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Featured Member - June 2004

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Our featured member for June 2004 is Norm Heath. Norm is well known to many in MTC and has had an interesting life - as you will read below. Since I can't hope to compete with Norm's wonderful sense of humour, I'll let him tell his story in his own words.
"I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on the 13th of September 1937 and from memory it was a Monday. My mother never forgave me since she always did the laundry on a Monday and my arrival stuffed things up. My father had to wear the same shirt for the ensuing week due to my bad timing. My first memories of my father were that he needed a clean shirt.
The family moved to a place called Baldernock, just outside Glasgow, when I was about 18 months old but I managed to find them and moved in. My father was a chauffeur and came from a long line of chauffeurs/coachmen. I have no idea why they were queuing up.

Not long after we moved there the war broke out - the second world war that is - and as usual I got the blame for that too. We were quite remote from everything, our nearest neighbour was about half a mile away, and our only connection with the outside world was an old valve radio which ran on a battery - we had no electricity there for the first 10 years. Happy days. Primary school was a mile and a half away and I either walked or cycled there to join the other 31 pupils in the school. I graduated from primary school in 1948 and then went to high school in Glasgow. I managed to stay there for 4 years before I went off to earn a living as an apprentice marine fitter on the Clydeside, completing my apprenticeship in 1958. Then I joined the Merchant Navy as an engineer sailing with a variety of shipping lines until my amorous adventures landed me in church and before I knew it I was saying "I do". End of my world adventures.

The next few years created a passion for flying, which is expensive and two daughters, also expensive. The double expense inevitably meant that something had to go and, eventually, my malnourished kids won the day and my flying days were over. I then decided to take up sailing and over the next ten years had 4 boats 2 of which were yachts that I built myself.

I moved to Melbourne in 1990 and from there moved to Perth in 1996. At that time I was scratching around for a full time job since my job as a salesman for breathalysers was not a paying proposition. I saw an ad in the paper where they were looking for extras in the TV and film industry and I thought I'd give that a go - anything for a dollar or two. So in 1997 my acting career started to take shape and I got a bit of paid work doing ads and short films. Mind you some of the short films only paid $20.00 but it was money and with the other work I was doing helped pay the bills.

From there I thought it would be a good idea to get some more experience and joined Melville Theatre. My introduction to amateur theatre was Blithe Spirit - back stage - doing the sound effects of the cuckoo for Madame Arcati. My next effort was on stage as Antonio/the Captain in Shakespeare's 12th Night - directed by Keith Devenport. Great fun, and I was bitten by the bug.

I have had the extreme good fortune to have landed parts in plays such as Rebecca, Sinbad, Toe in the Water and Theft (Harbour Theatre) as well as some one act productions - Last Scene of All and Stalemate (Harbour).

I'm retired now - but not from the acting scene and still get the odd ad or film. Latest amateur theatre role is the part of Prof. Van Helsing in Dracula coming up in August at Harbour Theatre. In between all that I help out on the STS Leeuwin as relief engineer, try to get in at least 2 rounds of golf each week, paddle my kayak with the club of alternate Fridays and go ballroom dancing."