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Russell MaudsleyMarksQueensland

January 1972 – January 1992

CPOCOX

OK I will be the first,

I left Leeuwin and went home to Innisfail Nth Qld for the first time as my parents had just moved there from Bundaberg. I had just turned 17 the day before we passed out. My Dad being a policeman arranged for me to get my driver’s licence.
I went to Cerberus to do my FC course and bought my first car (Hillman Hunter). After my course joined HMAS Hobart, spent 2 ½ years on her then went back to Cerberus at the seamanship school for 2 years. In that time I had married my now wife Karen in May 1977.
Posting back to Sydney in 1978 and joined HMAS Brisbane in refit. We had our first child (Son) in May 1978. I did my Coxswain course in Oct 1978. In 1979 I went to HMAS Waterhen for 12 months. Our second child (Daughter) was born July 1979. HMAS Swan in 1980 for 12 mths.  Nirimba 2yrs, HMAS Cairns 3 yrs, HMAS Creswell 6 mths, HMAS Betano 2yrs, HMAS Tarakan 1yr (Both based in Cairns) then HMAS Cairns as the CPOCOX for 2 yrs and paid off in January 1992.
We moved from Cairns to Bundaberg where I worked for Smiths Snackfoods as a Sales Rep for 5 yrs and was promoted to Area Manager in Townsville and Cairns. We lived in Townsville for 7 yrs and then I left the company to move back to Bundaberg where I worked for a Telstra call centre 3 yrs and Sales Manager for a chemical company for 3 yrs. I left the workforce due to back/knee problems in Dec 2009.
Our children are both married and we have 5 Grandchildren. Both my parents are still alive and live in Bundaberg.



Regards
Russell 

Russell & Karen Maudsley and our 5 Grandchildren

John (Skeet) McKay                          Morrow














Skeet McKay
Post Leeuwin I spent most of my RAN time on destroyers, Hobart, Perth and Brisbane before getting out and going back to school in Hamilton Victoria to do HSC in ‘76.
Married in ‘80 with 3 lovely children, Dean, Janelle and Sonia who are the pride of my life.
Spent 12 years working with disabled people then 12 in the TAFE system rising to Campus Director before setting up my own training company.  Marriage became extinct after 25 years and have remained single every since.  
Lucky enough to receive an offer from a mining company that was too good to be true so worked in that sector for 5 years before taking up a state manager role back in WA with the Indigenous Land Corporation, working with aborigines in the Pilbara and Kimberley mainly.  
Came back to Victoria 2010 and became National Manager Workforce Development for an Industry Skills Council with responsibility for the Mining, Civil, Quarry and Drilling sectors. I live in Geelong.
Winning a Churchill Fellowship in 2003 was a wonderful experience and meant I spent nearly 3 months working from Stirling University in Scotland and seeing the ‘homeland’.
Other landmarks included finding out I had a 34 year old daughter, Jacey,  I knew nothing about until this year and travelling to Italy for a month in April 2012 just for a holiday. 
I’ve been lucky enough to also have some books of a historical nature printed, one receiving the Victorian Premiers Prize in 2008.
I often think of those Navy days and how they helped make me into what I am today. I am looking forward to catching up with old friends, especially Keith McLackland at the next reunion in ‘13.
 
Skeet McKay

                                                                                          Victoria
Peter Douglas                                    Marks                      South Australia












My Story: Peter Douglas


Post Leeuwin I went to HMAS Derwent to begin my ODship. Others of the 38th with the same posting were Steve Hall, Keith Greatrix from Marks plus Cook and Langerak, from Morrow.

Our first trip was a ‘show the flag’ around the Indian Ocean with Perth that had Peter Holstein aboard, and Supply, I think Dave Grant was aboard her. It was a fantastic trip: Seychelles, Mauritius, Kenya, Bahrain, Pakistan, India, Ceylon, Indonesia, Singapore then back home. It took about nine months, which gave us our sea legs, although it wasn’t without incident. About mid way through we did a night Ikara missile demonstration for the Pakistanis I think it was. The Perth being the senior ship got to fire it while we towed the target into place then got out of the way. But no one told the Ikara which was which and consistent with Murphy’s Law it decided to zero in on us. The guy who seriously shat himself was doing the lifebuoy sentry trick at midnight or there about, Blue someone or other, who gave us a full and frank account at breakfast next morning. The Ikara missed the quarterdeck by a matter of feet and Blue was drenched. This news certainly widened the eyes of us who’d been zedding oblivious in the after seaman’s mess: the prospect that the Ikara might have landed in our laps prompted comments from others along the lines of: 
‘You blokes should club together in a Lottery pool when we get back to Sydney.’   

Then for Steve Hall, Peter Holstein, Dave Grant and me it was off to Albatross for NAAH, or what was soon to become, AVN rate training, Bill Young and Blue Waugh were other 38thers who were there. We all loved life at Albatross and the surrounding region. When we’d finished I didn’t come back from the Christmas leave because my dad had a heart attack and I had to stay home in Pt. Adelaide on compassionate leave to do his milk round.

That only lasted a couple of months, then I was posted to the Melbourne and was heading for the States: Hawaii, San Francisco and Los Angeles, principally to pick up a fleet of new Helicopters - Chinooks, some amphibious landing craft and bring them back to Australia. Then it was back out to the Pacific for Skippy One. 

The gruelling thing I remember about working the flight deck when flying was in full swing is that we as AVNs were divided into just a port and a starboard watch doing eight hours on and eight hours off for days at a time, plus no grog issue! The up side was dropping into Pearl Harbour every few weeks for a well earned break and taking in the delights of The International Market Place and Hotel – commonly known as Shit – Street.

I did something like two and a half years on the Melbourne and pretty well all of it was tough. What I remember now was the exhilaration and danger of the operational flight deck; it really was an occupational health and safety nightmare; what with anywhere between 30 to 60 knots of gale force wind howling across it and aircraft crashing and going over the side on a regular basis is it any wonder the yanks refused to land on it. Towards the end of my time I was put on the mirror-landing device and made responsible for setting it. During my first night watch – the guts I think it was – a tracker did a touch and go, but didn’t go and ended up ditching; the crew were all picked up thankfully, but for a while the finger was pointed at me:
‘ABAVN Douglas, can you be certain you set the mirror for Grumman Trackers and not A4 Sky Hawks?’
‘Absolutely sir!’

I was due to draft off but it didn’t happen and had to go on a RIMPACT I think it was called, in the Pacific; Gary Rose reminded me at the 40th reunion. On the way back we went through a typhoon, the roughest seas I’d ever been through. There were nervous faces throughout the ship for a couple of days. A couple of us were ordered up to the flight deck to reposition the mobile crane – some might remember it was called the Beast – as the ship began beating into the fray, I remember putting on the breaks as the ship’s nose pitched down, but the Beast kept right on going until we pitched up again, at which point we lashed and abandoned her.

When we got back to GI I was looking forward to drafting off for a couple of cushy years at Albatross after a well-earned leave. But shortly before I was due to return my dad had another heart attack and I was put on compassionate leave and again had to stay home to do his milk round. Then Pt Adelaide had a naval base: HMAS Encounter, where I’d go on parade regularly, but that and doing the milk round was like watching French Grey dry so to stop from dying of boredom I went back to school and began learning the guitar. To my astonishment I sat the exams, matriculated and was offered a place at Flinders University. This was about the time there was talk of me returning to pusses. After a long chat with the Encounter CO I was allowed to give notice so I could leave the navy after six years service.

What I can say about university life after pussers is that it took a while to adjust; the freedoms that were available after the years of ‘rum, sodomy and the lash’ as it were, were difficult to absorb. But over time, as I went from undergraduate, to graduate, to higher degree student, to tutor, to lecturer, the reality sank in and the mindset changed completely; I still teach part time at Adelaide University mentoring indigenous students through their courses. But way back in the late seventies, to fund my studies I got a job as a singer-guitarist-waiter in a coffee shop cum restaurant near Flinders where I was living in college. Then I got picked up by a street theatre/music outfit called Bash St. Kids; which after a couple of years morphed into a rock cabaret band called Black Diamond Corner, we took the name of the main intersection in working class Pt Adelaide. We toured and made records through to the mid eighties, which was fantastic, the pub rock scene was one huge party, that we decided to exit from around 85 or 86; each of us wanted to move on and do other things. We’ve all remained really close over the years. To my astonishment one of our songs, the Ballad of Jessie Brown, made an appearance on Your Tube recently.

In the late 80s I started bumming around making a few quid as an actor; first in theatre, then television and film. I got supporting parts in a spate of Australian films that certainly should never have been made, and not just because I was in them. The pick were probably the Light Horsemen, Struck by Lightening and Australia, a French film which won an award at Cannes or Venice I think, but mostly I was jobbing in theatre, commercials, corporate gigs voiceovers, radio plays etc, anything to pay the bills. In 1990 I started moving to the other side of the lights as first a director, then writer and producer as well, of advertising agency stuff, training films, promos and the like. Then in the mid 90s I got a call from a mate who’d just been made boss of a mob called Banksia; he wanted me to revamp the company’s flagship production so he could market it worldwide, so I said yes, and did, he did too, the production was Here’s Humphrey and by the year 2000 it was screening in a hundred or more countries throughout North and South America, China, South East Asia, the Middle East and Europe in I don’t know how many languages. 

But in that year was decided there would be a changing of the guard at Banksia and my mate and I were offered, and took, packages. Subsequently the Bear that laid the golden egg has been all but killed off, which is sad. I took the opportunity to become a single parent to my five-year-old daughter Nell, which was great after working so hard for so long and only ever seeing her on weekends. I also wanted to get back into making music and writing stories for myself rather than others, which has happened. Recently I’ve written some about the Leeuwin experience and have included one, Eagle, (Which will be added shortly). 

I’ve had a string of disastrous relationships over the years, numbering seven or eight in all I think, including the marriage to Nell’s mother, which was one of the shortest. Then about six years ago Jane and I moved in together and she’s still here, which is a record for me with daylight as second place, it’s all-good.

Just a quick word about the genesis of our website. About a year ago, completely by chance, I came across the Tingira Association website. Featured on it was the 50th anniversary of the Junior Recruit Training Scheme. I was gob-smacked, mainly because I’d all but forgotten about my life in pussers and in particular Leeuwin. Memories started to flood back. I wrote to the secretary of the Tingira Association after surfing the website for a couple of days and told him how it had rejuvenated in me that which had been buried for a long time, and that I’d been in the 38th intake. He wrote back saying we’d certainly met because he was none other that CPO QMG Parade Ground Gunnery Chief Trevor Cangemi, who used to put the fear of God into me and suspect many others at Leeuwin. A few more emails were exchanged and after stumbling onto the Gun Plot site and finding the long forgotten names of JRs Maudsley, McDermott, Rose and Green, who were talking about a 40th reunion, I decided to try and create a website to promote the idea and put as many 38thers as possible back in contact. Trevor put me onto a Morrow 34ther named PJ, or Midge, Mancini, who’d put their website together. I flew up to the Gold Coast and stayed on his boat for a bit under a week where we put the site together. I’m absolutely stoked, as I know many others are, that it seems to be working. It amazes me that the one-year we spent together, after so many more having passed under the bridge, can reunite us in a bonded spirit and feeling like it was only yesterday.

TERRY CRANEMORROWQUEENSLAND

January 1972 – January 1984

PORS










After Leeuwin I did some brief OD time on HMAS Anzac (I should have paid more attention to hammock slinging lessons!!) before going to Comms School at HMAS Cerberus.

Went back to HMAS Leeuwin in 1974 for Topman course with Wes Mudford, Keith McLackland and Phil Smith.  I think we drank more than we learnt!!

Subsequently spent time on HMAS Vendetta (two trips up top), HMAS Creswell (great fishing), HMAS Derwent, HMAS Hobart and then HMAS Harman (Navy Office).

Went to re-engage after my 12 years but found out at the medical that I was type 1 diabetic (not the too many beers and pizzas type 2) and unfortunately it was “thanks for coming” from the Navy.

Stayed in Canberra and joined the Public Service.

Had a lot of great jobs including Head of Security at Parliament House and was a Senior Adviser to Prime Minister John Howard (who always had a great deal of admiration for Defence personnel) from 2003 to 2007.

Most recent jobs were Head of Taskforce for CHOGM 2011, which was held in Perth in October 2011 – got a gong from the Queen (Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order) at the end and Head of Operations for the G20 2014 meeting to be held in Brisbane in November 2014.

Decided to retire (for a while at least) early this year and now live at Marcoola on the Sunshine Coast.  There are only two types of Australians – Queenslanders and those that want to be!!

Married to Sally and have 5 children ranging in age from 29 to 16.  No grandchildren yet but only a matter of time.

Retirement is underestimated and I’m looking forward to improving my fishing, golfing and surfing skills.

Sporting teams – Brumbies, Rabbitohs (getting a bit excited in 2012) and Carlton (not so excited in 2012).















HMAS Leeuwin 1972
Marks and Morrow 38th