Melvin sat smiling and nodding his head as the government representative made a presentation for meritorious service accompanied by the usual speech to those attending who were about to retire from a lifetime of government teaching. It was the usual platitudes, something their chief was supposed to do as part of his duties as the ranking official in this government department. Those present receiving their certificates of appreciation had the experience of making similar presentations over time in their respective districts too, so it was a familiar ritual that had to be done and needed to be reciprocated. As they all knew each other at their higher levels within the government service it was just something to be endured as it was tradition. But all the time while the ceremony progressed each had in their own minds been reviewing their history in teaching and the high and low points of each place they’d been assigned to before being moved periodically and eventually making their way up to the level of seniority and better positions in the cities. He reflected on where his journey had commenced in the field of education long ago.

He saw himself at the beginning of his career looking at the first letter from government authorities telling him his application for a job after graduating teacher training had been accepted. He’d anticipated his application would be successful as he’d graduated with honors and had experience in volunteering in youth camps during vacations and possessing a minor in music to go along with his concentrations in math and English.

Adding to that confidence was the fact there was a national shortage of men after the war had ended with so many having been lost in battles overseas. The education department had wisely concluded sending young women into remote areas was out of the question. These remote areas had to be served but as life was hard in the outback of Australia those days and young women were a magnet attraction to men working cattle stations and mines it was thought unwise to put young ladies into potential risk where alcohol was the only recreation and fights common not to mention the appalling lack of amenities and services available which perhaps a man could tolerate better.

Roads serving the needs of those scattered over fourteen thousand square miles of his intended assignment territory were all dirt in those days and only the strongest of vehicles could take seasonal summer dust enveloping a moving vehicle in the dry and bogged to the axels in the wet unless specially built for the hundreds of dirt track mile journeys between outback settlements. If a vehicle should break down on those remote roads, you either found a way to fix it yourself or waited for days until another vehicle came into view to help.

These remote settlements consisted often of no more than a police station, a pub, and a limited number of bush engineers to run road works equipment serving the vast bush tracks to cattle stations these being service routes from the nearest community meeting place. Often a population of itinerant tribes would move in and outnumber the limited number of settlement dwellers. Station owners, their workers and miners would make their weekly visit to the pub for alcohol and needed living supplies.

 Often these cattle stations would be better equipped with machinery to serve their hundred-square-mile family-owned cattle stations with their own airstrips and aircraft used to inspect their properties. Regional councils providing road services would sometimes have to rely on the cattle stations to help maintain these road links.

Where it was too far away to make the long trip to the settlement school back and forth each day some station children received their education through two-way radio receivers and transmitters. The settlement assigned teacher would be responsible for the tribal children too and that would be a challenge for Melvin was informed they’d be in school for perhaps a couple of months and the tribe would decide to go walkabout and their children suddenly absent themselves for the duration of time the tribe was away.

Transport drivers bringing needed supplies from the nearest cities, often hundreds of miles away, made the exhausting trip weekly unless roads were impassable. Fuel, mail, and all supplies for the settlement and surrounding stations were delivered to the pub where Paddy the proprietor would spend his days in the induced coma of alcohol while his wife commandeered anyone who happened to be in the settlement at the time to serve at the bar while she attended to the distribution of mail and supplies when cattle owners or their wives or mature children came to collect. Police were very liberal in issuing driving licenses when asked for.

The limited number inhabiting the settlement knew when the supply truck was on the way as on the horizon a dust contrail would appear in the sky showing a vehicle was on the way in this flat country and grinding of gears and noise of the diesel motor could be heard in the distance like the approach of an occasional thunderstorm.

The Pub owner’s wife also delivered the occasional baby in the absence of any medical attention. Little did Melvin know as he looked at the remote appointment settlement’s name, he’d never heard of his work would include being the custodian of medical supplies which the flying doctor would direct him by radio to dispense as they’d only fly in where there’d been a life-threatening event that required hospitalization.

Clancey the resident cop presided over all the vast territory surrounding chasing any criminal elements escaping from justice in the cities and settling problems. He took a lenient view of the antics of those who came to pay their respects to the pub and the aftermath of their visits.

So, because of the need to educate children produced in those remote areas along with itinerant tribes it was young men who were sent outback as these remote areas were called in the cities to educate the community. They were more likely to survive.

With the help of his family Melvin procured a sturdy car and after searching diligently from one government department to the next as to where his assigned school was located and the best way of getting there, he bid farewell to family and friends and began his long journey of one thousand miles close to the border of the adjourning territory to the west. He was advised by those responsible for state school inspections to take lots of provisions, spare fuel and be prepared for the ride of his life no city boy had even dreamed of.

He was also advised by those more religious in the department to pray all the way as he’d need Divine help to avoid being stranded for days along the way with mechanical problems or an encounter with a high speed seven-foot kangaroo particularly toward evenings and a wrecked car. His prayers obviously worked as one week later he arrived covered in dust and exhausted from lack of proper sleep and cut fingers encountering that feature of the outback in those days the barb wire fence stretching across the track which had to be wrestled down to get through the road barrier and stretched back into place when through.

The alert and bored settlement few had seen the tell-tale signs of an approaching vehicle by its dust trail on the horizon long before Melvin limped into town in his tortured dust covered car. The entire troop with Clancy the cop at their head stood at the end of the small strip of bitumen presumably protecting the main settlement from dust to give their greetings and usher the new celebrity resident to a welcome drink at the pub. He was pulled out of his car by this enthusiastic small crowd grateful for the fact he’d made it to his destination, and they steered him to the pub, raised their glasses in a toast to be stopped in their tracks by Melvin’s protest that he wasn’t a drinker.

There was pin drop silence as the small crowd took in this unusual situation and looked at each other uncertainly. They’d never encountered such a thing before but as their new teacher who was going to be virtually in charge of everything not handled by the pub owner’s wife was a VIP, they shrugged and clinked glasses to toast his arrival anyway. The Pub owner’s wife then steered him behind the bar and introduced him to bar service. He’d have to take his turn with the rest at this job so may as well learn on the first day and she knew from his teetotal announcement he’d not be misappropriating her beer stock. For the rest of the afternoon, he served the clients until they ran out of steam and money and wended their way back to their respective cattle stations or jobs in the settlement.

Clancey the cop then decided it was time to rescue the new teacher and introduced him to his new residence which happened to be a tin shed blistering hot in summer and freezing cold in the outback winters. He’d be having his meals at the pub. On the way they rescued his car which had been stripped bare of luggage and he brought it to the quick attention of Clancy who laughed. He was assured he’d find it all at his lodgings. Melvin drove to the tin shack with Clancy and there it was with one of the tribesmen standing guard. Clancy handed him the key and he took his first look inside the lodgings. It was very basic in fittings as the education department was not noted for its provision of city style houses in remote areas, and he could understand why they didn’t send young women to a place like this.

He was introduced to the hot artesian bore that supplied the town with water coming out of the ground boiling hot and needing to be cooled down for a day in holding tanks that supplied the town’s needs. His first taste of that water was an assault on his taste buds as it had a high mineral content, and it took some time for his stomach to accommodate to that too. The water, when bathed in, left the impression he was covered in a thin metal coating all day long and mixed with sweat from the heat made life miserable along with seasonal insect swarms. But over time it would become the norm and his body adjusted.

On that first day Clancy made Melvin aware of the fact he had several government functions to attend to as teacher. It was then he was told of his responsibility for medical supplies to be dispensed under orders from the flying doctor, so he needed instruction in handling communication equipment. He was also in charge of the racetrack and golf club. The racetrack only functioned at the time of the camel races, but the proceedings had to be planned and organized by him. The golf club was far from what Melvin was used to. Stones and bushes had been cleared over a wide area and they had to be maintained. There was no such thing as greens, so it was an exercise in futility to even dream of a hole in one or landing near a hole on the tee off as the hard ground sent balls in all directions on impact.

He was also expected to preside over elections in that area as a government representative. These extra duties he was not prepared for by training or even told of in advance of his departure to take up his first appointment.  These were thrust on him one after another until he almost contemplated making that thousand-mile journey back home and leaving the teaching profession altogether. Then of course there was the constant urging of the pub owner’s wife to take his turn at the bar.

Soon after his arrival an obviously savvy Presbyterian preacher arrived for his usual visit in a circuit of his assigned outback parish and made himself known. To clear his head Melvin was using the piano at the pub before returning home to pump up his lantern for light in the evening to correct papers at the time. The pub had its own diesel motor for lighting, but it was too noisy with itinerant drinkers there to be able to concentrate on lesson planning and correction of tests. Having heard Melvin playing the padre immediately conscripted him for piano duty in religious services he conducted while visiting and passed the word to his Anglican friend who came in for services on other days.  Which then caused the surrounding community to see his usefulness as the musician for the annual dance that drew crowds to the settlement from a hundred miles away when it was time for a celebration in the community hall.

The community hall also served as council chambers and when those meetings were in progress the school that also occupied the building had to make way for civic leaders to do their thing. Later in his experience Melvin was asked to vacate for them to make improvements in the hall and was assigned space on a front verandah of someone’s home to cram in desks chairs and blackboards with only inches to negotiate between the veranda railings and desks to service the separated class levels and teach on the move.

In the middle of this difficult attempt to keep up a reasonable standard of education for the children under difficult conditions one of the inspectors of schools showed up for his assessment. He was so appalled at the conditions Melvin was working under that he promised him any transfer he wished for and fled from this chaotic settlement, giving him the highest score. But of course, that promise never materialized. The next generation of graduates were beginning to make demands of their own and were very good at researching what it would be like in these far-flung schools.

Looking back on that first appointment as Melvin neared the end of his teaching career and listened to the eulogies from his superior and contemplated subsequent assignments not quite as stressful Melvin had to admit his experiences had given him an informal post graduate education and a solid foundation on how to deal with difficulties and problem solving along the way. He’d never have obtained the experience he had if they started him in city teaching through his entire career.

With that background he was now being acknowledged as the valuable resource he’d been in his later years in educational central planning to service the needs of teachers in these remote areas. He’d prepared others for additional responsibilities educators are expected to take on during their stay in a remote community along with a more embracing curricular development suited to the cultural settings to be encountered in the real world for which he was imminently qualified in his latter teaching administration years.

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