A Sense of Place

I read a book recently titled 'A Man's Got to have a Hobby' by William McInnes which Gord gave me for Christmas. It tells of the author's early experiences as a child in suburban Brisbane in the 60's and 70's and the influence of his parents with their quirky traits that some might see as eccentric. It tells of local characters and changes to the suburb with the rampaging "appropriate development" as William goes back as an adult to visit his parents at Christmas and other reasons.

It sparked memories of my childhood in Mt Waverley and the vibrant daily activities in our family home, similarly humourous to those of William McInnes, although I tell of a time 10 years earlier, that is the 50's and 60's. Automatic cars were a rarity, some families had no car, milk was delivered by horse and cart, bread came to the front door, so did the doctor if you were unwell, and until the early sixties when sewage came the night man collected the toilet pan once a week from the outside dunny.

Much of this is vague to me, my memory is not good, sometimes I think that might be a good thing. Far better at recall are my sister Meredith, two years younger than me, and brother Jod two years older, who, despite more than 50 years of high alcohol consumption has a memory like a steel trap and recalls every detail of any event or neighbourhood description. I've since given the book to Meredith to read and I hope she'll tell me things she recalls if it sparks her memory like it did mine.

When telling her about the book when I was about half way through, I said I couldn't remember Dad growing vegies in the back yard. She said yes he did, quite passionately for a time. He was very upset when one day someone left the back gate open and a horse that was kept sometimes in the reserve behind our house which we called "the pines" came into our backyard and ate all Lyle's cabbages.

The Pines were not pines actually, they were cypress trees, closely planted around the perimeter of the rectangular reserve of about half an acre. This land was enclosed by houses whose back fences were the typical 6 ft timber paling variety. It had an opening in one corner (fenced closed when the horse was there, but we could still get through a gap between a cypress trunk and the timber fence) giving access to and from Sherwood Rd which at that point had an oval in the middle before it narrowed to one to take it to Stephenson's Rd at the east end and again at the west end going to and intersecting with Park Lane.

In the early days there was a vacant block at the west end of the "Pines" reserve. This we called "the Suckers" as it was inundated by poplar suckers, but not so as to restrict our access and we went to school this way, out our back gate, through the "pines" and the "suckers' and onto Park Lane to our school, Mt.Waverley Primary 3034, about five minutes walk from home.

Sherwood Rd and Park Lane and the lower part of our street, Virginia St, Beverley Grove and a few others, were built using concrete in the 1930's, before there were any houses.  They were the start of a failed Glen Alvie Country Club style development that was to involve the golf course (now Riversdale) and tennis courts and clubhouses. The reserve behind our house was set aside as a little park. The depression put paid to the development and building did not start in earnest till the early 1950's. My family moved there in 1951 I think, and I was born in 1952 and came home from hospital to the red brick house which was one of only a few in Virginia St at that time. I'm told that before the Methodist church was built opposite from our house you could see the trains coming into the station and Lyle used to walk across the paddocks to catch the train to work.

Speaking of quirky eccentric families, ours could be seen as such, but there was no shortage of odd behaviour in the neighbourhood by both children and adults. My father and brother were often involved. It was a time when old fashioned ideals such as those of my grandparents collided with  radical change and new technology. I think my parents, and their children, were victims of the collision.