Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 489
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[Page 489]
(29)
when some new appointments were made in the Sydney Branch of Shell, as soon as the war was over, half of them were given to people who had had no war service whatsoever.
However, my main concern was to get a position in which I could be sure of remaining in Sydney until I would be automatically retired when I reached the age of sixty in eight years time. I could have had a good promotion in terms of the letters exchanged by the two General Managers before I left New Zealand, but it entailed transfer to another State, and I was quite sure that Madge, my wife, would not be happy away from New South Wales and that it was her desire to live in Sydney. So I asked for, and was given, the position of Government Representative with a salary increase of one hundred pounds a year. This was still much less than the big salary reduction I had suffered on leaving Shell in New Zealand, but it was a very interesting and congenial job, half in, and half out, of the office, where I would be home every night except for occasional visits to Canberra and a few of the other main centres. My work started right at the beginning of 1946, and embraced the obtaining, retention, servicing, technical advising and extension of big contracts to supply oil fuels, motor and industrial lubricants, and petroleum products generally, to big Commonwealth and State Departments such as the Railways, Main Roads, Sate Electricity, Metropolitan Water Board, and the bigger Councils.
The work involved considerable business lunching and entertaining at clubs and the fashionable hotels (too much of it I felt) for which the Company allowed a plenteous entertainment allowance, and reimbursement for special expenses. I was also given a liberal motor car allowance and as much free petrol as I wanted for private use.
The five-day week was in force, and I had my full Saturday and Sunday weekend in which to do as I pleased. I had not played regular golf since I left the Hutt club in New Zealand. I should have liked to have taken up this game again, but Sydney clubs were now much too expensive, so I had to content myself with only