“ I grew up in Geelong Victoria. I’m 78 now and still working full time. Looking back my childhood was great in the 50’s and 60’s. I remember our bread delivered by horse and cart, the ice man would come by horse and cart, garbage was picked up by horse and cart. My first job after leaving school was in a bank. In those days everybody had a job when they left school or you’d go into carpentry or another skill. I didn’t like working at the bank so I left and helped my mother in the milk bar.
When I turned 21 I wanted to leave home. I wanted to move to another area so I tossed a coin whether to go to Darwin or New Zealand. NZ won so off I went and I was there 6 years and did all the things I’d dreamt of doing that weren’t possible in Geelong. I got a job the minute I arrived in NZ with Dalgety, the stock agents. I worked in the Sale Yards. I rode Trotters and trained a mate’s race horse. I did yachting and I just had a great time.
My father had a heart attack so my mother wanted me to come home to Geelong as I was the eldest of three. I came home but sadly I never went back to New Zealand and I loved it there….But as a consequence my life changed completely.
I went to Melbourne and got a job as a hotel manager. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I met my future wife in Melbourne who used to work at the Guide Dog Centre. We married and moved to Mackay in QLD where I got a job as the Secretary of the Mackay Showgrounds. After a while we moved to Casino, bought a farm and I got a job working at the RSM Club.
You may need to edit this out but I don’t mind if you leave it in as it happened and it’s part of my history. I started working at the club and was having trouble with the Manager there. I was sexually abused by him and a couple of the Directors. It was degrading stuff. We would be standing in a group of people and the Manager would grab my crotch and the directors would laugh. I was in my 30’s and at the time I had 3 kids, a mortgage and a sick wife. It got to the point where I wanted to leave but we wouldn’t have survived if I lost my job. The manager started blaming things on me I didn’t do and he assaulted me so he had to go. They got a new Manager and I was demoted. I was in deep depression at the time and my mental health was not good. This was in 1980 so there was no support, nowhere I could go, no protection or human resources, not like there is now.
With my severe depression and bad mental state I ended up committing a robbery at the RSM Club and I shot myself to make it look like it was someone else. That’s how depressed I was. I shot myself in my thigh and luckily I missed the main artery by a tiny fraction otherwise I would have died. I put all the money in a bag and hid it in the club where it stayed. I never took it and confessed the next day. I can see now why I did it. It wasn’t for the money. I’m sorry it happened but I’m not ashamed as It started me off on what I’ve got now. I hadn’t told my wife about the abuse and I needed get it out. I thought if I do something crazy there will be an investigation. I didn’t tell the Police about the sexual abuse. When it went to court for the robbery I pleaded guilty and the Detective stood up in court for me and I got a sentence but it was suspended.
I ended up getting a job at the Brickworks which went bankrupt. A mate bought a Sawmill and I worked there for a couple of years. That went broke when the interest rates were at 22 percent.
We subdivided our farm and built a new house. Our marriage was rock solid but I would have been hard to live with because of all the pressures. In the end my wife asked if I’d mind if she started going to church with her friends from nursing mothers. I said, Of course I don’t mind as long as you don’t try and get me into it. I noticed a difference in her in just a few months. She was more alive in my eyes. She said the men are having a BBQ, do you want to come? I went along and enjoyed it so started going to a few things. They were going to America on an exchange and they asked me to go along. I said I couldn’t afford it but someone paid my airfare. I spent 3 weeks in America and I spoke in a few little churches about my life and it felt right. When I returned the opportunity came up to become a Pastor. I went to the Churches of Christ College in Lismore even though that wasn’t my church but I would have had to go to Sydney and that was out of the question as my wife was sick. I graduated with a Theological Degree and a Diploma in Ministry. The Uniting Church and the Presbyterian churches put me up in their churches in Bonalbo. Being out there for 8 years gave me a real grounding and insight into depression and disadvantage. I got really involved in the community, counselled a lot of people and became a part of their lives.
An opportunity came up to be a Chaplain at the Acmena Youth Detention Centre. Acmena is the name of a Lillipilli. This centre is for youths from 12 to 18 and takes kids from Tweed out to Walgett, down to Armidale and Taree. It holds 45 boys. I started there 2 days a week and had an opportunity to do some work in the Uniting Church in Casino. At the same time I was Chairman of Lifeline, Northern Rivers for 6 years. My focus has been dealing with disadvantaged people.
When I was down at Acmena the same boys kept coming back time after time. I thought there’s something not working here. The problem was when they left detention they would go back to the same old situation. I thought, if they can have something, an interest, maybe the ones who want to change their lives could find a new pathway. I started a program in the detention centre where we made toys…trucks and tractors to see if they would respond to that. They did, so I thought, this might work outside. I spoke to Youth Justice and we set up a program called Pathway to Employment and through that we set up a fully tax deductible charity called KOFY.”