Girl Of The Fifties
Without Prejudice
It was the fifties and I was growing up, by the end of the decade I was turning 7. It was a decade of what would be the beginning of life and the ending of one and I ran as an innocent protected little girl, allowed to twirl and stretch my legs to the back of my head.
Jackie and I were fanatical dancers and swimmers and competitors for everything. Mum and Dad's approval or desire. I was the innocent one dragging behind my older Sister's prettiness and talented singing.
I would watch her even at 12 to see how she acted and acted accordingly. We went everywhere together, crying at West End Story, watching in Todd A Vision, South Pacific and Oliver.
For Jackies 16th, Mum and Dad took her to the Sydney Hilton for dinner. She dressed in an elegant lemon cocktail dress and I was so jealous of her grown up dress and outing.
By the time I was that age I would have started work and was careening towards my chosen life, family and children.
Jackie took me along to see Blue Hawaii and we went 16 times and I could have told you most lines of the dialogue. We went into Sydney City on our own, taking the train into Town on our own, feeling very grown up. The last time waiting hours for dad to come and pick us up.
Jackie was the biggest Elvis fan and gyrated around our room to all his hits. I was a bit too young to see the fascination in those swivelling hips of his, but Jackie loved him with a passion.
I thought he was a bit old and his black wavy hair did nothing for me, I thought he was handsome but not as handsome as my Dad. Dad was going through his own nightmare, his body breaking out in huge boils.
In the end he said he broke open a bullet and swallowed sulphur to rid himself of them. He also swam in big balloon trunks at our salt swimming pool at Manly. Mum worked as a waitress for a Greek Restaurant there and the owner said ,
"I love you Natuwie" and dad explained there was no difference in the Greek language between I love you and I like you.
We would pick Mum up late on Sunday nights, driving through the hot traffic and enjoying the breeze from the sea. There was no explanation as to why Dad was covered in boils unless it was just stress.
Having to take care of his large brood and a "highly Strung", wife. Mum was the mover and shaker and Dad went along for the ride. And what a ride it was.
She was unstable at the best of times and we kids learned very quickly to keep secrets and not to talk of many things as they might upset her. So we talked amongst ourselves, so many of us. Ian born in 1945 and Jackie 1948, Jamie who had died born 1946, born one year after Ian and dying in 1957.
There was George 19 months older than I and then me and then David. Helen to be born 14 years after me and in the UK. So in the Sydney days, there were five of us kids and we were always classified as a large family and a poor one.
Getting by most of the time on not much food and accelerated learning from our two brainy parents. they could out match us in any way with school work and helping us with homework and high brow conversation.
When we presented at each school, 17 in total for me, we were classed as an oddity with our funny little accents and our intelligence and our hand me down clothes. I have overcompensated for it now and have literally heaps of them and shoes that threaten to take over my life.
But I love them and collect them just admiring them sometimes, their beauty, recognising fashion is a form of art and so is being a woman.
It was struggle for me to become a girly girl as up to the age of 10, sport and swimming was my life. And running with the boys as Jackie was too far above me in age.
I remember she made me a beautiful book when i was 10, full of Elvis and Cliff Richard pictures and I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't like either.
The Beatles had exploded on to the music scene by the time I was 10 and I loved them with a passion. Their funny mop hair and guitar thrashing suited me better and I collected my own posters.
My Dad when living on the Gold Coast being a musicians agent for a while. he had the honour of being in the Pix People magazine as the man that had knocked back the Beatles touring Australia before they were the massive stars they were to become.
Other acts were touring from Britain who worked for 5 pounds an hour, whereas the Beatles agent wanted say 15 pounds. I remember Dad, being a Scot went for the bargain acts. So the Story in Pix People said he was the "sorriest Man in Australia, which I am sure he was.
Our lives were built on sticky tape and rubber bands and when things went wrong they went very wrong. The wheels coming off the wagon frequently and we would be left with a depressed Mother and a Dad gone.
The worst time was in Main Beach. I am not sure even now what happened but I remember the power being cut off and us playing charades by candlelight, supposedly to "cheer us up".
I think Dad was in jail. Something about being an undischarged bankrupt and writing a cheque. I am sure he went to jail for fraud and Mum depressed asked me to take back an empty cream bottle to the shop and I was too ashamed to go.
I walked back towards the house and a female neighbour asked me if anything was alright and I ducked my head and said,
"Yes,"
she asked if my mother was OK and I said,
" yes ",
again, thinking of the frightened woman lying on the bed in the darkened room dying for a cigarette , that is why she had asked me to take the cream bottle back for a few pence.
Something happened after that, Ian made some money and we ate again, the power went back on and Dad came home.
It was wearing and as I write this I still feel the sadness and despair I felt at that time, So sorry for my Mum but enraged by her at the same time.
Dad I would come to hate for a while when I was an arrogant 14 year old. I was so arrogant that walking up town in Wakefield and thinking I was so intelligent and knew just about everything there was to know.
What a dumb girl I was in so many ways, or maybe just too innocent. I lived in the world of imagination and still do when I write.
But then I was a dreamy little girl who read a lot. And i did voraciously, scouring every bedroom for books the rest of the family had lying around. Reading them and returning them before they realised they were missing.
No one could read as fast as I could, nor write either, apart from Jamie, who had died aged 11. I started winning prizes for my writing and at that stage I was "cribbing" from Enid Blyton . My stories were of the bad picnic variety, very stilted and self conscious.
It took me years to find my own voice. There is so much of your own self in your writing, that I struggled with it. I won first prize in mature age HSC, the Humanities section for Excellence in English and I knew I could write but had a tendency to just cruise through it, which came across as arrogance.
So I really struggled with finding my own voice until my brothers told me to write. Then and only could I cross the barrier of self consciousness that overcomes you when you write.
You have to turn off the ego and mind chatter and enter another world, the world of imagination, where a wardrobe becomes a portal to another world, that is the hardest thing ever. I read Steven Kings book "On Writing", from cover to cover so many times.
He wrote horror which is a struggle for any writer and I admire his writing, especially Carrie, who was a character he loathed at first. His wife picking up his screwed up story and saying he should finish it as she liked it.
It was his first success and his agent had sold the film rights. I find I'm better at writing fact, as my recall is detailed, fine detailed. I now find it hard to write fiction. So things have changed a lot.
And finally I do it because I love it. I am like that, I only do the things I love, now. Having to conform as a woman for so long I love being free to do what I want. Singledom is a lot of fun and although there are times I am alone and feel I should meet someone I am not sure I am ready.
I don't know I hope to sort it out in the next 12 months, in the mean time, it's kids, babies, "Highly Strung", daughter, ( hmmm. tell you anything ?", other daughters, partners, extended family, friends, )
We are helping people, Deb, Alena and I, Yvette is the reality check, being a pessimist and realist and saying it like no other. She stays a steady course, mostly, but occasionally her wheels come off, like any single Mother of 7. But for the most she copes very well.
She pretends she doesn't but she does with a bit of friendship and support. I would hate to be living her life without help. No woman would cope, kids being relentless.
She has brought all males and once they reach a certain age she demands they work, which they do. She knows she's been a welfare Mother out of necessity. To make her boys into Men, and she expects everything from them.
Tough as old nails which just covers up a gooey mess underneath and she will never admit it. She cries the least of any female I have met. Just shrugging off lies and perfidy about her and bearing great sorrow. It's hard to be her and Mummy's go to the sickest first, so I am trying to let be just be herself more.
Love Janette
It was the fifties and I was growing up, by the end of the decade I was turning 7. It was a decade of what would be the beginning of life and the ending of one and I ran as an innocent protected little girl, allowed to twirl and stretch my legs to the back of my head.
Jackie and I were fanatical dancers and swimmers and competitors for everything. Mum and Dad's approval or desire. I was the innocent one dragging behind my older Sister's prettiness and talented singing.
I would watch her even at 12 to see how she acted and acted accordingly. We went everywhere together, crying at West End Story, watching in Todd A Vision, South Pacific and Oliver.
For Jackies 16th, Mum and Dad took her to the Sydney Hilton for dinner. She dressed in an elegant lemon cocktail dress and I was so jealous of her grown up dress and outing.
By the time I was that age I would have started work and was careening towards my chosen life, family and children.
Jackie took me along to see Blue Hawaii and we went 16 times and I could have told you most lines of the dialogue. We went into Sydney City on our own, taking the train into Town on our own, feeling very grown up. The last time waiting hours for dad to come and pick us up.
Jackie was the biggest Elvis fan and gyrated around our room to all his hits. I was a bit too young to see the fascination in those swivelling hips of his, but Jackie loved him with a passion.
I thought he was a bit old and his black wavy hair did nothing for me, I thought he was handsome but not as handsome as my Dad. Dad was going through his own nightmare, his body breaking out in huge boils.
In the end he said he broke open a bullet and swallowed sulphur to rid himself of them. He also swam in big balloon trunks at our salt swimming pool at Manly. Mum worked as a waitress for a Greek Restaurant there and the owner said ,
"I love you Natuwie" and dad explained there was no difference in the Greek language between I love you and I like you.
We would pick Mum up late on Sunday nights, driving through the hot traffic and enjoying the breeze from the sea. There was no explanation as to why Dad was covered in boils unless it was just stress.
Having to take care of his large brood and a "highly Strung", wife. Mum was the mover and shaker and Dad went along for the ride. And what a ride it was.
She was unstable at the best of times and we kids learned very quickly to keep secrets and not to talk of many things as they might upset her. So we talked amongst ourselves, so many of us. Ian born in 1945 and Jackie 1948, Jamie who had died born 1946, born one year after Ian and dying in 1957.
There was George 19 months older than I and then me and then David. Helen to be born 14 years after me and in the UK. So in the Sydney days, there were five of us kids and we were always classified as a large family and a poor one.
Getting by most of the time on not much food and accelerated learning from our two brainy parents. they could out match us in any way with school work and helping us with homework and high brow conversation.
When we presented at each school, 17 in total for me, we were classed as an oddity with our funny little accents and our intelligence and our hand me down clothes. I have overcompensated for it now and have literally heaps of them and shoes that threaten to take over my life.
But I love them and collect them just admiring them sometimes, their beauty, recognising fashion is a form of art and so is being a woman.
It was struggle for me to become a girly girl as up to the age of 10, sport and swimming was my life. And running with the boys as Jackie was too far above me in age.
I remember she made me a beautiful book when i was 10, full of Elvis and Cliff Richard pictures and I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't like either.
The Beatles had exploded on to the music scene by the time I was 10 and I loved them with a passion. Their funny mop hair and guitar thrashing suited me better and I collected my own posters.
My Dad when living on the Gold Coast being a musicians agent for a while. he had the honour of being in the Pix People magazine as the man that had knocked back the Beatles touring Australia before they were the massive stars they were to become.
Other acts were touring from Britain who worked for 5 pounds an hour, whereas the Beatles agent wanted say 15 pounds. I remember Dad, being a Scot went for the bargain acts. So the Story in Pix People said he was the "sorriest Man in Australia, which I am sure he was.
Our lives were built on sticky tape and rubber bands and when things went wrong they went very wrong. The wheels coming off the wagon frequently and we would be left with a depressed Mother and a Dad gone.
The worst time was in Main Beach. I am not sure even now what happened but I remember the power being cut off and us playing charades by candlelight, supposedly to "cheer us up".
I think Dad was in jail. Something about being an undischarged bankrupt and writing a cheque. I am sure he went to jail for fraud and Mum depressed asked me to take back an empty cream bottle to the shop and I was too ashamed to go.
I walked back towards the house and a female neighbour asked me if anything was alright and I ducked my head and said,
"Yes,"
she asked if my mother was OK and I said,
" yes ",
again, thinking of the frightened woman lying on the bed in the darkened room dying for a cigarette , that is why she had asked me to take the cream bottle back for a few pence.
Something happened after that, Ian made some money and we ate again, the power went back on and Dad came home.
It was wearing and as I write this I still feel the sadness and despair I felt at that time, So sorry for my Mum but enraged by her at the same time.
Dad I would come to hate for a while when I was an arrogant 14 year old. I was so arrogant that walking up town in Wakefield and thinking I was so intelligent and knew just about everything there was to know.
What a dumb girl I was in so many ways, or maybe just too innocent. I lived in the world of imagination and still do when I write.
But then I was a dreamy little girl who read a lot. And i did voraciously, scouring every bedroom for books the rest of the family had lying around. Reading them and returning them before they realised they were missing.
No one could read as fast as I could, nor write either, apart from Jamie, who had died aged 11. I started winning prizes for my writing and at that stage I was "cribbing" from Enid Blyton . My stories were of the bad picnic variety, very stilted and self conscious.
It took me years to find my own voice. There is so much of your own self in your writing, that I struggled with it. I won first prize in mature age HSC, the Humanities section for Excellence in English and I knew I could write but had a tendency to just cruise through it, which came across as arrogance.
So I really struggled with finding my own voice until my brothers told me to write. Then and only could I cross the barrier of self consciousness that overcomes you when you write.
You have to turn off the ego and mind chatter and enter another world, the world of imagination, where a wardrobe becomes a portal to another world, that is the hardest thing ever. I read Steven Kings book "On Writing", from cover to cover so many times.
He wrote horror which is a struggle for any writer and I admire his writing, especially Carrie, who was a character he loathed at first. His wife picking up his screwed up story and saying he should finish it as she liked it.
It was his first success and his agent had sold the film rights. I find I'm better at writing fact, as my recall is detailed, fine detailed. I now find it hard to write fiction. So things have changed a lot.
And finally I do it because I love it. I am like that, I only do the things I love, now. Having to conform as a woman for so long I love being free to do what I want. Singledom is a lot of fun and although there are times I am alone and feel I should meet someone I am not sure I am ready.
I don't know I hope to sort it out in the next 12 months, in the mean time, it's kids, babies, "Highly Strung", daughter, ( hmmm. tell you anything ?", other daughters, partners, extended family, friends, )
We are helping people, Deb, Alena and I, Yvette is the reality check, being a pessimist and realist and saying it like no other. She stays a steady course, mostly, but occasionally her wheels come off, like any single Mother of 7. But for the most she copes very well.
She pretends she doesn't but she does with a bit of friendship and support. I would hate to be living her life without help. No woman would cope, kids being relentless.
She has brought all males and once they reach a certain age she demands they work, which they do. She knows she's been a welfare Mother out of necessity. To make her boys into Men, and she expects everything from them.
Tough as old nails which just covers up a gooey mess underneath and she will never admit it. She cries the least of any female I have met. Just shrugging off lies and perfidy about her and bearing great sorrow. It's hard to be her and Mummy's go to the sickest first, so I am trying to let be just be herself more.
Love Janette
