of the condition of the workers in a land where adult suffrage prevails, where a vote is valued so little that half the people do not trouble to record it ; a land of wages boards, and compulsory arbitration, and eight hours’ day ; a land where in two States Labour Ministries are in power, and where the affairs of the Commonwealth were for a time administered by a Labour Cabinet. Mr. Mann talks nonsense, it is true, but it is very precious nonsense to the half-educated people who listen to him, because it emphasises their ideas, and jumps with their inclinations. Here is another extract from the same orator :—

“ The workers only get a ‘ sustenance ’ wage when in employment, and nothing while out of work, and are not permitted to control the machinery of production or the product of their own labour. Therefore, the class war must be recognised, and the fight must be to dispossess the capitalistic class that now monopolised, controlled, and dominated the world, and to supersede the capitalistic ownership system by a system of universal co-operation. That was to be done by the recognition of the principles of Socialism and the definite application of those principles.”

These are the ideas that are all-powerful with the bulk of the Labour Party today, and that shape the party’s policy. Under their influence Labour Congresses pass resolutions in favour of “ the nationalisation of all the means of production, distribution, and exchange and the aim of the Labour Party is to do away with all forms of private ownership, and make the State sole owner, landlord, and employer. Whether this be brought about speedily or slowly, it means a revolution. Mr. Reid is perfectly right in describing it as an issue on which the whole future of Australia turns. Curiously enough Mr. Mann exactly echoes Mr. Reid’s words.

The one clear-cut issne.” he says, “ is

jist May, 1905-Labour or not Labour ; Socialism, or

anti-Socialism.”

MONTHLY JOURNAL    173

These statements are true. All intermediate issues are trivial and accidental. Socialism or anti-Socialism is the ultimate problem in Australian politics to-day- The leaders of the Labour Party are no doubt sincere believers in their theories ; but they would probably be the first to drop them if they could see their ultimate consequences. The danger for Australia, and for the Labour Party itself, is that, before the ultimate goal of Socialism is even within sight, great and disastrous experiments may be undertaken in a socialistic direction that will wreck Australia^ prosperity for a generation or more.

NEWS & NOTES.

During the month of Apri* Water Trust, the mines associated with the Kalgoorlie and Boulder Mines Water Trust consumed 20,179.000 gallons of water, a decrease compared with the preceding month of 2,526,000 gallons.

Total

Consumption.

Gallons.

Gallons.

Associated ... .....

1,673,000 626,0OO

55,766

Associated Northern

20,868

Devon Consols

163,000

5.433

Golden Horseshoe

4,019,000

*33.967

Great Boulder Main Reef ...

149,000

4,967

Great Boulder Perseverance...

2,051,000

68,367

Great Bonlder Proprietary ...

2,305,000

76,833

Hainanlt ... ......

614,000

20,467

Hannan’s Star...

576,000

19,300

Ivanhoe..... ......

2,521,000

84,033

Kalgoorlie Gold Recovery Co.

23,000

1,086,000

767

Kalgurli

36,200

Lake View Consols ......

2,291,000

76,366

Lake View South ......

16,000

533

North Boulder.........

30.000

1,000

Oroya-Brownhill ......

£,600, OOO

53,333

South Kalgurli Brown Hiu Extended

179,000

97,000

5.967

3,233

Hannans Proprietary, Ltd. ...

160,000

5,333

20,179,000

672,633

THE

CHAMBER OF MINES OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

(INCORFORATLD)

MONTHLY JOURNAL VOL. 4 1905.

The full text of the Arbitration Court evidence tendered, to the Court in the recent mining cases heard at Leonora and Kalgoorlie will be published in a special supplement of the Monthly journal, to be issued as soon as the awards and decisions of the Court have been announced.

The action of the Norseman Miners’ Union in connection with the Mararoa Svndi-cote is a striking example of the manner in which employers are frequently harassed and involved in considerable loss by the unwarrantable interference of meddlesome union officials. The two principal owners of this property were compelled at great inconvenience and expense to leave their mine and proceed to Kalgoorlie to appear before the Court of Arbitration, in answer to a charge preferred by the aforesaid union, alleging that the syndicate had it comm ted a breach of the

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Appendix III

Native Title Background Document

AMEC The Miner’s Pick Sept 2000    Vol:    13    No: 8

Time for a Reality Check

The mining industry has spent seven years trying to make commercial sense of native title.

In 1992, at the time of the High Court decision in the Mabo No. 2 case, the left-wing of the Federal Labor Party hailed the decision as the ultimate expression of political and social justice for indigenous Australians.

The euphoria was short-lived, as the business world grappled with the flawed Ad, which did not even adequately define what it was purporting to deal with and manage. The concept did not fit into Australia's commercial system or the community's way of dealing with land issues.

The method of defining and dealing with native title proved to be cumbersome The whole system broke down very early in the piece. The mining industry was faced with problems both in tarns of land access, time frames and compliance costs. The timefines proved impossible for some projects and some companies decided that it was simpler to move out of Australia that to put up with a commercially unworkable process.

The claims and counter claims between ideologically opposite groups, inducfing political parties continued, until the current Federal Coalition sought to break the deadlock and to provide a catalyst in the form of the Wik Amendments and the 10 point plan.

A brave new world beckoned and after Senator Harratfine's change of heart the legislation was put in place Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and hoped to get on with their legitimate business.

Politics, which have doomed native title from the outset again raised its ugly head, with the Federal Labor Party unable to accept the umpire's decisions. They grasped any straw to prove that they weren't really beaten.

They managed to find a way of continuing to "spoir irrespective of the industry's interest's. They began to use, in the Parliament, the power provided in the Native Title Act under the Wik Amendments, to review State legislation.

This devolution process allows the States and Territories to manage native title and the other regulatory systems under State legislation in a simultaneous way, free of the Commonwealth system.

The catch - State legislation has to comply with the Federal legislation and the Attorney-General has to sign of in that regard prior to submitting State legislation to the Federal Parliament. A fail-safe mechanism you might say. Not so. The F ederal Labor Party could not care less what the Attorney-General finds, they just see the political power available to them in the Senate as a means of frustrating the process.

The outcome so far - failed Northern Territory legislation, thrown out because of political reasons, the Queensland legislation was of course approved but it was gutted and has merely provided an unworkable State system - real progress!! The Western Australian legislation which the Attorney-General has approved as complying with the Federal Act will meanwhile go to the Parliament. The Labor Party has prejudged that legislation and have promised to throw it out at some future time.

Even blind Freddy can see the problem thread running through rtafive title. It is not about equity for indigenous Australians. It is not about a fair go. It is not about reconciliation. It is about political advantage. It is very dear that the Federal Labor Party has convinced itself there is an electoral advantage in spoiling Irrespective of the nghts and wrongs they will use whatever political tools available to them to stop progress on the integration of native title with commeroe and the community After all why would they give up such a marvelous political football

It is about time that the industry let Mr Beaztey and his Federal cohorts know that their actions are unacceptable, that they should face reality and that their actions are not in the national interest. Ideology goes just so far, after that it becomes nothing more than a sad travesty of what might have been.

Index

A

Allen, Brian 275

Amalfi Restaurant 337

Amax Iron Ore Corporation 305

Anderson, Bob 272

Angell, Norman 168

Anthony, Doug 294

Apex Club 265

Archer, John 272

Atkinson, Les 280

Ausdrill 261

Australian Mining Hall of Fame 278

Australian Prospectors & Miners Hall of Fame 204, 278

B

Ballarat 60, 238, 305, 307, 308, 313, 314, 333, 334 Ballinger, Terry 306 Balzano, James 205, 308 Barr, Jack & Bill 366 Batty, Phil 272 Baxter, Bob 307 Beaconsfield 63 Beaten, Mary 241 Bendigo 32 Bemasocchi, Mary 45 Berven, Bob 347 Bewick Moreing 319, 320, 327 Big Bell 280 Blackboy Hill 102 Blaikie 63 Blair, Mary 73 Blight, David 277 Bone, Richard 45

Boulder 231 Boulder Block Hotel 251 Boulder Perserverance 212 Bowen, Lionel 330 Bowie, Jack 67, 68 Boyland, Jack 321, 322 Bracegirdle, Barry 277 Brand, David 269, 271 Bridge, Peter 315 Bright, Graham 69 British Arms 268, 269, 271 Broken Hill 334 Brodie-Hall, Sir Laurence 110, 261, 391 Broken Hill 180,307,314,316, 317, 320, 333, 334 Browne, Harry 320, 321 Bryson, “Nabs” 233 Bullard, Stan iii Buller, Gordon 344, 346 Bullo, Tony & Vic 235 Bulong 364, 365 Bunning, Gavin 269, 422 Bunting, John 307 Bums, Robert 56

C

Calder, Ian 306 Cam & Motor Mine 315 Campion, Sir William 240 Canyon Resources Pty Ltd 306 Carroll, Judy iii Cataby Mineral Sands 306 Chamber of Mines 218 Christie, Jack 131, 132 Churchill, Winston 312

Clay, General Lucius 177 Cleghom, Rosalie 45 Cleverly, Bill 277 Compton, George 3, 278, 305, 308

Compton, George Spencer 74 Coolgardie 179, 205, 219, 271, 274

Coolgardie Safe 38 Cornwall Hotel 337, 343 Court, The Hon. C.W. (later Sir Charles) 374 CRA Limited 345 Croesus Mining NL 203,310 Croesus Street 29, 45 Crompton Parkinson 283 Cumming, Denis 316 Cunningham, Robyn 381

D

Davidson, H W 243 Davies, Harry 286, 290 Daws, CP (“Digger”) 311 Daws, Doug 384 Daylesford 19, 31, 32, 45 de Bernales, Claude 5, 179 DeGrey Mining Ltd 350 De-regulation 295, 297 Delta Gold NL 306 Denmark 191 Ding Bat Flats 337 Dixon, Bob 272 Doreen 150, 151 Dorsett, Norman ‘Nobby’ 202 Dorsett, Ted 203 Dufour, Guy 202 Dunn, Peter 253, 257

E

Economic freedom 301 Economic Impact Statement 297 Ellery, Ted 200,422 Eltin 261,264 Engelbrecht, Peter 268 Erhard, Ludwig 176, 177 Esperance 200 Eureka Stockade 332 Exchange Hotel 348 Expo 179, 204, 208, 209, 237, 285

F

Ferdinand, Franz 95 Finlayson, Ray 293, 361 Fisher, George 331 Fitzgerald, Mike 381 Flanagan, James 35 Florrie 32 Forster, Rolf 307 Foundation for Economic Education Inc. 329 Friedman, Milton 177 Frost, Robert 318 Fryer-Smith, Dick 3 Fryer-Smith, Tony 103 Furgler, Claudia 83

G

Gardiner, Edward 5 Gardner Denver 67 Gellatly, David 306 Gentilli, Joseph 87 Geometals NL 305 Geopeko 302, 304, 306 George, Ken 200 Gold Boom 317

Golden Crown Mine

204, 307, 322, 323 Golden Destiny 337 Golden Horseshoe 315, 327 Golden Valley Minerals NL 305 Goldrush Motel 202 Goodyear 63 Grant, Alex 133 Grant, Les 346 Great Boulder 22 Green, Frank 268, 271,422 Grey, Tony 332 Guccione, Eugene 299 Gundockerta 306 Guy Fawkes 71, 72

H

H.H. Schlapp 333 Halligan, Bob iii Hamel

109, 131, 143, 146, 150, 155 Hamilton, Richard 218 Hampton Hill Station 365 Hampton Trust Limited 305 Hancock and Wright 260, 261 Hancock, Lang 260, 261, 294 Hanna, Julian 307 Hannans Club 28, 321 Hannan’s North 204 Harding, Warren 172 Harmalin, Len 315 Hartley, Richard 318, 319 Harvey, Marjorie 179 Hazlett, Tom 178 Hayek, F.A. 301 Henderson, Laurel 51 Hesperian Press 315 Hicks, Mona 63

Higgs, Robert 172 Hindenberg 158 Hitler, Adolf

95, 96, 170, 173, 174 Hobson, Tim 269 Holroyd, Arthur 205 Homewood, Jack 133 Hood, C.M. “Robin” 263 Hoover, Herbert (President)

179, 320,321,322,323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328,

329, 330 Hornberger, Jacob G 169 Horseshoe 22 Hoyes, Doreen 307 Hughes, Billy 142

I

International Nickel (INCO)

209, 244, 268, 274,

286, 287, 288, 290, 325, 326 Ivanhoe 281 Ivey, Michael 385

J

J.S. Reid 333 Jaffrey 63

Jaycees 265, 266, 268, 278 Jess 19,24, 29, 31, 36, 43, 52 Johns, N.H. (Norm) 311 Johnson, Amy 179 Jones, Odwyn 293 Jordan, “Bluey” 336

K

Kalgoorlie Chamber of Commerce 294, 296, 298 Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines 315 Kalgoorlie Mining Associates 280

Kalgoorlie Primary School 51 Kalgoorlie Southern Gold Mines NL 344 Kambalda 265, 285 Kanowna 47, 204, 205, 302, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 313, 315, 317, 333 Kealley, Ian 277 Keating, Paul 326 Kennan, George 170 Keogh, Aidan 54 Keogh, Con 54, 285 Keogh, Edith 31,54 Keogh, Jim 54, 395, 422 Keogh, Ted 54 Keogh, Wayne 54 Kennedy, Kett 314 Keynesian 177, 178 King Battery 315 King, Norma

214, 219, 323, 330 Kinnear, Miss 31, 49 Kiruna Truck 379 Kitson, Harry 383 Kostic, Jack 72 Krause, Barry 286, 288

L

Lake View and Star 280 Langford, Jim 257, 344 Latchford, Norma 315

Layton & Associates 305 Lazarus, Marjorie 45 Lee-Acme 284, 285 Lewis, Essington 331 Lindmm, Walter 241 Linton & Reeves 364 Long, Father 315, 317 Longmore, Cyril 408 Louthean, Ross iii, 384 Lord Keynes 350

M

MacDonald, Alex 55 Manners, Bill 336 Manners, Craig 53, 385 Manners, Frances 19 Manners, Jack 374 Manners, Jayni iii Manners, Jenny iii, 334, 307, 308, 330, 334 Manners, Sarah 53, 383 Manners, Scott 53, 387 Manners, W.G. 3 Manners & Co W.G. 283 Mannkal Mining 305 Mannwest Group 349, 350 Marshall, Walter 68 Marwick, Bill 378 Martin, Thomas J. J.P. 5 Martinoli, Don Adelio 85 Matheson, Bob 44 Matthew, John 243 Mawby, Ivy 73 Mawby, Maurice 331 Mayday North 306 McCabe, Vic 266 McDermott, Jack 315 McKay, Rt Rev. Fred 412 Mclnemey, Paul 109, 110

McKenzie, Hamish 72, 76 McLennan, Lyn 381 McLeod, Norman 52 McMahon, Billy 324 McSweeney, Dawn 280 McSweeney, John 280 Menzies, Rt.Hon. R.G. 5 Meyers, Fred 179, 238 Midwood, Ted 63 Mills, Roy 412 Millward, Liz 277 Mine Safety Appliances 69, 71 Minimum Wage Law 325 Mintaro Slate & Flagstone Ltd 305

Mistilis, Arthur 273 Maryanski, Modest 320 Moffat, Ian 376 Moffat, Jill 277 Montefiore, A.E. “Monty” 230 Moore, Pam 277 Morrow, George 346 Mount Margaret 56 Moyle, Val 381 Mt Charlotte 79 Mt Monger 306 Museum of the Goldfields 179, 265, 278

N

Nash, George

322, 327, 329, 330 Native Title Act 303, 424 Nesbit, Roy 215 Newmont Aust Pty Ltd 305 Nicholson, Ross 272 Nickel Boom

202, 263, 283, 286, 317, 322

Northland Minerals Ltd 305, 306 Noyes Bros. 238, 283

O

O’Brien, James 327 Oldham 283

Otway, Jack & Brian 305 P

Paddington 20 Palace Hotel 202 Parbo, Sir Arvi 261 Parry, Frank 42 Perron, Stan

249, 257, 260, 261 Personal Liberty 301 Pilpel, Percy 268 Polar Bear 306 Pom Pom 77 Powell, Bill 240

Q

Quartermaine, Keith 277 Quartermaine, Murray 83

R

Raad, Tawfik 49

Raico, Ralph 170

Ralph, Gilbert 266, 269, 271

Radio Gold Mine 366

Ranford, Lee 204

Readers Digest 299

Red Baron 3,317

Reed, David 392

Reed, Lawrence 324

Robinson, W.S. 331

Roepke, Wilhelm 175, 176 Rogers, Bert 285 Rogers, Bob 385 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 96, 324 Rothbard, Murray 324, 325 Royal Flying Doctor Service 229 Ruskin 59

S

Sanders, Kevin 11 Santayana, George 313 Sanders, Agnes 63 Schenk 56 Schramm 287, 290 Sclanders, Kevin 11 Seaton, Mary 76 Shakespeare 245 Shiel 50

Simpson, Ray 241 Smith, Adam 219 Smith, Bruce 65 So I Headed West

307, 318, 331, 332 Sonogno 82 Sons of Gwalia

315, 320, 321, 327 Soviet Union 316 Spottiswood, Irene 266 St. Andrew 62, 63, 72, 73 Stanford University 320, 322, 323 Stevens, Ada

29, 31, 33, 36, 43, 52 Stevens, Alan

27, 31, 34, 36, 39, 43, 44, 52 Stevens, Bob 79 Stevens, David 29, 31 Stevens, Jessie 18

Stevens, Jim 19 Stevens, Nancy 19, 27, 31 Stevens, Ted 24,31,52 Stevenson, Adlai 249 Sturts Meadows Prospecting Syndicate NL 305 Sundowner Minerals NL 305 Sykes, Trevor “Pierpont” 327 Sztermula, John 318 Szwedzicki, Tad 249

T

Taggart, Jack 30 Tamo, Piero 87, 90 Tamo, Pietro 83, 85, 87, 90 Tamo, Stephen 85 Tarrawingee 180 Tarrawingee Lime and Flux Company 333 Terrell, John 204 The Westport Jazz Band 272 Thiess 260 Thomas, Bill 224 Thomson, Tess 277 Thoreau, Henry David 11,284, 307 Ticino 83 Tonkin, John 45 Trafalgar 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 40, 42, 43, 46, 48, 49, 52 Trythall, Bill 240 Turner, Ben 51 Turner, Rene 51 Twist, Ray 307

U

Ulyatt, Chris iii

Unger, Wally 374 Uren, Malcolm 271

V

Vanderspuy, Peter 335 Venn, Hon H W 205 Verzasca 83 Victoria Park 29 Villers-Bretonneux 131, 139 Von Mises 324 von Richthofen, Baron 3 (see also Red Baron

W

Walden 11 Walmsley, West 307 Ware 50 Warlow, C 164 Warman, Charles 261 Webb, Martyn & Audrey 337 Webster, Syd 283, 285 Welcome Stranger Mining Co NL 306 Western Mining Corporation 257, 266, 285, 286 White House 241, 323 Whitlam , Gough 324 Wilhelm II, Kaiser 95

Willets 65

Wilson, Woodrow 170 Woolfe, Frank

142, 146, 147, 154 Woosnam, Bill 253 Wright, Marjory 51 Wright, Peter 260, 261

KANOWNA'S BARROWMAN

JAMES BALZAN0

In editing and publishing James Baizano's diaries and notes," George Comnton ami Ron Manners have rendered a great serv ice to the people of the Gokt fields, for in this hook yon will read in the words written by this man nearly 100 years ago what We was actually like on the goldfields of Western Australia, James Baizano, alias "The Barrowtnan", was bom in Italy and was something of a world traveller, eventually coming to Western Australia via the Eastern Slates and New Zealand, in 1895-Prospecting for his living, as did so many of the men who came to the West fallowing the collapse of the Eastern Australian Land Boom in 1891 and the subsequent failure of a great many banks in 1893, James paid eighty pounds to move a fern of stores from Coolgardie to Darioi In doing so he gambled the last of his capital on making a "strike'' at Dariot James Baizano gambled and lost because he didn't unearth one grain of gold at Dariot, which was about 300 miles east erf Cue and 300 miles north of Coolgardie, and he found himself forced to move on to survive, with just five shillings and eighipence m his pocket, a meagre supply of stores and even tess water.

fames Baizano builrtum-seif a wheelbarrow. A pretty rough and ready sort of a wheelbarrow he admits himself, with the materials that were to hand. With his worldly possessions on his wheelbarrow' lames Baizano set off to walk the 300 odd mites that eventually brought him to the fledgling settlement of

White feather, later to become Kanowna

Baizano not only n*corded his trek to survival but continued on at Kanowna and kept valuable records of the people, the mines and the companies until he died in the KalgoorfteMospifed at the age of 88 in the year 1948.

The fathers of Ron Manners and George Compton both knew' James Baizano and encouraged ham to complete his first-hand observations of the beginning of one of the world s major mining regions, and the sons, Ron and George, have combined their efforts to publish these observations in this, our Centenary year.

GOLDFIELDS MAGAZINE. Thursday September 9. 1993

James Balzano's first-hand account spotlights Goldfields individuals and their families. They created a life for themselves out of virtually nothing but tragedy, challenge and humor.

Read Baiiano’s views on :

• Who discovered Kalgoorlie?

« The ancestors of so many well-known Australian families

• The lonely graves

• The Pitman and Walsh murders

• The Anketell and Burrup Murders,

» * * * * * * * *

Why was Mrs Burgon distressed on finding a neatly wrapped head in her cabin?

***** * * * *

Contains a most detailed index of family names.

***** ****

"James Balzano will wheel you through a remarkable phase of Western Australia's gold mining history. That fabulous pioneering era lacked people with the time to pea their observations, including opinions and frank observations suoh as his view of Paddy Harman - a fer cry from the adulation and image building of bis role in finding the gold that led to the great Kalgoorlie rush.

Co-authors Ron Manners and George Compton deserve credit for their painstaking woiic in producing this work which should be read by arty Australians of all ages. Ross Louthean, Managing Editor

J/ANOWNAS

IX^BARROWMAN —JAMES BALZANO—

The Barltj History of Kalgoorlie's Gold rushes

Available from your favorite book store or direct from:

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History is best written by someone who was there when it happened.

Unlike many of the early pioneers of those turbulent times, “WXJ.M.” was asked to write it all down.

The result is a "personal visit’' to die humble beginnings of mining in Aistralia, and a “tow” through the emergence of important mining centres at Ballarat. Broken Hill, Kanowna and Kalgoorlie.

Originally intended for family calculation, now, almost 70 yeas later, it warrants a far wider reading.

• Actually being with Father Long a Kanowna, “WG.M.” has now solved the mystery surrounding the often-told story of Father Long's “Sacred Nugget”.

• He keenly observes the formative stages of the Labor Party and explains its rapid rise to power “a least 20 years earlier than would have been the case by natural evolution".

• We discover that, a century later, the rules of investing have not changed; as shown in Chapter 19, Share Sharks And How They Do it.

• He writes of Kalgootiie’s already colorful image being enhanced when 600 fully armed men marched on the mines at 3 o’clock in the morning during the 1918 riots.

• Perhaps Lizzie’s descendants will appreciate the poem “WjG.M.” dedicated to her while they travelled together on the S.S. “Barcoo”, to Western Australia in 1895.

This is not a history' book, it is the story of one mu's battles, successes and failures, told exactly as it happened, and as such becomes essential reading for everyone interested in Australia - in how our people and country have developed.

"What was life like on the Goldfields in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century? For Croesus Mining chief Ron Manners, the answers lie in his grandfather's memoirs written on the back of stockbrokers' pads. William George Manners moved from Ballarat to Broken Hill to Kanowna and finally to Kalgoorlie where he became instrumental in designing many early mining plants, such as the King Batter)', Sons of Gwalia, North End (Hannan's North) and the Golden Horseshoe.

After four years and dozens of drafts the book is at the printers ready for release for Kalgoorlie's Centenary."

"Kalgoorlie Miner" February 19 '92

"New' book will lift lid on old Goldfields secrets."

"The West" March 17 *92

"Very few mining men of that era wrote down their own life history. W.G. Manners’ story is interesting partly because he was a typical engineer, with as many ups as downs. His chapters catch something of the hardship and the excitement of early Broken Hill and the roaring days of Kanowna and Kalgoorlie. It’s good that his story, after two thirds of a century, is at last in print,"

Professor Geoffrey Blainey March 9 *92

"Concise records of the past have produced some invaluable histories. Historians and all Australians should thank W.G. Manners for putting together his valuable recollections and to his grandson Ron Manners for painstakingly collating them into book form. To me this book is as valuable as Carnegie's "Spinifex and Sand."

Ross Louthean, Managing Editor    7 May '92

{j&aflarat to QiroAai Co- fflarioama,, to-ffla/poorfe

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CHIIF KNMMUl mmam

Lessons in Free-Enterprise for Australia

a booklet containing the two part address to the jointly sponsored MacArthur Club - Ernst & Young Luncheon

February 1994

Ron Manners and Ron Kitching,

the two Ronnies of the mining scene, have authored numerous papers on mining and economics. The last time they appeared in concert was in Moscow when these two irrepressible miners played their part in undermining that Wall - digging around and planting the dynamite of ideas in this huge resource of untapped human potential which has been locked away for so long. Who knows what they have inspired with this address to the Brisbane based resources sector luncheon! This should be read and digested by every politician, every aspiring politician and every voter with even the slightest interest in Australia’s economic future. It is of particular interest to those directly involved in the mining industry.

From all accounts, resource rich South America is coming out of the economic doldrums at an astounding rate, and will leave Australia wondering what happened. There are vital lessons to be learned from what is happening in South America today.

“Gold ’n Dollars, the Chile - Kalgoorlie connection” is guaranteed to inform and entertain.

... John McRobert CopyRight Publishing Company Available @ $8, including GST & postage Mannwest Pty Ltd 19-25 Richardson Street, West Perth, WA, 6005

Please forward copies of Gold ’n Dollars for which I enclose a cheque for S

Name

Address .......................................................................

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¹

I had always been impressed by my maternal grandfather’s clarinet playing prowess. Refer “And the Sausages Cheered! ” P. 79

²

See farther reference to this incident in the Marjorie Harvey interview on P.233

³

Full particulars of the circumstances of the mass departure are contained in The Settlement of Swiss Ticino Immigrants in Australia by Joseph Gentilli, University of Western Australia, 1988. (It also contains details of surviving Tamo family members in southern Switzerland, mentioning the towns in which they still live.)

⁴

Pietro’s comments agree with other similar letters in Joseph Gentilli, op. cit., page 13 reads. "Socio-economic conditions in Ticino had greatly improved, particularly after the liberation of neighbouring Lombardy in 1859, but a comparison of our Tables 1 and 6 shows that emigration to California continued while emigration to Australia practically ceased (except for the few cases discussed above) and the life styles of Ticinesi in the two areas were rapidly diverging. Cheda (1976) clearly mentions that some very unfavourable reports had been received in Ticino from the migrants in Australia. Like their counterparts who had gone to California at about the same time, they had come as prospectors, but unlike the same counterparts they had found the change to dairy farming and/or dairying barely enough for subsistence. ”

⁵

J G Homberger 1995, President of The Future of Freedom Foundation in Repatriation-the Dark Side of World War II. The Future of Freedom Foundation 11350 Random Hills Road Suite 800 Fairfax Virginia 22030 USA. www. fff.ors

⁶

A. Hitler, “Mein Kampf’ Houghton Mijfm, Boston, 1990

⁷

Paul Mclnemey later became a senior executive of W.M.C. following his successful business career as Manager ofSKF Ball Bearing Co. and M.D. of his own firm, R.P. Mclnemey & Co. Pty Ltd (see photo and story)

⁸

[See later entry 18/7/18 C. Ed.]

⁹

Beaucoup Hock = good wine.

¹⁰

Doreen from Denmark was a close friend of Chas.

¹¹

Founder of The Future of Freedom Foundation 11350 Random Hills Road, Suite 800, Fairfax Virginia, 22030, USA. Homberger (1995) together with other economic commentators has produced a series of articles examining both World Wars and the relevant responsible defects in American foreign policy.

¹²

This is a point to ponder as Australians consider moves towards becoming a republic. The debate should focus on the importance of Australia having a very specific “limited government" constitution, once again limiting governments to a few, vital and specific roles, with controls to prevent them from over-stepping these boundaries.

¹³

Norma King in "The Kalgoorlie Miner”, July 4, 1980

¹⁴

“The West”, Jan. 6. 1988

¹⁵

ibid

¹⁶

See “The Noble Pickle ”, p.243

¹⁷

See also the reference to this incident in Nancy Manners “Life on the Mining Lease ” on P. 71

¹⁸

A Mabo and Native Title background document is contained in Appendix III.

¹⁹

"Freeman” magazine July 1983 (P.447), the Foundation for Economic Education Inc., http:// www.fee.org, Irvington on Hudson New York, USA.