piping simple tunes by Handel, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Albert Penberthy. At concerts I provided the high notes for the orchestra of family and friends. At festivals of Salvationists, my piccolo could be heard above the singers. I taught myself to play bugle, fife, cornet, trombone, oboe, trumpet, drums and organ simply because these instruments were there to play. My father's best type of Salvation was musical. He was a master in the performance of music and his composition was secondary. I knew that I wanted to play music competently and also that musical creation was inviting. It is all a matter of priority.
To become a good performer one must devote many hours to practice. I taught myself to play in an environment in which it was impossible not to learn. I did not "study" music until it became absolutely necessary and that did not happen until after the Second World War. I enrolled at the Melbourne University Conservatorium and was instructed by some of the best Australian music-teachers of my time. But before all that I had performed on many instruments, written many hymns, songs and even an opera, and conducted orchestras.
I was formally educated at James St, Perth; Spring Rd, Malvern, Victoria; Gilles St and Flinders St, Adelaide; and Violet St, Bendigo. In each of these primary schools I fell in love with the teachers - all female. There was one exception. I spent a year at Gilles Street, Adelaide, where my teacher was a man. I found this extremely unpleasant and beseeched my mother to transfer me to Flinders Street. After two years in the city of Churches, it was back home to Victoria.
We were appointed to Bendigo, where I attended Violet Street School and fell in love with Miss Lathlain in the fifth grade and Miss Penrose in the sixth. I was top student in both years - and this had nothing to do with the fact that I took bunches of flowers to the teachers every week. I played the piccolo at school concerts, became head of the bugle band and an outstanding fifer. My best friend was a marvellous footballer named "Fat Arthur", whose real name was Graham. By the time I left Bendigo, I was ready for a life of academic excellence, sporting prowess and musical glory. My father put a cornet in my hands and said "be in the band tomorrow". He was a good teacher. He taught me nothing and I still made it to the band in twenty-four hours. At this time my father began taking me around country towns with him. I sang a sweet little song, "Lord, here am I, send me". This was profoundly moving. I felt like Samuel being shoved into religious service by Eli. I was on course to becoming a famous musician and football-playing academic who loved girls. My mother wanted me to be a doctor.
Our next move was to Ballarat, where we stayed for four years. This was a record. Usually S.A. officers were sent packing every one or two years. The reason may have been to save some of them from becoming involved with female parishioners - an unworthy thought. I went to Ballarat High School - a four-mile bike ride around Lake Wendouree in winter, boiling water having been poured into the handlebars. All my academic excellence left me. There were, horror of horrors, male teachers as well as female and each subject had a different teacher. After a few weeks, the headmaster, another impressive man, called together the whole school and announced: "The four worst boys in the school are Wooster, Beck, Hume and Penberthy." All but Hume were sons of Salvation Army officers. In those years I was no higher up in the class than twenty-seventh.
I was in love with Lenyss Wass and Alice Stone as well as with my own girlfriend. Her name was Isobel, her figure was like that of the Venus de Milo and there was nothing missing as far as I could see. She had red hair, a lovely voice and freckles. At the age of fourteen, she exuded warmth and passion and was constantly loyal to whoever was her current boyfriend. When we arrived from Bendigo to the prettiest city in Australia, Ballarat, my mother elected to teach the fourteen-year-olds in Sunday school. One day about seven of us were sitting on Salvation Army forms in a special enclave, when the curtain was pulled aside and there Isobel stood. I stopped breathing but it was soon plain that currently she favoured Lindsay Brown. Lindsay was a small tough muscular character, who could fight and play the cornet better than anyone else around, except for me, of course. I took one look at Isobel, plucked up courage and in no time I'd taken her away from Lindsay Brown.
I soon discovered that Isobel was also in my class at Ballarat High School. I carried her school case home around Lake Wendouree for three weeks without my father catching me at it. In the fourth week Isobel left school to take a job at the North Ballarat woollen mills. From then on, I saw her only in Sunday School and on Thursday nights, when she came to our house to visit my mother with another Sunday School teacher, Elima Oates.
Isobel's closest girl friend was Rita, the daughter of the Salvation Army's divisional commander. Sometimes they would come to our house together and I would take them to my room where we were supposed to be learning our Sunday School lessons together. Rita and Isobel told me all the things that Salvationists were supposed to know. In hot whispers, they told me that they really wanted only to talk about sex.
My gang at school consisted of Harold Shore, who taught me boxing, Alan Shields, who was my minder, and Gordon Mackie and Maurie Gallagher, who taught me nothing. The biggest influence on me, however, was Hector Wood, who lived with his grandmother, rang the bells at the Church of England and told me the best collection of dirty stories I have ever heard. Hector was a real man, a hero. He was expelled twice, reinstated twice and later made a corporal in the A.I.F. I was in the school orchestra on flute, learned to pole-vault over the school hedge, was first cornet in the North Ballarat Corps band and played half-back for the North Ballarat Football Club. I was also captain of the Scouts' cricket team. My weekend friends were mostly Salvation Army boys, who played cornet or euphonium on Sundays.
Occasionally, on a Saturday, we would all go adventuring in the Black Hills area of North Ballarat, among mine shafts and caves.
One Saturday Isobel was invited to join us, so off we went to Black Hill. After some walking and exploring we came to the entrance of a dark cave. The young Salvationists had a debate about who would take Isobel into the cave. Finally I was chosen and, when we came out, Isobel was breathing heavily and we all ran excitedly down the hill towards Ballarat. I fantasised about what had happened in the three minutes in the dark and immediately became a hero, but I gained the impression that my friends thought that I should not play the cornet in the holiness meeting on the following day.
Having snatched the affections of Isobel from Lindsay I was somewhat out of favour with him - even more so some time later when we were at a Scout camp at Daylesford, the mineral water capital of Australia. Lindsay got into difficulties in the deep waters of the lake and I rescued him, right in front of his current sweetheart. I was a hero and received a medal for my brave act. Lindsay never spoke to me again. Eventually he married the lass who was temporarily infatuated with me and they lived very happily until one dark night over Coffs Harbour, when they died together in a plane crash.
Those years in Ballarat were among the happiest of all. It is an ideal place for the young to grow and have adventures. Lake Wendouree was the main attraction, a fine place for swimming. I became the best swimmer in our gang and could struggle right across. Rowers cut lanes through the reeds and the north bank was a good place for fighting. One afternoon, a mate of mine offered to fight two of the rival gang's larrikins, at once. They flattened him. In my own imagination, I was superior in almost everything, but Max was braver.
Every afternoon after school, I would stop at Harold Shore's place and box with the gloves on. Harold's big brother was acclaimed the best boxer in the school. Everyone knew this, so by my association, I could pretend to be untouchable. One day, behind the locker room, I took on a little chap named Leask. He belted me on the nose and won the fight with one hit. My friends had told him: "You can't beat him. He boxes round at Harold Shore's place." Harold's prowess had not rubbed off on me and Leask apologised. Harold was a born fighter but he was one of the first killed in World War Two.
I was late for school every day of my Ballarat years and every day, Jerry Waters, the Headmaster, was at the school gates waiting for me. "Why late, boy?" he would intone and authorise my punishment. I was not prepared to tell him that my mother was late cutting my egg sandwiches. Even when I managed to get threepence for a meat pie, I was still late. Riding
