Gorgeous George
Without Prejudice
I am at my brother's house. Gorgeous George, or he thinks so anyway. I love it here. I have all the downstairs to myself and can write and write. He has lived here forever and anon. He was married and is now single and he loves the single life. He says he can come home, no one to disturb and sit around in his undies and scratch his balls if he so desires. Glad he doesn't do that when I am here.
We have always been best friends George and I. He's a great brother, as are all my brothers and without them I would not be here, writing. George and I are closest in age. 21 months between us and apparently when I was a baby he used to drink my bottles and then put them back in my crib.
We played cowboys and Indians together as little kids, he was Davy Crockett and I was Annie Oakley. I could get along with him when others couldn't. He would wallop me and I would wallop him straight back. He would let me hang around with him and his friends when I was a "girl" and most of his friends thought I was a nuisance.
He nearly died in the sand cave in that killed my brother James and best friend Wayne. George buried alive at 7, but my brother Ian managed to dig him out and then began searching for the other two. George was sent for help and it was over a mile he had to run. Running towards the Ampol Road House at Port Augusta. His lungs bursting, panicked and as he entered the service station and screamed for help, there was a dead silence he has never forgotten.
Then he said there was noise and confusion as chairs were scraped back and men ran back with him to help dig out the boys. He remembers his and Ian's hands and fingernails were bleeding from the digging. It took them all 9 men an hour to dig the boys out and both were dead, suffocated in sand, necks broken and lungs full.
Our life was never to be the same after the death of Jamie and George now has a son called James, in honour of our brother. George remembers him more than I do of course. I remember a happy wide smiling face and glasses. he told jokes and was a character, a good writer. He's just won a Prize for his writing on Road Safety First. First in the whole state and my parents had taken him to Adelaide to collect his prize not long before he died.
George says he doesn't remember screaming out in the night, terrible screams of nightmares but I do. I remember them well. Mum and Dad running to him and calming his sobs. Harsh and loud. I couldn't understand it then, thought he was vying for attention, but he wasn't. He was terrified. Truly terrified. Ian would wake up too and I could hear the murmurs from my room. Soothing murmurs.
We were always competitive my brothers and I. None of us tried to compete with Ian, he was quiet, withdrawn and as older brothers do, looked down on us younger sibs as nuisances. I was in awe of him. To me he was always a grown up. Tall austere and an introvert. he did once offer me a "dink" on his bike to school. I was about 8 and sat on the crossbar while he steadily rode.
He was soon at high school while I was still at Primary. A freckle faced little girl who did well at school just like Ian. George was a plodder and went on to do his GCE's in the UK, later, and I had left by then. George was also highly intelligent but plagued with a bad temper. I think these days he would have been classified as ADHD, but to me he was a roaring, shouting, hyperactive bully and I dreaded his tempers.
We would often go head to head in arguments and one time he clouted me and I dragged my nails down his back as he turned and he screamed in pain. Ian came out of his room and made me apologise, which I did but I was highly satisfied with myself really for having got George back, for once.
He could swim like a demon but I was the one that got through to the State Championships. Ditto on pride and satisfaction for beating him and Jackie and Ian to get there. We had a Family relay team and were always winning much to the township of Canowindra's disgust as we were "newcomers."
Canowindra was a place that was so backwards in the 60's. I can't remember a cinema there but my Dad held a showcase of cars there, Triumphs. He himslef had a Humber Super Snipe and we also had a vanguard estate with a "fast back" shape. It would have been helpful if it went fast but it never did.
Dad took us go karting there and I loved it. Speeding around like you were driving a real car, it was hard to steer and hard to stop. But we did and watched as George went around and around at top speed and each time he did he was screaming, open mouthed. Took us a few minutes to undestand what he was screaming,
"I can't stop",
We laughed so hard we nearly wet our pants and he was livid at us when Dad and Ian were fianlly able to stop him. Dave, my younger brother went through the same thing years later but on Piccadilly Circus in the UK. He said he drove around and around 21 times before he could get off.
My brothers make me laugh as they can very funny. They are all well read, have views on everything and opinions and this little black duck goes head to head with them many times. They at the top of their game as business men and Alpha Males and me a feminist and Mother and a "Woman". I enjoy the mental sparring however.
George makes me watch things I would not normally watch lon TV like GameOf Thrones And Boardwalk Empire as normally I would hate the violence and turn it over. But I watch with him as company and peek through my fingers at the bad bits, just like when I was a little girl. I watch him and he never flinches at the gore, just gazes steadily at the screen, must be a male thing.
He's as ananlly retentive as I am, maybe more so, living on his own all these years. He's had lots of girl friends and a wife but is sick of paying out money on settlements so prefers to be on his own and just have girlfriends. I have a big noisy chaotic family of girls and grandkids and now a great grand child, How did I manage that when I am only 49 ??? Ha Ha
He loves my family as much as I do and he is their 2nd Dad. he's generous and caring and I love that about him. He can have fun with my kids and know that they will always adore him. He has helped us out so much as a family it is unbelieveable and we thank him in as many ways as we can. We couldn't do with out Gorgeous George in our lives, may he always be here, eating his favouite treat which is ginger nuts.
Once he was going out with a girlfriend and she said she had him on a diet, exercising and he looked terrific. Yvette used to call her "The One With The Lipstick". Yvette said Uncle George came walking towards her at the airport to pick her up, Lamington in one hand and a cream donut in the other. the "One With The Lipstick" wasn't with him that day.
She had designs on Gorgeous George that didn't happen to factor in his kids. His wife at the time had left him and he had the kids. The One WTL, wanted them shipped off to boarding school and instead she was shipped off and I was glad.
I had been at his house for a party and barely knew her and I borrowed one of his bikes to go for a ride . She literally screamed at me on my return. How dare I take my brothers bike without his permission, blah blah. I just looked at her and knew she was gone, so very gone and she was, taking her lipstick with her.
He knows now it was a mistake as he was hurt by his wife leaving and just felt like he had to have someone, anyone as Mother to his 2 teen kids. They were only babies themselves, young teens and missing their Mother, no doubt.
The one WTL moving in 6 weeks after the Mum had departed. George was in shock is all I can say. And needed someone to care for his children. We live and learn, they do say and he certainly learned as he had to pay her out and she was with him only a short time. But he did as he was glad to be rid of her.
he then went on a wild ride and dated heaps of women and still he wasn't ready, although he said it was fun. One he really hurt by not calling back and he rued that as when he did she was going out with someone else.
I am at my brother's house. Gorgeous George, or he thinks so anyway. I love it here. I have all the downstairs to myself and can write and write. He has lived here forever and anon. He was married and is now single and he loves the single life. He says he can come home, no one to disturb and sit around in his undies and scratch his balls if he so desires. Glad he doesn't do that when I am here.
We have always been best friends George and I. He's a great brother, as are all my brothers and without them I would not be here, writing. George and I are closest in age. 21 months between us and apparently when I was a baby he used to drink my bottles and then put them back in my crib.
We played cowboys and Indians together as little kids, he was Davy Crockett and I was Annie Oakley. I could get along with him when others couldn't. He would wallop me and I would wallop him straight back. He would let me hang around with him and his friends when I was a "girl" and most of his friends thought I was a nuisance.
He nearly died in the sand cave in that killed my brother James and best friend Wayne. George buried alive at 7, but my brother Ian managed to dig him out and then began searching for the other two. George was sent for help and it was over a mile he had to run. Running towards the Ampol Road House at Port Augusta. His lungs bursting, panicked and as he entered the service station and screamed for help, there was a dead silence he has never forgotten.
Then he said there was noise and confusion as chairs were scraped back and men ran back with him to help dig out the boys. He remembers his and Ian's hands and fingernails were bleeding from the digging. It took them all 9 men an hour to dig the boys out and both were dead, suffocated in sand, necks broken and lungs full.
Our life was never to be the same after the death of Jamie and George now has a son called James, in honour of our brother. George remembers him more than I do of course. I remember a happy wide smiling face and glasses. he told jokes and was a character, a good writer. He's just won a Prize for his writing on Road Safety First. First in the whole state and my parents had taken him to Adelaide to collect his prize not long before he died.
George says he doesn't remember screaming out in the night, terrible screams of nightmares but I do. I remember them well. Mum and Dad running to him and calming his sobs. Harsh and loud. I couldn't understand it then, thought he was vying for attention, but he wasn't. He was terrified. Truly terrified. Ian would wake up too and I could hear the murmurs from my room. Soothing murmurs.
We were always competitive my brothers and I. None of us tried to compete with Ian, he was quiet, withdrawn and as older brothers do, looked down on us younger sibs as nuisances. I was in awe of him. To me he was always a grown up. Tall austere and an introvert. he did once offer me a "dink" on his bike to school. I was about 8 and sat on the crossbar while he steadily rode.
He was soon at high school while I was still at Primary. A freckle faced little girl who did well at school just like Ian. George was a plodder and went on to do his GCE's in the UK, later, and I had left by then. George was also highly intelligent but plagued with a bad temper. I think these days he would have been classified as ADHD, but to me he was a roaring, shouting, hyperactive bully and I dreaded his tempers.
We would often go head to head in arguments and one time he clouted me and I dragged my nails down his back as he turned and he screamed in pain. Ian came out of his room and made me apologise, which I did but I was highly satisfied with myself really for having got George back, for once.
He could swim like a demon but I was the one that got through to the State Championships. Ditto on pride and satisfaction for beating him and Jackie and Ian to get there. We had a Family relay team and were always winning much to the township of Canowindra's disgust as we were "newcomers."
Canowindra was a place that was so backwards in the 60's. I can't remember a cinema there but my Dad held a showcase of cars there, Triumphs. He himslef had a Humber Super Snipe and we also had a vanguard estate with a "fast back" shape. It would have been helpful if it went fast but it never did.
Dad took us go karting there and I loved it. Speeding around like you were driving a real car, it was hard to steer and hard to stop. But we did and watched as George went around and around at top speed and each time he did he was screaming, open mouthed. Took us a few minutes to undestand what he was screaming,
"I can't stop",
We laughed so hard we nearly wet our pants and he was livid at us when Dad and Ian were fianlly able to stop him. Dave, my younger brother went through the same thing years later but on Piccadilly Circus in the UK. He said he drove around and around 21 times before he could get off.
My brothers make me laugh as they can very funny. They are all well read, have views on everything and opinions and this little black duck goes head to head with them many times. They at the top of their game as business men and Alpha Males and me a feminist and Mother and a "Woman". I enjoy the mental sparring however.
George makes me watch things I would not normally watch lon TV like GameOf Thrones And Boardwalk Empire as normally I would hate the violence and turn it over. But I watch with him as company and peek through my fingers at the bad bits, just like when I was a little girl. I watch him and he never flinches at the gore, just gazes steadily at the screen, must be a male thing.
He's as ananlly retentive as I am, maybe more so, living on his own all these years. He's had lots of girl friends and a wife but is sick of paying out money on settlements so prefers to be on his own and just have girlfriends. I have a big noisy chaotic family of girls and grandkids and now a great grand child, How did I manage that when I am only 49 ??? Ha Ha
He loves my family as much as I do and he is their 2nd Dad. he's generous and caring and I love that about him. He can have fun with my kids and know that they will always adore him. He has helped us out so much as a family it is unbelieveable and we thank him in as many ways as we can. We couldn't do with out Gorgeous George in our lives, may he always be here, eating his favouite treat which is ginger nuts.
Once he was going out with a girlfriend and she said she had him on a diet, exercising and he looked terrific. Yvette used to call her "The One With The Lipstick". Yvette said Uncle George came walking towards her at the airport to pick her up, Lamington in one hand and a cream donut in the other. the "One With The Lipstick" wasn't with him that day.
She had designs on Gorgeous George that didn't happen to factor in his kids. His wife at the time had left him and he had the kids. The One WTL, wanted them shipped off to boarding school and instead she was shipped off and I was glad.
I had been at his house for a party and barely knew her and I borrowed one of his bikes to go for a ride . She literally screamed at me on my return. How dare I take my brothers bike without his permission, blah blah. I just looked at her and knew she was gone, so very gone and she was, taking her lipstick with her.
He knows now it was a mistake as he was hurt by his wife leaving and just felt like he had to have someone, anyone as Mother to his 2 teen kids. They were only babies themselves, young teens and missing their Mother, no doubt.
The one WTL moving in 6 weeks after the Mum had departed. George was in shock is all I can say. And needed someone to care for his children. We live and learn, they do say and he certainly learned as he had to pay her out and she was with him only a short time. But he did as he was glad to be rid of her.
he then went on a wild ride and dated heaps of women and still he wasn't ready, although he said it was fun. One he really hurt by not calling back and he rued that as when he did she was going out with someone else.
