Bob Padula
Robert Padula of Mont Albert, Victoria was one of the first Victorian War Babies of the Second World War, having been born on September 6, 1939, in Melbourne just after Britain and France declared war on Germany. Bob was a technician, a Professional Engineer, in the Postmaster General’s Department (Now Telstra) and a Consultant in the field of international broadcast engineering. In 1981, Bob was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia “For Service to Shortwave Radio”. Bob keeps an on-line
autobiography, part of which is included here with his permission.
“From the year 1947, my family had a bungalow in Queen Street at West Altona, a coastal suburb to the west of Melbourne, which had been made available by my Grandmother. It consisted of a large shed with a bedroom, kitchen, a caravan (with several beds), and outdoor toilet -with many spiders! The kitchen had a wood stove, on which Mum would make scones and damper, and cook the fish that we caught in Altona Bay. The origins of the bungalow are uncertain, but we believed that it had belonged to one of the early fishermen in the area. We used to go there quite often and spend a lot of time there during the Christmas holiday period. A great-aunt and great-uncle lived very close to our bungalow, almost on the beach, and there were many family gatherings with relatives from the country coming down to visit us and my great aunt and uncle.
One of my mates (Ian) from Primary School would come down and stay with us occasionally in the late 1940s. In the mid-1950s, my brother and I would take our bikes by train from Auburn to Altona and ride to the bungalow. One of my Trainee Technician mates would come down to stay with us in the late 1950s – we would ride our bikes all the way from Auburn. Dad would attend to the large vegetable garden. We planted willow trees, which are still flourishing in the backyard of the house, which was built on our property after we sold it. We took cuttings from the willow to our new home in Mont Albert in 1959, which grew into monstrous trees, two of which survive to the present day.
On the east of our property was a large swamp in which we caught tadpoles and frogs. This later became Apex Park. Us kids would be taken out in a small fishing boat owned by the family who lived in the adjacent house – we caught flathead in Altona Bay. About 1 km to the west of our bungalow was the Altona Explosives Reserve, which was built in the early 1940s. There was a Jetty, at which barges would be towed from Williamstown carrying containers of munitions. These would be off-loaded on to small tramway trucks, which would then be transported by a horse along a narrow- gauge track to underground storage bunkers. The reserve was closed down in the late 1950s and became part of a public park complex. There are a few stumps remaining of the former jetty. I can recall the railway track, which ran alongside Queen St before it entered the reserve.
On Sunday, February 1, 1953 we were staying at the bungalow and heard a tremendous explosion to the north. We rushed outside, to see a vast plume of smoke rising thousands of feet into the sky. This turned out to be from the Deer Park munitions factory, a few kilometres to the north of our bungalow. The noise was heard right across suburban Melbourne!
In the bungalow, there were two radios: a stand-up TRF console in a wooden cabinet of ancient vintage, and a small Astor mantel radio (made around 1940) in a green plastic case. In 1950, we set up a wooden pole outside the back door and ran a simple short antenna wire into the TRF. The results were amazing! In mid-summer, in the late afternoon, New Zealand stations were heard very easily, such as 2YC Wellington 660 and 2YA Wellington 570. This was some five hours before our sunset. In those years, the Melbourne Age newspaper published a weekly Radio Listening Guide (the forerunner of today’s “Green Guide”), and it also put out a folding large card, about A4 size, in which all Australian medium-wave stations were listed, with calls, operating times, locations, and other details. I had pinned this card to the top of the radio and ticked off then stations that I had heard.
In 1950, our family friend visited us often when we were staying at the Bungalow. He had a Ford Prefect car and used to drive my brother and I out to the paddocks north of Werribee, a few km away. In those days, the area was not residential and was mainly volcanic plains, Scotch thistles, lava stones and farms. Our friend had a .22 calibre rifle, which was for destroying rabbits that had reached plague proportions in the early 1950s. These animals were everywhere and had virtually destroyed the landscape with their burrows. Our friend showed me, as a kid of ten, how to set up the weapon, prepare and load the ammo, understand the recoil, and fire it. I became rather good at this, and killed many rabbits, whilst my brother watched. My accuracy was good up to about 100 metres. We then took the carcasses back to the Bungalow, hanging them on a bar on the front of the car. I would clean them, and Mum would cook them up as stew.
Looking back, our friend had no understanding of safety issues, and I now realize that those activities were extremely dangerous, as a 22 rifle can be lethal to humans at close range. We had that property until vandals burnt it down in 1959, and then we sold it.”