During my single year at bible college, I fell foul of the health department ordinances of our local council.

Mum had a bunch of rubbish she wanted me to get rid of at the local Garbage Dump one day. I would pass it on my way back from my job in Hornsby at the Music Studios.

Unfortunately, I was not aware of the “Winter” operating hours of the Council Dump, and I was too late. In hindsight, I should have chucked the rubbish over the front gates onto the Council dump property. Maybe I wouldn’t have done so badly, then.

I saw another collection of bags of rubbish, at the side of the road just around from the Dump gates so I put mine there, too. WRONG THING TO DO!
(I probably got the blame for the whole lot!)

Sometime later, there came a knock at the front door. I was not home at the time so Mum answered it. A council ranger was at the door with a bunch of letters retrieved from the bag of rubbish I had illegally deposited with the other stuff.

He proceeded to read some of the letters out loud to Mum, and she knew, from his reading, the letters had been written to me.  I must have discarded them.  I did not know these letters were amongst the other plant cuttings and stuff.

She informed the ranger I would be home later and to come back then.  He did, and proceeded with me, in the same manner as he had done with my mother, before. I then said to him “What do I have to do about the matter?”

He told me, and I arranged an appointment with the Health Surveyor at the Council.   Later on, the meeting at Council went along similar lines and I do believe all these people were looking for some kind of “payola,”  or "graft?" to sweep stuff under the carpet or some such.

The matter of a Littering Charge against me was listed in Ryde Court, and, due to my low income,  I was able to have the services of the "Public Solicitor’s  Office" free of charge. Satan was loving all this – poor old bible college student caught littering and so on. Anyway, I got off with the minimum fine, of $AU89.

Sometime later, I learned of another person “falling foul' of Mr Stevens*, the greasy pawed Council Ranger. This time for sweeping the public path outside a Department store in West Ryde, and letting the sweepings go into the kerb and guttering of the main street. He got his paw greased, that time, with some credit on the particular Department Store. I guess with this story I am trying to point out the graft and corruption that goes on even in local government. Never mind in the "higher echelons" of power.