1957 A NEW BEGINNING "THEIR OWN PRE-OCCUPATIONS"

HOME AGAIN

"Their own pre-occupations” indeed.

I did not have long to dwell on these subjects before I arrived home to some shocking news.

My Dad had lost his eye to Glaucoma which is a buildup of fluid behind the eye. Nothing had been said to me, no inkling of this was given by letter. Lest it should cause me to return home! Or lest it should disturb my mind! What amazingly selfless action on the part of my Mum and Dad, who in the first instance had not wanted me to go. They had endured this traumatic event with their own quiet stoicism. The event had been entirely sudden and without warning. Dad had been riding his bike the several miles up to his work at Potts Hill Pumping Station along the road toward Bankstown, one evening for the Night Shift. He had worked at Potts Hill for many years since the War. It was then steam powered by coal-fired boilers and he was an Engine Room Attendant - hot, dirty work. A sudden stab of intense pain in the eye caused him to fall from his bike. He thought a passing car had thrown up a stone and struck him. By sheer grit he got himself to the Station where help was called and at the Hospital the Doctor gave him the grim news. The operation was prompt - his left eye was gone- replaced by a temporary glass eye, until a tailor made "eye" could be prepared.

This permanent eye had not been produced, when I arrived home, the whole trauma was not much more than a week or so old.

MY DEAR MUM & DAD A VERY INFORMAL PHOTO EARLY IN THE MORNING
ONCE ONE KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE AROUND DAD'S ARTIFICIAL EYE (HIS LEFT) CAN BE DISCERNED

I have endless admiration for the courage with which Dad dealt with this distressing development. I never once heard him complain or ask for consideration in any way, yet the disorientation, inconvenience and no doubt pain and discomfort must have been immense. Jack Dixon was made of steely stuff!

Not many days after arriving home, I was to receive another shock. I said to Mum and Dad that I had better go around the block into Third Avenue and visit Grandma's house (as we still called the former home of Dad's Mother who had died in 1948. I wanted to see my maiden Aunt Nell (Ellen) and Dad's Brother Bill particularly. Under the terms of Grandma's Will, the house was to be a home for the two unmarried people as well as Grandma's Brother Tom "Wingy" (for his withered arm-result of a childhood accident) and Abby (Albert) who, for all his constant presence in the family in my childhood days, I do not understand his relationship. Dad's Mother only had two children, my Dad and his younger brother Bill. Her husband, my Grandfather was a sometimes violent alcoholic and had not lived in the family home for years. Grandma had taken in a number of "strays" including her brother Tom, Abby, my maiden Aunt Nell (daughter of Grandma's other Brother Jack whose wife had died giving birth to Nell - during or after the First World War he re-married to an English woman who would have nothing to do with the daughter of his first wife) Grandma also took in two sisters Thelma (Joan) and Anne who were relatives in some way, but from the country- around Goulburn I think.

But I digress (in grand style!) So I walked around to the old house at 34 Third Avenue. It was a rambling old 1890's house built in several stages. I was chatting to Nell in the kitchen when in walked Abby. I was appalled and horrified to see that there was in his neck a large hole. When he breathed or attempted to speak, the most ghastly noises resulted. I felt physically sick, my mind was reeling. The poor fellow had, of course, had one of those distressing cancer of the throat operations which normally result in the person adopting the wearing of a special cravat. He was not the most sensitive of souls and had not yet been convinced of that necessity, though he was to do so not long after.

1911 MY GRANDMA DIXON WITH MY DAD ON THE LEFT  AND POOR ABBY ON THE RIGHT
DAD'S ONLY SIBLING, HIS YOUNGER BROTHER BILL IS ON GRANDMA'S KNEE
WHO ABBY WAS I DO NOT KNOW

There was no way I could "stay calm and carry on”, I could not get out of the place quickly enough and tried to make some pathetic excuse as I left. Not one of my more glorious moments.

When I got home, Mum and Dad were mortified that in all our pre-occupation with our own problems, they had forgotten to forewarn me.

Plainly, others had greater and more traumatic problems than I had.

As the days passed, the question of what I should now do came sharply into focus. Having planned and hoped for so many years to work directly for the Saviour of the World, all other things seemed like so much dross- all equally mundane and unimportant. But that was my choice. I wanted time to sort things out. But Mum and Dad were concerned that this would result in mere brooding and advocated that I should promptly seek work. The euphemistically titled "gap year" had yet to be invented. We could not have afforded it in any case!

At the end of Junior High School (Third Year in 1954) along with all my Classmates, I had undergone the State Government’s Vocational Guidance testing. This was obviously a fruit of the new "scientific age" and the limitless ambitions of modern Psychology, which, naively accepted, did so much to destroy many Religious Orders in the post Conciliar turmoil.

So I did all the marvellous scientific Rohrsach tests etc. staring into images of coloured circles to see what numbers I could discern, all the multiple choice questions and so on. I don't think we got to examining the entrails of animals- perhaps there wasn't time. Then I answered all the "cleverly designed" questions about what I would do if, and what I would choose if, to covertly discern my inclinations etc., etc. And, having laboured mightily, with careful analysis, the highly qualified Psychologist delivered himself of my Report and the judgment that I was suited, to "Arts, Law and Economics......really anything that you choose."

The wonders of Science!

My family had always voted Labor and so I had been brought up with an admiration for the Federal Government and particularly, Prime Ministers Curtain and then Ben Chifley. And occasional exposure to Frank Capra movies only reinforced those attitudes. On my own account, I had developed an admiration for the then Prime Minister the Liberal (in our own perverse way, by "Liberal" Australians mean "Conservative") Sir Robert Menzies.All of this, led to me in my immaturity, thinking that it would be good to work for the Federal Government. So I applied, sat for the examination, and was accepted and then appointed to the Bureau of Statistics!!! NOTHING COULD HAVE BEEN LESS APPEALING. Sure, it was adequately paid, secure and all that, but it was soul-destroying and brain-deadening and the published seniority lists rubbed in my face the vast numbers of people who would have to resign, retire or die before I could move up through the thousands of them.

The Bureau of Statistics was located near or perhaps in the same building as the large DYMOCKS bookshop, still in the same premises in George Street, Sydney, between King and Market Streets. My co-workers consisted of two Greek chaps in their forties, one quiet and pleasant, the other goggle-eyed, sex-obsessed and bitterly anti-Catholic. There was also a fat young Anglo fellow who considered himself a free thinker, but that did not seem to have been to any great purpose. The boss was a moustachioed ex-Army War veteran whom the others ( behind his back )regarded as a fool, and his contempt for them was pretty clear. I was on a train to nowhere.

I had gradually decided that I wanted to be a Lawyer and preferably a Barrister. This seemed to be a way to do good, to argue for what was right and to defend the innocent and all that. But my family could not afford to send me to University.

At the same time, my Dad recalled a friendship with a gentleman he greatly revered. A real gentleman that is, not abusing the term in any way. Mr Howsley Farnsworth, to whom I was introduced by Dad, was a very Senior Executive in the New South Wales Department of Railways administration.(The Railways have, in the intervening years undergone numerous ludicrous name changes and organizational changes, to give the appearance of real progress.)

RAILWAY HOUSE YORK STREET ABOVE WYNYARD STATION WHICH ALSO EXTENDS UNDER THE PARK IN THE FOREGROUND - IT WAS KNOWN AS "THE GREEN HOUSE" FOR OBVIOUS REASONS

The result of this happy introduction was that I was appointed to a clerical position in the Solicitor for Railways office in the Green House above the underground Wynyard Station in the heart of the City.

The Solicitor for Railways was one Sydney Burke, not an endearing character, and there were about 16 solicitors in the Office supported by about 12 Legal Secretaries and  5 clerks of whom I was the least. I had found a "home", or so it seemed.