When confronted with the topic ‘A Test of Courage’,  I found it difficult.  I was pretty sure I hadn’t had to show any particular set of skills in this area throughout my life.  I have opted instead to discuss the areas of courage I have heard of during the past fortnight and what these actions mean to us as a modern western society.

In general terms I believe we, as a community, have some rather differing ideas about what constitutes courage.  Almost weekly we are harangued with stories of our brave young men at war, especially those stories pertaining to Anzac, which was, after all, an invasion of another country, Turkey.  This is not to take anything away from the young men who went off on an adventure to protect, as they believed, the Empire we belonged to through the use of guns to kill other human beings.   How does this differ in courage from the young 15 year old who took another life for a cause.  Didn’t he think he was at war in the society in which he happened to live?

Then there was the young woman who jumped into the ocean to save an even younger boy of nine years of age.  The boy lived and she died.  Is this courage or instinct to protect someone more vulnerable than one’s self?  After all, the first lesson in water safety is never to go in the water if there is someone in trouble, but to throw them a support or use a towel.  Easier said than done, especially if you were the older one sent to look after the child.

For me, the greatest courage shown on the news or in a program on mental health aired during Mental Health week goes collectively to the workers who strive to support people with mental illness in hospital and other health services for the mentally ill.  How do these workers keep returning each day when the problems continue and improvements are so small?  This takes courage, day after day, courage beyond what I could do despite working in the field of intellectual disabilities.  I could not work in this area, but am full of admiration and thankful some are strong enough and have the courage needed to face this huge task on our behalf. 

To cringe, as defined by each of the dictionaries we have at home, is to yield, to shrink, to bend or crouch, especially from fear.  Now fortunately I haven’t had this exact feeling.  Yes, I’ve been humiliated and embarrassed, but I’ve never to my knowledge crouched in fear.  After all, I have never had to face a fire or flood and never a violent intruder.
 
So let me explore some of these other areas of fear that have had an impact on my life.  I walk on my own sometimes, but not often.  I wonder why?  Is it a built-in fear at the back of the female mind of rape?  I can’t remember my mother speaking of this, but I do remember running as fast as possible through Caulfield Park in the early evening as a young teenager when I knew it was full of danger and that I should be going around the Park where the streets were well lit.

So to humiliation.  Yes, Primary School was full of humiliation.  If it wasn’t wetting my pants in the Infant section, it was my Dyslexia (a disorder causing impaired ability to read and spell), which resulted in being kept down in Grade 2.  My reading difficulties were overcome in the higher grades of primary school through a combination of the school’s library and librarian; my coming from a household with books on a large bookshelf and my mother reading stories to me and my brothers. Unfortunately the lack of spelling ability has remained with me all my life, right up until now, well into my seventies.  Although this has been humiliating when those who think they know more than me make fun of my mistakes, I have had great support from my mother and my husband, both good spellers.  Today, with the wonder of Spell Check, there aren’t as many moments of humiliation.

Then there is embarrassment, of which there are several moments.  One keeps coming back to me when falling asleep at night.  Many years ago I was the Shadow Minister for Agriculture in the State Parliament, so often took my turn at the dispatch box when a bill of low priority was passing through the Parliament.  On this particular day the Liberal members of the Government tricked me into believing we would break early for lunch after we closed up a bill on companion animals.  Instead of breaking for lunch ten minutes early, they brought on a bill of importance, one they knew the Labor party wanted to argue against.  For the life of me I cannot remember what the bill was, except that Brumby , our leader, wanted to speak on the subject .  By default I had misled the whip and the leader’s room.  No great issue, but a relevant and embarrassing moment for me.

So I don’t cringe, but have waves of feelings close to humiliation and embarrassment when I think of the moments described --and possibly others, too many to mention. 

“What about your sister?  She was going to be your flower girl!” said my shocked Mother.

“That’s fine, she still can be”, I said.  

I had just told my mother the banns had been read at our local church in Wodonga and that we were to be married in two weeks time.

We had been going out together for four years since school and engaged for nine months.  Mother had planned a ‘big-ish’ wedding in the family town of Benalla.

“Has Godfrey been pressuring you?” was the next question.

“Heavens, no” was my reply.  “It is more that I can’t stand it any longer and we are not waiting another day, let alone six months till September.”

Nowadays this all seems silly, with most couples sleeping together before or just after the first date. Couples live together long before there is any suggestion of a wedding.  There is little doubt that ‘The Pill’ has enabled this freedom.  

Nowadays no one has to go through the years of frustration and the light and heavy petting we did in the late fifties and early sixties.  Yes, the pill was developed then, but it was not openly discussed.  The only articles described the problems that may happen, especially for women, as though women who used the pill were wicked.

What kept us on the straight and narrow was the ever present disgrace of pregnancy.  We knew enough about sex and its results, even if our parents never spoke of that driving force.
 
The other consideration was we were were regular church goers and it just wasn’t done for us.  
We need not have worried on that score as everyone thought we were expecting, which came as a shock to me!  Even my wonderful old grandfather wrote to my mother (his daughter), telling her it was all her fault as she had allowed me to bath with my brothers when we were little.  Such were the times.

The fortnight went by with mum making the flower girl’s dress.  I wore a white (yes, it definitely had to be white) dress I had used as a bridesmaid’s dress and borrowed a veil.  Godfrey wore his one and only suit and the thin tie of the time with some artificial orange blossom in his lapel.
 
The organist was late – held up by the train crossing which was in the main street – so I had to stand around outside the church wondering if Godfrey was inside.  We had a half a dozen guests and some of the children and their parents from the class of fifty I was teaching at Wodonga Primary School.

‘For Better or Worse’, we headed off to Wagga, then up the centre of NSW to Lismore, sometimes camping and sleeping in the car, our only possession, making sure we got back to Albury for footy training on Thursday!
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Fifty three years and many changes in social attitudes later we are the survivors of those strange times.