It was probably in the latter half of 1948 that the happenings about which I relate took place.

It was customary for my family to get together every couple of months with other family rellies for a Sunday lunch,  where the latest family news would be exchanged and the most recent losses by the favourite football teams lamented. 

On this particular occasion the embarrassingly dismal results of my just completed half yearly tests surfaced for comment.  For some reason I didn’t seem to be able to get my head around the set language studies of Latin and French and I seem to recall that British History was a bit of a disaster as well.
 
The saving grace was that my maths and science, trig and algebra were all at the top of the class, which I suppose suggested some hope of eventual redemption. 

Ever helpful Uncle Eddie, himself a life-long railway-man, suggested that maybe an engineering apprenticeship would warrant investigation, and perhaps serious consideration, rather than pursuing an academic course.  

Now, at the tender age of sixteen my understanding of engineering practice was near nil, but I did know that anything with wheels, wings or engines had great appeal.  My hobbies at that time included model aeroplanes and steam engines and bicycle renovation.  So the prospect of working with steam locomotives had some appeal. 

And so it came to pass. 

After going through the selection process I joined with about three hundred other young hopefuls in the intake of 1949, progressed through the practical training regime and later further engineering studies that led to Marine Engineering and Building Services employment opportunities.

Now, some sixty-eight years later, after happily working in my chosen discipline, I wonder what other direction my life’s course might have taken had I ignored Uncle Eddie’s advice and become a butcher, baker or candlestick maker instead.
 

​As a lad growing up during the war years I had a fascination with aircraft and a dream of one day flying.  This interest was expressed by the building and flying of model aeroplanes - the balsa wood and tissue variety - and by becoming an avid fan of W. E. Johns novels for boys about the British flying ace, Biggles, who pretty much single-handed saved the UK from defeat by the Luftwaffe.  My  dreams of flying remained just that until some years later.

By 1958 I found myself working in the maritime industry as a ship’s engineer.  The work regime at that time was not a good example of the ideal work-life balance as understood today.  We spent months at sea sometimes as many as six followed by periods of leave.
 
It was on one of these long leave episodes that I decided that this was the time.  I joined the RVAC (Royal Victorian Aero Club), enrolling in a correspondence course run by the School of Civil Aviation covering the theory of light and other technical stuff like the principles of navigation and meteorology. 

The primary trainer at that time was the DH82 better known as the Tiger Moth.  This was a tail dragging bi-plane cobbled together out of wood, wire and canvas—about as basic a flying machine as can be imagined.  It had a good record as a training aircraft during WW2; was built in large numbers by the Western allies and is still flown by enthusiasts today.

And so the practical business of learning to fly began – starting the engine by swinging the propellor, taxiing, take off and landing.  A big thrill was my first solo flight and advanced procedures such as stall and spin recovery. 

Another advanced task was a cross-country navigation exercise which in theory was a out and back flight from Moorabbin to West Sale.  Planning for such a task flown under VER’s (Visual Flight Rules) entailed selecting a flight path; plotting a chart and noting way points en route, including emergency out-landing airfields in case or problems in flight.  That was, and I believe still is, the basis of recreational flight planning.
 
What happened in reality was we found and followed the Gippsland rail-line which passed conveniently close to the West Sale airfield, then reversed the process back to Moorabin.  Mission accomplished.  Faking it? No.  Fudging it? Maybe!
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Later in life I realized there is an allegorical connection between cross-country flight planning and living one’s life.  We plot our life’s course; note the way points like sporting or academic achievements, personal relationships, marriage and kids; trying all the while to avoid blind gullies and stormy weather – hopefully to one day reach our final destination, wherever and whatever that may be.  

It may not be immediately obvious to the casual observer that I’m a boxer.  No, not the pugilistic type with aggressive stance and cauliflower ears; nor obviously the canine variety with wagging tail and German ancestry.  My claim to the title of boxer is because of a hobby interest in a branch of craft woodwork – namely Trinket box making.

Thinking back, I realize now that it all began many years ago when in about Grade Five or Six at primary school my teacher, Sister Bernadette, frustrated perhaps by our lack of interest or capacity in the three R’s – reading, writing and arithmetic, introduced us to the basic hands on task of sanding and painting/varnishing a wooden object of our own choice, which in my case turned out to be a cigar box.

That little box took pride of place for many years on my mother’s bedroom dressing table until her passing years ago, when it once again came back into my possessions.*

Now some seventy five years later that seed of interest sown so long ago has germinated and emerged as an interesting, hands on, craft hobby which is satisfyingly creative and perhaps even produces something marginally useful.  It certainly fills a gap in my other life – the life of retirement after 50 years of full time work.

Trinket boxes, sometimes also called jewel boxes, go back a long way – many centuries in fact.  A trinket box was not the kind of box you used every day; in the past it was a special place to keep and protect mementos, jewellery or heirloom pieces sued on special occasions.  Today for most people it’s more likely to be a receptacle for more prosaic stuff such as coins, spare keys or the blank USB memory stick that is rarely available when needed.
 
Specialist makers such as Faberge and Limoge still, I believe, produce much sought after boxes in porcelain and precious metal for the top end market.

My own efforts are of wooden construction and quite basic in design.

Sometimes in the wee small hours an idea for a trinket box design a little different from the last emerges from nowhere and provides the motivation to leap out of bed at the crack of dawn to convert the idea to reality before it is lost forever.  That process consists basically of preparing a sketch, construction steps, selecting wood, choosing hinge and latching arrangements – a process which I hope keeps ageing grey matter lubricated and functional for a little longer.
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Finally, a really good thing about trinket box making is the fact that someone, somewhere, is likely to be interested and willing to take on my last effort and give it space in their day to day lives which justifies the time and effort that went into its building.