by David
Digger had little money left, having spent most of his share of what he and Max had gained by their entrepreneurial activity a few weeks earlier. Within a day or so, however, he received his pay from the British for his time with the War Graves Commission: an amazing £500. Why they paid him this much, Digger had no idea. He immediately went on a shopping spree, buying presents for all his relatives and friends at home.
At Sathorn House, he was interviewed by a new organisation, the Recovered Allied Prisoners of War and Internees (RAPWI), about his time at Kanchanaburi and Lop Buri. Again he tried to impress on the authorities the degradation and misery suffered by the romusha at the hands of the Japanese. He tried to explain how it had generally been much worse than the suffering of the POWs. He described the cholera ward and the death house at Kanchanaburi’s No. 1 Coolie Hospital, and he impressed on those interviewing him the numbers he had buried every day. But, as before, it felt as though he were talking to himself. The interviewers didn’t even have the courtesy to pretend to take notes.
About a week later, Digger reluctantly said goodbye to his new friend and was flown by DC-3 from Bangkok to Singapore. Unfortunately, the promise of a flight home had vanished, and in late October Digger found himself, along with about a hundred others, aboard HMHS (His Majesty’s Hospital Ship) Karoa, a 10,000-tonne rust-bucket that set sail for Australia from Keppel Harbour. Digger found an old mate, Vern Hansen, from his early AIF training days. The two spent a very boring twelve days at sea before docking at Fremantle in Western Australia.
Only a few hours later – and without any shore excursion – the Karoa set off again, bound this time for Albany. It turned out that the dockworkers at Fremantle had gone on strike. Vern and Digger were furious and had plenty to say about the difference between those who had volunteered for the war and those who had stayed at home. Once they arrived in Albany, however, they forgot all about the dockers.
At very short notice, the welcome that had been planned for them in Fremantle was transferred to Albany, thanks to that town’s mayor. And what a welcome it was.
The real reason for docking at a West Australian port was probably so that we could refuel, but apparently when the local people of Albany heard that we were a few hundred returning soldiers they put on a huge welcome for us. There was a brass band playing, flags flying and the mayor was there shaking hands and offering us the freedom of the city. We were there for the weekend.
It was a miracle that they could have organised all this in such a short time. The whole town appeared to be on the wharf, including hundreds of young and very friendly girls. We couldn’t wait to disembark. Vern and I had hardly descended the gangway when twin sisters grabbed us and hustled us away from the crowd and into the town. We spent the whole day with them. They showed us the city sights, took us to cafés and then to their home for dinner.
We had a terrific two days. It really felt good to be in Australia again. I took photographs with the camera I had acquired from the American at the Nakhon Nayok camp.
The welcome at Albany was in stark contrast to that at the port of Melbourne a few days later. Digger had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that his reunion with his family was going to be difficult.
As the Karoa docked, Digger saw his sister, Iris, her husband, Clive, and his father, David Barrett senior, waiting to meet him. Seeing his family there without his mother brought his grief at her death back to him. They waved and shouted to him, and Clive threw a bottle of beer up to the ship, which Digger deftly caught. The beer was warm; this was not how he had imagined his first taste of a Melbourne brew.
Digger could not shed his sadness that his mother was not there to welcome him. Somehow, he felt, this was his father’s fault. Digger managed to contain his feelings of anger, especially when he saw that his father was not as he had remembered him. He was pitifully older, and remained quiet. The bully that Digger knew him to have been was no longer there.
The family’s greetings at the dockside were limited to handshakes and polite conversation about the business of collecting baggage and the like. Digger had three pieces of luggage: two kitbags and a haversack. The group waited while the soldiers’ kitbags were offloaded, but Digger’s were nowhere to be seen. The authorities assured him that they would be forwarded on to him. Digger again found himself cursing the dockers, but this time in Melbourne. The presents he had bought in Bangkok and Singapore were gone, and Digger now had nothing but the clothes he stood in.
The Red Cross had organised a fleet of taxis for the returned soldiers and their families. Vern and Digger exchanged their details and said goodbye. On the way home, Digger’s father produced Digger’s bankbook, which contained very good news. The army had been regularly banking his pay all the time he was in captivity, as had the Australian Glass Factory in Melbourne. Along with the money Digger had been paid by the British for his War Graves Commission work, this made Digger a relatively rich young man. Some good news at last, he thought as he pocketed his bankbook.
But the greatest disaster that weekend for Digger was to come. He discovered that all his possessions – his keepsakes, his guns and even his clothes – had been discarded or given away to friends. After he was reported missing in action, his family had presumed the worst. His father had vacated the family home and now lived with Digger’s sister and her husband. Gradually, Digger realised that his mother’s death had also hit his father hard, but still he was unable to forgive him or sympathise with him in their common loss.
For almost five years, Digger had longed to get home to the house he had grown up in. Now, even though his sister was making him welcome in her house, it was not the same.
Later that weekend, he received a call from Vern, whose homecoming had also not been as he expected. He was upset and wanted Digger’s advice. When Vern had got home, he’d been greeted by his nine-year-old daughter, who had said she was so glad to see him because now ‘that other man’ would go away.
Vern’s wife had admitted that an American soldier had been living with them. She had begged his forgiveness, but all poor Vern could think of doing was to phone his mate. Digger simply told him that if he loved her then he should forgive her. The war had done terrible damage, not only to those in the fight.
On his first Monday at home, Digger reported back to his unit. He was immediately transferred to the 115th Heidelberg Military Hospital, in the Melbourne suburb of Heidelberg West. He knew he had malaria, but it also turned out that he had amoebic dysentery and hookworm. He was not a bed patient, though, and so he was free to enjoy life in Melbourne.
He bought himself a motorcycle – a Velocette 500 cc – which was every young man’s idea of the best mode of transport. One morning, he was sent for by the hospital commandant, who complained of his absence during doctor’s rounds. He told Digger that while the hospital didn’t wish to place any restrictions on his movements, he should at least be present during ward rounds in the mornings. Digger agreed that he would.
Not long after, he had a visit from an officer who asked him to stay on in the army with the War Graves Commission. He was promised immediate promotion, and it was also hinted that he would receive a commission. But by now Digger had had enough of the army and so he refused the offer. He just wanted to get on with civilian life.
Digger was discharged from the army on 16 January 1946. He collected his demobilisation pay, added it to his bank account and went back to work at the Australian Glass Factory. He continued to stay with Iris and Clive, sleeping on the floor. He had been offered a bed but could not get used to its softness, having slept on hard surfaces for so long. He also had great trouble sleeping and found himself pushing his bike down the road, away from the house, before starting the engine and driving around for a couple of hours to clear his mind. There were times when he wished he had not come home.
A few weeks later, the army got in touch with Digger and demanded that he pay back the money he had received from the British in Bangkok. He figured they had probably paid
him too much for his work, but Digger just told them to stick it. He never heard from them again.
On 18 February 1946 – Digger’s twenty-fourth birthday – he enrolled in the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme at Melbourne Technical College, earning a Certificate in Painting and Decorating. He then applied for and got a job in charge of the crew painting the wings of the Mustang fighter planes at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation at Fisherman’s Bend. It was a great place to work. The workers held a raffle on payday every fortnight, and the winner got a girl for the night.
Digger gradually recovered from his postwar blues. He had made his mind up to get on with life and make a success of it. He sold his motorcycle and bought himself a car. He had a near spill on the bike, which persuaded him that he needed a method of transport more suitable for an adult. By the end of March 1946, he had left the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation and started a painting and decorating business, in partnership with Clive. Digger also bought himself a house, at 109 Severn Street, Yarraville.
Finding a home was a priority, because little more than three months after returning from Thailand, he had fallen in love with and, on 30 March 1946, married Betty, his first wife.
Part 4
A Final Accounting
Chapter 16
The Business Life
After he married, David Barrett was determined to forget about the war and concentrate on achieving success in his business and family life. He dropped the nickname ‘Digger’, which reminded him too much of the past. For two years, he worked hard and built his painting and decorating business with Clive, but by 1948 he was restless for a change. While he and Clive were successful business partners, they were never close friends.
David’s closest mate at this time was Ron Lucas. The two would talk regularly about where there was money to be made and where there were exciting times to be enjoyed. Both fancied working in Queensland. Over time, they talked themselves into believing that they should move to Queensland, enjoy more sun and have a great life.
David never talked about the past, but he knew within himself that his positive attitude had allowed him to learn many lessons at Changi and Kanchanaburi. With great excitement and anticipation for the future, he and Ron moved their families to Queensland. David simply gave his half of the painting and decorating business to his brother-in-law.
Ron and David sold their Melbourne homes and together bought a block of four units at Hawthorne on the Brisbane River, complete with its own tennis court. They never doubted they would both get work, and within a few days David was a salesman with Brittains Pty Ltd, a wholesaler that supplied every kind of hardware imaginable. He loved it and reckoned that as a salesman he had really found his niche.
They did have one small problem. One of their tenants in the units was a solicitor and had a contract that stipulated he should pay only a nominal rent. They could not budge him or put his rent up, and he would not see reason. But David had a plan.
Over the course of about six months, he and Ron befriended the tenant. Eventually, they were able to persuade him to move to the other unit in the property, which was better. When he agreed, Digger and Ron’s lawyer immediately explained to this fellow that his original contract was no longer valid. The tenant left when Ron and David outlined the amount they were now asking in rent.
After about two years of their new life in Brisbane, Ron’s wife was killed in a car accident. David bought Ron’s share in the units, and Ron and his child returned to Melbourne.
In 1950 David joined the company James Campbell & Son. The company sold ‘everything for better building’, as its slogan claimed. This included hardware as well as all the tools of the trade, and the company reputedly had the largest wholesale warehouse in the southern hemisphere.
David was required to relocate to Maryborough, around 250 kilometres north of Brisbane. He sold the block of units and moved his family into a house in Maryborough that had been built by a customer of his, Max Lohse, who was also a very good friend.
Every five or six weeks, David travelled up the east coast to Rockhampton, then home via the Dawson Valley, through Mount Morgan, Monto and Gayndah, selling building supplies. He loved meeting different people, building relationships and seeing new places. He made many friends.
David remembers playing poker with some of these mates. Sometimes they played for days at a time. Regulars included Ron Bromley, an optometrist, and Bill Lehr, the local publican. They played in Bill’s pub, so there was always beer on tap. The gambling skills David had learned from Coy York at Changi, years earlier, stood him in good stead.
David’s other passion at this time was rally cars. Being a successful salesman, he was able to persuade Campbell’s to sponsor him in this hobby.
Our deal was that they would receive all the advertising and publicity, and in return they would pay all my expenses. I would get to keep whatever it was that I might win, so winning was very important to me. As I became known as a driver, young blokes would keep challenging me to race. I brushed these off as much as I could, but some were more insistent, so to those I demanded that they put up at least a hundred pounds to race against me – winner takes all! We would race between neighbouring towns – thirty or fifty miles, for example – and I never lost a race.
David also won many Apex rallies in and around Maryborough in the 1950s.
While David’s business career was going from strength to strength, his marriage was not. He had reasoned that being a travelling salesman might be good for him and Betty – that absence might make the heart grow fonder – but after eight years with Campbell’s it was clear that their marriage was failing.
In 1956 David got a job as a salesman in Brisbane with International Majora Paints, which sold industrial and marine paints to shipping companies, the Australian Navy and the Department of Aviation. He was able to put his people skills to work in this job like no other.
In those days, Majora competed with other suppliers of paints, including Berger, Dulux, Taubmans and British Paints. There was a system in place in the Cairns Cross Graving Dock – a dry dock on the Brisbane River – by which a ship might be halved or quartered for painting purposes. Different paint suppliers would be awarded different fractions of a ship for anti-fouling paints and the like.
I was supposed to be responsible for how the paint was applied, for reasons of efficiency. But this proved bloody impossible. I would go down to the docks and tell the work gangs what they were doing wrong in applying the paint but they would just tell me to fuck off. My boss said not to worry, that I should just ensure that we got our share of the order, because nobody could tell these unionists what to do. But I thought, Bugger it, I’ll fix them.
So I went down to the dock one Saturday before knocking-off time, and I told all the painters that I would meet them in the local pub after work. I went there early and told the manager to give the twenty or so painters all they could drink when they arrived. I said I would pay for the lot. They came in and began drinking schooner after schooner. Some managed to survive till closing time, and they were all well and truly pissed.
I never had a problem with them after that. Our share of sales soared. We never had less than half a ship, and the painters would do exactly as I told them. The other paint companies had a bit of a problem; occasionally the unions would simply refuse to use their paints!
Another customer was the Department of Aviation, which bought paint for the acres and acres of lines and markings on its airfields.
In the late 1950s we were in competition with Berger and a couple of other companies for an order from the Department of Aviation for 5000 gallons of marker paint. What was used on the runways then was a product called Cataphos, an oil-based paint that needed turps for thinning. All the tools, markers and brushes also had to be cleaned in turps.
Unfortunately, Berger had the upper hand because they could source Cataphos at a better rate than Majora could. My mate at Berger was pretty cocky about this; he was very sure
they would get the next order. But we had a new water-based paint that we had just produced. I went to great trouble to make sure it was approved for use on the airfield by the Department of Aviation. It was a real hassle keeping this secret from all my competitors.
I had already made a friend of the airfield manager, and when I told him I had got the approval to use our water-based paint, he was all for it. But he explained that I would still need to submit the lowest tender. With that, he excused himself to go to the toilet for a moment and left all the other tenders open on his desk!
In due course, we won the tender. My mate from Berger was on the phone to me immediately. ‘You bastard, Barrett,’ he said. ‘Do you know how much bloody Cataphos we have on hand just now?’ And my boss was also very stressed because Majora had to suddenly fulfil this huge new order.
I knew that it wasn’t what we were selling that was important, but who and what we knew. That was great fun!
By 1960, David had left Majora Paints and become a representative for the Industrial Public Relations of Australia (Queensland) organisation. There was very little difference between sales and public relations, as far as David was concerned. Both depended on knowing people and being able to persuade them to do what you wanted them to do.
Despite the fact that David was now becoming a very successful businessman, he and Betty had been unable to reconcile their differences. They separated and were divorced in 1965.
With his home life unhappy, David concentrated harder on his work. His job was to organise conventions, all in connection with any aspect of commerce or business. These could take place anywhere in Queensland but were mostly in Brisbane.
