I read a lot of sporting books, naturally starting with cricket. Two which I still have in the sports section of my bookshelves at home are Straight Hit, co-written by Keith Miller, one of Australia’s greatest-ever all-rounders, and R.S. Whitington. It told of the West Indies’ tour of Australia in 1951–52. I read it again and again over a period of years. The other was A Century of Cricketers, by A.G. ‘Johnny’ Moyes. He had compiled the stories of one hundred famous cricketers, ending in about 1950. Moyes was an accomplished analyst. It was a different era and a vastly different medium, but he was something of a Richie Benaud of radio.
As I grew older my reading tastes expanded to include history as well as biographies. To this day I maintain a marked preference for books in these two categories. My father subscribed to the Saturday Evening Post, a well-illustrated American periodical, which I read thoroughly. It gave me an early feel for some of the differences in both American culture and politics. This was the early 1950s, and hostility to communism came through strongly in the pages of the magazine.
We always had a dog. For almost 14 years we had a marvellous Irish setter named Caesar. He went everywhere with me, even to church, where he would position himself in the back vestibule. Nobody seemed to mind; it was, after all, his home territory. He had to be put down not long before I turned 21. I took him to the vet, and I cried as he died in my arms.
The 1950s, when I grew up, was probably the most stable, secure and prosperous decade Australia had yet experienced in the 20th century. There are many now who belittle 1950s Australia. In the process they do their country and an earlier generation much disservice. True, the Australia I was raised in was far from perfect. Women were denied many opportunities; the white Australia policy was still in place; and the plight of Indigenous Australians had yet to stir the national consciousness.
But it is beyond churlish to deny the achievement of an era when so many struggling Australian families secured a modest level of material comfort, sent children to university for the first time and laid the economic and social foundations of modern Australia.
Television arrived in 1956, the year that I did my Leaving Certificate. For most of the decade, and before television changed forever the leisure habits of Australians, going to the pictures was a major social pursuit. It certainly was for the Howards, and going to the pictures for us meant on Saturday nights. Saturday afternoon matinees were off limits. That was when young men were meant to be in the open air, playing sport.
This was Hollywood’s golden era, years before the renaissance of the Australian film industry. American films dominated the screen, although there was a reasonable stream of British productions featuring such talented actors as Alec Guinness. The familiarity I felt with both London and New York, especially the latter, when I first saw those cities in the 1960s was a mark of the cultural deposit left by Hollywood in its hey-day.
We four boys and our mother attended and were involved in the activities of the local Methodist church, which stood opposite our home at 25 William Street. The church played a big part in the lives of all of us, but in different ways. For my eldest brothers, Wal and Stan, it was in their teen years a large part of their social life, more so than for Bob and me. I maintained regular attendance at the church until I left Earlwood in my late 20s. My brothers and I indulged our sporting passions through the church.
Earlwood Methodist Church had a large congregation, and was able to field several teams in the very extensive Protestant church cricket and soccer competitions. At one stage the four of us, and one of our uncles, making five Howards in all, played in the church cricket team. I have fond memories of many Saturday afternoons in the sun, playing cricket for Earlwood Meths at grounds such as Rudd Park in Belmore, and Tempe Reserve and Steele Park in Undercliffe. This cricket competition proudly boasts Bob Simpson and Brian Booth, both Australian Test Cricket captains, amongst those who played for their local church teams at a very young age.
Although our lives revolved very much around the church, religion and theology were rarely discussed at home. My father was a very infrequent churchgoer. He was a believer, but not a participant. My parents belonged to a generation of Australians which did not talk a lot about religion, even if they held to their faith. Then again, it was an era in which personal feelings generally, and not just about religion, tended to be internalised. The willingness of today’s generation, especially men, to speak more openly about their feelings is something to be welcomed. This is an area where the good old days were definitely not better.
We grew up at a time when church attendance was much higher, and when a moral consensus flowing from the Judaeo-Christian ethic held a largely unchallenged place in Australian society. The influence of the Christian religion, even amongst those who privately repudiated it, was both strong and pervasive.
The fundamentals of Christian belief and practice which I learned at the Earlwood Methodist Church have stayed with me to this day, although I would not pretend to be other than an imperfect adherent to them. I now attend a local Anglican church, denominational labels within Christianity meaning nothing to me. Any religious belief requires a large act of faith. To many people, believing in something that cannot be proved is simply a step too far. To me, by contrast, human life seems so complex and hard to explain yet so extraordinary that the existence of God has always seemed to offer a better explanation of its meaning than any other.
The extended Howard family, given that Dad had been one of nine children, was quite large. My paternal grandmother, Jane Falconer Howard, lived with one or other of her daughters for the last years of her life. Most Sunday afternoons involved visits to my grandmother. She was a stoic woman, confined to a wheelchair from the age of 62 as a result of rheumatoid arthritis. Deeply religious, she was in every way the matriarch of the family until her death in 1953, when I was aged 14. I have quite happy recollections of extended Howard family gatherings for special occasions, which brought me in touch with my numerous cousins.
A great Howard family ritual was observance of Bonfire Night, strictly speaking Empire Day, 24 May, that date being marked because it had been Queen Victoria’s birthday. We always had large amounts of fireworks, built huge bonfires, had a half-day school holiday and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Like all Western societies Australia has become a nanny state on activities such as this. As a consequence today’s children are denied much innocent fun. I think that fireworks prohibitions are ridiculous.
My parents were quiet, even shy people whose total focus was the care and upbringing of their four children. They wanted us to have better educational opportunities than they had enjoyed. Doing homework or studying for university exams took precedence over everything else at home. My mother and father would frequently forgo listening to the radio — after the ABC news of course — so that one or more of their children could study undistracted. Often Stan would be at his desk in his bedroom, and Bob and I would be working on the dining-room table. They wanted their children to succeed, and did all in their power to bring that about.
There was nothing self-important or pompous about either of my parents. They actively discouraged such character traits in their children and were scornful of anyone who exhibited what their generation called ‘side'. We were taught to be polite to people doing menial tasks. My mother rebuked me at the pictures one night because I had used my foot to push a sweet wrapper towards a cleaning lady who was collecting rubbish during interval. She said that I should have picked it up and handed it to her.
Due to the age difference, I had a minor form of hero worship towards my two eldest brothers, Wal and Stan. At the age of 15, I was absolutely devastated when Wal was not elected captain of the church cricket team. This was because he took it for granted, owing to his seniority, that he would be elected. He had not bothered to organise his numbers. I thought the decision of the team was most unfair, and it left me feeling upset and angry for weeks. I found it hard to accept that the other members of the team would not all want Wal as captain. It also taught me a lesson about ballots,