The Time has Come----The Walrus Said
Without Prejudice
I have always been timid. Not the ballsy gutsy woman I am today. As a child I was timid, fearful, peeping out from my Mammies back, just peeping, not really seeing. It started when I was 2. I'm guessing moving to a whole new country at that age was a bit daunting for a two year old. The Hostel in Adelaide was strange and dangerous. My family and I being British lumped in together with Polish and german and Yugoslavs. We heard of knife fights and people being injured, a spill out of the World War 2 tensions.
My parents were Upper Class brits, not by their Family Circumstances but by their intelligence. Both had served in World War 2 and both were smart, funny and adored their kids. Five of us litlle Scots Porridge Oats. We were made to feel proud of our backgrounds, British and Scottish and to go out in the world and make our mark. Timidity was not an option at home. I had to compete for attention in a large family, make my own niche.
Ian was incredibly bright. He seemed way above me in age and was a grown up to me from the time I was 4. I can remember him arriving home from Port Augusta Hospital one day. I was playing in the gutter outside our house and can remember him approaching me with his finger to his lips to hush my surprise at seeing him. He was supposed to be stying in Hospital after a cricketing accident. He just strolled up, ever casual, and said he walked home as he wanted to surprise Mum.
He seemed to me at that time to be almost an adult and he could have only been 11, but was so grown up it seemed to my babyish 4. Mum went to hospital shortly after that and it was never explained to us kids as to why. Just "nerves". The term they used in those days was "highly strung". My Mum, Nat a war casualty, not physically but mentally. Ian became the minder of the family during those times. I always had a feeling he alone with Dad knew what was wrong with Mum.
I started school and could read and write. I had fallen in love with the written word when I was about 3. A girl neighbour wrote a word in the dirt of the road outside our house and I was forever smitten. So jealous was I that this girl, who I considered "dumb" could read and write and was up to running writing when I couldn't even print. I remember long afternoons spent with my Mother while my baby brother David slept.
We looked at books ans Jackie said my Mother taught me to read and write before starting school. I don't remember the lessons but I remember the books. Huge volumes of History and religion and dictionaries that you could climb with your fingers. Gorgeous coloured plates of Jeusu wearing a crown of thorns, bleeding and fiery angels coming down from above, swords above their heads and wings on their backs. Encylcopedia's full of information on any subject.
There was no Janet and John with my Mother. It was staright into adult learning and explanation. Mum was that sort of Mother. Fiercely independent well before womens lib happened. She always ran her own course and I think Dad just followed. He was placid and happy go lucky, a dreamer, wise and practical. Mum was the flighty butterfly, always smoking, always talking and always just slightly hysterical. Dramatic. I can remember her tipping porridge over Ina's head one day at breakfast. And hurling dinner plates at dad's head when he was late home.
I can remember running after her when she left the house once. She was furious with dad over something and was leaving she said. I ran after her crying and begging her tot ake me with her. Which she did. I was terrified that she was really leaving, and she took me to the trots where dad came to pick us up from later. I can recall the relief I felt as Dad and Mum were back together. And felt the terror again when they left me home sleeping once and I realised I was in the house on my own with David, sleeping.
I hated being abandoned and they weren't gone long but long enough for me to be hysterical and almost rigid with fear by the time they arrived back. All my life I was surrounded by family. We went to school together, we played together, we were our own little clan of sibling rivalry. We competed for everything, Mum and Dads attention, for reading rights (I won on that one). for food, in games. There was only ever winning, coming second was never an option, failure was not an option. if we had a project from school it became a Family project.
Mum and Dad took the time and trouble to invest in their children. If we had a sports day Mum and Dad were there, a swimming meet, same. The only thing wrong with Mum. apart from being "highly strung" was her absolute belief in not being a Mumsy Mum or a joiner of anything. She didn't knit, sew or crochet. She hated cooking but did it. She didn't join commitees, she felt they were full of fat housewives that did as their husbands told them to do.
Mum was never ever going to be that. She was dark curly haired with laser bright blue eyes and if those eyes fixed on you, you knew you were in trouble. I was in trouble a lot for a shy little girl. I wasn't shy at home only at school. I was easilt intimidated but was also almost a genius at school. I was put up half way through prep, allowed to read anything I wanted from the library by the time I was 6 or 7. Understood complex words and sums and the answers just "popped" into my head. making amental leap each time. I could feel my brian popping, wanting to go the step further and further.
I was a woory wort type of kid, always anxious and always trying to stop people getting in to trouble, a veritable little "Henny Penny", who always thought the sky was about to fall in. I hid my dorrstop sandwiches so that other kids didn't see the bad lunch I had. I hid the pink wool Mum bought me for craft class as I was humiliated that I only had one colour and all the rest of the kids had many colours. I can rememeber hiding the pink wool in a paper bag I must have snuck out of the kitchen.
To be continued ....
I have always been timid. Not the ballsy gutsy woman I am today. As a child I was timid, fearful, peeping out from my Mammies back, just peeping, not really seeing. It started when I was 2. I'm guessing moving to a whole new country at that age was a bit daunting for a two year old. The Hostel in Adelaide was strange and dangerous. My family and I being British lumped in together with Polish and german and Yugoslavs. We heard of knife fights and people being injured, a spill out of the World War 2 tensions.
My parents were Upper Class brits, not by their Family Circumstances but by their intelligence. Both had served in World War 2 and both were smart, funny and adored their kids. Five of us litlle Scots Porridge Oats. We were made to feel proud of our backgrounds, British and Scottish and to go out in the world and make our mark. Timidity was not an option at home. I had to compete for attention in a large family, make my own niche.
Ian was incredibly bright. He seemed way above me in age and was a grown up to me from the time I was 4. I can remember him arriving home from Port Augusta Hospital one day. I was playing in the gutter outside our house and can remember him approaching me with his finger to his lips to hush my surprise at seeing him. He was supposed to be stying in Hospital after a cricketing accident. He just strolled up, ever casual, and said he walked home as he wanted to surprise Mum.
He seemed to me at that time to be almost an adult and he could have only been 11, but was so grown up it seemed to my babyish 4. Mum went to hospital shortly after that and it was never explained to us kids as to why. Just "nerves". The term they used in those days was "highly strung". My Mum, Nat a war casualty, not physically but mentally. Ian became the minder of the family during those times. I always had a feeling he alone with Dad knew what was wrong with Mum.
I started school and could read and write. I had fallen in love with the written word when I was about 3. A girl neighbour wrote a word in the dirt of the road outside our house and I was forever smitten. So jealous was I that this girl, who I considered "dumb" could read and write and was up to running writing when I couldn't even print. I remember long afternoons spent with my Mother while my baby brother David slept.
We looked at books ans Jackie said my Mother taught me to read and write before starting school. I don't remember the lessons but I remember the books. Huge volumes of History and religion and dictionaries that you could climb with your fingers. Gorgeous coloured plates of Jeusu wearing a crown of thorns, bleeding and fiery angels coming down from above, swords above their heads and wings on their backs. Encylcopedia's full of information on any subject.
There was no Janet and John with my Mother. It was staright into adult learning and explanation. Mum was that sort of Mother. Fiercely independent well before womens lib happened. She always ran her own course and I think Dad just followed. He was placid and happy go lucky, a dreamer, wise and practical. Mum was the flighty butterfly, always smoking, always talking and always just slightly hysterical. Dramatic. I can remember her tipping porridge over Ina's head one day at breakfast. And hurling dinner plates at dad's head when he was late home.
I can remember running after her when she left the house once. She was furious with dad over something and was leaving she said. I ran after her crying and begging her tot ake me with her. Which she did. I was terrified that she was really leaving, and she took me to the trots where dad came to pick us up from later. I can recall the relief I felt as Dad and Mum were back together. And felt the terror again when they left me home sleeping once and I realised I was in the house on my own with David, sleeping.
I hated being abandoned and they weren't gone long but long enough for me to be hysterical and almost rigid with fear by the time they arrived back. All my life I was surrounded by family. We went to school together, we played together, we were our own little clan of sibling rivalry. We competed for everything, Mum and Dads attention, for reading rights (I won on that one). for food, in games. There was only ever winning, coming second was never an option, failure was not an option. if we had a project from school it became a Family project.
Mum and Dad took the time and trouble to invest in their children. If we had a sports day Mum and Dad were there, a swimming meet, same. The only thing wrong with Mum. apart from being "highly strung" was her absolute belief in not being a Mumsy Mum or a joiner of anything. She didn't knit, sew or crochet. She hated cooking but did it. She didn't join commitees, she felt they were full of fat housewives that did as their husbands told them to do.
Mum was never ever going to be that. She was dark curly haired with laser bright blue eyes and if those eyes fixed on you, you knew you were in trouble. I was in trouble a lot for a shy little girl. I wasn't shy at home only at school. I was easilt intimidated but was also almost a genius at school. I was put up half way through prep, allowed to read anything I wanted from the library by the time I was 6 or 7. Understood complex words and sums and the answers just "popped" into my head. making amental leap each time. I could feel my brian popping, wanting to go the step further and further.
I was a woory wort type of kid, always anxious and always trying to stop people getting in to trouble, a veritable little "Henny Penny", who always thought the sky was about to fall in. I hid my dorrstop sandwiches so that other kids didn't see the bad lunch I had. I hid the pink wool Mum bought me for craft class as I was humiliated that I only had one colour and all the rest of the kids had many colours. I can rememeber hiding the pink wool in a paper bag I must have snuck out of the kitchen.
To be continued ....
