government was dedicated to wealth sharing. The workers, through the government, owned the mines. So the miners wanted their money.
“Every miner supported the Unions in their demands for more and more pay. The tables were turned and the miners became the nouveau riche of post-war Britain. Miners were paid more than schoolteachers, policemen and many ‘white collar’ professions. Miners demanded and got houses in the new council estates and the rents were low. They demanded and got a free allocation of coal every month.
“Even with their newfound wealth my grandfather remained a bitter man. He apparently had a huge fight with my grandmother when Dad received a scholarship to go to grammar school. No son of his, he claimed, would ever go to grammar school – State education was good enough for the working classes was his socialist mantra. He even claimed no workingman could afford the uniform and the extras, like books and sports equipment. The additional insult was that the grammar school played rugby; no son of his would play rugby. It was a rich man’s sport.
“The reality was that many miners were among the best-paid workers in the country and often earned more than some of the so-called professions. Grandfather finally relented when Dad’s primary school teacher went round to their house to try and change Grandfather’s mind. It turned out the schoolteacher was the son of a miner. My grandfather knew his father; they had worked together on the coalface.
“The schoolteacher, it turned out, had been to grammar school and then to teachers training college and then on to university and had then decided to be a teacher. He told my grandfather his income was just over half of what his father earned down the mine.
“Grandfather asked him why he was a teacher then. The reply left Grandfather without an argument. The teacher just said he loved his job. He liked being a teacher; he didn’t want to and had never wanted to be a miner. He wanted his own children to get out of the mining environment and get an education. He and his wife were both teachers, had two children – both were going to the grammar school.
“The mine, his local pub, the Miners Welfare, his union and the Labour Party ruled Grandfather’s life. Dad’s mum was a sweet quiet woman. I remember her crying when we left for Australia. She made me promise to go to Sunday school. Grandfather said goodbye at his house. Stony faced I remember him letting me kiss him and he hugged me for the first time I could remember. Then he made Dad cry when he shook his hand and said, ‘Don’t suppose I’ll see you again then?”
“Did you go to Sunday School?” Angus asked.
“No. We went to church though; Dad’s always been a good Christian, I think. He doesn’t talk about it, he never imposed it on me, but he and I went to church together until I went to Melbourne University.”
“Did he see his father again?”
“No. Grandfather died in his favourite pub with his friends and family, a pint of McEwen’s in his hand.”
“I’d assumed you’d always been in the military.”
“No, I went to Melbourne University to do aeronautical engineering. Someone there told me I could be an officer in the RAAF and get paid to study, so I did.”
“So you’re not in the army?”
“No. I’m in the RAAF. I’m seconded to the army at present; I have to go back to RAAF sometime soon. My job is to study army operational needs, requirements if you like, for the next generation of rotary wing aircraft. Flying, talking, listening, that sort of thing. Of course, what the army gets the RAAF will get as well, so we need to consider everything we can.”
Chapter 4.
The family gathers.
At two o’clock that afternoon Angus and Pat sat on the veranda waiting for the sound of Roddy’s plane. The day was hot and the humidity stifling. The thunderclouds, which had hung around for days, were building up again, fast. This time they looked as if they meant business.
Angus looked at the clouds. “Hope Roddy packed some sick bags; Michelle doesn’t have much of a stomach for a bit of turbulence. I think they’ll be having a bumpy trip. I had a look on the Internet. It says the weather could be interesting after about Mullewa. The last thing we need is a downpour here. The landing strip will be all right; it’ll take a lot of water. But for Michelle, it’ll be a white knuckle job if there’s much of a side wind and rain when they land.”
“How long has Roddy been flying?” Pat asked.
“More than twenty years as far as I know. He’s a good pilot as far as I can gather. I’ve never been up with him. He puts in a lot of flying hours both on business and for pleasure. It’s a lovely plane he flies, a Cessna Stationaire, which he bought new last year. It’s state-of-the-art in every way, especially the avionics. He even had big wheels fitted; they are especially designed for landing on dirt strips. He flies up to exploration companies and mine sites, so it was sensible, necessary really.”
“He sounds more like a business executive than a lawyer, and very rich.”
“Lawyers have a better nose for money than many a businessman. They get involved in negotiations with traditional owners for mining leases. They draft documents from the beginning, when the parties reach an MOU. Then they draft final agreements. They appear at hearings. Check prospectus. All for a fat fee. For Roddy that means somewhere around seven hundred to a thousand dollars an hour and more. After that he sits on company boards and gets a fat director’s fee. On top of all that, Roddy’s firm, Goldsmith and Blaud, specialises in taxation, so he represents the big end of town to make sure they don’t pay tax or pay the very minimum. I didn’t know until recently that the Tax Office will negotiate with big end of town if it looks as if they are in for an expensive fight. Roddy may not make the tens of millions some CEOs make, but he won't be far off. He has his fingers in many a pie, both here and overseas. Africa is the flavour of the month, I gather.”
“I think I can hear a plane now, off to the south,” Pat said.
Angus listened. “That must be them. Those new turbo prop engines have a sound all of their own, don’t they? He’ll fly over the homestead; the airstrip is about a mile to the east. Let’s go and get the car.”
As they walked out of the back door the first big drops of rain started to fall and a gust of wind lifted the fine red dust. Angus’ car was a twenty-year-old Mercedes diesel station wagon. It was the only Mercedes that Pat had ever seen with a roo bar. Bolted to the bar were two big spotlights, the kind favoured by the truckies. As they climbed in Angus said, “Don’t let the exterior mislead you, Pat. She may be twenty years old but mechanically she’s perfect. A couple of bumps here and there but she’s good for another couple of hundred thousand.”
Inside the Mercedes the leather upholstery was covered with fitted sheepskin covers. As he started the diesel motor he opened his window slightly as the air-conditioning started to take over from the heat inside. By the time they were bouncing down the road to the airstrip the rain got heavier and there were flashes of lightning in the north.
Angus looked at the sky, looked at Pat and smiled. “That’s Roddy – just in time. That storm is coming this way and I reckon it’s about half an hour away. It’ll give us time to put his plane in the hangar out of harm’s way, save us having to tie it down. I bet he’s been watching that storm and had it flat chat.”
The windsock at the landing strip was horizontal, indicating a strong northerly wind. They stopped by a hangar. There was another
