were doing their duty by getting him off the street.
Mum was a born worrier and there wasn’t a day that went by she wouldn’t be worried about one of us. It was nothing unusual to hear her say as she wrung her hands together, ‘Where’s it all going to end? ’To which I would invariably reply as I grew older, ‘When we’re in our pine box.’
Looking back, I felt that we all created or at the very least over emphasised dramas solely to get her worrying. I believe now she enjoyed worrying over us and we in turn enjoyed the security of having someone as caring and loving to be there for us. Granddad would often say, ‘She’s a mighty woman.’
Mighty wasn’t the half of it, she was bloody fantastic.
Mum gave birth to three children. Cecil (1912–1987), Edith (1915–1999), and Wilfred (1916–1916), who survived seven short days. Wilfred had been a breach birth and I’ve been told in those days breach birth babies were very lucky to survive. Mum never spoke about Wilfred very often, but when she did it was always with reverence and a longing in her voice.
Mum was fifty-three when I was born and in the twenty-nine years that followed until she passed away, I think I aged her by at least eighty-five years. From as far back as I can remember she worked at two jobs for at least twenty years. From nine to five, seven days a week, she was assistant cook/kitchen hand/waitress at Mt Coot-tha Kiosk and from eleven to three, six nights a week she was a cleaner at the Wintergarden picture theatre. At least three nights a week she would indulge herself, Edith and I in an outing to the pictures. Nine times out of ten she would be out like a light before the interval. She was always very embarrassed to have fallen asleep during the picture and never failed to say when awakened,
Mum ‘I’m not asleep, I’m just resting my eyes.’
Amelia ‘You were snoring.’
Mum ‘Oh. I wasn’t, was I?’
Amelia ‘Yes, the people in the back were complaining.’
Realizing I was fibbing she'd say, ‘I may have dozed for a moment, but I was listening and I didn’t miss anything.’
Occasionally the conversation would be,
Amelia ‘Did you see the part where she fell on the stairs?’
Mum ‘No I must’ve missed that part.’
Most times when she dozed off, her head would nod forward and every so often she would nod her head back and forth as if she was agreeing with someone’s point of view.
One evening we went to Her Majesty’s Theatre to see the Ice Follies live on stage. ‘Aunty’ Lilly had accompanied us and we were engrossed in marvelling at the tremendous agility of the performers when the lady sitting next to Mum leant over and touched Aunty Lilly on the arm
Lady ‘Excuse me is this lady alright?’
We all nearly died of embarrassment and laughter as we looked at Mum who had her head tilted backwards as if she were looking at the ceiling and her mouth was wide open. Aunty Lilly nudged Mum and she awoke saying, ‘I’m not asleep, I’m just resting my eyes. I couldn’t contain myself and burst into gales of laughter. Mum, Aunty Lilly and Edith joined in much to the astonishment of everyone around us.
Mum loved to gamble, she’d have a flutter on the horses every Saturday, but most of all she loved to buy casket tickets. In those days casket tickets were like lotto tickets.
It was nothing unusual for her to go into the city on the nights we didn’t go to the pictures just to buy casket tickets from different newsagencies throughout the city. On these excursions I’d accompany her and I’d be rewarded with my favourite delights; chips, chocolates, peanuts, chewing gum, but most of all comic books. Never a week went by that I didn’t get my favourite fare. I doubt that I ever missed a copy of Archie and Jughead and Edward never missed out on his copies of The Phantom.
There was only one gift that Mum promised to buy me that she never bought, a beautiful diamante purse. It was displayed in a showcase window in the wall outside Allan and Stark’s in Queen Street. Every night when we went into the pictures or to buy the casket tickets, I’d stand in front of that window and admire that purse which to me was the ultimate in beautiful possessions. Mum would say, ‘I’ll buy it for you when you’re old enough to appreciate and look after it.’ No matter how hard I pleaded and protested I could never convince her I could look after it and appreciate it now.
Many years later
Amelia ‘You never bought me that diamante purse you promised me.’
Mum ‘You never became a diamante person. If I’d bought it for you would you have appreciated it and looked after it?’
Amelia ‘No I would’ve said what would I want this crap and left it in my duchess drawer.’
She just looked at me with her I knew that, look on her face.
Apart from being a peacemaker, diplomat and thorough lady, her other claim to fame was her cooking. No one in this world could ever bake an apple pie like Mum they made your mouth water. She could make a delicious meal out of scraps in the fridge, her fruitcakes were superb but her lunch time snack was without doubt her masterpiece. Two slices of bread, cheese and tomato on an old toaster tray which she put under the gas burner, they just melted in your mouth. I'd give my eyeteeth to eat one right now.
Chapter 4
Schools In
Edith had an obsession with putting my hair in ringlet curls. Every opportunity she could grab me and keep me still long enough, she’d get white strips of old sheets and wind my hair around her finger and tie the ringlets in. I absolutely detested the painful ritual of having my hair brushed and combed and tied up, then having to sleep with the rags in my hair and having the knots combed and brushed the following morning. I put a sudden stop to that sort of carry on when I was about four.
Edith was busy doing something one day and I got her dressmaker’s scissors and hacked my beautiful long golden locks off to the roots. I wasn’t going to take any chances I even cut my eyebrows and eyelashes. That was probably the reason I decided I wanted to be a hairdresser. I can still hear her high-pitched screech all those years ago when she discovered what I’d done. Every person who ever entered our home from that day, I bailed up and I’d brush and comb their hair and give them different hair styles, until I was about twelve. That’s when I found out apprentice hairdressers were paid thirty shillings (three dollars) a week, but shop assistants got five pounds (ten dollars). I made a conscious decision then that hairdressing was not the vocation I thought it would be.
I started school at the ripe old age of five years and one month at the local preparatory school. James and Edward attended the local state school but my mother had other plans for her precious daughter. I think I saw school as being an escape from my mother’s clutches, probably if the truth were known Edith was just as pleased as I was when I started school.
Miss Cobbin was not only my teacher she was also my Sunday school teacher and I can’t say I was overly impressed with her at all. I guess she was quite a good teacher and knew her job, but she wasn't pretty. In fact, she was very plain with straight black hair cut in the basin cut and she had long black hairs on her legs and a thatch of black hair under each armpit. I did extremely well in my first year at school so much so I topped my class and completed preparatory one, two, three and four in one year, instead of two years and I went into grades two and three the following year. I particularly loved reading and writing and Miss Cobbin would always call on me to read out loud to the rest of the class. I hated having to do sums and if I had’ve had my way I would’ve eliminated sums from the school curriculum. I bless the inventor who devised the hand held calculator but why oh! why didn’t you invent it before I started school?
My memory of my two years there was mainly of a girl called Rita. She was from a poor family and her clothes were hand me downs and grubby and