UNCLE ALLAN 1925-2005

I came across this article of one of my Uncles who recently passed away. I never knew he had such an adventurous life. It is amazing to follow the family tree sometimes. Thanks Roy for putting the family site together. You rule mate!

This is My Life by Allan Collins

Allan at Ruth's 100th birthday I was born in Cowell Hospital on the first day of February 1925 to Joe and Ruth Collins. My sister Enid (deceased) was the first-born followed by Eric (deceased), Allan, Lloyd (deceased), Don, Ivan, Roy (deceased), Valerie and Shirley.I attended Cowell public school until gaining my QC at the age of twelve years. I then went fishing for a living as times were bad during the depression an Dad could not look after us all. I lived in a 30 ft boat in Spencer Gulf for two years and made quite an amount of money for those times banking as much as I could and giving Mum the balance to buy food for the family. Dad was on a small wage so every bit was appreciated.When I left fishing I worked on some local farms for about 12 months. Dad then managed to arrange an apprenticeship for me at Whyalla Steelworks as a Boiler Maker. As our pay was only 10 shillings per week less 5 shillings for food and 4 shillings for rent I was only left with 1 shilling for personal items and had to draw on my savings to put myself through the 5 year apprenticeship.After gaining my certificate I left the company and drove buses between Whyalla and Port Pirie for 6 months.I was then offered a job within my trade in Kalgoorlie W.A. I took the East West train and arrived to find that I had no job. As I only had 11 pounds in my pocket I looked around for a cheap bed and breakfast and began looking for work. After 2 weeks the BHP mine manager said they wanted Boiler Makers up at Yampie Sound W.A. on an island out from Derby. I took the job and thank goodness they paid my fare up to the site. I worked there for 9 months..found the work very interesting erecting large buildings and a huge jetty large enough to take big iron ore ships to name a couple of projects. As the island was mostly ironstone, this is what was mined by ‘open cut’ method and then shipped away to Whyalla and Newcastle for smelting into pig iron and later into steel sections and railway lines. There was a 280foot rise and fall in the tide and when it was low tide we would pick oysters off the rocks to eat with our ration of one bottle of beer per day. I helped run a “Two Up” school on weekends and made a few pounds on the side doing that and saved my wages during my time on the island…. no shops or women to spend my money on!I left the island in December 1946 and arrived home in Whyalla two days before Christmas… Dad had shifted the family from Cowell to Whyalla by this time. We had a real nice time on Christmas Day with all the family.I stayed in Whyalla for a couple of weeks before going to Berri to pick grapes and oranges for the next two months. A job came up in Broken Hill at the zinc mine for a Boiler Maker so I headed north to “The Hill”.I worked at the mine fore 38 years and during that time I met and married Jean Williams (mother of two boys Jeffrey and Rodney). We had a beautiful daughter (Donna) Louise... born 12th December 1963 who passed away through breast cancer on January 31st 1989 aged 25 years … the most difficult and saddest day of my life.