Author Archives: gerard oosterman

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

25 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Helvi Oosterman

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Helvi Oosterman

Last year I was in the bookshop in Newtown wanting to buy something with my mother’s day book voucher. Being keen on Scandinavian crime writers like Henning Mankell, I was looking for something by him. Of course, I normally only buy crime stories in second hand book shops or at markets; I tend to keep my money for more serious literature…

As I was in a hurry I ended up accidently buying the second one of the Stieg Larsson’s trilogy.  Only a few weeks ago I managed to get the first one of the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

To my great delight the movie of the same title was showing in our neck of the woods, in Bowral. We decided the best time to see it would be 6.30 pm as people would be most likely getting ready to cook or to at least start planning their dinners. We had a nice early pub dinner and were ready at the cinema a few minutes of the movie starting.

To our horror the queue was very long and by the time it was our turn to buy the tickets the boy behind the counter announced that only ten tickets were available, and that he would return to us as soon as he had settled the masses. I of course pleaded that I could sit anywhere, on my own, no need to find a two-seater for us. The ten of us ended up sitting in the front row; it was the only way…

Now, I had not had time to finish the book, so I did not know who the killer was, anymore than how this book would end, so seeing the film was going to seriously affect my pleasure of finishing the story. The movie lasted two and half hours but it was not one minute too long for us.

The film is tighter than the book.  I thought all actors were good, and of course the actress playing the girl with the tattoos, Lisbeth Salander, was excellent. I also do not agree with Margaret from the Movie Show that Michael Nyquist wasn’t well cast in the  leading male role, he can bring me flowers anytime…

For me the movie was also a trip home or at least a visit in the neighbourhood; I loved the snow filled winter landscapes, the pine and birch forests, the old summer huts on the lakes, the carrying in the firewood, the endless coffee drinking, even the Swedish formality, the pressed field flowers, whose Latin names I still remember, after all, I had to do at least fifty of them during my lower high school summers.

For Gez and me it’s a must-see. Don’t take my word for it, see it yourself!

TV’s for sale at the Pig’s

22 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/22/2879456.htm?section=justin

There are several suspects. Needless to say, with Hung having gone overseas to catch up with some mates, casting asparagusions might inevitably lead to him or to some of his other well connected underground below sea level  acquaintances. Police are on the look-out for a Zephyr with a load of TV’s under the tarp.

Moving from Rotterdam to The Hague

16 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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Moving House.

 The trip and move to The Hague was arranged by a removalist. My parents and baby Herman in lap sat at the front with the driver and the kids inside the covered truck but at the front of the interior which had a window overlooking the top of the cabin. Frank, John and I had already reached the stage of collecting cigar bands and marbles. The marbles were won by knocking opponents out and collecting those marbles that were in the ‘pot’.  Standing up in the truck and keen to spent time with mischief, I started rolling a couple of marbles over the cabin at the front and subsequently over the front driver’s window. The truck soon came to a sudden halt and a very angry removalist got out climbed in and without a word gave me a hard smack, took the bag of those dearly won marbles and climbed back inside his cabin.  I am not sure why my parents did not deal with the problem, perhaps used to  much mischief twenty four hours a day, with marbles rolling over driver’s windows being a mere bagatelle.

The arrival of the removalist and truck with goods and inhabitants has got lost in my memories accept that the driver was big enough to give back those marbles. During the evening most of the furniture must have found a place somewhere on the floor and would have included the children’s large bed. Our bed was a wooden affair with planks across the width of a double timber bed frame.

 The mattresses were in three parts and made of kapok which my mother used to air outside at least once a week. I suppose some of us were not totally nonstop toilet savvy and the war would not have had the most soothing effect on the nerves of children that grew up in that period. As the first evening grew more and more hysterical amongst the three of us, at least in my father’s eyes, and we were suffering from loud laughter and endless farting under the blankets, dad felt the need for discipline and letting off his steam as well. It had been a hard day and his tobacco might have run out at a most inopportune moment as well. He grabbed a little stick and started to flay us kids who were already experienced enough to dive with split second precision under the blankets. When we got out from under the fart laden blankets we noticed the little stick had broken. However, the break was not clean and resulted the end bit hanging onto the main part which was now flipping and flopping about whilst my poor dad was wildly trying to bring us under control. It had enough of an impression for memories to have etched so firmly in my conscience as if only yesterday

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Leghorns and a Domestic’s penchant for liking a ‘Couple’

12 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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A peculiar incident of Australian easy going culture that we experienced during those early years was when mother had to be hospitalised for a couple of weeks. She had those mysterious stays in hospitals occasionally. Perhaps it was woman trouble or varicose vein disturbances. I never really found out, but considering she only died a few years ago at the sound age of 94, I feel that her health overall was well taken care off.

During the first few months on own block with dwelling, we had knocked up some kind of chicken pen. John had gone to the City markets called Paddy Markets and came home with about six leghorns travelling by train. The chooks were carried in a hessian bag with their heads sticking out of holes specifically made for breathing purpose. The train was crowded and standing place only. John had no option but to stand in the area between carriages and hold onto a post with one hand and hold the bag of chooks above his head with the other. Fellow travellers were being entertained by being stared upon by the beady eyes of the somewhat nervous leghorns above them.

Now, during the hospital period we had some kind of domestic help from the government or perhaps the local church. She was in her late fifties and was one of those ‘old girls ‘that looked as if she would play bingo and frequent the ladies lounge at the local. She was bone idle but as kind as a raffle ticket.  Her main job was to cook a meal for the evening when all kids and dad would be home. The routine was simple; lamb, spuds and boiled vegetables. Later on, we were told by neighbours, that during the day she would saunter up to the Revesby pub (with the round dome) and have ‘a couple’ before coming back and prepare the meal…

Her speciality however was the dessert. This dessert was a very sweet fruit mince type of cake, a bit like a Christmas type pudding but, and this is amazing, she had taken the rounded domed water dish from the chook pen to make the cake in. It must have had the perfect shape for the cake!  Now, we knew what happened to the water dish. Each time the dish was returned to the chooks she would without as much as batting her eyelids take the dish back to make yet another cake. To make sure the chickens were not without water, she would put a normal saucepan in the pen. As it turned out, most of the young leghorns turned out to be roosters. No eggs. Was this another variant on the three legged creatures? Many times, when the kids came home from school, she would be found snoring away from an alcohol induced torpor.

Funghi and Thunderstorms

08 Thursday Apr 2010

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Finally, the ideas of returning to Australia had been bedded down in my mind but had to be put into action so we decided to contact Thomas Cook in Rome in order to book return tickets by boat. I think it was going to be the Flotta Lauro’s sister ship, the Roma.  We wrote a few times, but true to Italian tradition at the time, our letters were not replied to or acknowledged. By that time summer had reached its peak and August had announced itself. The thunderstorms were increasing in intensity and at time there were electrical black-outs as well. In the meantime the news from Holland included that my ex chess-master uncle had died  suddenly, and that my aunt was coming over to stay in our part of Italy together with a far away distant niece or cousin. They had managed to get accommodation in a large farm house or ‘gasthof’ within walking distance of our chalet.

It seems that for poor uncle, neither the chilli sambal nor the speculaas biscuit were of any help, death stalked him mercilessly, without anyone even having the generosity of giving a dying man a chess game win. I wondered if he kept blaming his ex-wife until the very end.

One afternoon, we decided to follow Frau Johnson’s advice and look for mushrooms. The mushroom season apparently had arrived and none too soon. The pancakes cooked on lard with the occasional diversion into boiled potatoes with some mince patties was getting to me. Bernard was somewhat indifferent towards mushrooms. I loved them, especially the kind that was growing wild in that part of the mountains. They were Funghi Canterelli; you know those mushrooms, they were yellow ochre coloured and had serrated edges with a rather tall and thin stem. With garlic and Italian tomatoes they would be perfect at any time.

We climbed up the mountain behind the chalet and soon found buckets of them growing like confetti underneath the umbrella of birch and pine trees. It was a hike up that was tiring and exhilarating at the same time. We came home just before another thunder storm. The flies were in frenzy, banging head long into the glass windows and spinning wildly on the floor in their suicidal death throes. The storm was the most spectacular I had ever experienced. Wild flashings of lightning below us but above the now obscured village with the mountains rumbling in support of nature’s whims. Next day we ate some of the mushrooms in a spicy soup and I decided to dry the rest on newspapers outside in the sun.

The Case for more Tax

04 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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The case for more tax!

This latest from the ABC story and interview with Swan on the 22nd of Jan. 2010 http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2798566.htm

Quote; And rather than focusing on tax cuts, Mr Henry is warning that tax revenues will need to grow “strongly” if the Government is to cover the costs of Australia’s ageing population. Unquote.

Good on you Ken Henry. This has to be music to the ears of many of us who have been complaining about the state of our Health, Education, Public Transport and many other social infrastructures that through the years have become crippled by lack of money.  There are finally some encouraging signs that will stop the rot in Governments on both sides forever seeking popularity in massaging and nourishing our deep seated hatred for paying tax by promising reduced taxation for the workers each time there are elections.

Of course we all know that we still are one the lowest taxpaying country of all the OECD, indeed Australian Government’s own study indicates our low tax regime and well worth a look at;

http://comparativetaxation.treasury.gov.au/content/report/html/02_Executive_Summary.asp

It is no wonder that we are struggling to keep up with the rest of the world and that rumblings of the dissatisfied are finally coming to be heard. We get what we pay for! It is so true and never before are we so poignantly reminded of our shortcomings than the arguments that have been raging here on the ‘Unleashed’ especially about our shortcoming in Education. There are now all sorts of conjuring tricks being implemented.  At the last election,’ Computers for all students’ was shouted from rooftops all over the country.  Boy oh boy, have seen acres of video footage of Rudd and Gillard smiling in front of those promised school computer roll-outs. We must have School ratings and Comparisons and publish the Data, shame the lot of them, and the latest from the bag of trickery; Schools to receive public disadvantage rating.

At no stage do we ever hear that good teachers need to have higher qualifications and therefore a considerable increase in wages. You can’t teach kids by a mixture of people that have only just scraped by themselves in education.  That there are many good teachers is without question, but I bet you in those countries where education is better, teachers are also better qualified and better paid. In Finland, which continues to be on the top of the Education ladder, a minimum requirement is a Master’s degree.

All this cost money: and where is it coming from?

It is very much the same story with our hospitals, and again, the paddle pop stick taped together ad hoc financially starved system staggers on. People are dying from the lack of the simplest procedures. Waiting times in Casualty wards are staggering, people bleeding to death and stories aplenty of people turned away or shunted to other hospitals. They have become charnel houses and blame for this goes backwards and forwards between States and Federal Government as regularly as a dripping tap. The Government is threatening to take over the hospitals. This is just another voodoo exercise. It is the lack of money, stupid!

As with education, so it is with health. Those that can afford it go for a private option and make those that can’t, somehow feel they have failed. How an egalitarian society ever came to believe and develop a two tiered system in such basics as Health and Education is beyond my understanding, but that is how it is at present.  It would have to add to a huge waste and duplication. Not surprising is that those that have succeeded in making the money for private health and education probably enjoyed some very handy tax breaks or even dodges, n’est ce pas?

So, where is the money coming from for first class, world beating health system?

We have done so well though. But, has this doing ‘well ‘been on the back of filling up Bulk Carriers with the  scrapings of the top 50 metres or so of our country, especially in the North and West. This has been a nice little earner for Australia, all those minerals and all that red dirt. It’s been so easy too. Huge trucks and trains to ports and then shovel it all onto boats and then wait for the money to roll in.  How lovely for the Government, what a win-win. Will this go on forever?

In any case, it has not provided us with best standard public Education, Health, Public transport and it never will. It just puts money into shareholders who in turn will go for the private goodies and live in big ugly houses.

As for pensioners, they will  have to feast on that extra $30. – added onto their fortnightly pension. Many will just have to continue living just above the poverty line and make do with the no-frills toilet paper.

Good on ye, Ken Henry,

We need to pay far more tax.

Quo Vadis, need for a full Woman and Dancing

28 Sunday Mar 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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Previously:

(I had moved up the social ladder somewhat with dating a girl who I had taken out to one of Sydney’s most prestigious restaurants In Sydney at Martin Place, called Quo Vadis.)

We, majestically sauntered downstairs at our pre-booked table to be met by a smarmy waiter moving chairs and cutlery. He opened the napkins, waving them around as if expecting a standing ovation. (Or a huge tip.) My meal was a ’steak a la Moliere ‘and it tasted as much. I think she had a chicken in the basket with lovely buttered spuds.  We enjoyed a Flaubert a la Francaise, a mentholated spirits infused flambé desert afterwards. It was a curious dinner. She kept looking sideways and answered in monosyllables.

I tried to lighten the situation by showing some photos that were taken with a  camera and long distance lens a  few weeks earlier at the Anzac Day of returned soldiers. One photo was of a very stern looking ex soldier with one arm and a vintage hat leaning against a column of the GPO building at Martin Place. I had developed the pictures, and to go with the subject, printed that shot on sepia glossy paper. I was very proud of that picture and I still have it. Perhaps, anything with wars and Anzac would stir her into a patriotic fervour and it would put me at some advantage for future developments?

She was totally disinterested and continued looking past,  but at least kept saying ‘ oh, how nice’.

Nola Dekyvere, with her ever-present social tuned hawk eye scanning the patrons for a solid donation in return for a picture on the social page of the Sunday Telegraph, totally ignored us; a loss to the ‘Black and White Committee and hence the Parramatta Girls Home’. The meal cost me 2 weeks wages. I got a peck on the cheek and ‘thank you’, ‘it was really lovely’,’ thank you so much’,’ very nice’. She quickly strode back to the safety of her parents front door. Perhaps the ride back to her home at Ashfield in the cold night air, tucked inside a Triumph side car wasn’t as glorious as she might have expected or imagined. What had she imagined; a hired Rolls Royce?

I walked past the Phyllis Bates dancing Studio next to the Lyceum Theatre in Pitt Street a couple of times hoping to catch girls on their way in, in order to weigh up the general clientele of aspiring dancers from the opposite sex, but did notice instead a few Latin looking blokes going in but not many girls. Of course in the days of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, The Mount Isa mines and the desperate need for short but hefty Cane Cutters in Queensland, Australia by and large was inundated with male migrants. In fact someone had written on an overhead rail bridge in Glebe, “Australia, country of men and no women”. It was an ominous and sad bit of public writing and found support amongst some of my friends who were also faced, not only with the cultural and language differences but also with the shortage of available girls to date. The bridge sign writer at least gave vent to his frustration and it received some publicity in the Newspapers. The general opinion was that those swarthy dagos should speak English and jettison their odiferous garlic habits together with pulling knives out of their socks.   Anyway, at least I had blond hair not looking dago, a huge advantage at that time. I was not to be put off and after a while booked dancing lessons.

The way to book the dancing lessons was rather adventurous but also cunning from a commercial point of view. The more one booked, the cheaper the dancing lessons. I bought a half year supply of dancing tickets, an hour lesson per week. The girl doing the bookings showed me around and the dance floor was superb. A highly polished wooden floor. I noticed loud speakers on the wall and a gramophone turn table on a small table with a stack of records next to it. I also watched a string of men waiting perched on chairs against one wall for some lessons and a couple of female teachers swirling around following black painted footsteps on the floor but did not see any females waiting for their lessons. Did girls know how to dance instinctively? Were they born with dancing gifts as well as a need for malt in milkshakes? If they suffered from raging nerves as so many magazine advertisements were implying how come they could dance with, apparently, enough confidence and without taking lessons? Was the Glebe bridge sign writer correct and that the male migrant was doomed to compete in a world of males only and not enough opposites?

Where were the loving caring females for the males with guttural accents? I remained positive and bought a nice pair of leather shoes. The Lambretta Scooter club had fulfilled an important role in the art of wooing the female in Australia. The spoonful of malt in the milkshake wasn’t the only trick of capturing hearts and minds of the opposite sex. During a few socials we did a dance of some sorts at the Parramatta Ambulance hall after meetings but with most members being males, it was a bit tricky and the dance did not really amount to much body contact. To be honest I just craved to have an armful of a full woman and the more formal way of dancing was the way to go. The lessons were to be Saturday mornings between 11am and midday.

I duly turned up wearing a freshly starched shirt and a black pair of trousers also nicely ironed with a cuff at the bottom just touching the top of my new shoes without being too long or creeping up into any kind of ugly fold. The trousers were from my spare suit, the free suit that came from Reuben Scarf’s,’ buy one suit and get the second free’, remember? I took the trip by train and was careful not to cross my knees and spoil the crease in the trousers.

The entrance upstairs into the dance hall was with much trepidation and a well practised kind of nonchalance hiding  behind a smile and a copious well brilliantined head of hair.  A nice but short woman approached me and called out my name. I thought it a good start that she knew my name and even better was when she took my hand and said, ‘ shall we start with doing the beginning steps of the Fox Trot’? I had heard of this Fox Trot and seen Fred Astaire sweeping lovely women around the floor in magnificent variation of many dances including the Fox Trot. She explained to try and follow the painted black footsteps on the floor. The music was a version of ‘Rock around the Clock’ on a piano and I had to try and let my body do the pre-painted steps on the floor in tune with the music. “Just try it by yourself for the time being” and “I’ll see you in about ten minutes’ to see how you are progressing”, she said with a kind smile. It was a rather fast “Fox Trot’ ,and for about 15 minutes I was doing the steps backwards and forwards, trying to put as much swing and swagger into my  movements as my lanky and somewhat gangly body would be capable of. It occurred to me that ‘trying it by yourself’ had been the story of my life so far. I quickly banned that thought to mind’s sandbox and  with renewed vigour kept on fox trotting away, backwards and forwards, on the  worn out painted dance steps.

Fox- Trotting with Rock around the Clock

23 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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March 22, 2010 by gerard oosterman

 

The issue of remaining secretary of the Parramatta Lambretta Scooter club came to a head when I turned up with the Triumph outfit. They told me to either stay faithful with the Lambretta or even a Vespa but no one would ride a motor bike. This was set out in the rules. That is the problem with clubs and even political parties. They thrive on rules. I had enjoyed my secretarial job immensely and gave me opportunities to check out lovely sheilas. Some of those were a bit rough. They were called widgies. I was a bodgie with an accent and my hair rock solid from Brilliantine.

 The best way to woo a girl and get noticed was to shout her milk-shakes. One girl, I have forgotten her name for now, insisted on her milkshake to be given a spoon full of malt. I even then had medical concerns about girls’ and thought the malt might have been to calm their nerves. For some reason, the tabloids and monthly or weekly magazines had lots of advertisements for women’s trouble that seemed to focus on them suffering from ‘nerves’. I, with due concern, thought the malt might have also been some calmative for female ‘nerves’.

The Widgie Lambretta members hardly showed many nerves though and could be driving their Lambrettas as hard as any male. They would take the head off the cylinder block, give a regrind and adjust valves like any bodgie.  No doubt, good practise for future marital delights! 

widgies 

Another fascinating time with the club was to go on treasure hunts. Maps would be consulted, hints were given were things were hidden the day before and at the end of the day, after riding the scooters to Palm Beach and back, we would all lay about someone’s house, enjoy fish and chips and spread our leather jackets. I can’t remember that grog played any part then. Strange, isn’t it?

 A meticulously planned trip to the Mount Panorama Bathurst races was the end for me as Secretary for the Parramatta Lambretta Club. No way was I going to go back to Lambretta. I loved my Triumph and the constant warring between the Sydney Vespa club and ours was getting petty. One girl on our side was seen cavorting with a Vespa member at Bathurst.

 The week-end was one that I remember as the wettest I ever experienced. We all slept under the cover of a cricket stand roof, in between seats. Terrible. Being perched on the side of a mountain in pouring rain with flashes of water spray roaring past wasn’t my idea of a week-end out. We all rode back to Sydney somewhat dishevelled and dejected and I wrote a last report to be read out at the next Parramatta’s Ambulance Hall meeting, and resigned.

It was roughly at that time that I decided to get earnest in my pursuit of a decent girlfriend. Dancing lessons was to be the answer. I had read numerous advertisements urging young people to learn to dance. The accompanying pictures had beautiful smiling girls offering themselves up to handsome swirling men. The chests on those smiling girls looked as if they were encased in those red traffic cones that direct traffic into a different lane, poking forward at 90 degrees to the road below them.

Fox trot 

One of a major dancing academy was Phyllis Bates at an address in Pitt Street. When I say ‘major’, I think it might have been the only one then. I had moved up the social ladder somewhat with dating a girl whom I had taken out to one of Sydney’s most prestigious restaurants In Sydney at Martin Place, called Quo Vadis.

Belly Dancing and other related Activities

19 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by in Helvi Oosterman

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By Helvi Oosterman

Our little cottage, or maybe I should call it a shack, is usually let to the nicest possible people. They rent it because they like the idea of staying  in somewhere old and charming; somewhat sloping floors, aged newspaper/wallpaper  still visible here and there and of course the slow combustion fire place and stacks of books and CD’s on the shelves …

Now all the lettings are done through internet, via e-mails rather than telephone.  At times those calls made it very hard to stay civil and to agree that the customer is always right. There was this loud and opiniated American woman who demanded to know how old the bed linen was. I patiently explained that we had only been in operation about two weeks, so sheets and towels were only fourteen days old. Next she wanted to find out the standard of the general cleanliness in the cottage. I don’t know what she expected me to say; maybe she was eager to know what time I had vacuumed the place, and what cleaning products I used in the bathroom.

“Your question is rather ambiguous as my standards of cleanliness might be a lot higher than yours”, I replied and quickly added that I didn’t like her style of questioning and that I was not going send any requested pamphlets to her either.  Huh, I got out that in one piece, thank god; she most likely would have sued us if she found a dog hair on the veranda cushions!

Another interesting call came from a young mum of twins; she enquired after possible horse riding places nearby.  At time the insurance costs for that kind of activity had sky-rocketed; many horse owners had also stopped the practice. I passed the news to her and she seemed most disappointed and that made me ask her how old her twins were.  “They will be two next month.” I did not say anything after that.

Still, horse riding is something that people like to do in the country; it was just the age of the boys that threw me. I can relate to this eagerness to get the kids into activities as it is what these modern mums do. I was flabbergasted when another lady asked me what was there to do for her husband who was supposedly easily bored. I felt like saying; “Join the club; I have one of those as well. I usually do a spot of belly dancing at nine after the kids have gone to bed.” 

Instead I sweetly rattled on about cycling, hill climbing, and swimming, boule playing or maybe just reading in front of the fire…

The next enquire came from this very nice Chinese girl who wanted to know what kind of animals we had on the farm.  I proudly listed the alpacas and their cute off spring, then the chickens, ducks, peacocks and what the kids seem to like best:  our three toddler friendly dogs. “What about sheep”, she asked. “Next door neighbour has thousands of them, just behind the nearest fence”, was my curt reply. 

She rang at least two more times, still asking about the sheep. Finally I couldn’t help it any longer and I had to ask:”Lee, what is it that you want do with those sheep, practice some shearing or what? “

She couldn’t stop laughing and when she came with her kids, all they wanted to do was to play with our lovely dogs…

Triumphing over Adversity.

18 Thursday Mar 2010

Posted by in Gerard Oosterman

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March 17, 2010 by gerard oosterman

 The trip back on the Lambretta was slowed down considerably by the engine’s electronic contact points closing up so that the timing combination of points and spark plug became out of synchronisation, not right. This affected the power and each hill I did in second gear. I kept resetting the points but after a while they would be closing up again. I had a spare set of points so I managed to replace but the same problem kept occurring.  Anyway, I stuck to the Hume Highway and limped past the border where everyone had to stop for fruit fly inspection. Then idled past that bloody Gundagai Dog, but wherever I could order large T-bones in cafes along the way to ease the troubles of heart and Lambretta. It helped!  The problem with the points was now so acute and the going so slow that often I saw the same landscape and same farmhouse twice.

  In those days the traffic was not bad, and while riding the Lambretta I finally thought out the problem of the closing gap of the contact points. It was just before that big hill near Camden that I figured it was not the points at fault but that bit of six cornered bauxite or Bakelite that was wearing so quickly. Each corner of this Bakelite item made the points open up at every rotation, which in turn would give the spark to the plug. I tested it by putting a tiny speck of grease on it. Like magic, the rest of the trip was without any closing of the contact points. As I triumphantly entered the Revesby neighbourhood I passed my dear mother who, as so often, was walking home with her shopping trolley loaded up with the family’s food. It was nice to sleep in my own bed.

There now came a period of serious consolidation and reflection. Those Melbournian girls in need of Dutchmen were put on the bottom shelf and my search for relief from Ma paw and her five daughters in preference to some one’s real daughter would now be pursued much more seriously but also locally. The time for inward looking and coming to grips with reality was of the essence. No more far away pipe dreams, regurgitating past events. My sunburnt scarred nose needed careful rehabilitation and I traded my Lambretta in for an ex-police motor bike with side-car. It was a genuine police blue coloured Triumph 650 CC with a lovely sound. This was a serious bike and cars in front of me would notably slow down. I was drunk with power and imagined being a real policeman, fining any motorists seen smiling with happy girl friends.