I had moved to Melbourne Australia. An Eastern suburb, twenty minutes from the city.
What a difference, standing on a crowded train into and out of Spencer Street each day.
I worked in the basement of the Victorian Railways head office building.
No cows, no sheep, just people, everywhere, noise, cold, no windows.
This definitely wasn’t going to be my career, but it paid the bills for the time being.
I spoke with my boss, or more to the point he spoke to me.
“There is no future for a young bloke like you in a place like this” he said. “We can get you a job outside”. Great a Train Driver, A Station Assistant, I thought. No, it was so much better than that. An apprenticeship at the Newport workshops where you could still see a lot of old Steam Engines and work on the newer trains coming into service.
I had my interview, the panel were very impressed with me and yes, I was given an apprenticeship. My schooling had never been that great, I hated it, sitting in a classroom all day, learning the Three R’s. What for? What has any of this got to do with milking cows, haymaking, rounding up the sheep. One teacher told me I didn’t want to be a farmer because it was a dying business.
Back to my career, I started work at the Newport workshops, as an apprentice Electroplater. A what? I thought. In a hot, dirty old factory. Going from one extreme to the other.
My dad was so happy and proud that I was going to do something with my life. A profession which will pay good money once I finished my apprenticeship, so much better than being a truck driver like himself. He told me, “When you’re a truck driver, that’s what you are from the day you start to the day you retire. You never became anything else, still a truck driver. No promotions, no bettering yourself, just a truckie”.
I went to school in Abbotsford once a fortnight, from Broadmeadows to Abbotsford by train; the rest of the time was from Broadmeadows to Newport by train. This was in the late Sixties, I was still new to Melbourne, sixteen years old, so no car as yet. Trains seemed to be on strike more than they were working, or the factory was. It was impossible to get to work without trains, I knew no-one that I could get a lift with. Taxis were out of the question, even if I could afford it. Apprentices didn’t earn much, oh, but I will once I qualify.
As an Electroplater.
Maybe this story is more about Rebellion than My Brilliant Career. Because after a few months that is where it ended.
I spent a couple of years filling supermarket shelves, then got my driver’s licence.
Then became a truckie.
Phil Hughes
June 2024