I am an Australian, but how did I happen to become an Australian? Like most Australians, my more immediate ancestors came to Australia from another country. In my case, my maternal great grandfather Henry Davies came to Australia in 1852 from the city of Cardiff in Wales. He went to the Ballarat goldfields in Victoria, became the first secretary of the Ballarat Orphanage on a salary of 25 pounds a month, and was the organising secretary for the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh to Ballarat in 1868. One of my paternal great grandfathers Thomas Langdon (brother of another great grandfather William Langdon) came to Australia in 1853 from the city of Bristol (UK) and went to the Bendigo goldfields. He was a member of the Victorian parliament from 1880 to 1914 and briefly Chief Secretary of Victoria in 1907.
Needless to say, I grew up in an era of the very first motor cars, and aeroplanes which were still quite quaint contraptions. Telephones and radios were a novelty. Very few people indeed had a motor car or a telephone, and I remember us getting our very first radio about 1938, which was enclosed in a cabinet about 1 metre tall. There were no such things as refrigerators, washing machines, hot water services, showers, electric fans, sewerage etc. They were the days of the weekly bath which was had by chopping the wood and lighting a fire under a large copper to boil the water for the bath. The coppers main function of course was for the Monday washing day, when clothes were boiled in the copper. And obviously television and computers were still a far off phenomenen.
My childhood was in the days of 'The Great Depression' of the 1930s following the collapse of the stockmarket on Wall Street, when there was worldwide massive unemployment. During the years 1940-1945 I dug air raid trenches during school hours, trained for 2 years with the RAAF Air Training Corps (in preparation for military service} and received a certificate for serving King and Country for 3 years as a member of the RAAF Volunteer Air Obsercers Corps (I was rostered to sit in an observation tower every Sunday night from 6.00-9.00pm keeping a lookout for enemy aircraft). I left school at the end of 1945, at the end of World War 2. and I left home in January 1946, at the age of 17 years to make my own way in the world, with a commencing salary of $1.85 AUD a week. Yes, I did say a week!
I have had a variety of different jobs during my working life, which included working in a country town (without electricity) for Australia's leading bank, 3 motor car dealerships (I used to fly to Melbourne from Hamilton and drive new cars back home), 2 Australian universities, a national firm of chartered accountants. and a major UK life insurance company as a Divisional Manager (superannuation administration).
My wife Anne and I have had 2 family businesses, a private nursing home, and a private college, Melbourne Administrative Staff Colleges.
We educated our 4 children at Kilvington Baptist Girls Grammar School and Carey Baptist Grammar School. Our girls spent their last years at Carey when Carey became co-ed.
Our entire working life was spent in the years BC (Before Computers). I obtained my first PC in 1994. It was an IBM that cost about #3000 AUD with a capacity of less than 1 gigabyte. It cost me $1000 later on to have it upgraded to 1G
I was introduced to the internet around 1998 when I was 70 years of age, and began a course of action endeavouring to see if was going to be possible to earn a living on the internet.
WHO LOVES MONEY?
This may appear to be a very silly question, because most of us are very much aware that without money, it is virtually impossible to do most of the things that most human beings do in life. Most of us set out on life's journey by taking a job, hoping to prosper, and do the usual things like getting married, buying a house, having children, educating them, acquiring assets, travelling, and ultimately retiring, in the hope of having enough income to see us through our retirement years.
Having spent many years in the superannuation industry, and being involved in study groups for a proposed National Superannuation Scheme over 30 years ago by the then Whitlam Government, no such scheme ever eventuated, and what exists in Australia today is just such a hopeless mess that superannuation for the masses is never ever going to meet the needs of retirees for 'the long haul' due to the increasing life span of more and more people.
The purpose of this blog is therefore largely intended to offer individuals an alternative in providing for retirement years whether it be an early or later retirement from the workforce.
In the following blogs it is my intention to share with you my own journey in pursuing a goal of earning an online income. Whether you care to join me or not is entirely at your discretion.
