For me, every working day became an ongoing nightmare that was as unbearable as it was inescapable. There were innumerable times in the dismal factory when I was nearly run down by the swinging loads on the overhead gantries, or trapped my fingers between girders, or got stinging sparks from the oxy-welders in my eyes.
    Every night when I went home, I would have a new array of cuts and bruises and it was nightly clandestine visits to the bathroom to soak in Dettol, dab Iodine and rub in Dencorub and attach fresh band-aids. Life was minimising movement to avoid affecting a limp, it was wearing sunglasses to hide my red-ringed eyes and gloves to keep bandaids hidden.
    Of course there were many occasions when my injuries could not be hidden and these would evoke predictable reactions.
“Useless bastard,” Horrie muttered.
“I don’t know why you can’t be more careful,” my mother would groan.
    All that was bad enough, without them knowing the true extent of my troubles. For the pain of my injuries was never so great as the suffering of my existence in the factory. My eyes always watered from the stinging grit thrown into the atmosphere by the welding, and I constantly gasped for breath in the heat they shed. And always the abuse. And the isolation. No one liked me. One day I overheard one of the welders talking to Bert. “He’s fuckin’ useless. Can’t do anything right. Can’t understand anything you say to him. Falls over and bumps into everything. No brains. No hope. Nothin’!” Although I didn’t hear who they were talking about, there was no doubt in my mind regarding who they were referring to.

“Are we rising again?”
“No. On the contrary.”
“Are we descending?”
“Worse than that, captain; we are falling!”
“For heaven’s sake heave out the ballast!”
“There! the last sack is empty!”
“Does the balloon rise?”
“No.”
“I hear a noise like the dashing of waves!”
“The sea is below the car! It cannot be more than five hundred feet from us!”
“Overboard with every weight—everything!”
    And we’re off on one of my most favourite adventures. A union officer, a sailor, a reporter, a negro helper and a dog escape from a Confederate prison by hijacking an observation balloon, but a storm sweeps them far out into the Pacific until the balloon finally crashes on the beach of Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island. There they do the Crusoe thing, fight off wild beasts, savage natives and a boatload of pirates, aided along the way by a mysterious invisible benefactor. To name this benefactor or tell the ending would be to spoil a good story, but many believe that from a literary point of view, this is Verne’s best work.
    It’s been made into movies several times, none of them much good but none as bad at the Saturday Avro serial in which Rocky Jones actor Richard Crane and his castaways battled beautiful aliens from Mercury. TV too has messed it up a number of times, most recently thinly disguised as the neverending JJ Abrams TV series Lost.
    The best version was made in 1961 in which they had the temerity to add Ray Harryhausen monsters to the tale, and, even worse, women! Most unbelievable of all was that distinguished actress Joan Greenwood played one of these. But somehow it overcame all these obstacles to present a strangely fascinating version, even somewhat endearing despite its abominations.
    Like William Goldman said: Nobody knows anything!