Starting Work

Tram at the Treasury Building (Today's Casino)

Monday morning I take the bus early in the morning. I have been told that the bus stopping right outside our block of flats will take me into George Street near the Treasury Building.

There I am to take a tram to Clarence Corner, Mater Hill and walk up Annerley Road to Carrier Air Conditioning. I have no trouble at all and get to Carriers, nice and early. I’m the first one at the gate and have to wait for some time before more people arrive to finally open the gate to the factory. I am being ushered into the electrical workshop where I meet Brian Stockwell, the foreman. He has been told he’s getting a new electrician and is expecting me.

I have the dictionary with me and Brian takes me to a half finished switchboard and asks me to finish wiring the board. He gives me a set of electrical diagrams and tells me to follow what had already been wired. It’s not too hard, all the wiring is the same colour and the diagrams are quite easy to follow. I’m being observed by the other electricians but nobody talks to me.

Around 10 o’clock Urs Deutsch calls me in the office for a chat. I call him 'Herr Deutsch' in Swiss-German. He again tells me to call him Urs and to speak in English. He doesn’t want to speak Swiss-German in the office. I try hard. But I guess I have to learn sometime anyway.

I ask Urs if he studied in Switzerland or in Australia. he tells me he has studied at the ETH in Zürich, (Federal Technical University) and finished as an Electrical Engineer, I’m impressed. It was a few years later, when I meet the Swiss Consul-General who mentions that Urs, like me is just an electrician and used to work in Mount Isa in the Mines. So this is the first of many lies I hear from my new boss.

Urs introduces me to Bob Horsely, his second in charge. Bob is an Englishman and is the electrical estimator at Carrier Air Conditioning.

We have a nice chat with a cup of coffee. Urs tells me I’ll need a Queensland Electrician’s License but I have three months to get one. I need to be fluent in English, as well as be conversant with the Australian electrical rules and regulations. Urs suggests it would be easier for me to get an Electrical Fitters ticket as I would be wiring boards in the factory and not actually go on site to do wiring installations for which you need a full license. He said I could get one of those later. 

At five to five everyone gets ready to go home. One of the chaps asks 'Willie, would you like a beer'? 'Sure', I say, 'I’d love a beer'. 'Follow me', he says. We’re walking down to the Clarence Hotel, where there are already a few people from the factory at the bar. Someone puts a pot of beer in front of me. I sip, the others guzzle. Before long I have four pots in front of me and everyone says 'Hurry up Willie', and 'it’s your shout'! My shout? What do you want me to shout?

They explain what a shout is, I buy a shout and now I have five beers in front of me. I’ll never be able to drink all that. Come on, Willie, you’re not being a sissy? they ask. Of course not, I reply and drown the five pots down among a lot of burping and spluttering. The room is starting to spin and I don’t feel so well.

My Mater Hill Tram outside Treasury Building

I’m on the tram to the Treasury Building and very drunk. I need to hold my head out of the tram and get rid of some of this beer; I throw up out of the tram to the disgust of other travelers. Ben has dinner ready but I refuse to eat anything and crawl to bed.

Next morning, back at work, the questions come, 'Did you enjoy yourself, Willie, do you want to come for another beer, tonight'?

Brian, the foreman, who is tea totaller, and a member of the Salvation Army, gets upset with them for getting me drunk, but he also gets upset with me for letting them.