13. There is certainly a world of difference about achievement between an idea that happens in the blink of an eye and its realisation over time.

“Jeffrey went back to Wales soon after operations started in The Fall of 1934 and he wasn’t seen again until 1947 when drastically changed circumstances forced him to come out. Why he never even came out for the burial of his own son James Jones and Emily his grand-daughter – shocking I call it. What kind of man is that? We despised him. None of us could work out why he didn’t come out.”
Richard had found a notice that went round in St. John’s when the Company was first looking for workers. It stated that wages would be paid 50 cents per hour for a 10-hour day with board found. As soon as word got round there was work in the woods there was a rush of applications; without much thought about vetting their quality. There was desperate poverty on The Rock in the 1930s. Folk would do almost anything for work.
But nobody liked dole payments.
They hit self-dignity like a sledgehammer.
When they had arrived in Wild Bay they soon felt the full effects of Jeffrey’s attitude about providing decent houses for his workers. In a confidential letter to Kevin Quigley the Company Manager, he called it “dead capital expenditure.” Only 26 out of 400 houses were ever built and they were kept for the sole use of the Company staff and their visitors. Some were left without a roof, only with cut-off slabs for walls. Wages were about half the advertised rate, on top of which the men had to pay 60 cents per day for their meals and 10 cents a month for their straw mattress.
For now; Richard was enjoying taking in the wonderful family clutter of Oscar’s living room. A lifetime collection of valuables. Elsie his wife, was very proud of her Great Great Grandmother’s collection of Wedgwood pottery. Blue willow plates, cups, saucers and one brightly coloured yellow Lisbon bowl, all neatly displayed in her tallboy next to the serving hatch into the kitchen. A clutch of framed certificates about