Chapter 17 Expanding Family

                                                      Chapter 17   Expanding Family


When I was very small I had a habit of twirling in circles until I made myself dizzy and fell over. I did it so much I earned the nickname ‘Giddy Gayle’ and gradually it became Giddy, or even Gid. It lasted most of my life. Both my parents had a great sense of humour, which is probably why they survived so well under such primitive conditions on the farm.

Most of all, though, my devoted mother always worried that we were not warm enough, cool enough, fat enough, or we hadn't had enough to eat. Our comfort in winter became one of her major concerns, especially living in the old draughty, slab house where the chilly winds whistled through the cracks in the slab walls.

Without fail, when we went to bed at night, her last question was, "Would you like another blanket?"  It never failed, every night we got the same question, despite the fact that we could hardly move for the weight of the covers on our beds already. 

 Dad thought it was a great joke and started imitating her as soon as he went to bed. "Anyone want another blanket?" he'd yell out, laughing.

 Mum felt the cold herself, and I never knew her to go out without taking spare coats or rugs. She often came to the rescue of small children in the family whose mothers,  (including myself,) had not provided enough warm clothes when an outing had unexpectedly extended into the evening.

Dancing was one of my mother’s dearest ambitions when she was young. She hung around a hall where other children were learning ballet, and although she pleaded with her father, he would never relent and let her learn. So when I was little, she taught me as much as she could. We stood on one leg, hopping up and down.

 “Point your toes, twirl your foot, then flop down into the splits." Yeah.sure Mum. All the while we sang,  “Can you do the Scotchy’s dance, can you do the kick?” kicking out the foot .

Mum would say wistfully, her eyes off in the distance, "If we’d have stayed in Brisbane I would have had you children taught dancing."

She encouraged me to do exercises as well, lying on the ground, or on the floor. Later on in life, she did exercises herself, and well into her eighties, she was still lying on the floor bike riding with her legs, or she stood at the open window, deep breathing.

I knew I would never do anything as exotic as dancing, but I had an aching ambition to be a marching girl. There was a marching team in Assville which was thirty miles away, but I knew that attending any such tomfoolery was totally out of the question, (farm work was far too important to be put off for something so trivial,) so I didn't even ask. But on the rare occasions that I saw a team practising, I watched the girls enviously. I loved marching practice at school, and in the upper classes I carried the flag at the head of the team on sports days.
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 It must have been on our first big trip to Brisbane that Mum fell pregnant with her third child. Generally it was unexpected, and Mum was worried about how she would cope with the workload.

As country doctors often are, our doctor in Assville was quite helpful. "I’ll give you as much help as I can Peggy. If the baby is sick just call me and I’ll have something sent down from the chemist.”  

Dad was delighted and hoped for another boy to work on the farm, (that's what Mum said anyway,) probably because I was such a disappointment.

I was excited about the new baby to come and of course was hoping for a girl to be a little playmate. Mum was thirty-nine when she had the baby. I was just over 6 1/2.

Being of small build, she had a difficult, drawn out labour, leading to many drugs. My baby brother was large and lusty, hungry and demanding. It wasn’t long before Mum found her breasts were too sore to breast-feed so she turned to Moddy-milk formula. These were cows’ milk recipes made up with water and sugar to balance the calories required by the infant. The mixture started out at half strength at a few weeks of age and gradually increased in strength every few weeks until the baby was drinking full strength cow's milk at the age of six months.

 After discharge, Mum’s hand swelled up with an infected forefinger, ‘due to drugs’ so the doctor said. In extreme pain, she was admitted to hospital again. Mum was distraught and ached to be with her daughter and baby. She knew we would be well cared for with Molly at the shop in Green Springs, but Mum was not comfortable being dependent on others. Anthea took us for long walks, Owen in the stroller, and me walking beside, aching for my mother. Still, I loved Anthea, and my brother and I survived very well.

Back on the farm, Owen slept in a makeshift bed in the laundry trolley. Good friends gave my parents an old pram they had finished with and I was only too willing to take him for walks. When he was sleeping in his primitive bassinet during the day however, he was usually in the kitchen close to Mum, and if he cried, I flew up from the table or wherever I was sitting, to rock his pram or his bassinette. (At least the laundry trolley had wheels!)

The family who gave us the stroller had eight children, so it had seen better days. It did the job but not without incident. When Owen became old enough to sit up, naturally he held the sides of the pram with his little chubby hands. Often, the handle fell down, squashing his tiny fingers in the sides of the pram, scraping the skin and bloodying his hands. I panicked and raced to my mother for help, while Owen screamed loud and long!