Fred is widely known within the Bureau and has many contacts in D.C.A. and amongst airline crews. His far-flung postings around the continent have brought him many friends in practically every State, and he still corresponds with his old Army and Air Force mates.

Fred migrated to Australia in 1928. Whether by accident or design, he chose to settle in Perth. He spent 1930 and '31 at the W.A. Teachers' Training College and was a primary school teacher at Perth Boys' and Fremantle Boys, Schools until 1936, after which he was appointed to Geraldton High School.

Evidently Geraldton had other attractions, because he married a Geraldton girl in 1938 and now has one daughter, two sons and six grandchildren.

Fred enlisted in the R.A.A.F. Met. Service in 1941 as a trainee observer with other notables like Joe Hobba, Ralph Barnes, Reg Pearce and Arthur Douglas. He continued on to do a forecasting course with such famous names as Gerry O'Mahony, Henry Phillpot and Steve Lloyd, under the instruction of Doc .Hogan and the late L. J. Dwyer. His first appointment as a forecaster was with Doug Forder at Pearce, W.A. (the lure of the west again) and then, despite some objections, he was posted to No. 4 Mobile Met. Flight. He spent the remainder of the war years with Mobile Met. Flights (which accompanied artillery units) attached to the Army at Darwin, Bougainville and then Lae. After discharge in January 1946, he returned to the W.A. Education Department and his old job at Geraldton High School.

However, in 1947 Fred was enticed back into the Bureau, and he re-opened the observing office at Geraldton After a short period at Guildford, he was appointed to Townsville in 1950 as Area Met. Officer for Queensland and adjacent islands. When the Area Met. Officer positions were abolished in 1959, he was transferred as OIC Darwin Airport and then to Essendon in 1962 and Brisbane in 1965.

His wiry frame—the "lean and hungry look," which we in Brisbane know so well—hides excellent sporting ability. In his younger days Fred was an allrounder in cricket and a first division player with the Claremont soccer club in Perth for many years. As sportsmaster, he managed three winning Geraldton teams of Australian Rules, and is a professed Carlton supporter.

His more recent successes have been in bowls (which he claims he is still learning) being single and pairs champion of his Townsville club. In Brisbane he skippered the Bureau bowls team which won the Commonwealth Public Service competition in January 1969.

With woodworking as a hobby, Fred has built several dinghies, just for fun. He enjoys his surfing and swimming and is a very keen fisherman wherever he goes, even at Barcaldine in the middle of last year's drought. When he retires he plans to take a trip to Europe, revisiting some of his old stamping grounds, then journeying round Aastralia and settling down in the Brisbane area to a life of bowls, fishing and woodworking.

Bureau of Meteorology