Jack’s Luck (and a FREE e-book!)

By Greg

Trenna Helps Greg’s Dad Write His Autobiography

The FREE e-book I refer to is a copy of the autobiography Jack’s Luck by Jack Mahney (written with assistance from Trenna). There is a download link to it at the bottom of the page.

The Tale Begins

Some time around early 1997 my parents lived in a retirement village and on a weekend we would often visit them. It was nice place with plenty of gardens and lots of people to talk to. Mum and Dad liked it there.

We were in the lounge room of their small self contained villa one day. Mum had just made us all a cup of tea, and served it, as usual with a biscuit. We were all relating to each other what we had been up to since we last spoke.

Then Dad (Jack) said “Well, I’ve been writing a book about my life”.

“Oh, that’s great! Good on ya Dad” said Trenna.

“Yes, well I was hoping you would type it up for me. You know, on the computer.”

“Yeah, sure Dad” replied Trenna a little less enthusiastically, “I’d be happy to do it”.

“Oh, thank you, I’ll get it.”

Dad disappeared whilst Trenna and I looked at each other wondering just what Trenna had got herself into.

He reappeared from their spare room a moment later holding what looked like a very big, thick foolscap sized notebook. It had a grey cover and I’m pretty sure the book itself dated back to when Dad worked as a public servant in the 1970s.

“Here it is”. He passed it to Trenna, who sunk slightly under the weight, then opened it to see many pages of Dad’s fairly small cursive writing. I was immediately concerned about whether Trenna, with her not so good eyesight, would be able to read it.

Trenna showed no sign of concern and said “OK Dad, I’ll get right onto it. Thanks.”

“You can fix up the grammar and spelling and stuff if it needs it. Just make sure it reads alright. You can change it around if you need to. Do whatever you think” Dad instructed.

My Dad had proof read plenty of my undergraduate uni essays so I wasn’t too phased by this. I knew he was quite good at spelling and grammar.

We Take it Home

“Well you’ve got yourself a bit of a job there” I said, with a huge grin on my face during the 15 minute drive home.

“Hopefully it won’t take too long” she said, not all that convincingly.

“Why do you think he is getting me to do it, and not you, or one of his other kids?” It was a fair enough question, Dad had 5 children to choose from.

“I think it was because of your Darwin letters. He was pretty impressed with them, and he knows we have a PC” I replied. We had only recently returned from Darwin, and thinking about it now, Dad must have started writing it whilst we were away.

Once we had got home and had lunch, Trenna got right onto the task.

I’m sure she would have had some trouble making out the hand writing and there were a reasonable amount of crossings outs and arrows moving sections around.

Trenna’s body also wasn’t all that amenable to long periods sitting and typing, but she had told Dad she would do it and she got right into it. She didn’t do that exclusively, but she spent many hours doing this transcription.

For my part I was happy to leave her to it!

A good portion of the book described Dad’s time in the Royal Australian Navy. He enlisted a few years before World War II and stayed until a couple of years after the war ended.

There were a number of words he used that seemed to be either Navy-specific terms, or perhaps slang. We weren’t exactly sure what some of them meant.

Trenna and I discussed this and decided the best bet was to just transcribe what Dad had written, give it to him to proof read, and then we could fix up a few bits at the end.

As Trenna got further into it more and more questions arose, and there were bits of the story she thought needed further elaboration.

First Draft

Trenna was a quick typer, and before too long, a matter of weeks, she had typed up most of what he had written.

“I’ve typed up a pile of questions for him. I think we should get him to answer those before we give him the first draft” Trenna told me.

So the next time we visited, Trenna gave a progress report and presented Dad with several typed pages of questions.

“Oh! I’ve got something for you too. I’ve done a bit more. Can you just fit these bits in at the right point in the story?” (I’m not entirely sure it was a question.)

“Sure Dad, no problem.”

So off home we went with a bunch of loose pages not all that much smaller than the original story.

The new bits were written on whatever sheets of paper Dad could find. Some of it was in black ink, some in blue, and there were even a few pages written in pencil. Several of the pages had torn off pieces of paper pinned to them where Dad had thought of something extra.

We both hoped the answers to our questions were in these sheets. We both knew that they wouldn’t be and that these were extra stories from Dad’s interesting life.

Progress on this took quite a bit longer as Trenna had to try to read from the screen to figure out where the new bits fitted in. And, as Dad had written them with out reference to his first draft these new sections often needed Trenna to find a way to segue them into the story.

A month or two later, the phone rang. It was Dad.

“I’ve written some extra bits. Can we fit those in too?”

“Sure Dad, no problem”.

And this happened AT LEAST eight or nine more times.

It became obvious that rather than nearing the end of the project we were really just part way through it.

Trenna persevered. Eventually, for Dad’s 79th birthday, after close to a year of work we were able to print off and present to Dad a first draft.

Before we printed off the first draft we rang Dad to see if there were any more amendments.

“No. That’s it. Thanks very much.”

We knew full well that it wouldn’t be the end as there were bound to be some final changes and emendments – that was inevitable.

But it was with some pride that Trenna handed over a printed copy of Dad’s autobiography.

We told Dad to read through it, make any changes clearly in pen and we will come over in a few weeks time to collect the changes.

Whoops!

Two days later….

The phone rings. It’s Dad.

“Ahhhh. Your mother read it … and she has pointed out that she isn’t mentioned anywhere!”

Whoops!

I think Dad’s view was that he was writing a book mainly about his time in the Navy. Mum’s view was that it needed to be a bit more expansive than that.

Having known this couple all my life I had no doubt about whose view would prevail! Dad had no illusions about this either.

We agreed that he needed to do a bit more writing and sure enough, in a month or so he had another tranche of papers that included meeting my Mum, him doing everything he could to avoid getting married, the eventual arrival of five children, a few changes of career, and eventual retirement.

This new instalment was not much smaller than all the work Trenna had already done.

Away she typed.

It seemed that every time we went over to visit Dad would bring out another swathe of pages.

I don’t have a clear recollection of how long this all took, but it feels like it was a long time. In fact looking at our records I can see the whole process spanned more than seven years.

At the end of 2001 Mum passed away, and this of course required further additions to the story.

Trenna was feeling the strain of this ongoing project and Dad did continue to add a few bits and pieces into the existing story as he remembered things.

I did a bit of the typing, but Trenna could see that I was much slower than her. I also helped with proof reading and trying to indicate where new revelations should be inserted.

It was also my job to try to source some photos. As we found out when doing the book Dad lost most of his early photos during WWII when the ship he was on sank after being rammed by an American war ship!

Finally we told Dad that that was probably enough for a book and that it told the whole story.

However, there were still bits that Trenna felt needed clarifying. For example “what’s “dobying””? “What’s a “paravane” Dad?”

Tren sat down with Dad and he answered all her remaining queries. But of course this meant further amendments!

Publication

It was always Dad’s intention that he just wanted enough copies for himself, each of his children and his sister, Maree. It was never intended for a wider audience.

At this stage I was working at Murdoch University, and like many universities it had it’s own print shop.

I cobbled together a cover, fly sheet, contents page, and inserted some of Dad’s old photos. A price was agreed with the print shop.

I ordered 8 copies. One for each of us, plus one spare. As it turned out, the printer rang me a day or so later, he said he was interested in war history and asked if he could print an additional copy at his own expense. I of course agreed.

The Book Launch

The books were ready in a matter of days, but as Father’s Day 2004 was just a couple of weeks away Trenna and I decided to have a book launch at our place on that day.

Dad, my four siblings, their partners and some of their offspring all came to our house for morning tea and Dad distributed the books and made a brief speech thanking Trenna and me. I definitely played a role, but Trenna overwhelmingly did most of the hard work.

Books were signed, cups of tea and coffee were drunk, and cakes and savoury treats were eaten. Photos were taken. And more photos. Trenna took photos and I took photos.

As always when the Mahney’s get together there was a lot of noise. It echoed off the hard wooden floors of our small 1950s built house.

Dad was delighted with how the book looked and my brothers and sisters were impressed. Dad sat at Trenna’s desk and signed copies of the book for his progeny. All in all it was a very successful launch.

Afterwards, we cleared up and bathed in the now much quieter ambience of our house.

“I thought that went really well” I said. “Congratulations you did a great job Love”.

I was talking about both Trenna’s work on the book, but also on her fabulously catered event.

“Well, I would have like to have had my photo taken” she said in a suitably regretful tone.

“Oh, you’d be in some of the photos” I fired back immediately.

“I don’t think so”.

Of course, when the colour film was processed and printed, Trenna, as usual, was correct. Not a single photo of her even though without her there would have been no book.

I wish she had said something when everyone was still around. It would be lovely now to have a photo of her, Dad and a copy of Jack’s Luck.

Read the Book

After checking with and getting the OK from my siblings I am putting a link at the bottom of this page so that you can download and read a copy of Jack’s Luck. If you download it and read it I hope you enjoy it.

Certainly a lot of blood, sweat, tears and time went into the production of that book.

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