Before I Sleep Read online

  None of my primitive theological musings would have interested the people of Murrays Lane. As far as I could tell, no one visited a church on Sunday, nor did any clergy or mission ladies call on anybody. Yet I suspect that everyone would have told a census collector that they were Anglicans. Priests, politicians and police were never seen in Murrays Lane. Nor were there any ethnic families in our street at that time. Everyone was either Australian or English and little distinction was made between the two. Nobody belonged to any of the friendly societies such as the Oddfellows, the Druids or even the Rechabites — all English-bred organisations which might have provided help with finance and medical expenses. I picked up from overheard conversations that a few people in our street did know some lucky folk in these bodies, but Freemasonry and Rotary were terms I didn’t hear until very much later.

  Medical help came first from home remedies and, if these failed, the district nurse might call. Occasionally there would be a visit to the outpatients department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. And, as a last resort, there was the family doctor. Ours was a Dr Wells, whom my mother held in such high regard that my second name is Wells. His accounts always took time to pay — even with recourse to trading in the sewing machine — but he never complained. I cannot recall a death in my years in Murrays Lane, but there were always illnesses, especially children’s complaints. And often people had stomach disorders.

  Sanitation was not well understood. Although the manure was regularly removed from our street, the Parklands were close by and the grazing cows and horses provided ample food for flies. No one I knew washed their hands before a meal. The flies were a nuisance, but none of the houses was fitted with flyscreens at the windows or doors. Coils of sticky paper were hung up inside and these caught some of the airborne pests. The absence of screens helped on hot nights, when my father would carry our two mattresses into the passage and we would sleep with both front and back doors open to catch the slightest breeze. We had nothing to attract burglars. Disorderly conduct was rare: nobody was drunk; there were no indications or mention of spouse or child abuse. I never heard any bad language. I can’t remember seeing a policeman until I was about eight, and then he was directing traffic at an intersection.

  The butcher did not deliver to Murrays Lane, but every week the rabbit-oh’s small truck brought cleaned but unskinned rabbits which cost threepence each. The licensed marine store collector called for empty bottles and “any old iron”. Each morning the milkman delivered half a pint to the doorstep, and the postman delivered twice daily and on Saturday mornings. But sometimes the postie did not walk down our lane because he had no mail for any of the twelve families. If a letter did arrive, it was usually from a government or corporation department. Few, if any, of us kept weekly or monthly accounts, paying by cash daily for our milk and bread, the money under the front doormat. Everyone knew of this practice. The money was never stolen and the amounts were never queried by the tradesfolk.

  Life in Murrays Lane was quiet. Musical instruments were not heard (radios had not yet arrived) unless the Salvation Army Band from Whitmore Square was playing outside our nearest licensed premises, the Angel Inn, a short distance away in Gouger Street. Sometimes we heard the Boys Brigade’s bugle band marching along West Terrace from its headquarters in Light Square. On windless nights, we could hear the GPO clock in its tower half a mile away chime the quarter hours and we could count the hour strikes. It was especially quiet at night in winter. As soon as the kitchen stove fire had died down, we all went to bed because of the cold.

  My bed was only covered by two ex-army blankets and often my mother would make a hot water bottle for me from the kettle on the stove. The bottle was an empty Woodrofe’s lemonade container with a reusable stopper. If the hot water was poured into it too quickly the glass would shatter. This was disaster. At any time we only had the one bottle as they were returnable for a penny each. We rarely drank Woodrofe’s or Hall’s products because of the cost, and finding a discarded empty was exciting. Even at Sunday school picnics, bottled drinks were a luxury and I can’t recall ever being given one.

  Gouger Street was an interesting place for small boys and it provided almost all the necessities of life. On the next corner to us was the Angel Inn, which was really just a small bar. Then there was Turners abattoirs on the corner of Lowe Street. I can remember small flocks of sheep being driven along Gouger Street to the abattoirs where they were met by a scapegoat. The goat was well trained and would lead the sheep into the abbatoirs where they were all killed — except for the goat who lived to lead the next small flock to their doom. There was also a corner store near us that was run by my future wife’s grandmother and her family. The store sold small boxes of chalk and I would sometimes buy one for a penny. When I was about seven, I was served there by Mavis’s auntie. Further down Gouger Street was a Chinese laundry that starched collars — which all men wore on formal occasions in those days. I remember that the place had a distinct smell, of starch and steam. The Gouger Street markets were not as extensive as they are now and the stallholders were mainly English and Australian. On Friday nights there would be Cheapjack Stalls. These were temporary stands in front of an array of prizes. The stall holder held a bundle of tickets in his hands and for threepence you could select a ticket. If your ticket carried the right number, you won a doll or similar prize.

  On a few occasions in the summer while it was still light, I can remember two of my mother’s sisters playing cards — euchre — with my parents in our kitchen. But we never possessed a full pack; it was always a couple of cards short. I would mislay cards while playing with them after kindergarten on a rainy afternoon. But in those days the main form of entertainment was simply talk, perhaps over a cup of tea. Richer folk than us might have had a piano, in which case the talking would sometimes turn to singing. We had no radio and no morning paper. I would have gone to the cinema about twice a year.

  As twilight came, the gaslighter would arrive on his bicycle and with a long pole light the sole lamp in the street. Luckily this was right opposite our front room and provided enough light for my parents to go to bed. We did have one kerosene lamp and I went to bed with a candle. There was no clock in the house. Walton’s whistle blew at 7.15 each morning and my father made it to work by 7.30. It blew again at 5.00 p.m. to announce knock-off. After midday on Saturdays, we estimated the time. My father eventually inherited his parents’ family clock, and this simplified getting off to kindergarten on time.

  Soon after my birth, my mother had put my name down on the cradle roll of the Lavis Free Kindergarten in the next street, Wright Street. It was run by the West End Baptist Mission. From age four until I turned six, each weekday morning my mother walked me to the kindergarten and then escorted me home in the early afternoon. I enjoyed my time there and maybe it is the reason why I have stayed a Baptist. There were some other kindergartens in the West End but these all charged fees, something my mother could not afford. My preschool years at the kindergarten helped me to learn to read, but there were no books at home to look at, except the rent and the time-payment books. Mrs Hardy occasionally had a women’s magazine, Violet, which her husband had rescued during his train cleaning duties. It was never offered to me to glance at, presumably because it was considered not suitable for young boys’ eyes. I did note that it had advertisements for corsets and underwear! Nobody ever mentioned a public library and I don’t think my parents even visited one during their lifetime. Perhaps because of this lack of access to literature, I somehow developed a strong urge to read — to read anything. No doubt this reading helped with my general education but later, when it came to boys’ weekly periodicals, it became an obsession.

  I sometimes heard through the common wall of our adjoining houses Bill Boushall “rousing” loudly on his children but they never mentioned being hit, nor did I ever see on them any signs of evidence. Such harmony came partially from the fact that neighbours never borrowed money from each other (nobody had a surplus except
perhaps the Hardys) but they — and we — did occasionally ask for the loan of a cup of sugar. We had sugar with our breakfast, which was always bread and hot milk. I have forgotten our midday meal, probably because on weekdays I ate at the Lavis Free Kindergarten. The weekday evening meal, which was placed on the table punctually at 5.30 each day, was stew, or minced meat, or sausages and mash which we ate with slices of bread. But for lunch on Saturdays, without fail, we had the weekend “roast” of a leg of lamb, and because the oven was hot, my mother would always bake a delicious apple sponge. Then we would have the lamb in cold slices for Sunday’s main meal with hot mashed potatoes. Except for weekends, I always left the table still hungry for more food. But there was always the daily spoonful of codliver oil to prevent colds.

  My mother, no doubt because of early childhood responsibilities, was a capable cook and handy with the sewing machine, so that my short pants were always home made. My father, however, was not a handyman and I have followed in his footsteps. It should be said, however, that a large amount of my father’s incapacity stemmed from an absence of tools. For example, each evening he chopped up the next day’s supply of wood for the stove or copper. This was a hard chore; the axe was always blunt — we could not afford a sharpener. And because it cost too much to oil the handle, it quickly splintered. When we had saved enough, father would buy a new handle but without the necessary tools, fitting this into a socket already occupied by the broken handle was not easy.

  After the Boushalls had moved to better accommodation at West Croydon, our family spent Christmas week with them for a number of years. It was a cheap holiday. I enjoyed playing with Fred again, mostly trying to kick an old football around. When we finished we would go inside and Fred would ask his mother for a “piece” for us both. A “piece” was a thick slice of white bread, which his mother would spread with Nestles condensed milk. Our stay overloaded the three-bedroom house but nobody seemed to mind, especially the Whitrods, for this stay gave us an opportunity to have a decent hot bath. The Boushalls’ new house had a chip heater. In Murrays Lane, the residents boiled hot water in the outside copper and carried it by hand bucket to a large tub in the lean-to extension at the back. Other domestic facilities were equally primitive.

  I remember meeting my father’s mother when I was about six. She was living with her youngest daughter, Alice Dixon, and my father and mother visited her. She must have been about seventy and, to my young eyes, a very old lady. She died when I was fifteen years old. My father and mother would take me to visit her on a Sunday afternoon, about three times a year. The Dixons lived at Kilburn which was quite a walk, perhaps 2 miles [3 kilometres], from the Enfield tram terminus. My uncle, Lionel, was a slaughterman at the nearby abattoirs, and in regular employment. He shot quail in the nearby stubble fields and kept a trotter in a stable in his backyard. On our visits, we always had to inspect the mare before we were offered cups of tea. Lionel’s horse never won a race. The drivers of the trotting rigs were notorious for deciding beforehand who would win. They never decided in Lionel’s favour — but he probably never realised how artificial his run of bad luck was. The Dixons did not return our visits.

  My brother Frank was born late in 1923, by then I was eight and in second grade at the nearby Convent School. My mother had decided that the Sturt Street state school was too rough and that I would get a better education at the Catholic school. This cost her sixpence a week. The traditional Catholic-Protestant rivalry was alive on the streets, and on the way to the Convent the Sturt Street kids would chant “Catholic frogs jump like dogs, in and out the water”. There were two other non-Catholic students at the Convent. We were excused from mass and would sit out in the yard reading books. The Sisters were tolerant of our heretic status and never tried to convert us.

  Soon after my brother’s birth, my parents moved out of Murrays Lane. I don’t know why. Perhaps the earlier departure of the Jacksons to a War Service Home at Ovingham, then the Boushalls to a Tram Trust home at West Croydon, and then the Hardys to somewhere I have forgotten, may have influenced them. It was 1923 and it turned out to be a bad year for our family accommodation-wise. We moved first to Wellington Square in North Adelaide, but the house was full of white ants.

  From there we went for a short stay with my grandmother, now living at Torrensville. I remember Clara as a small, wizened old lady who had begun to suffer from dementia in her seventies. She was often difficult to get on with and I think my mother had a hard time trying to prevent Clara’s more determined eccentricities, especially her habit of wandering away from home. But one thing I do remember with fondness is that Clara never forgot how to prepare potted meat in the old Birdsville style. This involved boiling down a shin of beef for some time — days perhaps — and then placing a plate with a rock on top of it on the cooling mass. A basic necessity in her day when meat prepared in this way would last without refrigeration far longer than fresh meat. We had it often in Torrensville and I found it delicious. We then moved to Ovingham to mind the Jacksons’ home while they went back to England for a few months. From there we moved into rooms on the Parade at Norwood, and then finally to 318 Halifax Street in the city. So that year, for short periods, I attended new schools at North Adelaide, Cowandilla and Norwood. I should have moved from the Norwood school to a city school, but my mother thought I had already been moved too much, so I stayed on at Norwood. I was still in Grade 2.

  At Norwood we had a King and Queen money-raising campaign. I was elected King by the class. We were given cards in which little holes were punched for every threepence collected. I didn’t bother to take mine home, we had no spare threepences. The Queen’s mother let me know in clear language that my family had let the class down because my mother had not joined in any of the activities. I had not really known what was expected of us, and had not told my mother. I was eight years of age. It took a long time for me to get over the feeling of inferiority which stemmed from that dressing down.

  For some reason, my mother never gave me a cut lunch. I received sixpence to pay my tram fares to and from Norwood Public School and later Adelaide High School and this left fourpence for lunch. I only travelled one way by tram, which meant that I would have fivepence each day with which to buy boys’ comics. I did this for all of my school days, going without any lunch on most days when I could not persuade another lad to trade a sandwich for one of my comics. After school I walked each afternoon from Norwood to Halifax Street, a distance of four miles. I preferred to walk and have comics to read, rather than to ride — comic-less — on the tram. I have always tended to over-eat, but even the desire for food took second place to books and comics. The comics were all English and full of stories about English boarding schools. Billy Bunter appeared quite regularly. It seems odd now, but in those days I never felt that the culture they depicted was alien or strange. Australia then was an extension of England — we shared a language and a sense of humour. For many of the people I knew when I was growing up, England wasn’t called England, it was simply Home.

  When I was about twelve and selling newspapers at weekends on Hutt Street corners, I found it easy to smuggle out novels from my employer’s lending library. I must have taken half a dozen, mainly Zane Grey’s and Edward S. Ellis’s cowboy yarns. That was not my only shopstealing — I also stole tins of sardines from the Adelaide Co-op.

  When I was nineteen, I went back to both these places and compensated the surprised managers. I explained that I would be expected within a couple of years to arrest people who stole items from shops. I could not do this with a clear conscience unless they accepted my apology. We parted friends.

  My mother persisted with her dream of giving me a good education. This included an ability to play a musical instrument. I went down by tram every Saturday morning to a private tutor in Lockleys for a half-hour session of violin instruction costing one shilling. I did this for five years, though I did little practice. It was difficult to practise without access to a piano. I hated the small violin my
mother had somehow obtained, no doubt at great family sacrifice. As soon as I could, I revolted. I must have greatly disappointed my mother, but she never nagged at me.

  In many ways, the move to Halifax Street was a success. The house was a nicer three rooms, but still with no electricity. We still had no ice-box or even a Coolgardie safe. (I wasn’t to live in a house with an ice box until I was married in 1938.) The Halifax Street house was set back about 12 feet (4 metres) from the footpath and in this space grew a few neglected shrubs. There was a concrete bath in a bathroom outside, but this still had to be filled from the copper so usually I had a bath in a large tub in the kitchen. There was no shower in the bathroom, and only one kerosene lamp. There was a grapevine around the back door which each summer produced bunches of sweet, white grapes, but the vine was covered in mildew and we couldn’t use the grapes. There was a fig tree which struggled to produce some tasty figs each year but which received no encouragement from us. We were also able to keep a few fowls, but rats were a nuisance. My parents must simply have accepted the rats as an inevitable part of city life, for they took no measures to get rid of them. Big Uncle Fred, who lived nearby in a substantial two-sto-reyed stone house and kept a large collection of prize-winning pouter pigeons, made his cages ratproof by cementing the floors, but then his wife owned the premises. Fred was probably a bit of a disappointment to his wife. He was a big man and worked as a train guard. He would often arrive in Glenelg on the last train of the day and then cycle back to the city in the middle of the night. He enjoyed his life but never fulfilled his wife’s expectations of social success.