HOW MUCH LONGER, HOW FAR TO GO?

I’d love to be able to tell you that I’m travelling okay but I’ve never been comfortable with duplicity – either my own or someone else’s. The truth is, the last few days have been unnerving. Not that I’ve been in any great discomfort as I am pain free, but because Rupert’s impact on people I care about is becoming an issue for me.

The immediate family came together for a Birthday dinner for Robyn last night and all I could think about was how these gatherings will be impacted as Rupert inevitably infiltrates the rest of my body. There’s a lot to be said for not knowing if you have an incurable illness. Intellectually, I fully understand that I mustn’t let tomorrow’s problems impact on today’s happiness but knowing something and embracing it in life are two different things. Accidental death may well be easier on loved ones than terminal illnesses.

Anyway, enough of that. Apart from Family and Friends, the great passions in my life have been Horses and Baseball. The latter has cost me plenty and the former gave me a wonderful life for 40 years. I remember a quote from a prominent owner about his life with horses: “I’m one of the lucky ones who made a million dollars out of the horses. Unfortunately it cost me two million dollars to do it”. Owning horses and gambling on them has ruined the lives of many, many families. Thankfully for us, my early introduction to the horse was fortuitous happenstance.

My Father was one of eleven children and as fate would have it, three of his brothers were involved in the Trotting Industry. The wage for working as a Fitter’s Assistant on the Railways was never going to allow Dad to own a horse but it didn’t stop him having a TAB Double on the gallops of a Saturday and it didn’t prevent him attending Bendigo Trots meetings. My first new baseball glove was a gift from Dad after his numbers saluted in the Daily Double and my affection for the horse came from Dad taking me to the Track. Childhood happenstance genuinely shaped the next 50 years of my life. If Dad hadn’t collected that Double, I may never have had Baseball in my life. Similarly, if he hadn’t taken me to the Trots, I can’t imagine a livelihood derived from the punt would have eventuated. Prior to his death from lung cancer caused by working with asbestos in the Locomotive Sheds, Dad delighted in going to the Track with me to see our horses run. The only Race Winning photo I’ve retained is one with Dad in the Winners Circle after a Moonee Valley win and I’m just sorry he wasn’t still alive when Peter, Barb and Kerryn Manning provided us with so much success throughout Australia. He would have loved to have enjoyed those times with us and I can picture him puffing his big chest out and strutting out on to the Track with me to collect one of our Winner’s Trophies.

My earliest recollections of going to the track date to my Primary School days. It is difficult for people today to understand just how big Racing was in the 60’s. The lineup of cars attending the Night Trots at Lords Raceway in Bendigo would invariably stretch for kilometres as patrons lined up to get in. And this was for every meeting, not just for Bendigo Cup Night. Almost everyone would join the queue at their local TAB to take a Daily Double on the Gallops of a Saturday afternoon, often just taking the same favourite numbers each week, and then listening to the races on the radio. There were no Pokies, no Casinos, no night time shopping and Pubs closed at 6pm until extended hours were introduced in 1966, the same year that we switched to Decimal Currency. Racing was a big deal.

The only Soft Drinks available at Lords Raceway were locally made by BCX (Bendigo Cordial Extract) and they were sold from a stall underneath the grandstand next to the room where all the Drivers names were stored ready for arrangement on the upcoming Race Display Board. The stall gave a one penny refund on the empty bottles and buyers were immediately surrounded by kids asking for the empties. My sales pitch was “Can I have your bottle when you’re finished please Sir (or Mam)” accompanied by a broad smile. Us bottle collectors ran a closed shop and newcomers were not welcomed. I was one of Bendigo’s first Greenies adopting bottle recycling when early Greens Party Leader, Bob Brown was still in short pants. What became clear to me very early on was that Business was screwing us Workers by only giving us a one penny return on the empties. The BCX Factory in Golden Square would pay sixpence per bottle if the bottles were repatriated to their Factory so a cunning plan was developed. I would take a hessian sugar bag with me to the Track and place it in the aforementioned room next to the Drinks Stall and proceed to fill it with empties. The bag would hold just over 200 small bottles and with 8 races per night I only had to collect 50 bottles per hour to fill up – a piece of cake for this little kid with the irresistible smile.😊 At the end of the night Dad would help me carry my precious bag full of bottles to the car and put them in the boot for delivery to Golden Square later in the week. 200 bottles at a penny a pop on track would return me just over sixteen shillings but 200 bottles returned to BCX would give me exactly one hundred shillings or Five Pounds in paper money! Using the sugar bag was a no brainer really.

When a race was on I’d take up my regular position at the top of the Grandstand just before the winning post and cheer on my favourite horses. I’m sure it was here that my love for the horse developed: not a love for gambling or a love for the race itself but a genuine love for those beautiful animals. It is a love affair that continues to this day. The outside of a horse really is good for the inside of a man.

As I entered my teens, my ability to fill the sugar bags was usurped by younger kids invading my territory. For some reason patrons preferred to hand their empties to innocent nine year olds rather than veteran thirteen year olds so my “can I have your bottle please” days were done. I hadn’t saved enough to retire to the Gold Coast but I’d done okay.

The next few years I would still attend every Trots Meeting but my attention now switched to doing form and having a bet. Obviously my form study was pretty rudimentary and usually involved following the money in the packed Bookmaker’s Ring and my bets were tiny but I was taking my first baby steps along a road that would see me spend nearly 40 years living off the punt. They were a good 40 years.

After completing Secondary School at White Hills Tech I attended what was then The Bendigo College Of Advanced Education (now La Trobe University’s Bendigo Campus) and obtained my Accounting Diploma. Going to University was free at that time courtesy of Gough Whitlam abolishing Tertiary Fees in 1974 and had it not been for Gough, I doubt I would have been able to afford a Tertiary Education. I owe Gough plenty! I did pretty well at College, especially considering I would skip every afternoon when there was a Trots meeting being held within a 60 mile radius of Bendigo! Luckily I knew plenty of diligent students who didn’t like the trots and they would allow me to photocopy their Lecture Notes from classes missed. In those days, Accountants were in high demand from the Big 8 International Accounting Firms (Arthur Andersen, Coopers and Lybrand, Deloitte Haskins and Sells, Price Waterhouse, Peat Marwick Mitchell, Ernst and Whinney, Touche Ross and Arthur Young) and each of them would send Recruiting Teams to College Campuses to interview Graduating Students. The questions would include what does your Father do, did you go to Private School, where do your parents live, etc and I’m not sure my honest answers would have impressed many of the Firms but one Recruiter was different. Peter Neville was his name and he represented Peat Marwick Mitchell. His first question was “Do you play Football?” At that time I was traveling each weekend to play for Yarrawalla in the Loddon Valley Football League for the princely sum of $20 per game. I’m not sure they got very good value for money out of their Bendigo recruit but I did manage to kick a few goals in the 1975 Premiership winning game including one monster torpedo that was memorialized as “The Concord” during the after match celebrations in recognition of the distance the ball flew.🤣 I probably should own up that the only reason I received match payments was because the Coach, John Plim, was a friend of one of my good mates in Ron Lake, so I was part of a package deal to get Ron to play. But I digress: when I told this to the Peat Marwick recruiter he informed me that I had a job. I eventually found out that the Big Eight firms played a Football Lightning Premiership each year and “bragging rights” were much sought after so the ability to kick a football allowed me to become a Chartered Accountant. I hated every minute of the three years I had to work to obtain my Chartered Certificate but I’m glad I did it. I kept paying my Chartered Accountant Annual Registration Fees until I was well into my 50’s just in case I hit the wall on the punt but thankfully I never needed to call on that qualification after 1979.