The Best Melbourne Cup Field Ever
Without Prejudice
It seems to be The Best Melbourne Cup Field ever, once again. I am sure I have heard that phrase year after year since ever I can remember. ( My first memory --- arriving in Adelaide from the U.K. I was 2 and three months )
It was The Best Melbourne Cup Field Ever on Melbourne Cup Day, 1976, the day my Mother walked off the edge of the world, stolidly, determinedly, seemingly sane. Her last words,
" Who do you fancy in The Cup ?
The words asked of My Brother In Law. He loved Natalie, his Mother In Law, with a passion built on all things English, especially of Wakefield, Yorkshire, where they both hailed from.
He rang her on that day, 2 nd of November, 1976 and she asked of him,
" Who do you fancy in the Cup ?"
He can't remember what he replied. She was off to the T.A.B. To lay a bet she had said. He imagined her walking off to the T.A.B. In Arndale South East Brisbane. She didn't drive, so he imagined her in a pair of thongs, or flip flops as the Brits call them and the only things that fit her swollen legs and feet. A Kaftan flowing over her swollen body.
Her body and feet out of kilter for her, ( she had always been slim with cracking " great legs " and the medication for Mania she had been forced to take, Lithium probably, swelling up her body and legs to an unhealthy weight. She hated the weight gain that forced her to wear Kaftans that formerly as a fashion she had loathed.
We had thought she was alright on the Meds. The meds that she had to take daily if she didn't want to be returned to the Psychiatric Hospital where she had tried and failed to take her own life a month prior to Melbourne Cup Day.
But she wanted to be home. Where she would sleep a lot during the day. Enraging my older Sister who called in to see her in the hot afternoons. Little did we know she had stopped taking her sleepers at night. Lying to Dad, lying wide eyed on the bed at night, sleep deprived so she could save up the sleeping pills that Dad counted out to her at night.
She walked off into the ether that day. No T.A.B. Ticket with her, apparently.
Three hours were missing from her life that day. She somehow reached Redcliffe that day on public transport, as she didn't drive, and it was a good three hours away. That much we knew. She waited till dark. By that time the Police were searching for her as a missing person. She often went into fugue states, the longest being a month.
Dad had arrived home to a No Nat House, and he there with my ten year old Sister, who had been there on her own for several hours. A situation she was used to. Dad and my brother in Law, Winston, took to searching the streets in cars. Without success. They were frantic.
Someone walking their dog found her the next day in a park near the Redcliffe Hospital. An empty bottle of pills beside her and a can of soft drink. Her head resting on her handbag. Sleep, her elusive enemy was on her at last, taking her out of her diseased mind and resting her eternally.
She was 53.
It seems to be The Best Melbourne Cup Field ever, once again. I am sure I have heard that phrase year after year since ever I can remember. ( My first memory --- arriving in Adelaide from the U.K. I was 2 and three months )
It was The Best Melbourne Cup Field Ever on Melbourne Cup Day, 1976, the day my Mother walked off the edge of the world, stolidly, determinedly, seemingly sane. Her last words,
" Who do you fancy in The Cup ?
The words asked of My Brother In Law. He loved Natalie, his Mother In Law, with a passion built on all things English, especially of Wakefield, Yorkshire, where they both hailed from.
He rang her on that day, 2 nd of November, 1976 and she asked of him,
" Who do you fancy in the Cup ?"
He can't remember what he replied. She was off to the T.A.B. To lay a bet she had said. He imagined her walking off to the T.A.B. In Arndale South East Brisbane. She didn't drive, so he imagined her in a pair of thongs, or flip flops as the Brits call them and the only things that fit her swollen legs and feet. A Kaftan flowing over her swollen body.
Her body and feet out of kilter for her, ( she had always been slim with cracking " great legs " and the medication for Mania she had been forced to take, Lithium probably, swelling up her body and legs to an unhealthy weight. She hated the weight gain that forced her to wear Kaftans that formerly as a fashion she had loathed.
We had thought she was alright on the Meds. The meds that she had to take daily if she didn't want to be returned to the Psychiatric Hospital where she had tried and failed to take her own life a month prior to Melbourne Cup Day.
But she wanted to be home. Where she would sleep a lot during the day. Enraging my older Sister who called in to see her in the hot afternoons. Little did we know she had stopped taking her sleepers at night. Lying to Dad, lying wide eyed on the bed at night, sleep deprived so she could save up the sleeping pills that Dad counted out to her at night.
She walked off into the ether that day. No T.A.B. Ticket with her, apparently.
Three hours were missing from her life that day. She somehow reached Redcliffe that day on public transport, as she didn't drive, and it was a good three hours away. That much we knew. She waited till dark. By that time the Police were searching for her as a missing person. She often went into fugue states, the longest being a month.
Dad had arrived home to a No Nat House, and he there with my ten year old Sister, who had been there on her own for several hours. A situation she was used to. Dad and my brother in Law, Winston, took to searching the streets in cars. Without success. They were frantic.
Someone walking their dog found her the next day in a park near the Redcliffe Hospital. An empty bottle of pills beside her and a can of soft drink. Her head resting on her handbag. Sleep, her elusive enemy was on her at last, taking her out of her diseased mind and resting her eternally.
She was 53.
