With part of the proceeds from the sale of Penella, we bought a car and caravan and set off for Brisbane to take up my new job. The firm produced classified business directories for the whole of Australia. they claimed to list every one in every kind of business. Listing in the directories was free. All country directories were distributed free in fairly large quantities. Capital city directories were free to advertisers in them, but were sold to anyone else who wanted them. The production of the country books was financed entirely by the sale of advertising space in them. The capital city books also depended largely on the sale of advertising space. New and supposedly up to date editions of all directories were issued annually.

The annual compiling was done by allotting territories to individual reps. For each territory there was a set of loose leaf compiling books in which were listed all the businesses found in that territory in the previous year. Each page contained the name of one business only, with full details of name, address and the classifications under which it was to be listed in the directory. Also in the books were copies of all the previous year's advertising contracts, made out in the form of renewal orders.

The work of the rep was essentially simple. He (or she) was supposed to call on every business listed, check all details on the relevant compiling slip and amend appropriately if there were any changes. If no changes were found, the business had closed down or disappeared, the rep was supposed to write 'DELETE' right across the page. When making these calls existing advertisers were to be canvassed for renewals and the rep was expected to try to sell space to those who were not already advertisers. The rep was also expected to find and list any new businesses which had started up or moved into the territory during the past year. On the assumption that reps were doing their jobs honestly, the firm used to publicly claim that its directories were accurate and comprehensive.

Remuneration for the reps was entirely by commissions on the sales of advertising space and the sales of the firm's products, such as street directories, maps and capital city business directories. This was something quite new to me. When working in the past, I had always had the security of fixed wage or salary. Henceforth, my earnings were going to depend entirely on my ability as a salesman. However, I felt I had a good product to offer and was not too apprehensive.

The Brisbane 'season' was nearing its end when I joined the firm. I first had to spend a few days in the office learning about the job and the paper work associated with it. One of the things I had to decide before starting out in my first territory was how to go about selling advertising space to the businessmen on whom I would be calling. The firm's Sydney office had provided us with a manual on how to do this. It was in the form of a scripted dialogue which seemed so absurd to me that I never seriously considered trying it. I decided that any businessman would know whether he wanted to advertise, or not, and that my approach to the subject should be simple and direct. After going through the compiling with him, and ensuring that it was comprehensive and correct, I would simply ask if he wished to advertise in the next issue of the directory. If he said "No", that would be the end of the matter. If he said "Yes", or simply expressed interest, I would show him what we had to offer. I knew that any advertiser would want to know how many copies of the directory would be published and who would get them, so I must always be armed with that information. Above all, I must always be truthful and honest in my sales pitch. This became my standard selling method and it worked well.

When I was sent out to 'do' my first territory, one of the poorer ones, I quickly found I had nothing to worry about as far as selling ability and earnings were concerned. In my first week, I earned over œ37, at a time when œ20 was considered to be a reasonably satisfactory wage, and I increased the sales in the area by a considerable amount. However, what I discovered about the compiling really shocked me. On my very first call, I found that the business listed at that address had ceased to exist 15 years before. In all that time, a succession of reps had, by initialling and dating the compiling slip, certified that they had called and checked it each year and found the details unchanged. I found many more like that in the territory and I also found many 'new' businesses which had been in the area for many years, but had never been called on or listed in the directory.

When the Brisbane 'season' ended, I was sent to Townsville, the biggest provincial city in Queensland and was appalled at what I found there. In round figures, I found that one third of the businesses listed in the directory were not in Townsville; one third of the businesses in the city were not in the directory, and the listings of those in the directory contained many inexcusable errors. Among the businesses which had been omitted entirely were some of the oldest and biggest in the city, with prominent shops or offices in the heart of the business centre.

Over and over again, as I made my calls and introduced myself as the firm's rep doing the compiling for next year's directory, I was asked blankly, "What's that?", or heard the directory referred to as "that useless bloody thing, not worth the paper its printed on". It was very embarrassing and humiliating and my only defence was to reply, "Yes, I know. That is why I am here", implying that the next directory would be very much improved.

I combed out the city meticulously in a period of about four months, finding and wiring in hundreds of new names, as well as deleting hundreds of non-existent ones. Throughout the campaign, I made no attempt to deny or excuse the disgraceful state of the current directory. I admitted it whenever it was mentioned, and either implied, or said outright, that the next book would be accurate and, despite the defects in the current directory, managed to increase the amount of business written by fifty-one per cent.

After Townsville, I did several country directories in south western Queensland. In all of these, I found the directories and compiling books in much the same state as in Townsville. In each case, I did what was necessary to put things right and I managed to increase business by an average of over thirty-five per cent.

It did not take long to discover the reason for the shocking state of the country directories. Most reps had permanent homes in Brisbane. When working in the country, they were constantly on the move and were faced with the heavy expense of living in hotels and motels and paying for casual meals without there being any comparable decrease in the cost of running the permanent home. The only offsets to this increased expenditure were slightly increased commission rates and a derisory all purpose allowance of two dollars a week. Reps therefore felt compelled to skimp the compiling job in order to keep up an adequate earning rate, and this had become standard practice, even in the capital city. The firm was well aware of this, but was either unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

I was not affected by such considerations. Dorrie and I lived permanently in our caravan and travelled wherever the job necessitated. I was never away from home and our living expenses hardly varied as we moved from place to place. I also had my RAF pension in addition to whatever I could earn on the job. I was, therefore, not under any pressure to skimp the compiling in order to keep up my earning rate. It took me two years to get the directories in my country territories into proper shape. In Townsville, it took five years for the directory to live down its old bad reputation. After that, it quickly became much sought after each year. I began to sell ever increasing numbers through newsagents, despite the also ever growing free distribution, and sales of advertising space grew steadily each year. As the revenue of the book increased, I was able to persuade the firm to introduce new features into it, such as improved type faces for certain types of entries, spot colour in advertisements, the insertion of telephone numbers against all names instead of those of advertisers only and finally, an alphabetical list of all the names in the book in addition to the classified listings, so that the book could be used as a business only phone book. This last was an idea I got from Braby's directory for Durban when Dorrie and I visited South Africa in 1973.

Besides its business directories, the firm published annual editions of the street maps of the larger towns. These were published in sheet map form and also cut up into pages and inserted in the relevant business directories. When I first went to Townsville, the town map was in much the same state as the business directory. It was not part of a rep's job to check town maps, but once I had got the directory compiling properly organised I undertook the job of eliminating the many errors in the map and then of bringing it up to date and keeping it so. This paid off handsomely by greatly increasing the demand for both the directory and the map, and increasing the revenue from both. Eventually, I was able to persuade the firm to print the sheet map in four colours instead of one. This enabled us to include more information on it, such as suburban boundaries. That item was particularly valuable as there was enormous confusion amongst all inhabitants about those boundaries, which had never before been shown on any map. The confusion was caused, and certainly compounded, by such factors as that the Hermit Park post office, primary school and kindergarten were all in the suburb of Hyde Park; the Currajong post office was in Gulliver, the Pimlico High School was in Gulliver; the area known as The Rising Sun was generally believed to be a suburb but was, in fact, parts of three different suburbs; and so on. Once the suburban boundary lines appeared on the maps, all this confusion was resolved.

I continued the annual cycle of Brisbane in the summer and autumn, North Queensland in the winter and South Queensland country in the spring until 1973. My North Queensland territories always included Townsville, and sometimes Ingham and Innisfail. In South Queensland, my territories extended from Tambo, Injune and Taroom in the north, to Cunnamulla, Dirranbandi, Goondiwindi and Texas, along the New South Wales border. Later, I did other areas including Ipswich, Redcliffe, Bribie Island, Maryborough - Hervey Bay and Warwick - Stanthorpe. One year, I did Canberra north of Lake Burley Griffin, but always I returned to Townsville in the winter.

As Townsville continued to grow, so did the directory, in both size and reputation. Head office in Sydney began showing it to the managers of all other state branches as a model of what could be achieved simply by really doing what all reps were supposed to do. I gradually dropped all other territories and, for several years spent the winter and spring in that city and the rest of the year wherever we felt like going, doing whatever we felt like doing.

By 1981, Townsville had grown so much that it took me almost seven months to complete the compiling, even though I had already been relieved of all map revision work. It had become too big for one representative to cope with. A second representative, resident in Townsville, was appointed for the 1982 campaign. That this would eventually become necessary had long been foreseen and I had told the firm that, when it happened, I would cheerfully do everything necessary to initiate the new rep for the first year but, after that I would not want to work in Townsville any more. I did what I had promised and, between us, the new rep and I had a hugely successful campaign, increasing business by just over $10,000.

In 1983, I was asked to do the Redcliffe and Rockhampton directories. I had last done the Redcliffe book seven years previously. Since then, it had been the exclusive territory of a rep who we all believed to be extremely conscientious about compiling. I was therefore astonished to find that much of the territory had not been checked at all since my last visit. Partly because of this, the directory had fallen into disrepute and I was unable to avoid some loss of business.

Not unexpectedly, for I knew well the working methods of the rep who had been doing the territory for the past eighteen years, I found that Rockhampton compiling was in a chaotic state; but I was dismayed and saddened when I discovered that many advertising clients had been misled into believing that the directory was distributed free to all householders in the city. In fact, it went to less than a quarter of them. When I was questioned about this by clients and told them the truth, many of them declined to renew their advertisements and the result was a nett loss of over $4,000 worth of business for the campaign.

That was the end of my work with UBD, and the end of my working life. I finished in February, 1984, just one month short of 20 years since I had joined. It had been an enjoyable period for both Dorrie and me. My earnings plus my RAF pension had enabled us to spend twenty years living the kind of nomadic life we liked, and me to follow an occupation which was both pleasant and challenging, without feeling that I was under any economic pressure. We made lasting friends, mainly in Townsville, and we saw a great deal of outback Queensland. We were able to buy a new and better caravan after five years and have a new car every three or four years.

Not all of that double decade had been taken up with work. One of the nice things about working UBD was that one could take time out for any purpose, even for a change of work, and be welcomed back whenever one was ready to return.

We were able to visit our children in South Africa, England, France and Canada in 1973. On that visit, we were also able to visit Commandant Prigent and his charming wife, who had been so wonderfully kind to us in Casablanca almost fifteen years earlier, and who were then living in retirement at Le Havre. In 1978, we were again able to visit our children in South Africa, Britain and Canada, making a round the world trip of it that time.

At the end of the 1974 campaign, I felt the need for some hard physical work, so, after spending Christmas with Jacqueline and her family at Frankston, in Victoria, Dorrie and I did a season of fruit picking at Shepparton, picking pears, apples and peaches. I got my hard physical work all right, and felt very much better for it. Dorrie took it all in her stride and stood up to the heat and hard work better than I did, at first. We were very slow pickers and made little more than subsistence money, but we enjoyed the interlude. The last farmer for whom we worked, and for whom we had worked longest, begged us to come back to him in the following year, and offered us attractive caravan parking and facilities if we would do so.

* * *

On a day in July, 1969, I hired a television set in the morning and spent the rest of the day watching man's first landing on the moon. As I sat enthralled, I could not help wondering which was the greater miracle, that man was making his first ever landing outside his own planet, or that I could sit in our caravan at Townsville and actually watch him do it.

* * *

I finished the 1973 Townsville campaign just before Christmas, but we were unable to leave until Boxing Day because of road flooding in the wake of a cyclone which crossed the coast about Ayr on 19^th December. We got to Sarina Beach, south of Mackay, that night, but had to wait there for another five days for the road to Rockhampton to open. At Rockhampton, we were delayed another day by floods, and had to drive for miles through water up to a foot deep to reach Maryborough on 2^nd January and Brisbane the following day, where we went, as usual, into the Newmarket Gardens caravan park. Two days later, Dorrie tripped over an eye bolt on a vacant concrete parking slab and broke her right arm up near the shoulder. She had to keep her arm in a sling for the next three weeks or so, but managed to cope splendidly with all that happened to us in that period.

On 21^st January, we moved to Scarborough, a suburb of Redcliffe, to begin work on the Redcliffe directory. We went into the Scarborough caravan park on the shore of Moreton Bay, and onto a site almost on the water's edge. At 0200 hrs on the 24^th, we were awakened by strong winds with severe gusts. I turned on the radio and quickly learnt that a cyclone named Wanda was bearing down on us and we could expect heavy rain and strengthening easterly winds, which would quickly make out site untenable. We turned out, pulled down our awning and packed up, ready to move, Dorrie helping valiantly despite her injured arm.

A special weather forecast at ll00 hrs made it clear that Wanda would cross the coast in the Brisbane area, so we moved back to the Newmarket Gardens caravan park. We knew that part of the park, which was on the bank of Enoggera Creek, was subject to flooding, but one part had recently been built up to a level well above the highest flood ever previously recorded. We put the caravan on the very highest point in this newly filled area and parked the car directly in front, on very slightly lower ground.

Heavy rain and strong wind continued all that day and night, with the Brisbane River and all tributary creeks rising quickly. Wanda crossed the coast on the morning of the 25^th and moved steadily inland. The weather bureau forecast that the rain would decrease to showers during the afternoon, and that flooding in the metropolitan area would reach its peak with the high tide early that afternoon. The caravan park was isolated and partly flooded for several hours in the middle of that day, but our site remained at least ten feet above the flood level.

The rain did not diminish during the afternoon, as forecast, but neither did it seem heavy enough to cause any worse flooding that we had already had. With a lower tide height, the next expected peak, at about 0200, did not seem to pose any threat to us, but we remained a bit anxious. That night, after sleeping for a while, we sat up playing cards, intending to sit up until the expected peak has passed. About midnight, I looked outside and was a bit surprised to see that the water was already slightly higher than the morning's peak level, but I was not very worried, as it was still about ten feet below us.

About half an hour later, I went to investigate some commotion outside and I stepped out into running water! All our high ground was already under water, which was rising fast. I called to Dorrie to grab our money and most readily available valuables and be ready to leave in minutes. I grabbed a bag, cut a couple of holes in it, unceremoniously stuffed Porgy, our cat, into it, and we waded to a nearby house, the only one we could reach without swimming. After seeing Dorrie and Porgy to safety, I waded back to the caravan to rescue a few more things. The water had already risen another foot or so. It was well up the side of the car, which was in danger of floating away, so I opened all its doors and let the water flow through it.

The flood peaked at about 0200, at which time the water was up to the windows of the car and had just entered the caravan, where it did no damage, but made a nasty mess. It then fell with extraordinary rapidity and an hour later was fifteen or twenty feet below its peak. While the general level of flooding in Brisbane was the worst ever, there was nothing about it comparable with the extraordinarily rapid rise and fall, nor the levels which were reached, along Enoggera Creek. No explanation of those two things was ever found. One can only assume that, in the midst of all the other rain, there must have been something in the nature of a cloudburst somewhere in the almost uninhabited upper parts of the creek's catchment area.

* * *

Early in 1966, we acquired a half grown cat named Porgy, who became a loving and much loved member of the family. We lost him ten years later when he suffered complete renal failure and we had to have him put to sleep. For the last several years of his life, he spent half of each year in the same caravan park in Townsville, where he became known to, and seemed to have some influence on, the other cat inhabitants. He had a peaceable nature and rarely had to fight to defend his territory. When challenged by a would-be invader, he would usually settle down peacefully on his belly and just look at the other cat, which would then simmer down and eventually back away. He was also able to wander all over the caravan park, apparently without generating any hostility from other cats as he passed through their territories.

After he was put to sleep, we took him back to the caravan where we laid him out in a specially prepared carton on the settee while I prepared a grave for him. During the afternoon, a strange, wild she cat, which we had not seen before, came to the caravan door and just stood for a few seconds, looking towards Porgy's coffin. She fled as soon as she saw us.

We buried Porgy deeply that night, in a little garden plot alongside our caravan. At dawn next morning, Dorrie and I were awakened by a strange sound outside our bedroom window. We looked out and saw the strange she cat bellied down with her side pressed close against Porgy's grave mound, making little purling sounds in her throat, just as if she were trying to comfort Porgy. After a minute or so, she got up and went away. At intervals throughout that day, several other cats came singly to the grave and just sat by it for a while as if in silent communication with Porgy, then went quietly away again. None of them ever tried to disturb the freshly turned, loose, sandy soil of the grave mound.

Towards the end of the 1970's Dorrie and I began occasionally to discuss what we should do when I eventually retired from paid occupation. Much as we liked living in our caravan, and our nomadic life, I realised that it would not be satisfactory once I ceased working. I would then have to find some other congenial occupation to fill my time. My only hobby skills were in woodworking and gardening and for either of those pursuits we would need to become house dwellers again.

We started an intensive search for our future home in February, 1982. Our preferred area was anywhere within sight of Byron Bay on the North Coast of New South Wales, a beautifully scenic area with happy childhood associations for both of us. We were determined not to just bury ourselves in some suburban street without a view. Living comfortably in our caravan and being completely mobile, we were not under any pressure to settle. We could go anywhere, and afford to take as long as necessary, to find what we wanted.

We quickly found that the prices of houses and land in the whole of the coastal area from Ballina to Brisbane were far beyond our means. Our next choice was anywhere in or around Brisbane, so that Dorrie could be within reasonably easy reach of her two sisters, who lived at Everton Park, a northern suburb of that city. After inspecting scores of places in the suburbs and towns up to 150 kilometres around Brisbane, we eventually found what we wanted in the village of Kalbar, about 40 km south of Ipswich. It was a quarter acre (1200 square metres) block of land on a gently sloping hillside, with wide and beautiful views over the rich farmlands of the Fassifern Valley to the magnificent escarpment of the Great Dividing Range. It was on a paved street with all the usual town services readily accessible, and the price was right.

In some other respects, the block was about as unattractive as it could be. It had been an old farmyard. It was covered in a chest high jungle of grass, weeds, lantana, cockspur and asparagus fern. Buried under all this was a mass of abandoned farm machinery, roofing iron, wire netting, logs and much other assorted rubbish, but it also had on it an enormous custard apple tree and a mango tree. We got the vendor to clear the bulk of the rubbish and to slash most of the jungle and then signed a contract to purchase it. Search of title took about a month, after which we completed the purchase and the land became ours on 4^th June, 1982, my 74^th birthday.

Shortly after signing the contract to purchase, we moved the caravan to Boonah, the nearest town, and spent the next six weeks clearing and tidying up the block. While I grubbed out lantana, cockspur and asparagus fern, and cut down unwanted elm trees (no relations to the European elms) and grubbed out their roots, Dorrie raked up the slashings and we burned the lot in a series of great bonfires. We had to get a man with an earth-moving machine to come in and rip out some of the worst tree roots and remove a big concrete block which had been a base for either a pumping engine or a windmill. We got water laid on and planted paw paw, orange and mandarin trees. In the course of all this work, we met and struck up a friendship with our next door neighbours, Stan and Daffodil Harrison, who were just then moving into their newly built house. We quickly decided that we did not need any boundary fence between our properties and Stan and Daff have since proved themselves the best friends and neighbours anyone could wish for.

As I have already related, I did two more seasons with UBD before finally retiring in February, 1984. We then moved into a caravan park at Aratula, another village about ten kilometres from Kalbar and set about designing our future home and getting it built and furnished. We moved into it on 24^th February 1985, and have lived there, very happily, ever since, except for a round-the-world trip in 1987 to visit our children living in South Africa, England and Canada.

A very strange incident occurred during the Canadian part of this trip. Dorothy and John took us to visit friends living at New London, New Hampshire, in the United States. On the way, we stopped at a roadside picnic area in Vermont for a coffee and toilet break. At our Motel in New London that evening, Dorrie could not find her cosmetic purse. It was not in her handbag or the car, both of which were searched thoroughly. She thought she might have left it in the washroom where we had stopped in the morning, but could not remember having taken it there. Next morning, amidst a lot of discussion about the loss, Dorrie's handbag was thoroughly searched no less than four times by three of us, each acting independently. What we were looking for was no small, inconspicuous object which could easily be overlooked. Quite the contrary: it was eight inches long, four inches deep and about one and a half inches thick (20cm x 10cm x 3cm) and was made of bright pink cloth. When not in use, it was usually carried in the centre compartment of Dorrie's handbag. That compartment was searched several times that morning, by three different people, and the purse was not in it.

We then went on our way for a day of sightseeing and stopped for the next night at a motel on the shore Squam Lake. When we went to bed, Dorrie's handbag was left on a bench on the far side of the room from the door, which was locked. Early next morning I went to the handbag to get the first of the pills for Dorrie's daily medication. When I opened the bag, the pink cosmetic purse was sitting upright in the middle of the centre compartment, right on top of everything else in it!

Once we were settle into our new home I began to take an interest in our family history. Dad had told met that his father had come from Northern Ireland and his mother from Scotland. At first, all I wanted was to discover when, and from what places, they had come to Australia, but soon found that I wanted to know a lot more about the history of the family in Australia, and started on much wider and more systematic research. Also friends and family began urging me to write the story of our voyage from England in Penella, and our children wanted me to write my own life story. For this kind of work, a computer with word processing software would be almost a necessity. I bought one in September, 1987. The challenge of learning to use it, and of the subsequent writing and research, has been a great mental stimulus. That, and a certain amount of fairly hard physical work about the house and in the garden, have combined to keep me in good mental and physical health, for which I am very thankful.

Dorrie has not been so lucky in that respect. In 1986 she developed quite serious heart trouble, which was not expected to improve. In February, 1987, while under treatment for this, she suffered a mild stroke which, for a time, caused near blindness and terrifying hallucinations, but only very slight paralysis of some facial muscles, which quickly cleared up. She went into hospital on 2lst February. By the 25^th her condition was such as to cause fears for her life, but she then began to improve slowly and was discharged from hospital ten days later, still very weak, and with her heart still in bad condition. It seemed very doubtful that we would be able to proceed with the visit to our children overseas, for which arrangements had already been made, and which was due to begin at the end of the month. However, her doctor agreed that the disappointment of having to cancel it would probably do Dorrie more harm than the effort of travel, and advised that she should go as planned.

Although still very weak, Dorrie stood the long flight from Sydney to Johannesburg very well. Kate met us at Durban, next morning and Dorrie's recovery noticeably began from that moment. Within a month, she was walking for over a mile at a time, up and down quite steep hills. The improvement continued throughout our round of visits and, when we got back to Australia, her doctor could find no trace of the old heart trouble. He was quite astonished and described her recovery from that as miraculous. She has not, however, completely recovered from the effects of the stroke, which has left her memory still somewhat impaired. Apart from that, she is still well and is still, as she has always been, the centre of my life.