Stephen Bowes. Stephen Bowes
Stephen Bowes was a popular member of the Katanning community for many years owning his own home and optometry practice in Katanning before purchasing a place in Popanyinning where he now lives.
Having spent 43 years in the optometry profession in Fremantle, Liverpool (UK), Narrogin and here in Katanning. He, arrived in Western Australia in 1979 seeking adventure and experience in his new profession . In 2021, Stephen sold his practices in Katanning and Narrogin after 37 years service and retired to enjoy a quieter country lifestyle .
Stephen Bowes
At the end of 1978 Stephen Bowes had spent six years in Sydney, New South Wales, and, according to him “six of the most exciting years of my life”. The University of Sydney was a far cry from Cardiff High School, eight miles west of Newcastle, and the University of Sydney fed his schoolboy hunger for science, especially biochemistry. A solid grounding in science is to be recommended as the starting point for evidence-based practice in Optometry.
He later gravitated to the School of Optometry at the University of NSW as the way to achieve a professional career in Science. With his BSc in one pocket and his BOptom in the other, a working holiday for a year or two to Western Australia would, he considered, meet his need for adventure as well as allow him to learn the ropes of his new profession.
WA was about as far away as one could go on this adventure. The solo journey across Australia was accomplished by car from his childhood home in Cardiff to Port Pirie and then by Trans Australian Railway to East Perth Rail Terminal. As Stephen waited for his car to be off-loaded from the train, he was killing time on this warm and sunny January morning. Walking out onto Lord Street, he laid eyes upon a familiar face from his graduating year.
Waiting at the bus stop, Lew King had beaten him to WA and had already taken a new job with the Optical Clinics group. More to the point, she offered him the hospitality of a roof over his head, until he could find a roof of his own.
Manning and Abernethy in Fremantle were brave, he believed, to have offered employment to this novice, still wet behind the ears. There was so much to learn on the job that was not in the university curriculum, such as how and when to prescribe. Stephen’s reluctance to prescribe and anxiety over prescribing (for fear of ‘over-prescribing’) would often do the patient a disservice (and the practice). “What is good for the patient is good for the practice”.
Manning and Abernethy built upon Stephen’s understanding of ‘ethical’ and ‘professional’ and gave him three years of guidance and experience. These years including a country trip each month to Kojonup and couple of years served concurrently ‘inside’ Fremantle Prison, a convict-built institution along the lines of Port Arthur, Tasmania. He hastens to add that this was as Prison Optometrist.
With the rich benefit of his time alongside Clive Abernethy, Lloyd Owens, John Kirkwood, Phil Stevens and Lou Horn in the port city of Fremantle, he gathered his belongings in 1982 and departed for the birthplace in England of his father, the port city of Liverpool. Things were tough on Merseyside. Short working weeks, unemployment, crime, the brutal austerity of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, the 1981 Toxteth Riots. On the other side of the ledger were the warm-hearted folk, with their resilience and humour and the spectacular successes at home and in Europe of Liverpool Football Club.
Stephen had the pleasure of working a number of practices owned by A.E. Walsby and Co. at Garstone and Bootle (both tough dockside suburbs), Allerton (near the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney), in downtown Liverpool as well as in genteel Southport and Wallasey Village. His partner, Val worked at the ‘rough as guts’ branch in Anfield, not far from the football stadium. Val used the practice ‘panic button’ which set off an alarm and summoned the police on more than one occasion.
Then it was back to Australia with new experiences gained and a renewed confidence to venture out on his own in East Fremantle. Whilst toiling at the daily grind to make it go, locum work filled the belly and paid the bills.
From among the practices on his list of locums, Geoffrey Gordon Shackleton approached with a proposition: give up the locum work and buy him out of his country practices in Katanning and Narrogin. No need to ever work for somebody else ever again. “Sorry, not interested” was Stephen’s response for about a year until his curiosity peaked. “What’s the harm in looking? We’ll go for a drive in the country, just for a look.”
Driving out of Armadale on the Albany Highway, the forests of the Perth Hills and the Darling Escarpment gave way to farmland under crop and under livestock. There were no traffic lights and precious little traffic. Just gentle rolling hills and farmland, the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, and at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
Narrogin was a pleasant surprise appearing suddenly out of the forest and farmland. He learned that it was the home of Australian Rules Football legends like Barry Cable and a host of more recent stars had come from there and surrounding towns, mostly indigenous players.
Katanning gives more hints of its presence as you approach down a long gentle hill with the town appearing on flatter country to the left of the road. It was the home to Kobeelya College, a private residential girl’s school, where the girls were encouraged to bring their horses to school. It was home to a meat processor that’s entire annual production went for export dollars, and it was home to a further host of Australian Rules Football stars.
Family Eye Care Centre, Katanning
The decision had become easier, and a great leap of faith was diminishing into a series of small steps. Stephen purchased the practices from Geoff Shackleton after a short period of consideration. He continued to work East Fremantle, driving down the country to Narrogin, then Katanning and back up to the city each week. After a year or two, he gave up his East Fremantle practice altogether.
His two-year working holiday to Western Australia in 1979 had become his life’s work in 2021. Moving to country WA provided a relaxed comfortable lifestyle and a rewarding independent professional life away from many of the pressures of commercial competition. The unique clinical skills of the optometrist are more valuable in an environment where they are rare. This fact is readily appreciated by the country town GP and by the community at large. Out here, he was valued as an Optometrist. In 2021, Stephen sold his practices, ensuring that optometry would continue its role as an allied health service in Narrogin and Katanning.