I guess over the years I’ve seen a few caravan parks. When I was mining I lived in a lot of them up north. This place isn’t too bad. You meet all sorts. Ones that kind of rub you up the wrong way, but you’ve got to take the good with the bad. I’m an ex-serviceman. I did national military service in Vietnam, which wasn’t a pretty thing. If you can take that you can just about take anything.
Many years ago, I think I was fourteen year old at the time; my parents took us to the show. Mum and Dad said they couldn’t afford to go into the show but they’d pay our way in. Well I went to the boxing tent and put me hand up. They’d asked the audience if anyone wanted to tackle one of their blokes and earn a few bob. So I did it. I won a few quid and then I turned around and paid for my parents’ way into the show.
And they asked me how’d I do it? Who’d I knock off? I said, “I didn’t knock anyone off. I had a fight in the boxing tent and they gave me ten pound”. And that started me off on the boxing. And every show that came around I’d be doing it. Eventually when I got a bit older I moved to Sydney and did it professionally, TV ringside included. I had a world rating of 8, many moons ago.
I think I’ve done more than a lot have and probably a lot more than a lot of them will ever do, or want to do, I suppose. One thing there I guess I’d change if I could. If I’d had the knowledge, I wouldn’t have lost my wife. I would have liked to know how to cure her. She died at twenty-one years old of cancer. I was left with a small son and daughter. We’ve lost contact now. It was a hard job bringing them up on my own but you do it. You wouldn’t give them away. They’re part of you and part of your wife and she’s not there to see them grow. You are.
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