Today was Annie’s funeral.  She was one of ‘the girls’.  I first met Annie at our local gym in the Senior Strength classes and I so admired her neat hairstyle, beautifully groomed fingernails and a kind of self-contained elegance.  Attributes I aspire to achieve but can never quite ‘get it right’.  Most of all I admired her quiet endurance and tenacity.  She never spoke much about it, certainly never complained, but Annie had one of those insidious cancers that kept on attacking another gap after every treatment.

All ‘the girls’ meet after classes for coffee and cake to supplement the calories we may have worked off at the gym.  I liken our coffee mornings to an equivalent of the women at the well in third world countries.  Photos of new great grandchildren are passed around for the mandatory oohs and ahs.  Notable aspects of various health issues are discussed:  a dissemination of who has travelled recently to where, details published in the local paper are examined, opinions on politics, the odd ageing behaviour of husbands, hairdressers—and all the important little things in life are debated.  And, of course, who is doing what in which U3A classes to which most of us belong.

I say, ‘the girls’, because we were once all young and beautiful and held down intelligent jobs and the more valuable roles in life of housewife and mother.  Our ages range from ninety down to about mid-fifty.  We were all at her funeral and, after, had a glass or two of something fortifying, or coffee (both for the emotional calories, naturally).  I felt Annie’s gentle presence in the chair – right there beside me – and with us still.

In the church I had time to reflect on the new community of friends I have formed.  I have been a widow for a long time and recently moved to this town after the horrors of the 2009 bushfires.  Ensconced in a row of fifteen of my new friends, including the gym instructor, and paying tribute to one just passed was an overwhelming feeling.  And a feeling of acceptance.  The support of these people and their genuine friendship freely given, I think, is an unusual thing. 
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And maybe that is something that  only exists in country towns because the small issues have to be addressed by everyone or the co-operative structure of the town’s community would collapse.  Everyone is called on to contribute in some way even if it's a bowl of soup delivered to one who is ill or a bag of lemons for a cold. Well! That was an appropriate thought to have in the church. An epiphany perhaps.
    
Joining the U3A in my town has been the most rewarding experience. They are one of the largest rural groups of this kind and that, naturally, requires much coordination. I stand in awe of that. My group of local friends has expanded through U3A and it’s such a relief to know that there is a smile, empathy, or an intelligent conversation out there. And an organisation that I can contribute to, however humbly, that will recognise me. Brave new world for me. and the relationships within my community. 
 
Walking down the street, which has only been my street for a few years, and having the privilege to say “hello” to more than a few is the warmest feeling for the ‘new lady in town’. Everyone has a need for recognition. My city children admonish me --- “Stay in that town Mum. You have tapped into a rare and beautiful quality in people that now barely exists elsewhere. Grow old gracefully with your new friends.” 
 
In the background I can hear the priest saying something about “Sowing and reaping...”. 
 
Today was Annie’s funeral.  I never knew her well, she was ‘one of the girls’.  And still will be in our memories.  Mine especially.  I have lived in picture-book and awe inspiring places before, but  places do not replace interaction with people.  It doesn't matter where you live as long as that connection with others is there.  That’s what counts and is a true reality.  I learned many things about myself and the world I live on on the day of Annie’s funeral.  I have a renewed strength from her passing. 
 
Judy Perry

Shared with members of the ‘As Time Goes By’ class in May 2021.
Written by Judy some years ago, ‘A Day for Annie’ was submitted to a U3A writing competition, was equal winner and published in a collection of the stories from the competition.  

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Judy Perry
​April 2021

Triggers! Really! Sounds like a horse or a dog. But the last story has triggered many more memories of Glenferrie and Hawthorn in the 1950s. 

Despite our stage three lockdown restrictions with only four reasons to leave home, I’ve snuck out and  illegally driven to Wangaratta to the Park Lane Plant Nursery to buy more Bergenia and what a surprise--- they had red flowering varieties. And I bought a rhubarb crown. Red must be the in colour and that brings me back to the red bricks of the Glenferrie of my early childhood, from about 1952 to 1955.

Of course the district is built of brick. The speckled Hawthorn bricks are famous and are still highly sought after. Melbourne sits on a rich basalt layer and by the 1860s there were fifty brickyards in Melbourne. Bricks slowly replaced the huge quantities of bluestone that were quarried as the bricks were lighter.

The open gutter lined with Bergenias in our back yard then carried the household water waste to the laneway at the rear. Attached to the building was our smelly outhouse and all the laneways were there in part to give access to the night man. And beside that was a huge patch of rhubarb. So I’m planting another memory.

I vaguely remember eating stewed rhubarb or stewed apple or plum. Everything was stewed and bottled then. How I survived I can only wonder. For school lunch there was a pork sausage and sauce sandwich one day of the week. The next day was sauce only. Next day was a banana sandwich and the next day was a sugar sandwich. One day a week I was given threepence to get a lunch order that was written out on a brown paper bag. Mum never knew but I didn’t ever hand it in. I used the threepence to buy a cream bun with a dollop of jam in it. They are still made the same, well they look the same. I think we really got by on the daily dose of Hypol and Saunders Malt to take up any vitamin slack.

Primary School was as terrifying for me as kindergarten was. The Glenferrie Primary School still exists and operates and is still the same red brick. I did like the maypole though.  Before that I went to the Manresa Kindergarten just across the road from the Glenferrie Hotel.  I hated it. I’m told I was a screaming child and I do remember being put in a corner with an easel, paper and paintbrush--to shut me up I suppose. I just could not relate to the other children. Decidedly unsocialised...still a bit that way.

The Manresa Hall was originally The Apollo Theatre, built in a Gothic style in 1923 to provide concerts, film and dances for 900 people. However, being under the auspices of the Catholic Church, women were not to dance the Charleston in the hall. In 1929, the now rebadged Manresa registered with the Charities Board as a free kindergarten for the poor of the parish. I just have to write in the aims and objectives as I was supposedly the target. 

The first was to uplift, train and clothe the poor and neglected children of the area. Second was; through this child to carry the habits of cleanliness and order into neglected homes. Then to provide at least one meal a day. And finally; to give proper occupation and healthy recreation under supervision. This was achieved with drawing, cuttting up paper and pasting with clag (made with flour and water). Then everyone got to play outside and before leaving, to recite the angelus as the church bells rang.

Wow! We weren’t even Catholic. I didn’t last long at kindergarten. What I do remember vividly, from the verandah at the rear of the hall, was watching the trains go past, almost at eye level. They were huge, thundering and noisy and always in a cloud of filthy steam. No wonder I was asthmatic. The dinging of the trams on Glenferrie Rd added to the district noise and on weekends the roar and whistles from the Glenferrie oval. Also the noise at the hotel at half-time drinks. Very noisy place . Of course everyone except my dad barracked for Hawthorn. Dad was a Richmond man. 

About the time I was there in 1950 the Manresa Free Kindergarten became government funded. Then it transferred to the Health Commission and in 1984 became the Manresa Kindergarten Inc. non-denominational and independant. It houses a child-care group today. (320 Burwood Rd. Glenferrie).

Glenferrie was originally named Upper Hawthorn and I think there’s still confusion about that. Especially now we’ve chucked Booroondara (no-one ever heard that name back then) in--- probably to cancel out the confusion. The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church at 345 Burwood Rd, on the corner, was built in 1869, in bluestone of course, before the local quarry opened in 1880. That was followed by the Glenferrie Hotel in 1888. Naturally the football club was next in 1902,  The installation of trams in 1913 and Scotch College shortly after put the district on the map of modernity and progress. Note the order of things, nothing much has changed.

On reflection I literally grew up in an exciting corner of Melbourne and I am thanking the Bergenia plants for triggering those memories. Even the rhubarb beside the outside toilet plays a part. I’m sure one result of this pandemic will be that we are all issued litmus paper to use in our toilets. Easy to see how we are shaped by the past.



Judy Perry
​October 2020

I’m out. It is early September and that used to be Spring.  It is so blue outside and warmish, maybe it is Spring.   So, I’m out in the blue, in the garden, wondering what I should do first. It is a bit of a mess, well it’s always a bit of a mess because that’s me. I rang the handyman and he was busy, and the next one and the next one --- all were busy. Lockdowns must be good for handyman businesses. 
 
I have a newly created shady area along the fence that I want to plant Bergenia in. Bergenia is a very old-fashioned perennial with glossy heart shaped leaves and pink pannicles (pannicles... yes looked it up) of flowers that last forever on the plant and in the vase.   This little plant is one of my earliest memories and, as I can see the last of my memories approaching, for whatever reason, and a bit too rapidly I think, maybe it would be a nice thing to plant in the vacant space in my garden. Echo of the past sort of thing. 
 
About 1953, or maybe 1954, or about the time of the Queen’s Coronation (I remember that because Dad brought home a book about it), our family lived at the rear of a carpentry shop in Glenferrie. It was small, just a few rooms, dark and always smelled of timber and wafts of beer from the three stories of Hotel next door. The narrow yard was brick walled on both sides and we used the rear entry from a cobbled laneway for access. There was no front access. At the bottom of one wall was an open gutter running out to the lane and either side of it was planted with pink flowering Bergenia. It is the only brightly coloured memory I have of that time. 
 
I had just started at Glenferrie Primary school, probably two blocks away, through all the lanes and backyards. My nana taught me the short cuts. The longest shortcut was through what we called the brickyards. All of Glenferrie was built in red brick I’m sure, but they made briquettes there. My mum said I had to put a briquette in my schoolbag every night when I came home. I asked why and Nana said, “Because it is good for your posture young lady”. 
 
One of the highlights of my life then was the weekly outing to the Glenferrie Library. We got dressed up a bit and all of us, Mum, Dad, sometimes Nana, my baby brother in the pram and me trooped out the back into Luton Lane and made our way to the Town Hall on Burwood Road. What a building! To me it looked like a giant castle and it wasn’t red brick!
 
The library was next to the Town Hall. So many bright lights. The children’s books were all on the bottom shelf and it was here my lifelong love of books and the value of reading began. We needed the pram to get all our books home.   Often, on the way home, at the front of the hotel was a very smelly old lady with a bigger pram than ours. She was selling bunches of violets from it.  Sometimes, if it was “payweek”, Dad would buy some for Mum. 
 
Back to my gardening efforts. Up to Mitre 10, buy a few pots of Bergenia and back home to digging in my memories. 
 
I cannot help but notice the spelling of Bergenia on the label is incorrect.  What is the world coming to?  The plant, named after a German botanist and physician Karl von Bergen in 1794, appears to be native to Siberia and similar areas.  That’s a bit like where I feel I’ve been during our various Covid-19 lockdown states! Go Karl!  I figure if Bergenia can bloom in the Siberian winter, it will grow here for me and keep some tiny remnants of colorful memories alive.

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Judy Perry
September 2020