Throughout childhood, I always wanted to be a policeman but after coming to Oz then returning to England only
to return to Oz some four years later all by way of ship, I was seriously considering joining the Oz navy.
I was fifteen when we arrived back in Oz in Dec 69 and was facing having to start yet another school at my parents insistence.
My childhood years saw me attend schools in England, Perth, Sydney, England, Philadelphia, England and was now facing another
year here in Sydney all for the sake of a school certificate.
Within a couple of days of arriving in Sydney I went for a walk to Coogee beach and as I approached the beach I noticed a sign in
a butcher shop window " first year apprentice wanted"
I walked in and told the butcher that I have come to apply for the job. " So you wanna be a butcher d'ya ?. I hadn't given it more than
ten seconds thought from the moment that I first saw the sign but I nodded that I did. Such was my determination to avoid having to
start yet another school and once again having to start from scratch.
My parents were furious when I finally found the courage to break the news to them and after telling them of my starting time on Monday
and my father had stopped laughing, he said to my mam, " Don't worry pet, he'll be fed up in a couple of days, he'll be ready to go back
to school before the school holidays are over.
He was oh so wrong. I was loving it. I had money of my own for the first time in my life and even better was the fact that we had female
customers wearing the tiniest of bikinis. A fifteen year old boy couldn't have asked for anything more exciting than what I experienced daily.
My dreams of becoming a policeman or joining the navy when I finished my apprenticeship were shattered when I told my Aussie friends
and workmates of my plans.
The Aussie interpretation of a policeman or a seaman was obvious to me when they all asked me the same question. " What are ya, a Pig
or a Poof?"
God only knows what would have become of me had I not gone to the beach that day but I can safely say that the chance of me becoming
a butcher would have been highly unlikely. I can't be so sure though that if I did go back to school and stayed until I was eighteen that there
would have been a good chance that I would have been classed by my Aussie mates as a " Pig or a Poof."
Thank god I went for a swim that morning.