2 - CHILDHOOD MEMORIES THAT LAST A LIFETIME
Maybe it is because as a kid, you are still innocent and the world through your eyes is still just as innocent and uncomplicated. Whatever the reasons be I take some great memories out of my early childhood days.
I grew up in a time when not only was the world travelling much slower but also everything about life was done at a less hectic pace. We seemed to have time to ourselves and had time to spend with family and friends. It was an innocent world compared to the society we have grown into. I know that I would not swap the era I grew up in for any other.
As a kid I always remember having at least the basic mod cons in life unlike my parents as example whom just one generation earlier had none of what we had even from the 50’s going forward. We always at least had electricity, running water, sewerage, a car, and the things that made life just a little more comfortable. Maybe growing up we just thought life was tough, and I reckon we did but reality would show otherwise.
Reflecting back on my early childhood days I guess the worst case of doing it tough we endured is having a chip heater in the bathroom for a number of years, meaning hot water was a little bit hit and miss. Of course, some luxuries like TV were not around in my early days but you made do in so many other areas. However, with mod-cons or not being on hand, I know that I was lucky to be a kid when it was still a safe world to grow up in.
So, what about the memories from this time other than what I recalled from the places I lived at as a kid. What were the family traditions? How did we make life so much fun? How did we improvise to make playtime the adventure it was? How did we manage growing up in an ever-changing world? Look, it was a challenging time but really it was oh so simple and fun.
Christmas was such an exciting time to be a kid. There was so much going on with life as the festive season unfolded so this was a season of cheer, get-togethers with family and friends and we embraced everything this offered us.
It was like everybody in the town and district converged on the main street on this night. It really was wall to wall people; I guess it was also a way for the town people to catch up with each other. I remember that I loved the atmosphere, and the Christmas feel that Barmera had in this time of my young life.
Dad's work place the Barmera Co-op had a Christmas party for all employees and family in the weeks leading into the holiday break. I am guessing that the Barmera Co-op had some kind of staff social club because each year it would put on the most amazing Christmas party. It was held at the Co-op and I remember things like Father Christmas arriving on the local fire truck, all of us kids would go wild with delight. Father Christmas would bring a present for every kid, and the presents were always something of significance and not just a token gift.
I remember getting things like a tennis racquet, a massive model aeroplane kit and a camera over the years. And the party itself was full on with stacks of food, ice cream, drinks and entertainment. Outside of the building, where the party was held a playground would be set up for us kids to use during the evening. It was one hell of a big show and a great Christmas tradition for me.
Midnight Mass was a great way to welcome the day and when Christmas morning finally arrived, it was always my favorite piece of family life. We had a tradition that no presents were ever opened before the day, they would be placed under the Christmas tree in the lounge room and would remain there until everyone was out of bed on Christmas morning.
We would all give presents to each other so there was a huge pile of gifts to be given out and received. We would take turns at handing out the gifts and you would wait until the unwrapping was complete before moving on to the next one. It was a time of great excitement for me; we kept this tradition for all the years that I can remember being at home in Barmera.
The odd thing is that I do not recall what we did
for the remainder of our Christmas Day but the mornings with the presents were
so very special for me as a kid doing life with the family. Guess the rest of the day simply
took care of itself. To this day, I still follow the same idea; I do not open
my Christmas presents until the day. Old habits die hard, I guess!
Buying the gifts for each other was also a special thing. Each year in early December mum would take the three of us to Renmark for the day to do our Christmas shopping. Dad would have given us money, lots of money including enough to get something for everyone and enough left over to get something for ourselves. And it was no holds barred, we could buy what we wanted as gifts to give out on Christmas morning, it sure was a season to be jolly.
Renmark in those days had a Coles Store, which was a little like the Cunningham’s Warehouse stores of today. It was a one-stop shop for Christmas presents and all things Christmas. Barmera had nothing similar to offer so the day shopping trip to Renmark was a big part of the Green family Christmas tradition.
For the record, I remember that our Christmas tree was always a live tree, sourced from out bush, cut down and carted home. It was placed in a drum of sand in the corner of the lounge room and mum would decorate the drum with crepe paper to make it look Christmassy!
The tree was always elaborately decorated with colourful ornaments, and the spirit of Christmas was very much on show at our house. I recall that mum had her own traditions with the Christmas tree, it could not go up before December 1st and had to be taken down by New Years Day. Once the Christmas tree came down the decorations were carefully packed away and stored in Mum's room until the following December.
As for Father Christmas, as we knew him in the days
of our childhood and not as Santa as he is referred to in this day and age, I
guess I thought he was the real deal until about 1964. This year I was getting
a train set for Christmas, we had all been to midnight mass up at the church
and us kids were put straight to bed once we got home. For some reason I was
sleeping in Jan’s room and I remember seeing mum standing by my bed putting
something down beside it. I looked and knew it was a train set so I questioned
her only to be told to, “go back to sleep.”
However, the trap had been sprung and despite her denials the next morning, I knew it was mum who had placed the gift. Hey, how long can you keep us in the dark for mum? What I reckon happened is that mum was tired, wanted to go to bed, and did not wait long enough for us kids to be asleep. So, for me that ended the myth surrounding Father Christmas.
My Christmas memories would not be complete without
telling of my first visit to the John Martins Christmas Pageant in Adelaide.
The pageant is a South Australia Icon, held every year in early November and it
signals the arrival of Father Christmas in town and heì tch. It is a lasting
memory and I am sure one that I will never forget.
...........
And as I am now a dad I attended the Pageant a
number of years including 2003 when I went with Mitchell Thomas and his mum so
that he could see his very first John Martin’s Christmas pageant. And he loved
it; despite being just 15 months old, he was captivated by it just as I had
been all those years before. The Christmas Pageant has thankfully lost non-of
its magic for kids or adults alike.
Rod spent a lot of time in his room; he was a good
student who studied for hours. He also always had a radio on and at night, we
listened to Rod Spargo on 3UZ from Melbourne. At one point in 1964, from the
radio listening we wrote away to 3UZ and asked for some station transfers and
memorabilia. We were sent some information along with the transfers. I remember
Rod stuck them to his bedside cupboard.
Then from somewhere, we obtained a list of addresses
for all radio stations in Australia and we sent letters to them asking for
transfers and station advertising material similar to what 3UZ had sent us.
Over the next few weeks, we received the replies and I remember that most radio
stations sent us what we had asked for. We received so many replies that Rod
and I made up a list so as we had half the replies to open each. It was a time
of great excitement. Each day we waited for dad to come home after work with
the mail to see what we had. Not sure why we did this but it was great fun at
the time. I do remember that we collected other transfers from places like
petrol stations, BP, Shell, Ampol, Mobile, Caltex and from any business that
had them really.
Back in the early time at the house, my brother Rod was keen to have an Avery and collect birds. He and a couple of his mates, I would think Gary Campbell and Steven Sander was included, built an Avery on the side fence between the structure dad built and the garage that had been erected. Rod and his mates populated the Avery’s with birds that they had collected from the wild and I remember with some budgies and doves but I would think they were purchased rather than caught.
But one bird collecting exercise that I recall was
to do with pigeons. About a mile out from Barmera on the old Monash Road was an
historic building that at one time had been built as a butter factory. It was
never used as intended and had been sitting idle for many years and was in a
neglected state but it had become home to flocks of pigeons.
Rod’s great master plan was to go out to the building at night, use torches as spotlights and trap the birds in the light, catch them and bring them home to his Avery. Then the plan was to keep them caged for a period of time and make them into homing pigeons. So, I remember Rod, myself, Paul Sander and I am not sure who else riding our bikes out to this old butter factory building at night and trapping as many pigeons as we could bring home. We caught plenty; that was easy and fun and the plan looked good at this point.
The pigeons were kept caged for months and eventual
let out in the hope that they were trained as homing pigeons and would come
back to Rods Avery. Well, trained they might not have been but homing pigeons
they certainly were and they flew straight back to the old butter factory
building out on the Monash Road that was clearly home to them! That put an end
to the pigeon keeping and I am not sure what happened with the other birds.
Other than the birds, we never officially had a pet. I remember a cat named Fluffy being around for a time but I do not recall any more information than that. There was another cat that called our place home for awhile in the early days at Nookamka Terrace. Again, I do not remember where it came from or how we came to have it but it was never really allowed to be our pet. It did not even have a name.
At one stage, our neighbor Art Farrow and his mate
Lionel Island took the cat to the family farm at Parilla in the Murray Mallee.
However, I remember within a day or two the cat was back. It surprised everyone
as Art told us later that the cat was let loose in Parilla. And it was the only
cat I know which could fly. I will not elaborate here other that to say this
cat could fly from the back door of the house and land up in the back yard. You
will have to work that one out yourself! But the positive side to this is that
true to legend the cat always landed on its feet!
Anyhow, one day some months after the Parilla
episode I walked out into the yard, the cat was by the tap up the back of the
shed and it was dead. It looked to have simply fallen over and died. I did have
a budgie at one time, it was known as Percy but I came home one Saturday after
footy and it was dead in the cage in the back porch. Then during my working
days at the railway I had a cat named Ernie but he died after a few months.
Ernie made a big impression on us all in the short time I had him and it was a
very sad day when he died. Seems like we never had much luck with the pets we
did or did not have!
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