For the week-end. ( A Willy Willy)

The journey of acquiring my first car, the trip to learn in a rhythmic tempo of moving thighs, the Fox trot and the tempestuous Austrian Waltz aided by with Phyllis Bates dance lessons, would now surely also include a first date? It was on the cards long before any of that. Growing genes and rocking hormones does all that for us, irrespective of will and choice. The world is full of people now as sure proof of this.

The Vic’s cabaret at Strathfield was a large hall that had a raised podium on top of which to house a small orchestra. The ceiling was high and made of weatherboards painted a stark white as were the walls. There was seating on both sides with ample wooden benches. On the opposite side of the entrance the benches were occupied by the girls but on both sides of the entrance and opposite the dance floor all the boys. It provided a clear view of both sexes to study each other. The boys were much more blatant, the girls much more coy but also darting quick looks across assessing possible dancing partners.

In the middle of the ceiling was a large rotating ball which held little mirrors that threw fascinating effects around the walls and floor adding excitement and an atmosphere of expectation. I mean those flickering images and the music added to a letting go of inhibitions which of course is a requirement of daring to dance with another body, let alone another body of the opposite sex.

All boys and girls on entering were looked over and sniffed for any hint of alcohol. They were strict on that and that was good. All were stone sober so all initiatives to a dance were of free will and cold choice, no chemical help of any kind. My brylcreme with artificial little Kookie hair-wave and the Pelaco shirt was about the only external aid I could use. It must be remembered that at the late fifties and sixties Australia was swamped with young man and this created a shortage of women.

However, if a man had car it would give him a bit of ‘a leg-up.’   I had a car; what’s more a Ford V8 single spinner. But, I could hardly go up to a girl and say,” Hello, my name is Gerard and I have a big V8, would you like to dance?” With the abundance of men and shortage of girls on the dance floor, many a refusal had to be lived with. The “no thank you”, had to be overcome time and time again. It was also true that at that time the girls were more attracted to the true blue Aussie male. The foreigners had strange accents and eating habits, often far too polite and formal, shaking hands and all that stuff, taking the girls back to their seat after the dance.

However, there was one sure way of getting to dance. It was the ‘Pride of Erin’. This was a dance were a kind of circle or Conga line of boys and girls was formed in equal numbers. It took some time to organise but the excitement was at fever pitch. Everyone loved the Pride of Erin. Many a boy was straining at the leash. This was the time to strike out and get a date. The music started and I remember well the tune. It was ‘ What’s the matter with kids today?’ I soon got in my stride and swirled like the best of them. I tried an air of utter nonchalance and even practised the Australian ‘could not care less’ bravado. You only had seconds to strike out for a date but with the second round and same girl one could get a rapport going that hopefully would result in a date and exchange of addresses afterwards. (Of course texting was decades off let alone sexting or incriminating selfies. Now people have amazing sex through vibrating IPhones or Tweets.)

To cut the story short and after many a visit to Vic’s and endless Prides of Erin, I did manage a date. I took her to Woy Woy which the week before had been struck by a Willy Willy or tornado. It was the best I could come up with. I could have gone to the Blue Mountains but to stare at a mountain-view sitting inside a car might be fraught with some aspects of awkwardness. I felt touring around the devastation of roofs having been blown off and boats blown out of the water could offer a distraction and something to talk about. There was also a very famous artist living in the area and I thought it might be worthwhile to drive past his house and possibly have something to talk about.

The day wasn’t a great success. The talk wasn’t flowing. I tried history and Dresden with WW2, the state of neglect of our cemeteries, ( we drove past one)nothing worked and she kept saying ” oh, that is lovely, and oh, thank you’ over and over. It was difficult. We stopped on the way back when she finally said something; “I would like a malted milkshake”, she said. I think we stopped at Hornsby after the Ford V8 blew a lot of smoke going up a very steep hill when crossing the Hawkesbury river. We sat in the milk-bar and slurped the milkshake. She was really sweet and very shy. Perhaps it was her first date as well. I did not want to ask because it might indicate a kind of unpopularity with boys. It is such a delicate time. I drove her back to Coogee where she lived. The door was opened by her dad. He was a huge tree of a man, and looked me over. She fled inside after another ‘thank you’.

It was my first date.

The Aboriginal Artist and her Treatment in “Utopia.”

 

Her paintings have been shown around the world, yet this artist is forgotten, slowly dying in poverty and misery.

Have a look; http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-05/utopia-aged-care-kathleen-ngale/8651086

 

The wandering again regained. ( Auto-biography)

Mantingerzand

The decision to return to Australia came unexpectedly. I was the last one to recognize its coming. As noted before; things were steaming along nicely. Painting was in full flight. Money was being earned as a fully fledged artist. I was teaching adults. Our children were growing and thriving. We lived in a lovely farm-house. The Shetlands were settled and  the  beady eyed Barneveldt chickens were very happy and laying generously. What more could one want?

There are several possible explanations that led to this decision. None are valid enough on their own but perhaps together and in total, might shed some light on this sudden and strange ‘out of the blue’ return to Australia. Let me start on just a couple of explanations of events that I remember as if from yesterday.

We decided to go swimming in a small lake popular for swimming during those rare warm days that even rainy Holland sometimes gets rewarded with. The province that our village was situated in is the least populated area in Holland.  At that time, one could still find small areas of wilderness to enjoy, without huge swarms of people crowding out all pleasurable activities. When we arrived there were some people and kids about but that only made it even more enjoyable. This little lake used to be a sand quarry in the past but had been surrendered to mother nature when the sand digging had ceased. It was a lovely spot surrounded by bushes seeking shelter under pine trees. Included in those bushes was a haze of purple heather, somewhat shy. There was laughter and joy about. The perfect day!

After arrival we all jumped in. It was a kind of jubilation, a celebration of unbridled joy and fun day. There was a large family also jumping about with a tribe of children skirmishing and splashing up and down in the shallow water mucking about with a large log that they had dragged into the water. They seemed to talk in a foreign language. Perhaps they were Turkish or Moroccan immigrants. In any case, they had a lot of fun. The parents were looking on. All were safe.

Out of the bushes and all of a sudden a person of some grey authority appeared almost like something out of a faded book of doom or The Treaty of Utrecht. He went to the edge of the water and ordered in no uncertain manner for the children to take that unauthorised log of wood out of the water. The kids looked somewhat frightened. The parents got up to find out the problem that this killjoy figure seemed to have. They understood that the log had to be taken out of the water. An argument ensued after the parents wanted to find out the reason why this log seemed to be so difficult to accept in the water. They wanted to know what the problem was. At this stage, the man of authority could have just shrugged his shoulders and walk away. He did not. He started on a long prologue and explanation on what would happen if everyone would take a log into the water. “What then, he demanded?”  “Suppose we all take a log?”   “What then, he added again?”  A cloud came over the event. The kids dragged the log out of the water and back into the bushes. The parents said something in their own language and gave in, not wanting to risk a fine or Court appearance for non-compliance of an order. Order in Holland has to be maintained at all cost.

A similar event  occurred a few months after the unauthorized log event. There exists a lovely and unspoilt piece of original nature. It is called Mantingerzand. It was within a twenty minute drive from were we lived and a very beautiful, original and unique nature reserve.

https://www.google.com.au/#q=Mantingerzand .

We decided to go for a pick-nick and had packed sandwiches to take with us for a lunch. Throughout this nature reserve are walking paths which one has to follow. Of course, in order to not disturb the uniqueness of this original piece of nature it is pointed out and fully understandable, to stay within the pathways.  As we were walking along, absorbing the beauty of the place, we all were getting hungry. The fresh air in nature does that, doesn’t it?  And decided to just stop, sit down on the pathway and eat our cheese and peanut sandwiches.  Within a few minutes and within the time-frame of having swallowed the first vigorous bites into our  sandwich, the faded and dreaded figure of authority turned up on his bike. “What do you think you are doing NOW?, he said?”  We turned pale and the kids looked frightened. We are eating sandwiches, I stated with some hesitancy, in case we were doing something else, considered to be so dreadful, it wasn’t worth thinking about.

“Now just think a bit”, the grey man stated! We immediately started thinking feverishly but obediently. Our sandwiches were patiently waiting to be chewed into further. But we had all gotten strangely un-hungry.  “Just imagine, just imagine”, the grey figure was now warming up to his favourite phrase. (He had honed the wording in front of his proud wife the very night before). “Just imagine if all of us would sit down and eat sandwiches in nature, just like that, he said.”   “What would happen then, he asked”. He looked at us in turn. We gave in, got up and resumed our walk. We put the patient sandwiches and thermos back in the bag and silently walked on.

Order was maintained.

The artist as teacher. (Auto- biography)

After the adieu to the imitation Dutch Grandfather Clock period with the last box of painted clock dials being dropped off at the imitation clock factory,  I did finally apply for the ‘Dutch Artist’ salary.  I filled in  forms with proof of my birth and educational levels. My quantity surveying qualification could easily throw this whole undertaking askew. I had to tread carefully! It was something to ponder about .

What about if the recommendation came back suggesting I should work in an office working out bills of quantities instead of doing art? I knew the Dutch bureaucracy might like art but they also had a very practical side to their culture. They could easily tell me to get a real job. I had nightmares of having gone and left Gertrude Cottage in Australia, travel to Holland itching to paint full time AND finally have an income, only to end up wearing a suit to an office and sadly having to pore over bills of quantities, working out quantities for cement or sewer pipes for the latest and world’s best re-cycling plant.

On the other hand I did have proof with the success of being ‘hung’ at the NSW State Gallery and a couple of prizes at Australian Municipal competitions. Through a friend I had also managed to show some of my work at a gallery in Japan’s Kyoto. I wasn’t totally unprepared. Even so, I decided sagely to remain mum about my Quantity surveying qualification, my previous bank experiences or my prowess in the decorating business with the buff coloured letterheads and matching envelopes.

Was I dishonest or not somewhat duplicitous? Many artists do other jobs, provide for a family and do their art? Why even worry about that? Wasn’t it always a kind of wild-haired bohemian wearing a beret at a rakish angle that created? If it became too hard he would simply disregard spouses and crying babies. He, and sometime a she, would walk out, satchel, easel and pallet on shoulder, whistling in the wind, going up and beyond hill and gone forever.  New daisies and  fragrant meadows were beckoning and to be explored!  Many ‘real artists’ would leave a trail of relationship disasters with endlessly  and chaotically fathering children of many sexes. Desperate love affairs were obligatory in most that claim to possess creative powers. Leaving spouses was the very essence and proof  of creative forces at work.  History is full of the wrath of partners betrayed.  Daggers were raised and many artists lives ended painfully, their canvasses slashed. Today, the Family Court sorts it all out but it  costs an arm and a leg just the same as before  with the knife. Of course, the ‘real artist’ does not care. He continues on creating,. whistling.

Alas, I loved H and

On the farm in Holland

my family dearly and applied for this salary that would give me freedom to paint my pictures. I filled in the forms, submitted some of my work. I was asked to wait in a hallway with other applicants. Some were a bit nervous. You wondered what discussions were taking place. I just hoped they would not get the paintings mixed up. The man who accepted my paintings did look askance and somewhat bored. I suppose if one did that for a job, it might not be all that different from painting seagulls. Would he go home to his partner and regale about the paintings or sculptures and ceramics he had seen that day. I mean, day in day out?  I did hear some laughter coming out of the room. Were they ridiculing some of the work. I had a peek at one painters paintings and they were all of large oysters. He was obviously taken by the sea and its creative forces. Why not? An oyster is such a magnificent work on its own.

At the end of it all, we were asked to take our work back and we would be told by letter. It would be a nervous few weeks.

Moscow and overnight train to St Petersburg.( valley of Lily)

The red square with queue from l/r to see Lenin in his mausoleum.

( About 1985) After a week or so in Moscow with the obligatory viewing of Red Square with the mile long queue at the Lenin Mausoleum,  the Stalin built but magnificent underground railway  with marbled statues and chandeliers,  an evening at the theatre watching ‘An American in Paris’ by American composer of Russian parentage, George Gershwin, we all took a late evening overnight train to St Petersburg. It was in July, very hot and days were interspersed with short but violent lightning storms. I was surprised that the giant  down pipes of those large buildings jettisoned the pelting rain straight onto the footpath whereby pedestrians had to perform large leaps into the air not get washed into the kerbs. I was astonished how high the Russians could leap but it did give me a better perspective on The Bolshoi Ballet phenomenon.

The overnight trip to St Petersburg has been covered earlier but is now buried at the bottom of this pile and in any case, my memory might well have shifted to even greater heights.  Here another retell. After getting on-board we were given the seats as shown on the pre-booked tickets. My compartment had a couple and a woman of typical generous Russian proportion and spirit. The two compartments behind me were taken up by an American group of singers who had performed in Moscow and now on their way to St Petersburg.

The Winter Palace (Hermitage)

We soon settled and when I took a walk around my wagon I noticed the Americans who after introduction told me they were part of a choir. As I told them I was Australian they were keen for me to give an impromptu performance of  a Paul Hogan ‘Crocodile Dundee’ and several versions of   ‘Goodyaj, howszego’en maitey?’. I obliged but quickly escaped back to my cabin.  I can only perform on my own without an audience or mirror.The woman and couple introduced themselves and so did I. The Russian woman’s name was Lily and she could speak some German.

One has to understand we were all going to sleep together so a kind of bonhomie and familiarity might ensure a reasonable and peaceful slumber later on. Russian trains do not segregate and at least in USSR sleeper trains, sleeping is not fraught with fear of an opportunistic sex maniac creeping in. That seems to be more the domain of those cultures that believe men and women are  so entirely different they ought to be separated from birth whenever possible.  For some, to attack remains the only option to get together.

Lily became instantly the epitome of what their race is known for. A socially, inclusive and talkative person. Friendly and keen to exchange talk on almost anything and everything. It was easy for me when we could also talk in German, but I am sure that even without a common language she would have seen that as a minor obstacle, easily overcome by gesture and body language, facial expressions. It was a hot and somewhat brooding thunderstorm threatening train journey. We were all sweating profusely and while talking Lily would pat and dab in between her generously forthcoming bosom with a crocheted hanky. ( I remember it well) that she kept sprinkling with  Eau de Cologne number 4711.

The Hermitage.

We exchanged small talk the best we could of which I have forgotten most but not all. What I did not forget is what ensued after she asked me what I did. “Ich bin ein Kunstler (..) und Lehrer. I answered”. I am an artist and teacher. Well, it was instant pandemonium.  You would know that teachers in Eastern Europe and especially Finland and former USSR countries are regarded and revered like lawyers and doctors, if not a new Dostoevsky or a burgeoning Tolstoy as well.   To be an artist and teacher is like being 2 doctors in one. She took out a small bottle of a greenish colour and poured some of the liquid in a metal beaker. The cabin immediately smelt strongly of aniseed.  She also had a packet of sugar cubes which she had opened earlier and given me some.

She went around the wagon telling all that here was, an Australian artist on board, while sharing the aniseed dipped sugar cubes all round. They all came and wanted to inspect this Australian ‘teacher – artist’. It was my moment of fame. When things calmed down we retired back to our cabin while she kept up the talk while  dabbing and giving  absinthe laced sugar. Around midnight we had enough and  as the aniseed euphoria and drowsiness was starting to wear off, all decided to go to sleep. The couple and Lily promptly pulled the beds of the wall.  We all took turns going to the corridor allowing ablutions and getting ready for bed. I took the top bunk and Lily the bottom one.

We were woken up early by the train lady conductor and given tea and sweet bread which famously gets served in a large very ornate silver  teapot with drinking glasses held in equally ornate silver holders with swan-necked ears.

We had arrived at St Petersburg.

St Petersburg Fortress which had held some very famous people including Trotsky.