down the Government had to make a bigger and bigger payout to keep the business going. It couldn’t last forever though, and one day they simply stopped signing cheques.
“Anyway, like I said, I couldn’t believe our luck. Frank Lorman had been pestering us to sell the Silver Jubilee the whole time we’d been there, and a few weeks after we gave in and took his money the mine wasn't worth a cracker.
“I can't say I felt sorry for him, though. He was determined to get it off me so he only had himself to blame. In the end it was no one’s fault, it was just the way things worked out.”
“…And so having Frank Lorman take the mine off your hands at exactly the right moment was the best Christmas present you ever got?”
“Well, you know, the way the dice fell me and Mum certainly done all right, but that wasn’t the best Christmas present I ever got. That was given to me by the doctor who picked up Barney in the Flying Doctor plane.
“When me and the kids got to town we went straight to the hospital, see, and as it happened the same doctor was on duty that afternoon. By chance he saw us arrive and came over to where we were waiting to talk to the girl at the reception desk. He was the one that gave me the best Christmas present I ever had.
“‘Barney’s doing well,’ he told me. ‘He’ll be fine.’”
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