📞 When the Phone Doesn’t Ring—But the Damage Is Real
Have you ever had reason to complain about your phone bill?
Has a friend insisted they called, but your phone never rang—though you were right beside it?
Have prospective clients accused you of being unprofessional for not answering, even though your phone hadn’t rung in days?
If you’ve experienced even one of these, you’ll understand why I sometimes feel I’ve lived through a nightmare. I endured all of them—and more—for nearly a decade. And I’m still seeking an equitable resolution.

🏡 The Dream That Became a Battle
In 1987, my wife Faye and I bought Seal Cove, a small accommodation business perched above Cape Bridgewater, near Portland, Victoria. It had been a school camp, and we planned to transform it into a venue for social clubs, families, and schools.

The camp was phone-dependent. Remote as it was, the telephone was our lifeline to city clients. But the system we inherited was archaic—connected to a 30-year-old exchange designed for low-call-rate areas, with only eight lines. It couldn’t handle the volume of calls from locals and holidaymakers.

We sold our Melbourne home and I took early retirement to fund the venture. I had decades of experience in hospitality—from stewarding on English ships to managing hotels and working as a chef in the Australian Merchant Navy. I knew I could make this work.

We marketed hard: 150 school visits, 2,000 brochures. But the phone didn’t ring. Not even a 1% inquiry rate. By April 1988, complaints began to emerge: unanswered calls, engaged signals, and dropped lines mid-conversation. Between April and January 1989, I lodged nine complaints with Telstra. The response? “No fault found.”

📵 The Message That Killed a Business
We later discovered the previous owner had faced the same issues. FOI documents revealed Telstra knew about faults in early 1987. Locals like Harry and Fred Fairthorn shared similar frustrations. But we were promised better—and we needed better.
The most damaging fault was the RVA:

This message played whenever lines were congested—often. Telstra’s own internal memo admitted this message gave callers the impression the business had ceased trading. Another memo called for a review of all RVA messages, acknowledging widespread misuse.
For a new business, this was catastrophic. Yet Telstra never admitted fault. I was treated as a nuisance caller. “No fault found” became a mantra.

By mid-1989, we were selling shares to stay afloat. Fifteen months in, we were liquidating assets instead of reducing debt. I felt like a failure.

We tried one last marketing push in the city. I called the camp’s answering machine remotely—only to hear “The number is not connected.” Outside Geelong, I tried again. Engaged. Maybe someone was leaving a message? Ever hopeful.

There were no messages. Just silence. How many calls had we lost? How many clients gave up because Telstra told them we didn’t exist?

🔍 The Fight for Accountability Continues
This is just the beginning of the Seal Cove saga. The phone faults were not just technical—they were systemic, concealed, and devastating. And they were never resolved.

I’ve documented every step, every memo, every call. I invite you to explore the full archive, hear the voices, and see the evidence. Because silence—especially the kind engineered by a national carrier—can destroy lives.

💔 Loss, Survival, and the “Not Connected” Curse

Broken Line & Stressed Caller Icon

Near the end of October 1989, my twenty-year marriage ended. I was already taking prescribed medication for stress; that afternoon, I added a quantity of Scotch and hunkered down in one of the cabins. Faye, understandably concerned, called the local police. They broke in to ‘save’ me from myself and took me to hospital. I’ll always be grateful to the doctors who assured me I wasn’t going ‘nuts’ and sent me home the next day.

My friends Margaret and Jack from Melbourne stepped in. Margaret came back with me to Seal Cove to help me get through what was to come.

🧳 Chaos, Courage, and the Camp Diary

We returned to a disaster. Faye had left the night before, advised to seek a ‘safe house.’ Doors were unlocked, meat from the deep freeze was left out, and items had vanished. According to the camp diary, 70 students from Monivae Catholic College were due to arrive in two days—for five days and four nights.

Without Margaret, I would have been wiped out.

Shopping felt impossible. What do you feed 70 students and staff when your head is spinning? By Sunday evening, I’d finally placed the order. Then the hot water system broke down.

The staff weren’t thrilled about cold showers. But Monivae College returned—two, sometimes three times a year—for the next five years. Their loyalty helped me survive.

Margaret’s support was immeasurable. She saw I was holding on by my fingernails and suggested Brother Greg, one of the Monivae teachers, come talk to me. We spoke late into the night—about childhood, marriage, and everything in between. It helped.

📞 When Every Call Feels Like a Battle

The phone problems didn’t stop. I began logging every fault in an exercise book—names, complaints, and the impact on my business and wellbeing.

One day, the kiosk phone was dead. The gold coin-operated phone in the dining room had a dial tone, so I dialled my office number. I heard the dreaded message:

“The number you have called is not connected or has been changed. Please check the number before calling again. You have not been charged for this call.”

But I was charged. The phone didn’t return my coins.

Five minutes later, I tried again. This time, the office line was “engaged”—though it wasn’t. The gold phone returned my coins.

I repeated this test for months. I reported every fault to Telstra. But the problems persisted. I began to wonder: was this incompetence? Or something worse? Had I become too much of a nuisance?

I had behaved impeccably. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fantasise about violence at times. The frustration was unbearable.

💸 Consequential Loss and the Cost of Silence
By 1990, I was no longer one half of a working husband-and-wife team. I began digging into my pitifully low financial reserves to pay staff—or risk losing everything. What I was experiencing is known in finance as a consequential resultant loss: Faye was no longer contributing her unpaid labour, and I now had to pay her a yearly dividend on her financial investment in the business.

The future looked grim. Telstra had made no meaningful attempt to fix the faults. The constant refrain of “No fault found” wore thin. I couldn’t stop thinking about how many prospective customers were lost because they couldn’t reach me by phone.

Legal pressure mounted. I couldn’t meet my financial agreement with Faye, and her solicitor was demanding payment. My own legal costs were piling up. My son’s school fees were overdue. To stay afloat, I sold the 22-seater school bus I’d used to ferry guests and replaced it with a small utility.

🛠️ Karen, the New Exchange, and a Glimmer of Hope
Then came Karen.

She lived in Warrnambool. Our relationship grew serious, and when she learned I was about to wind up the business due to lack of funds, she put her house up as security for a loan. That gave me two years of breathing space. Karen believed in me—and in the Camp’s potential. She wanted to be a partner. This was early 1991.

Things began to shift. I learned that a new exchange was scheduled for installation at Cape Bridgewater later that year. It promised to resolve the line congestion that had plagued us for years. Karen moved in, and together we worked with renewed energy to revive the business.

Then, in August, came a moment I’ll never forget: someone inside Telstra finally acknowledged the faults. I felt a wave of relief. I asked for his name, but all he could say was that he worked at the fault centre in Hamilton.
Telstra’s own file note reads:

At last, someone had given me something to hang on to.

When Karen sold her house, part of the proceeds went toward paying my legal fees and settling my debt to Faye. I paid Faye out, and Karen’s name was officially added to the business title.

We counted the days to the installation of the new exchange.

Would you like help formatting this into a scrolling homepage module with a visual timeline, Telstra file excerpts, or a “Turning Point” gallery? I can also help design a tribute section to Karen’s role in saving the Camp.

 

📡 The Exchange That Promised Relief—and Delivered Nothing
The triumph of the new exchange at Cape Bridgewater in August 1991 was heartbreakingly brief. It made no difference. The same telephone faults persisted—now amplified by the crushing disappointment that the war wasn’t over at all.

Complaints about recorded voice announcements increased. I kept reporting faults to Telstra, which seemed to be worsening. When I asked technicians where the problem lay if not in the exchange, their response was maddening:

Bookings remained rare. The camp was tired, in need of paint and upgrades. It looked bedraggled, and passersby didn’t stop. Even when we had bookings, cash flow was tight. Karen, who had invested so much, began to feel the strain—especially as we prepared a charity camp for underprivileged children.

❤️ Charity, Collapse, and the Grace of Goodbye
From the beginning, I had sponsored stays for underprivileged groups. Thanks to generous food donations from commercial outlets, it cost me little—just electricity and gas.

In May 1992, we hosted a charity week for children from Ballarat and South West Victoria, organized by Sister Maureen Burke, IBVM, Principal of Loreto College Ballarat. But even arranging food and transport was a nightmare. Sister Burke couldn’t get through by phone—calls rang out or went dead. After a week of trying, she drove 3½ hours to finalise arrangements.

Just as she arrived, Karen was on the phone with an angry man demanding information about a singles weekend. He was abusive, furious that we advertised a business but never answered the phone. Karen burst into tears. She’d reached her limit. Sister Burke entered the office, and I quietly stepped out.

Later, Sister Burke told me it was probably best if Karen left Cape Bridgewater.
It felt like history repeating. But it wasn’t the same as with Faye. Karen and I talked. We agreed to separate, but I promised she wouldn’t lose anything for her generosity. I would buy her out. She moved to Portland, and we remained good friends. Without her daily help, I had to stop my promotional tours.

Later, I sent Sister Burke an early draft of this book. Her reply:

 

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