Wentworth - Hellbent: Ces Waters & Me : A Tale of Trust & Treachery, Truth & Lies

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Dte Insp Dennis OToole, Dr Robert Finlay-Jones, Bruce Kennedy, Margaret Barnett, Sylvia Waters, Dids familyespecially Lee and Laverne, Ces Waters family, especially Tracey, and all those who wished to remain anonymous for their time, documents, memories, photographs and expertise. You helped me in my quest for the truth. Sandra Coffey and Sandy Dobson at Honeywell for continuing support. John Kerr for editing. Karen Finch for reading. John Meagher for help and encouragement. Dean and Jinka for walking Tippy while I was at the keyboard.

Ces Waters: one of Australia's top motivators and most successful sports trainers

Why was Allen Hall shot dead on the night of 30 June 1988?

Three brothers who punched an unprecedented path to glory

self-reconstruction in a prison cell

the pimp?

animal lover who worked miracles?

Unpromising beginnings

Book 1

Merrie England

Book 2

Sunny Australia

The two most beautiful things in the world are a woman in love and a ship in sail. But you must be strong with them and they will lead you through fair and foul. Be weak with them and they will lead you to Hell. And if to Hell I must go, then give me a ship.

Ces Waters, often

1 A Meeting at Bumble

When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning or in rain?

First witch, Macbeth

Meeting Ces Waters was like being struck by a ball of energy and charisma. I was 27 and of somewhat delicate sensibilities. I didnt really know what to make of him at first.

Life was fun, exciting, full of possibilities. I was progressing very nicely as a pharmaceutical product manager with a background in market research and analysis. I lived a couple of blocks away in a modest brick home in the leafy northern Sydney suburb of Chatswood with John Meagher, who I had recently married after a long relationship.

Tall, slim, with very long honey-brown hair, I enjoyed being flattered by men. It wasnt that I was beautiful in any classic sensemy nose was too big, my chin receding, and my teeth better suited to eating grass. My rounded bottom stuck out too far, though it was very comfortable to sit on. I learned that a good deal of the attraction seemed to stem from my gentle personality and shynessmy cheeks flushed red whenever I spoke to strangers. As far as I was concerned this was a curse, a handicap I had to fight every day. It had plagued my childhood and isolated me from other people. I felt I was an odd one from an odd family, and had always gravitated towards others who stood out in some way from the packjust like John.

I was only a 17-year-old schoolgirl when John and I started dating, much to my fathers concern. John was the complete opposite to me in personality but our tastes were similar. On first meeting he was confident, extrovert and socially skilled. I enjoyed the company of this tall, slim, 28-year-old aspiring film-maker with a very expressive face. He was artistic, sporting and full of fun and vitality. My dad would have described him- as a noisy irritation and a disruption to the tranquillity of his household. He would have much preferred me to go out with a quiet, academic young man with a more stable income and temperament; perhaps an electrical engineer like himself.

Getting to know him more intimately, John was unrestrained in his outspokenness on issues or his reaction to events. This quality must have come from his feminist mothers strong influence. She had raised him single-handedly after her ex-World War I soldier-husband died when John was only 11. Forthright in her opinions, she spoke with a sharp, acid wit. Over the years this trait caused me a fair bit of embarrassment as both John and his mum had a habit of saying or doing things that most people tactfully or politely refrain from. However, to them, it was very important to get to the truth of the matter even if feathers got ruffled in the process.

John helped me break out of my very insular and protected private-school upbringing into a more exciting, yet challenging world. At first I clung to him, using him as a vocal and protective shield behind which I could hide, peeping out at times. Eventually I gained the courage to appear fairly normal to outsiders, although my blush, that hated betrayer, was a dead giveaway. All along, John was encouraging me to take one more step than I would have preferred and encouraged my independence, even recommending I keep my maiden name when we married.

When I first started living with John I was surprised to be woken up in the morning by the bed vibrating. John would be scratching vigorously, trying to encourage more hair growth on his thinning scalp. And he grew odder. He insisted I sat in the centre of the back of his old Volkswagen so I wouldnt unbalance the car (in case he took evasive action) and to ease his concern about uneven wear on the back tyres. He was fastidious about the house whereas I had an easy-going attitude to dust and mess. Careful about money, he could never understand how quickly it slipped through my fingers.

There were incidents too when John was involved in verbal and, thankfully more rarely, fist fights in public. He was passionate about justice (or his view of it). The people who riled him most included restaurant owners serving substandard meals, food servers handling money and food at the same time, smokers, and inconsiderate neighbours in caravan parks or hotels making noise in the early hours of the morning. He would also confront public servants imposing rules that seemed preposterous, toll collectors charging too much and police patrols telling him to pull over. Id cringe when I could see a confrontation developing and soon became skilful at disappearing on an urgent mission somewhere else.

Despite those awful moments when I wondered how I ever got mixed up with someone so annoyingly practical and embarrassingly volatile, my relationship with John was productive and enjoyable. In addition to my pharmaceutical work, we formed a company to develop and produce feature films. John would be home-based writing scripts. I would edit them. John would approach financiers while I worked behind the scenes doing budgets and schedules. I would help John produce and he would direct. Our minds and personalities combined to make us extremely effective as a team. More than anything else, we were very close friends.

That is why it took us eight years to decide to get married. We were suspicious of this institution and as our married friends fought, with many getting divorces, we thought it best to avoid such a formal commitment until we were serious about starting a family. John didnt want any of our children called bastards in the schoolyard. He also wanted to please my conservative parents, who had silently tolerated us living together.