Barefoot Boy to Millionaire
By JILL BOWEN =
&nb=
sp;
The Bulletin&nb=
sp;
21/07/1981
The morning tea on the bare kitchen table in the farmhouse on the
outskirts of Toowoomba is =
spartan.
A stockman's pocket knife held in enormous gnarled hands slashes effectivel=
y at
the packet of biscuits and they splatter on to a plate. The teapot is given=
a
few twirls on the table. Leathergoods tycoon R.=
M.
Williams reaches for the honey jar rather than sugar as a black tea sweeten=
er.
Luckily there's a teaspoon - otherwise the pocket knife might have sufficed.
"By God", he growls, stirring his brew, "the person who coin=
ed
the phrase 'It went out with elastic-sided boots' was in error.."
He can talk confidently. His 10 millionth pair =
of
boots will be launched from the assembly line soon. There'll be no fuss or
fanfare. Others may have whipped the occasion into a PR ripple. Not William=
s.
It won't mean a thing. He doesn't have much time for the Press and once pai=
d an
enormous sum to a writer NOT to publish his life story.
To the 73-year-old legendary outback bushie, who in his time has been a camel driver, stoc=
kman,
drover, m=
iner,
explorer, journalist and multi-millionaire, it will always be the first pai=
r of
boots that counted for so much.
You could get yourself into a decent blue in the
bush by cussing R. M. Williams (Reginald Murray but known nationally only as
R.M. long before the custom of tagging people by initials caught on). Coast=
to
coast, the air is pretty thick with respect at the mention of his name
especially in the outback where he is regarded as a patron saint.
To bushies he is as fine and enduring as=
the
leather in his boots and can be as crusty as the mud he frequently removes =
from
them with a pocket&nbs=
p;
knife.
Nearly 50 years in the business as an outback <=
span
class=3DSpellE>stockist operating from Prospect, SA, he figured rece=
ntly
it was "about time he set up shop in the big smoke". A black rum and damper binge launc=
hed
his store in Melbourne's swish Collins Street last year; a similar one spar=
ked
off his Sydney Castlereagh Street shop in March=
.
R. M Willia=
ms Pt
Ltd handles 3000 lines from boots to saddles, hand-plaited whips, station g=
ear,
horse equipment, canteens and swags, and business is booming. Sydney store
manager Steve Foreman says "Boots are going at 100 pairs a week. We
=
The
supply base is the factory/head office at Prospect. The business, with 500
employees, operates as a worker's co-operative (like Fletcher Jones - only
bigger). It has 700 franchised outlets in Australia - thousands if you take=
in
international partnership with the American giant Tandy. But it's the
production line of the earliest days that holds the warmest memories for
Williams.
=
Depression
tore at the country's guts. Williams had struck camp at Etelowie
Gap, Mt McKinley, SA, at a time when good men could get no work and sweated=
off
the government's "ten, two and a quarter" (flour, tea and sugar
handouts). Into camp one night rattled a spanking pair of dark bay mules
drawing a battered buggy driven by a colored man who was barefoot. Barefoot,
Williams extended a bone-crunching paw and an invitation to kangaroo stew.
There was something despicable, he thought, about a proud, capable bushman
without boots. But who could afford boots when there was barely money for
tucker? The newcomer gave his name simply as Dollar Mick. He and Williams f=
ell
into campfire yarning, deciding they had the essentials to have a go at mak=
ing
boots for themselves.
=
It
took them more than six months to devise a pattern "exhausting the sup=
ply
of used kero tins in Central Australia in the
process." Work benches were cut with a crosscut saw from old, dry gum
logs. Cutting boards were stumps of trees. The roof was of forked tree trun=
ks
covered with gum and mulga boughs; the- dirt fl=
oor,
kept clean and hard by water sprinkled daily. There were no machines.
Everything was sewn by hand. Material was "kip" (cowhide tanned w=
ith
wattle bark and softened by cattle fat). The boards to block the boots were
packing case ends.
=
Workday
necessity and perseverance produced what they wanted - a single piece of
leather moulded completely with only one seam. =
Dollar
Mick was on the receiving end of the first pair of boots from the assembly
line. He died recently in Adelaide. A sympathetic bushman arranged for him =
to
he buried in the desert country. It much moved Williams.
=
He
started life there himself in the Belalie Hills=
, SA,
the son of capable bushman/horseman/ farrier Jo=
seph
Williams and his wife, Fanny. Born in 1908 and with little schooling, Willi=
ams
left home at the age of 13 to work a variety of jobs.
=
His
first good job came at the age of 16 - he left barefoot as a camel boy to a
party commissioned to survey the treacherous Musgrave and Petermann
Ranges under the command of a missionary called Wade. It was pre-Lasseter days. Only explorer Sir John Forrest had been
there before. There were times when the party could have perished. Desperate
moments for Williams included having to tie down thirst-crazed camels.
=
He
stayed with Wade on and off for three years working the stock routes, sinki=
ng
wells and in between working for Sir Sidney Kidman, the "Cattle
King." It was Kidman who gave Williams his start in the leathergoods business, commissioning him to make sadd=
le
packs for his coast-to-coast cattle empire. Williams
recalls: "He was an austere man, thin, alert to everything going on in
Australia. His 70th birthday was marked by the biggest public party ever he=
ld
in the country. Collectively his empire gathered to mark his three score ye=
ars
and 10. Possibly 100,000 people packed Jubilee Oval, Adelaide, the surround=
ing
streets and university grounds for a mighty parade. Archie McLean, his head
stockman, carried the flag and dipped it in salute as employees marched
past."
=
With
saddle packs to churn out, Williams set up shop in a tin shed that grew and
grew at 5 Percy Street, Prospect, SA. It grew to=
the
point that it became Australia's best-known bush address. It still is. But
Williams was in trouble after the first 15 years. "I started without
capital," he says. "I sunk into debt. I was hopelessly bankrupt. I
needed a miracle. Unless you get a miracle, you go under. Providence provid=
ed.
"In 1948 a widow approached me wanting me to buy her late husband's go=
ld
mine at Tennant Creek. Seventy-thousand pounds' worth of gold had been taken
from it. We agreed to take the mine for the amount of gold taken from it -
seventy-thousand pounds' worth of gold..."And just how Williams and his
partners got their Australian Development Company Mine going by a certain d=
ate
at a certain time on "borrowed" equipment, provides a magnificent
dare-devilish yarn that still may not appear in print. The mine, Weber's Fi=
nd,
yielded no gold. But of a shaft sunk alongside called Noble's Nob, Williams says, "Oh, boy! In one place it yi=
elded
up to 500 ounces of gold to the ton. Work that out on today's prices. It
averaged two ounces of gold a tort for 20 years. It grew from a five-stamper battery staffed by 12 men into a sophisticated
cyanide processor run by 200 men."
=
It
was the richest mine in the Territory, producing £80 million worth of
gold in 15 years. Williams and his partners quickly devised a method to put=
an
end to theft that was costing them a bar a month . . . Overnight the shares=
in
the company jumped from a penny to £15, making Williams less a
millionaire than a multi-millionaire in an era when they were few and far
between.
He says: "You could cart gold around by the
wheelbarrow load. I swaggered with bags of it down main streets surrounded =
by
shotgun escorts. I behaved with wealth like everyone else. I wasted it in e=
very
possible way. I bought the biggest single house I could find - the McGregor
mansion in Adelaide plus retinue. It had seven bathrooms. I moved in with my
wife and six children. Life was all polo ponies and playtime ..."
=
Memories
of the time when he was feted by the Establishment are now gainful. "I=
was
so unhappy," he says. Sensibly, he used his sudden wealth to put his <=
span
class=3DSpellE>leathergoods business on a strong financial footing. =
He
paid all his debts. Adelaide hunting and hounding and champagne living were=
n't
his speed.
=
He
wasn't quite sure what was: "So I wasted another several years travelling the world. 'Was=
ted' is
the wrong. Travel is never wasted. I learnt wherever I went. I saw the dead=
and
dying in India, the poverty in China. Both staggered me. I was not surprised
when the Chinese revolted."
=
Williams
revolted too. He returned o Australia and, in 1954, went bush to take over =
and
build up a broken-down rattle property, Rockybar, in
Queensland's Dawson Ranges, turning his back on cities, bright lights and
wealth. He lived there for 20 years, slogging in the bush, moving only in
recent times to the outskirts of Toowoomba to
establish an Arabian horse stud, the move basically for the sake of the
education of the two youngest of his nine children.
=
"I
went to build a dream world of my own," he says. "I did. My ambit=
ion
has always been to be master of my own environment. It's something we should
all attempt. The Aboriginals in central Australia in those early years prov=
ided
the inspiration. I probably know central Australia better than anyone else
around today." No one would doubt it.
=
Many
may wonder at his turning his back on wealth and returning to the bush to l=
ive
in utter simplicity.
=
"Look
here," he says, drumming the pocket knife on the table. "Suffice =
to
say
that as a family and a company we are financially
strong. I ploughed my gold back into land. Don't tag me a millionaire. I ha=
te
that word."
=
At
the age of 73 he works a sun-up-to-sundown day, often at the forge making s=
hoes
for his classy Arabians. Why?
=
"I
tried the rich way of living. It didn't work. History shows that families
brought up in affluence seldom persist. I have nine living children. They a=
ll
work hard. I'm glad of it. One of my sons said to me the other day, 'Dad, I
think I'm a millionaire. 'Good on you,' I told him, 'You've made it on your
own'."
=
He
is not aware of any economies he deliberately practise=
s,
but: "Dad was a capable, careful man. I lived through the Depression. =
You
won't get any caviar at this house. I don't eat croissants for breakfast.
Rather than talk of my economies, my extravagances sound better. They have
always been and will always be top horses, and Williams is acknowledged as =
one
of the country's best Arabian breeders and bush riders.
=
In
fact, his whole life has revolved around horses and the horsemanship which
opened up the country is a tradition he works hard to preserve. He recognised the need nearly 40 years ago when he conve=
ned
the first meeting of The Australian Rough Riders' Association (our professi=
onal
cowboys; he is currently treasurer). After World War II, he started the
Australian Equestrian Federation; also the Endurance Riders' Association (of
which he is currently president). He convened the first meeting of The
Stockman's Hall of Fame (an outback heritage centre to be built in Longreach, Queensland, to honor the bush pioneers) and
because we didn't have a specialist magazine dealing with horse sports, he
moved into the media and started Ho=
ofs
and Horns magazine 35 years ago.
=
"I
wrote the first editorial. I still write all the editorials," says the=
man
who had a skimpy formal education and is now so literate as to catch journa=
lists
out constantly. ("I have educated myself, read everything I could ever=
lay
my hands on. I have exhausted
several libraries").
=
He
grants only occasional interviews, in the hope they will help his causes,
particularly The Hall of Fame. "My ambition is to make sure all the important bush writings are housed in the Hall=
of
Fame, dug up from somewhere and preserved. I have a strong feeling about the
lack of appreciation of the writings of our last century as they apply to b=
ush
people. That is why The Hall of Fame means so much."