​I’d actually forgotten Covid had another name until I read some notes from 2020.

March: ‘White ants make life interesting as does the all-consuming Corona Virus.’

Bakery coffee came in disposable cups, no teaspoons, serviettes, biscuits or cash and you could drink it in the park over the road if you stood on one of the crosses.

May:  Two months later we set up internet banking. We received wonderful CDs and DVDs from the family – videos of comical interpretations of learning and teaching from home, CDs of sons singing together which involved one singing in Benalla and then sending the recording to Melbourne so another son could add his voice in harmony.

​We learned how to join Zoom meetings.

Six weeks later, Don wasn’t feeling well. By six in the evening, I rang for an ambulance and he was taken to Wodonga Hospital. It was Sunday. The next morning he was transferred to Albury and settled in a small room in the inner recesses of the hospital.

Visiting hours were quite strict but family members managed to come and go with plenty of travel between. It was a special time for us all.

By Wednesday he was pronounced a palliative case and we asked that he be transported back to Tallangatta. That couldn’t be arranged until the next day so Michael and I stayed with Don until an hour or two after midnight, then Stephen and Tim came to take over, while we went to have a few hours sleep in a hotel.

Michael’s wife, Karen, was to catch Friday’s train to join us. Tim was organized to take his son to Canberra to start university at the weekend.

The palliative care unit in the small Tallangatta hospital is beautiful. Floor to ceiling windows looked out on the lake, a CD player was on the bench and an adjoining room included a bed, sandwiches in a frig. and tea and coffee for the carer. It couldn’t have been better.

Suddenly new rules. Nobody could get back into Melbourne, nor could anyone cross the Victorian- NSW border after Friday.

Karen cancelled her train journey, Michael drove back to Melbourne and Tim and son, Monty, took over the night time watch at the hospital on Thursday night. Tim slept while Monty sat with Don and the next morning they left early to drive to Canberra by midday so Tim could drive back to Victoria the same day.

Don died that night, 12-02-2021. He would have been delighted with the symmetry.

Incredibly, at the time of the funeral, ten days later, the borders were open and family and friends were all able to be there.

Three months later, I moved to Benalla.


Carmyl Winkler 
​March 2025

What a position for a house in Benalla! I could walk across to the shops in ten minutes, enjoying birds, trees and glimpses of the lake along the way.
 
But having completed the lovely walk, where was the coffee at the end of it? The nearest block included six cafes.
 
Covid was rife at the time, so I chose a small one, a few doors around the corner – ‘The Cake-Maker’s Daughter’. Not having a phone in my pocket, I gave my details according to the Covid rules and sat outside. The waitress bringing the coffee asked if my name was Carmyl. I said it was. She laughed and said that they had written down Camel! So that was a good start at becoming known.
 
Mak, who made the coffee, was the friendliest person and made me feel very much at home, as did Nichole. It took me more than a year to realise that they were daughter and mother, and that Nichole was indeed The Cake-Maker.
 
My son, Michael, visited and quietly gave Mak $100 as my birthday present. Brilliant! I’d walk in, get my coffee card, hand it over and sit down, no payment required! I might mention that when the money ran out, it was quietly renewed.
 
At Christmas, I gave them a card telling them they had been some of my first friends in Benalla and what a difference they had made to my new town.
 
I took friends and family there for lunch – some of the best lunches I’ve ever come across. I popped in occasionally for a coffee by myself. I took grand-daughters there. But the one constant was Tuesday morning coffee at 10 with a friend.
 
The shop was relatively small with only seven or eight indoor tables, so I often rang early on Tuesday to book a table. One table had two very comfortable basket weave chairs and that was often where we ended up.
 
Bev, who I had got to know through coffee there, would look over at our table as she came through the door and shake her fist with a grin; our church friend, Val, would meet half a dozen mates at the next table; a couple who did morning lake walks would give a wave, Karen from Tomorrow Today would be there to collect coffee for the staff. It was a Tuesday community.
 
We heard about Mak or Nichole’s holidays, we chatted about our doings, birthdays, news items. It made Tuesdays special.
 
Then one Tuesday, I arrived to find Mak in a very agitated state on the phone. I helped her bring in the tables and chairs that had only been out for a brief time.
 
Something was clearly very wrong. I gave her a hug. A sign went up on the door, ‘Due to personal reasons, the shop will be closed until further notice.’
 
And The Cake-Maker’s Daughter never opened again.
 
I can only say that the three years of friendship and coffee those women gave me and so many others, was something I will never forget.

Carmyl Winkler
January 2025

‘Namaste’, I said to my new neighbours. They smiled and returned the greeting. Then they apologetically explained that they were from Punjab in the north of India where Namaste was replaced by a different greeting.

A couple of weeks later I rang the doorbell armed with paper, pen and a container of Anzacs. (Ever tried to explain the meaning of Anzac, let alone the fact that it referred to biscuits!)

“Come in, come in,” they welcomed. “Sit down. What would you like to drink?” I wrote down their real names, the names they commonly used and their special greeting. In the meantime, a glass of water appeared along with snacks of nuts and a bowl of grated carrot, coconut, almond meal and condensed milk.

“We’ve never had a neighbour visit us before. Can we show you our wedding photos?” Of course they could, so the laptop was produced. I started to say farewell, but a cup of special chai was being made so I sat down again.

Diwali, the festival of lights, was coming up and I knew the Benalla Festival included a celebration. I dropped in to ask if they were going. They weren’t, because it was on the 4th. November and they wanted to celebrate on the proper date, the 1st.  November. Would I come in and join them? How could I refuse?

I rang the day before to check on the time.  –  Any time. -  Does it include a meal? –  Of course - What time do you eat? -  8 or 9 o’clock.

I duly arrived at 7.30. Raavi had created a beautiful design from coloured powder on the tiles inside the front door. She poured me a glass of juice and proffered a box of cashew sweets. Davy arrived home from work and we ate appetisers – spherical paper-thin balls which you broke open, put in some spicy mixture then covered it with a thin corn soup.

Time for the lighting. Some tiny clay pots, filled with oil and holding a plait of cotton, were placed on the design near the door and carefully lit.

Nine o’clock and time to cook some spiced rice and some chapatis. A vegetarian curry of tofu was produced and some very spicy spears of okra.

Constantly I was assured, “Just try these things and if they are too spicy, don’t eat them.” A final dessert of sweet milky rice with crushed nuts was dished up, with the comment that this had been cooked especially for me in case the other food was not to my taste.

So many times, I was thanked for coming. Could they call me Grandma? Of course. At 9.45 when I got up to leave and walk around the corner, I thanked them heartily and produced my torch. “But we’re coming with you to make sure you get home safely.” And that is exactly what they did!
​
To think that in more than eighty years, that was my first Diwali.


Carmyl Winkler
November 2024

Yes, there was a phone in Dad’s study, but I don’t remember ever making a personal call on it.
 
I was in Form 6 when Don went off to National Service in the Navy. I had wangled permission to go with him to see a film before he left but hadn’t really anticipated the opportunity of letter writing. Letters of six or eight pages regularly arrived and were duly answered.
 
The next year I was off to university, so Don’s letters continued, as did letters from my mother. Every Sunday night she wrote to any family member who was away and also to her sister, using carbon paper. The pages would then be sorted so that everyone had a top copy as well as an assortment of later copies.
 
In Indonesia, whenever we had nothing else to do, we’d write letters to a large assortment of family and friends. We had a modest post office in the Mess building next door. Mail seemed to arrive in bundles – none for a while and then a number together. Three weeks was about average time.
 
Sometimes a parcel arrived, mostly containing food such as packet soup. The prize-winning parcel was when my mother wrapped up a baby bath and posted it!
 
Don’s mother was very sick, and we desperately wanted her to know of the arrival of our baby before she died. Don wrote a letter that day and took it into the post office, explaining the urgency. The post-office man put it in his pocket to post in town. That letter never arrived but the next day, we each wrote a letter and they did arrive a few days before Mum’s life ended. The news of her death was received some weeks later from a relative who assumed we already knew. At least it wasn’t unexpected.
 
In contrast, six months later, my twenty-five-year-old sister and her husband died in a car accident. Again, the first letter we received thought we knew about it. Of course, the funeral was well over before we heard the news.
 
There was no fresh milk available in Aceh and a small tin of Danish powdered milk cost a fair proportion of Don’s salary, so the family sent several 3lb. tins over to us when Bronwyn was a baby. They took three months or more to arrive. When we visited Aceh thirty years later, our best friend told us that after we left, some milk arrived, and she used it for her own baby. She hoped we didn’t mind!
 
Back to country living in Australia. No home telephone. Walk around two blocks to the phone box if you wanted to contact your children in Melbourne.
 
Telegrams for important news. One said we had a new nephew named Solomon. We later found out the telegraph lady misheard – he was actually Simon.
 
My mother died unexpectedly. Three successive calls to our neighbour, who graciously called us in for each one.
 
We moved house. We had a phone! Twenty-eight years after we were first married!
 
Another ten years and we bought a computer and learned about emails.
 
Now I even own a rarely-used mobile phone.
 
But where will the great-grandchildren find the old letters to tell them about the past?

 
Carmyl Winkler
​October 2024

I started Brownies when we lived in Launceston and loved it. The challenges of doing ‘badges’ and the fun of playing games made Brownie Day a favourite day of the week.
 
Then we moved to Sandy Beach. No Brownies there.
 
Ballarat had a ho-hum Brownie Pack at the Anglican church, but I couldn’t wait until I turned twelve and could start Guides.
 
Friday night in the Methodist Hall next to our house and I’m in Magpie Patrol. My sister Dorothy is our patrol leader. We have two adult leaders, ‘Cap’ and ‘Lefty’ – yes, of course, short for Captain and Lieutenant!
 
Cap, whose other name was Miss Edna Perry rode her bike to Guides from the other side of Ballarat. She had some day job, but we only knew her as our leader. Though quietly spoken, she was definitely in charge. She always had an interesting program prepared which would include the guide promise, a game or two, singing some fun songs and some badge work.
 
The Guide motto was ‘Be Prepared’ and our program reflected this. We learned to tie knots (a Reef must never be replaced by a Granny knot!), learned the Morse Code, how to cope with snake bite, the street names of our surrounding area and so much more.
 
When joining Guides as a tenderfoot, we had to learn the Guide Law and Promise, the salute, hand signals, some knots and facts about the flag, before we could don a uniform and be enrolled.
 
Re-reading the Guide Law – and I know we took it seriously – I was impressed.

1. A Guide’s honour is to be trusted.
2.  A Guide is loyal.
3. A Guide’s duty is to be useful and to help others.
4. A Guide is a friend to all and a sister to every other Guide.
5. A Guide is courteous.
6. A Guide is a friend to animals.
7. A Guide obeys orders.
8. A Guide smiles and sings under all difficulties.
9. A Guide is thrifty.
10. A Guide is pure in thought, word and deed.

 
After enrolment, it was up to each guide if they wanted to pass further tests, but it was encouraged. There were Second- and First-class badges with a series of tasks to be accomplished. The Queen’s Guide award was the top and had to be finished before we were sixteen. Despite my ambition, I didn’t get that far. In the meantime, there were proficiency badges covering a wide range of skills. We prepared as necessary and then Cap would find an appropriate tester. I did a number of these including Reader, Hostess, Homemaker, Cook, Knitter, Cyclist, Emergency Helper. I loved the challenges.
​
And then one day Cap announced that we were having a Guide Camp, and we were going to sleep in tents! I couldn’t have been more enthusiastic. 

​​I loved every minute. I came home with a recipe for French Toast – soak a slice of bread in a beaten egg mixture and fry lightly on each side. Ecstasy!

We left Ballarat when I was fourteen and my wonderful Guide company was never replicated. There were no Guides in Belmont, so I caught a tram into Geelong one night a week. The Guides were young and not very interested in badges. I left there and joined an after-school company from Morongo. They were much more upbeat but, being the only one from another school, I didn’t really belong.
 
I joined a church youth group and became enthusiastic again.
 
But I’ll never forget the Pleasant Street Methodist Guide Company and our ‘Cap’.
​
 
Carmyl Winkler
September 2024

A new university built straight on to rice fields, houses for lecturers built alongside faculty buildings, and all of this about eight kilometres from the nearest shops, offices, places of worship, doctors. A tiny post office was included in the ‘Mess’ and a small market providing dried fish, some fruit and vegetables, a barber, and a weekly market for cattle, was a kilometre away.
​
One of the houses was ours – a nice-looking concrete building with three bedrooms, one of which was used as a study, an open living area, a bathroom and a toilet. Outside the back door was the kitchen and three small rooms, designed to house our non-existent helpers. They led to the well.

The province was Aceh, right at the northern end of Sumatra. The capital was Kutaraja, now called Banda Aceh, and the university area was Darussalam (City of Peace). It was twelve years since the Dutch officially left and the new Republic of Indonesia was determined to concentrate on educating its citizens.

Our Indonesian language was very basic.  We had to learn fast. There were no other native English speakers around, although the next-door neighbour’s wife, Kerrie, who originated from Surinam in South America, spoke excellent English.

The university owned two cars and at least one of these was driven to Kutaraja on most days. You could accompany the driver if you needed to go but this would take up a good proportion of the day. Our option was to leave a basket with a small list and money, hanging on a hook for the driver to collect. He was quite capable of walking past and ignoring it!

The first essential was food. After a few days of rice, tomato and an egg we knew we had to do some speedy learning. Four or five recipes were added to our repertoire. Every recipe contained spices, and these had to be ground between a flat stone and one shaped like a rolling pin. Most recipes also contained coconut milk, so coconuts had to be split, the contents grated out and squeezed in water.

We had a small kerosene stove but electricity only between six and ten p.m. so no refrigerator. Fortunately, the spices kept the meat from deteriorating overnight, considering how long it took to make each dish. We had the same meal midday and evening two days running. Rice, however, an essential to each meal, would not keep and had to be cooked each day. To save a considerable time each morning, we made bread every few days and had it for breakfast.

Outside the house was our well, our only water supply. There was a pump on the well to fill the tank of water in the bathroom. However, it turned out that this leaked through the wall into the kitchen, so we decided to bathe at the well. Fortunately, there was a partial wall around it, as the only fences shielding us from the neighbour’s gaze were made of barbed wire. Buckets of water had to be carried to the kitchen and toilet and stored there. Washing was in a bucket by the well.

So many stories in the next two years, including the birth of our first child, but that’s where it all began.

​ 

Carmyl Winkler
August 2024

​It was 1957 and atomic weapons tests were being carried out at Maralinga in Central Australia. The fact that the effects of radio-active fallout were not well known was shown by the instruction to those on the ground to turn their backs when the explosion occurred. The presence of Aboriginal people living in the surrounding area appeared to be ignored.

At that time, Peter MacCallum Clinic had an energetic Scotsman as head of the Physics Department. He was concerned at the possible fallout from the Maralinga tests, as strontium-90 was one of the by-products of atomic fission. It is sufficiently similar to calcium that any residual strontium can lodge in bones and possibly cause bone cancer. For Dr. Martin, that was enough data to make testing for fallout, even as far away as Melbourne, an appropriate project for a cancer clinic.

​He entrusted the carrying out of the weekly aspects of the project to me, the most junior of the five physicists and in my first year.

The workshop men at Peter Mac constructed a revolving arm on a four-legged stand and this was placed on the rooftop of the Little Lonsdale Street building. Cheesecloth ‘sails’ were clipped to the arm. A month or two later, a water collection was organized.

Each week, the cheesecloth needed to be replaced and the rainwater collected.  This required going up in a lift three or four floors, a short set of stairs, out onto the roof and up a small ladder. No wonder I’d been given the job!

The cheesecloth and water were taken back to the lab where the cheesecloth was burned, the water evaporated and wiped out and burned and any radiation from the two sets of ashes was measured by a Geiger Counter and recorded. These weekly readings were taken for about eighteen months.

The results were significant. The background count for rainwater was 6 counts/minute. On the week ending 24th. October 1957, the measurement was 600 counts/minute. These peaks occurred two or three times, each time being about a fortnight after a test.

Dr. Martin invited me to give a paper on this project at a Radiation Biology conference. An interesting experience to be speaking in the Public Lecture Theatre at Melbourne University when I’d been a student there only two years before! There were a couple of questions at the end from prominent people but our case was pretty water-tight.

Twenty seven years later in 1984, an article appeared in ‘The Age’, headed

‘A-test equipment faulty’. 

​​‘A former government advisor said that measurements of radio-active fallout at Maralinga had been inadequate. The fallout estimation had been based solely on ground level measurement using sheets of ‘sticky paper’ that collected radio-active dust and battery-powered pumps that trapped fallout in filter papers.​

In 1975 and 1977, I wrote a series of articles called ‘The Godly Conversations of Mrs. Hinchcliffe’ for the Victorian – Tasmanian Methodist, then Uniting Church, paper.

The planned union of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches produced dissension in some and fear in others. Mrs. Hinchcliffe, the character I created, was among the latter.

She took her worries to God...

‘Well God, I went along to Your House last Sunday and I heard that they’ve got some scheme of letting the Presbyterians in. Of course it will be nice to see our church a bit fuller and they do say the Presbyterians round here are a wealthy lot. Their minister seems a nice young man.

Just the same, I must make it clear to Rev. Crawford that no one is to sit in my seat. I know I don’t use it often but it’s nice to know it’s there if I need it.

I hope those Presbyterians don’t take over our Sunday School. They don’t even know what we believe in. There’s nothing but Methodist blood flowing in my veins. We Methodists will have to stick together.’
​
At first Mrs. Hinchcliffe worried that some of the Presbyterians were not very nice people. Then it turned out there was a suggestion that the money from the Methodist Church fair was to go to the Freedom From Hunger campaign rather than for new heaters in the Methodist church. She had even heard rumours that this was because the Methodist church might be closed and everyone would have to go to the Presbyterian building.

In 1977, her worst fears were realized. Church union came about. Her church was now to be called the Uniting Church. A new hymn book was produced which no longer had some of her favourites among the mere 600 on offer.

Then it turned out that the Methodist minister was moving and the Presbyterian man was taking over. What’s more, his wife had a job, working in the High School library! How could she possibly do that and also complete the tasks as a minister’s wife, answering the phone, being president of the Ladies’ Guild and so on?

On top of all that the church service was no longer to be at the sacred hour of 11 a.m. but had been changed to 9.30!

‘Well God – just as I’d predicted! No more 11 a.m. services. I just hope you’ll be listening at 9.30 because the prayers won’t be rising at the hallowed hour they’ve been rising at for a hundred years from this part of the world.

Not only that but I went along to the 9.30 last week. I’d thought of staying home as a mark of protest but then I thought – where would the Methodist element be if we all did that? So I went along.

Well you wouldn’t recognize the service. Talk about modern! We have the round church – my word it’s hard to find a back seat. You can’t even work out which is the back seat.

Hats are out, not to mention gloves. And a young fellow in jeans took up the collection! I find them using one of those modern translations of the Bible. I said to the Rev. McDonald, “What was good enough for St. Paul is good enough for me.”  I don’t know whether that will change his ideas on the Holy Scriptures.

I hope you’re keeping up with the times, God.’
--

Carmyl Winkler 
​June 2024

From family folklore, I had a mind of my own very early. This became obvious when I found myself between a very adept older sister and a very cute, well-behaved younger sister. I needed to be noticed. I trust I have softened my stance since then, despite still feeling the need to make my opinions known.

Second-hand clothes made up most of my wardrobe when young, so I was happy  to make my own clothes as the years went by. At no time in my life have I been a doyen of fashion.

‘Junior Age’ printed children’s writing on Thursdays and, as far as I remember, there was sometimes a ninepence reward. I haven’t stopped writing! Articles for Women’s Network and Grassroots magazines, various church papers and magazines, the odd book, and finally ‘As time goes by’. There have been a few ninepences along the way but mostly just a sharing of my thoughts.

My final year at High School and also while at university consisted of a class room of boys with a few girls and, hence, I found it easy to have both male and female friends along the way – from walking up the Belmont hill with Bill Grosvenor to having a cup of coffee with Graham Jensen.

Growing up, we were encouraged to be reasonably independent in our choice of interests and in the fulfilment of them. Despite Hobart, Ballarat and Geelong being home while I was growing up, and seven years in Melbourne studying and working, I was happy to be a small-town girl from then on.

This involved the challenge of finding friends, group activities and, later on, some paid work.  If these things were not already available in the small town we were currently living in, the option was to initiate something yourself. This resulted in a Brownie Pack, a Hello Group, a singing group, a multi-cultural group and some Indonesian teaching resources.

The footprints are indeed an indication of the person I became.

And when I remember the footprints of our children and now look at their present lives, I can certainly see the correlation and am delighted to do so.


Carmyl Winkler
May 2024

'Education of a Princess' A memoir by Marie, Grand Duchess of Russia 1931

What a story!

Marie was born in 1890. ‘I am told my public entrance into the world was made in a golden coach drawn by three pairs of white horses. The coach was surrounded with mounted hussars in scarlet uniform. I was on my way to the Winter Palace for my christening.
​
A year later, Marie’s mother died giving birth to her brother Dmitri, who became her closest friend for the next 26 years. She grew up with two English nannies and various tutors. Her father remarried when she was twelve but, because he had married a commoner, he was not allowed to live in Russia. Marie and Dmitri went to live with their uncle. Each year they travelled around visiting the Emperor, their grandmother and an aunt who was a nun.
​
In 1904 war with Japan was declared. At first, the war was taken lightly but as months passed without Russia achieving a single victory, the war became unpopular. Marie’s uncle was against the political position of the government and they found their lives in danger. Not long after, her uncle was assassinated.

Their aunt was not nearly as kindly disposed towards the two young people and organized a visit from a Swedish prince. The day after they had met, the aunt called 16-year-old Marie into her room, asked her what her impression of the prince had been. “Prince William came here to make your acquaintance. He likes you and wants to know whether you would consent to marry him.” Marie was shocked. In the end, she reluctantly agreed.

At her request, she waited until she was eighteen, married in Russia with the Emperor giving her away, and moved to Sweden. She had diligently learned Swedish but could never lose her love for Russia. Marie and her husband had a baby son and travelled widely, but after five years, Marie could not remain in her present position. She returned to Russia without her son and the marriage was annulled.

Where was she to go from here?

Unbelievably, into a Red Cross uniform and in charge of a field hospital. The First World War had begun and Russian recruits surged forward – so many that there was not enough artillery for all the volunteers. Dmitri was already an army officer. Russia, with British and French allies, was fighting Germany.

For a couple of years, Marie found a new life. She knew nothing about ordinary people, first aid only from her brief training, but she was determined to learn. Amazingly, she describes this time as the happiest in her life.

However, time passed, troops became dissatisfied, Rasputin had wormed his way into the life of the Empress and there was much unrest, much of it due to the politics of the same Rasputin. Word came that he had been murdered. Two young men had believed that was the only way to deal with the turmoil. Dmitri was one of them. He was banished from his country.

But things didn’t quieten down. From then on, Marie was fleeing from one place to another. She was no longer safe in the hospital, the upper classes were being killed and the revolution took over.

Marie remarried and she and her husband eventually left Russia, again leaving a little son behind with grandparents. The bravery and the quick-wittedness of Marie, her husband and brother-in-law enabled them finally to get, via Ukraine and Odessa, on a ship to Roumania.

I was impressed by this book because of the honesty of the account of a life which had very few satisfying episodes. Marie’s closeness to her brother was her anchor. Even after she married, he visited Sweden regularly, as did he in the field hospital. His banishment after the death of Rasputin, happened in the midst of utter turmoil.

To be able to write this book fifteen years after escaping Russia was a fine achievement.



Carmyl Winkler
May 2024

​Sandy Beach has had a mention in a previous memoir as I remember. The complete commercial picture was a small grocery with post office, a baker’s shop and a lolly shop. It certainly didn’t include a pharmacy – or a doctor for that matter.

So when I cut my leg climbing about on the galvanized fence and the cut became infected, my mother had to send for help further afield. Mr. Swain lived over the road and drove his sleek green bus to Launceston and back, about fifty km. each way, every week day. Mother explained the situation and asked him to buy a particular ointment to treat the cut. By the time Mr. Swain had dropped his passengers and arrived at the pharmacy, he’d forgotten the name of the ointment. However, he passed on what had happened and the chemist sold him something he thought would be appropriate.

It turned out that not only did the ointment fail to heal the leg but it started eating into the flesh. Needless to say, that particular treatment came to an abrupt end and an order was put in for the original ointment. Mr. Swain made sure he got it right this time and brought it over as soon as he finished his run. It did indeed heal the leg, but I can still dimly see the scar on my calf eighty years later.

From Sandy Beach, we moved to Ballarat and I was off to Pleasant Street State School. In those days, if students didn’t pass their exams, they were left down to repeat the year. Barbara was fourteen in Grade 6 and much bigger than we eleven-year-olds. She was giving me a piggy-back one playtime and she set me down on a small post supporting the netball goal post. This had a large bolt poking out three or four inches. As I jumped down, this bolt tore a large piece of flesh in my thigh and left it hanging on three sides. Poor Barbara was horrified but, of course, it wasn’t her fault.

The thigh had gone completely numb – possibly some of the nerves were severed – so I couldn’t feel any pain but, as I recall, the office lady fainted at the sight.

Off to Ballarat Hospital to get a multitude of stitches and a piece of sticking plaster about five inches wide to cover the wound. I was off school for six weeks and recommended to stay off my leg.

I had regular check-ups at the hospital and these entailed dragging off the giant sticking plaster each time. It was agony. However, one of the nurses had a wonderful idea. She cut the plaster down the centre,  turned back the edges and threaded a lace through cuts in the fold. From then on, it was just a matter of loosening the lace each time a check-up was needed. I loved that nurse!

One time Mother and I went to the hospital in a taxi as the car was unavailable. It cost so much we had to return in the tram and I had to walk the longish block from the tram stop to our place, much to Mother’s concern.

However the wound healed and the scar remained.

Much more interesting than a tattoo!

​
Carmyl Winkler
April 2024

​A ‘Doctor Book’, written in the 1800s proclaims consumption, tubercular and bronchial, as ‘the greatest disease of the world and increasing with the advancement of civilization’. In comparison, cancer receives only a brief mention although it did say breast cancer is ‘mainly confined to unmarried women’.

Consumption was still very much feared in the early 1900s when Florence was a little girl. Her mother, Carrie, was a nurse and died of consumption at the age of thirty-nine leaving four children, Ena eight, Hazel seven, Florence six and Russell aged four.

​Carrie’s husband, George, found a housekeeper for the children and married her as was the custom of the time. Two more children were born, Valma and John. Then when Florrie was thirteen, her father died leaving ‘Madre’ to bring up six children.

Florrie was a good student and planned to follow her mother into nursing but Madre insisted she leave school and get a job. She tried stenography but wanted something more creative and went into making hats. Ena was already working. Hazel was regarded as ‘delicate’ and stayed at home.

Colin McRae, a handsome young man at Echuca Methodist church had decided to move off the farm and study theology and was very attracted to Florrie. While away in Melbourne he wrote regular letters to her, some of which Hazel would open when they arrived ‘just in case he’s coming on today’s train’!

Colin and Florrie married in 1932 and travelled to Zeehan in Tasmania. Colin had never liked the name Florrie so decided to call her Beth, from her second name, Elizabeth. Hilly Zeehan with a yearly rainfall of 77 inches, was a huge contrast to flat, dry Echuca.

They left in 1934 with a three-week-old baby, to move to Beulah in Victoria, about to experience some years of drought.

Back to Tasmania to Hobart, now with two daughters. Four happy years and another daughter, before the move to Launceston. The war years coloured the memories here and life wasn’t easy. However they did bring a young son into the family.

After a brief break, a move back to Victoria and a revelation to the children that there were such people as cousins and they thought that their mother’s name was Auntie Florrie!

A final son was born in Ballarat.

Beth was my mother.

Despite the moving and little money, Beth loved being a ‘minister’s wife’. She spread her friendship far and wide and frequently had someone staying in the house, not overnight but for weeks or months.

We children flourished despite the moves and were given a reasonable measure of independence. Beth didn’t believe in smacking. Instead she sent the child to their bedroom and then came and gave them an ‘improving talk’. Most of us would have preferred the smack!

There were four more moves before retiring in Mooroopna,

​As each of us left home, we received weekly carbon-copied letters telling us the family news. The last one, finished on the morning she died, told us that she’d had a bit of heart trouble but got a good report from the doctor yesterday.

We had no phone so answered a succession of calls on the neighbour’s phone telling us she had gone to hospital, then that it seemed serious and then that she had died.

Colin, quite a reserved man, loved Beth dearly and they lived and worked together without apparent dissension. The death notice he wrote for the paper  finished with

‘So loved, so loving, so lovely.’


Carmyl Winkler
March 2024

​We were living in a Methodist parsonage in Launceston when Dad decided to enlist as a chaplain in the AIF, so we moved down the Tamar River 31 miles to Sandy Beach*.

Mr. Twomey had a grocery and post office and also organised milk delivery. My mother once found him out the back of the shop watering down the milk. Mr. Parry had a lolly shop on the highway a few doors away. I guess he sold something else, but I don’t know what it was. Mrs. Robinson had a baker’s shop a few doors in the other direction. These are the only shops I can remember but I guess there was a butcher.

There was a Methodist church with Mr. Fletcher at the helm, Mr. Swain with a sleek green bus that he drove to Launceston and back every day and the fish man who knocked at the back door each Friday with flathead for threepence each or flounders for sixpence. And that was Sandy Beach.

Beauty Point was a mile back with a big harbour, where we once saw a Catalina Flying Boat, and Beaconsfield was another three miles and that was where we went to school.

We had three girls, six, eight and ten, a younger brother who was three, our mother and Dulce who came with us from Launceston to give Mother a hand. Our house had an attic where some of us slept.

Dorothy was in the top grade, a mix of grades 6 and 7. Mr. Calloway, the headmaster, was the teacher and sometimes caned the boys. Frank O’Toole could sing the first verse of Lilli Marlene in German, exciting admiration and suspicion. We learned to sing Land of Hope and Glory and Beautiful Dreamer.

I was in Grade 4 / 5 with the lovely Miss Dawes for my teacher. An inspector turned up one day and asked the class, “If an electric train is travelling at 60 miles an hour and the wind is blowing in the opposite direction at 40 miles an hour, which way will the smoke go?” Why do I remember? Of course, because I was the only one who said electric trains don’t have any smoke.

We made our own fun with Dorothy writing plays about Cavaliers and Roundheads and we girls dressing up and acting them out for Dulce, Mother and John. We read ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ to kind-hearted John so we could see his eyes filling with tears when the ant turned away the hungry grasshopper.

​One morning we were on the school bus and people were on the road shouting, “The war’s over! The war’s over!” We kept driving to school where we had a short ceremony and then got the bus home. Two days holiday! Mother organised us and we went to Launceston in Mr. Swain’s bus and stayed there overnight. There were heaps of people in the city streets dancing and shouting. I’m sure Mother wanted to give us an experience to remember and she surely did.
 

​Carmyl Winkler
February 2024

*Now known as Ilfraville

I am reluctant to write about this moment but, quite honestly, it’s the moment that immediately stands out for me. Perhaps my other moments weren’t quite as dramatic.

I know just when this happened as I was on my way to Brain Games – about 1.45 on the fourth Tuesday of September. I was only a few minutes from home, part way down the path leading to Jaycee Island. The path has been patched a good deal so is not entirely level but it’s a path that I’ve walked along most weeks in the last two years. Maybe I was looking for birds. Whatever the reason, I fell over, flat on my face.

If this has ever happened to you, you will be aware that, as you are falling, you know exactly what is happening but you can’t do anything about it.

I lay there for a minute wondering whether I could get back on my feet. When I did manage to, I dabbed my face with a tissue, finding it immediately covered in blood. I wasn’t too sure which part of my face was responsible for the flow, but slowly made my way back up the path and across the street.

There, standing by her car, was an angel disguised as a kindly middle-aged woman. I’d never seen her before but she appeared to live around the corner from me, just two doors away. She called to me, opened up the back of her car and proceeded to get antiseptics, dressings, cleansing agents, forceps, from a large first aid kit. She told me she was associated with Cooinda. I couldn’t have been more grateful. I didn’t feel like taking myself to the clinic at that stage and thankfully walked around the corner home.

I went to see the doctor the next day and yes, I had skin off my forehead, my nose, above my mouth and two black eyes coming into view. I later found a bruised knee and a skun hand. I wore sun glasses for a day or two and then put up with the sympathetic comments. Incidentally, I discovered that it’s much better to say ‘I tripped over’ or even ‘I fell over’ than to say ‘I had a fall’.

Results:

1. I suddenly felt tremendously vulnerable. I immediately pictured a walking stick, then a walking trolley, then a motorised vehicle. My mind raced ahead with more and bigger ideas.

2. The next day, I left a Thank You card under the windscreen wipers of the grey car around the corner. I live in a court and know every person and, frequently, their visitors and relations. This is hard to believe, but in the two and a half years I have lived in my house, the grey car is almost always in the driveway but I have never seen Tess before or since.

How can I not believe in God’s care!

(No photos available!)

Carmyl Winkler
10:06 am  1 November 2023

Postscript -
​
12.24pm 1 November 2023..."Hi...I had a sudden thought this morning. I just printed out my story and I’m going around the corner to put it under Tess’s windscreen wiper!  Carmyl"

​This is not so much a memoir as a confession. Few days would go past without me reminding myself to be aware of Right here, Right now.

I find it so easy to be planning what I need to do for the rest of the day – or tomorrow. I don’t seem to include what I want to do, just need. It’s very easy when you live by yourself to be eating a meal you’ve just prepared and finding your thoughts wandering off to something that happened today or, more frequently, might be on the agenda for tomorrow, instead of, ‘Wow! This is delicious!’

This sort of attitude immediately leads to the making of lists. Yes, my kitchen bench is never without a list for the day (and often the beginning of tomorrow’s list as well). I keep a small pad and pencil by my bed and occasionally, in exasperation, jot down in the complete dark, some idea I can pursue in the future so I will stop thinking about it.

Our sons frequently used to make CDs, singing songs about the idiosyncrasies of their parents (and sometimes those of the neighbours, in which case we played it very softly). So of course there was a song about Carmyl making lists – there might be an erupting volcano outside the door but Carmyl would still be at the bench making a list.

And I suppose one of the problems of list-making is that if you manage to get seven out of the eight items accomplished for the day, you feel a tinge of failure that number eight is not crossed out and will have to be transferred to tomorrow’s list.

Magda Szubanski headed a National Health Check series on TV last year which included a program running in Mansfield to give people healthier lives. One of the three things they suggested to do each day was to go for a walk around the block and listen. Put away each time you think of something you did yesterday or have to plan for today, and just listen. We think of past and future for 85% of the time and only 15% about what is happening here and now.

Last week I came across a quote from the Dalai Lama on Facebook.

‘There are only two days in the year when nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right time to love, believe and mostly live.’

I’d better put it on the frig!    

Carmyl Winkler
​October 2023

Here are the words to 'She'll Make a List'

She’ll make a list…”
 
When the final trump shall sound, when the judgement’s all around,
When what was written in Revelation is writ large in every nation,
When the world is covered in haze and we’ve reached the end of days,
Carmyl will pause and make a list.

She’ll make a list, she’ll make a list, she’ll grab a scrap of paper get a biro in her fist,
When the final trump shall sound, loud enough to shake the ground,
Carmyl will be there making a list.
 
When the lookout turns volcanic and the town begins to panic,
As the town sinks beneath a pile of lava,
Tallangatta is the new Vesuvius and although I have no proof of this,
I think I know what tactic Mum would rather...

She’ll make a list, she’ll make a list, she’ll grab a scrap of paper get a biro in her fist,
When the final trump shall sound, loud enough to shake the ground,
Carmyl will be there making a list!
 
When a freak Hume weir tsunami wipes out half the Bandiana army,
As the tidal waves come surging from the west,
While the folks will all aspire to find some ground that’s higher,
Carmyl will go to the bench and do what she does best

She’ll make a list, she’ll make a list, she’ll grab a scrap of paper get a biro in her fist,
When the final trump shall sound, loud enough to shake the ground,
Carmyl will be there making a list!

Reprise..  (‘One more time…’)
​
She’ll make a list, she’ll make a list, she’ll grab a scrap of paper get a biro in her fist,
When the final trump shall sound, loud enough to shake the ground,
Carmyl will be there, (…will be there… ) making a list!...
Carmyl will be there … making (… making ..a) …a ….list!

Courtesy of Carmyl and the Winkler Brothers!

Postscript - "She’ll make a list” was sung by brothers Michael, Stephen and Tim Winkler, at a celebration for Carmyl’s birthday some years ago.  Lyrics, Michael Winkler.  Music –verses fit Gilbert and Sullivan’s ’I am the very model of a very modern Major General’ while the refrain is reminiscent of toe tapping Dixieland Jazz. (Cassette recording was played to accompany Carmyl’s story ‘Right Here, Right Now’, at U3A in October 2023)   

​I’d left work in February 1961 and we’d moved our belongings to obliging in-laws. They graciously took us in for a few weeks. But that’s not the way things work in Indonesia.

We were on our way to work as volunteer graduates to replace Dutch public servants until Indonesians graduated and took over. The scheme had been running for about eleven years. Our proposed place of work changed several times in the next three months but eventually we were off to Aceh in the far north of Sumatra.

We boarded a Norwegian passenger-cargo ship in Melbourne on 26th. May. First stop Sydney for a couple of days, then Brisbane, a one day stop in Makassar, then a night or two in Surabaya, finally hitting Jakarta on June 17. During this time flour and Holden cars were being loaded and unloaded at various stops. The passenger list numbered four, us and two men headed for Malaya. The captain’s Australian wife was making the trip so it was good to have another female on board.

Other volunteer graduates awaited us in Jakarta. Our Indonesian language was extremely basic but the morning after we arrived, we eagerly took a bus into the city centre to find the office that was to organise our travel to Aceh. We found the office but our man wasn’t in. Days went by. We did eventually find our man who told us his department didn’t have the money so try another office. We got to know Jakarta buses and markets quite well. After a month we managed to get plane tickets and we were off to Medan – not quite Aceh but a good start.

After the very basic hostel in Jakarta, the accommodation in Medan was a step in the right direction. We met a few Australians and found that a university lecturer from Aceh (who turned out to be our future neighbour) was also trying to get home so we handed our responsibilities to him. We had several days of ‘Plane’, ‘Bus’, ‘Maybe plane’, ‘No, only bus available’ and after a happy eleven days in Medan, we boarded the bus for a three day trip.

​The bus seats went right across the width of the bus so the way to get on was frequently to climb through the window at your row. I’m trying to remember whether we actually did this but I think the answer is Yes. Much of the road was in very poor condition and there was the odd bridge missing.

​Almost there but not quite, as the new university, along with the lecturers’ houses, was being built in the middle of rice fields several km. out of the capital.

Before long, a car arrived to take us to Darussalam and our new home at last. Well, no. Some army personnel had occupied the new house while it was empty and there were a number of repairs that had to be made. We were to live in the Mess next door until the house was ready. We actually moved in on August 21, just on three months after sailing out of Melbourne.

Carmyl Winkler

I’ve never been presented with a gold watch to celebrate fifty years in the same job. In fact, I seem to have flitted hither and yon depending on where I’m living, how old my children are or what’s on offer.  My husband, Don, had retired from secondary teaching when he was asked to teach some Indonesian at the local primary school. It was a new initiative and he agreed to take it on if I would teach the younger classes.

At 56, this was a new experience for me, another for which I had no formal qualifications, so my class always included the class teacher. It turned out to be something I really loved.
No syllabus, few teaching materials – where to start? With singing of course. What better way to learn a new language?  On the first day of Preps. we sang a song with just five new words:

Good morning teacher,
Good morning all,
Good morning. Freedom! (or Independence!)

A somewhat quaint word to finish with but one still very dear to Indonesian  hearts.

There wasn’t any suitable source for songs so, just after a year, we made a tape of fourteen songs with singers from Grades1 to 3 and the help of visiting keyboarder, university student Stephen Winkler. A huge success all round. Hundreds of tapes were sold before we turned it into a CD.

A book was needed to suggest learning ideas, a number using songs from that tape. That sold out. Later a book of folk stories and related activities.

Easy conversation, numbers, colours, always games, while learning about  17,000 islands, 240 million people, weather, food, animals, clothing, religion, customs. Of course, this was spread over several years with new words accompanying each topic.

​At the end of each term we had a classroom concert with an invitation in Indonesian, songs, students showing their language skills and always finishing with a play based on an Indonesian folk story. Parents loved it as did the performers.

​
Meanwhile a number of other schools, mostly country, asked if Don and I could do a program - maybe six weeks – at their school. The last day of the program always consisted of having an Indonesian cooking day and finishing off with a concert.

Because the teaching materials produced became well known, I was invited to run some professional development days for teachers. Some were held in Tallangatta but others in a number of places including Benalla, Ballarat, Mildura and Canberra.

Keith Fletcher was the Language Coordinator for the Benalla region and ran an Indonesian video competition. That was our next challenge. There weren’t many schools competing but we won a number of times. The last video we made embraced the whole town with students visiting shops and other places saying Good Morning in Indonesian. That was great.

​In amongst these programs we had the youth centre open - pool table, lounge chairs, cans of Coke for sale, lots of noise, the occasional swearing, straight after school and all through the holidays.

Then there were young people wanting to find work, others wanting to go to university who sometimes only lasted a semester, with the pressure of looking after themselves, often involving shopping, laundry, cooking, as well as the study. It’s not easy for young people from the country.

My challenges were many. The Youth Centre bought a mini-bus to take young people on outings and group meetings. Yes, I was the driver.

We organised holiday activities of canoeing and other outdoor activities, including abseiling from the Wangaratta water tower. Canoeing was a family pastime- no worries, but the thought of abseiling was a nightmare. Sure, I didn’t need to do it. But I somehow managed.

​One of my youth left to go on his own path and ended up in Pentridge. A visit there was a new experience.

After six years, I decided that I’d like to help put the fence at the top of the cliff rather than the ambulance at the bottom and went off to do a Tafe Parenting course, which resulted in working with over 300 parents in various groups over the next few years, including one I’d had preparation for – in the Beechworth Gaol!

Carmyl Winkler 
​July 2023

​Our daughter, Bronwyn, was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 34 when her youngest child was 16 months old. It was a week before my sixtieth birthday and we had organised a party of family and friends. That was the first thing that changed - but only by a fortnight. That was the way Bron dealt with cancer – go to Melbourne for an operation and then get on with life.

She always insisted that she was not sick, she just had cancer. And whenever she read an obituary talking of people battling cancer, she made it very clear that that terminology was not to be used for her.

She lived in Yarrawonga. We lived an hour and a half away in Tallangatta and got to know that road very well. There were three lively children and we cared for them on many occasions.

Bron lived with that cancer for nine years and lived every day as if her last. There were a number of operations, chemotherapy and radiotherapy courses but they were just distractions. Her real life was in between.

A spare piece of council land became Mary Court Park with playground equipment provided. A kinder for children with special needs was started with Bronwyn as the qualified teacher. Bron loved singing and travelled with friends to be part of a singing group in Wodonga.  I was also part of that group and loved sitting next to Bron.

The family went on a trip to Europe and this coincided with Bronwyn’s 40th. birthday so on her return, she organised a forty and a half party
.
Soon after the Taylors had moved to Yarrawonga, Bob Jane moved to build a casino on a weedy island close by. The protest group which overturned the plan  then worked to turn Chinaman’s Island into a delightful walking track. Over 1,000 trees and shrubs were planted, Rotary built a shelter, nesting boxes were constructed in a pond next door to this and it became a tourist attraction.

Bronwyn’s family moved to Albury for the last few months of her life. Her final day in Yarrawonga was spent in watering the new shrubs near the shelter. If you go there today you will find the Taylor Walking Track and a plaque beside the pond with the title

And underneath the dedication of the pond to Bron’s memory is a quote from Anne Frank:
‘How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.’

But what has all this got to do with me changing my mind?

Needless to say, not a day went past that I didn’t ask God to make Bronwyn well.  But one evening when I was in tears, God spoke to me. “Carmyl, you’re praying the wrong prayer – you know she won’t get better so why do you keep on asking?” Straight after that two verses from the Bible came into my mind. I knew them from a song.

‘I thank my God each time I think of you and when I pray for you, I pray with joy.’

It was actually Paul writing to his friends in Philippi, but now it was for me. From that day on my prayer was one of thanks and joy, not fear and hopelessness. I wrote the verses out for Bron and she put them up in the kitchen and from then on whenever I thought of Bron, it wasn’t with foreboding, it was with joy.

​Only this morning, I was spreading grapefruit marmalade on my toast and remembering Dad doing exactly the same. I didn’t ever eat marmalade then – I was a Vegemite girl. But the memory was less about eating the marmalade than making it. I have never bought a jar of marmalade in my life and the number of jars of jam I’ve bought is probably fewer than the number of my fingers.

Money wasn’t plentiful at our home and my mother was an expert at making it stretch a long way. We always had a vegetable garden and usually half a dozen chooks. Every year Mother preserved beans by putting the cut-up beans in a big pottery jar in between layers of salt. She rubbed eggs with a substance called Keepeg – it was supposed to seal the shell so you could use the eggs when the chooks stopped laying. It more or less worked – the eggs were OK to use in cooking except for the odd one that definitely didn’t seal and you could smell that a mile off as soon as you cracked it open.

​We saved the fat from the roasts and this was put in a container with some water, brought to the boil and then cooled. The clarified dripping had risen to the top and was taken off and stored until there was enough to make soap.

Then there was the jam making – apricot and plum mainly, then marmalade in the winter. Fruit and tomatoes were preserved in Fowler’s jars. Mother also made plum sauce.
Saturday’s main meal was a roast, Sunday’s lunch was cold meat and salad, Monday the rest of the roast minced up to make Shepherd’s Pie. Sunday night was always soup.
Baking was up to we three girls and we could make what we liked as we were the main one’s who ate it.

When I got married, I assumed my mother’s methods were what everyone did. I was working five days a week so Saturday had to stretch to the week’s washing, the weekly shopping as well as the Saturday roast. We tried this once. Then we discovered you could buy four slices of salad meat for ten pence at the local deli. That was the end of the roast dinner. Life got even easier when Don made a regular bike ride to Sydney Road and managed to bring home the week’s shopping in between his university lectures.

Bet and Jess were actually friends of my mother. We lived in Hobart – three little girls and a mountain of steps to the front door.

Jess, who came from Queensland, was visiting her sister when my father met her. Within days she was living with us and helping my mother with the family. Jess studied at night, got a job, but still lived with us until we moved to Launceston. We loved her.

Betty came from Penguin and was a trainee teacher in Grade 1 at Elizabeth Street State School. I was very unsure of myself, so much so that I regularly bit the corners off my collars! The teacher didn’t have time to show me any special attention, but Betty encouraged me and gave me confidence. Meanwhile the Penguin Methodist minister got in touch with my Dad to ask him to look out for Betty. She became best friends with Jess and was at our place more often than not.
​
‘Auntie Elsie’ lived with us in Launceston. Her real name was Elsie Kemp whose father made Kempo soap. I’m not sure why she lived with us except that she was a member of Moral Rearmament as was my mother. One memory of  Elsie was after the family had arrived home from church one Sunday. She said to Mother, “Beth, the Lord has told me I’m to have pineapple for lunch.” My mother’s reply, “Well Else, the Lord has told me that you are to have custard and stewed apple like everyone else”. When a new baby was due, Auntie Elsie said, “I’ll look after Dorothy and Thais but I won’t have Carmyl!” I might say the feeling was quite mutual.

So dear Bet took me up to Penguin for a fortnight with her family, which consisted of her mother, her white-bearded grandfather and Murray, her 16 year-old brother. Murray only had one arm as he’d been run over by a train when young.  I was about six and my only memory was of Murray showing me a mouse trap and telling me to put my finger in it – and of course I did. Murray later became a Baptist minister and his claim to fame was that when the bridge broke in Hobart, his was the car dangling over the edge.

We moved to a small town near Beaconsfield while Dad was in the army. Bet came to visit and needed to see a doctor. Dr. Suerth was an Austrian Jew, who had escaped to Italy, converted to Catholicism and ended up in Beaconsfield. The long and the short of it was that Betty ended up as Mrs. Suerth. They married at the Ulverstone Catholic church, with broad steps up to the front door. Some Penguin Methodists stood on the steps as Bet entered the church calling out, “It’s not too late to change your mind Betty!”

The Suerths later moved to Hobart and Jess and Bet were reunited. Both visited us on occasions. Jess came to our wedding and wrote it up for the Geelong Advertiser. She had the knack of describing the fabrics of the dresses in terms only used by a modelling agency!

We visited them both in Hobart a couple of times. These wonderful women died only recently, both well into their 90s. They were pretty special people.

​Carmyl Winkler
March 29, 2023

I mentioned this title to my son, who wisely commented, “Well it all depends where you set the bar.’

By most people’s bar, my athletic career would be a complete failure – in the seconds for the school hockey team, playing in D Grade in the church tennis team, last by a third of the pool in the year 9 swimming sports.

But I once won a race at the Sunday School picnic. I was about 18 and we were running on the sand at Torquay and somehow I managed to beat Joycie Ford, well-known as the best runner in the race. My athletic husband-to-be couldn’t have been prouder!

But if the bar was low in that field of endeavour, it was right up there in the academic arena – second wasn’t good enough. I did once get PL, pass at a lower standard, in Year 9 Art but any other subject was grist to the mill.

I was fortunate enough to live in the era of Commonwealth Scholarships. They weren’t too hard to get and the associated living allowance was dependant on your family income so I did well in this regard.

However university was in Melbourne and we lived in Geelong so money had to be stretched to cover living expenses. I enrolled at University Women’s College and sat for a College Scholarship and was successful. With both scholarships I had just enough to live on. Students working at paid jobs during the term was not even considered in that era as learning was a full time task, especially for science students who had 3 hours of practical work each week for each subject as well as lectures.

First year science – and a pretty raw recruit. Notes were taken during lectures and, in Physics, a weekly problem sheet was handed out. The first one was headed with a Bible quotation:

‘But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves’

I diligently did the problems but didn’t think to further check over or rewrite each lecture.

A Science degree required two terms learning Science French or Science German. I decided to do this in my first year and, while no oral work was required but simply the ability to translate  scientific articles from these languages into English, my love of languages inveigled me into spending too much  time on this subject.

By exam time I had a large amount of material to revise and ,yes, my results were an utter disappointment – one third class honour and three passes. I lost my college scholarship and felt utterly miserable.

I spent the three month Christmas holidays as a pseudo-nurse at the Geelong Hospital. I saved every penny and made it financially to the end of my second year when my results were good enough to have my scholarship restored. By the end of my third year I was offered a position as Physics tutor at the college.
​
Sometimes we have to fail first time round to learn about what life asks of us.

We had Nasi Goreng for dinner and then added an extra blanket or two to her bed.

The next day we were off to our Op. Shop to purchase several warm jumpers. That night we taught Cut to play Rummy which she really enjoyed – no obligation to continually get her English right and a chance to show her competitive spirit. It wasn’t the last game of Rummy that we had.

It was the second last day of the school holidays so we visited a couple of friends with daughters who would be in Cut’s class to introduce her and ask them to keep a lookout for her. School returned and I walked over with Cut and we found her classroom. The school had been very flexible and were happy to have her when she wasn’t elsewhere. She came home excited and reported that she’d had lunch with Bethany.

Don and I were teaching weekly Indonesian classes at a couple of primary schools and we took Cut along once or twice, much to the joy of the students. I was also teaching at the army barracks and enjoyed taking her there on one occasion.

We visited the Guides who met over the road, the Indonesian who taught language at the high school and other families who were keen to make friends. We visited the bush and Ettamogah Sanctuary with emus and kangaroos. We went to the snow at Falls Creek and made a snowman and threw snowballs. 

“This is Sharon Wilson speaking. We’re about an hour away from Benalla. Would you be home if we called?”

Sharon Wilson! That won’t be her name now. Michael had been part of a Writers’ Festival in Mildura recently and Sharon had come along, so that was how she knew my phone number.

Sharon was 1 ½ years old when we left Merbein. She’s now 54. I know that because she was born two days before our son, Stephen.

Don had made the trip up from Horsham in December to check out the school and accommodation. The real estate firm had nothing and the trip up was effectively sandy desert and Mallee scrub. What were we thinking of when we put it at the top of our list?

The footie coach was putting the finishing touches to a house near the school and was willing to rent it. We moved in with 3 year-old Bronwyn, on January 17th 1966. Then we found the house next door had just come up for sale. We had no money. The price was £1800. We borrowed  £800 from the bank and a long-term loan of £1000 from Don’s dad and moved in on 26th. February. Kevin obligingly found someone else to rent his house and we packed up everything we’d unpacked a month previously and passed it over the fence or along the back lane.

This house was a ‘miner’s cottage’. Two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen on the back, a bath with a wood heater and a toilet with a can, way down the back. Every afternoon after school, often in 104° heat, saw Don valiantly digging a large hole to house a septic tank and, unbelievably, in less than 3 weeks we had a new septic tank and the back porch covered in with a new toilet coming off it. How about that for tradesmen!

Six weeks after we moved in, our first son, Michael, was born. Incidentally, our second and third sons were also born in our four years at Merbein with Tim just three weeks old when we moved.

The school went up to year 11 with Year 12 students going into Mildura. The parents were basically ‘blockies’ or growers of citrus. Seconds oranges were sold at the packing sheds for $1/bucket. (Yes, decimal currency had come in in the midst of our house negotiations.)

Our best friends were the Wilsons. They were ‘blockies’ and we learned much about dried fruit growing from them. You picked the grapes into a ‘dip tin’, like a large rectangular colander. The sultana and currant grapes were tipped out onto the drying racks- four or five long layers of wire netting with a roof over the top. The raisins had to be dipped into a syrup before they went on the rack. After the required drying time – maybe two or three weeks – the racks had a mat spread out below the bottom layer and the rack was shaken by a machine. The dried fruit dropped through onto the mat and was ready to send off to be packaged.

Wilsons had three daughters and a son who were wonderful friends to our children. Then Dot and I found out we were both pregnant with babies due at the same time. Sharon was born on the 17th. March 1968 and Stephen on the 19th. They were baptised on the same day and shared their first birthday celebrations.

So many more memories – Don’s dad putting on an extra little room on the side of the house, almost daily swims in the river during the summer, going over the road to the principal’s house to watch the moon landing because we didn’t have a TV.

Don looked back on his years at Merbein as the happiest in his teaching career.
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And yes, we did catch up briefly with the Wilsons a few times in the years just after we left if they were coming east for holidays but, basically, it was 52 years since I’d had the pleasure of again sharing lunch with Sharon neeʹ Wilson.


Carmyl Winkler

I sat on my favourite chair churning through Geraldine Brooks’ new book, ‘Horse’.
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I’d fixed up the emails, made the soup and seized the book. There were still a number of things on my Wednesday list but I should be able to fit in a couple of chapters before lunch called.

Tempted to start just one more chapter, I said out loud, ‘That’s enough Carmyl. Do something!’ and suddenly I knew what my memoir topic would be.

When I was at primary school, I didn’t have a deadline to get out of bed. But I did have an inverted deadline. No reading before 7 o’clock. We had no clock in our bedroom so I’d call out, ‘Is it 7 o’clock yet?’ My mother would reply from the next bedroom, ‘Not yet’. Eventually the magic hour would come and out came the latest library book. I always seemed to get to school on time so I guess I did fly around after I’d whipped through a few chapters, but there’s a very special place in my memory for, ‘Is it 7 o’clock yet?’

When I was about eight, my mother produced a book which she suggested I read. I couldn’t remember any other book that had been thrust upon me but I was quite open to anything with a cover and pages to turn. Its name was The Cradle Ship and I found out some time later that it was supposed to cover any sex education needs. It started with plants and moved on to insects and animals with a small closing chapter on humans and I found it quite uninteresting and certainly didn’t get any message it was intended to convey.
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On to High School. I can hardly believe it as I was always a very obedient student except on the odd occasion I took it upon myself to correct the teacher, but one day, in year 8, I was reading a book under the desk when the teacher came along and confiscated it. It was all the more embarrassing as its title was ‘Always Love’. The fact that it was a Sunday School prize and far from a hot romance didn’t seem quite appropriate to explain at the time.

I delayed joining the CAE book group at Tallangatta because of the yearly fee at a time of our lives when money wasn’t plentiful, but after a year I decided it was a priority. I realised that the group forced me into reading books I wouldn’t normally choose.

My favourite authors include Barbara Kingsolver, Tracey Chevalier and especially Geraldine Brooks. A few of these books are non-fiction but many of the others are historical fiction, based on real events or people and discovering which parts are true is a bonus.

The brilliant Benalla library and its ability to order virtually any book you ask for has sufficed my appetite for now and I have resisted rejoining a book group.

I am so grateful for books and the learning, the comfort and the joy they have brought to my life.


Carmyl Winkler
October 2022