Filthy wheels - A June weekend in Wangaratta.

My fingers just weren't hitting the right keys today. Never mind, if I wanted my typing to be perfect, I'd have used a word-processor. Anyway, I have decided to file my typing and travelling adventures under the new header seen above - titled 'Filthy Wheels', along side Filthy Labs for my repair experiments. Hope you enjoy the show. 

Resignation.

I looked closely at my work ID on Tuesday, and noticed that it expires in a bit over a week. The ID is current for 5 years, and as this was my first ID issued by the hospital I work at, it meant that I was coming up to my 5th year anniversary.

The ID has been worn down across the front by a USB stick that used to hang with it on my Lanyard. That USB stick is gone. The 'Flu fighter' sticker that was stuck on my ID after I got a flu vaccine 3 years ago has been covered by a sticker that was put there by a 4 year old girl as a thank-you. Her younger sister has leukaemia and we were at the time preparing them for a long hospital stay during bone marrow transplant. We generally call this a 'BMT'.

So I've been working at the Royal Children's Hospital for 5 years now. I never advertise my place of work on my blog or Facebook for a variety of professional or personal reasons. Almost half of that time has been spent working in children's oncology. When I left oncology two months ago, I got out my Olympia SM3 and wrote a letter to every staff member I had been working with on the ward at the time to say thank you, and to reflect on my relationship with them.

I said relationship, and not working relationship for a reason. In an environment like that personal friendships are formed, and bonds are made as people lean on each other for support. It took me hours to write the letters, but they were worth it. In a way it is the complete opposite of burning your bridges. A positive way of ending a working relationship that could form greater working relationships if you ever work with someone again. And with a typewriter I was able to bring a bit of happiness to a group of people that work in a high-stress environment.

I didn't just work in oncology. I worked at various times in almost every department of the hospital. I'm one of the few people that have been in every single room in the huge sprawling RCH hospital campus, and I know where pretty much everything is. People wave to me and greet me warmly in the hallways, and I sometimes can't even remember who they are. I've worked with so many people that I simply can't remember all of them. But I seem to have left a good impression wherever I go.

I can write about this now because I handed in my resignation yesterday. It wasn't type-written, it was emailed. Three lines brought about the end of my time at the RCH, a couple of days before the end of my 5th year. My time at this hospital ends very soon. I'm currently knee-deep in a project for another department, but I've made major headways, and will be leaving it in a very progressed state for who ever finishes it.

The world's slowest house-pack has now gained momentum. I'm cramming stuff into boxes now with purpose and focus. I have a direction now too. We've declined the overseas offer (yes Richard, you were right! It WAS Qatar) and both Jane and I are focused on building a future in Melbourne. She's happy in the position she has down there, and the day after we declined Sidra's offer I had a phone interview with a hospital down in Melbourne.

But that's a story for another time.

So this is it my friends. My computer is about to be placed into a box, and I won't be writing any blog entries for a while. I'll be chatting on and off on my iPad, so I'll no doubt keep up to date with the goings on with everyone else's blogs.

So I'll see you soon online. I guess it won't be overseas now, but in Melbourne.

Hang on. What's this email from a hospital in Canada....

Hermes of the outback.

Howard Steer - Saved By The Flying Doctor. 

I'm going to steal Rob Messenger's thunder a bit here. While in Charleville I found an interesting Hermes Featherlight, that had formerly been in service to a rather significant Australian. Significant enough that he features on the back of the Australian Twenty Dollar note.

I speak of course, of Reverend John Flynn. Flynn wasn't just the founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service - which I also visited while in Charleville, but was fundamental in the four pronged approach to establishing the Australian Inland Mission (AIM) and their health & education service in the Australian outback. His decisions and actions have saved thousands of lives, and improved the lives of thousands more. 

Crammed and uncleaned I found this Hemes machine stuffed into a corner of an ageing wood and glass cabinet at the Charleville Museum. It was neither located with the rest of the Royal Flying Doctor artefacts, or anywhere near the three other clusters of typewriters and office machines that I had found around the museum. It sat alone, with only a hand written card - dropped almost carelessly in front of it describing what it in fact was.

I was almost tempted to ask the gentleman manning the front counter if I could get my hands on it and clean it up. However the cabinet looked like it weighed about 200Kg, and was pressed against the wall so that the access doors were inaccessible. 

"Flynn of the Inland" is quite the outback hero. The card attached to his typewriter rather downplays his significance in Australian history.

Let me tell tell you a tale...

European settlement of Australia commenced in 1788. Back then, the continent was split into three regions, with no defined national borders. New South Wales had been claimed by the British, while the western 2 thirds of the continent, the coastline of which had been briefly explored by the Dutch 200 years earlier, remained under the name of 'New Holland'. To the cold south, a piece of land was called 'Van Diemen's land', and was originally thought to be a large peninsula - but turned out to be a large island. 

New South Wales and Van Diemen's land originally had been established as penal colonies by the british, who for nearly a hundred years transported convicts to their shores to be put to work developing  colonies and infrastructure. 

Suffice to say, very few of these people wanted to be here. And this included the soldiers, governors and clergymen that were sent here. Many of them were rough men either looking for adventure, or to escape precarious social circumstances that they may have found themselves in. 

While the governors were often brutal and corrupt, the clergymen that had been sent to Australia to protect and establish their 'flock' were often just as brutal. The clergymen often held other roles in early colonial society, and performed as magistrates, governors and judges themselves. While churches were being built to accommodate for the colonial christian flock, they were often built at the expense of the lives of the convicts building them.

These convicts were kept in line by severe corporate and capital punishments that were often ordered at the hands of the magistrate clergymen. As such both the new settlers, and often the indigenous population living near by often suffered severely from the wrath of these often brutal men. The hypocrisy of clergymen would define Australia's miss-trust for religion for centuries. 

Often when convicts had served their penal terms they fled out into the the outback and snatched up large and remote tracts of land that they used to grow cattle and sheep. The few roads and established tracks made it easy for them to distance themselves from the trauma and hurt provided by the colonies, while still allowing them an income to live out their lives alone.

*  *  * 

The colonies were still something of a backwater when the larger organised religions seemed to suddenly find an interest in attempting to establish themselves in - what was inevitably going to be a new nation. Still smarting from the slight they had copped from being essentially locked out of the American Constitution, early Australia became something of a theosophical battleground for churches as they attempted to gain influence in the newly establishing communities. Various organisations sent missionaries to the colonies, but quickly found hostility from the locals. The Australian rebellious spirit was forming, and the locals had no intention of being ruled over by bunch of men and women that had never had to live the hard lives that the former convict community had.

This began to turn around slowly due to two things: The irish potato famine, and the Gold rush. 

Catholics from Ireland flooded into Australia to escape the oppression in Ireland, not long before people from all over the world rushed into Australia to try their luck at finding gold. All of these groups brought their religions and customs with them, changing the attitudes of the colonies to culture and religion. 

*   *   *

The subsequent cultural upheaval saw several religious groups begin to take a more serious look at what kind of role they could play in Australia. The societal push-back at these organised religions had a lot of these groups on the back foot - making it hard to dictate dogma as readily as they had in most other countries in the world. People didn't fear the hand of god in the way they had elsewhere. 

Churches as such stated to become much less malign organisations, and focused heavily on improving social services. Missionaries became teachers and physicians. They slowly built up trust in colonial society by being far more socially progressive than the colonial government at the time was. A lot of these missionary groups also attempted to reach out to the aboriginals. But this had limited success, as the missionaries often saw themselves as superior people helping 'unfortunate' savages. And issue that came to a head with the controversy around what is now called 'The Stolen Generation'. 

The colonial governments at the time considered aboriginals to be 'part of the fauna'. Aboriginals were governed in Australia under the "Fauna and Flora act of New South Wales" until 1967.  

Flynn of the outback/inland.

Born outside of Melbourne, and educated in various locations around the city, Flynn took on work as a teacher before becoming a presbyterian minister. In 1911 he volunteered for as a missionary in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. Here, he discovered how difficult it was to minister to people that lived on huge tracts of land that had been allocated for use by cattle and sheep farmers. The massive cattle stations meant that a lot of people out in the outback lived further apart from each other by distances that were often larger than most countries in Europe. He often wrote to his superiors about the difficulties, and eventually he became the superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission. 

For years Flynn looked at ways of dealing with the problems that were faced by people out in these areas, and looked at the technological advances of the day. 

Powered flight soon gave hope to Flynn, and he started to investigate ways of using aircraft to access remote populations. But it wasn't until Alfred Traeger built a pedal powered radio that Flynn's vision really started to take shape. 

Education over the airwaves was now possible. But not only that, with the assistance of powered flight, Flynn was able to establish a means to get medical assistance to remote areas. He utilised all the technology he could, and began to construct hospitals and hostels in key locations in order to accommodate the growing needs of the region. As such, he was able to establishe the 'Aerial Medical Service'.

While it was often routine to teach aboriginal children, Flynn did something quite revolutionary at the time - he offered the same education and medical assistance services to aboriginals that he had offered the rural settlers of the region. 

It has, however been suggested that Flynn was personally indifferent to aboriginals, and that it wasn't uncommon for aboriginals to be turned away from AIM hostels. However there is no written evidence to suggest this, and the AIMs policies - written by Flynn, has suggested otherwise. 

Flynn was very hands on with the establishment of all aspects of the AIM. He would routinely meet with architects and builders himself - and explored most of the areas where infrastructure had been built. 

Eventually the school of the air, and the Aerial Medical Service would be handed over to the now established Australian federal government - which had federated in 1901 to form the nation of Australia. 

School of the air still operates today, while the AMS is now known as the 'Royal Flying Doctor Service'. 

Many of the hostels and hospitals still operate, and the Presbyterian mission has established strong communities throughout much of regional Australia. 

Australia is still in the top 10 important mission districts of most church organisations. 

*   *   *

Hermes Featherlight. 

I can't say that this machine is the prettiest of the Hermes lightweight designs, but it certainly has a solid and utilitarian look about it. 

Doesn't mean I wouldn't love to own one! 

At a guess, this machine was chosen because it would be so easy to transport, while being so light that it didn't add extra weight in cars or on planes, or on horses. Horseback transport was still largely common during Flynn's era. In fact, horses are still in frequent use in rural Australia to this day.

I can only imagine the correspondence that was done with this machine. Not just builders and legislators, ministers and politicians... but also the people that were most loved and cared for by Flynn. The kinds of people that almost never get mentioned in the short biographies of people that have done amazing and great things.  

And I would so love to have been all the places this typewriter has been - depending on how often it travelled with Flynn. There's much that is left to the imagination with this typewriter, and have to say that I feel that it needed more than just a dodgy display card. 

The typewriter would have been made in the 1930's, meaning that it would have missed the earlier pioneering days of the AIM. But I'm sure that it still probably would have one heck of a story to tell... 

... if only it could write it's own story. 

Thanks for reading this rather lengthy blog entry. 

Coming up next... a couple of promised photos. 

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The typewriter from a very black place - Royal Arrow.

Last week some of you may recall my blog about buying a typewriter explicitly for the purpose of keeping it away from the hands of key-choppers. And that I collected it on friday, the same day I excitedly took delivery of a Hermes 3000.

Well I spent a little time this afternoon assessing, cleaning and fixing the Royal.

I have been calling this typewriter my 'folly' for the past week, and even referred to it as the dark side of the Yin-Yang formed by my white Hermes. But I no longer believe this to be a fair comment on this typewriter. Indeed, closely examining this typewriter has led me to believe that this machine has quite a tale to tell. So grab a beer, settle into a comfortable chair, and let me weave you a story.

My part of this story is only a brief moment, so far, in the life of this typewriter.

I collected it on friday afternoon after several conversations with the owner. Originally the owner had organised for me to collect this machine on Friday from her parents house. But that soon changed, and the arrangements became increasingly difficult.

At first the collection times became vague, and then they were pushing to have me collect the typewriter from her ex-husband. The ex lived in the same suburb as me, so it seemed a logical choice. But they were suggesting a time specifically on friday afternoon, indicating that they were probably leaving the typewriter with them during a child custardy exchange. As the two lived 80 kilometres apart, this seemed near certainly to be the case.

Arriving at or around such an emotional point in time, to me, didn't appear to be the best option. There were too many variables. Too many issues that could complicate things, and frankly I can do with a little less complication in my life, and I expressed that I didn't intend to to business this way.

Eventually we met in my home suburb, but at a set of shops near her ex husbands house. Unfortunately, I had suffered the ill effects of some dodgy italian salad from the celebratory dinner the night before, and when the seller was 35 minutes late, I was also running 35 minutes late for a visit to the toilet.

The seller drove a late model Holden Commodore. The kind that has extra bits of plastic bolted all over it to indicate that it's 'really, really fully sick fast maaaaate'. The holden badges had been swapped with Chevy badges, and there was a southern cross sticker on the back window. The seller, a woman had big dark sunglasses on, and arms covered in reasonably fresh tattoos.

"Oh f*ck" I moaned to myself, before judgementally thinking "Bogans, f*cking bogans".

The seller's shy young son jumped out of the car and opened the boot. The typewriter was buried under a mountain of trash novelties filling the boot, and it took a minute or so of relocating suitcases and pool toys before the typewriter emerged.

I was genuinely shocked by the poor condition of the case. I had never seen something in such a poor state, being sold on eBay. And I had bought it... sight unseen.

No wonder they were expecting to sell this thing as merely Jewellery materials. 

I only opened the case for long enough to check that there was actually a typewriter in there. I handed the boy an envelope filled with cash. I grabbed the case and dropped it into the back of my car, giving the seller a smile as she reversed her Commodore away from me, and drove off. The whole thing took 1 minute, 20 seconds. The one minute being the time taken to find the buried typewriter.

And then I was alone... with my folly.

I arrived home to find the Hermes 3000 on my doorstep. I grabbed the Royal out of the boot of my car and carried it upstairs with the Hermes in the other hand.

They royal sat on the floor of my office for a few days till I could find time and enthusiasm to get to it. I didn't know what to expect. I could open it and find a hundred cigarette butts might fall out. I could touch it and find it suddenly collapse into a pile of ashen powder, its soul wafting up into a tiny cloud of smoke.

This morning I cleared aside the Remington noiseless that I'm at a temporary stand-still repairing, and put the Royal onto my back deck table.

I cracked open the case, which held mostly rigid while threatening to fall apart at any moment, and looked at the machine inside. I couldn't detect any serious corrosion on it, but there was a fair amount of dirt and fluff immediately visible.

Pulled it out of it's case, which protested with a crunch as the top of the lid popped aside before I then placed the typewriter on the table.

The entire unit was filled with a layer of dirt and filth which coated almost every face of this typewriter. Even the keys have a fine film of silt behind their glass faces. The words 'Built in the British Empire' are printed across the front in gold text, and the ribbon was wrapped around the typewriter. But at least it had its original spools.

All the type bars moved freely. The carriage moved when pressed by hand, and so I set about cleaning the unit and replacing the carriage drive belt/string.

After about 2 hours I had a lot of the muck off this unit, and a new line in the carriage. I tapped the space bar and the whole unit lurched into life in near perfect operation. Every type bar shifted in the segment without a hitch, the carriage shuddered mostly without skipping, and it looked like this unit was about to live its second life.

But what about its first? There must have been quite a lot history behind this typewriter before it ended up in the boot of a family race-car.

I went for a walk before I plopped in a new ribbon, and had a bit of a think about things. I wandered down by the river, and saw the row of flood warped trees lining the riverbank when it suddenly occurred to me what has happened to this typewriter to end up in such a state.

So let's step back in time for a bit.

Nothing here is certified fact, and I may have made some assumptions which someone may prove untrue. So don't hang me for this.

First stop in history, is the birth of this typewriter in 1938/39. The 'Built in the British Empire' across the front could mean anything. But like my Remington 16, which has the remnant of a 'built in Australia' sticker on it, I suspect this is a machine that was put together out of parts brought from the USA, under a tax regime designed to stimulate manufacturing employment grown during the great depression. Most likely in Scotland. But this is only an assumption (typosphere? What've you got).

This typewriter was born in the abject poverty of a faltering empire, on the cusp of an era that would be dominated by a ferocious war that would see tens of millions lose their lives, and hundreds of millions displaced and looking for new homes across europe, the UK and the soviet union.

At some stage this typewriter has probably migrated across to Australia with someone in search of a better life, arriving most likely in one of our southern states, before looking for work in the agricultural boom of Queensland.

Fast forward to 10th January 2011.

End of my street, 14th of Jan, 2011

I'd been in my new job for only 2 weeks, and I was frantically calling patients and hospitals all over Queensland trying to get supplies to critically ill patients in remote areas that had been flooded. The day before the 10th I had been up the sunshine coast (coastal area north of Brisbane), grinding my Nissan 4x4 through creek crossings where there hadn't been creeks before. The highway to Gympie had been shut off, but one of our patients had been evacuated to a refuge centre just south of the city.

Brisbane had been guaranteed by previous mayors and politicians that there wouldn't be a repeat of the floods that crippled the city in 1974, due to the massive construction of the flood-mitigating Wivenhoe dam. We all felt safe. But today there was a feeling of impending doom in my office, as my calls had gone from dealing with flood-trapped people in far away and remotes parts of Queensland, to regions closer and closer to home. By 1pm I had patients 5 kilometres away from the hospital telling me that they couldn't come and collect their supplies as they were already flooded in.

As I drove home on the Sunday, the 9th of Jan, much of the farmland around the Sunshine Coast looked like an ocean. The rain was so strong for the 100+ Km drive that I often had trouble keeping sight of the road. By Monday I was almost a wreak myself emotionally.

I'm unsure where this typewriter may have been kept at the time, but I almost certain that the severe damaged caused to the case, and the silt like coating of much across the entire machine, was an indication that this typewriter probably spend a lot of it's time submerged in floodwaters in of a house or storage unit somewhere in either the Sunshine coast, or in Brisbane where the seller and her family had lived at the time.

This machine, is a survivor. Plain and simple. Many other of its like would have been piled up into a skip and sent to one of the rubbish disposal centres around Queensland, post flood cleanup. The fact that it is here today is almost a miracle on its own.

In January 2011 I was living in the suburb of New Farm, Brisbane. My sister called me late on the 10th after seeing the devastation in Toowoomba, Grantham and Murphy's creek on the news on the TV. I assured here that there wasn't going to be a flood in Brisbane, and we would be fine. 

Hours later we learned that one of our Neighbour's parents were missing. They lived in Grantham, and effectively the whole town had been smashed and scattered across the fields by a wall of water that had come down from the mountain range near by. The next morning I learned that one of my patients were missing from Murphy's creek. Another patient needed to be air-lifted to our hospital for critical, but routine care. 

I worked frantically to do as much as I could. My boss was on the phone working through the air-lift of the patient and their needs. I bundled up replacement equipment for the patient in Murphy's creek, and started to organise army assistance to get it to them, if they turned up at an evacuation centre. 

My boss got the first call about what was happening in the world outside our offices, about what was about to happen to our lives. Her neighbourhood had already flooded out, and she was going to have to camp in the office for a few days till the water cleared. Her home was far above water and safe, just unreachable. She however lived much further out from the city than I did.

 Later on I got news that the power was about to be cut to my neighbourhood to protect infrastructure. The politicians were now openly talking about brisbane being affected by catastrophic floods and that we all should prepare.

My home never did flood out. We were quite safe, but I was one of only 20% of the people that continued to work in our hospital during the period around and during the floods. And I did so at a fair personal cost. 

I only lived a few Kilometres from the hospital, but between my home and work, there was only 1 road left open off the peninsula. And this was filled with tourists that had come down to check out the damage, and the flooding in the area. 

My suburb was actually quite above the level that the water reached during the floods, but most of the damage was done by the pressure of the swollen river pushing back against the sewerage, gushing putrified material into a massive waist-high lake that filled our neighbourhood. The smell was indescribable. 

Helicopters ferrying food, and army personnel to crucial areas started flight at about 4:30 in the morning, and typically didn't finish till about 9 at night. Television helicopters also spent hours circling my suburb. The violent rush of the river sounded like a hundred freight trains forever riding past my front door, 24 hours a day. 

My phone only held so much power, so I charged it whenever I got to work. I stopped answering calls, and instead started to regularly update family via Facebook. Either with hourly status updates, or photos taken straight from my phone about the situation developing around me. In this case, Facebook was an amazing help to me, as I could keep a large group of friends and family up to date constantly, without being stuck talking to people during panicked phone calls. 

Cleaning up under a house, a block and a half away from my home. 

I still have the boots that I wore to help with the cleanup after the floods. I could have cleaned off the paint that splashed onto them from an exploding paint can, but I haven't. 

*  *  *

So Sure, this typewriter has problems. But it works. Mostly. There's problems with it that need fixing, and I'm still uncertain about it's identity and it's year of manufacture. But I think this typewriter has gone through a lot of dark times in people's personal histories, yet it lives on. Now able to type another day. 

I'll give it a bit more of a clean, and see if I can sort out some of the smaller problems that remain (quite possibly achievable with just cleaning and oiling). And then.... I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. 

But I do think it is deserving of being given a new life. Don't you?