Neighbours

Our neighbours in Virginia St. Mt Waverley were a pretty stable lot in that most of them were there the whole time we were, although on one side first it was the Skilbecks, then the Jewells followed by the Dixons. On the other side I only remember the Hurley's who were still there when we left. Bob and June Hurley, parents of Jill and David were a quiet respectable family who were never anything but pleasant and helpful. Bob worked in the city I think in insurance and walked to the train daily in his suit carrying his brief case. Jill was in Meredith's year at school and David was a couple of years younger. As a young chap he did a fair bit of loud bawling in the back yard, for what reason we didn't know because we never heard conflict or other drama.

On the contrary we must have horrified them with our noise. Our place was a gathering point for local boys, friends of Jod and myself, and the activities were boisterous. This was probably because my mother worked so there was no parental supervision at our place after school or on Saturdays and school holidays. In addition, Lyle had a games room built on the back of the house in the early sixties and put a three quarter size billiard table in it which was like a magnet. Kids would come and go of their own accord. Some knew where the house key was and would let themselves in if no-one was home and play pool snooker or billiards. There was football and cricket in the back yard and the pines, yonnie fights, water fights and often loud music.

Some kids had air rifles as did Jod, and shooting sparrows and blackbirds, regarded as pests, was a popular past time. One time, Ray McLeod I think it was, was stalking a blackbird perched on the spouting of the Dixon's next door. Just as he aimed Mrs.Dixon spotted him from the lounge room window directly below where he was aiming. The shot missed the bird but hit the spout with a loud bang and she screamed and accused him of shooting at her. There was a big fuss over that and for a time air guns were banned at our house. There was always something or somebody being banned. After a window breakage football or cricket would be banned in the back yard for a while and we'd have to play in the pines or on Sherwood oval.

After the Jewell's left mid sixties, and they may well have done so because of us, the Dixon's, Les and Mrs and their son John moved in. The parents were elderly and Les had had a stroke and was severely restricted walking very slowly with a stick. Son John was a big man about 6 ft 5, a primary school teacher, who was quiet as a mouse and hardly ever spoke. He was not married, about 40 odd, would just say hello and comment on the weather. His only real interest seemed to be his car, he bought a Holden 186S  in 1966 and later a Monaro and washed them fastidiously. John never complained but Mrs Dixon did regularly, with good reason I'm sure. I got on alright with Mrs Dixon, now and again she'd get me doing odd jobs for her and she paid me. She did complain though about the incessant noise of ball hitting brick wall in our backyard. I'd throw it for hours and when it came back at me I'd face up with the cricket bat and practice shots. The heavy rubber guts ball was banned by my parents when the plaster started cracking in the lounge room. It was more Jod and his mates that upset Mrs Dixon. One time Alan Sealy rode his bike up and down our driveway calling out "Sherman" in a deep monotonous drawl for a couple of hours. Sherman was Jod's pet black rabbit that he stole from a burrow as a kitten and took it home as a pet. It turned savage as an adult much to the amusement of Jod's mates who often took up chanting Sherman's name. It drove Mrs Dixon nuts. Sherman, also driven nuts probably, escaped and lived happily as a feral for a few years.

As you went up Virginia St. there was the Cranat's, the Kayes, the Partridges, the Cantillons. There were twin Cantillon girls in Jod's year at school. They had an older brother who was killed in the 1980's Jod says when he lived at Wheelers Hill and while working under his car in his driveway and slipped off the jack. On the other side at the top were the Strachans. Graeme Strachan who later became famous as lead singer "Shirley" of 'Skyhooks' was in my year at school and one of my childhood playmates. He had three sisters all younger. His father Ron was a well regarded local builder and built our games room addition. I don't remember the names of the other families coming back down that side of the street until the last house next the church opposite us which was the Shackleton's. Greg Shackleton was one of the Balibo 5 killed in East Timor by the the Indonesian military in 1975.

Next to the Hurley's was the Wickam's who also had a daughter Coral in Meredith's year. Then on the corner with Park Lane was the Hoskins. Across Park Lane on our side was the Ford's. They had boys a bit older than Jod. Their house was one of the first built in the area perhaps 20 or more years before ours, in the style of of an old farm house. By the sixties the garden was overgrown and contained large poplar trees that were probably the parents of the suckers in the vacant block at the back of the pines.

Mr Ford shot himself. Jod said he heard the gunshot. Mrs Ford was alcoholic. She crashed the car into the baker's van and he had to have his legs amputated. Jod said he was in their garden with one of the Ford boys one day when he heard Mr Ford say to his wife inside the house, "You drunken pig." Before he suicided Mr Ford was big in banking, Jod thinks. I liked Mrs Ford, she'd walk down our street going home (no longer driving after the accident) and would say hello and have a chat. She was a tall stately woman if I recall, usually wearing a fur coat. The Ford's house and garden was a bit spooky, I rarely ventured in there exploring, but occasionally did with mates to look at the old concrete swimming pool which was deep and full to about a foot and a half from the top, but dirty. Graeme Strachan and Howard Partridge were in there one day after school when one of them (not sure which) fell in. The other panicked and ran off.  A man walking past heard the boy yelling for help and went and pulled him out.

The big Poplar trees in the Ford's place were glorious yellow in autumn. We had big flocks of starlings that would congregate in autumn, towards dusk, on the power lines, in the pines, in Ford's poplars, thousands of them. They'd fly up in mass do some acrobatics then resettle. As it got late they'd start up a hell of a noise then just before dark they'd take off and land somewhere else then be dead quiet. Jod said this was their ploy to fool predators like cats, luring them somewhere then at the last moving somewhere else.

The starlings would then one day be gone, migrated to Queensland for the winter so we believed.