A glass of port and a journey to the past

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neighbours

Last night a chance remark over tawny port about horrible dogs matched to horrible people had us galloping through the portals of time back to the early 1980s when we were establishing ourselves on the south coast. The dog our memories returned to was a Rottweiler with a studded collar: the owner, a feral man called Rat. He and his mate Jed had a daggy camp on the block next door, a lean to hut that was a bit of a rubbish tip. These memories led to more recollections of our next door neighbours: Alan who spray painted his cat pink; Wheelie who sported the tattooed tear on his cheek that is the chosen mark of murderers; Brian Hosesquirter, an ex undertaker, who drove his ute backwards and forwards over the crates we used as a stall for the veggies from our market garden in a burst of mindless destruction.

Rat and Jed shot parrots to eat. One day a bullet whistled past the house, which was by now home to four little children. J saw the owners of the block, saying the shooters had to go. They did. Rat ended up on a prison farm somewhere in NSW; Jed sadly died when he was hit by a car walking home along South Head Road.

Not all of our neighbours were feral, and slowly the subdivision began to fill with normal people, like us. We barbecued fresh mullet with Jan and Steve: we too have a criminal past, since they were caught in an illegal net, with the aid of our makeshift boat, half a forty four gallon drum called the Bismarck. We established friendly relations with two older couples: Errol and Betty were breeding goats, and Flo and Dan, a jazz musician and pharmacist who’d lived in Vanuatu. They retired to Eurobodalla after years of holidaying at Blackfellows Point: when they first came down from Sydney there was only a punt across the river at Batemans Bay.

We’re the only ones of that first lot still on the subdivision.

As we reminisced, we also ruminated on the nature of our memories. Chronology was non existent, that thread on which events are strung: we could remember isolated events, but not their sequence. My memories were very short on detail. What I did remember with absolute vividness was my unfading regret that on first meeting Rat and Jed I offered them a slice of sponge cake, made with duck eggs: the viscous whites held shape beautifully, and my cake cooked to perfection in a temperamental fuel oven.

 

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Mission memories

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childhood, Marsfield Mission

There it stands, a little brick church, Marsfield Mission. Non-denominational, but definitely protestant, my mother a founding member. Steep stairs leading up to the front door. An entry place with a benign man in a suit, sometimes my father, handing out hymnbooks. Inside, plainness: no crosses or stained glass windows. Just a plain brick wall with a crack running diagonally down behind the plain wooden pulpit, and a plain wooden frame for the hymn numbers. To the side an ancient organ, played by an woman with a beautiful face, a lavender and grey woman. A basic sermon, often preached by a man on “furlough from the mission field” (the language comes back to me), with occasionally a touch of hellfire and brimstone. On special occasions, sweet-voiced solos, and sometimes the mouth organ or the squeeze box. Not yet guitars.

At Christmas, a tall tree laden with presents for the Sunday school children, for the girls exquisite dolls made with love by the Sunday School teacher's mother out of lingerie off cuts from the Berlei factory. The Sunday school picnic at Fuller's Bridge. Devon and tomato sauce sandwiches. Red cordial. Iced cakes. Watermelon. Three-legged races and spinning on the merry-go-round. A row up the river. Rolling down the grassy hill. Occasionally the panic of losing someone. Always adolescent romantic intrigues.

The Sunday school anniversary. Practising songs, sung from tiered seating at the front of the church assembled for the occasion. Boys on one side, girls on the other. New dresses, home sewn – the one new dress of the year. In the early days, a hat and gloves. Fellowship teas, with speakers and wrangling over the washing up roster. Romantic intrigues pursued with tea towel in hand.

Games nights and progressive suppers and the annual harbour cruise. Tennis under the lights on the courts next to the church. Bushwalks. The Sunday School teachers' Australia day picnic at Narrabeen. Rambles round the rocks. Flirting and deep conversation. The next day, blazing sunburn.

Christian Endeavour, where I accompany choruses on my recorder. Write papers on bible themes. Remember stories of my father at Chistian Endeavour, admiring my mother's ankles. Train for bible quiz competitions, learning verses and the books of the bible. Go off to camps with kids from other churches at places like Stanwell Tops and Narrabeen. Prepare careful dioramas for the annual Christian Endeavour Convention in the Sydney Town Hall: tiny dolls and landscapes representing bible stories. The excitement of seeing other dioramas and wondering if we'd win.

This little church: centre of my early years.

 

 

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