One door shuts, another opens

Recruitment for the Public Service slowed substantially during the 1930s and the department was made to carry its share of the burden. Jobs, when offered, were highly prized and immediately accepted, whatever the circumstances.

A young man who sat for the Public Service examination in 1935 had finished in the top 100 out of more than 1000 candidates. Such was the lack of employment, his number had not come up within almost a year of the examination, but fate took a hand and created a position for him.

A junior clerk at the Maryborough Court of Petty Sessions (as it was then called) had finished work at lunchtime on a Saturday and had been given the day’s takings to take to the bank – a princely sum of about £23. The junior clerk, however, had other plans for the takings. He knew of a trotter racing at the Maryborough Showground that simply couldn’t lose. Of course, it did.

He stood in the dock of his soon-to-be-former employer on the Monday morning charged with stealing as a servant. Despite being a young man of previously unblemished character, he was sentenced to three months’ jail with hard labour, stripped of all entitlements earned while a public servant, and sacked on conviction.

Later that afternoon a telegram from the Public Service Commissioner arrived at the home of the young man who had done so well in his exams. The telegram told him to report at Maryborough Courthouse the next morning to start duty as a clerk on probation in the office of the clerk of petty sessions at the starting salary of £65 a year, less 11.25 per cent depression loading.

The young man jumped at the chance. His name was Tommy Parslow, later to become Brigadier Thomas Parslow, RFD, QC and eventually Crown Solicitor for Queensland.