John B. Dooley was born in New South Wales and was of Irish extraction. His had been a hard life, a fight, and he had turned his hand to many things in his time. He was a thoughtful man, soft-spoken, fundamentally honest, blessed with a great sense of humour and a large open face. In the early 1930's he had entered the Senate as a Labour Member, but his ideals and his aims were unpopular, and he left after six years.

To a newcomer and an interested outsider, John Dooley was a fund of knowledge and a frank and honest exponent on the country and people of Australia. We were ideally suited for working together, for he needed my technical knowledge and I his experience.

Olly was originally a Jack-of-all trades, principally a joiner, I think, who had, by sheer efficiency and a way with men, established himself as a reliable and invaluable foreman. The incongruous thing about him was that he didn't look a bit reliable. He was slim, red-faced, with wispy fair hair that just wouldn't stay put, and twinkling eyes that told of years of wild oats. He was middle-aged, but his young mouth had a permanent twitch that suggested he would laugh his way through and then just fade away without ever growing old.

The American Army Air Corps had taken over the aerodrome, and the Department was anxious to finish the job at once. When completed, the runways were to be just twice their original size, and the whole area was to be sealed with bitumen and chippings. Drainage was a ticklish problem, and land had to be graded and two swamps reclaimed. There was only one plan showing the parts to be extended, and all design had to be done on the site as work proceeded. Three contractors who were completing an old contract were to be retained for the new work, which would cost £70,000.

At first the engineer who had handed over the work was inclined to be anxious, and called frequently. After a week or two, however, the job was left for John Dooley and myself to work out alone, and we were soon making good headway. The contractors were fair-minded men, and I was able to agree on points of policy with them without much trouble.

The chief difficulty was that the flying field was in constant use, and I had many narrow escapes from aircraft landing very near to me as I was standing by an instrument. Lorries had to be diverted so as to run down strips that were not in use, and as the wind changed daily this was a constant problem.

The Americans were very appreciative of our efforts to speed up the job, and accommodated us in every way. We became friendly with many of the officers, and the sentries knew us well.

I was very happy at the prospect of doing a useful job of work before I left Australia, and came home every evening so tired that I forgot my private worries and slept soundly.

One Saturday morning, as I was passing along Pitt Street in a tram, I was surprised to see that the streets were already crowded with people awaiting the opening of the shops. I thought no more of it until I came back into the centre in the early afternoon.

The tram stopped every few yards while shoppers swarmed in front of it. At King Street, where I had to alight to catch a connecting tram, the mob was pressing solid from wall to wall. Trams were packed through, and I had to wait half an hour before I could get a foothold on the platform of one.

When I returned home I heard what it was all about. The Government had announced that Clothes Rationing was to come into force on a certain date, and the shops had been rushed the next morning. Women drew money from their banks and fought into the shops, snatching madly at socks, shoes, shirts, underwear, wool, coats, suits, hats and ties, without thought for the number or the size or the price. Some stores were emptied in two hours, others had to close in self defence. One woman bought thirty-seven pairs of shoes of different sizes, a man bought twelve hats, crowds were fighting, pushing, shouting, panicking.

A quiet-voiced lady wanted two pairs of silk stockings. There were only two kinds in stock at the shop she entered; one was very expensive, the other not quite so highly priced, and only a few-pairs remained. She decided on the cheaper stockings, and as she was buying her two pairs, an aggressive, loud-mouthed woman pushed her way in front of her, bought every pair of expensive stockings in the shop and, turning to the lady said, "Today youse us and us is youse."

Victor and I, who had to buy a little each month-end when our salaries were paid, were dismayed to think that our chance had gone to buy any more. Working a long way out of Sydney, we left before the shops opened and came home after six o'clock. In any case the shops were closed now by noon, as they worked on the principle of selling only a certain quota per day. One store sold out one month's quota in the first two hours of the panic. Another closed its coat department for three weeks, which meant that in one morning alone twenty-one times the usual quantity had been sold.

The Government, realising the blunder it had made in announcing the date of rationing, made a film of the first day's rush. The crowds were likened to sheep; a woman tore at another woman as she was holding a garment, and received a mouthful of invective in return, the scene being followed by a remarkably similar picture of two goats bleating in each other's faces. A woman was shown being decorated by Hitler for her help in the war effort; another female was shown surrounded by stacks of shoes which didn't fit her, a man looking foolish with twelve hats on his head. The film ended with a shot of the new rationing cards, on which were printed the words: "Issued for your protection."

Perhaps the instinct to rush and panic has been developed from the days of the Gold Rush; perhaps it is because the early pioneers had to get in first in order to survive. But without a doubt the instinct is there, a dangerous thing, uncontrollable and disastrous, especially in war time, when the first essential is calm and clear thinking.

I wondered what would happen in Sydney when the first air raid came.

On the Monday following the first panic I went to a place on the edge of the Blue Mountains. I had spent the week-end setting out the work for the week whilst I was away, and everything was going well on my job.

The work was surveying in country in which only gum trees and scrub could grow. I had to live in a cottage as the guest of two old maids, and was picked up by a lorry at seven-thirty each morning, returning at five.

When I arrived at the site on the first day I was asked to choose the men whom I would like to carry my staff and tape, and drive pegs at the points required. I looked round the motley crowd of casual labourers, knowing none of them. My choice, for no apparent reason, was for a young blond lad with keen eyes and hard, clean face, and an older man with greying hair and a pale skin.

The young man was Garney Shepperd, who owned a few acres of land near by, and the other was Paddy, an Irishman with a quiet voice and, I found not much later, a keen sense of humour.

The working spot was too far from my diggings, and I took sandwiches and tea for the midday snack. When ten o'clock drew near Garney collected a few dry twigs and lit a fire. Two forked stakes with a piece of wood across the top formed the frame from which billy tins were hung to boil the water.

There is a quiet restfulness about sitting on the ground round a small fire sipping hot fresh tea, with the warm sum on one's back and the smell of wood-smoke as the thin blue coils rise from the glowing spills or bits of iron bark. I had run out of cigarettes, for they were difficult to get in Sydney, and Paddy gave me paper and fine cut tobacco for me to roll one myself. I enjoy a rolled cigarette more than a ready-made, for I should not trouble to make one if I did not really want it.

The break at noon was the most enjoyable, for we had half an hour in which we could be in the sun, chatting about this and that. Garney could not utter many words without inserting an epithet, but the words were so meaningless that somehow they did not create offence. Paddy spoke little, but when he did say something it was pithy and humorous, so that we never tired of conversation, because of the occasional laugh.

The vocabulary of Australian words and expressions which I had acquired in the previous weeks proved invaluable, for Garney and Paddy used every known Australianism in their conversation. There is something rugged and friendly about many of the terms, speaking of open country and timber and earth.

The best-known word is 'Digger', meaning the Australian generally, its origin reminiscent of the early pioneers. 'Cobber' - friend, comrade - has not so obvious a connection with anything, but strikes a warm note exactly in keeping with the context when introduced by the Australian. When a thing is of excellent quality it is 'bonzer'; when it is genuine it is 'dinky-die'. A thing that is just right, or a statement that is true, is 'dinkum' or 'fair dinkum'.

The Englishman may be called a 'kipper', the Australians having assumed, I heard it explained, that the breakfast delicacy of that name was the staple diet in 'the Old Country'. Or he may be called a 'Pommie' which term is an abbreviation of pomegranate. The Englishman who came from home to try to make his livehood in Australia during the emigration campaign was poor, and his thrift and abstinence contrasted so much with the gambling instincts and open-handedness of the pioneer settlers that he was likened to the fruit, which is dry, all seeds, without flesh or blood. The term has lost its original significance, and is used freely by the English themselves.

The Australian's indication of delight or assent always amused me, and I found myself saying "good o" and "whacko" to Paddy and Garney quite naturally and unconsciously.

I learned of the work the men did, just a few cattle and fowl on a small piece of land. They were contented with life.

The thing that struck me most after my illuminating experiences in the cities was that I had been accepted at once as one of them, for they had no prejudices, their opinions were their own, not based on any newspaper propaganda. They preferred to take every man on his merits, to judge for themselves.

We were together for a week, and at the end of this time we had split off from the main gang of forest clearers to go to another site. We went in Garney's station flivver, a converted car with a good engine but nothing else to commend it. Before long I was privileged to drive the vehicle from one point to another over the fields where we were working, whilst the two men were driving pegs.

In Sydney I had been disgusted at the mercenary attitude of the working man, watching the clock so as to be off the job on the stroke of the hour. One man outlined his daily programme to me, explaining that he had to finish work at ten minutes to five so that he could be waiting at the gate for the hour to strike. "Or else I might be giving the Government a few minutes I'm not paid for," he explained.

Garney and Paddy had different views. Within a few days they were taking a keen interest in the work, and on the last day, when it seemed as if we might not finish in time, they hurried with the setting out, and worked to the last minute to complete the job. It was dusk when we left the site, and I took them into a hotel for a drink.

They dropped me at my lodgings, and I said goodbye. As the ancient car rolled away I thought that this was the Australian as I should like to remember him, broad-minded and big-hearted, honest and clean. Not the man I found in the towns, narrow and bigoted, avaricious and ill-mannered.

This, too, was Australia as I had imagined it, the country which would live in my memory. Rolling hills and wide country roads, huge open fields with cattle grazing, stray foals on the highways, the horse and sulky or the man going to do his shopping on horseback; the raucous cry of the kookaburra drowning the song birds; the wide, slow-running river with its peaceful riverside gardens and the fields of maize: the dusty tracts of dead gum trees, the distant mountains standing treeclad and magnificent, paling to a misty blue on the farther peaks, with the new road winding up the side in a graceful brown spiral of freshly cut earth. Not the smell and the thin mud of the street, the noisy trams and vulgar trumpeting horns of big cars, the panicking mob, the cut-price stores, the prostitutes of King's Cross, the thugs of Woolloomoolloo.

I spent the evening working out my readings, and on the next day I packed up my bag ready for departure. The two old maids charged me an absurdly small sum for the week and gave me a bunch of freshly picked roses from their garden. I walked along the dusty road to the small station and a little later caught the train for Sydney.

A letter was waiting for me on my return. The High Commissioner for the United Kingdom informed me that my services were to be terminated in accordance with the terms of my agreement. I was entitled to a passage to England, and must get in touch with the Agent in Sydney for details.

Victor had received a similar letter, and we went to see the Malayan Agent on the next day. Our salary was calculated up to the end of our notice, and we were given permission to arrange our own passages.

The loss of employment was a blow, but there was compensation in the thought that we could at last go home. Just three months had elapsed since we left Singapore, and we were weary of the uncertainty and suspense. Now, at last, we were free to go as we pleased. Once home we could join one of the Services or take on a technical job.

I thought of my original mission - three or four years in Malaya, and home after perhaps four-and-a-half years' absence. Now I should be back in my home town within two years. My mind pictured the house on the edge of the country, with the natural park on the north, and Pendle Hill, one of the Pennine Chain, standing proud and bold to the north-west, the old farms and occupation roads round by Red Lane, the large natural reservoirs lying in the bottom so cool and still, the winding canal like a silver ribbon laid along the valleys. Imagination took me back to the moors of Boulsworth and Pinnah, purple with heather and sheep grazing quietly on the gentle slopes, to Noyna Rocks and their views of the distant hills, to the commons and Tum Hill over the south side of the town, where it is said that the Romans built their early camps.

For the first time since I left home I was homesick.

The next few days were spent in rushing around to the shipping agents, to the bank, the Malayan Agency, the Customs Office and all the many offices which want to know, a hundred times over, name and address - in block letters – age in years and months, date of birth, sex and state, married, single or bereaved. We were signing along the dotted line on dozens of different forms for a dozen different reasons, crossing out the words which did not apply, filling in blanks, telling the Commonwealth Government all we knew about ourselves before we left. We enjoyed the fun of it, for it meant so much to us, and the officials were helpful and made it all very easy.

On taking stock of our possessions we realised that we had very little to wear, and not enough suitcases. The panic rush had quietened down in the shops, but buying was still heavier than normal, and the day's quota was sold by ten o'clock. We invaded the centre at nine every morning for a week, and managed to get a pair of socks here, a tie there, handkerchief somewhere else. Buying had taken on a new significance now, for we were to take the things to England.

Two things are outstanding in Australia for quality. One is leather coats, the other woollen socks. I have never seen coats of such fine calfskin, with the backs made all in one piece and the finish so smooth and finely grained. Even after the huge demand of the past week the range and quality of socks was astounding.

John Dooley and Olly had been making excellent progress during the week whilst I was away, and now that I was due to leave we had to get designs and quantities completed so that they could carry on without a hitch. I was late to work on most mornings, owing to my visits to shops and offices, but we worked later in the day with greater intensity. The plans which I had drawn up in my little shack on the job were finished off and filed in a simple system. We completed the pegging-out of the site, and spent the rest of the time supervising construction.

Notice of sailing was short. The first date was rescinded, and we had to stand by from day to day, ready to go at an hour's warning. It was during our wait that Sydney experienced its first taste of the war.

Several large ships, naval and cargo vessels, were in the harbour on the Sunday night when the Japanese submarines penetrated the net and fired their torpedoes. They missed their main objective and struck a ferry boat. Depth charges were dropped, and the explosions shook the building where I was sleeping.

"Jap subs sunk in Sydney Harbour" was shouted out from every newsboy's bill on the following day.

Day after day the papers showed pictures of the two submarines being raised, the principal feature during a comparatively quiet period. The effectiveness of the explosions was apparent from the fact that whole pieces of the hulls had been blown off. Torpedoes were still in position in the tubes, and the raising operation had been a delicate business.

The second attack on Sydney occurred at about eleven o'clock one Sunday night. I had just gone to bed, when I heard what was obviously the sound of gunfire. I dressed and went down to the water's edge to see what was going on. Everything was quiet, and I was turning for home when the street lights went out. A few moments later the alert was sounded.

No aircraft appeared, but the wardens were on the streets, and the alarm was useful as a practice. Victor was in the city at the time, and he said that there was considerable excitement at the sound of the siren; but the few people who were about soon quietened down when they realised that no bombing was going to take place.

On the next day we heard the story. A Japanese submarine had shelled the coast, and a few houses at Rose Bay had been damaged. The raid had no military significance, and appeared to be a show of bravado.

A newspaper with powerful imagination headed its feature with the dramatic words "Sydney's War Scars."

Before the two attacks had been made the brown-out of Sydney was a careless thing, some people not troubling to do anything whatsoever to dim their lights or screen their windows. From the day of the first submarine visit, however, lights were very much more carefully watched, and the harbour frontage showed the biggest improvement of all. On the day after the second occurrence the streets were full of people carrying paper and gum and string and blinds. They had learnt their lesson.

On Saturday the 6th June I said good-bye to John Dooley and Olly and the engineers at the Department of the Interior.

We were awakened early on Tuesday morning by the telephone. The Agents were on the line, and we were told to catch a train that night for the ship.

Half an hour later the post arrived, and with it a letter from the High Commissioner. It appeared that we had been dismissed in error, and our notice was rescinded. We were to await further instructions regarding transfer to another Colony.

Our passages were booked, insurances taken out, money changed. The train was leaving that night for Brisbane and the ship home. And now we had to stay where we were and wait.

We had ideas about destroying the letters and saying we never received them, about having them sent on to England by a friend as if they had arrived after our departure and been forwarded. Finally we agreed that the only thing to do was to lay everything before the Malayan Agent and appeal to him for our original plan to go through.

An anxious day was spent, in which time we were able to ascertain that the shop was not sailing until week-end, and we could catch a later train. The Agent was sympathetic, and sent a telegram to Canberra saying that he intended to send us home to report there, if the High Commissioner had no objections.

No reply had been received on Thursday, and we were told to go. We ran round to our friends' homes, surprised to realise how many we had made in that short time in Sydney, and a taxi took us to Central Station at eight o'clock.

Rain was falling in Sydney when we left, just as it had been falling on the first day we saw it.

We were fortunate to obtain a sleeper, and we relaxed as the tram left Sydney for its long journey north. The windows were blacked out and stuffy, and after reading for a short time we asked the conductor to put up our bunks.

The journey is six hundred and nineteen miles. The train, which was a relief with very few stops according to schedule, took twenty-four hours to cover this distance. We seemed to be stopping everywhere running only a few miles before jerking to a standstill. Once a child's tricycle was on the line, and twice we stopped at stations for meals. The idea of pulling up and delaying the train for an hour whilst the passengers scrambled for a meal in the station restaurant was new to us, and we were surprised that there should be no dining car on a trip of so many hours' duration. A derailment held us up for an hour or more, and other stoppages were for trains which were approaching on the single track, necessitating pulling in at passing loops.

On arrival at South Brisbane Station we took a taxi to the Customs Office and then on to the ship, where we were shown our cabin. The ship was a twin-screw motor-vessel of the Port Line, and she was loading refrigerated stores. There were eight cabins for passengers, beautifully fitted, and we anticipated a comfortable and interesting voyage.

Saturday morning brought Customs examination and other formalities, and then we were free to go into Brisbane.

Although I was in the Queensland city for one day only, I was struck with its cleanness, quietness, the silver trams, and the lack of bustle and rush which one usually associates with a city. By a stroke of good fortune Victor and I met a girl who had been staying at our Sydney diggings for some time, and she showed us the buildings of interest and the best place for lunch.

We had met a number of Queensland people in Sydney and had found them quieter and more tractable, more reasonable than the people of New South Wales. The impression grew when we called in at shops in Brisbane, for we were treated politely, offered alternatives if our requests were out of stock, allowed to buy cigarettes in spite of the shortage and the fact that we were not regular customers.

Victor and I returned to the ship and spent the rest of the day watching the cargo being loaded. The Brisbane stevedores are far superior to those of any other Australian port for speed and efficiency. Although they enjoy occasional smoke-ohs and tea-ohs they return to work without delay and work hard for their pay. We were interested to see hundreds of cases of butter sliding down the chutes from the cold stores, running along roller tracks to the small gangs of men waiting to stack them, eighty at a time, on the slings which carried them up to the main deck and down again into the bowels of the ship.

It had been intended to sail that night, but we did not cast off until early on Sunday morning.

As we steamed slowly down the river to the sea we passed two cruisers tied up to the wharf. The bands of the Marines on both warships were playing 'Rule Britannia' as only a military band can, producing a sensation of pride and thrill which caught my breath and made my skin tingle. Farther downstream two American warships glided stately by, their clean lines and clear decks giving the impression of power and speed and majesty.

I said good-bye to Australia and turned my thoughts to England.