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we'd collect the empty bottles people had dropped in the stands under their seats. We got
money for them. Sundays were also spent on sport, or fishing and shooting - country pursuits...
I was at Ayr State School from 1949 to 1956, and I used to walk past the shop every day. Our
house was about 400 yards away.'
John, meanwhile, had suffered from his father's double desertion - by leaving Ayr and leaving
him at a boarding-school at the age of 12. He was unhappy at All Souls School for over a year,
but gradually learned how to fit in and make friends. For a time he was in the Scouts. Neither
excelling academically nor in athletics, he was disadvantaged by not having a father, and a
mother who didn't much care for him. Len was too absorbed in business matters to take Bill's
place, and accordingly John revered some of his masters; they were inspirational to him. His
main achievement was winning an essay competition on The Tourist Potential of North
Queensland. Although he had to find out from a dictionary what 'potential' meant, it would be a
keyword later on, as he strove to realise his own potential, and that of others and of every
business scheme.
In the holidays, when he returned to Ayr, he stayed with his mother or with the Wilsons, Alma
and Lloyd, with whom his grandmother Esther was living then. But he didn't have a proper
home or home life. So when he went north to Innisfail, to holiday with the family of a
schoolmate, John Stalley (which he did four times) he luxuriated not only in the lush tropical
scenery but also in the warmth of a close-knit family. The father was rector of a local church
and John stayed at the rectory. 'The mother was a delightful person,' he said years later.
'Always full of fun.' So unlike Zoe. He added: 'It was very pleasant to be part of a family like
that.'
John left All Souls School in December 1952 when he was 16, a standard practice at that time.
He could have gone further, but he preferred doing and earning to learning; and he was needed
at the store. He had never thought of working anywhere else: Esther and Alma, and chiefly Len,
had taught him well. Len also paid for John to learn Italian: it would be useful in the business.
For most of the cane-cutters were first or second year immigrants, who invariably went on to
buy small farms and holdings of their own. John would remember some of Len's instructions and
advice for the rest of his life - such as 'If you want to know something, go and ask, and listen;
most people ask, but never listen' -'Make sure you go to church on Sunday, because it's good
for business.'
By now three stores were managed and owned by the Honeycombes. In addition to the
Progressive Store in Munro Street (so named in 1922) there was a pioneering cut-price, self-
service store in Queen Street called the Grocerteria, which was opened in 1952, and the
Community Cash Store (the CCS), which was on the corner of Macmillan and Parker streets
and run by Bill Aitken.
385
Major changes were however, about to occur and the family's fortunes be transformed. Major
events were occurring elsewhere: Australian troops were fighting in the Korean War and would
soon be involved in Malaya; the first British atomic bomb was exploded off Western Australia;
aborigines in the Northern Territory became officially Australian citizens; uranium was found
near Mt Isa.
In February 1952 King George VI died, and his eldest daughter was crowned Queen Elizabeth
II in June 1953. The following year the young Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, visited
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