No Looking Back – School’s Out and Life Begins (Pt XII)
Chapter 9 – Leaving Adelaide, Settling in Perth – and Marriage
I had made my choice – for the moment, anyway. As mentioned, everyone knew I would not return to Adelaide to live – ever – and when I made the decision to ‘try’ Perth, my family was not at all surprised.
For the first few weeks in the west I was very fortunate to be able to stay with my friend who lived there, and her mother. And her brother was sometimes there too. But after a few weeks, I realized that if I was going to stay in the west, I did need to find my own accommodation – and a job. I kind of needed money.
I was lucky enough to find a flat in South Perth quickly. I moved in, buying pieces of furniture as required and funds would allow – which they didn’t, really. I was borrowing from my long suffering parents. But I wasn’t really happy in that particular flat. I didn’t really feel safe, for some reason. Shortly after, one of the tenants from two floors above me moved out – and I grabbed his flat. Much happier up there. I had also been lucky enough to find a data entry position with the ANZ bank so everything was gradually starting to move again.
As might have been gathered throughout this book, I was not a very social person. I was and still am quite shy and have never been someone who can walk into a room full of strangers and feel good about it. Although I am a lot better than I used to be and I think I can thank the first weeks of my life in Perth for that. I realized after those few weeks that I really wasn’t meeting anyone and although I had a nice flat and a good job, I was lonely. While, yes, I did and still do enjoy my own company, it would have been nice to meet a few other people. But I realized this probably wasn’t going to happen unless I could get over this shyness, or move to another state, but not back to SA. But then I realized I would only face the same problem, wherever I was so I really needed to do something about it.
So I did. I joined a local group and the first event that I attended happened to be a Sunday sundowner held at the home of my future husband. Trying to overcome my nerves, I drove to his place and walked in, introducing myself. I didn’t stay for that long, but long enough to meet my husband-to-be and a few of his friends. I have to say I felt jolly proud of myself after I left and went home. I had done it. I had actually walked into this room full of strangers – all by myself! Then there was another function a few weeks later and again I pushed my nerves to one side and attended. It was actually fun. He was there too and I met some more people, some of whom remain good friends to today.
Then life settled down – sort of. However, it seemed that our rents were about to sky-rocket and there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to afford the new price. So I contacted the only person whom I thought might be able to help me – my husband to be. And believe it or not, timing was perfect. As it happened, the secretary in the office where he worked was about to move out of her flat, about five minutes from where I currently lived. So I zoomed up to have a look at these flats and to meet this lady – and discovered that the flat next to hers was already vacant. I grabbed it.
I moved in shortly after with the help of this new man in my life (although neither of us really knew that we would be in each other’s lives from then on, pretty well) and things just kept moving.
On 10th April, 1982 we were married in South Australia. It was actually Easter Saturday so arrangements proved to be a bit of a challenge. The service was fine, but flowers and a few other things were not easy to organise. But the day went off without a hitch and we flew to Tasmania for our honeymoon the next day. It was perfect – just what my mother wanted. The wedding, that is, not the honeymoon.
We returned to Perth to settle down – in my husband’s grandmother’s unit. Which was tiny. His grandmother lived in an aged care home and my husband had been ‘caretaking’ this unit. He was also doing it free of charge from my understanding and I had been led to believe that this would continue after marriage and I moved in. It would remain free of charge.
But this did not happen. Upon our return to Perth, there was a letter from the grandmother’s accountant telling us that she had decided that we would pay rent from now on. I was not a happy person and felt that this was reason enough to move on and into an empty unit, somewhere else. But my husband accepted it and we stayed where we were, squashed in to this tiny unit which had already been chock-a-block with his grandmother’s furniture and now with mine on top of that. I was prepared to sell mine – why should I?
We stuck it out for a year before purchasing a house and moving into it. I understand the grandmother was not happy with this and told my husband that he had promised that we would stay in the unit for at least two years. No thanks. Not when we had to pay rent after all – golly, we did want to be comfortable and while my husband might have been, I certainly wasn’t. We did move and I cannot recall what happened with the unit and furniture. My furniture naturally came with us but as for the grandmother’s, I cannot remember.
We both worked full time for the first year of living in our new house and then I became pregnant with our first daughter. She was born on the 28th August 1984 – and we had already decided that I would be a stay-at-home-mum while I raised our family – but then something happened that has always made me wonder about myself.
I got bored.
A few of our friends had their first children in the same year (1984) and apparently all those mums were very busy. So – where was I going wrong? What was I doing wrong? Or right? I was in exactly the same position as those other mums, with a young daughter, but I was bored.
So, daughter in tow, I started looking around for other things to do. Remembering the original reason for this book was to describe my six hideous years at secondary school in Adelaide – and after that most – sane – people would have thought I would never want to have anything to do with that school again. I thought exactly the same. So, I wondered about myself even more when I reached out to the Old Scholars’ Association in Adelaide, asking about a WA branch. The response was that there wasn’t a WA branch – yet. They attached a list of known old scholars to be in WA and I set out to contact these people and to arrange an inaugural meeting. This was a success and set the scene for our first annual dinner and things just kept moving from there. The WA branch was underway. 34 years later it still exists and has seen an evolving leadership and membership, which is normal. I led it for many years but handed over the reins a few years ago. Most of the original members have either moved interstate (following family) or overseas for the same reason. Sadly, but as normal, some have passed on. We have also had some guests from the association in Adelaide whom have flown over to join us at our events.
Other ways I have tried to keep myself busy once motherhood was here and towing first one daughter around and then both, once my second one arrived; I have been an Avon lady a couple of times; demonstrator for supermarkets at one stage and was into Hobbytex too. Along with several other things.
I mention above that I remember taking our eldest daughter with me pretty well wherever I went, whatever I did. I do remember leaving her with others, about once I think. In Adelaide, I certainly recall my mother taking both girls out quite often, usually when I fell asleep on their couch and was dead to the world. Mum took them off to the zoo and other places, which they loved. However, one outing in Perth that I will never forget, well OK, let’s say it was a ‘near’ outing – we didn’t actually go in the end. I had my car out and ready to go, my daughter buckled into her child’s seat in the back and we were all ready to go to my local bank, which was about a five minute drive. Suddenly, I felt that I should not go. It was just plain weird and I will never be able to explain it. I had buckled my daughter in, locked the house and garage and was about to get into the car when suddenly I just had this overwhelming feeling. Obviously it wasn’t an urgent trip anyway as I decided to go the next day, or whenever, instead.
Turned out that there was good reason for this feeling.
That night on the news it was reported that my bank had suffered the biggest robbery in their WA history that morning and it happened at my branch – right on the time we would have been in there!
No, I have never forgotten it – and won’t – but also will never be able to explain my feelings.
Once our second daughter was born, her first year of life was rather a nightmare. She had a serious health issue and, strange as it might sound, good old ‘mother’s instinct’ kicked in more than once and actually saved her life, not that I really knew it. I mean, I knew her life had been spared but didn’t realize it was actually ‘mother’s instinct’ that had done it. I guess one of the really hard things about this was that, as no-one else witnessed it, including the doctors and hospital, people were starting to wonder about my sanity – seriously. Finally my daughter had a ‘turn’ at my in-laws’ home and I was able to get my husband and parents-in-law to see it. At last they believed me. She was examined thoroughly and spent a considerable amount of time in hospital during that first year and we were told she would grow out of it at the end of the year. And so she did, to my immense relief.
The second half of this chapter will be posted in my next blog.
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