Australia, my new home

auction room, watching the procedures while waiting for the first catalogue to be finished. Farmers, whose wool was being sold that day, were also there to see what price their wool would fetch.

As soon as the first catalogue was finished, I took it back to the office. Victor wanted to see how many bales we had bought, and the price paid. This would then indicate whether prices were going up or down. We costed every lot that we had valued in the morning and put the prices on a large sheet of paper. Tom worked out the prices for each type and prepared cables for our overseas customers.

When the auction was over, usually between four and five, final figures were calculated and a market report prepared for our main customers. Longer cables had to be coded to save money. A whole sentence could be represented by a five-letter code-word. Then the cables had to be typed on an OTC (Overseas Telecommunication Corporation) cable form and I usually took them to their office, again not far from us. We seldom finished by six o'clock, usually it was half past six or even seven. After a long day's work, everyone assembled in the visitor's room for a drink. Marcel Dekyvere never came to the stores. He was more in charge of administration. Michael Selios was head of the scoured wool and wool-tops department. They would often speak French together, and they would always join us for the drinks. The accountant, two shipping clerks and three secretaries did not, as they would have left the office by 5 pm.

Every second week the buyers went either to Brisbane, or to Goulburn or Newcastle. They caught a plane to Brisbane on Sunday evenings and came back on Thursday evenings. The team split for the other centres, Fred and Peter would usually go to Goulburn, and Victor, Tom and I to Newcastle.

There we stayed for one or two nights, depending on the amount of wool for sale. I would often team up with Doug Halling from Feltex for our evenings there. I also met buyers from other firms with whom I became quite friendly. On one occasion, during the morning work in the stores, I walked past Jean Beaurang of Kreglingers, whom I had met in Düsseldorf in 1952, and who didn't want to give me a job in his firm. He never acknowledged me in any way nor did he show that he recognised me. I would have loved to show him that I was not as stupid as he thought, but there would have been nothing gained.

There was not much time to develop a social life, except for the weekends. The son of a spinning mill owner in Germany, George Egert, whom I had met in Bremen just before I left, came to Australia by plane just in time for the beginning of the season. He worked with one of his father's suppliers. We would meet occasionally during weekends, either at my place in Coogee or at his place, and would go to the pictures together and sometimes share a meal. We would talk in German all the time which I found quite relaxing, as English was still a bit of a strain, though speaking it all day long I soon got used to it. When I had to write a letter

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