Turning eighteen was, well, a turning point. As I grew older and the milestone of adulthood loomed larger, it became pretty apparent that instead of just a party and a few legal drinks to look forward to, I was in store for something else. As well as coming of age, I was coming into money and quite a lot apparently.

It all sounds a bit Brewster’s Millions, I know. Mum and Dad and Gav had done their best to keep me oblivious to Uncle John’s will, but things had slipped out here and there in the months leading up to my big day, and I knew that something was definitely going to change once I turned eighteen. Gav had been the executor of the will and among his duties was that I was to remain in the dark until such time as I was legal. So when the candles had been blown out on that special 11 October it was time to shed some light on what was going on.

I remember that I only took in bits and pieces the first time it was explained to me. Uncle John had never married and had no kids, so he had made the decision to leave each of us $150,000 from his superannuation. While most of my brain was ‘off to the races’ once I heard that figure, there was a questioning part that had something to check first.

‘Hang on. Why didn’t it go to Mum? She was his sister after all?’ There wasn’t really an easy explanation, and my question wasn’t one that hadn’t already been thought over long and hard. It was true that Gav and I both felt conflicted about our windfall. Gav had carried the additional burden of largely keeping a secret from me. He had used his money to help buy a property in Sydney just before his twenty-first, so it had certainly given him a big leg-up in terms of his future.

I’d gone from thinking about how I would need to get a job when I left school to save up for a car in a year or two, to being able to buy my dream car, right now, with cash.

I could just picture it in the driveway. A shiny new, top-of-the-range Suzuki Swift.

I can laugh at myself now, but at the time I thought it was the coolest thing around. Small, fast, a real pocket rocket and I could drive it to school for the last few weeks of term.

Eventually, a dash of reality arrived. Mum and Dad were both pretty adamant that while I was now a lot better off than virtually all of my mates, nothing else had changed. I still had to finish school and I needed to be ready for studying or working or whatever came after graduation. Yes, a car would be a good idea, but nothing was being rushed into.

Dad noted dryly that we needed a new pergola out the back and all of a sudden there was an opportunity to do that. Eventually I got the hint and one of the things that did come out of the inheritance was a bit of a home renovation for Mum and Dad. And it did help me think a bit more seriously about a question I had been ducking for some time. Just what was it that I wanted to do with myself once I was out of school?

Gav told me later that in my last years at school, Mum used to ring him up and after they’d got through the usual pleasantries, the topic that usually came up was what was I going to do with myself? My personal mantra ‘nah nah, it’s all good’ wasn’t much help, but Gav took the view that I would work it out, with some gentle prodding.

At one stage I thought about getting a trade and had even suggested finishing school at the end of year 10. But I made a visit to the Elizabeth TAFE to look at a mechanics course and after that, realised it may not have been for me. I wasn’t sure about studying either—there was the sport side of going to university, but it seemed a bit like finishing school and then starting all over again. And I wasn’t that keen. I tried it, though, and got about six weeks into a two-year marketing course before deciding again that it wasn’t for me. I had been keen on maybe becoming a pilot at one stage. The Qantas influence was part of that I imagine, but maybe there was a bit of truth in the old joke about the teacher trying to motivate her students and telling them: ‘Stop staring out the window during lessons because no-one is going to pay you to sit on your backside and look out a window when you grow up.’ And, of course, that is where pilots come from.

So being a bit unsettled and aimless, my motivation was either going to come from within, or from an external source of inspiration. Mum and Dad saved me from any introspection by gently pointing out a few facts. The inheritance money meant that I could do anything I wanted in life. If I wanted to be a pilot, I could afford the lessons.

I reckon I responded at some point, as only a disengaged teen could, that I just wanted to play cricket because I loved it. Quick as a flash it came back at me: ‘Well, love, if you want to, this will help.’ So while it didn’t directly go to playing cricket, it did help me in many ways. My mates were certain I was loaded, and while I was well ahead of most of them, it wasn’t like I had wads of cash to flash around. I was tightly rationed for a while.

I did buy my first car. I’d picked out the one I liked and went down to the dealers to buy it. Simple stuff. Like going to the shop to buy milk. But I came back without the car. Somehow, between me walking in and waking out, the sales staff and I hadn’t ended up on the same page. I was learning that being almost an adult with money was a bit more involved than first thought. I stewed a bit on it and eventually, with Mum in tow, we tried again.

I’d moved past my Suzuki infatuation and came up with the car of choice for many in the 1990s … a Hyundai Excel. It was red (or as red as they made; Gav reckoned it was maroon when he eventually saw it). With Mum along and being prepared to pay cash, we got a few thousand dollars off the floor price, after which I was rather easily convinced to get the ‘sports pack’ extras. If truth be known, I ended up with all of the optional extras it was possible to get on an Excel. I then went and spent a bit more to get the obligatory sound system upgrade, including a substantial subwoofer in the back.

It did make for a tight squeeze getting my cricket kit in though. The first time Gav saw it when I went to pick him up from the airport, it took several minutes for him to compose himself.

Me (sounding a bit defensive): ‘What? What are you laughing at?’

Gav (after a few deep breaths to compose himself): ‘Oh nothing, nothing much. It’s just that when Mum mentioned how much you’d spent on your new car, I was expecting you to arrive in a big Holden V8 … not a hairdresser’s car.’

I scornfully told him that he was missing the point and that, in fact, it was a very ‘now’ car to have. So anyway, when we tried to squeeze his bags in, he lost it again.

I know he was only trying to wind me up, and I hardly bit at all. Anyway, it was fun to drive and my mates and I enjoyed cruising around town in it. Well, me and whoever else could fit in.

I finished school with a reasonable score, although nothing that cried out for me to try academia. I moved into the work force and basically found myself doing a number of part-time jobs, none for terribly long, and usually revolving around cricket. I delivered gas for a while, worked in a sports store in Salisbury, helped out with cleaning street sweepers (a job as dirty as it sounds). I tended to stick at the jobs but knew that when it came down to it, I would pursue whatever cricket opportunities I could. Having money in the bank allayed the usual fears and concerns a person in my position might have had. I still had to make it as a cricketer … but the security net was there that others in my position might not have had.

Despite everyone’s best intentions, though, I did spend a fair bit of the windfall in my early years. At one stage I told Dad that I thought I had wasted the money, but he thought otherwise. I was growing up and while I had some advantages that others didn’t I was like everyone else learning how to manage money. As he pointed out, thanks to Uncle John’s generosity, I had a car and, later, my first house (which I still own at Ingle Farm). I turned out the person I would be regardless of the money, but it did free me up to indulge my love of cricket and chase my dream of making it my career.

Skip forward a few seasons and my first contract with the SACA as a twenty-year-old was for $12,500—cricket was always going to be a slow burn financially. In fact, being a state-level cricketer really wasn’t financially viable unless you played for a lot of seasons at or near the top bracket in the state system, or cracked it to play for Australia and earn (and more importantly keep) a central contract. The Australian Cricketers’ Association’s negotiations with Cricket Australia during the 1990s had delivered more financial security than ever before for cricketers, but it wasn’t easy street. Part-time or full-time work was still very much on the cards for those players either on the fringe or making their way up the ladder. The ‘learn or earn’ policy was in vogue around the states, encouraging players not to rely just on their cricket skills and, to an extent, it was sound advice. Not that everyone followed it, but for those who did, it reminded them that any sporting career was fleeting at best and there were an awful lot of years after your playing days ended that needed to be addressed.

Looking back now, I know I was bloody lucky. Not only did I get a leg-up at a stage of my life where I was just supposed to be starting out, I was also able to focus on doing something that required a lot of outlay in terms of time and commitment, and still have some security to fall back on. So a turning point indeed, even if my change of direction then proceeded to twist and turn in ways my teenage self could not have imagined.