A Conversation with David

Another night in an inner Melbourne hotel, it used to be exciting but not anymore, when I first started my trips to Melbourne for business my contact in Melbourne would arrange to go to dinner, a drink in the bar of a plush inner city hotel and sample the menu, it was exciting. Those days, long since gone, I deplore eating alone in the dining room of any hotel or restaurant for that matter.

"I should give David a ring, he might be ashore." I say to myself. David is an old friend who lives in Melbourne, well not so much old as a friend from a long time ago. David and I had started work at the BHP Steelworks in Newcastle on the same day way back in 1962, we lived in the same boarding house, Lewis House, in Mayfield. We were both BHP Trainees, I was studying Mechanical Engineering, David, Marine Engineering, both just left school and living away from home for the first time, a strong friendship formed.

Time had seen us go our separate ways many years ago, David embarked on a life at sea, I made my career at the Steelworks, but we kept in touch. David would return to Newcastle from time to time for another stage of his studies, he worked his way through the levels to become Chief Engineer. I progressed through being a design engineer, a plant superintendent and was now Energy Supply Manager for BHP Australia wide. David had many interesting postings as Chief Engineer including the "Bounty" on the re-enactment voyage and the "Aurora Australis" on her maiden voyage to Antarctica. He now worked on the tugs in Port Melbourne and Westernport Bay leaving the longer sea voyages to the younger generation.

"Hello David, it's Lindsay, what are you up to?" "I am off for a couple" was the reply. "Where are you?" David anticipated that I might be in Melbourne. If David was ashore and we connected we would arrange to meet, either he would come to the city or I would get a train and visit him in his home. Whenever we met up conversations with David were always interesting.

I got off the train at Carnegie and as I walked off the platform a small bearded man in a plain blue T shirt and jeans was approaching. It was just a short drive to David's house, I could have walked but he insisted on collecting me. I just had to ring when on the train to tell him if I was arriving at Carnegie or Glen Huntley either station was near his home but on different lines.

At first glance David's house looks a very ordinary suburban Melbourne home, and so it is, except for the anchor in the middle of the front lawn and the lawn edging of ship's hawser or mooring cable, and then the contents. We walk in past the 1000 watt ship's searchlight just inside the front door and the metre high plastic penguin with the silk tie advertising "Sunny Holidays". David apologises for the disarray in the kitchen and the tobacco smoke as he opened the back door. David don't apologise, I enjoy visiting you, I love to see your latest acquisitions and reacquaint myself with the others."David shrugs his shoulders "Well you might be disappointed, there is not much new. Too busy on the tugs, a lot time down in Westernport lately".

On my last visit we had sat at the dining room table for dinner and sampled a rather rare bottle of wine that David thought needed to be drunk. "Where will we sit tonight?" I asked myself. David must have read my thoughts "I'll shift some of this stuff so we can sit down" "Don't worry David" I was busy looking at the strange objects piled all over the table. The house could be a museum, most of his collection I had never seen anywhere else.

"I'll order some takeaway" said David producing a menu from his favourite Chinese Takeaway in Grange Rd, it was just around the corner, we could have walked there but David insisted "select what you want, they will deliver it half an hour or so."

David goes to the kitchen and returns with two stubbies of beer and we adjourn to the lounge room through the double leadlight doors of the pre war suburban Melbourne home. A perfect model of the "Bounty" in a glass showcase along with other maritime memorabilia is on one corner and beside it, on the wall, two mercury barometers, one a ships barometer complete with gimbal and hanging ring and the other a calibrating barometer as used by the Department of Meteorology for calibrating barometers at weather observation stations around Australia. These were all familiar from previous visits.

David picks up the phone and orders the takeaway. We sit on the lounge around the corner of the coffee table and I pick up a book from the coffee table, "Surveying of India" and ask "David, what's this all about?" "It's sort of about George Everest and the method of trigonometric survey developed in India in the early 1800's".

I had noticed among the new acquisitions, surveying apparatus, theodolites and survey staffs, so the book on surveying fitted. The interesting bit was George Everest, Colonel Sir George that is and his role in India, and well Mount Everest.

We sat back to drink the beer and eat some camembert cheese that had found its way onto the coffee table. There is an unusual looking small scale set on the coffee table and my inquisitiveness about it brought out the story of it. David explained "with coins many years ago people would chip small amount from the edge of coins which had uneven edges. This little set of scales is a coin scale to measure if a coin has its correct weight. You see the metal in the coin, mostly gold, had the face value of the coin. If you could chip a little off many coins then you could sell the proceeds."

David gets up and goes to the display cabinet where the model of the Bounty is proudly displayed and returns handing me a coin and a clipping from a coin magazine. It was a Spanish coin with the bust of Ferdinand VI and the magazine clipping said that it had been salvaged from a ship sunk off the coast of Chile in 1781. The price was shown as $1950.00.

"David, did you pay $1950.00 for this?" "No I think it was just over $2000.00, that is an old magazine clipping." I pass the coin back to David and he just places it on the coffee table.

The conversation reverts to the book "Surveying of India" , the Great Trigonometric Survey of India, "it took more than 60 years, a project that was planned to take 5 years, Everest was Survey General of India for 13 of those years in early 19th century." David explained. Well David's interest in surveying surprised me but his knowledge astounded me. I take another look into the dining room through the double glass lead lighted doors and notice several survey staffs and tripods propped up against the window sill.

"Why so many survey staffs?" I ask David. "they were a bargain, so I bought the lot." "What are you going to do with them?" David does not reply, rather he gets up, goes into the dining room and comes back with a large rounded bottomed container and a round glass plate about 50 cm in diameter, it has a small hole on the centre.

"OK what is it?" the only thing that I had ever seen that vaguely resembled it was the vacuum tank on the milking machines at my Grandfather's dairy. "It's a standard half bushel." announces David proudly "I got two of them and a quarter bushel one too." Don't ask why Lindsay I say to myself, it will be the same as the survey staffs or the 1000 watt ship search light that stands just inside the front door. "They come from the Standard Weights and Measures Department. The inspectors would take them to produce merchants to check that the merchant was not selling grain short of the correct quantity." Fascinating" "I have a set of standard pint measures over there on the window sill, they were used to check the quantity of oil in the glass bottles at the service stations." "Ah yes I remember when there were racks next to the petrol bowsers with pint and quart glass bottles with a pouring spout all filled with various grades of oil." I wonder to myself, when did it change to sealed plastic bottles? Infact how long is it since I ever needed to top up the oil in a car.

There is a knock at the door, David gets up, picks up his wallet from the coffee table "That will be the Chinese" he returns with 2 takeaway dinners, pushes things back on the coffee table to make room. There goes cleaning the dining room table.

David goes to the kitchen and returns with some cutlery and a couple more beers "Can't handle those plastic knives and forks." "What are you doing in Melbourne anyway?" "I have negotiations on an electricity contract for our plant at Hastings tomorrow" "Oh you can negotiate electricity contracts? I thought the Government set the price" We eat the takeaway and briefly discuss the changes that allow electricity price negotiations but David soon looses interest and picks up a strange looking object, the evening goes on.

"David it's getting late, it's time I caught the train back into Melbourne" Of many of the nights I spent in an inner city Melbourne hotel I have no memory but of an evening eating takeaway Chinese around a coffee table in Carnegie I have very fond memories.