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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When My Muse Pays Me a Visit…..

Some days, I just want to sit down and write. My muse pays me a visit, and my mind runs rampant with ideas, running every which way, so at the computer I sit, poised, ready to write. And so I begin.

“Briiiiinnnnggggg….Briiiiinnnnggggg!!!” The phone rings. Do I answer, or ignore it?

The phone continues to ring. I answer it. It’s my husband, or one of my children. Will I [......] fill in the blank. It could be anything from taking a tub of petrol to an empty tanked car or an update on the latest major life’s event.

Whatever the reason for their call, in my families eyes, it’s more important than what I’m doing at the time.

After all, Mum can write at any time, can’t she?

WRONG!!!

Not when she’s running after every whim her family dictates to her!

For a person who has never found the urge to write, has no interest in writing and is hard pushed to even pick up a book to read, the act of writing is a non-event to them. A waste of time. Well, if you really must write, do it when I don’t need you!

Unfortunately, my family doesn’t have any interest in writing.

I wonder how other wives and mum’s cope with their desire to write. When their muse pays them a visit, what do they say when the family is demanding attention? “Sorry muse, you’ll have to come back another day”?

Is this how an actor feels, if they live within a non-acting family?

Or an artist living with people who aren’t the least bit interested in art?

Am I the only blogger/writer in the entire world who has this problem?

Please, if you read this and have lived through what I am going through, suggestions on how to re-train my demanding family OR (preferably) how to escape to a deserted island, unnoticed, would be greatly appreciated.

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Searching for Love

My Wedding Day

There was always a man in Anne’s life.

Even before my birth, my sister had been engaged and later called off the engagement without any explanation to the family.

I loved and adored the man she married. To this day, I keep in touch with him and in my eyes he will always be my brother. I have no memory of any time in my life when he wasn’t there; he’s simply part of my family, a member who I hold very dear to my heart.

Unfortunately Anne didn’t feel the same way about her first husband. Who knows why she chose to marry him and to continue living for fifteen years in a marriage that was hardly to her liking.

But that was the way Anne lived her life. She made her choices for her own reasons. Nothing swayed her to think otherwise.

Anne’s delightful, flirtatious personality drew men to her like bees to a honey pot. She was never short of admirers.

And as Anne prepared to leave her husband, I prepared myself for marriage.

To cut a long and complicated story short and also to divert from a story long gone and best forgotten, I married a Catholic. I’m a Protestant. Even during the late 1970’s my marriage was regarded as a mixed marriage.

My staunch Protestant mother refused to attend my marriage as it would take place in a Catholic Church. My Dad followed her lead, as did my two younger sisters.

But true to form, Anne was there. Anne was always there for me, as I was always there for her. Anne followed her own advice, the same advice she had instilled into me for a number of years ~ do what is right for you. And for Anne, the right thing to do was to be my Matron-of-Honour at my wedding.

Accompanying Anne to my wedding was her latest love, although this love did not last for long. Soon after my wedding day he had been replaced by an old flame from years gone by.

Just three months after my first child was born Anne and her old flame were married.

For a period of time he seemed to be the ideal choice of husband for my sister. But he couldn’t keep up the pretence forever and before long his true colours were showing.

He resented anyone close to Anne and Anne and I were as close as any two sisters could be.

Being a man with an extremely dominant personality, he didn’t appreciate Anne’s independent streak. While he enjoyed the playful, witty banter which he and Anne engaged in, he could not, and did not, tolerate her strength of will, to rival his own.

Anne only stayed with husband number two for financial reasons. Bottom line, he provided a roof over her head. By complaining profusely about his nightly snoring, Anne managed to manoeuvre her way out of his bed and into a separate bedroom of her own.

Anne’s husband was nothing short of rude toward my husband and me, as was the case with most members of our family. I don’t wish to dwell on his unpleasant personality, but future posts will explain my reasons for emphasising his dominant, controlling, arrogant personality.

My sister made her choices of the men in her life for reasons I’m sure were best known to her alone. She rarely seemed to be happy. Always searching for something else; something more than what she already had.

I strongly doubt that the perfect partner for my sister actually existed.

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Time Flies

“How did it get so late so soon?

It’s night before it’s afternoon.

December is here before it’s June.

My goodness how the time has flewn.

How did it get so late so soon?”

~Dr. Seuss

Oh yes, Dr. Seuss, the time does fly. So fast, in fact, that I hadn’t realised I’d missed writing a post here last week!

Not to worry…but, why worry? There’s one thing for sure, once time has gone, you can’t get it back.

So you just continue on. Which is what I will do.

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Post a Week ~ 2011

Another Misty January Morning

January 7, 2011, and I have awoken to another misty, cool day in the middle of summer.

Oh how I am enjoying our unseasonal weather this year! The hot and humid days do not phase me at all this year, as there has been so much relief from the heat when the cooler days arrive.

Cooler days clear my head….My head tells me I should be making plans….Planning on devoting more time to doing the things I enjoy the most….Mostly I enjoy writing.

And my heart agrees with my head!

I’ve checked out last years posts. How can it be? Never, not one single month, did I post more than two entries during a month here!

It’s time to make a committment, which I have decided to do by participating in the WordPress Post a Week 2011.

Some encouragement would be nice too. My stats show me there are visitors to this blog, so don’t be shy, come on ~ leave a comment!

Making plans, achievable plans, always leaves me with a strong sense of satisfaction.

Why not try it yourself….it’s the New Year. What better time to set some goals for the year!

If you’re a blogger, like me, maybe you could consider joining Post a Week 2011.

The possibilities of what new things you could try this year are endless. Whatever you choose, however you decide to spend your days during 2011 ~

~ Enjoy!

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