I had humble, that is, poor, beginnings. I didn’t even know the taste of real ice cream until later in life. One of the first impacts I felt of the luxury that technology brings was the diode my father bought for me to replace the cat’s whisker on my crystal radio. My high school was lovingly called “shack town.” I spoke as much English as a European refugee, because I had a stammer worse that King George VI.

I was admitted to the hallowed halls of one of the country’s biggest companies, shortly after it ended the compulsory wearing of hats. (Down here in the antipodes we have been a little slower than in the United States to shrug off the vestiges of British colonialism.) My employer, in fact, was the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. It was fortunate that hat-wearing had ended, because I didn’t own a hat. But I was fortunate I wasn’t a woman, since the first women the company employed were kept in a locked room.

Unlike the 100 other internees, I didn’t have a white handkerchief in my lapel pocket, speak with a plum in my mouth, or have a private-school education. They let me in simply because I was smart.

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