Port Augusta _ Jamie
Without Prejudice
When I was a little girl my brother Jamie died. He was 11 and I can see him now, A chubby cheeky face with a crew cut. And glasses. He laughed at the world. And the sun shone out of him when he laughed.
I thought of him as moon man, he showed me the moon and how there were shapes on it that formed a face, he had a moon shaped face and moon shaped glasses.
And he was brave. He had a stump of a thumb that had been sliced off In Ian's bike wheel while Mum sat on the toilet in a freezing cold UK.
She ran to get sugar and packed it around the stump. No microsuergery in those days, just sugar to soak up the blood.
Then he broke his arm. He was always in the wars this second child, second son, of my parents.
Ian was a year older and the "sensible" one and Jamie was the funny rebellious one. I look at photos of him posing fiercely for the school photographer, squinting into the sun, his legs and arms folded as he sits with the rest of the class, bum on hot asphalt.
He looks like a real little ruffian but he wasn't. He was brainy and could write really but couldn't spell for toffee. His handwriting was atrocious, spelling even worse, yet he won a National Road Safety Competition in South Australia for Traffic Safety.
My parents had not long returned from Adelaide with him, after collecting his Prize. I remember we had the Pennant on the wall for years. green and Gold, with his name on it. Wonder where it went ?
He was always happy and had a big smile that split his face. My memories of him come in flashes. His short hair, his toothy grin,
He was 11 and I hero worshipped him and then he died. And that brilliant brain and every part of him that had been and was to be was gone in an instant.
I remember that day as being so hot. the walk home for jackie and I from ballet class was long and boring. We probably bickered as we usually did.
Jackie was four years older than me and a real lady like girl. Her hair was long and dark and thick and could be worn in fat braids. Mine was whispy and fairish and I was a cowgirl at 5.
A tomboy that liked to play with the boys outside while Jackie would be inside cleaning. I can remember the heat and the dust from the road and felling really fed up off because Jackie had been allowed to step up to block ballet shoes and I was still in the babies class.
I was so jealous of those shoes, putty pink with long ribbons. Jackie had let me have a turn on them and they were excruciating to wear, but I wanted them so much.
I can remember seeing Dad standing at the front gate of our house in Jervois Street. Just before that, just a mini second, before we saw Dad in the distance, I had wondered where the boys were.
"Oh", I thought, "They are at school"
Then I thought, no they can't be a school, its Saturday and if I am not at school, they can't be. Then I knew where they would be. They would be at the "Cubby". The boys and a friend Of Jamies had been building a cubby in the foothills for a while.
Jackie and I never went there. This was one thing they could have on their own. They said it was dirty and dragged pieces of corrugated iron out of the back yard for it.
Mum, Jackie and I just rolled our eyes at the boys excitement at their new found fun. For years I thought it was built into the side of a foothill.
What they had built was an underground room almost, held up with pieces of wood, quite elaborate really. There were newspaper clippings that came years later showing an underground room propped up with bits of wood.
The boys, Ian, aged 12, Jamie 11, George 7, and Jamie's friend Wayne, who was also 11. That Saturday morning as I stretched my limbs at Ballet School, the boys were playing in their cubby.
From what I understand there were tunnels to the underground structure. One boy went in from one side and one the other, George waited for the Jamie and Wayne to shimmy their way in and he was next. Ian bringing up the rear. And then it collapsed and Jamie and Wayne were no where to be seen.
Ian saw an arm sticking up and pulled Goeorge free, he then started digging with his bare hands and he sent George for help. George as a little 7 year old had to run a mile in the searing heat to the Roadhouse to get help. He said, of that moment
"You know how you enter somewhere and their is complete silence, that was what it was like"
George had ran to the Roadhouse and yelled for help.
First came the dead silence, shocked silence, and then there was uproar, chairs scraped and fell over as men rushed to help.
They brought shovels and bars and themselves to help. It took them an hour to dig the boys bodies out and Wayne and Jamie had suffocated. Their lungs full of sand, their necks broken. Ian's hands were bleeding from the digging.
And Jackie and I knew nothing of this as we ran towards our Dad waiting at the front gate for us. He was crying.
He was so kind my Dad, a real softie but even so to see him crying was strange. He hugged us up and told us that there had been a terrible accident and that our brother Jamie and his best friend were both dead.
How do you explain death to a 5 year old ? I cried and cried but I still thought it was a mistake and that the unbelievable had not happened.
Things became a blur after that. we were taken to a school Teachers house where all around us was noise and chaos and we slept there.
And the next day journalists from the papers came and took photos of us grieving kids on the front lawn.
I remember the bindii, (vicious 3 corner hard prickles) bit into my feet as I crossed the lawn. We, the kids, just stood there like dumb animals as they took our photos. I have never seen the sense of this sort of intrusion at a time like that.
My Mother had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised, they allowed her to keep David with her.
It was decided we would be sent away to another Teachers house in the Adelaide Hills. But first would be the funeral. The whole town of Port Augusta, just about, would be there.
To lose two young boys in a town the size of Port Augusta in 1957, was a huge thing. I was not allowed to go to the funeral or see Jamies body.
Dad left me and David in the car when he went to view the body, with a warning to stay put. But I couldn't. I crossed the road by myself (very brave for me as I had been run over earlier that year) and opened the door to the funeral place.
The door was heavy and wooden and I struggled with it.
I was met with a hushed silence and entered. I had to see my brother.
Dad kindly grabbed me, the others didn't want me to see, I remember the cool darkness of the room and was aware of others there, adults, crying.
Dad held me up in his arms and showed me Jamie, lying there so peacefully in the satin lined coffin. And I knew they were all mistaken.
Jamies asleep, he's not dead, he is just asleep"
Dad shook with sobs as he held me and I scrambled to get down.
I loved being in my Dad's arms. There it was safe and warm and protective. I would often pretend to be asleep when coming home from the drive ins or picture house, and I knew I would be carried by Dad in to my bed from the car. I loved that feeling.
There were a plague of tiny cockroaches at that time in Port Augusta and whenever we turned a light on, literally hundreds would scurry under furniture. I never like that scurrying, it frightened me, so it was much better if Dad carried me and put me to bed.
But I wanted down this time from my Dad's arms. I was anxious to announce my news, that I alone had discovered.
"Jamies just sleeping", I said.
I was fierce with hands clenched and tight. I who could not say boo to a goose and hid behind my Mum when visitors came to the house stood in front of those people and told them,
"He's just sleeping",
couldn't they hear me.???
and looked around at these silly people who were crying. Jamie was just asleep, they were mistaken.
I was led outside by the hand.
After that I remember very little except for the house where we were taken in the Adelaide Hills. The lady there smacked me. I had never been smacked for anything in my life.
My Mother and Father came to fetch us after three months and Jackie told Mum I had been smacked. Mum went ape shit, Dad and Mum never smacked their children. as far as they were concerned violence or abuse was not part of their make up.
Mum ripped shreds off the lady and we left. I was never more glad of anything in my life.
While us kids were there we went to the switchboard that the lady manned. It was a room with a huge board with all plug in switches snaking on the end of black long wires.
we had a ball pulling them all out and rehooking up in other sockets. Oh, My God we got in so much trouble and that is when I was smacked on the legs.
Jackie wasn't, she was there. And the womans daughter. I was glad after that I had done it as that lady deserved to be punished and that was our way of declaring war on her and her snitch of a daughter.
Jackie and I would normally never do anything wrong, but my rebellion had started with Jamie and has continued to this day lol Nette
When I was a little girl my brother Jamie died. He was 11 and I can see him now, A chubby cheeky face with a crew cut. And glasses. He laughed at the world. And the sun shone out of him when he laughed.
I thought of him as moon man, he showed me the moon and how there were shapes on it that formed a face, he had a moon shaped face and moon shaped glasses.
And he was brave. He had a stump of a thumb that had been sliced off In Ian's bike wheel while Mum sat on the toilet in a freezing cold UK.
She ran to get sugar and packed it around the stump. No microsuergery in those days, just sugar to soak up the blood.
Then he broke his arm. He was always in the wars this second child, second son, of my parents.
Ian was a year older and the "sensible" one and Jamie was the funny rebellious one. I look at photos of him posing fiercely for the school photographer, squinting into the sun, his legs and arms folded as he sits with the rest of the class, bum on hot asphalt.
He looks like a real little ruffian but he wasn't. He was brainy and could write really but couldn't spell for toffee. His handwriting was atrocious, spelling even worse, yet he won a National Road Safety Competition in South Australia for Traffic Safety.
My parents had not long returned from Adelaide with him, after collecting his Prize. I remember we had the Pennant on the wall for years. green and Gold, with his name on it. Wonder where it went ?
He was always happy and had a big smile that split his face. My memories of him come in flashes. His short hair, his toothy grin,
He was 11 and I hero worshipped him and then he died. And that brilliant brain and every part of him that had been and was to be was gone in an instant.
I remember that day as being so hot. the walk home for jackie and I from ballet class was long and boring. We probably bickered as we usually did.
Jackie was four years older than me and a real lady like girl. Her hair was long and dark and thick and could be worn in fat braids. Mine was whispy and fairish and I was a cowgirl at 5.
A tomboy that liked to play with the boys outside while Jackie would be inside cleaning. I can remember the heat and the dust from the road and felling really fed up off because Jackie had been allowed to step up to block ballet shoes and I was still in the babies class.
I was so jealous of those shoes, putty pink with long ribbons. Jackie had let me have a turn on them and they were excruciating to wear, but I wanted them so much.
I can remember seeing Dad standing at the front gate of our house in Jervois Street. Just before that, just a mini second, before we saw Dad in the distance, I had wondered where the boys were.
"Oh", I thought, "They are at school"
Then I thought, no they can't be a school, its Saturday and if I am not at school, they can't be. Then I knew where they would be. They would be at the "Cubby". The boys and a friend Of Jamies had been building a cubby in the foothills for a while.
Jackie and I never went there. This was one thing they could have on their own. They said it was dirty and dragged pieces of corrugated iron out of the back yard for it.
Mum, Jackie and I just rolled our eyes at the boys excitement at their new found fun. For years I thought it was built into the side of a foothill.
What they had built was an underground room almost, held up with pieces of wood, quite elaborate really. There were newspaper clippings that came years later showing an underground room propped up with bits of wood.
The boys, Ian, aged 12, Jamie 11, George 7, and Jamie's friend Wayne, who was also 11. That Saturday morning as I stretched my limbs at Ballet School, the boys were playing in their cubby.
From what I understand there were tunnels to the underground structure. One boy went in from one side and one the other, George waited for the Jamie and Wayne to shimmy their way in and he was next. Ian bringing up the rear. And then it collapsed and Jamie and Wayne were no where to be seen.
Ian saw an arm sticking up and pulled Goeorge free, he then started digging with his bare hands and he sent George for help. George as a little 7 year old had to run a mile in the searing heat to the Roadhouse to get help. He said, of that moment
"You know how you enter somewhere and their is complete silence, that was what it was like"
George had ran to the Roadhouse and yelled for help.
First came the dead silence, shocked silence, and then there was uproar, chairs scraped and fell over as men rushed to help.
They brought shovels and bars and themselves to help. It took them an hour to dig the boys bodies out and Wayne and Jamie had suffocated. Their lungs full of sand, their necks broken. Ian's hands were bleeding from the digging.
And Jackie and I knew nothing of this as we ran towards our Dad waiting at the front gate for us. He was crying.
He was so kind my Dad, a real softie but even so to see him crying was strange. He hugged us up and told us that there had been a terrible accident and that our brother Jamie and his best friend were both dead.
How do you explain death to a 5 year old ? I cried and cried but I still thought it was a mistake and that the unbelievable had not happened.
Things became a blur after that. we were taken to a school Teachers house where all around us was noise and chaos and we slept there.
And the next day journalists from the papers came and took photos of us grieving kids on the front lawn.
I remember the bindii, (vicious 3 corner hard prickles) bit into my feet as I crossed the lawn. We, the kids, just stood there like dumb animals as they took our photos. I have never seen the sense of this sort of intrusion at a time like that.
My Mother had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised, they allowed her to keep David with her.
It was decided we would be sent away to another Teachers house in the Adelaide Hills. But first would be the funeral. The whole town of Port Augusta, just about, would be there.
To lose two young boys in a town the size of Port Augusta in 1957, was a huge thing. I was not allowed to go to the funeral or see Jamies body.
Dad left me and David in the car when he went to view the body, with a warning to stay put. But I couldn't. I crossed the road by myself (very brave for me as I had been run over earlier that year) and opened the door to the funeral place.
The door was heavy and wooden and I struggled with it.
I was met with a hushed silence and entered. I had to see my brother.
Dad kindly grabbed me, the others didn't want me to see, I remember the cool darkness of the room and was aware of others there, adults, crying.
Dad held me up in his arms and showed me Jamie, lying there so peacefully in the satin lined coffin. And I knew they were all mistaken.
Jamies asleep, he's not dead, he is just asleep"
Dad shook with sobs as he held me and I scrambled to get down.
I loved being in my Dad's arms. There it was safe and warm and protective. I would often pretend to be asleep when coming home from the drive ins or picture house, and I knew I would be carried by Dad in to my bed from the car. I loved that feeling.
There were a plague of tiny cockroaches at that time in Port Augusta and whenever we turned a light on, literally hundreds would scurry under furniture. I never like that scurrying, it frightened me, so it was much better if Dad carried me and put me to bed.
But I wanted down this time from my Dad's arms. I was anxious to announce my news, that I alone had discovered.
"Jamies just sleeping", I said.
I was fierce with hands clenched and tight. I who could not say boo to a goose and hid behind my Mum when visitors came to the house stood in front of those people and told them,
"He's just sleeping",
couldn't they hear me.???
and looked around at these silly people who were crying. Jamie was just asleep, they were mistaken.
I was led outside by the hand.
After that I remember very little except for the house where we were taken in the Adelaide Hills. The lady there smacked me. I had never been smacked for anything in my life.
My Mother and Father came to fetch us after three months and Jackie told Mum I had been smacked. Mum went ape shit, Dad and Mum never smacked their children. as far as they were concerned violence or abuse was not part of their make up.
Mum ripped shreds off the lady and we left. I was never more glad of anything in my life.
While us kids were there we went to the switchboard that the lady manned. It was a room with a huge board with all plug in switches snaking on the end of black long wires.
we had a ball pulling them all out and rehooking up in other sockets. Oh, My God we got in so much trouble and that is when I was smacked on the legs.
Jackie wasn't, she was there. And the womans daughter. I was glad after that I had done it as that lady deserved to be punished and that was our way of declaring war on her and her snitch of a daughter.
Jackie and I would normally never do anything wrong, but my rebellion had started with Jamie and has continued to this day lol Nette
