Recollections of Engineering in The Mountains: HCC and SMGS, from Andy Buttfield.

13 January 2021

Recollections: SCECGS Redlands - Cremorne,

Snowy Mountains Grammar School and High Country Campus - Jindabyne

&

Australian College of Physical Education - Olympic Park

Andy Buttfield FIEAust CPEng(Ret)

Born in 1940, my early life was in Adelaide and on rural properties. I graduated with a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering at the SA School of Mines, an affiliate of the Adelaide University. As soon as I completed my exams I headed to Laverton Air Force base between Melbourne and Geelong to complete my service with the Adelaide University Squadron. I received the very best training in precision engineering overhauling Rolls Royce Avon gas turbines for the RAAF Canberra bombers and Sabre fighters. On occasions I was a co-pilot flight-testing our overhauled engines. When I returned to Adelaide I received an unheard of favourable report so I applied for, and was granted, transport to the UK on an RAF Comet 4 transport aircraft to pursue my interest in industrial gas turbines which I believed were about to replace diesel engines, but in fact have never done so. The total cost of my journey was three cardboard-boxed meals and some days living it up at the RAF Changi Air Force base in Singapore. 18 months later an Australian engineering company hired me in the UK and arranged specialist training in air pollution control engineering in the UK and USA. For 10 years I was involved in construction and commissioning of many coal-fired power stations, cement-manufacturing plants, bauxite refining plants, aluminium smelters and iron ore processing plants in Australia and USA. An exciting, busy and challenging time that ran out of puff early in the 1970’s.

In 1992, our oldest daughter, Nikki, chose to attend SCECGS Redlands for her final two years of secondary school. Peter Cornish (PJC), not only Executive Headmaster, but also taught final year 12 English and so brought out the very best in her English literature and writing skills. In this time I learnt of land that had been purchased by a fundraising effort of SCECGS parents. The 150-acre site was close to The Barry Way outside Jindabyne. I spoke to PJC at the time, and soon after organised for the school to look at a ‘Flying Camp’ owned by Transfield and located in East Gippsland. It was used for the Bass Straits oil and gas developments but the buildings were deemed unsuitable for the HCC. My involvement was minor as I was spending time wandering around remote parts of PNG, Indonesia and some Pacific Islands to establish small-scale renewable energy power systems in remote villages for a subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Integrated Power Corporation.

In mid-1995, aged 55, I pulled out of PNG and was retrenched as Westinghouse, with 100,000+ employees worldwide, was in the process of going broke because of some spectacularly poor board and management decisions relating to 2nd mortgage financing of real estate in the USA. Westinghouse’s knowledge was in electrical engineering, not financing. I began looking for work and read an advertisement in the Weekend Australian newspaper seeking expressions of interest for the sale of temporary hospital facilities located at Woden Valley Hospital in Canberra. There were a number of large demountable buildings for sale, a total of (I think) 8,000 m2 and about 10 buildings.

I phoned Helen Carden, PJC’s executive assistant, asking if the school was still interested in developing the HCC. Helen called back with a very positive response so I set up a visit to Woden Valley Hospital for John Lang (JL) and PJC. There were no seats available for me on any flights that morning, so I drove to Canberra in time to meet their early morning flight. Here was an opportunity to develop not only the HCC but also SMGS and even something for the Redlands campus at a fraction of the cost of more substantial conventional brick buildings.

SCECGS was successful in being awarded the contract to remove all buildings and fittings and to rehabilitate the site. The cost to SCECGS was pretty much the cost of stripping and transporting these 4-year old buildings to Jindabyne.

The first two buildings were allocated to SMGS for classrooms for the school that was due to open in late January 1996.

I moved to Jindabyne in late 1995 to the ex-Snowy Hydro staff quarters that were about to become the boarding facility for SMGS students. I sought advice from locals as to who would be interested in working on the SMGS project. ‘Macca’ McDonald, a local boilermaker, was first and he suggested many others: electricians, plumbers, builders and painters etc. - all hard workers who performed superbly as a team building the SMGS classrooms. Many of these skilled men followed on to the HCC project a few months later. Other skilled workers were recruited for water, heating and road construction.

These first two buildings were transformed into a chemical laboratory, a music room, a computer room, a standard classroom with desks, and a language-teaching classroom connected to Redlands by interactive television – a very new and novel technology at the time enabling a comprehensive curriculum for this new, small regional school. Without Redlands support, no foreign languages would have been taught, as the cost would have been prohibitive.

It was a tight program to complete these classrooms in time for opening of the school in late January 1996. Painting of the classrooms was still going on late into the night preceding the opening next morning.

I was privileged to live amongst the first intake of SMGS boarding students. They were great kids, lots of fun, breaking rules, smoking, riding bikes downhill from Thredbo with hands behind backs etc. They all somehow survived.

One occasion Stuart Walker, SMGS’s inaugural headmaster, received a call from Redlands to say the school’s Sergeant Major was arriving in Jindabyne around midnight that night with a busload of recalcitrant Redlands students. They assumed they would sleep in SMGS, but no, they had to hike to the HCC site, about 5 Km away before making camp in the early hours of morning. Come daylight, they were put to work pulling a trailer load of wood uphill followed by many other feats of endurance. The next few mornings they were up early for more physical exercises. One SMGS participant, John, who had been caught so many times, smoking, was included with the Redlands lot. He and I got on well and he told me how much he enjoyed getting up early and doing all these physical jerks! It usually was very hard to get him to wake up in time for school so I suggested to the Sergeant he consider upping the pressure a bit.

By early April 1996 I advised PJC that unless the go-ahead was given very soon for the HCC project, I could not complete the task of setting up all the facilities in time for the planned first winter term. The ‘green fields’ project included access roads, electricity supply, a bore for water with its associated tank and pipes, a septic tank and sewerage system for 100 residents, plus the very considerable effort needed to assemble the buildings, fitted out with partitions, internal and external electric wiring, hot water radiator room heaters, bathrooms, commercial kitchen, dining room, tables, chairs, beds, cupboards, etc. The buildings, having come from a hospital in Canberra were particularly well suited as they were very well insulated, including under the floor.

PJC, JL and Michael Jones, architect and later Chairman of SCECGS, and I visited the HCC site and set out the position for each building: Boys and girls in separate dormitories, staff accommodation, dining room, oil fired furnace equipment, a commercial kitchen - were all set out. The last two Buildings were assembled but not fitted out for several years. The last one became a kindergarten facility when a Redlands parent donated the funds.

All buildings at Woden Valley were stripped of fittings and internal partitions, pulled apart and braced for road transport to Jindabyne. Several buildings were surplus to the needs of SMGS and HCC, so one was sold to a church group in the Monaro area and another was moved to the Cremorne campus for a teacher’s Staff Common Room.

During a mid-first term visit by PJC for a SMGS board meeting, we dined at Crackenback Lodge, managed by Karl Brunner – a founding director of SMGS. PJC was blowing off steam at the SCECGS 1st eight rowing crew who were training on Lake Jindabyne at the time. PJC was annoyed that the crew had shaved their heads. I asked how would he have reacted if they had earrings. His instantaneous response: “WITH VIOLENCE!”

I needed expert advice to design the commercial kitchen, so I called Karl. He arrived the next morning with his chef and the design was immediately settled. I knew nothing about commercial kitchens, but I learnt.

PJC’s son, Josh – a Shore School classmate of our son - spent time working with me on the HCC project. One weekend we drove to T3 underground power station. The entry gate was open, so we walked down the long access tunnel to the underground power station. I had last been there in 1959 when I was involved in excavating the turbine hall. The station operators were most surprised to see unannounced visitors wandering in. Imagine that today with all the security now demanded. I wanted to show Josh what had been achieved by Snowy Hydro, led by a humble, shy man, with an iron-will determination, Sir William Hudson, its chief engineer and commissioner. I suspected Josh was somewhat resentful of his father’s commitment to Redlands, SMGS and HCC, and if so, I would like to think I gave him good reason to reconsider. More on Sir William and his daughter Anne later. Josh had a smile on his dial when I told him their story! (Para. 22)

There were many weekends when volunteer parents came from Sydney to help. I had some parents pulling electric cables through conduits in 600 mm deep trenches. Now that is backbreaking work! In my very gentle quiet way, I yelled to two parents to quit slacking and get back to work as I had observed they were taking a well-earned rest. One parent has never quite forgiven me but that episode qualified me for my next major project on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Later on the other parent was told to be very careful using a crowbar behind one of the buildings as there were plastic water mains underground. His very first thrust with the bar hit the main! It was great to have parents involved but by the end of a week I was tired and to then have to provide closer guidance on weekends meant I often had no break for some weeks. However, I certainly wanted parents involved.

In late June 1996, towards the end of the HCC project, Stuart Walker casually mentioned a dinner for about 200 guests. When I asked where, he responded equally casually “in the dining room”, which was only about half built. That was a week before the planned dinner! A chef had been appointed, so I asked her when did she need the gas supply connected. Thursday at the latest. It was Sunday! The walk-in freezer and refrigerator rooms were under construction, but were incomplete at the time of the dinner. Not a problem as all food was delivered on pallets and stored outside in the freezing air.

On the Friday afternoon before the dinner, the Snowy Mountains Council Building Inspector came to site clutching his set of plans provided by Michael Jones. He needed to issue the Building Approval before the dinner. This was a mark of how supportive the local community and council were in establishing SMGS and the HCC. Imagine starting a building project today without council approval! Full marks to MJ for developing such a trusting environment with Council, and maybe just a little tick to me for not breeching that trust.

Two wood fired slow combustion stoves were installed in the dining room. These were more than adequate. All other rooms were heated by circulating hot water through wall-mounted radiators – common in all cold climates to this day.

A drilling rig contractor drilled for water and stopped at about 100 feet when an adequate supply of high quality water was found. It took only one day – drilling in semi-decomposed granite.

Mike Litherland, a local earth-moving contractor, light aircraft and helicopter pilot - and a good friend of mine to this day, meticulously planned the road construction. Mike is such a perfectionist that he can’t satisfy his own high standards, so how could he ever employ anyone? However his skills and dedication were obvious. The roads to this day require very little maintenance. He understood the fragile nature of the soil he had to work with. Once the roads were cut in I had parents cover the cuttings with straw and sow seed to stabilize the banks. A technique the Snowy Hydro Authority developed around the time I worked for them during my university vacations of 1958-61.

The 1997 Thredbo landslide disaster that killed 18 might well have been avoided if the same care had been taken when the road to Dead Horse Gap, Geehi and to the Murray Power Stations was upgraded years later. Alpine soil being semi-decomposed granite is very fragile. It retains water but liquefies easily thus good drainage and protection of banks and cuttings is so important. Poor drainage is essentially what caused the landslide together with no government agency taking responsibility for the road modifications or maintenance.

Towards the end of the HCC project, PJC phoned me to ask how it was all going. I told him we would get there - on time – somehow. I subsequently learnt a Sydney parent was blowing in his ear that the project would not be ready. During our discussion he asked me to seek council permission for a road sign to direct people to the HCC site for the inaugural dinner. I told him I would erect the sign on Saturday morning. It is so much easier to not ask for permission but seek forgiveness later. That same road sign is still there today!

For me, the entire experience of the SMGS and HCC projects was the very best I could ever have dreamed of doing, surpassing construction of BridgeClimb facilities on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and that was a unique fun project too!

The opportunity to participate in forming two new schools on greenfield sites; to be able to utilise so much of what I had learned from farming in the Adelaide hills, where I had spent as much time as possible during school holidays and weekends staying with family friends from the age of eight. Colin McBean had been in a Japanese prisoner of war for 3-1/2 years on the Burma Railway. He was my first engineering educator, surrogate father and a very good friend until his death in 1978.

I had the very good fortune to work during three of my university long vacations for the Snowy Mountains Authority. Initially I worked with Karl Bluhm, an Austrian surveyor who set out the 14-mile Eucumbene tunnel. It was drilled from both ends, and hearsay has it that it finished up ⅜ inch horizontally and ¼ inch vertically after drilling 7 miles from each end. At the Tumut Pond end an 18-foot base line was established by triangulating from surrounding mountaintops and then transferred down the 300-foot access shaft by piano wires. Karl had me working with him to check and re-check his measurements whilst tunnelling was underway. Next I camped on the Tumut River upstream from the town of Tumut, surveying the river to calculate the river levels rise when water was to be released from by T1, T2 or T3 power stations. Tiger Snakes were everywhere. The next year it was road construction and I was based in a camp for 12 of us at Khancoban Back Creek. The last occasion I was a surveyor’s chainman surveying cross-country power transmission line routes. Four of us were camped for weeks at Lobs Hole on the upper Tumut River. Never have I been so fit from clambering up mountains and wielding an axe all day.

Sir William’s daughter, Anne, and Lady Hudson stayed with my family in Adelaide for the 1956 Davis Cup competition. Some years later Anne told her father of her plans to marry. Sir William asked her “who to?” He cherished his family but was so committed to the Snowy project that he failed to notice some things. Anne married Peter Taylor, a farmer. Their son Angus, one of four brothers, is the current minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. His grandfather’s approach affected the way he looks at innovation:

“Good projects evolve – the Snowy wasn’t created from a grand master plan on day one, let me tell you, it evolved over time. It had to get some early successes. Guthega Dam was in fact its earliest success. It had to get some early successes to then move on from there. The idea that you can come up with a nation building project on the back of a serviette and then demand that it be done, is just crazy, it’s insane.” – Wikipedia

At the end of each vacation employment period, I had the good fortune to spend some one-on-one time with Sir William Hudson. He and Lady Hudson had invited me to stay with them before I hitched a ride back to Adelaide. I would walk with him up the hill behind his house in Cooma in the evenings. That was his day’s exercise and then it was back to work in his home office until late into the night. He inspired me in the same way he inspired the entire workforce of the Snowy Hydro scheme. A magnificent leader supported by his wife. He wanted to know what I had learnt whilst working. I told him all about the gambling games beginning each payday night and for the next three nights in Cabramurra. Two-up played with three pennies, Crown and Anchor, Poker, Manila (a way to lose money more quickly than Poker) and Snooker and Billiards played for £1 ($2) a point. (My weekly pay was £6-3-6.) The games were well organised. The Police Gaming squad launched occasional raids from Sydney but never caught anyone as their visits were always tipped off to the organisers. The next year I noted large signs in all the Snowy buildings in Cabramurra – “Gambling on Snowy Premises - instant dismissal.” I learnt to keep my mouth shut when I next stayed with the Hudsons!

Later in my life, another very influential friend and mentor was Captain G.U. (Scotty) Allan, a pioneer aviator who began flying, aged 15 in 1915, bombing Germans over France. When it became known he was not 16, he was taken off bombing to ferry aircraft over the English Chanel. He went on to many other remarkable places and events, joining Qantas in 1934 as chief pilot and retired as Deputy General Manager in 1962. He then became chairman of Malaya Airlines and Fiji Airlines and died in 1996 aged 96. He was a close friend and taught me how to fly fish for trout. A particularly good reason for me to spend more time in the Snowy Mountains now.

At the end of the SMGS and HCC projects it was my pleasure to establish two SMGS student prizes and the SMGS library: The Scotty Allan Award for Excellence in English, The Sir William Hudson award for leadership and initial support for the Elizabeth Cornish Memorial Library. To have been given the opportunity to participate in establishing two new schools in Jindabyne was just so good. The older I become, the more importance I place on broad education for all Australian children anywhere.

In my 10 years with Westinghouse Electric I observed many schools in very remote villages in PNG and the Torres Straits. Later, as a Rotarian, I took on the challenge of volunteering with others to assist an aboriginal community in East Arnhem Land fulfil the chief’s request for “a good education in English”. 16 years later and now 80, I have pulled back so as to have time to build a house for my wife and me in Bowral. But we have established a very successful school there. What are missing are the next steps – taking those remote village kids onto secondary school in Nhulunbuy and other population centres for tertiary training. Primary school in a remote homeland community is all about inspiring children to be self-disciplined, confident and wanting to learn. There is little guidance from their parents who mostly see no reason to educate their children as they see welfare as the future for their kids. It is tragic: We have dumbed down so many Australians and refugees with unearned passive welfare. Tertiary training is so necessary to equip one for later life and to earn and hold a meaningful place in society – be it tradesmen, nursing, university or administration. Government funded welfare is so destructive.

I should mention another project I was involved in for Redlands. PJC left messages on my mobile whist I was sailing in the Whitsunday Islands with my “Old Codger” pals before the Sydney Olympic games. When I was able to return his call he asked where was I because he wanted to have me involved in the school’s ACPE facility at Homebush Bay as this project was falling behind schedule. It had to be completed ‘yesterday’ to provide corporate hospitality facilities for customers and visitors to the Olympic games. The problem was the entrepreneur who leased the ACPE facility for the games turned out to be nothing better than a sleazy crook who caused enormous damage to everyone involved.

Why have I added so much seemingly irrelevant information? I have had a good life. I have a wonderful family: Jo, my wife, our three children, Nikki, Kirsty and Alexander and now five grandchildren. In January 2021, two of my grandchildren will attend SMGS. How good is that!

I end my recollections with my most favourite quotation:

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” ― Confucius - (551BC–479 BC)