My Dad

Before I was born, my parents had commenced buying a house on a corner block in Essendon. Dad no doubt had saved money while fighting overseas in the Great War of 1914-18.

When they couldn’t make the payments, they lost that house, and subsequently rented the place in Fitzroy, where I was born. Then we moved to Eltham and later to Briar Hill.

Dad would regularly come home late from doing the rounds of the pubs in Collingwood. He’d walk from the Greensborough station to our rented shack in Briar Hill. Once he spent a night in a watch-house in the city, for drunkenness.

Coming home late one night, Dad wanted some tucker, but we were all in bed. He used to sleep in a back room, while Phyllis and Mum slept in a front room.

With a locked door, Mum wouldn’t get out of bed to cook food, so he lit a candle, and putting it against the door, he said “I’ll burn you out!” Mum came out and grabbed the candle. Dad took the enamel candlestick and hit her over the head with it.

I heard the enamel cracking off and there it was, a bent candle-holder. Then there was a hullabaloo, as usual, with shouting and what-not.

When Dad was sober he made me a billy cart, using the old pram wheels. He’d play cricket in the back yard with me. It was booze and poverty that were the trouble.

We couldn’t afford hair oil. Dad used to make some for us, and this is how: Quince trees grew wild around where we lived. They were relics of old orchards and thrived on water courses. Dad would pick a couple of quinces, open them, get the seeds out and pour boiling water over them. When it was cool it made quite a stiff gel. Applied to the hair, a gale would not ruffle it.

Dad used to put some on my hair before I went to Sunday School at the tent, at the end of our street. I would sit and lift my hair up, and it would spring back down again. It probably would have made good glue.

Once I remember Dad was really angry with Phyllis. I don’t know why. She had a wash-up bowl full of dishes, and was heading for the laundry. The dishes were washed in the trough. But Dad stood there, blocking her way. Mum said to her, “Well, go around the other way.” Dad forcibly took the bowl off her and, flung it out the back door. There were a few broken dishes.

There was a lot of anger and I certainly did not (and still don’t, to some degree) understand it.