The film tells the story of my father life, and his quest for personal and professional 'respectability'. I intend to use his 8mm films, photographs, medical records and other sundry bits of ephemera (including his unsuccessful job applications, x-ray scans and his 'alphabetical maxims' to illustrate my performance —some of these items appear below).
My father never gave up his quest for a clerical job. He scanned the job advertisements in the newspapers regularly and methodically, and applied for many jobs without success. For reasons I will never fully understand, he decided to keep a record of his rejection records. Letter after letter, written in the impersonal prose favoured by bureaucrats, summarily dismiss my father’s applications. I wonder why he preserved these humiliating reminders of his inability to occupy the clerical position he so desperately sought. He wasn’t especially well educated, and, by his own admission, struggled to complete high school. He had to be coached to pass the compulsory confirmation exam for postal clerks in London, and his Australian public service exam results were unspectacular, indicating that he did not possess the aptitude for the career he desired so much. I wonder what his application letters were like?
There’s so much I will never know about my father, but these rejection letters tell a story that sheds some light on his private struggles. Driving home from work one rainy evening in 1979 my father had a car accident on Railway Parade, Bayswater. He lost control of his car on a bridge, the car rolled, coming to rest on its roof. My father managed to crawl out of the vehicle’s passenger side window. He survived with a few minor bruises, and suffered from a mild dose of shock. Since he was on his way back from work, he was entitled to claim workers compensation for an injury sustained while on duty. He claimed that the accident had damaged his back, and this made it difficult for him to continue his duties as a bus conductor. I suspect he may have been hoping that his employer would have no choice but to give him the elusive desk job he coveted since his arrival in Australia. He submitted him self to various medical examinations in an attempt to prove that he was unfit for his current position, which required some degree of physical dexterity. The medical reports failed to find any direct link between the accident and my father’s back injury. One report did note that he was slightly obese and unfit, though.
In a cruel twist of fate, the MTT did redeploy my father, but not in a clerical role. My father ended his life as night watchmen at the Mirrabooka bus station. This job was difficult, and I’m sure it took a toll on his health. He was forced to work late shifts. He would usually leave for work close to midnight, and return home at breakfast time. Given his age, and physical condition, this was probably the worst sort of work for a man like him. The insurance company paid him a small sum of money to compensate for his new job’s lower salary, but the new job was a disaster. His sleeping patterns became erratic, and he was operating in a daze most of the time. He never got used to sleeping during daylight hours, and his lack of quality sleep took a toll on his health. He put on more weight, and became sullen and depressed, at least this is what his doctor’s report says.
Amongst his papers is letter, which indicates that he wanted to prove that his back pain was no longer an impediment to working as a conductor. So, towards the very end of his life he attempted to get his old job back, a job he detested. I was oblivious to his struggle and depression, although I was on the receiving end of his irrational tirades often. I was a young adult; enjoy a newfound sense of autonomy from my parents, and immersing myself in university life. Of course, my carefree lifestyle was predicated on my parents’ hard work and sacrifice. I thought my father a bad-tempered old man, and there’s little doubt in my mind that we were on bad terms when he died.
While sorting through his papers I came across X-rays of his back. I stared at the images of my father’s bones. They reminded me of the skeleton from the Batavia wreck in the Fremantle museum. This is what we are in the end— a pile of bones given temporary life. My father died in his sleep. His death was not as violent as the unknown victim of the Batavia museum, yet I can’t help feeling my father was also a victim of violence and injustice. He was a different kind of boat person, but Australia, for all it gave him — a large quarter acre block of land with a house loved, wide open spaces, blue skies, a fecund garden, a games room, a personal bar, and the relentless, scorching heat — destroyed him, too. He never achieved the station and modest status of a clerical worker. He toiled on the buses, under the sky in all weather, and finally in the dark. With a radio for company, and a flashlight his only tool of trade, he kept watch over the quiet bus station in the wee small hours of the morning, devoid of human company. He toiled until his heart gave out on 5 March 1985. He was 53 years old.
His insurance claim was still active when he died, and his case wasn’t resolved until 1986. My mother received $2000 compensation, and The MTT took no responsibility for my father’s death. On the medical evidence, it seems that they didn’t have a case to answer. My father was not a healthy man. He was obese, and didn’t take care of himself. He just assumed that his body would continue to serve him without any care or maintenance. He was tightly wound, and his was a quiet desperation. A desperation he attempted to conceal from his family to some degree. I’m not surprised he was diagnosed with depression. His goal to be a ‘respectable’ clerk was modest, but his failure to secure a job with a modicum of status destroyed. He didn’t suffer a fatal fell swoop to the head, and even though he died in his sleep, his death was no less violent. He slipped away, slowly, silently, a broken man.
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