Type:	Ex Student
Name:	Ian  Young
Address:	63 Cornwall Cresent
	Newnham, Tas, 7248
Country:	Australia
Phone:	Work: 0363264500  Home: 0363267789
	Mobile: 0413133992  Fax: 0363266500
Email:	asian@netspace.net.au
Birth date:	23/11/47
Marital Status	Yes
Married Name:	Young
Spouse or Partner:	Teresa
Childrens Names:
Years:	1961 1962 1963 1964
The story so far...
I thought I might put down a few words to let you know what has happened over the last 40 of so years, to bring you up todate. The first 10-15, you will probably know about, if your memories haven't faded too much, like mine, so please forgive any inacuracies especially on dates. Like Leon, I started my working career with Bank of NSW (Now Westpac), in Launceston & at a later date transferred to Riverside Branch (now closed), and for a while did a bit of relief work at various NW Coast branches. While at Riverside, I was sent to Burnie for a "few days" to replace someone that had left, and 19 months later I parted company with the Bank, still in Burnie & returned to Launceston where I did a few different fill in jobs, before getting itchy feet and following many of my peers, and heading for the "Big Island" where I travelled around for nearly 2 years. I worked my way up the east coast to brisbane then headed west getting as far as Cloncurry before running out of money and my Morris 1100/1300 needing repairs. I worked for the council for 5 months as a wages clerk & part time barman/breakfast cook at the pub where I had free accomodation & meals for my efforts. Come Christmas that year, the council closed for annual holidays, and I moved on, heading north to Darwin for a few days then headed south. An accident with a buffalo on the way to Tennant Creek saw me stay a few days till the car was repaired, and then with little money left I continued south to Melbourne, only just making it, as I used the last cash I had at Cober Pedy filling the tank with petrol. In Melbourne, I arranded through Ernst Kropf (Helena's father) who was at TAA (later Australian & now Qantas) as Manager, to get a ticket in Melb. and pay when I arrived in Launceston, which I did. After a couple of weeks at home, I left on the boat with youngest brother Ron, to go grape picking in Robinvale on the Vic/NSW border and we stayed the season before returning Home, where I took up a job with a scrap metal firm in William Street. I stayed a bit over 12 months & kept applying for jobs all over the place and finally landed one in Sydney, with Qantas, as a time and wages clerk. During the interview I had, prior to be accepted, I flew to Sdyney and stayed with Leon at Forrest Lodge, and we hit the racing circuits at the showground speedway, then drove to Bathurst for the James Hardie 1000, the year of the spectacular crash on the first lap where about half the field was wiped out right in front of where we were located. That was October 1970 and in March 1971 I started wth Qantas. I was about 5 months "late" as my application was misplaced, but that is another story. I spent 13 months in the time office, before being called in and told due to a downturn in the market, jobs had to go, and as I was the last to start, was the first to go. Luckily, I knew that on the payroll I was doing, the airfreight section were taking on more staff, so instead of being retrenched, I was redeployed to cargo and started as a trainee cargo officer about May 1972. I had been living in a bording house in Botany (Next to the Police Station) when I first arrived, then I moved with 2 other guys to a house in Kensisngton, where another guy joined us. It was a great "party" house and all the lounge room walls were covered in m/t beer cans from all over the place - and yes Leon I do remember ring pull tops, as they were used to keep our can collection from falling over! The only problem we had with the house was we couldn't get parking on race days, as Randwick racecourse was a street away, so we made a move to Hight St. Waverly - a dead end street of sandstone terraces. Next door was a Qantas Hostie, who had a 2nd officer as a boy friend, and the parties they threw were something else, especially to a single 26 y.o. Party all night, with flight crews, duty free booze, then breakfast at Doyles at Wattie Bay, then out on a cruiser for Bloody Marys & Champagne & OJ, and over to Lady Jane or Obeliesk Beach & nude swimming on the free beaches with gorgeous looking naked birds everywhere..............oh what a life. Well, I just had to have some of it and applied for a position as a steward, and after failing the first attempt, was successful in my second try and started my flying career after 6 weeks in the "mushroom farm" or flight training centre, where I had to attend a 2-3 days course each year for safety proceedures upgrade/training, to be able to continue to fly, and upgrade our aviation medicine skills etc. For the next 15 or so years, until 1991, I worked my way from the lowly "hunks" or steward ranks, through Air Chef (first class galley operator), up to Senior Flight Attendant where I was in charge of running the cabin, meal service, duty free sales and supervising crew. At first it was a great life, travelling the world and being paid for it, parties in exotic places, sightseeing, hooting & roaring (or is it rooting & whoring?), meeting people like Princess Anne, ABBA, Bonnie M, David Frost (yuk!), the pillars of industry & commerce from many countries many pop groups from USA, UK etc. and even a youngish lass who had such sagging tits she could "thrown" them back over her shoulders as a party trick, and demonstrated to all & sundry that she could. Qantas was originally the only airline that had a rear galley below the passenger deck, called the lower lobe galley (LLG), and was entered via a two person lift and became a world of its own. Many a person joined the 5-mile high club down there & will probably continue to do so. It was also a great place to "party" despite there being a safety requirement that only two people max. to be permitted down there at any one time as there was only seating & safety harness for two people. I had one memorable trip from Frankfurt to Amsterdam down there. It was only a short flight, but a main meal had to be served to passengers, and I was helped out by the air chef (I was still a hunk) as he had no first class passengers to served. Our first priority was to chill the wine & beer and then get the meals up for economy passengers. While I loaded the meals into the carts, Ken (A/C) kept my glass full and kept filling it. In the 90 minute flight, we demolished aout 36 Fosters, and when we got off the plane in Amsterdam, we were legless & both tripped over the Captains flight bag, giggling like school girls. We managed to keep out of trouble on the way to hotel and decided during the 5 hour "transit" there, before going back to Frankfurt, to make a quick visit to the Heieken Brewery. After the breif tour, it was up to a room to watch a film of their exploits and sample the product. We were seated with a group of elderly Americam women who didn't drink beer, so we kindly helped them out. Needless to say, we don't remember much of the trip, and when we got back to the hotel, Ken say a gorgeous looking young lass, and promptly tried to stick his tongue down here throat. Unluckily for Ken, it happened to be the Captains daughter & he has not amused. Luckily Ken's father was a senior Manager in some department with Qantas, and no further action was taken, but Ken & I kept out of sight for the return trip to Frankfurt. Back in 1974, just before Easter, I made my first trip O.S., taking 12 weeks leave due to me, to do the "Big Asian Tour". I planned to fly to Hong Kong first, but a couple of Filipino girls in the cargo area, I worked with, talked me into stopping off in Manila for a day, to deliver some presents to friends. I did stop over, planning to take the next days flight to H.K., but that wasn't to be. It was a time when martial law was in progress during the Marco era, and the airport was filled with armed military officers everywhere. When I stepped off the plane (a B707) I had a heavily scented & decorative sampugita lei draped around my neck, once the ground staff idetified me, which was to make me stand out for the people meeting me. It turned out that the person picking me up was the finance minister in the Govt. & he met me in the terminal, before customs, and with a porter, collected my baggage and took me straight to the head of the queue at customs, had my passport stamped immediately and was saluted as we were ushered out to the front of the building where 1000's of greeters were milling. His car was parked on the footpath, with a security escort keeping people back, and we were directed straight out into the traffic. I couldn't beleive the traffic on the way to the hotel and also the way the population lived in squalor (a typical Asian scene I was to become used to over the years of travel), and was still in a bit of shock when we arrived at a reasonably good hotel. Jesus, my "patron" came up to the room to pick up the items I had brought for him & his family, then instructed me not to leave the hotel, due to curfew, and despite my protestations about leaving for H.K. the next day, said he would pick me up in the morning & take me to his home town, before departing. I was bit hungry and decided to have a meal, and afterwards a night cap in the bar. Later that evening, I returned to my room to find two young ladies, already naked in my bed. I thought I had the wrong room, but it had all my bags there, so must have been mine. The three of us spent the night discussing the curfew, which meant the girls couldn't go home, the crowded slums of the city where whole families lived in one room and slept in the same bed, if they had one, and the young gymnastics teams of the Eastern Bloc, which these youngsters obviously aspired to become, and going by their demonstrations, had practised a lot! Around 4.00am I was woken by the phone to say Jess was in the foyer ready to take me to the town of Lingayen where he came from. The girls packed my bags while I got dressed, and they stayed in the room when I left. On the way out of town, Jess asked my opinions of the "friiendliness" of the local population & if I thought the ladies of the country were beautiful? & I later found out he had arranged everything (incl. paying my hotel bill), and continued to do so. Instead of staying with his family over Easter, I was put into his brothers home, nearby, as the brother was in the US and couldn't join them, with a houseboy who was to look after my needs, cook & clean and run messages, take me to the family house for some meals & get anything he thought I needed. About the only thing he thought I needed was companionship, and the continual parade of beautiful girls (nearly all underage & in school uniforms) kept arriving. All they "wanted" was about $1.50 to pay for school fees & equipment and to keep me happy. Thirty-five days later, I finally left the Philippines, and had a rushed tour of H.K., Thailand, Taiwan, Penang, Malaysia & Singapore. That trip was to change my life forever, and I continued to travel to the Philippines every year till 1991 (my last trip), making over 200 trips in all, and still have a Philippines "connection" in my wife Teresa - but more of that later. I continued travel, mainly with work, to countries such as: Fiji, N.Z., U.K., USA & Canada, Holland, Germany, Yugoslavia (don't know what it is called now), China, Japan, France, 3 overhead Antartic flights, Bahrain, India etc. and during holidays, explored other countries like New Caledonia, Tonga, Vanauatu, Switzerland, India by rail and other places the old brain can't remember. In 1982, I bought a house in Petersham "Under Flight Path", while still living in Waverly with two hookers, as the guys had moved on - one married (I went to his wifes 50th birthday in May this year), one moved to N.Z. and the other two moved away. The hookers were not operating from the house, & none of their customers new where they lived, including the husband of one of them. The other one, a Kiwi, used to "practice" her tecniques on me to keep her skills at their peak, and who was I to stand in the way of a girl wanting to "get on top" of her profession? Before I could move into the "new" house, a federation style single, fronted place, I was posted to London for 12 months, to operate as a crew member there operating flights from London to Bombay direct, or travelling as a passenger with BA or KLM to Amsterdam then operating a flight to Athens or Bahrain. It was a great life, living in England and doing a lot of touring and then operating flights to other ports & shopping there for goods to bring back "home". We used to buy export quality meat from Australia, in Bahrain, for the same price it sold for in Australia, collect Aussie beer, Vegemite, wine etc. from crew handing over to us, and bring it back to UK for BBQ's & parties that became legendary around the areas we lifed in. Qantas gave us an allowance (which in my case paid the rent, electricity, gas & TV rental), subsidised food & petrol and paid us an Australian wage & taxed us at UK rates, which were slightly better than in Australia. While in the UK, living in Staines, I was introduced to an English cousin of one of the other crew members, and we lived together most of the time. She actually lived in Bornmouth, aa few hoursdrive away, but had a job where she could work continually while I was away on trips, then when I was home for a few days, have that time off. We really got on well together and if it hadn't been for a misunderstanding over something I can't remember, we may have well been married, but it wasn't to be, alas, and she is now married with a couple of kids, owning a house in France, and running a hotel in Switzerland with her husband. I came back to Sydney and my new house in 1983, after an 8 week break from work for leave and post basing leave, and spent most of it touring by train around India on a 1st class rail pass. It was very interesting and the country is completely different to most peoples views, when you get aways from the major population centres. I also spent a week with brother Neil in Mandurah, W.A. & his family of then. He has since remarried, lived in Port Hedland for many years, then in Feb 2001 moved to Launceston with his new wife & at the present is still looking for work, after leaving Ansett. After settling in to my new home, & sub-letting a room to Tony (the guy from work who introduced me to his cousin in the U.K. & who lived in Perth & commuted to Sydney), I settled back into a routine of work & travel, eventually combining both, due to the way a bidding system came in for work trips. I kept bidding for trips to the Philippines and for about the last 6 years I was flying, nearly every week I went to Manila on Saturday & returned to Sydney on Wed. morning. I had on one trip to the Philippines, met Teresa but lost contact with her, as she had married a German living & working in Iraq, but through a confused set of circumstances, found out that she was living in Munich. I started writing to her, and then bidding for trips to Frankfurt, and she caught a train the 800 kms or so up to stay with me for 2-3 days, and eventually we decided to get married. We caught a train to Bonn, lodged a fiance application, and waited & kept "hassling" the embassy for a decision. One Friday night (German time), Tess phone in tears to say she had received a letter that day when she returned from work, telling her that she had been granted a visa, but had to leave Germany by Monday & she didn't have the money for the airfare. Luckily Germany is a bit more "organised" than Australia, and banks are open on Saturday, so we managed to have money transferred from friends she new, 1000kms away in the north, to a bank in Munich, where she was able to draw it in cash, and bought a ticket from Munich, to Zagreb on a single engine prop-job, then a twin engine plane to Belgrade and a DC10 to Sydney, and arrived on Monday morning in Sydney.That was March 1988 and we were married on 30 May that year. In 1991 I took long service leave, and came to Launceston to see how Dad was getting along after a 2nd (minor this time), heart attack, but he and the Kings & Buckles were travelling by caravan/campers in Qld. We lived in the house on Trevallyn for a month, then moved into a takeawy shop/residence at Kings Meadows, called Big Macs Takeaway. While we were running the shop, Australian Airlines was merged with Qantas & redundancy packages were offered, but I didn't hear about it. They didn't get enough takers so increased to offer, which I did hear about, and decided to take, so on November 21, 2 days before my 43rd birthday, I flew to Sydney & took the payout and terminated my career with the airline. It was a bit of a shock to the system to be past middle age, and no regular income, except from a failing takeaway. The shop was going downhill as three major businesses in the area closed and took about 2/3rds of our customer base in one go. We put the business up for sale, but no takers, and when we managed to get a job in Little Swanport (midway between Swansea & Triabunna on the east coast) as managers for a bush retreat, we closed the doors, put all stocks up for auction (& were really ripped off at the sale), and moved to "the bush". I enjoyed the work, although we were on $50 ea/week retainer & 10% of takings, which really didn't cover expenses overall. I was expected to use my Pajero to cart a 2 tonne (when full) water tanker trailer from a dam on the property, to fill all the accomodation tanks, and in 15 months, ruined 5 tyres and the engine. We increased the customers by about 500% during our time there, but for Teresa it was boring. She had learnt to drive before we moved there, and would take off during "no-customer" times, to go to Launceston where we had a lot of friends similar to us - Phil/Aust couples. I stayed mainly for security purposes, but also to catch up on work, as we had to clean accomodation, launder everything, cut & cart firewood, take bookings, fill water tanks, erect and make entertainment equipment (mini golf, climbing ropes, flying fox, cross country obstacle courses etc.) & maintain accomodation, ablutions block and the like. When we had customers, and a lot were school, scout type groups with dozens of kids, it was full on and long days & nights. We had meals to prepare (often with others helping), entertainment to arrange - hikes, canoeing on dam, fossicking, games etc. and at night, patrols to stops assignations between males & females, underage smoking, keeping youngsters in their rooms after "farting competitions" & so on.When we had adult groups, it was socialising time, helping them to polish off wine, beer & cheese platters, (most of the beer was my home brew) and sitting around yarning, occasionally listening to muso's or singers and ganerally realxing till the eraly hours, then up and start all over again. I made a big mistake at one stage, but letting people smell home made bread I used to make for us. They wanted fresh bread themselves, so I offered to make some, which on one occasion saw me making over 50 loaves of plain, spiced, herbed loaves, buns & rolls for a couple of nights. It meant working nearly all night to hand make and after the first night, having to make a 90 each way dash to Hobart to buy more flour etc. so I could do the next nights orders. Still, I enjoyed it. While we were at Gumleaves, the property name, we met some crew off a woodchip boat and the yinvited us to visit for a party that night. We took along some chocolates etc. we sold in the small shop we had at the unit we lived in, and sold quite a bit. The Captain said we should think about tendering for the ships order, not the crums the crew buy, and we took 6 months of investigation, registration and organising and fianlly started to provisions ships. Our first ship was in Burnie, and the next two in Launceston, & we were purchasing most of the goods in Hobart, taking them back to Little Swanport, packing them, then transporting them north - crazy isn't it? It was about this time the owner of Gumleaves bought a mini museum of horse memorabilia, but didn't have the money to pay for it, so offered the owners the positions we held, and they took it, meaning we were given the old heave ho! We moved, again, back to Newnham, where still live, and started operating "aggressively" for a share of the ship provisioning market in Tassie, operating from home. One day in 1997 I went out to near the K-mart to Asian Products, run by a Chinese couple, to get some goods for a ship, and was told by Denis, the owner, that we was closing down in a week, unless he could sell the place, and moving back to H.K. Cutting a long story longer, I bought the business and took over on July 1st. 1997, after selling the house in Sdyney, for $110,000 more than I paid for it. The first year in the new business was taxing, as not being Chinese, many customers didn't "trust us round eyes", but gradually many have come back, and we have gained many others through our efforts. Each year we are growing sales by about 10-15%. The Shipping side, which we run in conjunction with Asian Products, is growing at around 50% a year and now makes up nearly half our turnover. With Teresa being a Filipino, and most of the crew that nationality, we have a slight advantage over our competition, and even when we don't get the order, we get a lot of the business anyhow as the "opposition" buy their Asian foods from us for the ships. The old warehouse, was being put up for sale, and the owners (Chinese), must have thought us gullible, going by the price they wanted - $340,000, which they were going to finance us in the purchase, at credit card rates!!!!!!! I declined and rented new premises from a "local" opposite St. Finn Barrs Church, on Invermay Road, with White City over our back fence and we moved on the weekend of April 1-2 2000 and only closed for the Sunday, although still had a few customers turn up to purchase as we moved in and set up. With many friends helping, we packed the last items from shelves at the old premises and dismantled shelves, cleaned and moved them and erected them in the new place, set up stocks, and opened up on Monday morning, but took 6 months to reorganise ans set up the way things are now. By the way, the old premises were put up for aution and they got $200,000 for them, and about another $100,000 needs to be spent under-pinning the back where it is sinking, so I think I was smart in declining to buy the building. Prior to moving into the new place, we moved about 300-400 tonnes of stock (bulk) and put it into an adjoining warehouse, which we still rent, along with a third one next door. The moved nearly killed me as we had a fork lift at one end, but had to unload by hand at the other end. I have one employee - a storeman/driver, an 8 tonne truck, a 1000kg delivery van and a long wheelbase Transit van, in our "fleet" along with Teresa's "wreck" a Toyota Camry which she does about 60-70,000 kms a year in, mainly running backwards & forward to ships in and occasionally delivering extra goods to them. Yesterday she went to Triabunna, to a ship, and has sold about $1000 worth of phone cards, and should be back sometime today, as fog on the roads last night meant dangerous driving over the Lake Leake Hwy. so she stayed onboard in one of the spare cabins. I am looking after the shop myself, as Phil, my driver is on holidays starting this week. Finally, coming to an end - just a few brief details to tidy up. We don't have any children, alas, as Tess has "twisted fallopian tubes" and can't get pregnant, and now I am too old to worry about babies, although I am a Godfather to about 25 kids of friends in Launceston, so see a lot of youngsters growing up. We ave 3 cats that are as bad as kids. Al the family is now based in/around Launceston - Ken has a window cleaning business and lives in Invermay with is wife & two kids, Neil has three boys & one grandson from his first marriage, all living in W.A., & Mandy, his new wife has 2 kids in W.A. one married, one single, and Ron & his 2nd wife, a Filipino too, live in Flowery Gully, at the back of Beaconsfield, with his mother-in-law. Mum still lives in the house on Bald Hill Road, and is nearly 79 years old, but Dad passed away on June 1st. of renal failure after 4.5 years on dialysis. Mum still doesn't drive, but with 4 of us around and all the mothers of Trevallyn offering help with transport, plus some Vet. Affairs & Community workers, is getting by OK and still plays "hit & a giggle" (tennis) once a week, and the "old dears" still meet in Fitzies (Harris Scarfe) for Friday coffee - about 36-37 years now they have been doing it. Well, that about brings you up todate on what I have been doing since RHS days, and at the moment I don't have a scanner to put in some pics to show you how the years have takn their toll, but soon hopefully. Any other infor I get on old schollars, I will pass along - maybe we will need to make up a file to gather info for a reunion into & start a data base for contact details?? Regards to you all & your families. Ian Young.