Stargazer

By David Scott

For thousands of years, stars have held our attention and imagination. They influence our life—we wish upon them, sing songs about them, navigate by them, write about them, follow them, and even give their name to the actors we love. My memories have revealed a lifetime of navigating by the stars, and moving beyond the fear and anxiety that self-doubt so insidiously cloaks us in. Yes, as Jiminy Cricket sang for us in Walt Disney's Pinocchio, "when you wish upon a star . . . fate steps in and sees you through."

Memories and influences have a profound effect on our lives. I look back on my childhood years—the 1940s to mid-'50s—and I can recall the people who were inspirational to me. Mostly it was my family, but there was also Jiminy Cricket. You no doubt recollect the song "When You Wish Upon a Star," with its lyrics that lift the spirit and let you believe anything is possible. I didn't doubt Jiminy for a minute.

The early years of my life were a time of innocence, security, adventure, and family love. How quickly my situation changed—one decision by my parents, made with my best interests foremost in their thoughts, shattered the world I had known. Through the fear, torment, isolation, and loss of my own identity, my memories and influences would come to have an overwhelming power on the choices I was to make.

My transition from teenager to adult seemed to happen overnight, but my unflappable outward appearance belied the struggles of a boy coming to terms with his guilt, and an irresistible need for his parents to be proud of him. My future was being shaped from the past, but it took me a long time to realise it. I chose the road less travelled, steeped in the wonder of the cinema and accompanied by my beloved animal companions, and it has been intriguing, daunting, rewarding, and, at times, solitary, but I always felt it was the path I was meant to take.

Like so many people, I let the emotions attached to memories hold me captive, and I missed opportunities to choose with more clarity. A near-death experience helped me to live a simpler life. Participating in a creative writing course inspired me to engage in script writing, stage work, and novel writing. This is my third book, an autobiography that has revealed more of me than I ever intended to share, and fate has led you to it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jan 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9780228824053

David Scott

David Scott is Emeritus Professor of Curriculum, Learning and Assessment at the IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Social Science. His most recent books include: On Learning: A General Theory of Objects and Object-relations, UCL Press; (with B. Scott) Equalities and Inequalities in the English Education System, University College London, Institute of Education Press; and (with S. Leaton Gray) Women Curriculum Theorists: Power, Knowledge and Subjectivity, Routledge.

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Stargazer

Copyright © 2020 by David Scott

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-2404-6 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-2403-9 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-2405-3 (eBook)

This book is dedicated to Bryane Martin Murdock

Born Canada, November 3, 1948 – died Australia, December 10, 2018

The best mate a bloke could have

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1     Pre-1943 – Before the Glint

Chapter 2     1943 to 1946 – Rufus

Chapter 3     1946 to 1949 – Westward Ho!

Chapter 4     Pluto

Chapter 5     1949 to 1956 – Living the Dream

Chapter 6     Late ’40s to the mid ’50s – Primary School Days

Chapter 7     The ’40s and ’50s – Huck Finn, Eat Your Heart Out!

Chapter 8     Showtime!

Chapter 9     Christmases Past

Chapter 10   Melbourne’s Victoria Hotel

Chapter 11   The ’50s and ’60s – Myrtleford, Numurkah, Finley, and Tocumwal Theatres

Chapter 12   1958 – Childhood’s End

Chapter 13   1958 – The Longest Journey of My Life

Chapter 14   1958 – A Trip of Nightmares

Chapter 15   1958 to 1960 – Journey’s End and Beyond

Chapter 16   The 1960s – Another Major Life Change

Chapter 17   The 1960s – The Lakeside Drive-In Theatre, Yarrawonga

Chapter 18   Staying with the ’60s – Extracurricular Activities

Chapter 19   The 1960s – Lakeside Cruising

Chapter 20   The 1960s – Scratching Itches

Chapter 21   The 1970s – Stargazing

Chapter 22   The 1970s – Ramping It Up!

Chapter 23   Through the ’70s to ’81 – Another Life-Changing Event

Chapter 24   The 1980s – Sequoia Lodge

Chapter 25   The mid ’80s – Our Sights on the Melbourne Cup

Chapter 26   Through the ’80s into the ’90s – A Bumpy Ride

Chapter 27   Late ’80s into the ’90s – Limping Towards a New Century

Chapter 28   Working in the ’90s

Chapter 29   The 1990s – Yet Another Major Life Change

Chapter 30   Reaching the Dregs

at Century’s End

Chapter 31   Stumbling Towards the Twenty-First Century – Flotsam and Jetsam

Chapter 32   Same Old Century,

New Beginnings

Chapter 33   One Helluva Trip!

Chapter 34   1997 to 2013 – Queensland Life

Chapter 35   The Twenty-First Century – Birds of My Paradise

Chapter 36   Early 2000s – Lost Friends, Fresh Start

Chapter 37   2004 to 2013 – The Turkey Trot Strut

Chapter 38   2009 – Second Star to the Right

Chapter 39   Ever Onwards into the Twenty-First Century – The Great Adventure Continues . . .

Appendix One: Wandaria the Nomad

Appendix Two: The Hoppalite Gems

Acknowledgements

My special appreciation goes to my sincere friends, Maureen and Peter Barelli, whose inspiration, patience and continuing assistance makes this work so special.

My heartfelt appreciation extends to my dear friends, Sandra and Jim Flynn, who’ve sustained me not only with nutritious food but also with kindness and love.

My appreciation to the Tamborine Mountain Writers’ Group for their constructive criticism – some of which I took on board, other which was jettisoned but all was precious.

Preface

Have you ever taken the time to look at the stars? Not just a quick glimpse, but a long, slow gaze that encompasses the firmament, a moment in time that lasts a lifetime, with a sense of mystery that transcends the ordinary and lets you see the extraordinary promise life holds.

Growing up in rural Australia provided many opportunities for stargazing. I am not talking about the scientific study of the planets and stars. No, this was the sheer wonder experienced as a young boy looking at night skies of black velvet, studded with stars so clear and bright . . . there were times when I could almost reach and pluck a star from the fabric of the cosmos.

My early years were times of family, freedom and the simplicity of living in small country towns. I was a daydreamer. This was enhanced by the marvellous movies that were readily available to me, as cinemas were my family’s business. In fact this gave me the opportunity to be a ‘star’ gazer of a different kind; movie stars captured my imagination and opened up worlds that I could never have envisaged.

The periods when I was alone and struggling to find a guiding star through the dark phases of my life almost overwhelmed me. At the age of fifteen, my uncomplicated life changed and this impacted the course of my being. When despair, shame, guilt and fear threatened to crush me and I didn’t know whether to go forward or back, I did something that had been second nature to me when I was home: I stopped and looked into the night sky for a guiding star to pierce the darkness of my soul.

The screen stars I grew up with forged a subconscious connection, allowing me to adapt their stage scenarios to help strategize outcomes during difficult times in my life. I am a perfect example of Shakespeare’s saying, ‘All the world’s a stage….." I am not a stargazer as defined in the dictionary. I am someone who has treasured memories of night skies, black as ebony, adorned with diamonds of starlight—they surpass the mundane to hold the promise of hope and possibilities.

CHAPTER ONE

Pre-1943 – Before the Glint

Talking about one’s conception with a parent sounds bizarre, but it happened quite innocently while Mum was staying at a thoroughbred horse stud I ran in the eighties.

My house was on a hilltop surrounded by paddocks, a brilliant location for observing mares about to foal but physically draining as it entailed walking up and down sloping ground. Mum had called out that afternoon tea was ready, and by the time I had trudged up the hill for the umpteenth time that day I was whinging about its steepness.

It’s odd you don’t like hills, she murmured, immediately busying herself with pouring tea.

Now, I wasn’t going to let an intriguing comment like that pass without explanation, so I pestered her until I had dragged out a sanitised version of what she’d referred to.

My parents had gone rabbiting by themselves while my siblings were at school, choosing Nine Mile Hill for the venture—an ingenious name the locals came up with because it is nine miles out from the town of Wodonga in south-eastern Australia.

The ferret Dad had sent down a burrow refused to come out, so while he decided whether to dig or smoke it out, he joined Mum on the picnic blanket. I imagine with his ferret loose an amorous glint appeared in his eye.

The rest is history—mine.

Australia, Early 1920s

My father Jack was a master carpenter, building houses on blocks of land in Melbourne and selling them for five hundred pounds. I use the word master, as that was how Mum described him, and upon reflection more than sixty years later, never a truer word was said. His structures stand as monuments to his craftsmanship, whether it be a house, an outdoor dunny or fine furniture he renovated from broken fragments found at a rubbish tip. The Melba Theatre at Cobram was his crowning achievement, standing proudly for more than half a century before fire destroyed it in April 2010.

My mother, Muriel Burns, was a school teacher, and the pretty brunette was attracted to the handsome bronzed man, his good sense and keen wit charming her. The courting took a tumble on the night he turned up at her house drunk, and only his promise to totally abstain from drinking alcohol enticed her to the altar. He must have adored her as he only relaxed his abstinence when rewarded with a glass of ale at every Christmas luncheon.

I inherited his dark hair while gaining a little on him in height, which is nothing to write home about, as at a stretch I was only five feet, two and a half inches at my tallest (the past tense is used as I am shorter now in my dotage).

What Jack Scott lacked in stature was more than compensated for by his generous nature, gentle soul and easy laugh—with just a touch of larrikin in the mix. An essential part of his attire was a grey felt hat with a wild-duck feather in the band, the green, grey and magenta shades of the plumage shining in sunlight. The front of the brim curved down over his forehead and the V-indented crown was discoloured at the front from being clutched when he doffed his hat to ladies. No matter what he wore—double-breasted suit, overalls or shorts—his hat declared him as a man of the times, while sweat stains by the hatband indicated that hard work was his mentor.

My parents’ future looked rosy until the Great Depression wrecked the building trade, costing them their home and forcing Dad to earn a living as a jack of all trades. Finding work in the city with a less than basic scholastic education was like searching for hens’ teeth, so they moved to Gippsland in country Victoria, sleeping in their old Dodge sedan for several months.

Dad obtained an odd day’s employment here and there, gaining enough money to finance the buying and selling of poddy (bottle-fed) calves, radios, or anything else that came his way.

One time, he was stranded along a little-used country road in the middle of nowhere with a truckload of wool bales that had to be delivered that day, or his employer would lose out on the sale. The tyres on the old truck Dad drove were worn to the canvas, so it was no surprise when another blowout happened. With no second spare tyre, Dad sat on the step of the truck, scratching his head in despair while surveying the gaping hole in the tyre he had removed from the vehicle.

Dad did what he always did in such circumstances: rolled a cigarette. As he packed the tobacco firm with the bottom of a match, an idea came to him, so he stuck the unlit fag behind his ear and set about stuffing wool from his load into the torn tyre until it was rammed solid. Then, after fitting the tyre back onto the truck, he lit his cigarette and resumed his trip, albeit bumpily.

At that time, Mum and Dad lived off the land, catching fish and crayfish in rivers, shooting quail and wild duck and trapping copious quantities of underground mutton, Dad’s term for rabbits.

Vermin was in plague proportions across the country so the government paid a bounty for rabbit and fox scalps. But that was only part of the bunny money Dad earned: he tramped from door to door selling pairs of skinned rabbits, later flogging the rabbit and fox pelts to skin merchants. Nothing was wasted, as the entrails baited his crayfish cages. Dad retained his trapping and hunting skills, even after his finances stabilised, and I recall as a child seeing drying pelts stretched on wire frames in the garage.

Ducks, fish and crustaceans were seasonal, so the main fare was rabbit, and to Mum’s credit she concocted many different ways to cook and flavour them. Years later, after my siblings and I had come into existence, we dreaded eating underground mutton, as any food loses appeal if served too often.

Ultimately, authorities used deadly poisons as well as viral diseases like myxomatosis to eradicate rabbits, leaving survivors suffering sores, blindness and deformities. I’m sorry for the animals’ misery but I blessed the powers that be for taking rabbits off our menu.

My parents spent time running a bakery at Euroa, a central Victorian town, and the business might have been profitable had many customers not sought credit. Some people paid their debts in dribs and drabs while others took advantage of Mum and Dad’s generous nature, resulting in a lot of free bread and pastries leaving the shop.

By this stage, my parents had found time to produce my sister and brother, but I was nowhere in the pipeline.

Mum’s brother ran a picture theatre at a nearby town, and when Dad saw his debtors paying to see movies, he ditched cooking to become an exhibitor at Wodonga in north-eastern Victoria.

Wodonga is only the width of the Murray River from Albury in New South Wales, but more than water divided the two centres. Albury, with a much larger population, was politically advantaged over the smaller centre, giving it more amenities. These included four cinemas, while Wodonga had none until Dad appeared on the scene.

Albury and Wodonga locals derogatively referred to Wodonga as Struggle Town, so Dad and Mum, knowing what it was like being the underdog, showed movies in a Wodonga public hall, naming it the Melba Theatre after Dame Nellie Melba, the world-renowned Australian opera singer.

Companies running the Albury cinemas had a stranglehold on product, relegating my parents to presenting films long after they ran in Albury, and sometimes popular ones were repeated. Because of this, Melba profits were slim, despite Dad running the projectors, Mum selling tickets and both of them cleaning the hall and changing posters after screenings.

World War II raged and military bases in the area had a big influx of personnel, which stimulated the local building trade—one of the key factors in my parents’ decision to move there.

My father was no stranger to military life. On December 17, 1941 he’d enlisted into the army at Brunswick in Melbourne and was posted to Darwin. The details of what happened there are rather sketchy as Dad never talked about it, and when I dogged Mum about what Dad did in the war I sensed she skimmed over a lot. I did, however, gain some insight into his larrikinism, such as the time Dad and his mates went AWOL to go duck shooting in a nearby swamp and were caught red-handed with their spoils as they stole back into camp. Their saving grace was the commander’s love of wild duck. Moderating their punishment to mess-tent duties, he demanded they personally cook and serve the ducks for him and the rest of the big brass.

Dad was never one to let an opportunity pass so he organised a poker game behind the mess tent, with a non-player on lookout so they weren’t caught. Everything had been thought of, except a Japanese attack. The hiss of a dropping bomb had Dad’s mates kissing dirt, but he remained sitting by the box they used for a table, holding his winning hand to his chest.

The mess tent copped a direct hit, sending canvas, splintered tent poles, tables, chairs and kitchen equipment flying. Debris soared over the men on the ground, leaving them unscathed, but the only sign of Dad was an arm and shoulder poking out of the rubble. Frantically tearing wreckage off Dad, the others discovered to their amazement that he was not only conscious but still clutching his cards.

Who’s raising? he challenged, getting a roar of derision from his relieved mates.

It is open for conjecture whether they finished the game, but Dad ended up in hospital with a broken leg—his only major injury beyond superficial cuts and scratches. That’s when the army medic discovered that Dad had dangerously low blood pressure, a fact he’d concealed from the overworked recruiting doctor. His tour of duty came to an abrupt end and he was honourably discharged to recuperate at home.

Now, if Dad had told this tale, a lot of this may have been tongue-in-cheek, but Mum couldn’t tell a tall story to save herself, so I’m pretty sure it happened something like I’ve reported.

But I digress, like life so often does to our plans.

At Wodonga, Dad took out a bank loan, employed a couple of school-leavers too young to join the armed forces and started constructing houses in conjunction with screening films four nights a week.

Wartime fuel shortages meant those owning cars drove sparingly, leaving small communities outside Wodonga semi-isolated. Chiltern was such a place, being fifteen country miles west (give or take a mile or two), so my parents added to their busy schedule with the fortnightly showing of movies in an old hall behind the pub.

As if that wasn’t enough to tire them out, Dad contributed to the war effort by bringing movies to soldiers at the Albury and Wodonga army bases, something other exhibitors baulked at because it was financially risky. They weren’t far off the mark, but Dad put entertaining the troops ahead of monetary gain.

Firstly, he had to make structures to show movies in, so with an electric Singer sewing machine and a batch of old army tents he fashioned marquees that accommodated several hundred people, the laborious task taking place in a rented shop across the road from the family home.

After pitching them, he added timber flooring and tiered bench seats along with fibro-sheeted projection rooms that were accessed from outside.

Many young recruits, away from rural areas for the first time, were in awe of the size of Albury, even though in those days it was little more than a sprawling town. Many were labourers and farmhands so it was no wonder they were drawn to Dad, seeing him as a fellow hard worker. My father taught them carpentry and movie-projecting skills, and along the way became their confidant. No subject was taboo, whether it was missing sweethearts and family or that they were scared about going to war, something they dared not admit to army mates. The giant marquees were more than venues to watch Betty Grable movies and the like, their greater use came after screenings, when private worries were bared. However late it became, Dad didn’t go home until a soldier fully aired his troubles; it was often a bleary-eyed projectionist joining his apprentices at a building site in the morning.

The time American troops arrived at camp thirsting for entertainment, chaos hit one of the tent theatres. They charged into the marquee, overfilling it to such an extent that people standing outside the entrance flap had to stretch over those in front of them to see the screen.

There had been no chance to charge admissions, so Dad resigned himself to providing a free screening. However, during the first feature, an enterprising soldier passed his hat along the rows, and once it was full to the brim with zacks and trey bits (sixpences and threepences), gave the money to my father. Such was honour and honesty in those days.

The crush at the end of the show was worse than the entry rampage, as men jammed against the marquee sides, cut their way out and shredded the canvas. Several soldiers stayed to help Dad stitch up the tears, and when the camp commander arrived at first light in response to a reported incident, Dad feigned ignorance of any trouble, proving it by waving his hand around at the intact canvas. Once again, the tenor of the times shone brightly.

Dad was the only civilian given free access to the bases, and although he rubbed shoulders with the top brass and knew some on a first-name basis, he was more at home swapping stories with foot-sloggers, becoming legendary for bending facts to make riveting stories.

As a child, I saw a photo of one of the marquees and was surprised at seeing a large talkies sign displayed above the entrance; I took sound in movies for granted so it seemed weird advertising the obvious. How soon new ideas become the norm.

Entertaining was Dad’s game, not profits, so much of what he gained went into the Army Canteen Fund. He was content as long as his family was provided for and he had a few bob to spend on tobacco and a flutter on the nags with an illegal SP (starting price) bookie.

He loved a gamble but wasn’t a heavy better. Proceeds from rabbiting provided the outlay—an activity I’m grateful he retained, otherwise I would not be here.

Dad holding me in a pram, Max on a bike, Pat on the other side of us

CHAPTER TWO

1943 to 1946 – Rufus

Turning points in my life that readjusted my nature: the first was my boarding school experience, the next was the death of my father, another was my first love, and then there was a helping hand by a television celebrity when my spirits were at their lowest. And the last, so far, was a near-death experience. Of course, there were many other dips and rises in my existence but none as significant as those five. I would be jumping the gun if I went into them now, as you need to know how my life was at the time to fully understand how profoundly the events affected me.

My genes possess a trait some may say is bullheadedness, but I prefer to call it motivation. Well, it must be to have beaten millions of spermatozoa in the breaststroke race to the womb! Mind you, the same characteristic has steered me down more wrong paths than I will ever own up to.

It was probably the errant ferret rather than planning that brought me to centre stage in 1943, seven years behind my brother and eight years after my sister. My parents must have been flat-out running movie theatres, building houses, rearing children and dealing with the usual chores and dramas of young couples, so a baby at that time must have come as a shock—not that it was ever complained about.

We shifted from Wodonga before I turned four, so my recollections of living there are liable to be like out-of-sequence movie scenes. But be warned: after that they are comparable to Cecil B. DeMille epics.

Some may challenge this memory, but I believe I learnt about frustration in the cradle, when my ungainly arms and hands couldn’t pick up an object beside me. But I am a prolific dreamer so maybe it’s what I imagined.

Rufus, the family dog, waddled through the end of his life as I crawled and then skipped into mine. He was deaf and almost blind, yet he faithfully plodded behind me and my siblings as we ran errands around town. He was predominantly Labrador with a few other breeds thrown in to give him a shaggy coat. He may not have been as big as I remember, but as I was small, Rufus seemed humongous.

While my siblings were at school, Rufus and I discovered the secrets of our front and backyard, and on Sundays, when Dad drove us into the country for picnics, Rufus squeezed onto the car’s back seat between my brother, Max, and me. Pat, my sister, also sat in the rear, but because Rufus would let off cracker farts, she was always by the farthest window from him. Whenever he let one off, Pat whinged and poked her head out the window while Mum lectured Dad about his dog. Max and I smelt it as a joke and patted Rufus, who lapped up the attention.

Dad shared our warped sense of humour, winking at us in the rear-vision mirror while keeping a straight face so as not to inflame Mum’s disgust at the canine’s mastery of foulness. He’d shift Mum’s attention onto something else or whistle a jaunty ditty. He was as renowned for his whistling as for embroidering stories, so if his melodious notes weren’t heard at a building site you knew he was either absent or spinning a tall yarn.

We lived near the centre of town in a rented house that used to be a small hospital and then a doctor’s surgery, a convenient location as the public hall my parents showed movies in was only two blocks away, and Max and Pat’s schools were within walking distance.

The house was on a corner block with a high privet hedge bordering the footpaths and a fancy twisted-wire front gate at the juncture of the walkways. The hedge grew alongside a wooden post-and-wire fence, something dogs cocked their legs on until Dad attached low-voltage power to it. The idea worked well until a passer-by touched the fence and received a shock. As a consequence they complained to council, which made Dad remove it.

A wide covered-in veranda ran across the front, one side, and the back of the house. Steps led onto it at the cropped front corner of the building, where frosted-glass panels featured either side of a solid door. The panes started at my shoulder level and rose to the height of the tall door and were edged with coloured squares that cast pretty patterns into a spacious vestibule. A broad, high-ceilinged passage, with many rooms either side, cut through the centre of the house to the back veranda. We all had our own bedrooms and the unused rooms were piled high with theatre paraphernalia, along with furniture Dad had made for a house he intended on building for us once the war ended.

One room contained a penny slot machine, a rarity for the area in those days. Dad had placed it in the local billiard parlour where it had been a good revenue raiser until gambling authorities made him remove it. The public’s loss was his children’s gain.

Some evenings the Salvation Army band played under a street light outside our property. Their rousing tunes were entertaining but not as enthralling as the coloured cards given out by a cheerful bonneted lady. To a toddler during the deprivations of the war years, the colourful biblical depictions with meaningless verses were precious gifts.

My siblings attended Sunday school at a hall behind a High Street church, and while I don’t recall the church’s interior—which is not all that strange considering my parents seldom attended services—snowdrop flowers growing by a brick gatepost are etched into my memory. It is odd how simple things are remembered while the bigger picture often fades from recollection.

Timber from an old hall Dad had demolished was dumped in our house’s backyard, and although I had been forbidden to play amongst it I disregarded the warning and paid the price by jumping onto a nail sticking out of a small off-cut, ramming it clean through my foot. Only Mum and Max were around and they were too squeamish to pull it out, so I did, perception being more daunting than pain.

When Dad arrived home I was taken to hospital, where a nurse bandaged my foot after being shown the rusty nail. I was dirty on her for failing to honour a promise to return it to me, but I needn’t have worried about the stolen trophy as I trod on two more before shedding childhood.

Dad copped a tongue-lashing for leaving dangerous items lying around while I was given a bought ice cream—juvenile justice had my vote.

A board-and-rope swing hung from a tall peppercorn tree in the backyard, and although it was too far off the ground for me to sit on without help, I contented myself when alone by leaning across the seat and twisting around as far as the ropes allowed, then taking my feet off the ground and twirling back.

The swing’s attraction soured for me after Max fell off and kept being clonked on the back of the head by the swinging seat each time he dazedly sat up. That kind of fun is strictly a spectator sport.

Max gave me my first and only cycling lesson when I was three. Sitting me on his bicycle in the hallway of the house, my feet dangling above the pedals, I steered while he pushed.

Directing was precarious as I had to lean so far forward to grip the handlebars that my backside teetered on the horn of the seat. Still, it was great fun careering along the hallway, doors whizzing by either side. That was, until my brother stumbled and let go of the bicycle. Terror killed my joy as I concentrated on jerking the handlebars to avoid riding into a wall. Max told me to hang on as he chased after me but it was doubtful that he would reach me before I ran out of runway, the vestibule zooming at me as it angled slightly to the right at the end of the passage. I had two choices: hit the front door or smash through glass. I chose the better of the two unwelcome options and concentrated on the door, but with my unstable piloting I had only hope on my side.

My accuracy scraped home and I hit the door jamb with such force that my bum flew into the air. My iron grip of the handlebars kept me anchored and I thudded back onto the seat as Max arrived to stop my conveyance toppling sideways onto the floor.

What’s going on up there? Mum’s voice carried up the passage from the kitchen at the back of the house.

Nothing! Max hastily assured her, his frown and a pointed finger warning me to keep the secret.

Exhilaration gobbled up the memory of how scared I had been and I begged for a re-run, something he categorically refused, and when Mum arrived at the scene of the crime she seconded it. She had been a school m’am before marrying, so she knew nothing definitely meant something had happened.

Another time, Max had to babysit me by taking me to school with him, and boy-oh-boy was he cranky about it.

I sat on the aisle side of Max on the bench seat of a two-student desk, and although I had been threatened with dire consequences if I played up, that didn’t stop me fidgeting, but a dig in the ribs did.

It was boring listening to pen nibs scratching on paper, the odd cough or the scuffle of shoes on bare floorboards. To make matters worse, my legs ached from my feet not being able to touch the floor, something that plagued me throughout my childhood, suffering as I did from duck’s disease, or to put it plainly: my bum was too close to the ground.

To ease the discomfort, I squirmed forward until my toes reached the floor. I was almost off the seat but by resting my head on the side of the slanted desktop I gained a semi-relaxed position.

Having an angled view of Max writing in his exercise book provided mild interest, but what really fascinated me was the way he and the boy beside him dipped their pens in and out of a hole in the top of the desk. I eased my finger under the desktop, planning to surprise my brother by poking my finger out of the hole, but I received an enormous shock when an inkwell popped out, spilling its contents over Max and the books of the boy beside him.

Max and the other student jumped up, dumping me on the floor of the aisle. You’re gunna cop it now! Max grumbled under his breath, whipping his handkerchief out of his pocket to mop up the mess.

Thinking he was referring to the teacher charging our way, I cringed and hid my head in my arms. The man’s trouser legs brushed against me as he gruffly ordered students to stop giggling, then he told Max and the other boy to fetch any rags they could find. Left alone, I burst into tears.

The teacher gently lifted me back onto the seat and, kneeling beside me, cheered me up by drawing cats and rabbits in my brother’s exercise book. Once again I had been rewarded for my transgressions and someone else had paid the price.

For some inexplicable reason, my brother flatly refused to take me to school again.

Mum was the disciplinarian at home, Dad being too soft-hearted to punish us. Generally it came in the form of lessons.

When I was two going on three, I fell out of my high bed and lay crying by a smelly jerry pot (chamber pot). Dad came and picked me up, cuddled me in his arms until I quietened and then tucked me back into bed.

It happened on another occasion, and this time Mum came to my rescue—or so I thought. There was no hug, only a scolding for not getting back into bed by myself.

I did, and that was the last time I cried for attention. Growing