...I got bored...

'I was mainly repairing sleepers. I liked it when I first went out there, mainly because it was different. Then after a while, I got bored. Actually, when I got up in the mornings, I thought I was back on the luggers, because when you get up in a lugger and you look across, all you see is water and nothing else around it. That's what I thought when I was on the plains and looked around. There were no trees except on the hills way up in the distance. It was like an island, just coming out of the horizon. That's the impression I got. I didn't like it. Mainly the isolation and the heat, and the cold in the winter. And the other thing that worried me was that the people I worked with were heavy drinkers. Oh, they drank, I tell you. I did too for a while. Then I realised that I was making the publicans richer than I was.'

Keywords: employment, Mabo, Edward Koiki, railways, Townsville, 1957

Loos, Noel and Mabo, Edward Koiki 1996, 'Edward Mabo: His Life and Struggle for Land Rights', University of Queensland Press.
Source: Mabo, Edward Koiki