Go North Young Man

In 2020 I recieved a ‘Highly Acclaimed’ for this little memoir which I had entered in the Scribes Writers Prose Competition. It’s part of the series I’ve written (and am still writing) about our time at Exmouth.

During 2021 I concentrated on writing, editing and publishing Child of the War Years which many of you have read. That didn’t allow much time for writing anything else.

With the new year rapidly approaching, and the move to my new house now behind me, I can get to work on a couple of novels that have been languishing  in old files. As that will take a lot of time and effort, and because I want to remind you, my readers, that I am still alive and attempting to get words onto the page/screen, I thought I’d begin by posting this. I changed the names for the competition, but it is a true story.

GO NORTH YOUNG MAN

Several times during the night I stirred from dreaming to see eerie lights wandering across the landscape ahead of us. Near dawn a twisted tree trunk, like something from a Grimm’s fairytale, appeared beside me—the scraping of its branches against the window jolted me awake. We had come to a halt, front wheels pointing skywards, rocks all around us and no sign of a road.

‘We’re lost. We’ll die of dehydration.’ I couldn’t hide the terror in my voice.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ my husband, Graham, growled. ‘The road must have washed away in a recent downpour and the grader hasn’t reached this far.’

He clambered out of the car to investigate the situation. ‘It’s a creek bed; dry at the moment, but we could dig for water if necessary,’ he said as he got back in. ‘Don’t worry; we’ll soon be out of here.’

How our Holden station wagon managed to negotiate those rocks I’ll never know, but in about fifteen minutes we were on our way again. Baby David and three year old Penelope were still asleep on the inflatable mattresses which covered our belongings in the back of the vehicle—twin-tub washing machine, playpen/cot, kitchenware, linen, clothes, toys, several books and food for two weeks.

As the sun rose, I looked around at flat, red-brown earth; tough, yellow-brown grasses edging the track; a sky free of clouds; not a tree or a trace of greenery in any direction. I love Australia, and at our wedding I’d said that I would love him forever, but I didn’t know if my vows could stretch to include this almost barren landscape. I said nothing and hoped for better as we continued heading north.

Near Exmouth we passed a beach which looked inviting—water of the deepest blue, gentle waves licking the shore. There was no time to stop but I was promised a swim the following Sunday. At six thirty we drove into the caravan park and parked beside our new home.

Stunned, I couldn’t open the door. Caravans and vehicles, all bearing scars, were dumped in a clearing in the desert-like scrub. I’d lived in a caravan in the bush before, but this looked like a refugee camp. Neither of us said anything as Graham unloaded children and belongings into the annexe, while I unpacked boxes to make breakfast. He drove off before it was ready, saying he’d eat at the camp.

Baby was soon asleep again in the playpen inside the caravan. Penelope, our adventurous three year old, wanted to explore. I found crayons and paper and set her up at the table while I tried to find a home for our kitchenware and food.

Determined to have the place organised by evening, I opened the first of our cases after wiping off the pindan. Sheets, towels, clothes—every item inside every case sent layers of red-brown dust into the air as I shook them.

At eight o’clock I had the washing machine filled with water heated by our electric plunger. The power went off.

‘Damn! How long will this last?’ Having just arrived, I didn’t think knocking on the neighbouring van was a good idea.

            ‘Penelope. Mummy’s going to the laundry. You stay inside and mind David.’

What a shock—used tampons dropped on the toilet floor, brown stained paper left in a corner and fear seeping out of  grey concrete walls. Hatred and despair hung around that place of intended cleanliness. Terrified of germs leaping at me from every surface, I tried not to touch anything, holding door handles with my skirt and not daring to wash any part of me in the basins. The showers too, were a nightmare of disease ridden horror. I vowed to wear thongs when I had to use them, and to hang my clothes and towel over the smallest possible surface so that a minimum of other women’s grubbiness would affect them.

I didn’t get as far as the laundry that day, but hurried back to the van, determined that my daughter would use the potty and baby’s bath in the safety of our confined space.

At ten o’clock, with electricity running for an hour, I had sheets washed and hung on ropes installed by the previous occupants. By five the caravan and annexe looked almost like home. I washed the children in David’s baby bath, shook their pyjamas again and dressed them. By six, fed and falling asleep, I had them both tucked up in our bed. Once we were ready for bed, Penelope would sleep on a built-in seat beside the table and David’s cot would sit in the middle of the van.

My man had been awake for two days and a night. He arrived back at the caravan at about six thirty, hot and pindan streaked. We kissed lightly and he went off to shower while I served our dinner. In clean shirt and shorts, he joined me at the table after checking on his cherubs and kissing them goodnight.

Outside, we heard men and women yelling at children and each other. From the van closest to us came swearing of a kind I’d not heard before, as the man threw his son, aged about eight, down the steps and his wife  hurled abuse at the boy.

Hearing the boy’s screams, we raced outside, almost falling over each other in our haste. My husband took one look and, pushing me ahead of him, hopped back inside and locked the door. We stood facing each other, dismayed and dumbstruck.

Living so close, we couldn’t shut out the surrounding rabble or protect our babies from their obscenities. The tears I had tried so hard to hold back all day burst the banks of my eyes.  So much we had promised each other, so many expectations that were impossible to fulfil. How could I survive in that God forsaken place?

Launch of my memoir.

Me signing books that guests had purchased.

Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in Greenmount, was rocking by 3pm last Sunday. Guests started arriving half an hour ahead of the planned opening time, so keen were they to be a part of the launch of my third book, ‘CHILD OF THE WAR YEARS.’

Parking is limited at the centre, but we were lucky to avoid rain and once inside the cosy, historical house, everyone quickly found old and new friends and family to chat with.

Many of my friends helped, heating and serving food, making sure everyone had a wine, soft drink, coffee or tea. They also cleared up afterwards. Music from the 1940s added to the atmosphere and the borrowed microphopne system ensured that everyone could hear us.

Grandson, Andrew, introducing me.

One of the nice things about being old (I’m eighty) is that my grandchildren are all adults and one of them, Andrew, was happy to introduce me and then conduct an interesting, entertaining interview.

This is an extract from his introduction: Everyone here today knows that nothing’s off the cards with Vicki. Just like in real life when you ask her how her dating life is going, her memoir also goes into salacious, explicit detail will all things romance. You might notice that I’m looking a little concerned at this point, wondering what secrets from my past he was about to reveal, but he continued with ‘At one point in the book there’s a particularly eye-watering passage about a nun trying to teach sex-ed.’ 

As the interview progressed, I had to read from this passage, much to everyone’s amusement. Here is a part of that reading:

‘In Holy Matrimony a man and a woman are joined together in a bond of love, to support each other and to fulfil God’s laws, which include having children. A man’s desires make him want to have sex with his wife and she, as a loving, obedient wife, must willingly oblige him.’
That part didn’t exactly thrill me, especially the ‘obedient wife’ bit, but as the lesson progressed and I learnt about various bodily parts that were to be involved in this transaction, I thought it sounded rather fun. Of course I had to pretend to be interested purely in an analytical way, but couldn’t wait to discuss the possibilities with Denyse and Margaret.

Please email me at vicwinmiz@gmail.com if you would like to purcahse a copy. They are only $15 plus postage. I will post a couple of reviews next, so you’ll see that this story is interesting and entertaining.

If you have read it aleady, please add your review in the comments.

Getting To Know My Dad

Born at the beginning of the Second World War, I have memories that are unique to an Australian child of that era. Many of us didn’t know our fathers because they went off to England to  help the British fend off the Germans, or to places like New Guinea to fight the Japanese. For several years I have been writing my memoir. Not having a father in my life for those first few years meant that when he did come home, I had great difficulty learning to relate to him. In this piece I have tried to portray something of that feeling.

 

This is the photo, which I think shows my fears on that day when a ‘strange’ man came back into my life.

Because this is a very personal story I’m not  sure how it will be judged by others and I don’t know if it is suitable for anyone other than my family to read. I will greatly appreciate feedback from you, my friends and family.

This chapter is an introduction to my memoir which I have called  ‘A Child of the War Years.’

Please let me know what you think.

GETTING TO KNOW MY DAD

 As a small child I thought ‘Daddy’ was a photo on my mother’s dressing table. When other children had real, live fathers to kiss goodnight, I had only that photo, of a man with bushy eyebrows and ears that stuck out below a dark blue cap. He had kind eyes and a wide smile that showed off his straight white teeth. I wanted to know why he had a picture of a crown on his hat and wings like a bird sewn on the pocket of his jacket. Mummy told me that I should be very proud because he was in the Royal Australian Air Force and he was flying airplanes in a place far away, called England.

The one occasion when I was aware of a man (hopefully my father) visiting our home in Floreat, he arrived at the front door with a broom and flowers for my mother. They hugged and kissed, then raced off into my mother’s bedroom and I continued playing with my doll behind the lounge room chair.

The visit was probably when dad had short leave from Cunderdin or Geraldton, although, even when based in Subiaco he would have had to stay in barracks most of the time. I must have been about two, because in the June he was in Victoria and New South Wales, leaving from there for the UK.

I was three and a half when my father returned home. Mummy, Granny, Grandpa and some of my aunts were at the Perth Railway Station to meet him. My big cousin, John, rescued me from a forest of legs—more legs than I’d ever seen—running past me, making me turn around and around searching for the people I knew.

Continue reading

Chewing Gum to the Rescue

 This short story will be included in the Memoir I’m writing. It’s all true, even down to the names as I see no need to hide the identities of my fellow gum-chewing partners.

For those of you who don’t know, Alan and I were married in 1961. We traveled around Western Australia with a caravan and a utility, camping for a week or more wherever he had work, surveying new farmland east of Narrogin. I was only on the road with him for a few months,but I have some ‘interesting’ memories  from those days.

Chewing Gum to the Rescue

We left the camp near Wave Rock at Hyden at about four o’clock on that October afternoon. The boss lived in Narrogin, so we allowed time to collect the men’s pay cheques on our way and be back in Perth in time to sleep in a proper bed at my parent’s house that night.

All went well until the radiator started boiling. On a Saturday night in 1961, when even the pubs were probably closed, three miles out of town, nothing moved. Hoping to find something  open, Alan sent Lou, his assistant, back to the nearest little blip of a town, to buy chewing gum—as much as they could supply.

Never having regarded the chewing of gum as an enjoyable activity, I hoped that my husband’s plan would not involve my participation. I realised that the local garage, if there was one, would be closed and out of action until Monday. The chance of them stocking a replacement for our radiator was remote anyway and with only a measly pay cheque and little cash, we couldn’t have paid for it even if one was available. Alan was pretty good at thinking up new ways to overcome problems but I wondered how chewing gum might help us with a leaky radiator.

Continue reading