Keysborough in the 80's
Without Prejudice
It was carzy, Keysborough, in the 80's. Gone was the soothing seventies with its almosy hippy like, dreamlike quality. Looking back the 70's seemed so "Safe" or maybe it's my memory of it as such, just mine. I was still a child in the 70's, a child bride with 4 babies, then toddlers, at the end of the seventies By 1980, I was just 28, my youngest child three.
Countdown had begun, bringing Sky Hooks and "Livin in the 70"s". My brother Dave was into Status Quo, Black Sabbath, had hair a la Francis Rossi and swaggered his way into our world at 24.
He was bright and funny and had the nickname Grock, which he kept trying to tell me the meaning of and I would just totally ignore him. He came to stay with us a few times, once with his friend Roy, "Little Dick". a play on his last name Litterick. He and Dave were fabulous fun, carefree surfer dudes who were young and earning money any which way. Dave had a fabulous Sandman Van which he had sprayed with 12 coats of paint.
He had passed head of his class in Apprenticeship--- Spray Painting and Panle beating, but it was spraying that became his passion. in those days beautiful air brushed vans abounded. Dave went on to start his own business in Spray Painting and is fabulously successful and still just as funny. I have never met anyone who can tell a funny story as well as he. And he loves to share his knowledge and success to everyone. Although he doesn't want to be thought of as a guru and neither do we.
Elvis had been dead 3 years as we moved into the 80's, My Mum 4 years, a shocking thing that blew our world apart for a long time as she had committed suicide. She was desperately mentally ill and we didn't find it easy to understand her death at all. Mental issues were all hush hush in those days. The truly mad never question their sanity, nor make clear their intentions. The rest of us question our sanity all the time and make intentions very clear to each other.
The first death I recall that came around that time were two teenage boys from Keysborough. One shot himself and the other one died of a drug overdose. Drugs had entered into Keysborough, Dingley and Springvale with a vengeance and there was a total lack of things for Teenagers to do at that time. Little or no public ttransport, one swimmimg Pool way up in Noble Park. Both parents working to pay the mortgage.
There were suddenly a lot of bored kids in the 80's, in our area and bored kids experiment and these kids started with pinched alcohol, then ciggies, then MJ, then speed, then Heroin. Some of them, the supply was coming from God know's where, Springvale was close and was known to have heroin. When the first young boy died of an OD it was shocking. It was hushed up, like a guilty secret, his girlfriend devastated. And no one was saying what had actually happened.
I went to England in 1982 and returned a changed woman, having turned 30, while OS and ignoring the birthday all together. I didn't want to be thirty, nor did I want to be married any more. I wanted the girls but not him. My youngest had started school and I felt my time as full time Mum was nearly up. One question kept circling inside of my head at that time,
"Who was I and what did I want "
It was carzy, Keysborough, in the 80's. Gone was the soothing seventies with its almosy hippy like, dreamlike quality. Looking back the 70's seemed so "Safe" or maybe it's my memory of it as such, just mine. I was still a child in the 70's, a child bride with 4 babies, then toddlers, at the end of the seventies By 1980, I was just 28, my youngest child three.
Countdown had begun, bringing Sky Hooks and "Livin in the 70"s". My brother Dave was into Status Quo, Black Sabbath, had hair a la Francis Rossi and swaggered his way into our world at 24.
He was bright and funny and had the nickname Grock, which he kept trying to tell me the meaning of and I would just totally ignore him. He came to stay with us a few times, once with his friend Roy, "Little Dick". a play on his last name Litterick. He and Dave were fabulous fun, carefree surfer dudes who were young and earning money any which way. Dave had a fabulous Sandman Van which he had sprayed with 12 coats of paint.
He had passed head of his class in Apprenticeship--- Spray Painting and Panle beating, but it was spraying that became his passion. in those days beautiful air brushed vans abounded. Dave went on to start his own business in Spray Painting and is fabulously successful and still just as funny. I have never met anyone who can tell a funny story as well as he. And he loves to share his knowledge and success to everyone. Although he doesn't want to be thought of as a guru and neither do we.
Elvis had been dead 3 years as we moved into the 80's, My Mum 4 years, a shocking thing that blew our world apart for a long time as she had committed suicide. She was desperately mentally ill and we didn't find it easy to understand her death at all. Mental issues were all hush hush in those days. The truly mad never question their sanity, nor make clear their intentions. The rest of us question our sanity all the time and make intentions very clear to each other.
The first death I recall that came around that time were two teenage boys from Keysborough. One shot himself and the other one died of a drug overdose. Drugs had entered into Keysborough, Dingley and Springvale with a vengeance and there was a total lack of things for Teenagers to do at that time. Little or no public ttransport, one swimmimg Pool way up in Noble Park. Both parents working to pay the mortgage.
There were suddenly a lot of bored kids in the 80's, in our area and bored kids experiment and these kids started with pinched alcohol, then ciggies, then MJ, then speed, then Heroin. Some of them, the supply was coming from God know's where, Springvale was close and was known to have heroin. When the first young boy died of an OD it was shocking. It was hushed up, like a guilty secret, his girlfriend devastated. And no one was saying what had actually happened.
I went to England in 1982 and returned a changed woman, having turned 30, while OS and ignoring the birthday all together. I didn't want to be thirty, nor did I want to be married any more. I wanted the girls but not him. My youngest had started school and I felt my time as full time Mum was nearly up. One question kept circling inside of my head at that time,
"Who was I and what did I want "
