Chapter Fifteen
A FRESH START IN AUSTRALIA
How everything in Sydney had changed in the seven years that I had been away, the worst being the enormous rise in house prices. At this stage we had no idea where we wanted to live, so the decision was made to rent a townhouse near my elder children and old friends.
When all our belongings arrived by sea I decided to carry on carving the large rocking horses, and rented the same factory space where I had operated my mask business. My partner returned to nursing so once again I became the househusband. I now delighted in my five-year-old daughter's company and enjoyed our walks to and from her school each day. My actual working day wasn't very long, but steadily I made progress on the rocking horses, and to cut down the working hours I decided to make three at once. This time I made up templates for all of the pieces in anticipation of having repeat orders.
One of my son's main hobbies was motorcycle racing and, being anxious to see him in action, my daughter and I joined him at a race meeting on the outskirts of Sydney. We spent our time in the pits watching everyone prepare their bikes so as to gain the ultimate performance, while my daughter seemed impressed by the heating pads being wrapped around the tyres so they would be hot for the start of the race, and hopefully give them more grip. It was time for my son's race, so excitedly my little one and I sprinted to the top of the spectator hill ready to watch him win.
Ready, set, go … and they were off. The start was a blur, with the riders looking like flies with their black leathers and bulbous heads. There wasn't a part of them showing, and their helmets hopefully gave them some protection from the scream of the engines as they were pushed to their limits. For about three quarters of the circuit the riders were out of sight from us, but as they came into view we were looking for my son's number.
'We've missed him,' I sadly said to my daughter, and we waited for the riders to come around again - possibly this time a little more spread out. No, he wasn't there this time either, so we hurried back to the pits to find out what had happened to him. We were expecting the worst as we had already witnessed tumbled riders being carried away in the ambulance. How was I going to tell his mother? She was always on edge on the days he was racing. Then, there he was, back at the pits, his pride hurt more than his body, explaining why the steed had thrown him. Evidently, while braking hard for a corner, the front wheel locked and the bike simply just bucked him off as it reared up.
I was very impressed by the large houses on acreage near the racetrack and I became very interested when my son told me that the price of these large blocks was cheaper than a small house block in the area where we were renting. Excitedly, I told my partner of my discovery, and as we had always been interested in having animals the next few days were spent out of town looking into what was available.
Eventually we found a five-acre block that was thick with trees, and after a few calculations I proved that we could build a new large house on that site cheaper than we could buy a small older house in the suburbs of Sydney. I was, perhaps, a little obsessive about this block. It was very interesting, as after we had rain there was a small creek running through it. I had all sorts of visions of what I could do with this land and eventually I persuaded my partner to buy it. I had only carried out small additions to my previous house and was in no way a builder, but nevertheless we sought plans from all of the 'kit home' manufacturers.
While my dreams were of the land, my partner's were of the house, and none of the designs we had sent to us took her fancy. I put all of her ideas on paper and gradually worked out her ideal home. It was to be along the design of an old Australian federation house, with a bull-nose veranda completely around it. The rooms were to be extra large, and the kitchen and main bedroom were to have high cathedral ceilings lined with timber, with exposed beams. We took our ideas to a designer, and within a few weeks we had the plans for our ideal house - but who was going to build it? Fortunately for us, Hudson Timber, one of the large timber and hardware suppliers, was running a workshop for 'owner builders' and we enrolled for the one-day course. It was so informative, with them building a sample of a house from the ground up, that after they had finished even my partner felt confident that we could manage the challenge.
The rocking horse building enterprise was put on hold as I began my new challenge. It was similar to building Tic Tac, as after each stage was approved by the building inspector he would tell me of his requirements for the next stage. As I was now fifty-five, to assist me in all the hard digging and moving of tree stumps, we bought a small Kubota backhoe. It was invaluable in the construction of the house and my pet dam projects, as so many tasks were beyond the bounds of my strength.
Apart from the legal requirements of having a licensed tradesperson carry out the plumbing and electrical work, over the next few years I single-handedly gradually built the house, as well as crafted all the outside French doors and windows. We put down a timber floor, but ours was different from most, as instead of nailing the floorboards down, in true boat-building style, I screwed and plugged each one, estimating that there were 10,000 screws in the floor and another 10,000 in the balcony timbers.
We ventured into the fantasy of trying to be as self-sufficient as we could, gradually acquiring chickens, geese, ducks, and goats. It was a heart-warming experience when each one of our pets produced offspring, but when they were put on the table we all lost our appetite, with eggs being the only useable product from these freeloaders. I bought books on tanning, and the goats that we found hard to stomach are now interesting floor mats! Ironically, one of the baby goats was called Matt at his birth, and that was where he finished up.
Perhaps from the mammoth venture I had taken on, and because of friction with my partner, my mental health gradually declined, and I reverted back to my old feelings of depression, tearfulness, and thoughts of suicide. My friend the psychiatric nurse was the only person I could confide in, and she arranged for me to have professional help at the hospital where she worked. At home, the partnership was not working out and we agreed to put the house on the market when it was finished and go our separate ways.
It was in this period, in November 1999, that the world was stunned by the crash of an Egypt Air Boeing 767 that had just departed New York. On hearing the news, my brain went into turmoil, as here was a pilot who had carried out a similar act to the one I had been obsessed with. I had always thought that I was the only mentally ill pilot, but now it was a fact that someone else had suffered more than me, reaching the final point of carrying out their desire, wilfully or not. I was overcome with panic and anger, and the more I thought about the circumstances and my treatment the worse I became.
I had always thought that I had not been
given my full entitlement of 'staff travel', and had asked Qantas several times
to review my situation, but with no positive outcome. I had considered that I
had always done the right thing by keeping quiet about my illness, and thought
that after the recent tragic event they might once again look at my case. I had
been tortured by continuous dreams relating to my fear on the flight deck and I felt great
relief when I woke and realised that it had just been a dream. Even so, the recollection still had me trembling for
a few hours.
In a state of mind that was both angry and confused, I rang Qantas and spoke to a female in their public relations department, expressing my plight. She said that she would look into the matter and get back to me and, to make it easier for her, I sent an email of the details we had discussed. There were no demands in the email - just the facts of what had happened to me on the flight deck. Perhaps I was a little bit mental, but not enough to write a threatening and incriminating email. I waited all of the following day for a reply from her, as this now seemed to be the most important issue in my life, but I was brought back to reality by the sight of a police car pulling up at our locked gate. The young lady had passed on the details of our phone call to Qantas security, who, without so much as a phone call to me, had jumped to conclusions and initiated claims to the police that I was extorting staff travel.
Our driveway was 200 metres long, so to save time I drove to meet the police officer. After identifying me, he shocked me beyond belief as he said that he was investigating a possible 'extortion with malice' attempt on Qantas. I instantly remembered the extortion attempt on Qantas by 'Mr. Brown' and remembered that he had been sent to jail. How my heart raced as I had visions of also going to jail, and the thought of handcuffs being put on me sent my brain into full panic mode. The police officer told me that if I went to the media with my story they would prosecute me, and left it at that.
Returning up the driveway, I was full of fear as to how I was going to tell my partner that I could be going to jail, and possibly be fined. She wasn't very supportive, and told me I had brought it on myself. Her main concern was that any police action might jeopardise the ownership of the house.
I was going to have to handle this on my own, and as soon as she had left the house and I could talk in private I rang the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (C.A.S.A.). Not even knowing what to ask them, I was clutching at straws hoping that I might find some information to help me avoid my impending incarceration. I also consulted my doctor, who said she had thought when hearing the news of the Egypt Air incident that it would affect me. At the consultation she doubled my dose of antidepressants.
Thanks to a very supportive C.A.S.A.
employee, my medical file arrived two days later, and on reading the documents
I initially thought they were pertaining to someone else. 'I didn't know that,'
I kept saying to myself as I tried to fathom these medical reports. The jargon
was not in my vocabulary, so I asked for help from my friend the psychiatric nurse.
She spent an hour engrossed in the mass of reports and indicated to me that the facts did not seem to match up. After dissecting each document, a picture of the whole scenario was unravelled. Qantas had not taken heed of the first two psychiatrists' reports, and requested that I consult another psychiatrist, who gave a favourable diagnosis. They had only used the report from this third psychiatrist, and had renewed my licence on the basis of that report - even though the diagnosis of the first two contravened the air navigation orders for issuing a pilot's licence. For some unexplainable reason they did not even forward those first two reports to C.A.S.A. - for I'm sure that if they had, the outcome would certainly have been different.
Now that I knew all the facts, I thought that with some legal help I could claim the compensation that I should have received at the time of my first drama on the 747, being in the form of 'loss of licence insurance'. This policy even covered pilots who had a mental illness, although it was for a lesser amount.
During my life I'd had my fair share of verbal abuse, and I think that in some way it had a bearing on my illness. From my initial conflict with Qantas over their not having a seat for second officers on the Electra aircraft, most of my career had been overshadowed with fear. While flying with one of the large number of bullish captains, I was reprimanded for having my microphone in my left hand as I wrote down the instructions I was being given by an aircraft controller with my right.
'Put the mike in your right hand,' he bellowed, 'I might want you to do something with your left.'
Gradually I developed an inferior complex, as in those days you were never allowed to have your say. Quite often, a ten-day trip to London would be ten days of hell for a second officer, with many, on finding out who their captain was, being taken down with some mysterious illness and calling in sick. These feelings had become ingrained in me and now I would always try to walk away from conflict or an argument, with more verbal abuse being flung at me as I was making my escape.
We had recently connected to the internet and when I discovered that I could put a small amount of information on a website, I thought here is my chance to expose The Life Story of Santa Claus again, without any cost to me. At this particular time there wasn't much information available on building a website, or on the hypertext mark-up language (html) that was used. I was lucky to find a small booklet on the subject and began my trial and error attempt, with the story being available free of charge to anyone who logged onto my site.
Eventually I succeeded, and I was very proud that my original book project was now available to curious readers worldwide. Tens of thousands of viewers each year read the story. With experimentation, I also found a way of printing the story in booklet form from the internet. It was gratifying when readers offered to translate the story into their language, and my hope is to extend the number of languages in which the story is available.
I had taken all the documents received from C.A.S.A. to a leading firm of Sydney solicitors, who were going to look into what compensation I might be entitled to. After a few months they decided that as the incident had happened so long ago they did not want to pursue the matter any further. I couldn't interest the media in what I thought had been a great injustice, and as many people were interested in my story I decided to use my web page-making skills to place a copy of all the relevant documents onto a website. That way I could avoid the cost of sending copies of the documents to the various solicitors that I tried to get to represent me.
Eventually, in my quest for a solicitor to handle my case, I, by coincidence, came across my old solicitor friend, who accepted the challenge on behalf of the law firm that he worked for. At last some negotiations could be made with Qantas. He had known me since he had drawn up the documents when I bought Cathonna all those years ago, and had witnessed firsthand my deterioration over the years. As in most litigation cases, progress in mine was very slow, and after a meeting with the Qantas solicitor I just had to wait for something to happen.
At last a family was impressed enough by our house to buy it, and thus another chapter in my life came to a close.