“ I was born in Brisbane in the last few weeks of the swinging 60’s. My dad was doing National service and we moved to Moree pretty soon after I was born. There’s not a whole lot of money in my family. My grandparents had a little hobby type farm outside of Moree. Pop bought an old nurses quarters house from the hospital and moved it onto the property which was 2 kms outside of town, far enough to not really be a part of town. We were across the road from one of the two Aboriginal missions and Moree at the time had lot’s of racial issues back then. I’m not sure what its like now.
My dad was one of 10 with a broad range between the oldest and youngest. My younger Aunts were only 7 years older than me so we were close. My siblings and cousins came much later. It was nice having them all around. It was very family orientated and gradually they all got older and moved away. My parents got the deposit together for a house and we moved into town when I was about 12. It’s funny now that I think older wooden houses are nicer but in Moree in the early 80s we moved into a brick veneer and it seemed like the height of technology..so fancy!
I went to Catholic Primary and a local state high school close to home. I don’t know that I ever felt comfortable in those years. I always felt like I was on the outer for some reason and it’s obvious thinking back now, there were boys and there were girls and then there was me. I felt like I didn’t fit in to either. That caused me a lot of problems through high school. I didn’t join anything because I hated boys sports and most boy things. At the same time it felt weird hanging out with the girls. I floated through high school and thankfully I did quite well. There were no girlfriends and God forbid boyfriends in Moree in the 70’s. I don’t remember any openly Gay or Lesbian people in Moree at the time. I’m sure there must have been but no-one was brave enough to out themselves.
I left school and had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn’t feel prepared for a whole lot. My dad worked as a clerk in an Accountants office, two uncles were Accountants. I thought I may as well do what my dad did and became an Accountant. I went to Armidale to study Accountancy even though I was actually more interested in Geography and Science. I lived in a very conservative residential college for 2 years. I then moved to a flat in town with a friend until I finished my degree.
I finished uni in the middle of the 91-92 recession which was difficult to find a job so I moved to Brisbane. I stayed with a lovely Aunt which turned out to be only one week. I had forgotten to take my resume with me. This was before email, laser printers , etc. I called my parents and they faxed it to me and fax machines weren’t common then either so they had to fax it the post office. I still remember it was $5 a sheet to receive a fax. $20 later I had my resume on thermal fax paper. My Aunt knew someone who owned a desktop publishing firm. Now everybody has their own on their computer but in ’92 that wasn’t the case. Through that I landed a job in Katherine in the Northern Territory so just 2 weeks after leaving Moree I was on a plane to the NT.
I left Brisbane on a warmish day for July and I remember landing in Darwin in the middle of the tarmac on a 39 degree day. We had to walk hundreds of metres across the tarmac. I was brave, I got up out of the plane (laughs). The terminal had so many ceiling fans and bullet holes still in the walls as it was the World War 2 terminal. I worked for a tax agent for over 2 months. One audit was in Arnhem Land. We went out and camped by a billabong just outside a community of 100 people. It took 5 hours to get there and everything was coated in red dust. All the walls, the paper, the computer was orange. I had amazing experiences there. Life seemed much simpler.
I then worked in a local indigenous rehab organisation for a few months doing admin. I packed up to come back for my graduation and moved to Sydney. I found work with an import export company dealing with far East Russia. I had to learn some Russian to be able to converse with them. Down the track I went on to work for a company that designed circuit boards for printers with an amazing bunch of people.
I felt like I was just treading water when one of my friends called me up and said I think we should move to London. I hadn’t thought of that before but it sounded like an interesting idea. I gave notice at work, did a day trip to get our visas and flew to Turkey where we spent 3 months going along the Mediterranean to the UK.
The night before we left Turkey I met someone who I fell instantly in love with. I was completely and utterly smitten with her. We were taking the ferry from Turkey to Greece and we hung out for about 3 days then we all went off in our separate directions. She was doing the same as me but just finishing her trip whereas I was just starting mine. It was very sad seeing her go after that week. My friend and I continued our trip and it all seemed a bit boring after that amazing week. We eventually got to the UK after 4 months. We spent a week in Wales then went to London. Nothing really seemed important as I wanted to go and see the girl I’d met. My friend stayed behind and I went up to Edinburgh and hung out with her. We didn’t quite get it together and she ended up coming home to Australia with no expectation there would be any ongoing relationship. I got on with my life. I worked in a supermarket in Edinburgh which was built in the site where the Leith railway station used to be. It was mentioned in the novel Trainspotting. It wasn’t in the film. Irvine Welsh the author of Trainspotting’s nephew worked in the supermarket so he was kind of the minor local celebrity. Leith is the docks area so it’s really rough. One of my co-workers pointed out someone who could beat up anybody I need beaten up on request. I couldn’t think why I would ever need that to happen. It was pretty funny. I was the only Australian out of a hundred Scottish people. It was brilliant. I moved back to London to make more money and I worked for an upper class company where I felt out of place. As far a s work goes it was boring but I saved a lot of money. I travelled Eastern Europe for 6 months, back to Turkey and on. Back to London and then flew home with no idea what I would do with my life.
I was almost 29 when I came home. Some magic happened and the girl I loved came down to Sydney to visit and she didn’t leave. We got to know each other more and became a couple. After a while I proposed and she said yes so we got married. At around the same time I saw a job advertised at 2MMM so I applied. After a long interview process I was hired. I was their accountant and I loved it. So many interesting, vibrant people some of which I’m still in touch with 18 years later. My relationship wasn’t going so well because I never really got to understand what relationships were. Even though my work life was ok anything that related to my gender I did really bad at. By the time I was back in Sydney at 29 I hadn’t ever had a proper girlfriend. It’s like the left and right side of your body switch over. You get used to picking up things with your right hand and it’s like being asked to do everything with your left hand. You try but you can’t interact with things or the world around you like you should so I got to that age without ever having a relationship that lasted longer than a couple of weeks and there was only one of those. Consequently I didn’t realise what I was getting myself into when I thought it was a good idea to get married. Because of that lack of experience it didn’t go very well. My wife was unhappy well before me.