Posted by Michael Knight on Jan 08, 2019
Phil started his life story with his first Rotary meeting - in Tumbarumba, as a 15yo school pupil, going to a vocational night where the speaker was the supervisor from the local telephone exchange. This made enough of an impression for Phil to sign on with the PMG, and head to Sydney to commence training a few years later. He was one of 700 TIT's to start in NSW that year - between courses at both Homebush and Alexandria.
 
After graduation, Phil returned to the Riverina, and began his career in the group "Country Installations". In the sixties, the industry was retiring manual exchanges, updating to automatic equipment. As soon as one generation of technology was operational, it was time to move on to something better - Phil described it as "like painting the Harbour Bridge." After a 30 year career, Phil was with "Network Design and Construction" and when this group proved to be unsuitable for privatisation, he took a redundancy in 1999.
 
Back in Tumbarumba, Phil bought an acreage, raised cattle, and grew "medicinal and culinary herbs." The slow and deliberate emphasis on this description raised a hum of comment around the room, provoking further comment about "share farmers in the back corner, near the creek."
The intensive farming operation, the herbs , was undermined by cheap imports and closed, so Phil went into retail - specifically furniture, White goods, Electrical and carpet. He ran this business successfully for ten years, but his wife suffered ill health, and Phil nursed her for several years until she died about five years ago.
 
Back on the farm, Phil continued with his cattle, "in a big house on a few acres, not a happy man" He finally relocated to Wagga Wagga, has a new partner, Anita, and old friends including Paul and Carolyn Murray. The Farm has sold, the tractor is gone to Gelston Park, Home is in at the Grange and Phil's second ever Rotary meeting was as a guest of Paul Murray at Wollundry
 
We have three Telstra TIT's in our club, Technicians in training. They all would have been PMG TIT's in their day.