Hey Google! What's the temperature today? Today in Blackburn South. Expect a high of 36 and a low of 16. Thanks. These days of 36 are hot. How long have you been married for? 74 years. 73 years. 74 in February. Is it February yet? February now. Oh, in two days time. "Yeah, we were married 24 Feb. 24 Feb. Yeah" I’m Jim Burrowes. I’m a 100. I’ll be a 101 next month. And I was born 29th March 1923, just a few months earlier than Beryl. My mum had married a farmer "which proved to be a somewhat difficult life" because they went through a hard time on a farm in Western Australia, so... Droughts. No rain. So, she and her husband and two daughters and a son, both older, migrated back to Melbourne. I was born as a twin in Pickle Street, Port Melbourne. I got a very weak memory "of those early years except they were very rugged." Before... The War. "Depression, no, the Depression and everything." The family had a tough time. Dad was always out of work. He became a bit religious. And so he wasn’t much good in helping our family. "That went on for years and was always harrowing." "Mum was relying on her two daughters to live," until the War came along and my twin brother Tom and elder brother Bob had both joined the services "and had been called up to Rabaul, New Guinea." "Mum and Dad wouldn't sign my documentation to" join the army. But when I was 18 it was compulsory, so I joined the army when I was 18. Straight away I joined the signals. Morse code operator. After a year or two, they called for volunteers. Dangerous mission. I couldn't put my hand up quick enough "because my two brothers were already up there during the war." "So I put my hand up and became a member of the U.S. Navy" of the Amphibious Landing Force for nine months. And during that time, "after training, we traveled to Fergusson Island" just off the tip of Milne Bay. "Most of the time I was moving up and down" on a PT boat like John Kennedy. "Eventually they disbanded and I transferred" and became a Coastwatcher. That's in 43. I was put into Japanese occupied territory in the Gazelle Peninsula, "where there was 100,000 Japs, would you believe?" "And our main mission was to notify the authorities" in Townsville and Moresby of the Japanese. planes leaving Rabaul to go south to Guadalcanal or Port Moresby. "And that’s what I used to use for Morse code" with various dah dit dit dit dit.... and so forth. "It meant that that down there, they were ready for the 20 bombers" "or whatever, so that the ships were in general quarters," "the artillery was ready, but most importantly," the American and Australian airplanes were up there in the sky waiting for the bombing raid and ready to repel the Japanese. We got all our food and our supplies etc. dropped from planes. "Mostly rice because we had to feed the natives." "We had about nine or ten natives with us too." Admiral Halsey declared that the Coastwatchers saved the Pacific War. First time the Japanese had been repulsed. And this is my one mission in life, "with my website, is to let everyone know..." All the Aussies, all the Americans, let them know these few Australians saved the actual war. Full stop. And that's my mission in life as I depart it. Of the roughly 400 Coastwatchers, 10% of them, about 40, "were caught by the Japs and tortured and murdered and killed." "But I was lucky to come home being one of the lucky ones." It’s the old story. Nothing's going to happen to me... until it does. So call it a bit of luck. But that's how we survived. As for feeling scared? Never. It’s not going to happen to me. Full stop. Luck is either good or bad. "My two brothers had bad luck and they'd didn't come home." I had good luck, and I did come home. It was a bit tough on my poor old mum to see her two sons who didn't come home. Terrible. I’m the only one who came home. And she's a lovely lady. She wasn’t a bit bitter, was she? No. No. Got on very well. "I mean she lost two sons and a daughter during the War." "My elder brother Bob was in the Montevideo, " Japanese prisoner ship, which went down and they all went down in July 45. And my twin brother Tom, who was in in the Air Force on his first mission, never came back. So I lost my two brothers and I was lucky enough to to come home. So our family of seven had been reduced to three "because in the meantime, my father had died" and my sister died in childbirth. So our family of seven became a family of just three: my older sister, me and Mum. Mother had a hard time. And Tennessee Waltz. Hah? Oh, the Tennessee Waltz. Yeah, I loved that. "Hey Google, play Tennessee Waltz by Patti Page." It was five or six years after the war had finished that I first met Beryl. The local tennis club. "Yeah, Beryl was cute in her little white shorts" and then we used to gather together and go on trips in my little Morris Minor. Four of us used to go out. Beryl and a friend of Beryl’s, and then my best mate and me. "And probably for a couple of years down to Lorne and various..." There was three of your mates. We used to go out with four of you. Yeah. And I only just just learnt the other day how she had her eye on me anyway. This was was nice to know. I had a what? "It was nice to know you had your eye on me anyway." And we were married in 1951. We were both 27 before we got married. The chaps at work used to tease me I was on the shelf. She was waiting for me. I can't say enough about Beryl's ability to be a partner, a lover, everything you can imagine. Fell in love with her. Pinched her from my best mate like in Tennessee Waltz . Tennessee Waltz by Patti Page. Lovely song, isn’t it? I reverted immediately to join the Chartered Accountants office and I then studied with "Hemingway and Robertson, chartered accountants." "Chartered secretary and a licensed company auditor." So all in the accounting field. And I had a good job with Jennings, the builder, for 31 years. When I did 20 years of work after leaving Jennings, I graduated up to secretary, treasurer... God knows what. There's so many people in top jobs, that are there for cushy reasons and that's why they’d employ me as a consultant who had the, pardon if I use the expression, the guts, to come into it and the first thing I'd do is sack the previous CEO. I’ve even sacked two managing directors of businesses. "I was doing the job that other people should have done and didn't do." "In my spare time, and I don’t know how I did it," "I spent 23 years getting the Royal Life Saving Society" go from about $800,000 to now $26 million with the major help of Robert, one of my sons, and I got an AOM for that in 90, 91. From the age of 12, that's one up there with the four birds, the wrens, where I won the John Gould. But I've done a lot of paintings. That's one that I like. There's that one up there with the horses. About 60 or 70 paintings. "I don't know where I got the time to do it." Most of them were done when on board one of the cruisers. 39 cruises. And I’d do a lot of painting on there, including that and that and that one for Mum and so forth. "Keeps me busy while Beryl’s having a sleep."