Some parts of this interview have been embargoed. The embargoed portions are noted in the transcript and video. Giving us a summary of your life from when and where you were born to the present day. Alright, I was born, near the Brisbane Cricket Ground, in a private home, the, I can even remember the midwives name, it was Sister Warricko, it sounds a bit war like. My father sold the station in the Depression, I moved to a country town called Cleveland.
Which came out by T Model Ford [early mass production car] - when the climate, when it was it was raining too hard and it got bogged. I got taught by my mother on occasions by governesses which had great difficulty finding me and my brother. I then went at the age of 13 I got tetanus followed by pneumonia, and in those days. Prior to that I'd served every two years in the militia from the age of 17 to 19 to get in the AIF I had to put my age on one year, so all my records you'll see I was born in , and in '21 so I'm a bit of a freak that way.
The, we used to have regular camps, but pre war it was obvious the war was coming on my. On the eighth of May my mother finally agreed to, she sign me up as being a year older than I was, so I went into the AIF and I was quickly promoted to sergeant because very few people knew anything about military drill, at that stage, having had militia experience. I was a sergeant until, until I got my discharge to go in. I served in India for a short time, the Middle East in North Africa for about four months, did the entire Syrian campaign.
Garrisoned in Syria until we came back, had my 20th and 21st birthday by, just by circumstances of moving through the Quastina Camp in Palestine. And, came. Maybe so I decided to work on getting into the air force. I sort of knew the right people in Brisbane,. When I joined the air force, I went to Kingaroy, I got started there in initial training school on a.
The Empire Air Scheme of course was a total program scheme through your career, of training, it was universal, Australia, Canada Britain, South Africa, or wherever you trained, standard training.
