John Colin Manley
Job Description
General Hand, Carpenter
Period
1949 - 1952
John wasn’t at the whaling station when whaling actually started but was involved in the early building of the station. His nickname was ‘Spanner’ (he was mechanically minded) and he always wore green overalls which were his trademark.
John was involved in the early building of the whaling station, one nissen hut, the accommodation, the kitchen, staff room. Some of the names remembered from that time are Louis Kosinec, Snowy Whiteman (Snowy was John Manley’s boss), Birss family, Bill Bannon, Kenny Meyers, Jack Davies (Batter Jack or Karri Jack), Murray Anderson, Andy Woonings, Sig Nielson, Alec the Finn, Bill Littleheart, Bill Geary, Ted Gray, Paddy McGuire (striker for Ted Gray), Bill Penrose (office), Mick Gibson, Mick the carpenter, Italian, very quiet, always wore a cap and overalls. The Westerberg boys were there when they weren’t fishing (Jacko, Bill, and Snapper); it was like a mini United Nations.
Everything was done on a shoestring – Proudloves ran the bus to the station and were paid in shares.
The early accommodation consisted mainly of nissen huts – bought cheap from army disposal. The first job John had was to erect a nissen hut (double length – one end for the kitchen and cooking facilities – the other end was the mess hut). The next one was closer to the water and was for one of the staff who lived there permanently.
The men would only have half an hour for lunch and a lot of jokes were played on each other. At a quarter to five everyone would gather up their tools and put them away in the lock-up tool room and make their way to the bus. One night someone nailed the base of John’s toolbox to the flensing deck – everyone was in the bus waiting and poor John was unable to get his big tool box off the deck to put it away. All the blokes gave him hell because the bus couldn’t leave without him. After that John would keep an eye on his toolbox near knock off time so that it didn’t happen again. On the way home in the bus someone grabbed John’s shoe and threw it out the window. John had to make a quick mental note of where it was and had to go back later that night in the car to retrieve it. It was all high spirited fun and the guys often played pranks on each other.
At the start the egg shaped tanks were brought in, then the flensing deck and cover over the boilers – all this was done first so that the money could start coming in. There were only the bare necessities, a small shed over the winch, a crane on a three-wheeled (two front and one back) truck (originally belonged to Swan Brewery) and was used for lifting. The boilers were manhandled to get them into position. Brambles helped. The timber for the decking came from Whittakers (now Bunnings) in Denmark and the upright poles from somewhere near Walpole. The office was already built before John started with the company.
The average wage for John when he started was 5 or 6 pounds a week.
John Colin Manley