Odd jobs 1936-1940

This period was a time of the late economic depression years, and as my apprenticeship had been officially terminated due to my inability to find work in my intended trade as a motor mechanic, I had to turn my thoughts to any form of work that was available to me. Naturally my choice was towards motor vehicles, and I found employment at a small service station (then known as motor garages!) at Glenelg (South Australia) about four miles from my home. There I pumped petrol and carried out minor repairs, the owner who was physically incapacitated, unwilling to take me on as an apprentice. The wages were miserable, and while hand cranking a customer's car I broke my right wrist, and being alone and in charge, I locked up the shop and rode my push bike to the nearest doctor's to have it examined and placed in plaster. Upon my return the next day – I was unceremoniously sacked as I was now considered useless.

I turned my one good hand to the task of renovating and painting push bikes at home, but while it was difficult, I managed to make a little more money than the garage job had paid, and this continued for a few weeks until my wrist had healed. In the meantime I spent my spare hours pushing my bike around to all the garages within about a five mile radius, and in this way found a suitable position at Brighton, not far from home, once again in a service station, but with a very nice owner, only recently married.

As soon as I was fit, I commenced work and was very happy, as there was plenty of opportunity to learn, and the wages were by far the best that I had so far enjoyed, but still no apprenticeship!
At this time my best mate Les Diener had started working in the machine shop at Kelvinator Australia Limited, and he persuaded me to apply for a job there. I started out as the production line boss's 'Bum Boy'. This was a term generally given to a junior gofer. My job was to make the boss's cups of tea, or run across to the shop to get his lunch, or other small errands and message running about the factory, but most importantly, to wash and polish his new Chrysler car!

In any spare time I worked in the adjacent packing shop, nailing wooden packing case ends together in a special corner of the shop. It wasn't long before I was sent to the production line foreman and told that henceforth I would be part of the production line supply team. My job was to prepare and assemble the small components that went into the interior of the refrigerator food storage space. It was a full time one boy job. It was further to ride my bike and still not mechanics, but I was working close to Les, and once more my weekly wages had taken a substantial rise, and were soon to rise again as the result of the introduction of piecework. So the months passed, I was working with some good people and for the first time in my life, I found a circle of good adult friends.

War clouds were gathering in Europe, and soon the Empire was at war, and like many others, being now of military age, I rushed to join up. My choice was the RAAF, but it took several months, and the desperate reassessing of the physical requirements, before I found myself being presented with a watch by the Kelvinator management, and with a handshake and the assurance that my job would still be there when I returned, I was off to war.