Claire was a bit older than James Jimmy was slightly younger (about halfway between James and Edward’s age) and Raymond was a year or so younger than me. Jimmy was the only one that any of us liked. They made a regular habit of coming up each year for about five years afterwards then Muriel and Albert came on their own. Each year without fail, I’d say to Edith, ‘Tell them to bugger off, you can’t stand a bar of them, so I don’t know why you put up with them. They’re nothing but bludgers.’
But she would never admit to not liking them. She’d just suffer them in silence and be a good hostess and slave to all their beck and call.
Muriel had had a bowel operation and she had to wear a colostomy bag for years. The smell of her used to make us all want to vomit. Normally we would’ve had a great deal of sympathy for her, but she wasn’t a very nice person. What I like to describe as having the personality of a cane toad. I, of course, got up her nose by refusing to call her aunty. I maintained she was not my aunty and I had no desire to call her that.
She thought children should be seen and not heard and that naughty children should be sent to bed with their bums smacked. That was her favourite saying to me and I’d look at her in disgust
Amelia ‘Well, why don’t you give your own kids a belting then?’
Dad ‘That’ll be enough of that.’
Amelia ‘Well, it’s true, and anyway when are they going home, because she stinks?’
Aunty Lilly worked with Mum at Mt Coot-tha Kiosk and lived in the flat next door to Aunty Dot and Uncle Stan. When I was about three, she had commented to me that she’d like me to come and live with her because I was such a good little girl. I didn’t need any encouragement I immediately went into my bedroom put a couple of my panties, socks and a dress into my little cardboard school bag, walked out and told her I was ready. When Edith told me that I couldn’t go I threw myself on the floor and had a tantrum, declaring my undying love to Aunty Lilly. A few years later I overheard my father telling Edith he’d have to get rid of my beautiful blue cattle dog, Ballie just because Ballie was supposed to have bitten the postman. Ballie wouldn’t have hurt a fly and I told them so. Dad wouldn’t hear a bar of it, he’d made up his mind and Ballie had to go. I packed up all my junk and wrapped it in an old sheet and staggered down the street dragging the sheet filled with all my worldly possessions with Ballie trotting alongside. I had to stop near the paddock and sit in the gutter to catch my breath. Edith was totally oblivious to my departure and I was feeling rather pleased about my escape.
As I sat there, I planned to go to live with Aunty Lilly, I knew she’d take Ballie and me and look after us, even if she didn’t, I’d go to Aunty Dot’s place. All of a sudden, a cab came down the hill and I knew the jig was up. Mum had arrived home from work and saw me sitting there. She asked me what I was doing and I told her that I was running away to share myself with Aunty Dot and Aunty Lilly. (Wouldn’t they have been pleased?) Poor old Ballie was taken away from me and probably put to sleep and I cried my guts out.
I can’t remember a period in my life when I haven’t had at least one pet to love and care for. I remember every one of them and their idiosyncrasies but I’d be writing forever if I were to mention them all. Suffice to say they were all a major part of my growing up and still are. I unashamedly confess I have adored them all. So, imagine how many heart-breaking weeks I’ve had throughout my life, when they’ve died and either been skittled or baited by some nut case. If there aren’t any animals in Heaven I’m not going. I’d rather trust a savage animal than some humans any day.
Our local shops consisted of three grocery stores, a chemist, a butcher shop and a cake shop. An elderly man and his wife ran Cullum’s corner shop. I think Mrs Cullum may have been a Fuzzy Wuzzy, she had olive skin and very tight little black curls which was always cut very close to the scalp. They were both lovely people, but very slow in walking and their shop was always so dimly lit it was always difficult to see anything properly. That’s what gave Edward the bright idea of cheating them out of ice creams drinks and lollies without actually stealing them. Edward was a cunning little sod he got all our pennies and half pennies and painted them with silver frost. In a dimly lit shop to elderly shopkeepers who had poor eyesight they looked like one shilling and two- shilling pieces (ten and twenty cents.) Poor old buggers, they never stood a chance.
Mr Noble, the chemist next door to the Cullum’s shop, was also quite old and was renowned for his concoctions for all ailments. He had his own mixtures for whatever ailed you and you could guarantee that it would do the trick. He was a nice enough old coot and never did me any harm, but I found out many years later he molested at least two girls whom I knew very well. I can’t for the life of me understand how they allowed it to happen because apparently, he made it a regular habit. He probably knew not to try anything with me because I doubt that he’d have been able to concoct a cure for his mangled balls and massacred penis.
Mr and Mrs Alley (I now believe thinking back that their name was in all probability was spelt Ali as they too had olive skin) were the owners of the second grocery shop. They were also very nice people and Mum would often give me one shilling (ten cents) to get a bag of broken biscuits from them. Honest to God the brown paper bag would be approximately nine inches deep and six inches (twenty-two centimetres and fifteen centimetres) wide and the bickies would be overflowing.
Directly next door was Harry Steven’s Butcher shop where Dad had worked for a number of years. Harry’s first wife had died less than thirty minutes before I was born and this apparently had given me star status in Harry’s eyes. He’d often say to Edith, when one person departs this world there’s always another person to take their place and as far as he was concerned, I was his wife’s replacement. Whenever I went into the butcher shop I was always treated with the utmost kindness from the old man.
Across the road was Griffith’s corner store. It was the 1940s version of a supermarket whereby you could get your own groceries off the shelf and pay as you left. Not everyone liked going in there, they preferred the shopkeeper to serve you at the counter and get the groceries for you. I liked going in there to buy the foot-long American bubble gum and the giant size liquorice straps. Edward would often ring Griffith’s store
Edward ‘Is that Mr Griffiths?’
Mr Griffiths ‘Yes’
Edward ‘Are you on the tramline?’
Mr Griffiths ‘Yes’
Edward ‘Well you’d better get off because there’s a tram coming.’ He’d hang up and roll around the floor screaming with laughter. Another trick of Edward’s was to ring the taxi company about eleven o’clock on a Saturday night after coming out of the pictures. He’d order six cabs in a Chinese accent for Mr Who-Flung-Dung and company at the Chinese Association. He and Joey would then hide and watch the cabs pull up honking their horns outside the Chinese Association.
One Saturday morning Edward was all dressed up in his scout’s uniform ready to go to a special meeting. He had been eating oranges all morning and he came to the fence and was talking to Hannah and me as we sat on her front steps. He was drinking a pint of milk and generally making a big pig of himself and I told him so. He lifted his fingers in a pretend gun and shot me as he belched a very loud burp. I challenged him to do it again and he said, ‘I’ll go one better than that.’ He pointed his gun fingers at me again and lifted his leg and farted. There was no noise but he had a very startled look on his face and yelled, ‘Oh no, I’ve just shit myself.’ The yellow diarrhoea poured down his legs into the tops of his green and gold scout’s socks. Hannah and I nearly fell down the stairs as we screamed with laughter with Edward last seen running upstairs bellowing like a wounded bull.
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