From 1976 onwards. Memoires!

 

Now that the medical investigations of physical health and other possible upcoming frailties in the future have been dealt with I can perhaps go back to my earlier musings about the past.  They were all bundled under the somewhat pretentious title of ‘Auto-biography’, towards the end morphed into autobiography’ or perhaps were even  referred to as ‘memoires’. Perhaps memoires is the most suitable. Who knows? It has a hint of someone getting ready for the softness of blissful forgetfulness but would still like to leave behind a story of when that was not so. A kind of evidence based of the purpose that life once might have held.

Not that life is totally without a purpose now. The garbage bin has to be put out, not forgetting the alternative weeks (fortnightly pension day) that the yellow lidded  recycle bin has to be put outside but the red bin always weekly. A routine that is now well established and I never forget. There is something very endearing about those bits of routine. It beds us down, makes us feel secure. One can imagine the millions of refugees on the run from bombs and terror. All routine of daily life stolen at a moments notice. You can see it in their eyes. Frightened of what the future holds. How fortunate we are. It is only the luck of our birth that separates us from those running the gauntlet of many borders, clambering over train windows, desperate to escape from the uncertainty. Nothing more than that.

As I remembered, after our family’s return from Holland in 1976 we  moved into our house back in Sydney’s Balmain and had taken delivery of our furniture and all other remnants of our previous three years in Holland. I enjoyed the artists salary, had some exhibitions, sold some paintings but also missed our large extended family. The Australian bush as well as the disorder of rusted roofs and the chaos of Parramatta Rd beckoned. Those yawning second-hand car sales yard seemed so attractive. A funny thing. The Dutch sense of order and discipline had taken its toll. The breathing space that we have in Australia is not to be underestimated.

When life got back to ‘normal’ the children back to school and a smooth transition into work and paying bills, life resumed its path with routine getting established once more. The garage was transformed in a place to make the stretchers for paintings. Part of it was made into a darkroom. I suddenly developed a keenness for taking photographs and with my brother used to develop our own black and white shots of people and city/ landscapes. A very prolific period of paintings followed. I entered many in local art competitions which many councils annually held all over Australia. Balmain was attractive to artists and in our street alone there was a group of them all beavering away inside their studios. Some of the artists were very ‘arty’ and used to delve into mysticism or were very esoteric to the extreme. Bach remedy was used for everything, even giving birth or a dog’s broken leg. Dreadlocks and smoking dope was very popular and so were music of a kind sung by the massively curled Carly Simon,  especially ‘You are so Vain’. Of course, we were united all against war, especially nuclear war and used to march in rallies together with Patrick White, whose popularity as a Noble Price winning writer of fame seems now to have waned.

 

Vic’s Cabaret and first Date.

Milo in deep thought.

With the Phyllis Bates ‘academy’ dance lessons firmly tucked under my arms I  was ready and willing to go and practise for the first time my  dancing without the pre-painted dance-steps on a floor.   An Austrian Waltz was the last one I was taught. At one stage I came close to losing the book held between us.  I had to place my leg (just one) between both the lovely teacher’s  legs and do a majestic sweep of one hundred eighty degree turn while holding my chin proudly  upwards and sideways. I had at the same time hold both my right arm  and her left arm stretching out towards Central Railway. I did not want to  press, or move anything inappropriately while in that delicate but intimate position. I feared that some excitement might finally show but with my Reuben Scarf suit and generously billowing trousers I was somewhat reassured that nothing would betray even this possibility. In any case my concentration was focussed on the firm pushing Of Human Bondage book held between us.

I was informed about a dance club on Parramatta Rd near Sydney’s Strathfield. Readers might remember the salesman that sold me the Ford V8 also came from that area. He might well turn up at the same place. The place was called Vic’s Cabaret but like the word ‘academy’ it was another case of the  misuse of words  imbued with more than what was actually there. I remember being fascinated by ‘Palm Beach’ when still back in Holland before the migration episode. The map of Sydney had ‘Palm Beach’ on it.  I used to lay in bed conjuring up waving palm trees and could not wait to see those. It was  a B/W news-reel back in the winter cold of The Hague with natives on tropical islands sipping cool drinks from coconuts underneath beckoning palm trees. After migration I went to Palm Beach on my scooter. Not a single palm tree in sight! Now, I always thought that cabaret was a bit more than a place to dance in even if it included a small band.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-10-22/32400

Still, Vic’s Cabaret in Strathfield even without it being a true cabaret in a more European sense, was still a good place to start finding a date. Lots of nice girls would be there and it just needed a positive attitude and some extra brylcreme. Having straight hair did not have at that time the same allure as having a bit of a wave. The TV series Seventy Seven Sunset Strip was responsible for millions of young men imitating the forever hair combing hair-wave owning wisecracking rock and roll Kookie character. I tried to get this  wave and with enough Brilliantine hope I would also share in the glory of this popular character. Not unlike today with so many young men wanting to be a Bieber clone (or Russell Crowe for the more mature).

The Vic’s cabaret was a short drive from home and after a good wash and polish of the V8 I was ready and took off. I managed to park within a reasonable distance and took good note of where I parked. Most streets looked alike but it helped if one took notice of an unusual feature of where one parked. I took a mental note that the garden next to my car had old white painted rubber tyres around some azaleas. The old tyres were a feature of those times and also kept the weeds out. It was considered a very handy place to put old tyres and often this hint was given in the Garden magazine.  It was one of dad’s pet hatreds together with the habits of many elderly ladies painting the hair blue or a bright pink. “I saw a lady in the bus today who had pink hair.  ” A famous sentence of my dad still doing the rounds at Christmas time amongst the Oostermans. Dad had great difficulty with adjusting to some  odd or strange habits differing from some equally strange habits in his own country. I mean, riding bicycles while wearing a suit, or dipping a raw herring in onions and eating it in full view of pedestrians? All the windows open in full sight of a family eating their dinner?

How strange is that?

The Ford V8 period and other stuff.

On own block.

(The above shot I found yesterday in a box full of photos. It is very interesting and shows perfectly our situation at that time. My father seems to be sitting on an asbestos sheet wearing a tie. Frank shirtless at the front. Dora cuddling our pet dog, mum in a deck chair. I seem to be just hanging on. The plight of our lives seems so clear. Was it the birth of the curmudgeon? The house behind Dad on the other side of the road does have windows but venetian blinds were at pitch fever popular and so was ‘privacy’. England had moats and drawbridges, Australia has blinds). The house next to the venetians had a Dutch family living in it).

As I motor-biked  past a car sales yard, I noticed a large car for sale amongst many others. This car was a powder blue colour and its chrome glimmered seductively. They say men fall in love with cars. Even the primates shown recently on TV, the male gets drawn to anything with wheels while the female ape cuddles dolls. What hope have we got? As a homo sapient  men might as well do away with free choice when a car sales yard beckons us more than a bevy of dolls. I mean what could be nicer than cuddling a doll? Yet, it is the hot embrace of high revving pistons and killer speeds that we seem to be drawn to. The smarmy salesman saw me coming looking out from his little window inside his pigeon hole office overlooking his domain of gaping cars. The perfect customer. A young man on a the hunt for his first car.

‘Care to take a closer look,’ the man said while consolidating his opinion of me. He had seen so many come and go that day but not many young ones. He could tell, having honed his car salesmanship at his previous sales yard along Parramatta Rd called “Pacific cars is Terrific”. He had broken the back of many a customer’s reluctance. He knew the ropes and his cars and was keenly sought after around the car-yard precincts of Sydney.  The year would have been around 1961/62. I had gone through a Lambretta scooter after which I bought an ex-police bike with side-car in which I used to go rabbit and fox hunting with with my brother John. John was very tall, over two metres. I don’t know how we fitted tent and two rifles in the outfit but we must have. When one is young matters of comfort are hardly ever considered. When getting to my present age, comfort is all and sleeping in a tent gets a bit hazardous with serpents and crocodiles around, huge poisonous cane toads that can kill by leaving a slimy substance. After seventy, the inner spring mattrass beckons like a nun waiting for her habit.

Our first house in Balmain.

(Photo showing  my mother with (late) brother John and his wife jenny behind her.  Helvi looking at camera, then brother Herman, brother in law Dieter and sister Dora. Notice we are sitting on paint drums! The Broadway slow combustion wood-heater. A real Christmas tree and candles. They were very good and happy times.)

(Outside our first house in Balmain taken from the street, facing the harbour on the other side.)

I walked around this blue car, both clock-wise and anti. The tension between us was palpable. I knew what it felt like to drive a bunch of condensed steel, wherever I steered it to, but also felt that to be inside a car- space was going to be a different experience. The salesman remained quiet so far, confident his prey was now slowly being seduced. They all get to it, sooner or later, he surmised philosophically.  ‘Would you like to go inside, get the feel of it?’ Of course I would. No sooner the door was opened, I slid inside. Leather seats, a cigarette lighter! The salesman nonchalantly stalked back to his office. The perfect ploy. He knew his trade so well. The master at work.

As soon as I sat inside the car, I was gone. The smooth feel of the steering wheel and smell of waxed leather and..it had a huge back seat as well, with inbuilt ash trays. I could drive my parents around, a real treat for the family. I got out and went to the office. The salesman put the phone down. ‘I want to buy the car,’ I said. ‘Oh, I just had an enquiry about the same car, a bloke had a look earlier on,’  the salesman said with cruel intend.  I signed the papers with two years of payments on ‘easy terms’ and drove off. The car, a Ford Single spinner V8 cost 220 Pounds.  Oh, what a feeling!

Scheyville camp.

Disembarking from the boat.

The above photo of my parents standing on one the quay’s of Sydney harbour. I have some doubt of when this photo was taken. Was it on the day of arrival? Why is that man at the front clapping his hands? My father (Bald head) seems to be a bit bewildered. The lady with handbag is my mum. In any case, all seem happy!

Soon we were all packed in a convoy of buses and heading towards our migrant camp, Scheyville. My milkshake and sandwiches bedded down, the adventure and first glimpses of Australia would now roll past. Those first images were vital and I hope the remembering is as truthful as possible. Did those fleeting images already  set in motion future opinions and possible prejudices of Australia? Was I seeing my first glimpses of future resentments?  I really can’t answer that. As a fifteen year old I would have been bursting with excitement in seeing a foreign country. There can’t be any doubt about that!

We had already seen Fremantle and Melbourne. Fremantle was on a Sunday during a period when Sundays were expected to be spent on reflections of mother England and caring for lawns. Melbourne did have people about and we took a train trip to the inner city. The train carriages were made of wood and so were many of the cars. I could not believe the age of cars, they seemed out of a world of my meccano set, given by my parents a couple of years before migration. Some of the cars in Melbourne had to be wound up by a large handle at the front.

My parents in Holland, earlier times.

Above photo of my parents still in Holland. A great picture of happy life, contentment. I don’t know what that board was in her lap. It could have been a crocheting work in progress. My mother was always doing something, rarely did nothing. Glad to see the grass was unkempt. Dad seems dreamily serious.

As our bus took off, it soon founds its way on a very busy road. I noticed large signs and many car sales yards with car bonnets open as if yawning or waiting to be fed. Later on I found out  the road was called Parramatta Rd. About an hour along the journey or so the bus stopped and the driver walked across the road and disappeared into a pub. He left us baking inside the bus, but so what, it just allowed the passengers to see more carefully of so much that was new and different and the driver to get a couple of schooners of beer. Within a few month I noticed that beer drinking was very popular, as long as it was done before 6PM. Pubs closed at 6, allowing husbands to get home and if possible hand over the pay-packet before it all got pissed up against the porcelain. It is a hot and harsh country and beer does alleviate it.

Mealtime at Scheyville.

The photo above is compliments of Google and is not mine. Notice the prevalence of men. Some time later the shortage became acute and I remember a rail bridge in Sydney with a large hand-painted sign, “Australia a country of men but no women”.

When we arrived at Scheyville we were more or less abandoned. There was someone who gave us a number for our accommodation. We had no clue as what to expect. No film footage at The Hague Embassy ever showed us converted  metal corrugated Nissen Huts  to be for many migrants and refugees the first form of accommodation. We just saw coloured films of postmen jumping fences giving glad tidings to very happy home owners standing tall on the well manicured lawns, beaming with happy and wearing gleaming white teeth in total sympathy with white picket  fences. The same with newspapers being chucked onto same front lawns. It all seemed so very unregimented and free, so jolly and sunny.

Scheyville camp with Nissen huts.

Compliments Google.

As we found our accommodation corresponding with our given number it was a surprise to be shown ex-army huts. Nissen huts to be precise. This looked very regimented and was totally without smiles. Mum said: “Oh this must be for our bikes”, grabbing her first impression, hoping against all odds this wasn’t for sleeping in, surely not! Her Dutch-ness escaped into a desperate hope this hut was for our bikes, soon to be provided. Holland of course a bicycle is part of all life. Why not here as well? But why would bicycles have mattresses and chairs? Within a few minutes reality set in but my mum immediately accepted and got busy settling in. She was the hero of all migration and should have been given a Dame hood, surely? We had suitcases with  the basics and soon we had our bedding arrangement sorted out. The bedside drawers had some crusts of bread in them. Later on we met a Dutch couple who had been in exactly the same Hut just before us and  had abandoned the bread in the drawers. We laughed heartily about that for many years to come. ( It wasn’t all sad.)