Meet Kenneth

This man’s story is not common. Born to poor parents, Kenneth soon found himself homeless as a result of his parents divorce. Poor and always hungry, Ken was a bum in is early teen who had to play it rough to survive. A good bloke in Queensland gave him an opportunity to work and taught him how to read.

Ken never forgot that someone was so generous to him. In turn, he vowed to be generous to others for the rest of his life.

Ken worked in many jobs as a farmer and truck driver for 50 years, until he fell in love with opals and decided to become an opal miner. He found a community that suited his lifestyle in Grawin close to the Lightning Ridge in New South Wales.

Ania and I met Kenneth in a pub he owns, the Shepard Inn. For if Kenneth has a craving for precious stones, he surely doesn’t mind starting new ventures. As I said Ken is a generous man. His main goal is to give back to his community. He decided to diversify the local economy and find new markets for opal. In order to do so he made contact with Chinese officials to showcase opal. A few very rich Chinese businessmen visited his shack in Grawin to see his mine. They seemed extremely interested in the potential of opal. So much so that they in turn invited Kenneth to China – all expenses paid – so that he can promote opal in 20 cities or so! So Kenneth is going to China in May.

The fairy tale doesn’t stop here though. The Chinese businessmen want to take Grawin’s opal business to a whole new level: they want to build about 20 luxury apartment blocks in Grawin. Rich Chinese tourists will be flown in to visit the mines and buy opal. Kenneth said that this will create new jobs for the local economy. The business plan sees the creation of hundreds of jobs catering for the Chinese tourists. Very clever! (see the irony here? 20 years ago, Chinese nationals were cleaning bed sheets and washing the clothes of Australians. Now Australians are going to wash bed sheets and serve food to the Chinese. China is on the rise, no doubt!)

Ken also wants to change the business of selling opal. Miners usually get shortchanged in the grand scheme of things. For example a miner unearths a fabulous stone he evaluates at 20 000$. The market price for that stone is much higher, maybe 35 000$. So opal cutters and other intermediaries will offer the miner 12 000$, which is a rip off price. In turn, the opal cutter will sell it to various clients at 35 000$. Ken wants to change that. What he has done is set up a community of miners who will sell directly to clients, therefore bypassing the “sharks” as he calls them. Another great idea for his community!

What is interesting about Ken is that he is cash poor but asset rich. Very rich: he has found four massive opal stones worth several millions each. What he wants to do is find buyers willing to pay a fair price for his stones. As he said, he is in no rush to collect his millions – he is in the opal business because he loves the work and the community. Sitting on millions and not cashing in – what a man!

Ken was also extremely generous with us. After a heavy rain flooded our tent, Ken invited us to his place to stay for the night. In the morning, Ken was so nice as to invite us to tour his mine! I mean this is no ordinarily offer. Most of the miners will not even invite members of their family to tour their mines. The reason is insurance. The cost is prohibitive and the risks are real. I don’t know why Ken decided to invite us, but I suspect that Ania’s deep blue eyes had something to do with it. :)