Passionate Talent
Without Prejudice
Everyone has something , some talent that makes them unique. If you delve hard enough they will tell you what it is. Often it's a secret longing. If it's talent it will shine through, push it's way forward to the frontal lobe of the brain. And it will conquer shyness and the well meaning opinion of others. I love the fact that some people can sing. I would love to be able to sing. But it's not my talent. My words are. My words force me out into the open and my opinions or stories and I can not silence the voice my words create, as they are me.
My sister Jackie is a fabulous singer and I envy her so much for that. My Dad too was a talented muso and singer. He could play a 24 string Hawaiian guitar, write music, read it, play it. On stage he and Jackie were electrifying. Ian too, my older brother can play and sing and now retired plays in a band and loves it. He knows already he is incredibly brainy, so he shyly brings out his other side and he is good.
My grand daughter Jade sings as well, belting out a sing by Adele with easy aplomb and we are in awe of her voice. Talent, will always come out if its true talent and not just some activity that parents force their children into. Hoping to live their lives vicariously through their child. Their failed hopes and dreams pinned on to the next generation with no regard for what their child wants.
It's good to explore a child's dreams and ambitions as they can come very young. Some come unbidden like Jade's. She grabbed a microphone when she was only 4 and sang her heart out to a bunch of shoppers at Myers in the city one day and luckily my sister Jackie was with me. She said as a singer herself '
"She's got talent"
Ever since I was aware of the world I was aware of music. And I was aware that Jackie was "The Talent" in our family of that, a talent Dad nurtured. I came into my own talent when I had my first story published at age 10. I won 11 shillings and sixpence for a story I sent in to the Courier Mails Children's essay competition. When I won I was so excited and so grateful.
Some body liked my words. I was pretty much cribbing off Enid Blyton in those days with her English "Proper" way of speaking. I then wrote a story on the Queens visit to the Gold Coast and I won a school prize. Winning came easy to me, especially at school and I never saw it as odd. I just had the memory and the reading skills to reach the top academically.
My brothers made me competitive, very competitive and I wanted to be "Top Girl" and sit at the Head Of The Class. So I did. I studied harder, read faster and could out strip the competition by miles. And was aware of it but it was just something I had and people would accuse me of cheating or not being able to read as fast as I could. To me that was not a talent, that was just sheer hard work.
I was one of those revolting kids that liked to do homework, liked to be Teachers Pet but also liked to be popular. Cool, like the other kids. At primary that was not a drama but when I went to a very proper Grammar School in England for 4 years I was bottom of the class, or close to it.
It was a good lesson in humbling me and I thought I was a complete idiot for a while as I didn't know a word of French, Latin or Spanish. Had no idea of logarithms or geometry except the most basic things and I flopped and floundered like a fish out of water for a bout six months. I was 12. I developed my sporting skills instead and joined everything at Grammar School. Swimming, Hockey, Dance and Movement, Trampolining, Cross country running, sprinting, you name it I joined it.
Swimming was easy as I had been swimming since I was 7 and had won a Scholarship to be trained by a proper coach since I had been at The National Finals in Sydney aged 9. I had come from the Gold Coast where swimming was an every day exercise, in pool or sea. And the Grammar School, Thornes House had an indoor pool and I could swim all I wanted.
If I couldn't win academically I would win races and I did and became House Captain very quickly. Hockey I liked too except when snow covered the grounds and we were still expected to play, legs blue with cold in our gym skirts. Hefty female gym instructors at the side lines with their bulging unattractive calves in long socks and gym shorts. All with shrill "Joyce Grenfell" voices, who urged us on and I am sure they had sweet revenge on our sly teenage ways as they forced us to still play even when the snow was falling and you could barely see a thing.
I hated the communal changing rooms with girls stripping off and walking around naked. I dressed furtively and modestly, never having seen a naked female form before not even my own in a mirror. Such things were frowned on by my Mum. She never spoke of sex, never alluded to sex. sex was taboo in our house. My Father gave the Facts of life speech when I was 13 and I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. My little short chubby, Scottish Father talking to me of the birds and the bees and I had no idea, none, of what he was talking about.
I was smart however and my best friend Denise Edsen and I pored over books in the library to find out about sex ed and were no wiser after the reading. It was a mystery to us and we decided to leave the subject exactly where it was and just get on with having fun. Fun, being buying clothes, listening to music, going up town with "bad girls" that shop lifted, having a secret packet of cigarettes, ( you could buy them singly and children could buy them in those days )
My Mother caught me out of and I found out I had a new talent, lying. My Dad was a compulsive liar and lied a bout stuff he didn't even need to lie about, so I was very cautious about lying. My mother finding a brand new Max Factor pan stick make up in my bag and a packet of cigarettes. I lied and said they were a friends and my Mum would not have believed me for a minute but let it go.
But Jackie was still "The Star" as far as I was concerned and I grew jealous and admiring. Jealous of the attention Dad gave her, admiring of her hard work ethic and her sheer raw talent of singing. she was fabulous. Dad let me join the band and I was a crap singer but I loved being on stage and dressing up. I played the Tambourine, feeling ridiculous at first but then I just went with it.
Jackie and I looked pretty and we were both young so to Dad it was an added feature to his already incredible music talent which he loved to share with an audience. Nowhere was he more alive than when he was on stage. Only perhaps when he was training us to swim in relays or races was he more dedicated. He would get us up at 5am for training, take us there, as my Mother never drove. Timing us, urging us on, not allowing us to give up if we were tired or cold or hungry, which was often.
The fact that I made the State Finals in far off Sydney was a big deal to my parents and I came 5th in my final and they took me to Surfers Paradise as a reward for being in the final at all. That was to be a fantastic trip and Mum and Dad decided to uproot us again and moved to Surfers Paradise by the time I was almost 10. Surfers was exceptional back then in the 60's. Music was to be had at The Surfers Paradise beer Garden or Greenmount Beach every Sunday for free.
We would go to both places as a family, strict Family Time, unless Dad was rehearsing. He ran a music shop in the Lido arcade, Mum worked there too and they were such a popular couple. Ian worked in the shop and Jackie left school at 14 after she kicked her Maths Teacher in the shin and became a housekeeper to one of the richest families on the Gold Coast. I was top girl at Southport State shortly after I began there and stayed Top girl for almost 3 years and played softball and tennis, swam squad every Thursday night at a pool perched up on top of a building in Southport.
It was talent everywhere then as Jackie shone at her singing and played bass guitar, Dad spent 2 or 3 nights a week playing with The Maori High Five at their restaurant, at The Grand Hotel with the bluest comedian he had ever heard. And with Eris, at Cabarita, Eris, the first openly gay person I had ever met. He was a fantastic piano player and Dad was in his element playing with him as was Jackie, singing along.
Ever since I can remember we sang at home, Jackie and I starting with Sunday School songs, like Cavalry and Onward Christian Soldiers. We sang as we did the dishes, we sang after dinner, we sang all the time in any given situation, like a Glee Club. We endlessly loved our music, Jackie was fanatical about Elvis and I was a fanatical Beatles fan. Then Moody blues and The Rolling Stones, all the Mersey side singers.
The British Invasion hitting the shores of Australia in the 60's and music was forever changed. It was raw, it was rebellious and it exactly suited my age at that time. 10 to 11. I was in love with Paul McCartney, totally head over heels in love with him as only an 11 year old can be. I saw Hard Days night and thought it was weird but we all screamed anyway every time a Beatle was on screen which was often.
I had never been to a movie theatre where people made a noise before and this was fanatical screaming, for most of the two hours I was there. I was in London when Help came out and went to the movie with George, my brother, no screaming in proper England. I thought the Movie was so so but still loved The Beatles, passionately and then Moody Blues was Top Of The Pops when I arrived in the UK and I was in love with their song "Go Now".
England was full of powerful talent in those days. And American artists toured. We saw Bill Hayley and Wilson Pickett and Louis Armstrong, Roy Orbison with Dad at The Batley Variety Show. At the local Mecca Dance Hall on Saturday afternoons, there were artists like Peter Frampton fronting Traffic, The Herd, The Move, Dave, Dozy, Mick and Titch, The Animals, The Yard birds, The Who, the list went on and on and we could be as close to the band as we wanted and we wanted, my school friends and I.
The Bee Gees arrived in England and we knew them from the Surfers Paradise Beer Garden as The Brothers Gibb. Jackie had been asked out by Barry Gibb but didn't go, doh! They were a success when they hit the shores of the UK and we knew somehow they would be, such talented brothers, so dedicated to making it big.
Mum in the UK saw Tom Jones on Top Of The Pops for the first time and said.
"That boy, is going to be a star"
I didn't know what she saw in him at first, to me he was a bit too sexy, too powerful and his voice was a amazing but he was just "Too Big". I liked the skinny scrawny half fed waif type look, preferably hunched over in a long Jacket, with a cigarette hanging from his lips. The Bob Dylans. The Jose Felicianos type figures. Even Jim Morrison was a bit "Too Big", too powerful, too sexy. I longed for the weedy poetry type of singer.
But just like all girls my age at that time, I loved The Monkees number one and the Beatles number two. I realise now the Monkees were a made up band but I still love the songs Mike Nesmith wrote and sang and the Neil Diamond hits. The drug culture of LSD and Bennie's, started about then and that was not something I was interested in at all. If it was going to mess with your mind I was not touching, anything, and I would never get the opportunity anyway. We Grammar School girls thought a sip of Denise's parents whisky was beyond daring, or putting Menthol chewing gum in coke was supposed to get you "Off your Face" and we pretended it did.
The funny thing was we could drink alcohol at the Mecca, Lager and Lime being the drink of the day and it was so weak you could drink loads of it if you could afford it. We saved our pocket money for other things, however. Clothes, records, makeup, tights. We wanted to be the best dressed, the most cool, the most "made up". white thick pancake makeup that covered spots and white or frosted lipstick, with Tram Lines around our eyes.
I found I had a new talent, trend setting. I bought Lace knee high socks and wore them to school and the other girls had to get them. I wore a Duffel Coat undone when It wasn't trendy and that caught on. I rolled my box pleated Heavy wool uniform skirt up to knee length, so did others. I loosened my tie and let the knot hang down a little and untucked the white shirt to the outside and wore it like that until I was told to tuck it in.
I hated the Uniform, I hated the Straw boater we were expected to wear in Summer. I might have worn it once. I bought a basket to take school books to school in and that caught on. I did like the long School scarf we had to wear however and wore it everywhere "Up Town" as it marked me as a Grammar School girl and not a "roughneck", (The kids that went to ordinary schools). Mum let me have more money around then and dad was good for ten shillings if I washed his Bedford Van.
So I began buying my own clothes in Carnaby Street Fashion of Biba, and Mary Quant, Twiggie was an Icon then of fawn like beauty, tiny skinny, ethereal, one puff and she would blow away. Her Bambi like eyes edged in false lashes and loads of mascara, I slavishly followed. At 14 I had false eyelashes with peel off glue and PVC shiny eye liner that also peeled off. Clothes, Music (The choosing of) makeup became my talent then, at first too much. Too much make up is what every little girl chooses to do at the beginning.
Someone tells her in the end and then she tones it down. I also had a talent for avoiding boys. I had been avoiding boys all my life. I had brothers, 3 of, and as far as I was concerned boys were "dirt". The ages of any boy at school being soooooo important to my 14 year old brain. My age, callow youths with pimples and breaking voices and they were infantile. Letting off stink bombs in class, trying to gain the girls attention and we just ignored them, mostly.
The older boys of 18 were the ones to go after, or any handsome Teacher. even if he was too old and in his 20's. 18 year olds, the sixth Formers seemed so old. Like The Beach Boys who were old too. But Good Vibrations Hit That Summer and music changed again to softer ballads and a time of Peace and Happiness, the Hippy Movement arrived and I wore cow bells in my ears. I bought a Purple frilly Blouse with a daring plunging neckline and a Little Bo Peep type floral dress with matching bloomers.
We washed our hair in herbal shampoos and loved animals and sang to Scott McKenzies,
"If you're going to San Fransico, be sure to wear a flower in your hair. Bob Dylan was big and getting bigger as was Joan Baez and the Protest Movement began and then drugs arrived on the scene, especially LSD and we heard of horror stories of what it did to people. Suddenly things were not so innocent anymore, the Beatles broke up, there was War in the air. Through it all came songs like'
We will overcome"
Blowing In The Wind, the answers my friend.
"Eve of Destruction"
We listened and we watched in horror at napalmed villages burst into flame and children on fire ran down roads, screaming and naked. It all seemed so wrong. For the first time we were seeing on TV the horrors of War. A man executed in front of our eyes, shot in the head. the images burned into our retina's. Not wanting to watch but unable to turn away. The stories coming out of Vietnam were terrible and we watched and waited for someone to step in. To stop the madness.
I never wanted to write much then, I was too busy growing up and developing womanly talents that would stand me in good stead when I needed it. I did write a short novel in 4th Form which won a prize and was published by the School. It was my longing for Australia I poured into the book. I wrote of purple and red skies, the sunsets in South Australia and the pink and white tress of galahs and the roo Dad had shot that lay in our bath one morning. so very dead and so very beautiful, regal almost, in death.
But time was a wasting and I needed to grow up and fast, so I left school and went to work and found I had a talent for working harder and faster and more bored than anyone else. I reached boredom a lot faster than others and had to find a way of filling in 40 hours. I started as a mail order clerk and ended up being a clerk and the step up from that was the typing pool. Not one of my wanted goals.
I saw the women in the typing pool every day, heads down, headphones on, listening to the dictaphone, and I could not imagine anything more boring. When I arrived back in Australia I went straight to retail as a Junior at Myers, Children's books, then adult books and I helped out on Stationery at Christmas. Myers was a fabulous place for a 16 year old to be working at, there were plenty of us Juniors, we all got along and we had a good mix of males and females.
I went from there to Lindsays Target as the money was better. I was still in Chadstone, got engaged, got pregnant and married all in the one year. I was 17 and 18 by the time Debbie was born, 19 with Yvette and I had 4 girls by 24 and all under 6. Bob My ex husband now, threw money in the door and ran. Back to work, back to a life, back to routine and stable normality as I saw it and I was stuck at home with 4 kids.
Boy, that was a bad deal as far as I was concerned. But I had another hidden talent I hadn't been aware of. I was a great Mother. I loved and lived for my kids as there wasn't a lot of fun with Bob and the girls were fun and interesting and they were mine. I played with them endlessly as I was a baby myself and full of energy and the joy of living. My girls were my whole life. I loved them at every age, I loved them if they were naughty and good. I just loved being a Mother and I still do and I always will.
I was born to be a Mother and I have no idea where it came from as my Mother was not the greatest role model of a Mumsy Mum. She hated cooking, housework and sewing or knitting. She read books, My Mother and went out to soirees, chain smoking, never drinking, always elegant and lady like. She wore Chanel Number five always, was a total snob and was well loved for who she was, intelligent, bright, chatty Nat. A genius and a mad woman.
Something had happened to her either in her childhood or through the War. The War stuff we knew but we never knew what had happened to her as a child and we are never likely to find out. Her only remaining Sister does not like to talk of such things now. She blames My Dad for my Mothers death and it's very difficult. I wish now I had been more probing of my Scottish Aunts while they were alive, but they were also very genteel ladies, Scottish ladies, with the delightful accents, the Scottish Burr.
I could understand every word they said as I could Nev my Irish Fiance, even though he spoke very soft and fast. No one could understand him except me when he was sober and no one in the whole world could understand him when he was drunk. Then I do not joke he spoke in an unintelligible language that neither, Declan, his best friend or I could understand. Nev could speak several languages, Gaelic, Spanish being just 2 but others like Latin and French he could call on at any given time.
But mainly he spoke alcoholenese. A strange mix of impressions, dribbling mouth fulls of alcohol after the first 15 or so beers and that was the first hour. He was an unbelievable drunk and yet he was so worldly and intelligent. But at the end of the day he was a nasty drunk always coming down or recovering or back on the way up. I found I also had a great talent for picking the wrong men. I picked abusers, who I thought I could "save". I am over that phase of my life now and actually like being Single for the time being. I know someone wonderful will happen along one day, just appear in my life when I least expect it. But for now I am content ...
Love Janette
Everyone has something , some talent that makes them unique. If you delve hard enough they will tell you what it is. Often it's a secret longing. If it's talent it will shine through, push it's way forward to the frontal lobe of the brain. And it will conquer shyness and the well meaning opinion of others. I love the fact that some people can sing. I would love to be able to sing. But it's not my talent. My words are. My words force me out into the open and my opinions or stories and I can not silence the voice my words create, as they are me.
My sister Jackie is a fabulous singer and I envy her so much for that. My Dad too was a talented muso and singer. He could play a 24 string Hawaiian guitar, write music, read it, play it. On stage he and Jackie were electrifying. Ian too, my older brother can play and sing and now retired plays in a band and loves it. He knows already he is incredibly brainy, so he shyly brings out his other side and he is good.
My grand daughter Jade sings as well, belting out a sing by Adele with easy aplomb and we are in awe of her voice. Talent, will always come out if its true talent and not just some activity that parents force their children into. Hoping to live their lives vicariously through their child. Their failed hopes and dreams pinned on to the next generation with no regard for what their child wants.
It's good to explore a child's dreams and ambitions as they can come very young. Some come unbidden like Jade's. She grabbed a microphone when she was only 4 and sang her heart out to a bunch of shoppers at Myers in the city one day and luckily my sister Jackie was with me. She said as a singer herself '
"She's got talent"
Ever since I was aware of the world I was aware of music. And I was aware that Jackie was "The Talent" in our family of that, a talent Dad nurtured. I came into my own talent when I had my first story published at age 10. I won 11 shillings and sixpence for a story I sent in to the Courier Mails Children's essay competition. When I won I was so excited and so grateful.
Some body liked my words. I was pretty much cribbing off Enid Blyton in those days with her English "Proper" way of speaking. I then wrote a story on the Queens visit to the Gold Coast and I won a school prize. Winning came easy to me, especially at school and I never saw it as odd. I just had the memory and the reading skills to reach the top academically.
My brothers made me competitive, very competitive and I wanted to be "Top Girl" and sit at the Head Of The Class. So I did. I studied harder, read faster and could out strip the competition by miles. And was aware of it but it was just something I had and people would accuse me of cheating or not being able to read as fast as I could. To me that was not a talent, that was just sheer hard work.
I was one of those revolting kids that liked to do homework, liked to be Teachers Pet but also liked to be popular. Cool, like the other kids. At primary that was not a drama but when I went to a very proper Grammar School in England for 4 years I was bottom of the class, or close to it.
It was a good lesson in humbling me and I thought I was a complete idiot for a while as I didn't know a word of French, Latin or Spanish. Had no idea of logarithms or geometry except the most basic things and I flopped and floundered like a fish out of water for a bout six months. I was 12. I developed my sporting skills instead and joined everything at Grammar School. Swimming, Hockey, Dance and Movement, Trampolining, Cross country running, sprinting, you name it I joined it.
Swimming was easy as I had been swimming since I was 7 and had won a Scholarship to be trained by a proper coach since I had been at The National Finals in Sydney aged 9. I had come from the Gold Coast where swimming was an every day exercise, in pool or sea. And the Grammar School, Thornes House had an indoor pool and I could swim all I wanted.
If I couldn't win academically I would win races and I did and became House Captain very quickly. Hockey I liked too except when snow covered the grounds and we were still expected to play, legs blue with cold in our gym skirts. Hefty female gym instructors at the side lines with their bulging unattractive calves in long socks and gym shorts. All with shrill "Joyce Grenfell" voices, who urged us on and I am sure they had sweet revenge on our sly teenage ways as they forced us to still play even when the snow was falling and you could barely see a thing.
I hated the communal changing rooms with girls stripping off and walking around naked. I dressed furtively and modestly, never having seen a naked female form before not even my own in a mirror. Such things were frowned on by my Mum. She never spoke of sex, never alluded to sex. sex was taboo in our house. My Father gave the Facts of life speech when I was 13 and I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. My little short chubby, Scottish Father talking to me of the birds and the bees and I had no idea, none, of what he was talking about.
I was smart however and my best friend Denise Edsen and I pored over books in the library to find out about sex ed and were no wiser after the reading. It was a mystery to us and we decided to leave the subject exactly where it was and just get on with having fun. Fun, being buying clothes, listening to music, going up town with "bad girls" that shop lifted, having a secret packet of cigarettes, ( you could buy them singly and children could buy them in those days )
My Mother caught me out of and I found out I had a new talent, lying. My Dad was a compulsive liar and lied a bout stuff he didn't even need to lie about, so I was very cautious about lying. My mother finding a brand new Max Factor pan stick make up in my bag and a packet of cigarettes. I lied and said they were a friends and my Mum would not have believed me for a minute but let it go.
But Jackie was still "The Star" as far as I was concerned and I grew jealous and admiring. Jealous of the attention Dad gave her, admiring of her hard work ethic and her sheer raw talent of singing. she was fabulous. Dad let me join the band and I was a crap singer but I loved being on stage and dressing up. I played the Tambourine, feeling ridiculous at first but then I just went with it.
Jackie and I looked pretty and we were both young so to Dad it was an added feature to his already incredible music talent which he loved to share with an audience. Nowhere was he more alive than when he was on stage. Only perhaps when he was training us to swim in relays or races was he more dedicated. He would get us up at 5am for training, take us there, as my Mother never drove. Timing us, urging us on, not allowing us to give up if we were tired or cold or hungry, which was often.
The fact that I made the State Finals in far off Sydney was a big deal to my parents and I came 5th in my final and they took me to Surfers Paradise as a reward for being in the final at all. That was to be a fantastic trip and Mum and Dad decided to uproot us again and moved to Surfers Paradise by the time I was almost 10. Surfers was exceptional back then in the 60's. Music was to be had at The Surfers Paradise beer Garden or Greenmount Beach every Sunday for free.
We would go to both places as a family, strict Family Time, unless Dad was rehearsing. He ran a music shop in the Lido arcade, Mum worked there too and they were such a popular couple. Ian worked in the shop and Jackie left school at 14 after she kicked her Maths Teacher in the shin and became a housekeeper to one of the richest families on the Gold Coast. I was top girl at Southport State shortly after I began there and stayed Top girl for almost 3 years and played softball and tennis, swam squad every Thursday night at a pool perched up on top of a building in Southport.
It was talent everywhere then as Jackie shone at her singing and played bass guitar, Dad spent 2 or 3 nights a week playing with The Maori High Five at their restaurant, at The Grand Hotel with the bluest comedian he had ever heard. And with Eris, at Cabarita, Eris, the first openly gay person I had ever met. He was a fantastic piano player and Dad was in his element playing with him as was Jackie, singing along.
Ever since I can remember we sang at home, Jackie and I starting with Sunday School songs, like Cavalry and Onward Christian Soldiers. We sang as we did the dishes, we sang after dinner, we sang all the time in any given situation, like a Glee Club. We endlessly loved our music, Jackie was fanatical about Elvis and I was a fanatical Beatles fan. Then Moody blues and The Rolling Stones, all the Mersey side singers.
The British Invasion hitting the shores of Australia in the 60's and music was forever changed. It was raw, it was rebellious and it exactly suited my age at that time. 10 to 11. I was in love with Paul McCartney, totally head over heels in love with him as only an 11 year old can be. I saw Hard Days night and thought it was weird but we all screamed anyway every time a Beatle was on screen which was often.
I had never been to a movie theatre where people made a noise before and this was fanatical screaming, for most of the two hours I was there. I was in London when Help came out and went to the movie with George, my brother, no screaming in proper England. I thought the Movie was so so but still loved The Beatles, passionately and then Moody Blues was Top Of The Pops when I arrived in the UK and I was in love with their song "Go Now".
England was full of powerful talent in those days. And American artists toured. We saw Bill Hayley and Wilson Pickett and Louis Armstrong, Roy Orbison with Dad at The Batley Variety Show. At the local Mecca Dance Hall on Saturday afternoons, there were artists like Peter Frampton fronting Traffic, The Herd, The Move, Dave, Dozy, Mick and Titch, The Animals, The Yard birds, The Who, the list went on and on and we could be as close to the band as we wanted and we wanted, my school friends and I.
The Bee Gees arrived in England and we knew them from the Surfers Paradise Beer Garden as The Brothers Gibb. Jackie had been asked out by Barry Gibb but didn't go, doh! They were a success when they hit the shores of the UK and we knew somehow they would be, such talented brothers, so dedicated to making it big.
Mum in the UK saw Tom Jones on Top Of The Pops for the first time and said.
"That boy, is going to be a star"
I didn't know what she saw in him at first, to me he was a bit too sexy, too powerful and his voice was a amazing but he was just "Too Big". I liked the skinny scrawny half fed waif type look, preferably hunched over in a long Jacket, with a cigarette hanging from his lips. The Bob Dylans. The Jose Felicianos type figures. Even Jim Morrison was a bit "Too Big", too powerful, too sexy. I longed for the weedy poetry type of singer.
But just like all girls my age at that time, I loved The Monkees number one and the Beatles number two. I realise now the Monkees were a made up band but I still love the songs Mike Nesmith wrote and sang and the Neil Diamond hits. The drug culture of LSD and Bennie's, started about then and that was not something I was interested in at all. If it was going to mess with your mind I was not touching, anything, and I would never get the opportunity anyway. We Grammar School girls thought a sip of Denise's parents whisky was beyond daring, or putting Menthol chewing gum in coke was supposed to get you "Off your Face" and we pretended it did.
The funny thing was we could drink alcohol at the Mecca, Lager and Lime being the drink of the day and it was so weak you could drink loads of it if you could afford it. We saved our pocket money for other things, however. Clothes, records, makeup, tights. We wanted to be the best dressed, the most cool, the most "made up". white thick pancake makeup that covered spots and white or frosted lipstick, with Tram Lines around our eyes.
I found I had a new talent, trend setting. I bought Lace knee high socks and wore them to school and the other girls had to get them. I wore a Duffel Coat undone when It wasn't trendy and that caught on. I rolled my box pleated Heavy wool uniform skirt up to knee length, so did others. I loosened my tie and let the knot hang down a little and untucked the white shirt to the outside and wore it like that until I was told to tuck it in.
I hated the Uniform, I hated the Straw boater we were expected to wear in Summer. I might have worn it once. I bought a basket to take school books to school in and that caught on. I did like the long School scarf we had to wear however and wore it everywhere "Up Town" as it marked me as a Grammar School girl and not a "roughneck", (The kids that went to ordinary schools). Mum let me have more money around then and dad was good for ten shillings if I washed his Bedford Van.
So I began buying my own clothes in Carnaby Street Fashion of Biba, and Mary Quant, Twiggie was an Icon then of fawn like beauty, tiny skinny, ethereal, one puff and she would blow away. Her Bambi like eyes edged in false lashes and loads of mascara, I slavishly followed. At 14 I had false eyelashes with peel off glue and PVC shiny eye liner that also peeled off. Clothes, Music (The choosing of) makeup became my talent then, at first too much. Too much make up is what every little girl chooses to do at the beginning.
Someone tells her in the end and then she tones it down. I also had a talent for avoiding boys. I had been avoiding boys all my life. I had brothers, 3 of, and as far as I was concerned boys were "dirt". The ages of any boy at school being soooooo important to my 14 year old brain. My age, callow youths with pimples and breaking voices and they were infantile. Letting off stink bombs in class, trying to gain the girls attention and we just ignored them, mostly.
The older boys of 18 were the ones to go after, or any handsome Teacher. even if he was too old and in his 20's. 18 year olds, the sixth Formers seemed so old. Like The Beach Boys who were old too. But Good Vibrations Hit That Summer and music changed again to softer ballads and a time of Peace and Happiness, the Hippy Movement arrived and I wore cow bells in my ears. I bought a Purple frilly Blouse with a daring plunging neckline and a Little Bo Peep type floral dress with matching bloomers.
We washed our hair in herbal shampoos and loved animals and sang to Scott McKenzies,
"If you're going to San Fransico, be sure to wear a flower in your hair. Bob Dylan was big and getting bigger as was Joan Baez and the Protest Movement began and then drugs arrived on the scene, especially LSD and we heard of horror stories of what it did to people. Suddenly things were not so innocent anymore, the Beatles broke up, there was War in the air. Through it all came songs like'
We will overcome"
Blowing In The Wind, the answers my friend.
"Eve of Destruction"
We listened and we watched in horror at napalmed villages burst into flame and children on fire ran down roads, screaming and naked. It all seemed so wrong. For the first time we were seeing on TV the horrors of War. A man executed in front of our eyes, shot in the head. the images burned into our retina's. Not wanting to watch but unable to turn away. The stories coming out of Vietnam were terrible and we watched and waited for someone to step in. To stop the madness.
I never wanted to write much then, I was too busy growing up and developing womanly talents that would stand me in good stead when I needed it. I did write a short novel in 4th Form which won a prize and was published by the School. It was my longing for Australia I poured into the book. I wrote of purple and red skies, the sunsets in South Australia and the pink and white tress of galahs and the roo Dad had shot that lay in our bath one morning. so very dead and so very beautiful, regal almost, in death.
But time was a wasting and I needed to grow up and fast, so I left school and went to work and found I had a talent for working harder and faster and more bored than anyone else. I reached boredom a lot faster than others and had to find a way of filling in 40 hours. I started as a mail order clerk and ended up being a clerk and the step up from that was the typing pool. Not one of my wanted goals.
I saw the women in the typing pool every day, heads down, headphones on, listening to the dictaphone, and I could not imagine anything more boring. When I arrived back in Australia I went straight to retail as a Junior at Myers, Children's books, then adult books and I helped out on Stationery at Christmas. Myers was a fabulous place for a 16 year old to be working at, there were plenty of us Juniors, we all got along and we had a good mix of males and females.
I went from there to Lindsays Target as the money was better. I was still in Chadstone, got engaged, got pregnant and married all in the one year. I was 17 and 18 by the time Debbie was born, 19 with Yvette and I had 4 girls by 24 and all under 6. Bob My ex husband now, threw money in the door and ran. Back to work, back to a life, back to routine and stable normality as I saw it and I was stuck at home with 4 kids.
Boy, that was a bad deal as far as I was concerned. But I had another hidden talent I hadn't been aware of. I was a great Mother. I loved and lived for my kids as there wasn't a lot of fun with Bob and the girls were fun and interesting and they were mine. I played with them endlessly as I was a baby myself and full of energy and the joy of living. My girls were my whole life. I loved them at every age, I loved them if they were naughty and good. I just loved being a Mother and I still do and I always will.
I was born to be a Mother and I have no idea where it came from as my Mother was not the greatest role model of a Mumsy Mum. She hated cooking, housework and sewing or knitting. She read books, My Mother and went out to soirees, chain smoking, never drinking, always elegant and lady like. She wore Chanel Number five always, was a total snob and was well loved for who she was, intelligent, bright, chatty Nat. A genius and a mad woman.
Something had happened to her either in her childhood or through the War. The War stuff we knew but we never knew what had happened to her as a child and we are never likely to find out. Her only remaining Sister does not like to talk of such things now. She blames My Dad for my Mothers death and it's very difficult. I wish now I had been more probing of my Scottish Aunts while they were alive, but they were also very genteel ladies, Scottish ladies, with the delightful accents, the Scottish Burr.
I could understand every word they said as I could Nev my Irish Fiance, even though he spoke very soft and fast. No one could understand him except me when he was sober and no one in the whole world could understand him when he was drunk. Then I do not joke he spoke in an unintelligible language that neither, Declan, his best friend or I could understand. Nev could speak several languages, Gaelic, Spanish being just 2 but others like Latin and French he could call on at any given time.
But mainly he spoke alcoholenese. A strange mix of impressions, dribbling mouth fulls of alcohol after the first 15 or so beers and that was the first hour. He was an unbelievable drunk and yet he was so worldly and intelligent. But at the end of the day he was a nasty drunk always coming down or recovering or back on the way up. I found I also had a great talent for picking the wrong men. I picked abusers, who I thought I could "save". I am over that phase of my life now and actually like being Single for the time being. I know someone wonderful will happen along one day, just appear in my life when I least expect it. But for now I am content ...
Love Janette
