JACK
Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 1:11 pm
JACK
In the early days of gold detecting my partner was my brother-in-law John and for awhile another brother-in-law called Roy tagged along for awhile and we were very successful in those early days.
About this time the family suffered a very sad lost when my Mother-in-law passed away leaving her husband Jack with little to do but mope about by himself. So we decided to take him up bush with us and he took to the prospecting life like he’d been doing it for years even though he’d been a school teacher all his working life. So there we were Jack, john his son and Roy and I, both son-in-laws.
We were a bit of a strange mixture, old Jack was a strict labour man while us younger blokes had a pretty low opinion of the whole lot of them, so a fair bit of friendly chiacking went on but Jack more than held his own and it was all in good fun.
Jack was a notorious snorer and liked to have an afternoon nap; on a still day you could hear him snoring a mile away, so at night john and him shared a van. Roy was also a champion snorer so he was banished to a tent on the outer reaches of our camp while I camped in my old Transit van.
John, Roy and myself always worked as a team gridding large areas of likely looking ground, this proved to be a very successful method and a lot of gold was found doing this. Jack on the other hand liked to wander far and wide at a rapid pace, but still had some success. Mind you he terrorised anyone who had a call of nature; you were never safe, even after checking Jack was nowhere in the vicinity, he still seemed to be drawn unerringly to your bit of cover within minutes.
He also had the habit of detecting through the block you were gridding and was constantly ordered to go elsewhere. After one of these instances Jack disappeared into the distance and we didn’t see him again until we returned to camp that evening and there he sat looking very smug. He had a large quarts specimen balanced on a old fruit can; it had over 10 ounces of gold in it.
Within a short length of time he became one of us; quickly shedding the Father-in-law image and he loved it up there as well.
Unfortunately Jack was a big smoker and it eventually caught up with him when he developed lung cancer. But he had a couple of good years up bush before his illness got the better of him, he was a wonderful old character and we really missed him.
© T.E. Piggott
In the early days of gold detecting my partner was my brother-in-law John and for awhile another brother-in-law called Roy tagged along for awhile and we were very successful in those early days.
About this time the family suffered a very sad lost when my Mother-in-law passed away leaving her husband Jack with little to do but mope about by himself. So we decided to take him up bush with us and he took to the prospecting life like he’d been doing it for years even though he’d been a school teacher all his working life. So there we were Jack, john his son and Roy and I, both son-in-laws.
We were a bit of a strange mixture, old Jack was a strict labour man while us younger blokes had a pretty low opinion of the whole lot of them, so a fair bit of friendly chiacking went on but Jack more than held his own and it was all in good fun.
Jack was a notorious snorer and liked to have an afternoon nap; on a still day you could hear him snoring a mile away, so at night john and him shared a van. Roy was also a champion snorer so he was banished to a tent on the outer reaches of our camp while I camped in my old Transit van.
John, Roy and myself always worked as a team gridding large areas of likely looking ground, this proved to be a very successful method and a lot of gold was found doing this. Jack on the other hand liked to wander far and wide at a rapid pace, but still had some success. Mind you he terrorised anyone who had a call of nature; you were never safe, even after checking Jack was nowhere in the vicinity, he still seemed to be drawn unerringly to your bit of cover within minutes.
He also had the habit of detecting through the block you were gridding and was constantly ordered to go elsewhere. After one of these instances Jack disappeared into the distance and we didn’t see him again until we returned to camp that evening and there he sat looking very smug. He had a large quarts specimen balanced on a old fruit can; it had over 10 ounces of gold in it.
Within a short length of time he became one of us; quickly shedding the Father-in-law image and he loved it up there as well.
Unfortunately Jack was a big smoker and it eventually caught up with him when he developed lung cancer. But he had a couple of good years up bush before his illness got the better of him, he was a wonderful old character and we really missed him.
© T.E. Piggott