Between Bourke 'n' Elizabeth

... simply mucking about with boats ...

In the second half of the 1930s, Laurie had left school and was working for a haberdashery wholesaler in the city. In 1935 he was 14 (the year he left school) and in 1939 he was 18 (the year he bought his Panther). He was a natural loner by character; a trait inherited by all three of his progeny. He liked doing things; making things; repairing things; never throwing anything away because one simply never knew.

One evening, flipping through the sparse photographic record of a life, I came across three images without any people and to me, totally clueless. Laurie sat bolt upright - an old army trait that often comes out when he has to stand beside his grandsons - and his finger started tapping the plastic. And out flooded the story of Crosslands. A very simple, uncluttered yarn - as so many of his are.

... the ties that bind ...

He shakes his head in disbelief and bewilderment. As we wound up the morning in "The First Drop" in East Redfern. slurping coffee and devouring fruit toast, he asked me if I could understand if he said that he found "all this" bewildering - I understood at the time that he was referring to the hustle'n'bustle of the coffee shop - but now I wonder.

We started our Tempe time-warp at 18 Collins Street which is where Laurie and Olwen lived immediately after their wedding in June 1943. Laurie was still in the AIF (Australian Infantry Force), although no longer in New Guinea, and lived in camp; Olwen continued to live with her family in this rented house in a very working-class inner city suburb of Sydney. Olwen's family included her father, Cecil Roy Selby (1897), who made boxes at a factory owned by his brother; her mother, Margaret Olwen Hughes (1896), who traipsed to Australian as a WW1 war-bride from Wales; Olwen Dorothy (1921) who packed cigarettes for W. D. & H. O. Wills; Ronnie (c. 1924) who rode motor bikes; and Brian (1938) a brat who got away with murder! Interesting, that Laurie's most vivid memories are two-fold: storing his Panther motor-bike (with side-car) in their garage during his sojourn in New Guinea; and, Brian's impertinences towards his mother.

After chatting in Collins Street for a while, we journeyed about a mile over to St Clements Anglican Church on Marrickville Road where Laurie and Olwen were married on 23rd June 1944 - a marriage that broke down in 1967 and ended in divorce in 1975. It had never been a meeting of minds, nor of bodies. Indeed, I can recall a number of years ago, Laurie telling me that when he returned from NG at the end of 1943 he could not remember why he wanted to marry Olwen; but, times being what they were, he gave his word and kept it. At the time, he was recalling his "buck's night" which involved him drunkenly trying to walk the narrow water pipe next to a swing-bridge which spanned a gorge at the back of Hornsby - to the catcalls of chaps he regarded as mates.

Last week, when I visited Dad, he got all excited and could not remember what he had to tell me. He usuallly writes himself a note for "tell Julie's" but nowt. Then it occurred to him that it was something to do with a photograph on his wall - of which there are many. The ones that puzzle him the most are the ones of Olwen. He made a dash for the albums at the bottom of his cupboard and pointed to an image of the tent that he shared in 1942 in NG with Gordon Gregg and Bill Kingsmill (who was very modest and would only shower with his pants on). In that photograph, on an old box, was that very same image of Olwen. He wanted my confirmation. Astounding! It sure looks like the same image - and the final confirmation was that I have found the original photograph of Olwen tied up with a piece of string with his Army Service book and Discharge Papers.

This morning we had with us some photographs of his wedding which Dad poured/pawed over whilst I tried to recapture passed lives for lives yet to come. The photograps of their honeymoon in Terrigal were taken by Laurie's 16 year old sister, Sylvia. I asked why she was there: "did she want to know what you were doing"? This, at least, elicited a chuckle. They rented a cottage on the beach. I think I can see a cigarette in Dad's hand - he said it was only for a short time and he gave it up when he developed a cough. Their oldest child, Barry, must have been born from 18 Collins Street (Dad said he was born in a hospital in either Petersham or Lewisham), because Barry was born in July 1945 and Laurie was not de-mobbed until November 1945.

... a bit of a cut-up ...

This is my Dad's own description of himself - a bit of a cut-up. I think this means that he always gave his mother grief and never took the normal route to anything. No wonder he and I get along so well. And it is obviously genetically time-warped into my son, too.

Laurie left school when he was 15, with a reference - dated 28th January, 1936 - from Hornsby Junior Technical School signed by the headmaster, A. G. Murray which indicates that he had been a student there since January 1930 - for 6 years from when he was nine and a half. He quickly found a job with D & W Murray which was a wholesale softgoods warehouse which occupied a large part of a central city block bounded by York, Market and Clarence Streets. Dad would travel by train each day from Hornsby, down the north-shore line, across the relatively new harbour bridge, alight at Wynyard for a brisk walk up a couple of blocks where he went by the grand title of "warehouseman". He had this same job when he joined the Citizens Military Force (CMF) on 11th August 1941 - two months after turning 20.

In his job, Dad cut and packed lengths of cloth from bolts that measured roughly 30" wide if silks and satins, or 54" wide if woollens. Listening to him, it is difficult to determine if he was a warehouseman or a salesman. However, there were aspects of the job that he detested. He disliked his boss - and the feeling is still strong today. A tyrant of a man call Bill Hogarth. You know the type - Stand up straight, Tonkin. Lick my boots, Tonkin. Poor Harold Atkins copped it the most. But Laurie stuck with it and when his father refused him permission to join the navy he joined the CMF which did not require parental permission until he volunteered to join the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in New Guinea on 11th September 1942.

... what goes around comes around ...

During the 1970s when Laurie was between wives - so to speak - he lived with his mother in an old run-down terrace in North Bondi. Sylvia Tonkin (nee Cole) had moved to Bondi from her "corner store" in Florence Street, Hornsby not long after the death of her third son - Athol Reginald "Reg" - who smashed his skull on the curb when absentmindedly stepping back to avoid a taxi in London.

During this period, Dad occasionally worked selling advertising for dodgy publications and an even dodgier boss who worked out of premises just off main-street in Double-Pay. With a lot of time on his hands, and being keen to meet noice ladies, Laurie spent a lot of time on assorted beaches in the Eastern Suburbs working up one helluva sun tan. Totally tut-tutted nowadays, but de rigueur at that time.

... by cycle ...

  Laurie bought his first bicycle when, aged 14, he walked from Hornsby - Florcence St specifically - down to the workshop of a cove in Normanhurst who had advertised in the local rag, The Hornsby Advocate. Being long and lanky, he was hooked immediately. It mattered nowt to him that the other chaps in the team were older than he. He enjoyed the camerarderie and the hard work through down through the gorge and out to Galston and Dural.

He claims Bruce Burford was the best rider in the club - but that a few of the chaps got to take home silver-ward. Not once did he blow his own horn. Couldn't remember what the cups were for. But had excellent recall that they were displayed on a 'roo skin from a blighter he shot on Ernie Blackburn's property out past Coonabarrabran.

... celebrating beginning ...

Not being one for overt displays of jingoism, I eschew fake corroborrees, ferry-a-thons and thong-slapping, singlet-sweating crowds who mass-orgasm on days of national remembrance.

With my daughter at a wedding in the Barossa and my son whooping it up at Patonga, my father and I moysied down to McKell Park at the tip of Darling Point, a finger of sandstone jutting into the southern side of Sydney Harbour. The order from the bridge - if you take the perimeter of the harbour as being composed of point/inlet- is Dawes Point/Sydney Cove (aka Circular Quay), Point Bennelong/ Farm Cove, Mrs Macquarie's Point/Wooloomooloo Bay, Garden Island/Elizabeth Bay and Rushcutters Bay, Darling Point/Double Bay.

This charming park which is difficult of access which is probably why it is still charming, was the home of Canonbury which was converted into a naval hospital during WW2, what with its jetty and proximity to Garden Island naval base. With the sun glinting off the water, I traced for Dad the progress of the torpedo from the Japanese mini-sub as it hurtled toward the ill-fated Katabul moored at Garden Island that fateful few days in July 1942 when Dad was encamped at Middle Head and could hear the fuss but the military blackout obfuscated all intelligence.

I could see the fresh air, the sun, the water and views working its wonders on Dad as he soaked up the delights of being out in the real world. We took our time and shuffled from park bench (where he regailed a young couple celebrating their 35th anniversary with stories of Sir William McKell, post-war Governor-General) to stone wall (where he could welcome all the young and energetic as they white-rabbited their way to picnics and fishing possies) to garden seat (where the paucity of his olfactory sense left him unable to smell lavendar even when severely crushed).

Our peregrinations thus far have led us to Victoria Barracks, Bondi, Rushcutters Bay, Middle Head & Chowder Bay and now Darling Point. Next we are off to Thompson Street, Drummoyne where Dad's grandparents lived between the wars. Unfortunately, Gordon is unable to accompany us as he has lost feeling in an arm (having fallen off a ladder a number of years ago) and this is debilitating him sufficiently to see a specialist mid-week.

... aged care assessment ...

Caring for aged people is a complex process in Australia. So many people, as they age, are so against institutionalised care that they do anything in preference to thinking or planning about it. Institutional care is "demeaning". It is controlled. It is complex. It is expensive. And it can be all of these things. It needs immense energy, thought and patience to tame the beast.

... turning full circle ...

My father's mother - Sylvia Irene Veronica - married a man 17 years older than herself. A big man, a lazy man, a man who demanded that everything be done for him. Eventually, this became too much for Sylvia - Grandma to me but Gogga to others - and Will went into a nursing home attached to Lidcombe Hospital during 1962. He died in May 1963 aged 84. Grandma was not even 68. But she was bone tired because she went to visit him everyday by public transport. It was her life.

... the Don Rs of Hut C ...

Laurie joined the army on 11th August 1941; he had wanted to join the navy but his father refused to sign the papers having been an non-conscientious objector during WW1. He was 20 years old, had been working in the city for 5 years and had just purchased his first motor bike. He joined up at Victoria Barracks and was encamped in tents on Middle Head until a row of huts was built. With both his cycling and his biking background he became a despach rider - a Don R.

Early in 1943, Laurie and his best mate, Bill Kingsmill stepped forward when volunteers were requested to go to New Guinea. Another young soldier, Gordon Gregg, joined them and over the next 12 months an unbreakable bond formed. In NG they served in the Anti-aircraft & Fortress Signals - officially 2/1st A.A. Brigade Signals.

This morning as we drove along the finger of land that is Middle Head flashes of memory came to Laurie. He had not been back here since he left for NG 66 years ago even though he lived in Sydney all that time. It is only now that time is precious that he asked me to take him out there. We came over the rise and there was the Officers' Quarters as he described it; and just 200 yds further along was the row of huts one of which was Hut C. They slept in rows along the wall on stretchers made of wood and hessian.

Laurie spent 6 months learning to march on the Middle-Head parade ground, followed by 12 months in NG in two rotations. He has never mentioned what he did until 5th November 1945 when he was de-mobbed - 2 years of silence. It is only the action and the commararderie of the jungle that he recalls. The slippery mud that caused him to smash his knee-cap. Dodging bullets as he steered a flimsy boat around Milne Bay as the roads were impassable. The debilitation caused by malaria. And the mates. Always the mates. He was 22 and these were his band of brothers for life.

As he farewelled me after I took him back to Paddington, he took a call from Ron Miles in Adelaide. Ron is 90 and was Laurie's Sergeant in NG. When told that he had just visited Middle Head, I could hear Ron explode: "Hut C. Not Hut C". Mates.

NB. Gordon Gregg went first; killed in a crop-dusting plane in the Central West of NSW in the mid 50s. Bill Kingsmill died from an aneurysm one morning in 1987 on the dunny.

... 'tis a gift to be simple ...

He shuffled into his ensuite and returned with a green plastic mug - washed - into which he poured half the iced-coffee. We sat side-by-side on his bed and devoured it with relish. What would I buy, other than his favourite? He returned the mug to the basin ready to hold his dentures during the night.

The Freycinet base-ball cap looked a treat and gave him so much pleasure he kept on looking at himself in the mirror, grinning his daft head off. He needed a visor on New Year's Day as we mooched around Rushcutter's Bay. This cap will work a treat during our excursion to Middle Head on Saturday. He carefully wrote this on his wall calendar; along with a note that his new carpet is being laid on Friday.

As he escorted me to the lift, we could hear Justin - the night nurse - coming along the corridor. Dad grinned and made to get into the lift.

" ... and just where do you think you're going?"

"I'm outta here!"

Paroxysms of laughter.

Obvious rapport.

... on the sad height ...

Thomas knew not of that he spoke. Of course, he didn't - he died aged 39 - whereas his wise men, his good men, his wild men and his grave men knew that there is nothing graceful about ageing. Becket was nearer the mark  - life can descend into a Godot existence.

On the first day of the New Year, I woke my father just after nine in the morning to take him somewhere - anywhere. Everytime I arrive he has taken himself back to bed. He has had enough of life but, paradoxically, he is paranoid about getting a chill. He prays to God that he not wake up in the morning. But he has crossed the Rubicon - he no longer has the ability to ease himself out. Yet, when he had the ability he regarded it as premature. He is howardesque in clinging onto life's power. This old man has vascular dementia and is just now easing into that twilight where he is not fazed by incontinence but puzzled by photographs that depict his first wife and his current wife.

Yesterday, we shuffled around Rushcutter's Bay park. We were accompanied by a brilliant blue sky, a delightful nor'easter and a sun that beat down upon our shadeless heads. As we drank our coffee under the most magnificent of plane trees, we watched two toddlers in wee pink skirts push their prams up the path with mum and dad walking arm-in-arm behind. We watched the sea-plane circle the remnants of the night before floating upon the waters of the harbour - "Can you hear that plane, Dad?" "Of course, Blind Freddie could hear that!"- much to his own delight. Our heads bobbed in time to the masts anchored at the yacht club. We mooched along the sandstone retaining wall as the incoming tide rushed up the canal. We eased from park bench to park bench and from topic to topic - the most animated of which was about the difference between a bolt and a screw, how each worked and the continuing value of "glue and screw".

Gone were concerns of Enduring Power of Attorney. Gone was the demeaning judgement of the Guardianship Tribunal. Gone was the straighjacket he had forced the Protective Commissioner to wrap around me. My dad was now this shuffling shell whom everyone calls "such a gentleman" with a wonderful sense of humour.

And there is no point in my trying to set the record straight: the previous man no longer exists. Gone is the bully. Gone is the racist bigot. Gone is the paranoid, anal retentive, uptight human being who was incapable of showing affection.

There is so much I need to ask him, yet he has robbed me even of that.