Grandma’s Shelley Queen Anne 1929

This was my story for the last week of the course...


“Hurry up Mum. Open the box. I want to see what’s in it,” seven year old Colin demanded as his mother loosened the string tied firmly around the medium sized cardboard box that she had ordered especially from Sydney.

“Just a moment…don’t rush me.” said Daisy. “Nearly there. Ah, here we go.” The string snapped and the box lid flew open.

There, nestled in a bed of crumpled newspaper, was Daisy’s longed for Shelley Queen Anne tea set : six settings of pure white cups, saucers and plates, milk jug, sugar pot and sandwich tray. Each piece was gently unwrapped and placed 
on the draining board. Carefully she proceeded to wash and dry the gleaming, translucent china.

“Thank heavens the delivery got through in spite of the floods in Sydney,” she thought. “How dreadful if I had had to use my everyday china for afternoon tea tomorrow. What would Mrs Fallick and the others have thought of me?” 

Colin and Shirley, tired of playing in the box of newspaper scraps drifted outside. Daisy then checked her best linen serviettes and matching supper cloth. Tomorrow she needed to impress all of the invited ladies but especially Mrs Howe, the bank manager’s wife. Cec was relying on her to pave the way for his appointment with Mr Howe next Monday. The future of the furniture shop, and indeed their whole livelihood, depended on how that meeting would go.

I wonder what my dear Grandma would say if she saw me today, using the same tea set to impress my prospective in-laws.

Starting School 1935 - week 5

When I was eight and Kevin turned five I was so excited to be finally going to the bush school six miles away rather than staying at home with Mother and the babies. Father had decided that I was old enough to drive us in the horse and sulky. 
After breakfast we had to catch Milly our horse and hitch her to the sulky. During the school day, she roamed loose in the small horse paddock. After school we had to catch her again for the journey home.
When our sister Joy started school the next year she needed help to climb into the sulky so Kevin and I would boost her up while she held the reins. We would jump up and squeeze onto the narrow wooden seat either side of her. 
One especially hot day we sped home through the shimmering heat and dust, feeling every bump on the winding dirt track, eager for a swim in the dam before tea time. Suddenly Milly picked up speed, going faster and faster down the driveway towards our home, frantically shaking her head as a wasp buzzed in her ear. 
The sulky swayed precariously, Kevin and I jumped clear as Milly slowed on a corner but Joy still clung to the seat screaming wildly. Nearing the stable and recognizing her home Milly then stopped dead. 
We scurried to help Joy down from the sulky as Mother appeared. 
“Alick ! What were you thinking leaving your sister in that sulky? Who knows what could have happened to her!”....................... 

There's No Place Like Home

Week 4 started on 11 January but I have been so busy since the New Year that I have only now made time to post my latest stories. This was my story for week 4...

The old house with a peeling red roof stood atop a slight rise in the otherwise flat land overlooking flat paddocks, dry and yellowed after the relentless summer heat, so different to the relative green and deceptive coolness of her far away city home. Shirley blinked away her momentary homesickness, determined to look for positives in the property Alick was so proudly showing her, knowing that soon this would be her home.

Across the front of the house the veranda was barely standing and as they drew closer she saw several broken windows. Tools and other building equipment scattered near 
the back door showed that some work had already begun on the interior.

Alick opened the door and ushered her in and the smell hit her: nesting mice had left their distinctive aroma in the wall cavities and the moth eaten carpet in the lounge room added its own perfume to the dry, dusty, old house smell.

He guided her through the house, room by room, asking her 
opinion on the progress made so far; but Shirley was already imagining walls repaired and freshly painted in Milky Cream, wooden floor boards polished and gleaming, and their new lounge suite set up in the lounge room. A new fuel stove was already installed in the kitchen, but the empty bathroom with a chip heater was obviously waiting for a new bath and basin. 

“My uncle Harold can get us a bathroom setting from McDowells in Sydney. I’ll ask Mum to chase him up when I 
get home”, she told Alick, as she thought to herself, “I think I can cope with anything knowing I can have a lovely warm bath every couple of days.”

Writing Family History Week 3

Walking in their shoes - Downward Spiral

Fred Ross and I were excited to be flying our second op. with Bomber Command Pathfinder Force. It was now the evening of 19 August 1943. The following wave of lumbering Lancaster bombers depended on our light weight Mosquito to drop target indicator flares over German industrial areas.

Our first op. two nights before had been, as Fred said in his letter home “a short flight to Berlin, take in the sights and home in bed by midnight.” We were cockily confident again tonight.

Suddenly, without warning, a heavy ack-ack shell hit and the tail of the Mosquito disappeared; I was thrown to the floor. Momentarily deafened by the terrific explosion, I called forward to Fred, “we’re hit”, but no response came.

I looked back to see the gun turret blown out by a burst of tracer from above; I had been seated there moments before. The noise was deafening as flak burst all around us, shrapnel drummed on the wings and searchlights followed our every move.

The plane was out of control, racing dizzyingly downwards as 
I forced my way through the gun turret debris. I fought forward against the pull of gravity knowing I had to get to the controls.

My worst fears were realized when I saw Fred slumped over the column.

The incessant racket continued as I tried desperately to move my friend aside.

“Damn, I'm only 21! …will I make it home to Faye? …what about Mum and Dad?”

The sickening race to the ground continued…

Writing Family History - week 2

This is my eTivity for week 2 of the Writing Family History course through the University of Tasmania. This was posted to "Hooking the reader".

The Christmas Parcel

On Christmas Eve a large parcel arrived from overseas. It reinforced the finality of Colin’s death and at first she could not even look briefly at its contents.

Christmas was bleak for the whole family, but after a week Daisy finally began to go through some of Colin’s mementoes.

She found the photos he always kept with him wherever he travelled: a framed photo of his sister Shirley and the small photo of his parents always in his wallet with another of Faye.

There was also a bundle of letters creased from continual rereading, and another, still sealed, addressed to her. Daisy contemplated the envelope’s familiar handwriting for several more days until at last she steeled herself to lift the flap. Then she began to read the words her son had written four days before he disappeared…

“Dear Mum,

First of all excuse the pencil but I am just in a slight rush so naturally can write faster…Once again I am at a new station and once again trying to settle down. At last the training for ops. has finished and I have already done my first one… I am safe and sound… we work 7 days a week but have 6 days leave every 6 weeks all being lucky! Our 6 weeks isn’t up till near the end of Sept....

…2 am.

Well Mum I’ll break this off now till later and pick it up when I have some more to tell you.

Your boy – Colin xxx…”

Writing Family History

I have just started an online course called Writing Family History with the University of Tasmania. The course runs for a total of 6 weeks over the summer vacation and will give me a statement of attainment at the end. 

Each week we have to submit an eTivity (a piece of flash writing of no more than 250 words) and a final piece of 750-1000 words. So I plan to post each week's piece here to have a record of what I've done and to keep me on task with regular posting.

This was Week One's piece...

1944

The warm hall was welcoming after the chill wind outside. The dance floor gleamed after its last application of sawdust. Trestle tables around the edges of the hall groaned with an abundance of food while large teapots were already being filled.

Shirley sat out three dances while pondering whether coming here was a good idea. This was her first night out since Colin had disappeared over Germany and she still felt guilty about leaving her elderly parents.

A group of RAAF boys approached; one of them shyly asked Shirley to dance. He seemed so ill at ease that she took pity on him and agreed. Fortunately the dance floor was crowded so she heard only a few of his two left feet excuses.

When the bracket finished Shirley thankfully sat and enjoyed just talking. Alick confided his continual homesickness, how he missed farm life but also how he longed to travel overseas with the RAAF. 

She responded by telling him about her only brother who went to England as an RAF navigator; about the devastating telegram last August which changed her life forever; about how her family now lived in a house weighed down with grief.

Over supper the young couple continued to chat. Shirley wanted to get to know him better while Alick was quietly surprised that this sophisticated city girl was interested in him.

The evening ended quickly. They parted with promises to meet again next week. Along with the other girls Shirley piled on to the 10.30 bus as the young airmen set off on their frosty walk back to Fairbairn RAAF Base.

Happy 40th Ben

Today is my son Ben's 40th birthday and of course my thoughts turn to Peter whose birthday is tomorrow. 

When Peter turned 40 we had been back living here for over twelve months, and he was entrenched in his third career change; when I turned 40 I had had three children, was working part time and had just started studying again.Somehow Ben doesn't seem as old or experienced as we were, but I know that he has had many more varied life experiences than either of us at the same age.

When Ben was born I was 24 years old and Peter was one day off 27. We thought we were so worldly wise  ready to take on this new phase of our lives. In reality we were dreadfully under-prepared and our lives were never the same again.

The day that Ben was born was a cool November day, very similar to the weather we have been experiencing lately. I now know that we went to the hospital way too early, but I was unsure of what to do and impatient to meet my first born child.

As a result, we spent most of the day walking on the edge of the lake and waiting for labour to set in or risk being sent home. That would have been the ultimate humiliation, to have to go home and come back another time!

Fortunately my friendly GP decided to intervene in the early evening by breaking my waters and Ben was born just before 8 pm that night. Our family began with the birth of my parents' first grandchild, my grandmother's first great-grandchild and the fifth Kendall grandson

Misunderstood

The eight year old girl never felt that she could tell her Mum or Dad how she was feeling: her mother always seemed so busy with the younger children at home and she didn't want to bother her any more than necessary, and her father was always so tired and distracted when he came home long after dark that she didn't talk to him either.

She continued to ask herself for many years why she always felt she could never talk to her parents about what mattered in her life, what frightened her and what didn't, what she was proud of and what she was ashamed of. 

Finally the answer came to her: as the eldest child she was always told that she was the big girl, older than the others, able to cope; but all she ever wanted was for someone to get it, to understand, to say, " I know how you're feeling."

If only someone had sat her down and asked some questions about how she was feeling and what was bothering her, she may have learnt to cope with change more readily at a much earlier age, because sometimes she didn't feel so grown up and just wanted a little babying. 

She wasn't looking for someone to fix the situation, just another person who could understand and let her know they understood. 

Going to school - Kywong

When I was five years old I started school. I had to go on the school bus and every day I hated leaving my family. 

Dad would drive me to catch the bus and my heart would sink when I saw the bus coming around the corner. I used to cry a lot and I told Mum that some of the kids on the bus teased me; I don’t think they really did tease me, I think I was just plain miserable at having to go to school and needed an excuse for crying so much.

However, I do remember having some happy times at school, especially an occasion when the School Inspector, Mr Lake, came to school and I had to read for him in front of the class. I loved to read and this was probably when I first realised that sometimes other people had trouble making sense of the words on the page.

First aid was a concern because our school was so remote, without even a telephone to contact the outside world. Friar’s Balsam was the universal antidote for all manner of cuts and scrapes and if you had a toothache during the school day the headmaster would give you Oil of Cloves to relieve the pain.

On one occasion the school photographer arrived unannounced for school photos and we had to tidy ourselves up very quickly; it must have been a very quick preparation because in that photo my hair is standing up on end.

Growing up in such a large family circle should have assured me of plenty of self confidence but it didn't. I really hated going to school, I hated having to go to travel on the bus and I think I just hated any change in my life. 

It must have been so hard for Mum to send me off sobbing every day on the school bus. I know how she must have felt because I experienced the same thing some 40 years later when Amy was going to school most unwillingly.

Knowing what I now know I would have taken Amy’s concerns more seriously and sought professional help for us all. I was struggling to commute to work full time in Canberra as well as study part time by distance, and Peter was working at the gaol so he was often not available to help out. We got through those difficult years somehow but I still feel sad and I do hope that Amy realises that I did the best that I could at the time.

I still feel anxious when I think of little tots starting school and I already wonder how my own grandchildren will go when it’s their turn. 

Just the thought of having to leave someone so young for a whole day in a group situation fills me with trepidation – my heart starts to pound and I feel the anxiety flood through me. But why do I feel this way? Am I just transferring the memory of my own experiences onto my grandbabies? Both Sally and Ben went to school with very few problems but perhaps I identified more with Amy than with them.

Neighbours

 From the time I was born until I was ten years old I felt nothing but unconditional love for our next door neighbours.

I was extremely fortunate to live on a farm next door to my father’s parents and I saw them almost every day of my life.

In my memory we are always seated around the large kitchen table having morning tea, afternoon tea or lunch. There is always a crowd of people there - my uncles, aunts, grandfather, Dad, and sometimes also shearers and other workmen. 

The kitchen always smells of delicious meals, soups, roasts, and of course fruit cake and slice. I always have a cup of cocoa with the adults because my grandfather makes it deliciously sweet and creamy, just the way I like it.

Soon after, my grandfather died, my uncle married, my aunt returned to live at home with her two children, and then we moved far away from that encompassing circle of family love.

The magical spell was broken but those happy times will remain always in my memory.

Bus stop

I hated going to school as a young child, especially having to travel on the school bus– having to get onto the bus in front of so many others who often jeered at me, being squashed into the bus, sitting next to people I didn't like and didn't want to sit next to.

The bus was noisy and hot in summer and cold in winter; someone always seemed to be having ‘wars’ with someone else and there was always some ill feeling in the air.

************************************************************************

The timid six year old waited anxiously for the bus to arrive, fighting bravely against waves of dread at having to say goodbye to Dad or Mum. Getting on the already crowded bus packed with noisy kids who would invariably jeer or make fun of her was the biggest challenge she faced each school day. Every morning it was something different – the colour of her jumper, the shoes she wore, the size of her school bag, how her hair was parted – so she never knew what she could have done that day to try and avoid criticism.

She just wished that she didn't always feel so different to everyone else.

 

Once she arrived at school the day would go smoothly, as she usually got top marks for her spelling and reading. However this also drew attention to her and gave her enemies more fodder for tomorrow’s teasing; but still she was never deterred from trying to always do her best.

Going home on the bus every afternoon was another harrowing experience to be endured. If she had had a successful day at school there would certainly be comments made about how ‘brainy’ she was, how she must read encyclopaedias for bedtime reading, how she was just being so smart to show everyone else up.

Somehow the half hour bus trip to her stop passed before the next hurdle came. Would someone be waiting to meet the bus or would they be running late?

If there was no one there to meet her she knew the ritual – get off the bus, and walk about 500 metres down the dusty country road to the first house where Mr & Mrs Byrnes lived.

“Gran” Byrnes and her husband, “Grand Mister” were old people about her grandmother’s age who had never had children but loved everybody else’s as their own. Gran Byrnes was a wonderful cook and always had lovely fairy cakes or chocolate slice or date scones for afternoon tea.

It was a long lonely walk in the heat anxiously scouring the roadside for suspicious creatures and jumping at every rustle in the grass, but she knew that once she reached the house she would have fun waiting for Mum or Dad to pick her up.

Albert Hall, Canberra 1944

Albert Hall was early Canberra’s community hall. Situated near the Hotel Canberra where many politicians and public servants lived, it was the city’s venue for school concerts, flower shows, live dramatic performances, the annual Winter Ball as well as Saturday night dances.

The warmth of the hall was welcoming after the chill wind outside. As usual, the ladies of the Women’s Comfort Fund had done a wonderful job of decorating with crepe paper streamers and balloons. The dance floor gleamed after its last application of sawdust. Trestle tables around the edges of the hall groaned with the abundance of supper food and large teapots were already filled in anticipation of thirsty crowds.

The young nineteen year old woman sat out a couple of dances on the pretext that her twisted ankle from that afternoon’s hockey match was still bothering her, but she was really wondering whether coming tonight was such a good idea. Last year she and Vera had been regulars at the Saturday night Services Dance but this was her first night out since her brother had been shot down over Germany. Even though she still felt guilty about leaving them, her parents had insisted she go so she went with Vera and a group of other friends from work.

A small group of young RAAF boys approached and one of them, tall and handsome, shyly asked her for a dance. He seemed so ill at ease that she took pity on him and agreed. Dancing was obviously not his forte and he continually apologised for his poor skills but the dance floor was so crowded that she heard only a few of his excuses.

When the bracket finished she thankfully sat down and enjoyed just talking with him. Alick confided his continual homesickness, how much he missed his family and the farm routines, and how he longed to travel overseas with the RAAF.

She responded by talking, haltingly, about her big brother; how he’d gone off to Canada and then England to join the RAF and be a navigator, and how the telegram that came last August had changed her life forever. Now she lived in a house weighed down with grief where she felt that she should be in perpetual mourning and she worried that her elderly parents would never smile again.

The supper break came and went and the young couple continued to chat. She knew that this was a man she wanted to get to know better and Alick was quietly surprised that this sophisticated city girl was interested in listening to his stories.

All too soon the evening came to an end and they parted with promises to meet at next week’s dance. She and the other girls piled on to the 10.30 bus as the young airmen set off on their long walk back across the river flats to Fairbairn RAAF Base.

After that night she was again a regular dance-goer but she always refused to dance until 20 year old Alick arrived. He was always relieved when he reached the hall with his mates and saw her face light up when she saw him. 

A memory associated with a bicycle

Whenever I trim my toenails and try to tidy the horny bits of nail on my little toes I remember the day my foot slipped on the pedal.

I used to ride and ride everywhere I could around the farm. Around and around the large circular driveway of almond trees, down to the chook yard and across to the cow shed.

My bike was red, possibly a Malvern Star and almost definitely second hand. I don’t remember learning to ride a bike and I'm sure I didn't ever have trainer wheels. It was just something I could always do (or thought I could.)

One day, pedalling fast, my foot slipped on the metal pedal and ripped my little toenail.

Furious pedalling back to the house, blood streaming from my foot, at age seven I imagine an emergency trip to the hospital 17 miles away.

I finally reach home and rush inside to Mum: she comforts me, bathes the foot with Dettol and bandages the toe.

Emergency averted, all over, no need for panic.

The toe healed, a new nail grew but only a short while later the same thing happened again, this time to the other foot.

 19.10.13

Millie

She wants to talk on the phone nowadays

And I lap it up...

Fantastic stories

With ridiculous time frames

Are shared with me ...

"Next week when I am five

I’ll go to big school."

And, "poor my sister is so tired

She'll keep sleeping for

A thousand years."

Other amazing facts

Of Nature and Anatomy

Are served up

From this sponge-like

Four year old brain

And my grandmotherly heart

Swells with love and pride.

26.7.15

Crown

This story is for my 2 grand daughters who love princesses.

Every princess has a crown or a tiara, so because I have several crowns I must be a princess. These crowns are secret and so well hidden that only one person can ever see them properly, and twice a year I go to visit him so he can check that they are still safe.

My crowns are small, well made and sensible; not showy or bejewelled, but they make my life much easier. They are made for everyday use, not just for glittering balls and other special occasions.

Surprisingly, many people have similar crowns, also well hidden, so there are many, many secret princes and princesses in the world. You could pass a person on the street and never know that he or she was also a member of royalty.

Perhaps the truth is that only the showy, extroverts wear their crowns on the outside for all the world to see. The rest of us are happy to be secret royalty and keep our crowns hidden.

I am participating in the 30 Day Blogging Challenge to try and limber up my creative muscles...https://www.facebook.com/groups/30DayBloggingChallenge/.. and this is only Day 2!

Describe a grandparent

My grandmother Daisy was always an old lady to me; perhaps because she was around 65 when I was born. I could never imagine her ever being young.



Why did I think she was old? She wasn't particularly wrinkled and never seemed to look any older.

Maybe it was because she always walked with a stick, the legacy of a broken hip in her 40s which never healed properly.

She was a tall woman, always standing erect, using her walking stick to maintain her balance.

Looking at photos I can see a distinct resemblance between my mother and Daisy and her mother Hannah.

She always wore glasses and was always well dressed. I can’t remember ever seeing her in pyjamas (or nightie) and dressing gown with her hair dishevelled, but I must have at some time.

What colour were her eyes? I don’t remember, but I imagine they were blue because her father was Swedish.

Her face was covered in soft peach fuzz and sometimes I notice in the mirror that I am developing the same look and I remind myself that I am nearing the age she was when she first became a grandmother.

Red roses

Pop Kendall had a very minimal garden – whatever survived was hardy and thrived on little or no care. He did however have a rose bush that produced the most beautiful, strongly scented red blooms every year.

Peter was not given to romantic gestures but I do remember one time he came to pick me up for a dinner date carrying a bunch of red roses, open and beaming and flooding the surrounds with strong rose perfume. It was a spontaneous gesture on his part which totally won me over.

Since that day I have always sought out red roses with a strong perfume, perhaps because of the memories I associate with that random act of generosity.

Red roses for

True love.

The heady perfume

Floods the senses

And imprints

For the future.

Now I always seek out

Full flowering roses

To remind me

Of that bunch of roses

So many years ago.

25.7.13

My godmother

Enid was my godmother and I have a photo taken on the day of my baptism of me with Enid and my godfather Arthyr. I know that she was Mum’s best friend, they played hockey together in Canberra and Enid was chief bridesmaid at her wedding.

Enid was a very creative person who excelled at drawing. As a child I remember receiving birthday cards and presents, with the envelope always decorated with Enid's signature drawing of a cartoon figure. 

I vaguely remember seeing her throughout my early childhood and I definitely remember travelling to Canberra for Mum and Dad to go to a wedding and Carol and I being minded by Enid and her mother. I have a feeling that at least one of us (probably me!) was inconsolable at being “abandoned” and so to distract us Enid taught us to play croquet. 

Whenever I am in Canberra and drive past the croquet lawn at the Hyatt Hotel I always think of Enid and that croquet game. Sadly, I have no recollection of how to play croquet except that the mallet is held in both hands and the ball is struck in a forward motion.

She gave Mum and Dad a blue Moorcroft bowl as a wedding present so she obviously had an artist’s eye for collectable items. She didn’t think to tell Mum how special the bowl was, even in those days, so Mum used it as an everyday fruit bowl until a visitor who obviously knew her English china was horrified and told her to treat it more carefully. Mum had the bowl valued a few years before she died and was very pleased with the appraisal she got, although she never shared that with me. When we were clearing out Mum's home I was extremely thrilled to find a white sticker on the underside of the bowl with my name on it. Now it sits in pride of place on my dining room table in memory of Mum and Enid.

After we moved to Goulburn in 1961 I don’t ever remember seeing Enid again and I have often wondered why. What happened between her and Mum? Was it a major rift between them or did they just drift apart and have less in common as Mum had 3 children and Enid never married or had children? 

In spite of any differences they might have had I was disappointed that Mum did not invite her to my wedding. Mum’s mother, Daisy, trying to be helpful and not bother anyone too much, contacted Enid assuming she was also invited and asked her for a lift to Goulburn for the day. I don’t know how Mum got around that embarrassing omission but I know that Enid was not at our wedding.

Enid died tragically in about 1973 as she was driving to Victoria for Christmas with her brother and family. I don’t know all the details but I think it was a single vehicle accident on the Hume Highway; when she was found her dog was still in the car with her. The thought of that faithful dog waiting patiently by her side for her to wake up still makes me feel sad. 

I know that Mum and Dad made a special trip to Enid’s funeral in Victoria and I wonder if she did that to make up for losing touch with her once best friend.

14.8.13