from the old man with a length of water hose. Most of them were for not going to school. The teacher would call the old man in and then I’d cop it. I’d just grin at him during the beltings and that made him worse and he’d belt me some more. When I got into trouble at school and be about to get the cane, I’d drop my daks and show them the big blue bruises on my bum from the old man’s latest attack. Quite often the teachers would feel sorry for me and let me off. He’d be put in gaol these days for doing that. What a load of crap! All kids deserve a hiding occasionally. He tried to teach me a lesson but unfortunately for the old man it had quite the reverse effect.
‘My sister Anne reckons we had a great childhood. My brothers and sisters never had any trouble with other kids because, with my growing reputation, just the threat of telling their big brother sorted things out. I don’t know why they still talk to me. I’d say to the girls, “Wash my clothes or I’ll belt you!” I wouldn’t have, and never did, but the bluff always worked. I loved them all dearly and would have murdered anyone who touched them.
‘It was tough love because I was always playing pranks on them. I eventually had motor bikes (no licence of course) and when I’d be fixing one up I’d say, “Give me a hand and hang onto this.” I’d get one of my sisters to hang onto a wire, then I’d kick over the motor and give them a shock. Great laugh.
‘If I came into the kitchen late I’d look out of the window and say, “Look at that big rat out there!” They’d run to the window to look at nothing and by the time they turned back I’d be sitting in the best chair eating the best breakfast. Life was one big joke then that we still laugh about today.
‘As I got older the old man lost control. One day he got so frustrated that he shaved my head into a Mohawk. This was supposed to annoy me. We were all wearing our hair combed back like Elvis at the time. I thanked him nicely for my new hair style which didn’t help the situation much. Another time he took all my clothes off when he found me in town instead of school and paraded me down the street in the nude in front of all the people. I waved to all the old ladies and the only one who was embarrassed was the old man. Poor old bugger!
‘Finally there came the day when the old man went to flog me and I grabbed him by the throat. I patted him on top of the head and said, “Your days of dominance are over old man. It’s never done either of us any good.” I then officially came and went as I liked. I had just turned eleven. I wandered into school and told the teachers what I thought of their school and all the dickheads running it. Nobody invited me to stay so I left for good. My real education started the same day. Look out, world!’
The motor sprang into life at the back of the boat.
‘All you’re doing is wasting bait, you wanker. Don’t take up fishing to make a quid,’ Roy grinned. ‘Let’s get back to camp and see what those other lazy bastards got in their pots. You haven’t caught any breakfast but I s’pose I’ll find you something!’
Back in camp the morning’s catch was off-loaded into the cool crab shed and hosed down. The other boats had excelled themselves so Roy was in high spirits. He was also happy because there was another toyota behind the shed. It belonged to his brother-in-law, and my shearer, allan sluggett and Roy’s sister anne. They’d come up from near me at Yankalila to help Roy with the crabs.
Allan is a legend down south. A mountain of a man around sixty with a bit of hair missing from his head these days – it has all been redistributed over the rest of his body, giving him a fur coat. A man with an evil sense of humour, he could turn his hand to anything and be successful. He loved this lifestyle in the Gulf as much as Roy. Anne was shortish like her brother and these days she was having a bit of a problem with gravity. Anne always kept threatening to go on a diet and slim down a bit but, being a great cook, she kept them both in prime condition.
After all the hugs and back-slapping Roy stirred up the fire and dropped a huge cast iron frying pan on the mesh. Eggs and bacon, with toast cremated on the grill, was to become breakfast and lunch I soon found out. The two dogs circled about four feet away, looking hopeful. That was the distance they had learnt from bitter experience as the cut-off line between tolerance and abuse during meals. The other ‘camp doggies’ weren’t allowed anywhere near Roy’s kitchen so they disappeared to their dwellings to fix their own meals.
As we settled down for a feed Anne started telling me about Roy’s youth.
‘He didn’t care who he stepped on to earn a quid,’ she began, ‘but he was always honest with his mates. He always treated people fairly unless they did the dirty on him first. Like Cliffy England who owned one of the local stores in Port Noarlunga. Roy would bring in soft drink bottles to him for the two-penny deposit but Cliffy would only give him one penny for any bottles that didn’t have a label on them. Roy accepted this at the time but years later he realised the old chap had fleeced him. Roy then got even. He’d steal Californian Poppy hair oil among other things from Cliffy’s store and retail them himself. For Roy, this was just simple logic in getting his own back on a man who had taken advantage of him as a kid. He got all his back pay plus a lot more.
‘Another old store-keeper called Lenny Roberts owned two other shops in town but Roy never stole from him because he’d always done the right thing by him.
At that stage in his life, Roy believed in right and wrong where people were concerned and worked on the “eye for an eye” theory.’
Anne told me that by 1960 things were getting a bit hot for Roy in South Australia and it had nothing to do with the weather. He’d grown into a dynamo of mischief. Not overly tall but very athletic, he’d learnt to use his fists and enjoyed unleashing them with very little provocation. He was good looking and charismatic, a hit with the girls and he was idolised by his inner circle of mates but feared by anybody with any sense.
‘Roy continued to rebel against any sort of authority, mainly bosses and the police. He couldn’t hold a permanent job because of personality clashes which led him into petty crime. Eventually the Law always became involved. So here he was at twenty-one, having spent well over three years of his young life incarcerated, trying to sort out his future. He had the dubious distinction of having every Christmas and mid-January birthday since he was fifteen behind bars. Roy didn’t know it then but this yearly holiday would continue until he was twenty-five.
‘Because of his anti-social behaviour and his record he was always in the sights of the police. Whenever a policeman caught sight of him they rightly assumed that he was either going to, or coming back from, something illegal. They’d book him for consorting even if he was on the other side of the street. Minor defects on his vehicle or even swearing in a public place were petty charges to make his life uncomfortable.’
‘I’d had enough,’ Roy chipped in. ‘I couldn’t move without a copper breathing down my neck. Leo Maine, a good mate of mine, owned a Standard Ten station wagon. It had a hole in the block so we filled it up with red lead in his back yard and it seemed as good as new. Leo was keen to see other parts of Australia so he didn’t take much convincing that he should take his girlfriend, Annette Wilson, and me to look for greener pastures in Western Australia. We had no idea how far it was or what to expect. We just took off.
‘The trip across the Nullarbor was horrific. The old Standard Ten had a hard time with the corrugations and the bulldust and so did we. The road was only used by a few trucks and buses in those days and if you were travelling in a car you really had to have a good reason for making the trip. But it was good
