First to clarify an item from my earlier post where I said:
1989 was in many respects a personal annus horribilis encompassing a burn-out that forced me to give up my job at Masada — at one point I was off the radar to such an extent that my mother sent the police to do a welfare check and the Deputy Principal of Masada came to Paddington to see what was going on. Therapy with the amazing Dr Cedric Bullard in Randwick really helped. By the end of the year I was working again at Sydney Boys High. There was also the suicide of a dear friend and the death of my father in 1989. So Tiananmen did not really occupy my thoughts at the time.
In fact what she did was reported me missing! Then the cops did a welfare check. The point being that at one stage I had not been to see Mum over in Glebe for a while and she could not ring me as at that time where I was living in Paddington did not have a phone. I would normally contact people from a public phone. Later in the year I had an arrangement with my friend PK who also lived in Paddington to sit at his place on a workday morning so that Sydney High could contact me if my services were required. Worked well. After if I was not working I would have coffee at the wonderful Oddies which was close to PK’s place. In the missing weeks I could most often be found in Centennial Park contemplating the ducks.
My 1989 front door in Paddington
Memories of my mother
She speaks for herself in a series here and here.
My mother died in 1996. Internal evidence dates what follows to 1979, so my mother wrote it at the age of 68 at Oyster Bay while I was living in Wollongong. It is thus ten years more recent than the other memoir published here earlier. In the late 60s we had visited relatives at Wellington, Yeovil, and out towards Mudgee, some of whom had children affected by the rationalisation of the small schools. She may have also been thinking of them as she wrote.
The pages she left me have no title and consist of thirteen handwritten quarto writing pad pages. They overlap somewhat with the other memoir published here earlier. The subheadings are mine. I did not see these pages until after my mother’s death, so far as I know. The earlier memoir I had seen.
The Dulwich Hill family — where my mother was born. This is during WW1. Eric is the boy with the boat; on his left with crossed legs is my mother.
A letter my mother wrote from Braefield where they lived 1916-1923. When she says they were all back in their own beds she may be alluding to the time a tornado destroyed their house! LATER: The reference to the number of children at school may refer to the Diphtheria epidemic of 1921 when my mother was 9-10 years old.
Or perhaps the Influenza Pandemic of 1919? My mother writes:
The years had gone by and we had the aftermath of the War, the influenza epidemic. Many in our district succumbed. Dad himself was the only member of our family on his feet at one stage. Many a time at night he was called to the bedside of a dying mother, child, or father; doctors were hard to get and hospitalisation impossible, and as he had a First Aid Certificate they came to Dad. He could do nothing of course, but the people loved him and trusted him and he seemed to give them comfort. The rapport from pupil to teacher was carried over to parent and teacher.
I am left front row, then my sister Jeanette, then my brother Ian. Our mother is behind Jeanette, My Uncle Neil after whom I am named is at the back in RAAF uniform. Christmas 1944 or later in that summer 1944-5. It is creased because my father who was in the RAAF kept it in his wallet while in Port Moresby.
At my graduation, Sydney University 1965
My mother passed away at Annandale in March 1996.
Neil's Commonplace Book 