My earliest recollections were before the Wright Brothers had flown. The fascination of flight had always been present. Gliders and models, the carving of propellors, elastic-band motors, box-kites, gas and hot-air balloons were a constant source of interest in our household an due would haunt the toyshop in Swanston Street that specialised in scientific gadgets.
The monthly magazine “Popular Mechanics” was read with avid interest by myself and my young brothers and I would search the papers, books and journals for pictures or reference to flying. One highly scientific and important imported paper, the “English Engineer” featured an article by a professor, who proved by advanced mathematics that man would never be able to fly. I was slightly discouraged to realise that with the engines that were then available that the professor was right, but he did not foresee nor imagine an aeroplane engine delivering high power for low weight. (Santos Dumont). I tried making models on King Island about 1906. One had hessian covered with paper for the fabric, paste being used to join them. I used to watch the seagulls gliding and swooping over the stormy coast and realised that Darwin believed we originated from the ape family and that some scientists affirmed that we originally came from the sea as fish. But my ten years believed we could have started from flying creatures. But whether from monkey, fish or bird man still retains the birds flying instincts in the soaring exhubrience and elation he feels in controlled flying behind a powerful motor.
As I write this I am now 56 years of age and shipmaster of a 50 ton vessel “MV Kosami” taking supplies to oil prospecting camps scattered along the tenuous maze of rivers and estuaries known as the Western Fly River Delta, New Guinea. These days are full of interest because I have managed to forget the delights and thrills of the air and supplant them with the navigational hazards of these waters and the beauty and weirdness of these parts. In place of planes and company, notes and experiences in their daily flying work there is the convivial meeting with skippers on the same work and their having similar interests and risks.
My whole life previously was absorbed in engines and air craft and principally diesel engines. I made models and flew them before Bleriot’s Channel Flight and followed closely those lengthening preliminary hops of the Graham White, Colonel Cody, etc in the “Aeroplane” and would dream and long for the touch of a real aeroplane. Father sent a photo of Bleriot’s arrival in England after the first Channel crossing and which he was there for. We lived in King Island at the time. Then when I was at boarding school at St Stanislaus College in Bathurst, NSW in 1901 Wizard Stone brought a Bleriot aeroplane to Bathurst. He was to fly from the show ground. Today we wonder how he managed to get off. I got as close to the plane as I could and heard two old bearded “cockies” down for the show holding forth. “Now Bill, how is he going to get that thing to fly in the sky.” I was also wondering. He did one circuit and bumped down amidst cheers. I got quite close to it and that smell of castor oil rafting after gave me a thrill when I smelt it burning in a car or motorcycle.
In 1894, I was born in a terrace house in St Kilda Road, Melbourne and we lived in Melbourne many years, then went to Hobart, Tasmania and then to King Island, returning to Melbourne in 1910.
My father had materials brought from Tasmania and built the hotel there which incorporated small shops and the Commercial Bank. We lived at a farm called “Manresa”. All transport on the island was by horse, trap, tinker or buggy. “Manresa” was eleven miles along sandy roads from Currie, the port and only town on this 30 mile long strip of what is now known to be rich fertile ground and has one of the largest scheelite mines known, which was discovered by my father.
Our Governess, Miss McLaughlin accompanied us from Tasmania and married a “jackaroo”, an English migrant. Father established him at “Manresa”. Mrs continued with our education as long as possible. Black snakes and copperheads we dispatched and hung on the fence. e had a hors “Totty” and also a one-time circus pony called “Dicky” that used to draw a children’s cart that had been made for us, also a double seated cane pannier seat for two.
There were over forty wrecks of sailing ships along the rocky coasts, and we heard hair-raising accounts of the loss of British immigrant ships and others attempting to reach Melbourne from England and the dreadful seas of the Great Australian Bight. The British Admiral, with the loss of 400 lives. The ’Netherby’ and the ‘Waterwitch’ etc. Pa Hickmot, the light-house keeper was the only man on the island at the time and we would listen for hours to his accounts of the wrecks and survivors. In one wreck there were men and women in evening dress along with convicts, downed and washed up together on the rocky beach and there were tales told of the chopping off of fingers for the rings. He burying of jewellery was later proved when he affirmed that a saucepan with money and jewels was ploughed up along with whisky and brandy.
Mark Twain once wrote, “there comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for buried treasure”. In the heart of young and old lies a suppressed beat tuned to the title of Spanish doubloons and pieces of eight and this extra beat is the symptom of gold fever.
There was no official survey of the island and father was instrumental in persuading the Government to lay down official survey points on the island.
Incidentally the surveys were thrown into confusion when the romantic Parer boys, after listening to tales of wrecks of Spanish galleons washed up on the coast filled with treasure, told by old identity Pa Hickmot who lived in the lighthouse thought they had found a mark to where it was buried. This was a metal spike set in cement and the original starting point for all island surveys, which the boys dug up and took to the ruling master mind of the treasure seekers.
It was Leo (Ray’s older brother) that finally set the decision of our parents to send us over to Melbourne to college as we were proving beyond the gentle care of our governess. One of our favourite past-times was going out on our home made rafts of kerosene tins and saplings tied together our onto the wild Currie Harbour and onto rocks were we used to gather seagull eggs. Our best raft was named ‘Autoco’. Our mother was usually worried as to our whereabouts and when at last we decided to stay at home and play quietly enquiring minds turned to the scientific field. Leo, a pioneer who liked to try out his theories, had the usual crowd of brothers and friends sitting quietly as they watched him make a bomb. My mother, so used to the noise they typically mad, came along to investigate ‘the quiet’. It was unfortunate that she came at the moment his experiment proved his formula was correct for it exploded with a terrific detonation. Mothers arm was broken as she fell when the wall collapsed. No one else was hurt.
Fred Huxley, later Wing Commander of RAAF in World War II, and decorated was the the son of the later lighthouse keeper and about my age, shard with us our sea adventures. He was captain of the State School cricket team and I of the Currie team.
In early King Island days, the road gangers who were sent over from Tasmania enlivened the night life of Currie with their brawls. Pat Sullivan, the local policemen, had, more than once, to be rescued and once had to be let our of his own lock-up.
There were also a number of local men making their living snaring kangaroos for their skins. They would set 300 snares in one night. These snares were string cords fastened to the top of a sapling bent down and held by a trip cord over the kangaroo pad. Bill Scott, Allie Groves and relatives were the best hunters, having spent their lives there and knowing the best hunting and fishing methods and localities. Later J Ball, Mr Munro and my father, introduced pheasants to the island. They later increased at such a rate they became a pest, but are now one of the islands main attractions for sportsmen. Pheasant shooters come over in organised tours for the season, from Melbourne. Bill Scott was the recognised authority and guide in this sport and local “Davy Crockett”. Then father and Tom Farrell found scheelite where father had som land at Grassy on the east coast.
Little did I realise that years later after McIntosh and I had flown fromEngland to Australia in 1920 and the congratulations and newspaper headlines were reverting to normal and the lionising and publicity did not mean a living for me. An enlarged heart and asthma had a chance when I mad a change of occupation and returned to the place of my boyhood just “on spec”.
I purchased on terms on International Harvester cy Model 3I enclosed motor truck and managed to get a contract carting the butter and cheese to the Currie wharf from the factory, and later purchased a Ford truck and a passenger car second hand. Drivers were my brother Bob, McMahon, a young local lad and Doug McAllen. I had no previous business experience and found we had to work the clock round to finance the payments on the truck and pay the wages.
At this time I met the pheasant shooting parties who frequently hired the Ford and employed Bill Scott with his terrier’s to show them the best localities.
I had bought an open 18 foot boat and fitted it with a secondhand dairy-cream churner engine. The magneto coupling was a set screw and it rotated the wrong way, but to me it was ‘Chis Craft”.
Bill Scott had a hut on the Mutton bird Rookery at New Years Island. He used to tsalt down the young birds, barrels them and export them to Launceston. He also sold his crayfish trapped around these waters. New Years Island and Christmas Island were both together about 20 miles north along the rough, feef strewn kelp chocked west coast of King Island. There was shelter for a small boat in the lee of these islands.
One day Bill in his little Chapman Pup engined boat and I in my boat, left Currie with some pheasant shooters who wanted to see Bill’s Islands and do some fishing there. We got the party there all right, but it was only a small one roomed place. The guests left Bill to do the chores and started on the Scotch. Short tempered at any time, but generous to a fault, he made a remark that I resented. I left that night, which was madness. It was pitch dark, but I thought the Currie Lighthouse would light me in.
I had not checked my petrol tank and having no lights or compass I relied on the distant flash of the Currie light. The only way I avoided the reefs was by sound. I would hear the roar of the breakers crashing, then would steer right or left to avoid them. At night with only one distant light, one’s position relative to the coastline and North=South position can be very misleading and puzzling at times.
Currie Harbour is not easy to navigate even in the daytime, but I was depending on the engine.
I seemed to be nearly opposite the entrance when the engine stopped just when I was negotiating a reef. I suspected petrol shortage. With the engine stopped I realised I was just about on top of the reef. The whole boat would lift thirty feet to the rise of the crashing breakers. In the dark I moved to the oars but the oar slipped overboard. I could not see it and did not have time. So groping in the dark put up the small lug sail and put the tiller hard over as I was approaching the breakers, but could not see them.
In turning out to sea again the noise of the breakers diminished, but I knew, as I had no centre board that luck would have to be with me. Each time I turned to try and approach the harbour entrance I was blocked by the breakers and realised also that I was drifting sideways further from the entrance.
I knew then that the sail could not bring her into the Harbour opening. Te time would then be about 3am.
I visualised being blown back into the Australian Bight but also thought I could get back to New Years Island by daylight and knew if the engine could be got going enough to put me opposite eat entrance I could sail slowly in. The petrol tank was flat and shallow so loosened the front end and tipped it up finding just enough to start the engine and she took me just far enough to turn into the entrance. I tied up just as dawn was breaking.
In my Bass Strait sailing in this open boat I often pass the crawfishing Burgess Brothers. They said they had often wondered who the chap in the open boat was with only a gun and a dog that they had seen near Bobbins Island and The Hummocks.
There were nine in our family, seven boys and two girls and as I mentioned as the five elder boys were approaching teen age our governess Mrs Bayley found things getting beyond her was her own family increased and we boys began to grow up. The sequence of it all was that we ere to go over to Melbourne to boarding school. Mother interviewed Archbishop Carr of Melbourne and decided to send us to Mentone College, and we would come home for the holidays. There were five of us and of course Melbourne had no warning of our arrival.
My mother’s father JP Carolin of Carolin Machinery and Furnishing Coy. 191 Collins Street, Melbourne (the Regent Theatre was built in its place in 1929) was also unprepared. He had come to Melbourne after many years in Bendigo, being it’s mayor three times and now was also a member of the Board of Health. There was no wireless in those days, so he was unaware of our arrival and were discharged onto the wharf with he rest of the cargo. The mate advised us to get a cab. Mother had given us 2/- each as pocket money. The cabby said it would cost 10/- to Collins Street. We all gave up our money, but Vin took the cabby’s number – a good effort at his age.
After the office staff had recovered, Grandfather summoned the cabby. The real reason was he wanted to show off to the magistrate the whole five of us lined up in “steps and stairs” Leandro, Raymond, Vincent, Anthony, Wilfred (Bob). Grandfather knew the magistrate. The defendant seemed depressed at the show of numbers. The court congratulated JP for his bringing to the notice the attempted evasion of the city regulations and the cabby was let off with a caution.
The city life was all strange to us and much interest as the American Fleet was in paying a visit. The cable trams were great source of curiosity and we wanted to see them as often as possible. Our Grandfather then took us to see my uncle WH Higgins, an Englishman, who had the Gippsland Hotel. Then a visit to Uncle John’s beautiful home ‘Altiora’ at 17 Stanhope Street, Malvern. Here I remember meeting my cousins for the first time. Damien had not yet been born. He was the youngest of that family of six. Kevin the youngest in our family and Damien the youngest in theirs both lost their lives to the Japanese. These cousins and Geoffrey and Bertram Higgins also joined us at Mentone College. Later the Higgins boys went to Oxford and Leo and myself went to St Stanislaus College in Bathurst, NSW in 1910. I spent two years at Bathurst.
After leaving school I determined to become an engineer (as this was the nearest I could get to an aero engine) and had a good grounding at O’Grady’s in South Melbourne and the Technical College in the city (James O’Grady’s also marine engineers). This time, 1912 to 1915 was spent learning about engines.
All manner of new engine designs to improve the weight power ratio were inquired into and attempted. At home I built a full sized glider from ‘motor machines’ – a handbook, but th eglider did not reach the take off point before I was returned to school for further mathematics and study. This I did at Xavier College, Kew.
I was then apprenticed to Brodribb Boss. Motor Engineers, St Kilda Road, and of rthe first time really contracted the petrol engine and it’s maintenance.
The 1914 war came. I enlisted, but my height under 5 ft 3 inches was against me, the minimum height was later dropped to 5 ft 4 inches. The next year I was again rejected of the same reason. Stories coming back form the front inflamed my enthusiasm for the air.
I concentrated on entering Point Cook, then the nucleus of the air force camp, but had to eventually see Colonel MacInerney the family legal man, who helped me to enter, instead of learning to fly I found I was only able to be an eye witness of others. At the most I was a minor mechanic.
I returned to Colonel MacInerney and he informed me that Major Pollard had said that the army people were going to let mechanics try their hand at flying. Previously, only graduates from the Military School, Duntroon with commissions were eligible. The next flying course was the 7th and I was raised in rank to sergeant with six other mechanics and it came out in orders that we were to be trained as pilots.
“At last”, I thought.
I was assigned to Lieut. Galloway, my instructor. At first, tryout on the Box Kite, May 16th, 1916. Then later to the French Instructor, Monsieur Mardual (Mardi) with Maurice Farm. There were a number of Duntroon officers who were also to be trained on that course.
This kind of instructing was proved by present day methods – the instructor sitting behind the pupil on the sea seat on cross beams; there was no body to the plane or fuselage. The Box Kite, as we called her, was made of wood and doped fabric with tail booms out back and the elevators stuck out in the front. Bicycle wheels with rubber shock absorbers comprised the landing gear. The wings were braced with double piano wires and turnbuckle, tightened. A copy of Wilbur Wright’s, The CO Hush-Hush plane.
The engine was the Gnome 7 cylinder, rotary, with the distributor on the rotation crankshaft, piston rings were obdurate presses steel, similar to the leather pump washers on a Primus. Their period between overhauls was 25 hours when new. In still air they handled easily, but being so light where susceptible to bumps.
After five hours instruction I had my first solo. I deliberately did an impressive left turn near the ground bringing the machine nicely into wind and a perfect landing. The FE2B Hush-Hush plane.
I think it was Edgar Davies solo that showed what a Box Kite could do. Some of these Duntroon men would have made wonderful AIF infantry men where courage and aggression were needed but as pilots they were united. On Edgar’s first solo after a long period of instruction I saw him stall the box kit at 2,000 feet, and continued happily to stall his way down under the impression he was gliding, without dropping his nose, just as a parachute would. The lack of wind and light weight allowed it. He just bumped slightly and beaming stepped out unaware of the shock he had given those men who knew what had happened. He qualified, but I never knew what his future was. Sometimes, some of the poor starters finished tops, as Bluey Truscott proved.
We had lectures also and after our exams we were to receive ours omission sand wings, provided we passed.
We had lectures also and after our exams we were to receive our commissions and wings, provided we passed.
Out of the whole school I was the only on etc be rejected. Monsieur Mardual hurried up to Victoria Barracks and inquired, “Why?” In a very hostile mood. He was told there, that my technical exam was not good. He replied that I had got me ticket and wings in 5 ½ hours instruction and gave great promise. He considered it was a mistake. Next month this was corrected and my commission was gazetted. But Eric Harrison the CO of Point Cook considered maybe that I did not have the maturity or soldier-like bearing of the other army trained pupils. I was commission as a pilot in 1916.
I met Mardual on my arrival in Sydney after flying from England and was very sorry to see him looking old and ill, but he was very pleased that I had justified his confidence in my flying promise. The CO Eric Harrison had the job of getting the plane, the ‘PD’ off the train at Spencer Street after the final crash at Culcairn, at the end of the flight. It was reassembled at Flemington Racecourse for the official welcome by the Prime Minister. He had occasionally flown a BE2C, a machine that was not used for instruction of pupils. There was also a Caudron and the old rum petty Maurice Farnum. We heard of the arrival of a brand new hush-hush plane. It was surrounded with a barbed wire enclosure. I was awed when I first viewed it from a distance. Of course we were warned that enemy spies have long ears and the details must not be discussed. It tuned out to be the old bag FE2B with shiny new copper cylinder jackets. Before I left nobody had attempted to fly it. It was on the secret list. Maybe we can always laugh at ourselves but then were very serious.
Concert parties came down from Melbourne to entertain the troops. At one of these I met CJ Dennis the author of “The Sentimental Bloke”.
Leave days were weekends and those of us who had motorcycles would race him on the good Laverton Road and race back again on Monday Morning in time for parade. I had a Douglas and used to race Norman Gadsden on his powerful V twin. The routine of camp life was brightened by the different characters there. For a time when we moved to the beach quarter we were under canvas and would hear all the camp furphies. Eric Guys had a dry sense of humour and could always detect bluff and turn it to ridicule.
I was bathing one day on the beach and saw my first loop and aeroplane crash. Basil Watson was flying his Bristol Scout and had just finished the loop at about 5,000 feet when his wing came off. He and the broken plane fell in the sea near us but he was dead when we go there. He was the only son of Watsons of Bendigo. His parents were heart broken. Years later on my arrival in Australia by air Mr and Mrs Watson presented me with golden cuff links, England attached to Australia with a gold chain. They had known my grandfather when he was mayor of that city. We returned to our flying feeling very sad about the death of this popular and capable young pilot who had built up his own plane.
Our routine was to arrive at 4am. Hurricane lanterns of course as dawn broke. If, when holding a handkerchief hanging down and the wind stirred it, we went to lectures and waited for the following morning.
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Then presumably Ray went off on another adventure and didn’t return to finish his recollections and early memories
Parer History 