Nathan Fell Part 1

In this first episode of What Makes You Tick with Thommo, I sit down with Nathan Fell for a relaxed conversation over a couple of Guinness while we dig back through some of the moments that shaped him.

Nathan talks about growing up in the Blue Mountains until he was about nine years old before a massive life shift saw his family move out to Broken Hill — a change that felt like stepping into a completely different world.

We also get into his childhood trips to England, visiting family several times while growing up. Those visits came with the bittersweet memories many people know too well — being told, “This might be the last time you see your grandma, make sure you say goodbye.” Moments that stick with you long after you’re a kid.

Nathan and I also find common ground in something a lot of people underestimate: pushing trolleys as a job when we were younger. What seems like a basic job on the surface actually has its own hidden logistics, strategies, and stories — and we chew the fat about what really goes on behind the scenes.

We round it out talking about travelling overseas, living the simple philosophy of holidaying until the money runs out, and the experiences that come with that kind of freedom.

It’s an easygoing yarn about growing up, moving towns, working simple jobs that teach real lessons, and seeing the world when you get the chance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Right, we'll kick it off. Uh, this is our first one back in the studio after we've changed the studio.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Yeah, I noticed used to sit against that wall, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Yeah, we used to sit against the wall. And I just found it hard. Well, not hard, but I just found it like sitting there trying to, you know, sort of bent, trying to cameras facing up and all the rolls are out everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

It's way easier to sit across from someone. It's way easier to drink a beer and just be way more relaxed. Yeah. That's these chairs and this table were never meant to go together, but a bit low in it, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

You'll have to get a couple of those like moon chair gaming chair things where you're like in this thing, you're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, yeah. That's that's so I bought like that in uh teamu chair over there. It's just like 50 bucks. No, that ain't it. That definitely ain't it. That is fucking teamu. Everything looks great on the on the ad, and then you get it, it's like kind of mid. That ain't it. Yeah, that definitely ain't it. Right, so uh we'll introduce Nathan. Nathan can introduce himself, he knows himself better than I do. Yeah, uh, welcome, welcome to What Makes You Dick, Brother?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Yeah, so I'm Nathan Fell. I live in Broken Hill. I met Corey and Jess when I was running as the Labour candidate for the Parks electorate in the 2025 election. Uh Jess sent me a message on Facebook about a day after I made the Facebook page. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. And um basically saying, why should I vote for you? And I, you know, said my little spiel, and she goes, Yeah, cool, sounds good. Come and visit. Yeah. So while I was driving around, came down here, had some beers, nearly crushed the car, had some more beers.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Oh, I still think of that every I go past that road a lot, and I'm just like one of the kids, one of the kids today was like, Is he the guy that did the skid?

SPEAKER_02 1:57

And just was like, Yes, yes, he's the guy that did the skid. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Uh that's just gone off, does that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. As long as there's a red light beef. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They they sort of it's a battery saving thing. Yeah. Yes, they make a noise. If they turn off, they'll go, yeah, right, right. We'll know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

So yeah, Nathan fell, broken hill, failed labor candidate, three-time loser now. Let's go. Um, yeah, I I work in mine and worked in mine in on and off for 10 plus years now.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Started as a shit kicker laborer building a processing plant straight out of high school. Did that for about three months, went overseas for a year, went to uni for a couple years, came back doing admin and then safety and then lab work and then metallurgy work, and now I'm the lab manager. Yeah, okay, okay. My current company. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Well, that's alright. We want to uh we'll just get the we'll get the um the the shit out of the way first. You did say to me you wanted to do a bit of a a disclaimer.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yeah, yeah. So um just a bit of a disclaimer that you know my views are my own. Anything I say does not represent the views and feelings of the Labour Party, not necessarily. Sometimes they might agree, sometimes they might not.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

This is uh this is this is a personal podcast anyway. We're not we don't fucking dive into people's professions and we we only we only do what they want to talk about. So this is this is this is what makes you tick, not what makes the fucking Labour Party tick.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

So it's more to cover my uh so the enforcers can't come and smack me over the back of the head with something next time I see them.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, yeah, no, no, that's fucking perfect. That's that's that's absolutely fine. That's absolutely fine.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Yeah, but yeah, I think that's about all I need for that disclaimer.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah, no, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

I'm just some random guy. I do not represent the Labour Party right now.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah. Although I hear you did rattle some cages last fucking election. Yeah. There's some cattles, some cattles, some some cages being rattled.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Yeah, yeah. So I got in a few heated discussions with some of the some of the party officers from east of the mountains.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Oh well.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Because, you know, campaigning in Sydney and campaigning in the smaller electorates does not really work out here when the Park's electorate is 51% of the state and about the same size as Germany. I can't really walk from one side to the other and door knock on every door in an afternoon.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

So that's absolutely fine.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

It's absolutely right. Yeah, it was a bit different to what some of the people giving advice thought it was gonna be. Yeah, right. But I think it worked all right, you know. I just sort of said I'm gonna do it my way, and we got what was it, a five percent swing or something towards Labour or towards myself at the election, which admittedly, some of that's probably change of the guard in the Nationalist Party, but yeah, okay. Yeah, I still I'm still calling it a win.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, well, I mean, at the end of the day, you yeah, you fucking dug deep and you you uh you did more than than a lot of people were doing in getting out and and visiting. That's how we met. Yeah, you came out and and uh and you know, brought a notepad and said, What can you tell me? What do you want? What do you think's different and what can we do better? And oh, I should have brought a notepad, it's in the car.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah. I've still got that same notepad. Oh, right, yeah, yeah. It's a bit more full at the moment. Some of the pages are crossed off and turned over, so because I've finished or dealt with whatever was on them.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

But yeah, cool, cool. Yeah, very good. Yeah, well, we'll go back into the uh the natural swing of things, what we do on the podcast. Um we don't just talk shit and drink beers. No, we can. We can. It'll come, it'll come. We'll we've got to you gotta I'm gonna We need a couple more beers. Okay, yeah. We've got to grow up first. So in our younger years, you can I'll ask you what's your earliest memory of being a child.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yeah, so I was talking to Jess about this. I have a very vivid earliest memory, but I think it's a fake memory. A fake memory. I think it's a memory that I've developed over the years from people telling me the same story. Okay, but it is very, very vivid in my mind and very clearly the earliest memory. The next earliest memory is like two or three years after that. Yeah, okay, okay. Um, but yeah, when I think of the memory, you know, like every time you think of a memory, it changes a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

100%, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Like when I think of the memory, it's almost like I'm watching the scene happen in a movie. But uh yeah, the memory is sitting in my grandparents' lounge room in England in Essex, and my pop bouncing me on his knee while he's he's singing. He used to have this little nonsense song about Pops the Funion and all that sort of thing. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. But yeah, he's bouncing me on his knee, grandma's in the kitchen making tea, mum and dad are sitting on the lounge over here watching, and then the way I remember the memory, I'm actually in this corner of the room watching that on the room. Yeah, watching it third person, sort of thing, yeah, right. Which is what makes me think it's a fake memory that I've sort of developed. Like I I've I remember having this memory as a kid, yeah. Like when I was seven or eight or nine, I remember having this memory.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

But no, you see it as third person because you've thought of it so much, really. I guess I think I mean I think back on things, and that's what you do in your memory every day, isn't it? Like when you think of anything.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

I mean it's almost like you're remembering the last time you remember it.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fuck that's different. That's a different one. I but now you say it when when I think of things, I sometimes go third person and yeah, and and look at it out. Yeah, that's a that's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

See, I need to ask someone that's actually smart and knows stuff whether it's like is that a normal thing to be remembering things in the third person, or is it something I've developed over years from the same story being told?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Have I created this of what I've been told, or am I actually remembering it and now I'm re-remembering it, envisioning it?

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Yeah, like yeah, yeah, remembering that you were remembering it at one point, like you're watching a movie or something.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, fuck.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

It's a bit to unpack, isn't it? Straight up. Well, thanks for being probably the first person, maybe the the top maybe first three on here, everyone goes straight for their trauma response. Like, and it's been good. The last couple that had actually been on here haven't gone straight to a trauma response, so it's fucking we're getting there.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

See, it's funny you say that because the next earliest memory I have is probably on the edge of being a trauma, like a traumatic memory. Yeah. It's um I was out the front of our like my childhood home and there was a mattress there and I was just bouncing on it with the neighbor kids. Yeah. And then we looked down and there was all these little red spiders crawling all over us.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Oh dang. Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah, but that's again, that's like this memory of pop bouncing me. I would have been maybe three, just gone three, just about to turn three. Yeah, right. And this next one with the spiders, I was like five or six.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

So yeah, right, right. Well, that's I mean, it's still it's I'm not saying it's trauma response because people are fucking just totally emotionally scarred from it their whole life, but it's like you don't remember, you don't remember things that aren't good or bad. Like you don't remember the first day you fucking packed your bag for school. You don't you just don't remember that, but you remember the first day you lost your school bag. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's yeah, that's just just how it fucking works in our brains, I suppose. Yeah, brains are funny things, yeah. Hectic. Anyway, growing up, uh, so you're fucking you're from England.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Uh dad's from England. I was born in Katoomba.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Oh, okay, right, right, right. So born in Katoomba, and you just went to uh England often, or was it like Christmas?

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Yeah, so when I was younger, we went every couple of years for Christmas, but this this particular time wasn't in Christmas, it was in like May, June, because I turned, I think I turned three that trip while we were over there. Right. Um I don't know why we went at that point. Yeah, but then yeah, the next time was a couple years later, it was over Christmas. Yeah. The time after that, we were actually mum and dad was intending to move there and stay there. Yeah, but I think they only lasted two or three months. They lasted long enough for me to go to school, but not long enough for me to like settle in. Settle in and go up to the next grade or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, okay, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

And then yeah, over the years we'll go every year or two, probably every two years more often than not, for Christmas to go see grandma.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah, that's fucking that's kick ass. That's kick ass. Is it so you're well travelled as a as a young child and growing into your teens? You you're very well travelled going over to England. Like that's a big thing.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think I don't know how many times you went, five or six, seven times, however many times it was.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

But yeah, that first trip when I was three was the only trip where Pop was alive. He died a couple of years after that. Yeah, like 98 or something. That would have been 97, I think he died in 98. Yeah. Um, and then yeah, every trip after that was just going to see grandma and dad's family. And all the rest of the family over there. And then the last couple of trips were, you know, this is the last time you'll see grandma. She's getting pretty old. And then the next trip was this is the last time you'll see grandma. And then the next trip wasn't the last time you'll see grandma.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

It's just so depressing every time you leave.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Yeah, I think we had about four or five last time we'll see grandma.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah, yeah, three days. So growing up, so you're born in Katoba, you grew up in Katoomba? Uh, grew up in Hazelbrook. Okay, right. Blue Mountain. So you're a little further down the mountains.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Yeah, yeah, for real. Yeah. Um, yeah, we were uh we lived there till I was nine, about nine and a half, then moved out to Broken Hill.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Yeah, right. That's a massive. So you went to school, obviously, you went to school in the mountains, or did you go further in? Do you go back up the mountain or down the mountain?

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Uh I was in primary school in Hazelbrook.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Oh, they had the primary school then.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Right, okay, right, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Well, that's all right.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Built all up the hills and you know, grade four was up on the top of here, and then grade two was down this massive flight of stairs.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah, the whole that whole like I don't know, what is it, maybe a hundred Ks is just from the top of the hill down to the bottom with towns, yeah, and everything is built on a hill. Yeah, like it's it's as you go down, there's no people don't build stuff up, it just goes down the hills.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

Yeah, well, one of our family friends still lives in uh Springwood, yeah, and they have it's it's basically like a three-story house, but you walk in on the top floor and it's like half a floor where you walk around to the bedrooms and a bathroom, and then you go down, and that's the kitchen and the living room, then you go down again. There's like a basement with more bedrooms and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Yeah, right. It's a pretty cool way to live out there. Yeah, it's a pretty cool way to live. It's pretty cool. Did you um did you experience the fires out there?

SPEAKER_02 12:20

I don't remember experiencing fires out there. Yeah, okay. So I think um, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, whether or not there were fires there, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah, right. I think there was a big fire, big fires went through there.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Maybe they just after you left, then maybe or they couldn't they might not have come that far up the mountain.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Yeah, well, that's true as well. That's true as well. Yeah, not very good. So moving out to uh moving out to Broken Hill, how did that go for a young fella? Uh obviously, you know, growing up in the mountains, you're very uh very different lifestyle and way of living to just going out to the middle of absolute fucking nowhere. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Yeah, so um the way I remember it is mum and dad were sick of the rat race and they wanted a change. Yeah, okay. So they decided they were gonna move to Broken Hill or Tasmania. And the way I remember it is basically whoever got a job in one of these places first, that's where we would go. Okay. And I think dad got a job teaching hospitality or something in the TAFE. So Dad was Team Broken Hill. Yeah. Well, I don't think he was Team Broken Hill. I just think it was the first job he got. Yeah, okay, right, right. And mum's sister was also in Broken Hill at the time, so I think that was sort of tipped it over the edge. So yeah, we moved out to Broken Hill for two years. And 22 years later we're still there.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

We're just going out there for a while and we'll see what else is about. Yeah. God dang.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

But yeah, the the change from the mountains to the desert was I don't I don't remember like the the physical environmental change being that stark, but the the friendship change because you know, end of year four is when you're starting to get a decent group of friends, yeah, yeah, yeah. And starting to form those real connections with people and just sort of cutting that and going out there. I think it was a bit difficult, but the um the school I went to, they sent me up with one of the kids there to like show me around and hung out. Yeah, you get your buddy, yeah. Yeah, so I got a buddy, and there was only six weeks left in the year, so we sort of hung around for those six weeks, and then I became friends with his friends and then friends with other people, and then everyone verges off at some point.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

You got your own way, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's so I remember my best friend left to Adelaide in in year four. And so how did you do you had you had best friends and all that sort of stuff that you that's like a big that's the only part like you've got family and you've got your friends at school, and like they obviously you think your friends at school sometimes are way more important than than your brothers or your siblings or whatever. That yeah, it was it's a pretty it's a pretty big thing. Did you have any friends that you know you're broken hearted when you left?

SPEAKER_02 14:45

So I remember having four like I would call them good friends, as good as they could be for yeah, nine years old. Yeah, um four J name friends I had Joel, Jared, and Josh at school, and then the kid across the road's name was Jethro. And he was like, I was nine years old, he was like 14 or something, and he was cool and he knew how to code and he was like making his own video game on his computer. Oh, that's dope. He had all this all the dopest Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, his mum was always at work, so we'd always just hang out and eat frozen pizzas, and yeah, looking back on it as an adult, I'm almost certain mum and dad were paying him to babysit me while they're at work.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah, why you got all this cool shit?

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Why you got like his but why are you putting up with a little shit like me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then yeah, I'm almost certain looking back on it. I reckon mum and dad paid him to babysit me.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Oh yeah. So how do you go with uh siblings? You did you have siblings or yeah?

SPEAKER_02 15:44

So I've got a I've got a younger brother, yeah. Um, and then I've got three older sisters. Yeah, right. Dad's got two from his first marriage, and then we've got an adopted sister. Right, okay. So um, yeah, the the two older sisters from dad's first marriage, they live down in um Victoria. Right. Uh one of them has kids, one of them doesn't. The the adopted sister was when we moved out there, mum got a job as an accountant for one of the companies in town, the Pass Control Company. Yeah, and she's walked into her work and saw this gangly little 14, 15-year-old girl sitting behind the counter doing admin. Maybe 16, I don't know. Um and yeah, she just sort of mum took her under her wing and she kind of never left. So now Sarah's my sister.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yeah, perfect, perfect. I mean that's that's good. That's you know, you you do that. We've I don't know anyone that hasn't have a fucking good heart um to see someone in need or whatever, or you just take someone in. I mean, everyone, everyone's got a story about someone they've taken in, I'd imagine.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Yeah, yeah. I think Sarah had a bit of a rough childhood. Mum sort of, you know, always wanted a daughter, saw a wounded bird. Now I've got a third sister. You come in with me, we treat you good. Yeah, yeah. You'll be alright, you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Uh right, oh so how did you go getting on at school in in in Broken Hill? How did that look for you?

SPEAKER_02 17:07

Yeah, it was fine. I was pretty bad at school. Yeah, okay. So you weren't an academic or oh no, I was, I just didn't care and I was disruptive and you know, typical unmedicated neurodive neurodivergent sort of bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah, I I did pretty I did fine in school until the last couple of years of high school when it, you know, got that little little bit harder, and then the amount of apathy I had got even more because video games were a thing. Correct. And um, yeah, I ended up getting like a 31 on my 8R or something. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

I've I I've never I've never been asked. I'm glad I didn't go that far in school because I I've never had a job that I've had to have a an 8R being asked, but I've never been asked once in my life. What was your score?

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Oh yeah. But I yeah, I just know that I got a 31.4 or something, and if you got below 28, it just said below 28. Yeah, because I think I I imagine below 28 it was too low for you to get into any degree. Like it was basically a useless number. Yeah, yeah. You said it. Congratulations. Yeah, so I just just barely got above the the cutoff for this is a useless number.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yeah, right, right, right. And you used it? Did you obviously you went to the other?

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Not the ATAR, I did go to university, but I did like a it was called the STAT test. It's like an entrance exam. Right eh, right. Yeah, so I just just sort of sees where you're at and what you know and yeah, but I think it's it's like an aptitude test, it sort of tests you on your your reading, maths, comprehension, abstract thought, all that sort of stuff. And I got pretty decent on that.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

So yeah, yeah. Well it all comes down to like all that sort of stuff with schooling as well. I believe it comes down to if you're interested, you're gonna smash it. If you're not, you just don't care.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

See, that's the thing. Going through the last couple of years of high school, I'd had no intention to go to uni. Right. I don't know what I was gonna do, but I wasn't going to uni. Yeah. And then I went traveling for nine months after working when I finished high school and came back and decided I wanted to be an astrophysicist. And it was like, okay, cool, I'm not gonna do this with a 31 ATO, I need to go take this test. And I got the equivalent of like a 90-something ATIR on the test.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Oh, that's all right.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah, I don't know what it was. It's not a direct equivalent, but it got you into courses that needed 90-something, so I just yeah. And then yeah, double majored in physics and chemistry and then flunked out and started working on the mines and realized, yeah, maybe I didn't want to be an astrophysicist, they don't make any money.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah, well, I was gonna say you work in the wine, all's world ends well, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Um, so I'm I'm in a field where finishing that chemistry degree would have been really helpful for the five. It would have been okay, right? Yeah, I sort of had to jump through hoops and and go the hard way to get where I am now instead of if I had that degree, it would have just been easier and quicker.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah, right. It'd put you, it'd it'd get you across the line a bit better. Yeah, yeah. So coming out of school, you said so. Were you working in high school?

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Did you have a job after school or yeah, so 14 or nine months almost to the day I got my first job at Hungry Jacks.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Oh, lovely.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Because I wanted money to be able to go to the movies in the pool and stuff with all my friends.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

And then very quickly realized that the times that I was working were the times they were going to the movies and going to the pool. So I I quit that job after a couple of months. Um, and then I started working at Woolworths on the checkouts. Didn't do very well on the checkouts, so they put me on the trolleys.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah, actually a really fun job.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Right. I did I did that. My old man had the contract for a while, and yeah, right. I did it for free, but oh yeah, see, I got paid, but not much. Yeah, no, I ended up um I ended up going over once the old man threw the contract in. Um I think he had the contract. I'm sure he had the contract. Maybe he worked for them, and I was just helping him. I'm not sure. You were just doing free leave. I ended up working for the guy that next had the contract, and then I ended up getting paid for it. But bro, it's it's fun, it's you get to see everyone, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

And like, you know, everyone's like, oh fucking trolley boy, you know. It's a great workout, yeah. It's a good workout. I that was the fittest I'd been all through high school.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Um, and yeah, like once you get past the fact that you're walking around all day just pushing metal around, it's kind of a fun job. It's and it tickled my my puzzle brain because I'd walk up to you know the trolley bays and be like, all right, cool. If I move these around, then I can fit this many more in, and if I fit this many more in, I've got four or five rows of trolleys that I can just take in and I can sit here for half an hour and I don't have to go and look for all the trolleys. Correct. Because every 10 minutes I just take a row in and it's good enough.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Oh and then I go hide around the corner.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Finally, someone that fucking understands the life of fucking pushing trolleys because you know, I you see all the little crackies that do it now, but back in the day. You knew, and like you just said, I know how much I need to keep. I can stack that one, and then that's what three minutes work by the time I see. Yep, okay, I'll push that in, then I've got another 15 minutes. Yeah. I can go have a smoke, I can go walk around and go and chat to someone. You see your friends, you see your friends come in with their parents. You see, like because I did it when I was, yeah, probably around oh god, 16, maybe something like that. Like 15, 16.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

I would have been that I didn't have my peas yet. Yeah, yeah. So I would have been 15 or something.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Same, yeah, yeah. Like, and you just get time to hang out. And if it's too hot, you put in 15 minutes work, get that bayful, and just go sit. We had a little corridor. Yeah, just sit there, Con, and and um, and just I remember the boss used to just feed us up on um Power Aid. We'd have a thing full of Power Aid, sit there, drink Power Aid. We didn't really have um phones. The phones we had weren't something you'd sit on and no, they were like Sony Eric's. Yeah, you could probably text your mates, but did you did you get those web slides?

SPEAKER_02 22:58

I never had a web slides. I never had one either. We were too poor for them at the time.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

I had the um I had the the I went from a pretty good Nokia then to the like the E63 with the Qurity keyboard. Yeah, it would. I had that was probably my best phone of that generation at that time, and then until iPhone, but I used to get mum's hand me down there.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

It was Sony Ericsson's. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. Didn't even have Snake on them or anything. They had yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. I never had a I never don't think and for some reason I was always with Vodafone, so I could never like send my friends a dollar or have a dollar sent to me when I'd run out of credit or anything.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Well, that was the Sony Ericsson thing, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

The Vodafone plan was it was a it must have been like Sony Ericsson must have been the Vodafone phone, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's awesome. That I can definitely relate with the trolley, yeah, with the trolley thing. And it's it's it's good fun. It's good fun. I look at him now and I'm like, I hope you're having fun, bro. It's time of your life, that job, you don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Yeah, well, my my brother's partner does it now, yeah, like at Coles in Broken Hill. Yeah, and she seems to enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think she likes that it's sort of like you're by yourself, you just do your work, you don't have to deal with people unless you want to deal with people. Yeah, yeah. And it's yeah, you just go, you do your work, you come home.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

It's and there's there's no repercussions to literally anything. I mean, like, don't hit people's cars or anything, but like I knew how many trolleys I had, yeah, and I knew like, okay, at the end of the night, you do your trolley count, like there's six missing. Where are my trolleys? Yeah, and you're like, like, there's four over at Big W. Come on, guys, bring it back.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Or someone's pushed it halfway down the block because they didn't want to. Yeah, yeah, they take them home.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Yeah, another favorite thing I used to do was, you know, you'd rack up the the bays close to where it was so you could take them in nice and easy, but then you rack up the bays in the middle of fucking nowhere and just hide them out there. So all of the trolleys, you know, you knew you had 30, 40 trolleys over there. You had all of these ones over here. You're like, all right, cool. I just keep recycling these and I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Just keeping keeping going, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

And then at the end of the night, you've got rows and rows of trolleys over there, you just bulk, push in, done, finish it, ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you keep keep the keep the 10 trolleys on rotation, everything's hidden away, and then you're just like, Yep. Yeah, load her up, ready for it. Oh, and the the old dolls loved it when you'd like, can I push a trolley for you?

SPEAKER_02 25:13

You know, yeah, yeah. It's gonna make my job easier. If I just push a trolley, you unload, I just take it straight away.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Yep, yeah. They think, yeah, oh, thank you for helping me. Oh you're such a nice young man. I'll put your bags in your car for you. Give my fucking trolley. Hurry up. I'm saving myself the walk over there. Yeah, yeah, hell yeah. Right. So uh after after the the trolley pushing and the working, um travelling. You said you went traveling. Where was your what what inspired you to travel? Was it friends?

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Was it something inside you that wanted to go traveling or I mean because I suppose you're already you're already going overseas for holidays with yeah, so so yeah, as a kid we went to England and and did like England and surrounds like Wales and Scotland a little bit. I don't remember a huge amount of it, but I sort of tagged along with mum and dad on their trips. Yeah, yeah. Um I don't know, I don't really know why I wanted to go traveling. Because I think I think the idea was I wanted to learn a bunch of different languages. And the plan originally was to like go and live in Paris for three months and learn some of the language and get a job and work, then move to Barcelona and learn some of the language, get a job and then move to Italy somewhere. And that was the plan to like just keep moving on every couple of months. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and that didn't pan out. I ended up just traveling around and drinking away my 30 grand that I'd saved up and coming home early because I ran out of money in Dublin.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Yeah, yeah. I'll stop at 25 grand. Oh, we're having fun, I'll stop at 20 grand. I was just like, fuck, we need to get a draw.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

No, I mum and dad got a call and was like, Mom, I've run out of money. Can you just send me like 1500 bucks for a plane ticket?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yes, yeah, yeah, that's cracker. That's cracker. So what have you got any good stories over there? Who'd you go with you went by yourself?

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Or I went by myself, yeah. I was 17. Um, because I finished high school a year early.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Yeah, right. 17, that's fucking you straight upper.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so finished high school, 17, worked for a couple months, and then we went over as a family on one of our last trips to visit grandma. Okay, yeah, in March, I think it was we went over, maybe Feb. And they came back in March. I don't know. Yeah, but yeah, we were there for about four or five weeks together, and then they left and I stayed with grandma for a couple weeks while I was sort of half planning what I was doing, and then one of my friends from high school was an au pair in South France, so like a babysitter, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, so I went down to visit him for a couple of weeks as like a test to see how it goes, see how I go traveling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and that was good. Uh at the end of that, I went to Barcelona for a couple of days. Um, didn't touch my bank account for a week, didn't have access to a phone for a week. Mum was at home stressing because she hadn't heard from me for a week. She called my friend in the south of Russia, like, do you know where Nathan is? I haven't heard from you. He's just like, Yeah, I put him on the train like four days ago. What you haven't heard from me? Um and yeah, I I went out in Barcelona one night on that trip and woke up in Paris the next morning. Oh hell yeah. Because yeah, I don't know. I still don't know what happened.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

You don't didn't recall the next day.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

I lost my phone, I lost my camera, I lost my glasses, like my sunglasses. Yeah, yeah. Ray Bans, the gas can, I reckon they were, or something, trash or something.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

I lost them. I have my wallet and my passport, thankfully. I just remember I went out to a club and I met this Algerian bloke and we just went out. He wasn't drinking, but I was drinking, probably for both of us. And then yeah, I woke up on a sleeper train in Paris the next morning at 11 o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

What in the world? That is fuck that is such a European story. There's like so many people would have the same fucking story just to be like, Yeah, yeah, we'll partying in Amsterdam, and then we woke up in you know, like yeah, and that yeah, that was the first two weeks starting from like two days after I turned 18. Yeah, so how'd you track down you had to sort of get onto a I I don't know anything about overseas travel with banks.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Like, how did you get an I still have my wallet, so that was fine. All right, right. It was just like my phone and camera and stuff that I lost. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously, I had my wallet because I had my money in it, I had my passport because I'd only just turned 18. It was my only form of ID.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Um, but yeah, everything else I'd lost. Yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah, it was a time. Then I went, yeah, I went back to England for a couple weeks after that and thought, okay, don't do that again. Plan it a little better. And then yeah, I went off. I think I was traveling properly traveling for about six months, maybe. Yeah. From like June-ish until December when I flew home.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Right, right. So you didn't did you didn't do any work in between or just whatever you just went out the window very quick.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Yeah. Um yeah, I I tended to do about two to four days in each place. I bought one of those rail passes. Oh, okay. It was like 1500 bucks or 1500 euros or something. Yeah. It gives you unlimited trains throughout the the Schengen area, which is like the Europe area. Everywhere, everywhere you want to go. Pretty much, yeah. Most places. It often didn't work for like the subways and the metros and stuff, but the longer distance trains. You could do whatever. And you could just kind of do whatever.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Um, some of the sleeper trains you'd have to pay extra. Right. You know, it'd get you on the train, but you'd have to book your bed or something. Yeah. Okay. And yeah, I use that, I think it costs yeah, 1500 bucks or something, and I used like over six grand worth of trains on that ticket. So it well and truly paid for itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I'd go somewhere for like two, three, four days, and um the the morning that my hotel or hostel would run out would be the morning I'd decide where I was going next. And I just sort of looked on the map and it's like, oh, that's what you're saying. I'm in Rome, yeah. I guess I'm going to Venice next. Right, right. Oh, I'm in Venice, guess I'm going to Slovenia next.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Bro, I think that's that's probably the coolest way to do it too.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Like, well, it was good. Like, I couldn't do it now, but as a fresh 18-year-old with no worries in the world, yeah, yeah. Plenty of money in the bank at the time. It yeah, it worked really well.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So give us your um give us give us your your your best memory. I don't I don't know if it's your favourite or your, you know, when it comes to you when I say to you, what is what was your best memory of being in Europe on that trip? What what would what would the story be?

SPEAKER_02 31:17

On that trip would have been in Venice. I was with my friend John, an American I met at the London Eye Hostel on south of the river in London. First night of my travels, I met this bloke. Um hit it off. Decided to instead of going from London to Paris and working my way across, just fly straight to London, uh, straight to Rome to catch up with him and his cousins that were traveling. So I started there. Um we went around Rome with his cousins for a little bit, and then the two of us went up to Venice and we stayed in this hostel above a pizza shop. And it was like five euros for this like 18-inch pizza or something. So we got one of them and we went to the steps on the I think it's the train station. It's sort of that main bit with like the big bridge that everyone knows. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. And we just sat there with a couple of beers and this pizza eating that, watching all the people go past, just soaking it in, just people watching, just soaking it in.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

It was good. Yeah, that's a crack of memory.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

That's that's that's probably the first one that came to mind.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, yeah. So you remembered you did even at that age, so that's good at that age that you remembered to just fucking stop for a minute and take something in, like, look where I am, and just chill out. Yeah, that's that's for for a young fella to do that. Yeah, would you say you would you say you you got an old soul as a younger fella?

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Or you just I was always told that as a kid, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. I I I have a feeling it was um just a way of people saying, you know, shut the fuck up, Nathan. You're not old enough to know some of the shit you know. Same as when they would tell you you'd make a good lawyer. That's just their secret way of saying you're a prick. Yeah. Yes, right. But yeah, yeah, I was always told I was an old soul. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

You can you can you can tell that vibe about you, you can tell the vibe, especially like a lot of a lot of young fellas, they're not gonna be that age and just sit there and take it in and then remember it, what 20 years later or 10. What are we finished? Not by 20 years later, not that old. Come on, come on, mate. Settle down, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

Just the back of my head might tell you that. Yeah, but no, um, yeah, what was it, 13, 14 years ago now? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, 2012. Worst, your worst memory. You the worst, the worst part where you were thinking, like, fuck, this is no good.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

That would have been one of the last nights I had in Dublin. I'd almost entirely run out of money. Decided, all right, cool, you've got two nights left. Now's the time you get a job. So I went to try and get a job. Um, and I managed to secure some bullshit, like cold call door knocking, buy this random fucking appliance off me bullshit job. Oh no, did terrible at it. They're all terrible people, mean people. Yeah, went back to the hostel, had a bit of a mental breakdown in the in the hostel chill area. And then I was like, all right, I'm gonna call my friend one of these cousins of John. Like, she was she's at university in Ireland. I'm like, all right, what are you doing? I'm having a hard time. Can I come hang out? Yeah, she's like, Yeah, yeah, we're having this big party down at Trinity College, and I'm like, all right, cool, I'll be there in a minute. I can only afford to bring mixes. So I'll see you there. So I went and bought some soft drink and uh went to Trinity College, but made the mistake of going to the actual university and not the dorm rooms, which was like another 45-minute walk away or something.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

So I just sat there and I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? Had another mental breakdown in the gutter with my fucking soft drink bottles in this plastic bag. And then, yeah, that that's like two or three o'clock in the morning. Uh went to the hostel, fell asleep, exhausted, woke up in the midday the next day, called mum and dad, and was like, I've got to come home. I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

This is it. This is I'm done with it. I'm done with it. Did you mean to run out of money, or is it just something that you just weren't watching and then you were just like I'm just an idiot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

I knew it was, I think I knew it was coming. I think I planned, I thought I thought it was gonna be easier to get a better paying job. Yeah, it was you know, I'd never really outside of trolleys and stuff like that. I'd never really had a had to find a job where I needed the money. True, true. You know, you're in high school, you want the money, but you don't really need the money. I mean, I didn't anyway.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Other people's situations might be different, but at this point you're you're the other side of the other side of the world.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Yeah, uh yeah, yeah. Like luckily I had a bit of the support networking grandma and my aunt and my cousin and stuff over there. So yeah, yeah. I ended up yeah, I got a flight back to London and went stayed with my cousin for a couple of days or a couple of weeks or something. Yeah, then flew back home between I think I landed on the 27th or 28th of December. Oh, right, okay. So just after Christmas, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Did you have you say you had Christmas with with your aunt or whatever?

SPEAKER_02 35:51

No, I think Christmas Day was like the first day I was traveling. Oh, okay, right, right. Yep, yeah. So I don't remember having a Christmas that year. I remember having a New Year's because I rocked up at my friend's New Year's party without telling any of them I was back in the country. Surprise! So I just walked in with four new tattoos and sat down. I was like, hey guys, I'm back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Oh, good, very good. So worth it, worth it? Yeah, all worth it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

I don't know how you'd go doing it these days, but I think even the price, like not even worrying about it. That's what I mean. It's just off its head. Yeah, like I spent most of my nights in 10 euro hostel rooms, you know, they were shit, they were dingy, but they were 10 euro. So you could deal with a bed for three nights for 10 euro a night.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

I know a couple of mates, my mates, they they they go to Europe and they're like 30 grand, easy, like and that's their yeah, three weeks at their yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Well, we went my fiance and I went in 2023, and we were there for about five weeks, and it cost us about 30 grand. Yeah, the five like we weren't living cheap by any means, no, but we weren't living extravagantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're enjoying that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, we we chose to buy train tickets instead of fly because it was cheaper.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

You know, we'd rather save the money and take the time as opposed to flying and yeah, and I mean getting on the train is not bad.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

You still get to see like if you like that, you get to see that you get to see the landscape and what's going on around you and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

It was, yeah, it was really good. We had one bad day on the trains, but that was just because it was like a 15-hour day on trains, and we had to swap trains halfway through the day, but you only had like I think it was like 17 minutes to make the connection, and the first train left 12 minutes late. Oh, yeah. So by the time we got there, I think we'd made up a little bit. We had like nine minutes, and it of course this train pulled in over here, and this train was leaving from over here up these.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

So you get a run up, dodge in out of people, try and get back in out of turnstiles, and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Like we literally got on the train and found our seats, and then the door shut and started moving. Uh we we we would have made it by about a minute and a half, maybe two minutes. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

So you didn't pull up for a fucking drink and be like, oh, we'll just get a train, we'll sort it out. Get on the train. Yeah, no, it's like we've got to run.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Yeah, you gotta run, we're not fit people, we've got to run, it's gonna hurt. We're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Yeah, yes, it's gonna hurt our legs, not our bank account. Yeah, move. Yeah, yeah, how we are. That's good. So we're home. Um back back in Australia, went and caught up with friends, we were in New Year's. You started, so I guess did you have a plan for when you got home? No, no, it was uh just fill us in. What what happened?

SPEAKER_02 38:31

So yeah, I got home end of 2012, start of 2013. Um had six months where I sort of bummed around and then went to university halfway through the year.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Um I went to Flinders in Adelaide. I was there for two and a half years, finished up, came back to Broken Hill, got a job very briefly at like a it's called Tom Dick and Harry's in Broken Hill. It's like a it's just a shop where you can buy kitchen stuff and you can buy like fancy clothes and candles and those boutiques sort of shops. Okay, right, yeah, yeah. I was I was the cave troll out in the back dealing with the boxes and reaching things. Yeah, okay. While the the smarter, more creative people did the shop front stuff.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Um the wizard out the back. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I was the troll out the back.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Like we had we wrote Nathan's troll, Nathan's cave on the door, and yeah, yeah, it was fun. Do not enter. Yeah. And then yeah, dad was working at one of the mine sites at the time and um managed to swindle a part-time admin job for me. Okay, which then turned into sort of admin slash safety officer. Then I moved into the Wentworth pipeline, the Wentworth Broken Hill pipeline as a safety officer, admin person, and then came back, worked for family businesses for about a year or two, went to my current company as a casual lab tech to fill in for three months. Right. Um then had another couple months off while I was casual. Then they asked me to go down to the mine, did that for 15 months. They asked me to be a metallurgist because one of them was retiring as the lab was moving. So I did that for 15, 18 months, and then as the mine itself was about to shut down, like two or three months before it shut down, yeah. The lab manager job in town at the lab I started at came up, and I somehow failed upwards into that job.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Yeah, okay, right. So you not to not to be uh not to be rude or anything, but you've you fucking filled in until you dropped in, sort of thing. Like you filled in, filled in, filled in, and then you found somewhere that was uh finally you reached reached, have you reached your destination?

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Is this no no the the idea is to keep going up, but I need to finish degrees and stuff to get going up. Yeah, okay, so right and get a lot more experience under my belt.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh well. You know, well in your field, I don't know how much you want to talk about work. Um in your field, is it constantly evolving for what you're doing? Like, are you are you can you get to where you need to be by doing these courses, or is it something that you everyone has to be fucking continually doing?

SPEAKER_02 41:07

Or I think it's pretty stagnant. Not not stagnant, but it's yeah, I know you're pretty it's a known entity, like it doesn't change a whole lot. You can catch it. You can catch it, yeah. Like the what you're doing the work on may change, but the work itself doesn't really change all that much.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yeah, yeah. The formula is the formula, yeah. That's yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Yeah, it's uh yeah, it's a pretty pretty well known quantity.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. So you're on you're on track for you're shooting for the top role, or what's the what's what's the yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

Next next step would be like work health safety manager or something, or check manager or something. Yeah. Because I've got the safety background, I've got a little bit of environmental background, I've now got the quality background.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

I just need the degree that says this guy is capable of managing people. Yeah, that bit of haver, yes. I've managed to fail upwards without the bit of paper so far, but I've hit a natural stopping point. I need a bit of paper now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what I mean by if I finished that chemistry degree ten years ago, it would have been a lot easier going forward. Yeah, nice, nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

All right, we'll um we'll end part one here and we'll have a bit of a break. We have a five, ten minute reader, and we'll come back for we'll jump into your adult life, into I don't know, being professional, being being a partner, being uh a a politician, as you know. Um we'll jump into that in part two and and we'll dig into that sort of stuff. So thanks guys, thanks for listening this week, and we'll we'll we'll jump back in next week. Uh stick about and we'll be back.