Early Years in the Bureau
Introduction
My Early Years in the Bureau of Meteorology
The Formation of the Frosterley Club
Attachment A
Attachment B
Attachment C
Attachment D
Attachment E
Attachment F
Attachment G
Attachment H
Attachment I
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When we had completed our other exams Barkley and Timcke gave us each forms in which we were asked to enter our preference for posting. Naturally I opted for Adelaide. Percy Dale went to the Divisional Office in Hobart. Dwyer remained in Melbourne where he had been chosen to look after the training school during the courses to be held in 1938 and thereafter, namely the first observers course and the next forecasting course. In the meantime he did some work in the Research Division with Harry Treloar. Jarv Glasscock had made up his mind to join the RAAF and he did so, I think he went to Richmond first of all. Keith Hannay went to Sydney. Doc Hogan as a married man was selected to go to Port Moresby. I went to Adelaide Airport. Allan Martin stayed in Melbourne for a while and then I think went to the Hobart Divisional Office. Neil McRae went out to Essendon to assist Jack Nance. Errol Mizon went back to the Adelaide Bureau where he was still junior Met. Assistant. I'm not quite sure where Max Moss went. Harry Newell stayed in Melbourne for some considerable time in the Research Division and as lecturer in the next forecasters' course and later returned to Brisbane as a school teacher. Fred Rose, after a brief period in Melbourne, went first of all to Darwin to work with George Mackey before going on to Groote Island where he was to be the forecaster at the Flying Boat Base. Pat Squires remained in Melbourne to do research and Joe Walpole also worked in the Statistics Section in Melbourne. Those of us going to aerodromes had roughly a week's familiarisation at the local Divisional Office. Together with Errol Mizon, I had my first flight in an aeroplane to Adelaide and spent the first week in the Adelaide Divisional Office where the Divisional Meteorologist Mr Bromley was rather scathing about the idea of Melbourne conducting training schools in forecasting etc. He had his own methods. Ray Wyatt was still in Adelaide waiting to go to Perth where the Maylands Office hadn't yet been opened and Reg Shinkfield had moved out to Parafield aerodrome a couple of weeks before to open up the meteorological office. I joined Reg at Parafield on practically the last day of November 1937. Life was very interesting. Parafield was in the 'back-blocks'. I was living at home near Blackwood and was preparing to get married the following February. I had a long way to travel out to Parafield daily. For a while I began work there at 9.00 am. I managed to scrounge a lift with the ANA limousine which was used to take passengers between the city and the aerodrome. The nearest public transport was the train line to Parafield station, which was about one-mile walk from the aerodrome. Reg Shinkfield lived at Salisbury and cycled from there to Parafield, only a couple of miles. He started work at 6.00 am making the surface observations followed by the pilot balloon flight. I worked roughly from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. After Betty and I were married, I use to cycle from my new home to the aerodrome. There was very little traffic in those days. Reg and I shared beginning work at 6.00 am and working till 3.00 pm or starting at 9.00 am and working till 5.00 pm or whenever the last aeroplane arrived. There wasn't any night flying at the time. There were three civil airlines operating at Parafield. ANA (Australia National Airways) which had twice weekly flights from Adelaide to Perth via Ceduna and Forrest, stopping at these places in a DC2, the old 'Wagana' VHUSY; a daily flight to Melbourne in a DH89 Dragon Rapide which left Parafield fairly early in the morning, 8 o'clock or so, flying via Narracorte and Hamilton to Melbourne and returning in the afternoon about 5.00pm. There were two direct ANA Flights from Melbourne to Adelaide. A direct flight by DC2 (usually VHUYB 'Pengana') which was the one in which Errol Mizon and I had flown back to Adelaide. This flew direct to Melbourne in the morning and came back again late in the afternoon getting in about 5.00 o'clock or so. There was also another DC2 usually VHUYC the 'Kyema' which arrived from Melbourne about 1.00 pm and departed about 3.00 pm to get to Melbourne by 5.00 pm. Later in 1938 on its return to Melbourne it crashed into Mount Dandenong, killing everybody on board. Guinea Airlines, which had commenced operations some years before in New Guinea, had twice weekly flights, Adelaide-Oodnadatta-Alice Springs-Tennant Creek-Katherine-Darwin returning the following day flying Lockheed Electras. The original Ansett Airlines had three Lockheed l0s. One flew from Adelaide to Sydney via Mildura and Narrandera.
People in Bright Sparcs - Dwyer, Leonard Joseph; Hannay, Alexander Keith (Keith); Hogan, John (Doc); Lillywhite, John Wilson; Mackey, George William; McRae, John Neil; Squires, Patrick; Timcke, Edward Waldemar; Treloar, Harry Mayne
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