Australians at War Film Archive

Now me. Well I was born in Helidon, that’s on the [Darling] Downs, you’d know Helidon if you were, were you born in Queensland, oh you weren’t, oh well. Helidon. And I

lived there about 12 months, then went to Texas that’s still in Queensland, near the border, for about five or six years. And then to Clifton for five or six years, to Stanthorpe for about 18 months, and Ipswich for just a few months, and then to Brisbane. My Father was a policeman, you see, that was why we were transferred around, you see. So, by the time I was about 13 or so,

I was in Brisbane, you see, so that adds up fairly well, you know. So, I went to school in Brisbane then.

Oh, lets see, I did scholarship and then we did Junior School, and then we did Dentistry, and I must have started Dentistry about 1930,

I’d say, because I first graduated in those days, you did your exams, final exams at the beginning of the year, and that was 1935, January or so, 1935. And I came up to Maryborough then, to the Dental Clinic here. A matter of fact, I found a photo of that the other day, way back in 1935. See there was the

Dental Hospital in Brisbane, but this was the first clinic to start outside Brisbane, and then straight after that Gladstone started, and then it spread and now they are everywhere of course.

Oh well, I, in those days, I enlisted and then you waited to be called up, about 1941,

and then 1942 it might have been, February 1942, roughly from memory. And I went to Brisbane to Chermside, which you’d know. Then we went to, that was the in the 7th Field Ambulance. And then we went to Toorbul Point, do you know Toorbul Point across from Bribie Island, that was of course, the Channel. There was no bridge in those days, and you used to have to row across the channel, there are photos there showing us

rowing across to Bribie Island, there was only a few huts there in those days. And after that we went to Townsville, and then from Townsville we went to New Guinea, and that was, that would have been about January 1943, we went to New Guinea to Milne Bay. And you want us to go on from there. Well, then we went up, I don’t remember dates, it would

be in the folder that I’ve got there. We went from Milne Bay on the coast with Buna and Gona and Sanananda, and Salamaua to Lae. We stayed at Lae for a long time, and that’s where I, when I left New Guinea. That would be in 1944 sometime. I left Lae and,

flew over to Moresby, then from Moresby to Townsville to home. By then I was supposed to do, do you want me to go on like that. Then I went to Warwick, where it was cold and wintery, greatcoat and blankets every night, it was freezing there, and after being in the hot climate, you know, it was cold. But then, then I went from there, I was transferred to a different dental unit, to Townsville and then back from Townsville to a different dental

unit then, 2/7th Dental Unit, and we were around Petrie and those places. And after that, what happened then. After we went from Petrie, I can’t think of the name of the, we went to Morotai. And from Morotai, really I didn’t see anything of my dental unit, which comprised of about six dentists. I was at Morotai, and after Morotai,

we went to Borneo, and that’s where I finished, that’s where those photos are taken. Borneo, I’m glad we were in Borneo, and that was a place where, where the war finished and then they brought back truckloads of Japanese soldiers, you know, that were stranded, went through there. Also some of ours that were prisoners of the Japs, they were very, very weak,

our fellows, you know. Mostly, but more or less it was a staging camp before they were sent on. But then we did, by those photos you saw we the kids, we did a bit of work for the civilian population, you know, especially the little kids, to help them out. They were very good, the kids. Then after that, the war finished as you know on the 15th August, 1945, well then I think,

I left Borneo then about the twentieth, see so I wasn’t home for any celebrations here or anything, which I was never sorry about, I was quite happy to be there. And I know, I came home about three weeks before Christmas 1945, and then of course, after that we had a bit of leave and I was discharged in early 1946, February 1946.

Came back into practice in Maryborough, came back into practice in Maryborough.

Well see, originally I went to the clinic in Maryborough, as I said, in 1935. And then in 1938, I went into private practice here until I enlisted at the end of 1941, well then it was 1942 by the time I was called up, but then I came back to Maryborough in 1946, and I’ve been here ever since.

Yes.

Not a terrific lot, except of course, the whole life has changed, it’s even changed in your life, in your young age. But, oh no,

the police was a more simple job. It was just, my father and another constable, an English policeman he was, that was in Clifton. But I don’t remember that much of Texas, but of course, I would have been younger then, and I didn’t remember Helidon because I was only one when I left there. But Texas, I can just remember a little bit, you know, the streets and we’d get a few lollies if you went to the shop, you know. But, oh,

Clifton, I went to school in Clifton. I can remember the, for what it’s worth, the police station there, but anyone who was put in the lock-up there, you know there was no crime like there is today. The cells were like close to the house, and they used to get the same meals, they’d be only in for a day or two. They’d get the same meals as we had, my mother used to cook, and quite often I’d take the meal over to them, shove it through the door.

But they just ate the same as us, but they were all decent fellows.

Oh perhaps, drunkenness perhaps, or something like that, you know. I can’t remember that really, why they would be in there, but that’d be one of the reasons, but then it would be an overnight stay. But, there’s been a lot of nice drunks around.

Oh yes, I remember that, there would be a photo there somewhere, might be out there somewhere. Those days of course, they had, they didn’t have, see today, you’ll see police in shorts, and they look quite good. In those days, as far as I remember, they just, they had their uniform, they wore their coat,

of course, and their rank, sergeant or whatever. In those days, there weren’t many inspectors, I think when we were in Brisbane, there was only about one inspector, and now they are everywhere of course. But, they used to have their stripes here, don’t they, down the lower part of the arms, where as now they are all on their shoulders, aren’t they.

Oh yes, they had a hat, yes. I can’t just remember the hat,

as far as that goes. In those days, they used to have a police paddock too, see you’d have a police paddock and most people, of course, you had a cow. We had a cow, and my job I used to take the cow to the paddocks in the mornings, you know, then open the gate in the afternoon. You didn’t take any notice in those days, having a big walk before you went to school, but the paddock would be about three quarters of a mile from the house, but you’d just walk up, and the cow would come with you. In the afternoon, you’d come back after school,

and go around, unless it was a real wet day, then father would get the police horse and go up on the horse. But strange enough in Clifton, I remember the English policeman who was there, he was frightened of the horse, the horse flew him once and he wouldn’t get on it. So he bought himself a little motorbike, you know for when they had to go out in the country, and so on. So my father came from the bush, so horses didn’t worry him, he was all right that way.

Oh it would have been good in those days, because as far as I can remember it would have been, because they were all pretty simple fellows, you now. You didn’t have police with university degrees or anything in those days, they were just, a lot like my father came from the bush, and a lot of them were bushmen.

My father, my father before I was born, I was the baby in the family. Before then, my father was up in Cairns, Cooktown, Mareeba and all down those places, you see.

In what?

No, no, dear, I don’t think many police would have been in those days. I think that was an occupation,

I think even in the Second World War, I think, they wouldn’t allow it. It was like all the tradesmen, they couldn’t join up, you know. So that you know, one is just as good the other, whether they joined up or not, because a lot of them were in reserved occupations, and so on. It was just like a lot of fellows who went overseas, they enlisted, and some never went overseas, but that was no fault of theirs, it was just where ever you were sent.

I was overseas more than I was home, but that was only because that was where I was sent. Sometimes you were away, you were better off away from the top brass, and you’d please yourself a bit.

Yes.

My children?

Oh, my. My brother. Brother

Tom, he was the eldest, and I’ve a sister, Nancy. Tom died when he was 59, actually. Nancy lived til 75, I’d say, this sounds pretty right, I think. Ina was the one in Stanthorpe, she reached the 90 years. And Nola, she was, she would be 82 or 83 I think.

And, I’m still 90.

Oh yeah, I can’t remember being spoilt because I was the baby or anything like that. I, I remember them, but not a lot, see when I was a baby, the family Tom, my brother he lived in Sydney and he had a wife and

half a dozen children, all of them, all his children are alive today, except one, one boy died. And I’ve got one nephew is 75, but it makes you old when you’ve got a nephew 75, but I was 16 I think when the first boy was born. So, oh no, as far as my own sisters were concerned, they, they all lived at home of course,

and went to work. My brother was an architect, then he was with the Cement and Concrete Association of Australia. But, I always thought that Tom had a wonderful life, and I used to think to myself, oh I wouldn’t mind a life like that, because he used to travel overseas and interstate with the job. But evidently there was a lot of pressure to him, and I think that might have been what got to him in the finish, you know, and blood pressure, that sort of thing.

At school.

Oh well, in those at school, you used to hit a cricket ball around the yard and so on. Of course, in those days, which I don’t think they do it today, you played marbles a lot, you probably haven’t seen anyone play marbles, but you used to play marbles.

And those things. Of course, in the bush like that, it was a more simpler life. See there weren’t, there wouldn’t have been any swimming pools in my day there, you know, and as a result you didn’t learn to swim except, you might have battled around in a creek. But, oh no, as far as sport, really, you now, when I was studying and what not, I used to play quite a bit of tennis, I was never an expert though at anything though, some are good. Well,

some are trained aren’t they, and some of them their parents might have been sports, sportsmen and women, and they might have pushed their kids a bit. But no, no, I was never pushed to that sort of things.

Yes.

Oh he came from up Dalby way, McAlister, there’s a siding outside there, they had a few of sheep you know, not a big sheep station, just a selection, they called it on those days.

I used to go out there for holidays to his brothers’ place at times, that was when I was at school of course. It was like, when they talk about droughts now, I can remember going out there once, that’s, that’s vividly in my mind, seeing all the dead sheep everywhere, you know, lying around when I went out there, which was a bit sad seeing all that, you know.

Oh no, it wasn’t a bad place to be. Once you get rain, it changes everything, doesn’t it. It changes everything here, here it’s green, where as if you’d been here last week, it was all brown over there, and sporting ovals and so on.

She was a very fine lady, she was a nice lady, my mother.

But of course in those days, they, well no women worked in those days, of course, she was just a housewife who looked after her children.

Yeah, well there was five.

Oh, I don’t think, I can’t remember any big troubles with discipline, you know. Of course, there weren’t

there wasn’t the temptations that’s there today, is there., There were no schoolies weeks, or. Drugs weren’t heard of, or anything like that. It’s such a changed world, isn’t it. Out of it all, we might get a better world, you don’t want to get too despondent, I hope anyhow.

Oh, well when I first came to Maryborough,

in 1935 to the clinic here, well that was just dentistry for poor people, and I can remember those days, you know there were soup kitchens and they used to go and get food vouchers from the police station, and all the dentistry we did in those days, was for poor, poor and indigenous people, they used to say, you know. And that was the same with the hospital. But of course today, there are people that,

you know, that are not poor, that still. The means test is so, so good today, that a lot of people could, that could go outside, provided they looked after the poor ones first. And that’s the thing I often feel, you know. You read all about the big waiting lists, for dentistry at the clinics and what-not, which is correct. But then, I think they could help a lot by, altering the means test, so that you looked after those poor

people first. See every pensioner is not poor, see because the means test is very generous, you see. No, that’s what I feel sorry for some of them that need help and, of course, they just can’t get it because there’s some that in my view only, are a lesser priority, but still that’s the way it goes.

Good student, average, never brilliant at anything.

Oh yes, yes I enjoyed school.

I don’t know what made me, oh I could tell you that to a point. After, when

was it now, let me think. Well, I applied for a job in the Commonwealth Bank, I remember as a sub-junior, or a junior something, but I wasn’t accepted, so otherwise I might have been in the Bank, mightn’t I. And then I was accepted to go into school teaching, and of course you did a sort of apprenticeship with the schools, but I can remember my Father said to me,

funny you remember some things he was saying to me, oh that’s a good job. People used to say it was a good job, fair pay and you know, good holidays. But all the same, I said, I don’t think I’d like be a teacher Dad. So I went on, and there was a friend of my brothers, I think he might have talked me into doing dentistry, I’m not sure, when I left school, and did dentistry.

Ah yes, I supposed you would of. See in those you went to the dentist’s school in Brisbane, in Turbot Street, that’s all pulled down, that’s all different, that’s down near the QUT [Queensland University of Technology], you know where the QUT is. That was the tech college and that was also the Queensland University there then. And we used to do, work at the Dental Hospital,

up from where the Bellevue used to be, you might be too young to remember the Bellevue. That was the Dental School where we, where we did our, which was a four years course then, it’s five years today. So we do some, some lectures down the university, some at the technology department, you know, sociology and those things you know, you know the anatomy school was at the back of the Dental Hospital, and we used to have to,

go there and do our dissections and so on.

Oh pretty good, but of course totally different to what it is today. There’s all the freedoms today, isn’t there, you see, where we were just. I lived at went New Farm in Brisbane. Well, my Father, see in those days, they retired at 60, I think it was,

and he went on, I would have, he would have just about been retired when I started to study dentistry. I used to walk from New Farm into George Street over Bowen Hills there, you know, around, used to save your tram fare, I think it was 2 and 6 a week, or something. And that would get you into the pictures for a shilling, if you went in before midday. But see, your, but expectations in life, Naomi [interviewer], we didn’t expect

anything different. See, and you went to your lectures and you didn’t have a lot of money to throw around, oh there’d be a few of us had money, but not that many of us, of course.

Yours would have been different altogether.

See, we were a mixture

of the dentist school and the dental, the Tech College, and we went to a couple of lectures at the University. It was really, those days, the first Professor of Dentistry was appointed, it would have been in my last year, and they didn’t start, they did a degree course after then that, two years later on, you see. But still, that was the way, that,

oh no, university I think is different, high school is different.

Oh, they were all pretty good. They were, there was. We had Philip Robertson, he was from, nice fellow, he was from, he a Melbourne graduate. He was very good, he used to give a lot of the anaesthetics, you know.

Those days, you did a lot of practical work, even in your first year, you started taking impressions and what not, to make false teeth and carving teeth and so on, whereas they do that much later now. It’s like everything, there’s a lot of theory and everything today, see, for better or for worse, you don’t know. But, there was Jack Ross, of course all these fellows have passed on, he used to be a demonstrator. There was Alec Hand, he was a very fine worker,

in the health field too, they were appointed the first house surgeons and they used to come down and check on our work, you know, give us a few tips and so on. So we used to do work for, well the people who came to, came to the Dental Hospital, see it was the Dental Hospital as well as the dental school, so we used to do a lot of, a lot of practical work.

Oh, that’s hard to remember. I suppose we worked on Saturday morning, I’m not sure. See but there again, it’s what’s accepted, see when, most of my life I worked Saturday mornings, you see. When I first came to Plymouth I worked every day, including Saturday, and then you would hop on your bike and go off to tennis, you know. But now they frown if they work Saturday morning. But we never thought anything of it, because that was what everyone else was doing, see.

See, if everyone else is working Saturday morning, you just work Saturday morning, you accept it. You accept life as it is, don’t you.

Oh course, we used to have the trams down the middle of the streets, and you used to hop on those. Oh, of course in those days there was no Storey Bridge, and there was no Grey Street Bridge.

In those days, see that’s going back, 1935, see or before then. Well I came to Maryborough in 1935, so it was before 1935 that I was actually living there. No, there was only the main bridge, the Victoria Bridge, isn’t it. See, so now you’ve got a few, a few bridges, and you’ve got all the bike paths, and you’ve got everything there now. The Gold Coast was nothing really, a few little shacks

there, but then we, we didn’t visit the Gold Coast much, we didn’t go there like they do today, oh no.

Yes well, oh I was quieter and look, most of our generation, see I’m going back a long way,

aren’t’ I. You see, but they were fairly quiet and we led such simple lives, you know. We’d go off to tennis on the weekend, we might go to a dance on Saturday night, and you know, we never had girlfriends and boyfriends, some of them did. I arrived here when I was, I don’t know whether I should say, this. I arrived here when I was 22, and well I’d never been out with a girl in my life, well that’s a change isn’t it. Except once, once at the, they had a

dental students ball, at the, there was a hall called the Trocadero over in south Brisbane, and I went to that, of course and I took a girl to that, and I’ve never seen her since. She was a lovely little girl, but, I remember her name and I can see her face too. But then, you know, came to Maryborough, and drinking your lemonade,

and sarsaparilla, and then you basically change and you have a drink, after a certain time.

Good, good I never regretted it.

If I ever, the only think I used to think, is if I ever had done anything else, I would have done medicine or tried for medicine, but that was just a fleeting thoughts at times, just a GP [General Practitioner] or something like that.

Well, you met up with a lot of people, as you can understand, you see. You were mixing with people, communicating with people, which is lacking in a lot of jobs now, with the technology we’ve got, you know. Just, I’m a bit old-fashioned, I still like, like to go into the bank, I bank at Suncorp Metway, and I know them behind there, behind the counters there.

You know if I want to deposit some money or withdraw some, it’s just nice to talk to people, to say hello, it’s nice. It’s not as good when you talk to a machine.

For money. Well I don’t actually have much recollection of money, really. Oh, my mother and father would have looked after me OK, but no-one spent

a lot of money, you know. Just like, when you, I can remember living in Clifton, I can remember as a kid, I would have been what, six to eleven, you know, you clean up the backyard and you’d get a penny. You’d go and buy, what they used to called, a silver sammy, it was a bit of toffee with some chocolate on it, you know. It was a simple life, you see, it’s so different today. Where

as you’d ride your bike, now, everyone drives a car, even the apprentices have cars, can’t wait to get their license.

Oh, I can’t remember that. That’s something I often think about. I can’t remember

any of this, a graduation or so on, I just can’t remember that. But, I don’t think we had anything like that, we just passed out and that was it, you know.

Oh good, we had a good year, nice fellows, nice fellows. Funny those days you know,

you did your exams and in a way you retained something until you passed three subjects, because you keep those, don’t you. In those days, you might do your exams in your first, second, third years and so on. If you failed say anatomy, or one of those subjects, or physics or something, and you get a post them, subsequent exam in February, if you failed that, you did the whole year

over, see. Well you run the risk then, that next year, when you repeat a year, you could fail a subject you passed the first year, so that was a bit awkward. I failed one subject in the first year, and, what was it now, organic chemistry, I failed organic chemistry in my first year, and then I passed it in the postal supplementary exam.

See but had I missed that, I would have had to repeat the year. I didn’t like organic chemistry, I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t think I understand it much now, but there we are.

Oh no, oh no, not really

except some of the students were more skilled, you know. Some of them that had worked, some of them were sons of dentists and had worked in their workrooms. I can remember there were two Rosses, Jack and Don, they were brothers and they were, they were very good. Their father had quite a good practice and they used to work in his workroom, you see, making models and setting up teeth, and they were doing that before they came to dentistry, and so, you can understand,

they had a bit of a lead on us fellows. Then I was only an average bloke with my hands, really, until you got going of course.

Oh well, we used to, the anatomy skills are at the back. Oh we used to have to study the head and neck. If you failed, your

questions in the head and neck, because you were supposed to know the head and neck. But we also did the general body, you did the legs, the arms and what-not, what that had to do with dentistry I suppose, I don’t know. But the anatomy school was at the back and, that was where they had the bodies there, and they dissected the bodies, so on some of us did different sections and cross-sections, and so on. It was funny some things, I can remember, Jack Bagnall worked there,

and he was very good, he used to keep, Dr Meyers, E S Meyers, he finished ended up as Professor of Medicine, he was in charge there, and he’d dissect all of these and find all the nerves, and blood vessels. But then he used to pass them all through to Ernie Bagnall, he used to have to clean it all up, and set it up in the, in the glass jars and things. In those days, he could come along and say to you, you know what’s that, in general terms,

and what’s that. But as far as the head and neck, you were supposed to know and that was just normal, and you’d expect that, wouldn’t you.

Pardon.

Oh well, I suppose you can, because you do have some arteries, you can get infections, that could affect your neck and jaw. No I didn’t mind anatomy, that was all right. Even though there were some brainstorms, you know,

amongst them, you know some very clever blokes, you know, but most people in life are average, aren’t they. I mean, the average fellow, you look back on your school life as I do, the average bloke has done as well as anyone, I think. You might get an OP1 score, I don’t know whether you did or not, but if you get an OP1 score, you haven’t necessarily better off in life, I don’t think so.

Oh yes, but then, I was probably the baby of the family, I led a quiet life. I don’t know if the other fellows did socialise very much, but I didn’t much, as a I said it was a quiet life.

Oh different ones, all my sisters used to play tennis. Oh with different ones that used to play tennis, we’d play with.

South Brisbane. South Brisbane, there was a school, there was a school and church there, where we used to play tennis. And also the Hawthorn Ladies Court there, we used to play on. Oh no, we used to play tennis on the weekends, you know, play a bit of fixtures and so on. I wasn’t a pennants player, but the main thing is you enjoy it, don’t you, you know, that’s the main thing.

Yes, he finished up in Brisbane, Dad was in Hamilton, of course it’s changed there, you know Hamilton and Ascot. Dad finished up in Hamilton, in charge of the station there. I remember a little bit about that, because I used to go from there to school into town, I went to Gregory Terrace.

Dad used to go to the races on Saturdays, that was at, I don’t think he would have been going, you used to go up Racecourse Road, and he used to go there. He was in charge of the police there, so I went to the races occasionally as a kid to have a look, because Dad was there, and they let me go in with him, just a schoolboy.

But then he retired, and we went to live at New Farm, you see.

Oh, nothing like it is today. Have you been around there of late. I have a daughter who lives there, in, in Langshaw Street. And oh, there’s all the shops in the world there, there’s eating places, there’s medical places, and there’s every unit, all the units, there’s hundreds of units going

up, I don’t know who’s going to live in them, I really don’t.

Oh no, no, no. There weren’t any units, just a few houses. The park was there, but nothing, the park wasn’t built up like it is today, or anything.

The what?

Oh that would have been there yes, but I don’t remember that much of that, you know.

But the river, I can always remember the river there, and there’s a ferry of course, and the river of course.

Well of course in those days, we used to think, I’m certain, we, in our

first year we worked on some patients, taking impressions and moulds for false teeth and so on. I couldn’t tell you when we first started extracting teeth, it would have, you might have been your third or fourth year, you know. Because in those days too, there weren’t clinics like there are today, there was the Dental Hospital and that was where the clinic was, you see. As students,

we used to go out to the general hospital, to the Royal Brisbane you call it now, it was much smaller of course. We used to go out as students, and extract teeth, under anaesthetics and so on, but that would have been in our third or fourth year, I’d say. Otherwise, you know, we worked under supervision.

I don’t remember that much really, so I suppose we would have been

a bit nervous about it. Of course a lot depends, even today, it depends on the patient. It’s like you, in your job, who you meet and so on. Some patients are nice and easy and co-operative, and others you see the name in the book and you think, oh no, not her coming in. And other times you’re pleased they’re coming in, because they’re lovely people, easy. But ninety-five to ninety-nine percent of patients are nice.

Most people in the community are nice, aren’t they. There’s only a few who spoil it for everyone else, I think. We generally tend to the bad things, don’t we.

I can’t remember, you mean the psychology of people. No I don’t think we ever did that, No, I’m pretty sure we didn’t, no.

That would have come from yourself and all those around you. But if you didn’t treat a person nicely, you’d be pulled into line, in those days you were pretty well disciplined. Young people are more independent than we were, see a lot of the young people today are very independent, oh yes..

Oh yes, well that was just for our anatomy, with the anatomy school at the back, we used to go down. Oh, that didn’t worry, you get used to that, people would often say walking amongst corpses, that’s terrible, you know. . Oh no, you didn’t take any notice of that, that was all right. Because medical students would do

more, but they used to use it to, of course. Oh no, it was part of our training, you accepted it.

No, no, we weren’t with them, we didn’t work with them. But Dr Meyers that was there in charge, he eventually became a Professor of the industry, a Professor of Medicine, at some stage.

That’s a long time ago.

Equipment. Oh well of course in those days, I don’t think they do it today everything would be supplied, but in those days, we used to have to buy a lot of equipment. No, not the dental engines and what not, because we started off with the old foot engine, of course. But oh no, you bought your own forceps

and scalers and that sort of thing. Materials you wouldn’t have bought yourself, I’m pretty sure but I couldn’t guarantee that, but I know we used to buy a lot of our equipment, or your parents bought it for you to start you off.

Well it would have been expensive for those days. And of course the dentists that would buy houses, they would supply you with everything, that you wouldn’t need it, for

for another eighteen months, you’d just get the sales. Oh no, it was a pretty relaxed sort of a life, really.

Oh no, we didn’t wear gloves, it’s a wonder the patients didn’t die, and they didn’t’ die, and we didn’t die. It’s like the amalgam today, which is not used, and the main

reason of course, is that it doesn’t look nice as nice and there are other materials that look better, like your acrylics and things. But, in those days we had our amalgam, and amalgam is just, it’s an alloy of silver, tin, zinc and copper, you see, and it’s about 70 percent or so silver, and you put the mercury with it, and use a mortar and pestle, and then we used to take it out and rub it in our hands, see. And that’s

all my student days and my earlier days in dentistry. And yet mercury is supposed to be so harmful, but we did that for years, and, I mean, there were a lot of dentists that moved on, but I don’t comment on those arguments about how bad it is for you. But then, of course, later on, we found that you did get some shrinkage, but they never thought about the health, but the shrinkage because rubbing it in the ball of your hands causes shrinkage, the moisture that gets into it.

Then we used to use a, then to rub it down, when you took it out of the mortar and pestle and squeeze the mercury out in that, you see. But plenty of our mercury then was squeezed out into bowls and running water and went away. Now of course, you wouldn’t do that today. But now the dentists use, as you know, they all wear gloves and masks, don’t they, but we never did that.

Oh yes, you washed your hands before and after every patient. Oh yes, we were meticulous. That was there. We had, had a moisture sterilizer in boiling water, then we went and used to have dry heat sterilizers which were more better. But,

it’s just like everything else. Our syringes in those days, the needles would go back in the sterilizers, and of course, they wouldn’t be as sharp as, after all that. But then eventually, we got onto disposable needles, every patient had their own needle. You just used a needle once and threw it away, see, so it was all right that way.

Oh well, things have advanced a lot when I first came out to Maryborough with our anaesthetics. We used to get the tablets from the general hospital when I was here, you used to have to dissolve those in water, you know, with heat, wait for them to cool down. Then we used to, a syringe they called a raison syringe, we used to suck it

up into the syringe, you know, to inject it. But we were always taught, I was anyhow, to paint the gum with iodine first. I don’t, I hardly ever, I had one patient allergic to iodine that I didn’t paint the gum with iodine first, but I think, in all my working life with iodine before. Two reasons, one it was an anti-septic and the other was, what they called a counter-irritant,

because the sting that that iodine, it was a weak solution on the gum, it sort of deadened a bit, and it helped the patient not feel the needle. But oh, needles were good. Of course anaesthetics advanced, and the anastatic was much better. When I was first in the clinic here, we used to use it as a cocaine, but that was very strong, it used to be effective but you couldn’t use much of it, because it’d give the patient the

shakes, you see. Oh no, when they, when they brought out disposable syringes and needles, that was one of the greatest advances that the industry ever saw in my book, anyhow. Cleaner and more effective, and nicer for the patient, so we finished up with hundreds of disposable needles.

Yes, yes we had X-rays in those days. Yes, we used X-rays. We never had an X-ray when I was at the clinic, but when I went into practice, see I was in the clinic from 1935 to 1938, and I’m pretty sure we never had a, had a x-ray there, but when I went into practice in 1938, we did. See when I was at the clinic, I’ve got a photo in there, I’ll show it to you later, it was a,

there was the outpatients department of the general hospital was there. And the anti-natal clinic, all the expectant mothers, they were next door to the dental surgery, and the Hospital Board office was in the front of the building. See and the, the outpatients department, a nurse and sister from the hospital would come down each day, and patients,

would save them going all the way up to the hospital. But, there’s none of that. That’s brought by some private doctors now and they use it.

No, no, you did all your work. Oh years ago, before my time you would have worked with another dentist. No, it was done the same with school teaching, they used to go into a school, you see. Oh no,

we did our four years at the college.

Free to practise then, yes, you didn’t have to. When doctors do their six years and then they’ve got to do an internship for two years, don’t they. No, we didn’t have to do that, we could go out. As a matter of fact, when I went out, you know, we used to look around for places to practice. And while I was waiting, I didn’t say it before to, Naomi, that I went to Goodna, you know

Goodna, that‘s up on Ipswich 9. I went up to the school, did a few patients there, you know. It was pretty rough and ready little surgery I had. Then Charlie Veggen, he was Superintendent of the Dental Hospital in Brisbane, he asked me would I like a job in Maryborough at the clinic, and I said, oh yes, because I didn’t have a job, so that’s how I came to Maryborough, and that was in 1935. And I’ve been here ever since.

Maryborough is a good little town.

Good. Maryborough, I enjoyed it. Yes, they were some of the happiest days of my life, because you were younger and single, and it was a simpler life. All you did, you did your work, as I said to Naomi, you worked Saturday mornings, then you jumped on a bike, everyone rode bikes then, Maryborough was a town of bikes, you know. And just rode to tennis, played a little bit of golf later on, but I wasn’t much good

at golf just the same. But I just enjoyed it, I just enjoyed my sport, not as any championship. We used to play fixtures and so on like that, but we just enjoyed, enjoyed our life. See, Maryborough was noted as a town of bikes, but now even the, even the apprentices have cars don’t they, they have cars when they are 17.

But see, I never owned a car until after the war til 1946 my first car, a little single seated car. Before the war, people asked you to buy a car, well of course, you didn’t have all the hire purchase and loans to pay off, and I used to think it was funny people asking me to buy a car, when I never had the money to buy a car. And of course it cost you money to set up. But , what you didn’t have, you didn’t miss, you know.

And that’s the way of life.

Oh it was all right, it was a good life. That was when I started to go out a bit, we used to go to a lot of dances and parties and things like that, you see. Well see when I was at the clinic, I used to work at the hospital, I used to go up one day a week at least,

extracting teeth and that sort of business. They used to have parties at the hospital. The Medical Superintendent there he used to run some parties, and then there were parties in the nurses-quarters and dances, and things like that. I suppose I’m going to have to grow up a bit now, that’s what happened to me. Oh no, that was a good life, you’re young and free.

Hey.

At the.

Oh no one in particular. Oh, some fellows had their steady girls, I know. But by and large, I think, in those days, we were all sort of a happy group, you know. Fellows didn’t necessarily have to have a girl to take to the dance, or girls needed a boy to take her to the dance, we all went and danced away, and then all went home.

You know, but life progresses, doesn’t it.

Oh no, not in those days. Well, oh no, not when I was at the clinic, they weren’t. Because, I think I had one beer before I came to Maryborough, other than that, I drank double cider, lemonade or whatnot, I think it must. Well, I must have started to have a drink

when I was at the clinic, you know, before I went out into practice. Sometimes we’d go and play tennis and then go and have a beer afterward, on Sunday lunchtime you know. It’s not like today, I can remember days when they did start having liquor, see in those days, no liquor would be allowed at the dance at the city hall, and so on, then gradually got that way. Then they used to take their own beer in, you see.

But the problem with that was, people would buy their beer or wine or whatever, I suppose. Wine is drunk a lot today, I know. But, the trouble was, people would hop into their share of grog, as they call it, and they used to have too much too early. Where as now, they can drink throughout the night, can’t they, which is better. Of course in those earlier days, of course, there was no breathalyser for those that drove.

In those days, after the war, we used to have military balls at the drill hall, and so on, and we used to all drink there, and there was no such thing as a policeman pulling you up for drink driving. Yet I don’t know, we didn’t seem to have accidents, I don’t know why, that was the way it was.

Oh, they weren’t as good,

I’d say they weren’t as good, because they weren’t. Oh, they weren’t taught as much about cleaning their teeth and so on. And then, also in 1935, when I was at the clinic, I was only treating poor people, you know, who never had much. As I said to Naomi, they used to have food vouchers, they go to the police to get food vouchers and go to the soup kitchens and so on like. And they were kids, that

never asked after their teeth. But now of course, all the schools have the dental therapists, and their teeth get painted with fluoride, and so on. You see, Brisbane is the only capital city that doesn’t have fluoride in their drinking water, and I’m certain that that helps it, you see. I don’t comment on the argument that we are supposed to have the worst teeth in, you now, in Brisbane, where there is no fluoride, but you can paint it.

But even at the schools with the therapists, the kiddies all go to the therapists and they get their teeth checked, and they are taught about their teeth, more than their teeth get painted with fluoride and that seems to help.

Oh yes, oh yes.

Oh, I don’t know. I suppose they all thought, theirs

had the best, you know. There was about, there was Commonwealth Dental, and Milton Brown, and American Dental supplies came in. You know, they used to come around each month and sell you all your different materials and your teeth, and so on. And you had your favourites a bit, and I suppose that’s where, a lot of them sell the same thing, you know, or might be a different brand, but the same

result, and of course. I suppose it was a matter of communication I might like you better than the rep from some other firm, and you tend to buy from you. Oh no, they were all nice fellows. We used to often, in, when we were in practice and the rep was in town, some reps you did and others you didn’t, we’d go with other dentists, we’d got together and have a drink after work, with them.

The dentists in Maryborough were all good friends, which was a big plus. We didn’t have any arguments, or anything, or practically none, you can’t agree on everything. Oh no, it was a pretty good life.

In those days, there’d have been two,

about five I suppose. It’s not like medicine where there was a handful of doctors, today, now there are dozens and dozens of them, they are everywhere, a terrific number of doctors. Because a lot of people must go to the doctor today, whether they need to or not, I don’t know. That’s why free medicine is good, but you know, if your loaf of bread is free, people would get another loaf, wouldn’t they and chuck the other one away, and so on.

Whereas I am sympathetic to people that need help, I think if everyone is bulk billing, no-one had to pay, it might get overdone, I don’t know. If they paid a little bit. I remember Doctor Graff, he’s still alive, he’s a wonderful surgeon, excellent surgeon, he’s one of the superintendent, he’s retired now, of course, he was a big surgeon in Brisbane. But I always remember him saying to me,

if the patient paid a couple of shillings to go to the outpatients at the hospital, it would stop the unnecessary ones going.

Oh no, I don’t, people wouldn’t come, not unless they needed it. As a matter of fact, I suppose they should have come more often, same as the doctor. Because everything is expensive today,

but how that compares I don’t know. I remember the days, when we were a shilling, that was ten cents to take out the first teeth, and two and six which was worth twenty-five cents an adults tooth, but that’s a long time ago. But oh no, health is one of your most important assets, isn’t it, you know.

And then a lot of people don’t’ want to pay anything for it, you know, so I don’t know.

You mean, because they had a toothache?

Well a lot of people would do that, because they had broken a tooth, or because it was aching or so on. Oh, others would come for a regular checks, depending on the patient.

I suppose their backgrounds too. I mean some families value their health, some people value their eyes or their teeth more than others.

Where someone tried to extract a tooth.

With girls.

Oh no, no, never had that. You used to hear about that, but I never had that problem, oh no. Oh no, you get used to practices and so on. But a lot depends on yourself, whether you like kids, I always had a fairly big children’s practice, because I got on all right with kids, some kids are easy to handle, some kids are not, of course.

A lot depends on, how nervous they are, their own makeup, how they are brought up at home, I suppose.

Oh well, you had to console them a bit, of course. But you tried to do your job with the least pain as possible, anyhow. Some of them of course were terrified and would scream, you know.

Some were better, with the mother sitting alongside of them, others were better if the mother wasn’t sitting there. If the mother sat there it was OK, but if you had a mother who wanted to be jumping up all the time, touching at the kid and not letting you control the kid, it made it harder, you know. I was quite happy.

Well the point about the old

pedal drill, of course our burrs and drills and things weren’t as good. But as long as you knew newer ones, it was no good using a blunt one, pedalling your foot engine slowly, so you weren’t developing a lot of heat, whereas with the others, I’m talking about before we had the high speed drills, they went fairly fast, and of course with the

speed of the thing, you could generate pain there too. But of course, the high speed drills came in, and of well, you know a person’s high speed drill would collapse the day you wanted to go home, and wouldn’t work.

Oh, that’s too far back to remember now, too far back.

Oh it would all depends whether you’re doing a major reconstruction or a small cavity, you’d see. You might do one every few minutes, you might spend half an hour getting one done.

Well I was in private practice then,

before the war you mean.

Yes, I was in private practice there. See that was 1935 to 1938, I was in the clinic, then 1938 on I was just an ordinary GP in private practice. 1941, I enlisted in 1941, but I was then called up in 1942, see at the beginning of 1942.

See in those days, you, if you were in certain jobs you’d enlist, then they would call you up, you see, you waited for your call-up.

Strange enough, that’s an odd one, because I don’t remember too much about war being declared, you know. Perhaps I wasn’t that interested, even though plenty of fellows enlisted in

1939, and went straight off, didn’t they see. And I had some friends that went off, but I don’t remember much change in my life, even though at 41, you were thinking seriously about whether you should go in or not, and people go in for various reasons. I suppose at 41, I decided I should be in it.

We knew about attacks and Pearl Harbor and these places, you know. That was a bit scary, wasn’t it. With Japan, they were pretty cruel people, but still, you’ve got to forget that now, you’ve got to forget it. I had some friends that were prisoners of the Japs, and they really had it tough.

But then of course, the Japs treated their own people harshly, you know. The sergeant could give, as far as I knew, one of their own sergeants could bash one of privates over the head with their rifle, so they were tough on themselves. Oh no it wasn’t good, no war is good, is it.

It was 1941, and Japan came in, in 1942, I think. When did Japan.

Yes, well see, that’s right. Well I didn’t come in til 1942, I’m just trying to think of Pearl Harbor, and what happened then.

Oh, oh well, when you join up like that,

you don’t know where you are going, you just go where you are asked to go, where you are sent really. I was first sent to Chermside in Brisbane, then gradually went up to all the points to Townsville, then New Guinea..

Pardon.

Why did I join?

Oh well I suppose, because, I, not that I was any hero or anything, but it was a matter of responsibility in a way, isn’t it.

A lot of my mates had gone, and you always felt, I suppose that duty a bit. Not that I’m any great hero or anything like that, I don’t mean that at all. Part of your life, I suppose, that you decide to do it.

Oh yes, some of my mates joined, some of my mates joined. I had one mate, Charlie Geoghegan he joined before me, he was over in the Middle East in 1941, he sent me a little photo of himself in Beirut. And then, I was in an ambulance in Townsville and he came through there then, after he’d been in the Middle East, on his way to New Guinea. And I saw him, and then a fortnight later, it would have been,

some, some of our blokes came through our ambulance, and they told me that Charlie was killed, they were some of his mates, I’d only seen him the once, and he died, which is very sad.

It wasn’t a letter, it was only a photo and it says from Beirut, and he put the date on it, that’s all it had.

You felt, oh well, then I didn’t feel so sad because he looked so well. But you feel very sad when you know he has gone.

Oh no, I didn’t have much time with him, see they were on

transit through to New Guinea, and I just happened to see him. Probably some of their, some of his battalion might have had some treatment from the ambulance, well, I can’t remember, put it that way. It’s amazing some things in life you remember, and other things you don’t. Some things are clear when you’re a little fellow, and others you forget what happened, when you are 40 years of age.

Before I enlisted.

Oh not a lot. See there was a lot of secrecy in those days, there was a lot of security and intelligence and all that you see. Where as today, you now, I mean with the war in Iraq, every time one person’s killed, somebody is on the air and they are reporting it. In those days, they didn’t

report things, people, you know. Whether it was the enemy or yourself, you didn’t say, or there was three people killed or two hurt, or whether they withdrew from a certain area, but now it’s sort of public knowledge. You didn’t get that much, well I didn’t think you did anyhow, but oh no. We had an air force base through the war in Maryborough,

and you now, a dental unit there, and I got to know some of the dentists, a couple of the dentists there before I went it too, that might have influenced me about going in, I met them.

Oh, that’s an answer, I couldn’t answer that, I couldn’t answer that one.

Oh yes, you were called up and you went to Brisbane. Went in and they issued you with your boots and your trousers, and your uniform in other words, and your hat and what-not, coat, a greatcoat. And that was it, I was shocked because I had no army experience, and knew nothing about it, and was shocked there to.

We were in Chermside, which was a bit strange for a while certainly. But there again, there was a chap, Tony Michaels that was a dentist who’d studied with me, he went in at the same time as me. He’s been dead a few years ago now, so at least I had him, you know. In those days, there used to be a doctor, a CO [Commanding Officer] and there

was three, five or six other doctors and the ambulance. There were about six or seven doctors, but two dentists, Tony and myself but then I went worked with the ambulances, and Tony was transferred to some other unit, because there was only one dentist in the ambulance, you see.

captain, they used to make you a captain, so that was

no credit to me really, that’s the rank they give you.

What now.

Oh, I was quite happy and contented because I was working with a good crowd. And in the dental section of the ambulance, you have two dental mechanics, a

staff sergeant and a corporal, and you have a, a fellow, that’s a, they called him the nurse, you have male nurses there. And that’s when we left Chermside and went to Toorbul Point, which is of course, from Bribie Island.

Not much, not much,

not much at all. I remember once they took us out on a rifle range with a .303, and I thought I was going to break my shoulder, it made me quite nervous. See, because we weren’t supposed to be fighting soldiers, we were medical corps. See in those days, you weren’t called Dental Corp, you were called part of the Medical Corp. Then they changed it later, and there was a Dental Corp.

Oh no, I never had that, oh no, I never had that. Excepting to say, in say in New Guinea, I don’t want to say. I’d get a pistol in New Guinea, get alongside the pillow because I, because it might have been cowardice, I don’t know, but when I had it there. But no, we never did physical combat, no.

We’d have to fend for ourselves if that happened, but that didn’t, it didn’t eventuate.

Hey.

Oh yes, oh yes. A lot wouldn’t even know that, I’m just answering your question. It was only a .35, wasn’t a, it was only a .35,

.38 wasn’t it, they called them. Oh yes, you felt more secure, in case someone crept in and tried to get you.

Oh, that was quite pleasant really. Oh, what can I say about it, except that,

as I said to you, we were at Chermside, that’s where I joined them. Then we went to Toorbul Island across from Bribie Island. We went on a train then to Townsville and the trip trains in those days, you could just about walk alongside them, you know, they were so slow, and long journey, I don’t know how long it took us to get there, but we eventually got there. We camped under, out from Townsville at a place called Toupan, there were a lot of mango trees, we camped around under them,

underneath those.

Oh Toorbul Point we mainly just did, just did my dentistry. There are photos there of that, which would explain it to you. We used to row across the channel to Toorbul, to Bribie Island, I mean.

There was a little, there was an engineering unit just to the left of us. On the right hand side, there was, which I can also show you in the photo, there was a little hospital there, so many beds in the hospital, just an ordinary one building, you know. Then in the photo you’ll see where, all the general mechanics, the nurse and myself and sometimes some of the staff from the hospital, would come across

over to Bribie Island with us, you see. But oh no, that was quite pleasant there, quite pleasant.

Who.

Oh just all army personnel, army personnel. As I said, there was an engineering unit there, and so on, oh no, we used to keep busy enough, I think.

Oh just,

filling their teeth, cleaning them, there was a lot of cleaning of their teeth, because some of the army personnel hadn’t looked after their mouths very well, so you’d clean them up for them. Oh well, you didn’t extract more than you had to, oh, and we made dentures of course.

Oh just in tents, tents, and I don’t think we,

I don’t know if we had tents all the time, I think we might have had a couple of huts there, yeah I think we had huts there.

Just on palliasse, just like about that thick of a mattress sort of business, you know. You used anything you like as a pillow,

because the pillow was shirts, trousers or anything.

Did I felt much a part of it. I suppose you couldn’t help feel you were part of the army, but we had a different feel to a bloke that was out firing rockets and

guns and things, I suppose. See we, we helped people who were sick, and Ambulances sort of forward, and then you’d have an RMO [Regimental Medical Officer], a medical officer with the same battalion. Well any people that had to come back, they’d come back through the ambulance and go to what they called a CCS, that’s a Casualty Clearing Station, and then on to a AGH [Army General Hospital], which is a hospital, you see.

But, at the ambulance they’d do emergency surgery. That’s when you’re in and getting in these places, they do that, but not much. See when you’re at Toorbul Point and Chermside, of course, you’ve got all the modern conveniences there.

Well the discipline part didn’t worry me a lot. You see, because with an ambulance, as I said, you’ve got your duty officer, and his little group, and you’ve got about five or six dental officers. Then there’s the transport section, that had the trucks and the ambulance fleet, see. See we were in Townsville, and then further on,

in Charters Towers, there was a, an AGH there, see that’s an army hospital. And they’re specialists, mostly specialists that would down to the ambulance, if they were, if they were needed once a week to check, you see, what’s needed. But the ambulance was more or less, or more forward as you can understand,

with patients who go through, and they do the first aid for them, and so on.

The only time I had any drill was when I was at Chermside, and I was all at sea. I hadn’t been in the army in my life, and that was the only time, I really had any drill. I was lucky to this extent, see, some people might think they had it easy because they might be in the army base in,

Brisbane or in Toowoomba, the first army base in Toowoomba. But then I was more or less out on my own with the ambulance, and then when I was in the 2/7th Dental Unit when we went to Borneo, I was on my own then. So I was a bit lucky that way, I was more or less my own boss, even though in the ambulance you’ve got a CO, of course, you’ve got a CO, that you’re answerable to, but see we were all in professions, as you can understand,

they were doctors and I was a dentist, and there were some doctors that were older than me, and there were some junior doctors that had just graduated. Some doctors senior to me, and some doctors junior to me. Oh no, it was a pretty happy family.

Oh it was army equipment. We were in a hut there, we had our, we weren’t in a

tent there, we operated in a hut. But everywhere else, when we were overseas, it was in a tent, that sort of thing.

Oh well, the only ones I associated with in there, was a few blokes from the engineering unit next door, which we didn’t see much of, except as patients,

and other than that, it was the armed, our own staff. There was no television or anything like that, they used to, as far as I remember, you wouldn’t be up late at night, see because any light you had wasn’t real good. And as I say the hospital was just next door to us, see that was the people we’d sort of, mix with.

No, no, we didn’t have an officer’s mess. No that’s again where I was lucky, I didn’t have any formal. When I look back, I didn’t have all of that business that went on. You know if you were on base, you’d be going to all those things. I’m not saying I’ve never been to an officer’s mess, I have at times. But I’m just trying to think, Where we ate, our meals were prepared there,

at Toorbul Point, we might have even got them from the hospital at times, I just don’t know.

Oh just khakis, khaki uniform.

Oh, gee I’d have to look up my records for that. It’s 1942, look I wouldn’t know whether it would have been a couple of months or something like that, I’d have to have a look. My wife was over at Toorbul Point, that was the attraction to go over there.

See because, the blokes form the dental unit, we used to go over there, and she used to cook a meal, and so on.

I knew here in Maryborough, she worked alongside me. She was an accountant in the real estate office alongside me. She, as a matter of fact, to go out to the toilets and whatnot, she used to go through my dental workroom, you see.

So I used to see her going through there, and she used to do her face up in my workroom at the back door.

25th of September 1942. I came down from Townsville, I was just trying to think that before you came, because. How long I was over there at Toorbul Point, well see, that would be, before I was married, it was only for a little while, you know, she was there.

And of course, she left here to go to Brisbane, she worked with a firm of accountants in Brisbane, she must have got, taken a holiday and came up there, you know. And we were still there of course, and you’d have a meal, and got to go back there, to barracks. But oh no, they were, we were lucky we got this little,

when we were courting, it was a little fibro place, and on this side of the island it was only a few huts we used to call them. And there was a fellow at Toorbul Point, he used to live at Toorbul Point, and he used to go crabbing and what not. And I mentioned about my wife to him, and he said I know a bloke that owns a hut over there, he used to go crabbing this fellow, he said he might let you have it. And so he saw him, and

he had it, and that is how my wife came up there, to stay for that little while and that’s what happened, cause she went back to Brisbane and we moved onto Townsville then.

No I was married in September, came down from Townsville to be married, yes.

One of those rushed wartime marriages, you know, never any good are they. No I had a wonderful marriage, I was very lucky, I was very lucky. I had a good woman.

I lost her 11 years ago now, yes, 11 years ago now, very sad. She was never sick in her life, you know, and she had a bowel cancer, never sick in her life, you know. In fact, we were over in Norfolk Island, in the March, we had her birthday over there, with the Probus Club, and she was losing a bit of weight. All the tests in the world, even had her teeth checked, she had endoscopies and what not,

I remember her coming home and she said the doctor said at least there’s no cancer. And then, the only thing they didn’t do was the colonoscopy, which I suppose they should have done it, but then, now it’s a standard thing, then they found this massive cancer which had gone into her liver. They operated in the August, and she was gone in November, three months to the day, you know. But oh, it hits you for a while, but still, I suppose,

if you accept what’s given to you, you’ve got to accept what’s taken away, haven’t you really. And there’s only one person who can look after you, and that’s yourself, you know. You can have all the counselling in the world, you know. Even though I don’t disagree with counselling, but I sometimes think there’s too much of it. You’ve got to grab your mettle firmly, and handle yourself, you get your moments and so on, but I’ve been lucky there, because my family have been good.

so that, I suppose keeps you going doesn’t it.

Well I wouldn’t say I become engaged, we just decided to get married. I knew I might go away, and in hindsight, you sometimes think to yourself, but why would you get married when you’re going away, and you mightn’t get back. That’s a reasonable question.

But, oh well, I was hooked, so I wrote down and asked about being married, and I wrote to her mother, and this is getting a bit personal. But I could remember writing to her and suggesting this, and I’ll never forget the letter I got back, she said OK but she wasn’t in any hurry. So, so what, was available to get married, but that was the 25th of September 1942.

Well, then I went to New Guinea, I think it was in the January. Well she was coming to Townsville, and there again, a doctor that owned a, a unit on The Strand in Townsville, he was at the AGH in Charters Towers, and of course, you could imagine you didn’t have a chance of getting accommodation in Townsville. And he came down there, and what was it he said to me, he said you were the only fellow that offered me a drink when I came down to the ambulance,

and he said I’ll see my agent, and he told the agent to give the unit to me. So I got the unit, got some supplies in, including rice, which you couldn’t get because you, one of the cooks gave me some rice to put in the unit. Then we were leaving so Ella never ever got there, she never ever got to the unit, so it was all teed for her to come up for a while, see, so she didn’t get there.

So I didn’t see her then until 1944, when I came back.

Oh well, she and her mates, she was flatting with three other girls, one girl from Maryborough, they went to Brisbane together, at Foxthorne Court at New Farm, down near Moreton Street or somewhere, the old building is still there.

Oh no, they arranged it amongst themselves. But of course in those days, you had vouchers, you know, to get clothes and things like that, but we were given them to, of course, so I used to send all of my vouchers to Ella, and so. As a matter of fact, we bought the engagement ring after we were married, well of course it was hard to get anything in those days. We got the wedding ring, but I can’t remember when we got the engagement ring,

but we did get it.

New Farm, a church at New Farm. Holy Spirit I think they call it, I’m not sure.

Oh yes, I got leave, just a few days as far as I remember.

Pardon.

What did I wear.

Oh yes, of course in those days, you couldn’t get out of uniform. It was an offence to get out of uniform, oh yes, you wore your uniform. So me in uniform, and my wife in a dress. Exciting, isn’t it. So they were silly days, those two, weren’t we.

Yes, I always remember we, Old Archbishop Fewing was the Archbishop of Brisbane at the time. And they said he would see me, so I took my wife over and introduced her to him as Miss Park, that was her name, Ella Park, and he said she’s not, she’s Mrs Cavanagh. So we just had a couple of minutes with him, and he blessed the wedding, and. It was a mixed,

mixed marriage, but it was a very happy one, too, I was Catholic and she was Baptist, but we didn’t have problems. You know, no one, even today with the one faith, they don’t always agree with everything, no one agrees with everything. But the Churches are pretty close today, pretty sensible, I think, it’s good.

Dental Nurse, no, no, she used.

She worked with an accountant,

She worked next door, that’s right, she worked next door. Then she went to, Summerson was the Accountant that she really worked with, it was Clarke and Sons or something like that, in Brisbane. Oh she used to go out with the auditor you now, doing books for Waterworks and someone.

Wanted her, you wouldn’t know that.

How would you know. The only real girl I ever had, to be honest. I suppose you think that’s it, don’t you, and you go ahead and hope for the best, and I never had any regrets. Most of them break up today, I know, but I never ever thought of leaving my wife, I don’t know whether she ever thought of leaving me or not, that’s for her to answer.

Oh no, everybody has a few differences, you wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t. I can remember an old Colonel, he was from the Engineers. I was doing some work in the chair for him, and one of the mechanics a senior one, he happened to say he’d never had an argument with his wife. After he left, he turned around to me, and said, he mustn’t have much

bloody spirit, if he’s never had an argument with his wife, which is fair enough.

Their mouths are generally open, they can’t say too much. They do it before and after it. But you generally say, open your mouth, not shut it.

Oh yes, I talk to mine to, I’ve got a lady hairdresser down here. Funnily enough, I’ve got a lady hairdresser and a lady doctor. I used to have a male doctor, but he died, and what happened. I was chasing a WAS DOUBLE QUOTE CHOOK out here, and fell over some wire netting in some grass, tripped on it, and hit my arm on some wood, and I cracked it down this way.

And Dr Rayner, Karen Rayner, she was on duty at the time, and I stuck with her ever since. But I looked a mess the next day, because it was broken this way, and according to the orthopaedic bloke, that’s the best way to break it, because if you break if across it tends to pull it apart, where if it’s broken this way, it tends to pull the pieces together.

Oh yes, they do talk yes. You talk to your patients, yes. It’s easier for us to talk to them when their mouth is open. Oh no, dentistry is not a sombre thing, it can be quite bright and happy, it depends on who is on the chair.

Oh well, of course,

you’ve got children and you’ve got women, mature age girls and men, in practice. Whereas in the army, I only had men, I don’t think I ever did any work for, in Borneo in the finish I might have done a couple of civilians there who came out of the scrub, you know, might have done a bit there. And some of those little kids that you saw in that photo, but that was only in the last couple of months. So your conversation would

be a bit different, wouldn’t it, talking to blokes. And they were sort of, well they, they would more or less be paraded to the dentist, you know, at a certain time, as part of their discipline, I suppose.

Yes, some are scared, and others are quite relaxed. Some of them,

I used to think some of the scariest places were doctors.

I don’t know, I suppose they knew too much, they knew too much.

Oh yes, of course.

Oh, we used to joke and laugh, it’s nice to be able to add some humour, isn’t it, it’s got to be humourous.

If you can’t be happy and keep smiling, it’s no good.

Oh no, not that I can remember now, that’s too far away, no, you would have heard as many as I’ve heard anyhow.

Oh, you’d just be told, you’d get told. We were just told we were on the move, you see. I’m just trying to think, see, I was sent there as part of the ambulance, but my CO and the doctors and what-not, we couldn’t have been at Toorbul Point

too long, because they weren’t there. I was there because they needed a dentist section for the little hospital and for the engineers and what-not there, see. So then I would have been notified we were on the move, and of course we’d all pack up all that we’ve got. And we must have got on the train somewhere there, I know it was a slow train. I never knew, some of the fellows would get off, and soldiers would get off the train, and walk beside it.

And of course, troop trains are, you know, the trains were excursionary.

I don’t know, I couldn’t say that, there might have been a few hundred, I don’t know. I wouldn’t know how many people fit in a carriage, much the same as today, I suppose.

Oh yes, the train was full, and steam engines of course, no electric engines, shovelled

shovelled the fire in, get soot in your eyes when you looked out.

Oh they’d have a bit of fun, they’d play a bit of cards, joke with one another. Of course, I don’t know which place we stopped at, you’d stop at certain places along the line for a meal, you know. Of course in those days, they used to be all railway refreshment

meals, you know. In the early days before the war, if we got on the train here, get on the train at ten o’clock at night, you’d get to Brisbane at six o’clock in the morning. But you’d stop in Gympie, refreshment room there, everyone would jump out and get a hot pie, but they don’t have those anymore. But our two train yard, have you been on it, it’s a nice train.

What to Townsville? Oh, look I wouldn’t know, it would have been a lot of hours, a lot of hours. We wouldn’t have gone to Townsville in a day, so we wouldn’t have sleepers either, so we must have just. I don’t remember much about it. Funny isn’t it, somethings you don’t remember, others are a vivid memory.

My gear?

Oh the dental gear. It would have been loaded on, it could have been loaded onto trucks, see I don’t remember, it could have been loaded onto trucks. Because our, our trucks from the ambulances, and also the ambulances themselves you see. I don’t know how many of them, for instance, were in, were in a dental ambulance unit, as well. But there were certain numbers you see.

So a lot of our gear would have gone onto the trucks, probably, or one of the ambulances and they would have been driven up, see, by the unit transport section, so there were certain drivers. As a matter of fact, we had two, two fellows, they aren’t alive now, Franz and Fitzgerald, they were real larrikins and they would have driven some of the ambulances and they came through with us, but they’re not alive

now. They used to, when we went to New Guinea, they used to, which wasn’t the correct thing, but outside the dental tent and medical bay, they used to play two-up. A crowd would gather around there. I didn’t mind, it was all fun, they had to relieve the boredom, didn’t they. Oh no, they were good fellows, they would do you a good turn, never hurt you. But they both finished up taxi drivers,

in Brisbane. I never ever saw Fitzgerald again, but I saw Franz, and, a couple of times he came through Maryborough, so used to pop up and say g’day. They were real larrikins.

Oh I don’t know. They could do a lot of course, but it was just their attitude to everything. Oh no,

they worked all right, you know, helped out with everything.

Oh well, I did take a few little favourite instruments, that you used to like, you know. Oh, only a handful really, a boxful, you know.

Oh, I had a

couple of pair of forceps that had a spread of the beak which I thought were good, that should be in the dental hospital, did that with theirs once, and I did with a couple of pairs of mine, and I found them very good.

You know the way they go like that to grip a tooth. Well you used to split them, and they had a little gap in them, and I thought they helped, you know. See when you extract a tooth, you don’t just grab the tooth, you go down

under the gum, otherwise you’d crack it all at the roots, so you go down which helps it slide out, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

You get used to it, you see, it’s like anything. See my brother was, was an architect, well he said “I couldn’t do your job”, which he couldn’t either, he flinched. But then as I said, I couldn’t draw a right wooden fence.

See I couldn’t draw, so that’s the difference isn’t it.

Oh well, you’d, every one had a little shaving kit of course, you’d have a shave. A comb, you know, your razor that sort of thing, you know, personal stuff. You’d have soap. Well see.

Well, see some of those things, what was a little bit better about travelling with the dental unit, was we used to have to pack up a lot of gear, so we knew we had soap and towels and things like that, if we wanted to push an extra shirt in somewhere, you could do it, you see. Whereas others had to carry everything, you see, so we were able to help the men in the unit, they used to put a few things in, you wouldn’t know, we wouldn’t know they inspected it, they just loaded

it all on the trolleys, on the trucks. There was no good having too much gear, because if you had to carry it, then you had to carry it, see.

I was always happy, some people criticized the Americans. I really only came up with Americans in, in Townsville, that was the first

Americans I saw. They had a lot of the darker skins, you know, Negroes, and they were, the Negroes were treated as inferior there. But there was a lot of them around though. But then, they were different cultures too, of course. Well in Townsville now, Americans, they were always paid a lot better than Australian troops, you see, with a result that they. That’s the only thing that some of our

fellows felt, is that they, the Americans scored better treatment in the restaurants and what-not, because they give the waitress, leave a, some money under the saucer, where as our fellows didn’t have the money, so they tended to get the a little bit better treatment. But no, other than that, the Americans I came up with, they were, they were quite all right. They’d talk, Americans do talk, but I’ve got nothing against them.

And, it was a combined affair, you know.

Well you could see it in the way they were sort of inferior, and given inferior jobs, and so on, you know. You could pick that, you’d pick that, but then, I suppose, the black Americans

accept it, because that was their life, that was their life.

No, not on Americans, see they had their own dental personnel, no. I met some of them, but talked with them, but never did any work on them.

Terrible.

Oh it was all blacked out. Funnily enough Townsville was all blacked out, as though they were going to have some bombs, and when we got to Milne Bay, there were many more lights in Milne Bay than there were in Townsville. It was dark, it was a black-out, you know, it was a bit, bit silly in one way, but still, that’s the way,

that’s the way it was to be.

Well of course, it was full of troops, full of troops. You didn’t go out much, you didn’t go out to town much, well there was nothing to go for. So you were fed in your mess. You said about an officer’s mess before. When we were in Townsville,

we had a little officers mess, and then there was a sergeant’s mess, and then the others lined up with their pannikins and things like that. Whereas the officers mess and the sergeants mess, they were more orderly, we sat down and they brought our meals around, it was probably much the same meal for everyone. Oh, you had a cook, say for the sergeants mess, and a cook for the officers mess.

Oh just very friendly, just friendly you know. They’d have plenty of jokes and tell stories, you know. Other than that, there was no really any social life, I didn’t go out.

Drinking, no, not really. See much more drink today, I think, than when I was young, see I was in my

twenties then, you see. Oh no, I hardly had a drink then. I don’t know about in Townsville, but there used to be, so much alcohol allocated to a unit, you see, according to the numbers in the unit, you see. But, see, if I didn’t want mine, well somebody else would have it, they’d do you a good turn for your beer.

Oh I wouldn’t know, wouldn’t know that, probably the standard. In those days, it was

it was Billingborough, and Four-X, wasn’t it. Do you remember, you wouldn’t have know Billingborough beer. But here in Maryborough, it used to be Billingborough and Four-X. but of course, there was a scarcity of it, that as a result the troops didn’t care which one they drank, as long as it was beer. When they were on leave, of course, they would go into hotels, they would mix with the,

other troops, with American troops, with their own troops, they tended to stick together a lot.

Oh well, with the, other officers in the unit. But still I, I was, I used to be with the blokes in the armed unit, a lot, staff sergeant and corporal and so on, nothing very exciting.

I didn’t go out much there, I don’t think we. We used to have a, what they call an RAP [Regimental Aid Post], that was at The Causeway at Townsville. Sometimes they’d give me their money, to take down to them, you know, that was there, that was where they was, The Causeway was where a lot of the prostitution used to go on, you know troops married in Australia.

Hey.

Oh yes, they used to line up from here to the road and back, yes. It must have been understandable, when a lot of fellows were away, they were hormone driven or whatever it is, and the girls were there. It must have been terrible for the girls though.

Sex. Oh no, it didn’t, of course, you’d hear some jokes and what-not, oh no, the fellows didn’t talk too much about it.

I don’t , I can’t remember that, Naomi, I can’t remember

any lectures. Oh but, being in the Ambulance we were probably warned about it, you know. It was a bit of risky thing, you know. But it’s not nice today with AIDS [Acquired Immunodeficiency Disease] and HIV [Human Immunodeficiency Virus] and so on, it’s a problem today, spread throughout the world. I heard them say the other day, that is was, an increase, they gave numbers, I forget the figures now, perhaps I’m not interested in them, because I can’t do anything about it.

It’s a shame.

Hey.

No, no, I was only army personnel. The only civilians I treated, was a few in Borneo towards the end, after

the war, you see in a couple of those photos, I treated a few little kiddies, you know, they were just probably scattered throughout the scrub, you know. While the Japs were in control.

Well, in,

no, it was mainly straight out dentistry. But getting back to Borneo, down in Lae and some of our fellows that came back that had been prisoners of the Japs, I did some work for them, and strange enough, they were very weak, and treatment, flat out stepping over a few sticks. But one thing

about it, even though they were starved for food, the thing is, whether this is the right assumption or not, they didn’t have headaches, see. So whether that was a good thing that they weren’t eating too much food, you see. Because I suppose we as normal people, but we probably eat more than we need to eat, you know, we probably don’t need the amount of food,

that we do consume, though it’s nice eating, isn’t it. It’s nice eating it. No, those are the only civilians I treated. Plus, oh there was a few women in the village there to, with a few little problems.

Oh just ordinary dentistry there in Townsville, that’s before we went to New Guinea.

That would be ordinary dentistry.

Oh, well see the CO of the ambulance would have been notified, and he would have told us that we were going to move on a certain date. That’s what would have happened, I would have thought anyhow. Then, of course, everyone was packed up. When, I’m not sure, it would be in those

pages that I’ve got, what boat we went on, whether it was the Katoomba, or one of those boats.

Going away.

Oh it was all right, I didn’t mind. You don’t expect it, of course. Oh no, it was all right. Oh, you knew of course, that something could happen to you, but you

didn’t try to think about those things. Oh no, we were all right.

Well you wouldn’t know, see that was the thing about it, I suppose, you just wouldn’t know what to really expect. You could expect a casualty or you could expect to get away unscathed, you see. But you, oh no,

just going away like that, I can’t remember being frightened. Oh at times, when you are away then, I was no hero, I was frightened too, but most blokes will admit to that, that they were frightened at times, especially front lines soldiers, they’d be scared. But sometimes, those fellows, in the heat of the moment, they’re not as scared as some of the other blokes,

further back.

The journey?

Not the journey, no. I think there was the Manundra, and there was the Katoomba and the Seaway, there was the three ships, one went to New Guinea, and. We went to New Guinea, on the ship, must have been the Katoomba and the Seaway, I think it was,

that went to Moratai. But I don’t remember that so much, some blokes, I was never sick, but some of them were sick on the boat, see them looking green, they were green. But it was no good if you went downstairs, you know, in the heat, if you stayed upstairs, you had a better chance of not being sick.

Oh yes, but I never had to, I never had to do any work onboard the ship. But, if you asked me what I did, I just wouldn’t remember, but you can remember do some marking, and then you go along to other places on landing barges that went up on the beach, you know, and you’d all pile off together.

Oh well, you’d, I think it might have been Samarai or Lae that we were put onto landing barges, you know, and the front went down straight onto the beach, see, and then you’d all pile off, pass the damn water, of course. But that’s the point about New Guinea, of course, there was a lot of showers and rain,

but the climate is so humid, then you’d get sun and you’d dry out, you didn’t seem to get colds. Although in New Guinea, I did get malaria, malaria, and a bit of dysentery too, which was on the cards for a lot of people, you know, but still I overcame that. I haven’t had malaria for a while, it keeps coming back on you, but, after I came home, there are times when you feel lousy, but you knew what it was,

and it goes away again.

Oh, Milne Bay, when we got there, the Australian troops had taken Milne Bay, but we still had Jap bombers come over all the time, you know, just outside the dental clinic, there would be a photo there, that would show you, show us in,

in our dug-outs, you know, for when you’d hear a siren go, to let you know there was a plane or two coming, so you’d get out of the road there. But, oh no, the Australians took Milne Bay before I got there. I think they might have taken it a month or so before I got there, I’m not sure of the dates.

Oh, a lot of coconut trees, and so on. The natives used to climb the trees and give us the coconuts, there were a lot of natives around there. See after the Japs left, they came out and, of course, they were all friends of ours. The Fuzzy Wuzzies, nice people. Good people. They got straight up a tree which we couldn’t do, and they’d throw coconuts down.

Oh it had it’s good moments, and it’s sad moments.

Oh, out of the canteen we might have given them some biscuits or something like that, that we could get. Oh, we actually would have given them something, I just can’t remember the details. Oh no, it was a good relationship, very good.

It was just an ordinary tent, an ordinary tent.

It was about as big as this room, not that one, just this one. We had something like that, and by the time you got your chair and your cabinet in, you’re able to move around and get the patients in. You didn’t have a waiting room, of course, your patients would just wait outside, but then, you can understand

that patients wouldn’t be called up if you were half an hour behind, or something, they’d be called up so they wouldn’t be sitting outside a long time, see, I’ll show you some photos this afternoon of that.

Oh in amongst the coconut trees and so on. Oh you’ll see that in the photos too. There was a garden, a little row of coconut trees, which made a

pathway, you can see, I’ll get them out.

Oh pretty flat ground, in those days.

Oh yes, on ground yes. We didn’t have any carpet. Oh no the floors weren’t cemented. But in the earlier stages,

before we went up to Islands and what-not, some of the Dental, you can call them shed, a similar thing, anyhow, they’d have some floorboards, anyhow.

I suppose you just had to put up with it, you got rain all the time up in those places.

As I said, you got the rain, but you didn’t take that much notice of being wet, because there was a human heat that seemed to dry you, you didn’t seem to get colds.

Oh, I can’t ever remember being too worried in that way, we had a couple of flaps out from the tent. But it wasn’t so much real driving rain,

it was more constant sprinkling rain, not like the rain that goes straight through, well I didn’t experience it like that anyhow.

It was just a metal chair, it had some sides on it, you’ll see photos of that this afternoon too. It was just a metal chair that collapsed, it folds up, just folds up, and

you could cart it away then. Same as your cabinet, folded it up with your instruments in it, and they packed into cases then, went on the boat or transport. See, as I was saying to Naomi before, see there were ambulances in the ambulance unit, and trucks, so a lot of our gear would have gone on the ambulances or trucks.

Well, you didn’t have any spotlights like we know today, we didn’t have anything like that. When I first started work in 1935, all we had was a light hanging down, with a globe around, a globe like that. It was made of iron, you had spotlights that shone onto it, which was much better.

Oh no, I can’t remember what sort of a light I had. See the chair was facing the open part of the tent, so that as a result you’d have natural light most of the time. And I was young and had good eyes, made a difference.

What kind of work?

Of well, in the army, a lot of it was cleaning up mouths, you know, a lot of soldiers had neglected their mouths, and you’d scale their teeth and clean them up, and so on. But then you also did some extractions,

with people you couldn’t do anything else with, and you’d fill some, you know, some needed dentures too, which you could make, because you had a couple of mechanics with you as well, see and then, there was a dental nurse.

Yes, strangely enough I can remember, of course these blokes are dead.

There’s a chap Mitchell, he was in the 2/7th with me, he died, he died only last year. See there were two separate lots, there was, the first one was a chap called Tunstall and Austin, I can’t think of the nurses name there. And then later on, I had Keith Woolley from Adelaide, I ring him each Christmas,

he’s, he’s still going but he’s full of arthritis and his wife’s lost her memory, so that’s sad. And no well then, the other two, one of them is alive and one’s not, Mitchell died, yes. Oh no, I don’t know any of the dentists, in the last year that are still alive, I think they’ve all passed on, see.

Most that were in my era there, they’d be all in their 80s, there’s very few Second War blokes, Second World War blokes that are not 80. There’s the odd one that went in early, I’ve got a mate here who’s 79, and he’s one of the younger ones, you see, he put his age back a little bit to get in. There’s two here that I know, that are 80 next year.

It’s just like the widows of ex-servicemen from the Second World War. This, there’s only had her eightieth birthday.

When, we arrived where.

Oh, I can’t remember that, because see Australian troops had just taken

Milne Bay, well we might have been the first ever unit to go in, I couldn’t verify that for you.

Oh no, we’d bring our own tents and things.

Yes, we set up.

Oh well, you’d be allocated a position, we’d all hop in and set up you know. As I said,

there was three others in the unit, beside myself. Four blokes considered. They’d get pretty skilled in it, too, putting a tent up and down and unpacking the goods, oh no it didn’t take that long.

Oh well, you’ve only got the essentials, you’ve got your foot engine and your chair, and your

materials as well, that’s all you had. You’ve got a steriliser. Of course, you don’t have electricity to boil water, but you, we must have used kerosene, or something like that, I’ve forgotten those details.

What’s that.

Oh well, it’s just a wheel and it’s got an upright bar,

and then one that comes across that you hand piece and you drill through that, you just work it with your foot. I’ll show you photos this afternoon. You just work the wheel like, you take a sewing machine, when you used to work the machine and make the needle go up and down. Oh, it was simple, there were cords, the cords went up and around, and you’ll see them in these photos, I’ll get them out for you this afternoon, you might be interested to see them. It’s easier to show you that, than to talk

about it. Oh no, that was all right.

Oh you’d only rotate slowly, you wouldn’t go, you wouldn’t go quickly, otherwise you might develop a bit of heat, and if you pressed too hard of course, you would. The burrs we used in those days, weren’t as good as they’ve got today, they use diamond drills today, they were steel burrs, but still they were pretty good. They cut, but a long more slowly of course.

What, for the drill?

Oh, no more than you did for the others. When the first high speed drills cane out, of course, you had to take it slowly, because they’d go like that, they’d cut through a tooth in no time. So you have to be very careful that you didn’t slice a tooth away, you know. Oh, they were so quick. Oh no,

diamond drills are nice, the speed they were wonderful. As I said to Naomi I think, if your high speed drill or something went wrong, you wanted to go home, you didn’t’ want to work. But throughout most of my army life, I was peddling foot engines, because I was away more than I was home, see. It was only when I was in Townsville,

when I was first in Chermside, I think, I ever had an electric drill.

The foot, no it wouldn’t make any noise, the foot engine wouldn’t. But the high speed drills they scream a little bit, they probably don’t scream as much as they did when they first brought out. See I’m a bit far removed form it now, it’s been 20 odd years since I worked.

Oh,

Oh, I can’t remember any noise really. Can’t remember any noise. It was just like a sewing machine or any wheel going around. You had a pedal, not electricity in my era. No, of course, you’re too young to remember a woman using a sewing machine with a pedal.

Yes, I was at that time, I don’t know what happened after, I don’t know what, I don’t know what happened after that.

Oh yes, you were busy enough, oh yes you were busy enough, doing your dental work. Remember by the same token, in those, more or less, forward areas, people didn’t so much come along just to be checked, they came along because they had

something wrong, a problem, might have toothache, they might have broken a tooth, you did more emergency work in those places. You were back at base, whilst then, troops would all be regimented, to go and get their teeth fixed up, because they were supposed to go and get their teeth fixed up before they went away. See, so their teeth should have been in order before they

went away.

Oh well, you wouldn’t have to have perfect teeth, but if your teeth and gums weren’t good, well then, they would expect you to have them cleaned up, you know, use the old floss silk for them. We used to strike quite a bit of, in the old days they called it pyorrhoea,

and now they call it gingivitis, and whatnot, but it comes really bad, you know. You sit down and scale them, in those days we used to use mouthwash as a peroxide, but that used to help it you know. It was a matter of hygiene, back in those. I would see a fellow whose mouth was really infected, you know, well he couldn’t perform well could he, because he wouldn’t even feel well,

and he couldn’t eat properly. Oh no, they were a pretty good bunch.

Oh well you wouldn’t be hard, see I wasn’t working to, I wasn’t back at base so much to have troops fit, you know. They would have been dentally examined, you see. Same as they had medical examinations, and if their

teeth were bad, well then they’d be shot off to the dentist to get their teeth fixed up. So, you know, if you’re back at base, you’d be given more of that constant examination work. See, they should have been reasonably dutily fit, it didn’t’ mean you had to be, you had to have perfect health. If your eyes reached a certain standard, or your hearing reached a certain standard, then you were admitted.

The dental work.

Oh well as I say, I’d get back to the same thing that we more or less cleaning up teeth and gums, and anyone that might have broken a tooth, or had decayed teeth, you know, you’d fix all that up. If a tooth broke and you couldn’t do anything else, you’d extract it. Or if they broke their denture, or they

lost their denture, you’d make them another one. Of course, they had to be medically fit, they couldn’t be fit without teeth. But you didn’t do mass extractions or anything like you would of before, if you needed mass extractions, they’d be done before you were sent away. That’s to my memory anyhow.

Oh we used amalgam

up there. See those were the days before we had acrylic fillings. See when we first got acrylic fillings, plastic fillings as you might have called them, we thought we were made. Because they looked so nice. We also used, they didn’t give us gold, but what did they call it, it was a substitute for gold, it wasn’t as easy to work with, but for appearance in front, you couldn’t put amalgam in, see. So we used this substitute

for gold. But after a while when we got these plastic things, we thought we were made, but then we found that they stained, and also, they sort of wore away. I can remember, replacing free of charge, of course, you could only give so many plastic fillings that went yellowish, but you’d have to take them out and put more in. But then they could improve it, and they’ve got wonderful materials now.

The amalgams as I said to you before, its not used now.

What gums and that sort of things.

Oh yes, in Morotai we struck a few. I can remember writing a bit of a letter those once, to a CO back at base about the poor condition of the gums, you know, just in

goodwill so that they’d make sure that the soldiers had a bit of treatment before they come over. Of course, there’s no good in sending over a sick man away, is there, you want them to get that fixed.

I can’t remember doing it, I might have, I could have, but I can’t remember that. See you’re in contact with then,

all the time, see you’re in contact with them all the time. You mix with them and you talk to them, but can’t remember now.

Oh no, no, see you’ve got Colgates and all those things today, but look, I don’t know what we had in those days. But we toothpaste, you know, toothpaste, some used salt and water.

To clean, them, the main thing is they clean them, you know.

Salt, salt in the water. Oh they put some salt in some water, and sit the toothbrush in it, and scrub their teeth, gargle their throats. Salty water is still a good remedy, I still think it’s good. My patients were always told to rinse their mouth with salty water,

rather than anything else, I think its as good as anything.

Oh we weren’t given sample tubes of toothpaste or issue or anything like that. But we just sent out straight out syringes and forceps and,

Oh, oh,

they’d have their comb and their toothbrush of course, their toothpaste, and soap I suppose, that sort of thing.

Yes, some of them did, but there wasn’t as much then, there wasn’t as much, teeth weren’t flossed as much in those youthful days.

I suppose the answer to that is, you’d spend as long as necessary, you see. You might fix their problem in ten minutes, you know, but if it was something like a cavity, you know. And also, you’d be spend a bit long if you had to do some scaling, or a few fillings to do, and to extract a tooth,

which was be a bit more difficult, you’d spend a bit more time with them. Oh no, it was just a matter of keeping them happy, I suppose. Oh no, I never had trouble with the troops, I found they were all pretty good. Oh well, then also they knew you were doing your best for them too. If you had a toothache, you’d want to get rid of the toothache.

Oh we used all the ordinary, it was called Novocain in those days. But then, after the war years they improved it, and we got Zydacaine which was much more effective than some of, you know. One time with the Novocain, you might have to give them a second injection,

After you got the better Zydacaine and those things, you knew one injection would fix it. Se we used to inject a lot of the field teams, see, and anaesthetics have improved, well they’ve improved too medically haven’t they. You don’t get the ether and chloroform you used to get in the olden days, when the patients were sick and so on. And now they can sedate you, and you know what’s going on.

And I had a cataract done, and I went into St Andrews Hospital at half past seven in the morning, and I was sitting up having a cup of tea and a sandwich at half past ten, and went home. Where at one time, you’d be in hospital for about four days, and you’d wake up and be sick after the anaesthetic, and so on. Now, I didn’t feel a thing but I knew what was going on, you know. So anaesthetics have improved.

What.

At work.

In Milne Bay. Oh, that’s a hard thing to remember, because you’d, especially after the war, you injected a lot because you knew the anaesthetics were so much better, because it was most disappointing if you injected and it doesn’t, the patient still feels the pain of the drill, you know. So we wouldn’t have given anaesthetics, just for fillings in Milne Bay, I don’t think

And then you’d rotate your engine slowly. Or if it was a bit sore, you’d mix up a dressing with cloves and zinc oxide, and put a dressing in to calm it down a bit, and get them on their way.

Oh, they were pretty tough, pretty tough. It wasn’t butchery or anything like that, you know, oh no, it was all very

benign for the patients, I hope. We were always compassionate. I never had any trouble with patients, they appreciated what you were doing for them, as long as it was explained to them. Which is the essence of everything in life isn’t it, having a situation explained to you, you can contain it all right.

Oh no. You mean for the dentists themselves.

You mean the patient.

No, gripping the chair. Oh, they were pretty relaxed, they’re grown up men, you know, even big men can be cowards, too

Being a bit wild, you mean.

Nervous.

Oh yes, some of them could be a bit scared, but that’s OK, they were all right. Once they got accustomed to it all, they were quite good. Some of the most nervous patients are the best in the finish, you know once they know what’s going on.

I saw a couple but then see, we were in the ambulance, we were further forward, we’d just, they’d be sent back to a CCS [Casualty Clearing Station] or clearing station. And at times, you had wires and things to keep the uppers and lowers together, I’ve done that. But for any permanent jaw fractures, well then they’d go back to the CCS and then the AGH, to the general hospital, where they’d have specialist boys to do that.

Oh well, to try and get the jaws into a relationship, you’d try to bring their teeth together, so the bite. If your jaw is broken and it’s sitting forward, the teeth won’t close properly will they. So you try and get the jaws into a good relationship, and sort of wire them together, and then get them back to base as soon as possible, of course the sooner the jaw is done the better.

And then they get good treatment back at the base, there are more specialised blokes and more specialised facilities. It’s like the, the medical side, not in Milne Bay, probably it was in Lae, it would have been Lae, where the doctors, and they used to have some surgeons come in there,

some troops came in that were knocked about, and they called it blood and guts surgery. See because they could only do limited surgery, you know, to expose the thing, and do first aid work on them, and then pass them onto the CCS, you see. So you were part, part of a medical team that way, that you’d be in the tent while they were doing that, you’d see a bit of that sort of work. You know a bloke might have his arm badly knocked about and his leg,

or something like that, but they’d do, clean the wounds up, you know, and then get him back as quickly as they could, give him pain relief drugs and so on.

Well, I suppose we must have had some, we wouldn’t have had the effective drugs that you’ve got

today, we would have had some, some Aspro and Vegenins and that sort of thing, I suppose, I don’t remember in detail what we really had. Oh no, most of them were pretty good, they were pretty tough, good blokes.

Oh, it was just a fine wire, just a fine wire.

See if you could, wind it, get it around the upper tooth, and around the lower tooth, and screw it together to try and hold it, you know, as best you could, of course. You wouldn’t get it in perfect alignment and you had to allow a little bit of movement, for them to get a little bit of food in. If you do it too tight, it’s a bit hard to get any food in, isn’t it, so they might have to be on a liquid diet, but they got them back to base as quickly as they could, where they had the experts.

Feed them with a tube or something like that.

Well you get it between the two teeth, like between those two teeth there, and you wrap it around then, so that that tooth holds it, then you get it down to the tooth underneath and do the same thing.

Oh pliers, oh yes with pliers, you have pliers.

With the wire, it’s easy enough to do that, with the wire, just like with fencing wire. It’s strong fine wire, and then you bend it in, so it wouldn’t be catching on the lips, otherwise it would make it sore to move their lips. I never saw a lot of that though, just the same, just the odd one.

Oh see, their mouth would be pretty tight,

you know, and you’d put a bandage around there to grip. The main thing was to give them first aid to get them back to the experts, they were better trained than I was.

Closed.

Oh yes, you mean when you’re working on filling teeth and so on.

Oh well of course, we never had any great suction there, you know. You used to have to use your cotton wool a lot more, whereas today, of course you can put, and even after the war and in private practice, you had your suckers to, you could stick one in the, leave it in the mouth, and we’d used to have to get them to spit out all the time. Oh no, you never had that. It.

sounds pretty rough and ready, but it was all right, it’s what everyone did and that’s what everyone expected, you see. One time you rode a bike, and now you drive a car. You know, it’s expectations in life.

So much fighting?

It wasn’t too bad, see the Japs were there, and the Australian troops. Before I got there the Australian troops took it back, see, and then we came in, so we weren’t

there for any heavy fighting. We got odd planes come over with bombs, you’d see in one of those photos one of the little dug-outs we had alongside the dental tents, as a matter of fact, we used to just jump into those.

When what.

Oh, it wasn’t bad. Just hoped it didn’t fall in the trench, that’s all.

Oh, we didn’t strike a lot, really, I wouldn’t say we struck a lot of bombing raids in Milne Bay, because the Japs were being driven out, you see, and they were retreating a bit. Oh no, that didn’t worry us too much. Well you didn’t like, put it that way, you couldn’t say you liked it.

Oh naturally there would have been, because we would have shelled it and so on, you know.

But there again, I didn’t see much of that, we were taken there, and we were shot off, you don’t wait around to look much.

It’s very difficult to think about that, but still it would have been daylight hours, you wouldn’t be working at night. Oh daylight, you’d got up, oh look, I couldn’t tell you whether we, I would have started at nine or when, or half past eight,

or when I finished. I would have had a break for lunch, of course. And depending on how busy you were I suppose too. But yes, it depends on what’s going at the time. When you’re a unit like a, an ambulance or so on, see if you were back at the base, you’d work regular hours, you’d work nine til five, or eight thirty til five, or something like that. We just worked when it was convenient, you know.

Was it my first time? Except I’d been in civvie life, I’d been to New Zealand and Tasmania, that’s still Australia, of course.

Oh well, only that it was full of coconut palms, and so on,

and of course the heat, it was humid all the time, and quite showery, see. And plenty of mosquitoes and so on, you know, we used to take Atabrine tablets to help you not get malaria, even though I did get it, but still, that’s nothing.

Yes.

Oh no, not in those days, they didn’t. As far as I know they didn’t. No, they’d climb them and they’d have a knife like a cane knife, and they’d chop and cut the fibre off, and of course, they’d put a hole in it the natives, and just drink the juice. See, we used to drink the juice a bit too, we were mainly interested in eating the coconut itself.

Oh, it was ordinary rations, you didn’t, you didn’t see fresh meat or anything like that. It was all F&V, fruit and vegetables out of a tin. And bully beef, oh I didn’t mind the bully beef. Biscuits, hard biscuits, but there you go, I didn’t mind the hard biscuits and I didn’t mind the bully beef. Oh some of the cooks camouflaged the bully beef out of the tin, he’d mix it up and put a few things in it, to make it look like something

else.

I can’t remember any entertainment parties at Milne Bay, I can’t, no I can’t remember any there. There were, there were parties at Lae, but I didn’t see much in the line of concert parties, you know, they were more later on, after we

left, you know.

Entertainment at night? Not very much, Naomi, you know. This, this is as far as I remember, you know, I’m going back a lot of years, aren’t I, you see. No, oh there’d probably be a photo, were you sat out on some logs, you know, and

listened to some music. But, oh no by and large too, you, unless you splashed plenty of anti-moskillen, mosquito repellant on you, well you, we wore long sleeves, and we kept away from the mosquitoes at dusk, you know. Oh you might lie on your bed and have a bit of a read. I can’t remember any activity there really.

A what?

A padre. Oh yes, there was a padre, there was a chap when he used to visit, when I was in Townsville, before we went over to Milne Bay, there’s a chap Richard. He was a World War I bloke, he was a Baptist minister, and he used to come down, and he used to, when he came down overnight, he used to sleep in my dental tent, yes.

A nice fellow, a nice fellow, a

really nice fellow. But then I, he wasn’t part of our ambulance, but there would have had to be a padre there at Milne Bay, but then, I just can’t place him, just can’t place him, see. Because the numbers of padres would have been limited, and they might be around different places, you know. And they’d have all different services, but you’d go to any one’s service, you know.

Their services? Oh just simple, simple services, just prayer, he’d say a few words, spark the troops up.

Oh yes a little bit. With the ambulances, you’d get a lot of blokes, they were almost conscientious objectors, you know they would come in, and, Seventh Day Adventists, and those sort of fellows,

that really didn’t feel, believe in killing people and so on, you know. And they’d be orderlies of the ambulance. But then when they were up in the Islands, I think they changed a bit. You know, when they thought they might get hurt, if someone hits you, you’ve got to hit back, haven’t you. They were good fellows though.

No, not really, no, oh no. There’s never any arguments,

that way, you know, you’re all as one there. No, it’s good that way.

How close? Oh well, see I wasn’t, I was in the ambulance and I wasn’t right in the thick of it, you see, it’s like the medical side, which is the Ambulance side. They’d have the RMO and he’d be up with his battalion, and then the ambulance would be behind that. Oh, the only

way I felt as though, when we landed at Milne Bay, of course, there was flak coming over, and of course hitting the beach where you were, and you were just happy you didn’t get hit. But not like, not like the real foot sloggers, being slung at all the time. But then we had our, our, our ships and American ships firing over us, at any case. The Americans used to flatten everything before they went in, which was

sensible enough, I think. People used to criticise them for flattening trees, but you’re better to flatten 20 trees than to get someone killed, aren’t you.

Are you going home tonight, or do you stay in town?

What news do?

I cant remember very much, because we didn’t get much mail, you know, you, our eyes and what-not. It just depends on how quick it got in, and. Oh no, we didn’t’ get much news of the war, not at Milne Bay, anyhow.

How important were the letters from home? Oh, they were important, you always got a kick out of getting a letter from your wife, or your family, too, your mother and so on. See my Father had died, my Father died in 1934, so he wasn’t alive during those days.

A what.

Oh not much really. There were a few parcels that came like that. But I can’t remember. I might have got something, but I think I would have said don’t bother sending them, you know. Because I, I always ate well, you know, only on bully beef and stuff, you didn’t get fresh meat and fresh vegetables. But oh no, I was doing all right. And there was always, always the chance it would go astray too,

and you mightn’t get it. I remember in those days, they used to knit socks for the army personnel. I told them not to bother knitting socks, because I had army issue socks, that’s all I needed. Oh, some people would get a kick out of a thing, that another one wouldn’t. Oh no, I had enough shirts, and so on.

Would I tell who?

Of what happened.

Oh, well you weren’t supposed to be saying where you or were anything like that. You weren’t supposed to say for security reasons that you were leaving Townsville, because if the letter was intercepted, you could be tell an enemy couldn’t you, that a certain ship was on its way. But, oh no, I used to write often, and I don’t know what I

wrote about. But I know they liked to get a letter. You know, and I used to get a letter to. Of course, my wife would tell me more things, because she was living in city land and Brisbane, see, about different friends and so on. There wasn’t much I could tell them, I used to just write a few lines, even though it was only a page, it was something, see. Oh no, I tried to write. And that was the thing you’d sort of do at night, you know. Just write a,

write a few lines.

Oh no, they didn’t speak much about that. Strangely enough, a lot of fellows don’t talk much, even after the war, a lot of them say nothing. Some can talk their heads off, of course, but the average cove, he

doesn’t want to talk a lot about it, because it’s a bit of a sad party of anyone’s life isn’t it. Even though, you can’t say you were tormented all the time, but you. Well the truth of that was that everyone was pleased to be home again, pleased to be away, you know the war was won and get back to life again.

No, I didn’t get those, no, I didn’t get those. Ohm, they probably would have been around, but no, I never heard, I never heard them. But it depends on how strong their beams were, I suppose, no I never heard them.. Anyhow, I wouldn’t have taken any notice, because we knew it would have been propaganda. Oh no, it was pretty powerful though I think for some, no that didn’t worry me,

Oh good, he just, he used to look after patients and he’d clean up after you’d finish, the same as a nurse would, put your instruments on to sterilise, and bring your patients in and kick them out again.

The nurse and the, the troops.

Oh no, we were just. We were just, just like a family really. There was no difference in rank between us, even though there actually was, we never really thought about a difference in rank, you know, we were just good friends, the lot of us. I was very lucky, I was very lucky, with all the people that were in the units that I’ve been, even down

to the drivers, and ambulance bearers and so on. Oh no, it was good there. See it’s like life, Naomi, it depends on where you go, and what the people are like that you’re working with. One of my middle daughters, was a school teacher for a while, she gave it away, and then did some law. But she, the first school she was sent to,

well I was told before she went to it, that the head master wasn’t nice, you know, that was some friends of mine said that, and he wasn’t really nice, and I think that put her off teaching, a lot. So, that’s just like the army, it depends who your CO is, and the rest of the personnel are like. But you always, you’ve got to get some that you’re not bosom friends with.

Not that I would say were

difficult, no, not that I would say were difficult. But see we were part of a healing profession in an ambulance, like that, I’m talking now about when I was with the ambulance, which was a lot of the time. But, with an ambulance you, well you’ve got, as I said, a few doctors, one doctor became a surgeon, he was at Greenslopes for a while, Claudie Mound, and one became a gynaecologist, a lot of them did well. I thing Biggs,

remained just a GP, they’re all dead now, although Claudie Mound may not be, because he was younger than me. The others would have been. I saw Chap Hill, he was a gynaecologist too, and I saw him some years ago, up in the Territory, he’s since died. But he told me a gynaecologist. I wouldn’t have known him, he stopped me and talked to me, and then I realised who he was, you know. See you get all those sort of things, you know, oh Chap McSweeney

that was in the ambulance with us, most of them did well, he was an orthopaedic surgeon, but he died early in life, too. So, you know I suppose you’ve got something in common and, you, have a conversation about.

Oh you would a little bit, you know. They wouldn’t talk about their personal history or anything, but if they had some difficult case,

for sure, you’d talk about it. You’d wonder how such and such a bloke was going.

Affected teeth. Oh no, I don’t think so, only if I was to say anything affected teeth, it would be gum disease. The main thing there, as far as I remember,

is malaria and dysentery, see, which was fairly common.

With the teeth. Symptoms of what though.

Oh did it affect their teeth, oh no, except this I suppose. In their older life, Naomi, your resistance depends

on your general health, a bit, doesn’t it. You’re likely to pick up something if you’re down in health, how your mental attitude is, too. See, war is the same as private life, it affects some more than others, some can handle things, and some can’t. Even people, all in the one family, they’re not the same. You know, you can have a sister, or a twin sister even,

and she can be different, totally different.

In dentistry, oh no that was all right. Because, you were doing basic work see, so you. No, I was never short of materials.

Yes.

Yes, we did dentures.

Well, just before I went in, we got these acrylics that were quite good. But on the other hand, we used to use rubber, it used to be vulcanised, it used to be vulcanised, heated under pressure, you know. But then we got, then we got the acrylic dentures, which was good, more natural looking gum and so on.

Oh no, they were, oh I suppose, all the time, just about all the time. Of course, now dentures are made with acrylic teeth, plastic teeth. When they first came out, it was like the fillings, they were soft, and people would finish up with the teeth ground away, and they’d have to get a new denture. But now they’re just as hard as the porcelain, and I think all teeth today are made with acrylic teeth.

More those days than today, certainly more dentures in those days. I think that’s due to the fact, that people are more tooth-conscious now, and they talk more about their teeth at school, and what have you. And parents take more interest in their children’s teeth. As a child, I can remember

being sent to the dentist too, just to be checked up, I might have. But I can remember going to a dentist to have a tooth removed, could have even been a first tooth too, to let a second ones through. But, you know, you’d put it in a glass of water when you brought it home and the fairies brought you thruppence, or something like that.

Tooth fairy, oh they probably did, probably did. But they were a little bit past that.

But that was a standard thing. If a kid had a tooth out, you’d give him the tooth to take home for the glass of water. If the fairies didn’t take it that night, it stayed there and they’d come the next night.

For the what?

Oh no, oh no, they wouldn’t have wanted that.

With the what.

Oh they were just

thrown out, thrown out yes. Oh up in the jungle like that, I can’t remember any great hygiene, or those, I suppose the scraps of wool and what not, and teeth and bits of frillings and what not, would have been discarded in the scraps I suppose. That’s a point I wouldn’t know what we did, that’s all we could have done anyhow. See, they might have been buried anyhow. We would have

got rid of them, no trouble.

Oh, you mean what month, or how did I get the news? Oh well see, I think it was the 5th, I think it was the 5th Army Division, Major General

Milford was there at the time, so the instructions would have come out from there, and he would have got his instructions from higher up, see. And there was a unit, there was a brigadier just across the road from the dental tent, from the army, he eventually became the Commissioner of Railways in Queensland. And, see those higher up, see we were just given instructions and we would have packed up, and we’d be on our way.

Oh, depends on how quickly you had to do it, oh you could do it in half a day if you wanted to. But, of course, all that equipment was arranged so that you could collapse it, and put it in these boxes, and you know. And the tent would fold up, and probably, I can’t remember exactly what it did or not, but I’m sure it would have probably gone into one of the Ambulances or one of the trucks, you see.

And then you’d be on your way, then.

Going?

Further into New Guinea. Oh, you just accepted that. You’d been used to moving on all the time, used to moving on, and away you went.

Boat, and we went on, what they called an LST [Landing Ship Tank], a couple of times, you see, it was just like a landing barge, they just let

the front down onto the beach, and slide up onto the beach, see, and you’d run off then through the water, and onto land then.

We stopped off, I’m certain we stopped off at Salamaua for a little while, then we went up to Lae.

Oh not much, because we were only, it was very, very little, because I can just remember an area where some

of the 47th Battalion, from here, Maryborough boys were there. And I can remember those being there, and then of course we moved on. There’s a bit of a lapse in memory, I remember we moved onto Lae, or to what they called Tambu Bay, and that’s where we, where we landed really at Tambu Bay, before we went onto Lae.

Oh, I saw a few that I knew, yes I saw a few that I knew. Wasn’t there long with them, though see, they were a different battalion and we were just an Ambulance more or less in transit, moving through, you see, that’s what we would have been. But I never treated any of them, not there. I would have, because, at some time, I don’t know whether it was in Townsville or whether it was over there, I know fellows from here who said, oh you did my teeth,

when I was up in the islands, or so on, but it’s hard to remember them, you know, where they were. See they could have come in, if we were a dental unit, they could have come in from another unit, if they were handy enough. See a battalion didn’t necessarily have a dental unit, you see. So if they, you could imagine a person in a battalion he didn’t, wasn’t sent to a dental unit, or a medical unit, as far as that goes, unless he really needed it, see.

If he had a toothache, or a swollen mouth or something, like that, naturally he would be sent to wherever there was a dental unit.

Tambu Bay.

I was still ambulance there, I was still ambulance there.

A chap from Maryborough here, Dick Winslett, he was a chemist with us, he still lives here. But his name wasn’t on that list, so they must have just picked names out at random, or something like that. Dick was there, he’s still alive, he’s not well, but he’s, I think he’s about 87 now. No Dick was there. Oh there’s Jeff Locke, he’s still alive, and he was in the ambulance here, the civil ambulance here for years, he’s still around the place

and he was in the ambulance. They’re the only two I can think of that were in the 7th Field Ambulance. Oh no, but I was there. When I was in Lae then, I don’t know when it was, it must have been 1944 then, that we were sent back then, see, to Australia.

Oh just an open bay that we just landed there, and got off the beach as quick as we could. See, you didn’t want to get hit by a bit of flak, you could see it hitting the sand, and so on. So we just got off as quick as we could, and got into the bush where they established a camp.

Oh, thinking of yourself a bit, I suppose. And,

the rest of your men too, of course, because everyone tried to get off. And then you just got to be organised, and you know.

What, the flak? Oh it’s more or less, I wouldn’t know how to describe that. You just see the ripples in the sand where it was falling. And then by the same token, then we would have had our ships firing into the

trees behind where it was coming from, so the Japs were retreating then, they had to get out of the road too, see.

Only to that extent, except. Oh, some of the, some Japanese prisoners of war came through the ambulance, that were captured by our troops and sent through the Ambulance, and then we would have sent

them on then.

Oh I remember one bloke, he was an officer, he was secured under a tree, and he was a very healthy looking bloke, so he must have been fairly well fed, you know. But, oh no, I never saw any ill-treatment on our part, for them, they were just being given their meals.

The Japs? No I never treated any Japs. Oh no, they probably wouldn’t want us to trust them unless they needed it, because I suppose they wouldn’t know whether to trust us or not, would they, you know. You’d have to be, with an enemy, they didn’t know if they were going to treat them well. Oh, some of our fellows might have been rough on them, I don’t know that.

Oh in Borneo, when the war was finished, and the truckloads of Japanese came through on our trucks, well some of our fellows that had been mistreated by the Japanese, they would have tipped their trucks up, if they could have, of course. But they weren’t allowed to do it, you see, but you could understand that, oh year.

Oh you wouldn’t set up on the beach, no you’d.

Oh well, the CO, the CO of the ambulance and a couple of the transfer fellows and what not, they’d set that up and show you where to put the dental tent and so on. But I didn’t do much dentistry just there, because no one wanted dentistry, but you were there in case they wanted it.

Oh, you’d wander around, and of course, I used to go in with the surgeons that I said used to, when they first came through the ambulance, blood and guts surgery I talked about, I used to go in with them, you know. Of course, you’re in an allied profession to mix around with those fellows.

Seeing those, our soldiers,

oh yes, of course it does that, yes, of you don’t like to see a fellow that’s been knocked around, do you. Someone in pain, someone who’s shedding a tear, and so on, you know. And you can imagine them, if they’ve been knocked around they’ll be wondering how they’re going to finish up, and they’ll be thinking about their family and so on, which is a bit hard. That’s why it must be terrible for a solider on the battlefield to have, you know, their mates

die in their arms, and that sort of thing, I never had that sort of thing.

The ambulance tents? The dental tents?

Would they be marked?

What, to show that they were a dental tent? Oh no, well see, everyone would know where the dental tent was.

Even in one of those photos, you’d see, oh you grew some little palms outside the tent and had dental officer written on it, so it was easy to find.

That was at Milne Bay. But anywhere else there was nothing, just the dental tent, just the dental tent.

It just had dental officer, one of the blokes must have printed it on, I can’t remember put it, one of the staff might have done it, I don’t know. We just planted, we just planted

a row of coconuts about that big, something to do, I suppose, it was boredom.

Yes, yes, that’s right. I liked it more when I got used to it, you know. My wife used to live the other side of the mangoes, you know the big row of mangoes there, she lived right over the other side. There’s an old wooden house, it’s not there now of course, but that’s where she lived.

See those mangoes are over 100 years old. They don’t bear much now, they’re just too old. But, oh, in the olden days, we’d ah, people would just come out and pick up bags of mangoes to eat, and take what they liked. Mum used to always make mango chutney, and these things, oh no, they were lovely mangoes. That was, those days, it was before you got the Bowen mangoes and

these. Oh no, they’d been used in their day. Oh cows, Pop used to have, my wife’ father always had a couple of cows and they used to eat the mangoes, swallow them and pass the seeds, you’d see big heaps of seeds on the ground. Oh they were nice to eat, I didn’t mind them.

No, no, as far as I remember no.

The hospital naturally would have had a red cross on it, but no, we didn’t.

Uniforms? No, no. The only time I’ve been in a proper uniform, just about . We went to Sydney once on a holiday and I would have worn a uniform,

I think. But other than that, see, I wasn’t in Australia, so naturally, you didn’t even take a uniform with you, you wouldn’t want one, when would you every use it.

So you just wore khaki shirt and trousers, you wore long trousers all the time of course, you never wore short, because of the mosquitoes and the malaria, that sort of thing. No it was compulsory to wear the long trousers.

No, but we had a patch, a brown patch, all covered on the back signifying your unit, every unit had their patch. Oh no, we never, as far as I remember, I never had anything like that, I’m pretty sure we didn’t. Of course, it was mainly hospitals and what not that had a, you know, tent, or had a, or a red cross painted on the roof, because you’re supposed

to respect it, and you weren’t supposed to bomb a hospital, see.

Oh no, I shouldn’t have mentioned that, but I was just being honest and saying that I did. I did have one, and kept it with me for my own security in case I needed it.

Oh no, but you’d, part you lived under a little bit, a little bit of a fear. See, it’s like you get terrorists today, they’re suicidal, aren’t they, some of them. And some Japs, it’s like the the little Japs submarines in Sydney Harbour, you’d get a Jap, they might sneak in looking for food in the kitchen.

They’d do you over at the same time.

Any?

Oh yes, yes, I think there, I think it was in Lae where they had a screen. I don’t remember much of that, you know. I find it difficult to remember some things, you know, so even thought I’d like to be able to help you there, I just

don’t have big recollections. I can remember seeing you know, logs, and a little log there, and a little log there, and a log along here, you’d sit on that sort of thing. Like having a bath, you could have a bath in a creek, see. You could do that. I think there are photos there of that even, you know, sitting in a creek, having a, I think there’s one there, I think it’s when I was in Lae, sitting in a creek.

Oh no, oh then there were times then, when there was water available, and with showers, you’d have a bucket up on a tree, with some holes in it, let the water flow through on top of you.

Oh, that’s a good question isn’t it, it is a good question. Well, we must have had clean water somehow, because we all had to clean water, didn’t we.

That’s a negative answer isn’t it, I just don’t know. See of all the places you know, New Guinea and Lae and Borneo and those places, unless we boiled water first, look I couldn’t answer that. Pity I didn’t have some of the fellows that were with me, to answer that one. That’s what I say, you get a blank on some things don’t, you, you get a blank on some things. Someone else should, interview other dentists,

and you’ll get that answer somewhere. That’s an important question, and I can’t answer. But see, that still, that goes for all the troops, doesn’t it. See whether it’s dental or medical, or whether it’s Middle Eastern, New Guinea or where ever it was, they must have got water, see, must have got water. Some of the water in the creeks and whatnot, certainly it would be tested and it would be chlorinated. But, I

can say this, there would be water tanks, that would chlorinate the water, just same as all our town supplies are chlorinated and have a lot of chemicals in it. So, I can remember having a water tank, so I suppose that was the answer, they’d get the water from the creeks and treat it, that’s the way it’d have to be, isn’t it. So, that might be the answer.

All the different army people.

They’re all a good bunch

of fellows, you know. They vary, of course. Some are nicer than others, but by and large, I’d say they’re all good fellows. I never had any problems with men. They were there for a common purpose, you know.

Class distinctions. Oh no, no, that was all, you mean between officers and men, and that.

Oh no, they got on well together. See, I was fortunate because if you were in forward areas like that, you’d have less chance of having any sort of top brass and so on. You might, oh you might get a general come around, and so on, but General Thomas Blamey he came around once at Lae, but he came and went and the troops had a parade for him because he was coming, he said a few

words, and then moved on. But other than that, the blokes, you all had to live together. See it would be different if you were based in Brisbane, or Toowoomba or Sydney or something like that, then there’d be, probably be a bit of distinction between officers’ messes and sergeants’ messes and so on. Oh no, it was all right, no problem.

Oh I remember

Major General Milford, I did his teeth, when he was in Milne Bay. Just had to clean them up, he came along to get them checked and, and cleaned, and I always remember that, he was quite a nice fellow. Of course, he wouldn’t be alive now, but no, he was a nice fellow, that’s all I had to do, was to clean them up and let him go, but you couldn’t treat him any differently. Well you treated them with more respect for sure, he was a

general, he was a general, which is a pretty high rank, so you.

Well, you’d be, I must admit you’d feel a little bit more, different about treating the general than you would a lance corporal or something like that, you know, they’re just one of the blokes. Well it’s like you having to do something

for the Governor General or the Chief Justice or somebody like that. You’d be thinking you better do the right thing this time, you know. Then I had Brigadier Moriarty, I think I checked his teeth once, too. Other than that, they were the only two that I ever did, and they were at Milne Bay. Never did any otherwise.

Oh yes, they were all right, they were OK, had their own teeth.

Hey.

I’m a bit more vague with him, but I think he, it was something probably just to clean them up and check them. But they passed on a long time ago, see they’d be a lot older than me.

Who.

Oh no, but still, you could understand if the major general wanted his

teeth checked, you just, that was it, you fitted him in, it was almost a command if he wanted to visit the dentist. Oh yes, oh well. And fair enough to a point too, because a man in that position, he wouldn’t want to be mucking around waiting for an appointment, or sitting outside, waiting for the, for the dentist to finish the last patient,

you’d put your best foot forward, and you’d know if he, they’d always, tell you he was going to come at 9 o’clock. They were more polite than that, they’d, you know, he was a gentleman and he would have asked for an appointment, would be OK, I suppose. But if he asked if it was all right for 9 o’clock on Wednesday, well, you’d always say for sure, you wouldn’t say no, that doesn’t suit. You’d shift someone else along, see, it wasn’t classed as rank,

I suppose, you recognise his rank, and time would be more important to him in his position. Oh no, he wouldn’t have expected anything, oh no, he was all right.

Oh no, not really, not really. I wouldn’t say so.

Well because, there again, I come back to the point all the time, that I was more or less not at any base where you might be attending officers’ messes and things like that. But, when you were out in the field, and sort of business like I was, most people are pretty equal, you know. Yes, well it’s like city streets, some people pull rank and others don’t, you know. And there’s blokes,

And there are blokes that could be privates or corporals, that were very efficient in life, you know. Whereas you might get a bloke who could be a lieutenant captain or something, that he might not be as high rank in civvie life as the other bloke. Oh no, I never had any worries there, that was good.

In your tent, you had a tent.

It was just an ordinary tent, with a little, sometimes there was a little stretcher, otherwise there was only, you got a little, I think they used to call them palliasse, didn’t they, they’re only about that thick, you know, and you’d have a little pillow. See down here we were lucky that if we wanted to push in a little bit of a cushion, we could stick it in with the dental equipment, you see, rather than carry it. So you could do that, and the blokes in the unit would do it,

and so would I, you know. Not supposed to perhaps, I suppose, but you know then it can go on one of the trucks and saves you carrying it. Or you could make, you were younger then, and you could make a pillow, you could stick an extra shirt or a pair of trousers under your head. You get used to roughing it.

Oh no, you don’t have any room much for that. Oh naturally, most blokes would have a photo of their wife or their mother or something like that, you know, if they carried it with them in their pockets or a little bit of a wallet or something. But oh no, that’s all you had. You didn’t have any room in your tent for

any decorations. Apart from that, if you moved, then you wouldn’t know when you were going to move, but you’d have to throw them away then. Oh no, you look back on it all, and you think it wasn’t a bad life, even though you’re pleased to be, pleased to be home. You’re always pleased to be home amongst your friends, and to get into a decent bed, and

home cooked meals. And you’re not used to eating big meals. I know when I first came back, I couldn’t eat a big meal, you know. I remember my wife putting a lovely meal down, and I could only eat about half of it, you see, your tummy’s shrunk I suppose, and it took a while before you could, you could eat a big meal, even though you felt all right, but you just couldn’t fit it in, see, so that was another

point you had to get used to. A bit disappointing, too for a wife or a mother, to you know, their sons come home and they cook him up a beautiful meal, and he couldn’t eat it. Well you know yourself, your mother hates to cook you a meal and you not eat it, see they like you to eat what they cook, because they take a lot of pride in their cooking. Oh but, they understood, it wasn’t they didn’t understand.

Had I?

Then.

I did lose weight in New Guinea, yes because I got some malaria and dysentery there, and I lost a stone and a half there. But, of course, I was still thin when I came back, But then, oh when I went into the army, I suppose, I was about what I am now, because I’m about my normal weight now. But after that I was all right, oh you recover.

Oh well, you were issued with Atebrin tablets, they didn’t use Quinine, Quinine was what was used before the war and after the war, but then I think there might have been the cost, or a shortage, but they brought out a table called Atebrin, and we used to have to take a tablet every day. And then you had a solution, a liquid solution,

to rub on your skin, to repel the mosquitoes. Oh yes, you used to do that. But of course you wore long sleeve shirts and so on, but then you put it around your face, on your hands, that sort of thing.

Oh no, it was an open tent, an open tent. Oh yes. The back would be

open, and unless it was hot, you might have had to open a little bit, but then, by the time you fitted everything in, you needed those walls, you know. Just like, if that was an open wall along there, you couldn’t fit anything in, whereas that you could put that there, and the piano there and so on.

Oh it was certainly hot, it was certainly hot at times. Oh no, I can’t remember

the insects worrying me, I can’t remember that. You see, they were, the mosquitoes would come at dusk, not during the day when someone had their mouth open.

Oh well, oh you dealt with that, just the same as you dealt in civvy life, when you were hot. Except of course you had some fans or air conditioning, whereas,

under those conditions, even the top brass didn’t have fans and things. Oh a lot of the top brass they lived in tents too. But then of course, they had staff to look after them a bit, but then, they were the top people that set the course of the war, so they had to be given a bit of priority, you know.

Oh no, you looked after yourself, looked after yourself. But, some sections had batmens and so on, but I never had any batmen of anything like that in New Guinea, I didn’t need, I didn’t need one or want one, I was quite happy. See if you were back at base with lots of those fellows, they had, someone looking after their boots, and all that sort of

thing, the top brass, they never cleaned their own boots and things. But no, no, I didn’t need that sort of thing.

Oh good fellows. As I was saying to Naomi before, Lyall Little he was my first CO, but, he was with us until we got to Townsville, then he left. Then there was a Colonel Lee, a First World War bloke,

he joined us. Then in Lae, he left us and went to an AGH in Morseby. And then we got a chap, Stan Meares, who was the third CO, lieutenant colonels they were. He finished up, I don’t know whether he was an obstetrician or a psychologist, one of the two, he finished up, he was down Sydney way.

The others were all, mostly Queenslanders, they were Queenslanders I think. There was Biggs and Ingalls, Ingalls finished up, he was a kidney specialist, Biggs was a GP and Connors was a gynaecologist. And then there was a Major Hill, he was, he was a gynaecologist. Tony, Tony, Tony, oh it doesn’t matter, he was a, he died early actually, he was an orthopaedic bloke.

Claudie Van was a surgeon out at Greenslopes. I saw him about, it might have been three or four years ago now, but, I don’t know how he’s going now, he was having a hip replacement. Oh no, they were all decent fellows, good blokes. One of the chaps Holmes, I think he eventually to Sydney, so I don’t know where he finished up. And then Dick Winnaflood who lives here, he was the pharmacist, he was the Chemist in the unit.

With them?

Oh well, you’d be amongst them when they were with patients. You had common health arrangements, you know, they could walk in when I was working, and I could walk in when they were seeing patients too, see it worked out that way. But see, with, with an Ambulance, with those fellows, if,

if there was any surgery that needed to be done, well then it was sent back to, to CCS and AGH hospitals, see they were there to look after them in the early stages.

Oh no, not of any note really, not of any note. You were just there, and help them more to lift patients,

and that sort of thing. Oh if they were doing something first aid, I’d help with a bit of cotton wool or the swab things, and so on, but other than that no.

Oh yes and no, you’d see what their job entailed. They were all nice fellows.

Good men. And pretty cluey to, I’d say, the lot of them. They were good blokes.

Oh no, not really. But see I’d been in practice for a few years, see for three years in the clinic and three years

in the, I was six years practicing before I went in, you see. So it would be different if you went straight in, so I was used to doing just that type of work. See I was a general practitioner, and that’s all you were doing in the army. But anything that was specialised like a broken jaw or something, was sent back to base, where you had your specialists there, your oral surgeons and

what have you, you know.

Oh well, you got that yes. Oh well, that’s part of general, general practice, you get that. Oh yes, you’d get a bit of that. But sometimes you’d have to, sometimes you’d extract, sometimes you’d drain the abscess out through the root of the tooth, and so on.

But we never had, you had a mild, it was pretty limited in those days, they were kept for bad cases, you know. We never had the, the number or quality of antibiotics, I suppose. Cause antibiotics took on after the war and were used right, left and centre. Now they don’t, they still them a lot, but they’re encouraged not to use them too much.

Oh well, we would have, we would have boiled our water, that Naomi asked me about. The water, I can remember now, I couldn’t at the first, we had water tanks, and the water we would have got from the creeks and so on. And then it would have been chlorinated, it would have had to be for drinking water and so on. But, oh no, we would have boiled up, I suppose,

we used kerosene laid lights and methylated spirits, you know, to heat up the water, to sterilise. No one died, at least today they wear gloves and masks, and everything. I don’t know, can’t remember any one getting any trouble through cross infection or anything like that.

Oh yes, we did have, we had a gown, I think you’d see it one of those photos. We just had a gown we used to put around, the nurse and myself. Oh no, you wore a gown. But that might have been as much as to protect yourself too, in case anyone spat out, or spat blood all over you, which does happen at times, oh no, you’d see that in that photo.

No, no, no, never heard of a mask. Oh back in base hospitals, naturally they would of, but not in the forward areas.

Oh no, because you’d carry your own,

your own equipment and your own tent and what not, you see. Which I’m sure would have been packed into one of the trucks or the ambulances, and it would have been taken outside and erected. So we would have used the same tent all the time, same equipment.

Oh no, not that I remember, I don’t remember it going missing.

Oh no, see naturally, I suppose, a lot of blokes did, I did, took a few favourite instruments that I liked, you know, that I used to, favourites that you have in practice. And I just had them in a little box in case I wanted them, some you know, little mountain pluggers and, some little cutters and tweezers, some forceps,

and things like that, in case you struck something that was difficult. Otherwise, they supplied us with all the equipment which was good enough.

No, I don’t remember hearing much about it, Naomi asked me that. But I can’t remember getting many reports, you know, because we didn’t have much,

communication anyhow, I never had a radio or anything. Oh but you knew, that we weren’t doing too bad when we were moving up, you see. Because see, the Japs were at Milne Bay, and they were, cleaned out of there, and over Rabaul, they were cleaned from there. Samarai Island, I went over to Samarai Island once, it was a pretty island, but knocked about by the Japs of course. I just went over, I snuck on a boat

and went over, but it was a place where a lot of lovely crotons and these coloured leaf flowers, trees, you know shrubs, used to lead to the hospital there. There’s beautiful shrubs there, and of course, they had the rain and the heat. But that was only a day trip across. But, then, see as you go up pass Buna, Gona and Sanananda and past Salamaua, we stayed a day,

you knew you were on your way, on your way up. And the Americans were on their way up, too. They were bypassing some of the, of course, they had a lot of ships and bombers to blast the place up.

Pardon.

Oh yes.

No, I never did work for them, but I did work with them, you know.

But I found the Americans good, good to talk to. But other than that, we weren’t, we weren’t, they were on their own really, they were on their own.

They had dentists with them, but I spoke to some of the dentists from the American army. Oh no, they were pretty good blokes.

Oh no, not really, what more could they do,

other than what we were doing, they were just looking after their troops.

As a matter of fact, I never saw any of their equipment, so I don’t know what they had. I’d imagine, in hindsight, that they would have had most of the best, which they did usually, didn’t they, they had the. Well, with the Americans, everything was bigger, wasn’t it.

Oh they certainly had equipment, certainly had equipment, with their ships and their bombers and so on. Oh, of course, they, MacArthur was the commander in chief, and they worked their way back up to the Philippines and those places.

Oh, probably not, I wouldn’t sign my

name to that. I just went across. Probably a few of us might have got the chance to go across in a boat, you know. Oh no, some of our troops were over there. I don’t know what I went over, that’s behind me, I can’t. I’m pretty sure I didn’t go over to work, it was just a trip over and back to look at it. It might have been just lucky to get the trip.

Oh well, there’s no such things as holidays, when you’re away in those places. Oh no, you’re just doing the same thing every day. Oh no, you don’t have holidays. To have holidays, you’d have to be sick or something and be sent back to Australia. Other that that, you just hung on.

Oh, we saw a few of them, there’s some photos there too,

and I think they would have been in New Guinea. What I came across in Borneo more, were civilians that had been right out in the bush, and, you know, had to get away from the Japs, and been mistreated by the Japs. And the, when the Japs surrendered, they came in to Laban where we were, and that’s why there’s some photos of me looking at a few kids teeth there, and some of the women I did a bit of work for. Oh no, but in New Guinea,

there’s some photos of the natives, the Fuzzy Wuzzies you’ve probably heard of. Oh no, they were very good, nice people.

Oh well, it was very simple, of course, very simple lifestyle. It was, I suppose like our own Aboriginals. They liked to get our food and what-not, they’d climb the tree, of course, for coconuts. Oh well, we’d get a few biscuits,

there was a canteen there, and we’d give them a few biscuits and those things, a bit of food.

Oh yes, their teeth were pretty black from the betel nut they used to have. They used to have a betel nut that they used to chew, and that used to make their teeth look horrible. Oh yes, their teeth looked horrible. But still, they didn’t taken any notice of that,

because most of them, were that way. If it wasn’t for the betel nut, of course, their teeth were all right, as far as I knew, you know. I saw some of them. Some of them liked to come and sit in the chair, you know, and give you a smile. They’d open their mouths and let you look at them, just jokingly, but they were all right. They were stained of course, but then, they weren’t eating the foods that would decay their teeth, except what the troops gave them, of course.

Be all right, yes. But that’s only a general statement because, I didn’t see many, just the odd one, just the odd one.

Oh, well I think their own food and their fibre and water would clean them. I don’t know that they ever used toothbrushes, I don’t think they did, not way back those days, they wouldn’t have, of course, not those days, they wouldn’t.

Oh any sugary, starchy foods. But of course, the troops didn’t get much of that sort of food, see they, we had bully beef and what they called M&V, which was meat and vegetables, all tinned stuff, of course. And hard biscuits, you know, which I didn’t mind, but

some did. But that was your staple diet, you, your army biscuits and your meat and vegetables and meat, you didn’t give much in the way of sweets or anything like that. So you were living on a diet that shouldn’t have rotted your teeth very much.

When I, when we were told we were leaving New Guinea.

See that’s vague too, but we would have had, see I would have been governed by my CO, you know. That my unit was to move, that the ambulance would have to move back to Australia. I think that was in , that would have had to be in 1944, and, we went to

to Moresby from Lae, and then we came home to Townsville, in an old, what they used to call a Douglas aeroplanes then, no seats or anything in it, we all just sat on the floor in the Douglas, you know. That was one point I remember, that a couple of Australian airmen, they didn’t’ think she was too worthy, too air worthy, and I think it was a Yankee bloke

eventually said he’d take it over, so it was a Yankee pilot I think who brought up back to Townsville. And we landed there, and then I was sent to Warwick from there, which was very cold after being in New Guinea. I think it must have been around about May, or so, or June. I wasn’t there that long, I don’t know how long, and then I was put to another unit up in Townsville, and I just thought I was, got settled, settled there,

using an electric drill and everything, then I was told I was going back to Brisbane to another unit, which was the one that eventually shot me off to Morotai. So, I only had that brief period in Townsville with the electrical drill, apart from my short stay in Chermside. Other than that, I was in tents and what-not, pedalling foot engines, tents and huts, of course. It would have been huts when I was at Strathpine.

Oh no, you, I tell you what. You were, well after being away like that, you imagine you’re so keen to get home, aren’t you, you were pleased to see someone take it up and come home. Oh, no, you were buoyed up to come home, you thought this is great, which it was too. It was great to land at Townsville,

oh you were pleased when you landed safely, because you’re flying over a lot of water between Moresby and Townsville. We did have a little storm on the, not far out from Townsville, I can remember that, where the plane just dropped like that, you know, that gave us a little fright, but it was only momentary, you know. Oh no, that part was all right, it was good.

Oh yes, yes. Oh yes, see I didn’t go away

away again until, oh it would be on that literature there. Look I’m not sure when I went to, when I went to Morotai. It probably would have been 1944 when we went to Morotai and then over to Borneo, see that was where the war finished, I was in Borneo, I was in Borneo when the war finished in August

1945. But then I didn’t leave there until December 1945, I left Borneo and came home.

Wonderful really, you can imagine it, great, especially when. She looked well and you felt good yourself, even though you were a bit thin and scrawny

looking, but, oh no, a great reunion. See that was when after, after Borneo you’re talking about now.

Oh, yes, yes, that was great too, my wife lived at New Farm, and mother lived at New Farm too. And I, I saw them both. One of the mistakes I did make, Naomi might be interested in this. I got off the train, and got out of a taxi,

and my mother lived in Heals Street, which was before you got to Foxthorne Court, where my wife lived, and I called in to see my mother first. And I, I suppose any woman, I always felt my wife didn’t think that was the right thing to do, to see my mother before her. We used to often laugh about that. Well my mother was old, and I just dropped in to her for half an hour, and then went on,

to see my wife. And, of course, she knew I was coming, and well you can understand me, when I told her I’d been in to see Mum, I think she was a bit hurt. That would be fair enough, wouldn’t it. But that was another thing, there was no argument about it, just a bit of disappointment.

I shouldn’t have told her, oh well, I was pretty open, I knew she wouldn’t mind.

No, no

she never came to Warwick. She was working, I saw her in Brisbane. I don’t know how long I had off before I went to Warwick, but I know I wasn’t there long, because I might have only been there a week. And then I came back to Strathpine and I used to see her there, of course, because that was part of Brisbane.

Well it would

have been, look I’m not sure about this, I’d have to look it up, but it’d be, the middle of 1944 or something like that. See that we were, that I was at. It’d be around about then, because I know then we went by ship then to Morotai.

Oh no, well I knew I had to go, so you accepted that. But I think I was a little disappointed that it all happened so soon, you see. Because there was a few dentists who were breaking their necks to go, to go overseas, and never got overseas. Whereas, I’d been over, and I thought I’m going again now. By the same token, you can understand with ambulances, they’re little units, well I suppose, and that’s not talking about myself, they would

would have perhaps have preferred blokes, that had the experience in army life over in New Guinea, wanting them to go to the other places. I don’t know that might have been the reason, I don’t know. But that would have all been done by army headquarters in Melbourne, I suppose. That’s where the headquarters of the Dental Corp were, was, I should say. Colonel Finney was there, he was the boss, and he might of, he would have picked who should go,

or who he wanted to go, and so on.

Oh, all right. I can’t remember, there again you don’t’ remember these things. You didn’t want to leave your wife naturally, but oh no, that was a little bit sad. I don’t remember too much of it. You know, once you know you’re drafted, you go. You don’t argue, you can’t argue. Unless you had some

great compassionate grounds, such as a sick child, or a sick wife, or something.

Well that was just on a basic boat, a basic boat. I couldn’t even tell you how long it took. All I know is that some fellows were sick, and some weren’t sick, on the boat.

No, that’s a bit of a blank

too, coming into Morotai. Oh it just would have been the normal thing, going. See I was a dental unit then, I wasn’t, and I just don’t know how all the equipment was carried. See it would have been taken probably in trucks, and lifted on the truck, on the boat, or taken on the boat, or separate plane, I don’t know. But we landed at Morotai, I don’t remember that much

about Morotai, except some of the fellows that I knew, you know. But basically there was no, I don’t think there were any other dentists on Morotai. See I was part of the dental unit, and there was six, six dentists in the dental unit, you see, and they were all scattered. A couple were from Adelaide, and I think one was from Melbourne, a couple from Queensland and so on. After we left Strathpine and I went to Morotai,

I don’t know where any of them went, I don’t know where any of them went. Even the CO of my unit, I don’t know where he was, I never saw him again, never saw him again. He’s not alive now, he practised in Newcastle, he came through here once with his wife, and I talked to him here. He had some sort of a cancer in his mouth, poor fellow, and he died.

Is that why the foot came up.

No, I can’t remember, had I known you were going to ask me something like that, I could have tried to find out for you. But, see there were

there were, artists and what not that used to come round to, to visit the troops, you see, and they made that little stage. I remember Gracie Fields and things used to come round to different things, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard her. I’ve heard one someone like her, oh and it was wonderful for the troops, including myself, to hear someone entertaining the troops, because as I said, there was nothing to do at night. Oh no, they served a very important

function, those people, there. But isn’t it amazing what you forget. When you’re 90, you’ll forget a lot to.

No I don’t to be honest, no I don’t know who performed there, I really don’t.

But you can imagine troops sitting around, that have been away for a long time, they’d clap and cheer and thought it was wonderful, which it was too. Oh no, they’re an important part of war those, to help morale which is a big thing, isn’t it, a big thing and anything, no matter what job you’re in.

Oh no, no, not unless you went into a place where there were a few graves. But other than that, we went by ship from one from Salamaua to Lae, so I never saw that sort of things. See a lot of those graves, I’m pretty sure, they had all those crosses and what-not,

those grave yards you might call them, they’ve been built up since the war. We’ve got to remember, we’re going back to 1943 and 1944, which is a long time. And see in the Borneo time, we were more or less, we weren’t getting bodies then, I was the dental unit not an ambulance, and we wer just there,

we were there, I suppose, oh as a staging camp looking after our prisoners that came back that were released, and also Japanese prisoners that were being sent back.

Dead bodies are you talking about? No, no.

Where battles had

taken place. Oh, well for sure you saw that, where trees had, subs had been blasted down, you’d see that. But then someone would go in before we went in, so they were the ones who’d see it.

Oh I suppose the terrain was different. As far as I remember now, at Milne Bay there was lots of coconut trees and so on. Whereas from memory, I can’t say I saw coconut trees at Lae, they were more around the other end. No I don’t think there was coconut trees, well possibly there would have been some,

but no I can’t remember seeing those.

What in Lae compared with Milne Bay, oh no, not really, not really. No, look it’d be much the same, see you could just. Of course in, in

oh no, I’d say it was exactly the same. It was more or less at that stage. It was getting to the stage where there was a lot more emergency work, except for people who were able to have the time to come in and get their teeth fixed up. Oh no, it was much the same I’d say, Naomi.

Oh well, it didn’t matter what time of the day or night, if it was emergency work, you did it. But, I don’t remember working at night, someone had a toothache, they’d know it during the day, get some time off.

Yes, that was from Lae.

Oh well see, that’s a point I wanted to make. I’ve never really seen Port Moresby, because we never left the airfield. We arrived at the airfield and that’s where we stayed, waiting to see if there was a plane. Everyone wanted to get on a plane, they wanted to get home.

Oh it would have been pretty basic in those days, I

should think. We weren’t interested in what the airfield looked like.

Oh yes, there was a few of each there, of course, yes, a few of each. But oh I can never remember it being crowded, or anything like that. Well you could imagine the conveniences that many years ago, it would be like Brisbane or anywhere, you know, it wouldn’t be anything upmarket.

You probably went in to some sheds, look I don’t remember that one, I can’t remember that at all.

See I don’t have much recollection of doing much work in Warwick, that was where I was sent to, to this other unit in Warwick. I don’t really remember

doing my dental work there, because we could have only been there a week perhaps, you know. And I don’t know exactly where I stayed, all I know was I was jolly cold. And in no time, then I was shot off to Townsville, which I didn’t mind getting out of the cold, because I suppose my blood had thinned and I was used to being in the tropics for so long. See to go to Townsville it was good, and to get into the dental unit,

I was attached to then, they were in a building in Townsville, and we had electric drills and everything, see, and I thought I was home and hosed. Then within no time, I was sent back to Strathpine.

Oh it would have been. Oh, it could have been a tent, it could have been a hut, I don’t know.

I think it was a tent.

Oh there would have been a few troops around there. But see, I was a fellow that came home and saw my wife and then I was shot up there, I probably wasn’t interested in Warwick. It was more or less a staging camp, I suppose, where people were sent before they tried to reorganise

your life and tell them where you were going to next. See it wasn’t a permanent station, so I realised that later on. You were just posted to there.

There’s some rain fell, oh it won’t be much

I don’t think.

When are you talking about now, from?

From before the war you mean?

Well Brisbane would have had a lot of troops there, wouldn’t they. But there again, I wasn’t in Brisbane a lot, you see.

When I left Chermside originally and went to, I’m talking about the city itself now. But then, after we left Warwick and went to Townsville and then back to Strathpine, there. Well, apart from coming in to see my wife in New Farm, I wasn’t in the city much, there was nothing to go to the city for, really. So I never saw much of the city.

Oh, Townsville was just full of troops, American troops and Australian troops, it was chock a block. See I saw Townsville a few times, because we went into Townsville a few times, you know.

Oh, we’d wander around or we might have gone in on one of the ambulances with a patient, or to,

they might have gone to get some supplies, and I might have gone with them, if I was free enough. Oh no, there was a lot, a lot of troops there in Townsville. But see that’s going back though, that’s going back that was before I went to New Guinea.

I didn’t go to Townsville twice. We went from, no, we went from Toorbul Point there, of course, near Bribie Island to Townsville, then to Milne Bay and finished up in Lae, then back. And then to Warwick, and then from Warwick,

to Townsville, oh that’s right, to Townsville you’re right, from Warwick to Townsville, but for perhaps a couple of weeks or something like that. Then I went to Strathpine, back to the foot engine pedalling.

Oh well see, I was in practice for six years, so I’d had all those things in practice for six years. But then, when w e were students

we used the foot engines. There were some electric drills, but you were lucky whether you got one or not, or you were allotted one. But no, there’s nothing much I can tell you about the electric drills there. See in those days, early days, Naomi, you used the same burr, the drill itself was the same for the electric drill,

as it was for the pedal drill machine, you see. The only thing is it went faster and it cut better, and as long as you got new drills, you see. But the high speed drills, of course, they were a different kettle of fish, and they used diamond drills which cut.

In Townsville, oh just troops.

Yes, the second time. But see the first time I was there, I was in the ambulance that’s the difference. I was in the ambulance out in the bush, out on the road to Charters Towers. But the second time I was there, I was in a building where we had an electric drill, see, there’s a couple of dentists there and myself, and troops used to come in, they were sent in.

Oh you miss some of the mates, because you develop a friendship with them. Oh yes, you develop that, you develop that friendship. And you realise especially, even though its nice, it was heaven to get out and use an electric drill and whatnot, in a normal building and normal hours, you look back on it all, I suppose, and I was lucky I was in an ambulance and the unit that did go away. And see I wasn’t knocked around,

I think it was a better, a better part of your life, you know.

That was in, that only happened one attack, and that was in Milne Bay.

Oh terrible, see because I had dysentery with it too. I lost about a stone and a half in weight, which you didn’t’

pick up then until you got home, because you were living under pretty harsh conditions. But after the war of course, even when you’re back home and settled down and living here now, at times you felt, you knew what it was, and you’d get malaria, and just bouts of it, but you’d feel lousy, but only for a few days or a week or something. You might get a few quinine tables or something like that.

No, oh no. What it did do if you saw it, not with all the troops, some of them more than others, it made them very yellow-looking. It was supposed to be compulsory to take them, but some of them didn’t take them, they shot them out in the bush or something like that, they were a bit frightened to take them.

No, but some went very quite yellow.

No, I took mine.

Not particularly, you’d think I would because I’m fairer skin, but I didn’t. But there you are. It’s like everything in life, why do you pick up a cold when your sister doesn’t and you’re living in the same house. And sometimes you’ll pick up the flu and no one else has got it, and other times people around you have got the flu, and you don’t get it. But there was one fellow in the ambulance,

well I believed him, but he told me after the war, that he hardly ever took an Atebrin tablet, he was frightened it would affect him, and he never got malaria, so there you are.

No, no, she loved me too much.

Oh no, she never thought that. Oh that’s wonderful the homecoming, you know. And she was staying at Foxthorne Court, that I told you. It’s not Moreton Street, I don’t think it’s Moreton Street, it’s roundabout there, it might have been Moreton Street, it’s an old brick building, it’s still there, I saw it recently. If you’re down at New Farm, you pass Foxthorne Court. It’s on the right hand side, going from Brunswick Street,

straight out. But no, there was one, two, three, four girls were flatting together there.

They didn’t ask much, people didn’t ask, I found that people didn’t ask many questions, it was. Well I talk more today more than I ever have in my life.

Don’t know why. But you just,

I just never ever talked about war, I don’t think I ever talked war to my wife. I don’t know why, some people liked to talk about. You might find in your talks, you must find that some don’t mind talking about everything. Do you find that? Or do you find some are more reticent about it. Some don’t want to remember it, and some do. No, I

with my family, they would probably say Dad doesn’t talk about the war, you know. If you ask questions, you don’t deny it or hesitate, you know.

I don’t know. I can’t ever remember her asking me anything about the war. I would have told her somethings,

she always knew where I was, she knew I was in New Guinea, and she knew I was in Borneo, and so on. Oh no, I suppose she didn’t want to know, well you wouldn’t tell her anything in your letters, you weren’t supposed to, you wouldn’t want her, you wouldn’t tell her in your letters that you were sick or I wouldn’t have told her I went to hospital, oh she knew later of course. But I wouldn’t have told her,

I went to hospital, I would have written her a letter from the hospital telling her nothing was wrong, you wouldn’t want to upset her.

About going back to Morotai and Borneo. Oh well, you went where you were told to go, you know,

drafted as you might say, drafted to different dental units. And then that dental unit went overseas, and well for the life of me, I don’t know where the rest of them finished, because there were six or seven in that unit, and I wouldn’t have seen them again, because I went to Morotai and then over to Labuan in Borneo, and I was the only dentist there, because it was more or less just a POW [Prisoner of War] camp, you see.

No, no. I didn’t bring home anything different. The only thing I brought home was a Japanese sword, I was given that by a fellow, from Maryborough, he was in the Commandos, he was in the Commandos, they were the real, tough guys, they were behind the Japs troops. And I always remember him telling me, they came up against a few Japs,

and they told the Japs the war was finished, yes, three of four Japs they found, you know. And he gave me this Japanese officers’ sword, and look it hung in my shed for a long time there, and there was a fellow here who was collecting them, and I, my family said to me what did you do that for, that would have been worth a lot of, money, which it would have been, you know, because it had, some of these Japs had good swords and salvagers, and

a few little jewels on the end of it, you know. This bloke, Dougie Burns was his name, he wanted to bring it home, and he lived in Maryborough and he used to work in insurance here. So I must have put that in with my goods coming back from Borneo, and it just hung in the shed, and I thought why keep it, when someone wants to collect these things, so I gave it to him. See a lot of the Japanese, you might

see photos, a lot of their officers wore a sword at their side, and it depends on how high a rank they were, whether it had a few jewels on it, you know.

Well, I can’t tell you much about Morotai, because I’m sure we weren’t there long, and I don’t think I did much dentistry there. It was more or less a staging camp too,

to go to Borneo. Because when we went to Borneo then, we, we went in a convoy, we went on a convoy of ships with Americans. Look, I’ve often thought over this, but I’m certain General MacArthur was on one of the ships, he was out in front on one of the ships. But still he probably knew he was really safe, because they had ships in front that blasted everything, every tree on the shore, see he wouldn’t, you wouldn’t expect him to take,

take too many risk, but he was out the front, I’m certain he was on that. See Morotai, I think, was a staging camp getting ready to go. So, if I looked up the registry it’d show me how long I was on Morotai, of course. To me, those things don’t worry me. I just think in general terms, of I was on Morotai then I went to Borneo.

Oh Borneo was

all right. It was easier, I felt quite safe in Borneo, because it was more or less. See, the war finished then after we got there, and that’s when this fellow came and gave me the Jap sword, and that’s when you see me treating these kids and so on.

Oh, well you thought it was wonderful. But you knew that, you knew that we were winning, but see, what finished it was

dropping the bomb, wasn’t it, on Hiroshima, you see. That was always controversial, whether we should have dropped that atomic bomb. But then by the same token, where we better to drop that, or just keep with conventional warfare and probably lost hundreds of Australian lives, you see. So it, that was for someone else to judge. So once the war was finished, see that was the fifteenth of August, and then I spent August, September

October, November, December see. I was four months in Borneo after it finished, and that was probably when I was treating these kiddies and these soldiers that were coming back. Our soldiers and the Japs in trucks.

Hmm,

that’s a question, that would soon get around of course. At that stage of the war, they’d be broadcasting with whatever equipment they had, you know. What I was attached to there in Borneo, was, I don’t know whether you’d call it a staging camp, or a prisoner of war camp, or what you’d call it. There were prisoners of war on both sides.

See ours that they were trying to look after, you know, and I did a little bit of work for some of them, that wanted a little bit of work. But then, you can imagine them, after the war and the way they were treated, they weren’t interested in dentistry or anything, all they wanted was to get away out of the place, you could understand that. But the trucks our Australian Army trucks, full of Japanese prisoners, they were,

I can vividly see them standing in the trucks with our guards, but then I don’t know how they, where they took them to, down to our headquarters there, and that’s the last I saw them, I didn’t want to see them, didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

Oh well I will, and you can have one too.

You’re getting dry now.

Well I missed them all, I didn’t see anything. See because the war finished on the fifteenth of August, and I didn’t get home til December.

Well that’s another point. It was just, as far

as I can remember, Naomi, it was just, we were all so happy that it was all finished and that we’d eventually be coming home. But that’s all I can remember, there was no great throwing your hats in the air, or anything like that. Everyone was more or less, just a sense of relief. But I know, well you wouldn’t be alive, back in Australia and in Maryborough, and everywhere, there were all sorts of car horns blowing and lights and everything going on,

I think, from what they tell me, but I missed all of that, I wouldn’t have a clue what went on.

Parties everywhere so I’m told, but even then, I haven’t gone into detail on that, ask a lot of questions. As I say, I was so relieved and pleased and knew that I was going to come home, and failing an accident on the way, I’d be home safe and sound, and back with my mother and my wife, and so on, you know, lovely, beautiful.

Up there. Not that I remember, not that I can remember, I can’t remember anything like that. Of course, there were a few civilians there with these children, that would have been out in the bush and were treated pretty crudely by the Japanese, even though I don’t think they slaughtered them or anything, but they treated them very much inferior, so they would be

pleased that the Japs would be gone, see, and so were we. So all we were interested in, and the rest of my unit too that I was concerned with, they were just anxious to get home.

Oh well, you mixed around amongst them, and of course, a lot of those kids they’d hang around the dental tent,

you could see that, you could see how that’s open. They’d hang around and they’d see you treating people, and they thought it was great to get into a chair, a lot of them, and they’d open their mouth and they’d let you look into their mouth, and you’d let them look into your mirror and what not. But you might have just run a brush around their mouths or something like that, you see, just to clean them. But those chairs, they were fixed, you know those chairs where you pump them up and down, we used to, you couldn’t pump them up, that was a certain level, you couldn’t pump those chairs,

whereas the chairs when I was working before the war, you used to pump them up and down with your feet, now of course, they’re all electric. You used to pump them up, there was a lever you’d press to let them down. But those days, whether you were tall or short, you sat at same level, there was no variation in the height of the chair. Oh no, those children and a couple of the mothers that I treated there,

there were some Dutch amongst them, different races, they were just captured in New Guinea.

Oh, they’d just laugh and smile. At that stage, with the war finished with, we were relaxed and so pleased, we could talk to our own soldiers that were coming back through there. Oh no, the kids.

well all those kids are lovely, they’re lovely, you’d see a lot of little dark kids, and its their innocence, they’re so simple. See it’s like, will you please, I suppose that’s what we like in children, their innocence, not thinking about any spiteful things when they’re just running around as little ones, the whole world is lovely for them.

Oh no, the dental tent, I don’t know whether it showed it in those, it might in those ones there, I don’t know whether it shows the dental tent was on the beach, and I remember once, we moved our tent poles in a bit, because the tide was coming in on us, we were so close to the beach. Oh,

no, that part in Borneo, that wasn’t any great, great hardship, see. No-one cared whether they, oh you had to do your job, but no-one cared whether they did a lot of work, or whether they were ordinary soldiers, or whoever they were, you see. And with the staging camp, they had their jobs to do, and we had ours, just tried to enjoy life. But I can’t remember thinking much in that August, September,

October, November, December, I was home three weeks before Christmas. Well, I just don’t remember. Oh doing anything different, it was just so relaxed, that everything was finished, and that we’d be all coming home, then.

Oh no, no, no, I never had that. See when any places we went to, we might have had natives, as I say, that climbed trees and things, and be running around, but other than that, you’d see a few in Lae. But in Borneo then, there wasn’t quite so many natives, it was, oh Dutch and all these other people that were probably working

in Borneo at the time, see that we saw. Oh no, Borneo wasn’t a hardship. Well imagine having your tent right on the seashore, that would suit you.

No, no.

No I don’t remember wildlife, and I don’t remember anyone fishing to be honest, they must have fished around there, can’t remember fish.

We still had the same diet, we didn’t get any, any different food as far as I remember. But you accepted that, and the cooks, as I say, they dished it up, it’s like giving a tin of salmon and eating it out of a tin, or else making some sort of a dish with it, you know, putting a bit of onion and a bit of tomato, and make a rissole. There was a chap originally in the ambulance, Ozzie Pickworth, he was a cook, and I never knew

til after the war, he had a golf club there with him, and he used to hit a ball around here and there. And after the war, I saw this Ozzie Pickworth’s name and I think he was an Australian Champion, so he was obviously a good golfer before he joined the army, but he was a cook. So you don’t know who you’re talking to sometimes, and he was in the ambulance, one of the cooks in the ambulance.

Oh yes, then it was back home of course.

Yes.

Ah no, all I can say about them, was they were very nice guys and you could imagine the relief, because they had lost so many, you know. So many of their mates had died, didn’t survive, very few survived

all these conditions that they had, and they were shifted around. And they had to march for miles, and they were sick and so on. They, oh no, I did a little bit of work for some, but then they weren’t, they didn’t feel well enough and they weren’t interested in dentistry, unless they had a sore tooth. All they were interested in was getting back home. See some of them were Indians, see and some were

British blokes, there’s one in a photo there of one of the British blokes, a beautiful style of bloke. But there were Indians.

No, oh well by that stage they were so relieved, that they didn’t’ want to talk about their experiences. We knew it was tough, but we didn’t hear about that until after the war. No, great people. Those Indians were

nice fellows, the ones that I saw, straight they were upright. Even thought they were thin, emaciated, but they were nice people. Good people, they were disciplined people, too.

Oh not, not bad, they were, they were, pretty good, because they didn’t eat food, I think it might have been your mate I said that to. You see, they wouldn’t have got food to rot their teeth, they

weren’t given any apple pie or anything, see, pastries and so on. And amazing enough, as I said before, one of the things that stuck in my mind, is they, I used to think they must have had terrific heads, but they didn’t have headaches they said. See because, I think it’s because they weren’t eating a lot of junk food and they weren’t eating too much, you know. We probably eat too much, you know, see, we, we

we probably didn’t need all the biscuits and things we ate, we could do without them. But, its like Aboriginals teeth, they go to pieces because they’re all on our diets, you know. Like I can remember reading an article about the amount of diabetes in Aboriginals, and they did get a group of them, this is going back a while, they got a group of them and put them back on their own food on their own land, and it corrected their diabetes. But then

you don’t want to eat witchetty grubs and things, do you.

Malnutrition. Oh, well you’d think it should. But I can’t think that their life up there, affected their teeth much. See you’d get another dentist and he might say of course it did, but I wouldn’t say that it did. The only thing,

with their gums, if they didn’t keep their teeth cleaned, well then their gums could get infected and inflamed. But as far as, unless its in some places where they got onto some sweets, they just eat their basic foods and they don’t really cause the decay.

Oh well that would have been, I suppose, I suppose, we knew the war finished in August, so we knew we wouldn’t be too long, even though four months is a fair time, wasn’t it. But I suppose that was our job was to stay there with our troops coming through. We just accepted it, I can’t remember being disappointed being there those last few months. I can’t remember even think of

celebrations and so on. It was just, you can imagine it was such a relief, wasn’t it, after all that time. See, it was really, it was four years out of my life, well that’s a fair time, isn’t it, yes four years. But I haven’t got any regrets, no regrets, oh no.

No, well you make decisions in life, and you accept them, then.

The POW’s.

I think that would be pretty varied. See I wouldn’t know that, being with them, see. I should imagine the Japs wouldn’t be issuing them with

toothbrushes, but I suppose those that were keen enough, and. Well they had such very little food to wash off their teeth, but I could imagine they would, and they had very little water, see, they were not going to get enough water to drink, I guess they would just rinse their mouth out. You know there were some dentists that were prisoners of war, Stuey Simpson, I don’t even know whether he’s alive now, but I shouldn’t think he was, he would be alive, but he was in my year of

dentistry, and he was a prisoner of war to the Japs. I always used to see him, I used to go and see him in Brisbane, then we lost contact, but it knocked him around a lot, some it affected being POWs, you know, I think all the Jap POW’s. I think it all depended where they were, oh no, they were bad.

The ones that came through?

Oh no, no, not look at that stage, I didn’t know really about all these atrocities, you know, like the railway, Burma and the way they treated them in Singapore and some places, you know. One of my mates that was here

Johnny Withers, I always remember a statement he made, I don’t know whether, whether he was a prisoner of war and his brother too. And he said that some of the Japanese treated them all right, but the, but those that were in Sandakan and those places, they were treated very harshly. I don’t know whether it was, in the Philippines or where it was, but some of the Japs were Christians, he said, and they seemed to be, a bit kinder, you know.

But then of course, they weren’t allowed to treat their enemies too well.

Oh well, they were very thin, very thin, and wane looking, and weak, that would be the word I’d use, they were weak. Even the few Indian blokes, and the Scottish bloke

that I always think had a wonderful carriage, he still wasn’t strong, he still, he didn’t look too bad. But then, if he went to step over that cord, he’d be stepping over very carefully, you know. Oh its amazing how they picked up, when they got a bit of food into them. But I don’t know what results some of them got later. Some of them did well, some of them didn’t, you know.

Oh no, see, I didn’t see a lot of our POWs, I saw a reasonable number. But there where I was, eventually see I was there for four months after the war had finished, well a lot of the people that I was treating was those kids that had a ride in the chair

and also you’d have a look at their teeth, and give them a look in the mirror, and I treated some of the civilians, and what not, you just treated anyone who wanted some work done. Because there was a feeling amongst the troops, they weren’t interested in teeth or anything, they were just so happy that the war was finished, see that one day they’d be going home.

Oh it was wonderful.

My wife’s parents lived over the other side of the mangoes and when I came home from Borneo, I came straight to here. She was other there staying with her parents, and I went over to there for a little while. And then, that was in December, I was home for Christmas, I had Christmas there. And then of course, my wife and I, we went down to Brisbane and stayed with my

mother while I was discharged. See I wasn’t discharged until February, you know, they gave us some leave and then you had to report back to Redbank in Brisbane, and I was discharged from there. So it was wonderful to come home, see. And then of course, after that I came back to Maryborough, to my old practice.

A friend of mine stored my equipment while I was away, and I set up close by. I was upstairs there at Trustee House, where, you might notice the Memorial Hall, the Church of England Hall there in town. There’s a hotel on one corner, and then Trustee House on the third corner spot, there’s a paper shop downstairs still, so I was up there then, from 1946.

I came to, I stayed with my wife’s parents, just for a little while. We were going to build a house in town, in those days, you couldn’t get a roof, you couldn’t get a water pipe, you couldn’t get anything. And my wife’s sister, her husband, had an accident going over to Fraser Island, in those days. He slipped down some stairs on a boat and he never heard a sound from then onwards. So they went and lived with, they lived in this

house, this was their house, and they went and lived the, with her parents, and my wife and I brought this house, brought this house. Oh, it was an open plan and we did it in, and so on. But there was just a bitumen road, no gutters or anything like that, it wasn’t sewered or anything, in those days. That’s why we came here,

we thought we were going to live here for a while, until such time we built a house and what not. But then gradually we got to like it, and that was in March 1946 when we came to live here, and we’ve been here ever since.

No, I didn’t, I can’t remember finding it

that hard to settle in. No, no. We had a lot of old friends, oh your life was a bit quiet, bit quiet. But then we went out a bit, then eventually we went out a lot to all the balls and dances and things like that, it was very good. Oh no, oh no, we weren’t social people or anything, my wife wasn’t and I wasn’t.

But we still went to the balls and that sort of thing, we went out, they were good days, those days.

Well, no, I couldn’t say that. Well as a matter of fact, recently, only about, it would have been this year, I got a letter from Veterans Affair, saying you’ve got a, Veterans

Affairs Gold Card, but you haven’t got any, the letters’ there, telling me that that I didn’t have any disabilities, or any disability allowance, and saying if I. They try to be good to you, you know, but I don’t have any disabilities I can blame the war on, so I don’t get any disability allowance. The Gold card, the Veterans Affairs Gold Card, that’s a repatriation card, it’s a health card,

that’s handy, you know, you can get any health on that. But oh no, I’ve been pretty happy, I’ve had a broken arm, I’ve had a broken leg. I broke my leg mowing the lawn down there on the hill, between the gutter and the hill, and I slipped, went down on my bottom and fractured my leg through here. As a matter of fact, that was 1979, about 25 years ago, something like that,

I’ve still got the nuts and bolts through there. But it’s only been this year that I’ve felt the leg weaker, for some reason, but that might be old age too.

Oh yes, dentistry has changed.

Oh well, you got much better materials, better anaesthetics, better disposable syringes, I suppose than needles,

you’ve got dry heat sterilisers, you know. Oh well, then they’re got the high speed drills that we didn’t have, even just after the war we didn’t have them, and that makes life much easier. They do much more crown work and bridge work now than they used to, and the materials are good, you know, materials are good. The earlier materials are the ones they changed, see you don’t see a lot of

gold fillings now, do you. See they’ve got a lot more natural coloured materials, which are better and stronger and harder and so on. But there was a growing stage with those, when they first came out, a lot of them were soft and worn away, and others that would staining, you know, now food doesn’t stain them, oh no, it’s all different now. But I haven’t done any dentistry,

for over 20 years. I did a little bit, I was 68 when I gave it all away, but for the last couple of years or so, I just did old patients. See you can retire, like keep the practice going and working like steam and sell it, or you can ease yourself out, so we had a long hard think about that, and decided to just ease myself out, you know.

And just then worked. See in our earlier days we worked Monday to Saturdays, and we worked Saturdays too, you know. You worked eight o’clock in the daytime til six at night. Well then, when you ease yourself out, you work four days and then three days, got out that way. I had another couple of dentists with me for a while, but then they moved on.

Oh well, oh you’d soon learn that, because. Basically now with the extractions, the forceps are really the same now, or I think they are, as they ever were, practically the same. And even if they did change, you had your own little instruments that you, you just liked, but somebody else might not like.

When high speed drills came in, well you just had to get used to them. They were heaven to use them, but you just had to be careful because of the speed of them, you know. Oh no, that part was all right, that was quite all right.

Oh it’d be gradual, I don’t know what year.

See that’s too long back now for me to tell you what time. See the high speed drill was one of the big things that came in. See we already had x-rays, and things like that. See all those things, you’d improve x-rays, I can remember the first x-ray I ever had, it was a German one and had a high tension wire on it, you had to be careful, you’d get flashes from that. And you could of, it didn’t affect me, but I suppose it was a bit of radiation from

those things too. But then now, it’s all closed and quite safe. But I got rid of that after time and got a smaller one, you know. I said to one of you before, you had steriliser where you boiled the water for, then you got dry heat sterilisers, which were more efficient. Then you didn’t have to be boiling up your syringes and needles, because everyone got their own

needles, disposables, see chucked them out, hundreds of them, see use them once, and you knew they were sharp and so on.

Oh chairs changed, because they got lay back chairs. Oh that was a fair bit later on. A lot of dentists didn’t like, including myself, didn’t like the lay back chairs so much, because, especially with an extraction, where instead of working

that way, the patient was lying back. And a lot of patients I found, didn’t like being right back, even though the other chairs you could let them back, but not these streamline ones. Of course, it’s like anything else, whether you do your dentistry any better with those sort of things or not. But I suppose there’s progress, and fellows produce these things, or they spend a lot of money setting up today. But then by the same token, I suppose,

for the hours we worked and the fees we got, it might be a bit comparative. You might pay a lot more equipment, but they charge a lot more too, today.

Oh I suppose, coming home to my wife, I suppose.

Which would be natural, wouldn’t it, I suppose. Oh yes, and the relief that the war was finished. And even before it was finished, the fact when you were leaving Lae and New Guinea to come back to Moresby to come home, that was a great relief too, you see. Oh, and then you had the fellowship of the fellows, you know. Oh no, there was a lot of friendships amongst

service personnel.

Work time?

Oh worst time memories of the army. Oh, it’s hard to put a finger on your worst times. You sort of went where you were told to go, you were posted to a unit, you were sent overseas or you weren’t. As I said before, some

never went overseas, some that enlisted before me, never went overseas. Yet I was over much more than I was home, you see. But there we are, you were away from the big brass, and so on, when you’re were away like that, and I was lucky that way. Oh no, I didn’t find it that hard to adapt, but you were certainly lonely and you missed your friends, you missed your family, and

so on. But, wonderful to be home. But as I say, when I got home, all the festivities, there were no festivities, nothing. We got home, I think it was the twenty-first or twenty-second of December, it was just a couple of days before Christmas, I was home for Christmas, so that was great to be home for Christmas. And

my wife’s parents were very nice people.

Oh yes, yes. But I’ve never, I’ve never. I’m in Legacy and you probably know what Legacy is, that’s where we look after the widows and children, and I’ve been in that since 1949. And I’m still in Legacy and I go to the RSL Retirement Village here, and we’ve got 50 Legacy widows there.

It’s a very wonderful complex there, the RSL [Returned and Services League] care here, there’s 100 self-contained units, and then there’s 90 hostel units, which gives them high care and low care and special care, you know, for those with dementia and those that are nursing home people and so on. So, I go up there every week and see a lot of the widows. I used to see widows all around the place, but I gave all that away,

and said I’d just look after the ones at Chelsea, so I see those, you know.

Pardon.

Oh well, they love a visit, and every year we give them a Christmas party which was last Tuesday, give them a luncheon, generally give them a calendar each year, and a tin of biscuits or something. Oh it’s amazing, as a matter of fact, I was rung today from Chelsea,

one of the widows died yesterday from up there, she, she hasn’t been well but I didn’t expect her to die. But then, I’ve got others there, that you, you help around, some of them are on walkers, some are on wheelers. But then there’s a lot of them, then that you, oh you visit all the time, they don’t want you to pester them, but they love to see you, that’s what I find, they love to see you and say hello. Oh well, some of them, we don’t have the same work as we used to see in my younger days.

Well a lot of these widows were younger and they had children, you see. And in those days there wasn’t the social security and handout society they have today, with. We used to be buying the kids bikes, and giving them food vouchers, giving them money, some of them couldn’t handle money, so you’d give them vouchers on stores. Of course, people knew more about the war then, so Legacy was easier to run,

and we’d. Oh for example, a circus would come, we’d see the circus and they’d give us a few passes, so we’d take the kids with the passes. Now we don’t have as many kids, of course, naturally. But oh no, it’s one of the highlights of my life when I look back on things, it’s a great organization.

Only the Dawn Patrol, I’ve never marched in the other one. Perhaps a bit embarrassed to march down the street, where everyone’s looking. But at the Dawn patrol, it’s a short walk, and well there’s only a few people in the streets, and I think it’s the nicest of the lot, the Dawn Patrol. It’s the nicest, it’s quiet. Oh we used to go, the RSL put it on now, it’s not as good. I didn’t go last year,

I didn’t go last year, that’s the first year I missed for a long time. I always remember, how we were talking about having a drink before. I always thought how could you have a beer at half past four or five o’clock in the morning, and these fellows talked me into it, you know, going to this house and they’d have a few beers and some prawns and, you know, that sort of thing. Then we moved from the house to the Military

Hall, and then we used to go to the Wide Bay Club and so on. Each year, that was a highlight after the March, we’d all go, of course, we’d all have a few drinks, oh they’d tell stories, then of course, some are story tellers, I was never much good at telling jokes, story tellers. And then we’d have a feed, and our wives then, as it got bigger, they used to make all these dishes, casseroles and what not, we’d all take a casserole and

put it on the counter and all mixed up, and help ourselves to the casseroles. Oh no, it was quite good, they were lovely memories in those days. The trouble now is, that most of my friends, they’ve gone or they’re not well, there’s not many of the original Legacy blokes left, well you can imagine that. See, we’ve got younger blokes

in, like Vietnam, Korea blokes and so on.

Good, they’re good, oh no, they mix in.

Oh well, I suppose if you knew me, I supposed, I’d be embarrassed walking along, those people cheering, I didn’t like it.

So I, anyhow then, I liked the dawn one. Oh plenty of them went to the dawn one, and then came and had breakfast and then went back and marched in the ten o’clock one. But I never did.

Oh my wife?

Oh life, I was going to say. Oh no, you went were you were sent, you did your job, and you know, some of the experiences you remember and others you forget, you know. But as I’ve told you pretty well now, what I did and where I went, there is very little I could add to it, that I could remember.

Oh, quite happy and relaxed. I’ve never been sorry that I was in it, you know, you feel you did the right thing. I mean not being nationalistic, but I feel you should have offered and if you were accepted, well that’s all right, and you were pleased that you were in it, because so many of your mates were in it, and you feel that you did your little bit. Not that I’ve got anything against blokes that

didn’t go, because a lot of blokes wasn’t in their nature, and apart from that, a lot of them were in protected industries that wanted to go, and couldn’t go, you see. Oh yes, see police couldn’t go, they were kept. A lot of the tradesmen, the walkers, fitters and turners and engineers they wanted them back home, see everyone couldn’t go. Some farmers had to grow food, didn’t they. So that worked out all right