I was becoming more aware of more shrines on the side of the highways. Flowers, crosses, memorial sites.
I was involved in a serious accident, where a lady was critically injured. I was told she wasn’t expected to live.
Although I found out later that the lady did survive, she was in a really bad way with several broken bones and internal injuries.
I had a couple of weeks off work. I went over and over the accident in my mind. I became more depressed, I met with a Counsellor who suggested I find alternative work and cease driving for a while, if not permanently.
I was driving to most of my clients every two weeks and had been doing this for over two years.
So naturally I met and became friends with a lot of these people, all around Victoria and parts of New South Wales.
I was missing them, they were missing me, and due to the reason why I wasn’t seeing them, only became more depressing.
I tried working from home for myself by mowing lawns and a bit of gardening. Not driving too far. I hated being on the roads. Every other driver was an idiot, they didn’t know how to drive. No wonder there were so many accidents, and the road toll was so high.
Needless to say, my depression got worse, my patience was wearing very thin. And yes, road rage became a problem too. I’m normally very patient and a caring person, but this was going over the top. My wife and family were really struggling trying to cope with me and my moods, my psychologist wasn’t very happy with me either.
Something had to be done, but what?
My wife came home from work one day and she said, “I have to take Long Service leave”.
I asked her how long she had. She had twelve weeks. Due to her working in the education department, she had school holidays at both ends of the twelve weeks.
In total she had seventeen weeks holiday. With me, at home. What would prison be like I thought, how many years would one of us get for murder?
I had been in Australia for thirty years, coming from England. My wife had been here nearly fifty years from Germany. We both had relatives in both countries.
The village where I had come from never changed that much, so I assumed a lot of old school mates and their families were still around. My wife had a sister and her family still living in their same town in Germany.
My wife and I got passports, I got naturalized (my wife was naturalized when she arrived from Germany), we bought plane tickets. We went to Germany for a few weeks, then England and anywhere else that caught our eye.
We had a ball, a great holiday, met old friends and made a few new ones.
We spent thirteen weeks away.
Our future son-in-law had a brother who was a fencer and needed a helper, so I joined him. After about twelve months I set up my own fencing business. I never looked back.
Phil Hughes
July 2024