Several months after the accident my injuries had generally healed, but one shoulder was shorter than the other because the collarbone had not been set properly, so I carried myself at a slight angle. A livid scar underlined one side of my mouth (which I carry to this day) and one of my front teeth was black, but thankfully there were no ongoing symptoms of concussion. My HSC marks had been good enough for admission to Medicine at the University of Melbourne. Plan B, to become that rich doctor and own my own aeroplane, looked like it could come to fruition. Also, injuries from the crash would not jeopardise that path. My parents, particularly my mother, were thrilled. But the subject of how they were to pay for city accommodation, books and various fees lay un-broached. Mornington was quite a distance from the university – a daily commute to lectures would have been difficult and studying at home would be virtually impossible. The residential colleges such as University provided the opportunity for ‘freshers’ from the country to settle into university life and develop a social network in their new world, however, it was expected that after their first or second year, the students would move out into their own accommodation.
At University College I belonged to a small social group, one member of which was a music student, Yvonne. However, the medical faculty at the University of Melbourne was huge. The lecture rooms were vast and packed with young people. There seemed to be very few students who had come from government schools. I listened and made notes, but in my college room of cream brick walls and varnished wood, with music floating from the neighbouring boy’s room, and the dull roar of traffic in the background, study was desultory and I still made model aeroplanes! Posters of aircraft and cockpits adhered to the walls. Aviation works featured among the piles of medical textbooks. Six years of this to go.
I had contributed my meagre savings toward the first term’s accommodation and fees, but how were I, or my parents, going to pay for the rest? I found organic chemistry difficult and I had not elected biology as a subject at school. I had a lot of catching up to do. The thought of living in noisy student digs while trying to study medicine was daunting. Above all, I couldn’t get the idea of being a navy pilot out of my head.
One morning, I had had enough. Near the end of the first term of Medicine, I strode into the navy’s recruiting office in Flinders Lane, this time confident and ready, a little more mature, and with good academic results to show.
Lieutenant Commander Kavanagh once again led the selection board, and he remembered me from my previous attempt. I thrilled at the sight of a navy flying jacket, emblazoned with his nickname of ‘Clump’ draped over a chair in the interview room – I might wear something like that one day! I answered the board’s questions truthfully and confidently, including those about my personal life and relationships, and this time I was not awkward regarding my ongoing lack of a girlfriend. A few weeks later, a telegram arrived at home advising of my acceptance onto the Royal Australian Navy’s ‘Supplementary List’ as a pilot, but subject to further physical checks because of the car accident. I was elated and relieved, but my mother was furious. I would not become a doctor.
However, I was anxious about the injuries sustained from the car crash, although it is wondrous how the young body heals. The navy provided an air ticket to Sydney for a specialist’s check, and I will never forget the orthopaedic surgeon’s final words to me: ‘I see no problem resulting from your injuries, that door is now open for you.’
I was going to be a navy pilot! ‘Fly Navy!’ was a recruiting slogan of the time – it was not just the air force that operated warplanes. While I waited I would undergo more routine medical checks and reason with my still-frosty mother, who had her heart set on a medical career for her son.
At the end of May, my parents drove me, awkward in my cheap suit, to the main gate of HMAS Cerberus that lay outside Hastings on the eastern side of the Mornington Peninsula. There, a life in the sea and sky began.
HMAS Cerberus is a land base but regarded as a ‘ship’ in the tradition of the navies of Britain and Australia. Being a training base, Cerberus was very formal, scrupulously maintained and highly disciplined. Much of the establishment was park-like, its buildings were neatly kept, and its wardroom (Officers’ Mess) was wood-panelled and smelt of fresh varnish. Two beautiful stone chapels were set in immaculate parkland.
The navy speaks a different language: its recruits become immersed in a vernacular that in some instances dates back centuries. During our weeks in Cerberus (you are always ‘in’ a naval ship, not ‘on’ one), we became fluent in the language of Australia’s navy: a melange of ancient British words and corruptions of them, and modern Australian coinage, some of it obscene.
The navy itself was often known as ‘Pusser’s’ (‘pus’ pronounced as per the bodily excretion), an ancient corruption of the word purser: those who hold the purse strings, now the modern-day Accounting and Administration Officers. Therefore, everything in the navy was Pusser’s, including the people, the ships and the equipment. Naval aircrew were known as ‘birdies’, while their seaman counterparts were known by the birdies as ‘fish heads’, or ‘dib dabs’, from the motion of that universal and omnipresent sailor’s tool, the paint brush.
The original Cerberus was HMVS (Her Majesty’s Victorian Ship) Cerberus, the old Colony of Victoria’s first warship, advanced for its time, which is now a rusted and stunted wreck that lies off Black Rock. I learned that you still ‘went aboard’ the current HMAS Cerberus over its gangway or brow (actually the main gate), back over which you would go ‘ashore’. At the brow was stationed the Officer of the Gangway. The base’s hierarchy, also like a ship, included the Captain, the Commander (second in charge) and the Jimmy (First Lieutenant). It had a Gunnery Officer, responsible for drill and ceremonial. Cerberus had a quarterdeck, part of the parade ground, with mast and flags flying. ‘Colours’, the ceremonial hoisting of the naval White Ensign, was held on the quarterdeck every morning, and all officers were expected to attend. The Ensign would be hauled down at sunset, also with ceremony.
Mainstays of the navy were senior non-commissioned ranks, the petty officers (an ancient term derived from the French word for ‘small’, petit), equivalent to sergeants in the other services, and the warrant officers. The NCO’s were seasoned navy hands, specialists in their various categories and generally, proven leaders. Below them in rank were the seamen and at this training base, the recruits and apprentices. Female navy members of all ranks were then known as WRANs (Women’s Royal Australian Navy).
Cerberus’ buildings included the wardroom, which provided meals and accommodation for the officers. For the lower ranks there was a Petty Officers’ Mess and a Junior Sailors’ Mess. Buildings had no walls, floors or ceilings, but there were bulkheads, decks and deck-heads, respectively. Individual rooms, for officers and petty officers lucky enough to have them, were always cabins linked by a passageway. At the end of the passageway were the heads, the toilets, named from time immemorial in sail, where the crew relieved themselves from primitive platforms at the bow, or ‘head’ of their ship. Inspections by senior officers were known as Rounds. All spaces and cabins had to be clean and ship-shape. ‘Stand by for Rounds!’ the petty officers would shout, and everyone had to be present, standing at the ‘ho’ (attention) while the Captain or Commander satisfied himself that all was clean and in order, with possibly a polite word or an admonishment to various sailors or midshipmen.
Food served from the galley was known as ‘scran’, supposedly an acronym for ‘Shit Cooked by the Royal Australian Navy’. Breakfast scran could comprise ‘train smash’ (tomatoes and onions) accompanied with eggs and plenty of ‘redders’ (tomato sauce). Morning tea could be a ‘WRAN’s nipple’ (coffee scroll) or a ‘snot block’ (vanilla slice) from the goffa wagon followed by a ‘maggot bag’ (pie) or ‘snorker’
