{"id":246,"date":"2008-04-02T19:42:26","date_gmt":"2008-04-02T19:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php\/2008\/04\/02\/lost_opportunit\/"},"modified":"2008-04-02T19:42:26","modified_gmt":"2008-04-02T19:42:26","slug":"lost_opportunit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/?p=246","title":{"rendered":"Lost Opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Dad was a fitter
\nand turner<\/a>, toolmaker<\/a> and maintenance fitter.
\nHe was exceptionally good at his trade. Dad could make anything involving
\nmetal and would prefer to make it rather than buy it.<\/p>\n

\nAs I was growing up and developing an interest in science and electronics, Dad
\nseemed to be able to answer any question I put to him. He knew how a radio worked
\nand helped me build my first crystal set<\/a>.
\nWhen I got to high school and started learning algebra, calculus and trigonometry
\nhe seemed to be able to explain every question I had at least as well as my teachers.
\nDad often had his own particular way of explaining a topic that made it come
\nalive in my mind. I didn’t
\nthink about this much until later in my adult years. This seemed to me just what
\na Dad should be able to do. But as I became a science and maths teacher myself,
\nI started to realise he would be what we would now classify as a gifted student.
\nWe would regard him as having the potential to go a long way. Had he been born
\nin the fifties like I was, he would almost certainly have gone to university
\nand had the opportunity to do post graduate studies.<\/p>\n

\nDad was also a gifted and advanced pianist. As we were growing up we realised
\nthat not everyone’s dad played the piano and certainly not everyone’s
\ndad played what we later learned was called classical music. But although we
\nloved his music and loved hearing him play pretty well every night we didn’t
\nrealise until late in our teens how advanced he was. He played Chopin<\/a>, Paganini<\/a>,
\nLiszt<\/a> and many other
\ncomposers’ works from memory. Even then it was only well into my adult years
\nthat I started to realise how amazing it was that a fitter and turner son of
\na blacksmith from Kalgoorlie<\/a> was such an advanced musician. He was certainly
\ntalented enough that had the opportunity arisen, he could have made a career
\nfrom his music.<\/p>\n

\nYet Dad never had the opportunity to go to university or had the opportunity
\nto make a career from his music. My dad was a teenager (although the term wasn’t
\nused then) during the depression and had to leave school to go to work as soon
\nas work was available. He worked as a Diesel Mechanic in the Kalgoorlie mines
\nand the power station there. Each week he would bring his pay packet home and
\ngive it to my grandmother who would then give him whatever she thought was a
\nreasonable allowance to live on. He wasn’t destitute. Dad was able to buy
\na number of old motorbikes and eventually a brand new Francis
\nBarnett<\/a> in the late 30s. He
\neven bought a piano as far as I know with my grandmother’s blessing. Who
\nknows, if things had continued as they were he may have had the opportunity to
\nadvance his education and eventually make it to university or have opportunity
\nto play music as a career.<\/p>\n

\nBut this was not to be. The war came and Dad joined the RAAF<\/a> as a Fitter. Even
\nthere he excelled. I recently applied for and received his air force records.
\nThe results of his examinations for his group of trainees is included. The names
\nare listed in order of merit and at the top of the list, alone in the category “Pass
\nwith Special Distinction” is dad’s name. While he was training in
\nMelbourne, my auntie contributed to the war effort by inviting some of these
\nyoung men home to replace some of family comforts they were missing. I still
\nhave a photo from those days of my dad in his RAAF dark blue uniform sitting
\nat the piano at my auntie’s house. That’s how he met my mum (my auntie’s
\nsister). The were married on December 6th 1941. Pearl
\nHarbor<\/a> was bombed on December
\n7th 1941. All leave was cancelled and within days of becoming a married man,
\nhe found himself at the receiving end of Japanese bombs in the Northern
\nTerritory<\/a>.
\nAlthough mum and dad were able to correspond, all mum was allowed to know was
\nthat he was somewhere in Australia and was left to guess that he was in the Northern
\nTerritory.<\/p>\n

\nJust a few months later she received a telegram from the Air Force:<\/p>\n

\nREGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR HUSBAND, AIRCRAFTSMAN CLASS I STANFORD HARVEY
\nCURNOW, IS REPORTED TO BE SERIOUSLY ILL AND HAS BEEN ADMITTED TO A MILITARY HOSPITAL
\nAT BATCHELOR<\/a> SUFFERING FROM A PROBABLE FRACTURE OF BASE OF SKULL AS THE RESULT
\nOF ACCIDENTALLY FALLING FROM MOVING TRANSPORT ON 18TH JUNE 1942 STOP<\/p>\n

\nYOUR HUSBAND’S CONDITION IS CONSIDERED TO BE SERIOUS STOP<\/p>\n

\nANY FURTHER INFORMATION RECEIVED WILL BE IMMEDIATELY CONVEYED TO YOU STOP<\/p>\n

\nSIGNED ETC <\/p>\n

\nThanks to the surgeons at an American
\nMilitary Hospital<\/a>, Dad did recover although
\nhe was left with permanent paralysis of one side of his face and for a long time
\nwas very embarrassed about this. I don’t know all the details of his recovery
\nbut he was not discharged until 1944 without taking any further active part in
\nthe war. (One of his brothers was killed in the Battle
\nfor Singapore<\/a> and the
\nother spent 11 days drifting in a dinghy in the Mediterranean after being shot
\ndown.)<\/p>\n

\nOn medical grounds, Dad was advised not to return to Kalgoorlie where work was
\nbeing offered to him and was forced to compete in a much tougher employment market
\nin Melbourne. Eventually he was able to get a position as an apprentice fitter
\nand turner as part of a scheme to retrain returned servicemen. He remained with
\nthe same employer for the next forty years. However, despite his proven intellect
\nand ability Dad remained a blue collar worker all his working life. One of the
\nhigh points of those early days was the young husband and wife, with my then
\ninfant eldest brother being able to move into a War
\nService<\/a> home in Highett<\/a> which
\nremained the family home for the rest of Dad’s life and until Mum was no
\nlonger able to live by herself. <\/p>\n

\nInterspersed with periods of great happiness, perhaps the greatest of them the
\nbirth of their four children, Dad experienced periods of deep melancholy. It
\nwasn’t easy feeding, clothing and schooling four children on a fitter and
\nturner’s wage even though he worked long hours of overtime when it was
\navailable and took on a second job as a waiter at a golf club on weekends.<\/p>\n

\nThings probably got to their lowest point at the death of my brother after a
\nlong and difficult illness, but then things started to look up as Dad neared
\nretirement age. After years of working amongst heavy machinery he had suffered
\nsignificant hearing loss and was successful in receiving a small but useful compensation
\npayout. Then again, after years of hearings, letters and appointments with government
\nbodies (mainly the Repatration
\nDepartment)<\/a> he was finally awarded a compensation payment and pension
\nfor his war injuries. Although the compensation payment did not cover the pension
\nhe would have received if the government had originally admitted liability
\nfor his injuries, it was enough to allow Mum and Dad to live comfortably for
\ntheir twenty years of retirement.<\/p>\n

I wrote this piece for another purpose. But as I was writing it, it made me
\nthink again about the concept of "potential." Given my Dad’s ability and talent,
\nmany would say he had the potential to acheive much more than he did.<\/p>\n

When I think about that, my first reaction is to wonder who has the right
\nto judge the worth of one life’s achievements and whether something "better"
\ncould have been achieved.<\/p>\n

Leaving that aside though, did my Dad have that potential, or when you think
\nabout potential do you have to take circumstances into account? I guess we
\ncan never really now.<\/p>\n

What we can now is how we respond to what we believe is our own potential.
\nWhat do we do with the gifts we have? This is not about beating ourselves up
\nand telling ourselves we should be doing more than we are. It is about taking
\nan honest assessment of ourselves and asking ourselves what do we really want
\nto do and what can<\/em> we do about that.<\/p>\n

I leave this with you. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Dad was a fitter and turner, toolmaker and maintenance fitter. He was exceptionally good at his trade. Dad could make anything involving metal and would prefer to make it rather than buy it. As I was growing up and developing an interest in science and electronics, Dad seemed to be able to answer any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-luck","category-purpose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriscurnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}