When My Number Came Up

An embarrassment of riches

Graham Tucker said he was “old school”. And looked it. But underneath the slicked back hair, the dark suit, and the white pocket square lurked a man who loved a good Queensland story. He was chairman of Suncorp and Queensland’s most well-known business executive. He was also a handy batsman…now read on…

In 1991, two years after my childhood memoir Over the Top with Jim was published, the chairman of Queensland’s most important corporation, Suncorp -- Graham Tucker -- invited me to his boardroom on the top of the SGIO building in the centre of Brisbane.

We’d never met, so I wondered why the hell he was inviting me, of all people, but thought I’d go along and find out.

When I arrived, the chairman greeted me at the lift and took me into a boardroom full of businessmen in suits. It was his annual meeting with all his Suncorp Board members plus the bosses of the dozen top Queensland companies in which Suncorp held a sizeable financial interest.

Graham Tucker was a renowned director of companies in Queensland. Old school, his dark hair was slicked back with a definite part, which gave him the look of a 1950s titan of industry. I’d heard he went to Churchie (Church of England Grammar School), whereas I had been taught by the Christian Brothers at St Joseph’s College, Gregory Terrace – a celebrated enemy of Churchie -- so why was I here?

Not for the old school tie.

There seemed no obvious connection: he was a Director of Bank of Queensland, chairman of the Queensland Chamber of Mines, deputy Chairman of Evans Deakin — one of two companies that built the Story Bridge. Plus he was a Director of Queensland Cement and had been a senior partner of a national accountancy firm. Whereas I was an author sitting at home in an old Queenslander writing a book. What could he possibly want with me? The one thing I knew precious little about was large corporations and, in particular, mining companies.

But anyway, Tucker motioned me to sit on his left-hand side and I listened up.

I was immediately surprised how aggressively he spoke to these chairmen, general managers, managing directors, all representatives of important Queensland organisations: the Port of Brisbane, Queensland United Foods, Queensland Cement, Bank of Queensland… plus the National Australia Bank, and all the Board members of Suncorp.

Tucker was more or less demanding that some of these companies get their act together and make more dividends for Suncorp.

When they made excuses, he put them down.

It was like watching Tony Fitzgerald in the famous corruption inquiry when Fitzgerald took on slow-moving barristers in the courtroom, and told them loudly: “Why are you asking that? We heard that yesterday”. So, I concluded, Tucker was a man, like Fitzgerald, who knew that he knew what he was doing.

After the hour-long haranguing for more and better profits and share prices, coffee and sandwiches were served to calm the room. Now Tucker charmed his guests… motioning me along with him as a sort of exhibit as he mingled. But why?

Then, as he poured us both a coffee in the corner of the room, all became apparent. He’d read Over the Top with Jim and told me how he and his brother had also grown up in Annerley -- on Ipswich Road – and he related, in great detail, a story about the silver Brisbane trams which once zoomed through Annerley up the middle of Ipswich Road heading for Salisbury, Beaudesert or Moorooka, or back to the city.

Brisbane tram 1938. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Neg 104198

“As you wrote, Hugh,” he said, “at peak hour those trams were overflowing, people were hanging off the sides. And like you and Jackie in Ekibin Road, my brother and I played cricket alongside Ipswich Road. So, one day, I’m facing up to my brother and he bowls short outside the off-stump and I pulled the ball – it was one of those hard, hard cork balls – high over the fence. Boy, was I annoyed because over the fence in backyard cricket is out. I watched that red ball sail over the wide footpath, over the passing cars, and right, would you believe it, right into a fast-moving tram full of people heading for Salisbury: we skedaddled and made ourselves scarce.

“There’s a story you could put in your next book.”

That was when I realised, although this Graham Tucker was a partner, a chairman, a captain of finance and industry, he was actually in essence a frustrated writer.

And that’s why I was there.

…

There was, as there usually is, another reason.

Suncorp was that year going to celebrate 75 years of existence since it had started out as the State Government Insurance Office [SGIO] in 1916.

Tucker wanted Suncorp to give the Queensland people something that would make a lasting impression on their community. So he’d decided to produce a book. He was going to hold the Suncorp Commemorative Literary Awards – a state-wide essay competition on the topic “the future of our state” – and then to publish the best of them in hardback for Queensland-wide distribution.

 

Would I agree to be one of three judges? Along with Tom Barton, general secretary of the Trades and Labour Council of Queensland, and chair of our panel, John Florence, a lawyer and director of numerous Queensland companies involved in cement, petroleum, and oil.

The final essay topic was: “A design for Queensland’s future: how I would ensure Queensland’s economic and social progress over the next 25 years.” The mouth-watering prize was a round-the-world air ticket for two.

Tucker was a persuasive man, so I agreed – not knowing that I would have to read and compare a huge pile of some 60 long essays – most of them excellent -- for no reward.

They made an annoying pile on the small card table that doubled as a writing desk at home.

All of the names of the writers – their gender, age and place of abode -- had been removed and, instead, each essay had been allocated an impersonal number. Thus, the judges had to discuss the merits of “number 43” compared to “number 12”, or “number 56” compared to “number 6”. On the card table I used tea-towels to cover all my notes for my next book; then covered the radio serial I was writing for the ABC with more tea towels; and another layer of tea-towels went on notes for a newspaper column...  until we had nothing to wipe up with for weeks.

Graham Tucker had set out comprehensive selection criteria for the judges – it wasn’t just a matter of “most enjoyable” or “best writing” or “best idea”. No!... Among other things we had to judge “above average command of English”, “literary skill of the author”… “originality of the content”… “evidence of research”… “evidence of thought…”.

It took fully two weeks to go carefully through them all, but it was pretty clear to me that essay “number 32” was superior because of the clarity of the writing and the breadth of the good ideas.

For example, Number 32 wrote:

The first house I would like to put in order would be our Parliament. Our constitution was not designed for party politics… (where) politicians can blame the consequences of poorly considered actions on a political party rather than on the individuals who made the decisions… The system of party politics allows the majority to coerce its members to vote against their conscience or against the will of the electors… The Greeks had a word, “idiotes”, for those who through selfishness, laziness, or stupidity did not exercise their right and duty. Thus, the word idiot originally meant a person who kept to himself and shunned responsibility.”

Number 32 wanted responsibility passed back to the individual... suggesting that contentious issues could be put to voters four times a year with electricity bills or rates bills. “Then perhaps parliamentarians -- made brave by the knowledge they have the support of their electors -- would have the courage to make brave decisions.”

With clarity of thought, this writer suggested that every change to our future should always pose this one question: “Must it be so?”

Not unnaturally, both Tom Barton and John Florence had each found their own favourite essay.

In two two-hour meetings I argued long and hard for Number 32.

Eventually, we all agreed on this choice.

Graham Tucker was so excited that he put on a gala black-tie dinner for hundreds with a mouth-watering menu of Poached Salmon Trout followed by Loin of Lamb before dessert.

It was not exclusively an all-male affair, but near enough that Suncorp relations officer Hilarie Dunn, business identity Marie Watson-Blake, and the table decorations added the only colour to the penguin black-and-white.

Wearing my brother’s dinner suit, I sat in the audience of hundreds at a table with the other judges and a few noted businessmen. One man did stand out from this regimented crowd. As I looked across the room among the twice-shaved executives I noticed a man with a larger-than-Santa-Claus beard which curled out in every direction from his weather-beaten face.

What a moment when Graham Tucker opened the envelope and announced that the winning essay was Number 32, written by a Mr Kevin Grealy, an art teacher who had spent his life encouraging others in art: he had worked for the Flying Art School, had managed the Aboriginal Pottery School at Cherbourg, and was the environmental spokesman for the Beerburrum Community.

The name sounded familiar!

It was the same name of a classmate of mine at Gregory Terrace who drew hilarious caricatures of our teachers.

Santa Claus leapt out of his seat to collect his prize on stage… but deviated towards our table and threw his arms around me in front of my two fellow judges.

“Hugh! Hugh! Hughie! It’s so lovely to see you again after all these years. Thank you. I haven’t seen you since Brother Campbell sent you home from the athletics at Churchie!…. thank-you, thank-you, thank-you. I married a Canadian girl and now we can do what had always seemed impossible and go and visit her family, like we’ve always wanted.”

John Florence and Tom Barton looked up at this tableau but I could not speak, for my head was half-buried in this grey beard.

Winner of the 1991 Suncorp Literary Prize Kevin Grealy

POSTSCRIPT: A decade later, when I arrived to speak at a literary breakfast, I couldn’t miss him because of the haircut and the pin-striped suit. Sitting in the middle of the 300 people at a table by himself was Chairman Tucker. I left the stage and walked down through the audience. “What brings you here, Mr Tucker?”

“I came to hear you speak”, he said matter-of-factly.

We two had formed an unlikely bond, Graham and I, perhaps because I did use his cricket-ball-into-full-tram story, with his name attached, in my book More Over the Top with Jim.