Sad news. Mal was found this morning at home. He was active even yesterday on 20m talking with old friends but clearly very frail.
Mal was a regular on 20m talking with ZL and he had a big signal on 80m where we talked every Sunday.
A kind man, very concerned for the welfare of animals and nature. His cat Rosco is being looked after. We will miss him very much.
VK2BMS SK.
I recorded a chat with Mal in May 2014, here are some notes.
“In town you see a hobo lying on a park bench a few years ago he was a little boy playing in a school yard”
Mum had an Irish grandfather and a British grandmother and they came to Australia first but didn’t like it. They moved to a place on the South Island called Little River, Akaroa, tour ships pop in there now. Then they moved to a place called Southbridge about thirty miles out of Christchurch.
My grandfather was marvellous, he was a shoe maker, he would just reach down and put his hand on a person’s foot and go away and make a shoe. He had a horse and cart and when he’d go up the driveway with a gravel path and it would make a noise and the Maoris would turn the lights off and pull down the blinds like there was no one home - he used to laugh. He had a shop “Tom Taylor”.
Dad was involved in installing and servicing theatre projectors. At one stage work was done to install a 35mm projector outside at home, holes were cut in the wall, a big concrete block house it was, there was a tin lined projection box, but in the end it never eventuated. He was always away somewhere, sometime he took me with him, but I never got to know him very well. He died at about 54, but he lived a life. He worked hard and played very hard. He’d think nothing of working, installing projectors, twenty hours a day. Everything had to be perfect, he had all these test records, one was “The donkey serenade” he knew all the notes to that and how it sounded on the speakers.
He was installing some gear in Napier, up in the operating box, and an earthquake came along (in 1932). Everyone panicked and he said “stay here” but they rushed down below and the whole thing collapsed. Fortunately he was in the small tin lined fire proof box. When it crashed to the ground he stepped out, the only person to survive.
My parents were married on Remembrance Day, which in those days was taken very seriously, the whole town stopped and dad thought all the traffic was stopping for him. In those days it was pretty “big time” having a car, dad always had a spare steering wheel and when all these cars stopped very suddenly at 11am dad drove straight through waving the steering wheel. If anyone did anything stupid on the road he’d wave the steering wheel at them and they’d just about faint.
I was born on the 17th December, 1932 in Wellington, New Zealand. No brothers or sisters.
School was first at a private school called Inahow, there was a Miss Dunning, a very prude lady who used to get all the children together in the kitchen washing up area and wash my mouth out with soap for swearing, I probably said “damn” or something like that.
Then I went to Ridgeway Primary School but that’s where things were difficult, I could never catch up with the mathematics. Mum and Dad meant well, sending me to the private school, but I could never catch up. From there I went to the Wellington Technical college, and studied general engineering.
We used to go on school holidays down to a place called Radio Corporation of New Zealand there was a guy there named Marks (might have been Marx), he was a good cobber, you never paid for anything, it was always “mates rates”, he’d fix amplifiers and get things.
First job was with civil aviation. I wanted to become a radio engineer but the mathematics “unzipped” me. I lasted there for a while but decided it wasn’t for me and I became a bit footloose in various jobs, but then for some reason I got a second job, working for an alarm firm, initially outside, then they brought me inside looking after the general office there. I used to open the place up in the mornings and one day the phone rang and I said good morning and the woman said “oh it’s very early, are you a recording” and I said “yes” and she said “I’ll phone back”.
I got my Ham Radio license about 50 years ago. I had sat the license before that, it was in the days of Morse code, but I didn’t feel I was up to the morse test, which was in the morning so skipped it and when I walked in to the second exam this bombastic person yells and screams at me in front of everybody, which I’ve never liked. If you’re going to yell at someone you should do it in private. Eventually he ran out of steam and so I replied in kind. I passed the paper but hadn’t got the morse and so wasn’t licensed.
I was friends with Noel Mullis, ZL2APZ who eventually became a radio inspector, he said you’ve got a ZC1 - an ex New Zealand army transmitter receiver in a metal box, he asked if I could get it going as he wanted someone to check his signals. So I dragged it out, I could see where the mice had been so I cleaned it out and it leapt in to action and I could receive. So that re-kindled my interest. That was about six weeks before the exam so I immediately applied for the exam so I had to get cracking on the morse. In those days they had volunteers at the VK2BWI (in Sydney) who ran morse practice every weeknight which was great. Oh, the static crashes were horrendous but after a while you got used to that.
So I went and sat the morse exam and blokes were swearing and throwing their pens down but to me that was just a bit of static. They were putting other people off as well you see, so there was only a professional operator and me that got through the exam. I was pretty pleased about that.
I was licensed as ZL2BAA which was the first of the B calls, (Noel might have had a hand in that). So I got on with the ZC1 running five watts of AM. Then I got on to higher power CW and that increased the range of course.
In the job at the alarm firm, I saved up and had enough to either go to the U.S. or see all of Asia, I thought well Asia’s pretty different so chose that. I’d annoy the boss by sending telegrams and he’d put a pin on the map, and when he saw the “U-turn” he knew I was coming back.
I met Caroline in the South China Sea. She did the manuscripts at the Australian Museum. I’ve always been a museum fan, so we struck up a conversation and became, well um, do you want to come to New Zealand or do you want to come to Australia? At that time Britain was about to join the European Economic community and New Zealand’s trade would be hit. So I came to Australia and stayed with her parents for a while but then got a pokey little boarding house room in Sydney.
Caroline lived at Epping and I’d catch the train and walk out out there every Sunday. We used to watch The Two Ronnies on television. Eventually we bought a house in Willoughby East.
Looking around for a job I saw an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald for a sales position at Ferguson Transformers. I’d never been in sales before but they recognised that I could pick up knowledge of the products and they’d help me with sales. I worked there for about twenty years. After a couple of changes of management, I “decamped” thinking it would be easy to find another job aged in my 40s.
Eventually I got a job at AMP as a “desk jockey”. There’s a difference between technical people and non-technical people. My humour was sometimes not appreciated but I stuck it out and retired at age 67.
Caroline worked for the Australian Museum, in touch with the scientists all the time, and she spoke to them and asked if we have children, when they grow up what’s the population situation going to be? Well Caroline, we predict that (by about now) the population of the world will be about ten billion - oh no! So, we didn’t have any children. We were worried about the outcome. In my opinion, a lot of human beings are not very nice people. So, ten billion of them, to bring a child in to that, ah no, not guilty.
It may be that being a single child and not playing games and such I was more interested in nature, the ants in the ground, the birds, I developed quite an affinity with them and I’ve been interested in animal welfare ever since.
After a talk by ethicist Peter Singer, I told him he was starting to put him off eating meat. Singer said “oh good” and signed a book for me with “Malcolm, eat well”.
I’ve only been a vegetarian for four or five years, although I’ve been thinking about it for years, but one night, I got the piece of meat on the fork and put it in the mouth and said “right, that’s it, bang”. I feel a bit better for doing that.
I’ve always had a left wing leaning. It probably gets back to the “fair go” style with animals. I think you’ll find, from my experience, it may just be the people I mix with, that most animal activists, if that’s what you want to call them, are of left wing tendency. It’s compassion and fairness for all.
A couple of Saturdays ago we had a “park day” and a bloke phoned me in the morning and said that he’d like his boy to come along as part of the Duke of Edinburgh award. So that was OK, but he brought a long of big packet of McDonalds biscuits as mum worked at McDonalds. At five o’clock, mum arrives in a brand new big Audi sports car and I thought, gee she must be short changing some people at the counter. But no, she was an executive.
Morrie used to live just down the street from me (in New Zealand). We used to live in a suburb called Brooklyn about 400 feet up, a pretty good location, overlooking the harbour. Matter of fact on my QSL card, ZL2BAA, I’ve got a photograph of the Southern Cross (ship) off Wellington with Brooklyn in the background.
There’s a bit of a story about The Southern Cross too… I was talking to a bloke who was on the Southern Cross, a beautiful ship, and I was on holidays, aged about 21, something about radio came up and he said “I’m the radio officer” and he offered to show me the radio gear, so we got on board, very palatial surroundings, and he said “I’m not really the radio officer” but I just wanted to have a yarn with you. I spend plenty of time at sea and get pretty lonely.
Next thing, the ship’s vibrating and I said what’s going on here? I’d better get on deck for some fresh air but there’s no wharf there. What to do? If I present myself to the captain I’d be a stow away. He said let’s go down to the mess and have a meal and a drink. There was a vacant cabin next to his. He seemed genuinely lonely but he seemed harmless but perhaps I was a bit naive. So I’m in this cabin and next minute over the speakers comes “close all watertight doors”, they had to go upstairs for lifeboat drills and I’m down all by myself. All I could hear is the sea swishing past. Then clunk, clunk, clunk, “open all watertight doors and a ships inspection”. So I got under the bed. I felt like some poor animal being hunted.
The next minute bang! the door opens and there’s two highly polished shoes about two inches away from my nose. I’m there almost not breathing, anyway they go away. I get out from under the bed and we finished up in Auckland fortunately. I had to get a bus back. Beautiful smooth trip.
I knew Peter Hughes, N3PH who worked as Radio Officer on the QEII. He was married to a New Zealand girl Alison, he worked in Wellington for some time which is how I knew him but he got a job with the Cunard line and I’d visit him whenever they were in town. People would say they’d love to go on the QEII and I would say that I’ve been on the QEII many times!
Caroline died about eight years ago, I don’t remember the date, I only remember two dates, my birthday and my mother’s birthday - she was the 21st of June, she’d say “the shortest day and for you young blokes, the longest night”.
My mother was a bit religious, mainly for social reasons. I used to go to Sunday school but they’d start putting all sorts of rhubarb across about a boy trying to steal a lolly out of a jar on the counter and the alarm going off and I thought “this is ridiculous” and went home but mum said “go back, go back” - worried about the social aspect of it you see. But dad said, whatever he wants to do he should do. So that’s where it first started.
When you die, “I think you’re gone”. A lot of people want to believe. It’s something to cling to. These religions, they work on fear, sin and guilt. If you go and do so-and-so, you’ll go to hell. These people are genuinely terrified. Anyway, when they come to the door I always ask them about the father of Jesus. There’s a book called “The bible fraud”.
My influences? Well, I don’t know that anyone influenced me. A barrister friend of mine once said, you know Malcolm, ninety percent of people don’t think. They watch all the glamour people on Channel 9, listen to Alan Jones, see the football and that’s it. It’s a great diversion is football, the politicians love that, it gets them off the minor things. He said, without that ten or even five percent we’d be jiggered. When a dictator takes over the first thing he gets to is the intellectuals. They get rid of them.
After Caroline died, I used to go to Jazz at a pub called the “Vanity Fair”. It’s funny how when you go to a place regularly you tend to go to the same place and I’d stand near the band. I’d see this lady over the other side and she was quite an intelligent lady. I get the brilliant idea, quite romantic, of getting her a schooner of Kahlua and milk. So I’m just about to approach her, someone inadvertently turns and nudged me and I spill it all down her cleavage - how romantic. That’s how we met.
I like traditional Jazz. In younger days I would go to Jazz three or four times a week. Now and then Dave comes down and we go and see something.
At home with Robert VK2ZNZ
At home during the interview written up above.
Inspecting some radio gear with Robert VK2ZNZ
At the bowling club with Dave Russell VK2DKE
Happy days soon after moving to Sydney. (From Noel)
