Chapter 2

I waited until we had finished dinner before I told my family the news.

“I went to Sydney this morning. I had a talk with the Head of News and came home as the new presenter for the ABC. My area is from the Gong to the border.”

Pauline squealed and stood up to give me a hug.

“That’s fantastic, Mummy. I’ll be able to see you on the box and shout at you without you yelling at me to be quiet.”

“Unless I’m in the room at the time, you minx.”

“It will give me status when I go to the high school, my Mummy being a celebrity.”

“I thought I was, already, what with my radio work.”

“Nah! On radio you’re invisible. You’re a disembodied voice. You could even be AI created and not a real person.”

“Oh! Thank you, madam critic. Should I walk stiffly and say, ‘I am a robot. Go to bed or else I will have to carry you, earthling.’ You could beat my metal chest and cry all you want. I won’t care, because I will be heartless.”

“Mummy, you’re so funny. Don’t ever change.”

“For you, my darling, I’m a constant, no matter what I’m doing. Your father may have to take you to school and pick you up if I’m off getting a story.”

“Wonderful, being dropped off at school in a police car. Even without the paintwork they’re unmistakeable. It’s the red and blue lights in the back window and the whippy aerials that give them away. They’ll call me Prisoner Pauline.”

“You just tell them that you’re Princess Pauline and get taken to school by your security detail.”

She seemed to like that, and we tidied up the dishes. Randall hadn’t said anything, and I was getting worried. He waited until Pauline was in bed.

“This is an interesting situation, my love. You a reporter and me a policeman.”

“It’s not a problem, love. My first task is to see the office in Wollongong, and then I’m to start making myself known around the area. I may be heading off early to make myself known to the towns south of us, so that they get in touch if they want anything made known. What we spoke about, before, is already in the system, and I’ve been ordered to keep my ear to the ground and do the odd report from here. We think that the story has a much wider implication, even international, and that won’t come to light for a year or two.”

“Tell me more?”

“It’s possible that the planes will be gifted to a friendly country, to the north, to act as an alarm clock should our biggest trading partner wants to start a take-over bid. It’s just a hypothesis, but the boss is taking that sort of thought seriously. He’s been around long enough to know how the politicians think. Whatever we spoke about is already out of date. Williamstown has thrown up corroborating evidence of a movement of aircraft.”

“You will, I hope, tell me if you discover anything that I need to know.”

“Of course I will, my important darling. Unless, of course, it’s a scoop.”

I giggled and he tickled me, until we ended up joined at the hip.

On Tuesday, I tidied up my affairs. I called the president of the car club and explained that I would try to carry on but would likely leave the committee at the next AGM. Then I went into the radio station and explained to the ones there that I will need to have more time as I was going to be on the ABC but would help out if needed. There was one of the older volunteers who had been helping me, so I went to see him, leaving him an hour later with all the paperwork that I had brought in the car. I was now free to take on the job.

On Wednesday, I went to see Bernie Turner, the cameraman, at his camera shop.

“Morning Bernie. Do you have a moment?”

“For you, Carol, I have all day.”

“You old smoothie, you. I’ve popped in to tell you that I’ve taken on the job of the local ABC presenter. I have to go up to the Gong tomorrow, to see their office and find out what they want me to do.”

“That’s fantastic. The other girl was just lazy, waiting for things to come to her. Have you had any ideas, yet?”

“I was thinking about a couple of projects. One to highlight the air service from Albatross, with the odd fact that it’s a passenger terminal in a military base. I was there to fly to Sydney and was told about the large number of regulars they have, going to Sydney and Canberra. The effect on the local commuters would be horrendous if the Navy closed the gates on the public. I expect that most of the regulars are highly placed.”

“That will go well if you pitch that to the producer. When we do a story, I’ll be on the cameras and we get a sound man, a lighting man, a producer and a lass who will do your dressing and make-up as a minimum. If you kick off with a decent segment, you’ll probably get asked to do a half-hour show. Any ideas?”

“Randall and I have been down the coast, and I was thinking of going down again and making myself known. One thing that could make a series would be talking to the people who’ve been in each town for a while and run the joint. Another thing that I loved were the magnificent rivers. I could do a nature show on them.”

“You’re a whiff of fresh air! I can see it in my mind, a three-show special of Chivers’ Rivers, and about a dozen of Chivers’ Givers.”

“Then there’s interviewing all the famous people who live between us and the border. I’m sure that there would be enough for a series.”

“That can be Carols’ Singers.”

“Are you always this chirpy?”

“Yep! On the job, you get Bernie with his e-quip-ment.”

“What do you do with the shop if we’re on location?”

“I’ve got a helper who comes in. Seriously, it’s the reputation of being the ABC cameraman that brings me the best business. Customers who want the best and are prepared to pay whatever it takes. If what you do gets us better known, I’d put him on as a permanent and spend my time with you. I’ve seen what you did with the radio station and your electrical business. You make things happen, Carol.”

We spent most of the next hour with him explaining the usual methods of putting a segment on air and that all I needed to do was to turn up, look good and sound believable.

The next day, I drove my GT to the ABC at Figtree. It was good to be out in my own sportscar on a decent trip. At the office I was welcomed in and met my regular producer. Matthew Delaine was younger than me, tall and slim with sparkle in his eyes. There were a few others around the meeting table, a couple of sound men, a couple of lighting men and Ashley, the girl who would be making me look good.

Firstly, they wanted to know my media experience and my time with the BBC was received well. They had heard my shows from Nowra, so knew that I was good for radio. To ensure that I was good for TV, I was made up and did a screen test, reading a story from a teleprompter, after having read it through beforehand, I stood in front of a screen and, before we broke for lunch, we watched the result. They had added the vision from the real news report behind me and the audio was as it was in the real report. I was amazed at seeing myself as the viewers would see me, and everyone congratulated me on being so good straight out of the blocks.

In the afternoon, we talked about things we could do while we waited for news stories to appear. I pitched my idea about the effect of closing Albatross would have on the airline passengers and Matthew said that he would try to organise some interviews that we could do. I also pitched a story on Australias’ Forgotten Territory which he loved. I had the suggestions that I had talked about with Bernie, which made everyone smile.

By the time I went home, I had made a few more friends, had been given a contact list of all the ‘stringers’ between that office and the border, and told that I would be contacted after Matthew and his office had worked up a storyline for the Albatross show. It was to be my debut as a fifteen-minute segment on the Seven-Thirty Report news show.

That Sunday afternoon, I was sitting in a function room in Nowra, with some local politicians and businessmen who used the airline to get to work. I had a list of questions to ask and a crew behind me. Bernie had a hand-held and three remote cameras, one pointed at me, and we all had small microphones on. We spent two hours getting them to talk about the problems that they would have if the military ever decided to close Albatross to the public, and what they would have to do if they had to make other arrangements.

I now knew that this session would be condensed to five-minute segments of my report, with the other five minutes being me on location, with the opening, the lead-in to the discussion, and the closing, which would be shot with me at the end of the runway as a Rex flight took off.

We filmed in the public areas on Monday. It opened with me at the museum with Steve, talking about the history of the base with a Skyhawk behind us. I asked him about a rumour he had heard about the base closing. After he said that he had been told about further restrictions, I turned to face the camera.

“I have talked to some of the many locals who use the local airline link to other cities. Here is part of our discussion.”

Then we moved to the terminal for my middle segment about the airline and the restrictions placed on it, as well as the fact that it was the only airline allowed to use the runway. The last shot was me winding up the story with a recap of the harm that closing the base would mean to the locals, as a Rex plane flew over me. I looked up as it went over, then looked back at the camera.

“This is Carol Chivers, reporting from Nowra.”

We had no vision of any other use of the runway, to highlight how little it was used by the military. The segment went out on Thursday evening, with my phone going crazy from friends that had seen it. Pauline loved the final shot and took the recording she had made of the segment, coming back with a printed picture of me with a plane over me.

Friday, Matthew called me.

“Hello, Matthew. How did the bosses take it.”

“They loved it, Carol. It allows our political reporters to ask leading questions in order to get a definitive answer on the future of the base. They’re going to ask if it’s good enough for Rex, why can’t the other airlines use the site. I spoke about your idea of the Forgotten Territory and have the OK for a twenty-five-minute report to highlight it’s unique place in the country. I’ll organise an interview with the Commodore of HMAS Cresswell and any prominent locals in the Jervis Bay Village. I’ll need to go through hoops to get you access to Wreck Bay Village and the aboriginal leaders, so it may be a week or so. In the meantime, keep practising that lovely smile. The postman will have something for you next week, as the segment has created a lot of interest.”

I went into town to talk to Bernie about a longer segment. He had a similar picture to Pauline, in the shop window, poster sized. He took it down so I could sign it and he put it up again.

“You’re going to have trouble, Carol.”

“Why would that be?”

“Everyone in town will want your autograph or a selfie. I’ve had several mates in, today, who’ve told me that I had lifted my game. The problem was that the other girl had no imagination with her reports.”

“Matthew called. He has a go-ahead for a full segment on the Jervis Bay Territory. That will give us time for a look at the natural environment as well as talking about the history and the current residents. It will be a week or so before we’re going there, time to have a little check of the views.”

“How about Sunday. I’ll get my MG out and you bring the GT. We can get sites for the opening and closing, and I’ll make a note of anything that stands out. Most of the navy buildings are over a hundred years old and hardly ever seen.”

“OK. You come by my place, say at nine, and we’ll make a day of it. I’ll make some sandwiches as I’ve discovered that the only store only carries snacks and drinks. I had been looking at organising a club run out there.”

While I did my shopping, I was stopped a few times for a selfie. Some of the shop owners told me that closing the airline down would be a blow to the area and thanked me for bringing the subject up.

On Sunday, Bernie and his wife arrived in his MGA, and I followed him with Randall beside me and Pauline, being the smallest, in the back seat. We had an icebox in the back with drinks and the sandwiches. The trip wasn’t far, about thirty kilometers according to the GT speedo.

Bernie had a digital movie camera with inbuilt audio, and we did test openings and closings in several locations. One was at the jetty, where I stood with it behind me to say my piece.

“Here I stand, in the Jervis Bay Territory, in Jervis Bay Village. If I walked out along that jetty, I would be walking into New South Wales. This Territory was once part of the state but was taken over by the Federal Government in nineteen-fifteen, to be a port for Canberra and the ACT, considering that most goods were transported by ship at that time. The three hundred residents have Canberra paperwork, follow Canberra laws, and are not considered as NSW residents.”

We did something similar at Iluka Beach, where the border was the tide line. Go paddling and you were in another state. We did a short segment from the Beach View Workout Park, with the bay behind me.

“Behind me is Jervis Bay, the spiritual home of the Royal Australian Navy. It is here that every officer since nineteen fifteen has been trained in all things Navy, from fighting an enemy to fighting a fire. Those waters have seen every ship our navy has possessed, as well as many visiting from other countries. It is a safe harbour, a place of rest and relaxation for crews. Here, on the land, we have an enigma, a place where nothing seems right, yet everything works like clockwork. This is Carol Chivers at the Jervis Bay Territory.”

We looked at all the beauty spots and sat on the sand to have our lunch at Murrays Beach boat ramp, passing the site that Bernie told me was where they had wanted to put a nuclear reactor. The day allowed Randall to see Bernie as more than just another club member. Pauline wanted to know how they timed the shot with the plane over my head and Bernie promised her a poster sized print of it for her wall. When we went back to Nowra, they stayed and had a BBQ tea with us and talked about projects that would take up my time.

It was a couple of months to the summer holidays, which included Christmas. It had taken me a couple of years to appreciate BBQ shrimps instead of turkey. Bernie suggested that I make the GT a part of my presentation. We could film me opening the door and turning to the camera to tell the viewers what the show would be about, then I get in and drive off. Most presenters used SUVs when they did road trips, so it would be a point of difference. I wondered about Pauline during the holidays, and he told me to bring her along. She was bright and pretty enough to add to the family vibe when I was interviewing.

When he left, the three of us were sitting with drinks. Randall took my hand.

“Today, I’ve seen you at work. Those may have been just unscripted tests, but I could see them on the screen.”

Pauline gave me a cuddle.

“I thought that the first show was good, Mummy, but you’re going to need a social secretary after a few more.”

“Are you volunteering, love?”

“Until I go back to school, or when it gets too hard.”

Monday afternoon, I had a call from Matthew, wanting me in the office mid-morning on Tuesday. After spending much of Monday afternoon opening a parcel of fan mail, I left it for Pauline to look after in the evening. On Tuesday, I drove up to Figtree and went to his office.

“Good morning, Carol. For a first segment, you’ve created quite a storm. We’ve been asked what we know, and the management has had several meetings in Canberra. Well done! Now, this show about Jervis Bay. That one will be all sweetness and light, I hope. Bernie emailed me some tests you did, and it looks good, so far.”

“I was planning to do it as a quirky bit of knowledge that very few are aware of. Being relatively new to the area, we have done a lot of exploring and there’s plenty of other little stories out there.”

“Yes. We’re working on setting up a month of filming, with the full crew. We’re contacting all our stringers south of you to submit names of worthy people in their areas for you to visit and talk to. We want to find out about long-term volunteers, local heroes, and any retired film or music star. If we get enough, we can find a spot in the mid-evening, one a week, over the winter period. Bernie has already suggested an opening sequence which can be used. It includes your car. We can film you at the wheel, going along and telling the viewer where you’re heading to and who you’re going to talk to. We’ve had lots of one-on-one interview segments, which fill the spot but are soulless. You, with your subject, in a good place at their home, will be very ‘family’.”

In the end, we decided that the trip would take place during the long school holiday so that I could take Pauline if I wanted, as another little oddity to the show. When I went home, I had an appointment to meet the crew at the Jervis Bay Village, by the pier, on Friday, to record the show. We had appointments set up with the shopkeeper, the aboriginal elder, and the Commodore of the navy college. I would have a script to work from but was encouraged to think of a few questions of my own.

Over the next couple of days, I did some research. The Commodore of HMAS Creswell had been promoted to the job at around the time I had arrived in Nowra and had five years to go before retirement. That would have put him at around the turn of the century when he had been there as a trainee. I looked back at the naval history and came up with a question that I was interested to see how he would react to; him having had a father who had also served.

Friday morning, Randall and Pauline were still having breakfast when I left. I met up with the crew and we started work. The opening was as we had trialed it, only fuller and with good lighting. The interview with the shopkeeper was good. He had been raised in the Territory and had taken over the shop from his parents. We filmed a segment where he showed me some of the wonderful buildings in the Village and admitted that he had been happy that the planned nuclear reactor had never gone further than the planning.

The interview with the elder was good, with her talking about ‘country’ as we stood on the beach at Summercloud Bay. The college buildings, almost unchanged from the early nineteen hundreds, were wonderful, and we were able to get shots with the modern additions kept out of sight.

The interview with the Commodore was normal, for most part. I was told about what they taught, and how it differed from the early teachings. I asked him if his time here had been hard, and he agreed that the training was rigorous, but required to get the best out of the officers, who he considered to be among the best seamen in the world. That’s when I asked him one of my own questions.

“Your father was an officer. Did you follow him as a calling or as a duty?”

“That’s something that’s easy to answer. I was steeped in naval life. We had a small sailboat that I spent a lot of time in. It was natural to come here and create a career which I’m proud of.”

“What do you think about todays’ navy? Would you change it?”

“How do you mean, change it?”

“Well, we have a small fleet of Collins Class submarines, conventionally powered and about as much use as throwing a bottle in the water. We have two second-hand American nuclear subs that they didn’t want. We have a large fleet of patrol boats, some frigates and a couple of helicopter carriers. What we don’t have is a long-range carrier group, not since the Melbourne. Todays’ warfare is long-distance drones and missiles. A nice carrier would be good to carry hundreds of drones.”

“You seem to have a good grasp of military strategy, Carol. This is something that me and my fellow officers talk about when we get together. It’s something that our political masters avoid as too expensive.”

“Yet, those same masters think nothing about gifting patrol boats to the islands to the north. Those same masters who admitted that it would take two months to prepare a warship to send to help out during the Iranian conflict of twenty-six. Those same masters who only found out that the Chinese Navy were doing live-fire exercises, a hundred and fifty kilometers from Sydney when an airline pilot reported it. Those same masters who gave the Chinese Navy the Melbourne to inspect before they started to break it up, as contracted, at the end of the eighties. They had it almost a year. It would have been cheaper just to post them the blueprints.”

“Have you been that fly on the wall at our reunions? I was still a schoolboy when the Melbourne was towed to China. My father was incandescent, along with most of the officers. It had been sitting for five years being decommissioned, yet it went to China with the hydraulic plane lifts, the landing light system and the steam catapults still operational. Our PM was just trying to butter up the regime. He was another one like that President, all piss and wind. The Chinese didn’t build a carrier for another twenty years, but they now have more than three carrier groups on the high seas.”

“It changed the Navy, didn’t it. That one move?”

He looked hard at me and laughed.

“I watched your first segment and wondered if you were a one-hit wonder. I can now see that you know a lot more about the human psyche than most. Look, the Melbourne was more than a carrier, as our flagship it was a banner that proclaimed that we had a navy. You may think that the navy is made up of tiers of rankings, but there’s a subset that I think you’ve sensed. We have seamen, who man the ships, sailors and officers alike. We have a small group of submariners who are something else again. We once had the top level, the officers and men on a carrier, with so many different tasks that ordinary sailors never encounter. They were special, and they knew it. Above them, however, were the ones we all looked up to. The flyboys who could put a Skyhawk down on a short bit of steel, rocking in an endless ocean. When the Melbourne was decommissioned, it cut off our head. It took a while, with the Sea Vixens, the Skyhawks and the Grumman Trackers moved to Albatross, but we ended up as a navy with about as much pride as the Sydney ferry captains, and about as much influence in the world.”

I could almost feel the tension in the film crew, who seemed afraid to breathe.

“Thank you for your frankness, sir. We will cut out that final part for the show, but we will show it to our management. I believe that we can talk to some retired officers to see if they feel the same before making a show that will pull back the curtain. I can see it as a history of the Melbourne and the problems with small ships thinking that it had brakes. What was it, eighty-two died when she cut the Voyager in half in sixty-four, with another seventy-four Americans from the Frank E. Evans in the South China Sea in sixty-nine.”

“The first was poor decision making, poor communication and the radar we had at the time. The second was similar plus two total beginners on the bridge. On flying operations, the carrier only goes one way, and it’s the others that have to steer clear. The crew were exonerated on both occasions. It would be good to remind people of how strong we once were. Thank you for setting this interview up.”

I heard Matthew call ‘Cut’ and realised that we had gained a lot more than we had expected. After some drinks in the wardroom, we went off to the Murrays Beach boat ramp, where we filmed the closing segment. My words about the place being an enigma that ran like clockwork now had a new meaning.

Marianne Gregory © 2026