Introduction

What follows is my story which I commenced when living in Bracken Ridge, Queensland Australia some time between 2000 and 2004. I wrote it originally in the third person, but after some revisions, it became easier to convert it to a “first person” autobiography. It is now more than twenty years since I started and I have expanded the original work considerably, recollecting my life events as best as I can recall.

Beginnings

I was born at Ryde, New South Wales on Friday, 28 December 1956, the first of twins, and third of five children and second son of John Edward Anderson (“Dad”) and his wife Edith nee Warth (“Mum”). The other children were Kylie (older by five years), Jonathan (older by three and a half years), David (my twin, younger by fifteen minutes — David will say ten minutes, but my recollection is that Mum said fifteen — and Robyn (younger by four and a half years).

Let’s start with my name “Bill Anderson”. Like most mothers, Mum had her birthing stories, and David’s and mine goes like this. Mum knew she was going to have twins, and she was certain that she was going to have a boy and a girl. My name was going to be “William David’ – Bill. When I was born, and the doctor (Doctor Bishop) announced “It’s a boy!” Mum was happy that she had her “Bill”. She might have had a girl’s name in mind, but I don’t know what it was. But then when David was born, and the announcement, “It’s a boy!” came from the doctor, Mum thought “Another bloomin’ boy”. But then the doctor said, “Quick, think of a name. We might have to Christen him!” because he was having a bit of trouble “ticking over”.

Now I maintain that only mothers can do this – Mum's logic was: Well we can’t call him Bill, because then I won’t have a Bill, so we’ll give him Bill’ second name, David. Now for his middle name. Oh well, he can have his father’s middle name, Edward – “David Edward Anderson”. So David was actually named before me, but then Mum had the problem – what will we call Bill?. Well Mum and Dad both have younger brothers, Eric Warth on Mum’s side and Erik Anderson on Dad’s side, so at first I was going to be “William Eric Anderson”. But Mum thought (only mothers can do this) that with the initials “WEA”, everyone would call me “wee-wee”, so she swapped the names around and my formal name is “Eric William Anderson”, but I have always been known as “Bill”. As it turned out, it was probably less of a problem being called “wee-wee” than having to explain that I am known by a shortened version of my middle name.

My first home was 54 Boronia Avenue, Epping, New South Wales. I remember being put into my cot for my day-time sleep, but I was never very good at sleeping. I stayed awake a lot of the time. David used to sleep a lot more, and I would try to wake him by whispering as loud as I could. I had to whisper because I didn’t want to alert Mum, but I had to whisper as loud as I could because David was such a sound sleeper. I never was very successful in this exercise. As I grew up, I had to accept that I would spend many hours lying awake at night because I just didn’t sleep that much.

But that is not my earliest memory. I remember being in my cot and there was something dark and blurry in the distance too far away to see. I started wailing, as babies do, hoping that Mum would push me closer to it or it closer to me, but that didn’t happen. She had been able to interpret my cries quite well for a feed or a cuddle, but this time, she just picked me up and tried to comfort me. It is a pet theory of mine that it was at this point I resolved that there had to be a better way to communicate what I wanted, but was too young to appreciate that speaking would have been the way. You would think I might remember other “baby” things, like suckling or getting my nappy changed, but I don’t, although I do remember how uncomfortable my wet nappy was, soggy towelling around my upper thighs. Another early memory is being in the pram and being dazzled by the spots of sunlight coming through the lining to the hood (and through the wicker outer covering).

But I think I’m like most people who have pleasant memories of early childhood… playing in the garden, playing with toys, going to church and Sunday school. I was told that my birthday was “three days after Christmas”, and when my Sunday school teacher asked me when my birthday was, that is what I told her. She seemed to do a mental sum in her head before writing it down which seemed odd to me at the time, but back then, I had no idea about calendars and what calendar dates were. One day, playing in the garden beside the house at Epping, I found a small dark coin. It had a picture of a man on one side, but I don’t remember what was on the other side. I gave it to Dad, and he said it was a farthing.

We used to go for walks to the Epping shops with Mum, and there was a shoe shop called “Smelley Shoes”, but at the time, I didn’t understand the humour in that. We used to walk down to Grandpa and Granny’s (John and Florence Warth) place at 11 Grandview Parade. Granny always seemed to me to be very serious. She had some toy cars — there were only two or three of them, about three or four times the size of Matchbox toy cars that David and I had at home. But I liked these ones because they were models of the cars I saw driving around our local streets. There was an FJ Holden ute and an EH Holden sedan. They were grey in colour, but we couldn’t play with them properly because Granny didn’t want us to scratch them.

Grandpa moved in with us. I don’t know what happened to Granny, but Grandpa used to take David and me down to the corner shop and return with a pint of milk to share, and we’d raise our glasses and clink them together with a hearty “Jolly Good Health!” He used to read us stories, but I don’t remember much about that. I started school at Epping West Public School in 1962 at the age of five. I recall walking to and from school and at the time, there were big gates which swung out to stop the traffic on busy Carlingford Road to allow school children to cross safely. The teachers were very firm in telling us not to go near that road.

Grandpa died at our place. Apparently, Jonathan went in to wake him, and he wouldn’t wake up. We weren’t allowed in to see him, but a nurse came and we were made to stay at the back of the house. Granny died just after Robyn was born in 1961, but I don’t remember anything about that. I think I might have missed them, but I was too young to appreciate that they were gone forever. One fond memory I have was one visit we had to Granny and Grandpa’s place. Kylie took David and me out the back to go to the chook house, and there were nasturtiums growing. Kylie told us that the dew which had collected in the leaves was fairy water. Now to a three-year-old, which I was at the time, that was quite enthralling.

Dad and Mum extended the house at Boronia Avenue with a new “back verandah” in which David and I slept, even though it was a single room extending right across the back of the house, except for a new inside laundry for Mum to use. The old laundry was a brick building that had an old outside toilet in a separate little room. Further down the back yard was the chook house but there were only chooks very early on. Down behind the garage was a row of agapanthus and Mum told us were weren’t allowed near them because they had ticks in them. But in the back corner was a Jacaranda tree which Jonathan used to climb. Jonathan had a pedal car which I was sometimes allowed to ride. I was riding it out through the side door to the garage and cut the corner too fine and brought a whole pile of tools which were standing up on their ends down across the backs of my hands. The worst was Dad’s crowbar. The backs of my hands swelled up and Mum and Dad came around to see what my screams in agony were about. From that day onwards, the fingernail on my left ring finger has grown with splits along the top.

David and I got little tricycles we called “dinkies” to ride one Christmas. We used to get on them and let them coast down the footpath. Looking back, it was quite dangerous, not the fast ride down the hill, but Boronia Avenue crossed busy Midson Road and we used to race right onto the road with the momentum of our ride. We were lucky not to get skittled, but the traffic was not as much back then.

We used to often visit Uncle Bill and Auntie Ivy at Westmead and Auntie Meg and Uncle Robert at Carlingford. Auntie Ivy and Auntie Meg used to keep David and me pretty much in line. Uncle Bill was great, but we didn’t get to see much of Uncle Robert. Our cousins, Keith, Peter, Penny and Mandy Warth were fun as well as Jenny and Peter Hall. Keith and Peter were much older — Keith was even older than Kylie. But they used to build models, like model houses out of wood (match sticks?), and I was fascinated at the detail they put into their work. One particular memory was Peter making a doorway for the house, and even carving the doorstep with a worn in the middle and a rounded edge so that it was more authentic. Penny used to get along well with Kylie, and Mandy used to play with David, Robyn and me. Kylie got along really well with Jenny Hall too, but I don't remember seeing much of Peter.

We got to see many other more distant relatives as well, and spent one Christmas up at Grandma and Grandad Anderson’s huge house, Yester Grange at Wentworth Falls. The house was so large I used to get lost in it and it was really scary at night, especially when Kylie and Jonathan used to play pranks on us younger kids pretending to he ghosts or monsters.

Brisbane

It was early in 1963 that Dad announced that he had been transferred to Brisbane by his employer, AMP. And so it was that the family moved to Queensland. I always consider that it was in Brisbane that I grew up, and I would end up spending most of my life there. At first, the family lived in a couple of motel rooms at the Metropolitan Motel in Edward Street, Brisbane, but moved shortly thereafter to a company flat above the Sheridans Bakery at 184 Moggill Road, Taringa. We went to school at Taringa State School in the class of Mrs. McKenzie. We practised writing on slates and we took turns at being the slate monitor who had to clean the slates with a wet sponge at the end of classes. Although we had to erase our work, it was with a dry eraser, and it left the slates kind of grey, but the wet sponge made them clean and almost black again.

Kylie and Jonathan went there too, of course. I remember Kylie being very upset with the move to Brisbane. She was ready to go to Carlingford Girls High School, and had a smart school dress, mushroom pink with maroon piping trimmings, hat and matching maroon gloves, but with the move to Queensland, she had to go back to primary school. But the school was just a short walk of about 150 metres down the road. Although Moggill Road was a main road, it split to go around the school, up on our side, and down on the other. We had traffic lights to cross and even though we were so close to the school, we were sometimes late or close to late getting there. I thought Mrs. McKenzie was not all that bright. Mum had put my name on several of my things as “Bill A.” Our class had some writing lessons on paper which we had to hand in, so I put my name “Bill A.” at the top. Mrs. McKenzie chided me, saying, “What’s this ‘Billa’? Your name is Bill, not Billa!”. I thought she should have been able to figure it out.

One of my friends at school lived with his family at the back of the newspaper shop a few doors up the street closer to the school. We used to play together, and one day we were playing hide and seek. He and I were seekers, and looking for other kids under the shop, we saw a snake. It was a red-belly black, not very big, but probably large enough to kill both of us, but we left it alone. We guessed that there weren’t any hiders under the shop.

The main railway line ran along behind the flat. Not directly behind, but down a steep hill and there were some premises behind accessed down the steep laneway. Jonathan used to sneak onto the railway tracks and put a penny on one of the rails. After a train ran over it, it ended up being about a foot long. The flat was quite large and had a very large back room which had no furniture in it, but it had double doors, wood framed glass, which opened out to outside, but there was nothing there, two storeys up. I later learned that this was called a mother-in-law’s kitchen.

One day David and I were going down the back steps of the flat when he slipped and fell. He got a great gash on his shin from the sharp edge of one of the kerosene tins Mum had cut in half and put plants in. He had to have stitches.

Dad and Mum built a brand new house at 12 Montclair Street, Aspley. We used to go out and to see the progress in the construction. It had a steep driveway to a double garage under the house. We moved in on Christmas Eve, I shared a room with my two brothers, Jonathan and David. Kylie and Robyn shared another bedroom, and there was a spare room for Mum’s sewing.

School

The majority of my schooling was in Brisbane, first at Taringa, but only for grade one, Aspley State School, grades two to seven, and then at Aspley State High School, grades eight, nine and ten. My grade one teacher was Mrs Mckenzie, a bit of an old battle-axe. I thought she was not all that bright. One day, we handed in our work to be marked, and I put my name as “Bill A.” When I was collecting my work, she said, “What's this ‘Billa’? Write your name properly”. I really thought she should have been able to work it out that my surname started with “A&rqduo;, but she wouldn't allow me to let her know that’s what I meant.

My grade two teacher was Mrs. Burns. She was quite young and pretty and she was very nice. Even though she was really nice, she never seemed to have a discipline problem. She just seemed to carry an air of expectation that we were to behave ourselves. We also had a school music teacher, but I can’t recall her name. She would come into our class about once a week. Our room was the last one in B Block closest to the front of the school.

My grade three teacher was Mr. Zillman, and he was billeted by Mum and Dad for a few months (weeks?). Our classroom was in C Block, up near the toilet block and tennis courts. He was quite a nice young man with curly blonde hair and a very pink complexion, but he did have a fifteen inch plastic ruler for maintaining discipline. Many threats, but I don’t recall him ever having to use it.

My grade four teacher was Mr. O’Reilly. He used to reek of what I thought was perfume. (I later learned it was Brut 33.) He had a habit of twisting your ear if he thought you were misbehaving. He did it to me once, wrongfully accusing me of talking in class. I didn’t like him much, but he did tell the class that he heard a lot of kids swearing in the playground and it was a sign of mental weakness if you swear. If you were smart enough, you should be able to say what you want without swearing. Our classroom was in A Block, next to the Deputy Principal’ Office. I later learned it was one of the oldest classrooms, being built with the first expansion of the school. He wore glasses and was sort of on the muscular but chubby side.

My grade five teacher was Mr. Mulhall. He was tall and lanky, with jet black shiny hair and glasses. Kids being kids, we were told how unlucky we were to have him as a teacher, but I found he was really one of the best. Some time during that year, there was an outbreak of hepatitis, and the Principle, Mr. Malone, came around to every class and explained the disease and what the school was doing to prevent the spread. For the first time, we had soap dispensers near the taps for washing hands after going to the toilet. Some time during the year Mr. Malone was replaced by a new headmaster, Mr. Pherson.

My grade six teacher was Mr. Fishburn. I think he thought I was a bit of a smart aleck. One time, we were given a quiz and the questions included what USA and USSR stood for. Of course nearly everyone knew that USA was for the United States of America, but Mr. Fishburn said USSR was for the United Soviet Socialist Republic. I queried, “Could it be ‘Union of?…”, and he paused and said he would allow that too. Later on, after I had left school, Mr. Fishburn appeared on a quiz show on the television, and he did quite well.

My grade seven teacher was Mrs. Murphy. I thought she was a great teacher. Until grade seven, David and I were always put in the same class at the insistence of Mum, ostensibly so that I could take homework home to David because he was often kept home with bouts of “bronchitis”. It was probably asthma, but Mum would have none of that, like there was some kind of stigma being asthmatic. Come grade seven, however, David and I were in separate classes. I think we would have been quite happy with that, but Mum went to the school and insisted we be put in the same class with the same old argument that I might have to take homework home to David. Now David had pretty much grown out of his “bronchitis” attacks, but the teachers asked David and me to decide which class we were going to be in, Mrs. Murphy’s or David’s teacher, Mr. Watson’s. I think Mum persuaded us that a male teacher would be better for boys, and so I was saddened to have to leave Mrs. Murphy’s class. I still think I would have been better off being allowed to stay in Mrs. Murphy’s class.

Then there was Mr. Conran, the deputy principal. He made it his personal mission to make up for the Education Department’s decision to remove Latin and Greek roots from the syllabus and would come into our class every so often and give us all some lessons in that subject. A lot of kids thought it was a load of drivel, but I liked to learn about them and later in life, when I had become a professional writer, what I learned was quite valuable.

I went to grade eight at Aspley State High School, and because it was too far to walk, David and I were given push bikes for Christmas mainly to ride to and from school. We had bag racks for our school cases and had to squash our school hats inside. This was well before the provision of elastic straps, so our school cases were held on the racks by a spring-loaded rigid wire frame. Our bikes did not have gears, so it was a tough ride up the big hill along Kirby Road. The ride down the hill on Kirby Road just before a sharp left turn into Rex Street was quite exhilarating. David and I got used to going around that corner quite fast which was just as well because one of the other kids tried to knock us off our bikes. Once he saw how well we negotiated that corner, staying on our side of the road in case someone was coming the other way, he left us alone.

Now in high school, David and I were not always in the same class, but we often were. I developed life-long friendships with a couple of my schoolmates, Colin Warland and Russell Cutcliffe. More about them in other parts of my story.

There were also some memorable moments and memorable teachers at school. Our form teacher was Mr Jeffery who took our maths class. One day he sat up the front and scanned the room. He said “Boys, take off your ties.” Now he did the same and, demonstrating in front of us, taught us all how to tie Windsor knots. From then on, our class 9B2 which became 10B2 had the best tied ties in the school. Our science teacher was Mr Klotz. He demonstrated that he could be quite authoritarian with our very first class, but explained that that was not his preference. He would much prefer a class of mutual respect and we all agreed with his “contract” and great science lessons followed. Mr. Barrett took our manual arts classes, woodwork and metalwork in grade eight, but we had to choose one or the other for grades nine and ten. I chose metalwork.

The story of Aspley State High School would not be complete without a mention of Mr. Rogers. He was a pathetic little man, and a pathetic, but consummate bully. It seems to me he picked on boys because power dynamics permitted him to do so. If he did some of the things he did today, I’m sure he’d be in jail. Nobody liked him and certainly nobody, even the other teachers respected him.

But we also had our favourites. Mr. Stuart was the Sports Master and a very capable fellow. Small in stature, but large in personality. Mr. Martin was the Principal and Mrs. McKenna was the Deputy. But Mrs. McKenna was in charge of the girls, and she kept a tight rein on them. Woe betide any girl who wore her skirt too high. Being the era of the miniskirt, many girls really pushed the boundaries. Mr. Saws was our English teacher, and a very good teacher he was. He was strict, and many students didn’t like him, but he wouldn’t take any misbehaviour. Sometimes, I feel he went a bit too far. In one lesson, one of the students said something which could have been taken the wrong way, and when he realised, he apologised. But Mr. Saws would have none of it and chastised the poor lad, in my view, without justification. Another time, we were getting ready to go on an excursion, and one of my colleagues, Mark Pettigrew, asked where we were going. Mr. Saws’ answer was, “What is it to you?” and so we were left in the dark. (We happened to be going to old Fort Lytton.)

The last two years of my schooling were at North Sydney Boys' High School; the family, minus Kylie and Jonathan who had both married, returned to Sydney. We had a flat in Aubin Street for a few months, then Mum and Dad bought a house at 8 Spruson Street, Neutral Bay. It was another “transfer” in Dad's work in 1973. We&squo;d been nearly ten years in Brisbane. Dad worked close on forty years for the AMP Society, finishing as “Accountant, Tax” in AMP's head office in Sydney.

David and I used to walk to school across the pedestrian footbridge over the Warringah Expressway. When the decimalisation program for Australia was completed, all roads and traffic went metric, and early on the designated day, all of the obsolete imperial signage was removed from in front of the new metric signage, and David and I watched workers removing the old speed limit signs as we crossed the footbridge.

The New South Wales Education Department made it very difficult for David and me to get into North Sydney Boys’ High School, making us sit lots of tests. I think it was because we were twins that they set so many test, but we lived in the catchment, so they couldn’t refuse us an enrolment. Anyway, we were apparently way “ahead” in maths and science, but “behind” in English. We weren’t really all that behind in English — they just didn’t really test us in knowledge of the English language, they tested us on knowledge of English literature, but the New South Wales curriculum focussed on literature, not really teaching English grammar or the like much at all. Anyway, my elective science subject was chemistry, and although the Vocational Guidance Officer recommended I pursue a career in architecture, I decided I would rather pursue a career in chemical engineering.

Scouts

Bill was enrolled at Aspley Scouts in the Cub Scout section, and progressed through the sections. The Aspley Scout Den was in Ellison Road, and I recall going along with Dad, Tom Roberts and Earl Rawlings and maybe one or two others to a clearing in the bush. The western part of Marchant Park, that is, the part west of the creek, was all bushland, rather dense woodland forest. I later learned that the clearing was where the Scout Den was to be built. Well just about the same time that the Scout Den was built, the western part of the park was cleared of about 80% or 90% or the trees. My Akela was Mrs. Jan Middleton and our pack meeting was on a Saturday morning. I didn’t quite get all the make-believe, but I enjoyed the company and adventure.

I went up to the Scout Troop at the designated age and was put into Koala Patrol. My patrol leader was Scott Gamble and I must say I learned quite a lot from the older boys in the troop including Scott.

As the older boys left, some to go on to senior scouts I progressed quite quickly to Assistant Patrol Leader and then Patrol Leader. My patrol liked to go on Patrol Camps, and we did quite a few. Looking back, Aspley Scout Group must have had quite a wide network of support in the general community, but I think that back then, nearly everybody did what they could to help the Scouts.

Shortly after I went up to the next section, Senior Scouts, it changed its name to Venture Scouts. Our Venture Leader was a somewhat short gentleman, a former Navy submariner. He told us that the Navy prefers shorter men because there is not much headroom in a submarine. But we had a great time. One night, we decided to climb Mount Coonawarin, otherwise known as Mount Crookneck. But we couldn’t find the mountain in the darkness of that moonless night, which is probably just as well because that mountain is one of the most dangerous to climb even in daylight. The move back to Sydney meant my scouting days, at least as a youth member, were over.

It was on my return to Brisbane with Darlene, James and Ben that my involvement with the scouting movement continued. James became a Cub scout, but there was a new section for Ben as a Joey Scout. Matt came along too at the right age, and I became a Joey Scout Leader and Darlene became a Cub Scout Leader at the same time. James went on to the Scouts section, but Ben and Matt were not interested in continuing. I stayed on as Assistant Joey Scout Leader for a few years with the Scouting Name Koala. IThe leader was Wayne Kingston, “Kanga”, and his wife was the Venture Scout Leader. After a few years, I moved up two sections to become the Scout Leader of one of the two troops in the group, but as no one else in the family was involved, I decided to leave, which was sad for me and the Scouts in the troop, but I explained to them that “family comes first”.

Piano Lessons

Kylie and Jonathan had some piano lessons, and later, so did David and I. But David wasn’t too interested. Jonathan’s and Kylie’s lessons had finished, but I kept on with Mrs. Walmsley. I used to walk to her place once a week I think. I sat for the music practical and theory exams under the Australian Music Examinations Board, completing Grade Four Theory but not quite finishing Grade Four Practical. My music lessons even continued when we moved back to Sydney, but I didn’t sit any further exams. I can’t remember my music teacher’s name, but she was a very pregnant young woman who lived in a flat in Cremorne and she gave me advanced practice pieces. I got to the stage where I could play lots of popular songs by ear with a simple accompaniment. But the last year of High School meant I had to give up the piano lessons.

Roadworks

When David and I first went to Aspley State School, Gympie Road, which we had to cross, was a single carriageway running beside a creek. But soon, there were major roadworks which we had to walk through as the Main Roads Department was constructing a second carriageway to make it a divided road. They had huge concrete pipes which they put in the creek and put the road along the top. So the northbound lanes of Gympie Road, Aspley, from Darwin Street north for about two or three hundred metres runs atop the creek in a pipe. Where Ellison Road joined Gympie Road, there was a sharp corner to go south on Gympie Road down a somewhat steep incline and a rather risky right hand turn at the top of a crest in Gympie Road to turn right. However, at about the same time that the westen end of Marchant Park was cleared, Webster Road was extended north of Gympie Road to meet Ellison Road and the Ellison Road intersection with Gympie Road was closed off. Gympie Road went down quite a bit to cross the creek running through Marchant Park, but has been built up considerably now and is not prone to flooding like it used to be.

There was a set of traffic lights to cross Gympie Road at the bottom of Darwin Street, and one day on the way home, David was nearly run over when a young man in a Holden Ute missed the red light and screeched to a halt across the crossing, just clipping David’s heel as he leapt out of the way. The poor driver was clearly shaken, having just avoided a serious pedestrian collision, but David brushed it off. He didn’t even get a bruise. So we witnessed the widening of Gympie Road from Chermside to Beams Road during our schooling at Aspley.

University

I completed a Bachelor of Engineering degree with honours in Chemical Engineering at the University of New South Wales in 1979. My major was in Bioprocess Engineering. After graduating, I looked for a position and had to make a choice between working Taubmans, I think, or for the University “Membrane Research Group”. The university position was part-time, four days a week, and the professors told me that although they had other candidates, if I applied, I would get the job. So I did, and the plan was that I would be able to enrol in a Master of Engineering for the fifth day. I was working under a grant from Anderson Engineering Pty Ltd, no relation, and Bob Starr, the School Administrative Officer, told me that I should not come in on Fridays, otherwise I would end up working five days a week but only get paid for four. So on Fridays, Istill went in to the university, but I spent those days doing my masters degree with in the Bioprocess Engineering Department which happened to be in another building.

The Membrane Research Group was investigating the properties of a polymeric ultrafiltration membrane made by dissolving oriented nylon yarn in mineral acid to form a “dope”, spread the dope out on a glass plate and plunge it into water in which the dope would coagulate to form a flat microporous membrane with a nominal pore size of nought point two microns..

My work was under the direct supervision of a visiting French scientist, Michel (Michel Serge Maxime Lefebvre). He was a heavy smoker, but I was warned not to believe everything Michel said. Verisimilitude was not one of his strongest attributes. There was one incident when the was a meeting set up with the Managing Director of the sponsor, Malcolm Anderson with Chris Fell (Professor Christopher James Dalziel Fell, Head of School and Chair in Chemical Engineering), Tony Fane (Associate Professor Anthony G. Fane), Michel and myself. We had been investigating the ultrafiltration of Sydney tao water with w view to determining the relative proportions of “organic&rquo; silicon and “inorganic” silica. We had not been able to do the tests because the school of chemistry would not allow us to use the somewhat delicate equipment required for a dangerous test using hydrofluoric acid. But just as I was about to tell Malcolm that we had not done the tests, Michell chimed in with this distinctive French accent and explained that he had done the tests himself in his laboratory at home. Now Michel’s home was an apartment in Point Piper, and no one would have a “laboratory at home” in Point Piper, a luxury suburb of Sydney. It was a lie. When he said that, my jaw dropped, Tony’s froze with eyes widened and Chris put his head in his hand, slowly shaking it. But Malcolm, seemed enthused to hear that, but the irony was, he couldn’t really have cared less, so long as work was being done — he was getting what he really wanted from the sponsorship anyway — the kudos of being involved in advanced applied research in filtration technology. Anderson Equipment was the filtration arm of Dairy Farmers Co-operative, one of the largest dairy product firms in New South Wales.

I worked in the Membrane Research Group for two and a half years, all that time, working on my masters degree. I was investigating a technique for determining the rate of syneresis of cheese curd using orotic acid as an indicator. The theory was that if water was added to a destructive sample of curds and whey, the dilution of orotic acid could be measured in the whey and compared with the concentration of orotic acid in the combined curds and whey so that the proportion of curds to whey could be calculated from completing a straightforward mass balance calculation. As the work continued, my results proved that the technique actually did not work. It seems that orotic acid diffused from the curds when the dilution step was performed. I almost completed writing up my thesis when my supervisors, Bob Hall and Peter Linklater, said that I would encounter some difficulty with the Examiners because I had been investigating a failed technique and although in science, failures teach us something, Examiners prefer to have theses outline successful methods, not unsuccessful ones..

Memtec

However, all of that did not matter. All the while I was in the Membrane Research Group, the professors were looking for a licensee to their patent, Australian Patent Number 505,494 (the “Unisearch Patent”), which taught the manufacture of microporous polymeric membranes by solvent intrusion into a dissolved polymeric mixture — the technique I outlined above. They were ultimately successful in this task when a gentleman by the name of Denis Hanley came to visit and observe my manufacture of a flat sheet nylon membrane as I had done many, many times before. Denis was from Travenol Australia, a hospital products manufacturer, and ultimately, Memtec Laboratories Pty Ltd was formed and I was invited to join the company as Technical Advisor. As a result, my masters degree was abandoned and I resigned from the university to join Memtec.

Memtec Laboratories Pty Limited was a subsidiary of Travenol Australian Pty Ltd, and part of the larger Baxter Corporation, the American hospital products manufacturer. Memtec Laboratories Pty Limited's activities were in the membrane technology area, but in 1981, Baxter decided to close the business down. Four of the staff, Denis Hanley, Michael Quinn, Doug Ford and I, decided that they should buy the business off Baxter. When I say “I”, I mean that Denis explained to me that I could join with the others if I wanted and we might be able to make something out of it, but if it didn’t work out, we’d all be poorer but wiser.

And so, Memtec Limited was started with me as the founding Technical Advisor, though I always referred to myself “the littlest principal”. Denis, Mike and Doug all worked for no salary, but at about the same time, I bought a house jointly with David, at 10 Cox Crescent, Dundas. I told Denis that I could work for nothing as well so longas the company could manage my half of the mortgage payments. But Denis generously provided a modest salary which actually made me Memtec Limited’s first employee.

We all had our tasks in the new company. Denis and Mike (mainly Denis) worked at getting investors, Mike worked on marketing and Doug worked on applied research. My job was to develop the product, which I considered to be relatively straightforward, whereas the other had to develop the company, which I considered required a more advanced skillset than I could provide. Others from Memtec Laboratories were invited, but could not afford to join; Rod Taylor and Paul Williams. But Baxter stipulated that if Memtec Limited was to proceed, it was on condition that “the Frenchman not be involved”. Baxter had put together a dossier on Michel. Apparently, one of the reasons he was in Australia was because he was a fugitive from French corporate authorities, having been in charge of a large enterprise, “Omnium Prospective Internationale” which collapsed leaving debts of twenty-five million Francs. But not only that, the technology taught in the Unisearch Patent was almost identical to that in a French patent for the manufacture of bandages invented by Joseph Davidovits, the famous French scientist and author of the term “geopolymer”. In the science of the formation of solids from a liquid, the thermodynamics in lapidification is very similar to the thermodynamics of membrane formation, though each branch has its own complications and refinements. That meant that the Unisearch Patent in America was vulnerable to revocation because it failed to mention relevant Davidovits’s patent.

Memtec Laboratories had been operating in a small facility at the back of the Travenol factory in Old Toongabbie Road, but Memtec Limited needed to vacate because it was no longer appropriate to be there, but also, we needed more space. So Denis and Mike found a larger place in Anvil Road, Seven Hills where we set up shop and I commenced with the building of a pilot scale hollow fibre membrane manufacturing plant. The design was taken off one developed by Clint Kopp from Baxter and he joined the company to advise on the plant design.

When I returned to work from my honeymoon, I found myself without a job. The pilot plant had encountered some difficulties and I had advised before I left that for the building of the full size plant, the services of a mechanical engineer would probably serve the company better. Clint had fixed the pilot plant up and it was running with early success in the production of a polymeric hollow fibre microporous membrane. I went to Doug and explained I wasn’t ready to leave the company, and Doug indicated that the company needed someone to look after the considerable number of patents the company was filing. So I was appointed Intellectual Property Manager.

At first, I reported to Doug, but sometime later, Doug’s daughter Kerrie Wyatt was appointed as International Business Manager. Unfortunately, she botched the job – in fact, she attempted to sabotage the company! Not a lot can be said about that, but I would refer to her now as “lying bitch”. She lied straight to my face about what was happening in the company. Her devious plan was always bound to fail. There were just so many things she didn’t get right.

She put together a grandiose master plan for the Intellectual Property Department but it was soundly rejected by the Board of Directors. Well that was no surprise to me, but she had employed a very capable woman, Margaret Humphries, who stipulated that she could only work two days per week. But Kerrie had her working full time and as a result, Margaret&squo;s husband forbade her from working – a very tearful farewell because Margaret enjoyed her time there so much. After Kerrie got her marching orders, it was discovered that she had arranged the employment of a graduate engineer under a grant scheme, which was okay, but the contract she drew up had all of the intellectual property go the the university partner.

But after Kerrie’s departure in disgrace, I started to think about my career prospects, and any advancement within Memtec would have required me to move up to management. I recognised I was not management material. Darlene and I discussed this at length, and I resolved to transition into the field of intellectual property law with the view to become a patent attorney. I resigned from Memtec, having been with the company for nine years to the day. And after the Kerrie Wyatt fiasco, I was satisfied that the company was well set up to continue with my two replacements, Bryan Dwyer and Karl Dunn, with the department’s own secretary-clerk, Alona Matthews.

Computers

I developed an interest in computing with the emergence of microcomputers in the early 1980’s. I bought my first computer, an Exidy Sorcerer, in 1980 and used it to write up the abandoned Master of Engineering thesis. The professors found it amusing that I would arrive at the university carrying my own computer. it was on that machine that I started entering details of my family in what was to become a major effort in recording my family history.

I did not predict the ubiquity of computers, but my interest allowed me to write a supervisory computer program for Memtec’s pilot plant, compose correspondence and patent specifications as Intellectual Property Manager and at home, manage the household. As a patent attorney, I was able to skip the necessity of having to dictate to a secretary because I was sufficiently computer literate. I also wrote and managed the Ahearn Fox Office Manual based on a list of tasks created by one of the early secretaries in the firm.

Model Trains

I had an interest in railway modelling, following David in joining the Sydney N Gauge Model Railway Club. The club at the time met in rented premises and so developed a system of “modules”, small model railway layouts, that could be joined together to run model trains on a larger network. I build my module, “Thrimby” as a modified verion of the silicates plant I worked in when I was a vacation student at ICI in Botany. I served for some time as the Librarian. But the model railway club had one shortcoming – nearly all of the members were male and those who were not were not available. Having attained a marriageable age, both David and I joined the Bush Music Club in Sydney. Indeed, David and I were followed by at least three other model railway club members who met there eventual partners at the Bush Music Club. In 1985, I met Darlene Margret Jarrett and we got along almost immediately. By that time, I had graduated from the University and was working for Memtec Limited. When I met Darlene, he was working on building Memtec's pilot membrane manufacturing plant.

Marriage

Darlene and I married on 2 August 1986 at St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Dundas, New South Wales. In December, 1986, we bought a five acre property at 50 Wattle Crescent, Glossodia, 85 kilometres north-west of Sydney, New South Wales, building our first family home. BY this time, Memtec had built its own factory in South Windsor. Our two elder sons, James and Ben, were born in 1988 (June 7) and 1990 (August 6) at Hawkesbury District Hospital, Windsor, New South Wales.

Return to Brisbane

Having decided on the career move, it became a question of where this was to happen, and Darlene and Bill both concluded that Brisbane, Queensland, was probably the best option at the time. For one, it was where Bill grew up, but for Darlene, who grew up in Grafton, New South Wales, it was half the distance to Brisbane compared to Sydney, and it would be easier to visit her family from Brisbane. And so, when Ben was only three weeks old, the family moved to 27 Hillcrest Street, Aspley, a northern suburb of Brisbane. Bill’s third son, Matt, was born in 1991 (October 18) at Northern Suburbs Hospital, McDowall, Queensland.

Pizzeys

After applying to all of the patent attorney firms in Brisbane, it took about three weeks to get a position with John Pizzey as a Technical Assistant. In 1991 I commenced studies for registration as a Patent Attorney with the firm Pizzey and Company. The firm changed its name to Pizzeys while I was still studying, encountering difficulty in passing the last two subjects. However, developments in Pizzeys left me without a position

Ahearn Fox

I looked around a bit, but gained employment with the Tom Ahearn and Dan Fox. I got better tutelage in the last two subjects from Dan, and enrolled myself in the founding class of the Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys Academy in 1999. This produced a satisfactory outcome as I was registered as a Patent and Trade Marks Attorney in 2000. Ian Tannahill joined the firm shortly after me, giving the firm four registered practitioners. Also in 2000, the family moved to 15 Corvette Crescent, Bracken Ridge. After only four years there, the family moved to Apartment 5, 540 Queen Street in the Brisbane CBD. This gave me an easy commute on foot to work. However, for the journey home, Tom insisted he give me a ride in his Silver Spirit. So it was a common sight to see me alighting from Tom’ Rolls Royce in front of the building and go in side to go home.

Changes to the Australian Patent Office meant that the Brisbane Sub-Office of the Patent Office was to close. Bill had been a scout leader and the Manager of the Sub-Office had a sone or daughter in the Scouts at Aspley. But I had also an interest in the State Library and suggested that the State Library should contact the Manager of the Sub-Office with a view to acquiring the library holdings of the Patent Office which were to be disposed of. As a result, most of the holdings of the Sub-Office Library remain available to the public as holdings at the State Library of Queensland.

The closing of the Sub-Office meant that there was no longer any advantage in Ahearn Fox, as the firm had become, retaining an office in the Brisbane CBD. And so, the firm moved to Tingalpa, and I had to commute by motorbike from the CBD out to the suburb. CBD living is very pleasant, but also very expensive, so Darlene and I bought a house at 19 Brooklands Street, Eight Mile Plains, New South Wales, and moved there with two of the boys in 2012. Ben did not want to leave the central city life behind, so he bought an apartment in Fortitude Valley. Matt had been living in a share house, but that arrangement came to an end and he moved back home shortly before or after the move to Brooklands Street. I then had a commute along the southern part of the Gateway Motorway between Eight Mile Plains and Tingalpa for work. I had bought a brand new Hayabusa in 2010 and this was my commute. James was working for Games Workshop at Upper Mount Gravatt, but a position became available to open a new Games Worksop in Albury, New South Wales and he moved there not long after the move to Brooklands Street.

Retirement

I began my transition to retirement in 2018, reducing my hours to four, then three days a week before leaving completely. Darlene's mother, Iris (Mum), needed support, and moved from Grafton to live with us at Brooklands Street. Mum died in 2018, and I was spending less time at work. With the transition to retirement came the need to &ldauo;downsize” with a view to moving in to a rental property at 2/12 Simpson Street, Morningside that I had bought in 1994. The move was made in 2019 and it was only a few months of commuting from Morningside to Tingalpa before retiring completely. I had been employed by the firm Ahearns and Ahearn Fox for 21 years Upon retirement, I renovated the Simpson Street property, having a large deck built out the back and extensively landscaping the exclusive use area beside the unit. Darlene was working at Upper Mount Gravatt. After some discussion with Darlene, where it emerged that it was not my intention to remain at Morningside in the long term, it was resolved to move to Albury, New South Wales to be closer to James, and also closer to Ben who had moved to Melbourne because that city provided better career prospects.

But at about the same time that the decision was made, the world was struck with a major pandemic, and a new word entered the English language - Covid. Or more specifically, COVID-19 and everyone was in lock down. Darlene was in a protected industry, so had to work but I could only go out to get groceries. But there was plenty of work to do as “house husband” while Darlene was working. The Premier of Queensland clearly thought she was doing a great job managing the pandemic because she often told everyone that she was, but she botched a few things. She continued with a state election when nobody was allowed out for anything else and against the advice of the medical profession. Matt and I voted by telephone, being qualified to do so because Darlene worked in healthcare, but ironically, because Darlene was actually working in healthcare, she did not qualify for a telephone vote. So she did not vote, and the Queensland Government waived any fines for people who refused to vote. What a shemozzle. The Premier also effectively signed the death warrant for a baby requiring medical treatment from northern New South Wales, refusing a mercy flight to Brisbane for treatment against the advice of the medical profession.

And so it was that Darlene and I purchased our home at 8 Worsley Place, Lavington, New South Wales in the middle of the pandemic. Thankfully, the internet was the preferred means of property searching and James&squo;s partner, Whitney, exhibited a talent in videoing a walk through of several houses and sending the video to us from her phone. We shortlisted two properties, and opted for Worsley Place because the house had a good sized laundry. Purchasing a property normally requires a special form from the Post Office, but because we had already packed up and forwarded our identity documents, the Post Office could not provide the form. However, the Conveyancer helpfully advised that all that was required by law was that she be “reasonably satisfied” as to the identity of the purchasers, so with the electronic copies of the required identity documents in her possession and a Facetime interview, she was able to complete the registration of our purchase of the property.

Travel

One of the things that characterises my story is travel. I guess it started small with walks to the Epping shops with Mum and David. The first big travel was from Sydney to Brisbane in 1963. Us kids were all told about the plans to move, and I remember the morning of our big trip. All of the furniture had been packed up and we had breakfast really early, before the sun came up, and our breakfast table was a tea chest. We all piled into Dad and Mum’ car, the Vanguard, pink and black with a cream coloured roof, Robyn was in the front between Mum and Dad, and Kylie, Jonathan, David and I were in the back. No seat belts in those days. No actual limits on the number of people either.

Our first stop was Wyong, having travelled the winding road of the Pacific Highway across the Hawkesbury River. We went through all the towns in those days as we proceeded Kempsey, Taree, Macksville and the like. I can’t remember where we stayed on the second night, but our third night was in Ballina at the Cobana Motel. I remember Dad commenting that when he shook hands with the owner on the way out, he had a very tight grip. We arrived in Queensland about lunch time and had our photographs taken under the sign showing the border running through the Gold Coast. It was bright sunshine, but on the way up to Brisbane, it rained and we all joked about it raining in the Sunshine State so soon after we had arrived, It was evening when we got to the Metropolitan Motel and that was the end of our long journey. Three days it took to go from Sydney to Brisbane.

My next big travel was when Dad and Mum decided to go on a family holiday from Brisbane to Cairns and back. I think it was during the mid-year school holidays, around 1965 or 1966 – I don’t know which year it was. But Mum had made matching Bermuda shorts for Jonathan, David and me and matching shirts as well. She made matching dresses for Kylie and Robyn. Mum used to make a lot of our clothes, and being a professional seamstress and dressmaker before Mum and Dad were married, that is no surprise. The holiday seemed to take weeks and weeks, but it was probably a lot shorter than that. I think we spent the most time on the Atherton Tableland. Dad had traded in the old Vanguard for a Humber Super Snipe (Series 1) abecause the growing family needed a bigger car, and had a towbar fitted to tow a caravan which Mum and Dad hired. Mum, Dad, David, Robyn and I slept in the caravan when we stopped at night, but Kylie and Jonathan had to sleep in an on site van or cabin because the caravan slept only six and Mum and Dad didn’t want Kylie or Jonathan to be sleeping alone in a strange bed.

We went on several trips south after that — to Uncle Murray’s wedding, a holiday all the way to Sydney, staying at Dee Why Beach, at least one to Yester Grange to visit Grandad and Grandma Anderson. One holiday I really liked was when we stayed with Aunt Alice and Uncle Ray at Nobby. I’m not quite sure how they were related. But Nooby was then, and still is, a small village with less than a handful of houses, no shops, and a railway siding. Like a lot of small places, it used to be bigger. They had a working windmill for water and one day, the tank was overflowing so Uncle Ray had to disconnect the pump, leaving the windmill to go round and round. But we had a great holiday. Robyn and I played a pretending game where she was a nurse and I was a doctor in a hospital and it was about the only times Robyn and I actually played together. I don’t remember what our did exactly, but I think she might have had a sick dolly or something like that and we made it all better. I liked it very much, but when I tried to repeat the experience, Robyn wasn’t interested.

My most memorable holiday would have to be my honeymoon with Darlene in 1986. I booked a two-week cruise on the Fairstar cruise ship. We had one of the four “suites” on the top deck with a twin beds, lounge chair and coffee table and quite a bit of space. We were on our honeymoon, so we normally slept in only one of the beds. It was a very happy time, but we had to return home to out flat on the top floor of “Rochester”, in Belmore Street, Burwood where we started our married life together.

We have been on several other holidays as a family with the boys. One to New Zealand for a bus tour, one where we drove to Alice Springs to visit our friends, Margaret and David Connell. In fact, Margaret and David have been the destination of several holidays because they moved about so much. Norfolk Island was one memorable experience. Coonamble is another, and we went there two or three times, and finally to Rylstone, where they finally settled down.

We've been on several cruises together after a break of several decades, one with Matt and Darlene’s Mum. She went with us to Norfolk Island – her first flight on an aeroplane. Once Dad had died, Mum was free to do what she liked and because Dad didn’t like to go put much, they stayed pretty much at home.

Most of our several cruises in the 2010’s were around the South Pacific, but there was one which we took for my sixtieth birthday up the east coast to Papua New Guinea. Another short one went up the east coast, across to Darwin, then Bali and Singapore with a flight back home to Brisbane.

Our longest cruise was fifty days from Sydney to Southampton via the east coast of Australia, Darwin, Bali, another port in Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Mauritius, Reunion, Capetown, Walvis Bay, Santa Crus, Lisbon and from South Hampton, to London for four days and a long flight home.

But at the time of writing, we have planned an even longer cruise from Seattle across the Pacific and circumnavigating Australia anticlockwise on the way back to Sydney.