The British Passport and Alan Thicke
Without Prejudice
I am over looking for my British Birth Certificate. I have tipped my unit upside down looking for it. It's all yellowed and old, my birth certificate, folded in three places and tucked in a bank plastic card holder ------- Somewhere.
It has my baptism on the back and my Dads details and My Mums. Within 2 years of my birth,( I was number five in an eventual family of seven. Edinburgh Scotland, I was born. At 7.15 pm on the 17th of September. I won't mention which year as I am a lady and ladies never reveal their age.) I would be living in a whole new world.
Not that I am ashamed of being classified as an old dear now. I don't see the point as people take you at face value and although my face is that of an older woman, inside I am 18.
I have found every piece of paper I don't want, some of them that came out of the Glory Box were dated before I was married. And that was the seventies. I found a beautiful photo of my Mother In Law and I at the farm, Mandalay, in Gippsland, when I was just 16. We are both laughing. Me in my orange towelling mini dress and she in her apron.
She of the milking 100 cows twice a day and me teetering on platforms ready to jump into my adult life. The times were innocent and simple, hay baling, local dances with Drakes Dragons playing, the 3 piece combo, sausage rolls and soft drink, the men in checkered Miller shirts with flat pearly buttons.
It's all there in that one photo, a memory encased in Amber, a slice of life, right at that moment. Me about to fall in love with her Son, get engaged, marry and have my first child within not quite two years. Another baby girl eleven months and three weeks later. At 19 I would be a wife and Mother of two. She was good to me my Mother In Law, we were are still the best of friends.
I divorced her son twenty years later, but it matters not to our friendship. as I adore her. She's a great woman. We travelled together to the U.K. In the eighties. She was sensible and pragmatic and I was 30, turning 30 on the plane to the U.K. And it was not a birthday I wanted to celebrate, so it passed un noticed. Gwen did say Happy Birthday at about five o'clock that strange day as we flew together to the other side of the world.
I just smiled a little but I hated turning 30, hated it with a passion. I remember at that time going through a strange obsession with age. And the questioning of myself as to who I was and what was I here on this planet for. A good dose of identity crisis. I hadn't read about existentialism then by Satre. All I had was a question that went around and around in my head.
"Who was I and what did I want " ?
I was travelling on a British Passport then, the one I still have a copy of. My brother in law said that old one should suffice as proof I once had one and once had my original birth certificate. I feel like it is just somewhere, my birth certificate.That in a minute it will miraculously appear and I will be overjoyed.
I was my married name on that passport, Hancock, but reverted to my Maiden name in a split second.
My Dad when he was dying of prostate cancer, cried when he received a letter from me with the name Janette Bruckshaw on the back. He was so glad I was back to Bruckshaw for some reason. He registered my birth in Edinburgh a few weeks after I was born and a Mum said he missed out an E in my name, I should have been a Jeanette, not a Janette, but no matter, my extract of entry to Australia says Janet Lucille.
No one can get it right. All the other names are there, spelled correctly. Ian Lachlan, James Stuart,Jacqueline Anne, George Ernest and me, Janet. We migrated in the fifties under The Ex Servicemens Assisted Passage. I was 2, the youngest, the baby. And even at 2 I can remember getting off the ship in Adelaide and going to the Hostel. The sun hot, the sky blue, light everywhere. It is like I turn on a spotlight in my memory and see that dazzling scene, once again.
I have at least had the satisfaction of Spring cleaning my entire unit searching for that "bloody birth certificate" . And have come to the conclusion that I must have hibernated in Winter, all winter. There is dust and cobwebs everywhere, and everything looks neglected and unused. And I pride myself on keeping a spotless unit. There's only me to look after now and I thank God everyday for that.
Living on your own is like being very very rich, you can do what you want, all the time. I can vacuum nude if I should so desire at midnight or eat dessert first before main. I love it being this free, it's like being let out of jail, free of others expectations, kids grown. It's wonderful.
I am over looking for my British Birth Certificate. I have tipped my unit upside down looking for it. It's all yellowed and old, my birth certificate, folded in three places and tucked in a bank plastic card holder ------- Somewhere.
It has my baptism on the back and my Dads details and My Mums. Within 2 years of my birth,( I was number five in an eventual family of seven. Edinburgh Scotland, I was born. At 7.15 pm on the 17th of September. I won't mention which year as I am a lady and ladies never reveal their age.) I would be living in a whole new world.
Not that I am ashamed of being classified as an old dear now. I don't see the point as people take you at face value and although my face is that of an older woman, inside I am 18.
I have found every piece of paper I don't want, some of them that came out of the Glory Box were dated before I was married. And that was the seventies. I found a beautiful photo of my Mother In Law and I at the farm, Mandalay, in Gippsland, when I was just 16. We are both laughing. Me in my orange towelling mini dress and she in her apron.
She of the milking 100 cows twice a day and me teetering on platforms ready to jump into my adult life. The times were innocent and simple, hay baling, local dances with Drakes Dragons playing, the 3 piece combo, sausage rolls and soft drink, the men in checkered Miller shirts with flat pearly buttons.
It's all there in that one photo, a memory encased in Amber, a slice of life, right at that moment. Me about to fall in love with her Son, get engaged, marry and have my first child within not quite two years. Another baby girl eleven months and three weeks later. At 19 I would be a wife and Mother of two. She was good to me my Mother In Law, we were are still the best of friends.
I divorced her son twenty years later, but it matters not to our friendship. as I adore her. She's a great woman. We travelled together to the U.K. In the eighties. She was sensible and pragmatic and I was 30, turning 30 on the plane to the U.K. And it was not a birthday I wanted to celebrate, so it passed un noticed. Gwen did say Happy Birthday at about five o'clock that strange day as we flew together to the other side of the world.
I just smiled a little but I hated turning 30, hated it with a passion. I remember at that time going through a strange obsession with age. And the questioning of myself as to who I was and what was I here on this planet for. A good dose of identity crisis. I hadn't read about existentialism then by Satre. All I had was a question that went around and around in my head.
"Who was I and what did I want " ?
I was travelling on a British Passport then, the one I still have a copy of. My brother in law said that old one should suffice as proof I once had one and once had my original birth certificate. I feel like it is just somewhere, my birth certificate.That in a minute it will miraculously appear and I will be overjoyed.
I was my married name on that passport, Hancock, but reverted to my Maiden name in a split second.
My Dad when he was dying of prostate cancer, cried when he received a letter from me with the name Janette Bruckshaw on the back. He was so glad I was back to Bruckshaw for some reason. He registered my birth in Edinburgh a few weeks after I was born and a Mum said he missed out an E in my name, I should have been a Jeanette, not a Janette, but no matter, my extract of entry to Australia says Janet Lucille.
No one can get it right. All the other names are there, spelled correctly. Ian Lachlan, James Stuart,Jacqueline Anne, George Ernest and me, Janet. We migrated in the fifties under The Ex Servicemens Assisted Passage. I was 2, the youngest, the baby. And even at 2 I can remember getting off the ship in Adelaide and going to the Hostel. The sun hot, the sky blue, light everywhere. It is like I turn on a spotlight in my memory and see that dazzling scene, once again.
I have at least had the satisfaction of Spring cleaning my entire unit searching for that "bloody birth certificate" . And have come to the conclusion that I must have hibernated in Winter, all winter. There is dust and cobwebs everywhere, and everything looks neglected and unused. And I pride myself on keeping a spotless unit. There's only me to look after now and I thank God everyday for that.
Living on your own is like being very very rich, you can do what you want, all the time. I can vacuum nude if I should so desire at midnight or eat dessert first before main. I love it being this free, it's like being let out of jail, free of others expectations, kids grown. It's wonderful.
