Can My Pony Come Too?

by Rosemary Esmonde Peterswald

  Koki Market, Port Moresby, where we bought our fruit and veggies during the mid-sixties.

  At our house at Boroko 1967. TR 4 before accident when we had it painted red – a particularly stupid colour for the tropics

  Rob with Bob Katter, Minister for Defence (father of present QLD politician Bob Katter), reviewing a 2nd Pacific Islands Regiment parade at Moem Barracks, Wewak.

  Rob in Vietnam, 1969. This photo frightened a few of our girls’ suitors away many years later.

  Outside our married quarter at Moem Barracks, Wewak, 1972, where Rob served with the Second Pacific Islands Regiment.

  Charlotte and Georgie at old District Commissioner’s house where we lived on the hill in Vanimo in the Sepik during Rob’s time with the army there in 1972.

  Charlotte with Georgie, learning to walk in front of officers’ mess, Vanimo in 1972. Rob’s 2PIR soldiers would often provide us with fish and lobsters from the sea.

  Charlotte with friends at Moem Barracks, Wewak 1972.

  Rob and soldiers from 2PIR on top of the Hindenburg Wall in Papua New Guinea. He was often away on patrol for six weeks at a time.

  With new friends on Muschu Island where our friends, Eric and Eileen Tang, gifted this thatched hut for the local villagers to use as a kindergarden. We spent time on Muschu in the early 70s and also more recently when this photo was taken.

  Watching a tribal dance in Wewak. The PIR soldiers often put on such displays.

  Our Drominagh at Wallaroo outside Canberra – a bit different to the Irish one. We lived in a caravan while building the house in 1977. We bred Angora Goats and grew almond and walnut trees commercially. We loved to have sundowners on the verandah looking across to the Brindabellas.

  My father was pleased when we called our Aussie Drominagh after his family home. Dam behind VW one of three Rob built with a bulldozer. We also erected all the fencing ourselves on weekends. This photo before we planted the almond and walnuts in early 1978.

  Not sure how I didn’t set the hay bales on fire.

  Georgie, a reluctant chef. Hay bales were a wind break for a party

  In front of Johnstown Castle in County Wexford built by the Esmondes in the 15th century. It remained in the family until confiscated by Oliver Cromwell in his bloody rampage of Ireland. It now belongs to the Irish nation.

  My mother reclining in the garden at Cloneen, a 300-year-old cottage in Glendalough Co Wicklow where my parents lived after returning to Ireland in 1971.

  Charlotte in front of Huntington Castle in County Carlow built by the Esmondes in 1240. It was the setting for the movie, Barry Lyndon. The ghost of Grace O’Malley, well-known in Irish folklore, appears regularly and WB Yeats and Mick Jagger have been guests.

  OUR YACHTS

  Prauwin at Myall Lakes 1976 where we spent a wonderful month over Christmas.

  Charlotte Rose at Fortescue Bay on the Tasman Peninsula with Sue and Don Clark’s, Cascades, which Don built himself.

  Reveille in The Whitsundays where we also sailed on Oceania from Tasmania, compiling our second photographic book, Beyond the Shore.

  Tasman Isle in Norfolk Bay, which our apple orchard at Koonya overlooked.

  Oceania in Port Davey in the South West Wilderness of Tasmania where we spent a month in 2001 taking photos for our first book, From the Sea, on Tasmania.

  Sea Dreams at anchor in Turkey, 2014. One of our favourite cruising spots. We are presently compiling our third photographic book on the Mediterranean

  Windermere orchard at Koonya.

  The cottage we built for Rob’s father at Windermere.

  With my horse, Devil, outside our apple sheds. Apple pomace in bins was used to feed my pigs.

  With girls and my mother at Port Arthur in 1985 on one of my parents’ visits from Ireland. I used to deliver our apple juice there to the Broad Arrow Cafe and around the Tasman Peninsula with a trailer on the back of our Mini Moke.

  We started The Port Arthur Cider Company at Koonya in the early 80s. We also made fresh apple juice, processing more Tasmanian apples than Cascades or Clements and Marshall and outselling orange juice in the major supermarkets. I wrote columns for the Mercury newspaper. Suggest you try 2 onions instead of 9 in recipe!

  With Charlotte and Georgie at the launch of our second photographic coffee table book, Beyond the Shore, showcasing the sailing waters, seafood and wine on the east coast of Australia. We are presently compiling our fifth book on Australia and the Mediterranean – a new career after selling our real estate business, Peterswalds, and close to thirty years in the industry for me.

  Hampton (circa 1890), in Bellerive, which we renovated in 1986.

  Vernon in Battery Point (circa 1878) after we painted the outside and restored the heritage listed garden. We sold when Rob had health problems.

  With Dibs at Clark’s, Cascades, Koonya. Cascades was the outstation for Port Arthur in penal times. Sue and Don won a national heritage award for their renovation of the convict buildings.

  Our apartment in Brooke Street overlooking Hobart docks where we lived for 17 years.

  View from our apartment in Canberra (where we spend part of the year) to War Memorial and RMC where Rob was a cadet with Eugene when we met.

  With Eleanor and Joseph at Nidos in Turkey, Sea Dreams in background. We love showing our grandchildren the history of the Mediterranean.

  Rob with Charlotte, Hubie, Ru, Ferdi and Stephen at their home on Lake Annecy in the French Alps where we spend time each year.

  Rob with Hubie, Ru and Ferdi on Sea Dreams in Porto Koufo in Greece.

  I have always wanted to go hot air ballooning. I finally did so above the fairy chimneys and bronze-age dwellings carved into cone-shaped rock formations in Cappadocia in central Turkey.

  Georgie, Simon, Eleanor and Joseph exploring in Southern Turkey whilst sailing with us on Sea Dreams.

  Ashore with Rob in Sardinia. After 50 years together we hope to have many more years of sailing ahead of us.

  Chapter 23

  Waiting for the Returning Soldier

  After dropping Rob’s mother off at Wollstonecraft, I returned to the house at Illawong to start packing up – for I was to spend the time Rob was away in Vietnam, with my parents in Canberra. My mother had come up to help me pack and look after Charlotte on the trip south. Later that afternoon we were confronted by a black snake slithering under the pine dresser in the kitchen. My mother, being the good Australian bush wife after her experiences in Reidsdale, tried to entice it out with a saucer of milk (she’d read this in a book). I stood nearby to knock it on the head with a spade. Needless to say the snake remained firmly where it was. Eventually a kindly neighbour came, and after discovering it was only a carpet snake and unlikely to inflict harm, removed it in a brown Hessian bag, releasing the poor creature in the bush. How long it had been living in the house watching us I’ll never know. ‘Days probably,’ the neighbour said.

  That night in bed I started to read Death of a President. I wondered how on earth Jackie Kennedy had got through it all and this made me think my predicament wasn’t all that bad.

  As I’m editing this memoir, Rob and I are at anchor on Sea Dreams in an enchanting bay in front of the Island of Skorpios in Greece where Jackie married Aristotle Onassis. What a magical haven it must have been back then. Although still stunning, much of the privacy they would have enjoyed has long since gone. Now yachts anchor nearby, giving a bird’s eye view of the white sandy beaches and Jackie’s small blue and white Cyclades bungalow on the shore where she was once photographed swimming naked. Yet the romance of this place still remains, with the melodious sound of goat bells ringing within the olive groves and just a glimpse of ‘the Pink House’ through the cypress trees.

  I was still reading Death of a President when the pale dawn shone through the window-panes at Illawong and Charlotte started crying for her morning feed. Sitting in the living room with Gunga Din lolling by my feet, and Charlotte happily sucking away, I felt an ache of such loneliness that
I’d never felt before or have felt since.

  After a while my mother quietly came in to hand me a cup of tea.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ she said, consolingly, putting an arm around my shoulders. ‘The time will fly.’

  I hoped desperately that she was right.

  The bushfires of 1968/69 were rife at this time, ravaging thousands of acres of New South Wales farming land, not to mention the National Parks. My mother and I spent much of that week carrying out instructions from my father in Ijong Street and the local fire brigade to keep hoses on the roof to soak the leaves in the gutter and douse any sparks or ashes. Fortunately the fire only got as far as singeing the huge gumtrees on the border of our garden before it was brought under control.

  A removal truck arrived to put Rob’s and my belongings into storage and my mother and I headed to Canberra, where I spent a happy, yet worried year at Ijong Street. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before both my parents fell totally and hopelessly in love with Charlotte, who miraculously ceased her screaming and turned into the epitome of a well-behaved baby, until she realised she had both my parents wrapped around her little finger.

  In fact my mother was so distraught when Rob came home from Vietnam and we left to go to our next posting that I offered to leave Charlotte with her. ‘I can always have another,’ I said jokingly.

  The garden in Ijong Street had matured in the fourteen years since my father had planted it in 1955, the rosemary hedge, pencil pines, and many shrubs providing a rich oasis within a suburb of fairly ordinary homes. The grapevine, covering the back patio, was a haven to sit under and enjoy endless long meals, while the garden became one huge playpen for Charlotte.

  After a few weeks I managed to get a job at the local bowling alley at night, so that my mother, who worked at David Jones during the day, could look after Charlotte when I was at work. Three mornings a week I found a job massaging women’s faces with a new machine just launched on the market. I also featured on the TV in their advertisements. Yet it wasn’t long before I realised this wasn’t the profession for me, particularly as I had to haul Charlotte around with me. I then found a temporary job as a secretary at the university, where Charlotte was able to go to the uni crèche for the hours I worked. Juggling a job and a new baby at a time when child-care centres were few and far between proved difficult, so I just had to take what jobs my mother could fit in around.

  Canberra, at this time, was different to the Canberra I left behind when I went to New Guinea. Even though Lake Burley Griffin had been there since 1963, the surrounds were more established and it now formed a major part of most people’s lives. We suddenly had picnic spots by the water with shady nooks; sailing boats dotting the lake around the new yacht club; islands to sail out to and barbeque on; new bridges to drive over; endless water views from Black Mountain; and walking tracks and bike trails. Where Mrs Lew used to keep her horses at Acton was now totally under water.

  All in all, the lake added a novel and beautiful dimension to the Capital. When I wasn’t working, I spent many an hour sitting under a huge weeping willow tree on the shore with Charlotte and Gunga Din, reading books or writing letters to Rob. Each day I waited by the mail-box for a letter or a tape in return. Charlotte got to know the sound of a man on a tape recorder, but wasn’t sure who he was, even though I told her constantly it was the man in the photo – her father. Our letters and tapes were neither maudlin nor sad. They were full of love and hope for the future when this awful war would end and Rob could come home.

  I became great friends with a girl whose husband was killed in action. A number of us gathered on the steps of the chapel at Duntroon to farewell his coffin, draped in the Australian flag with his cap and sword on top. It was a sad day on which we were devastated for her, yet were selfishly glad for ourselves that it wasn’t one of our own loved ones who’d tragically fallen.

  Once again I scrounged for wood with my father at Collector, now with Charlotte in tow. We went for drives in the country and visited the Cotter dam where Charlotte paddled in the same spot I’d swum in years before. We visited Gill, Colin and their family at the Santa Gertrudis stud they managed for a Canberra dentist – up a long and winding dirt road, past the small and decrepit mining village of Captains Flat, and into the dry hills of Beechborough – a remote property where Charlotte, and Gill’s two beautiful children, Andrew and Allison, grew to know each other. With Colin away doing a course on cattle breeding, I took Gill to the Canberra Hospital where she produced another lovely daughter, Mia. In the bed next door was the wife of my old boyfriend, Phillip. When he came in to visit her I hadn’t seen him since I’d told him I was breaking off our romance to go out with Rob. As he’d got pretty upset at that time, I was relieved when he gave me a kiss and said he was glad to see me again.

  Rob spent over 13 months in Vietnam, returning in the middle of his tour for his R&R leave for four days to Sydney. His only criterion was to find a hotel room with a bath. In those days that was harder than it sounded. After much searching, I finally found a reasonable motel on the north shore where we spent the four days he was home, with Charlotte staying with his parents in Wollstonecraft for some of that time. During the day we took her to the Botanical Gardens for long walks or otherwise we sat on the beach at Manly watching the waves tumble onto the shore whilst she played in the sand.

  When Rob left me in my motel room at three in the morning to go back to Vietnam, the radio was playing Leaving on a Jet Plane by Peter Paul and Mary. Every time I hear this song I think of him clutching me in his arms as he gave me a final kiss before heading out the door to another seven months of the unknown.

  Rob doesn’t talk much about Vietnam, except to say: ‘It was a war that had to be fought and I’d no regrets about going.’

  Serving as a company second in command with the 5th Battalion he was mostly stationed at the Australian army base at Nui Dat from where they set out to fight the Viet Cong in the dense jungle.

  It’s not for me to tell his story. I’ll leave it for him to do so if he wishes.

  I’d like to say I gave the morality of the war a lot of thought, but I didn’t. As far as I was concerned, if Rob thought it was worth fighting for, so did I. My main concern was that my husband, the father of my daughter, should get home safely. Looking back now, I can see why it was a war that caused so much controversy and I wonder at Australia’s involvement. Yet I realise that at the time it was probably necessary.

  But how can war be necessary? When Rob and I were anchored on our yacht, Sea Dreams in Split in Croatia we ventured through the mountains to the tragic city of Sarajevo in Bosnia. We stood on the bridge where Crown Prince Ferdinand was assassinated, starting the First World War, one of the most important events in our history. Later, we wandered amidst the market stalls set up in the remains of the Old Town, which was mostly destroyed during the endless siege of the 1990s’ war. Seeing the utter destruction and ruination of that city, and so much of Bosnia and Croatia ravaged by snipers and bombs, made me realise how destructive war is. How incredibly cruel people can be to each other. In so many cases it’s religious beliefs that are the cause of friction. Surely, if there is a God, that’s not what He would have in mind: that neighbours should massacre each other, slaughter each other’s children and rape the women because one family is Christian, the other Muslim.

  Vera Toll, whose husband, Colin, was in Vietnam with Rob, spent the year in Canberra, when she wasn’t working, keeping me company and waiting for the big return. Vera, a divine-looking brunette with the greatest sense of humour, kept me going. She was wonderful with Charlotte, who adored her, not to mention my mother, who found Vera’s cheerful company a breath of fresh air, at a time when fresh air was what we needed more than anything else to get us through each day of waiting.

  On the night the boys finally came home from Vietnam, Vera and I dolled ourselves up to the nines to meet them off the plane landing at Mascot Airport in Sydney round midnight. Out at the airport, we put a dent in th
e mudguard of my car as we nervously parked in the jammed car park.

  Colin arrived staggering off the plane first and told me with misplaced humour and slightly slurred words: ‘So sorry, Ro. The bastard was late and missed the plane in Saigon. I tried to stop it, but couldn’t. Reckon he’ll have to wait for the next one.’

  As you can imagine this freaked me out somewhat and I collapsed into tears, only to look up a few minutes later to see Rob rolling off the back of the plane. It took me quite a while to forgive Colin.

  Rob assures me that waiting in line to get off the plane he knew nothing of this. But he had in fact nearly missed the connection in Saigon, due to a mechanical problem on the plane from Nui Dat, only leaping on to it at the last minute.