Link to Leonie Pheeney(Brady) stories of growing up in Mallacoota and Bruce Pascoe Corner full of Characters https://loveofmallacoota.com/category/pascoe-memories/growing-up/

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Your feedback is welcome. I am writing (and correcting this as I go)

Background: Mallacoota is a small fishing village (well abalone are classified as mutton fish so the statement still stands!) located in the middle of 2 National Parks of incredible diversity and remoteness. Croajingalong and Nadgee.

500 km from Melbourne and a bit more to Sydney.

Over 300 different bird species, rare animals and orchids and a rarer variety of humans.

Graham and I live on acreage on the outskirts of town. We are one of the last blocks with trees on our road.

SO THIS IS BEING BORN! 

I was born in Bega Hospital on 4th of July, 1946.
My mother later told me she suspected Dad had been having an affair with the matron. I think she was right, as at 76 years of age he hadn’t slowed down much.
My first memories include being dazzled by the sun as my half-nieces took my photo, me scrunched and squirming on a bunny rug on the lawns at Raheen.
Both parents treated me as a miniature adult..so that is what I became. I learnt poetry to be totted out to visitors. On one occasion I gave some visiting group the total history and cultivation of fuchsia plants. They listened politely, but, for the first time, I saw suppressed humour!
I remember my staggering steps across the carpet. The discovery of my father’s office, including the Vicks lozenges in the second desk drawer. The immense spread of the night sky, with Dad pointing out constellations. Being woken in the early hours of the morning to see the Aurora Australis.
Learning to read, which opened an amazing world for me. Dad insisted on reading the Age newspaper first, spreading it out on the floor..so I learnt to read upside down, which served me well later in life when I went for job interviews!
The “Magic carpet” and Dad’s stories of where we went every night.

 

WALKS WITH DAD&THE PRAM EPISODE

Dad only became ill with a failing heart ( a condition then called dropsy) when I was about 4.
He had given his T-model Ford to the son Hugh. Mum didn’t drive, so we walked everywhere. Dad’s legs were weak and prone to give out. It must have been very hard for him to keep up with Mum & me. I was in a large wicker pram. Mirrabooka Hill and home seemed a long way away. Dad ended up in the pram, me walking. I can remember his fear that someone in a car would see him, so we had to listen carefully for the occasional vehicle.
I have no idea where the pram came from, but it served multiple purposes..carriage for myself and Dad, with added groceries as required. Once, a HUGE bee swarm, when I was in it. Mum dragged me backwards by the legs to get me away. The swarm was “smoked” by Paddy (who was a relative of Beatie) and put into a super box under our peach tree. Then I think everyone went inside for a comforting drink (probably alcohol, knowing my family). When Paddy came to collect the bees the next morning, it was discovered that the box had been placed over a bull ant’s nest. Not a bee left! What a fight it must have been.

 

READING MATERIAL

After Dad, so I was around eight, I discovered National Geographic. I had befriended Ken and Betty Morrison, whom I used to visit. His subscription was always eagerly awaited by me. I also had the Women’s Weekly given to me by Beatie, my brother Hugh’s wife and comics from the butcher’s son, Keith Iggledon (often exchanged for a billy full of mushrooms, which he loved). The Rankin family also swapped comics with me. I remember “The Phantom” and Marvel comics. I could also borrow from the school and read my way through that library as well. This is where my love of Shakespeare originated

 

STARTING SCHOOL

This was a tumultuous year for me as I started school, sitting next to Blue Bruce in Grade 1. This was the only desk space. When I did my first maths test I was completely confused(still am!)And copied my companion, with disastrous results…we both got everything wrong!
Attendance at school was sporadic, due to the 2km walk in from home. There was always something interesting to see and do. Creeks, bush, then the fishermen mending nets..and so on. I did enjoy the school library, which the teachers trusted me to borrow from. This was. a change from Dad’s reference books and poetry. He had a wide variety of material, including medical tomes with illustrations. So this was where sex education started. I knew what happened, but it was a some years until it was explained to me in detail! (I had heard one of the Rankin boys say “fuck” and went home and asked Mum what the word meant). She was making scones and threw the flour everywhere.

The school was only one room. Grades shared a double wooden lift-up desk. 2 Blackboards. Smaller children on one side, blackboards to match, ornate borders in coloured chalk. The reader was John & Betty. Blue Bruce’s rendition of where the Pelican builds its nest. No shoes. School and gardens fenced in. Outside paddock for sport. Toilet pans up the back. Horses and tack room. Iodine tablets. The gumtree swing. Tank water, with individual mugs for each of us. Lining up before school, out the front. Radio with speaker, flag pole. No shoes worn, Bare feet in the dust. School gardens, with the miracle of radishes. Learning how to plant ranunculus. Depending on the teacher..mad keen school sports or “nature study,” the curriculum varied. Amazing event of kindergarten teacher Mrs McLeod and a new school building. Coming home with the Rankin kids. Gilberts & Davis Creek. Tarzan in the vines at Shady Gully and my fall.

CRACKER NIGHT

Cracker night was an event saved up for and dreamt about for months. The fireworks were managed strictly by the men, who stuck sky rockets into empty beer bottles while the women set out the supper and supervised the children. The night was a sensory overload of brilliant sights and sudden sounds: Catherine wheels spun their fiery cartwheels against the timber walls, sparklers allowed us to write our names in the dark, and packets of tiny “Tom Thumbs” crackled fiercely on the ground.

When I was young, Australia celebrated two cracker nights: one for the Queen’s Birthday and the other for Guy Fawkes. The main event was most surely the fifth of November. “Remember, remember the fifth of November: Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot” was the familiar rhyme of the era. It was a completely different time, long before fireworks were banned across Australia in the 1970s and 80s, and later in New Zealand in the 1990s.

REMEMBERING AN EARLY GUY FAUKES IN MALLACOOTA

My father, EJ, was still quite active then, so I would have been about four years old. My mother had just returned from the long, three-kilometre trek to the township shops while Dad and I sat on the garden bench, happily babysitting each other. It was always a time of great anticipation: letters and newspapers for EJ, and a sweet treat from Mrs Wallace’s shop for me.

But on this particular afternoon, there was a very special surprise—a brown paper bag containing mysterious objects called Roman candles. I had no idea what they were, wondering if they might be something edible, but they were quickly placed well out of my reach.

By evening, I had forgotten them entirely until the brown bag reappeared after dinner and my parents called me outside. One of the strange cylinders was pushed firmly into the edge of the flower bed. Dad bent down, struck a match, and lit the fuse.

If I hadn’t been holding Mum’s hand, I would have bolted on the spot! Instead, I ran straight inside the house and refused to budge. Peering out the window, I watched as Mum and Dad, each holding a glowing candle, danced merrily up and down the garden path, showering the night with colored sparks. Miraculously, no one was burned.

A FORESHORE BONFIRE

My fear of fireworks soon abated, and within a few years, Guy Fawkes had become a monumental event involving the entire township. I vividly remember the massive community bonfire on the foreshore, just below where the old Shady Gully caravan park reception used to be. Everyone contributed to the pile—fallen branches, garden clearing, old timber, and anything else that would burn.

As dusk fell, the fire was set alight and went up with a magnificent, pyroclastic whoosh. The local children were beside themselves with excitement.

The sky rockets were the true highlight of the evening, though they were unpredictable; a few escaped their beer-bottle launchers and shot sideways across the camping park at tree height or lower. Others behaved beautifully, soaring high into the night and spraying a cascade of gold that reflected perfectly on the still waters of the lake.

The excitement wasn’t just in the sky. Brian Bobbin, a boy around my own age, accidentally walked right through a patch of hot, glowing ashes. Because most of us kids went barefoot in those days—while the adults usually wore shoes—it took the concept of firewalking to a painful new level. He was rushed to the tank stand to soak his feet in cold rainwater, but he continued on with the night, completely undaunted.

Then there was Albert Greer’s curly-coated retriever, appropriately named “Curly.” While most town pets had been securely locked away for the night, Curly had managed a spectacular escape. What followed was a real-life staging of Henry Lawson’s The Loaded Dog. There was no catching the demented animal; much like Lawson’s big, foolish retriever Tommy, Curly sprinted from firecracker to firecracker, enthusiastically retrieving the live, spitting explosives right out of the dark.

It was pure, chaotic larrikinism. Spectators ran in every direction, shouting uselessly while Curly bounded about with a hissing cracker held tightly in his mouth, sporting the broadest, silliest canine smile you’ve ever seen. The immediate result was a frantic mess of flying sparks, slobber, torn paper, and minor mouth explosions.

When a breathless Albert finally managed to tackle the dog, he locked him safely inside the car, where Curly spent the rest of the night barking furiously and panting against the glass, thoroughly satisfied with the afternoon’s fun.

In the excitement of the night, no one thought to check the vehicle when the humans finally headed home. By the next morning, that interesting cocktail of thick canine drool, shredded red cracker paper, and leftover adhesive had completely smeared across all the back windows and set hard in the morning sun. I can still vividly picture Albert’s epic morning-after cleanup efforts—armed with buckets of water, wet rags, and a monumental amount of cursing as he tried to scrape the baked-on red mess off the glass. Curly, much like his literary counterpart, simply looked on with absolute, unbothered pride.

THE CASTLECLIFF FLASHPOINT

The very last bonfire night I attended was on the beach at Castlecliff in New Zealand. By then I was a teenager, much less easily impressed, but just as eager for the fun.

A group of five of us had pooled our pocket money to buy a large, communal box of crackers to share at the Surf Club bonfire. To make the fun last as long as possible, we had meticulously unwound the strings of the small red crackers to separate them. Our most responsible mate was given sole custody of the treasure.

For some reason, our friend Lana was dropped off early at the Surf Club by her much older brother, while the rest of us walked up the wide beach. In the distance, we could see the massive bonfire blazing, surrounded by silhouettes of the gathering crowd. Suddenly, there was a massive, brilliant flare from the dunes, followed by the sight of figures running in every direction.

When we finally caught up to the group, we discovered what had happened. Lana had sat down on the sand to wait for us, leaving the open box of fireworks on the ground beside her. A stray, rogue jumping jack from the main fire had bounced straight into the box, igniting our entire hoard in one spectacular, catastrophic split second.

Luckily, no one was hurt. The local community was incredibly generous; seeing our crestfallen faces, everyone shared a few items from their own stash so they wouldn’t miss out on the night.

Shortly after that bonfire night, it was time to put away childish things. Our family was on the move once again, crossing the Tasman to return home to Australia.

 

CHRISTMAS TREE IN THE HALL

A huge Christmas tree, usually a cherry ballart, was propped up in a barrel near the stage of the old hall. The publican (Santa)smelt of beer) Dances with sawdust on the floor.

I came back from living in Melbourne to find the piano on a heap of rubble when Park’s office was built. The travelling acts. The school concert and fancy dress (Mum dressed me up as a devil, complete with a pitchfork made out of my Gran’s hair-curling tongs.)

 

THE WRITER’S CAMP WHERE WE LIVED

My father believed that sleeping under canvas was the only way. Subsequently, he built three tents, which were erected under the shelter of a tin roof and on platforms. One was his office; the other 2 were bedrooms. There was a “proper” kitchen and long front living room built by my brother Hugh as compensation for the primitive outdoor kitchen. When my father died, the first tent, where he had worked, became my “cubby house.” When rearranging a bookcase, I found an upper set of gold teeth behind it. How they must have searched for that, as I guess it was very expensive. Never mind, Mum pawned it on our next trip to Melbourne. Along the front was a long concrete veranda with canvas blinds that could be pulled down. Dad had stored a huge collection of Aboriginal artifacts which I soon used, throwing the spears as far as I could down the paddock. My brother Hugh had to ask Mum to pick them up as he wanted to slash the area. Flo then gave them to the school as instructional material, but one of the teachers took them. There was also a varied collection of items from New Guinea and Burma, kadaicha shoes, clubs, my grandfather’sword and also his duelling pistols, a flute and a banjo (both of which my mum taught herself to play). These were my toys. They gradually “disappeared” as Mum needed money. I can only remember a koala bear and a pull-along wooden toy, both gifts from visitors and more conventional fun.

 

THE KITE EPISODE

I wanted a kite, badly! Dad was having his afternoon rest and not to be disturbed. I didn’t understand that he was getting weak with a heart condition(called dropsy in those days) Flo, ( I remember this clearly) let me go past her in the kitchen, dragging the straw broom. Why? Who knows? I hit him over the shins with it to wake him up, which he certainly did, leaping forth and trying to catch me. I had crawled to the back of our big dining table where he couldn’t reach. E overbalanced and fell backwards, half into the fireplace. I remember a large cloud of ash.

He eventually made me a kite out of the Age newspaper, but it was too heavy to fly very far!

 

THE CHOOK BONNETS

My mother, ever of an artistic bent, decided the chooks needed a bit of entertainment. It was coming up to Easter, and although we were of pagan intent, Flo thought it would be a good idea to instruct me on the Easter story. So I had 2 versions, one Christian, one not. My father was alive then and I would have been about 4.

I remember tons of watercolour paints, cardboard, and beads.

My father was watching with amusement. Some of my hair ribbons for bonnet ties. Sturdy jobs these, but a bit small for my head. Little did I know what she had in mind.

Dad went to bed earlier than I as he was elderly and suffering from something known as “dropsy,” a chronic heart failure. The nights must have been long and restless, and he was well asleep when Mum asked me to hold the torch whilst she dressed up the hens for an Easter surprise. With my Easter bonnet efforts.

Creeping successfully into the chook pen, with me waving the flashlight in every direction except a helpful one. She carefully tied bonnets onto the hens. The rooster made a few disturbed noises, but the hens hardly stirred — that is, until the first crow, when what sounded like a den of foxes in the hen house broke out. Strangled help screams from the hens, panic screams for him in charge, and pandemonium around the pen. Some got tangled in objects and let out more distressed gargles; others managed to get the bonnets off, but the ribbons stayed in place, and they wore undergarments of my creations. I can’t remember if we had any eggs that day, but that was a much better idea than going to Sunday church. Dad walked painfully up the path to view the last of the carnage. Even he thought it was funny. This is what Easter means to me.

 

A MIRROR FOR THE ROOSTER

We had a huge copper -frame mirror which was carried all the way from Ireland by my paternal great-aunts. I guess it was to be part of a family member’s dowry, but it ended up with us. ( It is now hanging in my bathroom, with the copper protected by a spray-on film). It has been polished over the generations, which probably made it very thin and fragile.

Not as far as Mum was concerned. She took it up to the hen house and propped it up against a tree. All Hell broke loose when the rooster saw it. After repeated charging and yelling, he ran around the back of the mirror in an attempt to do serious harm to the upstart that dared come into his chook pen. He bloodied his comb in the effort, much to the indifference of all the hens. The mirror was finally knocked over. That ended the assault. The mirror is a beautiful Irish rose design and will see more careful use here!

We had what seemed a never-ending clowder of cats. About 23 at one time. Cat flu killed the majority of them. There was a grassy knoll cemetery, and Mum knew where all the plots were. I made fanciful names on rock headstones, which Dad made Mum remove, as he said he was close enough to death as it was, without a constant reminder!

 

THE SNAKE IN THE PUMPKINS

I was taken by a story on the Chelsea flower markets and proceeded to make my own version in Dad’s office. To summon potential clients, I somehow managed to hang a huge (it was as tall as I was) brass gong to the edge of the steps. A passing snake, intrigued by the vibrations, appeared with great enthusiasm, headed straight for me. Mum did a flip-out, woke EJ and insisted he dispatch it with the shotgun, forthwith.
He did his best. No glasses on and befuddled by sleep, Dad aimed in the general direction, blasting our entire pumpkin crop to bits. The snake left. The “market” did not go over well and was dismantled.

OUR EXTENSIVE GARDENS

Towering broad beans. Cosmos, belladonna lilies and lilacs. Flight, the retired draft horse, and our roses. My first garden, poor man’s orchids (this had me puzzled). Our spring in the vegetable garden dam with kerosene can buckets to dip out the water. Cotton over the pea seedlings, stick trellises. The veg truck from Bucklands.I am afraid, but fascinated, by storms and thunder. Mum used to bang the back of the wood stove chimney, imitating thunder, to get me to come inside…until I stood behind her one day and worked out what she was doing!

Dad sent me up the loquat trees, teaching me to spit the pips. Prawns from Hugh. Both good gardeners. Mum cooked over an open fire. We had a fully functional kitchen with a Kooka wood stove, but she preferred the fireplace. The fire had 2 bits of railway line to sit pots on and produced some excellent meals! I remember an argument between EJ and Flo that ended up with her salting his food and saying, “Die, you bastard, die.” A lot of plates from Mallacoota House (Willow pattern) were smashed. Dad’s favourite Willow pattern mug survived until after he had died. I was told my father had died, but I didn’t have any idea what that meant, only that it was the last I’d ever see of him. I remember saying “Good, I can have his cup” and Mum, in a fit of grief and anger, smashing it in front of me. I love the Willow pattern and have some bits of china to this day.

 

THE MAIL MUST GET THROUGH

The Post Office At Allan Head

Long before the overland tracks were carved into the bush, the true civic anchor of Mallacoota sat squarely across the water at Allan Head. There, the Dorron family operated the district’s first hotel and post office—a lakeside hub that demanded a serious trek for anyone seeking their letters. If you wanted your mail in those days, you didn’t just walk down the street. You either took a boat, or you rode down to Swimming Point, coaxed your horse into the tide, swam them across to the shifting spine of the Goodwin Sands, and braved the final deep stretch over to the hotel.

It was a beautiful but treacherous highway. The lake gave generously, but it also took away. One local man, John Frazer, left the hotel one evening and was claimed by those deceptive waters, destined to rest at Cemetery Bight. That old pioneer cemetery remains a solemn place, holding the bones of early settlers and the nameless victims of coastal shipwrecks. Years later, the Historical Society would mark out what graves they could find, and two of those early pioneers were eventually moved to rest near Dad in what we now call the Mallacoota West Cemetery. I always find a bit of ironic humor in the name; out here, between the winding inlets, the dense scrub, and the old Irish families giving directions, you can never quite be sure if you are heading north, south, east, or west!

Before the settlement finally shifted to this side of the lake in 1925, life on the water had its own distinct elegance. Folklore around the inlet still whispers of old Mrs. Allan being rowed down the river in her full, pristine wedding gear. It’s a beautiful image, though I suspect it has blurred over the years with Henry Lawson’s own memories from his visit in 1910. Dad’s old mate Henry used to write colorfully about meeting the vibrant Dorron girls, dressed to the nines in all their finery, confidently pulling at the heavy oars as they rowed themselves down the lake to a twenty-first birthday party.

People often wonder why the early overland route crawled to Gipsy Point first, feeding places like the Rose Cottage guest house and the Gipsy Point Hotel. It became a vital outpost for exporting local fish and the heavily traded wattle-bark used for tanning. Yet, even as the land routes slowly crept closer, the old timers knew the truth: for the longest time, the real wealth of Mallacoota—its timber, its catch, and its stories—still preferred to slip out past the treacherous sandbars on the decks of the supply boats, bound for the open sea.

The Post Office Moves (Part 2) Dads road

To this very day, Mallacoota remains one of the most geographically isolated small townships in the entire state of Victoria. In the early decades of the twentieth century, however, that isolation wasn’t just a characteristic—it was an absolute boundary. Our only lifeline to the outside world, the fragile thread that brought news, letters, and a glimpse of the wider continent, depended entirely on what could be hauled in by packhorse, van, or unpredictable mail car.

In those pioneering days, everything began at Lakeview. The lakeside hub was the anchor of the inlet. Mail bags didn’t arrive through the dense forest canopy; instead, they came by boat, tossed onto the timber jetty from supply cutters and fishing vessels that had successfully navigated the treacherous, shifting sandbar at the lake’s entrance. The rhythm of daily life, the local wattle-bark trade, commercial fishing hand-offs, and the gossip of the district all converged right there, filtered through the social focus of the old pub.

But the tide of change was swelling, and it was about to pull the heart of Mallacoota right across the water. An overland route had already crept as far as Gipsy Point, teasing us with its close proximity to the rest of Australia. The physical catalyst for bridging that final gap came down to a mix of national pride and sheer, stubborn family determination.

My father, E.J. Brady, had just put the final touches on Australia Unlimited—a massive, sweeping volume that chronicled the endless potential, modern engineering, and untamed future of the Australian continent. Yet, for all his grand visions of a progressive nation, Dad faced a deeply frustrating, ironic reality: he could not physically drive his own motor car into Mallacoota.

Never one to suffer a roadblock lightly, he set about badgering the government with fiery persistence until they finally relented. They allocated the grand sum of thirty-six pounds to hack a road through the wilderness. It was a cut-price, rough-and-ready operation that simply followed the winding, deeply grooved tracks left behind by the old bullock teams.

When the track was finally cleared, the day arrived for the momentous first trip. Dad was at the wheel, accompanied by a government surveyor tasked with certifying this new overland avenue—the very route that would eventually carry our mail cars. All went well enough through the bumpy bullock ruts until the wilderness decided to throw up its final objection.

They reached Double Creek, which in those days was a strong, untamed rush of water. Dad resolved to ford it, but the engineer took one look at the creek and completely lost his nerve. Refusing to go an inch further, the man jumped clean out of the moving vehicle and onto the muddy bank!

Dad pushed through regardless. The car survived, and the isolation of Mallacoota was broken. With that single, chaotic journey along a thirty-six-pound bullock track, the mail route shifted, the old packhorse trails began to fade into folklore, and the modern era of Mallacoota stepped resolutely over the lake.

The Post Office Moves (Part 3: Verandah Gossip, Plastic Snakes, and Flo’s Farewell)

As the years rolled on, the post office shifted to the side of the lake I remember best from my childhood—up near where the current Medical Centre stands. It was an old timber building with a large, covered front verandah that served as the town’s ultimate social hub. For the tourists, there was a bright red pillar telephone box on the verandah, but for the locals, the real magic happened inside at the switchboard. Mrs. Dorron ran the show with a “spaghetti” system of tangled plug cords. To make a call, you’d step into the booth, give the rotating handle a vigorous crank to alert her, and pass along your details. Mrs. Dorron knew exactly where everyone was at any given moment; if you were expecting an urgent call but going out to a neighbour’s for dinner, you simply let her know, and she would faithfully plug you through.

Mail day was the lifeblood of our social interaction—it was where news was broken, gossip was traded, and local deals were struck. Parcels were left out on a covered front area, which naturally invited a bit of childhood mischief. My friend Ernest Mc Carthur and I once carefully packaged up a box full of bone-dry cow pats to trick someone we didn’t particularly care for. They were absolutely not amused, though looking back, we always said they should have counted their blessings that the cow pats weren’t wet!

The post office was always alive with drama. There was Carl Shoreland, a postmaster at the time who was rather heavily enamoured of Mum. He found himself thoroughly sprung when I walked in and caught him with his hand clear down her dress! Then there was Mrs. Dorron’s horrible dog, Rex, who spent his days snarling and growling at passersby through the paling fence. On voting days, which were held at the school, Mum would use the bustling hub of the post office to cheekily show locals how to vote Labor—simply by instructing them to turn the Liberal how-to-vote card completely upside down. At home, we didn’t have electricity, let alone a telephone, so if anything truly urgent came up, we had to walk down the hill to Beatie and Hugh’s place, or trudge over to Mallacoota House.

By the time I was a young adult, the mail had migrated again, operating where the Surf Shop stands today under the watchful eyes of Roma Tory (then Casement) and postmaster Barry Nation. Mum was still living in town, while my first husband, Paul, and I were living up in Boronia, Melbourne. I loved sending her packages whenever I could, and on one particular occasion, I had prepared a lovely big pile of new linen for her. On our way to the Boronia post office, Paul and I walked past a local toy shop, and right there in the window was a shockingly realistic, large plastic black snake. Knowing Mum would get a massive giggle out of it, and since the package was already sealed, I carefully eased the snake through a gap in the brown paper and taped it back up. Innocently, I swear!

Mum, completely unable to contain her excitement, tore the parcel open right outside the Mallacoota Post Office. Out tumbled the realistically writhing black snake, landing square at her feet. Loud, piercing screams echoed down the street. Hearing the commotion, the postmaster came rushing out armed with a broom, frantically swiping at the pavement while Mum yelled “Snake! Snake!” at the top of her lungs. He beat that poor plastic reptile solidly while a crowd of onlookers crept closer to inspect the damage. Finally, a young boy picked it up, inspected the underbelly, and laughingly announced, “Made in Japan.” It took a very long time for the postmaster to forgive Mum—and me.

In true fashion, Mum eventually outstayed her ability to cope on her own in Mallacoota. My second husband, Peter, and I moved her down to Bairnsdale so she could be closer to the hospital and aged care. She settled in beautifully and spent a few happy years there. Then, out of nowhere, I received a call from the hospital saying she had suffered a heart attack but was stable. As Peter and I prepped for the 200-kilometre dash to see her, a second, far more urgent call told us to hurry. Sadly, she passed away just half an hour before we arrived. I never got to say my final goodbye, but I was determined to follow her wishes for a simple cremation to the absolute letter.

Leaving the hospital, I went straight to the town’s lone funeral director and immediately hit a brick wall. At that time, the nearest crematorium was in Melbourne, and they insisted the body travel in one of their deluxe, expensive coffin models. The cost was eye-watering and entirely against everything Mum valued, sparking a spectacular argument. In the end, we compromised on a simple coffin, a temporary stay in the hospital freezer, and a “tandem” trip to Melbourne alongside another deceased person. A month later, Flo finally made her final journey to the crematorium in tandem with a “nice gentleman”—and to this day, I still humorously wonder who got to be on top.

For weeks afterward, every single parcel that arrived at my door was accepted with immense, quiet solemnity, as I kept thinking, This is Mum. Shockingly, the crematorium managed to lose her ashes in the post. Another month dragged on before they were finally located, leaving me to always wonder if the ashes in the box were truly hers (though in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?). By the time she finally made it back to me, the initial wave of cards and flowers had stopped, and everyone had gently gone back to their regular lives.

We brought Mum home to Mallacoota to inter her ashes with the Bradys in the Mallacoota West Cemetery. True to her independent spirit, her final request was to be placed a row back from E.J.

A lovely, small group of close friends, Peter, and I gathered at the cemetery. The grave had been prepared, but some bizarre bureaucratic regulation insisted that even an ash burial hole had to be dug a full six feet deep. Looking down into that massive, yawning six-foot chasm with a tiny bakelite box in my hand, it just felt entirely wrong to simply chuck her down into the dark. I actually had to run home to fetch a ball of string so we could lower her down with some dignity. As for her final funeral music? It was the unmistakable, rhythmic sound of Peter gently rattling her remains like a maraca as we laid her to rest.

 

THE MAIL CAR

My mother was always worried about missing the mail car. This vehicle passed our back gate/fence at some very early, dark hour of the morning, one in a series of vehicles, bound with mail and passengers for Melbourne. We slept in our clothes(just in case), and I was sent up to the fence to make sure the driver stopped. Cliff Hatfield (one-armed) , then later on Nancy Dingle(Brown)were 2 drivers I remember.
Mum would be headed for my half-sisters Nancy or Sadie in Melbourne.
Mallacoota to Cann River, Cann River to Orbost, Orbost to Bairnsdale by bus, so slow I swear it would be possible to walk beside it and keep up, if not get ahead!)Then a steam train to Melbourne.
Princes Highway was unmade in sections. The bus became bogged on more than one occasion and had to be pushed by the male passengers. Aboriginals were sent to the back, which produced more loud questions from me to an embarrassed Mum. That incident made me think of Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. This man had an axe! He was probably a local sleeper cutter.
Cliff Hatfield must have lost his arm in the 2 nd WW. He used to roll a smoke and light it whilst steering(with his knees). This occurred once on Drummer Mountain. I thought my mother might take over the mail car, although she had never learnt to drive (and never did; another story)
Cliff was a great driver, for all that, and also drove the school bus.
I can’t recall Dad driving and think he gave his son Hugh his car. Hugh drove us to Pambula Hospital when Dad became ill. I can remember Dad yelling
“civilisation!!” when we went over the border into NSW. They had a Labour Gov. at the time!)

THE MAIL CAR GOING NORTH.
It took a whole day to get to Eden. People were driven to Genoa to meet a very motley vehicle.
This was the only contact for groceries and mail for a lot of people. Twice or once a week. The ‘car’
stopped at most mailboxes to pick up and deliver supplies. Collection of passengers seemed to be at random, as they waited at different parts of the road and just flagged down the car.
To Wonboyn was a long and unmade nightmare. As there were stops at every pub, Mum took full advantage of the bars, whilst I went straight to either the publican’s wife or the cook. Gipsy Point Hotel had maids in a black and white uniform with cap and apron. One beat a small brass gong to summon the guests to the dining room.
Genoa Hotel had homemade cheese sticks, an emu in an enclosure and a very foul-mouthed white cockatoo on the front veranda.
Mum and I stayed in a rooming house behind the bakery once we reached Eden. Flo at this stage was making commercial quantities of shell ornaments, and the cemetery beach at Eden had totally different shells from the ones from Mallacoota. Plus there were the shops and TWO hotels!

EDNA AS A YOUNGSTER PHOTOS WILL FOLLOW

My appearance
Bright red hair, curly. Covered in freckles. Always had very fair skin. Different.
Always different, wanting to fit in, but never did. Must be the pack instinct. Didn’t comply with the accepted standards (hope I never do)

 

THE FLOODS

Floods. Albert Greer rescued the water tank from the hall. Pumpkins dotted the lake shores, being washed off Genoa River flats. A dead cow went past, legs in the air. The water, at this time, was up to what is now Scallywags. It attracted quite a crowd, and I can remember an ovation at the rescue of the water tank.

 

THE DINGO

Mallacoota has some stupendous floods, more so when I was younger than now. The inlet is glacial moraine and has silted up, as these lake systems tend to do. This was when I was about 7. Mum and I now lived alone, 3 km or so from the “Township.” Our house was on a hill overlooking the lower lake and sea, but to get to the shops we had to travel along the lakefront and across a creek. Mum had never learnt to drive (more about the driving lesson later), so we walked everywhere.

On this particular grey and misty morning, Mum had run out of smokes, or grog, or both. We probably didn’t have much in the way of bread either. The creek was roaring, and the road was blocked, so Mum said, “We’ll have to go the long way.” This was a couple of KM inland and in a loop on higher ground. The entire journey involved quite a trip for small legs and was pretty boring for Mum. Not so myself. I ventured off the side of the road for wildflowers, sticks, puddles and anything else that caught my attention. Mum had a harmonica in her pocket and when I fell too far behind she’d stop, lean against a tree and play me something.

I had felt an animal behind me and thought it was just a stray dog, curious at the music. When I reached Mum and she looked behind me, she saw this magnificent, fully grown dingo who was as shocked as I was when Mum let out a scream. Bugger, there goes a possible mate(there were no children to play with in my younger years, and distance proved too great to regularly see kids. My schooling was very erratic, to say the least)

When we had calmed down, the dingo was long gone. Shopping completed, one of the friendly people in our small town gave us a lift home. We used to be dropped off at the slip rails sometimes and walk a track down our back paddock to the house. The dingo became too tame for its own good, and someone finally shot it, which was sad. ( I am sure it picked up the odd chook)

 

BUSHFIRES

Bushfires. Cats in sugar sacks, down to the lake through Brady’s paddock.
There were not enough sacks, so very bad fights occurred (and urination). I remember the sacks with claws sticking out of them. Beatie, a devout Christian, knelt and prayed. It was pitch black, very hard to breathe… and the noise was terrifying. (roaring) My Dad was still alive, as I can recall that he was not happy being relegated to supervising the women and children, whilst my brother Hugh and many sweating and blackened neighbours did what they could with wet bags on sticks. The fire stopped at our back fence(Mirrabooka Road). The cats, when liberated, were not seen for weeks… roast possum and humiliation!

 

THE LAKE

Bill and Bob’s rowboats. Bob Mc Donald, Bill Bruce’s half-brother, had a soft spot for us kids (Rankins and Pearl Cuzner nee Rankin) and would let us use his rowboats. We always left them in good order. They were often sunk in an effort to swell the timbers, and we had to bail them out with jam tins before we could use them. We went all over Coulls Inlet, but stayed well away from the channel as the water was deep, green and churning, especially on the run-out tide.
Blue Bruce joined us for a favourite, but forbidden pastime …pushing the freezer works trolley from the freezer down to the wharf and back again. One day, with Blue as a passenger, I managed to push the trolley so hard that it broke the chocks that stopped it at the wharf, and it hurtled, with Blue aboard, straight into the lake and the dreaded channel. None of us could swim, but we all jumped in after him. We were pushed by the current to the bank down from the wharf, unharmed. I thought I’d drowned him and was very upset!

FREEZER WORKS

Fish preserving, cool chests, ice supply.
Boxes for fish: shallow, wood with gal. handles. After storms, corks were found. They had been used as floats for the nets and lost in the lake. Tanning tanks (wattle bark). Particular smell from net sheds. Poles for hanging nets onto dry before they were stored. One of the distractions on the way to school was Dave & George Casement mending nets. My half-brother’s son-in-law, Cecil, steamed ribs for a boat over a fire.

 

THE SHOPS

In early Mallacoota, the shops were:

Mailings general store and Iggledon butcher. Later a bakery was built below the mixed business and before the community hall.
Top: McGraths (general) pub, chemist and gift shop.Then opposite the school, Wallace’s Cafe.
Bill Bruce had a picture theatre where Silver Bream is. Communal hall was down near Freezer Works.
Bush Nurse somewhere near Miva (later), and finally a doctor(Hollands)visiting from Orbost at first, then a resident doctor where Barry Cole’s mother lived (now surgery)
Mail, papers and bread by mail car at first, then bakery established. Old Post Office between Medical Centre and Coull Waters, then moved to what is now a surf shop, then moved once again.

Travelling salesmen sold haberdashery etc. Bucklands had vegetables from ute every week. Nobody had a shop for Real Estate; Coles & Souter sold from home. Mary Herbstreit had a cafe where the laundrette/bank is.
The slaughterhouse for the butcher was near where the TV towers are, then at Double Creek.
Tom Davies established a power station. Before that, kerosene lamps, Tilley, candles, or a cantankerous generator. Everyone’s generator had a different sound. If one didn’t start, someone would go to see if all was OK. Fish from fishermen or catch your own. Brother Hugh trapped rabbits & shot ducks as well. Nearly everyone kept poultry. Eggs were preserved in barrels with something called “keepegg”. Hugh ran cattle (beef) and for milk. There was a dairy near Morton Bay Fig. A boat came from over at Hnasens with milk(the Iolanthe). Some people kept bees. Large vegetable gardens were almost essential.

 

DOWN THE HILL: BEATIE AND HUGH

Fruit from the orchard was very important. There was always a race to stop the birds getting everything. It was bottled and dried and made into jams and pickles. Apples were stored in a special, airy shed full of shelves.
Beatie’s standard of housekeeping was amazing.
Monday wash day. Copper (wood-fired) Irons on top to heat up. Blue bags and Reckitt’s starch were used. Unbleached sheets were left on the line to whiten, especially in cold weather (frost)
Wood stoves went every day, and lots of things were put in the oven together on baking day.
All the silver, brass and copper was polished on a regular basis. Wooden furniture was beeswaxed. Blinds were often pulled to save the carpets from fading. The carpets were hung on a special frame outside and hit with a beater to remove the soil.
When the wood fires were not in use, the surrounds were whitewashed with pipe clay from Shady Gully. The fireplace itself was often filled with gumtips. I can remember Hugh driving us to the old Quarry area to harvest them. (Mi & Leone)One Christmas we went “down the hill” to Beatie and Hugh’s for Christmas lunch. I saw the money go in the plate before the serving of Christmas pudding but pretended surprise!
Someone gave me a tin aeroplane which I ran up and down the pianola lid. It didn’t do it any good to the surface, and I can’t recall ever seeing the plane again! Paddy McCaffrey (Beatie’s father) had a wax glass of beer, which he pretended to drink. I remember thinking he must be drunk to be so stupid!
Speaking of drunk:

DRUNKEN COWS IN THE ORCHARD

Hugh and Beatie had a wonderful orchard, full of plums, apples, cherries, apricots. All a great sight and perfect to sampling for me. I was allowed to pick and eat whatever I wanted, which I did.

Hugh was sick of fallen fruit and thought it would be a good idea to let some of the cows in, to clean up. My first and last sight of drunken cows. They were impossible to herd out until they sobered up.

 

THEIR DAUGHTERS

Great excitement as Mi & Leone prepared for a dance. Some dances were held in Mallacoota, some in Genoa and even further away.
When I first met Mione’s future husband, Cecil I was fascinated by the way he nervously twirled his hair. I used to stand behind him, unnoticed!
Mi and the embroidery cottons and pedal sewing machine. Mione, Hugh and Beatie’s daughter, taught me to sew and use a sewing machine(Singer pedal). Mi once gave me a huge ball of embroidery threads, which took me ages to untangle. I used them all.I still had, until recently, a tablecloth I embroidered with those threads. Red roses… always my favourite.
Mione’s sister Leone instilled a love of gardening in me. I am growing a cutting of the red rose my father grew and the orange blossom from Mione’s wedding bouquet. Graham has managed to save Hugh’s apple, Lord Nelson, by grafting it onto one of our Granny Smith trees. The apples are huge and flat, and the tree had so many that Hugh had to prop it up with poles to save the limbs from breaking. Not much for eating, great cooking apple.

 

THE DAY MUM PAINTED THE TOWN RED

This actually was the toilet and surrounds at the Pub. Mum had received a parcel from “Deans” (a firm in Melbourne that supplied mail-order artists’ supplies). She had ordered Carmine Red and was very excited to receive it, opening the parcel and its contents. Unfortunately (this seems to run in the family..I do it too), she did not put the top on the tube correctly, and during the course of the evening it leaked into her handbag and onto her hands. When she went to the loo, it ended up everywhere, in and on the toilet.
She was banned again. The publican took about 4 coats of paint to “get rid of the red”.
The “snakepit” ladies lounge. Long boards creaked when people walked on them, which was an early warning sign for the illegal drinkers. Many attempts were made to stop drinkers on a Sunday. Police came from Cann River. A bloke had a girlfriend at Genoa (housemaid) who warned Mallacoota when the constable was on his way.

 

GIPSY POINT HOTEL

This is long gone, now replaced by Luxury Lakeside Apartments.

It was originally a guest house, evolved to suit traffic coming in on the newly made Mallacoota-Genoa Road.

In my time, it was owned by Lerene and Tom Payne, who built a beautiful house behind the hotel and added self-contained flats as well. I started off working there under the managers Margaret & Ken McKenzie.  At the time, I was starting a cleaning business in Mallacoota, and they needed help bringing the kitchen up to scratch after a visit from the Health Inspector!

I met the most wonderful, eccentric, and great group of people. Margaret, with a thick Scottish accent and large presence, dominated a staff of her husband Ken ( a small and rather hen-pecked partner), Colin, his brother who was a double amputee, and Joyce, the fag smoking, garrulous cook. (It reminded me of Fawlty Towers and would have made a movie in itself)

At that stage the hotel was suffering the ravages of age. Despite that, the new units were clean, modern and well appointed. Margaret ruled with an iron hand. Everything from rooms to dining room was spotless, and the linen press itself was a work of art. I learnt the meaning of fitted sheet very quickly.

My time there was wonderful. I had to really get into the cleaning business and to employ people to help me, as I couldn’t keep up the pace. We later added Gipsy Point Lodge ( a virtual newcomer tucked on the river further up the road)

Some incidents I remember were

 

CADILLAC JACK & THE MANGO FISH

New Year comes in, and Tom Payne decides we are having a sit-down dinner with music. He asks if I can supply wait staff. It is short notice, but my friends Lorna and Mal accepted my invitation to help.

We arrive to total chaos. Joyce, the cook, has been replaced for the night by someone we don’t know. There is also a strange barman. We start greeting the guests and get the drinks happening. The barman disappears into the kitchen; the chef seems totally distracted, but we figure we’ll get things sorted easily enough and start taking orders for dinner. The band sets up and opens into a totally overwhelming rendition of some God-forsaken ballad, at TOP volume. So bad it beats me into the kitchen to try to get away. The chef is either totally stoned, or stoned AND drunk, and the barman is not much better. I have a quiet word with Tom but think, “How hard can this be? We’ll be OK) The meals, after a long delay ( and lots of heated discussion from behind the batwing doors), start to come out.

Tom, Gipsy Point Hotels owner, has decided to help serve by this stage. We are faced with a huge sauce mix-up, and the fish is served with the chicken’s mango sauce. Cadillac Jack and the musicians are still belting it out. Some people are dancing. Some people are eating happily. Some are helping themselves from the bar. The chef is sitting on a stool in the corner, and the band plays on. I never found out what happened to the chef..or the barman, for that matter, as we were dismissed as soon as the meals were served!

A MESSAGE FROM MARGARET

This is before mobile phones. I had an urgent message delivered when I was right up the hill in one of the new flats. Margaret, all of 18 stone odd, came up the hill to let me know. By the time I saw her out the window, she was halfway up the hill, in the rain. I went to meet her. Suddenly she lost her footing and fell, flat on her back. I thought she had hurt herself, but the ground was soft enough to cushion her fall. I was most impressed by the outline left after we pulled her up. The message was from someone who had lost their keys.

OOO NOO you cana dae that!

This was Margaret’s favourite saying when kids were playing in HER garden, especially on the porch swing!

 

THE CASE OF THE MISSING LEGS

Colin, the brother, had lost his legs in his childhood. (I think to a piece of farm machinery, poor man) He was always super cheerful and was Joyce’s main helper and general handyman around the hotel. Sometimes he needed new prostheses as the old ones wore out. In this case, the replacements had arrived in a sturdy cardboard box and were promptly put into use. There was no rubbish removal (still isn’t), and waste was put in a huge trench at the “tip,” including the old legs in the box. They ended up being pushed out, stirred to the top of the pile, and sticking out. Ernst Lortz, a Gipsy Point local, reported them to the police, thinking someone had been murdered. They were “cremated” after the fuss died down!

 

KENS SECRET

Ken, barman and good companion, occasionally liked a drink to help him through the day. In those days there were 2 blocks of toilets used by the bar patrons and by trailer sailors on the lake who wanted a quick shower. It was our job to make sure they were clean. Ken’s secret place for a quick drink was the men’s toilet, cask stored up on a high shelf. We never told. I often wonder if Margaret knew. He never smelt of alcohol or appeared inebriated at all.

 

FISHY BUSINESSES

One of the guests wanted to smoke some of the fish he had caught, so I offered to bring my fish smoker next time I cleaned. This was a small unit with a metho burner. Things went OK, but first he put the burner down on one of the steps and created a big burn mark from the metho container. Margaret did the “ooonoo” and banished him. THEN he had the smart idea of hanging the fish up the fireplace in the formal after-dinner parlor, Margaret’s pride and joy.

The fish, suitably softened, fell from the improvised hooks, down the chimney and onto the carpet. Fish smoking was banned. I thought I’d get the sack once I stopped laughing.

 

DAY OF THE LONG KNIVES

One of my girls, Elfrieda, came to Gipsy Point to help Joyce in the kitchen.

She didn’t know much about the culinary arts but was happy and enjoyed her time there. Joyce thought she could be taught to do a few food preparation tasks and asked her to batter a tray of prawns for her. Well, she did, but when Joyce came to take the tray, she found the entire lot flat as pancakes, totally mashed and battered. Joyce’s temper was famous. She went ballistic and threw a knife after Elfrieda.. Fortunately, it missed, but that was the end of a promising kitchen hand. Colin was back to the help for prep. He was in the freezer with said tray of prawns when he stepped backwards onto Joyce’s hand. She let out an awful scream and yelled at him. It took a while to get his attention, what with the freezer noise (he was partially deaf) and no feeling in his artificial legs; he couldn’t work out what was happening. Elfrieda quit. I found less stressful work for her, cleaning in Mallacoota.

DAD’S ILLNESS AND DEATH

Dad died in Pambula Hospital, over the border in NSW, in 1953. He was 76. I remember my Mum and my brother Hugh had brought me up to visit. I was allowed to go to his room along a long sunny corridor to kiss him on the cheek. I had no concept of death and was only interested in tasting my first ice cream. Hugh bought me one, and I was quite disappointed; it was full of big lumps of ice.

EJ was buried on a very wet and windy day, in the cemetery he gave to Mallacoota. I was not permitted to attend, being deemed too young. Instead, my nieces babysat me. I was interested in a game called “hide the shell” and didn’t pay much attention to the sombre mood. The concept of gone really hit me when Mum & I visited the muddy cemetery the next day.

Death is a hard concept for a seven-year-old child to comprehend. I took till about 10 years of age to have any understanding at all.

After Dad’s death, Mum spoke to me about EJ not coming back. All I said was, “Good, now I can have his cup.” This did not go down well. The cup disappeared.(I had coveted it ever since Dad had told me the story of the Willow pattern.)His favorite China has become mine, and we dine and drink from Willow China every day. I still have some of Dad’s, but not his mug.

 

LATER ON..DEATH AS I SAW IT AT AGE 10

Suddenly I found out about entropy. The concept that the universe would end moved me greatly, and I remember crying. Seeking answers from adults from disparate fields, alas, I found none. I think at my age it’s a case of “too late to have yourself cryogenically or digitally preserved” time. I still have no real idea what consciousness is anyway!

 

WHAT GRIEF DOES TO YOU

Mum totally lost it and started burning Dad’s things. I had to go down to get help from my half-brother Hugh at Raheen. I begged him to reason with her, which he did. At this stage, she hadn’t started on anything important, and, thanks to Hugh’s intervention, someone came down from Canberra and bought anything of import for the Mitchell Library. I have some copies of great photographs, and they have about 50 archive boxes (which I think it’s taken until now to sort through and catalogue). Mum and money were never on good terms.

OFF TO THE NORMANS

AND

RHEUMATIC FEVER

Despite being bankrupted a few times by wonderful but wild dreams like a commune in Mallacoota)Dad left a substantial estate. By the time I turned 18, there was very little left.

My university education was abruptly curtailed, and I had to make other plans. Fortunately, although Mum never had a paid job, she was a very good artist and supplemented cheques from the estate with her artwork (and a widow’s pension).

An appropriate advertisement was put in the Age newspaper and the Sydney Morning Herald. People answered; from there Mum chose one family, living in Coogee, NSW. It took some months to set up trust payments from the Estate, negotiate terms, inspect(without me) the people and where I was to be boarded out, and buy me some “city stuff”. During this time I became ill. Nothing much at first, but I knew I wasn’t good and asked Mum if I could see a visiting doctor who was staying at the hotel. Many beers later, he came to the conclusion I had “growing pains”. That was that.

Off we went on the epic journey to Sydney. First a mail car to the highway and then another mail car to Eden, NSW ( beautiful Twofold Bay with a bloody history of Whale slaughter). A stay overnight in a very old Inn/Hotel, followed by yet another bus to the Sydney terminal and then a taxi to Coogee.

I was very disoriented, but like most kids, adapted to trams and street lights very quickly. About a week later I woke from a nightmare, screaming. The figure I had seen in my fever was still there, in 3D. The figure was of a man, a fedora and leather greatcoat on ( this is what my Father usually wore, so my subconscious was working overtime). The house was in an uproar. I was not lucid, and an ambulance was called. Next time I came to, I was in the Prince of Wales Hospital, in an isolation room. Up in a multi-storey building, which was new to me for the first time. What does every good country girl do when faced with this situation? I tried to get out. I managed to get in a lift with other people, and when we exited at the ground floor, I took off through the car park..with nursing staff in full pursuit. They locked the door this time.

I was diagnosed with polio, which was fortunately(?) changed to a verdict of rheumatic fever about a week later. I was considered non-contagious by then and put in a long ward of adult patients (why? I think they thought adults didn’t catch this disease??) There I stayed for 6 months. Blood tests nearly every day, and boiled fish are two of the things I remember. Learning to walk again. The first penicillin in chalky blocks with imitation strawberry flavour.

I still don’t really like needles even if they are considerably sharper and a lot smaller now!

I remember my first attempts at walking and everyone in the ward clapping at my staggering gait. Matron smelling as though she’d been starched as well. Nurses with capes. Good Samaritans visiting on a Sunday. No visits from my new foster parents(which should have been a warning; they were still being paid). One visit from Mum, drunk as a lord, carrying a big bag of oranges which she dropped under my bed when the bottom fell out. No kids allowed in the ward. Finally, well enough for release. I owe the Prince of Wales and staff my life ( no physical after-effects or damage). I still feel completely safe in hospitals, especially now they have stopped using horse needles and sterilizing one’s arm with methylated spirits.

I was looking forward to seeing some kids to play with and a new school. Mums drinking totally un stabilized my life so I think, although I was wretchedly homesick, I thought it would be nice to come home to a normal childhood life.

Nope, not to be. I was out of hospital into what was called a “rest home”. This was dormitory like accommodation in the totally amazing setting of the Blue Mountains. Although I remember nurses and medical staff I recall the kids there with me and the wonderful walks in the mountains, through my beloved Australian bush. Six months later I was deemed fit enough to go and stay with the Norman family in Coogee.

My school had TWO levels, and literally a thousand kids, of all ages. They had a classroom for each grade, a gym, playgrounds, a library and a SPORTS oval. That term was finishing, so it was decided I’d start in the New Year, so I had 6 weeks of school holidays. I spent this time getting to know my new family. A girl, a few years older and doing nursing, and a girl a year older than me. I swam nearly every day, and the girls were trying to teach me to swim in Coogee baths. One street from an amazing beach. We had to calm down in front of the parents as I was still classed as an invalid. After being dumped by too many waves everyone was lying on towels in the blazing sun (as we did then) I was curious and wanted to explore so I climbed over the rocks and onto a path that led me to a totally stunning sight(for me at least) Headstones ( no one in the cemetery at Mallacoota had one at that time) I couldn’t see the end of them. A bit meek in the presence of this sight, I chose to turn around and join the others.

Little did I know I had come upon Clovely Cemetery, where, somewhere in that mass of memorial dead, lay Dad’s mate Henry Lawson and my paternal Grandfather, Edmund James Brady(American Civil War veteran and mounted policeman). Graham, my partner, also played there as a child, but as he is my toy boy, we didn’t meet.

A PONY NAMED TOBY

This era marked the brief, golden interlude in Mallacoota just after Harry Scott arrived, but before my mother sent me away to live with the Norman family in Coogee.

Once Harry Scott settled into the district, he purchased a substantial tract of local land. Being a wealthy Melbourne real estate agent, he had a sharp, predatory eye for a decent parcel of earth. To fund the initial cost, he promptly subdivided portions of it to set himself up.

Locally, that stretch of country had always been known simply as “Robinson’s paddock.” As the years rolled on, it devolved into “The Ponderosa”—named after the sprawling ranch in the popular TV western Bonanza—before eventually being formalized as the Scott Estate. It was a massive piece of geography, stretching from the base of Karbeethong Hill near Mirrabooka House, winding down around the edge of the lake to the transmission towers, and terminating at the intersection of Mirrabooka Road where it directly abutted my brother Hugh Brady’s estate.

Harry decided he needed a permanent manager to oversee the estate, as well as a dwelling for himself. He allocated a portion of the subdivided land to the McArthur family, who named their slice Bali Hai. I came to know the McArthurs intimately because, for the first time in my isolated childhood, there were finally children my own age to play with.

Mr. McArthur threw himself into his new role as estate manager. He built a beautiful family home overlooking the sweeping waters of the lake, and constructed a compact, private cabin for Harry right on the crest of Mirrabooka Hill. Best of all, his children, Ernest and David, became my daily playmates.

Up until that point, I had never had much firsthand experience with horses, save for Flight, my brother Hugh’s ancient, lumbering draught horse. Consequently, I became utterly fascinated by the McArthurs’ family pony, Toby. He was a sturdy, intelligent buckskin who looked exactly like a round, cheeky creature pulled straight from a Thelwell comic strip. Toby possessed a fierce mind of his own, and how I originally managed to persuade Mum that he wouldn’t instantly kill me remains a complete mystery.

Before long, Toby became our daily school transport. I would be “dinked” along, precariously balanced on a rough hessian sack draped across his rump behind the boys as we trotted into town. Once we arrived, Toby was turned loose into the fenced horse paddock that surrounded the single-room schoolhouse, which still featured an old timber tack room for storing saddles and leather gear.

This arrangement suited that cunning little animal perfectly. Toby was a master artist when it came to opening latches, frequently escaping the paddock to raid the school gardens or anywhere else that held a promise of food. Many an untended schoolboy’s sandwich found its way down Toby’s throat.

On weekends, I was occasionally granted the grand privilege of riding Toby by myself. However, there was a major catch: Toby was a creature of strict habit. He firmly believed his only destination in life was the schoolhouse, and he refused to go anywhere else first. I would have to ride him all the way to the empty school grounds, at which point he would finally condescend to take me on a small, leisurely tour of the surrounding paddocks before delivering me safely back home.

He was a stubborn little rogue, but fortunately for me, he was also smart. One afternoon, he shied violently at a rabbit hunter in the bush, throwing me clean out of the saddle. I didn’t fall clear; my foot caught fast in the metal stirrup. Instead of panicking and dragging me to a terrible fate, Toby instantly stopped dead in his tracks. I escaped with nothing more than a sore ankle and a “bit of bark” scraped off my skin by a low-hanging wattle branch we had passed under. Thank you, Toby.

Years later, long after the McArthurs had left the district, I asked the locals about the old buckskin’s fate. It turns out Toby was far too clever to die young; he survived to a very ripe old age. He was eventually pastured out on the wild expanses of Howe Flat with a large mob of horses. In a fitting final chapter to his legend, when a severe drought dried up the local creek and left the entire mob stranded and parched, it was old Toby who took charge. Remembering his old trick with the gates, the cunning pony led the entire herd out of the trap to safety.

 

WHITE SOCKS AND BROWN SUIT AND THE ROAD TO BENTLEIGH

The year of the Melbourne Olympics, a particularly enthusiastic, sports-minded teacher took over our single-room schoolhouse. Up until then, our education had swung wildly depending on the personal proclivities of whichever solitary teacher was assigned to all the grades, ranging from mad-keen gardeners to fitness fanatics.

With the Olympics in the air, every second day seemed to become sports-oriented. We had a sports field, though it was a pretty rough, primitive affair hacked out of the country, complete with stringybark goalposts and a rudimentary sandpit for the long jumpers to land in. I remember struggling with the hurdles—it took me quite a while to get the knack of that particular event—but I genuinely enjoyed short-distance running and focused my energy there.

Because we didn’t have any local schools to compete against in Mallacoota, the day of the regional sports carnival required us to get into the back of a cattle truck to be transported to Cann River to compete against their students. It was the biggest event of our year, and I looked forward to it for weeks.

We were strictly instructed to wear proper shorts and a top for the carnival, which Mum could cope with well enough, but the mandatory white socks to go with the uniform were an entirely different matter. Flo didn’t have any, so she sent me down to Mailing’s store to purchase a pair. I was granted special permission to leave the school grounds at lunchtime to do the shopping, but by the time I walked into town, I discovered the shop had closed for a half-hour lunch break.

With my precious lunch break ticking away, I sat down on a long, rough plank bench out front to wait. I hadn’t been sitting there long when I was approached by a complete stranger—a man dressed impeccably in a sharp brown suit. In those days, a proper city suit was a visual anomaly in Mallacoota; it was something I had rarely seen, except when worn by solemn mourners at a church funeral.

He seemed pleasant enough, so I said hello and introduced myself. He told me what brought him to Mallacoota, and in return, I undoubtedly gave him a thoroughly unprompted overdose of information about myself, my mother, and our life. When the shopkeeper finally turned the lock, we said our goodbyes. I rushed inside to secure my white socks, warmly wishing the stranger a good stay in our little town.

The threads of fate spun quickly after that. Not long afterward, Mum and I walked into Wallace’s Café, and there the very same man was, sitting quietly over tea and biscuits. I proudly introduced them to one another—and as the old saying goes, the rest is history.

Flo and Harry Scott became inseparable. Because Harry’s shack and our camp were located just a single paddock apart, they visited each other constantly. Harry quickly integrated into my world, gifting me a bicycle. I learned to ride it through a method of pure trial and error, zipping down our steep hill with the brakes completely off, only stopping when I deflated the front tyre against the sharp wire of a barbed-wire fence. It was a heavy boy’s bike, which made it incredibly awkward for a ten-year-old girl to handle, so Harry kindly took it back and exchanged it for a proper girl’s model.

The arrival of the bicycle marked the end of my weekend rides on the McArthurs’ pony, Toby. Suddenly, I could get around everywhere I wanted to go on two wheels, completely bypassing the exhaustion of having to creep up on a clever pony in the paddock to catch him, and then fighting his stubborn belief that he should only ever turn at the school gate.

Naturally, my constant presence around the clearing became a bit of a strategic problem for the adults. I even remember being explicitly bribed with a whole bag of Brazil nuts just to stop me from staring curiously through the glass window of Harry’s shack from Toby.

Before long, it became clear that my presence at the camp was a “bit of a problem” for Mum’s new life. She began actively looking around for another foster home to send me to, but lucky for me, Harry stepped in and took complete charge of my future. His estate manager back in Melbourne thoroughly vetoed the first potential couple Mum found—a family with children my own age living in the suburb of Bentleigh. With those arrangements torn up, I was put on the road to a different destination entirely.

Harry stinted absolutely nothing when it came to my care and education. He bought me beautiful books, fine clothes, and a brand-new bicycle. He knew my secret dreams of higher education and genuinely wished for me to go to University. Because of his generosity, I found myself as the only under-18-year-old I knew with an unlimited Myer charge card—a privilege I was incredibly careful never to abuse, at least until Mum unfortunately got her hands on it later on.

I was sent to live with a new family, and the people were fantastic to me; from the moment I arrived, it felt like a true homecoming. They had two daughters right around my own age, and I instantly struck up a joyful, easy rapport with them. My new school in the city was everything I could have ever hoped for, offering an academic world that fed my mind.

We lived in a beautiful, established pocket of Bentleigh. At the time, the area still offered unlimited exploring for young legs because a large portion of the surrounding land was still occupied by sprawling market gardens. By a marvellous stroke of coincidence—the kind of strange, poetic alignments that seem to happen to me a lot in life—the beautiful house we lived in was the original historic homestead for the entire surrounding subdivision. The name of the street it sat on? Brady Street. It was named after a distant cousin of my father’s.

Away from the chaos of the coast, I truly bloomed. I rose near the absolute top of my class in every single subject. For two golden years, my life in Melbourne felt just too good to be true. I did miss my mother terribly during those quiet moments, but I did not miss the volatile drinking sprees that came with her.

But a life that feels too good to be true rarely lasts, though I desperately hoped it would. Because I was still legally underage and had absolutely no say in the matter, the curtain was brought down on my city life. Mum decided she was moving to New Zealand because her own mother was dying from cancer, and she demanded I come with her. Despite a heavy, deep sense of foreboding for the uncertain future ahead of us, I packed up my books, said goodbye to Brady Street, and moved back to Mallacoota to prepare for the voyage.

THE NEW ZEALAND YEARS

LORD,WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

Mum had a perforated eardrum, which immediately ruled out flying. On top of that, we possessed enough luggage to comfortably fill an entire football stadium. We weren’t just going for a holiday; we were leaving for good, to the point that we even packed old garden tools with the wooden handles crudely cut off so they would fit into the trunks. Flying was an absolute impossibility. We had to take a passenger liner.

I think we had twenty-three individual pieces of luggage in total. How we managed the logistics is a complete blur to me now, but I distinctly remember that the taxi called to transport us to the Melbourne loading wharf had to make two separate trips just to move our mountain of belongings. There was a complex customs declaration to navigate, and little else waiting for us when we finally boarded. Up until that moment, I had never seen a liner of that scale, save for the vague, dark shapes that used to pass along the horizon line out to sea when I lived in Mallacoota.

The ship was named the Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, and it was a wondrous, sprawling playground for a girl my age. While Mum immediately set out to locate every single operational bar on board, I went exploring, navigating through every deck and companionway I could physically reach. I remember the striking sight of Dutch women in traditional lace caps, and the distinct, unmistakable taste of powdered eggs served for breakfast.

Halfway across the Tasman, an enormous storm hit. I remember being roundly told off by the crew for standing outside on the deck in the middle of a screaming gale—a memory punctuated by a frantic crew member yelling, “Where on earth is your MOTHER?” Next morning, Mum and I were the only two souls brave enough to show up in the dining saloon for breakfast.

The ship hosted a formal dance, which was an event Mum looked upon with a heavy frown. Having grown up isolated in the bush, I had never learned a single dance step, let alone any standard social etiquette. A handsome ship’s officer, immaculate in all-white uniform with gold braiding, formally approached and asked me to dance. I couldn’t do it. I stood there and blushed furiously—probably for one of the very few times in my entire life.

It took three days of churning sea to reach New Zealand’s North Island. There was virtually no customs infrastructure to speak of when we berthed. My Uncle Jack, a quiet veteran of the Second World War whom we were travelling to stay with, whisked us straight off the wharf and drove us inland to Wanganui.

LIMBO,THE TURPS &THE GREEK LINER PATRIS

Uncle Jack’s home was a small, neat cottage sitting on a large block right in the heart of Wanganui. Having grown up in remote Gippsland, I had never encountered people of a different skin colour before, and I soon became totally immersed in learning everything I could about this new world.

Because of this, the prospect of starting school looked incredibly good to me. However, the New Zealand educational system was completely different, and I found myself stuck in an academic limbo between years. I spent a fair bit of time sitting in classes where I had absolutely no foundational knowledge, which felt like a terrible waste. Fortunately, English and Art were universal—hooray for that. Maths, however, remained an absolute mystery to me until my final University entrance year, which made navigating Physics and Chemistry an immense struggle. Biology was a different matter entirely; thanks to my unconventional childhood, I already had a very solid grounding in that subject!

I held onto the hope that these difficult years would pave the way toward my dream of University studies. Alas, family dynamics intervened. Uncle Jack lived in the cottage alongside his sister’s child, Barbara, and our maternal Grandmother. Nan had smoked a traditional pipe for years—as the Irish women tended to do—and had developed a severe, aggressive lip cancer. The household was under immense strain: the house was actively up for sale, we were preparing a move to the windswept suburb of Castlecliff, and the family was suffering under the weight of what I now recognize as severe Post-Traumatic Stress. Gran had received no formal medical treatment for her condition, so Mum stubbornly took on the role of primary nurse.

It was during this time that the family mirror became terrifyingly clear. I finally realized exactly where Mum’s volatile drinking behaviour had been inherited from; the moment they were under the same roof, Mum and Nan got on “the turps” together, matching each other drink for drink.

How I managed to study and pass my Higher School Certificate in that chaotic environment is a mystery to this day. Perhaps it was fueled by a stubborn bet I made with Uncle Jack, or the freedom of another new bicycle. Eventually, I simply stopped going to school altogether. I stayed home to cook, clean, manage the household, and generally run wild when the chores were done. Seeking an escape, I joined the local public library, enrolled myself in community art classes, and befriended the local Māori population. They were wonderfully non-judgmental of my family’s visible dysfunction and looked after me with genuine warmth.

Against all odds, I made it. I passed my University Entrance exams, securing honours in both Art and English, and somehow even managed to pass Maths 1 and 2.

I stood poised on the precipice of my future, ready to claim my rightful education allowance against my father’s estate and move into the city to study either the Natural Sciences or English literature. I explicitly asked for the funds, but Mum was completely unforthcoming with any answers. As the end of the year loomed closer, the truth finally unravelled.

My older brothers, Hugh and Ted, were the official executors of my father’s will. During our years away, Mum had managed to systematically drain virtually the entire estate. There was absolutely nothing left for my education—save for a solitary five-acre block of land back in Mallacoota that was apparently mine, but only if Mum ever chose to leave it. That was it.

While this financial ruin was unfolding, Nan made a truly miraculous recovery from her metastatic lip cancer, and her radiation therapy was officially stopped. With the estate funds running dry and nothing left to hold her in New Zealand, Mum made the sudden decision to return to Australia. I felt the powerful, magnetic pull of Mallacoota calling me back too.

We packed our bags—travelling with significantly less luggage this time—and boarded a Greek passenger liner named the Patris. The crew were incredibly laid back, and the voyage across the water was safe and pleasant, save for a bittersweet sting at the very end: someone on board stole the precious Greek coin pendant that had been given to me as a parting gift by my very first boyfriend, Raymond Tukapua.

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HERBSTREITS CAFE AND THE PINK CHEQUES

We returned to the coast, but alas, the change of scenery did not stop Mum’s drinking. There was still a small remnant of the estate money trickling in the form of a monthly cheque, and before long, she managed to get her Widows Pension reinstated.

Even though I was clear-headed and working, I must have still been legally underage, because I distinctly remember Mum having to formally meet with Mary Herbstreit to arrange my employment at her local café. The job was mine, but the independence wasn’t—Mum routinely garnished my entire pay packet anyway.

Looking back, apart from a brief, intense stint canning fruit down in Melbourne alongside my Aunty Nancy, I don’t think my mother ever held down a conventional, formal job in her entire life. Instead, she poured her formidable, erratic energy into the earth. She worked incredibly hard at gardening, single-handedly producing the vast majority of the food that kept us alive.

The rest of her soul was completely taken up by her painting. What had originally begun as a passing interest in my school art teacher eventually transformed into a true vocation. When the monthly pink estate cheques finally stopped arriving for good, it was Flo’s vibrant canvas landscapes that stepped into the financial gap, earning her a very good income.

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THE LIGHTS OF CHAPEL STREET

When the wide, peaceful horizon of the Mallacoota lakes finally faded behind me, the world shrank down to the clanging, smoky reality of inner-city Melbourne. I moved down to stay with my sisters, entering a bustling underground economy that felt a million miles away from the quiet wattle-bark trade of the inlet.

On earlier trips to Melbourne Mum & I had stayed with my sister, Sadie Kristensen, who ran a terrace-style boarding house on Station Street in Prahran. It was a moody, old single story terrace positioned right against the rhythmic rumble of the Sandringham railway line, just a short walk from the shouting traders and early-morning chaos of the Prahran Market. Sadie’s back gate shared an unsettling boundary with the local justice system; looming right behind was Winlayton.

Living under the literal shadow of a holding facility didn’t seem to deter the colourful clientele that drifted through Sadie’s front door. In fact, during those decades, the proximity to Chapel Street and the city centre made the boarding house a prime piece of real estate for people who lived entirely by their wits. Between the strict, early hotel closings and the desperate struggles of the era, the lines between an honest lodging house and a thriving, underground hub quickly began to blur. More on the spaghetti on the ceiling and Zelda’s encounter later.

THE REVLON CADET AND LASKYS DELICATESSEN

The transition from the wilderness of my childhood to the sprawling brick maze of Melbourne began with a journey that felt as convoluted as the landscape I left behind. When Mum left for New Zealand for the second time, I was still so very young. I found myself packed onto a winding route of mail cars and regional rail lines, tracking south toward a city that felt entirely alien. My destination was Barnsbury Mansions, a towering, imposing brick pile nestled right near a busy railway line. My sister Nancy had agreed to board me, and I was given a shared room with her daughter, Bernadette, who was my exact age. The trains rumbled past constantly, a handy convenience for a working girl, but to my young mind, the vast, shadowy corridors of the mansion felt entirely haunted. It took me a long time to settle into the rhythm of the city.

Sadie, never one to be outdone by Nancy, immediately set to work finding me employment. She marched me into Myer and secured me a position in their massive bookshop. I was entirely unimpressed. The department felt suffocatingly narrow, the personnel stuffy, and my role was little more than a glorified figurehead flunkie. Refusing to be boxed in, I spent my designated breaks combing the vast floors of the department store, exploring its endless corridors until I stumbled upon the glittering world of the cosmetics section.

It was a revelation. The head of Revlon took one look at me and arranged for a lightning-fast transfer, though it came with a strict proviso: I had to accept a formal management cadetship.

Suddenly, my world transformed overnight. Wow, what a change it was. I was thrust into a world of strict glamour. I had to wear makeup. I was required to dress meticulously in a crisp white blouse and a structured black skirt, my hair pinned up flawlessly. Then came the high heels—hello, bunions and hammer toes. Yet, despite the physical ache, I was utterly besotted. We were allowed dedicated “makeup time” the moment we clocked into work, transforming ourselves under the bright lights of the counter. For this foray into high retail fashion, I earned the princely sum of ten pounds and ten shillings a week. Very little of it stayed in my purse; Nancy took the bulk of my earnings for my board and keep, forcing me to quickly learn the thrifty art of darning my own stockings. Still, as I looked at the bustling Myer floor, I comforted myself with one clear thought: at least this has a future.

But life, as it so often did, shifted beneath my feet. Nancy’s health deteriorated rapidly as she suffered from acute angina. As her illness worsened, it became painfully clear that I could no longer stay with her.

Sadie stepped in, agreeing to board me at her house in Inkerman Street, St Kilda. She also possessed a sharp eye for the realities of the workforce. She looked at my meager Myer wages, shook her head, and flatly convinced me that spending my youth as a floor manager for a department store was absolutely not my future.

With her characteristic decisiveness, Sadie took me down to Carlisle Street and introduced me to Mr. Lasky.

It was love at first sight. The moment I stepped into the rich, aromatic warmth of that busy grocery and delicatessen, the uncertainty of the past months evaporated. Mr. Lasky treated me like his very own daughter from the moment we met. For the first time since leaving the bush, the city didn’t feel haunted anymore. I felt, quite simply, as though I had finally come home.

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LOVE & GEFILTE FISH

I soon settled in at Lasky’s and into my new home with Sadie in Inkerman Street, close to Luna Park. What a thrill that was! It didn’t take long for the carnies to befriend me, and I ended up calling in whenever I could. There was a clown in a glass-fronted box who mimed at the audience; he watched everything that went on and kept an eye on me. I went on everything I could, ate far too much fairy floss, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

When I couldn’t visit Luna Park, I helped Sadie with shopping in St Kilda and domestic work in the house. She taught me how to make decent pasta, as her previous boyfriend was an Italian sly-grog operator. There were other boarders, as was usual for Sadie. One was a very intelligent woman holding a perfect University Entrance score that held for many years. Like my mother, Sadie moved in a very bohemian and varied culture, which made my evenings enthralling and entertaining. She had no children with her husband, a diminutive Swede named Gus. Sadie was larger than life and always held the room. Familiar cries of “Guuuuss!” echoed through the house, to be responded to with, “Ya, ya, Sadie.”

My work was a delight. The Lasky delicatessen and supermarket were right in the heart of the Chapel Street precinct, in Carlisle Street. It was a wonderful area—a very colourful Jewish community teeming with life and zest. I was allocated the biscuit counter as my own, with instructions to help on the deli when I was needed. For the first week, I made myself ill on biscuits that I’d never tasted before, then the novelty wore off. I became very proficient at what I did, selling loose biscuits and learning the deli under the supervision of an enormous, cheerful Dutch lady called Margaret.

The rest of the staff were basically Jewish. One lady, Minnie, who specialised in herrings and all things fish, let me try anything I wanted, including gefilte fish, many kinds of meats, and olives sold loose in all their forms. I was taught dietary laws and keeping milk and meat items separately. I learnt much about Jewish holidays and traditions. Minnie, as she was called, was a small, wiry individual who smiled infrequently and took her teaching task seriously. One day, when I came to know her better, she rolled up one sleeve and showed me a line of tattooed numbers. Minnie told me some of what happened to her, but it distressed her greatly, and anger lit her usually stoic face. I read all I could and cried a great deal to discover what they had been through as individuals and as a nation. I then understood why they descended on an Italian girl whom Mr Lasky had employed with what amounted to an interrogation.

This was Lucy. It was hard to fault Lucy except she had very little English, and we found it hard to communicate at times. I learnt a lot of Italian. I went to visit her and her husband in their modest brick home and came to adore their culture and cuisine as well. I hoped to visit both Israel and Italy one day. I did. The travel prelude of the time at Lasky’s stood me in good stead.

Mr Lasky presided over the shop from a mezzanine floor. He was an honest and fair boss and a father figure, managing to weld our motley group into a working family unit. The pay was double what I had been earning, and I actually had some money to myself.

The other thing that Carlisle and adjoining Chapel streets are famous for is “The Rag Trade.” I found fashion, or it found me. I discovered a small shop that had my dress size as their display preference (size 8), so a lot of things were discounted for me. Plus, whoever designed the clothes (which were made on the premises) produced everything I’d ever dreamed of. My sister Sadie encouraged me, having modelled herself during her younger days.

One day I bumped into a handsome salesman for the Plaistowe sweets manufacturer, and that was it. We started seeing each other exclusively, and I was invited to meet the family. He asked me to marry him, and I accepted. I was still under 18, so my mother’s consent was required, which she gave.

Sadie and Gus moved, taking us with them, to a house next to the Ripponlea Estate. It was another big, rambling edifice with enough rooms for all of us. The household included an Estonian man with smelly cheese and a small, crusty lady who taught me chords and basic music. She played the banjo, and I hurt my fingers—and everyone’s ears—attempting to play the guitar I was given.

An engagement party was being organised. Paul and I started saving up bottles of wine, which were stored in Sadie’s copious cupboards. All the invitations had been accepted, and everything awaited Mum’s arrival to stay with us for the occasion. Until…

I’M A BAAAASTARD

Mum could not find my birth certificate, which I needed to have for my job, so I had requested a copy be sent to my address. Unfortunately, Sadie opened all the mail, even mine. Well and good, but this extract had “no previous issue” on it. Sadie was one of five other Brady children by Hannah Brady. Dad’s strict Christian and Hannah’s Jewish background meant they had never married. This also meant that the eldest son would not inherit a title and a dubious estate from Ireland—something that never seemed to bother any of them until this exact moment arrived.

There was Sadie when I came into the kitchen: totally drunk and in disarray, surrounded by numerous empty wine bottles from our engagement stash. I was not happy! I retrieved my sodden “RED” letter and the guitar and retreated to Paul’s parents. We did have some kind of a truce after I moved out, as the engagement party went ahead with fresh stock.

I officially moved out to Edinburgh Mansions, a huge, deep-pink stucco and brick edifice left over from the Edwardian era. Mum instantly took one look at its massive, imposing pink frame and dubbed it “The Pink Elephant.”

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Write On: The Pink Elephant and the Pregnancy

The name stuck. Every time I looked up at the towering, deep-pink brickwork of Edinburgh Mansions, I thought of Mum’s description. It truly was a pink elephant—grand, unusual, and impossible to ignore. After the explosive scene in Sadie’s kitchen and the quiet humiliation of the stolen wine, the mansion’s thick walls offered a sanctuary of absolute privacy. Moving in gave me a slice of independence I hadn’t known before, but the quiet didn’t last long. Behind those grand, vintage doors, the morning sickness caught up with me. I discovered I was pregnant.

In the late 1950s, navigating an unexpected pregnancy at seventeen was a terrifying threshold. I was caught entirely between two worlds. On one side was the bohemian, fiercely non-judgmental environment of my mother and Sadie, where unconventional lives were the norm. On the other side was the rigid, unforgiving social expectation of the era—and, more pressingly, the traditional world of Paul’s family. Standing inside the high-ceilinged rooms of the Pink Elephant, holding my future in my hands, I knew the truce we had patched up for the engagement party was about to face its real test.

THE PREGNANCY

Then, suddenly, I am pregnant!

Yet, despite the busy, shared life of the house, I didn’t suffer from a single day of morning sickness. Instead, my periods simply stopped. I felt great, genuinely happy, and completely full of life. Because I remained totally fit, I kept working at Lasky’s, walking the distance from the Pink Elephant to the shop every day. Later on, I walked for all our shopping too, continuing my daily treks right up until the very night I went into labor. My expanding stomach was the only thing that eventually made working at the counter impossible.

Discovering the pregnancy officially, however, became an ordeal of its own. Paul’s mother, Ethel, took charge and marched me off to a general practitioner. The GP couldn’t confirm anything conclusively and had to send me to a specialist for further tests just to prove to everyone that I was, in fact, pregnant. The specialist handed me a couple of pills nestled inside a fancy little case—hormones, I presumed. I took them, but nothing happened, and the pregnancy naturally continued. For a long time afterward, I was completely sick with worry that those pills might have damaged the baby. Because of that lingering fear, I decided it was easier and safer to stick with that same specialist for the rest of my term rather than go anywhere else.

In hindsight, that entire doctor’s episode should have been a loud warning sign of the immense control Ethel would try to wield over my life later on. But at the time, I truly had no clues whatsoever about what was ahead. I hadn’t seen or been around a single baby during all the years of my childhood. The thought of actually looking after one left me feeling completely unprepared.

I was two months pregnant when I married, something that caused a minor scandal and which everyone soon forgot about, everyone that is, except Ethel.

The Chapel Street Cross-Over and the Mallacoota Escape

The morning of the wedding was a masterclass in theatrical tension. The flowers had completely vanished, plunging the bridal party into a flurry of panic until they miraculously turned up at the absolute eleventh hour—just as we were preparing to leave for the church.

At All Saints, the unscripted drama only shifted gears. My best man was quietly waging a heroic, agonizing battle with a sudden bout of dysentery, doing his absolute best to keep his composure at the altar. Meanwhile, my mother, Flo, and my new father-in-law, Ray, decided that the formal photography session was a secondary priority. The pair of them “disappeared” entirely, slipping out of the chapel grounds and heading straight across the bustling tarmac of Chapel Street to the pub over the road for a steadying drink. They timed their exit beautifully, missing the stiff, staged family portraits entirely but managing to reappear on the church steps just in time to join the crowd for the chaotic confetti-throwing.

Against all odds, the dust eventually settled, the vows were intact, and the best man survived. Leaving the chaotic energy of Melbourne behind, we packed up and headed down the long highway for our honeymoon, escaping to the absolute sanctuary of Mum’s house back home in Mallacoota.

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 The Mallacoota Sanctuary and the Edinburgh Trade-Off

That house in Mallacoota—which would ultimately become my last bit of inheritance—turned out to be the absolute perfect setting for a honeymoon. It offered a profound, quiet stillness that was the exact opposite of the hectic wedding day we had just left behind in Melbourne.

While we were down on the coast enjoying the isolated sanctuary of her home, Mum did a complete trade-off. She packed her bags and went straight up to Melbourne to stay at my boarding house, Edinburgh Mansions. While we settled into the familiar coastal air of my childhood, Flo was busy stepping right into my old life, moving into those grand, high-ceilinged rooms and absorbing all the inquisitive, lively energy of the St Kilda boarding house crowd. It was a beautiful, accidental swap of worlds that gave us both exactly the escape we needed.

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The Wine Altercation and the Pink Elephant Eviction

While the coastal air of Mallacoota kept us wrapped in a peaceful honeymoon bubble, a far stormier drama was unfolding back at Edinburgh Mansions. Flo’s stay in my old room quickly took a dramatic turn when a wine-lubricated altercation erupted between her and my sister, Sadie. Things escalated so beautifully that Sadie called the police, resulting in my mother being carted off to spend the night in the lock-up. Flo found herself sharing a cell with a transvestite who possessed an incredibly deep voice. Reflecting on the bizarre night later with her characteristic wit, Mum remarked that the least the fellow could have done was shave his legs—the police, she suspected, had probably mistaken her for one as well!

The real fallout hit when our holidays ended. We returned to Melbourne only to find we were being politely but firmly asked to leave “The Pink Elephant.” For the very strict owners of the mansions, the sight of a distinctly disheveled Flo returning home the next morning in the back of a police car was simply a bridge too far for the establishment’s reputation.

Realising that something had to give, we gently but firmly insisted that Mum return to the safety of Mallacoota, an escape she readily agreed to. While Paul set to work hunting down new lodgings for us—eventually securing a place in Melton Street—we checked ourselves into a hotel, waiting out the dust until Mum was safely boarded onto her train back to the coast.

ALL SAINTS CHURCH

ALL SAINTS’ WINDSOR

All Saints’ Church in St Kilda East is a beautifully constructed Gothic masterpiece of dark bluestone, framed by huge, ancient magnolia trees growing around the front entry. Opened for its very first service on December 8, 1861—even though only the west end bays were complete and congregants had to bring their own seats—it holds the distinction of being the largest parish church in Australia by floor space. Historically, it was one of the leading “high” Anglo-Catholic churches in the Diocese of Melbourne, featuring historic gas candelabra originally gifted from the private chapel of King George II at Windsor Castle. This royal connection earned the site its proud local nickname: “All Saints’ Windsor.” Years later, its grand bluestone walls would even serve as the backdrop for wedding scenes in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.

For Paul and me, it was the natural choice for our wedding. He and his brothers had all been choirboys there, and some of them still were.

I loved the church at first sight. I had a wonderful time walking around the massive interior, admiring the intricate stained glass and the gleaming gilt. It was quite a change from the local buildings I was used to, emitting an aura of absolute, intimidating sanctity. With my own background leaning firmly towards paganism, I was genuinely worried I might be struck dead right at the front lintel!

The church’s famous choir and the magnificent, booming pipe organ completely fascinated me. I can still vividly remember one of Paul’s brothers blushing furiously when he had to lead the formal procession down the aisle and caught me outright ogling him.

The banns were posted, the practice runs were completed, the flowers were arranged, and everything was sorted out. Finding a dress had been a challenge, but I finally picked a beautiful evening dress instead of a traditional gown; I absolutely hated the puffy “wedding cake” look of that period. When the big day arrived, nobody jumped up to give “just cause” during the vows. Apart from the brief drama of the “stiff drink to calm Mum down” episode—courtesy of her having a quiet drink with my new father-in-law, Ray, and missing the formal photo session—everything went perfectly.

Since Mum was completely stony broke after returning from New Zealand for the second time, the reception was generously paid for by Paul’s father. It was held at the Hilton and went off beautifully.

We left the celebration behind and went on our honeymoon to Mum’s house in Mallacoota. It was a wonderful getaway, but the real shocker was what awaited us on our return to Melbourne. We came back only to discover that Mum had been locked up with a transvestite—an unbelievable situation that left us with no choice but to pack up and leave.

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The Milkman & Melton Street

Paul had found us a bed-sitting room in Melton Street. The house belonged to a widowed lady with a small terrier for company—an old but beautifully preserved Edwardian home filled with dark furniture, high ceilings, panelling, and picture rails. We had the front bedroom, which featured a small sitting room, beautiful bay windows looking out over a modest garden to the street, and a big, imposing, heavy bed. Paul’s parents, Ray and Ethel, generously bought us a colour television. The kitchen, which we shared with the owner, was all the way down a long passageway at the back of the house. The laundry sat entirely separate, equipped with a traditional copper, a wringer, and concrete tubs—facilities we were soon to become very well acquainted with.

Paul was working his job at Plaistowe at the time, though he already had his eye on Ansett Freight Express, setting his sights on a long-term future in the trucking industry. I was pregnant but perfectly well—not ill at all—and I made the walk to Lasky’s Delicatessen every single day. I only ever caught the tram back if I could actually afford it, balancing the fare against the weight of the heavy shopping.

At the bottom of this quiet street sat the fully operating dairy, which, naturally, I couldn’t resist investigating. Its horses were wonderful, sturdy, and placid animals; they weren’t quite heavy draught horses, but they had beautiful, feathered legs. The dairy yard was always alive with massive wafts of hissing steam and spraying water. We weren’t allowed to collect our milk directly from the source, otherwise I absolutely would have. Instead, it arrived at our doorstep every morning by way of a clinking, clanking cart, accompanied by a wiry human jingling empty bottles. The horse always knew exactly where to stop, though I was never permitted to feed it. In the evenings, Paul would hurry home from work, race right through the front door, and immediately turn on the cartoons—Wile E. Coyote was a particular favourite. It was a peaceful time marked by visiting friends, driving up to Ethel’s, or taking trips down the peninsulas to the beach. Life took on a serene aspect that had been sorely missing from my world for a long time. I visited my specialist in Collins Street once or twice; he declared that I was “fit as a Mallee bull” and promptly charged me an arm and a leg for the privilege.

I kept working at Lasky’s until just a few days before I came to term. I had absolutely no pre-natal instructions to speak of; I simply had an address for the Royal Women’s Hospital where I was listed as a private patient. I knew basically what was supposed to happen, so when my contractions finally started, I just stayed in bed and kept reading Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger until it reached a decent hour to wake up my husband.

When we finally arrived at the hospital with fast, sure contractions, we discovered to our absolute consternation that I wasn’t actually booked in. Not at all. Not anywhere. The ensuing bureaucratic panic was so intense it stopped my contractions right in the middle of the gurney. It was decided I would be put into a public ward, which was perfectly fine by me, but then I waited and waited. Eventually, someone came in and shaved my private areas—an archaic practice I took great umbrage to—followed by an enema, routinely explained as “so you don’t make a mess”. Honestly, if I could have physically left right then, I would have walked out the door.

At about midnight the following day, Karen was born. I actively fought off the antiseptic they kept trying to force on me; the worst of the physical damage from the ordeal amounted to deep handprints left on my arm from gripping tight, and an episiotomy. I was totally enraged by the whole experience and would have fled if I had the means. My baby was ultimately delivered by a rather excited medical student who, to his credit, did quite a good job. There was no sign whatsoever of the expensive specialist.

Afterward, I was wheeled into a massive ward packed full of women. Feeling perfectly fine, I got straight out of bed—after all, why not?—and went around to talk to some of them. I discovered a separate annexe partitioned off from the main room and asked a nurse why those girls were kept isolated. They turned out to be unmarried mothers, poor buggers, who were being forced to give up their babies for adoption. The injustice of it made me incredibly unhappy, so I took matters into my own hands and shanghaied some of the big bunches of flowers from the storage room where the staff locked them away at night, distributing them to the girls.

The hospital routine required the babies to be wheeled away to a massive communal nursery, only brought out in large groups for washing and feeding times. I had the only red-haired baby in the entire ward, yet one morning the staff confidently wheeled out and handed me a lovely little dark-haired baby girl. It made me crossly wonder exactly where Karen had been taken.

Paul came in to visit, but by the third day, I had completely had enough of the hospital’s rigid nonsense. With Paul’s help, I officially discharged myself ahead of schedule. Because of my early exit, I was forced to endure a home visit from a “Brown Lady” district nurse to inspect our premises and ensure they were deemed acceptable. Looking back on it now, I can scarcely believe I actually lived through that era. To finish the medical saga, the Collins Street specialist eventually sent us a ridiculous account for a delivery he never even showed up for, which we flatly declined to pay.

Once we settled back into Melton Street, life went on. Karen stubbornly refused to take a bottle, which caused quite a ruckus with the visiting health nurses, but I stood my ground, ignored their advice, and won the battle. They clearly thought I was a difficult mother, but I didn’t care one bit—the era’s ideal of prize-winning, chubby, overweight infants was simply not on as far as I was concerned.

Despite all the institutional chaos and the heavy-handed advice of the era, Karen survived and flourished. She was a tiny thing at first, completely lost in the clothes I had prepared for her. You would think, in all logical universes, that the first size for a newborn baby would be size 1. That makes sense, doesn’t it? But no. In the baffling world of Australian baby metrics, the first size is actually 00. Because I had logically assumed size 1 was the starting point, her new singlets were massive. They were so vastly oversized that her little arms kept disappearing entirely into the fabric; I had to resort to bunching the sleeves up and tying them with a bit of ribbon just to stop them from sliding straight off her shoulders.

Then came the grand intrusion we had been dreading. Mum’s highly anticipated visit turned out to be a decidedly short one. I was far from happy about her suddenly appearing on our doorstep after Ethel gave away our address, but I swallowed my anger and accepted the fact that, regardless of our tumultuous past, she had a basic right to see her new grandchild.

As it turned out, the reality of suburban family life didn’t hold her attention for very long. After spending just a few short days dividing her time between our rooms and staying with Ethel and Ray, the pull of the coast proved too strong. The brief flurry of grandmotherly duty satisfied, she packed her bags and left Melbourne behind once more, heading straight back to the isolation and familiarity of Mallacoota. With her departure, the dust settled, and Paul, Karen, and I were finally left alone to navigate our own rhythm in the quiet of Melton Street.

The Milkman & Melton Street (Continued)

Before long, the cozy layout of Melton Street began to push against its limits. With a growing baby, a mountain of nappies, and the constant back-and-forth down that long hallway to the shared kitchen, the beautifully preserved Edwardian rooms suddenly became too small. We needed space, independence, and a place of our own.

It was then that we made our next move—and looking back, it was a distinctly bad move.

We packed up our oversized singlets and cartoon-filled evenings to take a lease on a modern two-bedroom flat. It was tucked into a small, brand-new brick development. On paper, it had all the contemporary conveniences the old Edwardian house lacked, but it came with one major, unforeseen complication: it was located in the very same street as Ethel.

Moving right into the orbit of your mother-in-law is a delicate business at the best of times. While Ray and Ethel had been incredibly generous—even providing us with our first colour television back in Melton Street—perching ourselves just a few doors down in a quiet block of flats completely shifted the dynamic. The serene aspect we had worked so hard to cultivate was about to be tested by the sheer friction of proximity.

THE MOVE TO THE BLUE DANDENONGS.

From Melton Street to Boronia: A Chapter of Unfolding

Before long, the cozy layout of Melton Street began to push against its limits. With a growing baby, a mountain of nappies, and the constant back-and-forth down that long hallway to the shared kitchen, the beautifully preserved Edwardian rooms suddenly became too small. We needed space, independence, and a place of our own.

It was then that we made our next move—and looking back, it was a distinctly bad move. We packed up our oversized singlets and cartoon-filled evenings to take a lease on a modern two-bedroom flat tucked into a small, brand-new brick development. On paper, it had all the contemporary conveniences the old Edwardian house lacked, but it came with one major, unforeseen complication: it was located in the very same street as Ethel.

Moving right into the orbit of your mother-in-law is a delicate business at the best of times. While Ray and Ethel had been incredibly generous—even providing us with our first colour television back in Melton Street—perching ourselves just a few doors down in a quiet block of flats completely shifted the dynamic. The serene aspect we had worked so hard to cultivate was about to be tested by the sheer friction of proximity.

The months that ensued were busy and happy on the surface. I enjoyed being a mother, and Paul moved on to his desired job at Ansett. However, there developed a daily pattern that I wasn’t happy with but felt powerless to alter. I visited Ethel each day with the baby. Ethel spat on her hair to flatten it, while I sat patiently and friendly with my cup of tea in hand. We usually went to the shops together, and then I would come home to domestics. Paul, when he arrived home from work, would always visit his mother first. As Ethel never did anything overtly negative and offered to babysit Karen—and because I was thinking of going back to work and needed a babysitter—I internalised my frustration and accepted the consequences.

But the body keeps score. That internalised stress eventually manifested as panic attacks and skin rashes. To make matters worse, my mother Flo paid occasional visits that only amplified the tension. Finally, I broke the silence and asked if we could move somewhere larger where I could find work locally.

Paul decided—as men made all the decisions back then—on Boronia. It was a beautiful area nestled right at the foot of the Dandenongs, perfect for a young family. The Maroondah Highway meant Paul could still commute to work in a reasonable time, but more importantly, it meant my mother-in-law could no longer feature so prominently in my daily life. It was my first real chance to “unfold,” as it were. 

The move went beautifully, and we settled right in. The lady next door had two daughters the exact same age as Karen, and she generously offered to look after her after school. With Karen’s care sorted, I found a job in the data processing department at Penguin Books.

The workflow operated on a punch card system, and I took to it like a duck to water. But the real joy was the books—all those books. There was a repository called the “pulp bin,” and I gorged myself indiscriminately on a diverse range of subjects.

As the years went by, our little world kept evolving. Paul eventually left Ansett to start his own business with a second hand tip truck. At work, Penguin transitioned steadily into the age of computers. By then, Karen was well into her school years, the old anxieties had faded into good health, and I looked forward to the future. 

Arriving in Boronia ultimately marked the definitive end of a major chapter in my life. It was a successful escape from the subtle bondage of a lovely but controlling mother-in-law, and a final departure from the clutches of my own dysfunctional parent. At last, we were a small, happy, and independent unit, finding a deep and beautiful peace in the quiet comfort of our own everyday mundanity.

THE RED LETTER

The “Red Letter” and the Fault Lines of Boronia

It was a warm day in early Spring, and the world felt open. I had recently conquered a terrifying milestone, earning my driver’s license after twenty-five separate, nerve-wracking lessons. I pulled into the driveway, fresh from work, ready to collect Karen from next door and settle into the quiet, simple comfort of an ordinary evening. I retrieved the mail from the box, noting a letter from Mum in Mallacoota. She was a frequent writer, and I looked forward to sitting down with a cup of tea while Karen had a snack, cartoons playing in the background between stretches of homework.

But when I opened the envelope, the script wasn’t her usual ink. It was written entirely in a jarring, aggressive red.

The words pierced through the afternoon peace: “The doctor says I’m a cot case. I can’t live here anymore, and I’m going to kill myself.” It was the exact same threat she had weaponized against me when I was a vulnerable young child. The ultimatum followed swiftly: “I want to come and live in Boronia with you.”

I sat in the quiet house, unable to think clearly, the red ink burning into my mind. I kept that physical letter for years, all the way until the day I finally left Paul. In that frozen moment, wait-and-see was not an option, but one thing was blindingly clear: if Flo came to live under our roof, it would finish our marriage then and there.

When Paul finally came home, a long, heavy discussion ensued. Trapped by the urgency of her threat, we made a decision I would come to deeply regret: we resolved to sell the Mallacoota property, as Mum insisted she no longer wanted it. I phoned my brother Hugh to ensure someone would keep an eye on her in the interim, and we set the wheels in motion.

The financial transaction looked successful on paper. The sale funds completely paid off our family mortgage and purchased Mum a house of her own in Boronia. I deliberately chose a spot too far for her to walk to our place on the edge of the Basin, desperately trying to construct a physical boundary. It wasn’t the right move, but under the crushing weight of her threats, I felt I had absolutely no other choice.

Predictably, the Boronia saga simply repeated the old, destructive patterns. Mum went heavily on the booze. Soon, there were emergency admissions to Dandenong Hospital, and a relentless cycle of frantic calls from neighbours and Home Help workers. The boundary I tried to build collapsed under the weight of her dependency, and the physical toll returned; I became deeply ill again.

Yet, throughout these turbulent years, we fought to protect Karen’s childhood. They were her formative years, and despite the chaos, I hoped to keep them happy for her. We bought ponies and riding gear, and my weekends became a blur of traveling to gymkhanas. Eventually, Paul and I sat Karen down for a family discussion, giving her a mature choice: I could remain at work to fund her equestrian endeavours, or I could become a housewife and we would sell the pony. She chose the horse, which was fair enough.

But beneath the surface of the horse trials and the busy weekends, the structural cracks in our marriage were widening into a chasm. Paul was quietly struggling with his own demons, caught between the relentless pressures of his trucking business, the persistent “checking-up” visits from Ethel in St Kilda, and an absent wife who was constantly pulled away to manage Flo’s crises or trapped in the grip of severe panic attacks when she was home.

We didn’t violently shatter; we simply drifted apart. By the time Karen turned twelve, the foundation had eroded until there was virtually nothing left between us. The environment had grown too heavy for the both of us. Paul wanted to escape to the country, and my heart desperately wanted to go home to Mallacoota. Unable to bridge the gap completely, we settled on a compromise: Lochiel, on the southern end of coastal New South Wales.

WHAT IS MUM GOING TO DO?

Mum, never one to be left out of the dynamic, chose that exact moment to take a “turn.” Whether it was a genuine medical crisis or an absolute masterpiece of timing, I will never know. She became completely unresponsive and was rushed to hospital with suspected dementia. Suddenly, the fragile blueprint of our escape route fractured. The immediate consequence was clear: we had to find somewhere close to where we would be in Lochiel.

Enter Bimbimbi, a lovely retirement village tucked away in Merimbula. It lasted all of a week. Mum totally disgraced herself, shattered the peace, and was unceremoniously asked to leave. It was straight back to Boronia for her. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking relentlessly. We had sold our own house in a matter of days and were caught in a frantic, exhausting vortex of finalizing a life—including the massive headache of arranging for the horse to be floated hundreds of kilometres north.

In the midst of the chaos, my family doctor—who by this stage was a painfully familiar figure in my life—stepped in and threw me a lifeline. He managed to secure a vacancy for Mum in a brand-new, lovely establishment. Wits’ end, it’s called. We settled her in, silently promising ourselves we would cope with the grueling distance factor later. By the time I turned to leave for Lochiel, she had absolutely no idea where she was.

Because of her crisis, I was forced to stay behind alone to finalize the house sale, wrap up my job, and somehow coordinate freighting a horse across state lines. I did it, but it came with heavy consequences.

When I finally arrived in Lochiel, the reality on the ground was a far cry from the dream. The house was severely behind schedule, and the money to finish it was drying up fast. Instead of the cozy, intimate little cabin in the woods I had pictured, I was confronted by a huge, sprawling, modern log construction sitting exposed on an acreage of rock and silver-tussock-strewn paddocks. To make matters heavier, I didn’t have a job lined up waiting for me the way Paul did.

Yet, we moved in, settled, and a strange, beautiful kind of grace found us. Two boarders came into our lives: a gentle, beautiful girl who had become Karen’s friend at her new high school, and an equally delightful girl from Mallacoota who boarded with us to attend school. For a time, it felt like a very happy family.

Note: The threads of that time still hold. Today, I live right next door to one of my “girls,” and the other and I have recently touched base again. My only wish is that I had Karen closer to me; she has her own life in Melbourne now and seems happy, though she and her partner plan to retire to acreage even further away. There are no grandkids to spoil, but that is another story.

Lochiel worked, in its own way. Unfortunately, it was simply too much, too late, and too sad. The sheer exhaustion of everything caught up with me, and I started drinking. I eventually obtained an office job in Eden and settled into a nice routine, but on the inside, it felt as though I had died. The physical isolation of the country was something I could easily handle, but internally, I had just given up.

To survive, I started traveling back to Mallacoota once every few weeks. It was an easy drive, under two hours, and it felt like breathing again. I caught up with old friends and made some new ones. Among them was a lady who had just left a tumultuous relationship with Peter Kurz—a man who, in a twist of fate, had been an old friend of my mother’s. Mischief loves a good audience, and the echoes of the past seemed to follow me everywhere.

One evening, I walked through the door of that sprawling log house in Lochiel, looked around, and decided I was done. I packed nothing of the life we had built. I walked out carrying only a large piece of Gorgonia coral.

Adobe Flats

Returning to Mallacoota meant facing a landscape where my past had been completely dismantled. Paul and I had already sold the last of our land—a sacrifice that had funded Mum’s move to Melbourne—but seeing the old house gone for good was a different kind of sting. There was no family hearth left to welcome me back. The finality of it hit me all at once, and I sat down and cried my eyes out for the loss of that physical anchor.

With nowhere else of my own to go, I managed to rent a cabin at Adobe Flats.

Even in the depths of that heartbreak, the unique spirit of the Mallacoota community rose up around me. I was incredibly vulnerable, stripped down to nothing but my grief, my clothes, and that bit of gorgonia coral, but my friends didn’t let me sink. A lot of them came out to the flats to comfort me, bringing their warmth and practical help to get me through those first fragile weeks.

Living there, I found myself more than a little in love with Peter Kurz, the owner of Adobe.

In my uprooted state, being close to him felt like finding a strange kind of shelter. My heart was tender, bruised from the finality of the Melbourne breakup and the sting of the sold family land, and Peter became the focal point of my days. Our involvement grew naturally out of that proximity. It became a time of shared dinners, late-night conversations over wine while the coastal wind brushed past the mudbrick walls, and the quiet comfort of not being alone in the dark.

Whether it was a wise choice or a foolish one in the long run didn’t matter back then. In the early days of a clean break, you don’t look for a lifetime guarantee; you look for warmth, a bit of passion, and a reason to wake up the next morning without weeping. Peter provided that anchor, and for a while, the flats became a sanctuary where I could slowly piece myself back together.

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A Clean Break and a Hard Choice

Before I could fully immerse myself in the mudbrick world of Adobe, the loose ends of my life in Melbourne had to be tied. Our home life before the split had devolved into one big, exhausting fight, and I knew Karen could guess what was coming. I waited for what I thought was a good moment and asked her a straight question: did she want to stay with Paul and complete her education, or move out with me? She chose Paul, wanting the stability of finishing her schooling.

When I left, I couldn’t bring myself to write a note—the very act of putting words on paper carried too much echoes of Mum’s manipulative ultimatums. Instead, I left Paul a tape. Once his initial shock abated, I told him I wanted absolutely nothing from the marriage except for him to keep the house, look after Karen, and manage the boarders until their education was finished and he had a forward plan for himself.

Paul proved himself to be a damn good bloke. There were never any bitter “he said, she said” moments between us; in fact, he kept insisting the breakdown was his fault, even though it wasn’t. He even drove all the way down to Mallacoota to bring me my clothes, my family heirlooms, our paintings and photos, and two cats he absolutely despised that had belonged to my mother. We encountered each other occasionally over the next few years, and when the time was right, we sold the Lochiel house together. The buyers paid the entire balance in cash, a mountain of notes that made me incredibly nervous. Paul went on to build his own beautiful bluestone house in the wilderness of Wyndham, had two lovely red-headed daughters, and though his health isn’t the best these days, he still maintains a wonderful, helping relationship with his family.

But back at Adobe Flats, my new sanctuary quickly became complicated. Peter was a brilliant, multi-faceted man—an abalone diver, an environmentalist, deeply well-read, and a lover of classical music and the arts. After years of emotional drought, his charm and artistic ability were intoxicating. I fell completely in love with the flats, throwing myself into refurbishing them, adding to them, and working alongside him to finish a beautiful two-storey mudbrick house.

Yet, Peter had a fatal flaw: he simply could not keep his dick in his pants.

That infidelity eventually crossed a line that shattered my world when it extended toward my own daughter. When Karen told me of the first incident, I was faced with a bloody hard choice, and to this day, I still don’t know if I made the right one. To protect her, I immediately discouraged her visits to Adobe entirely, making sure to only meet her far away from Peter’s presence.

And yet, despite the alarm bells and the betrayal, my besotted, stubborn heart didn’t stop. I continued the relationship. I stayed, continuing to build and expand Adobe with him, even as I gradually discovered affair after affair. Every time I confronted him, he would simply move on to the next one. But the ties to the land, the mudbrick, and the man were tight, and despite everything, I still ended up marrying him.

Chapter: You didn’t have to Marry the B……

The words came from a female friend of mine—who also happened to be one of Peter’s ex-lovers. But I was never one to wring my hands and sit on the sidelines. Life went on, affairs or no affairs, and I was already deep in the current of Peter’s world.

For the first few months of living with him, my introduction to that world was from the deck of his abalone boat. I was his “sheller,” his deckhand. It was an ironic job placement considering I couldn’t swim very well. A diver’s deckhand is their absolute lifeline, responsible for the air and the haul, so I guess I should have been flattered by the trust he placed in me.

My mother had always possessed an obsession with myself and water. It stretched back to my very first forays in Bruce’s leaking rowboats, all the way to me trying to get a local fisherman, Dave Casement, to take me out on the mail run to Gabo Island with him. I secretly sneaked one of Mum’s own paintings behind her back to use as a bribe for Dave to ensure I’d get my spot! She found out. That’s the nearest I’ve ever come to getting a whack!

Except for a brief period spent with the Normans at Coogee, I had never properly learned to swim. But youth, enthusiasm, and sheer good luck and ignorance of the dangers saw me through.

Our vessel was a Haines Hunter—a small boat, not one of those steady, twin-hulled catamarans. Peter stored it at a local garage owned by my niece Leone and her husband. The idea was to “check the point,” where all the local abalone divers would congregate on a headland to read the conditions out to sea and decide whether to dive or not. This was either followed by a mass exodus to hook up the boats or a leisurely coffee drive back home.

The first time I went out on the ocean in such a small vessel was a complete revelation. The sea was alive. There were huge birds wheeling overhead, fish rising right up to the boat, and clouds of plankton glinting as they went by. This was no placid lake; it was big and very wild.

I became so utterly distracted by the majesty of it all that I dropped the top half of Peter’s wetsuit straight overboard. Because it was dry, it floated just long enough for me to snag it back with a swift stroke of the gaff!

I learned quickly, and my hands hardened to the sea water. I learned how to lift the boat motor when the skeg was hitting on a shallow reef—the first time was interesting, given he hadn’t bothered to tell me how the mechanism worked before we left. I mastered the winch used to haul the heavy baskets up, and learned to manage the temperamental, cantankerous air compressor. I learned how to haul Peter in during an emergency, what a shark looks like right up close to the gunwale, and grew intimately familiar with the thick stench of a seal colony. The colony provided rich nutrients for the abalone, which meant plenty of yummy seals for the local sharks. Peter wasn’t immune to the danger either; one day, he spotted something in the shadows and scrambled clean out of the water, heavy weight belts and all—an absolute first for him!

I have many stories from those wild days. For a fantastic window into what the diving industry was truly like in Mallacoota, I highly recommend the book Head Down | Bum Up by Heidi Ledwell.

Working the boat was my first job. The second was running the flats. Peter was easily distracted, especially by the arrival of good-looking female guests, and I eventually put my foot down and insisted on employing external help to run the accommodation.

All went well for some time, until the proposal. This probably came about because he could see I’d had more than enough of the status quo. We set a date to be married, and marry we did.

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MORE INCIDENTS I REMEMBER & LOVE

FRAN OF ASSISI

(this is a story of about 20 years ago)

A retired blacksmith and his wife bought some land a couple of properties up from us and established a wildlife sanctuary. When animals and birds are healed and released from their property, they gravitate to our area across the cleared paddocks. Some are very tame and, having been made so, are not afraid of humans.

Graham, my partner, was working under a car in our shed when up walks a Crimson Rosella, at eye level. Being used to things like this, he chats on and finishes what he is doing. The bird is still there but follows him up to the house.

Birdseed and water laid out, and no pets/predators. Other like-parrots. Great Graham thinks he will fit in and fly off with the flock, happy ending.

Not quite so. The other birds do fly off, but Gring Gring stays. Sleeps in a bush and is up at parrot fart, staring in the glass door. Of course, we let it in. We call it Gring Gring after someone’s mispronunciation of ring-ring. That sounded funny at the time anyway. Gring Gring is around all day, with us on our heads or shoulders, on the bird feeders and in and out the door.

It’s getting late. We are sitting, sipping champagne and watching the evening shadows close another perfect day. Snack biscuits and cheese at hand. Discussing world events and local happenings. Peaceful. Gring Gring is outside, hopefully doing birdy things with its brothers.

Our neighbour down the road walks Fran. She’s come to get some eggs and see how we are. (Fran, her husband and guests have their holiday house here and always come to see us and find out what the fishing is like.)

Of course, we must have to open another bottle of champagne for Fran. The discourse gets quite animated before I realise we have given Fran a fair bit to drink, and she came in her CAR. I see the car parked outside and open the sliding door in doing so. In flies Gring Gring. It’s in a bee(bird) line for Fran and lands in her outrageously styled “bee hive” (nest) Hairdo. He is firmly planted and can’t be discouraged. (Plus I will admit, IN CASE her hair is a wig I don’t want to pull this off and embarrass her.)

Fran has an epiphany, deciding this is a St Francis of Assisi moment and a minor miracle. It wasn’t documented with a photograph (before the ever-present mobiles came to be a fashion necessity). What to do? Offers of crackers did nothing to shift the bird. I give Dulcie the portable phone and suggest she ring her husband to pick her up, which she does, calmly, with the bird settled in nicely.

It’s agreed upon. I turn the outside light on for him and think, bugger it, Fran may as well have another glass to celebrate this sainthood event. We do.

Someone arrives; it’s not her husband, but the prospective son-in-law (whom Fran has doubts about). We are not sure what to do. Graham opens the door to greet him. The bird sees a new person and leaves Fran’s head to perch on new territory. Meantime Fran is being helped down the steps, and the bird is torn about where to go. It ends up attacking the suitor with full beak intent and fastens onto his soft, skinny hand. He is trying to steady Fran and howling in pain. I come into the fray, grab Gring Gring by the head(gently) and pry open an amazingly strong beak. Gring Gring lets go, streaks off with a few ruffled feathers, and disappears into the night.

Fran and her attacked soon-to-be family member drive away erratically, and Graham and I decide to go inside, close the door, and put on some music. Maybe contemplate some more cheese & biscuits and an early night. Gring Gring was back the next day, sitting on the painter’s head. That suitor never did make the grade. As Fran said, “The parrot had good taste”

Gring Gring ventured out to other places and finally didn’t come back at all. Must have found his flock.

THE SIRENS OF KARBEETHONG AND BABETTE’S FEAST

This is current

Every town has its sirens, but Mallacoota’s must sing with a distinct salt-air melody, because they have a habit of luring the most extraordinary characters to the edge of the wilderness. Decades ago, it was Chin Sling, the local pioneer gardener who took to raking abalone off the rocks with my father’s hoe. Today, it is Brad French.

If you strolled down to the main wharf area on a sunny summer afternoon, you’d see “Frenchy’s” caravan parked by the water. There, standing in the gravel, alongside a queue of hungry people, you’ll regularly find Duncan, our resident pelican, patiently waiting in line for his daily serve of local flathead or pristine Lakes Entrance prawns. Behind the counter stands Brad, slinging fish burgers wrapped in paper while living up on Karbeethong Hill in a makeshift camp as he finishes building his home.

To the casual tourist, he is just a friendly bloke with a great food truck. But if you look closer at his hands, you are looking at a culinary director who spent years managing executive banqueting operations at Crown Melbourne and lecturing senior students at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu Institute. The contrast is purely cinematic: a master of French haute cuisine, roughing it on a hillside, talking shop with a pelican by the lake.

But the real punchline—the beautiful, delicious irony of it all—unfolds away from the wharf. By some miracle of regional administration, Brad happens to be the chef/cook for our local MDHSS (Miva) aged care meal service.

It is our own local version of Babette’s Feast. The bureaucracy in its grey towers might think they are simply providing standard, clinical nourishment to us lowly pensioners, but behind closed doors, a quiet revolution is happening on our plates. Every week, a master artisan pours his classical French training, his secret reductions, and his years of high-end culinary expertise into the meals delivered to the forgotten doorsteps of the wilderness.

While the rest of the world is paying premium city prices to taste that level of mastery, Graham and I sit down in our isolated two-story cabin, eating at our humble table and enjoying an executive sous chef’s creation. It turns an ordinary lunch into an occasion of absolute grace and comfort. People often wonder why we stay so fiercely loyal to our local care provider despite the administrative chaos. They can keep their corporate upgrades and restructuring; as long as our own French culinary director is running the kitchen, we are dining like royalty at the edge of the world. It’s the best-kept secret on the coast.

 

THE LAST TYPEWRITER AND THE REJECTED MANUSCRIPT

Creativity in our family didn’t just flow; it saturated everything we did, often carrying a sharp, heavy edge that the outside world wasn’t quite ready for. Years after the canvas tents of Raheen had folded, I found myself holding a complete book manuscript that my mother, Flo, had written. It was a massive, sweeping account of her life and the subjects that consumed her, hammered out meticulously on my father’s very last typewriter.

I always thought it was a truly magnificent story—rich, raw, and full of the unapologetic texture of her reality. But the traditional publishing world of the mid-20th century was built on gentler, more sanitized illusions. Her book was promptly hit with a couple of sharp rejections, with editors citing its “risqué content.” Flo’s observations were simply too blunt, and her lifestyle too bohemian, for the polite society of the day. And so, the pages were tucked away, sitting quietly on my shelf for decades.

The manuscript found a second breath of life years later through the sheer devotion of the “Bradyophiles”—those dedicated historians and enthusiasts who fiercely preserve my father’s literary legacy. One of them took it upon themselves, completely unasked, to carefully retype Flo’s entire faded manuscript into a clean, modern format.

With the text revived, I decided to test the waters of the modern publishing landscape. Having previously worked at Penguin publishing house myself, I bypassed the usual slush piles and submitted Flo’s newly typed manuscript directly to my old boss there, confident that time had finally caught up with her forward-thinking voice.

The response I received was a delicious piece of literary irony. The verdict hadn’t changed; it had just shifted focus. This time, the publisher’s formal response came back saying it was simply “too dark for us.”

I had to laugh. Decades earlier she was too scandalous, and now she was too dark. It sits right back on my shelf today, a beautiful, stubborn monument to a woman who refused to water down her truth for corporate gatekeepers.

But holding those pages now, I see the manuscript for what it truly is: a raw, unfiltered self-portrait. Reading her words in her own voice is the precise reason I finally came to understand my mother—to truly see what motivated her, what drove her creative spirit, and what fueled her battles. The shadows in her text don’t frighten me. In fact, looking at those bound pages from the vantage point of my own eighty years, I feel nothing but peace. I forgave her long ago.

THE WEAVE OF THE SUN ROSE: THE MIRROR, THE BRIER(BRIAR)AND THE BRADYS

The mirror did not belong in a church rectory, though it spent twenty years hanging in the deep shadows of the Bishop of Meath’s grand stone apartments. Hugh Brady, standing tall in his heavy Elizabethan robes in 1563, was a man hiding in plain sight. To the Tudor court in London, he was the first Protestant Bishop of Meath—a loyal, strategic servant of the Crown. But the blood in his veins was older than the church and older than the crown, carrying the deep, quiet hum of the ancient Clare Druids. To survive and hold power in Ireland during the volatile Tudor reigns, a family had to play the high-church game. But a family also knew how to keep its own secrets.

When the Bishop’s sisters prepared their dowries to cross the sea, they did not pack English silver. They packed a heavy, hand-beaten copper mirror and a silent root cutting wrapped in damp burlap, tied with a bit of tarred twine. For the Brady women, the mirror and the brier were a pair that could never be parted. One was the rose fixed in metal, frozen in a Tudor disguise to shield the family’s ancient heritage from the watchful eyes of the state. The other was the corporeal rose—the living, breathing flesh of Tuamgraney, a village whose very name (Tuaim Gréine) explicitly translates from the old tongue as “The Tomb of the Sun.”

The English visitors to the rectory only saw a royal symbol in the fine, beaten copper panels. They did not know the rose was actually a sun disk, a tribute to Grian, the ancient Celtic goddess of the sun who, according to lore, drowned in the nearby lough and was buried under a mound where the village stands. The huge, fenced-off stone right in the middle of the Tuamgraney village green was a prehistoric marker of that sacred Bronze Age energy—an energy the Bradys carried across the ocean disguised as a flower.

When the sisters finally stepped onto the unfamiliar earth of the new world, their hands were raw from the voyage, but the brier had survived. They planted it in the rich soil, where it grew thick and thorny, a sprawling climber with floppy, heavy, intensely sweet blooms that held the distilled memory of damp Irish mornings. For generations, the living brier and the copper mirror monitored the passing of time from their respective stations. Outside, the thorns caught on the skirts of daughters and granddaughters, a stubborn reminder of where they came from. Inside, the copper frame was polished to a brilliant, pinkish dawn glow by matriarchal hands—even when Mum’s enthusiastic applications of Brasso wore away the last protective vestiges of its original antique varnish.

But the mirror was alive in darker, more mysterious ways. The superstition was iron-clad among the women of the bloodline: the glass itself was a boundary wall. Every generation, the glass had to be replaced because it would develop deep, cloudy “spots” that could not be wiped away. The old women knew these imperfections appeared with terrifying precision only when the matriarch currently in possession of the mirror was ending her term on this planet. It was a tradition to wipe away the casual spatter of modern toothpaste with a sudden catch in the throat, peering closely at the silvered background, relieved to find only one small green “cancer” of copper corrosion on the metal rim rather than a clouding of the glass.

The veil between the domestic world and the wild was always thin for the Brady women. They were fey, bound to the old landscape and the dark creatures that monitored the boundaries of life and death. When Mum’s time came, she hadn’t been ill. Her heart was steady and her mind sharp. But 300 km away, at the house Edna shared with her husband Peter—(who had become a fierce Bradyophile the moment he married into the clan)—the air changed. Out of the coastal bush came the white-winged choughs. Dark, sleek, and shadow-eyed, they gathered at the windows, their heavy black wings beating against the glass panes, throwing themselves against the domestic barrier as if trying to shatter the reflection. It was a week later that Mum’s heart gave out, a sudden, peaceful exit, exactly as the dark birds had predicted.

To live as a Brady woman is to live with one foot firmly planted in the past, yet entirely unimmune to the present. Edna knew this balance well, managing the modern eccentricities of life while preserving the ghosts of the past. The bone-handled knives Mum had accidentally cremated in the old wood-fired oven when unexpected guests caught her by surprise were long gone, replaced by weird, cobbled-together substitutes collected over a lifetime. The family castle in Clare resembled a broken-down version of Blarney, filled with rubble and goats, though its legacy remained as real as the stone Edna had once traveled to kiss.

But when the sunrise finally breaks over the wilderness lakes, casting its first pink light through the window, it catches both inheritances. It illuminates the living, floppy blooms of the Tuamgraney brier climbing outside the door, and it strikes the beaten copper disk inside, turning the mirror into the very thing it was always meant to be: a sun goddess, waking up to greet the next early-rising Brady woman who checks the glass, looks out at the world, and stands fully ready for whatever the next horizon brings.

Lifelines in the Dark: A Century of Connection

There is a unique brand of isolation that breeds in the Australian bush, a vast stillness that can turn terrifying the moment crisis strikes. Yet, for over a century, a single thread has consistently pulled us back from the brink of that despair: the simple, human need to connect, and the profound compassion of those on the other end of the line.

In 1910, Henry Lawson captured this beautifully in his poem A Song of the Telephone, immortalising Mrs. Allan of Mallacoota West. Standing in her nightdress in the freezing, dark small hours of the morning, she answered the desperate rings of a frightened, pregnant woman forty miles away in Kiah. There was no physical medicine Mrs. Allan could send through the wires, no way to clear the black bush outside, but through the mere act of listening, sharing stories of children they had both borne years before, she kept the terror at bay until dawn. Lawson wrote:

‘Tis an angel’s touch responding to the kindest deeds and best,
Ringing Eden, ringing Gabo — ringing Mallacoota West.

Exactly one hundred and ten years later, that very same quiet desperation played out under a furious orange sky during the 2020 Black Summer bushfires. The tech had changed, but our vulnerability hadn’t. When power failed and the local mobile towers were incinerated, people were left completely stranded in a bewildering, frightening vacuum.

In Narooma, a simple public payphone became a literal lifeline, with queues of polite, patient people waiting to dial home, to check on neighbours, or to whisper through the smoke that they were still alive. In a beautifully distinct nod to the Australian spirit—a culture that pauses for a public holiday for the footy—that very phone box has now officially been classified as a National Heritage treasure. It is a monument not to grand politics, but to the quiet, everyday lifelines of survival.

We lived through that exact same silence in Mallacoota. The firestorm devastated our town, destroying more than a hundred homes and decimating the wildlife we loved. Because we were with Optus, the moment their tower burned to the ground, our connection to the world vanished. We were running our accommodation business at the time, surrounded by a house full of scared, confused guests who were looking to us for answers we didn’t have.

In that pitch-black uncertainty, compassion came through the wires. I contacted Telstra, and their team went above and beyond, cobbling our landline and mobiles back into the grid. That single act of technical grace threw us an immeasurable lifeline. Suddenly, we could tell our frantic families we were safe. We could coordinate with the outside world.

What followed was an extraordinary outpouring of human kindness. The help we received was immense—donations of food, clothing, and community support flooded in. Even our own accommodation clients, including vets, reached out to offer their professional hands to heal the scorched landscape. While some neighbours fought heroically with garden hoses to save homes, and others had to endure the heartbreak of watching properties burn, the enduring story of that disaster wasn’t just the destruction. It was the way the community held onto one another.

From Mrs. Allan’s midnight vigil in 1910 to the heritage-listed phone boxes and cobbled-together lines of 2020, the story of the bush is ultimately not a story of isolation. It is a song of communication, a testament to the fact that when the world burns, we will always reach out through the dark to find each other.

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