And, so, that was it, from there on I went overseas. I think, I'll have to backtrack a little bit there. From the PMG, I left in '51, then I went to the electrical engineering '52, '53, '54, and from there, in '54, I went to the W. H. O. Wills, the tobacco factory. That's right, '54, '55, '56. And in '56 there was that Hungarian revolution, and my father died in 1956, and after that, at the beginning of '56, and after that the revolution was in the middle of '56, and then my mother, and my two sisters, left Hungary during the revolution, and moved over to Austria, just over the border. And then, I thought, I might go over and see them, and visit them. I planned, in the beginning and after that, that I will go overseas to Europe.

But I wanted to have quite a holiday while I go over there. And I wanted to go to France, I don't know why. And I thought, I don't speak French at all. It will be a good idea if I learnt a little bit of French. So, I went down to Surrey Hills, to get some French, there was some French classes, to learn French. And I went to that school there, at night-time, and there was a Frenchman from Paris, and he asked me, "Why do you learn French?" And I told him. And he said, "and in your holiday how are you going to travel?" I said, "I might hire a car, in Portugal or somewhere, and drive around in the car." And he said, "That's not a good idea." I said, "Why not?" He said it was far too costly, and, he said to me, I'd be much better of if I'd get a bike, a motorbike. And he said to me, "Get a good bike, and you can travel. It is easy to put it away, and you can move whenever you want. And it doesn't cost much, and you can take it with you even from here." And you wouldn't believe that bloke put that bug into my ears.

And after that I was looking for a bike in the papers. So a couple of weeks later I found one, nearly new, A Triumph Thunderbird 650. And I bought it. So I went out to Kingsgrove, went out to see the bike, and I asked the bloke, "Why are you selling the bike?" And he said to me, he's got a girlfriend, and she wants a car, a sports car. And he said, "I can't afford to keep a sports car and a bike as well, so I've got to get rid of the bike." I said, "Alright, fine." I looked at it, it looks like brand new, and said to him, "You think I'll be able to rid that bike?" "Oh", he said, "why not?" He said, "Have you ever ridden a motorbike before?" I said, "No I have never ridden a motorbike." "Oh", he said, "can you ride a pushbike?" I said, 'Yes! No problem!" <chuckle> It was a bloody problem alright! Anyhow, I bought the bike, and I went over the following Monday morning, and he said, "Ok, I'll tell you what." In Kingsgrove they have an open road, it was not open yet, but it was finished, the surface was all sealed and everything, about one kilometer long. And it was both sides still closed, there was no traffic on it. And he said, "I'll take you over there, before I go to work, with the bike, I'll fill it up, fuel it up, and you can ride there up and down on that road, until I come home from work, and then, see how you go." And that's what we did.

Anyhow, well first, he gave me a bit of a trial run. <chuckle> And he said to me, "Alright." Now he showed me what to do, everything, the clutch, and the gears and everything, and he said, "Just be gentle, it's quite temperamental the bike, its very powerful." So anyhow, I let the clutch go, and I nearly stalled it. And he said, "Yeah, you gotta give it a bit more juice." So I gave it a bit more, I was already in the gutter. <chuckle> He said, "That didn't work. Wait a minute, I'll get onto the back of the bike." So he sat on the back, and he sort of commanded it from behind me, and that seemed to work out all right. So, he went to work, and I was riding the bike, just about six or seven hours up and down that road. And when he came back, he said "How're you going?" I said, 'Alright." he said, "Well, do you think you'll be able to ride home?" I said, "No way! What do think is going to happen when I come to a traffic light? There's going to be cars, and someone's going to blow their horn, and suddenly I'll be in the other one's bum!" "Alright", he said, "I'll get my dad's utility, and we'll drop it off." And that's what he did. He brought the bike home to Kingsford, I was living in Kingsford then already, in a flat, and he took the bike off, and he said, "Now, it's up to you now, you just take it easy, take it slowly." And that was it.