Chapter 7 Working Man

                                                              Chapter 7   Working Man

Although never out of work for long, Alec went through a lot of jobs, as taking orders from a boss was not his long suit. Perhaps this was because as a young boy growing up, on every holiday and at every opportunity, he spent time with an uncle on his farm on the Darling Downs. This colourful family had a big influence on Alec. The uncle was reportedly a huge man with a huge appetite for alcohol, his drinking bouts frequently degenerating into drunken rages, causing smashed furniture and violence against members of his family, especially his wife. She was a huge woman, too. Alec boasted she worked 'like a man,' carrying heavy bags of wheat or corn on her shoulders. Inevitably, the uncle came to grief from his drinking. Late one night, returning from a drinking binge, he drove his car over a bridge and was killed. Unfortunately, in many ways this family served as a role model for Alec.

When he and Peggy returned to Brisbane after their failed business attempt, Alec was out of work for some months.

“I lived with Mum, even after I had my baby. She looked after me... made dresses for me and bought singlets and other things for Clarence.”

At the same time, Alec lived with his parents, until finding a job as a travelling salesman. Peggy said, “He worked first for Buzacotts, and then for Alfa Laval, selling farm machinery around the Darling Downs.”

This necessitated a move to Toowoomba, the Downs commercial centre to the west of Brisbane, where he supplied the farmers in the area.

 After gaining this position, Peggy and Alec restarted their married life, renting a house up in the hills near Toowoomba’s Picnic Point. This regional town, however, is one of the coldest centres in Queensland in the winter, especially up in the heights of Picnic Point. The cold proved too much for Peggy, so they moved to a lower area into a high, weatherboard house. A little black and white photo shows blonde, curly headed Larry, about one or two years old, sitting on the front stairs of that house, almost obscured in his overcoat and long pants. His parents would be surprised to see over time, actually by the time he went to school, those blonde curls had turned to jet black.

Alec stayed away for days or even weeks sometimes, doing his job, and Peggy would be left to her own devices, taking care of her baby boy. “It was nothing for Alec to take a quick trip home to Brisbane to see his relatives,” He chose not to think of his wife in her loneliness, and shouldering the responsibility of caring for their baby alone.

Sometimes Peggy would be left with no money, and she told me once that she was so desperate for milk for her child that she walked the streets with Clarence in the stroller until she found enough change to buy a bottle of milk. I could hardly believe my ears.

 Alec did try to redeem himself, sometimes taking Peggy on short runs on his rounds of the farms.

When World War Two broke out in Europe and the Mother Country was involved, it meant that Australia was also at war. Alec and Peggy left Toowoomba and returned to Brisbane where Alec was engaged as a fitter and turner for Evans Deakin, doing wartime civilian work on ships. His attempts to join the Navy failed on medical grounds. The work lasted for seven years, the duration of the war. When the Americans entered the war, Alec also worked on American ships. Sometimes he brought home foodstuffs like coffee or tea or butter, commodities which were limited in Australia.

The American sailors were generous. “One time Alec brought home a lovely pair of woollen blankets,” Peggy said. “I needed a dressing gown and I made a lovely warm one out of one of the blankets.”

All this time Clarence was growing up and becoming a real adventurer. A family of older boys lived at the back of Alec and Peggy and they kept horses.

“I searched the neighbourhood for Clarence for hours sometimes, and eventually one of the boys would appear leading a horse, and there he would be, only two or three, happily sitting on its back.” The boys loved Larry and entertained him for hours at a time.

There came a day though, when Peggy had a near miss in the house with Larry, when he toddlied out to her in the front room and said, "That fire will burn me."

Instantly, Peggy jumped up and ran to the kitchen, where she was horrified to see the curtains were on fire. Taking the rod by the end she manoeuvred them out of the window, dropping them down onto the ground.

As the war progressed, troop deployments facilitated the movement of different dengue fever viruses across Southeast Asia and Australia. It was when Larry was about three that Brisbane was affected by an outbreak and Peggy succumbed. She lay in bed for two weeks, so feverish that she became quite delirious. Towards the end of the second week she forced herself to get up each day for a short time, but the disease had left her with extreme weakness. One of Alec’s robust cousins knew something about massage, so Alec enlisted her help. Peggy lay in bed too weak to argue while the girl massaged her body.

She was  vigorously thorough. “I thought I would die,” Peggy told me. “I was so weak I couldn’t lift my little finger.”

The next day however, her energy levels had doubled and she was able to get up for a few hours at a time. Still, she took another month to return to her previous active self.

At the end of the war, Peggy got her wish for a baby girl, giving birth at the Tradeson Private Hospital in Brisbane. Clarence was already seven years and two months old and, although the family was not catholic, because it was nearby he attended the convent not far from their house. Clarence was bright, with a keen mind for learning, and I have it on good authority, the nuns loved him.

 On the side verandah of her house, Peggy taught Sunday school for the  Indooroopilly Methodist church. Naturally petite and slim, she had innocently disguised her winter pregnancy by wearing a large overcoat. Soon after she brought their baby home from hospital, their insurance agent, who sometimes came on Sunday afternoons, arrived for a visit. He knew Peggy and Alec well, but when he saw the baby in the bassinette he was incredulous.

He wanted to know, “Have you adopted her?”

Then, still disbelieving, he remarked, "I must be blind!” They called the baby Gayle Patricia;  I had arrived in the world.


 This last chapter is the end of part one of the book. At the age of 1, I accompany my parents and brother to a farm in the bushy Burnett district of Queensland. Read on, (and be thankful for modern conveniences.)