4 Moving to Melbourne

In 1962 I was attached to Momot?? (New Guinea) but on the same day it was changed to a posting to Williamstown. As Maryanne was attending a School for the Blind Williamstown was not to our liking as the nearest School was Sydney so I applied for a relocation of Posting. This was subsequently granted and I was posted to Laverton.

I preceded the family to Laverton in order to obtain a married quarter which I eventually got one in Maher Rd. I arranged with a neighbour to take delivery of our furniture & returned to Ipswich to assist Mum with bringing the family to Melbourne. When I arrived in Ipswich it was to find Rob was missing. He had gone up to the shop, however eventually we found him.

We flew to Melbourne arriving at night & were met by Mum’s Aunty Eileen who drove us to our new home. Again problems as when we arrived no furniture. However, our neighbours had rallied around & had beds and a cot for John who was a baby. Our next door neighbour brought over Tea and a snack which was much appreciated. Carol Archer and Cherry Oldfield were the people who arranged it all. Next morning I was going to the Base to ring to find out where the furniture was and I encountered the Removal Van up the road. He had arrived late & did not know we were there as he thought he was a day early. Our Married Quarter was not the best as it was a concrete house and did get quite cold in the Winter. However we had an open fire for heating & a Briquette stove for cooking & hot water. Took some getting used to.

When I first arrived at Laverton the chap in charge of my section took me down stairs to meet the Equipment people. The first one I met was a cousin of mine Pat Hogan who I had not seen for a number of years. We became quite friendly and visited each other regularly as he and his wife Maureen lived in Werribee.

Maryanne was attending St Pauls at Kew & boarded there Monday-Friday. Fortunately another chap Tom Meadth had a daughter there & we used to take turns about picking them up. The teachers at St Pauls were very good & she remained there until the children were integrated into the State Schools.

During my time at Laverton the boys from the Section treated our place as a second home & we had a lot of good times.

In 1966 I was posted to Tottenham. I had told the family we were going to Melbourne for a Holiday so this was a bit of a blow as I had expected to be posted back to Q’ld & time was running out for that as the family were starting to grow up. I was at Tottenham until December 1968 when I was posted to Support Command for Audit Duties.

We had an Office in Chancery House in Bourke St Melbourne & on my first day met Roy Rush. There was a staff of four Wing Commander, Flt Lt, W.Off & Sgt. Roy I had previously met when he was a Corporal at Williamstown. We travelled a lot and were away from home quite often which was hard on the family.

Roy & Evonne became friends & we generally had a Bar B Q at our place when we returned to Melb. During my first year on the Audit I obtained another Married Quarter in Watts St. This Quarter was brand new & far superior to the one we had in Maher Road.

Our Audit Duties took us to all Melbourne Units plus Wagga, Canberra, Adelaide, Tasmania, & Western Australia. We used to go over to Western Australia twice a year.