Memories of Bob Dennis I arrived in Batchelor from Darwin in 1957 to start an electrical apprenticeship with T.E.P. at the Rum Jungle mine. My family lived in Darwin and my mother’s brother Uncle Boyne Litchfield was in Batchelor with Aunty Glad, cousins Peter, Janet, Judy and Kevin. Some of the first people I met were the mine manager John Tonkin, the mine engineer John McGuire, personnel officer Terry Palmer (who was an incredible character), first aid officer Tom Hall (who helped me get my driver’s licence) and the electrical foreman Jack Climo. I lived in the single men’s quarters, first in Chinatown and then in one of the blocks that was closest to the mess. My interpretation (which may not necessarily be correct) of the people living in the single men’s quarters, in fact in the whole of Batchelor, at that time, was that they were from different walks of life. There were those that were looking to save some money for their future life, some single and others married with their families with them, or elsewhere in Australia, or overseas. There were those that were making a career of working in the mining industry. There were locals, such as Boyne, Max Sargent, Bill Childs, Burge Brown and Clary Lachlan and their families that were continuing their Territory lifestyle. There were people that lived there because of their vocation such as police (Pat Salter’s name comes to mind), Medical and Postal Staff etc. Some others, I remember were escaping from something or other, to live in an isolated community. My apprenticeship was a memorable one and will always remain as one of the highlights of my life. My memory of some of the people and activities are a bit vague, but I will try to do my best to account for some of them. An electrical apprenticeship in the mine allowed me to cover a much wider range of technical skills than apprentices in an urban environment. Some of the skills and mentors that I experienced include: - telecommunication, working with Jack Hooker; motor rewinding, with Sid Blacklock; the operation and maintenance of power stations, with Arthur Ogden; refrigeration, with none other than Brian Bailey; fitting and turning in the machine shop, with Andy Willox, electrical control systems and maintenance, with John Richardson and mechanical fitting in the mill under the guidance of Les Woolcock. There were other areas of experience that I picked up along the way such as power-line construction and maintenance; working in and around the open-cut excavation and adit, exploration underground mineshafts. Sport took up much of my leisure time. I played a bit of tennis and remember the School headmaster, Max Koehne, was also a master at tennis. However, hockey was my favourite sport. I remember some great players – Brian Kosovich, Jack Carey, Terry Palmer, Brian Bailey, Pel DeJong, Bruce and Brian Jones, Ken Plane and the list goes on. The Rum Jungle Hockey team was included in the Darwin Hockey tournament, so there were many excursions in the mine bus to Darwin to play against other teams. Some of our Rum Jungle players were included in the Darwin A & B grade teams to travel to Mount Isa and play their combined teams. I was selected in the Darwin B grade and travelled to Mt Isa with a Darwin selected A grade team member, Brian Kosovich, in his car with other Rum Jungle participants. The hockey tournaments were held annually, at Easter one year in Darwin and the next year in Mt Isa. This trip was a memorable one where everyone got to know each other better and had a lot of fun. I cannot remember the results but the games were always close. I was also involved in scouting. As a member of the Australian Lone Scouts, I earned the Queen’s Scout Award, the first person in the NT to receive this award, which was presented to me by the NT Administrator, Mr. Archer. With the help of the local parents, we started the first Cubs and Boy Scouts in Batchelor. Boyne Litchfield was the overall Group Scout Master and I became the Scout Master. Some of the scouts’ names that I can remember were Jimmy Brown, Paul Hodgkinson, Les Hall, Johnny Scrutton, David Sargent, Benny Latin, Willy (from Meneling Station) and Kevin Litchfield. We had a lot of fun training the boys in Scouting and helping them to develop by earning various awards. Boyne was a huge asset in teaching the scouts bush survival skills. Boyne would go outside the Scouting Manual and show the boys how to use items from the bush to construct items for survival with only a knife. Another interesting opportunity for me whilst living in Batchelor was being a relief operator of the movie projectors in the local cinema. The main operators at that time were Laurie Hoad, Jack Hooker and John Richardson. I also learnt to dance, both old time and rock-and-roll in Batchelor with Sue Plane (Hodgkinson), Janet Dickinson (Litchfield), Judy Buggy (Litchfield) and Barbara & Wendy Sparks, with the blokes Charlie Jefferies, Noel Dickinson, Brian and Neil Kosovich. Other than my relations, the best mate I had there was fitter and turner apprentice Peter Hall. We got up to a lot of mischief together. I visited my parents in Darwin on as many weekends as I could, particularly when I had a lot of washing to do. On arrival in Darwin I would drop the washing off to mum and then go out on the town with my Darwin friends. Most of all I would visit the home of Emma Parker, (now my wife and the mother of our three children) who lived on the Esplanade, overlooking Doctor’s Gully. My first car was a 1948 Austin A40 Ute, my pride and joy for several years. Being on apprentice wages, I learned the hard way to maintain the mechanics and management of owning a car. I gave the whole car a facelift with a tin of enamel paint and a paintbrush. From the distance it looked great but the up-close appearance left a bit to be desired. Over my years in Batchelor, I befriended many University Students who came for work experience at Rum Jungle and to replenish cash stocks for the oncoming year. A couple of names that come to mind are Brian Eckersley and Bill Harris from Perth and Ian Landon-Smith from Sydney. Others, whose names I have forgotten had various talents, one being a brilliant pianist. I was amazed when he played “The Flight of the Bumblebee”. Ian had an old Dodge weapon carrier and we went out croc hunting one night with a big mob of uni-students. There were no seats in the back of the weapon carrier, so we commandeered some steel chairs from the Mess. The chairs were placed in the back tray of the Dodge and five or six of the students sat on them. All was going well until the Dodge hit a big bump and in my headlights we saw students and chairs all rise as one and they went everywhere when they landed. With that sorted out, next we noticed in our headlights that Ian jumped over the windscreen into the open engine compartment of the still moving Dodge. When we pulled up beside the slowing vehicle we notice that the engine was on fire and Ian was frantically trying to extinguish it. With the fire out and everyone seated, the rest if the evening went without further incident. I cannot remember whether we caught any crocs that night. A group, led by Paddy Peckover, Peter Litchfield and Peter Gaden, bought a racehorse. With borrowed machinery from the mine site, they tidied up and cleared a section of the clearing to grade a track for the horse to train on. They measured and marked out a mile using a car odometer so they could time the horse over that distance. The only problem was, there were several hills and the Timer with the stopwatch could not see the starter’s flag drop. They placed a person at the top of each rise to relay the starter’s signal to the Timer with the stopwatch at the end of the mile run. They were excited at the time of the first run and thought that they had a real champion racehorse. They had forgotten to take into consideration the time delay it took the flag relay team to see the preceding signal to relay it onto the next person and so on. I was already sceptical because when someone lifted one of the horse’s hooves, someone else had to hold the side of the horse to stop it from falling over. I remember Peter Boddington, (nicknamed “the Body”), was in charge of the swimming pool and true to his name he was forever pumping weights in the pool during his spare time. One night a group of us decided to skinny dip in the pool. After climbing the fence in the dark, all of the naked bodies lined up and ran as one to jump into the pool. To our dismay, as we fell, we realized that there was no water. Fortunately, we had picked the deep end and there was enough water to prevent us from serious injury. Unfortunately, we had chosen the night when periodically the pool was emptied to change the water. After leaving Batchelor, I worked in Germany for Siemens. Co-incidentally, I worked for the same company as Heinz Tauber, and lived in the same town as Kurt Doerendorf, both electricians from Batchelor. This led to visiting other towns and cities in Germany to meet others that worked at Rum Jungle. Best I end my reminiscing now in case I incriminate myself. I will always have fond memories of Batchelor and the people that I met, some still lifelong friends. Bob Dennis
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 01:32:54 +0000
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