Outback Corporation - 6. OBC Chapter 6

The man seemed to calm down after being told off by the off duty officer, and said “I’m an uncle of one of the students, and travelled separately to watch her in the rodeo." I was still a bit surprised at the sudden assistance from the police officer.

It was Chris that took over dealing this incident. “Sir my name is Christopher Silverton. This is your one and only warning, if you are out of line in any way, you will forfeit any fees that you have payed and you will be escorted off the station, which is back at the highway” the man nodded his head that he understood and walked away.

“Mr Silverton, I informed your uncle that I was attending this event unofficially, as my son is participating this weekend, but he mentioned that if there is any trouble to just let me know, and that is when Chris handed me a radio, and I came as soon as I heard what was happening” the officer told me.

“I am glad you were here to assist and I thank you for what you have done, I guess that is one thing we didn’t anticipate happening, we have a RFDS plane that is arriving before dusk today to assist with any medical emergencies, but we didn’t think of security” I said in reply.

Then I turned to Chris, “Can you make sure the staff at the gate make sure they check that all visitors are actually family members of participants, I don’t want any unauthorised members coming onto the property” I said to Chris and he smiled and jumped on his bike and raced off.

Shortly after I returned to the office to do more paperwork, one of the teachers arrived at the office, “Mr Silverton?”

“May I help you?”

“I wanted to tell you that there could be more students and parents arriving as support for the school, but no definite numbers were established.”

I groaned a little, but smiled “Thank you for the information”

After he left the office, I relayed the information to Chris and Daniel. By 3pm I had been informed that the number of vehicles that had passed through the gate had reached 172, over 50 more vehicles than expected.

“Have all the participants arrived yet?” I asked.

The man at the gate replied “Yes, as of half an hour ago.” With that news I called for the headmaster’s of each school to come to the office of an urgent meeting at the office.

Once the 5 men and 1 woman had seated I began the meeting by telling them of the trouble that had happened earlier at the camp ground. “I wish to inform you that all the participants had now arrived, but still there are a lot of vehicles arriving. At present there are over 50 extra vehicles of relatives currently at the camp grounds, I said there is supposed to be one vehicle per participating student to attend, not the whole bloody clan!” When I realised that I had just swore at those gathered in front of me I stopped and took a deep breath before continuing.

“I’m sorry for my choice of words. It is very fortunate that we have an off duty police officer with us this weekend, but the huge number of visitors to the station is now beginning to stretch our resources. I am not happy about it. At the moment we have approximately 535 people in attendance, and we were only expecting just fewer than 400. I am not going to cancel this event because of all the distance of travelling that has been involved, but let me be very clear here, because of the over enthusiastic promotion of this event by your schools, which has created this situation, you as the school representatives, will be held accountable for any damage or incidences that occur this weekend, that is all I have to say, so please excuse me now, as I have a lot of extra work to do, to provide extra supplies to cope with the extra people that are here” I said sternly. I returned to the paperwork on the desk, keeping my head down, refusing to look at any of them. Eventually they got the message and left.

“Senior Sergeant Patterson to Mr Silverton” I heard on the radio.

I picked up the microphone and answered, “Go ahead sir, this is Kes speaking”

“Sir I have just heard news from the Kalgoorlie District office, two police officers are on board the RFDS flight from Kalgoorlie to Pondana Station, and will be spending the weekend here to assist. I have been asked to be officially on duty to assist you deal with any issues that may arise, over.”

“Very good, thanks for informing me, over and out” I replied. I was pleased that I was getting some police support in case things got out of hand at any point during the weekend. At 5 pm I called for a team leader meeting which included Senior Sergeant Patterson, once everyone was seated I looked around the room, and saw Chris and Barrett with huge smiles on their faces, as they knew what I was about to say.

“Now what I am about to say has been kept under wraps for security purposes, but now I can announce that tonight we will be having a concert, Barrett has spent most of the day assisting with the surprise, as some of you noticed a few days ago, a stage area had been built at one end of the arena, which you probably presumed was for the judges, well yes that is true, but for tonight it is the location for the performances of Australian Country Legends, James Blundell, Gina Jeffreys, Beccy Cole and Adam Brand” I announced with much enthusiasm. Nearly everyone was stunned at the announcement, and I let it sink in before continuing, “They arrive just before dark, about half an hour after the RFDS plane, they will be taken to the homestead where a meal is being prepared for them and the eight of us present now, no one else is to know until it is announced on stage at 7pm, be sure to have six vehicles ready at the airstrip ready to collect then when the executive plane lands, they will be leaving straight after the concert, flying directly to Adelaide, before going their own separate ways. Can three people go to the airstrip now as the RFDS is due to arrive very soon? That is all for now” I announced.

Just ten minutes later, “Kes, this is Barrett, over” came over the radio, “Kes here go ahead, over’ I said after picking up the microphone

“The second plane had just arrived ahead of schedule; we need the extra vehicles right away over”,

“On my way, Barrett. Kes over and out”. Once I had put away the documents that I had been reading away, I hurried over to the airfield.

Once the VIP guests had been given the opportunity to freshen up, pre-dinner drinks were served, soon followed by a light meal for the guests. “As Managing Director of Murchison pastoral Investments, on behalf of all the staff here, I wish to welcome our special guests here tonight, thank you for coming all this way to provide entertainment for our visitors, who have no idea that you will be performing tonight, actually apart from the staff here now, there is no one else that knows, so I wish you all a warm welcome and thank you for your entertainment tonight” as I raised my glass and toasted the guests.

Nearly an hour later as a small fireworks display was in progress in the arena, Chris and I were guiding our performing guests to the back stage area, an enclosed gazebo that had been built specifically for this purpose and had been kept under wraps ever since. As the 2 minutes of fireworks came to an end I went up onto the stage. “Ladies and Gentlemen, young ladies and young gentlemen, boys and girls, the fireworks were all that was advertised as entertainment for tonight, but I have a very special surprise for you… on behalf of the management and staff of Murchison Pastoral Investments, I am happy to announce to you tonight’s Australian country music entertainers, Ms Beccy Cole, Ms Gina Jeffreys, Mr Adam Brand and Mr James Blundell” and the crowd of nearly 600 cheered at the unexpected announcement of the top country singers being their entertainment.

After nearly two hours of great country music, the concert ended and once the entertainers had packed their equipment and spent a bit of time relaxing in the gazebo, they were escorted to the waiting vehicles to take them back to their waiting plane for their long journey to Adelaide. The following morning was the start of the rodeo. Aside from a few scrapes and bruises amongst the participants, the next two days everything went very smoothly with the event. Thankfully, the crowd was reasonably well behaved, with only two people given move on notices by the police to leave the property. By lunch time Monday all of the visitors had left the property, the RFDS had left at dawn, having been called to an emergency, and now the truck crews were busy beginning to dismantle all of the gazebos, all the stage, arena and yard fencing, packing and loading up all the generators and lights, as well as the ablution buildings.

By Wednesday the last of the trucks had left the station for the long journey back to where they come from. The station was now finally back to some normality, with some station staff out doing water checks at all the stations, and others doing clean-up duties, picking up all the rubbish that had been scattered everywhere. When the mail arrived from the train, two copies of the state’s newspaper were included, and the front page headlines included a large photograph of the 4 entertainers on stage. “Australian country singers perform at a private event held at Silverton station over the long weekend”.

Turning to the next page for the rest of the story, I read the story with interest, “Pondana Station, the base property for Murchison Pastoral Investments, owned and run by Mr Bryce Silverton held a regional Independent Schools Rodeo over the long weekend, with a small fireworks display on Friday night followed by a surprise 2 hour long concert with Ms Beccy Cole, Ms Gina Jeffreys, Mr Adam Brand and Mr James Blundell as the guest performers.

An estimated 600 people attended this event which was organised at very short notice and involved 6 private independent schools from Albany, Kalgoorlie and Esperance, with twenty students from each school participating in the events. It is believed that police and RFDS were in attendance over the whole weekend, there were no reportable incidences or injuries. A spokesperson from the Independent Schools Association here in Perth said in a statement, that the event brought cooperation between 6 schools from 3 different faiths, and that Mr Silverton and his staff should be congratulated on how well the event was organised and run.

When asked for clarification on if it was Mr Bryce Silverton who was the organiser; the spokesperson said it was Mr Kyle Silverton and his staff who were the organisers. Once again the newspaper was not able to contact the station for a quote or confirmation that it was Bryce Silverton’s son who organised the event, but a Police spokesperson said before going to print, that it was indeed young Mr Kyle Silverton who is now running the family business. Which brings the question, where is his father?"

Back at the office when I saw an envelope with familiar hand writing on it, I called out for Chris to come into the office, and moments later he walked in, with Daniel not far behind him.

I had been staring at the envelope when they walked in and sat down, “Who is it from?” Chris asked,

“Dad, it’s the first letter I have had from him since he left, it has always been emails, so something must be serious for him to write” I replied to them before carefully opening the envelope and unfolding the two sheets of paper.

“To my dearest son Kes, I hope you are well and that you are managing with running the business, I am now in Canada, where I have been enjoying the wonderful sights, before I get into more details; let me tell you first that I have made some adjustments with the shares of the two companies.

I have swapped it around so that now it is me that has the 10% shares of each of the two companies and you have the 55% of the two companies, plus your own fortune from the Edgerton Properties. Congratulations son, you are now the richest teenager in the whole of Australia, with a personal fortune of over $116 million”.

I stopped reading as I was just too stunned at what I had just read out loud, and dropped the letter onto the desk.

Chris stepped up to the desk and picked up the letter and continued reading. “I have also made it permanent with you as Managing Director of both companies, Chris, Daniel and Barrett remain as Directors to make sure you keep everything in order, there is a reason for all of these changes, I have met someone special, we are very happy together and I will be spending most of my time with him here in Canada, yes that is right you read it correctly, I have a boyfriend, Take care lots of love, your father, Bas”.

All three of us remained seated in the office stunned at what we had just heard, and I could see Chris reading and re reading the last sentence of the letter, before he smiled broadly and folded the envelope, “Well nephew, it looks like you are the only straight member of the family left” Chris said and Daniel burst out laughing at Chris’s comment, and I couldn’t help but join in.