Monty and I were the only two non-Frenchies in TOTAL - Compagnie Française des Pétroles (well, apart from our hard-working Burmese employees) when they were drilling for oil in the Arakan Sea off Burma in 1975. I was their Chief Accountant, hired on a one-year contract to set up their financial reporting to the Myanmar Oil Corporation, and Monty was their Administration Manager who had been climbing the greasy pole for his career advancement in this huge state-owned company for some years.
We hit it off well, played squash and chess together, and he even copied my PNG-dress code of shorts and knee-long socks despite being married to a very fashion-conscious French wife and a daughter who insisted on speaking French only. He humoured his masters, the Frenchies, and even joined their luxurious expatriate life style, and never questioning their constant improvements to their company-supplied houses and shopping trips to Singapore for the latest domestic appliances, all at company expense. The game was up when another exploration company bought into the venture and put the brakes on, and Monty was recalled to Paris.
Not that he missed much because all the foreign oil companies pulled out of Burma a year later. I had already completed my one-year contract after which I moved to Iran and later returned to Papua New Guinea. I never heard from Monty again and sometimes wondered how and where he finished up. What I've been able to find through the internet reads like something straight out of "Boys' Own" which I'm sure good old W. Somerset Maugham could have turned into the most amazing story.
In 1927, at age 4, Monty travelled with his mother and seven-year-old brother Alexander aboard SS MINNEDOSA to join his father in Canada.
In 1939, the family of four returned to Ireland aboard SS DUCHESS OF ATHOLL, to settle in Ireland at 71 Frankfort Avenue, Rathgar, Dublin.
Monty spent the war years in Burma as Major of 3/2 Punja Regiment (5 Indian Division) - see above application to the Burma Star Association.
In November 1947, Monty left Liverpool aboard MV SCYTHIA for Penang to return to the East as budding rubber planter in then British Malaya.
He must have returned to the United Kingdom sometime between 1947 and 1952 because five years later, in December 1952, Monty again left Swansea for Singapore with his newly-wed French wife Andree Ginette.
His father, Montague Alexander, died in the U.K. in March 1951.
Their daughter Annabelle was born on 3/7/1959, whether in the United Kingdom or in France is not clear although Annabelle on all later airport arrival cards gives her place of birth consistently as "Paris, France".
Sometime in mid-1960, Monty, his wife Andree, and their then one-year-old daugher Annabelle boarded MV Falstria in Port Swettenham, Kuala Lumpur's seaport, to arrive back in the United Kingdom in August 1960.
Less than a year later, in July 1961, the family of three flies to Perth in Western Australia. The National Archives' records mentions "employment opportunities" which suggests they did not arrive as assisted migrants.
In later years, Monty and his wife show up on the Electoral Roll of Stirling in Western Australia, residing at 4 Olcote Street in Doubleview.
Resident at 4 Olcote Street, Doubleview, Perth
Things go blank until Monty's wife Andree and their then eight-year-old daughter, after a four-and-a-half-month absence, return to Australia on a flight from Singapore on 22 December 1967. The home address given on the airport arrival cards is still 4 Olcote Street, Doubleview, Perth.
Again, things go blank until 27 February 1972 when the whole family returned to Australia from Jakarta, an indication that by this time Monty was already working for what later also become my employer, TOTAL - Compagnie Française des Pétroles, who were at that time exploring for oil in Kalimantan (Borneo) in Indonesia. He must've only recently joined them because the airport arrival card lists Australia as country where they last stayed for 12 months or more. Presumably they were in Perth to find a boarding school for daughter Annabelle because there are two more airport arrival cards, on 30 May 1972 and 15 September 1972, when daughter Annabelle returns from Jakarta alone, giving as her Perth address a school, the Presbyterian Ladies' College in Peppermint Grove.
TOTAL - Compagnie Française des Pétroles began exploring for offshore oil in Burmese waters in 1974 when Monty was transferred from Borneo in Indonesia to Rangoon in Burma where I joined him in January 1975.
Monty and Andree's daughter Annabelle, who was sixteen when we were in Burma, married a Kevin J H Morris in July 1984, aged 25, in Poole, Dorset, in the United Kingdom. I cannot trace either on the internet.
Then I found this at the Centennial Park Cemetery in Pasadena S.A.!
The family must have returned to live in Australia sometime before February 1991 when Monty applied for membership with the Burma Star Assocation. In his application he gave as address 10 Tornado Avenue, Hallett Cove, S.A., 5158. He died on 12/6/2006 in South Australia.
Monty, I'm sorry I have tracked you down twenty years too late!
