The monthly meeting started with one minutes silence for respected member Tom Wareing.

Due to a speaker illness, there was a substitute talk of ‘Gold, Ghosts and Graveyards’ by member Ron Gallivan, who explained how Western Australia (three times larger than the UK) was founded.

Today it has a population of 2.7 million who mostly live around the coast. The audience journeyed along the Eastern Highway up to Kalgoorli which is the heart of the goldfields.

Ron explained about the ‘super pit’ and the amount of gold it produces.

Around this, he wound the story of the miners and their families; the privation and living conditions; the disease and death they endured and the towns they had abandoned.

Camels and clean water were the main source of life in the gold fields and Ron explained how a pipeline was built to pump five million gallons a day from Perth to Kalgoorlie as without it there would be nothing but desert.

On the lighter side, he related some more humorous aspects of gold prospecting; Flying Doctor Service and ‘life’ in mainly male-dominated Kalgoorlie.

‘The 1940 Battle for Norway’, a story rarely told and very interesting, will be the subject at the meeting on Wednesday, November 6 at Plymouth Court, Headless Cross, Redditch.

Doors open at 7pm for a 7.30 start.

Normal £3 door charge applies.

Contact Ron Gallivan on 01527 545450 or e-mail ronnieg33b@ hotmail.co.uk for more details.