French Farmhouse checking.

The ladder to the loft.

The ladder to the loft.

 

I can still see the ladders leading to the lofts of old farm-houses in the South of France. Anyone who has ever been to France might know and acknowledge the lure of old farmhouses. They were being advertised over the world and in the eighties and nineties, it wasn’t unusual to meet people that in conversation around the fondue set, would casually drop, ‘we have bought an old French farmhouse, and we are going there each year now for our holiday’. ‘We are getting a bit tired of holidays at Coffs’s Harbour and its Big Banana!

Old farmhouses with lofts are littered over the whole of the French country like confetti at nuptials. Mouth-watering ancient villages usually have a crop of those old places on cobble stoned lane ways where horses and cladded hooves have carved through the centuries little gutters which during gentle rains directs its water to a bubbling stream. The picture perfect would be the local church.

Of course, those old farmhouses were often riddled with woodworm hence the first task was to inspect the lofts and attics. In modern Australia most houses have internal man-holes to clamber through into the roof space. French farm- houses had access through a little door outside at the very top just below the pitch of the roof.

After several visits to France and numerous clambering on top of ladders inspecting lofts we were so badly infected with French farm-houses we could only think of buying one. Talk about getting a bean in the bonnet!

You know when life has reached a stage when a total change might just give a much needed and restorative impetus to keep plodding and have a go at a fresh start, try something a bit different. There is a term for it that lingers forever once you have absorbed the meaning. Is it called ‘mid-life crisis? The year of the sixty fifth birthday would soon be nigh and with that ‘The Senior Card’ with getting old, so often the banana skin on the doorsteps of the retired.

Of course, change involves risks but so does not doing anything. The risk of middle age ennui and bitter regrets of things we wanted to do but never did, nor tried. What can be more exciting than trying to live in another country? We could not think of a more glorious way of warding off retirement than making this change and move to France and learn the Franco lingo as an extra bonus.

We had already tasted the magic of rural France, the poetry of the potted geraniums on ancient window sills, the endless lanes of plane trees winding around the grape vines of the coming vintage, and the village squares all alive with men playing boule with women around the water-wells gossiping about the newly born or the recently departed.

France is contagious like that, and as mentioned previously, we knew a few couples already who had taken this brave step, and had escaped the dreariness of routine with those predictable daily habits. Marital whiplash with boring squabbles are often relieved by making changes well before the onset of mindless routine with silent evenings before the TV with morbid partner and Dr Phil.

 

(A work in progress.)

 

After we decided to go to France, my wife suggested to stay calm and not rush hastily into something we might regret. She reminded me that I often questioned the wisdom of my parents migrating to Australia from The Netherlands back in 1956. “Do you really want to give up on all your friends and acquaintances made through the years? We are living in quite a lively inner city suburb, within walking distance of so many amenities, shops, libraries, a stately Court-House and with a handy police station for extra measure”. We were living in cosmopolitan Balmain at the time of the birth of footpath dining and cafes.

All that was true. I tended to go on a bit about our first few years after arrival In Australia during the mid-fifties. We, after a short stint in the Nissan-hut Migrant camp, which was a horror on its own after the joy of a five week cruise on the boat between Holland and Sydney ended up living in an outer suburb of Sydney.,

We had moved to Balmain when the apartment in Pott’s Point became too small with the birth of our two daughters, Susanna in 1968 and Natasha in 1970.

We already tried moving back to Europe during a stint as an artist between 1973-1976, but after a while the lure of my large family of brothers and sister with their spouses and children, the Australian bush, and above all, to have the freedom of having rusted corrugated iron roofs and weedy footpaths, the chaotic or total lack of town planning attracted me back a again. Those Fatal Shores by Robert Hughes, spring to mind.

To be followed!

 

 

Of earlier times and now.

While walking through my house (or should that still be our house?) I am struck how everything is still so much Helvi. They say that in grieving it is best to be busy and sustain from sitting too much. Walking around the place I sometimes just go in circles ( to while the time, achingly passing so slow)around one of the old tables that was part of the very old furniture from the farm in Holland. We lived there with our three children from 1973-76. This table through travel between continents and daily wear became a bit battered and some years ago, Helvi urged me to paint the top of this table white. At first the idea of painting an old semi-antique table at all seemed a bit questionable but Helvi never really attached much monetary value to things that we owned. It’s not as if one can take it with you, is it?

And that’s how it is. This place is the embodiment of so much that is still Helvi. Her sense of form and aesthetics would exclude any other consideration. Some tell me I should move somewhere else, but I now need time to pass. I go bowling tonight and in an effort not to fall in a heap I keep walking with Milo and shop at the slightest pretence. I haven’t as yet dealt with anything much at all, and am surrounded by flower arrangements and cards of condolences. The house is tidy and I wash up regularly, even if it is just a single cup and single plate. It is not easy.

I leave you with an early photo of us soon after arrival in Australia from Finland in 1965/66. We moved into a small apartment in Pott’s Point ,Sydney, which I had bought a year or so before. We were just married. The photo must have been taken with a self timer but it doesn’t look posed. We had such a lovely time there.

“Kanimbla Hall”, Pott’s Point, Sydney.(Auto Biography)

Kanimbla Hall, Kings Cross.

Little needs adding to the previous story of how we finally ended up on a boat to Australia, sailing first class, dining with an Italian couple and Helvi dancing with the captain. Perhaps I should add as a minor detail that I also won the ship’s chess competition with the final match being played with the ship’s doctor who was supposed to be a very good player. Boasting a bit here, but one might be forgiven. One should never resist the temptation to live off minor triumphs in life as much as possible. You just never know what tragedy might be waiting around the corner!

One other memory just bubbling up right now was the teaching of English to some of the Greek migrants on the boat. There was an Australian immigration officer on-board asking for volunteers teaching English. Helvi suggested I should offer to do just that. I was given a class of Greek people mostly men but also a few young couples. All were eager and keen. I have never met a more joyfully optimistic mob of Greek people. The teaching was simple. I knew no Greek and they no English. It was done by pointing and writing. There is a name for this type of teaching, but I can’t bother looking it up. Time is of the essence, and what is in a name?

I started narcissistically pointing to myself and at the same time saying ‘Gerard’ which was followed by everyone saying their names as well. This then became ‘my name is…followed by the whole class repeating it. The fun really started when progressing to trades, and jobs. Hammering down became a carpenter. Slapping around with a brush, a painter, and so. It turned out many of the men were all of the trades, They were all cobblers, butchers, you name the trade and the same hands would fly up.. This was cause for great hilarity. Talk about a keen lot of people. No wonder so many became successful in Australia.

One could ask why did they chose to leave a country that millions flock to each year, especially with a population so given to spontaneous dance, laughter and happiness?  I noticed the same with the Italians. Of course, grinding poverty and unemployment endemic in many Southern Europe countries could be the answer. Even so, there did not seem to be that same expression of cheer and good humour in countries where far better material conditions did exist. Has anyone ever caught public transport in the UK? Those grim faces holding onto their umbrellas as if a stolen stash of gold !

In Greece during the boat trip.

I reflected how within a few weeks those happy Greeks would be drawn to working, saving, and enjoying their new life. Now there would be unlimited plates laden with fetta, lamb and spinach. No shortage for the kids and….own house, even own business, a milk bar called Stavros with photos being sent back to the relatives in Greece. Did the boisterous laughter continue in Australia as then still on the ship? Leave the pensive reflections well alone ‘my name is gerard’. What are you hoping for?

We arrived in Fremantle. Of course on yet another Sunday. We sauntered through the hot lonely barren streets. It was my third Sunday in Fremantle. Not much had changed. The continuation to Melbourne was through The Great Australian Bite.  The enormous swell parallel with the boat made even the crew not turn up for meals, let alone the passengers. There were paper bags strung up along the corridors and stairs. Sea sickness is a cruel part of any sea voyage. Even though most passenger boats have stabilisers fitted, they were of little use. Most remained in their cabins, heaving, retching merrily away in private.

Of course, Helvi and I were exempted from all this misery. Proudly arm in arm we would pace the decks. Our faces into the fierce wind. Nonchalantly defiant to Zeus and Poseidon. No sea too rough no woman (or man) so tough! The dining rooms all but for a hardy few, deserted. Tables fastened and piano roped down in the corner. Those few passengers that did turn up ate out of plates that had been put on plastic sheets to give traction, prevent them from sliding about. We ordered bacon and eggs to the pale looking waiter. The Italians absent as was the captain.

After Melbourne, a more normal city and then …Sydney. That beautiful glide through the heads and then to the Opera House in full progress, cranes sticking up as if waving to the newcomers. Finally arriving at my parents place. They immediately liked Helvi. My mother thought we would live in the garage for a while. She had put up cheerful new curtains, a red and white checked cotton strung along the top of the louvered windows, facing the street. We slept there just one night. Next day went to the city including my little apartment in Kings-Cross or Pott’s Point. It had become vacant just before our departure from Finland. Helvi immediately liked it and we decided to live there instead. It was fully furnished, even had all the pots and pans, cutlery and fridge. Even its name ‘Kanimbla Hall’ seemed attractive. It was really a bit of a no choice. I mean, the no-ones land of the suburb, neither country-side nor city. The choice was for city.

We moved in next day. It was so exciting.

The Safari suit.

Balmain cottage downstairs room

We are now going back to a period when our children numbered just two. It was a long time ago. We were living in our second house on Sydney’s Balmain harbour peninsula after having lived in a 1 bedroom apartment in a somewhat  bohemian area called Pott’s Point which is next or part of Kings Cross, Sydney. It was an area of artists, crooks,  prostitutes with sandaled souteneurs, and priests. There were also many delicatessen where one could buy real coffee , prosciutto, cheeses not named ‘tasty’ and books. If I remember correctly there was also special dispensation given to some  Euro-continental shops allowing to stay open after 6pm. It was still frowned upon as decadent by some who tried desperate to uphold decent ‘peace and quiet’ Anglo closed up traditions. This all during the  sixties when our marriage was so young, sprightly and sprouting  first babies.

The one bedroom apartment was soon crowded out with birth of our second daughter. We bought a very old and rickety weather board cottage that just had one large sitting-kitchen-dining-bathroom downstairs and two small bedrooms upstairs. The downstairs would  originally have had rooms but the previous architect owner had taken all walls out leaving just one spacious room that looked out over a glorious and vibrant harbour. In those day it was always sunny.

That the bathroom was part of our sitting area could not have worried architect nor did it us. In the middle of this room was a round wood burning cast- iron heater with the name ‘Broadway’ on it. It was  lined with stone on the inside and as chimney had a large galvanised pipe going through the ceiling and upstairs bedrooms ending finally through both levels  on top of the roof. It was capped by a china- man’s hat to keep out rain.  It heated the whole house during winter with cut up old wooden rail sleepers.The cottage had a waxed wooden floor downstairs and upstairs I painted the floors white. This was a typical workman’s cottage that might have housed some years back, a family with three or four children with a husband who could well have been employed in the stevedoring industry. He might  have smelled of tar, salt and rope each time he arrived home with his wife making tea and his children playing outside.

The harbour in front of this cottage was less than 100 metres away and always busy with towing of large boats of which the house would vibrate each time the propellers reversed. We made own furniture and made do with little.  Milk came in glass bottles and bread by baker doing the rounds announced by barking dogs. Even roosters were still around. We could afford the luxury of a nappy service and had a second hand washing machine of which the only drawback was that the pump had packed it up.  No worries, we sucked on the hose to get the gravity of flow going and let it run into our court yard. That is how it was. Not anymore now.

And at Christmas we had parties and fondues with friends and family sitting on planks suspended between paint drums while listening to the Beatles’ Sargent Pepper or Peter, Paul & Mary  thumping out from home made giant speaker boxes with 12 inch woofers, tweeters and cross-overs. Did we not also drink cheap headache wine squeezed out of bladders but yet into nice fluted glasses?. We would meet and compare the tie dyes. Wives sometimes dressed in pantsuits, men with hair the longer the better,  jeans dangerously flared. The enormous shoulder pads were yet to come, waiting in the wings.  They were the best years but aren’t all years of past the best?

In Athens

During that time when things had settled and some money coming in Helvi decided to visit her family in Finland taking our two young children with her. Our youngest daughter would be carried in a papoose while her sister was old enough to walk at airports  during change- overs while helpful in carrying her own little bag. It was quite a trip from Sydney with another plane to catch in Finland to the closest airport where her family lived. Finland is a huge country,  greater than the UK.

It  was going to be a six weeks holiday and I would be on my own. I could hardly wait for their return but had to do with receiving letters for the time being and the rare phone call. It was a lonely time and I missed my family.

It is then I made a choice that till this day I am still haunted, remembered and reminded of. I bought a wine-red knitted Safari suit. It had flared pants and a double breasted jacket held together with brass gold buttons and a belt of same material above my hips but below armpits with large gold coloured ostentatious looking  buckle. The pants were held up with its own wine red belt made of same knitted material.I also bought  something resembling shoes that were from Egypt and made of rope that was coiled around the toe  and heel  part above the sole with in between the rope arrangement  a  cream leather-like material and  a buckle on top. I completed the whole outfit with a modest gold chain worn unobtrusively but magnificently opulent, around my neck.  My idea was to look a new man or at least a reborn man.  A proud prince of unsurpassed passion and vibrant vitality. I wanted to impress my Helvi. I looked of course a one hit pop star failure, but at the time wasn’t aware of this, blinded as usual by foolish folly.

Finland, just married.

I went to the airport on the day of my family’s return to Sydney. All good things come to an end. As my little family passed through customs and into the  arrival hall I spotted them first. The look on my wife’s face was of utter disbelief soon followed by a scowling disapproval. ‘What are you wearing now?’ she said. My daughters too looked frightened. Of course we drove home all excited to be together again but Helvi kept on looking at my suit and shaking her head. I never wore the suit again nor ever shopped for clothes without Helvi having an input. I am fashion blind.

The shoes went into the slow combustion Broadway.

Gertrude’s Cottage

Hopefully I am not overburdening the dear readers with too much detail on our lives. I am sure that everyone has just as much fascinating memories about their pasts. I also assume that reflection on what has been is a nice way of whiling the time away. So, unless your lives are busy to the extend you are about to close the door and rush off to catch the 401 bus to the office, bear with me. Here is the tale of Gertrude’s Cottage.

This was the front of the cottage entered from the street behind a huge 10ft timber unscaleable fence.

Our first daughter was born in 1968. We were living in a small one bedroom apartment in Pott’s Point in inner Sydney. Things were idyllic and love was flourishing as it always does in newly joined couples. I am talking about that first flush which, like the white water rapids of a brooking river eventually flows into much calmer waters. It did not take long when our second child was on the way. We needed more space.

My decorating business was flourishing. We were living well but frugally, saving some money. As more space was needed I started scanning the newspapers. |We had also read somewhere that Balmain was becoming popular with students and artists. Potts Point was a rather bohemian place being near King’s Cross with its mixture of prostitutes, European delicatessen, artists and crooks, we looked for similar places to live. Crooks were still rife in Balmain!

A year or so before I worked on a large block of home-units in East Balmain. As I was sitting on the stone wall surrounding the three storey building overlooking the harbour I noticed across the road lower down a delightful old rickety timber cottage with a block of derelict land next to it. Some blond girls were playing. There were three billy goats tethered on stakes eating the weeds. I thought then that the situation with the sparkling water was so lovely. Did I have a premonition that we eventually would live in that very place?

This was the back of the house facing the Harbour and part of the bridge. Fabulous!

A couple of years later while reading the real estate section I happen to read a cottage offered for sale. It advertised itself as overlooking the harbour in Balmain. It included three goats. The price was $12,500.-. I could hardly contain myself. I never really thought much about that very American based bit of psychology, that if you think long and hard enough about what you want, you will always get it. Or, alternatively, your dreams will come true as long as you work towards it. The world is full of those that dream of riches and fame but still end up living impoverished and utterly forgotten having worked the fingers to the bone.

After having read the advertisement, I hopped in the old Ford zephyr ute. I drove to the front of that dear little cottage and it was the one I had seen previously. It was called ‘Gertrude’s cottage.’ It had just the right feel about it. We bought it after a very sceptic bank manager warned us against buying it. ‘It is just an old shed’, he said. It would have been in 1970. Our second daughter was born prior to us moving into our first ‘home’.
Was it luck or did my premonition before came true?