I realise that this is a bit self indulgent but It fills a page. I am quietly thrilled at the number of people who have googled my name and arrived here, so it has certainly served it's purpose! It's a shame that most are searching for money that I owe 'em!
I started life in Hallam Hospital in West Bromwich in the UK at 11 o' clock on the morning of 16th June! My parents took me home to our house at 152 Jayshaw Avenue in Great Barr, Birmingham where I lived my first 21 years. I was the first child of Marjorie and Arthur Prothero.
My first school was Gorse Farm Junior School which was built in time for my first year. I am told that it no longer exists.... Wow, I outlived my school already! Life in post war Britain was not particularly exciting and Great Barr was very ordinary. I passed my 11 plus and ended up at the most miserable school that anyone could imagine. I am sure that there must be some people who have fond memories of West Bromwich Grammar School but the only thing that I can remember with any affection was playing for the school football team and having some success with the girls. The teachers were vicious and vindictive. More than one of them were paedophiles and got away with behaviour that turns my stomach even now. These were my formative years and, with my hormones running rampant, I well and truly went off the rails.
So I flunked school and started studying at "Tech". I met a nice girl and blow me down, life suddenly took a big turn for the better. I got a traineeship as a Metallurgist and found that I was much more intelligent than my school results had suggested. So this was where my life really started. I was already interested in sports but I became quite reasonable in a few of them. I played plenty of football and became quite competent at squash. Sport is a great leveler and I reckon that all of my life long friendships had some derivation from a mutual participation or interest in sport. By the early seventies I was making real good money (70 quid a week) and my friendship with Kay had developed into something which would last a very long time. Everyone expected us to marry etc. I wasn't ready and made the difficult decision to do the traveling thing. It was wise really but I missed out on a real good woman. If I had not got to see so many wonderful parts of the world and experienced the total freedom of a responsibility free life, like many who haven't travelled, I would always have wondered what I'd missed!
I had come into possession of a diary based on a voyage to Australia at the beginning of the last century. The voyage, on the S.S. Ormuz, was made by someone by the name of Whittington who was a friend of my Great Grandmother. It greatly captured my imagination but did not particularly create any desire on my part to follow in his footsteps. So what a surprise when, unexpectedly, I did just that.I decided to join some former colleagues and friends who were working on Bougainville Island in New Guineau. I arranged some work with the company and set sail (on the Greek ship 'Australis') for Melbourne Australia where the head office was (and where the diarist had terminated his journey). I arrived at CRA's to some disturbing news. A civil war had broken out on the island (my pals told me that it was quite frightening) so I was stranded in Australia. It was a great surprise to me when I discovered that Australia wasn't so bad after all. CRA offered me some work with their subsidiary (Hamersley Iron) in Western Australia. I turned this down and went to work in Sydney. This was to be the peak of my social life so far and what a time I had! I found dwellings in Bondi Beach where I broke all records for girlfriends, parties and general debauchery.It was during this year that my father had his first stroke so in December I returned to the UK to find him in a very bad way indeed. I am pleased that I made the trip because after that he seemed to make quite a decent recovery (though he was never the same). While I was away, the company that I worked for retrenched me so I returned to Sydney jobless. It was then that I contacted CRA again and they sent me up to Dampier in the North of Western Australia.
My salary was doubled ($12600pa - a fortune in those days), and thus started my long association with W.A. I worked as a Metallurgist and got some really good experience. I was stationed in some quite remote areas and female company was rare. This, for me, was compensated for by a blossoming affection for the Australian bush. The weather was always hot and the fishing was very good so, as soon as I got a few dollars together, I bought a boat. I hadn't even a car to tow it with but I could always find crew with a tow bar! I discovered the pristine Dampier Archipelago which in those days was almost devoid of other human intrusion. The sea life was just incredible and I wonder if I was witnessing a wildlife never again to be experienced!My interests were in full flow and I was fully into the local soccer and squash scene (it got so hot that from time to time the players would feign injury just prior to half time and nip into the bar for a couple of ice cold beers, only to make a full recovery early in the second half and play a game of a champion!). I also got interested in the baron wilderness which is the Pilbara. It's so vast and as the aboriginals will tell you, it becomes part of you or as they say, you belong to the land! So I bought a 4 wheel drive and went exploring.
My next move was up to Gove in the Northern Territory. I went to work for Gove Alumina who were the management company for Alusuisse (now merged with Alcan). Here I worked as a refinery supervisor on shift. Australia, in the 1980's, was in the throws of industrial redefinition and the role of supervisor was very much different to what I had been accustomed to. The front line supervisor was at the cutting edge of the struggle for power between corporate and union forces. It was not for me a pleasant experience. On the other hand, I fell in love with Arnhem Land. The town of Nhulunbuy is situated on an Aboriginal lease on the Gove Peninsula in the North East corner of the N.T. where everything is reached by a 4X4. The peninsula was named after a young Australian airman, Pilot Officer William Gove, who was killed in action in 1943. The area known as Drimmie Head was where Catalina flying boats took off and landed during the Pacific campaign of the WWII. There are many old air strips around the area from where other types of planes operated. It can be reached by air from Darwin (650 km) and Cairns (1190 km). During the dry season, and with the appropriate permits from the Northern Land Council, a 4WD from Katherine journey is possible. The route which passes through the Arnhem Land Aboriginal reserve is 700 km over rough dirt roads and takes approximately 14 hours. So it is evident that the area is extremely remote and hitherto, unspoilt. The dry season is heaven on earth and, with a new Toyota Landcruiser, I made the most of the opportunity to explore. I joined a 4X4 club whose main objective at weekends was to escape into the bush, get hopelessly bogged. and drink buckets of beer whilst digging ourselves out. I learnt heaps (none the least the pleasures of extreme intoxication out in the wilderness). I collected lots of fishing stories here and got up close and personal to more than one crocodile! I lived right on the beach for a while and could see croc's pulling themselves onto the beach from my lounge room window. Water buffalo roam free (imported from Asia) and they would constantly walk through my boundary fence causing the need for constant repairs. I became friends with many of the local Aboriginals and gained a great admiration for their cultures and traditions. The majority of "natives" live on the Mission of Yirkalla. Here there is a ban on alcohol and whilst some drink in town, the boundary fence is the absolute barrier to the demon drink. As a result, the people remain mostly unspoilt and a credit to their race!The life I loved but the company was going through an industrial relations re-evaluation. As a foreman, I found myself on the front line of their battle. I did not adjust well to this situation. I felt like a hired thug who was required to bash just ordinary men, most with families, to submit to the corporate ideologies of a company who was later discredited as being involved in dodgy practices (it was cheating Australia of millions of dollars by setting up a holding company in Singapore, who bought the product at a very cheap premium and then on sold it to their customers at the true value... thereby paying the Singapore rate of tax (much lower than Australias).Ah well, I still regard my time in Gove as being amongst the best years of my life!
So I got another job as a Foreman back in the Pilbara. This time I went to live in Wickham near Karratha. It was like jumping from the saucepan into the fire! Again, the life was terrific, but the new company was taken over about a year after I joined. The new owners had their roots in an organisation known as the H R Nicholls Society. The organisation's main raison d'etre is the reformation of industrial relations in this country. Again I found myself in the middle of an ideological bunfight for which I had very little "stomach".Meanwhile I went on a blind date and was introduced the person who would later become the wife and mother of my children. She was secretary to the mine manager and, while acting in my role as front line supervisor, I got to see both sides of the industrial fight which broke out on July 1st 1986. It was dirty and corrupt. State and federal politicians were getting into the act and for a while, the small outback town of Wickham became the focal point of the nation. The unions were split down the middle and most went out on strike. This later turned into a lockout and things got nasty. Worker was turned against worker. Some went back to work as "scabs" while others remained locked out. In a small community such as this small Pilbara town of Wickham, the local society was destroyed overnight. Neighbour hated neighbour. Football games became a chance for vendettas and even kids went to school knowing that they were no longer to play with their best pals. I was stationed on the security gate and was at least getting paid. Some supervisors saw that their revolution had arrived and gloated in the fact that the unions were being destroyed and that their chance to at last kick heads had arrived. These same people were later used by the new regime to further their extreme agenda and were eventually discarded without due consideration to their loyalty during the restructure! So one day, myself and two other foremen decided that it was not something that we wanted to go through and resigned. We threw a going away party and invited half of the town without fear or favour as to their relative sides of the argument. The night came and all who'd been invited plus some of the other half of town turned up at the Sports Club. It was probably the last time for many years where managers and workers enjoyed a beer together without consideration to their relative standings on the corporate ladder.
So we went to Perth and moved into the house that I'd bought some years before. I always knew that the woman that I'd married was different and how true that proved to be. We managed to have a couple of children and I enjoyed my new role as a father. I built a new house by the beach which I still live in. Domestic life did not suit my wife so I found myself taking over the running of house and children as well as taking work like driving in order that I could manage all.Some years later we returned, for a few years, to Wickham with our young family. It is ironic that it was during this period where my marriage saw "the beginning of the end".
The ensuing few years saw me divorced and not a great deal of interesting experiences to relate.Over the next few years, I reaffirmed my interest in IT(Information Technology) and got engaged in some serious study (4 years full time). I gained a Diploma in Software Development and many other more minor quals. I enjoy the brain exercise. I am quite chuffed with my academic achievementsr.The story has been quite staid over the last few years but I have a feeling that there are some more of life's adventures just around the corner. I have many ambitions to get back out into the bush. I have, over the few years, been doing some part time lecturing (in IT). I have set up a business that I am basically doing from home. Click HERE to see my commercial site. My most promising and potentially lucrative activities relate to making programmed websites. I am therefore in the process of getting this site looking ship shape. It was the first site that I ever made so it was in need of some restoration. My dream of make a living with my IT from home (or out in the desert perhaps) seems to be coming true. It's something that I really enjoy and I only wish that it had been available as a career when I was a young (younger) bloke! I have more dreams of taking a few contracts up to Coral Bay and working on the beach in my speedos. I know I'm a dreamer but lately, if I dream hard enough, it all seems to be coming true, so watch this space....