Memories

An anthology

Edited by Teena Raffa-Mulligan

CITY OF ROCKINGHAM AND

ROCKINGHAM WRITERS CENTRE

Western Australia

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Copyright © 2019 Individual Authors.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Rockingham Writers Centre

PO Box 5079

Rockingham Beach

Western Australia 6969

https://rockinghamwriterscentre.org.au

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of memoir. Accounts of events may not be as others remember them.

Memories/Various Authors.—Digital edition

Edited by Teena Raffa-Mulligan

Photography: Tina Shawal

Dedicated to the inspirational group of seniors who embraced the opportunity to explore their memories and the best way to share them with so much enthusiasm during our Tuesday morning sessions. You were a joy to work with. —TRM

Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero

Foreword

Hello and welcome to Memories, An Anthology.

In the City of Rockingham seniors are an integral part of our community. We have around 140,000 people living here and seniors make up about 16 per cent of all residents.

Providing a wide range of programs and services is vital to ensuring positive physical and mental benefits for seniors.

The City has proudly been a member of the World Health Organisation’s Global Age-Friendly Communities Network since 2012 and will continue its commitment to being an Age-Friendly Community in future.

The ‘Memoirs From Memory: Write Your Life Story’ program ran for eight weeks between October and December 2018, and helped seniors acquire new skills which assisted them in writing parts of their life story.

Workshops were facilitated by the Rockingham Writers Centre and I must thank Teena Raffa-Mulligan for helping facilitate the program with great dedication, passion and compassion. Her experience, knowledge and expertise gently guided the group through various writing styles and the different stages of writing.

Participants were able to reminisce and put a voice to their treasured memories which they can now share with family and friends to help create a lasting legacy. These memories are priceless and again I must acknowledge Teena for also putting this anthology together.

I would also like to thank the Department of Communities for their support. The funding received through the Age-Friendly Communities and Implementation Grants Program played an important role in helping this program become such a success.

I hope you enjoy the anthology and the stories that are contained within it. Seniors truly are the memory of our community and we are all fortunate to be able to read and learn about their lives in this unique publication.

Regards,

Mayor Barry Sammels

Why I am writing

I have often wondered who I really am and what has shaped me and my life. Sometimes we are an enigma to ourselves, let alone to others.

What I have come to understand is that our story begins long before we are born, in generations past, so it becomes both a journey of self-discovery and a family history. In turn, my story is my legacy I leave to you, my sons and grandchildren. In no small measure, it has shaped who you are and the journey in life you are following. Sharing this is my lasting gift to you, a gift I hope you will be able to accept, understand and treasure as you pass through the seasons of your lives.

My gift is a very personal one. I have taken the risk to expose my vulnerable self in exploring how the deficits in relationships I experienced from a young age all through my adult years have shaped me. At the same time, I have shown you my achievements in life, both personal and professional, many of which I know you are unaware. These fill me with great pride. I know I have made a difference and have left tangible benefits behind. When I look at them, though, I am mystified as to how all this has come about. My view of myself with the doubts I carry causes me to wonder if it is all true. I don’t always feel like the accomplished person others see.

In sharing my journey with you, I hope you will come to understand me more completely and, in turn perhaps, to understand more about yourselves.

This gift comes with everlasting love. Enjoy.

—Denis Brook

Do memories matter?

I have been thinking for some time now that I should record my memories so that my children and grandchildren will have the opportunity to at least have an insight into my life. I have decided to record, both in writing and audio, my best recollections of growing up in Glasgow, Linwood and immigrating to Australia. Of becoming a husband, father and grandfather, including not only happy memories but some very sad memories.

One of my biggest regrets in life is that I never had in-depth conversations with my parents and grandparents about what life was like for them growing up. Sure, I know lots of unconnected snippets but they are disjointed.

For a long time, I never knew that most, if in fact nearly all, of my great grandparents came from Ireland. And it is quite possible that some had earlier come from Scotland to Ireland. However, records show that most of my ancestors are in Ireland at the beginning of the 19th century. Yet I knew nothing of this growing up.

As my wife traced back our family trees we found that both my great grandparents on my dad’s side arrived from Ireland between 1901 and 1909, and my great great grandfather and great great grandmother from my mum’s side migrated to Scotland in the 1840s, most likely as a direct result of the potato blight, known as the Famine.

The last to migrate from Ireland were my paternal great grandparents Alexander McLaughlin and Mary Josephine Fidgeon. He was a Protestant from Carrowmoney, County Armagh, and she was Catholic from Carrickmacross, County Monaghan.

As to why they came to Glasgow sometime in the early 1900s, and therefore nothing to do with the Famine, I can only surmise and envisage it is likely for one of two reasons. Firstly, my great grandparents whose families lived only a few miles apart, were of different religions and they would have been shunned by both families, friends and rejected by their respective communities. Could this have been why they would have felt compelled to leave? Alternatively, they did not leave Ireland together and instead met in Glasgow and started going out together, something that would have been frowned upon back in Ireland.

What I do know from their marriage and birth records is that they were married by a Warrant of Sheriff Substitute. At that time people who wanted a formal marriage certificate and who did not want to or could not get married in a church could get married by declaration and the Sheriff would then have certified that this was a true declaration. The couple would then submit the declaration to the registrar to be formally recorded.

Given where they lived in Ireland and the religious divide there, I am drawn to my first assumption, but I suppose I will never know.

I wish I had taken the chance to talk to my dad about his childhood. I know that my dad’s parents never married, I never knew why. My father’s mum stayed with his parents after he was born. My dad’s mum died when she was just twenty and he was almost three years old. After that he was brought up by his grandparents. His father did not marry until my dad was eight years old. His father, with his wife and soon to be children, lived only one street away. Clearly this would have caused my father to feel left out and unwanted by his father. My great grandfather died when my dad was ten years old. After my great grandfather’s death in 1938 my great grandmother adopted my dad.

I did have some discussions with my dad about growing up in Glasgow and about the year he was evacuated due to the bombing of Glasgow and Clydebank during the second world war. It was to somewhere in the highlands but I can’t remember where. He told some stories about having their shoes taken off them when they arrived and being told to walk everywhere barefooted. He said at first you could hardly walk but in no time they were running around and kicking a ball. Initially he tried to run away to head back to Glasgow, only to be brought back to the Manor House.

He also talked about his time as a twenty-year-old in Palestine during his National Service in the British Army. I don’t know much more about my dad’s childhood. I wish we had talked because his early years certainly left their mark on him. My dad was quiet and a loner. He would keep himself to himself but for those who got to know him he was seen as a lovely man.

I would also love to have had more discussions with my mum, who was quite a different character from my dad. She was an outgoing person and willing to have a go at almost anything. When we were young she would play cowboys and Indians in the park with me and my brother. My mum had a fiery temper, something you did not want to be on the receiving end of, as my dad would often testify to.

But in particular I would have loved to have had a deeper understanding as to how she felt when the air raid sirens went off and my gran got everyone organised to leave the house. I have heard that my grandfather was of little help. Gran would tell my Uncle James to pick up the already prepared bag of essentials for a night in the air raid shelter. My Aunty Betty had to grab all the important documents, insurance policies etc. And my mum was to take her little sister, my Aunt Frances’s hand, as they made their way in the darkness onto the pedestrian swing bridge over the cold black River Clyde.

With the sirens screaming they and their neighbours made their way to the air raid shelters in the Glasgow Green Park. I am sure this must have had a profound impact on everyone who endured this.

As an aside note, I remember in the 1960s playing in many of the old air raid shelters in parks throughout Glasgow. In the late ’60s they were all filled in, leaving regular mounds in what would have been a flat park.

As I stated right at the start I wish I had had more in-depth discussions and paid more attention but as a child it doesn’t seem so important. And I really wish they had written down their memories for me, my children and their grandchildren. It is with that in mind that I have decided to write my memoirs as my early childhood was very different from my children’s and even more so from my grandchildren’s.

I hope when they read my story they can laugh and maybe cry, as I have. However, when I look back on my life, with all the hardships we experienced as a family, they may find it difficult to understand. I genuinely believe I would not swap my time growing up in Glasgow for anything.

—Les McLaughlin

To my family

We all have memories, often they can be different memories of the same event. Our emotions and age can greatly alter a memory in everyone’s minds but these letters to you are as I remember things.

You three boys (my three sons) have memories of never having done very much because I was always at dancing lessons with the girls. But you have forgotten the dozens of activities I tried to keep you involved in, you just weren’t stayers.

I guess I don’t remember the bad times so much, or maybe I don’t want to remember them. By writing these letters to you I want to share experiences, feelings and occasions of when all of you were growing up. I want to share my memories of my childhood.

It is sad that over the past few years our family has been split by devastating revelations. None of us knows how to react, how to handle these feelings, so we do the easiest thing, we ignore them. We don’t speak about them or we avoid people and occasions so we don’t have to speak about them.

But we all had lives before this time, we had happiness and togetherness, sorrow and secrets. Aunties, uncles, cousins and grandparents were there to share all types of occasions. I don’t have the answer on how to draw us together again but it is important to me that you know how I feel.

As I write these letters to you there may be repetition but that is because we were all there together. You may have looked forward excitedly to meeting at Kings Park for one of Miki’s great birthday parties or maybe for some of you it was just a tediously long day with flies, hot drinks that should have been cold. Or the dozens of screaming kids either having fun or objecting to being told what to do.

Do you remember the wonderful Christmas nights at Nanny and Farva’s house? They started small but the family just kept growing, is still growing. Do you miss those nights? I do. Maybe it would not have hurt quite so much had they stopped because of natural ageing or someone passing and not for the revelation that shattered our worlds.

As you read your letter or the letters to others in this book please remember these words are from my heart. They are not meant to hurt or deceive or glorify and may not be your memory.

But these are my words, honest words, they are my memories that I want to share with you.

Love,

Mum, sister, daughter, cousin, wife...me

—Cheryl Brookman

Editor’s note: Cheryl is writing her memoirs in the form of a series of letters to her family.

My most memorable birthday

My fortieth birthday was approaching. I had only been separated from my husband for a short while, and I was not feeling the best.

My friend Katya asked me how I was planning to celebrate, and if I was going to have a party. She was horrified at my reply of “Nothing” and the excuse, “I can’t be bothered to make the effort, and if I have a party no one will come”.

“You have to celebrate your fortieth birthday,” she said. “I’ll make a party for you at my house. I’ll do the work, and I’ll invite my friends as well as yours, then you won’t have anything to worry about.”

So it was settled. I knew a lot of her friends, they all liked any excuse for a party and anyway, I wasn’t allowed to argue. Katya had a fairly large house, large enough to accommodate my children as well as myself to stay over, and she was a practised party thrower.

The day arrived. My mood was low and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, though my children were. Going to stay at a friend’s house with other children to play with, staying up late and eating party food was a good deal for them.

As we arrived, it occurred to me to wonder if Katya had made me a cake. She made great cakes! I looked for signs of cake-making in her usually messy kitchen, but it was tidy. Unusually tidy. Feeling a little disappointed, I presumed it had been cleaned up for the party.

The guests arrived. Drinks were consumed. The evening was progressing quite pleasantly with a little dancing. It was nearly ten o’clock, already much later than the children’s usual bedtime, and I began to shepherd them upstairs to the bedroom. It was now adult time.

But Katya stopped me! Instead of getting her boys to go up too, she persuaded me to let mine stay up a little longer. Very strange.

A few minutes later she led me into the front room saying, “You must come and meet so-and-so, it’s his birthday today too,” and then left me with these strangers. The children ran in and out, giggling. A few minutes later, Katya came back and called me to come into the back room with her. Curiouser and curiouser. What was she up to?

Suspiciously everyone in the room followed us.

All the lights were out in the back room and I wondered what was going on. Then everybody started singing Happy Birthday and Katya produced a cake in the shape of a circle which was on a board with an electric light fitting attached in the centre. It looked amazing! “I didn’t have forty candles,” she said, “so I used a forty watt light bulb instead.” It was beautifully iced with ‘Happy 21st-ish Birthday’ written around the circle.

The rest of the evening was great. It made me feel so good that someone had gone to so much trouble just for me. If you knew Katya at that time, you would have known that for her to take the trouble to clean up the kitchen immediately to make it a complete surprise was really quite exceptional.

My mood lifted considerably.

Even though we have lived on the opposite sides of the world since I emigrated twenty-four years ago, I am still in contact with Katya.

—Lesley Jeffreys

Best birthday present

My three-year-old daughter’s chest is going up and down, labouring for air. The wheezing and blueish colour around her lips tell me she is in urgent need of help before the asthma attack takes a turn for the worst.

It is 3:30am. I make the decision to take her to the Emergency Department straight away. But first I must tell my husband what’s going on as he needs to stay home with our son, Steven, until I come back. She is getting worse by the minute, struggling to catch her breath. I’m still wearing my pyjamas, no time to dress up. I must hurry. I put her in the back seat of the car and start driving, relieved that there is enough petrol in the tank for the journey to the hospital.

It is still dark; nobody is on the road. The way is clear. I put my foot down and speed. I’m very good at speeding. Daylight is breaking, I can see the hospital showing on the horizon. Hallelujah! We made it to the hospital in record time and no speeding fines. Being aware I am still in my pyjamas, I park the car closer to the entrance. I take no notice of a big sign saying I can’t park there.

My baby, my adorable little Jessica is like a rag doll in my arms. Running inside quickly, I realise she is turning blue. Inside the foyer I am not wasting time to fill any admission forms. The nursing staff is taking over. In no less than five minutes, they give her a Ventolin nebuliser but she will need to be put into an oxygen tent for a while. Ahhh... I’m relaxing a little bit now, knowing she is in good hands and well taken care of.

By now the blueish colour around her lips has almost gone. A little bit of pink appears on her cheeks. Unfortunately, her chest is still caving in. This is not a good sign; a sinking feeling tells me she will have to stay under observation maybe a day or two. It’s time for me to go, how am I going to tell her? If she cries it will get worse. As I approach her little bed and the oxygen tent, she looks so exhausted and falls asleep before I have time to kiss her goodbye.

“You need to fill out these forms,” requests the nurse, giving me blue and white admission papers. I do as I am told, feeling silly standing there in my sleeping wear.

“Put the date and sign here.”

“What’s the date?” I ask.

“Third of December.”

I put the pen down. With all this happening, I didn’t notice it was the third today.

Taking the admission form from me the nurse adds, “Don’t worry, she will be fine.”

A warm feeling of peace, love and gratitude envelopes me. I know she will be all right. It could have been so different, it could have been so much worse. Walking back to my car I say quietly in my mind, “Thank you, God, for the most beautiful gift I received today. It is the best present a mother can have.”

You see, today is my birthday. As I sit down in the car I look for a parking fine on my windscreen, but nothing. It is my lucky day. Driving back home, I switch the radio on, it’s almost 6am, people are getting up. A brand new day. Nobody on the roads, the way is clear. I put my foot down, speeding all the way home.

—Marie-Claire Morgana

Birthday memories

Two birthdays I will never forget because they are so interlinked are my fifty-first and sixty-first. What’s memorable about these two birthdays is the intense feeling of family.

On 21st September 2003 on my fifty-first birthday my granddaughter Jorja was born. She was to be my second grandchild and I harboured a real fear that I could or would not have the same feelings for her that I had for James, my first grandchild.

I did not want to express my concerns, except to my wife Linda and my mum.

Therefore, I kept my feelings to myself. No one was more excited that Jorja was to be born on my birthday than the mother-to-be, my daugher Laura. And while I was excited as the day approached I still felt anxious as to how I would feel.

On Jorja’s birth I re-learned a wonderful lesson about one’s capacity to love. The fact that love is not limited and has the potential to grow exponentially. I guess both Linda and my mum were aware that I was anxious but they were so delighted to see how I felt about our newest arrival.

The emotions I felt on Jorja’s birth took me back twenty-seven years to Paisley Maternity in Scotland, when I was present and actually helped at Laura’s birth.

Jumping forward ten years to my sixty-first and Jorja’s tenth birthdays. On this birthday, along with Linda, my brother Alan and grandson James, we were celebrating our birthdays in Cardosi’s restaurant in Paisley, the city where James and Jorja’s mum was born.

At some point every year on 21st September there is the predictable argument between me and Jorja as to whose birthday everyone is here to celebrate. I confess she always wears me down and wins the argument.

—Les McLaughlan

A life-changing conversation

As a child and for as long as I can remember I had always wanted to be a soldier. My older brother could never understand that, all he ever wanted was to be a professional football player.

Apart from fleeting moments I had never been interested in cowboys and Indians, medieval knights or super hero comics. And while I liked playing sport it was never my real passion. My favourite comic was The Victor which told a range of different stories but always ran a story about someone who had won the Victoria Cross, the highest honour for Commonwealth Service men and women.

Shortly before my fourteenth birthday I joined the Paisley Army Cadets. Our regimental uniform was that of the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, of the famous Thin Red Line Legend. I really enjoyed the training and flew through all the levels in record time. As such I was given my first stripe, lance corporal, and shortly after that made up to full corporal. And when I was fifteen I made the rank of sergeant.

It was around this time I could leave school. I had never intended staying beyond my third year at high school so I left and considered an apprenticeship or joining the army. As it turned out I joined the Boys Service, for regular army under 18s. I was placed in the Royal Engineers into a unit known as Junior Leaders stationed in Folkstone, near Dover. I knew I would have to go through basic training but I did not expect more than half my time was going to be classroom work. I did not want to learn how to lay roads or build bridges and airstrips, that was not what I joined up for. I was very unhappy and could not imagine it getting any better. I was feeling low when I made my weekly phone call home and they must have gathered I was unhappy but would not say so.

My older brother asked me outright, “Do you want out?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

That night I made my mind up to speak to our commanding officer the next day.

“Sergeant,” I said, “can I speak to the Captain?”

“No, he’s busy.”

“I really need to speak to him.”

“You can speak to me.”

“But Sergeant—”

“Is there something wrong with your hearing?”

Tears were welling up inside. I was feeling very intimidated and I don’t know where the courage came from but I continued.

“I really need to speak to him today, Sergeant.”

“Go back to your dorm and wait.” He was clearly frustrated but knew he needed to inform the Captain.

When at last I spoke to the Captain he wanted to know what was troubling me.

“Sir, I have always wanted to be in the army, but this was not what I had in mind.”

“You’re in a critically important part of the army and you should know that the Royal Engineers has a great history,” he said.

“I would like to be transferred to the Argyles, Sir.”

“Right now, you probably think that’s a good idea, but let me tell you, we will teach you skills, skills that will stand by you all your life.”

“Sir, I don’t want to be an engineer.”

“I am sure you would find it more exciting there but here we will teach you a trade.”

I said nothing.

He continued. “Transferring to an infantry battalion would be a mistake.”

Again, I said nothing.

“So, what do you want to do?”

“I am not sure what I will do in the long term but I want to leave as soon as I can.”

“And do what?” he asked.

“Probably go back to school and get some O levels.”

The conversation then took an unexpected twist.

“I can make arrangements for you to apply for a transfer, as you seem to want to be out of here.”

I am not sure where I got the strength for my next response, but it was to be a life-changing moment for me.

“No thank you, Sir. I have made my mind up. I want to leave as soon as I can.”

“Very well, I will draw up the paperwork and you will be discharged.”

“Thank you, Sir.” I saluted and started to leave his office.

“Good luck, McLaughlan,” he said.

“Thank you, Sir.”

My next hardest conversation was with my high school headmaster. He made it clear he was prepared to have me back as long as I committed to my studies and repeated my last year.

I did, and while I did not stay to finish my O levels I was successful in obtaining an electrical apprenticeship.

I started my apprenticeship on 5th May 1969 and remained in the electrical industry until I retired in September 2017.

—Les McLaughlin

A moment in time

My life-changing moment took place back in 1960, when I worked for a large insurance company. This particular Friday was extremely busy, with representatives calling in all afternoon settling their accounts and some requesting to see the department manager of their relevant division, aiming to complete their queries by the end of the week.

After completing his queries with me, this young handsome man quietly asked “Would you like to come to the Commonwealth Ball with me?”

This question was pretty unusual so I tried to regain my composure. I flippantly answered, “Can you dance?”

“No, but I was hoping you could teach me,” he answered.

After a few thoughtful moments I reluctantly accepted, all the while thinking this could be a challenging evening.

The young man arrived on the night, travelling 50kms from his home, carrying a corsage, which was acceptable then. I was wearing a beautiful pink satin dress and coat specially made for the occasion and fully expecting to be sitting down most of night.

Imagine my surprise when he led me onto the dance floor and started twirling and dancing me around the floor.

“Surprise!” he whispered in my ear.“Actually I’m a dancing instructor at Wrightsons Dance Studio in the city.”

Fifteen months later we were dancing the wedding waltz at our wedding.

Kevin and I were happily married for forty-eight years.

—Gwen Sampey

Always be kind, and do things properly

I was a student psychiatric nurse in the 1970s in a big old Victorian red brick building, referred to by the locals as The house on the hill. There was a tower at the side of the main building which was reputed to be where the dangerous patients were kept, but it was just a water tower.

There was a new Clinical Instructor who started just after I did. She had a profound influence on how I related to my patients. I know that now-a-days we say ‘clients’ not ‘patients’, but at that time they were definitely patients. A story was told of the student who referred to her patients as ‘clients’ in the presence of the matron, and the matron’s firm response, “Nurse, prostitutes have clients, nurses have patients”.

To get back to the story, my Clinical Instructor was a vivacious young woman who was full of enthusiasm for the profession, and filled our classes with entertaining examples and laughter, a refreshing change from our other tutors who were much older and rather fuddy-duddy.

She was determined to rid the hospital of bad habits that had become prevalent on the psycho-geriatric wards which were staffed with far more untrained nursing assistants than students or trained nurses. She focused on such things as washing patients properly when they were incontinent, not just sometimes, but every single time; and getting fresh water and individual flannels to wipe each patient’s face after meals rather than sharing one bowl and one flannel for all of them. The other thing she constantly emphasised was to talk to the patients, even if they appeared unable to understand, and to treat them kindly.

She inspired me to do things properly, as I had seen these things happening and felt it was very wrong.

My next ward placement was night duty on C Ward, female ambulant psycho-geriatrics. The ladies there were all in various stages of dementia; some could still talk coherently, but many could not. There was long Nightingale Ward for most of the patients, with a smaller room off to one side for those who usually slept all night. I was there alone, with a senior nurse doing rounds every few hours to check on how I was doing during the long ten-hour shift.

Those who needed help to undress would already be in bed when I came on duty at nine pm, with just a few of those who were capable of seeing to themselves still up. In between attending to the patients, I had a coal fire to sit by. There were radiators as well, but the ward was not warm at night in the winter. About  a quarter of the patients in the thirty-six-bed ward were incontinent at night, sometimes more than once, and some got out of bed and wandered aimlessly, so there was a lot to do. I was supposed to check everyone at least every two hours and attend to those who had wet beds.

I particularly remember one elderly lady, whose name was Alice. Most of the time she just muttered incoherently, but every now and then she was quite lucid. She was always incontinent, often four or five times a night. Remembering my Clinical Instructor, every time I would walk her to the bathroom, talking to her about what we were doing. I washed her carefully, changed her nightdress, sat her on the chair by the fire while I changed the drawsheet, then helped her back into bed. As I tucked her in, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, “Good night, God bless,” as I had been told that it helped her settle back to sleep.

This one particular night, as I helped her back to bed for the fifth time, she smiled up at me, lifted her arms and put them around my neck to hug me and  give me kiss. “You’re an angel to look after me like this,” she said.

I knew then for sure that my Clinical Instructor was right, and that even those who appear not to know what’s going on still appreciate being treated kindly; and that those who said, “It doesn’t matter, they don’t know the difference anyway” were wrong.

—Lesley Jeffreys

How I met my husband

I was engaged to a young man from our neighbourhood. He was in the military and was drunk every time when he came home so I ended this relationship. I was very sad and lonely for two weeks.

My girlfriend came over to my place and brought another girl with her who had had a little fight with her boyfriend of three years on this weekend. We decided to go dancing, all three of us. It was Saturday night. None of us had a car; we caught the tram and the bus to the dancing place. The other girl knew her boyfriend was out and about with his friends and would be at this place later in the evening. She told me one of the boys was single at the moment.

We had a very good time, dancing, laughing and drinking, but no alcohol or spirit. It was not usual for girls to drink and very shameful if one would be drunk.

I did not like alcohol anyway, we enjoyed cola and lemonade.

The evening went on and we waited for the boys to show up. We sat in a corner to watch what would be happening.

They came quite late and I was interested in how they looked. Not bad, I thought.

One of the boys, it was the single one, was lying on his chair, legs on the other chair. I found him very rude, totally without manners.

We chuckled, danced and made up dates for the next time. We just had fun and enjoyed ourselves. The rude guy came and asked me for a dance. I was not a good dancer, but he had had dancing lessons. I was very shy and not as pretty as the other girls around us, but he told me I was the nicest girl in the place.

My friends and I had a lovely time but forgot we had to catch our bus home. We said a quick goodbye and ran for the bus. But, oh shock! The last one was gone. We did not have so much money to use a taxi and the way home was far.

My new friend told us all the boys had cars and would bring us home safely. The rude one suddenly had very good manners. He opened the car door for me and asked, “May I bring you home?”

Wow! It was shortly before midnight; my girlfriend was with us, the other one drove with her boyfriend.

We did not go straight home, we went to one of the hundred wine cellars in our city where all his friends and more girls waited. My mother knew she could trust me, I was more than eighteen and had no restrictions for homecoming.

It was late or let’s say early in the morning when we all three arrived home.

Life in Germany starts after ten o’clock at night and goes on for a long time; you could go to dinner the whole night. None of us drank so we came home happy and safe.

I had a date with the ‘not rude anymore’ boy the next day and this is still on till today fifty-six years later.

He brought me home!

—Gerda Preisser

Crosswords

You’d think when remembering ‘your favourite teacher’ you’d recall qualities you liked and lived by as a child. Funny, kind, exciting and full of nice and naughty ideas. Someone who was on your side. Who let you off when you were late and didn’t do your homework, and someone who let you out before the bell went.

Astonishingly, Ms Mitchell sprang to mind. Tall, wire thin, standing straight in her flat lace-up shoes, her face equally rigid. As I look back, I hardly saw any change of expression for the Year 10 I had her as Class Room Mistress at Kent Street High School. She taught us Maths A and B. With hindsight, her effect on me was profound, and I am grateful for her insight to this day.

My desk was at the back by the window on the far right side, as remote from Ms M as was physically possible. I too was remote. New to the class, having been moved from the prestigious Perth College on the other, some would say right, side of the river. My entertaining lunch-time stories had been transferred to the parents of my listeners and there had been complaints. My father was requested to remove me, or I would be expelled. I never knew exactly what happened.

However, here I was, fifteen and gazing out the window, daydreaming again. At other times, especially after lunch in the heat, I would flip a thick curtain of heavy hair over my head and hide behind it, silently sweating and sometimes sleeping.

One recess, we were all crowded around Ms M as she explained the mysteries of the cryptic crossword, then commenced to call out the clues. I was dumbfounded when in response to a weird statement “leaves of a book belonging to an aristocratic servant”, “page” spontaneously popped out of my mouth. There was a sudden silence. Everyone stared. I wanted to crawl under the closest desk.

“That’s it!” exclaimed Ms M with a look of complete shock.

Next morning, I was shifted from my steam bath to the left-hand corner of her desk. The English, history and geography teachers suddenly seemed to know my name and take notice now that I sat right up front. I was required to attend school half an hour early every day when Ms M focused her undivided and ferocious attention on my appalling arithmetic, algebra and geometry. Months later, I passed seven subjects in my Junior exam and surprised everyone, including myself.

An “Aha” moment came to me some two decades later at Murdoch University when my Developmental Psychology professor spoke of the Rosenthal and Jacobson Effect: “Students who are judged to be bright and capable by their teachers become exactly that.”

In no small measure I owe Ms M a belated thank you for her recognition and diligence. —Faye Brook

My first job

I went to a business college for twelve months and in that time you had to obtain certain levels, then they had to find you employment.

The requirement for shorthand was one hundred and twenty words a minute, typing (I think) was forty-five words a minute on a manual typewriter, bookkeeping was all in longhand with four different ledgers. At the same time, we had to become competent on the Comptometer, a large box-like contraption with rows and rows of buttons and a handle on the right-hand side. This was a calculator and looked very intimidating.

I started at Metters Pty Ltd in Salvado Road, Wembley as an extremely shy fifteen-year-old. I was appointed as Junior Mail Girl, which equated to picking up and delivering mail to all departments in the office and factory, plus doing all mailing.

The most terrifying moment on my first day in an office of about twenty people was when the tea lady came with her trolley and asked me in a very loud voice if I wanted tea or coffee. We were not permitted that at home so I took a quick guess and thought, ‘Well, most people seem to drink white tea with sugar’ so that was my answer. She was surprised that I needed three teaspoons of sugar in a small cup.

Over the years I gradually got promoted up through the ranks, till I was in the invoicing department. We were still using manual typewriters, five pages at a time plus you had to insert four carbon papers. Then I was given an extra job of cutting stencils to go on an old Getstetner printer to print all price lists. At regular intervals it had to be filled with huge tubes of thick black ink. When all the printing was done I then compiled the lists in folders, for example wholesale, retail etc. with two people to assist me. I also took down letters in shorthand and typed them.

I enjoyed my time working there and at Christmas they would put on concerts down in one of the factories. You were expected to participate regardless of if you were an office or factory worker and I have one photo to prove I did participate.

—Irene Jenner

My inspirational cousin

“See you later, champ,” I said as my cousin Glen turned to leave the room. I could see he was embarrassed by this title but he had just won a State championship on his 200cc DOT and I was overwhelmed by his talent.

I was nine years old and eighteen-year-old Glen was my hero who sometimes turned up at our place on his smoky and loud two-stroke motorbike to babysit us while Dad and Mum went out.

Glen was a fast-talking lanky teenager, always in overalls and with a ready laugh and joke which was a personality I liked so much that over the years I took it on as my own.

For me, Glen could do no wrong and when his name appeared in the local paper because he had been fined for all types of traffic offences, I would read it out proudly to my other family members. One offence I still remember was his overtaking another vehicle on the inside. I still don’t have a problem with that one; if people want to drive too far to the right, then why not overtake on the inside?

As I got older and sensible enough to not get run over, Dad would take me to the local motorbike scramble events at different tracks around Bunbury. Glen was always near the front of the pack at the end of races and my love for motorbikes blossomed.

One night while visiting Glen’s parents and siblings with my parents, Glen rode out on his bike in the dark and returned about twenty minutes later. He called me into the bathroom and asked me to hold the starting end of a bandage while he wrapped the rest of it up his arm covering a very nasty wound with lots of skin missing. I was a bit revolted by the sight but did as he asked and we got him bandaged up without his mother seeing it.

He had been out to Glen Iris (a suburb of Bunbury) to practise racing around the roads that were to be an “around the houses” racing event on the coming weekend. Being night time with very weak lighting on his bike and no street lighting, he of course didn’t see the gravel that had been sprayed onto the road by other vehicles and crashed. So began my disregard for minor injuries and pain.

As I grew up I would ride my pushbike to the scramble tracks and one day at eleven years old I got to ride Glen’s motocross bike. Wow, what a thrill, and the excitement of the power at the twist of a grip was amazing. I must’ve grinned for a week after that and now was really hooked on motorbikes.

In May of 1961 my mother received a letter from the president of the Bunbury Motorcycle Club asking for her permission for me to take part in motorcycle riding and maintenance training. Thankfully after much hassling and begging from me, she wrote a letter of compliance.

I joined the BMCC as a junior member and I was able to start racing on Glen’s 200cc DOT as by now he had a new Greeves 250cc motocrosser from England. I raced on this bike and his Greeves as I got more competent and started winning races against other juniors.

Glen built a motocrossing sidecar around 1961 and I immediately put my hand up to be his passenger (now known as a swinger) and we went on to compete at Bunbury, Collie, Yallingup and Harvey at a club level.

In 1963 when I turned sixteen I could get an open competition licence, which I did, and we then competed in State rounds of the championships at tracks further afield.

In the same year we competed in the Australian Short Circuit Championships at Forrestfield where we finished third. Later that year we competed in the WA Short Circuit Championships at Mandurah and took out second place. I think by now my grin was from ear to ear and couldn’t be wiped off. What a fantastic time I was having with Glen on the sidecar.

We raced at Yallingup on our solo bikes as well as the sidecar each year for some time.  Being private roads open to the public, they had to close the roads to the public for one day a year or they would lose their ‘private’ concession, so invited the BMCC to hold an event there. The course started in the pine plantation opposite the Caves House Hotel, across Yallingup Beach Road and down the hill and around the back of the hotel alongside a dam. We jumped off the dam wall, a drop of a couple of metres, and turned back up the other side of the hotel to Yallingup Beach Road again. The last part of the track was downhill on the newly tarred ‘with sand on top’ road, which of course was very slippery.  During one lap we slid sideways into the pit area, which was sand, and immediately somersaulted across the track, remounted and finished the race.

The next race, as we were hurtling up the hill, I could see the sidecar wheel was going to hit the grader berm on the side of the track so I sat on the mudguard to keep the wheel down.  Unfortunately there was a stump or large rock under the berm at that spot and the next thing I knew we were flying through the air. I ended up in a ditch with no feeling in my legs and I could hear Glen yelling, “Get this fuckin’ thing off me.” 

The bike had landed on him and pinned him to the ground. My legs eventually regained their feeling and use. When we returned to the pits and I took my helmet and leather jacket off, I found to my amazement a print of the front tyre on my helmet and the rear tyre on the back of my jacket.

We had an exciting race day at Allanson near Collie where we had three races to ride in on the sidecar. Another friend, David Walker, also wanted to ride passenger, which created a bit of a problem. I suggested that I do the first race and David do the first half of the second race; then half-way through the race, we’d swap over for me to finish the race. We did that and went on to win the race.

One lap at that track we were racing down into a left-hander on some sharp corrugations and my left foot bounced off the outside platform, under the sidecar wheel and dragged me off the bike. I hung on as hard as I could, flapping in the breeze, and eventually one of the bumps after the corner bounced me back into the sidecar. Glen was none the wiser as he hadn’t noticed I wasn’t there.

One day I thought I’d make a sidecar for my pushbike, so armed with a few pieces of metal, timber and a small bike wheel, went ahead. By the time I got to Glen’s place to show him my beaut creation, it had gradually fallen apart and I had the lot in my arms when I got there.

Glen, being the kind-hearted person he is, got together some piping and clamps and set about making a solid sidecar frame for my pushbike, and away I went proudly showing off my new beast. It was very popular with my young friends and I gave them rides on it. Seeing the glee on their faces made me feel like a hero to them. As the only pushbike sidecar in Bunbury it was a great point of interest to everybody.

After my dad died when I was thirteen I spent most of my time at Glen’s place with his parents and siblings. It was a place where I felt appreciated, confident and not threatened or intimidated. I was spoken to kindly and taught plenty of life skills. I never slept there but was there reading Glen’s motorcycle magazines early, waiting for him to wake up.

One Saturday morning we rode Glen’s bike with me carrying a 20 litre steel drum to the BP depot near the Bunbury jetty to buy some racing fuel for my bike. On the way back, as we went into a right-hand bend Glen dropped off the side of his bike as if he was riding his sidecar, leaving me sitting up like Jacky with 20 litres of highly flammable racing fuel sitting on my knee.

I was riding my pushbike along King Road in Bunbury one night when I heard Glen’s bike come up behind me. As he got to me he grabbed the back of my seat and powered up the road pushing me along. I had my lighting generator working on my front wheel and as we hurtled over the railway line hump in the road, the headlight glowed strong enough to light up half of Bunbury and then exploded.

We spent most Saturdays of weekends at the track on ‘busy bees’, remodelling and generally maintaining the track and buildings. Glen worked for a Ford dealer in Bunbury and was able to borrow a tractor and other machinery to do the heavy work. It was very sandy soil so he also collected old engine oil to pour on the track to keep the dust down.

At the end of the busy bee some of us would retire to the pastry shop alongside Glen’s house, where I always looked forward to a delicious double chocolate, double malt with ice cream milkshake and jam tarts – scrumptious!

At sixteen and after working for two years I’d saved up some money and with a loan from my stepfather put a deposit down on a new bike. I had to import the bike from England via Clinton Bros Motorcycles in Subiaco and waited impatiently for a few months for it to arrive. Glen drove me to Subiaco to pick up the bike and also drove my bike and me to events around the state.

He has been a father figure, big brother figure and mentor to many other kids over the years, always extremely generous with his time, loaning his bikes and giving advice.

—Rob Britza

A special day

I was about four years old and was with my little sister in kindergarten. We settled down for our midday rest and I lay on my blanket, feeling good but tired. I sighed and closed my eyes to go to sleep.

Suddenly the door burst open and my older sister stormed in the room very excited and shouted, “Our dad is home for good!”

I did not know what to think.

She told us we had to go home very quickly, which we did.

We arrived at home and in the kitchen on the sofa was a man sitting, I never saw him before but I knew this was my Vater. I started to cry very hard. All my little life I urgently wanted to have a Vater like all the other children. 

I flew into his arms; he held me strong and safe; I was lucky.

But I was the only happy one in the family. My Mutter and my two sisters did not want him at all.

My dad had brought some lollies, coconut, white, pink and brown. We got sweets very seldom. Since this day they are my favourites once and for ever. —Gerda Preisser

To know her was a privilege

I met Joyce more than thirty years ago and I was very nervous at that time. I had met her son Steve about three months earlier through his sister and never imagined it would be more than a casual acquaintance. I was thirty-five, divorced with five children and Steve was twenty-three. From that first meeting both of Steve’s parents were lovely to me, such a contrast to the reactions of my own family.

I soon realised that Joyce could be quite opinionated, outspoken and sometimes a little hurtful, although I never thought her to be malicious, she just spoke without filtering her thoughts. She was estranged from her two daughters-in-law and I wasn’t about to be a third. I found the best way to deal with the situation was to just agree with whatever she was suggesting and it was never mentioned again. Or not to take offence, even when she told me she thought my hairstyle was too young for my age. I didn’t change it and she never made the comment again.

I loved my father-in law, he was such a gentleman, so knowledgeable and humble with an amazing sense of humour. After he passed away in 2014 I found I wanted to spend more time with Joyce, often taking her and my own mother to lunch or to the movies.

I had never been as close to my mum as my sister was, but caring for her for seven months as she had dementia, it was a joy to get to know this person who gave me life and had such an interesting childhood. But I couldn’t talk to my mum, I couldn’t ask advice or share my secrets and this is where Joyce became so important to me.

Joyce was a lady, groomed, well spoken, with a simple but beautiful home. Her heart was always in the right place and even though she ruffled a few feathers within her circle of friends she was always the first to assist if any were in need or needed support. She made me want to be better, to be tidy and graceful. I’m not sure I ever achieved that but she was the role model I aimed for. So different from my parents. I am sure they did the best they could but they were very rough around the edges. My dad’s attitude was “if you don’t like it then you can lump it”. A little embarrassing at times.

I was devastated when at Easter 2018 Joyce was diagnosed with cancer. I felt guilty for being the one who took her to the doctors/hospital. I know it was irrational and it would have happened anyway. She only lasted a few weeks, until Mother’s Day, and then she was gone.

She gave me her son, who has been my loving husband for eighteen years. She shared so much of herself with me. She was not racist or prejudiced in any way, she was cultured and refined without ever dismissing those less fortunate. She just had her opinions like we all do. She made me want to be better.

It was a privilege to know her.

—Cheryl Brookman

What do you want to know?

My memory pushes me way back many years ago in Queensland when Tarot reading was frowned upon as something you did in hush hush secret. In those days people used to go to a small coffee shop for a cuppa and discreetly go upstairs to a private room to have their future told. Fifteen minutes would pass and the reading was over. It was mostly about families and money worries.

As I put my hands on the table ready to gather my Tarot cards, the woman who has come for a reading stops me and says in a small trembling voice, “There is something else I want to know.”

I look at the clock, thinking my boss is not going to be pleased if I take more than fifteen minutes for this reading.

“Time is money,” she always reminded her readers.

I do not feel the same way she does. For me the client is more important, not the clock. But she is my boss and I have to obey and go by her rules.

“Okay, but just two extra minutes. So what do you want to know?” I ask, annoyed, knowing very well that I am booked for another reading after hers.

Timidly the elderly woman glances around the room checking that we are alone. Then lifting her hands up to her head, she slowly takes her wig off. I am not sure if I am more surprised than in shock... or both.

“I have cancer. I am dying. The doctor gave me three or four months maximum,” she declares.

Immediately I tell her I am not qualified to give any health advice.

Before I can say anything else she adds, “No, no, all I want to know is how I will live these few months I have left. That is all I want to know.”

Suddenly I feel small and certainly not prepared for this. But one thing I am sure of is that the clock, time, money and even the boss are insignificant right now. What is most important and really matters to me is this gentle, sweet, elderly lady sitting opposite me.

A knock comes on the door “Excuse me, Marie-Claire, just to let you know that your next client is running late. No rush, take your time,” says my boss looking at the bald woman and giving me a perplexed look.

“Whoops,” says the woman, “I forgot to put my wig back on! I am so used to being bald that I forget that it is not on. Sorry.” She smiles at my boss, who then quickly closes the door, not knowing what to say.

I shuffle the cards, spread them on the table and ask her to pick one card, one card only. She takes her time to choose one knowing the importance of this card. Slowly, very slowly, she pushes the card towards me. I wait a few seconds before doing anything. I know she is worried, even scared. Expecting the worst, hoping for the best. I am a Tarot reader, I know my cards, I trust my cards. Right now I am preparing myself to deliver the outcome. With no expression on my face, slowly I turn the card over.

“Oh gosh, oh gosh!” she cries, covering her mouth. “Oh no, oh no! I did not expect this card.” Looking at me, taking the cards in her right hand, she bursts into tears. “It’s the sun!”

“Yes”, I say, “it’s the sun card. The best positive card in the entire deck.”

I am relieved, pleased for her and also surprised that she knows the meaning of this card.

“It will be okay, it will be okay!” she says in a cheerful manner.

I take her hands in mine, sharing her joy, saying, “So, you wanted to know how those few last months will be? Please let me finish your reading.

“I need to warn you first; you will have some hurdles to go through similar to what you have overcome before. There will be some delays of sorts, especially in regards to your finance. But money will come just in time for you to enjoy a little trip in a sunny place. You will feel more energetic and positive for a good while. You will have time to do lots of things that you were hoping to do and live your life to the fullest. Then when the time to slow down will be upon you, looking back you will be satisfied, even amazed and happy to have done so much in so little time.”

We hug and say our goodbyes. She opens the door, smiles a big smile at me and says, “Thank you! I am glad I came. This reading has given me hope and courage.” She closes the door behind her to go and make the most out of her short life.

I hear footsteps coming from the stairs, a knock on the door. “Hello, sorry I am late,” the nervous, shy gentleman apologises.

“No worries,” I say. “Come in, please sit down.” Shuffling my Tarot cards, looking at the shy gentleman, I query, “So, what do you want to know?”

The message is, time is precious.

—Marie-Claire Morgana

Losing Nanna

You could smell our house before you even saw it. We lived opposite a pine plantation; somehow the home was a reflection of it.

Still dark jarrah floorboards, a sectioned mottled glass front door which, although it altered the shape of the multitudes of pine needles, invited slabs of vegetable green forest indoors. The still, quiet and cool effect perpetuated the ‘Californian bungalow’ and drew you in.

It had a fireplace in the front room, and I can hear the crackle of the burning logs spitting gum. I vividly recall the day of horizontal rain that drenched us all coming down the big hill on our bikes from school. Mum had a huge enamel jug of liquid chocolate kept hot fireside that warmed many a dripping, shivering child on their way home. In the ’50s, Perth had proper winters. Wet, windy and cold.

The kitchen faced south, and the rectangular table paralleled a picture window that was perfect for mentally escaping the agony, sitting there as you slowly laboured through “eating all that is on your plate”, particularly when it was tripe. Bedrooms seemed small and dingy, but the backyard was an immaculate bowling green. At either side stood mammoth, glossy-leaved camellias that sprouted saucer-sized scarlet blooms. They cheered the grey winters like baubles on Christmas trees.

Beyond the green, running the entire width of the ‘quarter acre block’ was the chook yard. There was a colourful assortment of chooks, they were my soul mates, and I had given them names. I talked to them, played with them, spent my free time with them, made them my close family.

So it was when I was ten on the morning of 4th October 1956, my grandfather’s presence by the dormant fire grabbed my attention. Although my nanna frequently chauffeured him in their Austin 7, I had never seen him in our Kensington house before.

“What are you—?” had barely escaped my lips when my mother shushed me, took me outside and said, “Nanna’s gone to be with God.”

An excruciating sob rose in my throat. I choked it back, as she admonished, “Don’t cry, you’ll upset Grandpa.”

I ran up the back to the chooks, silent tears ran hot and streaky uncontrollably. To me, my beloved Nanna was the only person who loved me. She listened, she looked at me, she cared and gave me her complete attention. In short, Nanna was the only person who could see and know me.

Now, Nanna was gone without even a goodbye. I had no idea what to do except stay outside. Time passed and splintered weak sun spread through the chilled air. So many questions and so much hurt swirled dark and heavy in my mind. Then I saw a fresh white feather. I picked it up. It curved and nestled soft in my hand.

This symbol of protection and attachment somehow began to console my lost, grief-stricken self that no other human being could recognise and include.

To this day, a white feather is always with me. It’s on my desk right now!

—Faye Brook

Lost

We sit across the table from each other and I look into her eyes, wondering where she might be. She used to love to sing and dance and a glass of wine with her friends was a pleasure at the end of a busy day taking care of her family.

Now the wine was a habit. “Can I have a glass of wine today?” she would ask at almost the exact time each day. It wasn’t like she was an alcoholic, most nights the wine was not finished, wasted much the same as she was wasting.

My heart ached to talk to this beautiful woman who had so many interesting stories of her childhood, of a small country town and parents and siblings. They were there somewhere, locked by an intermittent key that only worked in flashes.

I was sad that my grandchildren would never learn of the life where kids walked miles to school. Or of the whole town that came out to see a young man going off to war with the ceremonial watch presented by the Mayor.

“Did you enjoy the movie?” I ask

“Yes,” her quiet little voice responds. “What was it called?”

I sigh and tell her the title of the movie she has watched almost daily since it was given to her three months ago.

“Oh yes, I love that movie. Will your dad be home soon?”

Her words are like two knives into my already hurting heart.

“Maybe,” I lie.

I look at her across the table and mourn the loss of my parents. Him to old age and her to the corrosive effects of dementia.

—Cheryl Brookman

An unexpected friendship

When Simba first came into our life, little did I know that she would become such an important part, not just occasionally as in the beginning but as time went by, almost every day.

Simba was a cat ... a black cat with the odd patch of white here and there on the forehead or one leg, even a little bit on the tail.

I must admit I was not impressed with the name she had been given. Somehow it did not suit this likeable little creature, all soft and furry and with big enquiring eyes. Of course I was not the owner, so it was really none of my business what she was called.

Simba belonged to our next-door neighbours Pam and Paul. They also owned a big black dog that seemed pretty harmless, making an occasional loud bark just to let us know he was a member of the household.

But it was Simba who took control. We first met one day when I went out to the letterbox to check for mail. I heard a gentle meowing and looked down into the face of this unfamiliar black and white cat.

‘Hello,” I said, “who are you and what are you doing here in my place?”

Naturally it couldn’t answer that so I turned and headed back into the house.

In the next few days I managed to have a conversation with the neighbours and established the fact that Simba was theirs.

A day or so later, one early morning when I opened the front door to see if the paper was there, lo and behold I was greeted by Simba and a quite loud “Meow”.

“Oh, hello again,” I said. “Would you like to come in?” Simba followed me into the house and proceeded to do an inspection, going from room to room and then returning to me where I was sitting at the kitchen table. I stood to open the fridge to get the milk for my coffee and heard another “Meow!”

“Okay,” I said “I suppose it won’t hurt if I give you a drink but I am definitely not going to feed you.”

And so it began.

From that day on, Simba would appear at my front door, follow me in and stand in front of the fridge, waiting for me to give her the saucer of milk. I gained my neighbours’ approval re the milk, but as promised never did feed Simba. She also learned to recognise my friend Michael’s car. Whenever he arrived she would race across and leap onto the bonnet of the car and meet and greet him at eye level. They also became buddies.

Simba’s most amazing behaviour though, was when my grandson and his three mates came to stay overnight on their way back from a schoolies adventure. One person in a bed and three in sleeping bags on the floor. I let Simba into the house as usual and after spotting various bags on the floor and walking over the sleeping faces, she came into my bedroom and meowed and meowed and meowed. I’m sure she was asking me for an explanation.

I finally sold that house and moved on but always received a Christmas card from my neighbours, who also sent regards from Simba.

I cannot tell you how many tears I shed for my beloved, dear little precious, unlikely friend when the year’s Christmas greeting told me Simba had died.

—Bernice O’Halloran

Weekend special

Weekends have always been enormously important to me. In the half century which comprised my career, it’s clear why.

The two days off were a survival essential. The change I now recognise was life-giving for me. Not just the altered environment and behaviours, but the pace. Tempo you might call it! Relief of not being governed by the clock. Sleeping till you woke. The collapse of the ‘you should”’list. A sense of freedom was implicit in the questions I asked myself:

What would I like to do this Saturday or Sunday?

Where would I like to go?

With whom?

Or did I just want to be by myself?

Or with others?

(After I had done the washing, ironing, cleaning and cooking, of course!)

“Thank God it’s Friday” (TGIF) was what I felt long before it became fashionably acknowledged in the vernacular. A sort of elation with big feelings of anticipation for the freedom, excitement and R&R that weekends provided. A rejuvenation process that would transport me into the next working week and keep me going until I retired at seventy.

However, my appreciation for weekends was signalled long before this in childhood. In the October after I had turned ten, my much loved Nanna unexpectedly and suddenly died. Grandpa was permanently blinded with shrapnel wounds to his head from WWI. Rather than add to his grief and loss, and cause further distress and upheaval, the family immediately moved from opposite the pine plantation in Kensington. He and Nanna had lived for more than a decade across the road from Hensman Park tennis courts at 15 Anstey Street, South Perth. This shift was only a few kilometres distance wise, however, for me it was a cognitive leap from isolated country bumpkin to sophisticated city girl.

I loved it, there was a village just down the end of the street at the T-junction with Angelo Street. A newsagent was there. I soaked in the smell of paper and books each time I went to collect my School Friend, a thin paper which I purchased monthly. More importantly, as I got older, was the Post Office which had two roomy phone booths where long conversations about virtually nothing could be dialled up for two round brown pennies (known in the mid-’50s as tuppence). By the time I reached fifteen, I was allowed to go (if I wasn’t grounded) to The Gaiety picture theatre on Friday nights. An imposing wide curved stairway with a roll of thick royal blue carpet covered the centre of its polished wooden steps. Gold-trimmed black naked negroes on pedestals with a raised arm holding a flame-shaped amber glass lamp stood on either side of the ground floor lobby. Tall vases held splayed arrangements of peach, lavender and white gladiolus, creating an ambience of luxury.Women dressed in their ballerina-length full-skirted frocks and accompanying diamantes, and men in their suits gathered and greeted each other warmly on the way up to their seats in the Dress Circle.

I, along with my teenage friends, quickly found our way to the back row downstairs in the stalls. Preceding the main attraction were ‘the shorts’, a preview of next week’s showing which I always looked forward to with enormous enthusiasm.

With hindsight, I’m aware this beloved entertainment of mine on Friday nights was not only a form of escapism which shaped my life thereafter, it sustained me through the dull daily grind of school, with its highly regimented classrooms and protocols of the 1950s and early ’60s.

This weekend treat preceded the Saturday lunch ritual.

My father, for all his faults, was an excellent and innovative handyman. This was a big plus in days where even essentials were scarce and expensive after two world wars and a depression. He designed and built what we now would call an alfresco dining area. Between an old jacaranda tree and a gnarled Cape lilac, he levelled the ground and installed a rectangle of large square concrete slabs. He then produced an outdoor setting which he made out of disused classroom chairs and desks. The table was a number of desk tops bolted together on the underside to produce a smooth, slatted, thick yellow wood surface. This was supported by a curved, lacy-patterned wrought iron frame at each end. The seats were pews on either side, a lower miniature edition of the sturdy table.

As I recall it now, it was an attractive piece of furniture in a shaded setting for summer; and in winter when we had a sunny Saturday, it was warm and a pleasant place to sit in the great outdoors and share our short, fat barbecued sausages, salad and thick slices of crusty fresh white bread.

—Faye Brook

A holiday to remember

When i think of my worst holiday ever, I can’t stop smiling. I was young and in love with my husband of three years. He was a Naval Officer who spent so many months of every year away on deployment that I just couldn’t help but find the fun in even the most difficult circumstances.

We both managed to organise our annual leave for late December/early January – not a straightforward task with my shift work as a nurse and his ship’s often-changing schedule.

We decided to go camping on North Molle Island where there is no resort, no amenities of any kind – a deserted island retreat for two.

The skipper of a catamaran doing a tour around the Whitsunday Islands agreed to drop us off onto North Molle Island as he passed by. He said he would return in seven days to pick us up and could we please be ready on that same small stretch of sand around 11am.

It was so exciting to watch the boat sail away, leaving just the two of us on our piece of Paradise.

As we had approached the island, it had looked like a large rounded bush-covered mountain with a thin line of sandy beach along the edge. Every so often the line was interrupted by huge rocky boulders, a sign of the volcanic beginnings of the area.

Now close up we could see a more gradual incline hiding under a dense rainforest canopy. The grey/white sand of the beach was warm, as was the shallow water close to shore. The colour of the sea was divine. Crystal clear aquamarine on the beach, gradually deepening through all my favourite shades of aqua, turquoise, lapis lazuli to a deep royal blue.

We walked along the beach looking for a spot to set up camp, my dear husband lugging three 25L containers full of fresh water (enough for five litres per person per day as instructed on our camping permit to be for all drinking, cooking and washing), as well as the majority of our camping gear. This consisted of a large tent, a gas bottle and stove, boxes of food and bags of clothes and towels etc. I carried what I could but we still had to move it in a few trips, so it wasn’t too long before we decided on a pretty little spot beside a small stream that was sheltered by a canopy of trees just off the beach.

After pitching our tent and setting up camp we had a swim to wash off the sweat of activity in the humid heat of tropical Queensland.

I love summer, and the beach and sea makes me think of holidays and relaxation so I was euphoric as we soaked the sun into our bones, lying on our towels after our swim.

The salt water tightened my skin as it dried and I smiled as I licked my dry lips, the salty taste another reminder I was on my dream holiday with my beloved husband.

As the temperature began to drop and a slight breeze blew a faint whistle through the casuarina trees, we realised we were both starving. I made dinner from a can on our little gas stove and for dessert we had tinned peaches and then coffee and fruit cake.

After washing up and making sure all our food was put away in our tent, out of reach from possums and other nocturnal creatures, we snuggled into our sleeping bag and both fell into a deep contented sleep.

I woke up with a start when my husband said, “What’s that noise?”

I could hear a loud plop, plop, plop sound on the canvas tent and on the large vine leaves that were part of the undergrowth outside.

“I think it’s raining,” he added.

“What?” My sleepy brain was confused.

“This is the Whitsundays. In summer... It doesn’t rain here now!”

It wasn’t just a shower of rain. It was pelting down. So much so that the little stream we had camped beside began to flood our tent.

We were up in the dark, moving our belongings out, and then moving the tent to an area away from the widening stream.

And so it continued – heavy rain for the next seven days.

We only dozed for the rest of that first night, startled awake every time the noise of the rain became louder on the tent as the heavier squalls passed over our island.

When it was light we got up and surveyed our completely different surroundings. It was either raining or dripping water from the leaves of the trees over our campsite. Over the sea, it was grey and misty. There was a freshness of rain in the air, although it was already starting to heat up with intense humidity.

For breakfast, I cooked baked beans by sitting in the tent with just my hand out through the door-flap stirring the beans on our gas stove. We sat in the tent and read the one book we each had with us.

My husband was bored and grumpy, but all I could say was, “At least we’re together.”

We decided to go for a walk over and around the island. It was quite steep and very bushy at the start of our trek from the campsite but the rainforest became sparser as we went higher until it was completely different overhead and underfoot. There were no trees so we were feeling the full pelt of the large drops of rain and the ground was now very thick bracken that our shoes sank into with each step.

It was becoming a bit soggy and slippery in parts. My husband was stomping and cursing the rain.

“At least we’re together,” I puffed, struggling to keep up with his long angry strides.

The rain had settled a little when we were at a peak and we could see another island in the misty distance.

“That’d be South Molle Island,” said my clever husband.

Thank goodness for his incredible navigational skills. I would never have found my way back to our little camping spot on my own. I have a very poor sense of direction and hadn’t even thought about trying to keep track of which way we were going – so confident was I that Hubby would keep me safe and knew exactly where we were.

I was more focused on trying to step in the same spot he had with every stomp because that way I had an idea of how far I was going to sink into the bracken. And watching out for wet branches swinging back after he had stormed through in the bushy areas on the way back down. And loving the adventure of it all.

By day three, all our clothes were wet and as it was hot and humid there was no other choice but to go naked.

“At least we’re together,” quipped my husband this time.

On day four, we started looking out for the boat from time to time, thinking they may come to pick us up early. We swam and even snorkelled when the weather cleared a few times, and went for long walks along the narrow beach stretching around the island.

On day five, it was still raining although there were some lighter showers. Hubby climbed up one of the huge boulders on the beach and used it as a lookout for any boats at all sailing by. This time he did see a boat. It was in the distance but heading towards our island.

We tore down the tent and threw our belongings together, ‘showered’ in litres and litres of fresh water that we hadn’t needed to drink and dressed in some half-wet clothes .We were like a couple in a comedy, filmed at fast speed, pausing every so often to check on the position of the boat coming to rescue us.

We hurried as best we could with all our gear to the area of beach where we had been asked to wait ... and were rather surprised to see another young man waiting there.

He had a camera with a large lens and probably had some very natural shots of the other visitors on the island. We were too embarrassed and shy to even look him in the eye, let alone ask him about his photography.

A quick “G’day mate” was all my husband offered and I could only manage a shy smile.

The boat reached our shore within minutes so we all focused on thanking the skipper for coming two days early for us. The other guest spoke with a German accent so we politely chatted about his Australian holiday and about how unusual it was to have so much rain at this time of year.

We reached the mainland almost dry from the wind of the boat ride and really enjoyed a hot shower and fresh food for tea.

It was still raining the following day when we set off on the long drive back to Sydney and to our lives spent often apart – me working shifts at the hospital and my beloved husband away at sea.

I often think of all those funny moments we experienced together on that Island and always smile at the memory.

“At least we’re together” has become a family saying for whenever a situation is not quite as expected.  So really, this should be called The Best Holiday Ever.

—Cathy Cooke

Christmas past

Christmas past? I’m stuck, I’ll have to leave it to my sub-conscious to dredge through seven decades back to my childhood. Some pictures, perhaps, maybe a story line to direct my current thinking. What actually happened on this day we celebrate annually with a special emphasis on children, when I was young, small and very insignificant?

Fuzzy black and white stills ease into focus. Ah, there it is, my frightening father, sandpapering what seemed like a rectangular carton. Then it being placed hurriedly on a bookshelf. At another appearance I made where I was sternly told, “Go back to bed”, I caught a glimpse of the carton being varnished. My father, paint brush in hand, in the lounge room, piqued my curiosity, it all seemed so odd.

Christmas morning came and, in a rush of excitement, I jumped to the end of my bed. Nothing there. I looked over to my little brother’s cot. Nothing new hanging on it; nothing on the floor around it.

I padded quietly down the hall (in our house, we had learnt early to do everything silently) and there on the kitchen table, the box gleamed in the early morning sun. It had a pink and blue picture on the end which transformed it into a dolly’s cradle.

A huge celluloid doll filled it. Rosebud red lips and wide, fixed, bright blue eyes looked up at me. She wore a long pale blue satin dress with a lace overlay and looked beautiful.

But she was impossible to cuddle, cold and stiff, just like my father.

—Faye Brook

Christmas traditions in my homeland

I was about ten years of age when I had a real Christmas at home. Before, I was in an orphanage, or too small to remember.

Christmas starts actually four weeks before, this is Advent. My mum decorated a medium size bench with red candles and large red bows, lametta and a few little figurines. This had to hang over the table in the kitchen and every week we would light one new candle till at Christmas all four were burning. At this time cookie and stollen baking was in full swing. I was not permitted to help, I had to take care of my little sister.

On Christmas Eve we bought our tree, it was much cheaper then. We still got a nice one every year. I was in charge of decorating it. I used lametta {shredded tinsel}, baubles, very shiny and colourful, Stroh stars and lots of self-made little things. We had real candles made out of beeswax; it was dangerous but beautiful and the smell was worth it.

Mum and my big sister made the dinner, a very large Christmas goose, dumplings, red cabbage or sometimes Brussels sprouts, which we could use later in our little pots in the doll house. After dinner, but only on special occasions we got some dessert, vanilla eiscreme or schokolade pudding, very yummy.

We all had small presents for each other; nobody knew what she would get, everything was a big secret.

After midday only Mum was allowed to enter the festively decorated and thoroughly cleaned living room. We believed the Christkind was in it and brought our presents.

It was such an exciting and wonderful time, even when I no longer believed in the Christkind anymore.

We could hardly wait any longer; we listened to soft and lovely Christmas songs and melodies.

Weihnachten, so it is called, is a still and quiet occasion and festive. We had to be clean with washed and brushed hair and had to wear our best outfit. We did not have a lot anyway.

When everything was all right, the dinner ready, the presents under or near the tree, there was the sound of a lovely little bell. This meant we could enter the dark room lit only by candlelight. This was the best moment of the whole day. All those nice shiny packages, the homely warm room, the aroma of the candles, cakes, cookies and the goose, and especially the smell of the real tree. It felt like an unbelievable dream, like Heaven. When I was a child, most of the time we got snow and at midnight we all went to church. It was cold, dark and Weihnachten.

—Gerda Preisser

Christmas in Glasgow

For as long as I can remember Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve were interlinked. My grandfather used to say Christmas Day was a family day, mainly for the kids, and New Year’s Eve, or Hogmanay, was for the adults to reflect on the year that had passed and celebrate the new one arriving.

In late December, as Christmas approached, we spent our last few days at school preparing for the holiday. At that time schools went right up until Christmas Eve and on the last day we would be busy putting the final touches on the card and present we had made for our mums, nothing for dads; well, he could share the Christmas card.

It was my first year at school and that cold winter my mum would bring a flask of tea for me at playtime. That last school morning I was standing shivering at the side railings waiting for her to come. We only lived four closes away from the school and she had promised to bring me a cup of hot sweet tea. As cold as I was while waiting for her, I knew the tea would be worth it.

At the end of the day the final bell for the year rang. We all dashed out of the class screaming with joy as the teachers shouted out, “Don’t forget your presents.” The teachers were as happy as the kids that it was finishing time. I had heard one of them saying, “Roll on the holidays.”

That night after dinner Mum wrapped my baby sister Margo in a shawl and tucked her in her pram. My dad wrapped a scarf around my neck and pinned it at my back before putting my coat on. Next came the balaclava and now I was ready for anything Jack Frost could throw at me.

After a short walk to the bottom of our street we turned onto Maryhill Road. It was a hive of action. People doing last-minute shopping, some for gifts, some for essential groceries, and men buying bottles of beer or maybe a half bottle of whisky.

As I walked and breathed out I could see my breath crystalising in the air. By this time the morning white snow had turned into black slush, but as cold and wet as it was, we wanted to keep walking down the road watching all the activities going on.

Later when we got home me and my brother Alan were taken into the back room to get ready for bed. Mum brought us through tea as we sat there getting warm.  Dad had lit the fire before we left. The room was very warm and although we were starting to fall asleep we knew we had one more job to do. We had to go through the ritual of leaving a glass of milk and a biscuit for Santa and a carrot for the reindeers.

Once we had fallen asleep Mum and Dad came into the room and laid out our presents that ‘Santa’ had brought.

I remember waking up and thinking it was morning and time to get up. I poked my head out from the covers. The air above was freezing and I stuck my head back under the sheets to get warm. The fires had gone out during the night and it was freezing cold in the room. When I dared to look again I could see rivers of ice caused by frozen condensation on the inside of the window. But curiosity got the better of us, so braving the cold we got up to find out what Santa had brought. The floor was very cold, and at first our bare feet felt numb, but we knew we would soon got used to it, particularly when we found our presents.

My brother crept forward to listen at Mum and Dad’s door. “They’re still asleep so we better be quiet,” he warned.

As we spoke in hushed voices we found and immediately started playing with our presents.

Once I remember me and my brother quietly heading for the living room in search of presents, only to be met by Mum.

“You two had better get back to bed or Santa will leave you ashes,” she said.

My parents used to try and get us a main present, something they knew we really wanted, and then supplemented that present with stocking fillers. Then and for some years later we would also get an orange, apple, usually a sixpenny piece and a small tin of Quality Street toffees.

By the time Mum and Dad got up we had everything open.

We would hear some noise coming from the kitchen where Mum would be starting the breakfast and Dad lighting the fire before coming through and starting the fire in our room.

After breakfast, we would get all dressed up in our best clothes ready to head to Gran and Granda’s for Christmas dinner.

A great time was had by all.

—Les McLaughlan

Discovery

Disappointment overcame me with the results of my search. The Death Certificate showed my father had died eighteen years earlier on 1st April 1976 from a massive heart attack. The opportunity of ever being able to meet him again had been lost.

There was a mixed blessing. The certificate showed his widow’s name, Norma, and their address at Beach Road, Coogee, and I felt a tentative hope I would be able to recover something about him. Going back to the phone book, we found a current listing for N Walker at that address. She was still alive and hadn’t moved away.

We were excited and anxious with this find. What sort of lady would she be? How would she react to being contacted? Obviously, she was elderly; would her health be strong enough to cope with a sudden intrusion from the past, a past she may know little about?

“How should we approach her?” I asked Faye. “Being an old lady, it might be a shock to hear from me out of the blue. Who knows what state she’s in.”

“Maybe it’d be better if I spoke to her first,” she said. “Hearing the news from a woman may make it easier and less threatening for her.”

On Saturday morning, Faye picked up the phone and dialled.

After a few rings came “Hello,” in a clear firm voice.

Faye carefully explained who she was and why she was calling. “Would you like to talk to Denis?”

Norma’s response was instant and enthusiastic. Faye handed me the phone. Taking a deep breath, I said, “Hello, Norma, it’s Denis. Do you remember me?”

“Of course I do. Bill told me all about you. He even had a photo of you beside his bed until he died. I disposed of it only recently.” Her voice was strong and steady. It sounded like there wasn’t much wrong with this old girl.

“I’d love to talk to you about him. I don’t have much memory of him. Can we come over sometime?”

“That’d be wonderful. How about this afternoon?”

“Just a moment. I’ll check with Faye.” We were thrilled.

“We could make it about three. How would that suit you?”

“I’m so looking forward to it. It’d be lovely to meet you again and talk about him. I remember Bill and I taking you to Mark Foy’s to kit you out for uni. Do you remember that? Your cousin, Nick, was with us.”

“I don’t remember. I have so little memory of him. It’d be great to fill in the gaps.” My head was spinning. “See you this arvo.” It was 20th March 1994. What a momentous day.

Driving from home in Chatswood, we were energised with a mixture of excitement and nervousness as we crossed Sydney Harbour Bridge to my father’s last home to meet his widow.

The block of flats in Coogee was ’50s style, high on a hill overlooking the ocean. They must have lived there since soon after they had married.

We knocked on a door on the first floor. Almost immediately it was opened by a beaming short, stocky, elderly lady. She paused for a moment, greeted us and ushered us into the home she had shared with my father all those years ago.

As I stepped forward, she suddenly took a step back and her smile vanished. Quickly composing herself again she said, “I got a shock. I thought it was Bill walking in the door.” Then, with a huge grin, she continued, “I felt a sensation in my loins. He was good in bed.”

Wow! We’re going to get along with this lady, my step-mother who I have only just discovered.

—Denis Brook

Nonoche’s first love

My stepsister is twelve years old. I am younger. Her name is Arlette. I like to call her Nonoche, it’s a pet name I gave her because I like her a lot. It’s two years now since my mum and her dad got married. My stepfather was in great need of a new mother for his four children and my mum wanted a father for me.

I think it was a warm summer’s Saturday when Nonoche fell in love for the first time. Let me tell you how I remember it. Saturday afternoon the air is hot, Nonoche and I are in the bedroom getting ready.

“Quick, hurry up, it is already 5:15pm, the bus is going to be here soon.”

Nonoche turns sideways looking at her reflection in the mirror. She is pleased she looks grown up. For the first time, she is wearing a bra, with lots of cotton padding in it to make up for what nature has not yet given to her. The thing is, she must look older than her age all because of a boy in the bus. Let me explain.

Every Saturday afternoon, a fourteen-year-old boy sits at the back of the bus. Nonoche saw him first a few weeks ago when we were at the bus stop waiting for my mum coming home from work. That warm Saturday afternoon, when the bus stopped in front of us, the boy with no name gave a timid smile to my stepsister. She smiled back at him and that was it. With a smile the boy stole her heart. Nonoche was in love!

Now every Saturday afternoon, rain, hail or shine, we both would sit on the bench at the bus stop, waiting to catch a glimpse of the boy with no name who has beautiful eyes and a gorgeous smile. A lovely sweet innocent moment, enough for Nonoche to be in heaven and in love.

Almost the end of summer, school new year is around the corner. That Saturday afternoon is as usual the same routine. Nonoche knows what to do and everything goes like clockwork. Cotton padding in her bra, blush on her cheeks, gloss on her lips and lots of hairspray to control her hair. Everything is done well before 5:30pm. But that afternoon is different. We can smell a storm in the air, as angry clouds gather in the sky. That stormy afternoon is the day when everything crashes.

At 5:30pm on the dot, the bus is around the street corner. In a few seconds it will stop just in front of us. We have the best view. The boy is sitting at the back of the bus, he is smiling and has a twinkle of love in his eyes. But Nonoche’s smile freezes on her face as she watches the boy with no name kissing a girl sitting next to him.

The bus is long gone now, taking with it all her dreams and leaving her with a broken heart. We walk in silence, the storm approaching. Looking at Nonoche’s face, I see a drop of sadness falling from her eyes. Or is it rain? I don’t know what to do, I hold her hand, but she keeps quiet. No words pass her lips. At that moment I know I have to say something and with all the life experience of an eleven-year-old, I say in a dramatic voice “Ha! Men. They are all the same, always breaking hearts.”

From that day on, and as far as I can remember Nonoche never, never again put cotton padding in her bra.

—Marie-Claire Morgana

A date etched in memory

The phone rang insistently. It was 8pm on Saturday 10th September 2016. A date I will never forget.

“Who would ring me at this hour?’ I asked my neighbour who had come in for a chat.

Curious, I picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Mum!” my daughter-in-law called into the phone.

“What’s up, darling? You sound awful.”

‘Oh Mum, you’re not going to believe this, Terry’s in Royal Perth Hospital, he’s had a stroke.”

“What? A stroke, oh my God, how bad is he?” I was trying to hold myself together, more for her sake than mine.

“They say they’ll know more when they’ve had time to assess him better, but he can’t talk properly.”

My heart sank, what was my next move?

“Honey, are you at the hospital now?” I asked

“Yes, we’re all here, me and the girls. Come up, Mum, I want you here.”

My mind raced. First I told my neighbour what had happened and she said, “I’ll drive you up, Les. I don’t think you should be going on your own when you’re upset.”

I spoke into the phone again, somewhat shaken now. “Marie, I’ll be there as soon as I can possibly make it.”

“Thanks, Mum, you’ll go to the emergency ward and they’ll tell you where we are. Be careful!”

“It’s okay, honey, Lorraine has sweetly offered to drive me there and wait however long I want to be there.”

I hung up the phone and burst into tears. In my wildest dreams I could never imagine my beautiful younger son, only fifty-one years old and as fit as anyone of that age could be, lying in a hospital bed, unable to talk. It didn’t bear thinking about. But that’s just it, all I could do was think about it.

We sped up to Royal Perth, hurried into the emergency ward, a depressing place at the best of times but now, for me, a whole lot worse.

The nurse accompanied me into an open ward and there I saw Marie and my two granddaughters by Terry’s side, looking as if their whole world had just collapsed.

“Oh my loves, how is he?” I asked, but could see for myself that the question was unnecessary.

“They think he will be okay, Mum, given time,” Marie answered softly, but I could see they were all shocked and full of doubt.

“Well just remember, my darlings, this is the best place he could possibly be. They have made great advances in the care of stroke victims and I’m sure that he will be all right.”

If only I felt that confident in my own heart. We stayed with Terry until they were going to shift him to the trauma ward and so we unwillingly left him there and returned home.

The next morning we all went back to the hospital to see him and he seemed a little better, so we stayed for a while and then returned home again feeling somewhat more optimistic than the previous night.

On Monday morning Marie called me early from the hospital.

“Come up, Mum, Terry’s had another stroke.”

My heart fell. This was awful news and what I had been dreading. I raced up to the hospital to be told by the doctor there that Terry had indeed suffered another bleed, but they would monitor it and see how he went.

We were all aghast, and felt that this required more action, not just monitoring. So Marie rang a neurosurgeon who had operated on my eldest son, Craig, Terry’s older brother, when he had had a motorbike accident eight months previously. We had a lot of faith in Doctor Paul Bannon and knew him quite well as he had been a repeat passenger on Craig’s charter boat.

Marie rang him where he worked at The Mount Hospital.

“Hi, Paul, this is Marie Howson. Remember you operated on Craig after his accident?  We wondered if it would be possible for you to look at the scans that have been done for Craig’s brother, Terry. He has had a second stroke at Royal Perth and we are concerned as they are only going to monitor him and we are worried.”

That was enough for Paul to hear. He immediately got Terry’s scans and read them and told us that he had to be operated on immediately as time was of the essence in these cases. He then organised for Terry to be shifted to The Mount Hospital by ambulance and then cleared all his appointments for that afternoon to operate on Terry.

When Paul came out of the operating theatre, he came to where the family were all gathered in the waiting room and gave us all the bad news, holding nothing back.

“He is not out of the woods yet. We could still lose him. I have removed a clot from his brain as big as two golf balls. If he pulls through, he will never be able to go back to what he was doing. He will always be dependent on help.”

We all sat like stunned mullet. Talk about a lack of bedside manner. He had none, but we realised that it was better to know the worst and then every step in the right direction was a plus. But how would we all cope, and more to the point, how would he cope? The girls were beside themselves. Their adored dad was lying there at death’s door. Everything had suddenly changed. For all of us.

Terry spent three weeks in ICU at The Mount. The staff there were so wonderful. Not just as amazing nurses but also as a help to a grieving family.

When they considered that Terry could cope with a shift, he was taken to the Rehabilitation section of the new Fiona Stanley Hospital. He would remain here for about ten weeks.

What an amazing atmosphere and what an absolutely dedicated staff of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists. They taught Terry everything, from how to swallow again, how to talk, how to walk and most of all, how to laugh again. We cannot speak highly enough of the wonderful care and attention he received from the staff there.  They appeared to take a personal interest in his wellbeing, but I guess they must be the same with all their patients.

He was finally allowed to come home for a short visit just before Christmas and, joy for us all, he spent the whole of Christmas Day with us at home. The whole family gathered there and many tears were spilled but the happiness was almost overwhelming.

After Terry came home, he would go down to his dad’s house and spend several days every fortnight with Barry and Lynne. This gave Marie a break, as it’s hard work physically looking after a person with a disability. They were so good to him. Every morning his dad would take him down in his wheelchair to Pengo’s, from where Terry ran his dolphin swimming business in Shoalwater Bay, so Terry could talk to the staff.  It was only a twenty-minute walk from Barry’s home, which made it so convenient.

Alterations to accommodate Terry’s needs were made in both homes. Railings, handgrips, showers downstairs and in Barry’s case, even converting a living room into a bedroom for Terry. I will always be grateful to them both for all the care and effort they put in for him.

Terry has now improved to a point where he can manage most things on his own. The local council were wonderful as they invited him to be a carrier for the baton that was going through Rockingham on its way to the Queensland Commonwealth Games. What a proud moment that was for him and all of us, his family, as well.

What gives me such joy is that he’s so happy and positive about his life. I have never heard him say, “Why Me?”

He will never be as capable as he once was, but he remains the same beautiful, happy boy I always knew. I love him dearly.

—Lesley Howson

A cabaret life

I am just back from a cruise; added another two countries to my list of countries visited. Now the tally is thirty four and I have lived and worked in six.

My daughter and I visited Singapore again where we worked in cabaret in 1976 at the Southron Theatre Restaurant for an extended season. Foreign workers were strictly controlled; we had to go with management to the busy immigration office where PERMISSION TO PERFORM AT THE SOUTHRON THEATRE RESTAURANT was stamped into our passports and we became our employer’s responsibility.

We were so well looked after that I wanted to stay there forever. Each night a limousine was sent to our hotel to take us to work and after work, at about 1:30am we were transported home, although sometimes my husband and I walked back, me in a long evening dress, and ate delicious mutton stew at a carpark eating place.

Our wages were an amazing $1200 a week. I still have the contracts today, tucked away in my scrapbook.

During the day we were free to explore that beautiful city; we visited the Jurong Bird Park, the wonderful zoo, and when not exploring we shopped, shopped, shopped.

At the corner of our street several ladies, who looked old but may not have been, mixed concrete by hand in wheelbarrows then wheeled it in to lay the floors of some new flats. I asked what their wages were and was appalled when told they got just $300 a month. This made me seriously question the values of the world. My daughter and I did one floor show together and I did my ‘Karina and her balls of fire’ act later; altogether our time on stage was not more than eighteen minutes.

Hanging from the roof of a new high rise apartment, a young woman and her husband applied facings to the building. The newspaper, the Strait Times did an article about them. They had come from Malaysia to do the job. When asked why on earth they wanted to work so high above the city, the lady replied, “Well, the wages are so good; we get $6oo a month.” Another example to me of a world gone mad!

My husband had always wanted to travel overland so after our contract finished we set off in a motor caravan. It certainly was a trip to remember but the highlight was Afghanistan. No matter which way you go to get out of Kabul you have to climb. The beginning of the road to Kandahar was a slow steady climb; then the engine developed a knock. I was driving, and when it got worse I stopped. My husband said we should go on; I and my son, who was travelling with us, said absolutely not. We had been warned not to stop in isolated places as people had been attacked and robbed. Luckily a Russian army jeep came along and they agreed to tow us back to Kabul. I found it hard to believe we had traveled so far out!

They dumped us out in the outskirts of town; then began the argument about how much we should pay them, which was eventually resolved to our satisfaction.

A crowd of men had gathered; we were on the road beside a big sandy area with a long row of open-fronted sheds along the side where they ran small businesses.

“We will fix your car,” a man said.

“Oh good,” said my husband.

I couldn’t believe my ears! “Are you stark raving mad?” I muttered, “Everything the four of us own is in this van, in one day it will be stripped bare.”

“Mum’s right,” my son said. “We have to find a proper mechanic.”

Just then a taxi came by and, sizing up the problem, he stopped.

“You and Kim stay here and guard the van,” my son said. “Mum and I will go and find a mechanic.”

The taxi driver was a nice man who spoke a little English. I said to Steven, “I saw the VW sign along here on the way out.”

“VW. VW,” said the driver. “I take you,” and he did, right into the yard.

It is not often that wonderful things happen to you along life’s pathway, but this was one of them. The man who owned the place spoke perfect English; he had been brought up in British India. But he was the spitting image of Telly Savalis who played Kojak on the television. So Steven immediately called him Kojak. Kojak took us back to the van in his little beetle and towed us into his workshop, took the motor out and towed us to the yard of a hotel surrounded by high mud brick walls. Steven went back to check and returned to say that Kojak had the motor running on the bench.

The hotel had a big lounge where I could go to write letters and rest. All around the walls there were seats that looked like mattresses covered with bright velvet blankets. I loved it.

I knew that getting the big end fixed cost about $200 in Australia at the time so I found a public telephone and phoned the Intercontinental Hotel.

“Do you want a floor show?’ I asked the manager. “We have just finished an extended season in Singapore.” 

He said, “Yes please.”

I asked for a thousand dollars; he said, “No, I will give you $650 American dollars for the week and a room at the hotel.”

According to my travel diary we worked with a band called The Ceylon Gems from Sri Lanka, with poor old Tom on the trumpet and the bottle. I still have the ad in the paper in my scrapbook. The Australian Consul came to see us one night. Wow! Aren’t we going up in the world?

But more was to follow. One day the manager came to me saying, “Would you mind doing an extra floor show down by the pool tonight? The Palace rang and asked if they could have a party around the pool. Seems there is a concert party from Russia who have been sent to celebrate the third year of the President’s coup. You and Kim would represent the hotel.”

“But we haven’t got work permits,” I said.

“Oh, they are not going to worry,” he said, and they didn’t.

The Russian group comprised two women and two men. I can’t remember much about the night, I can’t even remember who decided in which order we performed. However I do remember that we were the support act to the last artist, who had the most magnificent tenor voice I have ever been privileged to listen to.

The President and all the Cabinet members sat at tables on one side of the pool, and with them were not their wives, but slim ladies in evening dresses and jewels. Not the chador-covered ladies one saw occasionally on the street, although it did amuse me to see a pair of high heels peeping out the bottom at times. A law for the rich and a law for the poor wherever you go!

Kojak did a wonderful job on the motor and it cost us about $35 Australian. He wanted us to stay a month to run the motor in again so we took trips out of town. I was surprised at just how much the place looked like New Zealand; out in the foothills of the Hindu Kush there were big fruit orchards and it is the only other place in the world where I have seen a macrocarpa tree.

Four years later I found out why President Daoud was celebrating so soon. The palace down below the Intercontinental Hotel was attacked and he was murdered! I find it really sad that this lovely place has been so long in turmoil, especially as the Afghans are such nice people.

—Billie McDonald-Foster 

Growing up in South Bunbury

I decided some time ago to write my memories of my father because my eldest son, Tim, asked me about my dad, what he was like, what he worked at, what hobbies he had and the like. This took me by surprise as I assumed my kids would have no interest in my past or that of my family.

As I was thirteen years old when Dad died, I thought I would have few memories of him, but to my amazement as I jotted notes down, the more memories popped into my head. As I wrote these memories down I remembered I had some photos of Dad both from just before he died in 1960 and earlier, showing him at work, with his cars and siblings and with Mum when they were courting.

Along with these memories of Dad and the family came memories of my own childhood and teen years growing up in South Bunbury.

The idea came to me that as our lives and activities in the ’50s and ’60s differed so vastly from that of our kids growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, I should add memories of my childhood to the story.

These are some of those memories.

South Bunbury

Our kids and grandkids will never see or do what we baby boomer kids saw and experienced in the ’50s and ’60s and have so many fond memories of. Our lives were far simpler in those days and our expectations were more modest than those of kids in the 21st century. I consider we have grown up in the fastest changing and best era of life in Australia. Speaking of simple expectations, I was excited one Christmas to receive a box of assorted goodies, my favourite item of which was a ball of string. This was a precursor to my love of and addiction to stationery.

When I was born my family lived in Halsey Street, South Bunbury in a weatherboard house that still stands and is inhabited today. The house had an outback ‘wash house’ and toilet which have probably been replaced and are under the main roof now.

My brother Barry and I had a marvellous time in this house with its enormous block that went on forever. Always the optimist, one of my tricks was to tie a rope on the handlebars of my little trike, the other end around the bole of a very large tuart tree and ride away furiously in an attempt to pull the tree down.

When I was four years old Dad built a house on the corner of Halsey Street and Minninup Road with assistance from a bricklayer mate. We sold the house when Mum died and it was demolished and replaced with three units, which was a sad time for us all as we had many great memories of growing up in that house.

The house had an inside toilet and a bath with a chip heater. One night as Dad was filling the bath and smoking, he gave me a puff on his cigarette which nearly choked me. I thought I was going to die and never took up smoking.

As our family grew, Dad built a ‘sleep out’ on one end of the verandah for Barry and me. And as we didn’t have a fridge, he built a timber icebox on the verandah with a hole in it and a corresponding hole in the timber floor for the melting ice to run under the house.

Dad also built a garage and workshop where in one end he garaged his car and kept it maintained. The other end had his workshop with a heavy bench that he built, and tools hanging on a shadow board attached to the wall between the two sections of the garage. The shed was built on stumps so there was room underneath to store odd things and the garage section had a ramp leading up into it.

At sixteen I imported a Cotton Cobra motocross bike from England which was my pride and joy and stored it in the workshop, where I worked on it. The first time I rode it up the ramp, I gave it too much throttle and got airborne at the top of the ramp. When I landed halfway down the garage I had both wheels locked up with the brakes but I was still going too fast and I went through the asbestos wall, showering tools from the shadow board.

Mum threatened to do the same to me when I got a house, which amused me greatly. I couldn’t see her riding a bike at all, let alone deliberately riding one through a wall.

As it turned out, she didn’t have to, for my six-year-old son Tim did it for her on his little 50cc Honda motocrosser. He had a track around our backyard behind the sheds and around the swimming pool. I was inside listening to him tearing around when I heard a loud bang and a wail from Tim. Running outside, I assured him and myself he was okay and told him to stay where he was. I raced inside, got my camera and took a photo of him to send to Mum, who was pleased as Punch to see it.

At four years old with six-year-old Barry, we were chopping up cigarette butts we’d collected so we could make our own cigarettes to smoke. One of the butts started to roll off the chopping block so I pushed it back just as Barry brought his tomahawk down and sliced through my finger, leaving it hanging by a small piece of skin.

Frightened and crying, I went yelling for Mum and she came out to see what all the ruckus was about. When she saw the finger, she nearly passed out and held onto the clothesline with her nine-month pregnant stomach lurching. 

“Bert! Bert!” she screamed and Dad came running out and raced me inside to wrap my hand up, swearing all the time. At the same time Barry took off to hide at our grandparents’ house down the road.

I had the stiches removed from my little stump on my fifth birthday and my Uncle George Britza’s first comment was, “You’ll have to use another finger to pick your nose now,” as I was an infamous chronic nose picker.

I had a trick I used to play on people with the index finger of my right hand covered in mercurochrome poked through the bottom of a matchbox and sitting on cotton wool. I put mercurochrome on my stump, pretending to have just cut my finger off, which shocked some people who didn’t know it had been done weeks before. The next year I started primary school and proceeded with glee to chase the little girls around, terrorising them with my stump.

Around the same ages, Barry and I used to ride our trikes to the butcher shop to pick up our weekly meat supply. These days Minninup Road is a major and busy road but in our day there was hardly any traffic so Mum and we didn’t have a care about riding the 1.2km return trip on our little trikes.

Several years later a new butcher shop was built just two hundred metres up the road, which was easier for us and that butcher was a lot younger and friendlier. We saved our newspapers and once a week would take them to the butcher and sell the papers to him for wrapping customers’ meat up. This butcher also made his own polony, which I loved and was tastier than the factory stuff. I loved the smell of his shop with the sawdust on the floor and the raw meat smell.

The fifth of November brought us the excitement of ‘bonfire’ night and every year bonfires were built all around Bunbury in paddocks and spare blocks to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. My enthusiasm for the coming fire and letting off of fireworks was right up there with looking forward to Christmas. We saved up our pocket money for months so we could buy firecrackers, sky rockets, Catherine wheels and jumping jacks for this great night. The sky rockets were launched from ‘king brown’ beer bottles and shot into the night sky with all the noise, sparks and colours receiving cheers from us and the gathered crowd.

Unfortunately as more kids did stupid things like shooting the sky rockets at other kids and throwing crackers into faces, lots of people got hurt including losing their eyes, which led to the ban on sales of firecrackers in WA. That really annoyed us as we eagerly looked forward to this event every year.

Ratbags

Being the local ratbags, we used to blow up ant nests and even caught gilgies to sit on a four-penny bomb to blow them to smithereens. Of course things like letter boxes and thunder boxes with somebody sitting on them were fair game too, much to the consternation of grownups and hilarity to us.

Magnifying glasses were a great way to have fun as well, setting fire to grass and paper, etching our names and other stuff into wood and burning ants. Allegedly people who did things like burning ants turned into serial killers, but I haven’t gone down that path yet.

Over the road from us lived Uncle Clarrie Forster who had a horse and dray which he used, among other things, to go out into the bush collecting firewood. I went with him on occasion as it was another chance to get into the bush and away from school and I think he really enjoyed the company. He hardly ever spoke so it was hard to know what he was thinking. He rode his pushbike everywhere as he never had a car or driving licence. He had a brother, Uncle George Forster, who also only ever rode a pushbike. I didn’t like Uncle George much, he seemed harsh and angry all the time which I had enough of at home. Their mother, Nanna Forster lived there as well and she was a gorgeous old lady who we loved and she loved us. She always had jars of hard lollies for us, including humbugs.

At the rear of their block was another block of about three acres which had almost every orchard tree and grapevine plus some vegies that would grow in that area. There was an enormous mulberry tree that we climbed in and had mulberry fights while eating them, so when we went home our bare feet and clothes were all stained purple. I was never happier than when I was out in the open air and doing something that made me feel good.

Silvereyes would come in to peck at the figs and other fruit and we’d shoot them with our gings. We’d cut a Y-shaped prong from a bush for the handle, cut up old rubber car tubes, cut tongues out of old shoes for the pouch and use string to tie it all together. When we killed a bird we’d cut a notch in the prong to show how many we killed, just like the gunfighters of the old West did to their gun butts when they had a kill (so Hollywood would have us believe). If a silvereye didn’t die we’d take its head between our fingers and flick the body, tearing its head off. We kids were brought up to kill anything that moved (or didn’t move) which now almost brings me to tears when I think about it.

Nearby there was a paddock that was used by the local ‘posh’ young ladies to ride their horses and being cheeky little urchins we had a ditty we used to sing about the only one of them that we knew. Glenice Smart did a fart and blew the baker off his cart. For some reason Glenice wasn’t too keen on that so she chased us as we ran to the nearest house. Being the youngest and slowest, I got caught on the front verandah where she proceeded to give me a whipping with her riding crop, which hurt my pride as much as my legs.

My ging came in handy for shooting rocks onto iron roofs of houses; the rocks would hit the roof with a bang and then roll down the roof, making a racket that annoyed the occupants. It was great fun listening to the abuse from the occupants who couldn’t see me where I was hiding.

Wagging School

I sometimes wagged school to go with Uncle Pat Forster while he drove around the dairy farms in the South West to artificially inseminate the cows. I was enthralled with the whole business including how the farmer knew which cow needed inseminating. The cows have a way of telling the farmer (or the bull) by jumping up and placing their front hooves on another cow. I had seen this phenomenon on farms but thought the cows were just fighting or being playful.

Uncle Pat told me that when he was trained to do the insemination he didn’t wear long gloves like he did now, but had to put his bare arm up the cow’s bum to feel where to place the long syringe full of semen. The result was a green arm for a while due to the dung they were entering.  Looking back now, I don’t know if I should’ve believed him or not, he did often tell a few fibs and embellish the truth.

I also wagged school to go tree felling with Don Wendt who ended up being my stepfather. I always loved the bush and would do anything to be there rather than at school. They used a very large and heavy two-man chainsaw which was the first chainsaw I ever saw. We were in the forest at Noggerup when he and his workmate felled an enormous jarrah tree and ‘barked’ it with their axes. I, barefoot as usual and feeling free and invincible, was running along the barked tree and as I jumped off, my foot slid around the slippery trunk at a spot where an axe had slightly chipped the wood. The toenail on my big toe was ripped off and splinters of wood embedded in the meat of my toe. I didn’t cry during this ordeal, I just grabbed the nail and held it down hard to stem the blood flow.

No doctor or hospital this time, only a bandage and get on with life. About two months later the festering toe ejected the bits of wood and a new nail grew back. But it only grew on half the toe with a gap under the other half of the nail, which is still the same now.

Asthma

I am a chronic asthmatic and as a kid endured all sorts of drugs to control it. Mum made me feel safer by telling me that “nobody ever died from asthma” which I now know to be an utter lie, but I never panicked during an attack so I guess it worked. I wasn’t in love with school, so often would run around the backyard in the morning to make myself puff and pretend I was wheezing to get the day off, and that always worked as Mum too didn’t see much benefit in school.

One drug I had to endure was suppositories and kids from all over the neighbourhood would come over to watch me, with my bum up and head down while Mum shoved it in. This attention didn’t bother me a bit, it was just fun keeping everybody amused.

Mum and Dad went away for a while and I stayed with Uncle Clarrie and Aunty Joyce McManus during this time, and poor Uncle Clarrie had to do the dirty deed with the suppository for me. This time without spectators and of course I was not embarrassed.

Another drug I used had to be dissolved under my tongue and was so strong my heart would beat hard and strong enough for me to feel, and made my pyjama top shake in time with my heartbeat, which amused me no end.

One day when I was sixteen and out with cousin Glen Britza and others testing their road-racing motorbikes, I had a ride on one and as I neared top speed my asthma spray which was in my shirt’s breast pocket got sucked out by the wind, never to be found again.

Daredevil

When we were kids our family often visited friends in Collie and one day all us kids were running up against and bouncing off the large hedge across the front of the block. Being a daredevil I wasn’t going to be outdone by anybody else, so I climbed up on the nearby fence to jump onto the top of the hedge for a super bounce.

Unfortunately the hedge had just been trimmed and a sharp stick pierced my bum, so I walked into the house with blood running down my legs and afraid of what Mum was going to say. She didn’t say much, just got me to drop my shorts for a look at the damage. But the other ladies around the table made some strange and apparently funny comments that I didn’t understand. Then off to the Collie hospital for stitches and a couple of weeks of painful bowel movements.

When I was about fifteen and a junior member of the Bunbury Motorcycle Club we had a scramble event at Collie alongside Minninup Pool, a popular swimming hole in the Collie River.

The daredevil in me came out again and I did a ‘bombie’ off the side of the diving board close to the river bank to splash one of my mates and his family while they were having lunch. Wouldn’t you know it, when I straightened my legs out, my feet brushed the bottom of the river and of course there was broken glass on the bottom that cut a hole in the top of one foot. Devastated that I might miss out on watching some of the racing, I argued against going to the hospital but was taken off to Collie Hospital again for stitches anyway.

When land was cleared for housing in the 1950s the trees were bulldozed into long thin piles called ‘windrows’ and then burnt, taking weeks to completely burn out. During this time, because the trees were ‘green’ the fires created a lot of smoke and this practice was eventually banned because of the air pollution. While the windrows were burning we would collect offcuts of asbestos sheeting and throw them in the fire to hear them explode and send sparks flying, again filling us with excitement at our ingenuity and fearlessness.

Thanks for reading my memoirs. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed the return journey through my early years.

—Rob Britza

An acknowledgement

Who would have thought that in attending a memoir writing course we would be taken on such an amazing journey? Throughout the structure and presentation of the course, Teena has honed our writing skills, encouraging us to view and record our memories with a fresh approach to bring them to life.

Unbeknown to us at the start, the way she challenged us to write also triggered strong emotions over past experiences we thought we had dealt with and laid to rest long ago. Not so. While some memories recalled happy or fulfilling times, many released painful feelings from years past, even causing tears. These heartfelt reactions were valid, and empathetically responded to by Teena. Their release enabled us to see they give authenticity to our story and enable our readers to engage with us, the storyteller.

In turn, Teena engaged us with her cheerful disposition, encouragement and understanding. How could the experience be fun, sad and enriching at the same time? It was.

Thank you, Teena, for what you have given us. Your gift is appreciated and treasured, and will be embedded in our writing.

—Denis Brook

Memories — an anthology is a heartwarming collection of reminiscences produced as part of the City of Rockingham’s 2018 Write Your Life Story project. Seniors in the community embraced the opportunity to connect with each other, reconnect with their memories and explore the best way to tell their stories. Their recollections of love and loss, people and places, special occasions and everyday life offer a fascinating glimpse of earlier times and the experiences that shaped each individual.