Background
"Life wasn't meant to be easy."
You will see in this book, evidence of how true this saying is. We were very fortunate to have a beautiful home. (Ch 2 Word)
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Someone in my family once said, when I told them I was going to write a book someday about my life -
"Who would want to read about your life?"
My Sister-in-law gave me a book - 'Workshops for People Writing Biographies" and the author of the book said, and I quote…loved this.
"Everyone's story is interesting to someone!" That has really encouraged me.
I believe my ancestors were Nomadic people. Not cavemen or anything like that... They just liked moving around a fair bit, could not really settle anywhere for any length of time.
My sister was the eldest and my eldest brother came along 16 months later. I had the feeling for a long time that my dad would have preferred they neither have my elder brother nor me. The reason for my conclusions is the fact that there were only problems between my parents after the second child. I can’t say for sure, but I think Dad started drinking and being out late at night with ‘the boys’ after my elder brother was born. For whatever reasons. I am sure he had his excuses.
I was born in a Northern Suburb Private Hospital, in March 1951. The fourth child, and third son. My entrance into the world necessitated my family's finding a larger house. (No... I wasn't the size, then, that I am now.) Our family had been living in Greenwich, a suburb on the North side of Sydney Harbour, in a 2 bedroomed house.
My 2 elder brothers had shared the sunroom; while my sister, the eldest child, occupied the second bedroom.
My accommodation was planned, depending on a couple of things:
1. If I turned out being a girl, I would share my sister’s bedroom. Or
2. I would share the sunroom with my elder brother.
My father, quite clever with his hands, had organized the fourth bedroom in the attic, for the eldest brother. Richard, said eldest brother, fell off the ladder, as he climbed out of the attic, one day. So the attic/bedroom number 4 idea was abandoned. Hence the need for a bigger abode.
Mum and Dad had been looking at some land in the Ryde - Eastwood area, in the North - Western suburbs of Sydney. They managed to buy a few blocks of land at a reasonable price. Dad was intending to build houses on most of these blocks "on spec.*" Mum had set her heart on a hill-top block, with views all the way to the city, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge*, 8 miles South-East of our block.
They built our new house, on the hilltop block in Bridge Road*, get the hint? There were very few neighbours close by. Across from the house were wide expanses of a paddock. My maternal grandfather had helped my father develop the block of land on which he built our home. I am not sure if Grandfather Joe actually got to see us move into the new house, as he died when I was only 5 months old.
Our house was a very large dwelling with four bedrooms. The kitchen was equipped with the most "mod cons" for that era, including the best electric appliances for their time. The kitchen design included stainless steel benches, a real showpiece for the neighbours. There were spacious areas of polished wooden floors, also covered in part with equally polished rubber linoleum. We boys had a great time in our socks sliding up and down the smooth, well-maintained floors.
One of the big let-downs was the unavailability of bricks due to WWII, which had not all that long before ceased. As a result, my Dad had to build our house in Fibro. These days there is a big "to do" over these forties and fifties homes built in Fibro. Reason being they are now recognized as a source of Mesothelioma* or Asbestosis. A kind of cancerous disease brought about by the asbestos in fibro and other similar products.
Mesothelioma (or, more precisely, Malignant Mesothelioma) is a rare form of cancer that develops from cells of the mesothelium, the protective lining that covers ...Asbestos - Mesothelium* (See Wikipedia)
With all the mod cons and so on, there was a bit of a downside to the property. The top driveway never got completed to the (at one-time gravel) road. Actually, the bottom of our top driveway and the gravel road looked exactly the same. The bottom drive was the same from the property to the ‘road’. Added to this, the inner drive, including the garage floor, was never finished off properly until the early ’70s. We also replaced the old wooden garage doors with "Roll-a-Doors" at that time too.
It was a pity such a modern house had to be located, (as above) on one of the worst gravel roads in the Southern Hemisphere. It was a very long street. Also, one of the last in the area to be completely kerbed and sealed, in the early '60s.
Eventually, we even had the bus service running past our front door, which would never have been so, in the road's former condition. Then the road went from having the deepest potholes in the Southern Hemisphere to later on, in the 1980s having the potholes inverted to become "Speed Humps."
In my early days, I had a turn in my left eye, corrected by Dr Bradley. Sadly, now I am older, the muscle that was adjusted on the left eye has deteriorated with age, to the point that the current eye specialist does not want to touch it as he feels it would make no difference.
So after all these years now, for one thing, I have finally figured out I need to make sure when being photographed, I look with the left eye at the camera, and both eyes then line up properly. If I look with the right eye, then the left eye goes off out in the paddock somewhere, hehe. I should add here as well that I have a separate vision in each eye. There is no meeting or combining of the eyesight from both eyes, and what they are seeing. Hence double vision.
As I was sitting here, writing a while back, I was also transferring some wonderful Theatre Organ music, from some old cassettes. Suddenly, along came "The Pride Of Erin" waltz - and the memories came flooding back, of being a small boy, in our large lounge room of our new house. Of playing the (then) big old "78rpm" records, of the same name, and dancing around the lounge room, by myself. I know my Mum and Dad were in those days the centre of attention on the dance floor as top Ballroom dancers. In happier times I know they went out a lot. My guess is; to dancing events.
I have always been restless and inquisitive. I recall this as far back as Pre-school at Lane Cove. Mum would take me in the mornings and I would ride the tram in the afternoon with my Grandmother to her old terrace house on Falcon Street in Crows' Nest. Even then at 3 years old, when all the other children slept on their canvas stretchers, I would lay awake for what seemed like hours. Knowing as I have since 1990 I have Sleep Apnoea*, it is possible I did sleep in the afternoons. I was informed in one of my sleep tests, many years after this time we are speaking of, in my condition now diagnosed much later, I was probably sleeping anyway, even though I did not think so. We deal with *Sleep Apnoea much later in this book.
I learned my inquisitive nature could get me in trouble at that young age, namely, a fractured skull. Our car was a Peugeot Station Wagon with "forward- opening" doors. I came to understand from a recently deceased friend in America, they were labelled "suicide doors" for a reason. I appreciate learning that term as it is very appropriate.
I had seen others open and close them whilst the car was moving, when the door was not closed properly. So I figured I could do the same, but the wind got hold of the car door and pulled me out with it. I do, to this day, still remember grabbing the handle to re-close the door. For years I had it in my mind the incident happened close to our home. I was wrong. It apparently happened in close proximity to where I ended up going to school about 4 years later. It was outside a Newsagent's shop and General store. (Now a part of the church next door, used as a Child Minding Centre.) I know from my Mum I was concussed and not aware of what actually happened to me. But I ended up in a hospital with friar's balsam or somesuch all over my head.
I had plenty of kids to play with in my younger days. There was a family next door, of five children. I spent a lot of time with the eldest, a girl named Susan. She was almost 18 months younger than I. We learned a lot about each other over the first few years together, even as young as we were, then.
I know I liked her a lot. They say you always hurt the ones you love. I found I was continually saying the wrong thing and making her cry. I had to try and cover it up somehow as I knew that would get me in big trouble with her Mother, or mine.
Quite often the call would come from Susan's Mother "Susan, it's 5 o'clock...time you were home!" So the end of another happy or upsetting (for her) time together. I think she enjoyed playing anyway. She always came back.
I am not sure what the home life was like next door, then. Seeing the girl I played with most was the eldest, I gather she had a lot of responsibility looking after her younger siblings.
Her brother (second eldest in the family) was still sucking his thumb at 9 or 10 years of age. Goodness knows why? I never saw any abuse or bruises or anything on the kids. So I can't for sure say they got beatings or anything, apart from regular discipline.
This large family provided instant playmates. We even got some of them to come to Sunday School with us over time. Amongst our other escapades, we all enjoyed a strange phenomenon out front.
In between our 2 houses, was a great big ant-hill. One time we actually stuck some "tuppenny bungers" in the hill and blew it to smithereens. I guess you can tell why 'bungers' and that sort of thing are not allowed now. At least the ants are thankful.
Those were trusting times, when kids could stay out playing till about 5 pm in the afternoon, without fear of some pervert or some kidnapper coming along to lift your kids and take them away. But there was a kidnapping later on, in the street around from us. So even in "them" days, the criminal element was not far away.
One of my trials, as a youngster, was some draconian dieting foisted on me by some rather questionable medical advisors. This meant I was restricted on what I could eat. For many, many years potatoes were omitted from my diet. Later; finding out that I should have included potato for energy and general wellbeing.
Mum had this saying she made up. I was allowed to have some delicacy of food or snack "instead of, and not as well as," something else. She often tried to hide such delights as chocolate biscuits from me. But being the clever fellow I was, I usually found them ...thinking if I just had one, or two, she would not notice. She, of course, eventually found out.
I forget if I got the feather duster or the fly swat, as punishment. maybe both of them, alternately, all for my own good, of course. I think the polisher's strap my siblings all copped previously, had broken. I don't blame Mum for her 'draconian' ways. She only did what she thought was right for the times.
There was another favourite cry of my Mum, especially when one of us was in the bathroom for too long...
"Geoffrey (or Joe)...you've been in that shower for 'HALF A' NOUR!' " I think Mum was a budding writer/ poet even then!
My sister got married at 15 years of age, I was 5 then. She had a little baby boy, not all that long after whom they named John. We (young John and I) became good friends, he was almost like a younger brother. It was a bit of an anomaly, being an uncle in those days at less than 6 years of age. Dad had converted the back end of our house to make a flat for my sister, and her new family. (This also brought an end to our 'sock-skating area' on the big long, polished hallway.)
The flat comprised one bedroom, which had been my sister's room, anyway. Mum's sewing room was converted into a kitchenette. A door was placed in the new wall; between the flat and the rest of the house.
Author Notes
My Family: Dad..the Late Jack Moore b:26-12-1918. d:28-1-2003.
Mum: The Late Margaret Moore b:16-10-1918. d: 28-5-2005.
Sister b. 25-05-41 Brother Richard b. 16-01-43 d. January 2009.
Brother b.28-05-47 Myself b. 27-03-51. Grandfather Joe Smyth (Mum's dad) assisted with development of the land He died when I was 5 months old in 1951.
Location 98 Bridge Road Ryde, NSW Australia.
Picture List: Top: A recently acquired "For Sale Sign" for the house in Greenwich Second Left:I never met my Maternal Grandfather. Here he is on the grader. One of his favourite sayings was: 'What'll we do, or go fishing?" My Nanna, his widow said. Second Centre: Wasn't I cute? My first baby picture. Second and Third Right: House in early stage and completed. Fourth Left:Dad and Mum and me with the "suicide" doors. I believe this was taken when I was 5...2 years after I fell out of it. Fourth Right: Grandma Moore, my paternal grandmother.
On spec" means Dad built the houses on Speculation of a handsome profit at resale - sadly that never happened. *Trams - yes, we had trams in 1954 and still had them even as late as 1961-I was 10 when they went off - and now they are all coming back on again 50 years later!
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