only did he become a successful Jazz drummer (if only in his own home town) he also successfully taught a number of students including his own son.
In spite of constantly being harassed to become a catholic, I liked most of the nuns especially two of them. Sister Mary Angelina and Sister Mary St Angela were both kind considerate and very patient with me. Sister Mary St Angela was my particular favourite and I was her pet. Whenever she wanted something done like going to the post office or delivering a message, she’d always choose me to do it for her. She used to arrange the flowers in the church every morning and I made a special effort the entire year I was in her class to go to school early just to empty the vases and arrange the flowers in the church with her, she made me feel very special. The other kids weren’t too pleased with me because of the special treatment. I used to sit in the front of the class almost under the blackboard in line with her desk. I could peel and eat an entire orange without her ever reprimanding me, but if anyone else so much as ate half a biscuit in the back row she’d punish them by making them stand in front of her desk for ten minutes. She would reward the good children with a boiled lolly and I got the lion’s share of the lollies that year.
There were about thirty to thirty-five girls and five or six boys in my class for the five years I was at the catholic school. We all had our own little groups and stuck to our own group all the way through. Gabrielle, Nancy, Jenny, Margaret and I were as close as any school friends could be. Mostly Jenny and I were like sisters as we practically lived in each other’s pockets, this concerned the teachers and my family for some unknown reason. No one thought that it was a good idea for us to be associating with each other and everyone seemed hell bent on keeping us apart. But the more they separated us, the more we were determined to be friends, we were inseparable.
It would be totally unfair of me to say that Jenny suggested one day that we should wag school. The honest truth is I can’t remember whose decision it was and it really doesn’t matter because we were both as guilty as the other. Both of us were only too willing to have a day off. We spent the day at Jenny’s house because her mother was always out working, cleaning and ironing. Her father was a railway porter at Roma Street Station on the early shift and wouldn’t get home until late because he’d go to the pub and get drunk every day. We sat around drinking cups of tea and eating biscuits and playing cards and other games and we sang all the pop songs as they came on the radio. Both Jenny and I had quite good voices and I really believe if we’d had a good private singing teacher, we could’ve become a singing duo. In those days there was no avenue for female singers in Australia let alone Brisbane, well none that we knew of anyway.
We both nearly had heart failure when a knock came at the front door. I scurried into Jenny’s bedroom while Jenny went to answer the door. It was Byron Carney, the biggest dunce in our class, Sister Mary St Angela had sent him to find out why Jenny wasn’t at school. Jenny told him she had a sore throat and started to cough, she asked him why Sister had sent him to her place
Byron ‘Because I’m the only one who knew where you lived.’
Jenny ‘Amelia knows, why didn’t she send her?’
Byron ‘Amelia isn’t at school either.’
Jenny ‘Do you have to go to Amelia’s house?’
Byron ‘Nuh.’
Jenny ‘Tell Sister I’ll be there tomorrow if my throat’s better.’
Byron asked for a drink of cordial because he had walked from school which was almost a mile and he had to walk back. Jenny gave him the drink and we both thought he was never going to leave, when he did, we both collapsed into gales of laughter.
As I write this, I’ve just realised that Sister St Angela sent the dunce of the class to go on an errand. Maybe all the times she sent me on an errand she just wanted to get the protestant out of her class.
I headed for home at about three-thirty and we’d worked out that if I walked a particular route home, I’d get there at approximately my usual time. I got to within five minutes walking distance from home when my father and Edith drove past me in Dad’s work van. They saw me and pulled up. I started to panic because it was too early for Dad to be home from work. I thought God, I’m in for it if they’ve found out that I’ve wagged it, but they greeted me with as much love and happiness as they always did. I climbed into the van and kissed them both and asked where they were going Dad said he had to make a delivery up the road. We drove up the hill I’d just walked down
Edith ‘How was your day?.’
Amelia ‘It was alright’
Edith ‘Only alright, what did you learn?’
Amelia ‘Nothing much just the usual boring stuff’
Edith ‘Did you go to music or elocution today?’
Amelia ‘Yes, Sister Leonard was as cranky as she always is’
Edith ‘That’s unusual we thought you might have been sick or something’
Amelia ‘Why?’
Edith ‘Because you weren’t at school at all were you?’
I knew there was no point in denying it because someone had opened their mouth and I was convinced that Byron Carney must have seen or heard me at Jenny’s place. As it turned out it was an old battle-axe by the name of Mrs McCaully who had seen Jenny and I going to the shop to buy biscuits. She was an acquaintance of my parents and had rung Edith at nine-thirty, bloody old busy body. I had visions of putting a rock through her window but I figured she’d see who did it. She was always spying on everyone from behind her curtains. I don’t recall the punishment for wagging school so it couldn’t have been too severe it was punishment enough getting found out. The shame of disappointing them and Sister Mary St Angela was punishment enough. Jenny and I had always been really nice to Mrs McCaully, up until that day. After that whenever we passed her house, we’d stick our fingers up in the reversed V for victory sign, but if we saw her in the street, we’d keep a good distance from her trying to make sure she didn’t see us. But she probably did.
Chapter 5
The Brady Bunch
Edward and I were always looking for new and exciting adventures to be involved in. In all probability it stemmed from us being avid listeners to such radio programmes as The Adventures of Hop Harrigan, Superman, and Biggles. My all-time favourite show was Yes What, we called it Greenbottle after the main character. Listening to those programmes every afternoon was a definite must. The only time we missed an episode of any of the shows was when we went into 4BH studios to be in the audience of The Coca Cola Bottler’s Club. The announcer was an absolute shit of a man who used to swear and abuse all the kids for no apparent reason other than he probably didn’t like kids. Any kid that was well behaved was chosen to read the ads. Edward and I were always very well behaved and good at reading so we were nearly always chosen. It wasn’t for the egotistical high or the prestige of speaking on the radio we just wanted the payment of lollies, ice blocks and drinks that were given out. We may not have been geniuses, but we sure as hell weren’t complete dills.
All told in our street there were about twelve homes, but there were sixteen kids from three families. The White’s across the road was a noisy household with eight kids but only the two youngest ones were James and Edward’s age. Joey was one of Edward’s mates and he was a gangling drongo of a kid whose only real interest in life was birds and getting into mischief. Frankie was a quiet sort of a kid like James and they used to muck around together a bit. The rest of the family Mary, Paddy, Peggy, Theresa, Una and Tony were between two and ten years older than James, so by the time we were all school age they were all in high school or going to work. Mrs White was a nice little lady but her husband was a big loud ex-cop who frightened his own kids when he yelled, so you can imagine how intimidated outsiders felt about him especially Edward and me. Sometimes Joey would invite Edward and me to play in his backyard