The rainbow never sets

wanted me to pencil for him also. He was well known for his jokes amongst the other buyers, especially the Japanese. Sometimes he would bring a rubber snake and half cover it with wool. Then he would say to one of them: "Do you think this is good enough for a Japanese 60s quality?" The Japanese buyer would grab a handful of wool where Fred had hidden the snake, suddenly yelling out in fright when he saw it. Fred would burst out laughing, and everyone joined him. Fred was also well known for his dirty jokes. One day a young married man complained to him that he could no longer perform in bed as he used to. "Ah," Fred said, "you have to remember: in your teens it works trice daily, in your early twenties twice daily, in your late twenties try daily, in your thirties trice weekly, in your forties twice weekly, in your fifties try weekly, in your sixties try weakly, and in your seventies try to remember."

You could usually tell where to find Fred by the spontaneous laughter coming from a small group of men. I think his secret was to write down a key word for each of his jokes, and every now and again he would look up his list, and that would then be the joke of the day.

As work started so early for the wool buyers, everyone took two breaks, one for morning tea, and one for lunch. The stores supplied tea and cakes and hot lunches in their canteens, which were quite adequate even for people with good appetites. Tom was always concerned about his figure, so each week we would stand on one of those scales they weighed wool bales on. My weight was always constant, about 83 kg, and Tom wanted to know how I managed that, in spite of my good appetite. It must be due to my metabolism, for I have kept that weight until now.

Peter, our junior buyer, valued the star lots. These were small lots, under five bales. They were shown on a separate floor and also sold in a different auction room, which Peter attended. I hoped that one day I would graduate to that job too.

After lunch we had to rush back to the office to calculate prices for Fred Black in the auction room that afternoon. The orders came from overseas in pence sterling on clean wool only, whereas the auction price was Australian pence greasy. Again this had to be done accurately, as mistakes cost money.

Our sampler George had drawn in the morning large samples of each lot bought the previous day from bales not shown on the show-floor. All buyers looked at the samples together to check the quality and yield. On a rising market Fred may have bought some lots above the limit, in which case the buyers would decide whether the yield could be adjusted, as our firm would always guarantee the yield to the customers.

The auction started at 2 pm in the big hall at the Wool Exchange, opposite our office, corner Pitt and Bridge Streets. Fred was our regular bidder there. The speed with which the lots were sold was phenomenal. I remember once the fastest seller setting a record of clearing 400 lots in one hour, to the applause of everyone. I would often sit at the back of the

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