in front of them, and quite a few people were walking up and down the footpath. All of a sudden, a man stopped right in front of me and as I stopped to wait for him to move away, he thrust his hand fast and hard between my legs and squeezed hard. I was momentarily stunned beyond belief and I screamed as loud as I could and he let go and ran across the road towards Albert Street before Mum and Edith were able to reach me.
The second incident happened when I was about twelve. We were about the last ones inside the Metro theatre, and there weren’t three seats available together and we were scattered in three different rows of seats. We were only a few feet from each other, my seat was the second seat from the aisle, there was a man sitting on the end of the row closest to the aisle on my left-hand side. Edith was approximately six seats along, but in the row directly behind and Mum was approximately three seats down but five rows back from me. The lights went off in the theatre and I felt the man’s leg rub against mine, I moved my leg slightly and in doing so I smiled at him as if to say, no offence. The movie started and I became engrossed in the plot and the next thing I felt something go up my skirt and touch me on the leg and at the same time, I became aware that his right arm was around my shoulders. I jumped up and screamed, ‘Mum, this man’s touching me.’ The fellow took off up the aisle like a bat out of hell. The picture stopped, the theatre lights went on and Mum and Edith must’ve flown with wings on their heels to get to me as quickly as they did. The guy had disappeared and the usherettes shifted the patrons around to allow Mum, Edith and I to sit together and we tried to settle down to watch the rest of the picture.
The third incident happened not long after that, I was walking down the street behind our house toward the paddock. I was just about to go through the paddock into our street when a hand touched me on the shoulder from behind, I turned around expecting to see a familiar face and I saw a man about my father’s age. I looked directly at his face and enquired, ‘Yes?’ He never said a word but he had this peculiar look on his face and he glanced downward. I followed his glance and I saw he had his penis in his hand. I said very disgustedly, ‘Oh put it away its bloody ugly and so are you ya, dirty old bastard.’ He turned and walked away and I ran as fast as I could through the paddock. I saw the same man about twenty-five years later when I was at the R.S.L. club with my father.
Amelia ‘Dad, do you know that man over there?’
Dad ‘Yes, he’s a mongrel.’
Amelia ‘Why?’
Dad ‘He’s just no good he’s a bad devil that’s why. Why do you ask?’
Amelia ‘I very rarely forget a face, Dad, and I’ll never forget his as long as I live, he’s the one who flashed himself at me in the street years ago.’
Dad looked at me and his eyes flashed a look of death, kill and maim.
Dad ‘Are you sure, darling?’
With as much confidence as any person could possibly have.
Amelia ‘I’d swear on any Bible in any court of law throughout the land.’
I looked back to where the fellow had been sitting and he had gotten up and was walking out the club through the back door. It was obvious he had recognised me and he knew I had recognised him. Nothing more was ever said about the fellow and I don’t know if Dad said anything to him or if he ever dared to go back to the club after that day.
I had a big crush on Lloyd Rivers; he was so good-looking his hair was so blonde it was almost white. His father and Dad were fairly good friends, both had been in the war and they used to drink together at the Regatta pub. It was nothing unusual for Mr Rivers to put on a party for no apparent reason and half of the suburb would be there. It makes me wonder now how anyone could afford to throw a party in those days especially the Rivers, they weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination.
Mrs Rivers used to work at Edward’s school as a cleaner to help pay the bills. In those days women with children very rarely went out to work unless their husbands were unable to. There were seven kids in the Rivers family the three eldest ones were older than James but still living at home. Rodney whose nickname was Ooie was Edward’s age, Edward and I didn’t like him but we used to tolerate him for Dad’s sake. Lloyd was my age possibly a few months older. Trevor and Gilbert (Gillie) were the funniest set of twins you could ever meet they were about three years younger than me. Quite often Jenny and I would meet up with Lloyd and the twins and some of Lloyd’s schoolmates at the swings in the park. Other girls would join us and before too long there’d be a swag of us kids running around like lunatics.
We were always aware that Mrs McCaully lived across the street so we’d be shouting out to her to pull her bloody head in away from the closed curtains. It wasn’t unusual for us to go over the far side of the football oval where there were huge sewerage pipes, which had been there for years waiting for someone to put them into the ground. We’d all hide in the pipes and smoke, talk, and tell dirty yarns. A few times, but alas only a few we’d pair off and have a kissing and cuddling session. All very innocent stuff, but of course that was enough for me to believe I was going to marry Lloyd when we got older. Unfortunately, the kissing and cuddling sessions were very short lived because Trevor and Gillie would always come looking for us and tell us that they wanted to be kissed as well. They were always saying and doing something really funny. Both of them were born comedians and I don’t think there was a kid within a five-mile radius (six and a half kilometres) who didn’t like them.
During the Christmas holidays in 1955, I visited Gabrielle, one of my school friends, at her home. I met Greg a young fellow who was on holidays staying with relatives living down the street from Gabrielle. We got on like a house on fire and Edward came to meet him the following day and we went crabbing in the Brisbane River. I had never caught a crab in my life before, but I had often eaten them when Dad had brought them home for Edith to cook. All told we caught about six of the delicious treats on the riverbank Opposite Park Road. We had had a bit of difficulty putting the twine around their claws, but with a bit of perseverance we managed to get five tied up. We divvyed them up in hessian bags three to Greg with two in another bag for us. The three of us were trying to get a good grip on the last one, which was the biggest one of all. The crab started to thrash about and Edward kept saying, ‘Watch out that it doesn’t toss its nipper.’ So, muggins me, tried to wind the twine around it’s nipper as fast as I could. My hands were slimy with mud and I think my hand slid along the nipper and the big mongrel of a thing latched onto the little finger of my left hand with one gigantic crunch. The pain that seared through my hand was excruciating I thought as sure as eggs it had chomped through the bone. I was screeching in agony and Edward and Greg were panicking not knowing what to do.
Edward ‘For Christ’s sake throw your arm upward and you’ll be able to flip the cunt of a thing off.’
He had yelled over my voice.as I screamed at him,
Amelia ‘I can’t move my arm, ya stupid bastard, it’s too sore.’
Greg got hold of the crab and started to jab at it with Edward’s hunting knife, which only seemed to make it crunch harder. By this time, I was almost beside myself with worry and agony, not knowing what to do and thinking I was going to have one less finger on my left hand. Edward yelled instructions to Greg to jab the crab in its eyes and after a few good pokes in its eyeballs the crab let go of my finger. There was blood everywhere and I was sure that I would lose my finger. I was very lucky, the finger was a bit mangled but I didn’t even go to the doctor, but I’m positive I should have had at least one stitch in it.
I learnt a valuable lesson that day, don’t ever go crabbing, just buy them from the fish shop already dead and cooked.
A couple of weeks or so later I decided to experiment with Dad’s razor by shaving my legs for the first time. I have no idea why I wanted to shave my legs, because I have very fine, fair hair on my arms and legs which can’t even be seen. But I had to be grown-up and I shaved my arms as well. I was quite pleased with myself at doing such a great job and I sat in the bath admiring my handiwork. All of a sudden, I felt a stinging sensation on the lower part of