Road Surveying in the Fifties by Beckey Grahame;

Author:Beckey, Grahame;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2019-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

OUT WEST IN 1956

The work year, 1956, began in the Gympie showgrounds where the year before had ended. As I said, Bob Barlow did not come back to me and another cadet, Kelvin Crump, was assigned to me. Kelvin had a very different background from that of Bob. Bob came from a rather large working-class family while Kelvin came from a small rather well-off middle-class family. The difference in Queensland is not great, but the attitude of the two boys was noticeably different. Kelvin was more confident but not as resourceful. I liked them both, but Kelvin did not stick with the job very long. His parents were able to finance his attendance at the university and he left the Main Roads to attend full time at the University of Queensland in the faculty of architecture.

When Kelvin left, I signed on a chainman named Pat Newcom, a local lad about 21 years of age, who had been working in a store in Gympie. Doug had met him somewhere and advised him that I was in need of another worker, so he applied to me and I engaged him. He was quite satisfactory if at times a bit thoughtless.

Before I left Gympie, the Labour Bureau sent me a labourer who was an ex-policeman. I had not asked for anyone at that time, but this man had been discharged from the police force for misconduct and I can only assume that the Labour Bureau in seeking a position for him was advised by the Main Roads Department that I could use a man. They were probably not aware that I had engaged Pat Newcom, because it was just after Kelvin Crump had left. I was assured by the officer from the Bureau that the man was a good worker and looked very fit. But, in fact, he was very soft and perspired profusely whenever he had to exert himself. I was forced to dismiss him when I left Gympie a few weeks later because Stuart Poole, a first-year cadet was sent to me and, with his arrival, I had more men than I could usefully employ, so Harry, the last man to be taken on, had to go. I believe that he would not have stayed with me when we moved away from the Gympie area as he had his wife there and he was looking for a job with better prospects.

When the work at the Gympie area was completed, because I had received instructions to carry out a working survey on the Kandanga-Bollier Road, complete with bridge site surveys at Yabba Creek and Scrubby Creek, a co-ordination of levels from Kandanga to the Brooloo-Tuchekoi Road and an investigation survey on the Upper Kandanga Road, to be followed by a working survey over the same section, I moved camp to Kanganda early in February.

We set ourselves up in an old shed next to the Kandanga school. We erected a square tent as a mess tent, a shower and a galley. The galley

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