George Spencer Compton was my grandfather. He was the son of Agnes Mitchell and Edward Alfred Frederick Compton. E.A.F.Compton was a Mining Surveyor at Southern Cross, and it was in that small town that G.S.Compton was born. He was the first white child born in that town, as noted in baptismal records.

Gold was discovered in CoolBettydie the following year by Bayley and Ford. The nearest mining registrar was at Southern Cross, and the prospectors carried their nuggets there to make their Reward Claim. For the lack of any other suitable vessel, the gold nuggets were weighed in the young George's bath tub. The child had some of the metal placed in his hands with the prayer that he may live a life enrichened by the precious substance.

Within a few years, E.A.F.Compton was transferred to the booming town of CoolBettydie, where he worked in the busy Registar's Office. His wife Agnes, and the growing family, which had several daughters and finally another son, Alwyn, lived in a home in Guildford. It was in Perth that Spencer attended school, where he was a particularly able student, even in Primary School. His Secondary education was undertaken at Perth Boys' School, and by the age of sixteen he was a student of metallurgy at the West Australian School of Mines.

One story Spencer told of his childhood was of excessive watermelon consumption. He had attempted to eat an entire melon, but but was full and there was still a large amount left. An adult friend found him lying in a torpor, stuffed to the gills, with much of a melon remaining beside him. "Too much watermelon?" the friend asked, to which Spencer retorted: "No, not enough boy!"

For several years, Spencer worked on mines around the Eastern Goldfields. The only record of any workplace was made when he married at Sandstone in February, 1914, to Elizabeth Jane Cobley. At that time he was a `student metallurgist' employed at Youanmi, a small and isolated settlement between Southern Cross and Sandstone.

The most common form of transport in the countryside of Western Australia was the bicycle. Most Australians had bicycles, and the first road maps were in fact route maps for long distance cyclists. Spencer cycled to Sandstone from Youanmi during the weekends, a distance of several hundred kilometres. The `road' was a dirt cart track winding throught the scrub and around the salt lakes. Even in the winter, this would have been a major undertaking. In the summer of 1914, it would have been stinking hot. Nevertheless, it was a journey Spencer made frequently to see this Welsh girl, Betty, 24 years of age and one year older than he. As his son George once said, "She must have been good!" Shortly after their marriage, the Great War broke out. Spencer went off to training, and became a lieutenant in the infantry. He was shipped to France, where he fought on the Somme, the location of as intense trench warfare as anywhere in this most terrible war. His father was a captain in the same unit, having enlisted in his late forties. Spencer was in constant attendance to a senior officer whom he accompanied on journeys around the battlefield.

The battlefield was a sea of mud and shell craters. To get around this, pathways were built of planking, known as 'duckwalks', which the men would walk along as shells and snipers' bullets whizzed by. The duckwalks were zig-zagged so only a few men could be shot at a time. One time he had a polite conversation with his commanding officer on a duckwalk, while meanwhile they were being shot at from a distance away. 'Compton, ...bah, blah, blah...' A bullet whizzes by. 'Yes sir!' he replies, as a shell explodes. ' Compton, blah, blah, blah...' ' No sir...' The crump of a mortar.. and so it went.

In later life, Spencer told of events in battle, the most significant of which to me is the following:-

During an attack on the German front, Spencer captured a German bunker. A group of German soldiers came out, hands high in the air. "How many of you are there?" demanded Spencer. "Nein!" they cried. "Then share this among you," he shouted, and threw a hand grenade into the group. As an officer, Spencer carried a revolver into battle, with which he killed many men. I still have a St Christopher's medallion which he took from one of the many young Germans he killed in battle. He nursed a hatred of Germany and the Germans until his old age. He disapproved of my studying German at school, and even inspected the trade marks of our kitchen utensils for the dreaded 'Krupp'. I thought he was an old bigot.

On a leave break, Spencer travelled around England. He was treated well, and his postcards seem to mention the names of many women who offered all nature of kindness. He was a handsome (even if rather short) man, an officer and a gentleman. It did not seem to bother the English ladies that he was a colonial... or married. Who can tell what was going on? I suspect nothing much. They were all so proper those days. Weren't they?

Spencer was wounded several times. One of the wounds was where a bullet passed through his arm, another was a knick somewhere. But the Krupp steel finally caught up with him when a shell exploded nearby, filling his left thigh with schrapnel. He was very seriously wounded, and was carried from the front by eight German prisoners. From France he was sent to England, where he spent a year in bed, tended by young English nurses who took some delight in dressing his wounds around the groin.

After he had recovered to a reasonable extent, Spencer was shipped back to Australia. He was met at the wharf by Betty, who had not seen him for years. Though she was getting back a maimed husband, she was doing better than a lot of women, whose men never returned. Sixty thousand men died overseas, about twenty percent of the number who enlisted. Spencer was transported from the ship in an ambulance, and Betty joined him in the back, despite the driver's remonstrations that "You can't go in there young lady." They had been apart for three years.

The couple bought a house at 82 Second Avenue, Mount Lawley, with the aid of a War Service Loan. Spencer returned to study, this time at the University of Western Australia, majoring in geology and chemistry. They had a son, George, in 1921, and Joan in 1924. There was also a stillborn child, and my mother Ailsa arrived in 1926.

During 1924, Spencer attended the Empire Exhibition in London as one of two West Australian representatives. He was apparently chosen on the basis of his academic brilliance, coupled with his war service, though there was little evidence of either later in life. His academic achievement was limited to a Bachelor's degree, while in the military he rose to captain in the Great War and Major during World War II.

Despite having only a Bachelor's degree, Spencer became a lecturer at the West Australian School of Mines (and possibly at the University of Western Australia). Though known mainly for his contribution to mining geology, he was also an adept palaeontologist, and described at least one new species: Comptonii ginginensis. He is mentioned several times in Simpson's 'Minerals of Western Australia' for his reports on mineral occurrences.

While at the School of Mines, he was the curator of the geological museum in that institution. He tended it for many years, and it is in this capacity that he came into his own. The musuem acquired a vast catalogue of minerals, which even today (1994) fill a spacious room to capacity and more. He also had a private collection of minerals, from which I received gifts for Christmas and birthdays ... a tectite, a beryl crystal, variscite, tantalite, gold ...

The 1930s saw a boom in the gold industry due to an increase in price from about £4 per ounce to £15. Many old mines were reopened and new discoveries also made. Spencer took a consultancy to manage the Spargo's Reward Mine, about 50 kilometres south of CoolBettydie on the road to Norseman. The family lived in the spacious mine manager's house, at least during the holidays. During term time, the children were sent to private schools in Perth; the boys to Christchurch and the girls to Perth College. Both of these schools were (and remain) under the auspices of the Anglican Church.

While at Spargo's, one of his employees was Lawrence Brodie-Hall. Lawrence was one of his students at the School of Mines, whose experience of Spencer was that he was an incredibly rigid and mean man. Brodie-Hall was working in the bush and studying part-time at the School of Mines. He found it difficult enough getting to lectures and impossible to attend many of the field excursions of which Spencer was especially fond. Spencer disliked Brodie-Hall for this, and gave him low marks for papers which the latter was convinced were near to perfect.

The original employees at Spargo's were construction workers who erected the mill and accommodation. As the construction phase drew to a close, the company was faced with the unpleasant problem of having to retrench construction workers into long-term unemployment, and at the same time having to recruit skilled gold treatment personnel. The solution lay in retraining the workers in the skills of mill operation. Spencer gave Brodie-Hall the task of teaching the men some basic chemistry as needed for routine work in the laboratory.

Brodie-Hall was interrupted one day as he was showing the men the use of the burette. In front of all the men, he barged in and told them: "That is not the way you hold the burette." He pushed the embarrassed Brodie-Hall to one side, then continued: "It is done like this, with your hand around the tap, like so, preventing it from coming out and spilling cyanide solution." Brodie-Hall was so offended that he later went to Spencer, telling him that he was "a horrible little mean old man." Spencer sacked Brodie-Hall, and thereafter feelings were always very sour between the two men. Brodie-Hall rose to become Chairman of Western Mining Corporation in later life.

During World War II, Spencer returned to the Army, where he was for a while the Adjutant for the Blackboy Hill camp. he then went to Sydney, where his abilities as a chemist were required, I believe, in munitions. He did not see action, being nearly 50 years of age at the start if the war. His family lived in Perth during the war, though the eldest son, George, and the two daughters (Joan and Ailsa) were in the services.

After the war, the family returned to Kalgoorlie, where he resumed his appointment as the geology lecturer at the West Australian School of Mines. His younger daughter Ailsa was one of his students, having been demobilised at the age of 20 with an interrupted education. Another student was Brodie-Hall, whose academic career had been slowed by the sacking at Spargo's and brought to a complete halt by the War. He wanted to go back and complete his studies. The problem was, admission was at the say-so of Spencer Compton. Brodie-Hall was now 36, Spencer Compton 55. "You! Again!" was Spencer's reaction on having Brodie-Hall come to his office. Brodie-Hall explained that he wanted to resume the study which had come to a halt some years before. Compton was not very keen, not only because of the animosity between the two, but I am sure because of Brodie-Hall's marks. There were a number of failures and a fair number of exams where he just scraped through. (I have seen Brodie-Hall's academic record. It is nothing to be proud of.)

"I will tell you this young man. I will allow you back into the course, but your performance had better be excellent. I want no more tom-fooling around. Do you understand?" So he re-admitted Brodie-Hall, who went on to great things in the realm of corporate politics and became a Very Rich Man.

The Compton family lived in Collins Street in Kalgoorlie. The house had an attached flat, which Spencer rented too, rather than have strange people as very close neighbours. This flat was occupied by his younger daughter Ailsa, and she had another young woman share with her. All under the careful gaze of the old man, making sure that they did not get up to any hanky-panky.

The other young lady was Valerie Stokes, who worked at the Commonwealth Bank and was well known as a proper young woman in the town. And Valerie's brother Irwin came to visit on his way back to Perth from demobilisation on the East Coast. And Irwin married Ailsa in the St John's Anglican Cathedral and nine months later,I ,Charles Poynton, was born.

At about this time, Spencer was encouraged to join the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society, I believe by John Stokes. The story goes that Spencer was walking home from work, and Stokes driving behind, telling how much good work there was to be done in the Society. On the first occasion, he was not successful with his persuasions, but ultimately Spencer succumbed. He was the right man for the job.

Spencer had been in and around the Goldfields since he was a small child, and his father was present at some of the most interesting events. Further, Spencer was well-known to many people in the Goldfields and could access many interesting sources of information. He himself wrote a paper on the expansion of gold exploration in the 1890s and later.

Spencer wrote a regular column in the "Kalgoorlie Miner", titled `Sixty Years Ago', and compiled a series of rather thin pamphlets on various aspects of early goldfields life. Often I have wondered if these were not a form of self-advertising, as the contents were quite meager. But we should not try to compare his efforts with what we have now, nor with other places at the time. Very little about Western Australia was ever available in print, even in the sixties.

Despite his meager publication record - I know of few serious paper written by him, and certainly he never got a book together - he created a legacy by collecting other people's documents. Typical was the example of James Balzano, who lived his last days in a tin shed in Kanowna, but in the early days pushed a wheelbarrow from Albany to Leonora and beyond. Spencer implored Balzano to write his memoirs and to edit his diary. The result was a ream of paper covered with an almost illegible scrawl. This described the day-to-day experiences of a man who wandered from one digging to another, visiting places which are no longer even a name on a map and meeting people long since dead. This ream of paper sat for years after Spencer's death in a drawer in son George's home. George recently got it together to edit and publish the document.

The Eastern Goldfields Historical Society became a major part of Spencer's life, especially after he retired from working as a mine geologist in his seventies.

George Spencer Compton was my only grandfather. My father's parents died when he was young, and he was adopted by a wealthy, childless great uncle, who died when he was twelve. In fact, Spencer and Betty Compton were effectively my only grandparents, as Irwin's step mother lived interstate until I was a teenager.

My education seemed to be one of his major concerns. As mentioned earlier, he would give me mineral specimens and explain their significance. I looked forward to his occasional visits to Perth, and was generally disappointed that he seldom stayed with us, preferring to have a room in the Cambrai Chambers, a pension in St George's Terrace handy to the city centre. No doubt he had people to meet and things to do which a little boy would not understand. But I adored Spencer, who was known as 'Spencer' to all the grandchildren. Betty was called `Betty' - an abbreviation (Welsh perhaps) of Grandma? I wanted to spend more time with him.

During 1959, at the age of ten, I went to Kalgoorlie at the end of one of their many short visits to Perth. The journey was made by rail and we travelled first class. It was my first long train journey. We left the central station in Perth at 5pm, had dinner in the diner as the train laboured up through Mundaring, Sawyer's Valley, Chidlow... That evening we turned in quite early, but I was woken by shunting and men talking outside in the dark. In the morning we were in Bullabulling, a siding over seventy kilometres from Kalgoorlie.

Everyone seemed friendly, but the journey with a steam engine was slow, and it wasn't until 9:00am that we arrived in Kalgoorlie. The trip of 600 kilometres took fourteen hours - an average of a bit over 40kph.

Spencer was a short man - about 155cm. He had been taller in his youth, but the wounded leg had reduced his height by over ten centimetres. The leg had also been permanently stiffened during convalescence, and so for the rest of his life after 1916 he limped around with a stiff, stumpy left leg. Among his students he was known as "Old Hoppy" and I found it a perfectly normal thing to have a grandfather hobbling around with a stiff leg.

Though otherwise clean-shaven, he sported a little moustache which he kept neat and trimmed. It was exactly like the moustache that Adolph Hitler wore. I supposed that he and Hitler had adopted the same moustache fashions, being about the same age and all. He still had a head of hair, though thinning somewhat on top. And this hair retained its colour into his seventies.

One particular feature was Spencer's nose. He had a monster hooked nose, though not as large as Cyron de Bergerac. And on this nose was perched a pair of spectacles, with which he would read. And when you came into the room, he would stare over them at you.

Every day, Spencer would read the "Kalgoorlie Miner", seated in a sofa, his stiff leg sticking into the air. It was a flimsy and anachronistic newspaper, using layout conventions unaltered by the passage of a hundred years. But it had all the news about Kalgoorlie, and it occasionally published little articles he had written.

His dress was always quite formal - brogue shoes, trousers, collar and tie, and a cardigan or vest. This was what he would wear to the office, but there was a major concession to the reality of work as a geologist. Everything was brown. Mines are dusty places, and the dust would show quickly and indelibly on clothing of any other colour.

After arriving in Kalgoorlie, we caught a taxi from the station to their home in Hinemoa St, in the northern suburb of Lamington. This was the flashest part of the town, but for me it seemed pretty scummy compared to the Perth suburb of Floreat Park. He did not take me to see the grottier bits in TrafalBetty or Boulder. I finally got to know these many years later.

The house at 21 Hinemoa St was of weatherboard and iron construction. It was sited on a quarter-acre lot with a hedge at the front and a verandah which was enclosed by canvas blinds on either side of the front door. The front door was used only by formal visitors, as everyone else went to the back door.

The front garden contained a small area of lawn and several fruit trees. Kalgoorlie was free of fruit fly, and Spencer had planted several trees some years before which were yielding the most wonderful peaches. Every evening he would water and inspect his trees, and they flourished and bore him plenty as a reward. There were more trees in the side and rear gardens, all of which were equally healthy. They had been planted with great labour, as the soil consisted largely of stone. A large hole had been dug for each, and all the stone and pebbles sieved out, leaving just the rich Goldfields loam for them to grow in. Abundant manure had compensated for the large proportion of rock removed.

The only problem with all of this was the crows. All around one could hear the mournful ah-oo-ah-oo-aaaahh of their call. These birds were omnivorous, in nature eating all sorts of lizards, carrion and insects to survive. With the introduction of the peach trees by Spencer, an abundant and tasty food supply was available. The birds would sneak in and pick large bits out of the most perfect of fruit, engendering an antipathy second only to that Spencer had for the Germans. He had a catapult which was used to propel many of the copious supply of stones at those crows unwise enough to perch within shooting-distance of his back door. I soon had the responsibility of guarding the fruit trees, and had many delightful hours pot-shotting at the birds. Occasionally I gave one a fright, but more often the rock would go sailing by and land with a loud bang on a neighbour's roof. Amazingly enough, no windows fell victim to the catapult, nor were any humans hit or even frightened.

My bedroom was the sleepout - a part of the back verandah enclosed with some canvas blinds to keep the rain out, but generally open to fresh breezes. There I had a somewhat dusty space, due to the ease with which the wind blew in - but also plenty of air. Nearby was the back screen door, and next to that, the refrigerator. Even then, it was an old fridge, purchased in 1941 and chugging away patiently ever since. They kept it out the back because the dreadful din disturbed the peace of the kitchen. I found it a familiar noise in the middle of the night and was not troubled by it at all.

The interior of the house was dark, due to small windows, curtains and the generally dingy paint-job and fittings. Renovators of Federation homes tend to idealize the old-time splendour of these houses. The reality was dull and tacky furnishings, grimey paint and dim, naked light bulbs. The bathroom had a chip heater next to the tub. The kitchen had a wood stove only - fine for romance, but it had to be lit in the morning and even for cooking in the middle of the hot summer's evening. The living-room contained an ancient lounge suite, the kitchen had a small painted table and some chairs which had seen better days. Spencer and Betty did not spend money on periodical refurnishing of their home - quite likely it all dated from twenty or thirty years before.

My domain was outside. I would play in the garden, shoot at crows, or go for long, lone walks through the wasteland to the east of Lamington. I also went to school every weekday.

My stay was during the term-time. Indeed, as Spencer was working, it would have been inconvenient if I had been at home all the time. Betty was an elderly woman - already seventy years old - often in poor health, and really not cut out for entertaining an active, noisy ten-year-old boy. I would be up every morning, have breakfast with `Spencer', then he would leave for work. `Betty' would probably be up in time to see me off to school. One morning she spied me about to depart wearing my slippers, and had to remind me to wear shoes.

The North Kalgoorlie Primary School was about half a mile from Spencer's home. I would walk down Hinemoa St to Hare St, then along Hare Street to the school at the far end. My mother's two brothers - George and David - both lived in Kalgoorlie, and David was a teacher at North Kalgoorlie. I had hopes of being in his class, but in fact he taught a different year, so this was not to be. David's son Spencer was also a pupil at the school, but he was two years younger, also in a different class, so I did not see much of him either. I did get to meet many other kids, one of whom was the son of the Mayor of Kalgoorlie. He was a gentle kid called Ian, and it was with him that I felt the greates affinity. He was also a haemophiliac.

Occasionally David would drive me home, and once or twice I went to his home nearby. I found though that these visits were not what they might have been. There were three children - Spencer jnr, Karen and David jnr - and they were not that thrilled to have me around. Worse, they were usually fighting, and I was repelled by their shrill conflicts. The parents were worse, seemingly engaging in a domestic dispute on every occasion. They had more children than they could handle and I was just another problem for them.

Uncle George lived in Killarney St with his wife Muriel and their two children, Stephen and Dianne. One might have thougth that a place to go as well, but it was rather out of the way and some similiar problems existed there. Mostly, I spent my afternoons and weekends with my grandparents.

Spencer certainly kept me reasonably busy. He took me around Kalgoorlie, showing the centre of the town and introducing me to all his friends. Walking up Maritana St, he seemed to know everyone who was seated at a bus-stop or just wandering down the street. "Hello, Bill."

"Hello Mr Compton."

"I would like you to meet my grandson, Charles. He is up from Perth to stay with me for a while. Charles, this is Mr Cleverly."

"Hello Mr Cleverly. I am pleased to meet you." I was a very proper, polite little boy who knew how to address his elders.

"Are you Joan's son, or Ailsa's?"

"My mum is Ailsa."

"She was at the School of Mines when she met yor father. I was teaching there with your grandfather."

Then Spencer and Bill had a little conversation about the weather or the latest goldmining gossip, after which I was invited to come and visit the School of Mines

All along, we kept meeting men who were old friends of Spencer's. The same scene was repeated a dozen times. But one was not a repeat. We went into a bank, and then into the manager's office.

"Charles, this is Mr Hamilton, who is the bank manager." I was faced with a man of perhaps fifty, dressed in a bank manager's way and spectacles, who was very friendly.

"Good morning, Charles," he said with a smile. "I am very pleased to have you here."

"Good morning, Mr Hamilton."

"Are you Joan's son, or Ailsa's?"

"Ailsa," I said. I was getting rather accustomed to this question.

"Charles, I have something here to show you." At that moment a man entered the room, carrying a heavy box. He placed it on the table, opened it and produced a gold ingot, which he placed on the desk in front of me. I had never seen such a thing in my life.

"Do you know what that is?" asked Mr Hamilton.

"It's gold!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, its a gold ingot from the Hainalt Mine. How much do you think it weighs?"

I was nonplussed.

"It is four hundred Troy ounces of gold, Charles. See if you can pick it up."

The bar was very heavy, especially for a little, ten year old boy. But I did manage to pick it up.

"Good boy! And how much is it worth? Gold is fifteen pounds per ounce."

I thought about this. The I gave my answer: "A lot." For me, even ten pounds was a fortune. This was unimaginable.

"Six thousand pounds," said Spencer. I was wide-eyed, and put the bar back on the desk. After a few more words between Spencer and Mr Hamilton, we were off. I gave the bar one more touch before I left. "Now we will go and see how it is made."

From the bank we walked up Hannan St, crossed Maritana St and wnet to the taxi rank in the middle of the road. Spencer was very familiar to all the drivers. He did not drive due to his stiff left leg, so used taxis wherever he went. His income as a mine geologist easily covered what seemed like an expensive luxury to me. Though my parents had a car, they would always catch a bus when they had to use public transport, never a taxi. Life with Spencer was constantly with taxis, though he did walk a lot as well.

Spencer had to sit in front, next to the driver, due to his stiff leg. Their conversation was a continuation of the one they had on a previous journey, and they discussed Betty's illness, how the driver's kids were doing, and of course me, seated in the back. The car turned left at Maritana St, then went down the Boulder Road, pulling into a very large and dusty space outside and enormous corrugated iron building. "Alan, could you come and pick us up at four o'clock?"

"Yes, Mr Compton. I will be here at 4pm sharp."

"If you need to find me, I will be in the Mine Office, just up the pathway."

Spencer had explained something of this visit the previous evening. This was the Croesus Plant, a mill which treated ore from several mines in the Golden Mile. He had briefly explained how the ore was crushed, milled, roasted, treated with cyanide, then the gold smelted into an ingot. Today I was going to see the entire process. Spencer was not only a geologist, but also a metallurgist whose speciality was the cyanide process for extracting gold.

First there was the power station. I was lead into an enormous hall containing four giant diesel engines coupled to generators. These produced the electricity necessary for the mine - the mill, the winder, the compressors, the locomotives and electric lighting underground. The engines were awesome, nearly three metres high and six metres long. The powerhosue was immensely noisy. Apparently they used so much diesoline that the mines wanted to put in a fuel pipeline from Perth. The government would not allow it, because it would compete with the railways.

We continued to the winder-house. This is the winch which draws the cage up and down the mine shaft. The cage is filled with men, and any mishap would quite likely kill them. "Just stand quietly and watch," instructed Spencer. "You must not talk to the driver or cause any distraction. If you do, you might cause an accident and someone could be killed." I was deadly quiet as Spencer explained how the driver worked with a system of bells telling him when to start and where to go. The man seemed to be concentrating a lot. What a serious and responsible job!

The winder itself is an enormous winch. The shaft was thousands of feet deep, so the drum had several miles of steel cable. Powering this was an electric motor like I could not believe. Over a thousand horsepower in a single motor. I was dwarfed by it, which was several metres in diameter. The bells rang, the motor started, cable was wound in, and somewhere thousands of feet below us, ten men were riding up the shaft at great speed. The driver knew when to slow down, and finally stopped just so to allow the men to get out at the surface. Ding-ding-ding-ding! Now the winder goes the other way, lowering a different group of men into the bowels of the earth. There is only so long that a little boy can watch a grown man concentrate, but Spencer knew what to do, and had another attraction for me.

This time it was a ball mill. One was being serviced, so we went and had a look at how it worked. There was a place where the ore to come in, and at the other end, a place for it to depart. In between were some tonnes of steel balls, which ground the ore into a fine powder. The balls were about 5cm in diameter, and I was given a worn one. It was round and going a little bit rusty, and sure was heavy. I carried this around for the rest of the afternoon.

The ore went to the ball mill from the crusher, and there I was treated to slabs of rock weighing possibly a tonne being reduced to the size of road metal in a few minutes.

After pulverization in the ball mill, the ore was treated by flotation, where the gold-rich sulphide minerals are separated from the worthless silicates. The ore is put through a bubble-bath, and the sulphides cling to the bubbles while the other material drops to the bottom. Fascinating to watch, because the bubbles end up looking metallic. The froth is swept off and then the sulphides filtered out.

All of the operations were explained to me by Spencer as he showed me around the mill. The complex technical aspects of the cyanide process were explained to me clearly and I comprehended them instantly. Spencer was an excellent teacher, no doubt contributing to his standing as a lecturer at the School of Mines.

Next came roasting. Spencer told that the gold within the sulphides was bound up and could not be extracted without breaking down the molecular structure by burning off the sulphur, turning the pyrite into iron oxide and releasing the gold. A whole series of vats contained sulphides, fired to red heat and stirred constantly as air was blown over. The pungent odour of sulphur dioxide was everywhere, but most of it was drawn into a flue and discharged into the atmosphere high above the city. To this day, Kalgoorlie has a distinctive smell of this gas.

The most complex and interesting chemistry was the cyanidation. In the presence of air and sodium cyanide, gold is oxidized to a complex sodium auricyanide, which is soluble in water. The few pennyweights per ton of gold were now released from the ore and were in solution. We watched large vats filled with a dilute iron mud, stirred and aerated to dissolve the gold. The gold was then precipitated from this solution onto zinc.

The last stage was the gold pour. The gold collected on the zinc, which was placed in a crucible with various fluxes and fired to white heat. A man in an asbestos suit and very long tongs tended the furnace. I stood by with Spencer and watched as the crucible was lifted out of the furnace by a crane and its contents tipped into a sand moulding. The gold ran into an impression, glowing at white heat. After reaching the mould, the temperature dropped, and the ingot glowed orange, then red, then finally ceased to glow. It was still very hot though, and after waiting a few more minutes the metallurgist used his tongs to dump it in a large bucket of water. A large cloud of steam and much hissing was made, and after about a minute the bar was taken out and cleaned up. Another 400 ounce bar had been poured.

For the second time in a day, I had the experience of handling a 400 ounce bar of gold. This time I knew how much it weighed and what it was worth.

With the pour, the visit was over. As we walked from the mine office, we were faced with a large dump of tailings. This were red from the contained iron oxide, and Spencer commented:- "There is 70,000 tonnes there at two pennyweight for anyone who can work out how to remove it." That problem fascinated me many years later. That is 210kg of gold, now worth $3.5 million.

Other places he took me included the School of the Air and Paddy Hannan's fountain at the bottom of Hannan St. Also to Hocking and Company, the printers of both the Kalgoorlie Miner and Spencer's folksy little pamphlets.

The lot adjacent to 21 Hinemoa St was vacant, having been left that way due to the existence of a creek-bed. Only a low fence separated the yard from the vacant land, and often Aboriginal people would pass by. Many of them were friends of Spencer's, and they would come up and ask for gifts, money or else have something to sell. He encouraged them to search for gold nuggets and particularly for meteorites and tectites, for which he paid good money.

The Aboriginals always stayed on the other side of the fence, but were on friendly terms. On at least one occasion I bought a carved snake, for which I paid ten shillings. Spencer told me later that I could have bought it for much less, but for me it was a fair exchange. I still have the snake in my collection of Aboriginal art.

On one occasion, an Aboriginal wanted some cake. Apparently Betty would occasionally bake a cake which was shared among the visitors in the lot next door. I thought this a wonderful idea, but Papa explained to me that "Your grandmother is ill in bed, and cannot possibly bake cakes." I was disappointed, especially when the opportunity was repeated and Betty was again ill. She seemed to spend a lot of time in bed.

Betty explained to me that some of Spencer's very good friends were Aboriginal people. He was a confidant of the elders, and had a particularly fine friend who was called "Old Knowie." Old Knowie knew everything, and could remember the times before the arrival of the white man. I wanted to meet Old Knowie, but apparently he was far away or sick. In any case, he did not visit during my stay in Kalgoorlie.

Once Spencer lead the Aboriginals on a bit of a wild goose chase. He would show them stones, and ask them to bring in anything that resembled them. The Aboriginals were always on the lookout for things on his behalf. But this time, he showed them some gall stones which had been removed surgically. The Aboriginal community went off searching for these in the wilderness, but without success. It was only after weeks of unsuccessful looking that he told them the origin of the stones, which were small and black, and must have been easily confused with ironstone pebbles which are only too common throughout the Goldfields.

Another of those places that Spencer took me one afternoon was the local ABC radio station, 6KG. He went there regularly and gave little talks on the history of the Eastern Goldfields. This took a short while in the studio, then it was off home. A few days later we huddled around the radio and listened to what he had to say. My main recollection was that the program was as dry as dust.

Many of my afternoons were spent alone. One little project I busied myself with was establishing a pathway to the toilet. Though recently installed, it was down the back yard and I had to stumble over the rocks to make visits during the night. I wanted a more comfortable pathway and set about systematically removing the stones and pebbles on a track down there. One morning I was working away at this, using a kerosene tin to scrape up the rocks. There was a shocking din.

"Charles my boy, you are making a terrible noise, and it is so early the morning." Spencer took me inside and showed me the kitchen clock. I didn't have a clock in my room, so how was I to know it was 5:45am? Nevertheless, my efforts seemed to be appreciated, so I put some more afternoons into the project.

Spencer had an old dog, Prince. Prince was a black Labrador, who my mother claimed had a fetish for cats. Prince would catch and eat cats, so the yard was free of their presence. He lived in kennel down in the workshop, next to the toilet. My new pathway would service the workshop too. My mother claimed that Prince ate a cat he had caught under the beer table on her wedding night - the night on which I was conceived. I hung out in the toolshed a lot with Prince, looking at all of Spencer's stuff he had stored there.

Mainly, he had bits of old machinery and tools, which I was forbidden to play with or remove. He also had all nature of things stored in little tin detonator cases. The detonators were from the mines, and the cases made handy, durable containers about 60 x 40 x 20 millimetres. They would be full of tacks, screws, and often, mineral specimens. My childhood memories of Kalgoorlie are shaped by these little boxes with the numeral "6" on all sides.

Many old cigarette cases were also full of bits and pieces. Spencer did not seem to mind my exploring in there - I think he had long lost interest in his shed, and in any case I did not make a mess. I wanted him to come down and play around in there too, but I guess he had more important matters to attend to.

One day he came home from work and had something to show Betty and myself. We sat on the back steps as he seated himself on a chair under the grape vines and took a sample bag from his pocket. He brought out a lovely little gold specimen. Spencer was one of the few private individuals licensed to possess unrefined gold, and this was a new piece for his collection. It was of gold and clean, white quartz, containing two and a half ounces of metal. The nugget was worth £35.

Spencer had other specimens , which he also showed me. Some were nuggets, but many were gold tellurides, the biggest of which weighed quite a few ounces and contained 42% gold. These exotic minerals - coloradoite, sylvanite and calaverite - were familiar to me when for most they were a total unknown. They came from deep within the Golden Mile, and one of his historical papers describes the discovery of tellurides at Kalgoorlie in 1896.

During his working life, he had done work which had resulted in the discovery of rich ore shoots in the Golden Mile. These shoots were defined by drilling, then careful geological analysis of the data, then more drilling. All around the garden were rocks of origin unknown to me, but doubtless recalled in detail by the old man. Then there were bits of drillcore all over the place too. Too be honest, I found it hard to get excited about the odd speck of gold in a core after handling 400 ounce bars.

During a weekend he showed me how to pan gold. He had brought home a bag of the roasted concentrate from the Croesus Plant, which he put in a panning dish. We went down the back with the hose and he started gently washing the dirt. Ten minutes later he showed me the tiniest "tail" of fine gold in the bottom of the pan, a tail which, when you multiplied it by many tonnes of dirt, made the money which paid Kalgoorlie's way. But again, I am sure I had expected a nugget, not a faint trace of golden powder.

After a month with my grandparents, I was beginning to tire of the lack of companionship - at home I always had my brother Tony at least - the increasingly hot weather, the rather musty school, and I suppose my grandparents tired of looking after an active little boy too. I wanted to go back to Perth, and they were quick to comply.

I could not go to Perth by myself in the train. However, it was possible for me to fly, though it was expensive - £7 - half a week's wages in those days. Spencer took me out to the Kalgoorlie Airport and I boarded a MacRobertson Miller Airways DC-3 for the flight to Perth.

The journey took two and a half hours. As I was the only child on board and it was my first ever flight, the pilots took me into the cockpit. Somehow I suspect that Spencer had arranged this. They showed me the controls and instruments, but mainly I was allowed to take a seat and watch the scenery go by. I was unfamiliar with the rural countryside, and from up there at 9000 feet I saw features whose existence I had never suspected. An example of this was farm dams - I saw hundreds of them, previously I had never seen one, as the family property (Bellaranga) had bores.

Shortly before we descended to Perth, the pilots took me back to my seat. When we taxied into the terminal, my parents were both waiting. I had been with Spencer and Betty for a month. It was to be the only protracted stay I ever made at their Kalgoorlie home.

A month or so later, I received a letter from Spencer. The first line read: "I got him!" and it was a description of how he had downed a crow with a rock from his catapult, then finished it off with a blow from a shovel. Even then I found this rather child-like, because my father had an air-rifle for dealing with the numerous parrots infesting our almond tree in Floreat Park.

For many years after that stay, there was little contact. My grandfather was a regular writer, and a letter written to him could be assured of a response within a week or ten days. My mother would also phone, but that was an expensive business, so she would chat for three minutes once a month. His letters were always interesting and sometimes would contain a newspaper cutting. He was particularly fond of seeing his name in print, but this cannot be viewed as an enormous failing.

In 1968, Spencer decided to move to Perth. I am sure that a major consideration was to get suitable care for Betty.

Even when I had stayed for the month in 1959, Betty was often ill. This illness was poorly defined, but Spencer would often refer to Betty as "Her Ladyship." Apparently she did not want to get out of bed, and Spencer had to tend to her needs - food, washing, housecleaning. I heard someone comment many years later that Spencer had to hold down a responsible job, then come home and look after everything there as well. This was apperently going on even in 1959 - the mysterious illness which kept Betty bedbound so often. I must have provided some companionship for him with my visit, though of course I was another body to look after.

My mother and brothers Jim and Tony went up during a holiday to help with the move from Kalgoorlie. Apparently the house was absolutely choc-a-bloc with junk - drawers full of plastic knives, another of spoons, cupboards full of neatly bundled brown paper bags, aluminium foil takeaway containers washed and stacked. There were thousands of rocks, documents, books. It took the three of them several weeks to sort out the junk, chuck much of it out, send documents to the State Library or Historical Society, and get the valuable stuff freighted down to Perth. Then Spencer and Betty came to stay at our home in Wembley Downs. An extension had been built out the back and two rooms were put over to their use.

The first real shock was that Betty, my lovely old grandmother, did not recognise me at all. She seemed to have some pretty harsh things to say too. Very rude, critical things which no person in their right mind would say to someone they loved. Betty had Alzeimer's Disease I suspect, and had been probably suffering from it for many years. Even when I visited in 1959 she was probably in the incipient stages. Within a couple of days, she was committed to a geriatric ward at Graylands Mental Hospital. Apart from one visit made a few months after that committal, I never saw her again. She died fifteen years later, in 1983, at the age of 93 after 25 years of dementia.

On the other hand, Spencer saw her a great deal. Though he (and the rest of us) could not possibly live with her, she was not put in a hospital and left to rot. Almost every day, a taxi would pull into the driveway and Spencer would go off to see Betty. When he wasn't with her, he was off at Historical Society functions or seeing many of his old friends. The magic of the Kalgoorlie visit did not return. I was no longer an impressionable ten year old, but nineteen and possessed of my independent view of the world. This world was engaged in the Vietnam War, was listening to Rock Music and growing long hair. Spencer did not see my point of view on any of these matters.

After living with us for less than a year, Spencer moved out to share a house with another elderly man in Hamersley Road, Subiaco. I went to the Goldfields the following summer to find work and my parents moved from Perth to live in Wundowie. I resumed correspondance with Spencer, though not on the same adoring level as when I was a child.

I rarely ever saw him again. Throughout 1969 and 1970 I was away in the bush with my work, and hardly ever in Perth. Only when my parents returned to their house in early 1971 did I even have a place to stay in Perth. Tony and I returned to live with them and occasionally saw Spencer if he came to visit.

Tony and I once helped out a geophysicist whose Landrover had broken an axle in the bush, stranding his caravan. Months later, we came across him again while visiting Coolgardie. He was an interesting fellow, but he in turn was fascinated when Spencer suddenly turned up out of the blue. Spencer was leading a tour group through ghost towns in the Goldfields, and the four of us sat on the benches outside the Ghost Inn and talked. Spencer was pained by the sight of young men driving large American cars.

"Look at them," he said, "driving around in such expensive cars. It must be provided by a company, and they are out in it of an evening."

"Don't be silly, Spencer," responded Tony. "They would be able to buy it for themselves."

Spencer had never owned a car and could not imagine that anyone would have the money to buy a flash vehicle for themselves. He grumbled to himself and shortly took his leave.

Spencer had a painful problem with his urinary system, which he found embarrassing and did not consult a doctor about it until it became utterly unbearable. He had prostate cancer and was admitted to Hollywood Repatriation Hospital immediately for an operation. While he was in hospital, Tony and I were called to do a job up in the Morawa area which took us several days. Upon return, Mum came to us as we walked up the stairs at the front of the house. "Your grandfather has died," she told us in a rather detached, matter-of-fact manner.

After the operation on his prostate, he made a good recovery and was in reasonable spirits. Mum, Joan and Aunt Gwyn visited him regularly and it seemed as though it would be just a week before he would be discharged.

One day, Gwyn received a telephone call from the hospital to say that he had had a heart attack and was in a bad way. She lived in Crawley, a short distance from the hospital, and drove there immediately. He died within twenty minutes of having his attack.

Spencer's funeral was the first I ever attended. He was buried in Karrakatta Cemetery, in a plot which had apparently been purchased many years before. Several hundred people came, including the geophysicist I had met in the bush and later ran into outside the Ghost Inn in Coolgardie. He had only ever met Spencer on that occasion and now had come to the funeral.

My great aunts, Cass and Gwyn, were right up the front, as though they were his sisters. Quite likely his sisters were present, but I never met them. Cass wept uncontrollably, and she was mistaken for her sister Betty, who remained in hospital throughout the funeral.

As I walked from the grave back to the main entrance of the cemetary, I found the grave of another person who had disappeared from my life fifteen years previously. There, engraved on a headstone, were the following words:-

This was the grave of "Aunt" Alice, who we had visited many times when I was a small child. Edward Poynton was my great grandfather, so she was not an aunt at all, but a step-great
grandmother. In losing a grandparent, I had discovered the unsuspected existence of another.

Charles Poynton
December, 1994

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