A Middle Class Man: An Autobiography

Author: Alistair Knox
Unpublished

Chapter 1: I am born Apart from the sounds and tensions normally associated with childbirth in A.D. 1912, my entry into the world on Easter Monday - 8 April of that year - was without any remarkable incident. The street in which I was destined to live for ... read more

Chapter 2. At war and at home I can recall very little of the events that followed the outbreak of the Great War - Germany, Austria, and Turkey battling Britain, France, Russia, and their allies - except that Edie and her friend Isabel taught me to sing 'It's a Long ... read more

Chapter 3: Middle Park When I turned three the time had come for me to start attending church, which our whole family did, morning and evening, every Sunday. I only went once a week at first. The church we attended had been co-founded by my grandfather, ... read more

Chapter 4: The Meeting The Anzac participation in the Dardanelles campaign continued for seven bitter months. With their usual ponderous strategic attitude, the western Allies' intention to take the land on the sides of the narrow entrance to the Black Sea ... read more

Chapter 5: Childhood It was during 1916 that I first recall the Extraordinary; it was a news sheet born out of due season by a specific war-happening - perhaps the drowning of Lord Kitchener, or some special action on the Western Front. The first ... read more

Chapter 6: My father My father's job did not follow the normal pattern for those days, when most breadwinners' hours were very regular and uneventful. He never seemed to leave for the city until after nine in the morning, when he would saunter down to the ... read more

Chapter 7: The big school The postwar world produced a new sense of freedom which developed into a real fact of life by 1920. The war was over; the men had returned home and were trying to make some sense out of the promises the nation had made to the navy, army ... read more

Chapter 8: Scotch College Middle Park Central School No. 2815 was a Higher Elementary establishment which included the seventh and eighth grades, the first two years of the high-school syllabus. It had an excellent record both scholastically and in sport - ... read more

Chapter 9: Tired of school The new society which evolved after the First World War affected the national lifestyle and precipitated a decline in moral standards. The promises of a new world failed to fructify in many instances because every participating ... read more

Chapter 10: The bank When I left Scotch College in December 1927, Bradman was our national hero. He shared the honor with Phar Lap and with Bert Hinkler, the pioneer airman. The following year saw the Conservative Government lose the election, and its ... read more

Chapter 11: Social life during the depression The Great Depression came on gradually at first, but then burst into its full ferocity and culminated in the Wall Street crash in October of 1929, when millionaires jumped out of their skyscrapers and the whole hitherto prosperous economy ... read more

Chapter 12: Art School I was transferred from Port Melbourne to the Swanston Street office in 1930, which was an agreeable change. There was a staff of twenty-four under a white-haired bachelor manager who was nearing the conclusion of his service with the ... read more

Chapter 13: Bohemian associations There were one or two places where artists and art potters - art pottery was still in its infancy - would always meet, notably the Primrose Pottery in Little Collins Street. When I first visited there in 1932 it was run by Cynthia Reed, ... read more

Chapter 14: Meeting Mernda The society of the entire world was in flux. Ramsay McDonald had long since been written off as a spent force in Britain, and his successor Stanley Baldwin was busily trying to maintain the status quo, though without the power to ... read more

Chapter 15: Marriage For several reasons, courtships in the 1930s were slower but generally more permanent. The need for security was greater because the welfare programmes of today were not then generally in existence. Marriage was still considered to be ... read more

Chapter 16: The Eaglemont house Mernda again became pregnant a few months later, and it was clear to us that our little cabin by the stream would be too small; we would have to find some new living accommodation. This began the most depressing period of my social ... read more

Chapter 17: The war starts The latest German attack began with massive tank and dive-bomber spearheads, and the result was immediate and fearful. Holland, Belgium, and the Low Countries were conquered, in essence, in a matter of days. Resistance points were ... read more

Chapter 18: Discovering Montsalvat My father-in-law Reggie Clayton died in 1940, and I inherited his 8-horsepower square-nosed Fiat tourer, along with a small petrol ration. It was the first motor vehicle I had ever owned. I had only been outside Victoria once in my life ... read more

Chapter 19: The Naval Reserve My spiritual life had become increasingly nominal and without commitment. Whatever my beliefs were, they did not significantly alter how I lived. I allowed the knowledge of the truth to excuse me for not obeying it. Mernda and I ... read more

Chapter 20: Training at the Williamstown Naval Base The Japanese armies quickly proceeded south, east, and west after the conquest of Malaya and the Philippines moving towards Burma and India lay to the west the Pacific Ocean and its strategic islands to the east, Borneo, Indonesia, New ... read more

Chapter 21: The Martindale After I spent the better part of a year instructing in motor engines and cleaning mess decks - interspersed with a stint of watch-keeping - the great draft arrived. Six Victorian ratings were to be drafted onto HMAS Martindale to head ... read more

Chapter 22: Sydney for the refit We rounded Cape Otway that night, and the following morning we were heading up Port Phillip Bay. When we berthed at Gem Pier men came over from the naval jetty, which we had left behind only a few days earlier, to greet us. We felt we ... read more

Chapter 23: Sailing up the east coast It was determined we should proceed up the coast without delay as our real time did not start until we reached Ladava, the Milne Bay base. We sailed between Fraser Island and the mainland and past Brisbane until we reached Gladstone. ... read more

Chapter 24: Martindale Trading Company (No Liability) Most Australians regarded New Guinea as the centre of our theatre of war in 1943. Some months earlier, Milne Bay had been under intense threat from Japanese invasion. The extreme southwestern Nipponese advance had been halted on the ... read more

Chapter 25: Daily life There were times when we received signals that took us into uninhabited places where there were only primitive charts, causing us to report some islands several miles out of position. Minor dots on the charts designating the Group ... read more

Chapter 26: After the Martindale Milne Bay. Japanese invasion barges destroyed by fighter aircraft of the Royal Australian Air Force during the Japanese landing in 1942 I returned to Milne Bay by air and was drafted onto the Amohinie, a craft over twenty-five ... read more

Chapter 27: The trip home At the end of the month, I felt I was enjoying my last day at sea. The signal would almost certainly be waiting for us on our return to base. The best feature of the Stingray was the fact that her radio facilities never functioned once ... read more

Chapter 28: Discharged The Germans finally surrendered in May 1945; but there was still no idea of how long it would take for Japan to capitulate, although our victory now seemed inevitable. As soon as the atomic bombs were dropped, first on Hiroshima and then ... read more

Chapter 29: The first house The New Art movement - at whose birth I had been present thirteen years earlier - was, however, in healthy condition, even if its members were beset with financial difficulties. Arthur Boyd, John Perceval, Sidney Nolan, David Boyd, Neil ... read more

Chapter 30: Open Country - the Boyds At the end of the year I sat for the final-year exams as well as Year 2, and passed them very easily. I felt these were all the academic qualifications I had time for as opportunities to design increased, particularly because we were ... read more

Chapter 31: Postwar society Stonygrad was situated on the stoniest part of the stony district. It was virtually stone from the surface down. The tree growth consisted of native red and yellow box and stringback eucalypts that won a grudging acceptance from the ... read more

Chapter 32: The first mud brick house The Great Hall at Montsalvat I was never a Jorgensenite in the real sense. Jorgie described what such a commitment would mean with great clarity. 'There's a great big world out there', he would say, 'but if you come into my little ... read more

Chapter 33: Early mud brick houses We were actually creating building history without really understanding what we were doing. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a similar movement was also beginning to emerge. Eltham and Albuquerque were combining to make earth-building a ... read more

Chapter 34: Giving up the bank My great chance to escape the tedium of the bank occurred as I neared my twenty-years-long service leave. This concession was still restricted to only a few firms and institutions. A good steady job, a house, a wife, and children were ... read more

Chapter 35: Christian reflections The moment I was willing to let Christ deal with me, instead of me telling Him what I would do for Him, was the instant I realised I had been born from above: not of natural descent, nor of human decision, nor of a husband's will - but ... read more

Chapter 36: Not an architect When I received Christ into my life, I saw it as the capstone of the archway bridging between man and the Creator, and that the natural environment was made for Him rather than He for it. Robert Menzies with the Queen and Prince ... read more

Chapter 37: La Ronde Restaurant Margot and I had more than one temporary domicile in Eltham, including an old cable tram on Gordon Ford's property, before we moved into the Fabbros' cottage set in their vegetable farm on about twenty hectares of land on the southwest ... read more

Chapter 38: Eltham Films When Margot's confinement was imminent, she went to stay with the Hattams in Canterbury. Hal Hattam was a skillful gynaecologist who also became a fine artist. He and his wife Kate and their children lived close to John Perceval, whose ... read more

Chapter 39: The youth group Throughout this period I separated from the general social scene and became more deeply committed to my faith. Most of my friends thought I had left my senses, especially when I became a councillor in the 1959 Graham Crusade and was been ... read more

Chapter 40: Hard times The year 1961 also saw the first postwar recession in Australia. Fifteen years of euphoria vanished 'like a watch in the night when it is gone'. My building operations were brought to a low ebb, but I remained just solvent through a ... read more

Chapter 41: Sale of the York Street properties The following year saw the pre-Christmas optimism diminish as our work dwindled to nothing. The expected profits whittled away, and it became obvious that the test that had encouraged me had said nothing about taking the problems away - ... read more

Chapter 42: Mount Pleasant Road Only a few weeks prior to the house sale, I had taken Margot on a trip around Eltham looking for suitable land on which we could build if and when the right time arrived. It was mostly a gesture on my part to keep up some sort of ... read more

Chapter 43: Landscape architecture Ellis Stones Gordon and Gwen Ford Edna Walling Photo: Daphne Pearson. Gordon Ford in 1946 making mud bricks for Alistair Knox (far left). Apart from the work of Ellis Stones and Edna Walling, there was practically no original ... read more

Chapter 44: Templestowe, town planning protests I spent time every day supervising up to six jobs in locations scattered mainly throughout the outer suburban and the northeastern bush fringe of Melbourne. The long days were well filled from 6 a.m. until I fell into bed at night. The ... read more

Chapter 45: Council election Moratorium protesters outside Parliament House in Spring Street in March 1971. Picture: Herald Sun The Vietnam War and its ramifications became a major issue in the 1972 Federal Election. The Conservative cause, euphemistically ... read more

Chapter 46: The early 1970s My twelve years of intensive Christian youth work also terminated during that year when our church appointed a new young minister who, it was hoped, would be able to give our unorthodox methods a more professional character. Youth ... read more


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