Ian Granland

somewhere. I think I was about 8 or 9 when I first started to regularly attend the Saturday Afternoon Matinee.

(Do you have one of these photos? Yes it was taken at the Railway Concourse at Central by one of those shonky photographers who would approach the person with two cameras. He would click one, which obviously had no film, as you walked past and if you showed interest would get you to stand, like me there and take another photograph with the real camera).

The closest picture theatres to where I lived was at Maroubra. There was the Amusu which was on the western side of Anzac Parade between Maroubra Road and Wise Street. The Vocalist Theatre was on the same side of Anzac Parade on the N-W corner of Maroubra Road.

Together with my two friends and neighbours, Malcolm Nayda and Alan McGregor we would walk to the tram stop outside the gate of Long Bay Gaol and catch a city bound tram to Maroubra.

We would go to the theatre which had the best cowboy picture on at the time. We loved the serial episodes of Zorro, the Cisco Kid and Hop-A-Long Cassidy.

The tram fare was one penny each way, nine pence admission price which left me 1/1 (one and a penny or 13 cents) from the two shillings my mother would give me, to purchase some eats with. I would normally get a packet of Smith Crisps in the then grease proof packet,a choo choo bar and perhaps a few cobbers with the cash left. I never returned home with any money.

I was a cub in the First Matraville Cub Pack which met in the scout hall in Perry Street. Mrs Clarke was our Akela and once a year we used to have to raise some money for the pack in our ‘Bob-A-Job’ week.

Each cub would be given a card and normally each cub would canvass their near neighbourhood soliciting menial work for one shilling. I didn’t care much for manual labour but it was part of the task of being a cub so I did it.

I used to walk up and down my street with my card and would easily get jobs from those people I knew. Gardening was the most common job handed out. I would think I collected about 10/- (ten shillings) in my fund raising attempt. But of course, all of the money went to the cubs.

Around 11 or so I realised that money was a valuable asset and I was much the poorer because I had none of it.

My parents didn’t give me any pocket money until I was a bit older and then only conditionally – on me doing jobs for the money (2/- [twenty cents] a week mind you).

I can remember one time around that age my mother had sent me up to the shop to purchase some bread or milk or something. The local grocery shop was only about 150 metres away and whatever I was sent to buy wasn’t in stock so I returned forgetting to the ten shillings to my mother.

The next day she asked me if I had given her back the money and I lied by telling her I had. She must have had a few 10 shilling notes in her purse because she didn’t question me further and I got to keep it.

Imagine that. Ten shillings. I had never had that much money in my hand at one time. I thought I was on top of the world.

The following day I went ‘exploring’ (a euphemism for walking around the area) with my mates.

We ended up at Botany Bay near the Australian Paper Mills Factory. I knew that there was a canteen there for the workers and I went inside and purchased a chocolate milk shake. I had never experienced that feeling of financial freedom before. I also bought a couple of packets of lollies.

I think when I was much older I told my mother about that sneaky little divisive act.

When I was 12 a friend told me that I could earn money by selling drinks at the Saturday Night Speedway which was in the showground at Moore Park. I badgered my parents until they allowed me to go - not to work, just to attend the speedway.

He introduced me to Mr Podesta, the person who had the contract to sell snack food there.

His place of business was located underneath one of the open air stands which surrounded the arena between the large yellow Centenary Stand, the one with the clock tower in it and the Coronation Stand.

There were about 10 kids or so around the same age as myself who would ply the crowd at the speedway selling orange cordial drinks in paper cups for nine pence each.

Sellers had to wear a white coat with ‘Podestas’ embroided on the breast pocket and carry wooden box, similar to those which pies are transported from their manufacturer, in which was built a tray with circular holes cut for the drinks to fit.

I would walk around singing out ‘drink, drinks’. We got 2/- or twenty cents for selling a tray and would I would dispense about 8 trays or so a night between about 7.00pm-10.00pm.

The first night I was paid about fourteen shillings or so and thought I was on top of the world. Instead of catching a tram home, I caught a taxi – at 12 years of age – story of my life, get it and spend it.

One of my friends from school, John Berrell who lived at Little Bay arranged me to get him a job there. He had no intention of returning the cash from his first sale of drinks and threw the empty tray and coat away and never returned.

Mr Podesta questioned me about this kid but I never let on his details. In fact, I was a bit disappointed that he had done that because it was me who recommended him for the job.

Podesta also wanted sellers at the Royal Easter Show, so I worked there for him in my holidays. That was hard work. He had me selling ice creams from a big wooden box with a strap around my neck attached. In the box of course were ice creams and dry ice. The return wasn’t that good and I only did one Easter Show for him.

The job that I wanted was in his shop filling the drinks etc. but it never happened.

I thought now that if I had worked selling that stuff I could work at other places, so I fronted the men who had the contract for the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Their office was underneath the old Brewongle Stand and one day I got into a cricket game, told them of my experience and got a job selling peanuts.

I can remember walking around the hill, as it was then, yelling out “peanuts, peanuts”. As I did a man snidely remarked “I bet you can’t”.

I worked at the football and cricket at the SCG but only did that for a couple of seasons.

I thought I would give selling news papers a go at the football and approached the man who was the distributor. He gave me a coat and 20 early edition Saturday Suns and off I went.

I got one penny a sale which wasn’t much at all. I soon realised that the smarties approached those getting out of their cars after parking them in the fields opposite the entry to the ground in Driver Avenue. Between there and Anzac Parade.

I tried the same method but couldn’t sell much so I ditched them and went back to the peanuts.

One time when I was about 11 I attempted to get some type of work at the newly built ‘Four Square’ store which was on the corner of Prince Edward and Raglan Streets, Malabar.

I had passed there on my way home from swimming. The owner said he needed some pamphlets distributed to the near houses and I could earn 2/- (two shillings) for distributing about 200 or so.

One of my mates had told me that all I had to do was ensure that his mother, who lived in McGowen Avenue, got a pamphlet. I delivered a few around her house, but ditched them and never went back.

I wanted a surf board because it was the in thing at the time but my parents baulked at the cost.

My next door neighbour’s daughter Carol Handley, who was about 5 years older than me was going with Graham King of King Surf Boards at the time and I had spoken to him about purchasing one. He said he would make a custom board for me for sixty pounds - and that WAS a lot of money.. (my surf board experience is another story)

My folks suggested I get a job and earn the money myself so my father arranged with one of his mates, Jimmy Morton, a fellow bowler, for me to get a job over the Christmas period of 1962-63 at the Fresh Food and Ice Factory which was at the bottom end of Liverpool Street Darling Harbour. About where the Chinese Gardens in the Darling Harbour complex are now.

They were one of the major suppliers of milk and dairy products in Sydney at the time and the factory was a rather large one. Well I thought it was.

I think I told them I was older than 14. I looked about 16 and turned up on the Monday Morning to start work.

I received a pair of white overalls and allotted to the flavoured milk department.

For the first few days my job was to take the cartons off the conveyor line as they were filled and sealed in a line of five and drop them into the metal crates, which held 25 units then stack the crates on the floor beside me ready for storing in the cool room.

I can tell you that this WAS a boring job and I am very easily bored. Hour after hour stacking the half pint cartons into crates, stacking the crates on top of each other until I had a stack of five then switch off the machine so I could drag the stack into the cool room.

I now suffer from a periodic chronic upper back pain and blame this work for igniting this problem. It used to ache like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t know how people work for years on end on production lines.

I didn’t know anyone there apart from my brother’s first wife’s cousin who worked in laboratory. Each batch of products had to be tested before they were sold to the public.

One of the other jobs I had there was on the bottle washing machine. When the metal crates of empty milk bottles were returned to the factory, they were loaded onto a conveyor belt which transported them into the ‘bottle washing room’.

There, three operators would manually remove the bottles from their crates turning them upside down on revolving washing spikes as they moved into a machine where they were washed, cleaned and read to be filled with more milk.

Some of the bottles were putrid, some full of old crappy stuff or spiders and I guess paint and poisons which were a chore to wash. I am not sure but there must have been a quality control person on the other side of the machine.

Most of the people who worked there were foreigners and one time on the washing rack I was working with two Greeks. They were about 17 and one of them was really a big boy.

This particular time he went on about how lazy Australians are, how Australians are no good and won’t work etc. etc.

I took this for a few hours and was soon really getting annoyed because he was obviously doing it just to get at me and stir me up. He just went on and on.

Well after some time I had had enough. I was standing right next to him, turned and king hit him as hard as I could – then I ran out to the yard where if he confronted me I would have had a better go at him. He didn’t follow but stood at the door and abused me. I have often thought he would have killed me but I couldn’t stand it any longer.

Everything quietened down after a while following a visit by the foreman and things got back to normal. I was scared but worked besides those two for the rest of the day. He didn’t abuse me again.

We could drink as much milk as we wanted and initially that was a novelty but it soon wore off.

One time some flavoured milk was being stolen and those much higher than me decided to do a count of it in the cool room.

The keeper told me particularly, “you can drink as much as you like before it goes into the cool room, but then don’t touch a drop”.

After the count, one of the youngsters there decided to take a carton of chocolate milk for lunch. I told him it was counted and they would be on to him. He didn’t care.

So later one of the men in the white dustcoats and his clipboard did a count and of course it was short. I got the blame because I was the only one in the flavoured milk room. I couldn’t put the guy who had stolen it in but pointed out to the counting person that there was also another entry door to the cool room from a different side and that could have been where the thief may have accessed the milk. Anyway, nothing further was done about it.

We used to work seven days a week (for some unknown reason) and of a Sunday if there were a few people over they would be mustered to work in the big freezer room where ice was made and stored.

There we would take the big blocks and feed them into a grinding machine where the ice would be pulverised into smaller pieces and bagged. We would be all rugged up and do this for hours. Of course all being young we would be chiacking around and acting the goat. All of these people were under 20 but much older than me.

All of the employees had a locker which were contained in the first floor locker-shower room and where the bundy clock was kept. It was here that I met a fellow about 18 years of age or so. He was a really thick and solid build and did work similar to myself. Apparently he was an exceptionally good rugby league footballer.

He kept to himself and turned out that he had either entered or was about to enter the priesthood to become a catholic cleric.

He would often be reading during lunch and morning tea and some of the older workers were never shy in putting him down because of his religious beliefs and his intention to enter a religious order. I didn’t make much comment because I was not too of-fey about things like that. He was obviously a cut above these people.

I only worked at this place for about 3 weeks over the holidays but it gave me some idea of money and its value.

At knock off time I would walk up Liverpool Street to Elizabeth and catch a La Perouse bus home.

There weren’t any McDonalds or trolly pusher jobs at the supermarkets available then. If anything boys my age would have a paper run or sell papers at a pub or on a street corner. But I didn’t get into that. I suppose if I was encouraged I would have.

So that’s about my time earning a bob or two when I was younger. I could save if I really wanted to but most of the time she was pissed up against the wall.

Just to fill in the pieces of the surf board.

I eventually earnt enough to purchase a new board and subsequently paid Graham King his sixty pounds.

I was rewarded in January of 1963 with a lovely 9’6” purple and cream surf board. A sport I could now share with my mates. The trouble was that if I went into the sun too quickly I would burn like a cinder. And I think the wearing of hats then was a little too dorky.

Another problem was transporting the board to the beach. The closest one was Malabar where all there was, was a poor surf, rocks and sewer effluent – by the ton.

Nevertheless it was to Malabar where I used to carry the board under my arm. I am guessing the distance from my home was about 1.6km. Then try to surf (I never could master standing up on the board; I had little patience).

Buying the wax and rubbing it on the board (to provide friction and an anti-slip surface) was an experience.

The other kids had boards and carting it to and from Malabar beach was a chore and a half so we made arrangements with a class mate, Barry Gibbon, to store our boards under his parents house which was in Fox Street, just adjacent to the beach.

The poor lady, she never complained but it must have been painful for her to have these four or so surfboards stuck under her house and young boys coming and going of a weekend.

The access was a small door sort of thing about 500mm in height around the unused side of the house.

It didn’t take long to realise my board was being used by others when I wasn’t there. One time I went to retrieve and use it only to find a big ding (hole) in the under side.

I was disappointed but thought at least they didn’t steal it completely.

Repairing the holes with the liquid fibre glass and mat sheeting was an experience and I followed the lead of a friend, Gary Mashman. I ended up becoming quite competent at using fibre glass and utilised the skill to repair other items around the house. Ironically, he became a panel beater and used this material extensively in his trade.

I once went on a surfing safari with school friend, Robert Elliott and his brother Roger. We went over the north side with our boards tied to the top of his FJ Holden.

With us on the trip was Robyn Cassidy, an attractive girl from the same class as myself who was Roger’s girlfriend at the time.

I can remember the surf was too big for me to go in so I remained on the shore with my board for company.

The surf board novelty only last about 12 months and I sold it for twenty five pounds.

My next experience with the water was as a member of the South Maroubra Surf Club in the summer of 1965-66.

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