Mary Lives - a Story of Anorexia Nervosa & Bipolar Disorder

By Mary Brooks

In this chaotic, desperate storm
the brain tries hard to gather its fragmented parts,
and anchor down the guy lines.
To weather out this hopelessness, this turmoil and this pain,
-prevent disintegration until the calm returns
and clear skies come again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Mar 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493135615

Book preview

MARY LIVES - A STORY OF ANOREXIA

NERVOSA & BIPOLAR DISORDER

Mary Brooks

Copyright © 2014 by Mary Brooks.

Library of Congress Control Number:                        2014903983

ISBN:                  Hardcover                                978-1-4931-3559-2

                            Softcover                                 978-1-4931-3560-8

                            eBook                                      978-1-4931-3561-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/25/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

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601850

Contents

Full

1   Childhood

2   High School

3   Starting University

4   Suicide And Hospital

5   Interstate and All Over the World

6   Second Childhood

7   The Following Years

8   The Children Grow Up

9   Regrouping

10   In Therapy Again

11   Writing My Story

12   Addendum

Full

Mary has a full, abundant, joyful life. She could never have expected another happiness could happen in her life. Next May she would be a grandmother for the first time.

Every mother has probably looked forward to becoming a grandmother, that is, every mother who has found mothering a fulfilling experience. Mary was sixty-two and wondered if she would ever had a grandchild, as a lot of women in their fifties already have several grandchildren. She may never become a great-grandmother, but she didn’t think this was nearly as exciting as that first grandchild.

Her own grandmother had seventeen grandchildren and about ten great-grandchildren before she died, her mother had six grandchildren, but died before she became a great-grandmother. This expected baby would have been her first great-grandchild, but she had such a lot of joy from the grandchildren that being a great-grandmother was something she did not need to wish for.

Mary had started hoping for a grandchild when her son got married, three years ago, but had almost given up this hope, when they bought a dog. People often say that a young couple buys a dog instead of having children.

Mary’s life has been full of ups and down, and it is hard to imagine how ‘up’ it has been for many months now, in the healthy sense. She has Bipolar Disorder, and some of the ups in the past have been very unhealthy, and most of the downs fit in that category too. Sometimes she longs for the manic episodes, because then she feels so powerful and indestructible, until she realises how much devastation they can cause, and how they usually end in catastrophe and hospitalisation. The first manic episodes were when she was anorexic, in her teens, and even now she is ‘sure’ that at that time she could really fly. She also believed God had told her she would know everything there is to know, and she was destined to minister to everyone as a missionary doctor. Another manic episode was triggered by one of the old antidepressants, and she raced around, made decisions and calculations of great importance at tremendous speed. In others she had outlandish plans, knew everything about the universe and had long talks with other psychotic patients in hospital. Unfortunately the plans she made when she was manic were impossible to carry out when she collapsed into the inevitable depression which followed. This cost a lot of money when tickets and enrolments were wasted.

The depressions started when she was twelve and the first time she was in hospital the doctors thought she was schizophrenic and dosed her with antipsychotics. In despair she threw away all her religious devotion as God had obviously deserted her, she thought. Today, at this stage of her disease the only ‘ups and downs’ she has are all ‘downs’.

Mary was a precocious and dutiful daughter, and the proverbial ‘good little girl’—until puberty that is, when she rebelled and became depressed and anorexic. This caused chaos in her teenage years when she should have been learning who she was in the world and developing skills that would help her through the rest of her life. Very little was known about Anorexia Nervosa in the sixties, and she herself was not diagnosed for the first six years. By then she had angered and upset her family to such an extent, that they felt relieved when she was first in hospital, and withdrew to let the doctors deal with her. Unlike today’s parents, her parents thought that the illness was ‘her problem’ and they were not prepared to share any part in the necessary therapy. Mary had little to do with the rest of her family for about fourteen years, and it has been very difficult to re-establish ties.

When she was fanatically religious, in her teens, Mary started studying Medicine. She had been a brilliant student all her life until then, and even topped the year in her first year at university. Unfortunately her illness interfered with her learning ability, and she also developed severe anxiety and low self-worth, making the practical aspects of her Medical course nearly impossible. Somehow she did pass the exams, with most of those university years spent in hospital. In those chaotic years, and because she had very low self-worth and self-confidence, she married another mentally disturbed patient and had seven years of hell with him. It was in hospital on one occasion, that the staff were able to show her that she had the right to choose to escape from this marriage.

Mary moved interstate and worked in a big hospital there. She was a very conscientious and admired young doctor, for her caring and willingness to investigate everything she did not know. Again her illnesses took over several times, and she was hospitalised both for the Bipolar Disorder and the Anorexia Nervosa.

It was unfortunate that Mary had not had a normal adolescence, and had no confidence in her own decisions. She married again—a much older man, and although she knew it was not a sensible union, she didn’t have enough self-esteem to say no.

Fortunately a patient and very kind doctor helped her with her confidence and self-worth many years later. This was when her children were tiny. The children were a miracle in themselves, considering her illnesses prior to that. She had considered herself asexual and infertile since she was thirteen and her periods stopped due to the anorexia. When she got married this second time, her General Practitioner insisted she go on the contraceptive pill, and miraculously she fell pregnant as soon as she stopped it.

Her daughter and son were the ‘best thing that could happen’ out of an otherwise loveless marriage. They were also the main reason she wanted to get well,—and stay alive. In the past four years she has seen a Psychologist to help her gain more self-confidence in social situations and in handling her illness. Mary’s periods of depression persist, but currently she is well and more hopeful.

And now those children are wonderful adults who bring so much happiness to her life. Mary looks forward to a wonderful Christmas with them, but just about every day is wonderful, when she thinks about them. They are making their way in life without the hiccups Mary had, and are happy in their chosen careers.

Mary too, gains much satisfaction from her career as a family doctor, despite the cost to her own health caused by the years of study, when she wasn’t well anyway. She had fortunately come to the conclusion that she is a ‘good enough doctor’—and a ‘good enough mother’ too.

In fact, being a doctor has given her financial freedom as well. Her credo is ‘Do unto others…’ which means that wealth is not her first concern. She’s made some inappropriate decisions over the years, about money, but is lucky to have ended up in a comfortable place.

In recent years, after a serious physical illness, Mary decided to ‘travel’—to take holidays and visit places at home and overseas. She has found enjoyment which she never had expected.

Other things give her enjoyment too. She has applied the maxim of ‘being good enough’ to lots of hobbies, like gardening, beading, quilting and writing, and is always trying out new things to add to this list.

Mary’s physical health is a lot better than most people her age, and she is trying to keep it that way through exercise, relaxation and diet.

Overall her life is rewarding, fruitful and happy.

………………………………………………………………..

This book can be read as a whole, but each chapter can be read alone. I hope it might give a sufferer of Anorexia Nervosa, Bipolar disorder, or other mental illness, the courage to seek help.

I would appreciate any feedback and my email is [e-mail].

Thank you

1

Childhood

My childhood was happy, in general, but I was already isolated

from my peers, and had a lot of responsibility, above that

necessarily given to young children my age.

………………………………………………………………..

Faith.

‘Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,

I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight’

—‘don’t let my father and mother die before I do’

Backwards and forwards, tiny feet pushing off against the sloping end of the enamel bath tub, and hands against the other end, as the water swirled noisily down the plug hole. I was the last one in the bath, after the younger two sisters, and I had the fun job of ‘swimming out the water’. It was bedtime soon, and I silently chanted my night—time prayer.:

‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild

Look upon thy little child

Make me gentle as Thou art,

Come and live within my heart.

Take my childish hand in Thine,

Guide these little feet of mine.

So shall all my happy days,

Sing their pleasant song of praise

And the world shall always see

Christ, the Holy Child, in me.’

‘God bless Mummy and Daddy—and please don’t let them die before I do’

The Sunday School teacher had a picture of Jesus with big and little children all around him, looking up at him with adoring eyes, and he gazing down with love and beneficence—‘black and yellow, red and white—all are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.’ And she promised he would answer your prayers.

Even after I was too big to swim out the bath water, and even though I now knew that cats and rabbits that died were buried in the garden and were never seen again…

Soon came School, at age 5. I carried my small cardboard school case, and wore my favourite dress—brown and white check called huckaback I think with a pattern of raised red lines. And the teacher insisted each child drink their school milk from the crate of little glass bottles, delivered earlier and standing in the playground for the recess break. I had never liked milk, and never would. My special dress and my first day at school were marred by violently vomiting the milk I had been forced to drink.

We learned our ABC and practiced pronunciation by watching the teacher’s lip movements and mimicking the sound in the reflection of a shiny lid from a jar we had brought from home. We also brought a special egg, wrapped carefully in a paper bag, to collect on ‘Egg day’ for the poor people. There was ‘Tuckshop day’ with stickjaw toffee and chocolate crackles. Every one learned to write their name, on our slates, and most managed to also scratch the letters in the wooden desk—but the teacher caught me, and it was my first experience of shame. I would sit in the air raid shelter at lunchtime, and imagine I could hear the whistling descent of bombs and inside of me felt hollow and painful, and very afraid. One day this fear became enormous when I learned that waves carried pictures and sound, way out into the sky and forever out into the universe. And that meant, of course, that every bad thing I said or did would always be there, a clear sound and photo image existing out into infinity. This fear was even greater because I could never hide in an air raid shelter to protect against this eternal record of eternal shame and sin.

I would lie hidden in the long grass, watching clouds drift by, gracefully changing shape, stretching apart like fairy floss, and coalescing again, shutting out the sun, and sending a grey shiver over the grass. I would lie there making daisy chains, and trying to find the rare four leaf clovers.

These things I remember clearly about the lower primary—scratching my name on the desk, the air raid shelters, and the long grass in the playground, and dancing in a circle in the school assembly hall. We learned to dance and march there, and had important assemblies and celebrations.

Through the Eyes of a Child.

Curled brown leaves are sailing boats, and round pebbles build roads, and daisies are royal jewels; an empty box is a car one day, and a treasure chest the next.

The toys are friends, and join the game; paper sheets are carefully drawn with colours and patterns, to make each doll or teddy a cover for his bed.

Through the eyes of a child, there is no end to life’s fascinations and fun.

Through the eyes of a child there is always something new,

and exciting, and rewarding to be done.

Each day begins with confidence and safety in his eyes, but once awake and on his feet, the child looks for change and growth in even the most familiar task or

object. Today he is taller, he will run further, build his block towers

higher, and draw a castle more magnificent than ever before.

The child does not think his squeals and delight will waken anyone,

or annoy them. The child does not know his growls and

his roars mean he is being ‘a naughty boy.’!

His voice is a joy to the child, and a never-ending source of amusement and curiosity, as he experiments and mimics the world around him.

His arms, his hands and mouth, and tiny toes, help him explore

and master the challenges he encounters.

‘Don’t touch a thing. Don’t climb. Don’t run. Don’t shout. Don’t get grubby.

Don’t stare.’ ‘Don’t play with your food. Don’t cry like a sook.

Don’t scribble. Don’t crumple. Don’t tear’.

He stares wide-eyed at your angry voice, he hesitates to move. He learns to put brakes on his spontaneity, and the eyes of the child begin to revise their view of the world.

………………………………………………………………..

‘Queen Victoria was born on this day 24th May, and on this day we celebrate British Commonwealth of Nations Day. Recently the name was changed from Empire Day, and all the countries now form a Commonwealth of Nations, rather than the old notion of Britain’s empire. These countries include Australia, India, Tanganyika…’

I can’t remember the rest of the names, but Tanganyika sounded so wonderful as I moved my mouth and tongue around the words.

I had written that speech and practised it over and over, to introduce the school’s celebration on 24th May, I think it was 1959, and I was in the highest school in the lower primary school. Of course, being the brightest student, it was I who had been chosen, and as I practised it for my father, and had it all learned off by heart, he was incredibly proud. The rest of the children were an insignificant blur in my memory, there were no friends amongst them, and the only other person, apart from my father, who seemed pleased and proud for me was my teacher, Mrs Greenhalgh.

But then, disaster, . . . This silly little girl, was playing on her own in the bedroom upstairs, over the shop, and she had made herself a cape with cut out eyes in the hood, from an old threadbare baby blanket which was used as a cleaning duster. It was one of those secret games she should not have been playing. She wanted to fly, like Superman, in the comics—and leaping from the old baby cot, she fell and broke her shoulder blade, and bruised her stomach so badly that the doctor thought she might have damaged one of the internal organs. She spent the next few days of May in hospital, had her arm taped to her chest to let the shoulder blade heal, and suffered the humiliation of medical examinations, and even an enema, to check her abdomen.

And another child read my speech. And I wasn’t allowed to take part in the night-time celebrations of Cracker Night, and had to watch everyone else enjoy it.

Cracker Night or Bonfire Night was the culmination of weeks of anticipation and collecting wood and old tires, and spending every spare penny on crackers. I had helped my father in his shop, sorting out 3 shillings worth, 5 shillings worth and 10 shillings worth bags of fireworks. For 3 shillings you could buy a brown paper bag full of penny and tuppenny bungers, jumping jacks, throwdowns, Catherine wheels, volcanos and sparklers. The more expensive bags had more of these and also skyrockets—these were the most dramatic and exciting fireworks, which grown ups would light with a match, as the rocket sat in a milk bottle, and they soared into the air and burst into loud crackling and a sparkling array of red, orange, green and yellow streaks and stars of light. ‘Ooogh, Aaagh… Look at that!’ And everyone looked around and gasped when they saw rockets in the sky from the next streets too.

The bonfires were built in the street, because the asphalt road ran down the centre and left wide gravel stretches either side where cars usually parked. The bonfires grew larger and taller for weeks leading up to Bonfire night. In the dark, on 24th of May, neighbours all grouped around as the fires were set alight, and these were the centrepiece of all the firework excitement.—except for me, that year.—and I had missed out on the school speech too, and saw how disappointed my father was.

Another area of success, and paternal pride, was my championship successes at Physical Culture. Every Monday night, with two and six in our hands, (two shillings and sixpence), my sisters and I would walk down to the local church, to Bjelke-Petersen Physical Culture classes, consisting of marching, standing exercising, and floor work. The championships would always be held at another larger venue with other clubs competing too. I still have my winning badges, somewhere.

I know Dad was never pleased that I was useless at swimming, and running races, and hurdles and high jumps, and I was too short to play basket ball, though I was fairly good at long jump and softball. He had prided himself on his sporting prowess—especially at Gymnastics, Tennis, Golf and LifeSaving.

In the Primary school we had a big quadrangle where we held most of the assemblies, and we all stood to attention, swore allegiance to ‘God and the Queen’, raised the Australian flag on the school flagpole, and sang proudly:

‘God save our gracious Queen,

God save our noble Queen.

God save the Queen.

Send her victorious,

Happy and glorious,

Long to reign over us.

God save the Queen.’

In the quadrangle we had marching practice, and at recess and lunch time this was where the children separated out into their groups and gangs. Not belonging to any group, I went to the library, or filled the inkwells. Filling the inkwells, was a big responsibility, because it could be so messy, if anything went wrong. We wrote with pen and nib, and dipped the nib into an inkwell in our desk. The blue ink came as a powder, and step one was to dissolve it in water, and step two was to open up each inkwell, fill it carefully, then screw the top on tightly, and replace it into its hole in the desk. This was done at recess time. Another task for recess, was to set up the projector for watching films. This was a big metal frame, with reels of tape as large as a dinner plate, and the tape had to thread precisely through the metal slots and the end of the tape wound into the receiving reel. Again, a very responsible task.—for a very responsible young girl.

………………………………………………………………..

I dreamt I climbed the stairs at the school, and it seemed so foreign to me. I had never noticed each stair was shiny grey from the thousands of little feet that had been climbing up and down for many decades. And the thick concrete, painted walls of the stair well were a dirty yellow colour, built to last—‘not like today’ I could hear from voices in the air around me and inside my head. The metal rails were shiny with the sweaty grasp of the same thousands of school children, and the steps, the walls, and the rails felt so cool and safe and secure. At the head of the stairs was a recess with rows of slatted seats, with some galoshes underneath, and overhead a wooden rail with hooks, and on the hooks drawstring library bags, and on the seats themselves oblong box-like school bags containing the lunch bags, raincoats, spare panties and hankies, and the four pennies for an emergency phone call. On further is a long corridor with classrooms to the right, with closed doors, and the noises of busy teaching and learning inside. The floor of the corridor is made of wooden planks, across the direction I was walking. I could see in front of me the headmistress’ office and the staff room, and beyond that more classrooms. On the left of the corridor was a fence-like wall that let me see down to the empty asphalt playground below, and above the more sturdy lower half of the wall, was a mesh, like chicken wire with smaller more rounded holes. Below was another corridor set out just the same, but no wire mesh because it was on the ground floor and people couldn’t fall out.

Fall out ?!! Help me! Below my feet gaps appeared between the wooden slats, opening up the corridor floor. And the gaps are getting wider. I have to take careful larger steps to get across, then try to jump to the next wooden plank . . . And I am falling . . . In terror . . . falling down, down, down . . . until I sit up suddenly awake, fearful, and drenched in sweat.

………………………………………………………………..

The library was my chief domain. The librarian had always allowed me to take out more books than usual, and I had now read all the fiction books, and she pointed out some nonfiction ones which she thought would interest me. She saw that I was eager to help, and gave me trolleys filled with returned books to put back in their place on the shelf. I then progressed to entering each newly purchased book into the accession register, writing the Dewey number in black ink on a white sticker on the spine of the book, covering it in plastic, and pasting in the card pocket and date page, then putting it on the shelf, for children to borrow. I was often mesmerised by the titles, the beautiful coloured covers, the magnificent prints inside. These books were my friends and I looked after them with care.

The process was somewhat like some of the jobs I would do for my father in his toy shop. This was in the days when supermarkets did not exist, and people brought their bread, pies and cakes at the Baker, their cold meats at the Delicatessen—or ‘the ham and beef shop’, fruit and vegetables at the Greengrocer, flour and sugar at the Grocer, sweets and ice-cream cones at the Milk Bar, flowers from the Florist—and toys at the Toy Shop. My father also sold sheet music, school supplies, balsa wood for model airplanes, train engines, carriages and track, Golden Books, Matchbox and Corgi cars. He took in knitting for the basking to be added, and made covered buttons to match garments the customers made.

He sold lottery tickets, and I would stand up on a step to write in the customers’ name and address, and he was a branch for the local Commonwealth Bank. I would write in the pounds, shillings and pence for each customer, enter the balance in their bank book, and add it on to the running total in the banking register. But the job I liked best was searching through great big catalogues of toys, working out the percentage mark-up and writing the price on little white label on each toy and book. I also felt very proud when I was allowed to go to the city on my own, to the warehouse, when a toy was wanted urgently. Working in the shop was my after school, weekend and school holiday job all through primary school.

Dad, Mum and I had lived upstairs, above the shop, until more children arrived and we needed a bigger place to live. There are many memories, and other things I think I remember, but probably have been told so often that it seems like a memory. We had a smelly gas stove—before natural gas, of course, and to turn it on, first it was the main switch at the side, then a particular switch for each burner had to be unfolded, then turned and held until a lighted match made the gas light up. That smell was for safety, so you could smell a gas leak, but as a small child, it always meant danger, to me. We had a safe to keep the butter and milk in—a tall hanging frame with green wet netting, which kept the food cool, and the flies out. The sink was enamel, the surrounds were called ‘marble’ but were a chipped conglomerate of black and white stone pieces once stuck together and highly polished, but now an uneven hiding place for grime and soap suds. The kitchen soap was in a little square metal cage on a handle, and in it we put chipped up pieces of yellow laundry soap, to splash about in the water and make suds. The hot water was brought into the kitchen in a bucket from the bathroom, where the gas water heater sat, with its purple pilot light. None of the windows had flywire, so we kept the trusted pump gun of fly spray ready to squirt out a spurt of spray if flies invaded the kitchen.

The bathroom was just around the corner, and the white enamel bath always scared me, after I had seen a centipede crawling out of the tap over the bath one day. Never again would I get in the bath until the water was turned off, and I lost all desire to drink from a tap or a hose ever again. Many times I have been told that I would water the garden with a hose or watering can, and even ‘watered my baby sister to make her grow. And there is a photo of a cute little me in a tartan skirt, deep crimson weather jacket and beret, standing on the back porch, with a lovely slim young woman who was my mother, and a white woven cane pram, holding my baby sister.

Out the back of the shop were the toilet, the 2 long clothes lines and the clothes pole, and the copper. On one side of our shop was a similar long thin back yard belonging to the Milk Bar, and on the other side a yard with rows of pigeon roosts and cages, with fluttering of wings and ‘coo-cooing’. Overhead would be the deafening blasts of engine noise whenever a plane flew over. The Aerodrome was only a few miles away, and the planes looked monstrously huge over our heads.

From the shop below, there was a steep stairway to the rooms we lived in. Upstairs, the windows of the bedroom opened onto the corrugated tin roof of the shop awnings, and I remember, I think, climbing up there to watch the Queen go by; Queen Elizabeth, just after her coronation, driving along Botany Road on her way to or from Mascot Aerodrome.

Years and years later, I would have nightmares about my poor old Dad working long hours to make very little money, for years after his heart attacks had broken his spirit and destroyed his health, and afraid to retire in case there was not enough money. I would see him struggling to make a living against the competition from Coles and Woolworths, which had now established themselves in most suburban shopping centres, and people now going to the City to spend their now seemingly abundant money, in the big city Department Stores. The Toy shop now sold newspapers as well, and my father developed a skin allergy to the newsprint ink, and his hands became cracked and painful. He worked from 6 am to 6 pm, and came home with the day’s takings in his little suitcase.

Father Job

Stern Father Job, plodding up the hill; your bowed shoulders and balding head belie your past, and show only now that you are down on your luck.

Once, you said, you were someone grand; you were fit and stood tall,

and held aloft a winner’s proud eyes.

Now you reminisce at times, and your eyes gleam with the memories of sporting prowess and victory; you yearn now for the moments of acclaim, when people see you in your clean black suit, and praise your brilliant memory and perceptive mind.

You feed on the kudos, and momentarily, your chest inflates with pride; you forget for a while that hidden regret, that longed for goal you pretend never mattered to you.

Struggling up the hill, your limbs are leaden and slow, and you curse

yourself for your failure; your failing health is anathema to you.

No-one must see the effort it takes to reach the top.

In private, when you say goodnight, and crawl into your cot,—

as longed for sleep draws a comforting warm blanket around you,—

and if you are not careful,—the tears may come . . .

………………………………………………………………..

In the nightmares, the shop rarely had customers, Dad stood forlornly behind the counter, toys hung from the overhead wooden brackets where sat the tricycles and toy cars, and sat on the shelves, covered in dust. I would try to sort them, dust them, plan some simple advertising banners to help sell some. And finally, the shop was taken over by a Newsagent, revamped into a bright modern shop, his family lived upstairs where we used to live when I was little—and I imagined crates full of new, but dusty toys packed up to be distributed to charitable organisations. I don’t know what was real or nightmares.

All my childhood memories revolve around ‘the shop’, and every night we were never sure if he would get home in time for tea. We had a big radio cabinet in the kitchen, with long gas filled diodes, and we would listen to the Argonauts before tea. It was usually steak, potatoes, carrots and peas or beans, for Dad, and sausages for the rest of us. Around the kitchen table I had finished my dinner well before the other 2, and would dance about and sing, to distract Dad especially, from the pleading ‘eat your peas or you won’t get dessert’, and the whingeing of the younger 2 children.

I was ‘The Entertainer’—

The silent unassuming wooden box surprised us all.

Wind the wooden handle and mysteries unfold.

Slowly, note by note, excitement stirs our blood,

and our toes and fingers begin, uncontrollably to tingle,

and fidget, and our bodies come alive,

With engaging gypsy rhythms,—and the momentum takes hold.

No-one suspected the quiet man could talk.

Wind him up with whiskey, and memories pour forth.

A hesitant beginning, an exciting hint or two,

of a past full of adventure, and magically,

Brilliantly, he entrances one and all,

With a wealth of colour and fantasy, and breath-taking tales of the north.

He held us all for hours, and our breath came fast and hot.

The pictures of the goldfields, the days of history books

Came alive and thrilled us,—the risks, and hopes, and toil,

the face-to-face encounters, with nature and with man . . .

Greed, hope and desperation, he held us as though with hooks.

‘I remember Paddy Reynolds and his vicious mongrel bitch . . .

The day they found and lost a bloody fortune, and that bloody vicious fight.

He panned ten decent nuggets, in an absent digger’s workings,

ignoring the pegged out claim,—and hid them silently in his pouch.

What a marvellous wealthy future he would dream about tonight!

But the silly bitch was restless, and paced about for hours,

More excited than old Paddy by this so-successful day.

He snapped at every passing leg, and whined and howled for hours,

and enraged the returning digger.

Irate and tired he shouted—Paddy lock that damn old bitch away!

Paddy’s guilty conscience made him start an argument.

At midnight all their shouting woke everyone around.

They all were treated to the confrontation, wrestle, punch,

And punch and dive, and wrestle, duck, and dive, and punch and jeer . . .

And from the pouch ten gleaming wondrous nuggets, that tumbled to the ground!

All hell broke loose; the bitch howled in pain as she was trampled in the rush,

Arms and legs collided, bodies fell, and guns were drawn,

Blood ran,—shouts, shots, screams, bodies, boots, and bloodied fists and faces,

Broken arms, smashed hands, lost boots—

Paddy’s broken heart at dawn . . .

We lived the stories with him, and we never had supposed

Such marvellous adventures had happened to our friend.

Our blood ran fast; the whiskey added fire to it all,

He carried us on to a time and a place beyond our sheltered lives.

We sighed, exhausted, and sat dreaming on, when he finally reached the end.

………………………………………………………………..

If he was late, Dad’s tea would sit on a plate, covered by a saucepan lid, over a simmering saucepan of water, on the woodfire stove.—or in later years, on the gas stove and in the oven.

First he would cut some chives or parsley from the garden, wash them, chop them up finely, sprinkle them on the food, sit and eat his meal, and then spread out his books and money, and pile up the pound notes, the ten shilling notes, the two shillings (the florins), the one shillings (the bobs—of the scouts’ ‘Bob A Job’ week), the sixpences and threepenny bits. He left the pennies and ha’pennies in the till at the shop.

Then he went to bed ‘with a headache’, and we were ‘shooshed’ to be quiet.

I think I remember…

There is a huge house by the sea, somewhere near Gosford. A holiday house owned by one of our ‘aunties’.

All the women my mother knew were our ‘aunties’. I vaguely remember this was Aunty Clare, and she lived on Botany Road near the RSL club. When we, the 3 older girls, were little, we visited Aunty Clare with Mum. One year we went to Gosford for a short holiday. The road to Gosford was a frightening narrow twisting road along the side of tall cliffs, with deep falls straight down into the bush, to the valley floor. There seemed barely enough room to negotiate the tight bends, and often one car or truck had to drive into a narrow recess in the cliff face to let the other car pass.

I don’t remember the holiday but the house lived on in a recurrent dream, where I would trek long distances through the sand dunes, until I saw the sea, and back to the house, which became a larger and larger maze of upstairs and downstairs, dark staircases, empty rooms, balconies, wide verandahs, and finally an outdoor flight of steps to escape. Always on my own.

There were other ‘aunties’ too, like Aunty Iris, who had 3 children of similar ages to the (first 3 girls) three of us. And another aunty up the street, who was one of the first in our street to get a TV, in 1956. We were allowed to go there, once a week, to watch Sooty, and The Mickey Mouse Club. And later, Aunty Iris got a TV, and on Friday nights, we would be at the shop after school, then walk up to the Fish and Chip shop, and buy sixpenneth of chips and a battered sav, for our tea. We walked through the Arcade, ran across the darkness of the back lane, and into Aunty Iris’ place through her back gate, to join her 3 children eating our chips, and watching TV for 2 hours. The 3 of us would run home in the dark—just to the next street, but having to cross another dark back lane on the way.

These were days when I had to leap across the lines in the pavement, carefully avoiding treading on them. I think it was a game, and a challenge, to jump the whole distance of one square of the pathway.

Our house had a back lane too, and back lanes were rather dangerous places, or looked that way, with no lights, and a drain down the centre, and the garages opening onto them, and the backyard gates. You could never be sure who might be lurking there. The one behind Botany Road was where you would often see a drunken man, from the hotel, in the shadows.

Our back lane would flood when it rained, and the water would cover our garage floor. Our garage was across the whole width of the property, and the former owner had used it as a work shop. There were shelves up near the tin roof, with dusty planks and ropes and old machinery, and a long wooden work bench with great cavernous shelves under it, hiding tins and jars, and bottles of oil and turpentine. It was off bounds to us, and considered another dangerous place we must not touch.

The street in front of our house had a road down the centre, with wide gravel parking areas either side. Butterfly trees (bauhinia) were planted there. And this where the milkman, and the ‘rabbito’ would park their horse and carts when making deliveries. The front street was also subject to flooding, right up to our front door step. It was fun to go to school in our rain boots or galoshes, even though they would be full of water by the time we walked a few yards.

Further up our street there were 2 horse yards and stables, which smelled of manure, especially after the rain had cleared. I would peek through the wooden palings to see the horses. They were racing horses that ran at the nearby Rosebery Racecourse.

The Arcade on Botany Road had once been a movie theatre, just a few shops up the road from the toy shop where we had lived for the first few years of my life, before moving two streets back to the family house for over forty years. The movie theatre had a projection room up the back, and sometimes the projectionist would have to reload a reel of film halfway through a movie. There were always 2 different movies, with Interval in between, and the ‘Ice-creams, Jaffas and Minties’ to buy. The only time I remember going there was once with my father to see a movie about Douglas Bader, who was, I think, a pilot in WW2, who lost both his legs and earned great esteem by making his way back into the air, as, my Dad would call him, ‘Tin Legs Bader’.

Across the road from the theatre was a hotel, a post office, the bus stop to the city, a trash yard, and a flower shop. I loved the damp floors and the wonderful scent of all the greenery and flowers. The best time was Christmas, when there were buckets of starry red Christmas bush, and big yellow and red Christmas bells. It was part of Christmas I miss in Western Australia.

All these memories are stories about my family, yet it is really only me alone, in all the pictures in my mind—with sometimes also my father.

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The houses blend into more recurrent dreams, where the land is redeveloped into grand modern dwellings, with statues and long lovely courtyards. There are no people in the dreams, and I keep trying to knock on doors, and once find ‘our house’ behind one of these doors, familiar yet strange and deserted, and not