A VARIED LIFE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19998, 15 November 1927, Page 5

A VARIED LIFE

MAN OF MANY PARTS FROM COWHAND TO CLERK. One of the most romantic stories of the career of a man of 30 ever told was related in Adelaide recently. It is the story of Mr Rex. McKell, cousin of the Hon. W. J. McKell, formerly Minister of Justice in New South Wales. Mr. McKell was congratulated for his energy, patience, and success during the run of the Orvieto, which arrived at Adelaide recently from London. He is welfare officer of the boat. Mr McKell said: “You will recall my father, the famous Herb. McKell, sometimes referred to as the Tom Sayers of Australian boxing. But you want my story. As a clerk I tired of the smell of timber in a bush office and sailed as a cabin boy to the Golden Gate of San Francisco. Later I joined the crew of a steam schooner sailing to Portland and Seattle. A few weeks later I was in the north tending dogs in Alaska. That was in 1911. “Next, I worked in turn as cowhand in Nevada, as an orchardist in the Sacramento Valley, and seeking the smell of timber again, I became a machinist in a lumber mill. I ‘hiked’ back to San Francisco, joined another ship bound for New Zealand, where I was in turn coachsmith’s striker and stokehold trimmer on the Maheno before joining a schooner bound for the Hebrides with a Polynesian crew and the usual ‘trade’ cargo. “I spent the following five months round the Western Pacific, and in July 1914, put into Suva, where there was talk of war. I returned to New Zealand at once, and two days after the outbreak of war enlisted with the advance party to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force sailing a week or so later for German soil. I will skip my service in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, and will mention only that on Armistiee night I froze on Lebanon and scorched next morning in Tripoli. After my discharge from the army I went to the Solomons to run a trade station for Burns, Philip’ “On one occasion the four-masted schooner John A. Campbell called, and after sundry desertions I volunteered and was signed on as a seaman. The voyage to San Francisco was chock full of incident, salt salmon, and weevily biscuit. I landed in port 60 days later, clad in a sou’-wester hat, oilskins, and seaboots.

“Being ashore again, I had to work; so I became freight clerk, checker clerk, space salesman, freelance journalist, and photographer, lectured for and against prohibition, helped establish the American War Veterans’ Association, sold stock and motor cars, and tried my hand at motor racing before making my pilgrimage to the Mecca of all actors, Hollywood. Want of patience sent me away after a parachute accident, and I returned to Australia, where I entered the Commonwealth Government service.

“My next job in Australia took me outback, where I came to love the settler and the shearer of the solitudes. But I returned to Sydney, and after a few days there met and married the operatic soprano, Dawn Assheton. Back in Britain by way of Panama, I took to grease paint.

“I became Rex Mack, juvenile lead in several successful revues, before playing lead in “Little Nelly Kelly,” which had a record run. Early this year I cast, produced, then toured, year I cast, produced ,then toured, stage-managed, and directed my own show, a revue founded on ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Archie de Bear wanted a sensational dancer at four days’ notice for his ‘Punch Bowl,’ and I hopped in.

“Next I worked for a time at Australia House and took the post of welfare officer in charge of a contingent of migrants on the Orvieto. But that is another story.”