Ballies stories

Jack

	The Christian Brothers came around canvassing for students for St. Patricks Ballarat. Clem was already there. Dad and Jack did not want to go even though offered the chance by their father.
	1948 Jack was here on the farm. He suffered badly with asthma. Jack decided to go to Adelaide to work in the Railways. He worked in the yards doing hook ups etc with good trains. He also did this at Talem Bend.
	He transferred to Adelaide Electricity Trust.
	Jack was in charge of installing the towers at the Port Augusta Power station.
	He worked in the Adelaide hills, Murray Bridge. Hotels were paid for when he worked out in the towns of Tailem Bend, Waikery etc. His home base was the 'Duke of York' in Hinley St. Adelaide. He met lots of Station people there who raced horses.
	Jack played a lot of music - button accordion, mouth organ.
	He mostly worked with Polish and some Italians.
	He was works inspector of Transfield contractors to inspect the towers. He would climb up 300 - 400 feet.
	Ballie wanted him to stay till 55 and gradually phase himself out but he came back to the farm when he was 50
	His mates in Adelaide were George Hocking, John O'Neil who was an ABC broadcaster etc.
	Jack was in Materankah or some place close when Darwin was bombed. He retrieved a pen from the Post Office ruins.
	1932 Jack Gorman of Renee St. took Jack and Dad to the Bodyline tests. There were a 100000 there to see bowlers such as Larwood.
	Harmonious relationship with Ballie - Jack doing the orchard and cooking Ballie on the farming.
	Jack made good money in strawberries. He was getting a dollar a punnet. He went down to Norlangie with Dad to get the certified plants. He had thousands of punnets here. Red gaunlets were grown. Did it for a number years. Ballie put down the dam for Jack and got a diesel engine and pump. It was under polythene and was mounded up. He was known a strawberry Jack. He sold a lot to Grinams.
	He also grew cherries and apricots.

Jack took crook up in Darwin. They flew him down to Heidelberg Hospital. They operated on him there and he was made medically unfit. He had some throat trouble. He couldn’t swallow. He was vomiting. Every thing he tried to eat, he just brought up. So they had to straighten something down along there to get the passage way going and of course they discharged him. So it was a blessing in disguise because that would have been about 42. After the War, Mum and Dad were heading for there 70’s. Jack got asthma very bad – we all had asthma. I had asthma too but I sought of shook it off when I was 16 or 17. Back in 48, he was that bad he had to get out of the area so he headed over to Adelaide and got a job on the Railways and he stayed there for quite awhile. He was up around Pinnaroo, Tailem Bend and all that. Then he met up with some of his other cobbers there and he transferred into the Adelaide Electricity Trust and he worked himself up there though his ability to do these sort of things and he finished up right up till when Dad died in 67 as one of the most important fellas there in the Administrative side. You see he played a big part in the Port Augusta Power Station. He worked himself practically to the top as works inspector over Transfield which is still in operation. All those big companies won contracts with the electricity trust. Jack was the chief inspector. You’d have to know your job. Even after he came back here in 67 to give me a hand because I was on my own. I answered the phone one day there and they asked for Jack and he wasn’t there at the time. Eventually, he contacted them. There was a big job over in Papua New Guinea and out of all the people. They contacted the SEC in Victoria and through them over there they said there’s only person we can really recommend to go over there and do the job which would be required and that was Jack Kane. He said he had pulled the pin and he explained to them he wasn’t available. It would have been worth a terrific amount of money because the living away allowance and with all the extras they offered him. It would have been a terrific darn money spinner.

John “Did he regret not doing it?”

No. No. Because, when you come to think of it, he was away from home from 48 till 67 and of course Dad and Mum getting old. I was quite capable but there’s one thing, all through his holidays he never went anywhere but he came back here and worked. When he got his annual leave or even Christmas or Easter. He might have got a fortnight or three weeks at Christmas time but he always came home here and helped me. Because at that time it was the harvesting of hay and all that sort of thing.