Pat Ritter. Books

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Page 36:
Each Sunday they played football, and after the game the club celebrated whether they won or lost with a five-gallon keg of beer. Bundy was in his element. There was no greater moment, when he was celebrating with his mates, around a five-gallon keg of beer. It was great. Even when the football team trained during the week, after training, all the team went to the rear of a hotel and drank alcohol. Bundy enjoyed every moment with his friends when they were drinking.
On a Saturday night, before the game the following day, the group decided to buy some alcohol to give them some Dutch courage so they could play better. None of the group was old enough to buy alcohol. In those days, the age to purchase alcohol was twenty-one years.
Stephen was the elder of the group. He was nineteen but looked much older than he was, so he’d go into the hotel and purchase a bottle of ‘banana cocktail’, which was only seventy-five cents per bottle. It was sufficient to warm the insides of each person’s stomach in the group and was a cheap way of getting pissed.
When summer arrived the football season finished, Bundy decided to join Lifesavers. Why Lifesavers. At this time of Bundy’s life, he had saved enough money to buy a 1948 Holden Sedan. Most of the young people he worked with were also Lifesavers. Each Friday night he joined his mates and drove to their clubs, after work.
Apart from learning about lifesaving, there had to be another drawcard for Bundy to join. Each Friday night members helped with selling raffle tickets to raise money for their club. Afterwards, the club celebrated by buying a five-gallon keg of beer for members to drink. This was the drawcard for Bundy to become a member of the Club. He didn’t really succeed at being a lifesaver, but he did succeed at becoming a regular drinker of the five-gallon keg each Friday night.

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'Confessions of an alcoholic' - Page 37:
Drinking alcohol become more frequent as he grew older. He was in his final year of his apprenticeship, when a couple of his fellow workers wanted him to join them for a visit to the hotel, during their lunch break. Their lunch break was thirty minutes.
This meant the workers left work, walked, or run to their parked cars, drive to the local hotel which was five minutes drive; drink as much as they could drink for fifteen minutes, return to work before the break finished. Bundy couldn’t resist the temptation of not being a part of this group.
On the first day they decided to go to the hotel, the siren rang making all four runs for the car park. It was Bundy’s car they crowded into while Bundy drove and arrived at the hotel five minutes later. Bundy ordered the first round of POTS, which were the largest beers served in a glass. Each gulped its contents with each drink not even touching the sides of their throats before asking for another.
After they finished their shout, there wasn’t very much time to return to work. Bundy made it to the factory with only one moment to spare, before the lunch siren rang out to return to work.
He was operating a large milling machine at the time, which turned metal into the shapes set for the machine. He didn’t once consider the consequences of operating a large machine whilst he was affected by alcohol. Bundy felt adrenalins rushing throughout his body making him feel good. He never realised it at the time; he was about to hop onto the alcoholism roller coaster for the ride of his life.

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This property was one thousand kilometres from the city. He had never travelled so far west. He didn’t know if he was running away from his problem or getting deeper into it. The journey took him about two days of train travel, followed by travelling in a mail delivery truck before arriving at the station. In all, the property was one of the largest properties in the district being almost one million acres. Apart from Bundy, there was a Station Manager, Secretary, Governess, Overseers, Ringers and Boundary Riders. The property employed about fifty staff.
The closest hotel was fifty miles to the west and another hotel was fifty miles to the east. Bundy thought, this is going to be great. There are now no excuses. He’d recently turned twenty-one years old giving him the age of consent to go into hotels and drink beer legally. If he could remember that age of consent thing didn’t amount to anything. He’d been visiting hotels and buying beer since he was fifteen. All he wanted to do now was to work as hard as you could and keep away from alcohol.
Bundy’s job was to repair any machinery on the property. This sometimes meant he had to drive the repair truck many miles to where the vehicles had either broken down or needed repairs. Otherwise, his work was mainly at the station headquarters where he lived with about twenty other employees.
This lifestyle was completely different. He’d never experienced such isolation or wilderness. There were no shops or people. He was used to visiting nightclubs – hotels – footy games. There was absolutely nothing that resembled any of those activities he once enjoyed. He needed to change.

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Confessions of an alcoholic' - Page 39:

He couldn’t ride a horse, which was a major attraction on the property. His skills with motorbike riding were limited, another skill used on the property. After awhile he seemed to become a square peg in a round hole. Something had to change for him eventually.
Alongside of the property stretched the main highway to the towns. Often motorist broke down near to the homestead of the property wanting repairs done to their vehicles. Stones from the gravel roadway often caused a punctured hole into the core of their radiator. Bundy didn’t have the proper tools to repair the radiator, so he improvised.
He noticed ringers used a forge to make horseshoes out of mill rod, which had been left over after repairs to a windmill. He’d used the forge before to help the ringers make horseshoes. The forge was an apparatus made to heat steel. It was on a stand about one metre in height from the ground.
On top of this stand was an open oven with charcoal in it to burn. Outside of the oven a handle turned to create a wind tunnel. When the handle of the wind tunnel turned it generated sufficient wind to force the charcoal to heat.
Bundy used the forge to heat up the soldering iron sufficiently to use with solder to repair the radiator core. Motorists were pleased to have the services of Bundy if they needed running repairs on their vehicles. Unfortunately, for Bundy he didn’t want to charge any costs for the repairs he had carried out. Many wanted to repay him by shouting him a carton of beer for payment. He couldn’t accept this type of payment because of the policy of his employment. It was the first time in his life he had rejected such an offer of receiving a carton of beer for his services.

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One time he had completed a job for a motorist, David a ringer at the station, helped Bundy with the repairs when the motorist extended such an offer of a carton of beer. Bundy rejected the offer, at that point David interjected saying, ‘Bugger you Bundy, you don’t knock back a carton of beer for what you have done. You mad or something.’ He took the carton from the motorist. David threw the carton of beer onto his shoulder taking it to the men’s quarters.
Bundy knew he was in trouble if the ‘Boss’ found out about it. He thought as he followed David to the quarters. There were about twenty men in the single men’s quarters so a carton wouldn’t go extremely far.
Bundy thought he had a problem with drinking alcohol. When David placed the carton onto a stretcher bed of one of the ringers, they were like a flock of crows preying on a dead kangaroo. There was hysteria. He opened the carton distributing the stubbies to all who wanted one, ‘here Bundy you have the first because you’re the one who worked for it.’ He handed a stubby of beer to Bundy while handing out the others who wanted one.
Bundy couldn’t resist the temptation of tasting alcohol again. It had been only a couple of months since he arrived at the station and hadn’t had a drink. His mind closed to anything other than drinking that stubby of beer. It was hot. He’d never drink hot beer before.

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When he opened the top and quickly placing his lips around the top he couldn’t have cared if the beer were hot or boiling. Tasting that beer again was the most important thing on his mind. Drinking hot beer was different to cold beer. The taste different. It didn’t have the same tingling feeling that cold beer had. It was easier to swallow than cold beer because the coldness of the beer caused a cold feeling to the throat, as different to hot beer, which didn’t. It didn’t take long before everyone drank the beer.
To get rid of the evidence. ‘I’ll look after the empty stubbies. I’m delving drains tomorrow. I’ll take them with me on the tractor and bury them along the drain. The ‘Boss’ will never know.’ David said. Bundy was the toast of the ringers. He eventually had become one of them.
Frank, one of the ringers that drank a stubby of beer like everyone else had a far worse problem with alcohol than did Bundy.
After the initial taste Frank wanted more alcohol. He wanted to go into town to buy some more but the other ringers talked him out of the idea. It was bad enough they broke the rules and drank alcohol on the property but Frank wasn’t going to bring them all undone.
All that night Frank scrummaged around trying to find more beer to drink. There wasn’t any. Bundy had never witnessed any person with this type of problem with alcohol. Eventually, Frank settled down for the night.
Next morning Frank was found asleep on his bunk, snoring in between calling out names of people like he was in a rage. He smelt of a strong odour of methylated spirits. His rage increased to a point when the ‘Boss’ appeared at the back door of the quarters. He was outraged to think one of his men had been drinking at the station. If only he knew.

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He woke Frank and took him by the arm, physically carried him from the quarters. By the side of the bed lay a large empty bottle of methylated spirits. Would Frank tell the boss?’ It wasn’t long afterwards the ‘Boss’ was seen driving Frank in his car in the direction toward town. It wasn’t for more alcohol. It was terminating his employment because he’d crossed the line.
Bundy was hopeful he’d never be like Frank had become with drinking alcohol. Nothing was ever mentioned about the carton of stubbies drank by the ringers and Bundy, so it was accepted that Frank didn’t tell the ‘Boss’.
Christmas was just around the corner. Bundy and the ringers had time off from the station to go into town for the first time since he’d arrived. Bundy went with David and some other ringers in his utility. He sat in the back and it was to become a Christmas Bundy would rather forget.
On their journey to town David stopped another vehicle on the road. It was one of his mates who had a spare carton of stubbies. The journey to town was a slow one with most of the stubbies being drank by the five of them. The stubbies were hot. Bundy thought whether they had cold stubbies this far out from the city.
Along the road, David stopped for a pee break caused by drinking hot beer. Bundy had only drunken two stubbies but felt his mind numb. He wasn’t certain whether it was drinking the hot beer or the temperature of 50 degrees, caused him to feel intoxicated. Both the beer and the weather were hot.