Published: 10 Feb 2025

Decision making;

Neil’s question sets Kevin into retrospection mood.

“Yes Neil leaving Atherton to holiday in Melbourne was probably my first real decision, although not returning to school in December sixty-four was close even if in reality I didn’t have any alternative.”

“Did you intend to remain here in Melbourne at the time?”

“I don’t recollect thinking either way, although in hindsight I believe I didn’t have intention to return to Atherton. Possibly if mum and Bob remained in Mareeba I would still be there as I never warmed to living in Atherton.”

“What was your next big decision?”

Kevin becomes deep in thought, “That is a very good question and I must admit over my life I have made few real decisions. I mean those that could be considered to be life changing, not including where to go for a holiday, or what restaurant to book. After leaving Atherton the next would have been leaving the security of living with my grandparents to live with Wayne, following that the next would have been leaving Wayne even if it was only for a matter of months.”

“What about work; changing jobs or buying a house; wouldn’t you call those decision making?”

Again none were of my doing. Possibly finding my first employment was half of a decision.”

“You will need to explain what you mean by half.”

“The half being after coming to Melbourne and living with my grandparents while showing no interest in the future, my grandfather suggested I should find work or possibly return to Queensland. At eighteen years and two month without guidance or help and well outside my comfort zone I went to the employment office. I would say that was the half decision as I took the first position offered and stayed with the department for the next forty-seven years while slowly rising through the ranks. In a way throughout life I have simply let fate decide for me, although there was a short time when I believed all the cards were falling into place. Firstly after attending night school and passing my adult Leaving Certificate at the first attempt, I was accepted by the then PMG (Postmaster General’s department) for training as a Postal Clerk. That was the year I met Wayne and in meeting him almost derailed my career.”

“In what way would that be?”

“I became much too involved in my first relationship and my introduction to the gay scene to study and on a number of occasions I was close to being dropped from the Postal Clerk Training School programme.

“What about buying the house, surely that was a big decision?”

“Again it was not of my making, I had been living in a unit with Wayne for some years when through friends we became acquainted with an elderly man named Reg.”

“Was Reg a gay fellow?”

“Yes and he took a shining to me and Wayne, nothing untoward mind you. Later on, when only known to Reg he had very little time left because of a reoccurring medical condition, he wanted to put Wayne and me into a property. I refused but ended up relenting. Reg found the house and payed the deposit in Wayne and my name. Soon after he died, so except for agreeing for him to buy us a house I can’t call it a true decision.”

“You said you left Wayne for a time, why was that?”

“At that time the stress at home was so great I had to do something, I think Mark did most of the thinking for me.”

“Was your new friend called Mark?”

“Yes.”

“Then eventually you made the decision to leave Mark and return to Wayne.”

“Again the decision was made for me. One night Mark returned home to our flat in Windsor in a mood. After a short period of brooding silence he slammed his fist into the glass top coffee table breaking the glass and cutting his hand. He then declared it’s was over, his excuse being I had never totally committed to the relationship, the truth being he met a fellow more his age.”

“Did you love Mark?”

“I suppose in a way, or possibly I was more bemused that a man fourteen years younger, even if at the time I didn’t look much older than Mark, would fall for me and for a while I believe he was genuine. Also at the time I used Mark to get out of a situation with Wayne but that backfired on me. I remember after some time with Mark staying at our house for weekends, a friend of Wayne told him Mark and me were in a relationship.”

“Were you?” Neil asks.

“I didn’t think so as it was supposed to be a bit of fun but it did set me thinking, so the next time I saw Mark I said I couldn’t see him anymore as I was falling for him.”

“What did Mark say to that?”

“He said it’s too late as I’m in love with you.”

“What was Mark like?”

“He was twenty, vibrant and handsome but weren’t we all at that age. Also Mark had what is often described as animal magnetism and a selfdestruct button but he also had another characteristic and that was revengefulness. I once said I wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end and eventually I was. I also got a double whammy that night.”

“What caused the second surprise?”

“There I was in shock and alone as Mark departed for the closest gay bar, leaving me to consider my position when the telephone sounded. It was Wayne with further distressing news, Max our German Pointer dog had been hit by a car and needed burying and Wayne didn’t have the emotional presence to dig a hole in the house yard.

“Did you help to bury the dog?”

“No I called a friend who did it for me.”

“Then what happened?”

“Mark returned drunk and suggested I should go back to the house with Wayne while he sorted out what he should do.”

“So there you go you made a decision by moving out.”

“Nope, as I still owned half of this house I had nowhere else to go, so I moved back here. I would call it a lack of choice rather than a decision.”

“What’s the difference?”

“It was either back to the house or the street, as Mark had already arranged for his new fellow to move in with him and did while I was relegated to the spare room.”

“And you agreed to living with Mark and his new fellow?”

“It was only for a few weeks while I made arrangements to go elsewhere.”

“That must have been a distressing time for you.”

“True, as I had recently received my first promotion to Postal Manager and was finding work demanding. A lady friend suggested I should find an apartment on my own but that was a place too far at the time, I simply arrived at the house with my belongings and moved back into the spare room.”

“What did Wayne have to say about you moving back?”

“Oh boy; it was most difficult for some time, even now he likes to throw it back at me but I think as it has been more than thirty years we are over it.”

“Did you have regrets returning back here?”

“At first I did but I soon realised it was for the better, besides Mark’s observation was true I never felt at home with him. I think it was the age difference.”

“Do you still see Mark?”

“I did for a time, even as far as secrete encounters behind his new partner’s back but eventually that stopped. I did hear some disturbing news over the following years being Mark had become an alcoholic and mixed up with drugs, later on another partner gave him a hiding to such a degree Mark ended up in hospital and need to get a restraining order issued. A few years ago and after a number of further failed relationships Mark contacted me saying he was dying from cancer. I decided to visit him one last time but when I did, I was too late and he had already died.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“I was sad for Mark of course but little more.”

“We are getting away from my thesis theme; tell me a little about you holidays on the cattle property near Georgetown.”
 
 
Anything to do with country was Kevin’s favourite subject and it was refreshing to have someone actually interested in something that wasn’t bars, restaurants and a great night out. Kevin’s holidays on Forest Home were in his mid teen years when instead of the solitude of station life he should have been with other teenagers learning how to progress through those so described difficult years.

After returning north Ivy found work as housemaid on Forest Home cattle station some distance west of Georgetown in Queensland and was given permission for Kevin to stay over the Christmas break. At that time Kevin was living with Edith in Mareeba while attending the local school and believing he would return to Mareeba after that year’s Christmas holiday.

What Kevin wasn’t aware of, Edith and Graeme had considered giving up the refreshment rooms in the following year and Ivy had arranged for Kevin to return to Herberton and the hostel. That distressing news was yet to be foretold as Ivy didn’t want to ruin Kevin’s holiday at the station.

In Australia life is in reverse to that of the northern hemisphere and summer holidays coincide with Christmas from early December to mid January, depending on which state or territory you live in. This time of the year in Queensland’s north is also the period leading up to the northern monsoon season when during what is known as the wet, properties often become isolated for weeks at a time. It is also the time when the stations wind down activity to watch and mend with few hands remaining on property.

When Kevin arrived at Forest Home over that Christmas there was the manager Sam Arnold, his wife and two children, housemaid and cook, a few stockmen and bookkeeper, handyman and cowboy.

It would be the handyman’s job to attend to the property’s windmills, pumps and cattle troughs therefore he would also need to have a working knowledge of mechanics, as there were a number of vehicles needing constant servicing. The bookkeeper at Forest Home was a solitary fellow who had recently gone through a messy divorce and didn’t wish to reassociate with his hometown over the down season. Leaving the position of cowboy that may sound somewhat romantic but in translation in America he may be similar to a rouseabout. On an Australian station the cowboy would work with the ringers (stockmen) during mustering season but mostly if there was a milking cow he would do milking while attending to the homestead garden; being an odd-body sort of person. Usually the cowboy would be the younger of the stockmen, one could say learning his trade.

The homestead was grand old two story building situated some distance from the Gilbert River that for most of the year was no more than a wide stretch of sand with numerous waterholes, some stretching for miles and populated with fish and freshwater crocodiles. Do not be alarmed, they were much smaller than their salty cousins, usually no more than six feet from snout to tail tip and solitary, mind you if you tried to catch one it would give you a nasty bite. Kevin remembered on one occasion after a day’s swimming in the lagoon close to the homestead being told the water was infested with the nasty little buggers. Seeing he had shared their water on a number of occasions he shrugged away the warning.

The homestead proper was a substantial building on two levels with a divided flight of stairs at the front, leading to long and wide verandah on three sides, set in a half acre of shady trees. From the road the house appeared to boast many rooms yet the opposite was more accurate. The downstairs was mostly made up of two large living areas with a storage room, while the upper floor had thee bedrooms but little else and no kitchen.

The homestead kitchen, as with many colonial building, was separated from the living quarters to avoid fires and found along a short covered walkway behind the main house. This building consisted of two bedrooms for the cook and housemaid, kitchen and men’s dining room, large enough to seat at least a dozen stockmen when the mustering season was on. It must be said that in the sixties mustering was done on horseback, not like modern times with motorbikes and helicopters. Also during mustering there would also be a number of native stockmen and women house servants but they would camp away from the homestead by the lagoon, where they would be given rasions of tea, sugar and flour and as much beef as they could consume.

Sadly during a later visit by Kevin it was discovered the grand old lady was unliveable, being neglected for years and eaten away by white ants (termites). Even more poignant a year after the visit, it was reported the building had collapsed to rubble during a storm.

Over the years since the turning of the twentieth century the structures and outbuildings grew to meet the changing times and management styles, boasting a store containing everything a kitchen would need, a saddlery, garage for the stations two land rover vehicles, a caterpillar bulldozer and shed, fowl house, pigsty and butcher shop where the monthly kill was salted almost beyond palatable. Not forgetting stockyards and disused tennis court where weed grew under a rotted service net that had not seen a game in more than thirty years.

The only use for the tennis court with its high cyclone wire fencing was by the station’s two cattle dogs, as they had devised a way of funnelling any kangaroo that came close along a long stock fence that ran to the cattle loading yards into the confides of the court, once cornered they mauled the poor animals for sport. After a number of attacks it became necessary to block off the entrance so the dogs couldn’t have access.

If the homestead and home paddock was viewed from the air one could be forgiven in believing they had stumbled on a small township set amongst an oasis of green within a thousand square miles of pashed and stunted trees and for two wonderful Christmas holidays this oasis was to be Kevin’s home and entertainment.
 
 
As Kevin had many fond memories of his boyhood living with horses there was hope he would once again be introduced to riding. Unfortunately during both of his summer visits to the station the manager’s children were home, therefore he would only have use of their horses when the children were otherwise entertained. Nevertheless Kevin was an explorer with much to interest within walking distance, not excluding a grave within a mile of the homestead and he spent time searching through the properties journals to explain the man’s demise. Unfortunately the history was lacking and Mr. Arnold the manager had very little to disclose, other than what was etched on the man’s gravestone.

Many years later Kevin chanced upon the grand niece of Fred Hedgelong the man who occupied the grave, discovering he had been the station’s bookkeeper who had ridden his bicycle the forty miles into Georgetown. On his return he became disorientated, taking a wrong turn a mile or so before reaching the station. It was some days before Fred’s body was found and thought strange how a man who as a renown bushman and knew the area well could confuse his direction. It is alleged Fred had gone into Georgetown on business relating to missing stock and other alimonies in the properties accounts.

There was a twist in the story of Fred Hedgelong, or more so for Henry Wilson who was the manager of Forest Home Station at the time of Hedgelong’s demise.

Even with the lack of riding there was much to interest the lad, with swimming in the red soil infused tepid lagoon. Keeping to one end of the half mile stretch of water, to avoid a bullock that had become stuck in the mud and died, leaving its crow picked hide and sun bleached ribs bare to the hot tropical sun. There was further distraction, once a year a travelling saddler came to visit, bringing with him his tools and skill to attend to the stock saddles and other leather equipment.

Periodically the saddles would need opening and the horse hair stuffing rejuvenated. There would also be reins to mend or replacements made, as well as bridles crupper and girth straps. During the saddler’s work there would be numerous thin lengths of leather for the bin and as Kevin appeared interested in his work, he showed the lad how to eight-plait leather for a belt. Unfortunately the scrap leather and his holiday ran out long before his belt was at a good length. Many years later Kevin attempted to recreate his work using cord but by that time the skill had completely evaporated away.

Although the lagoon was separated from the Gilbert River by a dry creek bed, during the wet it became a branch of the river, what the natives called a billabong and as suggested believed to have a number of fresh water crocodiles lurking in the shallow depth. Aware of the suggestion Kevin had never encountered any although he did become rather nervous when on one occasion what he hoped was fish wriggled from beneath his feet.

Often Kevin would take the mile walk to the Gilbert River, where in the wide stretch of sand he would search for agates, filling his pockets with chips of coloured stone washed down during floods from a place called Agate Pocket. Kevin would imagine he had found King Solomon’s mines, or at least have something to brag about if he did the unthinkable by returning to the hostel and not back with Edith in the new year. The first was soon discovered to be his destination, although the news wasn’t too stressful as Kevin was smart enough to realise what was inevitable, as Edith had already mentioned giving up the refreshment rooms.
 
 
For most of the time the weather remained hot and humid, one only needed to move a few paces to find clothing wet and clinging. The humidity didn’t appear to concern Kevin but a thought should be given to his mother who had to attend to washing in a wood heated copper and Gladys Martin the station’s cook baking bread and preparing meals on an ancient wood range that leaked more heat than it retained.

Being monsoon season turned hopeful eyes towards the North West but this year the storms had a mind of their own and you could be forgiven in thinking the natural order had a sadistic bent as the heavy clouds came to the morning’s horizon, only to dissipate in the late afternoon. There were promises from the weathermen reporting rain was coming but late and average, yet how often the so called experts had been mistaken and instead of drenching the cattle country the storms dropped their load in the expanse of Gulf water, or across the hundred thousand square miles of sparsely populated Cape York.

This season the clouds had been building for a number of days and reports came across the crackling telephone line of heavy rain in the Einasleigh uplands, raising hope for relief from the heat when Kevin decided to give his agate hunting one last chance before his departure. Possibly he would find a smoky green stone like that found by John Miller the station’s cowboy while attending to his fish traps in the large water hole at the river’s crossover to the substation of Green Hills. When the Cowboy showed the stone Kevin wished to keep it but Miller thought he would have it cut and polished then made into a pendant for his lady friend back on the Tablelands.

On reaching the river Kevin was in for a surprise, the half mile stretch of usually dry sand was now a torrent of angry red soup fed by the Einasleigh Uplands storm and carrying everything from old fence posts to tree branches and bailing wire, as the river made its long journey to the distant Gulf of Carpentaria. There was also a bullock with bloated belly and legs pointing to the sun drenched heavens. Even without local rain the river had come up during the night, with some of the older stockmen making comment it arrived as a wall of silent water taking anything in its path.

There would be no agate hunting on that day.
 
 
With his summer holiday all but gone, it was time to think of the coming year and his return to the Tablelands. Kevin had hoped his grade seven year would find him living with Edith in Mareeba but such thoughts were quickly deflated with intention being for his return to Herberton and it hostel. Oh well there went his hope of remaining a Mareeba boy with it’s arse on fire, while memories of his first instalment of hostel life left him in trepidation of what the second may bring.

There were other distractions one being his adolescent fancy towards the station’s cowboy with his lithe frame, black hair and captivating green eyes. At nineteen John Miller was the epitome of an Australian stockman, lean, hard working and silent but most of all without aspirations to anything greater than a quiet life, the love from a good woman and a monthly visit to town for a few beers and some reminiscing on past adventures.

Returning to Kevin’s fancy, as his bed was situated on the landing outside his mother’s room and close to the entrance to the men’s dining room, the men needed to pass him by on their way for breakfast. On passing they would give banter and Kevin would wait in his bed for their approach. One in particular Larry Olson would feign grabbing at Kevin’s crotch, making comment that the lad was heavy on the peg. Kevin well understood the insinuation while a part of his developing sexuality wished for furthering of the attention. Even so if Larry was to advance beyond banter Kevin would have rejected his approach. Larry was at least thirty and to Kevin that was ancient. Besides it was one thing to wish for contact and another to accept it, seeing the limit of the lad’s sexuality was no more than mutual masturbation with a few of his hostel mates. What would occur between a well seasoned man and a green kid was well beyond Kevin’s understanding.

It was a different story with John Miller the cowboy, as Miller was young, no more than four years Kevin’s senior lad and handsome. As it was the station’s downtime, once John’s chores were done much of the day was his own and one of John’s favourite pastimes happened to be reading western novels, with the floor of his room in the men’s quarters scattered with paperbacks. Although Ivy had warned Kevin away from annoying the men during their work, he believed John was fair game while resting, so he hung around a little more than the cowboy appreciated.

During one of Kevin’s annoying visits John had become so irritated with the lad’s antics he took a leather length of bridle rein and secured him but finding a razorblade on the floor Kevin cut through the leather. That action was the final irritation for John as the set of reins had been a gift from his father before he fell from a horse, soon after succumbing to his injuries.

For the rest of Kevin’s holiday John became surely, bolting his door against further intrusion. Kevin took the hint and left well enough alone but there was one thing that interested the lad being he had a deep seated wish to view John naked but try as he may no opportunity arose, until one hot afternoon when John decided to cool off with a shower. Kevin had heard John in conversation with Larry Olson and believing it was his last chance he followed John to the shower block, it being little more than three shower stalls surrounded by a corrugated iron wall with a gap at the bottom and another at the top under the galvanised roofing.

Allowing enough time for John to undress and slip into the water Kevin peeped under the lower gap but could only see the cowboy’s feet.

The stall wall wasn’t high and Kevin could easily reach the top gap. For an instant he considered what would be his excuse if John spotted him, as why would he wish to see a man naked other than being sexual. With his hands at the top of the wall his sensibility screamed no, don’t do this dumb thing but the urge to see flesh was strong as his arms slowly lifted his head into the gap, then his wish was granted with sight of the cowboys black bush and appendage.

Their eyes meet.

Kevin falls from the wall giggling away his ignominy.

“What the fuck do you think you’re up to?” the cowboy shouts, seconds later he appears at the shower block door with a towel wrapped about his waist.

“I was only teasing you,” Kevin answers his heart pounding from embarrassment, or more so from being caught.

“Fuck off or I’ll give you teasing.”

“Sorry,” Kevin apologises.

The cowboy returns to finish his showering without further comment.

If John believed Kevin’s actions were anything but youthful stupidity was never established and there was no further mentioning, nor did John report Kevin to his mother but being caught in the act of spying gave Kevin enough fear to leave well enough alone, besides within a matter of days John Miller departed for the Tablelands where during the following dry season he married.
 
 
Neil makes a comment, “was that the last you saw of your cowboy?”

“It was but I did manage to track him down and I telephoned him some ten years back.”

“I bet you didn’t mention the spying incident?”

“No way, I did suggest I had been a bit of a pest, especially when he set a fish trap in one of the Gilbert waterholes and me and this other kid pulled the trap out to see if he had caught anything but weren’t strong enough to place it back in the same position.”

“What did John say about your confession?”

“He agreed I had been a pest and I apologised, then we spoke about some of the men who worked at the station, although by then many had passed on.”

“Do you mean left the area or died?”

“They had died.”

“It appears they may have died young,” Neil suggests.

“Back then reaching above sixty for a stockman was rare as the work was hard, the drinking heavy and the food bad. Many never married as opportunity was limited to the occasional visit to a country town that lacked available women.”

“I’d like to hear more on the other kid you mentioned.”

Kevin gives a smile.

“Yes the Bookkeeper’s son. If I was fourteen he would have been sixteen but for the life of me I don’t recall his name.”

“By your reaction it appears there was some action between the two of you.”

“If you could call it action and for once it was at his instigation and not by me. We had a quick session down by the lagoon away from the big house. I would describe what occurred to be nothing more than Three-D porn.”

“I haven’t heard that one.”

“It means mutual masturbation, simple kids stuff. As I remember he had developed a pubic bush and I was lacking even the suggestion of growth, mine sprouted during the following year.”

“How often did these encounters occur?”

“Only the once, although we had kicked about for a week or so it wasn’t until the day before he headed back to his mother down the coast in Tully before we became involved. I did run into him in Mareeba some years later but nothing was said.”

“You mentioned bad food. I am interested in the living conditions on the station.”

“I can’t speak for all stations, although I suggest the further from your supplier the less frequent were deliveries. On Forest Home we had fortnightly deliveries.”

“Fortnightly you say.”

“Yes, bi-weekly by the mail truck driver who would collect the mail and groceries from the rail head at Forsayth. Sometimes during the wet there wouldn’t be a delivery for up to a month or more as the main gulf road was nothing more than a dirt track with the occasional narrow strip of tar along its centre. The creek crossings were simply a rocky under-bed on the sand while a number of the major rivers had low causeways and planking for road vehicles across the rail bridges during a flooding.”

“That seems a little risky and the way you describe the country it appears to be almost desert.”

“Often dry but never desert, although trees didn’t reach the height of the monsters on the tableland, these day’s the gulf country is described as savannah but in my thinking that is the tourist industry attempting to give the impression of travelling through Africa. During the wet the gulf country would be a sea of green then with the dry you would begin to understand the words from Dorothea Mackeller’s My Country.”

“That’s the one and with Queensland’s gulf country it becomes the epitome of her poem, although if you spend time out there it somehow gets into you and you never completely clear it out.

“How long does the dry last?”

“Most of a year, the wet is during the monsoon season around December through to February with storms and cyclones coming in from the Coral or Arafura Sea. In a big wet it is impossible to realise the true run of some of the rivers as they cover the land for miles, drowning cattle and washing away fencing.”

“Seeing you couldn’t duck down to the corner shop, how would you get things like kitchen utensils or everyday incidentals?”

“In most you would limit your needs, besides there was mail order and occasionally a travelling salesman would come by with a van full of interesting things. During the downtime many migrated back to the coast and the larger towns to stock up for the coming year.”

“You mentioned bad food, what was the main diet for the stockmen?”

Kevin laughs, “Steak for breakfast.”

“Why do you laugh?”

“That was the title of a book I once read by Elizabeth O’Conner whose husband managed of Forest Home before I arrived. Back then you could more than satisfy a man by giving him steak for every meal without a green leaf on his plate.”

“It all sounds unhealthy.”

“It was but these days going by some of the doco’s I’ve seen on television they are served salads and quiche for breakfast. Again you have to realise the tyranny of distance determined what a man ate. The roads were bad and telephone reception worse, sometimes nothing but a copper wire strung between trees and everything had to be brought in from distance, therefore leaf vegetables wouldn’t last the hot dusty travel.”

“What were the main vegetables?”

“Mainly cabbage, potatoes, onions carrots and pumpkin, anything with a long shelf life, yet it was surprising what a good station cook could do with that lot,” Kevin pauses and laughs, “yester day a puppy plenty, today a puppy none,” he says.

“What does that mean?”

“A story about a Chinese cook and a bitch with her newly born puppies but one hopes it is simply a story.”

“Couldn’t they grow what they needed?”

“Some would try with a little success as the humidity was high and the soil poor. It is said the top soil in Queensland’s West is only a few inches deep and lacking most of the trace elements most vegetable prefer. Besides water was a problem, there would be tank water for house usage while what came up from below ground was full of corrosive minerals and the climate so hot and humid it rotted everything before ready to harvest, or the wild life had their fill.”

“Wildlife?”

“Kangaroos and Bandicoots in the most.”

“Couldn’t you simply drive into town for supplies?”

“Ha, some of the towns were but a speck on the map, a dot with a name beside it. Take Georgetown as it was the closest to Forest Home; it was more than forty miles over a corrugated road. To travel that distance in the city would take about half an hour even with traffic lights. Out there it would take most of a day and shake the life out of most vehicles. Besides once in Georgetown all you would find was a pub and general store that held everything conceivable but only to supply the few hundred locals. The closes rail head was Forsayth and equally as small and another fifty miles further on more unmade roads.”

“What about the female stock workers, Jillaroos I believe they are called?”

“For a start the word Jillaroo didn’t exist back then. Jackaroo yes but now it is wrongly titled, originally a Jackaroo was a trainee station manager until the tourist industry cottoned onto the title, pinning it to anyone who worked stock, or if it comes to it even southern farm hands. On most stations the only females were cook and housemaid and during the busy times a number of aboriginal women would be sent up from the missions to do the more mundane kitchen and housework. As for payment, their salaries were often kept by the agencies and they received nothing but their keep.”

“That appears somewhat racist.”

“In retrospect I suppose it was. In reality no one thought much about the natives, although it is well known the men are the best stockmen and wonderful horsemen. That is if you can keep them from going walkabout.”

“Walkabout?”

“Often without giving a reason they would simply leave during the night and not return. I don’t think they ever warmed to white man’s work, then again why be regimented as they had survived for sixty thousand years without needing the daily drudge.”

“Terror-nullius eh?”

“Not so we knew they were there, even the British knew there was a race of black people populating Australia. The British had a problem with their convicts and America no longer wanted them, Africa wasn’t suitable as it was too hot and its population fort back, so why not that big chunk of land down south that no one seems to want. If the Brits didn’t come here someone else would have.”

“Is that an excuse Kevin?”

“Not at all, it is reality besides do you think other countries would have bypassed Australia allowing the small population of less than a million spread over three million square miles live its Stone Age lifestyle for eternity?”

“You must admit the blacks were badly treated.”

“It was the way of things and everyone treated everybody badly, more so our own, I would say the convicts sent here for stealing food to survive could also be described as a stolen generation.”

Neil gives a cheeky smile, “you as well Kevin?”

“I suppose so. Most of what we thought came from the adults giving an underlying feeling of white superiority. I don’t believe I thought much about the natives at all. I don’t recollect being malevolent towards them, even towards the few I was at school with during my time in Mareeba but on the other hand I never protested against the ribbing they received either.”

“Were there many aborigines at the hostel?”

“From what I recollect none at the hostel as it was set up by the Methodist Church to further educate the kids from the outlaying cattle stations and those from the white families who ran Papua and the New Guinea mandate. There were a number of island kids, one we believed to be a Tongan Prince but I must say half the population of Tonga was considered to be royalty.”

“It appears as a lad you had a somewhat lackadaisical attitude towards life.”

Kevin gives a cheeky chortle, “lackadaisical would be the half of it. To me life was a game and it wasn’t until I came to the city I realised how disillusioned I had been. I think you could have described me as a Labrador puppy bounding through my school years while interested in nothing but hedonistic play. I must admit all that was soon knocked out of me when I finally joined the public service, although there was one thing about my time at the hostel that never left me.”

“Elaborate.”

“It was being regimented and possibly it came from seeing the school cadets in uniform and how I longed to join their ranks.”

“And did you?”

“No by the time I reached my scholarship year, the school cadet system was abandoned in Herberton. Yet I suppose being billeted at the hostel during my informative years gave me a feeling towards regimentation. Not long after returning to Melbourne and working in the public service it was time to register for national service conscription. I registered but my birth date wasn’t chosen.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“I almost joined the army as I wanted to fight communism. The years since have taught me otherwise but I remain conservative.”

“A Liberal voter I would say?”

“In the most yes, yet of late I have come to understand the merit on both left and right. What about you Neil, where do your loyalties lay?”

“My father is a card carrying liberal while mum tries to avoid any conversation on politics but unlike most in the University Union, I remain undecided, possibly you could call me a swinging voter.”

“A Teal (unaligned independents) maybe.”

“No not a Teal, I consider them to be fence-sitters with a single policy or axe to grind that in the most don’t suit either faction and as they would never be in government they can be as controversial as they wish. I would say I am mostly for anyone who strengthens democracy.”

“You do know what Churchill said about democracy?”

“No.”

“He said democracy is the worst kind of government on earth.”

“And?”

“The worst except for all the rest.”

“It does have a ring of truth to it,” Neil admits.

“I suppose there can never be true democracy, only a fair go for as many as financially possible and a safety net for those who fall through.”

“What was politics like in the fifties?” Neil asks.

“We had the Red’s under the bed with Menzies and the Nineteen fifty-one referendum to ban the Communist Party that failed by one percent. In the northern cane fields there was the Mafia with the Italian immigrants on the cane fields which if you scratch the surface is still there. What we didn’t have were the Greens and Teals, I don’t think there was a single independent in government. The country was growing in leaps and bounds while supplying the world coal and iron by the ship load without a thought on pollution. We had it and the world wanted it and we all but gave it away.

“Yes the good old days but I guess we are digressing a little, what about your first paying work?”

Gary’s stories are about life for gay men in Australia’s past and present. Your emails to him are the only payment he receives. Email Gary to let him know you are reading: Conder 333 at Hotmail dot Com

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