The family's return to Melbourne from Malaysia in September 1976, their return to their house in Ferntrée Gully, and the near-disaster of Pat nearly burning the house down.
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RETURN TO MELBOURNE
We came back to Melbourne in Sept. 1976, it was Spring. We'd had our house in Ferntrée Gully rented out; but when we returned we found the renter had had an engine in the front hall and also he had broken into our things we had locked in the back of the garage. So we had a lot of trouble to sort through. I had some of my personal things there since I hadn't had much time to pack before leaving for Butterworth. Once I had been notified of the move to Malay I'd had to go on a training course up at Williamstown Base just before we left.
Pat tells the story of how she nearly burnt the house down while Derek was at training when she'd left oil on the stove to attend to her son. He had fallen and hit his head on the door, naturally she forgot about the pan getting hotter and hotter. She and the older children had to get busy and scrub the smoke stains off the newly painted walls! This was just before leaving for the time in Malay.
When we came back to Melbourne, before we could get back into our house at Ferntrée Gully, we had to spend one night in a hotel. This was the Dorset Gardens in Croydon. Daughter Cheryl who was fourteen at the time remembers the excitement of being reunited with her brother Colan, at this time. Colan had returned to Melbourne to continue his schooling a year before the family returned to Australia.
When we moved back to our house it was a few months later that all these wooden crates turned up with the things we had bought overseas. The kids thought it was great; I just remember having to break up all the crates. I had to more or less go straight back to work at the offices in the city. I ended up in a sergeant's area.
People: Derek [DISTEL], Pat [DISTEL], Cheryl [DISTEL], Colan [DISTEL]
Renting out the family home. Standard practice during an overseas posting, and a standard risk: tenancy law then gave an owner little practical recourse over the condition a house came back in.