The scholarship included $10,000 tax free (livable then), a fine three-bedroom maisonette in Forrest, an office in the Coombs Building (in Human Geography), and generous travel and field allowances. Initially I was interested in wheat flows in China but this was classified information so moved on to fruit and vegetable processing in Oz, which was a good choice as I had my Woolworth’s supplier’s contacts to draw upon.
This meant travelling widely visiting farms and processing plants and developing a decision model based on Bayesian analysis. The work ended up concentrating on HJ Heinz in Dandenong, Bulmer’s Cider in Campbelltown and Gows in Brisbane (tomatoes and apples). We bought a house in Hodgkinson Street, Griffith and that was a great choice. Sandra began working for Family Planning, Donna went to Telopea Park High School and Duncan to Forrest Primary (they soon moved to the School Without Walls which was one of those ‘let the children bloom’ places and in retrospect, a mistake).
Canberra was a good place to live. Cycle paths were being built, the City and ANU had plenty of money and trout and the snow were nearby. We went camping, fishing and skiing regularly. We still had the long wheelbase Landrover and like the Prefect, it had a weakness: the rear axles. Any difficult spot and the axle would shear but knowing this, kept a spare and was usually mobile again within two hours. My supervisor, Peter Rimmer, was relentless and hammered me with discipline and comments like, “I’ve read better in the Daily Telegraph” to my early drafts. I was fortunate to know him. I was exposed to first-rate thinkers at the ANU, a period of academic privilege long gone from Australia.
We joined the South Canberra branch of the ALP and Gough and Margaret were also members. I was Assistant Secretary and was mesmerized by Gough’s logic and oratory. After he was sacked, we worked on the re-election campaign and on election day manned a booth way out west – the vote there for the enemy increased, no doubt caused by the pushy intrusion by those Canberra poofters.
I finished the work within the three years and was offered a Post-Doctoral Fellowship with the North Australia Research Unit in Darwin. As there was no other work and we had a mortgage to pay I had little choice but to go north.
Here is some Super 8 movie that Duncan and his friend Danny experimented with. One has to be family to appreciate this early avant garde material.