Ian Frazer by Madonna King

Author:Madonna King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2013-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

Brisbane’s winter was biting, but Ian Frazer didn’t care about that, or the onlookers staring at him as he idled the car engine at traffic lights. His son Andrew was in the front passenger seat and Callum was in the back, his arms wrapped around his chest in a bid to keep warm. Ian’s latest fancy in opera was playing loudly, and, with the top of his blue Peugeot down, others were able to enjoy it too. Ian was driving his two youngest across town to school, and it happened like this each day. It didn’t matter how far the temperature plunged, the roof stayed down. He’d always had a thing for cars, ever since he built the old A30 with his dad in the backyard of their Aberdeen home. The Peugeot was his current pride and joy and he believed it should be driven with the roof down, whatever the temperature. He could be swayed on the music though. Some mornings, he switched the opera off and turned up his latest passion in classical music. But today was definitely an opera day, and Callum wondered what the other drivers were thinking, knowing his father didn’t given two hoots. That was just his dad, Ian Hector Frazer.

As Merck & Co. was using Ian and Jian’s discovery to trial its vaccine, the three Frazer children continued to breeze through school and on to university without any pressure from their parents. Ian and Caroline believed they either did their homework or suffered the consequences when they arrived at class the next day. A love of science drove all three children, and Ian was quick to offer help. He loved it when Andrew built a pinhole camera out of a tea tin and some duct tape for a science project, and happily took him in to work to develop the photographs in a darkroom, explaining each step along the way. But while they didn’t push their children, Ian and Caroline shared a view that each had to try their best, and on occasion were happy to resort to bribery to make that happen.

Jennifer had received a part scholarship in her first year of high school, on the condition that she achieve a minimum academic standard of eight A grades and two B grades across all ten subject areas. At the end of her first semester, she’d achieved nine As and one C for English, with the teacher noting that she was capable of doing much better. If she didn’t improve that mark during the next semester, the scholarship would no longer apply. Ian sat down and negotiated terms with his twelve-year-old daughter. He explained how much money the scholarship saved the family each semester, and told Jennifer that if her marks improved he would give her an ‘achievement bonus’ of one-fourth the value of the saving. That amounted to hundreds of dollars, and, given the current pocket money rate was fifty cents per week, Jennifer needed no other motivation.

Caroline, with Ian often away, started working again.

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