Mirrors of Death Read online

  This one weekend, we hit Flight Deck at Essendon Airport, one of the local nightclubs close to Broadmeadows. We were out with Gavin, an Aboriginal boy. We all grew up with Gavin, and he’d knocked around with my crew for years. We were all around twelve years of age at this point, but ‘going on twenty’ as the parents had said to most of the boys.

  Prior to going to Flight Deck, Gavin had dinner at JB’s house on Graham Street; I was there on the night. After dinner we headed to Olsen Place to meet up with the boys as we usually did. We all hit Flight Deck, and had a big bender of a night. A few of the boys picked up girls.

  On the Friday night Gavin had seemed okay at Flight Deck, just partying up most of the night and having drinks with a few of the boys. Gavin had mentioned to a couple of us earlier that he wasn’t feeling good, and left early on the Friday night from Flight Deck. He didn’t turn up on the Sunday night at Sutto’s house for a pipe; it was routine, like clockwork, for the crew to meet up there every week. We were a little concerned, as Gavin never missed out on the sessions, but we just thought he still wasn’t feeling well from everything that happened at Flight Deck — he’d had a big night.

  just like Brett.

  All the boys had attended the funeral and the family held the wake in Broadmeadows. After the wake we all met up at Sutto’s house, having a few drinks and sharing the pipe.

  Chapter 3

  Feuds

  I was thirteen years of age in 1983, still attending Glenroy Technical School and still running amok, still associating with my mates from primary school. We were selling dope at school to other classmates, and friends used to pop down to the school to buy some dope from us at Glenroy Technical School. There would always be a heap of us that knocked around at school, outside the art rooms right down the back of the school. Sometimes we would head to Bindi Street in Glenroy, up the road from the school, and there would be up to thirty of us smoking dope and getting on the motorbikes. We’d always be getting into fights with other boys from around Melbourne.

  I was only at Glenroy Technical School for just under a year. Word got out around the school that my crew and I were selling dope to some of our classmates, and to some boys from outside of school popping into the shelter sheds to buy dope and have a joint with us. The teachers had found out; my name wasn’t mentioned but the teachers knew to suspect me.

  The teachers conducted a search, going through my bag and my locker and finding some dope. I was immediately expelled and my parents notified. I was already on my last legs from fighting, smoking cigarettes and wagging school, so this was it for me at Glenroy. The school at least didn’t bring the police in. I was also able to take the rap for a couple of very good mates.

  After I was kicked out of Glenroy Technical School in 1984, a few weeks later I enrolled at Broadmeadows Secondary College on Blair Street. It took some convincing for the school to accept me as a student, after the way I had left Glenroy. I had other mates at Broadmeadows Secondary College including one of my best mates, JB.

  After school I was still knocking around with the boys at Olsen Place. One night I was with a couple of mates at the shops late one night when a dozen or so boys turned up around 11pm. We knew these boys but weren’t friends with them. They lived in the Broadmeadows area as well, but over the highway in Jacana. They had come out from nowhere, running out from around the corner and attacking me and my mates. There were at about twenty of them. After they got hold of me, I managed to throw a few punches. I had no chance with around ten of them. They gave me a hiding. I had a couple of black eyes, a fat lip and a broken nose.

  After they had left the Olsen Place shops, I met up with JB, Norto and the rest of the boys as they came to see me at the shops. The next day we declared that we were out to get these boys back for jumping us. There was now a war between the Jacana boys and the Broady boys. After the New Year in 1984, we targeted them one by one and got each one by themselves, giving them a one-on-one hiding.

  A few months later I had one more to get. I ran into Pezza and some of his crew from Jacana at the Broadmeadows outdoor swimming pool. I was with my mates; we would always get to the pools just off Camp Road on hot days, sometimes using the paddock to go motorbike riding. When I ran into Pezza and a few of his mates, I walked up to where he was sitting and asked him outside — he had no choice but to agree.

  As we got out the gate, I started on him and we got into a fight; I managed to get the better of him. Pezza was the one who had broken my nose, while his crew held me in place. The fight had to be stopped; he left with his mates and I went back into the pool for a swim with the boys.

  Around a month or so later we were at a party in Broadmeadows and Pezza was there — we called a truce, ending the feud.

  Pezza had moved from Coolaroo to Bindi Street in Glenroy. Once the truce was in place, I became good friends with him and he started to hang out with our group as well.

  One weekend the boys and I even went to a barbeque at Pezza’s house in Glenroy. His house led onto the paddock between Broadmeadows and Glenroy. We would always take our dirt bikes through a back gate and ride around the paddock. We knew all the hiding spots and all the access points, so if the police ever tried to chase us we could usually get away easily enough. The Western Ring Road runs through there nowadays.

  We had a pretty big night at the barbeque. The next day Pezza was found dead at his father’s house. Again, he had killed himself, and it later came out that he was also hearing voices. We couldn’t believe it. He was only thirteen years of age. Pezza couldn’t cope with life, even at such a young age, and many couldn’t believe for one minute that a boy at such a young age couldn’t deal with life.

  The boys from Coolaroo, Westmeadows, Glenroy and Broadmeadows all turned up at his funeral — the gathering was huge. I attended and paid my respects.

  There had been three suicides in a short period of time, and all by hanging. At the time my parents were moving to Ballarat — they had planned the move for months. When they moved to Ballarat I stayed on in Melbourne and lived with my sister and brother-in-law down in Justin Avenue, Glenroy. I lived out the back in a granny flat — I wanted to stay with my mates, and finish school.

  I was not far off going into the workforce — I had to be fifteen years of age and needed to complete year ten to get a job as an apprentice. I was trying to decide what would be the best apprenticeship for me when I finished year ten — which was good, as I had been already kicked out of one school. School didn’t agree with me. I eventually decided to be a butcher. I didn’t want to move to Ballarat because of my mates that lived in Broadmeadows and around the local area. My parents didn’t like me living with my sister, but had agreed to let me stay with her as I was at an age where I was controllable.

  One night, a few of my mates and I had arranged to go to the local pub. There were a few of us that ended up going to the Sylvania Hotel on the Hume Highway in Campbellfield, and we stayed till stumps. By this stage I was pretty drunk and playing up. Most of the boys had left school by this stage. The occasion was for my birthday — I had turned thirteen years of age. By the end of the night all the boys had left the pub except for JB and me. Once we had a few more drinks we left; I had broken into a car in the car park, and JB and I jumped in and drove off. We went for a joyride around Melbourne, making our way to Sutto’s house where we had a few pipes, and then drove to Gladstone Park.

  It was around 3 am when JB lost control of the car. We hit a power pole, snapping it in half, the car spinning around and going through a fence, ripping the roof off the stolen car. JB went through the window and got away, but I was stuck in the stolen car. I blacked out until the police and the ambulance had arrived; there were sirens everywhere. I had to be cut out with the jaws of life. After I was rescued from the car, all I remember is sitting in the back of the cop car getting hassled by the policemen asking who was driving the car.

  I was charged at Broadmeadows Police Station. The police couldn’t believe that I survived the car
smash. They said to me, “Don’t ever put a lotto ticket on”. The smashed car was put in the papers, and on the news and radio.

  I was still living down at Justin Avenue, Glenroy with my sister, and still going hard with my mates, running completely amok. We rode our dirt bikes all over the local suburbs, smoked dope and constantly got into fights. We knocked over houses left, right and centre. We spent our time having card nights at different mates’ houses. My mates would rock up at the granny flat with a few beers and a bit of dope; we would get on the piss and have a session. We would also have selected nights where only close friends and family would be over to be tattooed. A close friend of the family, Neville, was a tattooist, and at the time he was recently out of jail.

  A month or so after Neville was released from jail, he was living at his parents’ house in Glenroy. On the nights when we were being tattooed, there would be a heap of us, getting stoned off our heads while Neville was tattooing us. Neville was born and bred in Glenroy; he lived next to the Justin Avenue shops with his parents, brothers and sisters. The house was only a few minutes’ walk from my sister’s house. One night after a few drinks and a few cones, Neville left and walked home. When he got home Neville pulled out his shotgun, which one of the boys had sold to Neville a couple weeks prior, put it to his head and pulled the trigger. Neville died instantly. His brother found him in his bedroom.

  Neville was well-known to many in jail for his artwork and also well liked on the outside by his family and friends. The rumour was that he couldn’t cope on the outside after spending long stints in jail. Neville seemed happy on the night of his suicide, and he had lived life to the fullest.

  The funeral and the wake were handled by his brothers and family. The wake was held at his house in Glenroy. It went for a few days and most of the Broadmeadows and Glenroy boys had turned up.

  I was still living at my sister’s house; it was at a time of my life when I was in the thick of things growing up in Broadmeadows. I started seeing Joanne, who lived right across the road from me on Justin Avenue. Joanne and her family were very close to my family and friends; her family was very well respected. Joanne’s older brother was best mates with one of my older brothers. We both were thirteen, and after becoming friends we were seeing each other off and on.

  Around the same time in 1984 my sister had fallen pregnant with her first child — it was around eleven months or so after she had gotten married when young Des Junior was born. My sister was married at Tullamarine Airport, not long after the death of Neville.

  I had just turned fourteen years old. We got along well, me and my sister. I was living between my sister’s house and Sutto’s house. Sutto lived behind the Olsen Place shops in Broadmeadows; Olsen Place was still our hunting ground. Sutto had a very large family — and Sutto himself lived in the granny flat out the back. I’d be there most nights during the week.

  Things were slowly out of control with me and the boys playing up. The police were now raiding many of my mates’ houses; luckily for us, a friend in Glenroy had a brother as a policeman at Broadmeadows, and he would let some of us know who was going to get raided. I was also raided on numerous occasions. My crew was knocking over butcher shops in the local area. I had a setup in the back of my friend’s house where I would break down the beef and lamb, and sell all the meat to a loyal friend — I was lucky that my contact didn’t get caught by the police, as he was buying all the meat from me.

  Chapter 4

  Ballarat and Back

  After a few months I left Melbourne, heading for rural Victoria to live with my parents in Ballarat. I had two brothers that lived in Ballarat; one of my older brothers ran his own butcher shop. After all the raids, half of the people I knew in Broadmeadows had moved away to escape police attention. My mate’s uncle was giving up everyone that he could, to avoid being raided himself.

  A short time after moving just out of Ballarat to my parent’s house, they bought a little farmhouse in Clunes, a small country town with around 5000 people and about forty minutes’ drive from Ballarat. Clunes was one of the gold rush towns in the early days; miners had drilled for gold in the 1800s and early 1900s. I moved in with them in the small town. I travelled from Clunes by bus to school, having enrolled in Maryborough Technical College. Clunes was about an hour from school. I left all my friends in Melbourne when I had left — my mates would travel up to Clunes from Melbourne to see me and stay for the weekend.

  I also had been kicked out of Broadmeadows Secondary College shortly before I moved away from Melbourne. I knew I had to get my year ten reports from school; to get a job in butchering I needed my year ten reports to be good. I had been kicked out of Broadmeadows Secondary College for smoking dope with my mates — some students told the principal that we were smoking with one of our teachers in her car at the back of the school. I had been caught again with dope in my school bag, with the school bringing in the police mostly on the rumour that the teacher was smoking dope with us; the teacher wanted to sue, as she had known nothing of these allegations. The school principal also searched my locker and bags to find dope. I was given a warning from the police and kicked straight out of school, so after leaving and moving back with the parents in Clunes, I was doing good and applying myself to school at Maryborough. Living in Clunes seemed to be the best move for the family.

  After moving to Clunes and starting at Maryborough Technical College, I got to know the locals at Clunes. I started playing very good football for Clunes Football Club, attending barbeques, going on motorbike rides and going camping. The family fit in well with the locals at Clunes, especially considering that this was such a small country town with a population of only 5000 people; normally small towns were hard to break into.

  Only a short time since moving to Clunes, my parents had put the Short Street house at Clunes on the market. The main reason for the sale was for me to be able to get a job, but there were other reasons for wanting to move.

  When we moved into the house I had set up the garage as a workshop. I would be out there most nights working on my motorbike; I would be working in the garage when each side of the tin on the garage would go bang! bang! bang! This would happen often, with the family and I thinking it was a possum. I told a few mates about it on the bus ride to school, and they told me about six different families who, in a short space of time, each had a suicide in the family. One of those suicides took place in that garage I used as a workshop — the son of the family had hanged himself.

  So, there was a ghost in the garage — and even if there are no ghosts, there might as well have been a ghost in there, as once we heard about the suicide we couldn’t forget it. This had put the icing on the cake for my parents to sell, as well as there being very little work in the town.

  I completed year ten at Maryborough Technical, and we decided to move back to Melbourne. After the sale of the Short Street house in Clunes, we moved to Hadfield in the northern suburbs. We lived next door to the local supermarket. I had now started my first year apprenticeship in butchering. I applied for a job on the corner of Bridge Road and Church Street in Richmond, and I got it.

  In 1986, a couple of months or so after leaving Clunes, I went to a reunion at the Clunes football club. I met up again with my friends from Clunes and Ballarat, including Reggie, who was best mates with one of my older brothers. Reggie was a little older than me, and well-known in the Ballarat Football League and the Central Highlands Football League. It was a big night. Reggie, a few of the other boys from Broadmeadows and I had met up with a few old mates from school and the football club; we had a few quiet beers at the function, and the reunion went into the early hours of the next morning.

  The following week after the function, Reggie was shirt-fronted on the football field by an opponent. Unfortunately, one of Reggie’s ribs had snapped, piercing his heart. Reggie died on the Clunes football field.

  After his death the football league was in mourning, in country football and in the Ballarat League. Many friends and f
ootball teammates attended his funeral service and the wake. This was a tragedy that touched the football world in Victoria.

  I had settled back in Melbourne from the big move from Clunes; I was in my first year as an apprentice butcher in 1986 and back playing football at Glenroy Football Club. We lived around the corner from my sister and brother-in-law’s house — they still lived on Justin Avenue in Glenroy. West Street was only a few streets away from Justin Avenue, which was handy for my sister, now with her first child Des Junior.

  I started to knock around with my old mates from Broadmeadows, and made a habit of having a pipe after work. After football training, I’d be around my mates’ places. Sutto was still living with his parents behind the Olsen Place shops, where the boys would get around and have a session in the granny flat. I still managed to get around and see most of the boys, when I wasn’t working or at football training.

  Around ten months after moving from Clunes to Melbourne, My parents had itchy feet again and sold the house on West Street, buying a house on Wilson Street in Ballarat East. After living in Clunes, my parents had adapted to the country life style. The other reason for moving back to Ballarat was that they had two sons that were still living in the area. They both had been living in Ballarat for many years, and both were married. One of my brothers in Ballarat owned a butcher shop, and the other ran a major food section at McCain’s Frozen Foods.

  I had decided to stay with my sister and brother -in-law at Justin Avenue, Glenroy — I wanted to finish my apprenticeship in Richmond. I stayed on in Melbourne until I finished my second year, working for Just Quality Meats in Richmond while living either at my sister’s house in Glenroy or at Sutto’s house in Broadmeadows.

  After a few months working as an apprentice butcher in Richmond, the boss butcher had asked me if any of my mates wanted a job. I said yes: Sutto, Simmo and Henno started work with me. The four of us would travel to work together by public transport; on some occasions we would get a ride in from Henno’s old man, who also worked in the city. He would drive us to work most mornings, or if we had a bender of a night we would get a cab and split the bill.