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Just Passing Through

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Just Passing Through 1 JUST PASSING THROUGH 1. INTRODUCTION I was born in Estonia. Leaving there as a teenager ahead of the second Soviet occupation of that country in September 1944, I became a refugee in Germany. Immigrating to Australia in 1949 and becoming a citizen, most of my working life was then spent in the minerals industry until retirement in 1999. Some of my friends, no doubt conscious of the relentless passage of time, have urged me to record my recollections. They have been mostly too gentle to add “before it is too late”. I had been doing this in considerable detail, including my family history going back just over 300 years and the events in Western Mining Corporation during the 25 years I was the Chairman. The complete record is too detailed to be of general interest and I have therefore prepared this selection of topics which, while omitting many episodes and only just touching on others, deals with many of the happenings in my life and includes reflections on a number of issues. It is not for publication, but a private document for a limited circle of family and friends. The initial manuscript was concluded in September 2005. Amended and updated on several occasions, it was finalised in January 2008. When considering past events, we must remember that the world then was different from today‟s. Even in my lifetime both the physical conditions of life – travel, communications, living standards generally – and people‟s attitudes, perceptions and values have gone through a great change. Going further back the changes are greater still. The challenge for a reader with no personal experience of the times and events described is to see these in their proper context against the conditions, knowledge, values and beliefs of the time. One of the understandings which comes with advancing age is just how short and insignificant our lifespan is. All but a few of us will be forgotten after a generation or two, almost as if we never existed. Asked whether he knew the meaning of life, someone is said to have replied: “Not really – I am just passing through”. This seems to be an appropriate caption for these recollections and reminiscences. Arvi Parbo Melbourne, January 2008 2 3 2. CONTENTS 1. Introduction 1 2. Contents 3 3. The Parbos 7 The ancestors 7 Boyhood on the farm 9 4. The winds of war 15 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact 15 The annexation 19 Soviet occupation 1940-41 21 German occupation 1941-44 23 Jews in Estonia 25 The Estonian dilemma 26 Leaving home 28 Second Soviet occupation 29 5. Displaced person in Germany 30 Germany after the war 30 DP in Lübeck 33 Mining student in Clausthal 34 Going to Sweden? 37 Coal miner 38 6. Migrant to Australia 42 In transit camps 42 Berlin air lift 43 Voyage to Australia 44 M/S Nelly 45 Being a migrant 47 7. Early days in Australia 48 Bonegilla 48 Jackhammer operator 48 Geo.Gitsham & Sons 49 8. Mining student in Adelaide 49 Mining in Australia 50 Part time student 50 Commonwealth Mature Age Scholarship 51 Getting married 52 Underground in Broken Hill 53 Honours degree 54 Tram conductor 55 9. On Western Australian goldfields 56 Joining Western Mining Corporation 56 4 My first job 59 Brodie 61 Underground surveyor 62 Life in Bullfinch 63 Lecturer at the School of Mines 67 Technical assistant 68 In charge of Corinthian 69 Manager Nevoria mine 70 Life in Marvel Loch 73 Transfer to Melbourne 74 10. Interlude in Melbourne 74 Resurgence of mining in Australia 75 Technical assistant 76 Birth of Alcoa of Australia 78 Talc mission 84 Geraldton iron ore project 85 Staff college 88 Back to Western Australia 89 11. Back on the goldfields 89 Kalgoorlie office 89 Life in Kalgoorlie 90 Tommy Sims project 94 Geraldton Operations Joint Venture 95 Kambalda nickel discovery 96 Return to Melbourne 101 12. Settled in Melbourne 101 Life in Melbourne 102 Duke of Edinburgh Conference 103 Nickel expansion 104 Television 107 Appointment as Managing Director 107 Return to Estonia 109 Relations with Japan 110 The oil shock 114 Change in public attitudes 115 Retirement of Sir Lindesay Clark 118 Exploration 119 Relations with Germany 120 The gold crisis 121 The nickel crisis 123 Gold at St. Ives and Agnew 124 Olympic Dam discovery 125 Uranium 126 5 Growth of Alcoa of Australia 134 Acquisition of BH South 141 Aluminum Company of America 142 Law of the Sea 146 Travelling around the globe 147 Birth of the Business Council 158 Changes in Australia 165 Olympic Dam into production 189 WMC in petroleum 191 Keith Parry 192 Retirement as Managing Director 194 Nickel expansion 194 Visits to Estonia 195 The Russian mafia 203 On the Board of BHP 205 WMC overseas 213 Relations with China 218 Non-executive Chairman 227 Buying back Olympic Dam 227 The troubles 228 Overseas commitments 229 Independence again for Estonia 233 Fertilizer project 238 Alcoa World Alumina 238 Expansion of Olympic Dam 239 Calling it a day 240 13. In retirement 244 Longwood 244 Family gatherings 245 Visiting Estonia 247 Family history 247 WMC recollections 248 Community activities 248 Living longer 248 Estonia today 249 The end of WMC 252 14. Reflections 256 Looking back 256 Working conditions in the minerals industry 260 Corporate Governance 262 The Australian minerals industry 263 Looking ahead 264 6 What would I say to young Australians 268 Appendix I: On Estonia and Estonians 272 The name 272 The country 272 The ice age 273 Human habitation 274 The origins 274 The language 274 Prehistoric times 275 The Vikings and the Rus 276 Ancient independence 277 Baltic crusade 278 Livonian Order 279 Baltic barons 281 Land of many rulers 282 The Swedes 282 The Russians 284 War of Independence 286 Republic of Estonia 1918-1940 288 Appendix II: Short biographical details 291 7 3. THE PARBOS The reader not familiar with Estonia, its people and their history, is advised to glance through the brief description in Appendix I before proceeding further. The ancestors The first known records of the Parbos, on the star shaped second largest Estonian island Hiiumaa off the west coast of the mainland, are in church books at the end of the 17th century. Hiiumaa, although small (989 km2), is larger than a number of well-known European principalities such as Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino. The earliest evidence of human habitation on the island is from 7500 years ago, although the first known written document in 1228 calls it insula deserta – empty island. The name of Hiiumaa was then Dageida (“Day Island”). The Swedish and German name of the island is Dagö and the Finnish name, Hiidenmaa, means devil‟s land. The population today is just over 11,000 people. Under German overlordship from early 13th century, Swedes (and some Finns) settled in parts of Hiiumaa beginning about the middle of the 14th 8 Century. There is most likely some Swedish blood in the veins of many of the inhabitants of Hiiumaa, possibly also the Parbos. The island came under Swedish rule in 1563 and was occupied in 1710 by Russia for the next two centuries. My ancestors were peasants in serfdom (see Appendix I) and were not called Parbos; Estonians were not given surnames until 1834. We have tried to find out where the name Parbo came from, but so far unsuccessfully. Before then they were identified by first names and the farm or the locality where they lived. Lello Ello Kristna and his wife Kirsti lived in Lelu village, not far from the sea on the southern side of the island. Their first son, Nuut, was born in 1695. Their birth dates and Kirsti‟s death date are not known, but Lello Ello Kristna died in 1730. He was therefore probably born in the 1670s. Kristna and Kirsti had five children, of whom three sons lived until the mid-1700s. There was a great famine at the end of the 17th century in the countries around the Baltic Sea, particularly Finland and Estonia, caused by cold and wet summers. Some 20% of the population starved to death. It was followed by the beginning of the Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia in 1700 (see Appendix I). A plague during that war again caused many deaths, also in Hiiumaa. Four people died in Lello Ello Kristna‟s family, but their identity is not recorded. Five more generations of Parbos lived in villages in the same area until serfdom was abolished and the restrictions on the movement of peasants were lifted in the 1860s. My grandfather Ado left Hiiumaa and came to the mainland in the 1870s. After nearly four years of compulsory service in the Russian Army he became the manager of Kolga manor estate east of the capital city, Tallinn and, later, a farmer in his own right. My father Adolf (later Estonianised to Aado), born in 1889 and my mother Hilda neé Rass, born in 1894, were married during the War of Independence (see Appendix I) in 1918. My father served in a supply unit while my mother, with the aid of grandfather Ado and three Russian prisoners of war, looked after the dairy farm they had bought in Läänemaa in western Estonia, some 90 kilometres from Tallinn. The first known records of my mother‟s family are from 1768 in central Estonia, Viljandimaa. Today there is still a Rass village, but people with the name Rass no longer live there. My mother was born and grew up on a farm near Tallinn, in a family of 13 children, eleven boys and two girls.
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