Speaker 1: Welcome to conversations, everybody. My guest in the studio is
Speaker 1: Jim Mavlomatis. I hope that rolled off the tongue properly.
Speaker 1: Jim is a veteran of the Vietnam War who joined
Speaker 1: the army when he's a kid, had nine years in there.
Speaker 1: Fair to say he came back slightly damaged. But he's
Speaker 1: involved in an organization called Guitars for Vets. It's a
Speaker 1: nonprofit organization. It's tried to help ailing and injured veterans,
Speaker 1: providing them with free guitars and music lessons and using
Speaker 1: the power of music to heal veterans. It's fair to
Speaker 1: say Jim was damaged and his life story is interesting,
Speaker 1: starting as a kid growing up in Port Pirie, running
Speaker 1: away from home when he was fourteen, joining the army
Speaker 1: a few years later and serving in Vietnam. He joined
Speaker 1: us in the studio. Jim Mavramartis, thanks for your time.
Speaker 2: How are you? Thank you for a long time.
Speaker 1: It has been a long time, and what a story
Speaker 1: you have to tell. Look, tell us about Guitars for
Speaker 1: Vets first. I'm really interested in in the backstory though,
Speaker 1: your mum and dad's story and your early days. But
Speaker 1: you're here to talk about guitars for vets.
Speaker 2: Guitar for vets. It's been in America for a long time,
Speaker 2: especially like after the Vietnam War and the number of
Speaker 2: casualties they hadn't the number of really lame people over there.
Speaker 2: It's in their brain. But I've become very passionate about
Speaker 2: this because I'm seeing the results of the guitar. I
Speaker 2: had a guitar when I was fifteen. That was the
Speaker 2: first guitar. And when I went to Vietnam and I
Speaker 2: came back on a stretcher, I had to leave my
Speaker 2: guitar behind, and that was a real killer. I'd spent
Speaker 2: I'd spent eight months into a park with all these
Speaker 2: hookworms and old tropical disease, tropical diseases. Yeah, And I
Speaker 2: got posted to the Army apprentices School at balcom And
Speaker 2: and I was nowhere near the fitness or the body
Speaker 2: that I had when I was prior to going to Vietnam.
Speaker 2: But when I came back it was just absolutely so weak.
Speaker 2: But my passion for a guitar was still there. I
Speaker 2: never learned to play guitar. I just picked it up
Speaker 2: and I would ask somebody what's a chord? And they
Speaker 2: showed me and that was a C chord and a
Speaker 2: D chord and a G chord. And then I just
Speaker 2: naturally picked it up. But I didn't go to a teacher.
Speaker 2: I didn't read any books or what's TV or look
Speaker 2: on today? Was a blue teeth or blue YouTube by me.
Speaker 2: It's just said I had a neck with it. And
Speaker 2: when I was a orderly sergeant walked through the lines
Speaker 2: talk to the kids, and one of them had a guitar.
Speaker 2: And his name was David Cox, now young cock. He
Speaker 2: were rusty, as we used to call him because he
Speaker 2: had red hair, and he became he was doing an
Speaker 2: electrical trade, but it was more of an electrical technician,
Speaker 2: and he used to show me chords and and and
Speaker 2: then one day I just picked it up and started
Speaker 2: playing Proud Mary. And they're looking at me doing bar cords,
Speaker 2: and that's all I could do, you know. I was
Speaker 2: doing barks up here and barkours down there. They were fascinated.
Speaker 2: So every time this big sergeant came through the thinking
Speaker 2: he's here, and they'd be running to all the different
Speaker 2: huts and the huts would be packed seeing this sergeant
Speaker 2: playing a guitar.
Speaker 1: Did you sing as well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a good singer to I
Speaker 2: don't mind. Dam My wife says to me, you know,
Speaker 2: if I sunk for a chick shit, I'd get maybe truckload.
Speaker 2: I was there for three years. I was having I
Speaker 2: was having a running all the time with the rs
Speaker 2: M there because he hadn't been to war and I
Speaker 2: was still I was very psycho. Nothing worried me to
Speaker 2: go to a pub and to abuse people worth they're
Speaker 2: making too much noise, like throwing glasses at him, or you.
Speaker 1: Were damaged by absolutely realized.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't the only one there. Guys, there were
Speaker 2: I've seen one or two of them punch a person
Speaker 2: in the seat of a car and go through the window,
Speaker 2: the side window. You can imagine how strong they are
Speaker 2: and no sense, no feeling. A number of times we
Speaker 2: would go down the beach at Mount Martha and dig
Speaker 2: a hole and put our beer in, and some sneaky,
Speaker 2: little bloody what were they they were signalers would come
Speaker 2: along and try and knock off our beer, and a
Speaker 2: number of those went back with broken noses and years
Speaker 2: half cut off.
Speaker 1: So so David Cox reintroduces you to the guitar. So
Speaker 1: how did that's? How did that get? How did that become?
Speaker 2: I was I'd been married for quite a while and
Speaker 2: we moved to Dromana, and then we moved to Roastbud,
Speaker 2: not far apart. We came over to Ocean Grove and
Speaker 2: I got this phone call and it was David Cox.
Speaker 2: He said, Hey, Jim, I'm no sad, because he always
Speaker 2: calls me saying, they said, I'm setting up. I've been
Speaker 2: to America. How he got involved with Americans? That something
Speaker 2: that he had done with his electrical tech trade or whatever,
Speaker 2: and went over there and they used his part in
Speaker 2: planes apparently anyway, so he became very familiar with the
Speaker 2: numbers of people people, and they took him to and
Speaker 2: like our RSLs. I don't forget what they call their things.
Speaker 2: But they introduced him to guitars for Vet's USA, and
Speaker 2: there's all their guitars come from the top, you know,
Speaker 2: Martins and Fender and all that. And they could be
Speaker 2: electric or they could be acoustic, could be acoustic, electric amplifiers,
Speaker 2: the whole works everything. The car companies would supply them
Speaker 2: with vehicles. Well, we do all our own stuff. We
Speaker 2: don't get grants from anybody. So Dave said to me,
Speaker 2: I want to start this up, and I remember you
Speaker 2: playing the guitar and I thought, will you helped me?
Speaker 2: And I said yeah. That was twenty sevent eight and
Speaker 2: we've been doing it ever since, and so far we've
Speaker 2: put over six hundred veterans through this program, and the
Speaker 2: six hundred veterans that we know haven't committed suicide. And
Speaker 2: that's been our whole objective is to I'm.
Speaker 1: Going to come back to that the work you do
Speaker 1: and how you do it. But it's interesting about you
Speaker 1: just in those you know, the few minutes we've been
Speaker 1: chatting and the moments we chat before the microphone was
Speaker 1: turned on. Your life is full of you know, turmoll sadness,
Speaker 1: adventure and obviously trauma. Can we go back to the
Speaker 1: start year of Greek heritage to tell us about mom
Speaker 1: and Dad?
Speaker 2: My mum and dad have got a story. I've already
Speaker 2: written it, and it's amazing me how she has she
Speaker 2: survived him. And my dad came out here in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nineteen sixteen. He came out to Australia nineteen sixteen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and my grandfather came out roughly about the same time.
Speaker 2: That's my father's my mother's father. He came out eleven
Speaker 2: years before he brought his family out from Cyprus. In
Speaker 2: that eleven years he was supposed to get a lot
Speaker 2: of money because he had been tee told the streets
Speaker 2: of streets in Australia just paved with gold. So like
Speaker 2: most of the refugees they got over here. And so that.
Speaker 1: Was just post war during the World War.
Speaker 2: No, no, just after World War one. Came back. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because my father went to jail in World War two
Speaker 2: because he had an Italian passport. But just put into
Speaker 2: one side. We'll get to My grandfather came out and
Speaker 2: he became a gambler and a womanizer and whatever you
Speaker 2: do when you're away on your own for a long time.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, my mom and her mum used to do
Speaker 2: all the work. She had three brothers and they would
Speaker 2: go off and help other people plant their crops and
Speaker 2: pictures the back back inside sight, yeah, where the temperature
Speaker 2: ge just about fifty five degrees most times in summer,
Speaker 2: so she had a tough life. They used to walk
Speaker 2: twenty kilometers to they'd load up there their donkey with
Speaker 2: bamboo baskets. My mum made Doiley's Grandma would have made
Speaker 2: all these pickles or whatever, and they would walk twenty
Speaker 2: miles to the market. So they get up there in
Speaker 2: the morning, go twenty miles to the market donkey, and
Speaker 2: when they got there they'd sell all their stuff and
Speaker 2: buy other produce that they could take back loaded up
Speaker 2: the donkey, and then they both got on the donkey
Speaker 2: and came home. They could go to sleep, because the
Speaker 2: donkey did this so often, used to just walk up
Speaker 2: back and forth on his own. And Mom used to
Speaker 2: tell me that there were a number of times she
Speaker 2: had actually fallen off the donkey. Well, well they're going home.
Speaker 1: So they're still back in Cypress.
Speaker 2: Your grandfather they were still living in Cypress and Grandpa's
Speaker 2: out in Australia. Drink you're having a great time.
Speaker 1: How did they catch up with him?
Speaker 2: The mail wasn't like it is now, Okay, So you's
Speaker 2: got to go on to from your village to that
Speaker 2: village and then to that place, and then it goes
Speaker 2: on the ship and goes to say port said, and
Speaker 2: then it goes to wherever then the freemantle and it
Speaker 2: was months, you know, maybe six months in between mail.
Speaker 1: So where was your grandfather was here and that later
Speaker 1: on poor period he went to period Fisherman.
Speaker 2: Was poor period. This is another story. Port period is
Speaker 2: a transition place for all the especially the Greek men
Speaker 2: would come on these steamers and they'd go to Fremantle
Speaker 2: and then from Fremantle they would get on another steamer
Speaker 2: and they would go from Fremantle to Adelaide. That steamer
Speaker 2: would go to Melbourne to Sydney and then back again.
Speaker 1: We need to take a break because this is a
Speaker 1: fascinating story. Well cover the guitarist Vets charity, but Jim Mavramatis,
Speaker 1: the ambassador for Guitarist Vets, is in the studio. But
Speaker 1: I'm more interested in these early days. Back shortly, folks,
Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody. My guest in the studio is a
Speaker 1: gentleman called Jim mavra Martis, a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: Mavramartis means black eye in Greek, and he said, that's
Speaker 1: what I'll get if I don't pronounce it correctly. But
Speaker 1: just tuned in. It's an interesting story. Family. Mum's from Cypress,
Speaker 1: dads from Greece, and his grandfather came out. He womanized
Speaker 1: spent all his money. But eventually, obviously your mom must
Speaker 1: have caught up with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, eleven years later he built this humpy out out
Speaker 2: at Bungamma, which is seven kilometers out of Port Pirie,
Speaker 2: and it was made from ash that he got from
Speaker 2: the smelders that was like fly ash and he could
Speaker 2: mix it up and he would make these that was
Speaker 2: called piase in the old days, where they put two
Speaker 2: planks together throwing all the rocks and then pour in
Speaker 2: the cement that they had or mud, and they just
Speaker 2: tamp it down and then they'd lift the planks up
Speaker 2: the next day and do the next row, next row.
Speaker 2: The windows were just holes in the wall and with
Speaker 2: corrugated iron on hinges that would shut the wind own.
Speaker 2: And many a time as a kid that we would
Speaker 2: we would ride our bikes out of Bungamma and come
Speaker 2: back with But my grandfather used to have lots of
Speaker 2: lots of plants as well. He had tomatoes, great tomatoes, carrots, onions,
Speaker 2: all the vegetables you need, and he would load them
Speaker 2: up on his bike and he had handlebars that went
Speaker 2: normally that way. And somebody in the smelters welded on
Speaker 2: handles going the other way, so he could put a
Speaker 2: great big box in there, and in the box he'd
Speaker 2: have bags with tomatoes and onions or whatever, and used
Speaker 2: to get out where the men would gather at the
Speaker 2: smelter's gates. But this is another story. And he would
Speaker 2: just get there and go carrots, carrots, kurtles, and people
Speaker 2: would buy the carrots from him and the onions and
Speaker 2: whatever else he had. So he was getting paid that way.
Speaker 2: But to get into the smelterers you got to have them.
Speaker 2: You had to have a number, so that was another thing.
Speaker 2: He'd be at the smelters waiting to get a number.
Speaker 2: So when they called they wanted laborers for the day,
Speaker 2: they'd callers, so he'd go in and you'd work. Well,
Speaker 2: he was he was like a donkey. He had He
Speaker 2: had no sense of what how hard the work is
Speaker 2: that he was doing. And he'd work his guts out
Speaker 2: all day, ride his big bike out the Bungamma, go
Speaker 2: and tend to his garden, get up in the morning
Speaker 2: and and he would load up the bags again and
Speaker 2: ride into period. And I used to say when did
Speaker 2: he sleep, you know, and when when did he take
Speaker 2: a break. But he managed to find the time from
Speaker 2: knocking off at the Smelterers and coming to the Guffernil,
Speaker 2: which is a Greek club, the guff and Neil, right,
Speaker 2: they said, in there they'll gamble, and to keep those
Speaker 2: gamblers in there, the proprietor would come out with big
Speaker 2: gloves of bread and cut off grape slices and sticks
Speaker 2: of salami. You give them, you know, give them drinks
Speaker 2: and make the coffee and all this, and they stayed
Speaker 2: and played.
Speaker 1: I'm more interested in what happened when his wife and
Speaker 1: you're going to get it, daughter caught up with him.
Speaker 2: You're going to get it. He finally got enough money
Speaker 2: to bring them out. The mother, my grandmother, my mother,
Speaker 2: and their four sons. And unfortunately, the uncle that I
Speaker 2: was named after, Jim, he was involved in a car
Speaker 2: accident when it rolled. He was underneath the car and
Speaker 2: another car came along with these old t forwards, right,
Speaker 2: and they tied a rope on this car and a
Speaker 2: rope on the car, and they actually got the car
Speaker 2: off him, but the rope broke and it went down again,
Speaker 2: and the petrol tank was pierced, and he was ended
Speaker 2: up drinking petrol and he died. I think he ran
Speaker 2: out of petrol.
Speaker 1: He can't make a joke about that. Okay, that's your mom.
Speaker 1: What about your dad? How did your dad get here?
Speaker 2: He came. He came out on his own. He came
Speaker 2: out on his own when he Jesus well, nineteen sixteen
Speaker 2: he was it would have been eleven eleven. Still, yeah,
Speaker 2: we come out with other families. That's what they did.
Speaker 2: You know, they look up because at the island that
Speaker 2: they were on and Castell, Roudism was ind by the Turks.
Speaker 2: So just like when they were in Usa per year
Speaker 2: where he was born. He was actually born on the
Speaker 2: ship and when they got to Castell, Ladies and they
Speaker 2: got off there, and then another steamer took him to
Speaker 2: to Port said, and then they went from there to
Speaker 2: Alexandria and got on the steamer that brought them to Australia. Now,
Speaker 2: his father, his father, another grandfather, had a girlfriend. This
Speaker 2: is the Greek men, had a girlfriend and had a wife.
Speaker 2: He had he had six boys. Your dad's dad, Yeah,
Speaker 2: dad's dad. He had she he had six boys and
Speaker 2: girl with his girlfriend and with his wife. He had
Speaker 2: six boys. Now they came all the way from did
Speaker 2: they meet each other. No, that's the whole thing. And
Speaker 2: the only time they met was when that my father's
Speaker 2: father died and they were at the funeral and we
Speaker 2: had a photo of one family on this side and
Speaker 2: one family on that side. But when they got off
Speaker 2: here in Adelaide, right, he put one family. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I still don't know how he made contact with people.
Speaker 2: I mean there was no phones, no phones whatever. And
Speaker 2: he ended up putting one family at one end at
Speaker 2: Gilly Street and the other family at the end of
Speaker 2: Gilbert Street. So he's got them. He's got these two families.
Speaker 2: But he had to work, so he went to the
Speaker 2: steamer and said, you know, can you give me a
Speaker 2: job or whatever? And they got a job on the steamer.
Speaker 2: And he has gone back and forth from Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney.
Speaker 1: Like that for so how many kids were the third kids.
Speaker 2: Thirdey kids. So he would when he got back, Dad,
Speaker 2: you'll get off the ship. And you didn't go and
Speaker 2: mix with this family. They're mixed with that family.
Speaker 1: I don't know how the study missed. They didn't didn't.
Speaker 2: The place is full of Kakody's. But you would know
Speaker 2: you most well. You would know George Kakody who had
Speaker 2: sat George.
Speaker 1: Motives not the name, doesn't think about Okay.
Speaker 2: Anyway, he ended up with in the one of his
Speaker 2: yards next to bib stillwell, okay, so.
Speaker 1: How did how did this Greek man marry your Cypriot mother?
Speaker 1: Because they they clashed, don't they?
Speaker 2: They do? But my father was also a gambler. Okay.
Speaker 2: So when he started going to the Greek clubs and
Speaker 2: womanizing and drinking as well, and my grandfather owed my
Speaker 2: father a lot of money. And when the daughter came
Speaker 2: out and the mother and other boys, he says, here
Speaker 2: that pays my debt. Okay. So he gave my mother
Speaker 2: to my father. They got married and within twelve months
Speaker 2: she was having a baby. And then he was in
Speaker 2: real debt and ended up in Western Australia. Your dad
Speaker 2: or your grandfather, my mother, my father and the boys.
Speaker 2: I went to West Australia, West Australia, and then my
Speaker 2: father was a gambler over there. He was a fisherman.
Speaker 2: He was working with not Raptors, the other big fishing
Speaker 2: group Angelikas angel Harkas. Him and Michael's father or grandfather.
Speaker 2: He just got to school together on a donkey back
Speaker 2: in Greece, and I used to get all those stories
Speaker 2: as well. Anyway, So they came because he got into
Speaker 2: debt gambling in Western Australia. My mom decided, you're going
Speaker 2: back to We're going to go back to Port Piriy,
Speaker 2: all right, So on the ship back to Port Pierry.
Speaker 1: Now they they clashed. It didn't. It doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: a harmonious relationship.
Speaker 2: Believe me, it wasn't. You know. I had three sisters
Speaker 2: and a brother, and my sisters were married off at sixteen. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, goodness, what they did in those days. And
Speaker 2: my brother became a biky and I don't know what
Speaker 2: he did. He died.
Speaker 1: That sounds so dismissive. But that sounds so dismissive when
Speaker 1: you said he died, so well, what else?
Speaker 2: I mean? Obviously good bodies in Vietnam? What's another body
Speaker 2: is your brother? Yeah, but it's just a shell. Okay,
Speaker 2: a bit callous, but death is part of living, you know,
Speaker 2: dying as part of living.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. But they were so that sounded like,
Speaker 1: as you were saying before he came on here, your
Speaker 1: mother and father's relationship was quite violent.
Speaker 2: Well, it would be classed as it would be classed
Speaker 2: as me stick violence now, but that was the way.
Speaker 2: That was a way a lot of men.
Speaker 1: Sounds like she gave as.
Speaker 2: Good as she she did. She did.
Speaker 1: Jim Mavramatis is my guest, Folks, fascinating story back shortly.
Speaker 1: My guest in the studio is Jim Mavramatis. I hope
Speaker 1: I'm saying it correctly because it means black eye and Greece.
Speaker 1: And he said he give me one if I didn't
Speaker 1: say it correctly. He's an ambassador for Guitars for Vets
Speaker 1: and organization which helps veterans who are troubled suffering with
Speaker 1: post traumatic stress disorder, just helps and get the back
Speaker 1: on track. But I'm being distracted by his family history
Speaker 1: and the way they immigrated and how they settled in
Speaker 1: Port Pirie. Mum and Dad's relationship was quite violent. Your
Speaker 1: mother was a victim of domestic violence. She gave back
Speaker 1: sometimes as good as I can't imagine she gave back
Speaker 1: as good as she got there being a she must
Speaker 1: have been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he didn't. He didn't actually beat her up. Okay,
Speaker 2: it was the womanizing and the aga and there's no money. O.
Speaker 1: You run away from home at fourteen? How why it
Speaker 1: led to that.
Speaker 2: My mother was forever hugging my brother, you know, because
Speaker 2: his name was nick named after my father's father, which
Speaker 2: is the right thing to do, and I was named
Speaker 2: after an uncle. But but I never felt the love
Speaker 2: from my mum because she had four miscarriages before I
Speaker 2: was born. And then again I thought that I was
Speaker 2: the result of a miscarriage because I never felt love. Really,
Speaker 2: I never, never, I want. I lived out on the
Speaker 2: farm with my grandpa and my uncle from like I said,
Speaker 2: from at the age about seven, and then there was
Speaker 2: no chasing me to say come home, come home. And
Speaker 2: my uncle con was like my father. He was a
Speaker 2: merchant navy, and he was genuinely like a father. I
Speaker 2: loved him.
Speaker 1: He gave you that love back.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah yeah. And as I got old,
Speaker 2: as i'd come home from leave from the army, I'd
Speaker 2: go straight to the farm that he had and we'd
Speaker 2: set out under the grape vines, drinking wine and having
Speaker 2: a great time.
Speaker 1: So how do you make this decision to run away
Speaker 1: from home? And where do you go?
Speaker 2: When I was fourteen, I had a girlfriend and I
Speaker 2: went around her place and her big brothers just said,
Speaker 2: you can't see her again?
Speaker 1: Well really? Was she Australian?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And I was pretty upset about that. And
Speaker 2: we had this coffee bar in Port Perry called the
Speaker 2: Coconut Grove, and i'd go there because a lady behind
Speaker 2: the counter chick, she was absolutely beautiful and would feed me.
Speaker 2: And that particular day I went there and this guy
Speaker 2: said to me, Jim, I'm sorry your girlfriend's left you
Speaker 2: and she's coming with me now. So that that upset me,
Speaker 2: and I at that age, you know, it was really hard,
Speaker 2: you know, fourteen and losing your girlfriend to some dickhead. Anyway,
Speaker 2: so what's happened? So I just went home and I
Speaker 2: went in home and I got my little sugar bag
Speaker 2: that you always had on my bike just in case.
Speaker 2: I found some empty drink bottles, just like they do now,
Speaker 2: because they were worth they were worth six months, I
Speaker 2: think it was sixpennies and I just jumped on the
Speaker 2: my bike and I thought it's a long way to
Speaker 2: Wala and I was just out of Poor Perrie. So
Speaker 2: I threw my bike in the bushes and I had
Speaker 2: thumb to ride and I got to ride all the
Speaker 2: way to Whaler and I was great and the guy
Speaker 2: bought me, brought me a pass and a pie and sauce,
Speaker 2: and it was yeah. And then I stayed in Whaler until.
Speaker 1: So let me get let me clarify this. You see,
Speaker 1: you're fourteen, You rock up in a strange town. How
Speaker 1: do you find somewhere else?
Speaker 2: Well, it was a stranger my sister was. And this
Speaker 2: guy took me straight through thirteen Nelligan Street where she lived.
Speaker 2: I still remember that. And they were beautiful. My sister
Speaker 2: was just a bundle of joy. She had the greatest
Speaker 2: sense of humor, told the fowlless jokes. And her husband
Speaker 2: smoked Peter stuyves and he smoked about sixty cigarettes a day.
Speaker 2: Poor bugger died of cancer. But he was a beautiful man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and my sister was just so happy. There was no violence.
Speaker 2: She still was, no, no, no. She died years ago.
Speaker 2: She died from a modern neurone disease, as caused by
Speaker 2: the side smoke.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you ever reconcile with your mom and dad?
Speaker 2: Uh? My dad died and Mum rang me and said,
Speaker 2: your father just died. And I went down and I
Speaker 2: rang the undertaker, and again I had there was no
Speaker 2: There was no I just lost my father, none of that.
Speaker 2: But when that happened to my uncle con it was
Speaker 2: totally different. It was an out flow of motion. But
Speaker 2: when my mother died, it was to me was there
Speaker 2: was the nail in the coffin. I went to kiss
Speaker 2: her because we knew that she was going to die
Speaker 2: within a couple of hours. I went to kiss her,
Speaker 2: and she turned her head, and I thought, Jesus, she
Speaker 2: never loved me. And she did that right at the
Speaker 2: very end. And I haven't forgotten that. And that's why
Speaker 2: my kids at at the any moment, I just hug
Speaker 2: them and kiss them. And even their friends used to
Speaker 2: come around. What about my hug give them hugs as well.
Speaker 2: And that's just my household is all love.
Speaker 1: And so how old were you when your mom died?
Speaker 2: Ah, I would have been. I would have been close
Speaker 2: to sixty, I reckon, But she lived. She suffered with
Speaker 2: the age on set diabetes. And then I had my uncle.
Speaker 2: My three uncles also died with age on set diabetes.
Speaker 2: And I just don't take sugar, and I drink really
Speaker 2: good wine when I do, but I don't want to
Speaker 2: get diabetes because it's a death sentence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, So when did you join the army at seventeen?
Speaker 2: I turned seventeen in sixty two and I joined in
Speaker 2: May sixty.
Speaker 1: Three before the Vietnam one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well the Vietnam War started in sixty two.
Speaker 2: We had our advisors over. The advisors. Yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 2: really put the shits up me too when they come
Speaker 2: back and to a chuke, you know, a model of this,
Speaker 2: and then they show you pictures of all these heads
Speaker 2: on steaks and say you've got to be carefully by
Speaker 2: these people that take ahad of us.
Speaker 1: So I.
Speaker 2: Was terrified to go to Vietnam. And but that was
Speaker 2: my job. I was trained as a green clad jungle killer,
Speaker 2: train to ruthless efficiency. And I believe that that I
Speaker 2: was a killer.
Speaker 1: That's what they that's what they pounded into it. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you indoctrinated to.
Speaker 2: That, and I believed it. It didn't like to talk
Speaker 2: about death. Well, I was prepared to die for God,
Speaker 2: Queen and country. It's you know, it's it's that loyalty
Speaker 2: that it's not here in this country anymore. I don't
Speaker 2: feel it, I don't see it.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting concept that are you prepared to die
Speaker 1: for your country? We haven't been faced with that dilemma
Speaker 1: here and as young people here in Australia were compared
Speaker 1: to what's happening overseas. But you're sent there as a soldier.
Speaker 2: What unit were you with? Was with five Battalion. I
Speaker 2: was a section of commander. I was acting platoon sergeant
Speaker 2: at one stage. But I had a section of eight
Speaker 2: guys who were nine of us and we went to
Speaker 2: the top of Neuir Dad and we cleaned it and
Speaker 2: cleared it, I mean, and then I got sick. And
Speaker 2: that was, you know, that was the turning point in
Speaker 2: my life that I always said when I got better,
Speaker 2: I would I would look after veterans, do what I
Speaker 2: can do. This this whole thing about PDSD, it can
Speaker 2: be PDSD in many forms. And mine was chronic, really chronic.
Speaker 2: I was self medicating three bottles of red. I was
Speaker 2: a general manager. I was I was a human resource
Speaker 2: manager at a brewing company. What a great job if
Speaker 2: you're an alcoholic and you've got a fridge that gets
Speaker 2: filled with beer every day. My mind got filled every day.
Speaker 2: But and where I remember the boss coming down and saying,
Speaker 2: how come your fridge gets filled up every day? And
Speaker 2: I say, I've got a lot of friends, you know,
Speaker 2: they come a visit me, tell us.
Speaker 1: About the illness. Though you had to come home. It
Speaker 1: was a understand in the conditions in which you lived
Speaker 1: and operated, you infested with hookworm.
Speaker 2: Oh well, that's a real story. That still pains me
Speaker 2: that to think. There. I was fifteen stone five. I
Speaker 2: had just missed out on paratrooper because I was too heavy,
Speaker 2: because a couple of New Zealand has just under that
Speaker 2: weight landed broke their legs and so they said no
Speaker 2: more at this weight. So I didn't bother about that.
Speaker 2: What it was that I want to be be the
Speaker 2: best I could. And you know it's great with spit
Speaker 2: polishing and ironing and all those things, but going to
Speaker 2: Vietnam and being on patrol, you know yourself, you flake
Speaker 2: out or anything happens. It takes four of you to
Speaker 2: carry to carry you, and the others are carrying the
Speaker 2: weapons and defending you, right, And that happened a couple
Speaker 2: of times. I just and then when I was put
Speaker 2: into the hospital, Vuntao, uh this, this doctor said to me,
Speaker 2: we didn't know what's wrong with you, you know you
Speaker 2: I was I was constantly the fluids coming out and
Speaker 2: I couldn't understand that. And then they sent me to
Speaker 2: the Republic of Career Hospital that was there for a
Speaker 2: burium enema and a burium meal to see and they
Speaker 2: found that I had I had, I had a huge
Speaker 2: shadow just here and they determined that was an ulcer
Speaker 2: on the stomach. Yeah, in my dual dinum, but it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It was the hookworm. There were millions of them because
Speaker 2: the microscopic, not like the hookworms that that people think about.
Speaker 2: These are all microscopic and they're like just three teeth
Speaker 2: and they hook in and they suck the life out
Speaker 2: of you. Anyway, so I was in there.
Speaker 1: It's one of the more guys, did you contract an
Speaker 1: out exactly through food or I.
Speaker 2: Have no idea, no idea because I used to walk
Speaker 2: around and the paladron in their bottles and in.
Speaker 1: My own's the medication we had to take to fa
Speaker 1: malaria for malaria, and the then CEOs would have to
Speaker 1: walk around to make sure you took it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah we did. And I don't know that nobody
Speaker 2: could tell me what was wrong with me. It's just
Speaker 2: that my eyes were you know, great, you know what's
Speaker 2: his name? That when they used to bite the chucks
Speaker 2: off their head off the chokes. Well, my eyes were
Speaker 2: like that. I had big black rings around there. And
Speaker 2: if you press my nails, like if you press them now,
Speaker 2: it will go pink, but mine didn't. It will stay
Speaker 2: white underneath. And that's how a nimic I was.
Speaker 1: We need to take a break, but this is a
Speaker 1: fascinating story. We'll get to the bottom of. Jim Mavromatis
Speaker 1: is my guest, folks, my guess in the studio is
Speaker 1: Jim Mavramadas. A young fellaw of Greek and Syparate heritage,
Speaker 1: ran away from home at fourteen, joined the army at seventeen,
Speaker 1: went to Vietnam. Contracted hookworm.
Speaker 2: They don't know, they just ended up. They just mentioned
Speaker 2: it was hookworm. I didn't forget. They lost by rosis
Speaker 2: where what was scratched yourself? You just bleed and it
Speaker 2: was caused by rats here there.
Speaker 1: So they eventually diagnosed what was wrong with you.
Speaker 2: They did not not in not in not in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: I was flying to Butterworth and then flown to Peers,
Speaker 2: and then from Peers they flew me to Inaugra hospital
Speaker 2: and then from Inaugura I came to uh Door Park.
Speaker 2: I was in there for two weeks before they told
Speaker 2: my family I was back in Australia. And even even there,
Speaker 2: they didn't know what was wrong with me until one
Speaker 2: day because I said that my feces was like water.
Speaker 2: They were They started taking samples out of that and
Speaker 2: found the lava of of hookworm and that that was.
Speaker 2: That was after. We used to be members of the
Speaker 2: Colombo Plan and we used to bring doctors out from Malaysia.
Speaker 2: And I had a few doctors that came into the
Speaker 2: hospital with their tutor and I coughed. I coughed this
Speaker 2: enormous phlegm and this guy went scooped it off from
Speaker 2: a chest. He said, I'll be back in a minute.
Speaker 2: I'm going over the laboratory. So he took it over
Speaker 2: and he started incubating it to see what was in there,
Speaker 2: and they found the hookworm and came back and he said,
Speaker 2: is what I expected. I suspected. So this is a
Speaker 2: guy from from Malaysia And he said, you've got hookworm.
Speaker 2: And then hookworm was rife in New Guinea, right, so
Speaker 2: did I get that from New Guinea? Totally different type
Speaker 2: of hookworm? In our troops got the big hookworm, and
Speaker 2: they were treated with this stuff called al capar, and
Speaker 2: al capar was it was. It's like like making jelly
Speaker 2: and letting it set and then trying to drink it.
Speaker 2: It was and the taste was absolutely disgusting. And so
Speaker 2: I struggled with that, but nothing happened. Nothing worked. Ten days.
Speaker 2: They wanted me to do this for ten days, and
Speaker 2: my fieces didn't change other than they've got the color
Speaker 2: of the alcapar.
Speaker 1: Would they get rid of it eventually? They must have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, When when this Malaysian guy came in, they said
Speaker 2: they had been doing trials with carbon tetri chloride, which
Speaker 2: just try cleaning fluid. So I would have these capsules,
Speaker 2: six capsules right of this carbon tetrachloride in a gel capsule,
Speaker 2: so one every minute, and so the first one after
Speaker 2: six minutes that it would explode and then I had
Speaker 2: to breathe like this anyway, and sometimes you know who
Speaker 2: you know ticklish, I could sneeze and all the time.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I did this. It took the six capsules
Speaker 2: and they let me go for two days, and then
Speaker 2: they tested my fieces to see if there was anything
Speaker 2: in it. And they found some dead bodies right of hookworm,
Speaker 2: and they said, we'll do another, do it again. When
Speaker 2: they did it the second time, they waited ten days,
Speaker 2: so really let it get into my system. And what
Speaker 2: they found that was the hookworm were getting into my dualdenum.
Speaker 2: They got into my bloodstream, and then they would come
Speaker 2: up and go through my lungs right and breed in
Speaker 2: my lungs. They'd lay their eggs in my lungs. They
Speaker 2: would have to come up and go down my sophocus,
Speaker 2: down to my trick head, down into my well.
Speaker 1: You got rid of it.
Speaker 2: You're a big strong guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I went.
Speaker 2: But I was nice stone six. Then I just lost
Speaker 2: a bit of weight, but I reckon, I look good, the.
Speaker 1: Most fine looking man you must have been. Okay, so
Speaker 1: your hookworm's fixed, but then you're beset by, you know,
Speaker 1: the trauma of your time in Vietnam. How did you
Speaker 1: deal with that? What were your symptoms?
Speaker 2: So I had already seen a psychiatrist because I joined
Speaker 2: the VVF Vietnam Veterans Federation, And they said to me
Speaker 2: that have you seen a psych yet? And I said, no,
Speaker 2: I haven't. So they sent me to a guy called Marty,
Speaker 2: youre lovely guy. And he wrote out a chit for
Speaker 2: me not to go back to work for three months.
Speaker 2: So I didn't go back to work, and then I
Speaker 2: was still I was seeing him and I was getting worse.
Speaker 2: You know, I was just angry with everything. It didn't matter.
Speaker 2: It was the kids and my wife. They saw all
Speaker 2: this coming through for years. When I got this chit,
Speaker 2: I rang up and told him that I won't be
Speaker 2: coming to work for three months, and stupidly they terminated me,
Speaker 2: and not understanding that you can't be terminated while you're
Speaker 2: while you're on sick leave, and in my case, while
Speaker 2: I was had pat PDSD as a result of the
Speaker 2: Vietnam War. And so I contacted marter you were saying
Speaker 2: that they they had sacked me, and he said, well,
Speaker 2: I can't do that because of the certificate. Just take
Speaker 2: the certificate in and put it on the counter and
Speaker 2: walk out. So I did that, and then I got
Speaker 2: this lovely letter that said, dear Jim, you know, thank
Speaker 2: you very much for your your time with us, but
Speaker 2: due to your abrogation of your of your position because
Speaker 2: I was a senior manager, we have to terminate you.
Speaker 2: And I didn't mind because they were they paid me
Speaker 2: out for more years than I was there. But they
Speaker 2: stuffed up. They tried to take my car and turned
Speaker 2: it into an ovated lease and so they wouldn't have
Speaker 2: to pay as much money. But I I tripped them
Speaker 2: up on that as well, because I was the human
Speaker 2: source manager. I knew all the rules. I said it Chris,
Speaker 2: I actually it was Chris, my wife and Marty. I
Speaker 2: was in with her with Marty Eyore because he wanted
Speaker 2: her to come in. And then I just I really
Speaker 2: broke down emotionally. Just everything got to me, the family thing,
Speaker 2: the running away, going to Vietnam, and it was just
Speaker 2: a multitude of events within my brain. But I've put
Speaker 2: it down to I call it perturbation. It's like when
Speaker 2: you put the red balls on a billiard table in
Speaker 2: the triangle, take the triangle off, you go down the
Speaker 2: other end, you get the queue, and you hit the
Speaker 2: queue as hard as all the white ball as hard
Speaker 2: as you can, hoping that the balls would go in
Speaker 2: the pocket. And that's what my head was like. I
Speaker 2: couldn't compartmentalize, and it was a constant wearing, you know,
Speaker 2: dishwasher watching machine. And I was angry all the time,
Speaker 2: and I mean angry, but I didn't. I didn't damage
Speaker 2: the furniture. I didn't damage my relationship with my wife
Speaker 2: or my kids. It was just I just I just
Speaker 2: wanted to kill someone.
Speaker 1: It sounds like your journey was long and difficult. How
Speaker 1: did you find peace in the end.
Speaker 2: Guitars were when Dave rang me in twenty seventeen and
Speaker 2: I went and did my very first. I got my
Speaker 2: first application for him in and I checked it out,
Speaker 2: checked out the guy's number and whatever. And he lived
Speaker 2: in Lara, which was just up the road from Ocean Grove,
Speaker 2: where I lived, And so I jumped in my car
Speaker 2: and I went there, and there was the guy you're
Speaker 2: build anyway. He's got these two guitars in his hand,
Speaker 2: and he put one under his shoulder and put his
Speaker 2: hand out like that grabbed my hand and I thought
Speaker 2: the bars has run over my hair with a truck.
Speaker 2: It was so strong. Played concert guitar, classic guitar. When
Speaker 2: I sat with his wife and we had lunch to
Speaker 2: get he gave me these two guitars and he said,
Speaker 2: whoever you give these two, just tell him. My name
Speaker 2: was Brian and I'm a wood chopper and I make
Speaker 2: sleep red gum sleepers. No wonder you keep putting a
Speaker 2: crush my hand. Anyway, two days after he gave me
Speaker 2: the guitars, he died. Oh but that was my that
Speaker 2: was my turning point.
Speaker 1: So you're able to get some funding through the assistance
Speaker 1: of Sarah Game, our independent and member of the legislative
Speaker 1: council here. And so where does that take you? And
Speaker 1: how many of you? How many guys you're working with now?
Speaker 2: The ten thousand dollars I got does twenty veterans, right,
Speaker 2: So we have payment for the guitars, which we have
Speaker 2: a wonderful deal with artist guitars. They delivered to the door.
Speaker 2: The whole thing about we've been noticed, you know, we've
Speaker 2: been going twenty seventeen and we've been going to rssels.
Speaker 2: We've been going to rsseels are not even interested in
Speaker 2: too talking to you. But I've got four now that
Speaker 2: are right on top of this. It wasn't the money.
Speaker 2: It was Sarah Game who who said, you know, come
Speaker 2: and have a cup of coffee. And we talked about
Speaker 2: over a cup of coffee, and you were there and
Speaker 2: it was just wonderful that all of a sudden somebody's
Speaker 2: really trying to help us.
Speaker 1: So you have to you have to have any experience
Speaker 1: of playing guitar to join Guitars for Vets.
Speaker 2: I could use you one of my mentors because I've
Speaker 2: got I've got these four groups now that I'm looking
Speaker 2: for mentors. Yeah, that you're on and I know you
Speaker 2: play the guitar. Well, I hold, I don't mind homework.
Speaker 1: So anyone like a VET who might be it doesn't
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter from which conflict because we've got the
Speaker 1: young events. These are not just Vietnam bets.
Speaker 2: Look, these are the driving factors for me. Every six
Speaker 2: weeks i'll wring somebody up with one of the vets
Speaker 2: has done the program very quickly. The pro is this,
Speaker 2: you fill out an application form, I check it, go through,
Speaker 2: make sure you're a veteran. I then ring you up
Speaker 2: and say have you got a guitar? Or sometimes on
Speaker 2: the thing they say they don't have a guitar, and
Speaker 2: then I order a guitar from They get the guitar,
Speaker 2: hopefully within a week or if they're South Australian or
Speaker 2: in Adelaide, I will deliver them. Last weekend I delivered
Speaker 2: eighteen guitars Wow, it's eighteen veterans in that we've picked
Speaker 2: up now over the six week period, right, so it's
Speaker 2: like three a week. But I had eighteen guitars sent
Speaker 2: to me and I went out and delivered them, shook hands.
Speaker 2: But the feedback I get because when they do the course,
Speaker 2: after they've done the course at random, I've just pick
Speaker 2: out a name and I speak to the veteran, how
Speaker 2: are you going, what's it like with the guitar? And
Speaker 2: can I speak to your WiFi? I know not at
Speaker 2: the moment anyway, but do you need a hand, you
Speaker 2: want to do a refresher or whatever? Because I've had
Speaker 2: guys back to as I said twenty seventeen, and then
Speaker 2: one day I rang this guy Pete. He was one
Speaker 2: of my first guys in South Australia that filled out
Speaker 2: a form and I took a guitar to him and
Speaker 2: then I went home and he looked a bit whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I went home, I rang him again and he didn't
Speaker 2: answer the phone. His wife answered it and I said
Speaker 2: it's Pete there, and she said yeah, she said who
Speaker 2: is it? And I told her and he's in the shower.
Speaker 2: Is anything I could talk to you about? I said,
Speaker 2: I just want to know how he's going. You want
Speaker 2: to know how he's going, ask me how I'm going.
Speaker 2: I said, well, how are you going? She said, no
Speaker 2: more bruises? Wow, And I thought, what am I doing
Speaker 2: this for? You know, no more bruises was such a
Speaker 2: powerful statement. But some of the others that, you know,
Speaker 2: the writing I get from a thank you very much,
Speaker 2: he's a different person. I've had guys ring me up
Speaker 2: and say I'm going to sue you. To Jesus four,
Speaker 2: my wife doesn't buy any more cigarettes. I say, well,
Speaker 2: what's that got to do with me? He said, I
Speaker 2: tell her to get me the cigarettes, and what she
Speaker 2: does she puts him in my guitar case. And She've
Speaker 2: got these chains around the bloody guitar case and locks
Speaker 2: all over the place, and I've got to unlock it
Speaker 2: order to get a cigarette. I don't smoke anymore, and
Speaker 2: I've won. One guy say that he leans his guitar
Speaker 2: on the door of his beer fridge every time he
Speaker 2: goes to get a beer. He's got to pick up
Speaker 2: his guitar and he starts playing that and forgets about
Speaker 2: the beer, and his wife saying, I'm earning an extra
Speaker 2: twenty five to thirty dollars a week with his beer money.
Speaker 1: Just quickly, Vett's listen to this. What do they do?
Speaker 1: How do they contact you?
Speaker 2: They can go online and go to ww guitar Soavets
Speaker 2: Australia dot com.
Speaker 1: That's four. That's a number four.
Speaker 2: Guitars, Number four bets the Vets Australia. Yeah, oh god.
Speaker 1: Jim, great story, I mean a sad story in times
Speaker 1: and a traumatic journey that you've had, but great work
Speaker 1: you're doing. So thanks to Sarah Game for supporting you
Speaker 1: and thanks for you for coming in. We could have
Speaker 1: gone for a lot longer. All the best, mate, Jim
Speaker 1: mavro Martas Guitars for Vets, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us, folks,