Hot enough to fry your brains!
We had some interesting jobs all over the Range. We did work at Red Lake, Lake Hart, Island Lagoon, Mt Eba, and Mirikata, amongst others. A lot of times we had to liase with the PMG from Kooly exchange. I remember Richard "Dick" Turpin and Cliff Milliwick. We wound up going over to Canberra and installing a Communications Centre near the Mint. We stayed at a motel in Manuka. We also started off Honeysuckle Creek, doing Helix runs from Instrumentation to the dish, in the snow.
The best fun I had was doing a new installation for the Flight Control Centre at the Range. When it was finished we stood around and watched these 2 blokes flying Jindiviks around. Every time we saw the Radio Controlled aircraft flying around the Range, I knew I had installed the mechanism to do it. Another time, there was a complaint that the Fire Tender could not hear the Controllers at the end of the runway. It was decided to replace the antenna feed to the antenna, after giving the antenna a bit of a clean up. We did this, and I was designated to get into the Fire Tender, as a passenger to work the radio, and we took off to the end of the runway, it worked OK, and we decided to keep going and do a bit of Donga Bashing as well as testing of the radio. This worked well, until Woomera Tower came on and told us to shut up as we were interfering with them. We headed back to the Range.
What used to amuse me, was that if the temp. got to 105 (40+ degrees C), a lot of people used to head back to the village, or, maybe, Woomera West, but we had to keep on working. I can remember one day, I was doing some little job with Dave Pyle, and he said, "It’s hot enough to fry your brains", and it was too!
Life at the Staff Mess had changed little, thank God. The Mess had movies, President’s Shouts (which were great, a pint for 6 pence), loaves of bread to make toast, lots of butter and cheese, beautiful leather lounges, billiard room, library, and a beer garden, as well as the mess. There were a lot of people, from all over the world, who would while their time away after work doing whatever. A lot of the Poms played darts.
I palled up with an old [I say OLD because I was 25, and he MAY have been 50, which to me was old (ask me what I think now that I am 65)] RAF fellow, who worked with the Fire Tender at Woomera airstrip. He missed his family very much, and had a son my age, so I think I was his by default. He used to talk like a father too!
I used to eat often with Jeff Tullett, I don’t remember where Jeff worked, Dave Fotheringham, an ex London Bobby and now a Commonwealth copper at Woomera, based at the Range. Dave was a mad Scotsman, who used to love wearing his kilt to the Mess Parties for a stir. No female ever found out what he wore underneath, or so he said. Some time later I was down in Adelaide for a few weeks, Dave had left the Commonwealth Police, and was working for Cottees cordial and he stayed at Strangways Terrace, I also did, and on the Sunday evening we went down town to see what was happening. Nothing much, I can tell you that. But, Dave and his kilt had a nasty way of making things happen. We went to the Black Cat coffee Lounge for coffee, and Dave got onto one of the German waitresses. I was used to the German from my grandmother, but Dave had difficulty getting himself understood by the waitress. One of the funniest nights I had spent for years. After a few months, Dave decided to come back to his old job in Woomera, and we met up again.
Alan Kennedy
E-mails: alan@vk4fm.com
(9 November 2000)
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Memories of Woomera |
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