Memoir

The River Clown

I love my brother Donny to bits. He’s the funny one in our family. He sings and yodels “There’s a Track Leading Back” and plays the guitar like his heroes, Slim Dusty and Smoky Dawson.

I follow Donny, both of us barefoot, around the farm. I’ve been following him all my life. Since I was old enough to walk. Our old dog Streak runs between our legs sometimes. I’d follow Donny to the ends of the earth if I had to. To gain his love. He dishes it out to me in little bits to keep me in my place. To show he’s boss of us. Specially as I’m a girl.

September 1, 2013 0 comment

Memoir Writing

Armidale Teachers College: the class of 1961-62

Armidale, a regional University town, is situated in the northern tableland area of New England, halfway between Sydney and Brisbane with a population of 25,000. In the sixties, when I was a student there, there would have been perhaps half this number of people living there, and even fewer during university and college vacations. My early childhood was spent on a property in the Clarence Valley outside South Grafton, on the Glen Innes Highway that leads to Armidale. Dad chose Armidale Teachers College as the obvious choice for me: “You can always go back to teaching when you have a family.”

class-of-1961-1962-armidale-teachers-college

The class of 1961-62 ATC

There were 600 students and thirty-odd staff members at Teachers College in 1962. Most of us had only just turned sixteen when we started at Armidale, and would be out in front of classes by the time we turned eighteen. At college, we learnt how to teach all the theory subjects, as well as choosing several options seen as being part of our general educational enhancement. It was like an American campus, in that everything took place on site and we were housed in segregated student accommodation colleges within walking distance of the college on the hill. There was little chance of sexual misconduct in those days, as we had to be inside by nine o’clock during the week and eleven on weekends.

ATC in 2011

One of my options was Philosophy with Miss Margaret Mackie. (See the tiny stockinged figure in the bottom far-right of the photo). She was a brilliant teacher. An inspirational teacher. She taught me how to think. It was during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet bloc. We discussed issues to do with the atomic bomb that made it less frightening for us. Miss Mackie made me realise that you could have different opinions from the rest of the crowd without feeling like a renegade. She made us all think. I even loved doing her syllogisms. She taught us about Socrates and Plato and regaled me with stories of the Delphic Oracle. Despite having studied with other fantastic lecturers in universities both here and overseas, no-one surpassed Margaret Mackie for sheer pedagogical brilliance.

The women I shared sections of Smith House with, especially in the lovely old terrace called Southall that was joined to one end of the rest of the building, have remained friends until this day. We had to make our own fun to a great extent, but there were regular dances organised by the College, and sport was an ongoing obligatory activity.

Today the college stands like a monument to the past. It was built in 1929 during the depression years from funds supplied in part by wealthy graziers as a means of bringing status and employment to the district. The gigantic columns and other traits in the classical style of the Italian Renaissance are intermixed with fifties art deco features. Situated on a hill it overlooks the valley in which the town is located, and is surrounded by green lawns and colourful flower beds.

Our recent Reunion, held over three days, was well-organised by a committee of several ex-students most of whom have retired on the north coast of NSW. On Wednesday was “Meet and Greet” evening at 5pm at the Returned Servicemens’ Club. Name tags had to be picked up and attached to clothing with women’s single names displayed as well. Two hundred people turned up and mingled for this event. Amazing to see so many of us recognising so many friends from the past; or trying to put names to faces, or remembering the names, and trying to dredge up the faces from the distant past. Many stories were recounted and memories jogged on this very special night. Quite a few couples had met and married during their time at Armidale Teachers College. And were still married after forty-five years!

The next night was the formal dinner and dance during which we sang some of the old songs, including “Gaudeamus Igitur” and tried to dance some of the old dance numbers. It was a hoot! Daytime activities included golfing and bowls, as well as guided visits to the College and to the residential buildings. They are now stored i na museum for this purpose.

One of the highlights for me was a guided tour of the Hinton Collection of art works. Howard Hinton (1867-1948) came to Australia from England at the turn of the century. He lived in a small room in a boarding house in Cremorne. Between 1929 and his death in 1948, Hinton sent over a thousand works of art to the Armidale Teachers College to adorn its walls. This was for the cultural benefit of the students who would later teach pupils in the schools of New South Wales. We all remember being enthralled by these beautiful works of art as we walked the corridors of the College between classrooms: they were everywhere around us. Today they are stored in an art gallery not far from the college, and lent our for regional exhibitions. The collection includes paintings by William Dobell, Adrian Feint, Elioth Gruner, Hans Heysen, J.J. Hilder, Gladys Owen, Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor, Tom Roberts, Ethel Spowers, Arthur Streeton and the Lindsay family.

Norman Lindsay painting

November 21, 2012 8 comments

Memoir Writing

A Country College Residence

There is a photo of us back then: my Southall room-mates — all classmates from Armidale Teachers’ College—in 1961-62. We went to a Photo studio in Armidale to have our group and individual photos taken. Dianne Short (married name, Gallaghar) was not able to be present, so her photo was superimposed into the photo (top left). We were studying to become primary and infants school teachers at the time. Some of us left for overseas, as soon as we had completed the obligatory three years and did not return to teaching small children. Our names were like our hairdos, a signal of the times: Dianne, Sandy, Heather, Marnie, Julie, Daphne, Leonie, Jill and Anne. We lived in one wing of Smith House called Southall, which was actually a separate building joined to the rest for convenience sake.

Southall Today

I recently first learnt of a doctor who had lived in our building at the beginning of the century, and had shot himself accidentally under strange circumstances, when answering the telephone. In hindsight, this sent a shiver up my spine. I thought back to the seance that we conducted using an ouiji board in, quite possibly, that very room. I would be interested to know what the name, or letter, was that we conjured up together that night with our hands on the pointer. The final word that the pointer arrived at was ‘Elysian Fields’, which one of the girls later claimed to have spelled out to make it seem authentic. Daphne, on the far right of the photo, was a bright, funny girl I’d first met at primary school in Grafton. She claimed later on, that she had forced the pointer, so we’ll never know if there was a ghost willing to be contacted in that room that night.

Despite the fact that I did not really want to teach children, and despite the strictures placed on us at Smith House, my memory of this time in this group is one that I treasure. We all seemed to complement one another with our different names and personalities, some “big” some meeker, like our hairdos. But all contributing in some way to the group dynamics. I was shocked that first evening when Miss Dulcie Lindsay, the head warden, as she was called, in her mannish grey suits and black shoes, made her first speech and told us we would have to sign in and out by 9 pm every week night and 11 pm on weekends. She acknowledged that we would want to “try out our wings!” which made it worse, for I had had enough of this at home, and I wanted to take off. So we all remained immature and innocent for those two years; I remember thinking how “bad” the girls from Sydney were, always climbing in and out of windows and balconies after hours. But they knew how to look after themselves and never got caught! (Lynne says she used to let them in a lot as she had the room at the front of Smith House).

As for us, we made our own fun together, and we had lots of it; who knows if it would have been better or not to have had more freedom?

Smith House Today

September 27, 2012 6 comments

Memoir Writing

My Brother Donny

My brother Donny was brave. He could climb the tallest trees in the valley where we grew up. I was three and afraid of the dark. Dad sent me back to my room in the middle of the night. He wanted Mum all to himself. I climbed in next to Donny and felt the flip of his penis like a lizard, as he moved in his sleep to make room for me. Donny wasn’t afraid of snakes or frogs or anything.

We rode Midge bareback and did circus tricks upon his rump. Donny got blamed for everything. The scapegoat. In biblical times he was sent out into the desert for the sins of his brethren.

He even got blamed for putting water in the rain gauge. I did it to punish Uncle Eric for scaring me. He scared me with his gruffness. He ran Grandma’s farm like the Godfather. His red face, loud mouth and jerky hands on the reins.

Me and Donny on Midge

When my brother went off to school, I was sad and angry. He didn’t notice me when he came home from school on that first day. The longest day of my life. Only now do I realise it was a case of unrequited love on my part. No one knew. Not even Donny.

Mum and Grandma laughed when I said the words, Say you love me, Donny. At the end of the longest day.

I like ya, he replied. Part of the male tribe now.

I might have shouted out bad words after that: I hate you, I hate you. Down by the gum trees on the farm next to the swamps. That’s where I went to escape, bareback on Midge.

One day Midge reared up and crushed Donny’s skull. I felt guilty, as if it was my fault. Donny wasn’t good at school. Not like Billy, the cuckoo in the nest. Mum said he was a genius. When he listened to the ‘Chickabidees of the Air’. He was only two or three.

‘There’s a thin line between genius and madness!’ Grandma said to her.

Donny found birds’ eggs and blew the muck out of them through a tiny hole. He put a speck of red wax on the hole and placed them in a glass-lidded box.

Once he caught a sparrow on the farm next door, and showed it to Old Ned. He took it from him, raised the axe slowly and deliberately, and smashed its head upon a block.

Don’s head has been asleep for a long time now. It’s time for me to go to him in the nursing home. It’s time to whisper in his ear. The same words of love I cried out that day long ago. He’s in a dark place and afraid to let go. Time now to fly and soar like an eagle high up in the sky.

Fly, Brother Eagle, fly!

eagle-soaring

September 27, 2012 6 comments

Memoir Writing

Water Memories

My very first water experience is in my mother’s womb. I’m safe, secure, warm. I swim, mermaid-like, do somersaults and swallow the magic fluid. I imagine that I’ll never leave this watery place.

Down the Back

At Waterview the humid scorching air engulfs us; the heat, ruthless, tears at our skin and sends us kids scurrying towards water. My brothers swing Tarzan-like from overhanging scribbly gums, and jump into the creek on Dad’s bush paddock. Launching ourselves from tree roots embedded in the banks, we dive and bomb one another scattering tiny snakes and tree frogs that hide in the depths. I jump in and feel the clay squelchy and squidgy between my toes.

I try to hide my fears of the depths and copy my brothers in derring do. Yellow belly fear, like the bloated green tree frogs with bulging eyes staring down from the rafters of the outhouse, ready to pounce, gobble me up; green waters swirling; amphibian annihilation.

I don’t know where it came from, the fear. My elder brother went off to school at four and found a solid niche for himself within his intellect. Donny, the second brother, was fearless as a warrior. As soon as he could run, he climbed tall trees in search of birds’ eggs, rode bareback and played the clown at school.

I am Minny-Ha-Ha to his Hiawatha the Brave.

Often I was afraid of the dark. One time I screamed out in the middle of the night:

“Monsters. Big black bogey man…under the bed…”

Dad races into the kids’ bedroom and flashes a torch underneath my bed. I want to crawl in between him and Mum in their double bed, but it’s out of bounds. I crawl in with Donny instead, snuggle up to his naked body; feel the flip of his penis like a lizard as he moves over to let me in; I fall into a deep sleep o contentment.

~~~

Early memories are bathed in warmth. I am sitting in a pink tub on the old wooden table in the kitchen next to the fuel stove. It is dusk. A golden ball of light sinks into the hills to the west. The warm water soothes my body. I splash my hands in it and crow.

Mummy laughs and rubs me all over with Lifebuoy soap, pours the water over my dark brown hair that is just like hers. The kitchen is bathed in a soft hazy glow. Mummy is listening for the jeep to pull up at the front. I listen too. We will hear him opening the wire gate and driving through into the back yard.

Mummy is laughing now at the black stallion through the window as it frisks and plays with the piebald and bay mares. Her laugh is the laugh of a naughty child. I don’t know what she is laughing at.

The kitchen is warm, warm from the heat of the stove and the last rays of the sun dropping in the west. And I sit in the tin tub waiting for the sound of Daddy’s footsteps.

He bursts in, eyes twinkling and red-cheeked from a beer at the pub, and goes straight to me, picking me up in those strong sun-browned arms and calling me his ‘Little Angie-Pangie’, tossing me up into the air and showering me with kisses. Mummy watches us.

~~~

One very early memory is of tombstone-like coldness. A nurse places my skinny body in a hot tub. I have Scarlet Fever. I’m hallucinating. A large black bull chasing me.

“Put her in hospital or you’ll carry her out in a box!” the doctor says.

It’s when the fear, the frozenness, first enters me. I’m taken away from my mother. They put me in a sterile ward in the hospital. It’s opposite the Grafton Gaol.

Daddy brings a tiny rabbit to the windowpane of the children’s ward where I am quarantined. It reminds me that goodness, gentleness still exist the coldness and trauma.

At the end of three weeks, just before Mummy comes to take me home, a nurse places me in a tub of hot water. The sensation of my body afloat in salving water, remains with me to this day.

Not long after this, Daddy drives Mummy and me to Moree. I am the littlest princess. Billy and Donny, five and six, are left at Grandma’s farm, directly across the Highway from our house.

There is one tourist attraction at Moree: the public baths. They’re not just any baths, but ones formed from natural salt springs hidden beneath the ground. Discovered when an engineer sank a drill in search of oil, the hot salt water spurted up like a miracle, an offering from the gods.

Now I’m floating in the warm salt waters of the baths. Mummy and Daddy are holding me up in their arms. It’s heaven. Just the three of us. Floating there. On the surface barely a ripple. h hot waters holding us all up, the three of us, just floating there, on the surface, all is well with my world

~~~

On the way back home to Waterview, I spy through the window of our car, a host of tiny snowflake white lambs dotted all around the fields with their mothers.

“Daddy, Daddy! I wan’ one! Pleease can I have one!”

“What’s the matter? What’s wrong, for cris’sake?”

“I want a baby lamb! Daddy, Pleeease can I?”

Mum laughs. Dad stops the car and lets me take a closer look, but it does not assuage the terrible want, the aching hole like hunger, like unquenchabe thirst. I yearn to hold one of the babies in my arms, not merely drink it in through my eyes. In fact, the stopover makes me covet it all the more strongly and urgently, and I whine and cry for a lamb for the rest of the trip.

Mum is a bit deaf by this stage. “Just ignore her, Will,” she says. “She will stop after a while.”

“I wan’ one… I wan’ one…”

“Here, have a lolly to suck on…” and she reaches into the back and sticks it in my mouth.

“I wan’ one!” my voice slobbery now, as well as whining, through the dribbles from the sticky crunchy peppermint stuck to my teeth.

For once my father, who rarely gave into our pleadings for things, seemed to consider the possibility.

“When I have time, I’ll make enquiries. Just give us some peace will you, Angie?”

And that is exactly what he did when we got back home. It was quite a sturdy beast, not the soft toy-like babies of the tablelands, but it was the gesture that counted. I wonder now, whether it touched a chord in him, something to do with his secret yearnings. “All I ever wanted was a mate to share my life with,” he told me once. Much later on.

But it’s the Moree baths I remember most of all.

moree-baths

September 27, 2012 4 comments