Gosnells, Grit, and Gigs – Surviving Perth, 1977

Gosnells, Grit, and Gigs – Surviving Perth, 1977

Memories of 3500 km between Melbourne and Perth PART 2

Readers mail from Eren Erdogan…,,,,

Here we are – Max in yellow hat and me, unfortunately Şükrü was cut out of this picture – somewhere between Victoria and South Australia, pulled over by border customs. Not for smuggling anything serious… just suspicious-looking apples. Australia’s always been serious about quarantine – you’d think we were carrying nuclear bananas the way they checked that boot. No fruit flies were harmed in the making of this road trip.

Beautiful Perth.

By the time we ran out of money in Perth, reality hit harder than a Nullarbor pothole. We were flat broke. I mean, truly skint. The kind of broke where dinner was a cigarette and half a tin of beans, and the best accommodation plan was the back seat of our Valiant Chrysler — with three of us arguing over who got the seat and who got the gear stick.

We were young, full of dreams, and clearly not much planning. We had crossed the Nullarbor chasing jobs in the wild west — full of hope, ambition, and enough stupidity to think we’d get hired just by showing up. Perth, however, wasn’t handing out opportunities. It handed out sunburn, rejection, and parking tickets.

That’s when fate, in its weird and generous way, stepped in.

We met a Cypriot boy in a Greek café. Funny how Greeks and Turks always seem to find each other in foreign countries — preferably over coffee, and preferably while pretending we don’t remember all the history between us. But there we were, united in poverty, looking equally lost.

This boy he was just a kid, just got his car license really, but maybe he saw the desperation in our eyes… or maybe he just wanted to do something nice for three hopeless-looking fellas who hadn’t shaved in a week.

Either way, he took us home.

His mother — a beautiful Cypriot widow with the heart of gold and the patience of a saint — welcomed us like long-lost cousins. No questions asked. She opened her home, her kitchen, and her fridge. God bless her.

She made us dinner like she’d been expecting us for weeks. A hearty pea and meat stew straight from the frozen peas, and let me tell you — it tasted like heaven. After weeks of servo pies and the occasional stolen chip from someone else’s tray, that meal felt like eating at my mum’s table again. I think I had three helpings. Maybe four. Honestly, I asked for bread to wipe the plate

She and the family squeezed themselves into other two rooms and gave us the boys room. — two beds and a mattress on the floor. It was cramped, but to us it felt like a five-star resort with room service and emotional support.

But we weren’t freeloaders — at least, not intentionally.

After a few days, we noticed the quiet sacrifices. We had to find work, fast!

Max was the first to strike gold — not real gold, unfortunately, but a job in Goldsworthy 1300 km away. Supervisor gig in a running the mess kitchen for iron ore mining workers. Big operation. Off he went, waving goodbye like he’d just been promoted to CEO. We were happy for him. One down, two to go.

Şükrü and I kept job-hunting like our lives depended on it — because they kind of did. Eventually, Coles New World supermarket offered Şükrü a cleaners job that started at some ungodly hour like 4 a.m. On his first day, he couldn’t get out of bed. So I did what any desperate, loyal mate would do — I went in pretending to be him.

Identity theft? Maybe. But in poverty, there’s a fine line between fraud and teamwork.

They handed me a mop and sent me straight to the women’s toilets. If that doesn’t humble a man, nothing will. I still say, if you’ve never emptied bins in a ladies’ room at 4 a.m. during that time of the month, you haven’t truly lived. I came out of that job with a stronger stomach, thicker skin, and a lifelong respect for janitorial staff.

Then came the buffer machine. “You know how to use it?” they asked.

“Of course,” I lied, like a true professional. Didn’t wanted the toilet duty.

Ten seconds later, I was doing a high-speed tango across the Coles floor, the machine dragging me around like I owed it money. One of the guys watching said, “Mate, are you sure you’ve used one of these before?”

“Yeah,” I puffed. “But this one’s… got a different attitude.”

They laughed. I got the hang of it eventually. And to their surprise (and mine), after a few weeks, they made me leading hand. Probably because I kept showing up and hadn’t buffed anyone’s foot off.

Still, after tax, the pay was miserable. I was basically working to stay tired and clean toilets. So I quit.

Next came a labouring job at a dam site near Armadale. Real dirt-under-your-nails stuff. We shovelled, we hauled, we sweated buckets. Most of the machine operators thought they were gods. One of them was alright — taught me how to use a backhoe. I wasn’t brilliant at it, but I was decent. At least it meant less time holding a shovel like a decorative prop.

At one point, I received a $300 tax return. It felt like a jackpot. I used it to put a deposit on a tiny flat — in Maddington or Armadale, I honestly can’t remember. All I know is it had walls, a roof, and a door that locked. That was enough to feel like a king.

The old Valiant Chrysler kept chugging along, making noises it probably shouldn’t, but still dragging us from job to job like a tired old horse with no retirement plan.

Between work and sleep, we roamed the city. Perth wasn’t exactly party central, but we found our way to a few pubs and a nightclub or two. One club had a live band — loud, sweaty, and very into their music. I landed a part time job there collecting empty glasses.

The manager was a proper lunatic. Spent most of his time locked in the office with a cloud of Ganja, weed and conspiracy theories. One night, the band — a punk outfit from Melbourne — was cranking so loud the walls were shaking and complaints came pouring in.

So what did the manager do? He sent me — the glassy — to tell them to turn it down.

Right. Like that was going to work.

I approached the band mid-riff, heart pounding. The lead guitarist, in school uniform with little cap, eyeliner, looked at me like I was sent by the devil himself.

“Turn it down?” he repeated. “Mate, punk rock is volume.”

Fair enough. I wasn’t going to argue with a guy holding a guitar like a weapon.

I went back and told the manager. He nodded, said nothing, then handed me $300 cash.

“For what?” I asked.“Just… deal with it “

To this day, I have no idea what he meant. I took the money and dealt with it by pretending the walls were soundproof for a short while, then it occurred to me what it was for. Little more about this band latter on, you probably know who they were.

Reflection

Looking back now, I laugh at some of those moments, but they shaped me. Every mop, every shovel, pea stew was a lesson. I didn’t know it then, but I was growing into the kind of man who could handle anything. I didn’t just learn to survive — I learned to adapt, to laugh when things got tough, and to say yes even when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

That tiny room in Gosnells, that Cypriot family who had every reason to turn us away but chose kindness — it reminded me that in a strange country, it’s not flags or borders that matter, it’s the people. The ones who offer you a plate of food, a bed, or just a chance.

I arrived in Perth with dusty shoes and empty pockets. I left with a tougher skin, a few funny stories, and the kind of gratitude that stays with you for life.

Port Hedland and the Yellow Helmet – 1977

Life in Armadale turned out to be more of a waiting room than a destination. The flat was cheap and quiet—quiet enough to hear your own desperation echo—but jobs weren’t rolling in, and neither were miracles. Şükrü and I scoured every inch of the classifieds like two detectives on the hunt for clues, but the only thing we found consistently was disappointment.

Red Dust and Lasting Bonds

Then one day, a mining job ad blinked at us like a beacon. Port Hedland. It sounded rugged, remote, and full of promise. Şükrü applied. I applied. He got silence. I got a phone call. Just like that, I was off—ticket in hand, nerves in my gut—to chase something solid in the red dust of the Pilbara.

It felt like a quiet ending to a wild chapter. All three of us—Max, Şükrü, and I—now drifting onto different tracks. The hard days of scraping by, the shared tins of beans, the job-hunting in circles—they were finally starting to give way.

After I left, Max didn’t sit still long. He found Şükrü a job with the same mob he was working for in Goldsworthy, and before long, Şükrü was off to the mines too—probably still wearing his city shoes in the red dust.

As for the Valiant, Şükrü sold it for a song—though from the sound of it, it was more like a sad country tune than a chart-topper. And my $300 bond? Never saw it again. The real estate agent claimed he “misplaced the paperwork.” Funny how that always seems to happen when money’s involved.

Still, even as we scattered, one thing never changed. After 50 years, our friendship is still here. Strong. Unshaken. Distance didn’t dull it. Time didn’t weaken it. We came to Australia as strangers chasing opportunity—and found something far more lasting.

New life and new TA at Port Headland

My new job title was TA. What was that? Trainee Accountant? Tuna Arranger? Turnip Analyst? I hadn’t a clue. I later learned it meant Tradesman’s Assistant—but by the time that knowledge hit my brain, I was already mid-flight with a suitcase in one hand and my dignity flapping out the window.

They even paid for my flight. First class? Not quite. The aircraft looked like a crop duster on its last warning. A flying toolbox held together by faith and rust. At one point we hit turbulence so fierce I nearly baptized myself with tomato juice. I saw my whole life flash before my eyes—including things I hadn’t even lived yet. In house joke was MMI airlines for short was Mick Mouse airlines. It didn’t disappoint.

We landed (barely) at what they generously called an “airport”—basically a tin-roofed sauna caked in red dust and sweat. A bus picked us up like cattle bound for auction and took us to the SMQ. That’s Single Men’s Quarters, but no one told us at the time. We just thought it meant So Much Quarantine. Two blokes per room, iron beds that creaked in Morse code, and the unmistakable scent of socks that had fought and lost a war.

My first roommate was a legend—friendly, skinny, hippie type, helpful, barely around. He had a girlfriend in the nearby caravan park and spent more nights there than in our sock-scented dungeon. He teach me the how to hold cords on my second hand guitar and first few songs “ Scarborough fair and crowed favourite Camp down, ladies sing their song, due da due da.” I can never forget that

One evening, before disappearing to hers, he introduced me to something new: learnt later on it was hash oil. Rolled it into a smoke like it was an after-dinner mint. I was young, curious, and dangerously optimistic.

Two puffs later I was curled up on the floor, vomiting like a possessed fire hose. Hallucinating, sweating, floating somewhere between Perth and Pluto. That was my first and last experience with drugs. My entire drug career—two puffs long. No comebacks, no encores. Just regret, shame, and the bitter taste of bad decisions.

The work, however—that was something else.

Port Hedland wasn’t a town. It was a furnace with street names. Everything was red. Red dirt, red sun, red rust. Even the flies had a reddish hue. On my first day, they handed me a yellow hardhat and pointed to a utility car. We were heading out to Mt. Newman mining plant, the belly of the iron ore beast.

The site looked like the set of a dystopian movie—giant conveyor belts, groaning crushers, machinery that looked like it could eat tanks for breakfast. My job? Assist the tradesmen. Fetch tools. Carry stuff. Pretend to know what “left-handed monkey wrench” meant.

Turns out TA didn’t stand for Tradesman’s Assistant. It stood for Take Abuse.

The plan was to work under one tradesman, but the whole place was run like a schoolyard without a teacher. Everyone shouted orders—boilermakers, sparkies, even other TAs. There was one bloke, George Silo, (TA also) an Irish giant built like a fridge, who barked like he owned the joint.

“Oi, mate! Get me the spanner!”

“Which one?”

“The BIG one!”

They were all big. I was swimming in a sea of oversized spanners, each more intimidating than the last.

And then there was Mike Hilley. A Queenslander with the charm of a flat tyre and the mouth of a garbage truck. From the start, he had it in for me. Maybe it was my name. Maybe it was my face. Maybe he just didn’t like people with vowels. But mostly, it was racism, plain and sour.

He called me everything—from “black wog” and “f.. dago ” to words that would make a sailor flinch. I tried to laugh it off for his ignorance. Then I tried to ignore him. But one day, up on the fourth floor of the crusher tower, he pushed it too far.

I turned to him, calm as a priest but with murder in my eyes, and said:

“You call me that one more time, I swear I will throw you off this platform when you least expecting”

Suddenly, gravity wasn’t the only thing making him nervous. He turned pale. Didn’t say a word. But ran off to do me in like a primary school tattletale.

Next thing I knew, I was in the supervisor’s office. They tried to wrap it all in PR fluff, like it was some “miscommunication.” I said, “You think I came all the way here to be insulted? I came for a job, not a daily character assassination before breakfast .”

Then something odd happened.

The union shop steward had just quit—burned out or beaten down, who knows. No one wanted the job. It was seen as a cursed role. Too much heat, too much politics, and too many blokes wanting to throw you under the bus the minute things went sideways.

I thought, “Screw it. It’s better than putting up with Mike Hilley’s daily insults.” So I put my hand up.

The whole shed erupted in cheers—but the sarcastic kind. As in, “Good luck, idiot.”

But I didn’t care. I took it on.

And weirdly—it became the best gig I ever had up there.

Suddenly, I mattered. People started listening. Even George Silo, who had a voice like a bulldozer and a temper to match, toned it down when he spoke to me. I became the go-to guy for everything: smoko’s, stolen lunches, dodgy power tools, fights over radio stations, even bunk-bed politics in the Single Men’s Quarters. I had no real power—but I had a voice. And for once, that was enough.

It gave me purpose. It gave me something to wake up for besides the blistering sun and the sound of crushers at 4th floor.

Eventually, I got moved into lighter duties—partly because of stress, partly because the doc said I had an ulcer forming from all the heat and crap food. They put me in charge of the tool storeroom after Spiro, the Greek bloke, went on leave. Air-conditioned, tidy, full of gadgets—my kind of place. I kept it running like clockwork, and to be honest, I quite liked being the man behind the counter for a change.

And not long after, I got offered better accommodation—a three-bedroom place in South Hedland. Real walls, a decent shower, and no more late-night thumping from your drunk roommate. I even had a proper fridge! It felt like I’d upgraded from survivor to semi-civilised.

Life started to feel more balanced. I was still the shop steward by day, but now I had a little haven to return to. I made girlfriend’s and mixing with who is who in mining Village Went to parties.

There was beer, music, the occasional bit of trouble—and even some flirtation here and there. After the grind of Port Hedland’s early days, this felt like catching your breath after a long run.

Funny how sometimes the thing you step into just to get out of trouble ends up being the thing that changes your whole direction.

Second part of yellow helmet and getting closer to the end of my adventure in Port Headland is coming in the next few days.

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