Once it was built and everyone was comfortably installed, I also decided to give up work so that we could take Reveille further north to the Whitsundays for a few months. Edwards Windsor had kindly said I could come back to work with them anytime I wanted. But in the end I felt it was time for a change and time for Rob and me to do something together. As Charlotte was still working at the Regent in Sydney, Georgie offered to look after Poppy; at the same time she was studying hard at her Economics Degree at the University of Tasmania situated at the bottom of the hill where she could walk.
So after a wonderful send-off for me, where Edwards Windsor hired the Cartella, an old steam ferry, to party on the Derwent with all the staff in fancy dress, I flew up to Sydney to visit Charlotte (where we were wined and dined at the famous Kables restaurant at the Regent, thanks to a prize Charlotte had won for excellent service), and then on to Mooloolaba where Rob was already installed on Reveille, preparing her for the trip north.
I was sad to leave Edwards Windsor and all the friends I’d made there, but was excited about the future. One of the things Rob Windsor gave me in my wonderful ‘send-off gift basket’ was a bottle of bright red hair dye.
‘This,’ he assured me with the huge grin he was renowned for, ‘is the only colour your hair hasn’t been all the time you’ve been with us.’
He’d also compiled a tear-jerking photo album of my six years there, from the first and last auction I’d conducted, to our time at a seminar in Fiji – and the numerous office functions we’d had over the years. By the time the night was finished I hadn’t a skerrick of mascara left on my eyelashes.
For three wonderful months, interspersed with the odd horrendous storm (during one we lost the dinghy), and engine breakdowns we sailed north and around the magical Whitsunday Islands with family and friends coming to stay on board. We adored ship life and despite at times fighting the elements (they never advertise the howling bullets in glossy brochures for the Whitsundays), we wondered why we hadn’t done this before.
Yet we couldn’t stay sailing forever. We had Poppy and Georgie to think of and bills to pay. One evening, sitting on the back deck of Reveille in Butterfly Bay, enjoying a late twilight, we decided to open our own real estate office in Hobart. We would call the firm ‘Peterswalds’. We even more or less designed the logo, chose the colours of burgundy and gold (the Dunhill cigarette packet) and worked out a strategy. We would initially set up our office from home, downstairs in the spare bedroom and use our living room as a boardroom and reception area.
We left Reveille on a mooring at Airlie Beach, where a local yacht broker was to offer her for sale. It didn’t take long until we found a buyer, exchanging her for part payment on a unit on Hastings Street in Noosa in Queensland. A good arrangement, as the unit was let out and we could certainly do with the rent coming in, rather than paying mooring fees at Airlie. Later we sold the unit for a reasonable profit. In hindsight we should have held on to it. At the time we needed the cash flow for the business. Of all the boats we’ve had, Reveille I mourned the least. Although she’d taken us on a long passage, there constantly seemed to be mechanical problems, and of course the cockroaches were still driving me balmy, no matter how much we sprayed and bombed.
Amazingly, I hadn’t worked much on a computer before, apart from the basics. Georgie was a wonderful and patient coach. Before too long I was designing signboards, advertisements and promotional material on the large computer screen in the spare bedroom. At first I found working from home difficult to adjust to. I missed the interaction of other staff. The after-work drinks. The gossip. The fun we used to have going around as a group looking at new listings on what we called ‘Groupie’. I also worried myself sick that we’d be a failure. What if no-one listed with us? Worse still, what if they listed with us and we couldn’t sell their property? Would people laugh that we were trying to do it all from home? Was I being disloyal to Edwards Windsor? In fact with all the worrying I lost a stone in weight, which in itself wasn’t a bad thing, although eventually even I realised I was getting a bit gaunt.
Rob was marvellous, full of confidence and loving being his own boss. It took a while to get going. It was a new concept in real estate to set up an office without being in a prominent position with a window display. This was well before the Internet revolutionised the real estate world. Also, most agents in Hobart belonged to a national group. Here we were setting up a totally independent family business from the spare bedroom in our pole house, much removed from the city.
Somehow it worked. Our signboards were distinctive; our advertisements different. I found customers I’d dealt with before at Edwards Windsor would seek me out and Rob did hours and hours of letter dropping around the suburbs of Mount Nelson and Sandy Bay. He enjoyed dealing with our clients and they, particularly the women, loved dealing with him. It wasn’t long before we had more listings than we knew what to do with and sales contracts would spill out of the fax machine on a regular basis. As I was also the secretary, I would work long hours into the night typing letters and doing endless amounts of paper work. We sold four of the most expensive properties in Sandy Bay in one week, gaining much needed publicity through the Mercury.
To top it all off we were invited to join the Leading Agents of Australia, a tight group of top agents in every state of Australia. We attended our first conference at the Hyatt in Double Bay where I was photographed for the front page of the Business Section in the Australian newspaper, and the gregarious Max Christmas enthralled us for hours with stories of his somewhat chequered career.
With the Leading Agents’ backing and a number of substantial sales now under our belt, I finally started to feel we were on our way.
Sadly, about six months into our new venture, my father became desperately ill in Ireland. Hurriedly I flew to be by his side, but unfortunately needed to return to Tasmania before he died.
When I took the phone call from Eugene to tell me my father had finally gone, I was beyond consolation. I couldn’t believe that he wouldn’t be at the end of the phone-line full of sound advice. Memories flooded my mind. How he carried me around in a bucket at Clonmoylan. Sitting with him as he dug the postholes at Reidsdale. Helping him on the milk run in Canberra. Collecting wood with him. Seeing him leaning over the gate of our Drominagh in Canberra with the girls laughing by his side. Walking stick in hand, tweed cap on his head, on the front steps of his own Drominagh and strolling through the fields by the lake to O’Kennedy’s Castle. Helping us in the orchard at Windermere. His eightieth birthday party where he wrote a poetic speech, apologising for the angst he’d sometimes caused us, although he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol for the last thirty years of his life. I couldn’t imagine a world without him. And I was devastated for my poor mother left behind at Cloneen without her soul mate to go walking up the river road with on long twilight evenings. How would she cope on her own?
Even now I think of him nearly every day. I was devastated not to be there for his funeral; however, finances and business was so that it was just impossible for me to do the long trip to Ireland once again. So sadly I wasn’t there to say a final farewell with my mother and Viv as they buried him in the family plot at Terryglass on the shores of his beloved Lough Derg on the River Shannon, near Drominagh, where Esmondes have been laid to rest for many generations. Instead, I did what I knew he would have wanted me to do: knuckled down and got on with making our new business a success.
At the time not only were we listing houses in the centre of Hobart, suddenly we found ourselves out in the countryside too, selling farms and historic homes in places like the sleepy town of Kempton, an hour’s drive north of Hobart or in the Huon or Derwent Valleys. So, as you can see, we were on the go often seven days a week.
Working together and living together had its moments, particularly as Poppy was there as well. In fact my office was right next door to his bedroom. With him so close we couldn’t really have loud arguments, although there were times when we felt like killing
each other, particularly when one of us had stuffed up on something important. However, on the whole we worked extremely well together and were a good team.
It wasn’t long before we realised that we were growing out of our small office at home. Rob discovered some premises for sale at Magnet Court in Sandy Bay with a shop underneath. This we soon let out to a Dutchman, who started a successful patisserie, The Golden Tulip, the pastries adding inches to my waistline, I’m sure. Initially it was just Rob and me in these vast offices – a bit tricky when we had to go out on appointments. However, before what seemed like the blink of an eyelid, we were employing fifteen staff, including some of the best sales people in the business and were regarded by many as the top agent in Hobart, selling most of the prestigious properties. Charlotte and Georgie came back from teaching English in Japan to work with us and Simon and Rob became a successful commercial team.
Georgie did a sterling job with the accounts and property management, which Rob had handled until then and Charlotte went into sales, where she revamped our logo and advertisements with the help of Georgie, Rob and me. With much foresight she set up one of the first Internet Real Estate pages in Australia. After one presentation she’d given at a Leading Agents of Australia conference one of the prominent Sydney agents told her what a lot of people felt at the time: ‘The Internet will never work for selling houses.’
How wrong he was.
For the next ten years Peterswalds continued to grow. So too did our competitors. Some followed our lead, setting up independent offices. It was a constant battle to stay at the top. But we had good staff and with Charlotte and Georgie there to keep an eye on things it allowed Rob and me to do some travelling. First of all we flew to England, starting off with a week in London, then another week exploring the English countryside and visiting the Imperial War Museum in Yeovil, where there was a detailed display commemorating my Uncle Eugene. Finally we ended up with Viv and Tim at Cilwych, who were enjoying a brief spell of warm weather. Being early summer, the daffodils were out in bloom and the countryside shone in the golden light. We strolled through the tall meadows covered in wild flowers, to where we had a picnic by the river and enjoyed warm late twilights on the front lawn. A few years ago Viv and Tim set up a huge marquee here for a reception, after the beautiful Dom’s wedding to Alex Freeman at the stone church in the nearby estate of Glen Usk. Dom and Alex now have three boys, so once again Cilwych will ring with the mirth of children. Viv and I rode through the heavily wooded hills and I helped her with the stone cottages she had now successfully turned into a thriving tourist venture. And like me, Rob fell in love with this glorious corner of the world where Viv has made her life.
After Cilwych we drove to Scotland to stay at my mother’s family home, Coul House, at Contin, just outside Inverness. It was now a private hotel, but alive with the history of the Mackenzie family, of which my mother was so much a part.
My mother’s father, George Henry Louis, was the son of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the 5th Baronet, to his second wife, Kathleen, daughter of Sir Henry Jardine. The title, bypassed the first part of the family, and it was my uncle, Sir Robert Evelyn Mackenzie, who inherited Coul House, where we were to stay.
Having heard so much about this wonderful piece of Scotland, we were looking forward to seeing it at long last. For two days we lived in splendour in the blue-stone mansion, relishing high tea and cucumber sandwiches on the lawns while watching a game of croquet, walking the extensive grounds and sitting in the wood-panelled library. At night we savoured delicious Scottish cuisine, including Haggis, served to us regally at a cedar table by the window overlooking the tranquil gardens, with a musician playing softly in the corner.
In a way I was pleased it was a hotel, for it had fallen into disrepair, just as so many English and Scottish mansions had done due to lack of funds. Now it was a grand and luxurious abode with many of the original features still in place.
From Scotland we flew to Ireland and my mother waiting at Cloneen. I hadn’t seen her since my father’s death a few years before, but she was faring much better than I’d expected. She was quite chirpy. Imelda was still there looking after her, as she’d faithfully done when my father was alive, coming from her house in the village each day to check she was okay and keeping the place in order.
After a few days at Cloneen we packed the car up and drove to Tipperary, staying at Gertalougha House next door to Drominagh. On my father’s grave beside the stone church in Terryglass, I planted a fuscia, one of his favourite bushes, and hoped desperately that it would grow.
Having dropped my mother back to Cloneen, Rob and I then drove to Westport in the West of Ireland, where we rented a small white washed stone cottage on the shores of Clew Bay. Here Viv came to join us for a few days. Despite the howling winds we had picnics by the shore and later huddled around the peat fire in the kitchen, with Viv and I talking into the wee hours of the morning, well after Rob had retired to bed. On a freezing cold Sunday morning we drove to the isolated Achill Isles, where outcrops of grey speckled rocks sheltered scraggly sheep from the raging winds. Interspersed between bogs and wild heather, windswept cottages perched precariously on stony hills, as they’ve done for centuries gone by. Being the Sabbath, the locals were scurrying to Mass, snuggled into oversized anoraks and Aran pullovers with beanies pulled low over their eyes against the howling wind.
All too soon it was time to say goodbye to my mother at Cloneen. This was the first time I’d had to leave her on her own and come back to Australia. She looked so very small and sad standing there on the doorstep, waving us off with the trusty Imelda by her side. If I could have taken her with us I would have. But as she said: ‘After a few days I’ll get back to my own routine. And then I’ll look forward to your next visit.’
Since then I’ve been back to Ireland over twenty times. And never once has it become any easier to leave her. I know it was my parents’ choice to go back to Ireland; my mother’s choice to stay on after my father died. Even so the guilt and heartbreak of leaving her there on her own is enormous. I am not alone in this. For all migrants, who’ve made Australia their home, there’s always a relative separated from their loved ones. At least in this day and age, travel is so much quicker. In the time before my Uncle Eugene flew the first surcharged mail to Australia, the separation must have been horrendous.
As I’ve said before, a house with children and no dog is not the same, so too for Rob and I was a household without a boat. It wasn’t long before the well-known Tasmanian yacht, Tasman Isle, built in 1952 of Huon Pine and celery top with a mahogany wheelhouse, became ours. Again she needed a great deal of work to bring her up to scratch, including a new deck; however, when the work was finished it was worth all the hours and money spent on her. Down below, the woodwork and brass lamps gleamed warmly in the cabin and on the topsides she sparkled and shone in the sun. For five years we relished owning her, keeping her at a secluded anchorage at the end of a dirt track in a small bay down the D’Entrecastreaux Channel. Most weekends, when work had finished, we’d grab some scallops or crays from the small shop in the seaside village of Snug and take them down to the boat and head out in the channel with schools of dolphins cavorting along beside us. Above the mast, flocks of shearwaters dotted the sky. Other times we’d head across to one of our favourite anchorages on Bruny Island, where I once went camel riding along the beach at Adventure Bay. Alexander’s Bay was another of our favourite spots to anchor, where years later we’d party at Lennonville, an historic homestead with lawns rolling down to the shore (supposedly the oldest weatherboard house in the southern hemisphere),where our friend, Sally Cerny lived amidst a huge cherry farm she and her ex-partner had planted over much of the property.
Often we’d just sit on Tasman Isle, not even weighing anchor. It was bliss just to be away from the hurly burley of work. Other times it would be the glorious bay of Mickey’s we’d sail into, where the same battered old seal would swim up to the stern and wait for us to feed him. Or a
school of dolphins would play for hours, once jumping over Georgie and me huddled in the dinghy, terrified that one would land inside and sink the dinghy and us to the bottom of the ocean. Seeing those glorious creatures jumping and diving is one of the most spectacular sights I’ve ever seen. Another favourite spot was Woodbridge, where our friends Jill and Richard now had a wonderful vineyard overlooking the channel. Or it might have been Partridge Island, where years ago we’d gone with Sue and Don and the children on Cascades and tied up to the old jetty. In years gone by, we spent many days on the Charlotte Rose around the same haunts. And then we did it all again on Oceania, although this time we produced a photographic, coffee table book, From the Sea, to show the world how wonderful the sailing, seafood and wine is in Tasmania.
As time went on I was appointed to the Real Estate Agents Board of Tasmania and the Real Estate Institute Advertising Committee, at a time when a new paper, The Southern Star, was trying to break the monopoly of the Murdoch owned Mercury Guide. It was a traumatic time for all, as a battle raged between the two papers and agents were courted from both sides. Some agents moved to the new paper and some stuck with the old, causing huge friction within the industry. Eventually Murdoch won the battle.
For my 50th birthday we went to Bora Bora Island in Tahiti to escape a freezing cold Tasmanian winter. Much as I loved the white pearly beaches and coconut palms swaying in the warm breeze, I felt its natural beauty was no match to that of the Sepik, although we had a wonderful two weeks of swimming, snorkelling, walking and far too much food and wine.
Over the next three years we undertook two trips to Europe for Rob to research his historical novel on the Peterswald family, The Castle at Peters Forrest. After driving through Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, we discovered the Peterswald Castle in the small town of Piezyce in Poland, still standing despite being pillaged by years of war and communist rule. We even found the original Peterswald graves and crypts. Later, after a week in Prague, we discovered the magnificent Buchlovice Chateau built by the Roman Architect, Martinelli, for the Peterswalds at Buchlovice deep in the heartland of the Czech Republic, where a statue of Eleanora Peterswald stands proudly within the manicured acres of grounds, with peacocks roaming down to a rocky brook, which we picnicked by. This time Georgie and Simon joined us from Dublin where they were working for eighteen months. For hours we roamed the gardens, sat by the ornate fountains and perused the grandiose buildings with one of the best collections of art in eastern Europe.
Can My Pony Come Too? Page 32