Time to Knock Off

Next day the switchboard arrives on a truck and everybody gathers together to carry it off the truck into the plant room. My job is to connect the entire field wiring which had already been done into the switchboard and test it. I shudder, there are thousands of wires, some are marked, and others are not. It’ll take me weeks to sort that mess out. Weeks up here in Mt Isa, weeks in this heat, weeks away from my car, weeks away from Sue and the girls upstairs, I’m very depressed.

One of the Carrier ute's (pick-up)

Four o’clock and the boys tell me to ‘knock off’. Knock off what, I ask. Stop working they tell me, we’re going to the club. We all climb onto Bill’s ute and drive to the Irish club in town. Pots of beer are being delivered, and I throw mine back, it never even hits the side. Another follows the same way. Six o’clock and we’re back in the mess for dinner. It’s cooled off a little but it’s still hot. The meal is basic but tastes ok.

After dinner we go to town, there are four pubs, one on each corner of the town block. We have a couple of beers in each one, it’s still hot so we need them. We walk back to the sub-contractors barracks of Mt Isa Mines Ltd.

Mount Isa

It’s Friday and Urs calls me into the office. He informs em that I have to go to Mt Isa on Monday, installing the Switchboard I have been wiring. He hands me my airline ticket and tells me to be at the airport at 9.00 am on Monday Morning. Where’s Mt Isa, I ask.  Up North, he says.

And how long will I be in Mt Isa? I ask. As long as it takes, he replies.

I go home and look at a map.  The distance from Brisbane to Mt Isa is from Thun to Stockholm, and here he is handing me an airline ticket for such a distance. Back in Switzerland, we would have planned such a trip for weeks beforehand, and would have had many sleepless nights.

I go home and pack my bag. Ben will have to take me to the airport on Monday morning. I am trying to impress the girls upstairs but can’t, they tell me oh, you’re going bush. Hey, everyone, Willie is going bush on Monday. It’s taken for granted. What a strange country.

Monday morning I get to the airport nice and early. Ben is more excited than me; he knows he gets to drive my car home and presumably while I’m gone.

The mining town of Mount Isa

I’m being met in Mt Isa by Bill Bowman, the sheetmetal foreman in his ute. He takes me to the mine’s accommodation building in town. It’s very hot, the ute is not air conditioned and Bill tells me it’s normal such high temperatures. He also tells me to get changed into work clothes he waits in the ute, then we drive into the mine complex to the new building. The plant room where the new switchboard is going is even hotter than outside. Within no time I'm soaking wet with perspiration. But it's lunch time and the hooter goes off. We walk down to the mess and cue up for lunch. The mess has ceiling fans that blow hot air around. Hot air from the hot climate and from the hot kitchen. At least they have cold water.

I meet the other Carrier workers, mostly sheetmetal workers and a couple of pipe fitters. I’m the only electrician. 

My first experience with the Swiss Society

Fred Pieren is the president of the Swiss Society of Queensland. He calls and tell us that the Swiss Consul General from Sydney is coming to Queensland and the club is going up to Binna Burra on Sunday for a picnic. Ben and I are invited to go along with them. On Sunday Morning we walk to Sue’s flat in Red Hill, and when Fred and the Consul General arrive we all climb into several cars to drive to Binna Burra. I end up sitting next to the Consul General in Fred’s car. He asked me when did I came to Australia and where do I work. I tell him where I work and he asks me if I know Urs. Of course, I reply, he is the chief electrical engineer of our company.

He’s not an engineer, the Consul General says, he’s an electrician, He used to work at Mt Isa Mines as an electrician. I’m starting wonder, is my boss lying? He told me he has an electrical degree from Zürich Technical High School. I will have to check that out. 

Binna Burra Gold Coast Hinterland

We’re driving up a very windy road into mountains. In front of us is another car with a CH sticker at the back. He puts his blinkers out at every bend. I think that’s strange.

In Binna Burra, there are lots of Swiss already there. A Bar-B-Que is in full swing and before long we’re into real Swiss Bratwürste, specially made by a Swiss butcher in Brisbane, potato and bean salads, it’s great to taste real Swiss food again. Shame there is no real Swiss beer.

Some bloke comes over to Ben and me and ask us when we came to Australia. Before long he points out to another chap in the crowd and tells us to be wary of him, he can’t be trusted, he says. We’re taken aback. This guy doesn’t know us and warns us of other Swiss people, very strange. Sue comes back with another sausage. I’m full.


The view over the Gold Coast Hinterland is fabulous, the rolling hills remind me a little of the Jura region in Switzerland but the vegetation is vastly different. There is real rain forest nearby and we take a short walk through it. I am fascinated. I will come back here to explore the area further.

Later the chap we’ve been warned about comes over and asks us if the other guy had said anything to us. You’re new here, he says I’ve never seen you here. So, if this other guy said anything to you, don’t believe him. He’s a liar, everyone knows that.  Ben and I look at each other, are these people for real? I think that's the last time I will join a Swiss outing.

It's Party Time

Sue and her brother are asking me to a Bar-B-Que at Fred’s house in Newmarket. I pick up Sue from her flat and we drive over to Fred and Shelley’s place. It’s a nice house, up on a hill with a great view over Newmarket. There are a few people there, lawyers, business people, I feel out of place. Sue looks after me. She drinks a lot and gets quit tipsy.

My first BBQ

We’re all gathered around the pool area. The food Shelley has prepared is good. Lots of meat, salads, I tuck in. Food cooked by someone else always tastes good when you eat a lot of tinned food usually.

Fred comes over and asks me to take Sue home, by now she is quite drunk. We get her out into my car, she can hardly walk. As we drive up Newmarket Road she says she’s going to be sick. Oh Great. Not in my new car I say. I pull in at the next side street and kick her out of the car. I can hear her throwing up against someone’s front fence. She gets back in the car saying she feels better now.

I drive her to her home, and guide her up the stairs to her flat. She’s fumbling for the keys, not managing very well at all. I take her handbag, take out her keys and open the door. By now she’s half a sleep. I guide her into her bedroom and put her to bed. She is asleep before I leave her bedroom.

When I get back to my own flat, there is a party going on downstairs in and around the garage. The girls upstairs have invited a lot of their student mates over for a party. Ben is amongst them. I have to leave the car in the street, the garage is otherwise occupied.

They are a nice bunch of people and take a keen interest in us. We still find it hard to communicate properly and conversations are labouring but we persist. It’s the only way to learn. Ben finds it extremely difficult and says very little.

The party goes on well into the night. There is no use going to bed, the noise wouldn’t let us sleep anyway, plus we are enjoying ourselves.  Parties in Australia are nothing we had ever experienced back home.

A party in Switzerland takes place in a restaurant with everyone leaving after a couple of hours. Not many parties are held in homes. Swiss people don’t like the privacy of their homes invaded.

I need a car

The weeks come and go, I need a car. Fred, Sue’s brother tells me one day that he has a mate in the used car trade. He organises to have a five-year-old Falcon delivered to the flat in Red Hill. Ben, being in the car trade, checks the vehicle over and declares it ‘clean’. We agree to a price and I tell him I don’t have that sort of money. No problem, Fred says, we’ll get you hire purchase. You have a steady job, no problem getting a loan. Next day Fred arrives with the paperwork from a Finance company who will loan me the money to buy my car. We drive to Stones Corner to the office of the Finance Company to give them the paperwork and they give me a cheque made out to Fred’s mate in the used car business.

My first car - a 1967 XL Sedan

We drive over to his place and I drive home with my first Australian car. It smells nice, looks spotlessly clean and when Ben gets home from work we go for a drive into town. We cruise down Queen Street and I do a right turn into Edward Street where a policeman steps into the road and stops me. Didn’t I see the no-right-turn sign he asks me. No, sorry officer, I reply. He writes out a ticket for twenty bucks. Well done, Bohlen, the first night in my first car in Australia and I already have to pay a traffic fine.

I'm getting my trade's license

I've been working in the electrical workshop at Carrier Air Conditioning, wiring switchboards of large air conditioning systems, for a couple of months now, still without a full license. I remind the boss of that. He finally gets around organising for me to get a proper license.

A typical air conditioning switchboard

A date has been set where I go for my Queensland Electrical Fitter and Mechanic’s Certificate with the Electrical Workers Board. I’m a bit nervous, mainly because of my limited English.

I find my way in to the Board’s Office in town and am ushered into an inspector’s office. He is a friendly chap, asks me about cabling colours which I tell him, then he wants to know all about installations in Switzerland. How do we do this and how do we do that. We chat for quite a while then he tells me I can go, my certificate will be in the mail. I'm a licensed Electrical Mechanic and Fitter - not a licensed Electrician yet. That has yet to come.

A missed Opportunity

Ian McLellan, the Scottish lad from upstairs asks us if we are interested to go with him to the Folk Club in Ann Street. He loves folk music and we go along. It’s opposite the Canberra Hotel, down a narrow lane way, very dim and dark and has a small stage in the corner. No alcohol is served but Ian is friendly with Stan, from the Wayfarers, a band that performs every night at the Folk Centre. Stan sounds Irish and in their break, beckons Ian, Ben and myself to follow him. We go down the road, to the Crest Hotel public bar and drown a few pots of beer, before returning back to the Folk Centre.

There is a Big Band formation performing when we return. They are very good. We get to know them after they perform. Before I left Thun, I was playing in the local Big Band 'The Modernaires', named after the singing quartet  that used to accompany the Glenn Miller band in the 40s.

Me, second from left on trumpet in the 'Modernaires'

 The trumpet player of the band tonight, finds out that I play the trumpet too and have played in a Big Band in Switzerland. He tells me that they are a trumpet short and he invites me to come along next Monday night to their band rehearsal. They rehearse at the ABC Studios at Toowong and I’m very excited but worried about my lack of fluency in English. But I am interested to go along, so Ian takes me to Palings Music Store in Queen Street and I buy myself a trumpet.

Monday comes and I am nervous. I ask Ben to come along with me but he is not interested in music and refuses. In the end I chicken out and don’t go either. I am very sorry about that decision later on, I just know. 


Next - I am getting my trade license