DARE TO
DREAM
PETER CLIFF
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Published by Brolga Publishing Pty Ltd ABN 46 063 962 443 PO Box 12544 A’Beckett St Melbourne, VIC, 8006 Australia |
Email the publisher: [email protected]
Email the author: [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission from the publisher.
Copyright © 2015 Peter Cliff
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data
Dare to dream / Peter Cliff.
9781925367041 (paperback)
9781925367348 (eBook)
Subjects: Motivation in adult education.
Adult education students--Australia--Biography.
920.710994
Cover design & typesetting by Wanissa Somsuphangsri
To my mother
Jean Stuart Graham Dawson
AN INSPIRATION
Never say “no” to a dreamer.
Peter Cliff’s life story proves anyone can achieve, despite formidable hurdles early in life.
A nagging inner voice, after being told “anything is possible if you work for it,” changed his life.
The voice kept telling him, as he worked through a succession of low-prospect jobs, that he should be doing something more challenging. He set his sights on becoming a doctor. Forget the fact he had not qualified for university study.
Doggedly sticking to a daunting work and study regime, he got to university and was diverted to a dentistry course.
Lack of money was a problem but Peter married and raised a family, finding innovative ways to fund his studies, including driving taxis, doing agricultural contracting work, running businesses and as a mature-age student achieving his goal of dental practices in country areas.
With the help of his former wife and their two sons, he ran a dairy farm and cattle stud and later a successful lavender farm where he developed harvesting and distilling equipment eventually bought to life through visits to historic sites in Europe and the US. More recently he has spent time doing voluntary charity dentistry work in Papua New Guinea.
His insights from these trips are compelling.
In short, Peter’s life story is an inspiration.
Ed Featherston
Former senior journalist with The Herald and Weekly Times
CHAPTER 1
STAN
We were excited. Our father was coming home from the war. My brother Bruce, 18 months, and me, a 3 year old, clung to the front gate of our home in Newport. Dad came into view wearing his uniform and carrying a large drawstring kitbag over his shoulder. He seemed pleased to see us although I was to learn later he had been drinking heavily. So began the saga that changed our blissful domestic life to one of watchful fear.
My grandfather, Emanuel Cliff, and my grandmother Anne, immigrated to Australia from Bradford, England, in 1920 with their children, Stanley, 9, and Majorie, 6. For three years Emanuel ran a small bakery in Kongwak Gippsland after which he moved to Williamstown before returning to England in 1927. Within a year, he returned to Australia and bought his own business, a rundown bakery in a dilapidated weatherboard building in Williamstown. Stanley, as a boy of 16, began work as assistant clerk in a law office but later became an apprentice to his father. Emanuel replaced the wooden bakery with a substantial double story brick building. The expansion was helped by a small legacy from his wife Anne’s family, the Thornton’s of Bradford, England. The shop provided an outlet for his popular pastry products and the bread was delivered in a horse and cart.
1938, Stan was 27. After a brief courtship, he became engaged to Jean Graham, the only daughter of Anne Graham, a divorcee who had a dressmaking business in Spotswood. Anne was a controlling advocate for the engagement of Jean into the Cliff family because of the Cliff success. Jean married Stanley Cliff in Scotts Church Melbourne on the 18th March, 1939. At 18 and still far from certain about her feelings for him, Jean was a reluctant bride, coerced to marry 27 year old Stanley by her mother.
Following a subdued honeymoon to Healsville, Stan and Jean moved into the pleasant painted weatherboard house owned by Emanuel in Oxford Street, Newport. Stan continued working in the bakery, a bike ride away.
January 1941 was not a propitious time to be born. The Second World War had begun and although my arrival was welcomed by my mother, my father did not share her joy. I was accorded the status of the ‘The Bastard’. This unwarranted slur on my mother was without foundation - my arrival was simply inconvenient to him.
Unfortunately, prior to my birth, the relationship between Stan and his father had deteriorated after a huge argument the result of which saw my mother and her ‘Bastard’ being told to stay away from the bakery. Stan’s response was to join the army without consultation with Jean. It was war time and his movements in the army were vague and unknown beyond references to Brisbane. The anonymity suited Stan for he kept little contact with Mum throughout his service apart from a brief period of leave when he relieved his father who had fallen in the bakery and broken a leg. This was allowed because the bakery was considered an essential wartime service. On my grandfather’s recovery, Stan returned to his army assignment in Brisbane.
The argument between Stan and his father after the marriage evidently arose from lies told by Stan to his father. He suggested that in some way suggested that Mum had stolen cash from the business along with some missing work clothes. The very idea was enough to alienate the Cliffs who consequently only provided minimal support or co-operation to Mum. They were yet to realise that Stan was a habitual liar and the more probable suspect for the irregularity. The office lady, Jean Simmons, who was in a position to know, later maintained the allegation was baseless and cowardly of Stan, who to avoid accepting blame, joined the army.
In 1944, Stan was discharged from the army. He returned to buy the bakery business from Emanuel who had retired to a large bush block in Tecoma, next to the Ferny Creek in the Dandenong Ranges. We moved into the house vacated by my grandparents. Arguments between my parents began. Stan would yell loudly and insist on radical changes to the business. Mum, wishing to be cautious, preferred a ‘wait and see’ approach to which Stan responded by dramatically locking the desk and denying her access to the details of the business. He was going to show everyone how clever he was.
The bakery ceased making cake and pastry products. The shop verandah was removed and the interior space incorporated into the house. Thus a lucrative trade was forfeited in favour of expanding bread supply. By 1947, the number of bread carts