Feature Presentation - 38 years in the mining industry

Murray Wall - Military to Mining...

Murray's collection of stories from his "Life and Times" in the mining industry was extremely interesting and varied. Here's a snap shot of Murray's postings from the earlier years:

1968 – 1977: Plant operator/Bomb Disposal with the NZ/Australian Army

1972 was posted to Asia:

Based in Singapore 3 yrs at ANZUK Force – Bomb disposal
During this time worked with the Royal Engineers, Royal Malay Engineers, Royal Thailand Engineers & US - 5^th Engineer Squadron Bomb disposal in Laos. The Laos posting lasted 14 months.
1973 on board the USS Midway aircraft Carrier South China Sea 30 days.
1975 - 76 Returned to NZ - posted to Tonga, on an island called “Artitu” were building a break water for the locals and they found 14 x 500lb bombs in their harbour from WWII
I had 1 x naval clearance diver and 2 x Army Explosives Engineers. Had to drink “Cava” to claim nerves !!
Took 2 months to destroy all the ordnance and look for more in surrounding area.

1976 - 77 – I was then posted to the Jungle Warfare School in Central Malaya, training with:

Malay, NZ/Aust/ UK Bomb Disposal, Canadian (Engineers)/Booby Trap division of Field Engineers
In the skill of Booby Traps building and dismantling - a lot of it was with live explosives.
When the Malay Army would find Booby traps placed by the communist insurgents in towns anywhere in Malaya, we would go out and dismantle some of the devices.
Very intense training, stress levels out of 10 – were 14!
I trained there up until November 1977.

Stories - both humorous and serious - of Murray's mining experiences then entertained the audience; the most memorable one was probably about the Ernie the Emu. Murray is currently writing a book about his mining memoirs.