Would You Like a Sausage Little Girl?

Mum said she had bumped into Mrs. O today while she was at the butcher. Oh thank goodness I thought, I always hated going to butcher shop. I hated the smell. I hated having to see the carcasses hanging behind the counter on those huge hooks. Half a pigs head would be eyeing me as it hung with the hook through the underside of its head. Eeewww! To me this was a far worse slaughter house then even the dental clinic!

The butcher had a bright slightly bumpy red nose and rosy cheeks and small beady eyes and a huge belly which was covered with a white apron. You could see the smears on it where he’d wiped his fingers to get off any excess blood. I remember seeing him sharpening his knives on the steel and thinking how clever my dad was, coz he did that at home. The floor was always covered in sawdust. I used to make circles in it with the toe of my shoe while I waited. I remember the disappointment sometimes when there wasn’t enough sawdust on the floor to create my lovely circles and would become impatient and start to fidget. Mum would always prompt me to say ‘good morning’ and I’d mumble it as quietly as I could. I never liked it when mum brought attention on me, even if it was only to say ‘good morning’. He would ask questions like, “What are you doing today?” Then I’d have to ask mum what we were doing, and then I’d try to repeat it and then mum would butt in and finish it. Why didn’t he just ask her in the first place?

Every time we went you could guarantee the order would be exactly the same as the last. Half a pound of mince, two dozen beef sausages, half a pound of steak and kidney and half a pound of gravy beef. My face would screw up every time mum ordered the steak and kidney. Sometimes she’d buy something different if it was on special, or if she had any extra money. The butcher always wrapped the meat first in a white square piece of paper, then in a lightweight brown paper wrapping, just like tissue paper really. I remember there were often a few sheets used, and I often wondered why he just didn’t use thicker paper. I guess this was standard issue meat wrapping paper back then. Sometimes the blood would ooze through the wrapping. Once it left a trail of splops on the footpath as we walked up Hawkestone Street. I saw those blood splopped stains on my way to school every day till it rained. I don’t ever remember having chicken much growing up. This was generally something saved for special occasions and Christmas.

The butcher used to always give me a saveloy. Now I’m a big fan of sav’s, don’t get me wrong, but cold? Nah-uh! I hated eating them cold, had to be hot, cut into slices and dipped in copious amounts of tomato sauce all with the aid of a toothpick.

Oh no, not again.., mum get in front of me, please.., no..,nooooo...!!! He would come out from behind the counter if I’d managed to strategically hide behind my mother, she’d turn to talk to me, I’d get further around behind her, sometimes it was like a dance and we’d go round full circle till she snapped at me and told me to stop it! I didn’t want his smelly saveloy, his shop smelt meaty and fatty and there wasn’t enough sawdust and I just want to go home! He’d get to about three feet away from me and bend over with his arm outstretched… His face suddenly warped like I was looking at him through a fish-eye lens. Armed with this limp pink saveloy in his hand, he’d waive it in front of my face and say, “Here you are Annie, wrap your lips around this.”

I looked up the meaning of the word saveloy in the American Heritage Dictionary. It describes saveloy as ‘a highly seasoned smoked pork sausage’. It goes onto say the French sub-meaning of the word is ‘dim of cerebrum’.

Silent Stories

We all have them. These are the stories of the little things in our lives that all put together shapes us into our current mould. These are the memories that are triggered suddenly by a fragrance, or a glimpse, a flavour, texture or view. All your senses are connected with your memories, they are the trigger that sets them off. Sometimes they may need to be just memories. Sometimes they just need to be told.

This past Sunday I decided it was time to have a good old catch up with a friend that I haven’t been in touch with for a few months. It was more of an epic adventure novel by the time I had finished. Totally satisfied my friend would be well enough informed, educated and humoured all at the same time, I hit the send button and made a cup of coffee. How many people thought I was going to say tea? :)

That night I received an email back from my friend who told me I should seriously consider taking up writing. Yeah, yeah.., go on, you’re just being polite, glad you liked the story, but writing isn’t really my bag... this is what I wrote back:

I’m a little overwhelmed with all your praise.. You know, I’ve always wanted to pursue creative writing, and twice I’ve registered for courses, and twice not enough people registered so the course was abandoned. However, I am a closet poet, or used to be. Every six months or so I still get an invitation from poetry.com to attend the latest convention and symposium. This time it’s being held at the Washington Hilton Hotel, Washington DC, in August. They really don’t give you much time to decide, I only got the invitation last week. To date I have not attended any conference they have invited me to, but I have cut and paste the picture of the lovely engraved bowl trophy I would collect if I did. I also get a similar invitation from photography.com. They too want me to collect a trophy of sorts for my outstanding photographic achievements. I have only submitted one photo, so I must be outstanding, or they just want my money…, the jury is still out on that one.


The next morning my friend sent me this email:

You are such a good writer and a pleasure to read - and to NOT write for others would be selfish! - to deprive them of that pleasure.
Start today. As past episodes in your life - real, imagined, half remembered - they can be wishful thinking - keep it fiction but base it on reality. You have such a wealth of characters who have passed through your life - and others yet to come - give each their role.
Each small episode can be modelled into a fascinating whole. Maybe many will be superfluous - maybe they will come into the next novel.
Computers are fantastic as then there is no need for thousands of sheets of paper to shuffled around.
Have a beginning and an end in mind - these can be fluid and change as you go. The middle will come.
The hardest part in achieving anything is starting.

Wow! Coming from this friend is quite the compliment. She has connections with people in the publishing industry, due to the nature of her husbands former business. I thought if she thinks I’m good enough to write, then maybe I should. But what about? Who about? About who and what? I’ve never been much of one for reading, unless it’s the help menu in WordPad. My understanding has always been that writers read a lot, and as that is something I don’t do often enough. Bah Humbug! Annie, you know you want to give it a go, so just do it!

I remember, will be the opening line of many sentences I write. Perhaps in another 20 or 40 years I may not be able to say that with any amount of certain conviction. I really hope this isn’t going to be the case, but if it is I thought it would be a good legacy to leave my children. Just in case.

My mother has Altzheimers Disease. She is 86 years old, she thinks. Her and my father emigrated from England in 1952 and arrived in Wellington aboard the SS Atlantis in November sometime. She asks me every time I see her, “and how long have you been out from England then?” She thinks I’m very kind and a very nice lady. You see, in her mind at the moment, it’s around 1940 sometime.., her father just organized a job at the shipyard next door, she starts next week… I haven’t been born yet…

I look at my mother now, and think of the ironies of life. Mum was 41 when she had me. I was 41 when I found out it was Altzheimers, and congratulations, you are now the proud parent of your parent. By 42 she had forgotten me. Not about me, she just can’t place the face anymore, but is always happy to see me, even if I haven’t come out from England. I love it when she asks me who I am, sometimes I tell her I’m the Queen of Sheeba and mum is always very impressed and likes to take tea with royalty. I think she really knows I’m not the Queen of Sheeba, but plays the game anyway. Cheeky of me? Nah.., she loves the attention, it makes her feel special.

I enjoy my mother’s company now. This never really used to be the case. I guess this is the silver lining to her Altzheimers. I despised my mother for many years for one main reason, and in a round about way, the very thing I believe that has triggered her disease and brought us closer together is the same thing that gave me cause to despise her in the first place.

I don’t remember exactly when it started, but I was very young, I was 6 when I started to notice things weren’t quite the same. However, you just grow up thinking things are ‘normal’ and life goes on. I was 13 when a good friend of my mother, a doctor in fact, told me she was an alcoholic. He then went on to tell me about the signs to watch out for and I had to tell him those ‘signs’ he was referring to were just things she’s always done. Besides, why wasn’t he talking to my dad about this, why me? What the hell was I going to be able to do about this? I knew it, hell, everyone knew, it just wasn’t discussed. Nothing was ever really discussed. The first time a revolt happened is when mum told my 18 year old brother he should quit smoking pot. It would ruin his life and he’d end up a no-hoper rotting in a jail cell. He said he’d give up smoking pot the day she gave up drinking and made something of herself. She never mentioned his pot smoking again.

So while I have a ‘compitant state of mind’, and I certainly have an arsenal of stories up my sleeve, I feel it is important to do this for my children, and for me too. It will give them the opportunity to see how I became who I am which might answer some questions and give them some insights. So far, my girls have read every story and are keen to read more. My youngest has asked if we can go see Wild Bill’s old house and the school I used to go to. We're going tomorrow and are hopefully going to get some good photo's. My eldest has wondered where this is all coming from. I told my girls that this is something special from me to them and besides, I love the thought of my future grandchildren to be able to read or be told my silent stories and hear the echoes of my past.

Name that Dog.

All my life I remember having a pet of one variety or another. We always had cats, lots of cats. We’d always take in the odd stray and call him or her our own. Cats were cool, but kittens were cooler. This is why we always had lots of cats, they were never speyed or neutered so the results spoke for themselves. We’d take the kittens up to the local vet and he’d manage to find homes for them always. He offered once to perform the operation for free for our cats, mum said that was very kind of him, but no thank you.

My older brothers had managed to talk mum and dad into getting a puppy. Mum took them to the S.P.C.A and they chose a black Labrador crossed with German Shephard pup. He was so cute, this little bundle of black wobbly fun!

It was made evidently clear to me that this dog belonged to no others than them, I had absolutely no ownership over this dog at all. I was allowed to play with him only when he wasn’t already being played with and I wasn’t allowed to interrupt while someone else was playing with him. However, I would be given a penny for every time I cleaned up his poop. Sometimes being the youngest has its advantages. I figured the dog would poop at least twice a day, that’s a lot money!

That night, we were deciding on a name. I was trying really hard to think up a good name, I thought about “Blackie”, or “Darkie”, but dad said that ‘Darkie” wasn’t a good choice of name. He said, imagine standing outside calling him.., “Here Darkie..” he said all the neighbours would turn up and wonder why we’d been calling them. Mum said hiding behind a stifled grin, “Oh George, that was a terrible thing to say…”

Mum said he looked regal and he should have a royal name. Immediately I came at her with Anne.., well, she was a royal princess after all.., “no Annie, he’s a boy dog, so he needs a boy name.” Oh, well, I was trying. Then dad said, “well, we can’t call him Regina, that would be a terrible thing to call out in the middle of the night too, almost as bad as Darkie!” Mum told dad to get a grip and be sensible about this. My brothers by this stage had taken the pup outside to do his business.

I wondered what the dog thought about this, so when he came back inside, I cupped little face in my hands, looked him square in the eyes and said, “what do you want to be called little puppy?” His tiny body wriggled from side to side. This was his early attempts at tail wagging. I thought how cute, “why don’t we call him Wags?” Then my brothers got all smart and started to say ‘Wags’ with what I can only describe now as the worst Australian accent you’ve ever heard. They repeated it over and over and they danced round the room taunting me, “WAAAGS.., WAAAAAGS..” I went red with embarrassment that I had come up with a stupid name. Mum told them to behave themselves, and she thought Wags was a very nice name indeed. In fact, when mum was a girl, their family had two German Shephards one named Rags, the other named Tatters, so as Rags rhymed with Wags, she thought it was quite cute and forgot about the Royal naming for a while. Then I poked my tongue out at my brothers.

All this deciding on name, boy it was taking ages. I got bored and went and made everyone a pot of tea. I’m not certain when I started making tea, but in our house I seemed to be the chief tea maker. Everyone always commented on how nice I made it. I guess that was encouragement enough to make a pot next time. We had a few teapots. A one cup teapot, for when nobody else was in, the guest teapot, the leaky teapot, the picnic teapot the camp cook-out teapot and last but not least, the family size regular every day teapot. I would carefully measure each teaspoon, and counting on my fingers how many people I was making it for. “One for each person, one for the pot” was my golden rule. And never fill the pot to the top. Put the lid on with the hole to the opposite side of the spout. After putting the cosy on, leave it to settle for about 4 minutes. If you were in a hurry, turn the pot three times to the left, then three turns to the right. Generally you’d get about six cups out of the regular family teapot, but often this wasn’t enough so we’d just boil the jug and add more hot water. Having a second cup of tea was nice sometimes, but I hated when mine was poured last! Ik! Too strong!

I came back in with the tea, and still no name. Mum was still thinking down the Royal road.., dad by this stage had given up and was listening to the races on his transistor radio and my brothers were arguing about something else altogether.

Oh boy! I was pouring the tea and by this stage the race dad was listening to was nearing the finish line. He had bet an amount of currency back then equivalent to $1. each way on a horse and it was nearing the lead. Dad always used to do this ‘thing’when a horse was coming up to the finish line. He’d be sitting at the dining room table, the transistor blearing with the sports commentator commentating in this drone voice, and he’d transform into the jockey coz out would come the imaginary whip and away he’d go.., he’d ride the dining room chair, his body moved in a back and forth motion, whipping the daylights out of the imaginary horse and shouting, “C’mon…, c’mon you little beauty..” Then as the horse crossed the finish line he lurched forward and brought his head up with a big smile and said, “You bloody ripper!”

“Ohhh, you had a winner dear?” said mum, “what was it called again?”

“Sir Rex, rank outsider.., paid 20 to 1.” He was stoked!

Everyone was happy that dad had a winner. Also it provided the perfect name for the hapless bundle that became one of the most precious members of our family.

Plastic Money

The highlight of any school day for me whilst in my primmer years was ‘free time’. We’d get the last hour of the afternoon to play and do fairly much anything we wanted to. Some kids would read, others would draw, and some would draw on the blackboard playing teacher. My thing was playing shops.

We were encouraged to take in the old cartons from weet-bix boxes and the like so we could have well stocked shelves. How grown up! A real shop in our classroom! I enjoyed being the shop-keeper. I liked to be in charge of the till and smile nicely and say, “have a nice day.”

We had little plastic coins. Everything from 50 cent pieces down to the fiddly two and one cent pieces. The notes we had to make ourselves. I couldn’t be bothered so I took the money from the Monopoly set at home. We even brought in a few used brown paper bags and someone would pack the groceries neatly in the bags after you’d rung up the amount on the till. It was so much fun pretending to be in charge of a shop, and making sure everyone was neat and tidy and talking ever so politely to the customers as they came in and browsed. I liked to press down the buttons on the little plastic cash register and watch as the numbers came up at the top. And handling the money was so cool. I liked the sound of it dropping into the till, and often rearranged the notes so they were in order. I loved giving the change too. I felt fairly clever about that. Not many kids in our class could count change properly. It was extra special when one of the teachers would come and play with us and pretend to buy a can of cocoa or bottle of milk. We learned early what a ‘tab’ was all about when they joined in on the grocery shop game.

One day the teacher announced that the grocery game had to stop. They had removed all the plastic coins and what was left of the Monopoly money was offered back to me. They removed all the cartons and cans and things we’d collected for our shop and threw them in the bin. They were angry, they being Mrs Peterson and the Principal who incidentally was her husband, Mr Peterson. It was like a prison shake down. Here were the guards going for it, rip, shit or bust. They found a couple of dead bananas along the way which caused a little more confusion amongst the prisoners. “Whose bananas are those?” I heard someone whisper. “They don’t look like bananas, they’re all black and fuzzy..” The whole class stood back in a state of bewildered amazement. We couldn’t believe it! What was this all about? How come you ruined my favourite game? You bastards!

After they had finished throwing away everything, Mr Peterson stood at the front of the class and made an announcement. “From this day forward, nobody, and I mean not one single one of you is allowed to bring plastic money to school ever again. Do you all understand me?” He went onto say that something very bad had happened and he was making certain that it would most definitely never happen again, not while he was Principal!

A few of us got together after school to work it all out. What happened? The speculation was running rife, as you would imagine. Then Tommy suggested a game of marbles as we gathered by the pothole lid just in front of the swimming pool. I was still furious about not being able to play my game and wondered what I would do instead. “Nah, I don’t wanna play marbles Tommy, I think I just want to go home.”

Just then a couple of the older kids came up to us and asked what we were doing. “Nuffing.” This is always the standard response. One of them said, “Heard you’se guys had your plastic money and shop taken away today.”

“Yeah.” said Tommy.

“You’se guys know why?”

“Nah, do you?”

“Yeah.”

I wanted to hear this…

“Ricky’s sister went to the dairy opposite Chan’s place and bought a 50cent mixture after school yesterday aye.., she threw a plastic fifty cents on the counter and ran, and then the bastard from the shop topped on her to Mr Peterson.”

The Day of a Thousand Bawls

August 24, 1966
It was a cool overcast morning. The clouds were thickening up and getting darker. A good southerly was building up. Dad grumbled because he thought it was ridiculous you would need to turn on the light at 7.30 in the morning. I remember wondering what he meant by that. It was dark; we needed light, what was the big deal? I sat and ate my egg buttie, swinging my legs as I ate.

Mum told me to hurry up as I needed to wash my face really well this morning and give my teeth a good scrub. She said my clothes were on the couch and asked if I knew where my red tights were. I got the yolk part of my egg buttie and felt a little disappointed that the yolk wasn’t runny, not even a little bit. So I thought I’d take my time with the rest of the sandwich. “Dad, can I’ve another cup of tea?”

“Annie! I asked you already, do you know where your red tights are?”

With the last mouthful of sandwich in my mouth, I tried to speak. Nope, too much food in there, better sog it down with another gulp of tea.

“Annie!! Will you answer me??”

Dad shot me a knowing glance, I swallowed with a big gulp which hurt going down, and said, “nope.”

Gee, what was the deal this morning? Why am I being hurried? Oh yeah, we’re going somewhere, that’s right.

I took my plate through to the kitchen on my way to the bathroom for my regular morning ritual of washing my face. This brings to mind a theory. You know the joke about little Johnny arriving at school, and the teacher says she knows what he ate for breakfast, and little Johnny is amazed! How did she know? Coz it was on his face! It’s simple really, just ask yourself the following couple of questions; how tall was little Johnny? Or more to the point, how short was he? Was the mirror placed in a convenient place to enable him to see to wipe any offending egg residue from his face? I empathize with little Johnny. I couldn’t see into our bathroom mirror easily until I was about eight years old. I did however get very good at jumping.

“Annie! Will you hurry up..!?!?”

I emerged out of the bathroom with clean face, teeth and fresh underwear on. I must admit, I was still feeling tired, or hadn’t woken up properly and didn’t really feel much like going anywhere. But this seems important to mum, and we probably wouldn’t be too long as the weather is getting worse, and it’s just not a nice day to be out.

Mum drove herself nuts trying to find my red tights. I only remember the last time I wore them I got a hole in the toe. They could have been anywhere. If you’ve ever watched the British sit-com ‘Steptoe & Son’, that would be a fair comparison to how our house was. It was never tidy. We were extremely casual I guess. Mum told me to go put on my red velvet dress. I loved that dress, it was deep red velvet with smocking at the nape and it had lace trim on the ends of the sleeves which had a band of narrow elastic at the wrist which made the sleeves puff out a bit. I liked puffy sleeves. There was a luxurious band of thick satin ribbon, red of course, which tied up at the back. It dropped to just below my knees. That was perfect. That meant that if I bent over, you wouldn’t see my knickers. This was my ‘Red Riding Hood’ dress. Mum even promised to make me a cape to match. Once I had the dress on I realized the dilemma about not having the red tights. Oh no! Red dress.., red tights.., I only had one pair of red tights, “mum, have you found my tights yet?” I was standing in the kitchen in my unzipped red dress and bare feet hoping upon all hope mum had my red tights. She was in the bathroom, the door was half closed as she had to reach behind it as she was going through the laundry hamper. I could just see her bent over, her apron hanging with the weight of her cigarettes in the pocket. My toes were getting cold, and I could feel a chill down my back. Impatiently, I hopped from one foot to the other deciding whether to wait there or run up two flights of stairs and have a look in my room. I was just about to turn on my heel and go upstairs when mum called out she found them. She gave them a quick inspection and decided they were clean enough to wear, and the hole in the toe wasn’t too big, she’d mend that later.

I hurried into my tights, the feet were black on the underside where I’d worn them before, and they were kind of stiff too. I didn’t want to wear them now. I ran upstairs and went through my drawers and found a pair of blue tights that had a hole in the heel and at the top of the back, where I’d tugged them to hard pulling them on. But at least they were clean so I thought they’d do and put on my black shoes, did up the buckles and ran downstairs to brush my hair.

Mum zipped me up and started brushing my hair. How come it always hurts so much when mums are in a hurry? Well, at least she didn’t have to tie it back any more. I had to have a haircut two days before. I had long honey blonde hair down to my waist almost. Mum told the hairdresser to cut it short into a bob cut. I cried that night and went to bed without eating. How come they didn’t ask me what I wanted? It felt funny, I looked funny, my hair seemed darker, and it just wasn’t me anymore. I wanted to glue the cut stuff back on again. Then mum said I should go get my coat as we had to get going.

I found my coat, mum always insisted on doing up every button. I always felt like gagging when she did up the top button. This time I burped as mum was doing it up. I saw her eyes close for a second and her face pulled back and looked a bit scrunched up. Oh, eggie burp, sorry mum.

We went outside and got into mums car. She had an old Morris Oxford. She called it ‘Bluebird’. I don’t think that car ever reached a speed of over 20mph, but I did used to love going for drives. I also loved the smell of that old car. We tootled off down the road on our journey to somewhere.

I started to feel uneasy. I asked mum where we were going and all she said was, “it will be nice dear, there will be lots of other kids to play with.” Uh-oh.., other kids? I’m not used to too many other kids. What the hell kind of place are you taking me too…?? I could feel tears welling up behind my eyes as I was starting to quietly freak out and looked out the window at the passing houses which were all horribly distorted due to the rain on the window.

We arrived. Mum rushed me out of the car and walked me across this huge concrete area toward a set of small prefabs. We went into an office and mum talked to someone for a while and filled out some papers. I was quietly looking at the lady behind the desk helping mum and wondered how she managed to get all that hair so neatly on top of her head. I used to be able to do that. I would tie my hair up and coil it around my fingers until it resembled a bun on top of my head. That’s as far as I could ever get with that as my fingers were too small to manage a band or bobby pins to keep it in place. But not any more. Then the lady said, “Well Annie, come with me and I’ll find your teacher.”

What? My what? Mum, are you coming with me? Oh no.., she going to leave me here.., alone. In typical mum fashion, she kissed me on the forehead, told me to be a good girl and do as I was told etc, etc.., and she went to leave. I grabbed hold of her coat and wanted to hide behind it and I wanted her to take me home with her. It was cold, this place was cold, I don’t know anyone and you’re just going to leave me here? “I don’t want to stay here.., I want to come with you…” She insisted I’d be alright and she would be back soon to collect me. “Noooooooooooo…….!!!!!!!” “Mummy…, don’t gooooo…” I cried.

The lady with the bun on top of her head was quite nice. She took me by the hand and told me I would be fine. When mum’s aren’t around, you seem to look to anyone for some kind of empathy for your plight. She even gave me a tissue to blow my nose on. She told me she would take me and introduce me to my new teacher and the rest of my class, but first we needed to organize me a coat hook so I could hang up my coat and bag. She found a roll of stickers and asked if I’d like to write my name on one to stick on the wall by my coat hook. I shook my head..; I didn’t want to do anything except go home.

When I was little and things didn’t go my way, I would sulk. I was in full sulk mode by this stage, as well as being a little dis-orientated. I wouldn’t talk either. I would shake my head either up and down, or from side to side for obvious yes or no questions. I wouldn’t ever answer when I was in full sulk mode; just shake my head, so you’d better be watching for the answer! I think in retrospect what I was really doing was analyzing the situation and running through a whole lot of possible outcomes now that this thing, event or whatever the situation, has happened. It was my way of sorting the confusion. I was a very shy little girl too. Don’t you talk to me or my face is sure to turn a shade of red that can only match my red velvet dress.

Once my name was up and stuck on the wall, it all seemed so permanent. Does this mean I’m coming back here again tomorrow? Oh dear Lord why did nobody tell me about this sudden change in my lifestyle? How come mum didn’t tell me weeks before hand I would be engaging in an enormous amount of social contact with other kids my own age? I had no preparation. I only ever remember going to Kindergarten once. Then the lady with the bun opened the door to my new classroom and everyone stopped and stared at me. I tried hiding behind her, but she wasn’t as good at hiding behind as my mum was. I could push into mum and become invisible. All I could do here was peek out from behind her and survey the situation from just inside the door. I was terrified and embarrassed all at the same time. How come these kids are all looking at me? Then I was introduced to my new teacher. Mrs Peterson.

“Hello Annie, and welcome to Primmer One class, I’ll take you now and show you where you’ll be sitting.” No, bun lady, don’t you leave me too! Mrs Peterson took me over to a table where three other kids were drawing. She asked me if I liked drawing. I shook my head from side to side. I did really love to draw, but I didn’t want to be here, and I didn’t want to draw today. “When is my mum going to pick me up?” I asked. “Oh, not for hours yet Annie, here, have some crayons…” I cried.

The classroom seemed to have a life of its own. The smells of wax crayons and the kerosene heater burning in the corner. The noise was something I’d never heard before. The constant chatter of about 20 or so small children somehow amazed me. I’d never been in a room with this many people before and did wonder if I’d ever get used to it. I sat at the table with a couple of crayons and a sheet of white paper in front of me and thought about what I could draw. I looked at what some of the other kids had drawn. Truly inspired by a very fine rendition of his cat, I decided to copy the boy next to me, and draw a picture of my own cat. He then called me a ‘copy-cat’ and I started to cry.

Mrs Peterson came over to see what the fuss was about. As usual I didn’t speak, just shook my head. The kid next to me was moved to another table, and he didn’t like that, and for the rest of the day on and off, he took delight in throwing little bits of broken crayon at me, so I guess I made my first enemy already. It wasn’t my fault, I just liked his picture.

Being shy, I never used to ask questions of strangers much. I was sitting at my table, now alone because everyone thought I was horrible for copying someone else, and I was wriggling in my chair, and desperately needed to use the bathroom. I didn’t know where it was, or if I could just leave the classroom and go look for it, I was in a bit of a dilemma I thought. But lucky I was sitting down and could wriggle.

Mrs Peterson noticed, and she came and said, “Annie, do you need to go to the toilet?” I nodded, thinking ‘hell yes lady, I’m busting!’. So she gave me some instructions on where the toilet was and off I went. By the time I got to the door, I’d forgotten her instructions, my teeth were floating and I thought if I don’t find a toilet soon, mum will have to come and get me a lot earlier than she would have anticipated – a-ha, now there’s a plan I thought…

Outside the door was our cloakroom. Bags, jackets and coats were hanging in a lifeless fashion enjoying the solitude away from the classroom noises. At the opposite end of the cloakroom was the next classroom and a door onto their patio outside. Our end also had a door onto a patio. I went out our door, onto the patio and there it was, to the right just off the patio. I could hear a constant hiss of running water, so I thought this must be the bathroom. I went inside. I saw one cubicle in the corner; I rushed in and closed the door behind me. Aaahhhh…, the relief. I must have been in there for quite a while, as the teacher came looking for me. I overheard her just outside saying to someone, from the patio ‘she went to the toilet, I’ve just been in there, and she’s not there.’ Hang on, yes I am here, she never came in, but I wasn’t going to call out. I sat in the cubicle feeling a bit anxious. Oh no, the teacher had to come looking for me, she thinks I’m not here and I am, and she said she went looking in the toilets, yet nobody had come in. What a weird place. I started to cry again.

I waited until I could no longer hear the voices outside. I emerged from the cubicle and washed my hands. But hang on, what’s this? It was a stainless steel waterfall. Wow! How come someone would put a waterfall in their toilet? I thought a few plants would make it more like a jungle and a nicer place to visit. As I came out of the bathroom my teacher was coming back out of the classroom. “Annie, where have you been, I’ve been looking for you everywhere?”

“I went to the toilet, Mrs Peterson”.

“But I came in there looking for you, did you go somewhere else?”

“No.”

“Show me where you went!” By this stage she was getting a bit niggled. So I took her outside and pointed to where I had gone.

Mrs Peterson looked sternly at me, one hand on hip, the other pointing in my face. “But Annie, that’s the boy’s toilets. You can’t go in there, ever! I gave you directions! Can’t you read the sign on the door?”

“No Mrs Peterson, not yet.”

I cried.

Wild Bill

I’m not sure how he got the nick-name ‘Wild Bill’, mum used to hate it when I’d use that name in front of him. Like it was some insult or something, and besides, she christened him that! I think perhaps it was because of his bigger than life ideas.., wild ideas and schemes that will change the world and make everyone lots of money.

To me he was always jolly. He reminded me of a Santa minus the suit, which was great for me and it was like Christmas each time I saw him. I always had fun when he was around. He was also a great lover of practical jokes, he had the chirpiest chuckle when he told us of his latest prank on someone. I loved him like an uncle, and that’s what I called him mostly, Uncle Bill.

He was a confirmed batchelor. I never knew why he never married. He was a good looking man I thought, with cheeky eyes. He would have made a terrific husband and father. He had the most remarkable sense of humour and he loved it when people would celebrate in his newest invention or venture.

I remember one fine Sunday morning I was bored. Breakfast hadn’t been cooked yet, we always had the usual Sunday fry up, bacon, eggs, fried bread and perhaps black pudding and toast and a big pot of tea. The kitchen staff must be having a lie in, and so I decided to go for a walk and see Uncle Bill.

He lived in a little cottage in little grove just around the corner, a charming little lane that was never tar sealed. He kept his garden well, and used to experiment by trying to cross this with that, or try and get fruit from something that doesn’t bear fruit. I think he tried most things just to see if he could. He had a lot of failures, but always with a tall tale.

This day, I found Uncle Bill standing in his garden wearing his gumboots, suit pants and braces and a white singlet and his floppy sun hat. He wore black rimmed glasses which were always slipping down his nose, so he used to squint a lot as a result. I hung over the fence and yelled out, “good morning, Uncle Bill’. He looked up and smiled and waived at me to come in. I trotted up the path at the side of the cottage and wondered what he was pondering when he offered to make me a cup of tea.

We went inside to his kitchen. He had a gas oven, I’d never used a gas oven before, I’d really only just learned how to use matches safely and never considered using them to light an oven. That would be stupid. So he gave me a full detailed account of how one safely uses gas as he filled the kettle and used that flicker thing to light the element. But first he lit the element with a match to show me all the available options. I liked how the flicker thing sounded, the sparky, crackling sound all at once. It was like a sparkler with a blow torch at one end. Very cool.

While the kettle boiled, Uncle Bill said he had to go and empty the bath. He was talking as he fussed about. I grabbed the flicker thing and had a couple of goes while he was still in the bathroom. He had planned after his bath to go to church, that’s why he was wearing his suit pants. Then while he was getting dressed he suddenly had an idea as to why one of his plant experiments hadn’t worked so he grabbed his gumboots and headed for the garden and that’s where he was at when I arrived.

You could always rely on Uncle Bill for a full detailed account on almost any event, no matter how trivial. He was a wordsmith. If he was a part of it, he will let you know about it to the finest detail. He accomplished this not only through words, but he was quite good at drawing cartoons too. He would come to our house and visit often. I used to love it when he came for dinner. I would hound him to draw stuff for me. “Uncle Bill, can you draw me a flower?” So, he’d draw me a flower. One time, he had been drinking with my folks one Sunday afternoon. I asked him to draw me a cowboy, and he did. I gave it back to him after adding the words: “Wild Bill Hic-cup”.

Uncle Bill made a big pot of tea, and we went back outside to continue pondering a possible solution to a problem I didn’t really understand. But it was a great day, he’d made a really good cuppa, then he asked me if I could do something for him. “Okay,” I said. I liked being helpful, it gave me purpose. He went and got a rather large flower pot from his shed and put it on the ground up-side-down and told me to sit down as this might take a while. I sat down on the up-side-down flower pot and put my cup of tea on the ground and looked up and asked what it is I’m supposed to do. First he informed me that this was not just one of his ordinary experiments, oh no, not this one. This was a ‘special’ assignment he got from the government. I knew he worked for the government, but I had no idea in which department. I suddenly got excited thinking my Uncle Bill is a real live secret agent or something. He told me he’d been making some scientific calculations and there was only one thing left to do that he couldn’t quite manage and I would be perfect for the job. Wow! My real first government assignment kind of.., wow! “Okay, okay, what do I do..??”

“Count the ants…”
“What?”
“Count the ants…”
“What ants?”
“Don’t tell me you can’t see them?”
“No.., I can’t see any ants, or spiders or slaters…”

He then told me to get closer to the plant to have a better look, which I did. I examined it thoroughly, carefully peeling back leaves and moving branches. Nope, still no ants. I looked hard, I wanted to see ants. I wanted to see something. I thought, should I make something up? Perplexed, he paced back and forth a couple of times. I thought it best to remain silent so he could think. This seemed serious. Then he handed me his glasses and said, ‘here, have a look through these..’ As soon as I put them on I saw the ants. Tiny specs of dirt on the front of Uncle Bills glasses!

Mrs Mac's House

Thursday’s were Mrs Mac's day when mum would go and do her cleaning. Before mum got a car we would walk from Grant Rd to the Railway Station, get the train to Woburn, and from there it was only a short walk to her house. But not when you’re four years old. I remember being tugged and pulled down Molesworth St, mum saying, “C’mon Annie.., we’ll miss the bloody train and then we’ll have to wait for another hour!”. I remember thinking sometimes, “I can’t walk this fast, I’m puffed and my feet hurt and I’m getting hot, can I take my coat off? Will you carry my bag, it’s getting heavy..??”

I remember seeing the annoyed look on mum’s face, like it would be the absolute end of the world if we missed the train and the terror I felt thinking it would be all my fault…. Sometimes, I guess it was, but a couple of times it became a ‘treat’. It didn’t take long to learn that an hour was enough time to get fish’n’chips with lot’s of vinegar and sit at Parliament Grounds with enough time for some good ol’ pigeon chasing before catching the next train to Mrs Mac's house. And if there was indeed sufficient time left, and I was behaving myself, I would be allowed to go and ‘ride the lion’ at the Cenataph on the way. Fantastic! Sunshine on my face, fish’n’chips for breakfast, pidgeon chasing, lion riding.., what better way to start the day!

On arriving at Mrs Mac's house every time mum went inside she would call out, “Coohey.., I’m here…” In those days you’d find either the front or back door unlocked and the occupant either there or not. If Mrs Mac wasn’t in, I used to like playing around her house. It was really cool, there was a bookcase that was really a secret stairway which led to the top landing through a door, and I was the only one that knew of it’s existence.., for I was a secret agent, and that was the perfect secret agent hiding place, right 99?

I really liked it when Mrs Mac was home too, she used to let me play with her minature tea set. It consisted of a tiny porcelain teapot and lid, two teacups and saucers and the smallest milk jug and sugar bowl. Each piece was painted with tiny blue roses and gold gilt round the brims. I never considered the only thing missing was the teaspoon, or was that carefully put away somewhere else? On nice sunny days I would sit outside in her magical garden and have tea parties with the fairys and gnomes.

She had the most beautiful garden I had ever seen, just like in the story of Snow White and Rose Red. There were different coloured rose bushes and in autumn when the petals fell, her yard turned into this fluffy pastel covered carpet that felt really good beneath my feet, so soft and cool and velvety. Once Mrs Mac gave me a bubble blowing toy. She lay back on her outdoor recliner and just watched me playing. I think she dozed off for a while so I blew bubbles on her nose, laughed and ran away to the end of Eden. I used to scoop up the petals and put them in paper bags to take home so I could have my own fairy garden. And she used to read me stories sometimes too, she said they were stories she used to read to her daughter who was all grown up by this stage.
At the end of the garden was the biggest oak tree I’d ever seen. When it dropped it’s acorns I figured, this must be where the male gnomes come and smoke their pipes in the evenings round a fire while the girl gnomes are getting the supper ready. Well, it had to be, the evidence was clear, pipes on the ground everywhere, and they were frightened away by the giant in the castle and left their pipes behind! I’d lie still for ages in the hope one of them would come collect his pipe.

But the very best thing about going to Mrs Mac's house when you’re four years old, and didn’t have fish’n’chips for breakfast, was the baked beans and sausages on toast she would make especially for me for lunch. Every time, I couldn’t believe it.., I can still feel my eyes expanding to the size of saucers at the sight of this culinary delight. I loved it! It was always a surprise, and Mrs Mac would always give me an extra sausage with a wink and a smile.