Tank to Tower

By Jan Stock

Tank to Tower is the story of a young woman’s transition from childhood to womanhood, through the many facets of life. It takes the reader on that journey with the writer from the heat of the Arabian desert, the dust and flies of Western Australian farmland to lush New Zealand bush and beyond. For instance how does a young bride, fresh from the city, cope with the starkly different challenges of rural life, or from having very limited culinary skills to catering for a number of healthy appetites with several hearty meals every day?
This is the record of an interesting and everchanging life full of fascinating places and of interesting but unremarkable people living full but very normal lives.
It is a story of challenge and resilience, lack and abundance, sadness and joy, and all the other ingredients that go into building a tale of ordinary people with ordinary lives that will resonate with many, perhaps encourage a few and hopefully entertain them all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781398421790

Jan Stock

Jan Stock was born in England, but over the years, she has lived in Iraq, UK, New Zealand and Australia. Her life has been a series of new beginnings, and this book covers some of that journey, with its challenges, joys and sorrows. Although primarily a wife, mother, grandmother, homemaker and farmer’s wife, she has also been a secretary to doctors, lawyers, corporate executives and social workers during her working years. Retirement has brought the delight of frequent travel to the life of Jan and her husband, a pastime they continue to enjoy as much as possible.

Book preview

About The Author

Jan Stock was born in England, but over the years, she has lived in Iraq, UK, New Zealand and Australia. Her life has been a series of new beginnings, and this book covers some of that journey, with its challenges, joys and sorrows.

Although primarily a wife, mother, grandmother, homemaker and farmer’s wife, she has also been a secretary to doctors, lawyers, corporate executives and social workers during her working years.

Retirement has brought the delight of frequent travel to the life of Jan and her husband, a pastime they continue to enjoy as much as possible.

Dedication

To Trevor, my soulmate and best friend, who lovingly encourages me every day to achieve my hopes and dreams. To Stuart, Sarah-Jane and my wonderful family, who inspire me and bless me with their love and support.

And to my parents, who planted within me the desire and joy of travel, and the courage to embrace change, as they did.

Copyright Information

© Jan Stock 2021

The right of Jan Stock to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398421783 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398421790 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2021

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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London

E14 5AA

Part I

The Tank:

A Girl’s Journey

Chapter 1

In the early morning quietness, before the household was stirring, and having spent a restless night mulling over events of the past months, vacillating between feelings of great excitement and intense apprehension, I crept from my bed and ventured out into the coolness of the new day dawning. Finding a secluded spot behind the large water tank a few hundred metres away from the house, I stood and surveyed my surroundings. Being safely out of view there in my secret space, I stood overlooking the brown, dry paddocks of stubble evidencing the recently harvested crops and the gently undulating hills seeming to stretch forever. A few sparse gum trees dotted the scene before me, but mostly the bare paddocks and the odd mob of dusty sheep were what caught my eye that morning.

It was all so very unfamiliar to me, and again the enormity and reality of weeks of preparation before the long, hot dusty drive across the Nullarbor Plain. This and the arrival at a strange house belonging to an unknown distant relative, along with the uncertainty of how on earth I was going to cope with this new lifestyle, suddenly overwhelmed me and I burst into floods of uncontrollable tears. The disappointment of not being able to move into our own home for a few days, hence the stay with the new-found relatives, just added to my misery, and I cried all the harder at the realisation that I had to tough out the next little while, and wait patiently for our plans to set up a new home in this foreign place to finally eventuate.

I longed for the reassuring arms of my mum, suddenly feeling light years away from her and my dad, knowing that they would be devastated to think that I was unhappy. Overwhelmed by feelings of doubt and insecurity, I struggled in those moments to put everything into perspective and even to give myself permission to have misgivings. I felt I should be strong and flexible and take the little disappointments on the chin, knowing that this was the beginning of a journey into married life that would be fraught with ups and down, joys and tragedies, fulfilled dreams and disappointments. That is life after all. On that morning however, the questions hung in the air around me. What was I doing? How had I come to this place? Did I really want to be here? Was my love for my new husband and his love for me enough to carry us through what lay ahead?

My journey to this Western Australian hillside water tank began twenty-one years earlier in a bustling Kentish dockyard town in post-war England. My mother, at the tender age of nineteen, had married the love of her life, a handsome Merchant Naval officer, who just happened to be her first cousin, the middle son of her own mother’s sister. Their story is one of true love, of standing up to the resistance of their family and others, having to submit themselves to a family meeting and forging ahead with their marriage in spite of well-meaning opposition. Soon after their marriage Dad left the service of the Merchant Navy to set up house and pursue a career on dry land. He had seen active service in India and Burma during the war as a marine engineer and was looking forward to settling down with his wife and new baby.

My mother was the youngest of eight children, six girls and two boys, and I used to love to hear her stories of growing up in that environment with my grandmother ruling with a rod of iron which was, no doubt, very necessary in keeping control of all those children. Grandmother was well into her forties when she became pregnant with my mother, and apparently was so embarrassed that a woman of her years should be expecting a baby, that she told people she had ‘a growth’ in her stomach for some time, until she finally came to terms with the fact. Unlike some who grow up with feelings of rejection or some other negative result from the womb, my mother was born and grew up with an enormous confidence and delight in life itself. Her story is a book in itself, a story to be told another time.

My father was also from a large family of three boys and two girls. Unlike my maternal grandparents who raised their children in a modest home with all modern conveniences of the day, my father was born and raised in the dockyard town of Greenock in Scotland, where the family was housed in two rooms of a dismal three or four-storeyed tenement. Four or five families shared the one toilet on each floor, and their tiny flat consisted of a main room in which the cooking and eating was done, the parents sleeping in a bed recessed into one wall. The other room obviously accommodated all the children. Perhaps the youngest of them shared the bed space in the main room, but I am not sure about that. My grandmother Laird died quite young, as did her youngest daughter Peggy, but somehow the rest of the family made it to adulthood with the eldest daughter, my aunt Nellie, assuming the motherly role, and caring for grandpa who remained in the tenement until his death some years later.

The siblings either married young, or like my father, left home to find their way in the world. Not many visits were made back to Greenock over the years and not much correspondence flowed from family to family either, unlike the closeness of my mother’s family.

After the novelty of being onshore and pursuing various employment options wore off, the humdrum sameness of life in the suburbs soon lost its appeal and before long, and much to the consternation of my mother’s large family, Dad secured a job with an oil company in the Middle East, and was soon flying off to get established and set up a home in Iraq for my mother and me.

I have early memories of him coming home on leave, always arriving laden with gifts. Those weeks must have been such precious times for my mother who was soon left again to cope with a child who apparently had a particular aversion to sleep. One of the most memorable gifts my Dad spoilt me with was a large walking-talking doll, dressed exquisitely in full-length satin gown, complete with lace-trimmed bonnet. It must have cost him a fortune such was its quality. One night I was left in the charge of my aunty Doris, while Mum and Dad went out on a date to celebrate his homecoming. Imagine their horror when they returned to find the doll stripped naked and their podgy little two-year-old stuffed into the beautiful dress and bonnet. To this day I’m not sure who got the most fun out of the experience, but I know my Aunty thought it was a huge joke.

When I was three years old, Mother and I finally left England to join my father. Her parents and siblings although supportive, were quite unhappy about her leaving the family fold to follow her wanderlust husband to a strange and foreign land. She was pretty apprehensive too, and understandably so. A sheltered young English rose with a feisty three-year-old, venturing into an environment of hardworking, hard drinking oil men and their families from all walks of life and many different countries, must have been quite overwhelming for her.

The ex-pat community, in the vicinity of the oil town of Kirkuk, soon took her under its wing, and although often homesick for her family, Mother coped very well with the drastic change in her lifestyle. She soon made friends and began to enjoy the many benefits of life in that strange environment.

One of the first tasks to tackle was the hiring of a nanny to look after me and help with the household chores. This concept was totally foreign to Mother’s modern British sensibilities, so of course this was not easy for her. One prospective employee arrived to be interviewed not speaking a word of English and never having been in a European house before. Somehow, God knows how, it was concluded that she was suitable and so Essiet became a member of our family from that day on.

On that first day however, Mother insisted that the first thing on her agenda was to make Essiet have a bath, as she had no idea where she had come from. The bath was drawn, and she was left to get on with it. Some long time later on investigating the reason Essiet had not yet reappeared, she found the poor woman sitting in the bath with all her clothes on. She had never seen a European bath before, let alone known what to do in it. Eventually the message was conveyed and the poor, frightened woman was left sitting in the water with her long black hair draped around her, attempting to come to grips with the whole idea of washing with soap and flannel. My parents had no idea how old she was but gathered that she had a husband somewhere but who was not on the scene in any regular capacity, and that she came from a village in Assyria many miles away. She seemed very happy with her new position and soon became a faithful and wonderful part of the household.

I loved her dearly and was never far from her sight. She was a small woman, possibly in her mid-thirties or early forties. She wore her long hair in a single plait and during the day and her working hours, she covered her head with a muslin nappy tied like a headscarf. I was to discover that she wore bloomers under her dress so voluminous that they extended just below her knees and were safely secured there with elastic. How she coped with those in the heat I will never know. She tended to my every need and left Mother free to get on with being a wonderful hostess and support to Dad.

There were many lavish dinner parties in our home when I was most definitely to be seen and not heard, but I do remember many delightful Sunday afternoons at the Golf Club, where my penchant for singing and theatrics was encouraged by many, as I was hoisted up onto the bar to sing the popular songs of the day which my parents delighted in teaching me. My enjoyment of these occasions and the memory of them is rather contradiction to the debilitating shyness I was to develop later in life.

They were wonderful days. My parents were happy and had a very busy and interesting life. Sometimes we would all go for a drive across miles of desert to visit a new oil well that was being drilled, and my father would enjoy having us along occasionally when he visited villages to talk to local sheiks. We of course, always remained in the car on such occasions. My mother was very quick to learn the protocol of the Arab world.

The oil company provided a primary school for employees’ children. When I turned five years old, I joined them, and those of us who lived outside the township were transported there daily. Our house was 35 miles across the desert from town, so each day we were driven by one of our parents’ drivers. There were four or five other children who lived in our particular compound so the daily chore of delivering us to school was shared amongst those families.

We were housed in company houses, all very large brick bungalows, complete with air-conditioning and all mod cons. They all had large reception rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms galore all with en suite bathrooms, as well as very adequate and adjacent servants’ quarters. These homes were very luxurious for their time, and real oases given the harshness of the desert surroundings. Each compound of a dozen or so homes was surrounded with high wire fencing and an armed century stood at the gate day and night. Each home had a garden with lawns and plant beds, so I presume there was bore water available as I recall sprinklers being turned on in the evenings.

My parents had some close friends who lived some miles away in another compound closer to the town of Kirkuk. They were an older couple, and although childless themselves, they adored children and for some reason, my friend Heather-Ann and I were collected from school at lunchtime and despatched to Aunty Phyllis and Uncle Bill’s for our midday meal. To my mind it was a very grand affair, with the pair of us sitting up at the dining table being served like two little ladies, whilst our proxy aunt instructed us in the finer points of good manners and etiquette. Uncle Bill, however, was a wonderful cuddly fun-loving man, and his delight was to perch us on one knee each and have us read the cartoon Rupert the Bear from his daily newspaper.

They had a large, wonderful garden full of exotic and sweet-smelling flowers, and large leafy green trees with limbs spreading out across, what seemed to me, acres of lush but well-manicured lawns. In the middle of one of these lawn areas was an enormous aboveground fishpond. The concrete edge around the pool was just wide enough for Heather and me to stand on and walk around, which we often did to catch a better glimpse of the many gigantic goldfish living amongst the water lilies. We were allowed to throw bread left over from the lunch table into the pond, squealing with delight when the water boiled and splashed as the fish vied for the soggy morsels.

On one particular weekend visit to Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Bill with my parents, I was enthusiastically showing my father the fish in the pond, running around the edge with gay abandon when I suddenly found myself fully immersed in the pond amongst the lily pads. Coughing and spluttering as I came up for air, Dad instantly grabbed me and pulled me to safety, but not without considerable damage to my pride, the lily pads and ultimately one or two goldfish, who were later found floating on top of their watery grave.

These were such happy, idyllic days and they were made even more so by the announcement that I was to have a baby brother or sister. I was six years old at the time and can remember being astonished that this should be happening to us and have vague memories of watching with interest one of the guest rooms being furnished as a nursery. My nanny was very excited about the prospect of another charge to look after, talking to me often about the expected arrival. I think I was a little apprehensive about the prospect.

Aunty Doris arrived from England to stay with us for a while. Presumably to be on hand when my mother went into labour. I really don’t have much recollection of that visit except the actual night of the birth. It was a stormy night, and I was awoken by a thunderclap and running into my parents’ room found it unoccupied. I began to cry, and rushing into the room, my aunt swept me up into her arms bundling me into her bed beside her. I was extremely alarmed and not a little disgruntled by this turn of events, particularly as she was wearing a satin nightdress which felt decidedly unpleasant next to my skin, which aversion for satin I have to this day.

I was appeased, and eventually my father returned with the news that I had a baby brother, Ian. There was great excitement in the household, and in due course nanny and I were taken to the hospital to meet him. I can remember thinking he was fat and red, but he was my brother and I adored him instantly.

Not long after my mother and brother returned from hospital we were to be treated to a rare experience when one afternoon, a cavalcade of large American vehicles swept up our driveway. My father, obviously expecting these visitors waited on the front porch for the cars to pull to a halt. There were three or four cars and out of each stepped three or four fierce looking Arabs, armed to the teeth, their chests arrayed with belts of large cartridges, and carrying rifles which they held upright and out of harm’s way. My father greeted them warmly and invited them into the house, much to my nanny’s and my alarm.

There was no sign of my mother during all this excitement; I think she probably discreetly made herself scarce. The men were offered refreshments, which nanny served as quickly as possible, and then my brother Ian was brought out for examination amidst exclamations of admiration. Apparently, this boy child born to their friend, my father, was the object of their interest and visit, and they had come to pay their respects bringing gifts of a richly embroidered hat and coat as tokens of their esteem. These men were local sheiks and their bodyguards with whom my father had frequent contact, and he deemed it a real honour to have them come to our home. He maintained a very amicable relationship with them, and I believe was able to stem many awkward situations during the construction of the pipeline owing to the relationships he forged.

Life was full and interesting in those days, with occasional excursions into the desert to visit remote villages, where Dad bartered for locally made baskets, fresh eggs or hand beaten copper items. Occasionally a man called at the house bringing handmade carpets of brilliant colours and fine workmanship for sale. Some of them were antique and my mother would invariably buy one. One particular carpet was made of silk thread; it was intricately woven in brilliant blues, reds, purples and greens and shone when the lights were on at night. The design had a border of peacocks on a bright blue background. It was a magnificent piece, and worth a fortune. It did not remain on the sitting room floor for long before the ‘carpet wallah’ was summoned to come and pick it up. The colours and design were far too much for my father to bear, and it was exchanged for something a little less overpowering. My mother was very upset, but in the end agreed that it was a bit overwhelming.

I mentioned before my friend Heather-Ann Jones. She was an only child, living next door with her Welsh parents Sybil and Orrie, who were particularly close friends of my parents. Orrie was rather partial to pink gin, a little too partial at times, and his driving us home from the airport once was one of the few times I have ever felt carsick. I cannot recall the reason but think it may have had something to do with speed and somewhat erratic steering.

I adored Heather-Ann who was a beautiful child, always exquisitely dressed in very pretty clothes. I envied her dark curly hair, creamy skin and large blue eyes. I, on the other hand, had straight, mousey coloured hair and thought my mother’s choice of clothes for me was awful.

Not for me were pretty little black patent shoes with buttoned straps or a pink voile dress with a frilly hem. No, my special shoes were brown leather lace-up brogues, to be worn with a cream Viyella dress with a Peter Pan collar, embroidered with flowers across the chest. I am sure it was a perfectly lovely frock, but it was woollen, itched unbearably and I hated it intensely. To make matters worse on many occasions my hair was tied up in pipe cleaners at night, and I endured the excruciating agony of having them taken out and my hair brushed enthusiastically in an attempt to manufacture a head of curls. I’m not sure whether this was because I whined to have curls, or whether my mother also envied Heather-Ann’s curly mop.

Later we moved into a slightly smaller bungalow closer to the town of Kirkuk. I presume the move was to do with the proximity of Dad’s work. Also, and very sadly, about that time our nanny had to return to her home village because of some family drama, and we then had a young houseboy who, although he did the household chores and helped with the cooking, he had little to do with us children. We all did miss nanny dreadfully. The move away from Heather-Ann though was compensated somewhat by the development of a new friendship with a neighbour’s daughter. Her name was Maureen, and although not as exotic as Heather, she was the same age as me, a delightful friend and we were constantly in each other’s homes. Maureen’s father was English I believe, and her mother was an attractive French-Canadian woman, who at the time we met her, was expecting their second child. She had been a dancer in her youth, and taught Maureen and me the elementary rudiments of ballet, which I loved but never pursued.

At regular two-yearly intervals we would travel back to the UK for a couple of month’s leave as a respite from the heat and sand. We usually stayed with one of my aunts in Bath, who had an enormous house sitting in a couple of acres of garden and orchard. The property was