And very comfortably off we were, with the profits of Denis’s highly successful business venture salted away in stocks and shares. We rented a small manor house nestling in rural Dorset. Almer Manor stood adjacent to a small church and graveyard and farm. The house was old, parts dating from the 13th century. The many deep mullioned windows looked out the back to a walled garden, to the front to the sweeping gravel driveway and the lawns that surrounded the house. The doors were solid dark stained timber, heavy and creaky like the uneven floors. The rooms smelt of beeswax, flowers and old age. On winter days, the many fireplaces gave birth to roaring log fires that burned cheerfully through the day, warming my often chilly fingers and toes and giving splashes of warmth and cosy colour to the downstairs rooms.
It was Almer Manor, with its ample gardens and equally ample under-eave attics, that became my brothers’ and my happy hunting ground. To this day, the smell of ripe apples takes me back to wet autumn days at Almer Manor. If the weather was judged too inclement, we children would escape from the grown-ups’ domain to the attic and create great cities out of cardboard boxes, paper, scissors and glue. The attic became a secret place where we could retreat to an inner world of our imagination. The sweet smell of harvested apples, laid out for winter use in russet rows in the cool attic, mingled comfortably with the smell of dust and the damp cardboard of our make-believe cities.
Creating make-believe places became very important to the three of us. It was almost as if we needed to have another life, even if it was made out of cardboard boxes and peopled with miniature cardboard characters and metal animals. We invented a special language that only we three spoke. We peopled our world with larger than life characters with outlandish names and sent them on impossible quests, then talked about their adventures in front of the grown-ups using our secret words. It seemed shocking but exciting to have complete control over this make-believe world of ours.
If the weather permitted, and we could escape before being shut indoors for ‘school lessons’, we’d scarper to the wilds at the end of our land and play ‘trains’ in the hedges surrounding the small field attached to the garden. Our steaming breath floated on the icy air as we hollowed out ‘carriages’ amongst the hedgerows. On freezing winter days, we went slipping and sliding on our stout leather shoes, to play ‘Who Dares to Cross?’ on the frozen pond at the bottom of the field.
For three young children not bound by school hours, or routines imposed by family ties or traditional habits, life was a constant adventure. It is here, in this ancient manor house, that I began to have my first clear impressions of the world around me. I noticed, and remembered, places and people and the complexity of relationships. It is also at this time in my childhood that I realised there was a darker, sadder side to my family’s life.
Sometimes on cold winter nights, that old house would appear to cry and groan. As a little girl being sent off to bed, away from the warmth and light of the downstairs living room, the house took on a persona all its own. Cold draughts wandered the many hallways and shadows crouched in the corners of the upstairs rooms. My bedroom smelt of cold stone and mothballs, and the warmth from the heated living rooms stood no chance against its chill. Peeking over my bedclothes, I would watch with horrible fascination the bedroom walls appearing to close in on me, and the menacing dark wood cupboard opposite the bed seemed to tower over me.
The inside walls of my bedroom didn’t quite correspond with the size of the rooms either side of mine — or so my teasing older brothers told me. ‘There must be a hidden space,’ they insisted, wickedly pulling out tape measures or pacing distances from door to wall. ‘A walled up area full of skeletons,’ they whispered conspiratorially in my ear. So, late into the night, I would watch the moving walls, willing them to stay put, while listening to the winter wind roaring in the chimneys and rattling the window panes. It seemed to me that on those nights the house would rattle and shake to its very foundations. And for the first time in my young life the dark became my enemy and fear would haunt my dreams.
In the bright of the day, I would sometimes hear stifled crying in other parts of the house too, human this time. Skipping down the hall I would hear soft crying from my parents’ room, only to be told, ‘Sshh, Mummy’s not well today.’ Or I would find her lying on a settee, eyes red rimmed and dark circled, a cologne-sprinkled handkerchief pressed to her lips.
Since time out of mind, our mother had been ill. I did not know it then, but she was suffering from an illness that would finally rob her of life — tuberculosis. A routine of rest and gentle walks in the garden on Denis’s arm defined her days. And I, the most excitable of the three children, was constantly told to be quiet. ‘Sshh, Mummy’s sleeping’ and ‘Quiet now, don’t make such a noise, Mummy’s resting’ and ‘Now out to play with you all’ were constant refrains.
Slim and willowy even after four children, Norma had a golden complexion and deep brown eyes. Always elegant and well turned out, she wore her blond hair pinned up in curls on top of her head or loose and framing her heart-shaped face. It’s an unusual and attractive combination, brown eyes and golden hair. It wasn’t till some years later that I realised her natural hair colour was mid-brown. She was a quiet woman, never loud, always seeming to prefer silence to conversation. She had what was termed, in those days, a nervous disposition. I always think of her as being very feminine, dainty, prettily dressed and smelling of lavender. I have the impression that looks were very important to her. She liked nice clothes, pretty shoes and jewellery. She liked, I sensed, to be pampered.
Norma never played a major role in my early years. She was always a presence felt somewhere in the distance, just out of reach. My memories of her are tantalisingly few. A glimpse of her full skirt disappearing through the door or the smell of her perfume lingering in a room she had recently left. She was a reserved undemonstrative woman — not one to show her feelings openly.
My brothers tell me she was a warm and loving mother, so why don’t I remember her that way? I have no memory of hugs, bedtime cuddles or goodnight kisses. Was she so incapacitated by her illness by this time that I, the third and last of her living children, missed out on the happier early days?
My mother seemed always absent from the family group. Maybe in another room, or resting in bed. Or, years later, in hospital or the sanatorium in which she spent many months recovering from a major operation. In my mind’s eye, I see my mother most vividly in the garden, cutting flowers, a wicker basket on her arm. Or sitting in the shade of a tree, a book on her lap, a fresh cut flower twisted in her hair. She always loved flowers, and would spend many hours making floral arrangements for the house, choosing each blossom with care to create a happy harmony of colour and design. And now, many years in the future, her daughter must always have fresh cut flowers in the house, so something of her lingers in me.
Norma preferred to play the lesser role in parenting. I never remember her disagreeing with Denis over anything, much less having an opinion on how to raise children. She deferred to him, or so it appeared to me, in all things. He was the disciplinarian. He said what we children could or could not do, should or should not do. He, like many fathers of the time, was definitely the head of the household and ruled in a quiet but unequivocal way.
Norma was to leave us in a few years’ time. She died when I was 10. My relationship with her may not have been a strong one, but her memory sits at peace with me. If only she had lived longer, she may well have confided in me, her only daughter, telling stories of her childhood and giving me another dimension to her past, another history to be seeking. If she had trusted me with her truth, she would not have told of growing up among the rolling hills of an English countryside. Her tales would have been set in sandy deserts among minarets and mosques, in teeming cities and lonely jungles with always the bitter taste of poverty to colour her early years. What a pity those tales were never told, and her past remained well and truly hidden in the web of lies Denis spun around her life.
; It is now, as a seven-year-old, that I began to hear with ever-increasing frequency the phrase ‘Well brought-up young girls don’t behave like that’. Denis’s stern face would show disappointment at my wilful ways. This was a phrase that was to be repeated for many years to come, only changing as the years passed by to ‘Well brought-up ladies…’ Apparently, well brought-up girls didn’t raise their voices, didn’t run everywhere they went and didn’t wave their arms around to make a point. They did not pout or cry if they did not get their way, were quiet in the house, didn’t fidget at the dining table or talk out of turn; in fact they were mild mannered and moderate in all things. Sadly, I was beginning to realise I was failing to become a ‘proper’ well-behaved child and was something of an irritant in the smooth running cogs of our family life.
Our life at Almer Manor was circumscribed by Norma’s health. On the good days, the dancing happy days, the days when Norma was feeling a little stronger, the whole house seemed gayer, lighter, happier. And the corridors did not cry. On these days, Norma’s presence would be felt more strongly. She would be at the breakfast table, rather than breakfasting with a tray in bed. She could be glimpsed in the library writing letters or seen sitting in an armchair close by the fire, head bowed over a dainty piece of sewing. Her voice would be heard overseeing the preparations for lunch or happy and relaxed, arranging the flowers for the day.
On these days, the small sounds of the house rose up like a perfume to spread through the second floor where our bedrooms were and even reached the attic where we so often played. On these days, the house felt secure, comfortable and my little world more safe.
Sometimes, on these good days, my brothers and I would be put into our best clothes, with me protesting all the while that they were new and scratchy, and taken out to visit people in the neighbourhood. Always to grand houses, or so it seemed to me, with old dark furniture that frightened me. I was made to sit, difficult for me at any age, with my hands in my lap, while the adults drank tea out of fine china cups. Small cakes and neatly trimmed sandwiches were handed round as polite murmurings filled the air. Oh, the claustrophobic boredom of it all.
I have a small black and white photograph of my two brothers and me standing, neat as pins, next to our big black Daimler in the drive of Almer Manor. We must have been about to go visiting as we’d been put into our best clothes. Both boys are wearing short pants, blazers and ties with peaked caps, and I am dressed in a smart looking but constraining overcoat, my gloved hands at my sides and the ribbons of my small-brimmed felt hat blowing in the wind.
If the day was mild, we would go driving in the countryside, an outing that I much preferred. For these trips we did not have to put on our best clothes, only have clean hands, combed hair and decent shoes. Running, skipping and playing in the lush green fields with the promise of a picnic was an outing much more to my taste. Even with the end of autumn, when the winter wind blew through my hair and my eyes and ears stung in the frosty air and the picnic was replaced by a meal in a friendly pub — these were the happy times.
On these good days, the walls of my bedroom did not seem to moan, nor did the sound of weeping linger in the corridors of that old manor house.
I must have had my seventh birthday in that house but I don’t remember it, although I do remember being given a most marvellous gift one frosty morning. I was taken to the walled garden, a sheltered area where vegetables were grown for the house and fruit trees were espaliered against the high grey stone walls. My eldest brother Tony had made a dolls house for me out of one of the large tea chests that had brought some of our belongings from Singapore. He had set it into its own little garden on a grassy patch, with its own gravel path leading to the front door.
It was magnificent. There were two storeys, each with dividing walls to make little bedrooms and living rooms. It even had beds and tables and chairs made of plywood and cardboard. I thought it the most beautiful little house and wished that I could be made small enough to wander through the rooms and marvel at my new home.
Our time at Almer Manor was not long — a little under a year. The English climate, so Denis said, was too damp and not conducive to Norma’s full recovery. So once again life was to change, as the packing cases were packed, furniture sold and the cook and maid let go. I would remember, miss and mourn many things about our stay in that beautiful house. The smell of ageing apples, the bite of frosty morning air on my face, my treasured dolls house — memories, all mine, now neatly packed away.
Chapter 8
The shock of the telling, Australia 1952
I sat looking at my reflection in the dressing table mirror. Who was that pale-faced girl with tears sliding down her cheeks? Could it be me?
It was a few days short of Christmas, and Denis stood behind me as I sat combing my hair after hurriedly dressing for the day. With gentle hands on my shoulders, he told me of my mother’s death in hospital the previous evening.
It seemed the right thing to do, to cry, to let the tears come pouring out. The tears were more a product of the shock of the telling and the look on his white face rather than the realisation that I had just lost a mother. Real sorrow would come later, hours later, when my mind could cope with the enormity of what I had just been told.
I was 10 years old, we were living in Perth and although Norma had been in poor health since I could remember, her sudden death came as a sickening blow.
Since my birth in Western Australia, our family had been on the move almost constantly. By ship or train we travelled from Perth to Melbourne, back to Perth, to Singapore, Malaya, Perth and Melbourne. Then it was back to Singapore from where we shuttled to Perth and back for a few years. In 1948, we travelled to South Africa, then England, back to Melbourne, Perth, Colombo for a brief time, then Singapore before our recent return to Perth.
In fact, the confusion of the first 10 years of my life remained with me until the writing of this book and careful checking of shipping records and passports and consultation with my eldest brother Tony clarified our movements.
In 1950, the family was in Melbourne and both my brothers and I were attending boarding school. The boys were at Trinity Grammar, while I went to Corowa Anglican Girls’ School — I didn’t last long there.
I had my eighth birthday at Corowa. This was my first taste of school since attending a kindergarten in the Cameron Highlands in central Malaya for a few months when I was five and I was sure I wouldn’t like it. I had had some indifferent and irregular home schooling from Denis, here and there along the way during the three years between schools. I had a vague knowledge of my letters, but I could not read and my numeric knowledge was nil.
I was now a fish out of water, a nervous, spindly child not used to mixing with others of my age and sex. Not unintelligent, I would like to believe, but totally out of my depth with the schoolwork and among my peers.
One morning a few months after my arrival, while eating my breakfast porridge in the dining hall, I suddenly collapsed ending up face down in the porridge bowl. Of course, I don’t remember this rather dramatic end to my boarding school days. But the story went down in the annals of family history, so it may have a grain of truth in it.
I was rushed to hospital with pneumonia, the first of many bouts to plague me in my early years. When I recovered, I was sent home to recuperate. When I was almost well again, I pleaded not to be sent back to school. With my pale face and thin arms and legs, I must have looked a wretched creature so my parents took pity on me and for the next year or so it was back to the indifferent home schooling regime that suited me so well. It didn’t do much for my formal education, but it gave me time to be creative enough to get another sort of less formal education that has served me well. It was also about this time that a minor miracle occurred in my life — billboards that had flashed past us as we drove by suddenly talked to me! The squiggly lines untangled themselves and turned into words, words that suddenly made sense. Now, not only did the billboards have pretty pictures on them, they had
words as well and the words said things. Wonder upon wonder — I could read!
From now on I could not get enough books to feed my appetite. It did not matter what sort of book, adult or children’s, fact or fiction, comic, newspaper or advertising material — if I could get my hands on it, I would read it. I do not remember being able to write, though I must have known my letters, but read I could and read I did.
Our time in Melbourne was marked by what I would remember as peacefulness and quiet. With my brothers at boarding school, Norma living her usual quiet life and Denis doing I know not what, I had plenty of time to just be me. I was quite comfortable in my own company and found solitude to my liking.
For the next few months, I would be fed strawberry-flavoured penicillin pills three times a day, which have left me with an indifference to strawberries but they did keep the illness at bay. Apart from that, I was pretty much left to my own devices. I drew, painted, cut things up, pasted things on paper and made up and performed in one-person plays, bringing in my brothers when and if they were home for the weekend. Life was one long holiday, and I had a fine time of it.
In November 1950 we moved to Perth, I am not sure why. Moving for us was such a usual occupation that it would have seemed strange to stay too long in one place. To once again pack up our belongings and move had become part of our everyday life. Tony’s memory is that the decision to move was because Melbourne’s climate was too damp for Norma and it was considered that the hot but dry heat of Western Australia would help her persistent cough and weak lungs.
We travelled by ship, the SS Himalaya, a luxurious and almost new 28,000 tons P&O liner. Even though we had to cross the Bight, notorious for its rough seas, going by ship was a lovely way to travel. Plenty of deck space and corridors to run in and at night it felt safe and comforting to be rocked to sleep by the motion of the ocean.
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