Walking with Angels

By Jennifer Lawson

Jennifer Lawson's life has been a compendium of other-worldly experiences---angel visitations, precognitive dreams, visions of distant future events, out-of-body experiences, living with a resident poltergeist, and even finding herself aboard a UFO mother ship. Her successful predictions in the 1970s and 1980s of the most destructive hurricanes and tropical cyclones months in advance, through the science of astrometeorology, made headlines in the U.S. and her native Australia. Rubbing elbows with many of the era's New Age celebrities, Lawson's life has been one of living in tune with the supernatural while discovering other realms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781387369317

Book preview

Foreword

In metaphysics, the term Wanderer describes those souls who have become manifest at this time to assist in the raising of consciousness on the Earth plane, and that describes Jennifer Lawson. Many of us have had experiences similar to Jennifer’s, but I don’t personally know anyone else with the volume and variety of episodes that Jennifer has experienced. These experiences include her interaction with people, the supernatural, and out-of-body sojourns into the spirit realms. Jennifer’s experiences, thoughts, and actions provide many guides for our contemplation of life and its meaning. These recollections are so diverse I am sure each of us will have had one or more similar events.

Roy King

Electrical Engineer (retired)

Metaphysics Teacher,

Lone Star College (two years)

Online Classes (current)

Houston, Texas

December, 2022

Preface

Reflecting briefly over my life, I feel as though I’ve lived through centuries of many different lifetimes all rolled into one. It’s been one long roller coaster of constant change and exciting times, none of which I’d change, no matter how difficult times were, because all of it led to where I wanted to be right now—mentally, physically, geographically, and above all else, spiritually. In fact, I never thought I’d make it beyond the year 2000, which sounded like an eternity back in the 1970s and 1980s. Nor did I think it possible for me to ever settle down.

Apart from a career in astrometeorology, successfully predicting the greatest storms on Earth—hurricanes forming in the Atlantic/Gulf/Caribbean regions and tropical cyclones in Australia’s Coral Sea—it was more the constant stream of supernatural events in my life that led to a spiritual awakening at an early age. It became evident that we are not the only ones here, which preoccupied my life and was my anchor throughout.

The greatest thing I’ve learned through the countless spiritual experiences I’ve encountered, as I bounced from country to country and from relationship to relationship, is that the heavenly spiritual realm is very real and truly exists in another dimension that we only glimpse now and again. Life truly does continue on beyond the veil of so-called death, which is merely a transition from this material world and the spiritual Kingdom of Love and Light on the other side.

Our brief sojourn on Earth is akin to walking in the shadows of self-doubt and anxieties, constantly weighed down by an assortment of heavy emotional burdens that we place on ourselves or accept from others, com-pared to the Creator’s spiritual Kingdom of Love where we are truly loved, truly free and get to see our true selves for the beautiful and amazing beings we truly are. We are shown from the Akashic record, the Book of Life, the right, the wrong, the good, the bad of the life we led while on Earth, so we can judge for ourselves the error of our ways. Of primary importance are the acts of kindness we have shown toward others. We are also shown the loving connection between those now living in the spirit kingdom and those we left behind on Earth. Love is the key to everything. For God is pure Love and Light—the greatest force that powers the entire Universe and every living thing in it.

Part One: Growing up Country

1: A Charmed Childhood

All children should be reared in love. . . . Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water-bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade in, . . . animals to pet, hay-fields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, . . . and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his education. —–Luther Burbank, The Training of the Human Plant (1909)

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I was born in the township of Warragul, gateway to West Gippsland’s Latrobe Valley, on Australia Day, 26 January 1945, the year when World War II finally ended, and that was where I spent the first seventeen years of my life. Untroubled by smog and bright city lights, the night sky over Warragul was blanketed with layer upon layer of blinking stars, like a diamond-encrusted net-ting. Dominating that starscape was the Southern Cross, the star insignia for Australia—land of the Southern Cross. My country.

I suppose I must have spent the first five years of my life quietly observing the world and figuring out how best to navigate my surroundings, for I never spoke a word until I was five years old. When I finally did talk, I never shut up. I was driven by an insatiable curiosity about absolutely everything and expressed this burning inquisitiveness in ways often defined as naughty by the big people in charge.

That year I ran away from home in my little red shoes on several occasions. In order to contain me in the backyard, my parents built a high trellis at the side of the house, but I loved climbing things and pretty soon escaped over the top of that too. I was always to be found wandering round the main street of Warragul looking at interesting things in shop windows.

I was also fond of conducting experiments on things, such as totally blocking up the toilet works by shoving everything I could find down the hole—including shoes, socks, and toys. Or experimenting on myself, like when I jammed two long pieces of chalk up either nostril to see if I could still breathe through my nose afterward. And when I found I couldn’t breathe—forgetting entirely that I was now breathing through my mouth—I began shrieking, I’m dying! I’m dying! In a major state of panic, Mum rushed me to the doctor to have the chalk removed.

With a cherubic Shirley Temple face, framed by a crop of fair curly hair, green eyes, and rosebud lips, a stranger might take me to be a sweet innocent, but I was a far cry from that. When I set my mind to something, I was fiercely determined to have my way, regardless of the cost. If I got a belting, which was not all that often, I’d bite my lip and refuse to cry, not wanting to give anyone the impression that I cared a whit. To be honest, sometimes it was worth a walloping if I got what I wanted in the end.

I would have been five or six years old when Mum took me with her on a shopping trip to Burton’s, our local department store, where I spied a doll’s pram that I really took a liking to. I grabbed hold of the handle with my little hand and wouldn’t let go. Mum tried to prize my fingers loose as she hissed in my ear that I was going to get the belting of my life when we got home. When she finally managed to pry my fingers free of the iron grip I had on the pram handle, my other hand came up to latch onto it even more firmly. Eventually, exasperated and not wanting to make a scene in Burton’s, because the manager of that particular department lived right next door to us, Mum finally relented and bought the pram. Although I collected a whopper of a belting when I got home, the price was worth it. I had my pram.

But as smart as I thought I was, when it came to the crunch, my mother knew exactly how to handle me. All she had to do was tell me she loved me, which instantly dissolved my defenses, leaving me teary, weak, and vulnerable. Fight me and I’d harden; sympathize with me and I’d melt. Simple as that.

A tomboy at heart, who was happiest climbing trees or building cubbies, I didn’t use my pram to transport dolls. My parents had long since stopped gifting me with dolls, which I would immediately dismember, more interested in examining how the rubber bands held all the bits and pieces together than the prettiness of the doll. But the pram nonetheless became my favorite plaything. I would coax our black cocker spaniel Boysie into the pram, tuck him in with a little blanket and wheel him up and down the street proudly showing him off to all the neighbors. Boysie loved his ride so much that he’d refuse to budge when we arrived home, jumping out only when his dinner was ready. My cousin Heather, who was four years younger than me, got the Boysie treatment whenever she came to visit. I’d put her in the pram and wheel her all over the neighborhood, showing her off, just the way I did Boysie.

So you see, the pram was worth every single whack I got. I was well into adulthood before I found better use for this stubborn persistence that I cultivated throughout my childhood.

I was about eight years old when my cousin Ann, two years my junior, became my most frequent companion. She lived down the end of our street, and we did most things together. We were in Brownies together, then ballet lessons, then banned from both—unfairly so, I thought. It was impossible for me to remain silent for long, and I was always whispering things to Ann that made her laugh—and every time she laughed, she peed her pants. Her parents were upset when she was ejected from Brownies, but being thrown out of ballet class was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She was henceforth forbidden to see me, a prohibition that remained in effect for several years. Just as well. There were other kids around my own age to play with in and around our Windsor Avenue house—kids whose parents were not so strict and judgmental as my uncle and aunt. Mostly though, I began hanging around my brother Peter and his friends, because they were always doing something interesting and far more exciting than anybody else.

Peter was gifted with an amazingly creative imagination, and he invented all sorts of games. Usually they were about heroic characters, such as Robin Hood or Batman and Robin. He always had a storyline in mind, with himself as the hero, of course. He’d dole out the various supporting roles to other kids. After much begging, I was allowed to play the role of heroine. Not many girls participated in Peter’s make-believe games, so sometimes I got to kiss the boys, which they didn’t seem to mind.

Apart from inventing games, Peter and his friends inevitably did things they shouldn’t be doing, such as hunting snakes with a Daisy air rifle along the old railway line or packing the air rifle full with potato and firing it at something or, like maybe into someone’s backside, which Peter did once, although he swore black and blue to our parents that it was just an accident.

Directly behind the row of houses on the low side of Windsor Avenue was a huge piece of unkempt grazing land, which became a major playground for the kids on our street. We brought planks of wood, hammer, and nails and built a sizable treehouse high up in the fork of an old gnarled willow halfway across the grassy paddock. During spring, we’d have to race at break-neck speed to reach the refuge of our treehouse before the spur-winged plovers dive-bombed us, aiming to take a piece of our scalps. When they swooped low to attack, their angry cries scared the tripe out of us kids lying prostrate on the grass. Actually, it was our fear that drove us forward; we could not resist the excitement of venturing into danger.

The paddock had other attractions too. Dairy cows roamed freely, providing venue for the best cow dung fights in town.

Easily the most exciting pastime for me were the gang wars bravely fought out between the kids on Windsor Avenue and rival gangs who lived on neighboring streets. Peter was the ringleader of the twenty or so boys who comprised the Windsor Avenue Gang. When a fight was arranged and a day and time settled, Peter and his dutiful henchmen and retainers would march off armed to the teeth with sling shots, stones, clods of dirt, and sticks to fight their rivals, usually from Clifford or Sutton Streets, situated farther up the hill behind Windsor Avenue. And because my brother was head honcho, I was the only girl permitted to tag along—or rather the only girl interested enough in watching the boys slog it out. When the close combat ensued, I was always found hiding right behind Peter, and when the opportunity presented itself, I’d rush out, kick his opponent in the shins or backside, then run like hell to hide behind him again.

Yes! My big brother was indeed my hero, and I was his assistant and partner in crime.

Peter’s friend, John Petit, the jeweler’s son, bred ferrets specifically for rabbit hunting. Every now and then, he and Peter would travel far out into the countryside on an all-day rabbit hunt and never once came back empty handed. Rabbit stew would be on the menu the very next day—and I loved rabbit stew. I begged and begged Peter to take me rabbit hunting, but he refused on account I was too little and couldn’t keep up. But I was persistent and he finally relented. He’d let me come along on one condition and one condition only: it would be my job to gut the rabbits.

After that I tagged along, careful to keep up with the guys and never minding my job one bit, because I was hanging out with the big boys. Mind you, I was very careful never to wear red clothing when trespassing through farming properties, in case of crossing a bull paddock unawares. The paddocks were so damned large and heavily treed you’d never even know if a bull had already spotted you and was already snorting and tearing up the dirt at the far end of the paddock, preparing to charge. It would have been far more difficult for me to outrun a raging bull, as I was the idiot with the cage containing the two ferrets in one hand and the nets in the other, while my brother and his friend only toted air rifles—and had much longer legs to boot.

Rabbit hunting was so much fun, until the day I gutted a pregnant rabbit—a milky doe with two babies inside. When I pulled out my hand with blood and gore all over it and saw two teeny weeny rabbit embryos lying in my palm, I felt sick to my soul. That concluded my rabbit hunting days. I could never again participate in the killing of another rabbit—or any other animal, for that matter—nor could I ever again eat rabbit stew.

We weren’t always left to our own devices. Mum frequently set aside some us time. Near our house was an old disused railway line that ran from the Warragul railway yards all the way north to Noojee. That was where our mother often took Peter and me for long walks along the rusting tracks and splintered wooden sleepers way out into the countryside. Mum was an avid reader of every subject relating to nature, and as we walked, she’d point out the flora and fauna and tell us all about the habitat and behavior of the birds and animals. Eventually, we’d stop to eat the picnic lunch that Mum always packed into a large carry bag, along with our books and a blanket to spread under the shade of some gigantic old tree in a farmer’s paddock. I loved those days, lying in the shade, eating and reading or listening to my mother explain the mysteries of nature.

Our father, on the other hand, was mostly involved in building the businesses that gave us such a privileged lifestyle. But from time to time, he’d take the family on drives far out into the countryside in his latest American Yank Tank, usually the latest Chevrolet model—until his business success allowed him to convert his tastes to the latest Jaguar. There was always something new to see around the West Gippsland countryside, and I loved exploring streams that glittered with mica and fool’s gold, shaded by graceful willows and flowering gum trees. It took years of traveling the world for me to realize the truly spectacular beauty of my home country. Like Pablo Coelho’s pilgrim in The Alchemist, my journey to find myself was to begin and end at home, in my Australia.

In my growing years, I never had any religion to speak of. Even though our parents never attended church, Peter and I were forced once in a while to attend Sunday School at the local Presbyterian Church. He and I would put our small financial offerings, supplied by our dad, in the plate and fish around for change to buy ourselves an ice cream on the way home. The only time we voluntarily attended Sunday School was at the end of every year when we could collect book prizes that were handed out for attendance. Despite our names always being at the very bottom of every list for our pathetically poor attendance throughout the year and a very begrudging Sunday School teacher who really didn’t want to give us any book at all, and even though our book prizes were always the skinniest, wafer-thin books left to the last, we knew we couldn’t possibly miss out on a prize—because the donor of the funds used to purchase the prizes was none other than our very own grandfather, Wally Lawson, and it wouldn’t have been very politic, now would it, if his own grandchildren missed out on a prize. We learned early on the political power of money.

There was this one time, though, clear out of the blue, Mum insisted my brother and I needed some religion, and that our father should be the one to set a fine example by taking us along with him to the Presbyterian Church the following Sunday morning. She, of course, would stay in bed and sleep in as she always did on the Sabbath.

Sunday morning, the three of us set off to church in Dad’s latest Chevy, which he parked directly outside the main entrance, where everyone could see who had just arrived. On the way in, we said our hellos to all and sundry. We could tell by the surprised look on people’s faces, as they warmly shook his hand, that they were astonished to see our father actually show up for a church service.

Once inside, Dad chose to sit halfway along the center pew, in full view of everybody, with me seated on one side of him and Peter on the other. Usually quite happy to be the center of attention, in this particular circumstance I felt decidedly uncomfortable and altogether conspicuous, imagining that everybody’s eyes were fixed on us. I was trying very hard to look serious and to appear completely engrossed in the boring sermon, when I glanced over at my father, who was fast asleep. Not only was he fast asleep, but his head was thrown back and his slack mouth was wide open. To my further horror, he began to snore. I prodded him lightly, and he woke, but only briefly, then nodded off again, snoring even louder than before, drowning out the minister’s voice. The whole congregation—or so it seemed to me—turned and glowered at Dad, then at Peter and me, as though it was our fault for not keeping our father awake. Meanwhile, Dad just kept right on blissfully snoring, and we kept poking and prodding, knowing it was pretty hopeless. Once Dad fell asleep, he was out for the count. You could have hit him over the head with a frying pan, and though he might stir for a bit, he’d still go right back to sleep.

Thus the agony continued until the service finally came to a close. As everyone stood up, Dad, who’d been sound asleep until a second ago, suddenly woke up and stood up along with everyone else. As for Peter and me, we bolted like two streaks of lightning, out the church door and into Dad’s unlocked car, sliding well down in our seats to hide from everyone now congregating round the church grounds. That profoundly humiliating experience was enough to put Peter and me off ever going to the Presbyterian Church again. Leastwise that was our excuse, and we were sticking to it.

To me, anything bearing any resemblance to religion, scripture, and the like was mind-numbingly boring. God was for goodie-goodies and not heathens like me. Besides, my father’s atheistic views made far more sense to me than fairyland God stuff. I’ll admit I thoroughly enjoyed reading ghost stories and listening to my mother’s family talk about angels, devils, and spirits. I mean, what kid wouldn’t? Still, I reckoned my father had it right: God and religion was all about people’s need to believe in something greater than themselves, when the truth of the matter was that there was no God and no angels. Nothing existed after death. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, end of story.

2: An Inheritance of Common Sense and Angels

We all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We’re in a relay race, relying on the financial and human capital of our parents and grandparents.

—–Nicholas Kristof, New York Times (2014)

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Country life was indeed fun for kids like me, who got away with things we couldn’t have in the big city. There we’d have had a juvenile delinquent record a mile long. But I suppose it wasn’t just because we were growing up in a country town that my friends and I got away with so much. It may have partly been—maybe even mostly—because my family were Somebodies in Warragul.

When I was old enough to understand about family matters, it was exciting to discover that my family was quite wealthy by country-town standards. My grandfather, Wally Lawson, and his sons—my father and his brothers—owned just about every bit of choice real estate there was to be found in Warragul, including the entire center of the town, with its shopping mall, movie theater, hotel, and the menswear shop where my father and grandfather sold the men’s suits that they cut and tailored from the finest fabrics. They also owned the Warragul markets, where every Thursday shoppers could browse dozens of stalls to buy local produce, as well as clothing, leather goods, kitchenware, and other household items from traveling merchants from as far afield as Melbourne. There were other holdings, too: a number of farms and later on the Warragul Drive-In Theatre. Pop Lawson, as we called our grandfather, also had a major stake in the Bayview Quarries, and when that was sold off years later, the money really poured in.

Pop was a self-starter and an entrepreneur of sorts. The son of poor Scottish immigrants, he was an astute businessman with the knack for being in the right place at the right time. Starting with nothing, he established one successful business venture after another. He always began by thoroughly investigating every aspect of a business, including detailed costs and short-term and long-term profits and losses. The banks were impressed by his business acumen and grasp of accounting and loaned him whatever he asked for. When one business was successfully up and running, Pop would mortgage that one and get on with the next. As far as anyone knew, he’d never had a failure. During the Great Depression, when many were going broke and selling up, he prospered.

Pop had a reputation for being a tight-fisted Scot and a tough businessman. According to my father, who worked alongside him, his father was a demanding perfectionist, who created a stressful workplace—and Dad paid for it with his health.

While considered tough and mean by some, Pop Lawson was considered very generous by others. His house sat directly opposite the Catholic Church, and he was on neighborly terms with the priests and nuns, who often visited his house. He thought nothing of gifting them with large hessian burlap sacks filled with fresh oysters or crayfish and quantities of fish fresh from the fishing boats that docked at Lakes Entrance. His generosity to the papists was irksome to some members of the Presbyterian Church, where he was a member and one of the main financial contributors.

Not that the family wanted to know about it, but Pop had a vigorous sex drive right up until he went to his final reward in his mid-eighties. When his wife Josie passed away at an early age shortly before I was born, he soon found a girlfriend, with whom he lived for ages until she too died. After came a series of housekeepers who’d stay for a while and then leave. I recall my father coming home one day highly embarrassed and grumbling about having to put locks on the housekeeper’s bedroom door, as well as on the bathroom door, because Pop persistently tried his luck with his carers.

At Pop’s funeral service held at the Presbyterian Church, great crowds of people turned out to pay their last respects, filling up the church inside and the grounds outside. Many people unknown to the family approached family members after the service, revealing a side of Pop that none had known. They had come, they said, to pay their respects to Wally Lawson, the man who had saved them from financial ruin. He had saved their farms or their businesses or their homes from foreclosure when they had fallen on hard times. So Pop’s greatest and most noble acts of charity had been carried out behind closed doors, unbeknown to any family member.

The Lawsons were all Presbyterians and a rather proper, conservative, upstanding lot, while the Woolleys, my mother’s side, were mainly Church of England and a little more laid back, salt-of-the-earth type, having a more earthy sense of humor. On my Woolley side, I am fifth generation Australian—with a mix of Scottish, Celtic, and English.

Of all the relatives I met when I was younger, one in particular stood out from all the rest: my maternal grandfather’s sister, Annie Boe. According to Mum, Annie contracted pulmonary tuberculosis, a fatal wasting disease of the lungs, and at the age of twenty-eight went home to spend her last days with her family. Knowing she was about to die, Annie was praying for help when an angel appeared in her room and instructed her to partake only of the fruit in the family orchard and to drink only pure rain water for a period of six months. Annie faithfully followed these instructions, and at the end of six months, her doctors were shocked to find she was completely free of disease.

Annie was a devout Christian and faithfully attended church, where from time to time, she was known to have delivered prophecies. It was one such time in 1912 when she warned about the coming of a great war. She knew it was coming, she said, because of the signs she saw in the heavens: round white discs in the sky. Two years later, in 1914, the conflict that grew into World War I broke out in Europe. By 1938, when Annie again saw the round white discs in the sky, her church had banned prophecy, so only her family was privy to the fact that Annie had seen the signs of the coming of another great war. The angels, though, had told her that no one in the family would be touched by the war. That, too, turned out to be true.

In her journals, Annie recorded out-of-body travels, including into the darker realms, or astral planes, as we now call them. Some family members and others in the community regarded her as delusional and scary. As for me, still the intrepid explorer of anything beyond the walls of my home, I was simply curious.

I took every opportunity to eavesdrop when my grandmother, Mum, and her sister Gwen would gossip about Annie’s psychic abilities—always out of earshot of my father, of course, who regarded the paranormal as pure tommyrot. He didn’t mind telling anyone who would listen that Great Aunt Annie was one of those queer folk from the Faraway Tree. Though I was fascinated with the stories, I adopted my father’s more practical, common-sense, atheistic approach—if you can’t see it, hear it, or touch it, it doesn’t exist.

Shortly before Aunt Annie passed away, family members were gathered round her bedside, and she pointed straight at ten-year-old me and said, All my books go to Jenny. This scene remains vivid in my memory, as I was overwhelmed to think that my great aunt wanted me to have her treasured journals in which she had recorded her visions and prophecies.

So you see, from the beginning I was well equipped for the life I would lead. Dad’s Lawsons provided me with a lifetime of easy economic security, and Mum’s Woolleys contributed the spiritual security that gave my life meaning.

3: Extraordinary Parents

I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity. —–Roberto Benigni

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Dad was greatly loved by friends and family, and I remember him most for his kind, compassionate nature, great sense of humor, and his love of telling yarns. And because he spoiled me rotten.

A tailor by trade, Dad ran menswear shops in Warragul and Morwell. As if that weren’t enough, he took charge of running most of the family business enterprises, including the Warragul Picture Theatre—and later a drive-in theater—where he also served as projectionist. As well, he was an amateur filmmaker, a Rotarian, a stipendiary magistrate (county judge), Deputy Coroner for the Warragul District and served on the Board of Management for the West Gippsland Hospital, where he later became the Governor’s nominee on the board.

In his capacity as stipendiary magistrate, Dad’s role was to preside over preliminary hearings and judge minor cases, which amused the hell out of me because he had the reputation for being a big softy. He’d look for any reason to drop the charges or give them the lightest possible sentence, not having the heart to make people’s lives any more miserable than they already were. One time he confided to me that he actually felt sorry for the whole human race, especially young boys, old men, or anyone who was particularly vulnerable or unable to fend for themselves. It was no mystery why people who had up-and-coming court cases desperately tried to have their hearings on the days when he was to preside.

So I suppose it shouldn’t have come as any surprise when we learned that, like his father, Dad—who had always hated back-slapping recognition for charitable deeds—had privately given financial help to a great many people, and his large donations to various charities were always anonymous. If anyone happened to forget the code of secrecy he’d sworn them to and shook his hand thanking him for his help, he’d visibly cringe and flush with embarrassment.

In his earlier years, Dad’s hobbies included flying around the local countryside in a glider plane—a primary aircraft in which the pilot sat in a frame exposed to the elements, much like a motorbike driver. After a crash into a fence, he replaced it with a model where the pilot sat inside the cockpit. Launched by towline from a speeding car, it too became victim to one of the many fences being erected across the rural countryside.

On holiday in Fiji one time, he met TV show host Bob Dyer of TV’s Pick-a Box. Dad became fascinated with Dyer’s 16-millimeter movie camera and talked him into selling it. That was the beginning of another of his absorbing hobbies. He taught himself all the latest techniques in filmmaking, including 3-D home movies, and even won the Australian Amateur Film Award in 1952 for a film he’d shot while on holiday in New Zealand.

Within the family, Dad was known as the walking encyclopedia. He could come up with an explanation for everything and knew just about anything you ever asked him. He moved in a great many circles and was just as comfortable mixing with the upper crust as he was with those who had nothing.

There were only three material things that Dad truly valued: his latest model car, his holiday home, and his speed boat. His holiday house was at Lake Tyers near Lakes Entrance, where he kept his speed boat. He often invited his cronies and acquaintances, whatever their station in life, to enjoy holidays free of charge and took them fishing or water skiing out on the lake. That’s the way he was. Even talking to him you’d never know he had a cent, because money wasn’t all that important to him. At a very early age he drummed into my head that money gives a false sense of security.

Back in his bachelor days, the West Gippsland Hospital on the outskirts of Warragul was the in place for young eligible males round the district to meet and beg dates with the young nurses who came to complete their training there, my mother-to-be among them. She’d dated a few guys before dating my father’s younger brother, Ken, who unfortunately for him made the mistake of introducing his latest date to my father. It was love at first sight and they married soon afterward.

My mother, her brother, and two sisters grew up in Crib Point, living within close proximity of the Flinders Naval Depot, which proved to be a great source of entertainment and social life as the girls got older. There were always dances, social functions, and parties going on at the Naval Base. More importantly, there were plenty of good-looking guys to choose from.

Mum’s name was Nina, which she had changed from her given name of Ivy May, named after an old song that she simply detested: Like the ivy in May that clings to the wall, so I’ll cling to you. She was as beautiful as she was quick witted, vivacious, and good natured—and always happy. Her hair was peroxide blonde, cut short in a bob and waved like Jean Harlow’s, framing her high cheek bones, oval face, and soft brown eyes. She had a very distinctive, earthy, and highly contagious belly laugh that triggered laughter of everyone within hearing distance—not that they always knew what she was laughing about, they just laughed at her laughter. People were attracted to her like moths to a flame, and for some reason or other, people automatically trusted her and sought her advice, sharing their deepest darkest secrets, believing that she’d never break their confidences. And she never did.

Another of Mum’s gifts was an innate ability to hone right in on any problem or anybody. She could see right through people and rarely missed her mark, an ability I somehow missed out on inheriting, as I saw everything and everyone through rose-colored glasses. Compared to her, I was naïve and gullible, as I was to learn about myself in years to come.

Mum became one of Warragul’s well-known socialites. She played golf and tennis, and with the same graceful ease, frequently entertained in style, throwing lavish parties at home.

At the front of our house was a large formal dining room that was separated from the living room by two large glass doors. When party time came, the glass doors would be flung open, making one very large room with plenty of space for entertaining guests. That was also where Dad screened the latest movies fresh from the Warragul Picture Theatre from his projector in the living room onto a large freestanding screen in the dining room. I loved their movie parties most of all, because there were always decanters full of fancy liqueurs left unattended in the kitchen, where I could swing by undetected and have a swig or two, or even three. I doubt my parents ever noticed I was looking a bit worse for wear and cheeks more ruddy than usual during the intermission halfway through the movie when I’d excuse myself and stagger to bed dead drunk.

Mum’s hobby and great love was gardening. She maintained a magnificent garden surrounding the entire house that eventually overtook my father’s pride and joy, his vegetable patch up the backyard. Her garden rivaled the botanical gardens, and every year she’d open it up to the public during Garden Week and personally conduct guided tours. She didn’t do things by halves when it came to gardening. For a while, roses were in and at another time it was irises. Mum read up all about irises and ordered a wide range from around the world. Packages of bulbs would arrive, and the garden was soon transformed, impressive enough for a bus load of iris lovers to take the two-hour drive from Melbourne just to see the display. Mum knew the botanical names for every single flowering plant, tree, and shrub in the garden. On weekends she would often make up floral arrangements free of charge for the townsfolk for weddings and other special occasions.

Before I was old enough to go outside the house and play independently with the other kids in the street, I’d hang around my mother while she was deep in concentration creating some floral arrangement with flowers from her garden—until I got bored out of my brain and did something irritating to get her attention. One time I got so annoyed and jealous at all the attention she was giving to the latest floral arrangement that I went outside to where her most favorite plant, a bleeding heart, had just come into bloom, picked off the spray, screwed it up in my little hands, then threw the evidence away in the incinerator up the backyard so she wouldn’t find out.

The following morning, Mum asked me had I been near the bleeding heart.

No! I said, I haven’t been anywhere near it.

Are you sure? she asked.

Yes, I’m sure, I said again, annoyed.

Then what are your footprints doing near the bleeding heart?

Sprung again!

Despite being caught out, I still wouldn’t admit I’d done it. In fact I’d never submit to anything I’d done, as an admission of guilt might come with a belting. The only way my parents could tell if I was lying was to check to see if my face was becoming crimson red. And when it did, which was most of the time, it was as good as admitting my guilt. So I developed a different strategy to confuse them. When they asked me if I’d done this or that, I’d answer, Yes, no. That way I figured I wasn’t really lying as such, and my face became less of a giveaway.

Of course my actions were transparent to my parents, but they often let me think I’d gotten away with it. I could never put one over on my mother.

Mum had a mischievous side, as well. If we were at the zoo and I was morbidly engrossed in something like a snake swallowing a frog whole, she’d creep up behind me and pinch the back of my leg and scare the living tripe out of me. And when I got a bit older and the two of us were alone in the house watching some creepy show on TV that had really put the wind up me, I thought she was behind me, as I walked through the kitchen to open the hall door leading to the bathroom, but she’d snuck around the other way, from the living room to the dining room and into the hall, so that when I opened the door to the hall she was standing directly in front of me, and I let out one hell of a scream. The words just tumbled out of my mouth. You! You! You big shit! We laughed so hard. But she got to the toilet first, and I had to sit on the edge of the bath and pee myself.

She was so damned funny.

I got her back many times, but the best was when we were overseas on a trip together many years down the track. We were traveling with a tour group and staying at a fancy hotel in Hong Kong, and come night I decided to go out to a dinner dance with the group, while she opted to go to bed because she was so tired. I was very surprised when I arrived home shortly after midnight to find her sitting up bright eyed and bushy tailed in her bed.

Thank God you’re finally home, she said. Now I can go to the toilet.

My bed was nearest the toilet and hers farthest away. When I asked why she couldn’t go to the toilet earlier, she replied, "Because something long and hairy ran under your bed and I don’t know what it was, but it looked pretty darned nasty. I haven’t been game to go to the toilet just in case it ran out and bit me."

With that, she tore off to the toilet.

I was so tired myself that I really didn’t care what it was that had run under my bed, so long as it stayed there. And I certainly wasn’t about to crawl round on my hands and knees looking for it either. But I found I wasn’t too tired to play a bit of a joke. I grabbed my hairbrush, bristle side up, and placed it far down in her bed between the sheets. When she came back and got in bed, she screamed and screamed and couldn’t stop screaming.

We were always playing pranks on each other like that. What an amazing life we had together.

4: Innocence Lost

I never lacked love; on the contrary, I think I had an excess of it because too much love made me incapable of seeing the evilness of this world.

—–Lunga Noélia Izata, Destiny Sagacity (2017)

¨¨

My first eleven years were happy, carefree and exciting times, mainly because I was blessed with wonderful parents, who taught me the value of life and to respect nature in all its forms. Looking back, I think they must also have been extraordinarily patient and tolerant.

It was shortly before I was to turn twelve that my safe little world was turned upside down. That year, with secondary schooling ahead, my parents enrolled me in a boarding school at Burbank, a Church of England school somewhere in Melbourne, in the hope of making a young lady out of me. But I wasn’t having any of it and threatened to run off and disappear. Living under constant supervision and having to toe the line at boarding school was not my idea of fun. I’d lose my precious freedom! My parents must have taken my threats seriously because they dropped the idea of boarding school, which, in light of things to come, was a very wise decision. Or maybe not.

When you grow up in a country town with friends, family and cousins constantly around, you have that warm snug feeling of safety and security, never thinking for one minute that anything could happen to disturb that. Terrible things only happened to children living in the big city.

It would have been toward the latter months of my final year at state primary school that I asked my parents’ permission to stay over for the weekend with a friend who lived in the housing commission development not far from the Warragul Golf Course. That particular area of town was considered the wrong side of the tracks, where the poor and rough element lived.

Come Friday evening, my father drove me to my friend’s place so that I’d have all of Saturday and Sunday to play with her. The next morning, my friend, her younger sister, and I were up bright and early and decided to go mushrooming on the nearby golf course. There were no golfers around when we arrived at the fairway. Good news for us. We could look for mushrooms without worry of interfering with anyone’s golf game.

The part of the fairway we entered was just off the main road, so the three of us climbed under the fence and began fanning out in all directions. I was investigating the turf when I caught sight of two boys on bikes. Just as I looked up, they suddenly veered from the main road and onto a laneway adjacent to the golf course and parked their bikes under the trees, not far from where we were gathering mushrooms.

They yelled out to us, asking what we were doing. I had a bad feeling about them and didn’t answer, but my friend and her sister, who were much closer to them, answered that we were mushrooming. The taller of the two boys called out, Come over here, little girls, I’ve got some mushrooms for you.

It was obvious they had no mushrooms, and the tone of the boy’s voice sent cold shivers up my spine. I began running back toward the safety of the road, while my friend and her younger sister walked over to the fence to collect the mushrooms he never had.

The instant I began running across the fairway, the taller boy immediately jumped the fence, bypassing my two friends, and headed straight for me. I had thought I had a good chance of outrunning him, seeing I was one of the top runners at school, but I was wrong. Because he was bigger than I was and had longer legs, he easily outpaced me, catching up with me halfway down the fairway while I was still a few hundred yards from safety. He grabbed hold of my clothing and threw me roughly to the ground, where I landed on my back with a thud, knocking the wind out of me.

He was twice my size and knelt on top of me, pinning me to the ground, then fished around his pocket producing a switchblade knife that he flicked open and pressed tight against my throat. I could see my friend and her sister in the distance looking at me as they ran along the fence line near the laneway and crawled under the fence onto the main road, running off in the direction of their home.

Thank God, I thought to myself. I knew they’d run home, tell their mother, and she’d come to my rescue.

I lay there helplessly with a knife pressed tight to my throat, as my assailant whispered in my ear, If you struggle or cry out for help, I’ll slit your throat wide open and kill you on the spot. With his free hand, he reached under my dress and pulled down my underwear. I had no idea what he was doing, only that it had to be something really bad, otherwise why would he have a knife at my throat and threaten to kill me.

I still held hopes that my friend’s mother would come to my rescue—or maybe a golfer, or even a car driving past on the road would spot me lying on the fairway. Where were my friends?

In those grueling, terrifying moments, as I lay on the sodden grass frozen in fear, I wondered if I was ever going to see my parents again. Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I never sobbed once, for fear my assailant would slit my throat if I made the slightest sound. I lay there in a still silence for what seemed an eternity, trying to resign myself to my fate, that maybe I was about to die. I could both see and feel him checking out my private parts, I guess just to see what a female looked like. Thankfully, it went no further. Maybe he didn’t have time to do more, worrying that he might be caught should someone be coming to my rescue. Whatever his reason, he suddenly got up and let me go, but not before pressing the blade even tighter to my throat and hissing in my ear that if I ever so much as breathed a word of this to anyone, he’d hunt me down and kill me for sure. This was a small town and he’d have no trouble finding out where I lived.

Then he left.

My hands were shaking, as I hurriedly pulled up my knickers and straightened my dress. My knees kept knocking together as I ran all the way back to my friend’s house. I was in shock when I entered the house and saw my friend and her sister happily playing together while their mother was fussing about in the kitchen. It was like I never existed, that I hadn’t even been missed. Their mother never even so much as inquired as to where the hell I’d been. I was totally bewildered. I was a guest in their house! It was obvious my friend had never said a word to her mother about my possible demise, not even, O excuse me, Mum, Jenny’s just been attacked on the golf course!

I felt totally disgusted and sick to my stomach with my so-called friend who’d run off home leaving me for dead. I could not abide her company another second and immediately called my father to come and pick me up. While waiting for Dad to get there, I tried to rationalize their actions, but to an eleven year old, it was too hard to fathom, and I wanted nothing further to do with her. Nowadays, I think that maybe the girls were in a frozen state of shock, in denial, or maybe sordid unmentionable things went on in their house that I knew nothing about.

When I got in the car, Dad wanted to know why the sudden change of heart, why I wanted to come home so soon. I told him it was on account of utter boredom and I had more interesting things I could be doing at home. I wouldn’t, just couldn’t bring myself to tell him what had happened, for fear that my assailant would find out and come after me.

For three torturous months, I suffered the worst emotional silence imaginable. Unable to express myself in any way to another living soul, I withdrew further and further into myself as emotions of violation and shame, feeling dirty, unclean and unworthy invaded my every thought, as images of that despicable act played over and over again in my head.

The security blanket I had taken so much for granted had been torn asunder, to such an extent I rarely ventured outside the house to play with my friends anymore, in case I might be spotted by my assailant. The only thing I knew about him was he was much older than me and spoke in a foreign accent.

Perhaps the months of agony would have gone on for much longer were it not for the fact that my brother came home one day with his class photo from high school. When I looked at it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, standing—or should I say skulking—in the back row was him, none other than the guy who’d attacked me on the golf course. My assailant, a new immigrant to Australia, was in my brother’s class at school.

That did it! I could hold back my emotions no longer. The floodgates opened and tears streamed down my cheeks as I wept and wept, unable to control myself. I was crying so hard that my mother couldn’t make sense of anything I was trying to say. When I finally blurted out the whole sordid saga, words cannot describe the weight that just lifted off my shoulders and the sheer relief I felt after carrying such a heavy, heavy load for months.

The very next day I was kept home from school and the police arrived to question me. They were kind and understanding, gathering as much information and a detailed description of the guy, then left. My parents reassured me that everything would be alright and not to worry about him ever coming near me. The police would deal with him.

I never heard another thing about him, nor saw him at the high school when I began year one the following year—nor downtown, around the streets or anywhere else. He’d simply vanished from my world.

It wasn’t until years later, when I was in my early thirties, that I recalled the incident and asked Mum what had happened to my attacker. The police had gone round to his house, she said, and hauled him off to the station for questioning, where they gave him an extremely rough time. I can only imagine what that term implied. That was all she knew. Though I’ve never questioned my brother, I could imagine him making the guy’s life hell in class, as well. Whatever the case, he must have moved away from Warragul, for I never saw him again.

I must say, the way my parents handled the whole situation was commendable. They dealt with the problem and never embarrassed me by mentioning the incident again, which made it all the easier for me to forget.

These days when I read or hear about a brutal murder or rape of a child, I think of the horror they must have gone through before death finally came or the act itself was over—their feelings of utter helplessness and hopelessness, knowing as the minutes ticked slowly and agonizingly by that no help was forthcoming, that they were lying there all alone at the mercy of this monster, struggling against all odds to be brave, endeavoring to come to terms with their own mortality, their own terrifying and painful death—hoping to God it would be over quickly and, most of all, knowing that they would never again see the faces of those they loved or be held close and secure in their arms. That’s how I felt at the time.

Following this incident, I decided that next time, if there would ever be a next time, I wouldn’t lie there paralyzed with fear, waiting to die. Next time, I’d fight to the death for my life, for survival, no matter what. Next time, I wouldn’t give up on my life so easily.

Life settled back into small-town normalcy in my thirteenth year. The attack on the golf course had long since faded into memory, and in my small world the normal state of affairs had been restored, where, as usual, I created my own drama with little to no help from the outside world.

5: The Visitation

Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit; for, without being seen, they are present with you.

—–St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622)

¨¨

In 1959, the year I turned fourteen, great changes were afoot for me. For beginners, Peter—not just my brother, but my friend, companion and chivalrous defender—was about to leave home to attend the Victorian School of Forestry at Creswick. That meant that I’d be left all alone with our parents, whose relationship had slowly but surely become tense and prickly. They had always good-naturedly tolerated each other’s irritating habits, but then Mum turned religious. Her lifestyle had become shallow and empty, she explained, and she needed something with more purpose and meaning. Enter religion. It wasn’t just a passing fancy or a temporary fixation. She turned to religion like a zealot, bordering on fanaticism. Dad was gobsmacked! She said grace over every meal wherever we were, even in restaurants—which embarrassed Dad and had me squirming in my chair. During meals at home, she’d be up one end of the table saying grace, while Dad seated at the other end would be muttering under his breath loud enough for everyone to hear: It’s not God who put food on the table. I did and worked damned hard for it, too. All the while he was muttering, he’d be kicking my foot under the table, knowing I hated all this religious stuff, as well. He had a buddy in me.

Mum’s sudden conversion to religion both devastated and socially embarrassed the hell out of my father, shattered his world, and seemed to spell the death knell of what was left of an already frail marriage. She did eventually tone down her religious fervor after a few years, and things did improve. But at the time of her zealousness, a rift of contention a mile wide divided the household, with our father on one side—backed by me, he supposed—and our mother on the other side, now joined by Peter, who had come to share her views. As for me, I thought about that old Irish song, Orange and Green:

Oh my father was an Ulsterman, proud Protestant was he

My mother was a Catholic girl, from County Cork was she

They were married in two churches, lived happily enough

Until the day that I was born and things got rather tough

Oh it is the biggest mix-up that you have ever seen

My father he was orange and my mother she was green

That’s how I felt, languishing somewhere twixt the Orange and the Green.

A relationship that had seemed already on the rocks seemed to just break when religion entered the picture. A great heaviness descended upon the house, stifling the laughter and happiness that had once rung within its walls, leaving only a cold, empty shell in its wake. All of which was totally confusing to me! Who was right, my mother or my father? Was there a God or wasn’t there? Did angels really exist or not? I had to know. I just simply had to know.

So late one night, when it was very dark and I was securely tucked up in my little bed, I decided I’d test this God thing: I would pray for an answer. Not having any experience, I imitated the pictures I’d seen. I knelt on top of my bed covers with hands held together in praying position, bowed my head, and began praying to a God I doubted existed, asking to see an angel that I also doubted existed. If nothing happened, no one would be the wiser, nor would I be making a complete idiot out of myself in front of anybody else. It would be a sort of experiment that only I would know about. My prayer was straightforward and simple: I just kept repeating over and over in my head, If angels exist, I want to see one. If angels exist, I want to see one. If angels exist, I want to see one.

I think I must have repeated that over and over for at least five minutes when my darkened room was lit up by a pure white light, with such brilliance it totally blinded me. Then I felt the power of it—rather like a powerful electrical current or electromagnetic discharge emanating from the center of the light, which seemed to have a force field around it. The force was so great that it shook me like a leaf being blown in a powerful wind, and I felt something like an electric surge pass right through my body, the way I imagined it would feel to be struck by lightning. But there was no pain. Instead, I was permeated with a surge of energy that illuminated my mind, body, and soul, and I experienced feelings of ecstasy, joyousness, and great love. I cupped my hands over my eyes, attempting to see through the blinding light. Could I make out the wings of an angel? But no, I could only vaguely make out an outline. Yet I knew I was in the presence of an angel, in the presence of