Restoring a Photograph Album to its Former Glory

One of my parents valued possessions was an old photograph album, containing photos and memories of their journey from England to Australia, in 1951, on the “SS New Australia”.

They enjoyed reminiscing occasionally, as they looked through the album and remembered the six-week long voyage with their three little girls. For my family, it had been a major life change for them all, as they said goodbye to their friends and family in the country of the birth, to begin a brand new life on the other side of the world.

There came a time in our lives when my sisters and I were obliged to remove all of our parents belongings from their home. Remembering back to the time, I recall the anguish we felt, knowing our parents would no longer have a need for any of the possessions they had left behind here on earth. Yet the time is also tinged with happiness, for it was a few days in time when my sisters and I reminisced together, of the days we remembered which would never be again. We girls were in this together, and we felt a sense of unity in our task.

With me being the sister with the interest in family history, my sisters felt that I should keep our parents photo albums, all bar one ~ the album from the “New Australia”. My eldest sister had been old enough to remember their days spent on the journey to this country and it would only be fitting that she kept this album. Besides which, I wasn’t born when the journey had been made.

Some pages are untouched...

Four years ago, however, my eldest sister departed from this world herself. The album no longer belonged in our family. After a divorce from her first husband, she had remarried, to a man who had not the slightest inclination to become a part of his new wife’s family.

Unfortunately he kept all of my sister’s possessions. He felt that not even my nephew and niece were entitled to their mothers belongings, giving them a few odds and ends of his choice, which, as my niece told me, mostly should have been discarded.

Even though I had remembered my parents old photo album I had not been on speaking terms with my sisters second husband for some years, finding him unpleasant and rude towards myself and most members of my family. One of my older sisters, however, who had been on the ship from England, had no qualms in asking for the album to be returned to its rightful owners.

Surprisingly, he returned the album. Unfortunately, it had been damaged.

one missing...

My sister asked me to take the album, even though it had been returned to her on the condition that I did not get it. Who was he to say who the album went to? It wasn’t his in the first place! My sister and I were horrified, although not surprised, by this statement.

Many of the old, irreplaceable photos have been randomly ripped from the pages of the album; some still remain.

Pages totally destroyed...

Going through all of the other photos from the same era, which I had been given many years ago, I think that I have managed to find enough replacement photos, to cover the destroyed pages. I have even found a couple of photos of the ship itself on the internet, which I will have printed, to add to the album.

A part of the history of the old album has been lost, but it will soon be as good as new again. It is far too precious, in terms of our family memorabilia, to remain disfigured.

This album will be returned to its former glory!

...soon to be repaired.

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A Sea Change…(AKA – An Adventure with my Reckless Parents!)

On our way north, with our lives packed into a caravan...

In 1971 my parents decided to make a “sea change”, selling our house, all of our furniture, discarding or giving away personal belongings which they believed we no longer needed, packed a few “must keep” items into boxes which were sent away to be stored, bought a caravan, and off we went.

Even writing that first line here gives me a feeling of panic; I personally would never dream of doing such a thing! Yet my parents found the whole idea so easy, almost as if it were a natural thing to do.

Sell your home; sure. Pack in your high paid job; no problem. Take your youngest child out of high school when she has only just started at her new school; she’ll cope!

Well, I did cope. I had no other choice, did I? What else could I do, other than tag along with these reckless parents of mine?

But here’s the thing; they had done it all twenty years before. When they had three young daughters, aged nine, six and four years of age, they packed a few beloved items into two large trunks, hopped on board the ship, “SS New Australia” and floated away into the sunset, in search of a new life on the opposite side of the world.

I must admit, buying the caravan was pretty great. And the idea of hooking the van up to the back of Dad’s station wagon in the middle of the night and beginning the drive north was very romantic.

And I knew I would be safe with my parents. Dad would fight off any monsters that threatened to harm me, whilst Mum held me safe within her protective arms, so really, I had nothing to worry about….did I?

How did a home-body like me happen to be born into a family where the father is absolutely fearless and the mother constantly has “itchy feet” and wants to spend her life in search of adventure?

Well, if it was adventure and change they were after, they succeeded, but that didn’t come as any surprise. My parents were both very feline like; they were a pair of cats with nine lives and always landed on their feet!

Dad out the front of the shop, with that dreaded bread window at the right side of the photo!

After four months of living in caravan parks (and using public facilities for our bathroom!) they finally decided to buy a shop in the very pretty town of Murwillumbah, New South Wales, slightly inland from the coast and just south of the Queensland and New South Wales state border.

To say “they” decided is not completely accurate; Dad had his heart set on buying the shop and Mum, true to her sense of adventure simply went along for the ride. Mum thought the buildings were shabby and old; well, looking at the old photos, she was right! But oh, that old shabby building was full of character and there was never a dull moment in the shop.

Poor Mum, she didn’t want to be tied to working in a shop, seven days a week, from 6am to 9pm! And when they went to view the business with a view to purchase, she remembered we had stopped at the shop on one of our previous trips north to buy a drink, but she had refused to buy anything. When she had looked in the fresh bread window there was a fly buzzing around the loaves of bread!

“Well, we’ll just make sure we don’t keep any flies with the bread then!”, Dad had argued, and he won the battle, although Mum was not satisfied until Dad renovated the shop, removing the dreaded bread window!

Our home was directly above the shop and apart from the white-ants in the wall in the hallway, the clanking blinds on the veranda that kept you awake at night (there was no glass in the windows on the veranda) and the toilet room was as big as a ballroom, it was a pretty comfortable home to live in! The old building had charm.

Dad inside the shop with staff, and friends, May & Betty.

Dad had convinced Mum that the business would be a little gold mine and he was right. It was situated right across the road from the ralway station, right where the railway line terminated, so when every train arrived, the shop became flooded with customers, plus there was a bus stop right at our front door. We were also right on the Pacific Highway and the last main town before reaching Tweed Heads and Coolangatta on the state border, so our shop was a huge draw-card to holiday makers. (Remember the fly in the bread window? We were on holidays at the time and stopped at the shop ourselves!)

We sold take-away food, groceries, bread (ha, ha!), dairy products, chemist items, we were a sub-newsagency and green grocers…you name it – we sold it!

Back view of the shop, showing the old shed and the bakery.

Apart from first thing in the morning and later at night we had two to three ladies working for us and I made friends with them all. I loved to help the ladies when I could; restacking the shelves or buttering bread for the sandwiches during the lunchtime rush, if I wasn’t at school, that is!

Out the back of the shop were some old sheds, which I couldn’t wait to explore. One building turned out to be a disused bakery (there’s that bread reference again!) that looked as if someone had just walked out one day, leaving everything in its place, never to return. The other

Looking towards the river, across the flood waters, from upstairs.

building, a shed actually, contained a neatly made bed (complete with folded up pyjamas under the pillow) and various other household items, including a bottle of metholated spirits. Urgh! After asking around, we found out that an old tramp had once lived there, and unfortunately the metho had been his “cheap alcohol”.

Around the back of the shop and across the road we had the Tweed River, so when it rained heavily for days, and flood warnings were issued, it was a matter of “all hands on deck” as we rushed around the shop, lifting everything in sight, before the river broke its banks. The flood waters ran straight through the shop, while we were safely tucked away upstairs, with Mum taking photos of the flood waters!

My parents had wanted a new adventure in their lives and for the three years we lived and worked in Murwillumbah it was a fun time, with so many memories, even more than I have recorded here.

It was a time when I thought my parents had totally lost their marbles and were in need of a “sanity check”, but being the felines that they were,  they landed, unharmed, right on their feet.

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Reflections on Silence and Time Spent Alone

Enchanted by the distant sounds of nature, intoxicated by the stillness in and around my home, I recall my childhood days of time spent alone, listening to similar silent sounds, immensely aware of the calmness within my home.

My home was my haven, my retreat from the noisy school playground and incessant chatter of some of my friends. Yes, they were my friends. And even at such a tender age, I longed to return to my place of gentleness, to regroup my thoughts, away from the noise their voices made.

While teddy bears were preferred as the chosen friends of most girls back then, my friends were my dolls. Each with their own individual name bestowed upon them at “birth”, they became my tea-party companions. They sat quietly beside me as I read my latest “Enid Blyton” story book, or whilst I knitted them a brand new jumper to wear during the cold winter months living in the Blue Mountains.

My time spent alone was not through choice, rather through necessity. Our isolated home sat amongst the grand total of three homes situated along a long dirt road, within a little known village. In one of the other homes in our street resided a retired couple and in the other, a single woman in her twenties.

I befriended the single woman, Marion, whom I would visit on weekends, when she had time off work. Her tiny Pekinese dog would tolerate my attention for the grand total of, perhaps, five minutes, after which time Marion began to relate her stories to me of her time spent living in Papua New Guinea, or read to me the next chapter of “Alice in Wonderland”.

Wild flowers grew alongside the dirt road. When allowed to go for a walk, I enjoyed picking these dainty little flowers to take home to my mother. During the season when the wild blackberries grew in profusion on their spiky vines at the end of our street, I would collect a dish of them to take home. Mum would make blackberry pie for us, a real treat, and a desert which I felt I had contributed to.

Sure, I did spend the majority of my days alone, and just as surely I never once craved the company of others, as I knew of no other existence than to be alone.

And I was never lonely.

Today, as I reflect on my constant yearning for solitude, living within a home containing six people most of the time, I understand where the desire for silence originated.

(Image from Flickr)

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2011 ~ The Dawning of a Cool Day

Misty Morning

With the dawning of a brand new day, and a brand new year, it became instantly obvious that we would not have our usual hot summer’s day, which we have grown accustomed to in this part of the world.

In the morning’s silence, the only sound to be heard was the soft pattering of rain, as I snuggled under the cosy blankets on my bed.

Who would have thought that the weather could ever be so pleasantly cool at this time of the year?

Outside, the unseasonal coolness also provided me with an unexpected photo session…

The mist around our house had almost an eerie feel to it. Could this really be January 1^st, almost the middle of summer?

Wet Web

Just outside the front door resides a spider. He’s not much trouble at all as he has provided his own little home, which looks just amazing when the rain has beaded upon the silky strands.

I often admire the complexity of a spider’s web, so cleverly constructed by natures own ingenuity.

Meanwhile…

As the day progressed, I have taken the opportunity to bake a Lemon Meringue Pie and a Lemon Tea Loaf, both family favourites and not often enjoyed at this time of year; it is usually too hot to use the oven!

What Next?….

Life’s happenings have prevented me from blogging over the last couple of months, what with this and that occurrence. However, I am totally convinced that the planets can never, ever align again to create such chaos a second time around!

I’ve missed writing and plan on writing down all of the words that have spent the last few months spinning around in my head.

So I’ve committed myself to writing regularly. More about these plans can be read by clicking here…

And, most importantly….

Happy New Year, 2011! May the Gods of Good Wishes bring the best of Everything You Can Imagine for yourself, into your life, making this year The Most Magical Year….Ever.

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‘Tis a Melancholy Kind of Day…

For the life of me, I really can’t imagine what has put me into this mood that I’m in.

Reading the most recent posts of some of my favourite bloggers always makes me smile…and as much as I have enjoyed today’s words, just as I do every time they share their words of wisdom and beautiful photographs, I’m having trouble finding the words to respond….

What is it that makes one feel so lifeless, and unexcited, uninspired and melancholy?

Only one word sums it all up perfectly ~ today, I’m feeling rather beige and I don’t like it!

I do miss my garden. Lack of time recently has not permitted my usual daily wanderings amongst the shrubs, fruits trees and vegetable garden, which I hold so dear to my heart. Now, the night has fallen; too late to enjoy the blossoms, greenery, sunshine and fresh air…

But then again, tomorrow is another day…

Another day, and I must find the opportunity to ponder my own thoughts, losing track of time within the contemplations of my heart, mind and soul…

That’s it!

How long has it been? How many days have passed me by, days, or is it months… since I last had time to myself?

Time to privately converse with my soul; time where my thoughts have been my own; time when my mind has not been invaded by the vocal thoughts of another?

Tomorrow, I must find some time for me. Time…standing with the souls of my bare feet pressed into the warm, golden sands of the beach, time for breathing the fresh, salty air of the ocean ~ deep, strong breaths of cool spring air…and peaceful thoughts, interrupted only by the blissful sounds of nearby crashing waves…

Thank you so much for listening. I feel less beige already…

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Springtime Magic

“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” ~ Mark Twain

The first day of spring brings promises of beauty yet to arrive…of births yet to take place…of dreams yet to be fulfilled.

Breaths of springtime air to fill the senses with the fragrances of the earth and all of its glorious bounty…

Rays of warm sunlight caressing the skin…

Crystal clear starlight illuminating the darkness of the night’s skies…

And my heart may burst with anticipation watching the magic of spring rejoice as it casts its springtime spells across God’s green earth.

All is well with the world…

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Summer in Australia

Living in the sub tropics of Australia might be the ideal life for some. The thought of all year ’round sunshine must be very appealing, when you are knee-deep in snow. But every summer, I have the same complaint. I really dislike the summer where I live! So, what am I doing, living here? I ask myself that same question, every single year.

It really is an excercise in futility, contemplating the why’s and the wherefore’s, though. I know why I’m living here. My family loves the summer! Yes, I have a family of beach-loving, heat loving, summer clothes loving people.

We had very little winter last year to speak of. While I was patiently waiting for the winter coldness to kick in, an early spring arrived. And spring felt like summer! Here it is now, mid-January, and even Sam and Amelia, the two biggest heat lovers of all, have had enough of the heat! Rosie  is convinced she is about to melt and Oliver has spent so much time in the salt water at the beach, he says he’s pickled!

There are so many advantages to living in a cooler climate. It’s just that those living in the snow have probably never experienced the extreme heat that the summers in Australia can, and usually do, bring.

For the first thirteen years of my life I lived in a mountainous area, where we enjoyed four seasons each and every year. Although there was no chance of snow where I lived, we only need travel about 20 minutes further into the mountains for the snowy areas. Summer was a time when the weather warmed up quite a bit, so we went into summer clothes for a maximum of about three months. There was the occasional hot day, but probably only 3 or 4 days of unbearable heat. And I thought those 3 or 4 days of  heat were tough to cope with!

Then my parents came up with the bright idea of moving north…the weather would be much nicer, they said. We moved in late September. In early October I had started at my new school. At the end of the first week at school, there was an athletics carnival. I remember the day well. I was saved from having to compete in any other event than one running race, due to my recent arrival at the school, so I spent a very enjoyable day sitting on a grassy hill overlooking the events, chatting to all of my new found friends.

By lunchtime, my legs were starting to itch in a way that I had never felt before, like a burning feeling.

One of my friends asked me if I was wearing sun screen. After my new-found friends had kindly educated me on what exactly sun screen was (!) they then went on to tell me that I had sunburnt legs! Can the sun actually burn your skin, I asked? Children can, at times, be very cruel. I was extremely lucky to have come across a great bunch of kids, who didn’t ridicule me for being so clueless about the sun!!

Needless to say, after my crash-course on the effect of the suns’ rays, during that sunny October day many years ago, I have since always owned a tube of sunscreen!

I miss the autumn leaves. I long for the days of walking through the yellow, orange, red, crimson and purple leaves, when they have fallen from the Liquid Amber, Japanese Maple or Golden Ash trees. Cooler autumn days, turning into colder winter nights, snuggled up under a cosy rug in front of a blazing fireplace, reading my latest book discovery. Spring in September, bringing with it the new buds of growth on the bare tree branches, with a promise of beautiful sunny days and a kaleidoscope of coloured flowers in the garden, warming up even more to lazy summer days at Christmas time, spent with friends and family. The four seasons are just divine!!!

Well, for now I have to stay put. My children love their schools. They have friends here. So, for now anyway, I will continue to sit or stand in front of a fan, dreaming of the cooler days to come.

And next summer? I might just visit England!

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