Greg’s Story or how Engineers Created Australia part1

Greg’s Story or how Engineers Created Australia Part 1. 23 june 2023.

Greg’s Autobiographical Story Part 1 as created 2022

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. The Beach Years created the Freckles.

3. The Nuns and Brothers School Years

4. St Georges Terrace and making an Engineer.

5. Vietnam War and Conscription into RAEME Training Centre.

6. The many Mistakes of 1973 including Nullabour crossing..

Part 2 the working and travel years.

Part 3 Retirement Years

1. Introduction

This story was written by Greg Hotchin for his granddaughter Ripley so that she may know about her grandfather and why Engineers helped make Australia the best place to live in the world.

Greg has a Facebook account only to reserve the name place because there is another Greg Hotchin in Queensland. Greg has 2 email addresses ,one private and one gmail. Greg has a web site so he can publish his photos to the world and his story to those with the passcode. It also allows quick links to often used web stuff without annoying record keeping and pop ups.

Greg was born in Scarborough a suburb of Perth Western Australia in 1951 the eldest son of Brian Hotchin and Mary Douglas and lived for all the early years with them in Osborne Park. It’s was an asbestos clad 3 bedroom house directly opposite the Osborne Park State Primary School and very near to the vast market gardens and creeks of Osborne Park.

Greg has 4 siblings Erica, then Darryl then Julie then Mark. My Father was Brian who had 1 brother Gavin and 1 sister ?. My Mother was Mary better known as Molly who had 3 brothers Frank a fisherman, Ross a carpenter , Arthur who was a funeral guy. Molly had 3 sisters Vera , Leila and Debbie.

In Osborne Park the house had 7 rooms initially. The parent room then lounge room, kitchen, the girls bedroom the the boys room (3 beds). One bathroom and toilet and laundry. The house was gradually expanded; the front porch became a TV small lounge room. The first pergola as added outside the rear sleeping room, (the boys room). The Garage gradually became a Games and Entertainment room connected to the House by a covered walkway and carport. The large house block was also gradually used, An above ground swimming pool was dug into the ground with paving around it. The side grassed area outside the kitchen became the second car park (an 1958 Holden FB station wagon) that was initially bought cheap just to take dad to the golf on Saturday. The block used underground septic tanks that had to be doubled in size with underground a distribution system between the swimming pool and the rear pergola.

The photo above shows the backyard with swimming pool and that’s Brian looking at the Pegola behind the house.

Postcode 6017 is 5 kms from Scarborough which is 3 kms from the Scarborough surf beach. From Albert street it was Hutton St. then Scarborough Road up hills, down hills then to the beach car park then into the surf water.

2 The Beach Years created the Freckles.

In the early years a hot day was spent at Mattoms Pool on West Coast Drive in Trigg,WA ( A sheltered small beach surrounded by reefs so no waves. It was alongside the North Beach Surf beach (waves breaking over the Reef).

It was while swimming at the pool beach that I saw my first shark swimming along side me but the other side of 1 metre wide reef that was only 30 cms of water.

This was a time before the planes/helicopters scanned all the beaches for sharks. It was also the time before sunburn was feared. So I ended up with a lot of back freckles as a result of regular sunburns. My mother (Mary or Molly as she was known) loved the beach. My Great great grandfather Capt Fred Douglas discovered and mapped the south coast of Western Australia in what is now Esperance.

My Father (Brian) built a wooden surf board using the resources of Grandpa Douglas using his boat building facilities in Tuart Hill , around the corner from the catholic church, primary school (St Kierans) , girls high school and boys high school (St Philips). The Grandpa built 5 boats (2 large Fishing boats and 3 small sailing and row boats).

3 The Nuns and Brothers School Years

Primary school was with the nuns. One year I was offered a hot cup of tea by the head nun. That was my first and last English tea.

It was a 5 block walk to school from Albert St. 2 Blocks to Main Street then up Cape st to the Church.

Secondary school was at St Philips (some Brothers and several other teachers). It was initially all boys but in Year 5 it merged with girls school next door) , The best teacher was the Maths teacher she taught me calculus and math tricks so that it became very easy.

I studied both maths 1 and 2 and Chemistry, Physics and Biology. The dissecting the frog was interesting but blowing up the chemistry lab air cabinet with potassium nitrate was the best experience.

I was Captain and organizer of the boys Basketball team for training and transport to games.

The night after the last exam all the guys in the class came (17 guys came) to albert st for celebratory drinks.

My favorite band was Jimi Hendrix then the Beatles and then Rolling Stones. 4 of the guys in the class started a band John Brooks was lead guitar, Peter was rhythm guitar and song

creator while Glen as base guitar and Alan was drummer and I was roadie making the sound work.

4. St Georges Terrace and making an engineer.

After graduating from Servite College with highest marks in the schools history. But not Dux of the school. They didn’t like me that much. My friend Ed Valvasori was dux

I decided that I liked creating things so I would take the bus into the city most days to attend the WA Institute of Technology (WAIT) Engineering Campus

It took till year 3 before a girl attended the Engineering school. It still is a heritage listed set of old buildings alongside the West Australia newspaper where Brian was a linotype setter.

It was the third year that the electrical engineering department bought a PDP11 minicomputer. I found the computer much more interesting that electrical transmissions and power stations so I became very interested in electronics and digital computing. Designed and built several interfaces for the first Digital mini computer in a WA school. The Computer Department were very upset they didn’t control all the computing any longer. I hated the punch card batch programming, but it was where I learnt Fortran and Assembly Language.

5.Vietnam War and Conscription into RAEME Training Centre.

In Dec 1971 I Graduated but then conscription had me in the army in Jan 1972. I saw my file it had my next destinations on it. Pukapunual and RAEME training centre at Bandiana just out of Wodonga in northern Victoria..

I became a lecturer / teacher / non commissioned officer (corporal then sergeant) at Bandiana out of Wodonga Victoria. I moved to live quickly in a flat in Albury (Kiewa st opposite the local newspaper).

In Dec 1972 Gough Whitlam was elected Prime Minister with the slogan “Its Time”. I immediately sent a letter asking to leave the Army as Gough had offered. I then spent 3 weeks in charge of the Student bar and club as punishment. So it ended up that I spent 365 days in the army because I wanted to be an Engineer more that an instructor of boys.

6.The many Mistakes of 1973.

1973 was spent leaving the army moving to Melbourne, going to RMIT studying advanced lasers and semi conductors. I had met Kathy Doherty in Albury and continued to see her and family in Hill St Box Hill.

This year was also the first drive across the Nullabour plain. The first time there was nearly 50kn of unsealed dirt road, but the trip was otherwise uneventful. My first car was greenish Ford Sedan that I purchased off a guy in the army.

Started work at Computer Manufacturers (Australia) that merged with Datronics and supplied and maintained the data entry systems for the Tax Office (ATO) and Bureau of Statistics. I remember visiting the Melbourne tax office to advise them and entering data entry floor and seeing more than 60 girls hitting the keyboards. I added a feature that if it was the girls birthday it sang Happy Birthday as she logged in.

8.1974 CMAD was created with Damien Dunlop and Charles Amy in Bank St South Melbourne.

I accepted a job with Computer Manufacturers Australia. They made Data Entry Systems using Honeywell Minicomputers 516 and 316. They had a design office in Bank St, South Melbourne and a Factory in Bayswater where the Data Entry Keyboards were assembled.

We coded the first computer as a CM202 It used discreet semiconductor laid out on 7 large circuit boards in a chassis with a 16 bit display panel (its on my bookshelf). The second computer I called the CM2 it was based on a Motorola microprocessor (the 68000) and I bought a Unix clone operating system (coherent from San Diego, California). We had to rewrite all my business accounting software from Basic to Cobol and completely rebuild the database.

gregstory part 1 as at 21 June 2023.