Canowindra 2
Without Prejudice
We were kids that read books as entertainment and loved The Famous Five, Secret Seven, Billy Bunter, secret clubs and midnight feasts, gorsh bushes big enough to hide in, we improvised but I was never satisfied. And had a chance to see Gorsh bushes in the UK on the Yorkshire moors, bleak desolate, read freezing.
I lived in my imagination, every book I read I would become the book, Tom Sawyer, The water babies, the chimney sweep, and my favourite of all time "The wind in the willows" oh that book was everything to me when I was 7-8. I loved the kindly badger Ratty and Mole, so sweet and furry, Jackie said I was nuts and tried to rip it out of my hands.
I loved Milly Molly Mandy as well with her big family, Grandma, Grandad
both sets and Aunties and Uncles and cousins, I probably envied her as we had no Family and I felt it, missing something and when I went to Yorkshire and Scotland to meet them, I felt like I already knew them.
I Had always known them, my ancestors, my blood, looking like me and talking like me and habits like me. (Ian always says all of us have the habit of sweeping crumbs on the floor, instead of gathering them up in cloth or hand.) I reckon thats an ancestor thing, right there, sweeping crumbs on to the floor of a hut ot cave, or we are all just dirty pigs!
And we ran into the sand hills and bare blocks of dry bushes, discovering and hiding, I was always the fearless George from the famous Five, strong, like a boy, which was just fine as while Jackie remained at home sprouting breasts I sure wasn't. Quite the opposite in fact, I was concave, my ribs stuck out and I can remember stretching out my arms in the lengthening shadows on the road, made by the Poplar trees behind us.
We were warm, wearing only speedos, faded from too much chlorine, and in summer that was all we wore. We'd been to the dairy, to inspect some kittens, the dairy smelling of warm milk,
And My arms outstretched looked like twigs, and I marvelled at their tininess, but we were all like that George, David and I. George grew pecs and had a real swimmers body, broad shouldered, flat abdomen, David was like a little Biafran, no shape just skinny and I was like a boy,
We all used to bathe together and when they both started getting rude I got out of there. Boys, disgusting! My brothers were never crude boys, more dirty and annoying, they always wanted to win at everything and sulked if me, a girl, beat them, which I would and then sit on their backs in the dirt, so they couldn't move. And they would get red faced and cry, the big sooks.
And George would dob on me and so would Jackie. In fact George ticked me off when I first said "Shit", clouting me and threatening to tell Dad and Mum, I was 14, hallo! Those sorts of words were not allowed in our house. Only by parents and only as bad as Shit, like ,
"Mum, whats for dinner"
"Shit with sugar on"
"Again!"
Or the day Dad gashed his toes in the Mower blades, there was lot of "Shit", that day, ( No shoes )...and on Bonfire night when the Catherine wheel came off the paling fence and chased my hapless Dad around the backyard, us kids marvelling at his speed. ( he nailed the thing on in the first place ) It turned where he turned, his face set and white, running.
And we refused to eat the duck they killed one Christmas, as it was our pet and we sulked for ages. Mum livid as she had to pluck the ****** thing, and we couldn't get in the laundry that day as she was in there covered in steam, red faced plucking every feather out of that ***** bird. She wasn't happy that day. Nor the one
Where she had to wash, big copper set alight and a big old round washing machine with a mangle. Mention a mangle to a woman and she will turn white and tremble. the amount of times mum caught her arm in that mangle was countless and she had the blue bruises, to prove it..
She hated it, so Dad bought her an auto one, that washed and spun and she was in seventh heaven. Until one day when she reached down to extract something down the back of it and over wobbled and spent the next 3 hours in that position until Dad came home for lunch, luckily. He said he thought all his Christmases had come at once, wickedly to the boys and I never understood it till years later
We were kids that read books as entertainment and loved The Famous Five, Secret Seven, Billy Bunter, secret clubs and midnight feasts, gorsh bushes big enough to hide in, we improvised but I was never satisfied. And had a chance to see Gorsh bushes in the UK on the Yorkshire moors, bleak desolate, read freezing.
I lived in my imagination, every book I read I would become the book, Tom Sawyer, The water babies, the chimney sweep, and my favourite of all time "The wind in the willows" oh that book was everything to me when I was 7-8. I loved the kindly badger Ratty and Mole, so sweet and furry, Jackie said I was nuts and tried to rip it out of my hands.
I loved Milly Molly Mandy as well with her big family, Grandma, Grandad
both sets and Aunties and Uncles and cousins, I probably envied her as we had no Family and I felt it, missing something and when I went to Yorkshire and Scotland to meet them, I felt like I already knew them.
I Had always known them, my ancestors, my blood, looking like me and talking like me and habits like me. (Ian always says all of us have the habit of sweeping crumbs on the floor, instead of gathering them up in cloth or hand.) I reckon thats an ancestor thing, right there, sweeping crumbs on to the floor of a hut ot cave, or we are all just dirty pigs!
And we ran into the sand hills and bare blocks of dry bushes, discovering and hiding, I was always the fearless George from the famous Five, strong, like a boy, which was just fine as while Jackie remained at home sprouting breasts I sure wasn't. Quite the opposite in fact, I was concave, my ribs stuck out and I can remember stretching out my arms in the lengthening shadows on the road, made by the Poplar trees behind us.
We were warm, wearing only speedos, faded from too much chlorine, and in summer that was all we wore. We'd been to the dairy, to inspect some kittens, the dairy smelling of warm milk,
And My arms outstretched looked like twigs, and I marvelled at their tininess, but we were all like that George, David and I. George grew pecs and had a real swimmers body, broad shouldered, flat abdomen, David was like a little Biafran, no shape just skinny and I was like a boy,
We all used to bathe together and when they both started getting rude I got out of there. Boys, disgusting! My brothers were never crude boys, more dirty and annoying, they always wanted to win at everything and sulked if me, a girl, beat them, which I would and then sit on their backs in the dirt, so they couldn't move. And they would get red faced and cry, the big sooks.
And George would dob on me and so would Jackie. In fact George ticked me off when I first said "Shit", clouting me and threatening to tell Dad and Mum, I was 14, hallo! Those sorts of words were not allowed in our house. Only by parents and only as bad as Shit, like ,
"Mum, whats for dinner"
"Shit with sugar on"
"Again!"
Or the day Dad gashed his toes in the Mower blades, there was lot of "Shit", that day, ( No shoes )...and on Bonfire night when the Catherine wheel came off the paling fence and chased my hapless Dad around the backyard, us kids marvelling at his speed. ( he nailed the thing on in the first place ) It turned where he turned, his face set and white, running.
And we refused to eat the duck they killed one Christmas, as it was our pet and we sulked for ages. Mum livid as she had to pluck the ****** thing, and we couldn't get in the laundry that day as she was in there covered in steam, red faced plucking every feather out of that ***** bird. She wasn't happy that day. Nor the one
Where she had to wash, big copper set alight and a big old round washing machine with a mangle. Mention a mangle to a woman and she will turn white and tremble. the amount of times mum caught her arm in that mangle was countless and she had the blue bruises, to prove it..
She hated it, so Dad bought her an auto one, that washed and spun and she was in seventh heaven. Until one day when she reached down to extract something down the back of it and over wobbled and spent the next 3 hours in that position until Dad came home for lunch, luckily. He said he thought all his Christmases had come at once, wickedly to the boys and I never understood it till years later
