Monday 15 August 2011

Its my Life - week 1 autobiography

 Who would of thought at 45 I would be writing an autobiography. It seems surreal but a journey that I think is worth telling and I hope you feel is worth reading. 

The eldest of three children, I have a younger brother and sister. I was born to Peter and Veronica on a cold, eerie August night. Ok I don’t know if it was eerie or not and I was born around 4.30am so it wasn’t really night but I am sure being August it was cold.

Now this was the first good thing that happened to me – being born!

Isn’t it funny the way you can look back at your life and see the ups and downs that have occurred. The things that have made you into the person you are today!

Things that make you laugh – I remember around the time of 5, going to the dairy farm my grandparents had in Gympie and my cousins visiting as well. We would make the long walk down the dirt driveway to the old drum letterbox to collect the mail. On the way you could guarantee that one of us would dare another to go into the Bull’s paddock. Who ever went in would wave their arms around like a bullfighter then race out before the bull charged them. Funny thing is I never remember the bull actually moving or even taking any notice of us.

Then there was the house we lived in at Karrabin. I only remember one good thing happening there. The rest was all bad memories.

This was the house where I gained my fear of heights. I was one of those climbing kids. If it was there, I was there to scale it. This day I was in the front room, from memory it was a sunroom type of area, closed in with windows all across the front wall and sides. The wall to the main part of the house was all tongue and groove with a rail across them about half way up and then another about three quarters of the way up.

I had climbed up onto the first rail, holding onto the one above. Suddenly I was stuck and couldn’t get down. “Mum, help” I called. Mum came into the room, “I’m stuck, can you get me down?” I asked terrified. “You got yourself up, you can get yourself down” was mum’s reply as she walked off.

It was probably only 10 or 15 mins I was stuck up there before I fell off, but to me it felt like a lifetime. Even now I can still remember the way my palms and fingers got sweaty and the fear I felt in my stomach just thinking about falling and maybe getting hurt.

I didn’t get hurt but I never climbed again and that same feeling of sweaty palms and knots in my stomach returns at any time I in near high situations. No Ferris wheels for this little bunny that’s for sure.

It was also the house that the old man next-door use to give lollies to me if I touched his manhood that he exposed at the adjoining fence.

Like I say not a house with happy memories for me. The only one I remember was the Christmas I was 7 the family went to Cairns for a holiday. When we returned there was a BRAND NEW 3 wheeled trike!! It was one of the ones with a higher seat for me to sit on and peddled and a little seat at the back for my younger brother Steven to sit in as passenger or visa versa. We sometimes took my sister Sharon, who was born the year I was 7, with us when she got older. We were over the moon as Christmas was normally home made clothes and books. The wonder of how Santa had come and left it for us was a miracle.

I can’t say I was sorry to leave that house. The old man has since died and on the day I heard he died I was happy he was gone, but sad that I never confronted him about what he had done.

At this age I also attended Immaculate Heart School. I have lovely memories of here.

This was back in the time that you got given small cartons of milk at school and meat pies cost five cents on Fridays. Being a small school the principal use to give you a lolly on your birthday. I never got one on my 7th birthday. I had thrown mown grass from the oval over some other kids while playing at lunchtime. I recall telling the principal, quiet smugly I should add, that I couldn’t get the cane that day because it was my birthday. My punishment was no lolly instead, I think that hurt a lot more than the cane ever did.

This was also the year that Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. We were all assembled into what was the school hall. There were rows and rows of canvas fold out chairs with timber frames set out. We got to sit and watch the broadcast of those first steps. Not something you could ever forget.

My first invitation to a real birthday party came around then as well. It was to Fred’s. Now I don’t know if Fred was his real name or not but its how I remember him. I had to get all dressed up and a ribbon in my hair which for once wasn’t in plaits but left loose, half up and half down. It was all very exciting.

We moved at the end of that year and I had to start a new school. I would have had to anyway as the school only had year 1 and 2. But even now 40 years later I am still friends with some girls I started school with there.

This was the beginning of the foundation of who I am today. Well the earliest memories I have at least. Some good and some bad: but all just a beginning with much more to be told.

No comments:

Post a Comment