Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 451
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[Page 451]
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saw his letter, but he showed me the Australian General Manager's reply, which was rather devastating. The best he could offer was a technical representative's job at £260 a year less than my current salary, and probably £310 less than I would be awarded at the end of the year. I would be travelling a lot, often away from home, and would need to own a car.
I wrote to Madge accordingly, hoping, rather vainly, that she would return to brave the discomfort of the Wellington Winters, rather than I should make this sacrifice. But she replied that she thought I should accept this transfer in the expectation that it would soon lead to recovery of my old status and salary, and she would finance the purchase of the car (a 1938 V.8 Ford for £300). As a result my career with Shell in New Zealand ended, rather sadly, at the end of the year. I took ship to Sydney and train to Melbourne to interview the General Manager for Australia. On my way back I spent Christmas with my parents at "Afton Water", and New Year at "Plevna" with Madge, our son, and her parents.
After the holidays I reported for duty at Shell House in Sydney, feeling very much like a new boy at school. I felt some antagonism towards me, and some of the staff seemed to regard me as an intruder: it was certainly a big come-down for me
Originally I was to have been located at Newcastle, which Madge apparently didn't mind; but in the end it was decided that I should work in the industrial suburbs of Sydney and make periodic visits to Canberra and the power stations and industries in the southern half of New South Wales.
Gradually I got settled down in the new work, and Madge, Alan and I lived for a few months in a long narrow brick cottage in Suwarrow St, down the side of the Manly Golf Course, that was owned by Madge's sister in law Eileen Gibson, Maurice's wife. In the interim, while Madge remained on at "Plevna", I boarded for a few weeks at Rose Bay, opposite the pier.
In late February 1939, a ruinous bush fire swept across the south-eastern corner of the State. No properly organised and equipped bush-fire brigades existed to fight it, and the whole