Step back in time

14 Sep 2016

Before he was retired and a Probian, George Raphael fought in the navy during the war, stood up for workers’ rights and sailed from Melbourne to London via the Suez Canal. This is his story.

George was on the cusp of adulthood when he signed up for the Royal Australian Navy at the outbreak of World War II. Putting aside his dreams of training as an architect, he stepped aboard the HMAS Norman, one of five N-Class Destroyers loaned to Australia by the Royal Navy (RN), which mainly operated in the Indian Ocean under RN command.

“We were one of the first ships to be equipped with radar,” recalls George. “But as soon as the war finished, the RN took them back and gave Australia five clapped out Destroyers in their place!”

After the war, George discovered that the government was willing to fund three years of training, not the four he needed, to be an architect. So he took a tangent, got married and became an industrial relations manager.

“We had 26 unions and 26,000 employees. There was hardly a day that we didn’t have some strike somewhere,” he explains. “But I like dealing with people and being able to negotiate – you have to be a good listener. You can’t rush. You need to find the areas where you do agree and give and take from there.”

By the mid-1960s, George had helped steer hundreds of successful negotiations and was keen to see more of the world. During his well-earned long service leave, he sailed from Melbourne to London via the Suez Canal, drove 16,000 miles all over Europe and then sailed home via the Panama Canal.

“I was lucky enough to be in London at the installation of Lodge Australia and then I sailed north up to Norway and Iceland under the midnight sun, right up near the Russian border,” recalls George. “The sun never went below the horizon, so you could do things like play golf at midnight in a town called Tromso in Iceland – it’s a whole other world!”

Now, in his retirement, George proudly notes that he is a founding member of his local Probus club, Aspendale-Mordialloc in Victoria, which was among the first to be chartered when it formed in 1984.

Soon, the club attracted an extra 200 people interested in joining Probus and thus two more clubs – Mentone and Parkdale – were formed at the turn of the decade.

George says that the things that most attracted him to Probus were the club’s community focus and camaraderie. In his 31 years as a member, he’s served as President and Treasurer and helped organise outings. He’s now 90 years old (“I’m the same as the Queen, 1926”).

“[Our club] has been all over Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Tasmania and Norfolk Island. We always have a waiting list of members for those trips. I think the support of our members has been the secret to staying alive.”