Russell dug up some silver from the red dirt of Kalgoorlie with his recent win on the Dental Golfers Society Country Trip. It was a nostalgic trip to Kalgoorlie, which he hadn’t seen since his days on the Perth Dental Hospital mobile vans which used to visit Coolgardie and Leonora.
Russell says that he’s not sure whether back then it was his magnetic personality or perhaps because he was travelling with an attractive nurse and receptionist that there always seemed to be a miner, prospector or grazier eager to have a yarn about how they made a living from the red dirt. For a city boy, it was a fascinating place.
He recalled a patient bringing in a gold bar that had just been poured up at the State Battery. “You could see the glint of gold fever in his eyes,” – this gentleman had a small open cut mine on the edge of Leonora – “We regularly felt the explosions in our van and enjoyed seeing the results of his work”.
“In those days, we felt a connection to the gold miners because dentists were also workers in gold which we used to cast up fillings.” Nowadays at Rockingham Dental Centre, we are fortunate to have the technology that allows us to use porcelain – a material much better suited to the task of making teeth stronger and more attractive.
