It was summer in Australia, but mid-winter in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada when I arrived for a year-long teacher exchange in late December 1981. 

While my exchangee John was learning to cope with a cottage on Wombat Hill in Daylesford without air conditioning in summer, with flies, tarantulas and other insects, I was learning to cope with snowy footpaths and icy roads, learning to understand and dress for chill factors. 

My beloved leather soled boots were completely inadequate.  I still remember slipping and falling on my bottom as I first walked up the icy footpath towards the front doors of ‘Kam High’, much to the amusement of mingling students, many of whom arrived, cowboy hat and boots commonplace, in family pick up utes from nearby cattle ranches.

Another adjustment involved driving, not only on the right side of the road, but on icy winter roads.  John had left an old car, complete with snow tyres, in the basement garage for me to drive. My early attempts at driving on icy local roads featured the car slewing from side to side and my valiantly trying to put it back in the basement garage without wrecking it before phoning a local driving instructor for some lessons in managing to drive on icy roads. ​

Finding it difficult to sleep, I open up ‘In Conversation’ with Richard Fidler on my Podcast app.  Scrolling through the program list, I notice a recent interview with Paulie Stewart.  I know a little about Paulie and follow him on Twitter.  I’m interested in knowing more, in knowing his side of the story, a story which had ramifications on people from my past.

Backtrack to October 18, 1975 – I’m teaching at Elwood High School and living in a share house in Malvern.  My house mate is Duncan Ness, an ABC rural reporter.   His many journalist friends often drop by– all working for different papers or TV news stations, they live fairly intense lives and enjoy catching up with one another.   In late October, 1975, during the tumultuous news period preceding ‘The Dismissal’, they are deeply affected by news of the murders of five journalists and camera men in East Timor on October 16th. Duncan is particularly affected by the death of former coworker, Greg Shackleton.   It is never clear cut, from the beginning, what had happened, there has always been a sense that there may have been a withholding of knowledge from the families, of political expedience.  Almost five decades have passed during which I’ve followed the work of Shirley Shackleton, wife of Greg, in her struggles to ensure that the truth be told about her husband’s death. 

Fast forward to Daylesford in the late 1980’s – There’s a new doctor at one of our local surgeries in Daylesford.  His name, Greg Stewart.  At times he’s the doctor I see at the clinic.  He and his doctor wife are active in the community and I find myself socializing with them.  I’m aware that Greg is a brother of Tony Stewart, the 21-years old camera man who died in East Timor with other members of the Balibo 5.  We don’t talk about it.  In the mid-nineties, working in the town as a social worker, I have professional contact with Greg.  One of the few doctors in the region registered as a methadone prescriber, I value the way in which he works so thoughtfully and warmly with the clients with addictions I refer to him.  In time, Greg’s sister Annie, a talented professional story teller and actor, moves into town to raise her young children.  I know Annie in passing.  

It's late 2022 as I listen to the interview, completely engaged, resisting the inclination to go back to sleep.  Paulie Stewart, Tony, Greg and Annie’s ‘out there’ younger brother, a member of the wild ‘Painters and Dockers’ band, has just published his memoir ‘All the Rage’. Richard Fidler is expertly drawing him out, allowing Paulie’s humour, life experience, humanity and memories to flow freely.

What would our experience have been like if we were teenagers and an older sibling had allegedly been murdered by the army of a neighbouring nation in politically difficult circumstances, if we, and our families had our ‘personal grief and family crisis foisted upon the main stage as part of a story that has haunted the Australian media for decades’ (Annie Stewart*).   Indeed, the Australian War Memorial Website currently states, ‘the details of precisely how or why the Balibo 5 died are still not publicly known’.
 
I’m so glad that, almost 50 years later, I listened to Paulie’s interview.  It has filled in some gaps, helped me better understand the impact on his family - on Paulie as Tony’s 15-year old younger brother, on his parents as they tried to shepherd their children through a traumatic time despite their own grief, and on Greg and Annie.
  
Thank you, Paulie, for speaking about it. 

I’m time travelling as I add Carmyl’s ‘This (Reading) Life’ story to the website, moving rhythmically to a collection of 70s songs selected for me by Spotify… just now, ‘I Love You Just the Way You are’…. now, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters’ by Simon and Garfunkel’ …. ‘when tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all, I’m on your side when times get low, and friends just can’t be found, like a bridge, over troubled waters, I will lay me down’…….

I lived in Spain for a year in the 1970’s.  I knew when I left Madrid that it was unlikely that I would ever return.  I type ‘The Music of my Madrid’ into the website search bar, locating a story written for ATGB many years ago which continues to bring me joy, punctuated as it is by video segments relating to my time in Spain. 

Later, browsing bookmarks in Youtube, I walk virtually around my old haunts in Madrid, past La Casa Inglesa in Plaza de Salamanca, which I sadly notice 45 years later is now boarded up; along Calle de Padilla, where I shared an apartment;  into streets and lanes with bars frequented during ‘chateos’, late afternoon walks in which I often met up with expat friends over Spanish wines and tapas – whether garlic mushrooms, calamari in its ink, tortilla, olives.

I visit the Facebook page of ‘Coral de Moraria’, the flamenco bar I frequented often with friends, over four decades later almost deluged with video clips of the flamenco dancers and singers of today performing on the stage I came to know so well all those years ago. 

Still unwinding to music of the 70’s in the background, I continue editing the website, subconsciously practicing Spanish via an ‘app’ which changes selected words to Spanish

“En octobre we are looking forward to celebrating Get Online Week, with a free almuerzo for U3A members and members of the older Benalla comunidad on miércoles 19 October at 11.45am. This lunch is being provided by a grant from the Fundación Cosas Buenas… . The theme of el almuerzo is ‘Prueba una cosa’…”

Later, I search SBS On Demand for Spanish films, then seek out Rick Stein’s culinary adventures in Spain.  I watch with joy as he visits the places and food of ‘my’ Spain.  I’m soon searching for the little diary containing the recipes for paella and tortilla I learnt from our cherished cleaner, Carmen, in Madrid – I have lots of olive oil, potatoes, onions and eggs in the pantry, so tortilla it will be!

Later I lie in bed, unable to sleep, and sleepily say to the open air… “Okay, Google, play Spanish classical guitar music,” then sometime later…  “Okay Google, Goodnight”…

 
Beverley Lee,
October 2022

At lunch with like-minded friends concerned about the treatment of refugees last week, I venture – ‘What do you think of this … ‘No One Left in Limbo’.  The day before, Anthony Albanese had used the phrase ‘No One Left Behind’, for another worthy ambition, poverty reduction, but I want more. 
 
Pondering about ‘next steps’, I look up from my laptop to see a photograph of the ‘Imagine’ banner created by the Daylesford Embroidered Banner Group in 1982.  The first of many ‘social cause’ banners, it was constructed drawing upon a ‘library’ of embroidered letters created by community members – women, men and children – in a project inspired and curated by local Daylesford artist Margaret Leunig, working alongside writers Diane Parsons and Christine Stokes.

I was quietly embroidering a smocked calico nightdress during Margaret Leunig’s embroidery class at the old Victoria Hotel in late 1981 when Margaret raised her idea.  The group brainstormed the concept and began early planning.   However, not long after, I left Daylesford on a teaching exchange to Kamloops Senior Secondary College, in British Columbia.
 
A few months later a letter arrived at my Kamloops address from members of the embroidery group inviting me, as a 'founding member’, to contribute a letter to the first banner.  Titled ‘Imagine’ and inspired following the first anniversary of John Lennon’s tragic death in New York on December 8th 1980, it is to be made up of embroidered letters on same sized squares featuring black, white and gold fabrics and threads.  

Thrilled to be invited, I bid for the letter ‘M’.  I’d just completed a Patchwork course in Kamloops - ‘M’ is geometrically suited using patchwork!   I also decide to embroider an outline of a peace dove in gold thread in the white space under the top of the M – this seems a fitting way to remember John Lennon’s concern to ‘give peace a chance’. 
 
My longed-for summer break and holiday with cousins in New York arrive.  I am sure there will be some amazing fabric stores in New York!  With the help of my relatives, I visit a wonderful fabric warehouse, rather like the old Job’s Warehouse in Collins Street, Melbourne, where I purchase some black and white shot silk, along with a ‘gold lame’ like metallic fabric. 

Returning to Kamloops, I become absorbed in working on my square in the evenings until it’s time to post it, together with unused gold fabric, to the group in Daylesford. 

Photographs of the completed ‘Imagine’ banner with ‘my M’ begin to appear in my letterbox –the unused gold lame fabric I’d sent also appears in an ‘E’ featuring music bars and notes.
   
For over two decades, ‘my M’ will at times be selected for use in a ‘social cause’ banner, as will the ‘E’ featuring the gold lame fabric from New York.

Forty years later, the letters which make up the Daylesford Embroidered Banner Project are carefully stored and thoughtfully curated by the Daylesford Historical Society.  I find a numbered photograph of ‘my M’ in an album of all letters when I visit the Historical Society– it is clearly in good hands.  

How does all of this relate to my idea ‘No One Left in Limbo’, you may well ask!  Well, I have a vision of creating a banner made up of same sized embroidered squares –

“ N O   O N E    L E F T    I N    L I M B O ! “

Interested?

Beverley Lee
July 2022
 ​

Election day.  May 21, 2022.

I make my way from Benalla to the Tatong Polling Booth, driving at the maximum speed limit as I’m running slightly late.  Turn left at Tiger Hill Road, nearly there.  The Liberals and Nationals, marquee erected, corflutes facing the road, take up one side of the entrance to the Tatong Hall, while Helen Haines’ Voices for Indi volunteers are setting up on the other side.

Responding to a request by a Labor friend, I find myself once again volunteering, handing out ‘how to vote cards’ for Labor.

Unpacking the basket of handouts and the corflute ‘Nadia David 1 for Indi’, I balance them on the walker I plan to sit on during the day and head towards the space next to Helen Haines’ orange themed stall.  Janet, Tim and David greet me warmly, making room for me. 

A marquee is soon being set up beside me.  People from the community arrive, setting up a ‘democracy sausage’ sizzle, a fundraiser for new flagpoles to be erected outside the hall.

Voters arrive in clusters, often in farm utes, the latter typically greeting the National and Liberal Party volunteers by name and chatting about the price of beef, wool or milk.

Younger voters, almost without exception, wave us all away, their voting intentions already researched and stored on their smart phones.

My sister and her husband, who farm on Tiger Hill, arrive to vote, ‘We wondered if you’d be here today’. There’s time to catch up on family news.  

By early afternoon most people have voted and many 'democracy sausages' consumed.  I walk over to the National and Liberal party tables, welcomed by volunteers I’ve chatted to at election days over the years.  There is warmth in the conversation, though with the odd political prickle here and there for me to mull over later in the day. 

With no one available to replace me, my friend had said, “stay as long as you can manage, and then leave the ‘how to vote’ fliers somewhere accessible”. 

However as always, I stay until it is time for the scrutineers to arrive, keen for Tatong to have the full democratic menu on display. 

​After all, preferences count too!

Bev Lee
​June 2022

Post script 2: The picture below was taken standing near Tim's improvised fire place at Tatong on a cold day in July, 2016! 

I've been pondering about 'community', finding it hard to focus on a particular community, looking for a theme.   Suddenly ... a light bulb moment! ...  'educational communities'!  The bottom line is, I've always loved going to school!  I think perhaps because I'm naturally quite a private person, the structure of school communities provided a framework in which to connect with others in which I felt comfortable.  I very largely remember school communities as encouraging and supportive.  Perhaps, loving reading and having an inquiring mind, I was a 'good fit' - it must have been so hard for children and young people with learning difficulties and parents who did not really support their education.  

From the red brick pioneering years Clayton North Primary School, to the 'baby boomer' needed grey cement blocked 'Brown's Road' Clayton Primary School in Grade 3 a transition had to be made, thankfully to the warm welcome and happy classroom of Mrs Farr, followed by Mr Jackman, Mr Humphries and Mr Manzie. Then another transition to Malvern Girls Secondary School. 

​The class sizes during my childhood were enormous, often up to 50 children, however somehow I remember the schools as happy communities, remember my parents attending 'parent teacher nights' and working hard so that we could 'get an education'.  

A final year at Oakleigh High School preceded four years at Monash University, the Economics/Politics degree and Diploma of Education all geared towards becoming a high school teacher, with a 'teaching studentship' having funded my studies requiring a three year commitment to the state's high school system.   

The year at Oakleigh High linked me back to students I'd been at Clayton North with so many years before - it was their main feeder school.   Somehow this helped me to fit in quickly to a welcoming, socially active group of students who'd been at school together for many years.  Pauline Bailey, our German for Beginners convenor, and Ivan Durrant, the artist who formerly farmed, lived and brought up his family in the Benalla area, were both in this 'Year 12 community'.  It was wonderful to connect up with them again when I arrived in Benalla.

University is usually an example of a 'community or communities of interest', but for me it was also within my geographic community.  My sister was a secretary there, I could walk to lectures, my babysitting jobs were often for University lecturers living in the area.  The University 'pub', the Nott (Nottinghill Pub), was our local pub.  My communities of interest were the other students in my lectures and tutorials, which again included Ivan Durrant  from Oakleigh High, and other students like me, although often from rural communities, on teaching studentships.   Monash was very active politically at the time, with activists such as Albert Langer and the student newspaper, Lot's Wife, featuring Michael Leunig and other creative radicals, challenging our ideas  Maharishi Yogi, who influenced the Beatles, also visited our campus at the time.  I think I was curious to see him, which I did from a distance, and wonder whether there was a slight dint to my fairly conservative view of life as a result.  The decision to participate in a student demonstration, overnight 'sit in' at the university library to prevent funding cuts to the library, was one of my first 'rebellions'...a first example of involvement with 'a community of interest' concerned about education reflected throughout my life.  Two other 'communities of interest' I belonged to at University were 'Modern Dance' and 'Social Involvement', reflecting my years studying ballet at Miss Kenyon's, and then Heather Scott's Ballet Schools in Clayton; and also my long term concern about social justice.

Then came twenty years or so of teaching in the state school system.  I became immersed in school communities for both working and social life in both city and country schools, but had much more involvement with the geographic community in the rural schools of Heywood, Yarram and Daylesford, particularly Daylesford (and much later Benalla), where I participated in the local arts cooperative.   Two memorable school communities made a particular effort to help new teachers make a transition to their communities were Heywood, where we were taken on an excursion which included a visit to a sheep station, complete with peacock roaming homestead garden, during shearing; and Flemington, where we were taken to a flat in one of the top floors of a public housing high rise estate.  

In each of these schools, and later on after a decade's break to study and work as a social worker followed by a return to teaching at GOTAFE, became  immersed in the educational community.  Concerned about teaching conditions, which to me represented increased learning conditions for students, I was always an active union member - another 'community of interest'.  I was also interested in curriculum development. Communities of interest included like minded teachers who enjoyed sharing ideas, preparing newsletter articles and setting up conference sessions for the Victorian Commercial Teacher's Associations annual conference.  A key and treasured outcome of this period was the development of a new, progressive curriculum for Year 11 Economics which I'm still very passionate about!   

It seems as if there's a lot to write about!  This story is getting far too long, and I still haven't spoken about the educational communities of Madrid in Spain and Kamloops in British Columbia in which I was also in the 'expat' community; my years at GOTAFE, or the educational community of U3A Benalla which immerses me and is so important to me.  Perhaps another time!


Bev Lee
May 2022

Trees have a special place in memories of my Melbourne childhood – the ‘acorn’ producing oak trees that lined Clayton Road at that time; pussy willow trees with soft to stroke seed pods in the ‘Taylors’ garden opposite;  lemons lying on the ground under the lemon tree in our back garden; the ‘soap’ tree nearby (we called it this because, if we rubbed the blue flowers between our palms, a soapy substance was created); the spreading ‘shiny leaf’ tree in which we made ‘cubbies’ and played; the Liquid Amber tree In our front garden, and more.  

My parents moved to still rural Clayton Road in 1950 when I was three.  A 9 square red brick two-bedroom home funded through a war service loan, an acorn bearing oak tree grew happily on the nature strip. 

Pine trees and cypress hedges dotted the landscape, almost certainly planted by the original farmers.  Mr Einsedel, the old German farmer who had owned the land on which our house was built, still lived in a nearby farmhouse and could occasionally be seen breaking in horses and tending cows and calves in the paddock outside our kitchen windows.

Two large pine trees had special significance to me. 

The first stood tall in our backyard – some of my earliest memories are of looking out at it through our bedroom window.  I remember collecting pinecones and the touch and smell of pine needles. Looking back, I suspect my parents had tried to keep this old tree, however it may have become dangerous so ‘had to go’.  Unfortunately, they didn’t explain this to me, and I remember clearly feeling devastated watching through my bedroom window as it was being cut down.

The other pine tree stood outside the new Clayton Hall, not far from the Clayton Railway Station.  The local boys enjoyed climbing high up this tree.  Less adventurous, I can remember climbing its comfortable lower branches. 

I was delighted to find this Facebook post recently in "I grew up in Clayton:..."

“We'd run a mile (we hardly ever walked anywhere) to Clayton Hall. Out front near the road (Clayton Rd) there was an enormous old pine tree with quite a magnificent girth.  Five to six feet up, maybe more, there was a 'bowl' formed where branches met.  We'd scramble up the trunk, throw a leg over a branch and haul ourselves in. It was a rite of passage needing multiple visits until achieved. Five or six kids could easily fit in. Does anyone remember that tree? ...”   Sylvia L

My brother John and I sometimes reminisce about the time a local ‘bully’, we’ll call ‘Barry Bird’, suddenly leapt out of this pine tree as we were walking home from primary school, landing directly in front of us.  He accosted John menacingly, saying ‘John Lee, I have a bone to pick with you!’  Now my brother, John, who had just that day returned to school after being very ill, was also my best friend and kindred spirit.  I was so angry!  ‘Leave him alone, you bully!!’ I yelled at Barry.  I apparently defended John with such gusto, dressing Barry down verbally with such energy and anger, that Barry rather sheepishly let us past!

Pine trees featured large in my life during the twenty years I owned a miner’s cottage on Wombat Hill, near the now Convent Gallery, in Daylesford.  Wombat Hill is covered with pine trees.  I loved walking through them or standing at the back of my cottage looking up at them, towering above me. Sadly, at one stage I had to make the difficult decision to ask my neighbours, who had a pine tree on the border of our properties, whether, if I paid half, they would agree to have one tree removed.  I’d been advised that it would fall downhill towards my cottage it if it fell. 

Visiting my uncle’s farm at Molyullah as a child had introduced me to gum trees – but they had been completely cleared near his house in his efforts to develop a viable farm on marginal, rocky land. It seemed he was forever “ring barking” gum trees.   Camping in the bush while at university and teaching in the country for many years developed my love of gum treed landscapes, though often the houses in which I lived had Pine Trees and Cypress Hedges outside, possibly as wind breaks. 
 
Returning to Benalla 24 years ago, with by now a great affection for gum trees, I chose to buy a house with four large gum trees in the garden.  Two had to be cut down over time as they were near electricity and fence lines.  Seedlings and suckers have had to be removed over the years. 

Two cherished gum trees remain which I have paid quite a lot of money over time to keep safe.   I’d prefer not to have them cut down ‘on my watch’.  One is quite young, healthy and strong, however the other, like me has aged, weakened and somewhat arthritic branches …

Sadly, like the old pine tree in Clayton Road so many years ago, and the pine tree on my neighbour’s property boundary in Daylesford, it may soon ‘have to go’….
​
 
Bev Lee
March 2022

There are so many photographs!  Where to start?  With a goal of adding at least one photo to ancestry.com a day I have found myself immersing myself in the lives of two great aunts, ‘Auntie Beat’ (b 1872) and ‘Auntie Min’ (b 1877).  

​‘Auntie Beat’, my eldest maternal great aunt, never married, looking after her parents until they died, then living with nieces and nephews’ families until she passed away.  My only memory of Aunty Beat is peeping into a bungalow to see her while holidaying with an aunt who was caring for her not long before she died.  Recent finds include a beautiful carte de visite taken when Beat was 11 to 13, in the mid 1880's, and a loose photo of Beat on the back of which is written ‘Beatrice Hooper – the eldest’.  A dressmaker, Beat is wearing a dark trimmed check dress, standing in front of a rose bush.  It was probably taken in the early 1900’s and now sits in her ancestry ‘gallery’ with other gems from her scrapbook which suggest that she may have travelled with a theatre company to New Zealand.  While most of her younger sisters were dancers with J C Williamson’s, perhaps, being a dressmaker, she was in the wardrobe department?  There is a wonderful photo of Beat playing cards with a group of friends, another in an outfit suggesting she may have been a suffragette! 

​I now feel quite ‘resolved’ about the representation of Auntie Beat’s page on ancestry which now includes photos across her life span, including some in which she appears to be enjoying time spent travelling with friends.  ​

Do you have a person in public life in your family tree who other relatives all lay claim to?  ‘Auntie Min’ is that person in our family.   ‘Auntie Min’, my grandmother’s older sister Minnie Hooper, became quite famous as a choreographer and ballet mistress for JC Williamson and is remembered for having taught Robert Helpmann to dance.  While I have many photos of Auntie Min, until my visit to the farm last weekend they were almost all quite theatrical, revealing little of her life. 

I’d met Auntie Min when visiting Sydney as a child and remember her as a rather serious woman of considerable wealth who lived in a house looking over Sydney Harbour which had a path down to a private boat ramp.  I remember her son, John Rose, as being quite eccentric.  John was always described by my mother as a change of life baby, born when Auntie Min was 46 and after Min’s husband, Ernest Rose, had had a stroke. 

Family research revealed that Min, who had married ‘Uncle Ern’ at 20, had a little boy who only lived for a few months during her twenties, followed by decades working in the theatre, before having John, at aged 46.  John was born with a disability which affected his development.  Min’s beloved husband died at 59 when John was 8 years old leaving Min to care for John. Janette’s envelope for Auntie Min contains portraits of Uncle Ern pasted on a textured card and a portrait of John in early adulthood. 

​Adding this photo, and the portraits of Ern and John, to their profiles on ancestry a day or two ago, somehow ‘rounded off’ my ‘time travels’ with Auntie Min’s family—at least for the moment. ​

​It wasn’t my father’s fault that I hadn't studied French at school.  He’d studied French at Grammar School in England, had interpreted for his officers in Beirut during WWII, and was a card-carrying member of Alliance Francaise.  He tried to create a little French speaking world around our kitchen table when I was at primary school, encouraging us all to say ‘Comment allez-vouz?’, ‘Tres bien, et vous?’ and more.  

Learning ballet expanded my French vocabulary, with words such as developpe, jete, petit jete, ports de bra and more responded to in ballet classes for many years.  

Sadly, as it happened, French was not on the curriculum 'menu' of the girls secondary school I attended in the early 1960's.

'I only I'd .... studied French at school" I exclaimed when not having a language precluded an Arts degree when choosing to go to University in 1966. 

'If only I'd ... studied French at school' I exclaimed a decade later when trying to learn Spanish while teaching English in Spain.  A romance language with similar conjugation of verbs, understanding French would have made learning Spanish so much easier.  . 

‘If only I’d ….studied French at school’ .. also brings back memories of an incident in Paris.

While living in London before teaching in Spain later in 1976, I shared a house in Wandsworth with a group of young Londoners, teachers and lawyers. We decided over dinner one evening that we’d all take time out to go to Paris for a week or so.  A roommate had been offered the use of a French apartment which wasn’t being used by one of her friends.  We crossed the channel to France and spent days walking the streets of Paris, visiting galleries and other sites, our lunch usually a picnic of French baguettes, pates and cheeses. 
​
I’d become accustomed to not eating much meat since leaving Australia, it was so expensive in London.  Our household was adept at making all sorts of meals out of mince – shepherd’s pie, moussaka, lasagne and many variations of pasta were invariably on the menu. 

However, I was quietly pining away for a piece of steak!  I kept my secret longing to myself as I knew the household kitty would not extend to steak.   When we decided that we would go our separate ways for a day in Paris, all I could think of was finding a French restaurant at lunch time and ordering a steak, whatever the cost! 

I chose a restaurant a little off the beaten tourist track, discovering after sitting down that the menu was only written in French,  The waiter (and as I found later the chef) didn’t speak any English at all. 

"If only I’d ... studied French at school!"  I couldn’t make sense of the menu, the only thing that sounded likely to be something I might like was ‘Steak Tartare’.  I ordered, waiting expectantly. 

I was somewhat overcome a little later when the waiter appeared with a plate replete with diced fillet steak – raw –with an uncooked egg yolk in the middle, small side dishes of chopped capers, chopped onion and gherkins, and a side dish of salad. 

I looked at it–quite bewildered—for some minutes, before beckoning the waiter.  Not understanding me, he proceeded to mix the egg into the meat, stir in the capers, and reshape it, smiling at me as he suggested in French, that I try it.   He’d been so helpful, I thought I should at least try to eat it.  I managed to eat a little before I decided I just couldn’t …‘stomach it’. 

Noticing I’d barely eaten anything, the waiter brought the chef out.  I tried to suggest, using sign language, that perhaps they could cook it a little, but they didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand them!  (I suspect now it would have been sacrilegious for them to cook it.)

Exasperated, but still polite, I pushed the plate away, chose something from the dessert menu, which proved to be delicious, ordered a coffee.  I left the restaurant…sorely disappointed, still longing for a piece of steak, medium rare, perhaps with a mustard sauce. 

It was to be quite a long time before I would have a steak, 'medium rare', again.... 

If only I'd ...studied French at school!

​Bev Lee
​September 2021

As I added the Music Appreciation notes to the U3A website recently I noticed the class had listened to Prokofiev’s  'Prokofiev - Peter and the Wolf' and promised myself I would listen to the link inserted into Bill's report.

Even reading the title ‘Peter and the Wolf’ triggered warm memories for me, memories of a school excursion, of going to the Melbourne Town Hall to listen to a concert to introduce school children to classical music.  It’s rather blurry, but I suspect in was in 1960, I was in the first year of high school (not quite yet a teen), and is suspect that we had caught the train from Caulfield Station to Flinders Street Station, walking up Swanston Street to the stately Melbourne Town Hall. 

I had never been to a classical music concert before.  I’d developed a love of dancing to classical music at ballet classes, and my mother occasionally sat us down with her on the piano seat at my grandmother’s and played for Fur Elise for us when we were little.  We also had fun as children selecting pianola rolls from the little rosewood cabinet at our grandparents’ house where we enthusiastically pumped the piano pedals, though the piano rolls were largely popular music of the 1930's.  We had an old, hand wound gramophone at home, but I don’t remember classical records featuring, though some jazz records did.  We didn’t listen to the classical radio music on the ABC – right at the end of the dial, I would shudder hearing operatic music on the staticky radios of the time.  My parents could not afford music lessons for us, and at the time state schools didn’t have instrumental music classes.  I grew up in the post war years, which were financially difficult years for many ex-service families such as ours. 

I still remember the conductor introducing the characters, the bird represented by the flute, the  the duck by the oboe, the cat by the clarinet, the grandfather by the bassoon, the wolf by three  French horns, Peter by the strings of the orchestra, the rifle shots by the timpani and the big base drum.  As the story developed, I began to be transported into another world.  I'm still transported there when I listen to this recent recording found on YouTube..

​It’s 2 am in the morning, I’m wide awake in my bed in the shared house I returned to after almost a year teaching English in Madrid.  I’d spent almost a year working and travelling in Spain while waiting to take up a place in into a graduate nursing program at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow.  Before I left for Spain I had been so energised about my new nursing career, about training in Scotland, the home of my paternal forebears, but now here I was, on returning from Spain/back in England, unable to sleep as I tortured myself wondering whether I was doing the right thing going ahead.

I’d come back to looking forward to spending a few months in the house in Westover Road, Clapham, which I’d had such fun sharing with a group of young Cambridge Law graduates before going to Spain.  I was shocked to find the household breaking up.  People were moving on; there seemed to be a change in the power dynamics in the house; Nick, was more openly using drugs.  I’d had to cope when another housemate, normally so reserved, came in to my bedroom one night when he’d been drinking too much; and pressure to enter a relationship with Bruce, a happy and friendly New Zealander, at a time when I was grieving the breaking up of a relationship in Spain.  Westover Road, my only base in London now that many of my expat friends had returned to Australia, was fraught with problems.  I began to long for my friends in Australia.

I found the London I’d loved so crowded, so very crowded!  Walking the streets, relatively empty when left in late September the previous year, wasn’t relaxing.  The perpetual queueing during August, the busiest month in London’s tourism year, frustrated me immensely.  I began to long for the less crowded streets of Melbourne.  I increasingly felt that these weren’t ‘my streets’, the people weren’t ‘my people’.

I longed to see my mother and mourned for my beloved grandmother who had died while I was overseas.  Both my sister and brother had remarried while I was away, their lives moving on, with blended families keeping them so busy.  My only connections to Australia were my new brother-in law John’s parents in Manchester.  I had visited them in their ‘2 up 2 down’ in Manchester a number of times before going to Spain and was quick to visit them again on my return to England. They played me a tape of my sister’s children, who were just 6 to 8 at the time.  I felt that I was ‘missing out’.  

Throughout this time I was investigating fob watches and nursing shoes, and searching out a car to take me to Scotland and use for the next two years.  I found myself delaying these purchases, putting them off. 

One evening, Phil, a shared house friend I had travelled to France with, sat down with me at the kitchen table at Westover Rd over a cup of tea.  Suspecting I was depressed, he listened to me, then said, “Bev, I suspect you are incredibly homesick and might need to go home”…  I hadn’t identified it so clearly.  Phil’s diagnosis was ‘spot on’.   Feelings of home sickness had increasingly to begun sweep over me, sometimes in gentle, slow running waves, at others in huge, overwhelming, dumping breakers. 

I had to make a decision about what to do.  Reflecting over the next few days, I began to see that I would be unlikely to last the distance in Scotland, feeling as I did, that it would be selfish to take up a place in a course I may well decide to leave.  It was all just too hard.  I decided to withdraw, return to Australia and return to teaching. 

I put pursuing a nursing career in my ‘Too Hard’, basket!

Bev Lee
March 2020

​"Querida México (Dear Mexico),

I am writing to you to thank you, almost forty years later, for allowing me recover in your beautiful country after an exhausting year teaching in Canada in 1982. 

My friends Peter and Anne had bundled me on to the early morning train at Kamloops Station in late December 1982, my overnight bag full of papers which I needed to finish marking before my students returned after their short Christmas/New Year break.  I wouldn’t be returning to ‘Kam High’, where I’d been on an International Teacher Exchange for the past year.  Looking up from time to time to the terraced views of the Canadian Rockies, this marking needed to be returned before I left Canada after visiting friends in Vancouver to say farewell. 

The next leg of my journey would be from Vancouver to Mexico City, before returning via LA to Melbourne for the beginning of the school year at a new school in Melbourne’s bayside suburbs. 

The timing of my trip to visit you was fortunate.  I arrived at the Bureau de Exchange of the Aeropuerto Internacional de la Ciudad de México to discover that there had been a significant devaluation of the currency overnight.  My US traveller’s cheques fetched at least twice as much as I had expected!  Flush with funds, I booked in to a small, comfortable hotel suite in the beautiful central area of Mexico City rather than my usual single room in a fairly basic hotel.  How wonderful!  I was so tired after my year teaching in Canada.  I remember sinking into the comfortable bed, sleeping for hours and having meals delivered to my room, before eventually venturing out to the hotel restaurant and then on to the streets below.

The Mexico City I remember, the city of artists Diego Riviera and Frida Kahlo, was a city of wide streets, blue high altitude skies and temperate weather.  I’d arrived during the smog free Christmas to New Year holiday break.  Industries had closed.  Many people had left the city to visit families in rural areas or to take a break at one of Mexico’s many beachside holiday destinations.  The Art Galleries and restaurants which remained open in the city were by no means crowded, the people friendly and welcoming.  I eventually surfaced to explore the city, to undertake day trips to Mayan temples.   I particularly enjoyed discovering restaurants and finding waiting staff who had time to chat – I’d lived in Spain five years earlier and was thrilled to speak Spanish again.  Indeed, this was one of my reasons for choosing to return home from Canada via Mexico.

Just as I’d sought out the flamenco restaurants in Madrid, I sought out Mariachi music in Mexico.   In Mexico City (and later in Acupulco and the beach resort of Ixtapa on the Pacific Ocean), I came across Mariachi bands at local markets, restaurants and theatres.   I also followed up the music of a singer I’d seen perform in Madrid, Nacha Guevarra, who was living in Mexico.  On New Year’s Eve, I shared my table with a handsome traveller, recently divorced and keen to have company.  Serenaded by a mariachi band, we were the only diners in the restaurant.

An interest in matters political also tends to surface during my travels.  I had received a letter from friends in my social justice oriented embroidery group at home in Daylesford.  They were working to raise awareness of the work of ‘The Mothers of the Disappeared of El Salvador’ and understood that they had a base in Mexico.  My task?   To locate, and hopefully make contact with, ’The Mothers’.  I love having a project while I am travelling, however found this task enormously difficult.  I contacted a group of women’s lawyers who might have been able to give me a lead.  They couldn’t do so, however were keen to tell me about the work they were doing to raise the profile of women lawyers in Mexico’s legal system.  I sought out alternative music stores for possible leads – again without success.  One store owner showed me artwork and let me listen to cassettes of the music of El Salvador, including a revolutionary song written to lead its disenchanted people through the task of assembling a gun.  (I wonder if that is in an intelligence gathering file on me somewhere?)  Somehow I managed to bring the artwork and cassettes back to Australia to show my friends in Daylesford, eventually giving them to a young musician, an exile from Chile. 

After a year in Kamloops, in the hinterland between Vancouver and Banff in Calgary, I found myself longing to see the Pacific Ocean again.  I left Mexico City’s bus station bound for Acapulco, a rather windy but interesting journey, buying simple silver rings embedded with amethyst at Taxco along the way, rings not worn for decades, long ago taken to a local opportunity shop.

My recuperation continued rather blissfully in an historic, still beautiful but needing refurbishment, hotel in Acapulco situated high up on a hill side, its view of the ocean including the cliffs of La Quebrada where I could watch the world-famous cliff divers in amazement.  A grand old hotel which had seen better days, I loved its views and the the ocean breezes which swept into my room which look towards the ocean and opened out onto beautiful arched arcade balconies.  Time was spent sitting looking out towards the ocean from the balcony of my room, walking along the beaches, enjoying the relaxed lifestyle, enjoying mariachi music when I could find it, and at times listening supportively over dinner to another rather handsome man who had been recently widowed.  I don’t remember details.   I think I just relaxed and continued to let the stress of the past year leave my body and soul before returning to Melbourne for another busy year. 

My final week was spent at your beautiful beach at Ixtapa, north of Acapulco, a restful way of completing my year away in preparation for another busy school year.   I remember many hours spent walking along the beach, interrupted by a leisurely siesta after lunch, a swim, then an early evening stroll along the beach before dining at a beachside restaurant.  I felt so relaxed, indeed quite restored, when I eventually boarded the plane for San Francisco en route to Australia. 

Mission accomplished!

Gracias por todo, México.

Con mucho cariño,

​
 
Beverley Lee
Febrero 25, 2021

Once a ‘multi-tasker extraordinaire’, I’m slowing down.  Keeping more than one ‘plate spinning’ or ‘ball in the air’ is becoming increasingly difficult  This disturbing realisation has triggered memories of times gone by when I could almost effortlessly keep lots of plates spinning, lots of balls in the air, at the one time.

Oh, for the days when, as a busy high school teacher, I could prepare and run five or six classes a day, answering myriad questions by students, remembering all their names and where they were up to with their due assignments then attend staff meetings after school and plan, shop for and hold a dinner party for six friends that evening.  

‘Back in the day’, I could ‘rush’ to finish things, lift and carry items without pain, get into my car in one easy move.  I could clean the house ready for a dinner party in what seems now like ‘a single bound’.   The thought of having a dinner party now fills me with dread! 

These days, about the best I can do is have washing ‘on the go’ in the washing machine, dishes soaking in the kitchen sink to make them easier to wash, while I simultaneously make a telephone call.   Even that makes me feel exhausted and ready for a nanny-nap!  

​I haven’t submitted a story since August’s ‘Right Here, Right Now’, topic.  My excuse?  My growing inability to multi-task.   A fascinating writing related project has been absorbing me for the past three months and I’ve been finding it more difficult than I did even a year ago to change my focus to other writing projects, to work on more than one writing project simultaneously.   

A range of factors, alongside normal ageing, may be influencing this.  Is it a sign of early dementia?  Is a lack of oxygen to the brain caused by chronic asthma and pulmonary disease making thinking and problem solving more difficult?  Or, have I quietly had the odd ‘transient ischemic attack’ and slight brain injury as a result? 
 
I’m working through grief stages at this loss of capacity to multi-task.  The stages of bewilderment and anger have passed.  I’m grudgingly accepting the grim reality that I will never be able to so effortlessly multi-task again.  I  need to pace myself and prioritise differently! 

On the bright side…, I made it here today after writing this story following a morning Zoom meeting. 

I must admit, though… the washing is still in the washing machine, the dishes are still soaking in the sink, I’m feeling exhausted and ready for a nanny nap! 


Bev Lee, November 2020

‘Right Here, Right Now’, I’m looking at this Facebook post shared by U3A Benalla member, Andi Stevenson, from the ‘Lost Melbourne’ page.  It has taken me on quite a journey in cyberspace over the last day or so, filling up time in this lonely Stage 3 shutdown quite delightfully and connecting me to my past. 

You see, I decided to share it on the ‘I grew up in Clayton/Clarinda’ Facebook group I belong to, thinking it might be of interest. 
Little did I anticipate what would happen next.

Likes and comments appeared very quickly, all positive.  I was chuffed!

Then I noticed a thread developing in which people were questioning the statement in the post from ‘Lost Melbourne’ that the house was ‘the fifth house built in Clayton c1935. 
 
David P commented, “… My dad has the original town plan from 1927, so I think that there were more houses before this house.  The document says ‘Come to Clayton Heights, you can see the sea’… It shows the whole of Clayton near where the police station is now, shows where the train station is, has everything to do with Clayton not Clayton North…”

Carol D … “My mother was born in Clayton in 1924.  When I was young in the late 40s there were many homes well over 15 years old”

Kerrie B confirmed … ”Your family home predated 1935”

David P added, … “My grandparent’s house did too … Gone now though…”

More people entered the discussion, identifying other houses which would have been in Clayton before 1935.

Kerrie B joined in again, “…I lived in Kanooka Grove.  42 Kanooka Grove would have dated from the 1910’s, 12 Browns Rd dated from at least 1900, probably earlier.  A little further away, Hourigan House dated from the late 1800’s.  There were also Californian bungalow-era houses dotted around.  Where we were was always called Clayton.  Given the age of Clayton North Primary (originally called Clayton Primary School), there was housing there in the 1900’.  The house you’re showing is probably the 5th in a particular development’.

Not only was the list of examples of houses existing before 1935 lengthening,  I had a number of other examples to share myself!

Beverley L… “I agree with Kerrie B… there must have been some other classification it fell under.  When my parents built our brick ‘War Service Home’ at 279 Clayton Road after the war, the houses opposite us owned by the Murcotts, Copes, Taylors, Jacksons and Carsons, would have been built in the 1920’s or earlier.  Our house and the Nancarrow’s War Service Home next door were the first houses built in farmland on the lower side of Clayton Road just up from the station.  I can remember cows grazing and horses being broken in by patient trainers in the paddock next door.  The cows and horses belonged to Mr Einsedel, whose very old farmhouse faced Madeline Road.  I also remember two old houses, one attached to a second-hand furniture shop, just before the Carinish/Clayton Road intersection and railway station’.  

The following day, after checking for new likes and reading through the comments again, I became quite concerned that the incorrect information was on Museum Victoria’s website and that the image of the house on the Museum Victoria website stated that the house was the fifth house in Clayton.   It did.
  
I felt I had to do something to validate legitimate concerns expressed in the group!

Locating a ‘Got a question? Send us an enquiry’ button next to the image, I sent an online request asking for the description be reviewed in the light of the discussion on the ‘I grew up in Clayton/Clarinda’ Facebook page and included a ‘cut and paste’ of the content of my post.
​
Only a day or so later, I received an email in response from the museum:

Enquiry – Negative #76636 – Clayton Negative

Hi Beverley,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us at Melbourne Museum regarding the 1935 Clayton image.

Our curator has asked that we thank you. She has said that she has updated the record with corrected information about the development of Clayton and the likelihood that the house was the fifth in a new development.

Kind regards,

Simon.
Museums Victoria Public Information
 
Success! I’ve checked - the caption on the Museums Victoria website has been amended…

‘House in Clayton around 1935.  It was recorded as being the fifth house built in Clayton, likely referring to the fifth house in a housing development rather than in the entire suburb, which by 1935 already had a long history and many older houses.  Clayton had been a productive rural area with market gardens from the 1850’s, and township had developed after the arrival of the railway and a station on Clayton Road in 1877.  By 1933 the census recorded that Clayton had 103 residents.’ https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/772889  (accessed 22 August 2020)

A great improvement! 


Bev Lee
August 23, 2020

A few months ago, a letter arrived in the mail which stunned me.   ‘Airbag recall – you must stop driving your car immediately’.  My white 1999 Honda CRV, 325,000 on the mileage meter, was sitting in the driveway as I read the letter.  My heart skipped a beat, my stomach sank.   Oh no! Supported by my mechanic David at the local Liberty Garage, I was hoping to drive it until it dropped.   I loved it!  Even David advised me not to trade it in on my sister’s Hyundai i135 when she was selling it recently as he thought my old Honda would last longer.  But now it seemed, the decision was being taken out of my hands.

A year or so ago there had been a previous recall of Honda’s for airbag replacements.   I’d heaved a sigh of relief when I realised my 1999 model wasn’t included.  But now it seemed airbags in the older model had an unacceptable risk of deadly shrapnel being released from the airbag in an accident. Recall notices had been sent out by Honda.   This time there wasn’t the option of having airbags refitted – parts were unavailable for older models. A buy back offer was on the table - $2900 plus $400 for costs associated in making the transition. 

I was conflicted, it was a wonderful offer.  I didn’t want to let go of my car, but at the same time, would be lucky to get $500 for it if I sold it.  And, realistically, I needed a car that would be more likely to see me out, a ‘last car’, ideally another Honda CRV, but 10 years younger with lower mileage. 

You see I love Honda’s – this had been my third.  My previous favourite was a teal blue Honda Civic Station Wagon I drove during the 1980's and 1990’s, a model based on the original little Honda runabouts but with an extended chassis.  I would still be driving this car if I could!  Sadly, it never recovered after having flooded with oil by a servo attendant on work experience, ending up as a farm vehicle on my sister’s farm before being entombed in a hidden gully. 

A few cars later, another very reliable Honda, this time a dark blue Honda Accord sedan with gold special edition badging from Pat Claridge's car yard.  In an urgent quest for a replacement vehicle after an accident in which it had been written off, I found the white CRV at Laurie Lowen’s car yard.  What a find!  Reliable, comfortable to get into as knee and back problems kicked in, so easy to see out of and enjoy broad rural landscapes sitting quite high relative to the road. Although more recently items listing knocks in the engine appeared on service reports, they didn’t seem to be getting any worse and David didn’t appear worried.   I didn’t want to let go of it, but had little choice. 

The search began – for another Honda!  I unsuccessfully looked through car yards in Shepparton.  Encouraged by a friend to look on Gumtree, I found a silver-grey Honda CRV within my price range being sold in nearby Baddaginnie.  Taking my sister with me, I inspected it.  The owner and her sons showed it to me proudly, highlighting its ‘special edition’ features; that it was being serviced by a Benalla mechanic who did not think she should sell it, and more. The owner explained that she had driven it from Queensland to Baddaginnie, where, now living with her sons and rarely driving it, the money would help with extensions to their house.  My instincts were that it was going to be okay.  It would also meet my criterion of being 10 years younger -2009 - and having lower mileage - 148,000k.  The price was also in range with the payout from Honda of $3300 factored in.  Sold!

That’s not quite the end of the story, however.  A few weeks went by before arrangements were in place for the tow truck to arrive to take my treasured white CRV on its final journey to the Honda graveyard in Melbourne.  I drove it while I could still do so, each time enjoying the drive; each time wishing that I didn’t have to sell it.  I reluctantly emptied it.  The day came when the tow truck pulled up outside and I watched it being levered up the ramp and placed securely on the tray of the truck.  I felt so sad.
 
I don’t think I ‘anthropomorphized’ my car - I didn’t have a name for it or talk to it - however I valued it highly.  It had shared a decade of my life, been on so many adventures with me.  It had carried boxes of teaching resources from Wangaratta, as I made the transition from working at GOTAFE to retirement; taken my mother on many happy drives when she was living at Alkoomi nursing home in the years before her death in September 2014; driven me to Albury/Wodonga for treatments when I had breast cancer in 2013; taken me ‘north’ to meet my half-sisters and nieces for the very first time in 2014; just last year taken me back to Sydney to see my 102 year old godmother, and so much more. 

In fact, it had rarely skipped a beat in ten years.  And yet now, to reduce the risk that a piece of shrapnel would enter my body if I had an accident which could lead to my suing Honda for millions of dollars, it was on the back of a truck, heading for a crusher and car graveyard in Melbourne.

The silver-grey Honda CRV special edition 2009 now sits resplendently in my driveway.  It’s more glamorous than its predecessor (to those who care about such things) and is performing very well, despite limited opportunities to drive it far during the COVID-19 break. 

I am gradually learning to trust it, to understand its features and quirks, yet still feel quite sad when I think of my old white Honda CRV sitting valiantly on the back of the tow truck as it pulled out of Monds Avenue on the journey to its Melbourne graveyard.

It just isn’t the same.  However, one day, given my track record for becoming attached to my cars, I am sure it will be…
 
Bev Lee
July 2020

​I wish I could make waves, big waves which didn’t recede before the tide had turned…

But that hasn’t always been my experience. 

…. It’s 1981…a small country town in Victoria…

There was concern amongst many of the high school staff in which I worked that young people were leaving school before Year 12 who could have continued.  Spirited young people, they appeared disillusioned with the school setting and often tested out the school uniform policy.  
At the time, a number of progressive Melbourne high schools were addressing this issue by abolishing the compulsory school uniform for Year 12 students, to good effect. 

As Year 12 Coordinator in 1981 guiding Year 11 students making decisions about courses towards the end of the year, I was aware that a number, already testing the boundaries of the uniform requirements, were likely to leave.  

I canvassed potential allies among the other teachers, finding support for my plan to introduce a motion for change in the uniform regulations for Year 12 at our staff meeting.  I then presented a carefully prepared case at the next staff meeting; incorporating amendments which were presented, then approved, at a subsequent staff meeting. 

Success! 

I began to look forward to being able to present the new policy of optional school uniform for Year 12 students to the upcoming class.  It could encourage undecided students to see the last year of schooling fitting better with their view of themselves as young adults. 

The school’s Principal had chaired the meetings at which I had presented the motion, a motion which had been clearly accepted by staff.  I felt sure that a more progressive approach to uniform for the Year 12’s would be communicated to students and parents and proceed the following year. 

A day or so later, the end of year newsletter to parents was to be published.  Sitting at my desk in the staff room I was stunned to read, in the Principal’s column, ‘School uniform will continue to be compulsory for all students’.  Devastated, quietly in tears and feeling defeated, I sat with my head in my hands, despairing. 

It seemed that the Principal’s reading of the change was that it would not be accepted by parents and the community. 

A conservative rather than progressive leader, he would not have been able to brave the impact of the waves which I had set in train or support the change in an authentic way. 

He ‘drew a line’ in the sand. 
 
I'd made waves, for a short while, to little effect.  They receded before the tide had turned. 

Life at the school, with Year 12 students continuing to wear the still often complained about uniform, went on.

 
Beverley Lee,
March 2020

‘Beatrice, Ada, Minnie, Edith, Alf, Charlie, Ruby, Violet’- I learnt my ‘Hooper side’ great aunts and uncles names off by heart as a child.  I met them all at least once and have built up pictures of them over time based upon memories of these meetings, family stories, conversations and old photographs.  Somewhat forbidding portraits of their parents, George Charles Beech Hooper and Emma Jane Jackson, could be found hidden in a dark hallway cupboard at my grandparents’ house.  My grandmother Lily was their youngest sister.
​
‘Aunty Beat’, born in 1873, was already over 80 with arthritis and mobility problems, and possibly slowly dying, when I first met her in the 1950’s.  I remember being frightened of going into her darkened bungalow bedroom at my aunt’s dairy farm near Dandenong when on holiday there.  A woman of rounded curves who had never married, my memories of her have softened as I’ve aged.  I feel sad that I was frightened of her and do hope that seeing me and my cousin peeping around her door as she lay in bed had given her pleasure rather than pain.  Auntie Beat had cared for her parents as they aged, then rotated amongst family members when she needed care in later life.  Reputed to have been a beauty when young, Auntie Beat apparently had a suitor who wanted to marry her, but Grandpa Hooper had forbidden this. 

‘Aunty Ada’, next in line, was petite and finely boned like my mother, very approachable and loving.  I have warm memories of visiting her and her interested, well-educated husband, Uncle Wal Kemp, in Dandenong as a child.  Mum told wonderful stories of going on hayrides to country dances with her cousins May and Les when visiting the Kemps’ farm in Cranbourne during her youth.

A chance discovery concerning Auntie Beat and Auntie Ada during a family history quest some years ago caused family consternation.  The death certificate of my great grandfather listed Auntie Beat and Auntie Ada as the daughters of George and Janet ‘Jessie’ Wipers, not Emma Hooper.  A marriage certificate was registered for George and Janet ‘Jessie’ Wipers.  Jessie was also the mother of a boy George and a baby girl who died shortly after birth.  My preferred hypothesis is that Jessie, who had four children in a short time, one a toddler who died, became unwell, perhaps with Post Natal Depression, moving to Sydney to live where her parents lived, taking young George with her.  I found records confirming that both Jessie and George died in Sydney many years later.  Perhaps George Charles Beech Hooper wasn’t free to marry my great grandmother, Emma Jane Taylor? 

How did great grandfather George meet Emma?  We know he was a clerk at the Melbourne Steamship Company which was owned by Emma Jane’s widowed sister in law’s husband, Captain James Dean.    Perhaps Emma Jane had been employed as a governess for little Beatrice and Ada?  Perhaps Emma Jane was ‘in the picture’ before Jessie relocated to Sydney?  We will never know.  

Whether legally married or not, my Hooper grandparents, George and Emma, are remembered as a loving couple.  Beatrice and Ada were raised as their children and all siblings remained close.  George and Emma went on to have seven children together who interestingly all worked with J C Williamson’s Theatre Company in some capacity, the girls as dancers and choreographers, the boys in stage management, book-keeping roles. 

Born to Emma Jane in 1876, ‘Auntie Min’ was a formidable woman who achieved acclaim and some notoriety as a ballerina/actress, then as ballet mistress and choreographer for J C Williamson.  Music scores and programs from the ballets Auntie Min had choreographed were kept amongst theatre memorabilia at my grandparents’ house; hearing about them was a magical part of my childhood.  The family was particularly proud that Auntie Min ‘had taught Robert Helpmann to dance!’  Clearly a woman of spirit, Auntie Min had taken J C Williamson’s to court when they refused to pay her for two weeks when the theatre was closed during the Spanish influenza epidemic.  Although Auntie Min received recognition and accumulated ​

Trigger– watching an archival news reel ‘filler’ clip on late night television on SBS or ABC, I became aware the modern dance class in the late 1960’s I was watching was being taught by Jack Manuel.  Jack  taught the modern dance classes I attended while at Monash University in the late 1960's and choreographed a contemporary performance in which I participated.....  The film clip showing Jack working with a class took me back to this performance in 1968…

The sound of orchestrated beating on plumbing pipes of various sizes, a mezzo soprano voice soaring above them; a stage setting, lighting changing from blue, to green, to red; dancers in tights and leotards with masks on their faces, gliding across the stage, some slowly revolving with slow Catherine wheels, others on skate type boards, and some, like me, arms reaching out as tentacles, being piggy backed by another dancer. 

These memories were triggered by seeing Jack Manuel in an archival news reel clip recently.  Jack's contemporary work, 'Once' was performed in 1968 at Monash University’s newly opened Alexander Theatre.   Monash modern dance students formed the contemporary corps de ballet of which I was part, with dancers acclaimed in the modern dance community dancing lead roles. 

Far removed from my years of classical ballet training, modern dance brought in to play the techniques developed by Martha Graham, techniques based on contraction and then extension.  It had no use for the point shoes which had impacted on my feet such that I could not dance on point anymore.  How I loved the freedom of dancing in bare feet, of stretching, contracting, responding to music through movement which drew upon natural reflexes and responses. 

'Once’ introduced me to an original choreographed modern dance work, contemporary music, contemporary conceptual opera.   I remember so vividly being on stage, remember being bemused at the way in which Jack, a former dancer with the Australian Ballet, had embraced modern dance and created this imaginative, futuristic performance, a performance which for me, and I’m sure for many others, was such a paradigm shift.
​
It was wonderful to see glimpses of Jack again on my large screen television late at night.  Just for a moment.  I was back at Monash, a member of the Monash Modern Dance Group…

These introductory floor exercises introduce the role of contractions
​in Martha Graham technique.

“Where’s Janette?” someone would ask, as we gathered around the spinning wheel at the Molyullah Sports; prizes on the tray of Jack Payne’s old truck nearby; hoping for some luck.

“Janette’s fine – she’s just over there, watching the Irish dancing” someone would reply.  And there, immersed in a world of Celtic music, from Irish to Scottish; captured by colourful costumes, from the green, front laced dresses of the Irish dancers to the multicoloured tartan kilts of a variety of clan based hues; would sit my younger sister, mesmerized by dancers dancing delicately around two crossed swords on the ground to the careful attention of judges standing nearby. 

Later, perhaps hoping to cadge a few more sixpences for the spinning wheel, someone would ask “Where’s Dad?’.  If Dad wasn’t at the spinning wheel he’d be at one of two places—the log hut some distance from the tea rooms at which beer drinkers gathered to pass the time (he was rather fond of a beer or two), or standing looking at the ‘odds’ boards of three ‘bookies’ in crumpled tweed suits with large weathered leather ‘kit’ bags containing money hanging around their necks (Dad was rather fond of a bet as well!)  At various stages during the afternoon tall, graceful racing horses would appear.  Jockeys in silks would mount them and ride past the crowd before entering the field to race around the oval field.  Punters would gather around the bookmakers, where they also had the chance to bet on races in Melbourne and elsewhere, with odds boards thoughtfully perused throughout the afternoon by those interested in the ‘sport of kings’.

John, my year older brother, was likely to hanging out with classmates from the little Molyullah one teacher school we attended for two weeks each year, perhaps watching the wood choppers in action.  We spent three weeks with our uncle in Molyullah each Easter when Dad took annual leave from the Department of the Army in Melbourne and enjoyed catching up with the students we met there each year.  Or he might be with me, near the horse floats, watching the arena as Arthur Hill, on his beautiful palomino pony ‘Goldie’, skilfully wove around the barrel racing posts, aiming the pole at the barrel at the completion of the course before galloping to the finishing line.  We loved Goldie, loved the times when Arthur would ride across the paddocks on Goldie to ‘Bertie’s’ farmhouse where my uncle, a sharefarmer for Arthur’s parents, milked a large herd of cows.  Arthur had taught us how to ride Goldie bare backed.  He was our friend and we barracked for him vociferously! 

Nearing two o’clock, everybody would head towards the running track in the centre of the field.  The Stawell Gift was just about to be run in the western district, so it must be time for the Molyullah Gift to be run!  Runners would appear in white singlets and shorts.  Stretching and preening, some already professional runners, others perhaps having their first professional start, they walked to the starting line.  Last bets would be placed with the bookmakers.  Everything would stop for the Molyullah Gift! ‘Get Set’…. they were off!

For the children, not long after, the races would begin – all sorts of races, from egg and spoon; three legged races; bag races, and more.  How I longed to win a prize!

Reflecting back, I find myself wondering, where was Mum?  I suspect that Mum was always thereabouts, quietly watchful, unobtrusive but ready for a chat and if necessary a hug.  She would call us together to go to the tea rooms, her purse open for us to buy sandwiches, cakes and a drink if we were hungry.  I suspect she occasionally bought a ticket at the spinning wheel, looked after our prizes, spent time chatting with Mrs Hill who took the money at a front table in the tea rooms and perhaps helped other mothers making sandwiches and putting together plates of delicious home made cakes and slices behind the servery.  Looking back, she was probably also keeping an eye on Dad, hoping he wasn’t drinking or betting too much! 

At the end of the day Mum would gather us together before finding my uncle, who would be standing under the gum trees where he’d almost finished his work shepherding cars, horse and pony trailers in and out of the parking areas.  He was happy in this role as he found socializing and making small talk embarrassing and difficult.  I’m sure he breathed a sigh of relief that ‘it was over for another year’ as we packed into his old jeep or walked across the paddocks to Bertie’s farmhouse. 

However for us – the day was full of joy and memories – we could hardly wait for next year’s Molyullah Sports on Easter Monday!
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Bev Lee
28 October 2019

If only I could write like Barry Dickins. 

This ‘If Only’ theme came to me yesterday reading a book of short stories by Australian authors found at an opp shop which contains a story by author Barry Dickins… Here’s a paragraph from a story titled…   ‘To the Beach Then, Eh?’

‘We’d stroll down (from the train station) to the foreshore, walking along the cool, painted lines in the middle of some sleepy beach backstreet in awe of the colour blue, the silent yachts, piss stained kiosks and the RSL.

We’d find a spot, though the finding of a spot is harder than it seems.  Wherever people flop, they have that righteous way of behaving as though they owned it, be it a bit of old sand near a wall, or a coin operated barbecue on the banks of the Yarra.

Mum’d put down a blanket and unpack the chooks and sun cream, …’

How evocative!  Barry is such a keen observer, he manages to so evocatively convey images through words, his writing is so … realistic.  Perhaps there is a genre for his work… something like ‘existential realism’ maybe?

I grew up in a parallel universe to Barry Dickins, but forty or so kilometres away, on the other side of Melbourne, across the Yarra.   Like Barry’s family our family didn’t have a car.  Reservoir was almost as far from Clayton as Sydney as far as we were concerned.  My family also caught the train to beachside suburbs such as Aspendale, Sandringham and Mordialloc, the latter for the Department of Army’s Christmas Party.  My father worked for the Department of Army and each year an ‘army duck’, complete with Father Christmas, would come into view and on to the shore at Mordialloc, opening up to take excited children for a trip on the bay where presents would be distributed.

I can so easily relate to the memories of growing up Barry recounts in many of his stories, they titillate my brain cells, help to retrieve old memories and lead to dreaming and reflection.  

I became a loyal follower of Barry’s work in the mid-eighties after reading a story about a visit to a fish and chip shop in Oakleigh in ‘What the Dickins’, published in 1985.  This story represented a turning point for me.  It made me laugh, made me reflect on fish and chip shops I had known, brought home that the skilful writing about everyday sorts of memories, realities could indeed be very engaging.  

Every now and again the paths in our parallel universes have crossed.   In the early 1980’s, living in Melbourne, I followed poetry events in Melbourne pubs.   Barry would often be there, sometimes with his brother, Robbo.  Usually somewhat inebriated and in deep conversation with Robbo, he would always rise to the occasion when invited to read poetry.  Artist friends from Daylesford knew Barry, and we would see him at Carlton pubs when we visited Melbourne.  We were thrilled when he married and had a son, however worried that his drinking might become a problem.

Later in the eighties I found we had a friend in common, the writer John Hepworth, and I would hear about Barry occasionally from John. 

Moving to Benalla in the late 90’s, it seemed my Oakleigh High School friend Ivan Durrant was also a friend of Barry’s.  Barry opened Ivan’s exhibitions at the Benalla Art Gallery for a number of years and engaged as an artist himself in an enormously successful community exhibition at the Benalla Art Gallery not long after I arrived. 

A year or so ago Barry gave a writer’s session at the Benalla Library.  Seeing another opportunity to connect to Barry’s world again, not being sure what the ravages of ill health, a failed marriage, depression and periods of heavy drinking might have had on him, I ‘booked in’.  I’m so glad I did.  Whatever the ravages of time may have been, he was still the wonderfully spirited, comedic, authentic Barry Dickins of old, still able to engage and entertain his audience throughout. 

Barry seemed at a loss as the audience departed, having a few hours to spare before taking the train back to Melbourne.  I introduced myself and suggested perhaps taking him for a drive to fill in the time.  I drove him out to Molyullah to my sister’s farm, as being out ‘in the bush’ would be such a change; called in to see his friend Simon Klose, who had been director at the Gallery when Barry opened Ivan’s exhibitions and participated in the community exhibition.  We happily filled in time, chatting about mutual friends until it was time for him to catch the train back to Melbourne and on to Reservoir.  

I’ve lost touch again but hope he’s well and that he’s still writing… of course I know he will be.
 
Struggling over words when writing this piece for our writing group today my question remains…
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’If only I could write like Barry Dickins!’… memoire writer extraordinaire!
 
Beverley Lee
September 2019
 

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I’ve always been quite a courageous driver – I’ve had to be as I’ve lived and worked in both the city and the country for much of my life and, being single, have always been ‘the driver’.  
 
I did wonder recently however whether my usual courage would desert me.  
 
For almost fifty years have driven fairly regularly from Melbourne through Sydney to my aunt’s house near Chatswood on the North Shore.   It has always been a challenge, accompanied by a sigh of relief when finally exiting the Harbour Bridge or the Harbour tunnels.  Getting into the correct lane when entering the southbound tunnel to return home is also a drama, always followed by a sigh of relief.  However, I have never doubted that I could do it.
 
A month or so ago I drove to Sydney via Canberra to visit my now 102-year old aunt living in a nursing home on the Northern Beaches.  Before visiting her, I planned to spend four nights at a boutique hotel in Watson’s Bay attached to Doyle’s Restaurant. 
 
I had not thought much about the challenges involved in doing this until I was just about to leave Canberra. 
 
Oh dear, I thought, I haven’t driven in Sydney for over two years!  I’ve never driven to Watson’s Bay.   Getting to Watson’s Bay involves exiting the tunnel before the Harbour Bridge, a different exit from the tunnel.  I felt a stirring of fear, of anxiety.  Would I still have the reactions, the capacity, to manage this?  
 
I had prepaid my boutique hotel – I could not back out!  
 
I planned strategically, carefully reading and visualising the maps and saving Google maps on my smart phone.  I planned my entrance to Sydney logistically, booking my Trans-tunnel pass online so I would not be anxious about unpaid tolls.  Just before the main tunnel I took a long break at a servo to review the maps.  
 
The drive through the tunnel was certainly more anxiety producing than usual, but my memory didn’t fail me.  I remembered the turnoffs before the turn off required, comfortably entered the left lane and exited without causing chaos.    There were a few moments of confusion near Kings Cross, but with a quick check on my phone and the maps, I righted my course and was soon heading along New South Head Road to Watson’s Bay.  
 
I made it!  Whew!
 
After a few delightful days beside the Harbour travelling the ferries and eating lots of sea food, the reality of negotiating the tunnels again set in.  It was time to carefully read the maps, set directions on my phone’s GPS and strategically plan my route through the tunnels to the Northern Beaches via Manly to see my beloved aunt.  
 
I made it!   What a relief!
 
I made it home again, too, choosing the correct lane to enter the Melbourne Bound tunnel again the only really stressful moment.
 
I learned from this trip that I could still negotiate my way around Sydney, which was a relief and confidence restoring.
 
In terms of ‘life stages’, however,  this trip marked the realisation that instead of being in the zone of gradually increasing possibilities of my youth and early to mid-adulthood, I’ve entered a possibly long Third Age of gradually increasing impossibilities.  The time may not be far off when negotiating my way across Sydney to the Northern Beaches will be ‘too much’ for me. 
 
Hopefully, I will manage a few more trips before then.
 
Who knows? 
 
 
Bev Lee
August 25, 2019

,As I left home, in responding to the task set for class in drawing a treasured item from my 'Ideas Memory Bank', I decided upon the 'three wise monkeys' which sits on my hall table alongside other family treasures and ephemera.

It once sat on the mantelpiece in the dining/sitting room of my grandparents’ home in Testar Grove, North Caulfield.  I stayed with my grandparents often as a child – though I don’t remember them referring to it, it was there, intriguing me, making me ponder on issues of ethics and morality whenever I looked it. 

There were three leather armchairs near the little gas fire which we huddled close to on cold days for some warmth.  I think we sat in comfortable silence for much of the time, though there was an old ‘modern’ radio in the room.  My grandparents always listened to 3DB, news, some serials, and I suspect during the day when my grandmother was playing croquet at Caulfied Park, my ‘sport of kings’ loving grandfather listened to the horse races.  After the serials we always had cup of tea and something sweet to eat for supper before bed. 

Today I was able to mentally picture each item in the room in great detail and think about where the items in the room are now – the sideboard at my sister’s home on Tiger Hill near Molyullah; the silver tea set which always graced it (a wedding present to my grandparents) at my brother’s home in Brisbane; the dining table and chairs and the painting of a beautiful  Maori dancer now with my cousin in Sydney, though up until recently I’d always been able to see them at my aunt’s home.  Sadly, now aged 99, my aunt is in a nursing home and so I’ll rarely, if ever see them again.  I think we all remember the Maori ‘princess’, purchased on tour when my ballerina grandmother was in New Zealand with J C Williamson’s theatre company. 

The comfy brown leather armchairs, always well cared for by my grandparents, became sadly decomposed skeletons in the old milking sheds at my Uncle’s farm on Tiger Hill; the sturdy black marble ionic (or Doric?) columned clock is now on the mantelpiece at my sisters; the little brass/gold travelling clock with a visible mechanism at my brothers’ – and the broken ‘three wise men’, with me!

They sit now at home on a little table with other family treasures, including three volume illustrated works of Shakespeare dated 1864; the clock which sat on the mantelpiece above the stove in my Grandmother’s kitchen (given to her by an old lady she read to as a girl) and various ink wells and table lamps.

Thinking about this brings back my grandparents so vividly!  It makes me wonder – where was it purchased, for whom, why?... and more.... 


​Beverley Lee

The substance of story was originally written for Judy Perry's 'Creative Writing of Family History' class in 2013.  I loved writing it then and enjoyed presenting it again!
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