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Every summer, on Boxing Day, my mother and I would travel to the NSW south coast to spend a blissful two weeks in the shack at Coalcliff.  Even getting there was an adventure.  My grandmother’s car had to be left in a car park and all clothes, food and other necessities carried across a bridge over Stoney Creek, along a track and up some stone steps.  The shack was one of hundreds of similar dwellings on a hillside overlooking the beach and sea.  A simple reinforced canvas rectangle with one bedroom it was graced with louvred glass windows, striped awnings and a stone courtyard facing the beach. Mobiles of cut glass tinkled in the sea breeze and the constant roar of the surf made for a soothing background as I drifted off to sleep in the fold up bed.  We thought our shack was the best and prettiest of all the cabins on the hillside.  It even had its own toilet.

I remembered being really difficult one day when my grandmother was looking after me.  She had asked the teenage daughter of a friend to watch me on the beach but as soon as I saw her looking the other way I gave her the slip and ran back to the shack.  Now that I have grandchildren of my own I can imagine the terror they felt when they scanned the beach and sea looking in vain for a little six year old girl.  When they finally found me hiding under a bed in the shack I was given a belting followed by a glass  of orange cordial. 

My parents never holidayed together because of the demands of their business but I do recall one occasion when my father came to Coalcliff in his truck.  It was quite a surprise to me that he could swim and dive.  He took my friend and me by the hands and jumped with us in the waves.  An extra large wave took away his false teeth which were never seen again.  The next day we drove up Macquarie Pass in the truck and my friend was returned to her family, her fair skin covered in sunburn.

A Christian group of men and women provided entertainment for the children holidaying at Coalcliff.  We made huge words on the beach out of flowers, threaded popcorn in long strings in the hall and  walked through the darkness with lanterns on poles over our shoulders on New Years’ Eve.  I don’t remember making any friends and I detested the folk dancing in the hall and refused to take part.

I didn’t know at the time that the shack was my grandmother’s escape from her unhappy marriage.  During the week she worked in her Frock Shop in Mortdale but whenever she could she left the poisonous atmosphere of home and visited her hideaway. Some years later, all the shacks were removed and now there is only the Surf Life Saving Club where once hundreds of holiday makers packed the hillside.  On the southern side million dollar houses look out across the ocean, the rock platform and the ocean baths.  The Seacliff Bridge winds around the edge of the cliffs where once rock falls closed the road and the Coalcliff Coke Works is just a rusting ruin.

Until I travelled the world I thought all beaches had yellow sand, rock platforms at each end, a lagoon, surf and ocean baths.  To me this is still the definition of a beach..

Can you remember the first time you became aware that the black squiggles on pages represented the spoken word?  I can still recall that lightbulb moment well before I started school but it was quite a process before I could read confidently myself.

Reading in the 1950s was taught using phonics and sight words and  by the use of school readers and work books.  There was a lot of repetition and very little variety in the stories as Wendy, Sue and David ran, jumped, skipped and played with Nip.  By the end of second class we completed Travelling On and were ready for the School Magazine.

 

The magazine shown here reflects the excitement of Australians anticipating the arrival of Queen Elizabeth.  Her Majesty and Prince Philip were to enter Sydney Harbour in the Royal Yacht Britannia while the adoring public waved flags and sang “God Save the Queen”.

 

I wasn’t a precocious early reader and can still recall at the age of seven struggling to read Seven Little Australians aloud to my grandmother, Ella.  She would take over when I grew tired but would only read selected parts, such as the death of Judy, which reduced me to tears every time.

 

 

Despite our isolation in the country my father would occasionally take me to Sydney to visit Greenwood’s Second Hand Bookshop in Castlereagh Street.  I was allowed to buy about half a dozen books which would last me until the next visit and be read many times.  A Little Bush Maid and the subsequent Billabong books by Mary Grant Bruce were great favourites.

What Katy Did, Heidi, Anne of Green Gables and Little Women were devoured.  One of my early books was The Adventurous Four by Enid Blyton.  Of all her Famous Five, Secret Seven and Malory Towers books, this one remained my favourite.

 

 

Our one teacher school had a very small library.  It was only a bookcase  of five shelves but the Department of Education sent a new box of books once a month.  The downside was they had to be returned on time and we were not allowed to take them home.  Too bad if we were halfway through a book when it came time to pack up the box.

 

Comic Books were popular but because my father didn’t really approve of them he bought me Classics Illustrated.  From them I became familiar with The Tale of Dorian Grey, Around the World in Eighty Days and The Man Who Laughs, to name a few.

 

Two little second hand books I adored were “Flower Fairies of the Autumn” and “Flower Fairies of the Wayside” by Cicely Mary Barker.  The plants and weeds were English but where I lived in the Southern Highlands of NSW they were quite common.  I matched the fairies with my friends but the one I picked for myself was the Blackberry Fairy.  Not only did I love blackberries but I thought I looked a bit like her with my mop of dark, curly hair.

 

 

“Fifty mighty Argonauts, bending to the oars,

Today will go adventuring to yet uncharted shores.

Fifty young adventurers today set forth and so

We cry with Jason “Man the boats, and Row! Row! Row!”

 

This stirring song was part of the Childrens’ Hour, a radio program for children running from 1939 to 1972.  I came upon it fairly late, in 1961.  I was ten years old and entering sixth class at Primary School.  My father had just died of a heart attack and my mother was busy trying to sort out our future.  The cheery voices of Mac and Jimmy, Lyn and Sue drew me at five o’clock every afternoon to listen to an hour of serials, singing, discussion of music, art, nature as well as good natured banter.

I didn’t know it at the time but the presenters on this program were extremely talented and some my fellow Argonauts have been and are significant members of the Australian community.

What was intriguing was the theme of Jason and the Argonauts.  Each member was given the name of a ship (from Greek mythology).  There were fifty rowers in each ship so in my case my ship was Oricus and my number was 28.  Every contribution, be it a letter, a painting, an outline for a charade or a prayer for Sunday night, earned points.  Once 150 points was achieved an award of the Dragon’s Tooth was presented, at 400 the Golden Fleece and at 600 the Golden Fleece and Bar.  Maybe it is a reflection of the lack of other things to do but shortly before I turned 17 I achieved the ultimate goal and became Golden Fleece and Bar Oricus 28.

 

As well as points, blue and purple certificates were awarded for contributions, which were often read out over the air.  Six blues could be used to choose a book written by many of the wonderful Australian children’s authors of the time.  Ivan Southall’s books were a favourite of mine and I worked very hard to earn as many certificates as I could.

 

The influence of this ABC program on the lives of many isolated and country children was immeasurable.  In an environment where access to concerts, galleries, books, zoos and even people was limited, the Childrens’ Hour opened up a whole new world and inspired   children across Australia to “share much of wonder and delight, merriment and loveliness with fellow rowers”.

This is where I grew up.  It was once an apple orchard.  Then someone removed most of the apple trees and planted plums, cherry plums, peaches, crab apples and pine trees.  When I arrived at the age of six it was twelve acres of paradise for a small child.

The house is still there but the land was carved up into housing blocks thirty years ago.  The township of Yerrinbool is now unrecognisable.  Although the population has grown considerably the school and the General Store no longer function.

Yerrinbool is situated in the Southern Highlands of NSW, mid way between Mittagong and Bargo.  It began as a railway town and straggled along beside the Hume Highway which stretched from Sydney to Melbourne.  Long since bypassed, it remained attractive to visitors because of its many apple orchards.  They too have mostly vanished.

We will go back to a time when children poured out of the school onto the dusty playground, when trains stopped at the award winning railway station, when milkshakes at the General Store were eleven pence halfpenny and when Sunday School was held each week at the local hall.

This was the 1950s. It was a time when my mother would put on her hat and gloves and walk carefully in high heels to the General Store.  The toilet was out the back and emptied by the night man.  The milk was left in the billy at the gate and the meat and vegetables arrived once a week in a truck.  There was no TV, only a wireless.  The water for a bath was heated in a copper in the laundry by lighting a fire underneath.

Why the Curry Apple Orchard?  Well, you know how various phones and tablets leave a message at the bottom of an email – “sent from your marvellous idevice”.  I wanted something more original and as I have many products of the Apple variety my husband suggested an orchard of Apples plus our name.  Some people have asked if I live in an orchard and I have to reply that I don’t but would love to return once more to the apple orchard of my childhood.