My father, Keith Dettmer, was discharged from the RAAF in early 1946. He had joined the RAAF as soon as he turned 18. Through his four years’ enlistment he had worked at a variety of jobs but spent most of his time as a messman before being promoted to cook. But he had no formally recognised skills: the Great Depression robbed my dad of his opportunity to learn a trade, as it did so many others.

The good news for my Dad was that the CRTS awaited after ‘demob’. The Commonwealth Rehabilitation Training Scheme had been set up in 1944 under the Curtin Labor Government as part of its Department of Postwar Reconstruction. And like thousands of other returning ex-servicemen and women it gave my Dad a chance at life as a skilled worker with a trade.