A Fortunate Life

by A B Facey

  Late in January, after weeks of this treatment, they stopped it and I felt much better. I was allowed to get up and could walk around the hospital a bit. My right leg, which was severely crushed in the blast, never really recovered and walking was difficult. Then I was allowed out on daily leave on the condition that I didn’t do anything that would excite me. I had to move slowly and keep away from crowds and report every morning to the head sister any faintness, giddiness or trouble, such as pain and headaches.

  One day while on leave, I went to Perth with another soldier from the hospital (these daily leaves were from eleven a.m. to eleven p.m.). We were walking down Barrack Street in a northerly direction when we saw two girls coming towards us. We were in uniform and had our battalion colours showing on the arm near the shoulder. To our surprise the girls stopped us and one of them said, ‘Please excuse us, you’re returned men from the Eleventh Battalion aren’t you?’ We replied that we were. Then one of the girls said, ‘We are from Bunbury.’ Addressing me she said, ‘You resemble a boy we knew who enlisted from Bunbury.’ I replied that I was with a lot of boys from Bunbury at Gallipoli and I mentioned several. Both girls knew the names that I mentioned. I then asked the girl who had spoken to me her name. Now, what a shock I got. She said, ‘My name is Evelyn Gibson.’ Straight away my mind went back to the trenches at Gallipoli, and a pair of socks that I had received along with a note wishing the soldier who received it the best of luck and a safe return home to his loved ones, signed ‘Evelyn Gibson, Hon. Secretary, Girl Guides, Bunbury, W.A.’

  Although I had never had any real schooling, I knew what the word providence meant and that here it was now. Evelyn was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I felt as if I had known her all my life. I was really overwhelmed but I managed to suggest that the four of us go and have a cup of tea and a sandwich and talk about the boys from Bunbury. The girls agreed. They wouldn’t go to a show with us later because they had to be in at the lodge they were staying at by nine o’clock, so we took them home. After that Evelyn and I often met, and when I had to stay in hospital she used to visit me as often as she could.

  Evelyn and her friend would travel up to Perth on the Friday night Bunbury ‘Rattler’ and then return again on the same train on Saturday night. They would come and visit us in hospital. And that was how Evelyn and I started our courtship. Later she got a job as a live-in house-keeper in Mounts Bay Road and we were able to see much more of one another.

  I was confined to bed often during the next sixteen weeks or more. Then I went before a medical board and was told that I was unfit for further military service and that I would be discharged and put on a war pension. I was advised that I would have to be very careful as the board couldn’t guarantee that I would live more than two years. They said that they could be wrong so I shouldn’t smoke or drink intoxicating liquor. This gave me a shock as I had proposed marriage to Evelyn and she had accepted me. I had seen her parents and they had given their consent. I felt very sad as I couldn’t expect a girl to marry me under such a cloud. I decided to let Evelyn make the decision. That night I told her and she said that she wanted to go on with the marriage; she didn’t believe the board’s decision. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘they are not sure, so we will continue our engagement.’

  I didn’t know what war pension I would receive or how long I had to wait for it to come through. My health had improved and the faintness was much less, so I started to answer advertisements to try to get a light job after leaving hospital. My military pay was to be continued until my pension started. I received a letter from the military to the effect that I could enter the hospital at Fremantle at any time, free of charge, should my condition worsen.

  When I left hospital I went to live at my stepfather’s place. My brother Eric was still living there and working for our stepfather in his plumbing business. He later took over the business. He had tried to enlist when the war broke out but was rejected as unfit for military service.

  I found out that my other brother Vernon had been into a lot of trouble with the navy. He was a gun-layer on the H.M.A.S. Sydney and was involved in the sinking of the Emden. He fell out with the captain over that. He felt that the Sydney could have stood off out of range and sunk the Emden without a shot hitting her in return. My brother reported the captain because he reckoned that by steaming in too close he had caused the death of the twenty-one men who were killed in that battle. Apparently there was a hell of a row about it in the navy and eventually Vernon was taken off the Sydney and put on the Australia.

  Grandma was still up at Wickepin with Uncle Archie and Aunt Alice. I would have liked to have gone to visit her but my health, and needing to find a job so that Evelyn and I could marry, made that impossible. Although I wrote to her and let her know how I was, it wasn’t the same.

  The only other person I kept in touch with was my sister Laura, who had been left behind in Victoria when the rest of us came west. She had by this time married, and was farming an orchard property with her husband.

  One morning in June 1916, while I was living at my stepfather’s, I noticed an advertisement saying that a large ironmongery firm in Perth wanted a young man for their ironmongery department – preference given to a returned soldier. I answered the advertisement and was told to call at the firm’s office at ten o’clock the next morning. I did this and on arriving, I found that there were twelve waiting to be interviewed, two of whom were returned soldiers. We were taken into a large room and told that our names would be called.

  After the first lot of interviews, the two returned soldiers and I were left. Then my name was called again. This time it looked like I had been chosen for the job. The man doing the interviewing was the owner and manager. He asked me a lot of questions about myself and what I knew about ironmongery, and I explained that my stepfather had an ironmongery shop in Hay Street, West Perth, and that I had had quite a bit of experience with all plumbing requisites before I enlisted in the A.I.F. He looked up and said, ‘You’re our man. Now I want to ask you a few personal questions. Do you get a war pension?’ I said, ‘I do.’ He asked me how much. I replied that I hadn’t been notified yet and asked him why he wanted to know. He said that they would have to know to be able to fix my wages. I asked, ‘What has the war pension got to do with my pay?’ He replied, ‘Well, you don’t expect to receive a war pension plus full wages do you?’ This made me see red. I said, ‘What in the hell are you coming at? Are you trying to get cheap labour? If you are, try it on some other mug. What did you do about enlisting and doing your bit or are you one of those cold-footed bastards that stayed home to take advantage of the enlisted man’s wife or girlfriend for your own filthy lust!’ With that he called an assistant and told him to call the police.

  I walked out and slammed the door and told the other returned men not to go in there, that he was only looking for cheap labour. That was my first experience of finding a light job. Some thanks after all the promises given to us, and this firm had a large placard displayed outside saying: Your country is in danger. Enlist now. After this episode I was expecting to be confronted by a policeman at any time to answer for what I had said to the firm’s owner, but nothing happened.

  It upset me to find people who were just out to take advantage of you, especially when it was something like this. After I came back from the war that was the only time that I came across that sort of exploitation, but apparently it went on quite a bit.

  There were also a few times when I ran into larrikins who would jeer and sling off at me for going to the war, but I soon sorted them out. I would clout them quick and lively – they would all show a fight until then, but a good straight left would fix them.

  Generally though, people were marvellous – trying to get down the street sometimes was impossible. People would stop me to talk, to find out what had happened and what it was really like. They probably had someone who was away in it, or who had been killed, and wanted to know. I was worried sometimes that the police would be after me f
or blocking the footpath.

  People at home were all a hundred percent behind the war. They were all sad about what was going on at Gallipoli, but the feeling was to send more troops to help. They’d have sent everyone they could get hold of to help. Some men who didn’t go got a rough time, but we never said anything to them because we thought that they had some brains. I would have stayed behind if I had known.

  One day, about a week later, I was in some tea-rooms with another returned soldier and told him about my experience with the ironmonger. He said that I wasn’t the only one who had been treated that way and told me about two others who had had the same thing happen. Then his girlfriend Thelma, who was a waitress in the rooms, came and sat with us. She had just knocked off work for the day. My mate told me that her father was a Member of Parliament in Western Australia and may be able to help me. He explained my case to Thelma and she volunteered to speak to her father that night. When I called the next day she told me that her father wanted to see me at eight o’clock that night at his home in Mount Lawley.

  When I arrived I was met by Thelma and invited into the sitting-room, where I met her father, Mr Sid Munsie, and Mrs Munsie. They were very nice people and asked me all about my experiences; I felt happy to tell them and then we got onto my problem of finding light employment. I explained that my education was limited as I had never been to school. After a few minutes Mr Munsie asked if I thought I could learn to be a conductor on the Perth trams. The job was light – mostly figuring and counting and changing money. I said that I was good with figures and understood money, so he gave me a letter of introduction to the Superintendent of the Perth Tramways, explaining my war injuries and how urgent it was for me to have light work.

  59

  WORK AND MARRIAGE

  The following day I went to the Tramways Office at the car barn in East Perth, and handed the letter to the boy at the counter. After a few minutes I was shown into the Superintendent’s Office. He was a big dark man with protruding eyes and a serious look. He looked at me and said, ‘So, you are a returned soldier. You are the first to apply for a job here. Do you think you could stand the noise and the vibration of the trams, and the public?’ I replied that I would like to try it for awhile and that it was a job that I thought I could do. He asked me all about my life before I had volunteered for service, and then asked if I drank intoxicating liquor. I replied that I didn’t. He said that I didn’t look like the type for the Tramways, but he would try me out if I could pass the doctor’s examination. He gave me a letter to a doctor and told me to see the staff clerk in the other office who would make an appointment for me. It would cost me five shillings for the examination and as soon as I got the results – the doctor would give me a sealed envelope – I was to bring it to him.

  My appointment with the doctor was for the following morning at ten o’clock. I arrived at the Tramways Office just before noon with the doctor’s report, and the Superintendent, Mr Shillington, saw me straight away. He looked at the report and remarked that my eye sight and hearing were good and that the report was okay. He said, ‘The job is over all sorts of hours, day-shift and night-shift, and as people are depending on us to get to work and back again we must not let them down. That means you must not be late for work.’ He then told me to report to the traffic clerk who would explain to me what I had to do.

  The traffic clerk was a nice chap and he explained that I would have to work as a student conductor for the first two weeks on half pay. I would be with an experienced conductor who would teach me the whole job. The clerk took me to the storeman who fitted me with a cap and bag. It was a Friday and I would start the following Monday morning at six o’clock.

  I was still getting fainting bouts but they weren’t as bad as I had been having. The doctor had told me to be careful. He said that if I wasn’t a returned soldier he would have had to fail me but they could not reject a returned man on war injuries. He said, ‘As long as a returned man thinks that he can do the job we must give him a chance.’

  The following Monday morning I arrived at the car barn before six o’clock and was introduced to Conductor Benbow who was to teach me the job. He showed me what to do, explaining all about collecting fares and issuing tickets, and about the difference between sections and transfers from one line to another. In fact, that day he told me so many things that by the time we had finished I didn’t know one thing from the other.

  I had to walk to work in the mornings – it was two miles from my stepfather’s place to the car barn – so at the end of the first week I took board and lodgings at a boarding-house in Adelaide Terrace, only half a mile from work.

  How I got through that first week I will never know, but I did get through and by the second week everything was coming along fine. I had to see the staff clerk who asked me lots of questions about different fares, prices and so on. Then to my surprise he said that I was doing fine and had learnt the job as well as any they had had.

  So in June 1916, I qualified as a Tramways conductor. (I will never forget the difference in the attitude of the Tramways staff – who were all out to help and understand and do all they could do for me – and the man at the ironmongery store who wanted to use me.)

  My war injuries were worrying me quite a lot but I managed to keep going, and after a few weeks Evelyn and I decided to go ahead with our marriage plans. We fixed the day for August twenty-first at Saint David’s Church, South Bunbury, at eleven o’clock in the morning.

  The wedding went off without a hitch and we had the breakfast at Evelyn’s parents’ place. It was a small, quiet affair; the war was still on and two of my brothers had been killed – there were so many sad and worried people at that time. After the breakfast we left by train for the city and the small house we had rented in East Perth. Our honeymoon was quiet – I took only one week off work and we had the time together at home. Then it was back to work for me as a tram conductor.

  Three weeks later we had a lucky break. An employer of the Tramways, who was going wheat and sheep farming, offered to sell us his small four-roomed house in Victoria Park at very easy terms. The price was four hundred and fifty pounds – no deposit – to be paid off at a pound a week free of interest. The house was built of timber and iron and was on a two acre block. This was considered a bargain so we gladly accepted.

  We settled into our new home and I was very happy. I was still feeling my war injuries and lost quite a lot of time off work, but Superintendent Shillington was very considerate and understanding. The vibration of the trams was starting to upset me and my doctor advised me to find another job. As before, my education was against me getting light work.

  A friend told me about a job as the assistant caretaker of a large office building in Perth called Saint George’s House. My friend gave me a letter of introduction to the manager of the firm that owned the building and I got the job. I left the Tramways with the Superintendent’s blessings and started the new job in the last week of April 1917. This work suited me better – it was light, mostly cleaning, and as I was my own boss I could take my time.

  The Repatriation Department, formed by the Commonwealth Government to care for returned soldiers, was offering free education to those who were injured and unable to do heavy work. I applied for this, as I was badly in need of schooling. I was accepted and started night-school at Fletcher’s Business College in Perth. I took English, arithmetic, book-keeping and writing, attending three nights a week from seven to nine. This fitted in nicely with my caretaker’s job. I went ahead fine – I was anxious to learn and did especially well in arithmetic.

  By the first week in September 1918, I had passed in arithmetic and book-keeping, and, as my pay was very poor as an assistant caretaker, I resigned to get a better paid job. After trying many places unsuccessfully for about a week, I thought I had probably done the wrong thing and was very disappointed. Then by quite a stroke of luck I met the Superintendent of the Tramways, and he seemed anxious to know how I was getting along. When I told
him that I was out of work and explained why, he told me that there was a job as a conductor for me if I wanted it.

  Then he said that he would give me a permit to learn to be a motorman (driver). I would have to learn in my spare time but it would only take about a month if I tried hard. As a motorman I would be away from a lot of the vibration because I would be able to sit down while driving the larger bogie-trams. I accepted the job and started on Monday morning.

  Superintendent Shillington gave me the permit that week and three weeks later I was given a test drive by one of the traffic inspectors. I passed with top marks and a Motorman’s Certificate was issued to me in November, entitling me to be rostered permanently as a motorman. This was much better than being a conductor. It was true that the vibration wasn’t as bad, and I didn’t get so tired. I liked driving the trams.

  60

  A STRIKE

  Two days before Christmas 1918 (the war had just ended), the Tramway Union held a meeting of all its members to receive a report about wages and working conditions. The Union hadn’t been able to get consideration for better wages and conditions from the Government. After a long meeting lasting into the early hours of the morning, the Union carried a unanimous resolution to go on strike until the Government, who were our bosses, gave improved wages and working conditions. The strike started that day, the twenty-fourth of December 1918.