I guess I first met Old Frank about 20 years ago when he knocked on the door of our farm house seeking any casual work on offer.

Infact, I had seen Old Frank a few times before that, as he herded sheep up and down the "long paddock", (the feed on the verges on the side of roads), throughout the district. This had been quite prevalent throughout the southern half of New South Wales, for about the previous five years, as farmers in Victoria struggled to avoid the consequences of the most horrific drought they had experienced in fifty years. I had even had a couple of yarns with him, pulling over on my way into or out of town, when time permitted.

After the drought work had dried up, Frank had taken to wandering from our area down to and along the Murray, satisfied with his life on the dole, picking up odd jobs, and accommodation in shearing sheds wherever he could find it.

After several years of doing this, Old Frank, as he had been christened by the local kids, and the name stuck to differentiate him from the other Franks in the area, seemed to have established a regular pattern, (give or take a month to six weeks), of where he would be at any given time of the year, so much so, that a couple of local farmers would save odd jobs for him to do whenever he turned up. These jobs often consisted of a bit of fencing, land clearing, or in some cases, depending on the time of year, cleaning up the shearing quarters and sheds ready for shearers when they arrived for the season's action.

One thing I found intriguing about Old Frank, was his voice, which belied the way that he presented himself. Standing at about 5' 10", he was always shabbily dressed, mostly unshaven with unkempt brown/grey hair and sometimes even in need of a good wash. His voice however was that of a man who appeared to have grown up with some sort of exposure to a good education.

If one looked past the occasional stammer, sometimes muddled thinking and the liberal use of expletives, Old Frank's voice sounded as though it had once been a product of a private school, and from the mode of speech, most probably from sometime the 1930's or 40's.

As curious as I was about Old Frank's past I, like some of his other casual employers whom I knew, could never get Old Frank to open up about his past, or heritage.

Occasionally, when I came across Old Frank at the local pub, we would settle down and have a chat. Every now again, the subject of Old Frank's past could be worked into the conversation, usually after having told him about our family's history in the district. During these conversations, I managed to glean, bit by bit, his background, but it was a painstaking process.

Initially, it seemed that Old Frank had come from a very old and well established family in the western district of Victoria, and had been born in the mid 1920's. After spending his first nine years on the farm, he was sent off to boarding school in Melbourne for years five and six in primary school with a view of him then going on to senior school.

As with a lot of good intentions, things go amiss, and his case it was the death of his father, in a Lancaster Bomber in 1941, that prevented Frank from going on with his private school education beyond 4th year in senior school. His Father had joined the Royal Australian Air Force at the outbreak of war in 1939, qualified as a pilot in 1940, only to lose his life when the bomber he was flying, was shot down over France during a night air raid in 1941.

The net result of this, was that his mother moved back to Melbourne, bought a house in Balwyn, where Frank had attended the local high school, until he left school with his Leaving Certificate at the end of Year 10.

From there Frank had attempted a lot of different jobs, until he found his niche as a jackaroo in the Northern Territory. His role in caring for livestock, mustering on horseback, maintaining station equipment and inspecting, repairing, or replacing fences, gates and yards suited him right down to the ground.

After a while he became the senior of half a dozen jackaroos on the half million acre property, and soon developed the man management skills, required to take on farm management on more prestigious, though smaller properties to the south, in New South Wales and Victoria.

The first of these was a beef cattle farm called "Toolaroo" located in Northern Victoria near Sheppaton. After fifteen years of successful reorganisation, he lifted this farm to the point where it was recognised throughout Australia as being one of the top cattle studs in the country.

One of the truisms that spreads across all vocations, is that excellent work establishes reputation, and reputation attracts offers of higher responsibilities, and of course greater remuneration.

Such was the case with Frank, when in the mid 70's, he was phoned by the secretary of James Randell of Randell/Smythe, the largest accountancy firm in Australia, who invited him to Melbourne for a discussion with one of the principals, who she said, wanted to see him about a business transaction.

Intrigued, Frank accepted the offer, and was invited to lunch in the firm's boardroom the following Thursday. Apart from his reputation as one of the finest businessmen in the country, James Randell was also known as probably the most successful horse breeder, Australia has ever known.

When they met, Frank was taken aback by how much James knew about him and his career to date. When he queried James about this, James said that Frank's achievements preceded him and he was very well respected throughout country Victoria, and no doubt throughout the land.

This flattery immediately raised Frank's suspicions, but he was inquisitive enough to accept it with good grace, and wait to see what was going to happen next.

He didn't have to wait too long as James very quickly came to the point. He had recently bought a run down horse stud on the Mornington Peninsular, and while he knew that Frank's expertise was in cattle, he wanted him to take command of the stud and turn it into the finest in Australia.

When Frank questioned his own ability to manage & train horses, James said he didn't have to worry at this stage about the training aspect, as all his horses had their own trainers, who would continue to look after them, albeit at different venues, during race seasons.

James had then told Frank, that he wanted him to develop the stud to the point where it would be the perfect venue for horse breeding, from conception through to their sale as yearlings.

That challenge, combined with the salary package involved, was enough for Frank, and the deal, after some haggling, (which was only for show on Frank's part, he would have taken the original amount quite happily if push came to shove), was agreed for the period of two years.

The first two years of the contract were exceptional as far as Frank was concerned, totally unaware that they layed the ground work of events which would change his life totally.

One benefit of working with a fully accountable, yet bottomless, (it seemed), pit of money at his disposal, was that his planning could turn to fruition, almost immediately, which of course spurred him on to simultaneous developments, thus speeding up what could have been a long drawn out process.

So, at the end of his second year working for James Randell, the stud was looking and working beyond the level that James had anticipated, and he was completely satisfied with the manner in which Frank had transformed the whole stud breeding organisation. The transformation had provided the perfect cover for all of the activities which occurred there, both nefarious and otherwise.

The other reason that Frank had been over the moon, was the fact that in the space of the last two years, as well as his achievements at work, he had met and fallen in love with Ellen Fraser, a local manager of a stock and station agency who had arrived in the district about the same time as Frank.

The fact that Frank and Ellen, both shared a complete fascination with all types of four legged animals drew them initially together, but a relationship outside that so quickly developed, it came as no surprise to their friends and colleagues when Ellen and Frank started out on a whirlwind romance and after only a few months, announced that they were to be married.

Unfortunately, the announcement seemed to further signal a complete change of fortune for Frank, which again was to have a severe impact on his whole life.

One of the salary perks he was promised, when he was given the job, was as and when he achieved certain performance criteria, he would be granted funding to buy shares which would be recommended by James, who told Frank he had a good record in the sharemarket through a lot of his clients who were traders in the stockmarket.

Being completely inexperienced about anything to do with the sharemarket, Frank soon appreciated how wonderful and financially rewarding it was to have the opportunity under the tutelage of someone like James Randell.

The easiest way to carry out the buying of shares in his name, even though James paid, was to sign a whole lot of blank share order forms, which James would send him from time to time by registered mail. With these forms would come a listing of his shares, and the amount they were worth according to the latest price listing at the exchange. As the year wore on, James and Ellen became staggered at the amount of money that he was earning.

Against this background, Frank was more than happy to sign a new two year contract to stay on at Randell Race Breeding for a further two years.

The day after he signed the contract, he was asked to come to the local police station to see Det. Sgt. Sam Prescott about a routine matter. When he went into his friend's office, (they occasionally played a round of golf together), also waiting for him was a member of the fraud squad from Sydney, who had some questions to ask about his involvement with insider trading connected to his shares.

What the police were talking about was a complete mystery to Frank as he had never heard the term "Insider Trading" before, but when he was told that it involved taking unfair advantage of shares on sharemarket to the tune of over $1,000,000, he had his wits about him enough for ask for his solicitor to be with him at the questioning.

Frank's solicitor, Geoff Burnett, explained to him that he was being investigated for buying shares, just before a big announcement was to be made by the company concerned, which would send their shares higher, therefore making a big profit for him. It seemed that once the shares had risen, his stockbroker would immediately sell the shares, making a big profit for Frank, at the same time.

Geoff Burnett had gone on to say that there are laws that attempt to provide fairer markets by promoting equal treatment for all investors, and to stop illegal gains by professional share traders. In other words, to provide a level playing field for all concerned. The laws are seen to have the goal of seeking to protect small investors and non professionals from big inside traders. Many people describe insider trading as a form of theft.

The other mystery surrounding this whole matter, was that, with the amount of shares that Frank had bought and sold, there was no way the total could, in anyway, have reached $1,000,000.

When this was pointed out to the investigating officer, he produced a file of papers, showing that all the stocks had been purchased on forms signed by Frank.

Upon further investigation, while the papers were certainly signed by Frank and were in his name, almost half of them were assigned to a different address, and a different bank account.

Frank told Geoff that the share trading he supposedly carried out was, in fact part of his salary package, and all carried out by his employer James Randell. He went on to tell him about the forms he pre-signed, and, as all he knew about shares and the stockmarket could be written on the back of a postage stamp, he had been completely in James Randell hands.

Subsequent investigations by the Fraud Squad, and further by the Tax Office, all seemed to be initially pointing at Frank, then James, then at a conspiracy by both of them to profit from the proported insider trading transactions, and that both would be required to submit, any and all records they had concerning their share transactions during the period under investigation.

This had been enough to send Frank into a total spin, and in the absence of any assistance from James who seemed to be ducking for cover, Frank and Geoff had had to work their way through the problem together.

When approached by Frank, and later Geoff, all James would say is that he was as mystified as they were about the whole matter, and he would be doing everything he could to clear their names, however he suggested that Frank should keep working with Geoff and he would use another solicitor, as he thought that a larger defence team would have a better chance, of clearing their names.

The real reason that James suggested separate legal representation, became evident 18 months later, when at the opening of the trial, James' defence consisted of primarily clearing his own name, and virtually ignoring Frank's position. However, as the trial progressed, the division between both defences had grown, as each accused each other of complicity in inside trading accusations.

The time between the original hearing and the trial had been telegraphed by the court at the first hearing, so Frank and Ellen had used the time to marry, buy and move into a house in the district, and make some alternative financial arrangements with some of his bank accounts, mainly as a precaution against being left homeless, if things didn't work out with the trial, and/or a rift should develop between James and Frank.

That prophetic action had proved invaluable as soon as the tone of James' defence was presented to the court. On the evening of the first day of James' evidence, it had enabled Frank to tender his resignation from Randell Race Breeding, effective immediately.

It seemed to Frank that the core of his problems had stemmed from his total naivety at the start of this whole unhappy business. He had been, much too trusting and dealing in an area in which he was completely out of his depth.

Leaving aside the long and the short of the trial, Frank had found himself, (through the duplicity of James who had involved Frank in an effort to reduce his own penalty if found guilty), considered equally at fault with James. They were each fined the sum of twenty thousand dollars, and ordered to pay court costs of a further twenty thousand dollars.

After all the debts were repaid, Frank and Ellen sold their home, and moved to the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, where they bought a cattle property, and settled down to a quiet life for 10 years. All went well, until June 1976 when Ellen was involved in a car accident and tragically killed on her way back from visiting her mother in Melbourne.

As anyone can imagine, Frank was totally distraught because of her death, so much so, that he finished up having a complete nervous breakdown, and lived in a home for the mentally disabled for five years, before 'Old Frank' then appeared in our district.

As readers may have guessed, not all of these recollections come from my many conversations with Old Frank.

While the basis of the story, is a result of those conversations, much of the detail was filled in by a several people already mentioned in this story, Det. Sgt. Sam Prescott, Frank's solicitor, Geoff Burnett, and John and Robyn Williams, neighbours from his last farm, who had been very close to Frank and Ellen during their time there.

The reason that I have been driven to research his background in such detail, and have taken the time to write this biography, can be found in the fact of myself, and the two other farmers who looked after Old Frank for the last eighteen years of his life, as he wandered his well worn path around our districts, received a phone call from Geoff Burnett arranging an appointment for us to attend his office for the reading of Old Frank's will.

Upon our arrival, Geoff read the preamble to the will, which detailed the answers to some of what Old Frank perceived might have been some misconceptions about his life.

The first thing Old Frank thought we should know was that in fact he was never on the dole, and never claimed any sort of government payout in his life. Secondly, despite what he may have alluded to us, after the death of his wife, while he did suffer extreme mental disorientation, he did not spend any time in an institution, but rather he was professionally looked after in a small house he owned, by a nur