Some people used to think that I was mad. “We can't understand you two, one minute she's going to kill you but if I say something [bad] about you, she’ll want to kill me!” And they could never understand how we got on. Howard Shelley. Howard Alfred Shelley. I was born in West Bromwich. Part of Birmingham. My parents, Alfred Shelley and Margaret Shelley. Well, I'm an only child. My mum worked at the Hercules cycle factory in Birmingham and my father worked at the General Electric Company. My Dad always used to get me to put his bets on for him with the local bookie when I was a kid. And, I consequently bet on horses all my life. Much to my despair at times. Not very successfully, I tell you. My grandmother, my father's mother, she lived in West Bromwich. She was was a miner's wife. My memories of her is just sitting by the stove with the kettle on. She was a very severe woman in black. And they heard she'd been playing around with some bloke. I remember we walked down there this day, we found we were in the midst of a bit of a family business. She sat there and looked at us all, and she was a tough old bird. Although she was playing around with a bloke she's a tough old bird. And, she said “Alfred! Make this tea”. She didn't get off her bum herself mind you, and Alfred had to get up and make the tea and look after us whilst she sat down and had court, you know, “The rest of you can listen to me.” On our holidays, which in those days consisted of one week. That’s all people got off. Dad would rush home on the Friday night, we’d grab a suitcase, jump on the train, and go down to Torquay. And my greatest pleasure was the company of donkeys on the beach. I was 14 when I left school. You had to leave school at 14 unless you were clever enough to go to secondary college which I wasn't. I went to work for a plumber. and I got ten shillings and sixpence a week which I had to hand over to my Mum every Friday because things were tight. All my friends were working in the munition factories and earning good money. I thought, blow this, this is no good, they're going to dances and pubs and so my mother got me a job at the cycle factory. The war started. I was conscripted into the army. And I was posted up to Catherine Camp in Yorkshire. I walked into the canteen in Catherine Camp and this young lady was behind the counter. Mary Bernadette Woodgate. She was in the Women’s Army Corp. So a bit of banter started. Bit of cheek and I finished up marrying her. My wife was Irish. County Kilkenny. And she loved a good argument or a good fight. She’d fight anybody. You upset her and boy were you in trouble. You could have been six foot four and she was five foot two. Yeah, she wasn’t a bad looker, was she? Different to me! I remember the duty officer and the duty sergeant come marching down. “Where’s Trooper Shelley?” “We understand you have a girlfriend in the ATS. Private Woodgate.” I said, “Yes. What’s she doing now?” And he said, “Well you better come with me.” And we went into the cookhouse and there is Patsy with a knife. Patsy had took offense at something this girl said. And it got a bit more than fisticuffs. Patsy was going to kill her. What for I don't know. I could talk sweet-talk her and so I had a chat with her. At any rate Patsy dropped the knife. We did calm her down and they took her away and she got seven days’ ‘jankers’. She had to go down the cookhouse and sit there all day with a big bag, bags and bags of potatoes, carrots and like and peeling them all day long. But she was lucky she got away with that. If it had been like a civilian court, she’d have been in big trouble. I remember when we first finished our training, all gathered together, bunged on a train, given the kit bag, I was kitted out and we were going overseas because the war was in full swing. All sorts of rumors where we were going. We thought we were going out to Burma, out that way, because of the clothing we were issued. Light khaki. Not heavy. We were traveling through the night. The train pulled into a station. The Red Caps got on, the hated Red Caps. That's the military police. And they just said, “You there! Line up on the station.” We were marched off down the road a little way. Out the train went with the rest of the boys on it. And most of those boys were, unfortunately, you know killed. Pure, absolute pure luck. I was in the army for five & a half years and never fired a shot in anger. I never went abroad. I was always stationed [here] and they moved me around. I was one of the fortunate ones. I went to a place in Chertsey in Surrey. ‘Fighting Vehicle Proving Establishment’. It’s where the armourment factories were rapidly making tanks and armored cars and they used to rush prototypes down there and we had to test them. We’d jump in a tank or or a car, trying to bash the car up. Not smash it up, like dent wise, but drive it as hard as you could and make it break down. They find out why it broke down and make sure it doesn’t break down again. We had friends and myself and the husband went for a beer. The two women were having cups of tea at home and God knows what. When we got back to the house. after being in the pub, the place was strewn with papers. it was all about going to Australia. The couple were going to emigrate and so by the time I got home that night I think we were going to emigrate. And we got on the Fairsky and come out to Australia. My father was on his own then. He came to see us off on the ship and Southampton was the last time I saw my father. We arrived in Fremantle and so we got off the ship. There was a line of desks and that on the wharf. I walked up to the bloke and put my hand out to shake hands with him. He just ignored it. And I said I was a truck driver which by that time I was. He said, “Trucks drivers are ten a penny here. We need people in the building trade”. And I said, “Well that's nice isn’t it, to tell me now! I'm here with two girls. A wife and two girls”. He said, “Well if you don't want to get out here, if you go back on the ship, see the purser, and the ship will go to Adelaide or Melbourne or Brisbane. And after that you're on your own to go back to England again. I thought this is a great introduction, considering you're asking for migrants to come but that's the sort of greeting we got. And that's what we did, we got on, and when we got to Melbourne they called us up. There was a different reception all together. Had an interview and we were put in the huts used to be behind the Exhibition Building. And he called me in the office and he said, “Would you take a job in a factory?” And I said, “I’ll take any job. That's what I came for.” And up there in Albert Street there was a factory. A. G. Healing. They made televisions and radios and things like that. They said, “Yeah, here, we’ll give you a job.” And then they also said, “If your wife’s looking for a job, we can give her a job.” And I started my working life there and worked there for 20 years.