Chapter 18
BACK TO AUSTRALIA
When I returned from Nigeria, I was suffering from a nasty form of dysentery called Shigella but a course of antibiotics and a bit of rest soon had me back to normal and then it was a case of What to do now? I was offered my old job at Michener Centre and although I had loved working there, I felt like doing something different. Reg had just completed his 40 th year of teaching and felt a bit the same way, so when I suggested moving back to Australia he agreed although he wasn’t really keen to sell the farm.
It was summer and one of Reg’s teaching friends offered us his house on Balmoral Golf Course for two months as he was going home to Nova Scotia for the summer holidays. One of our neighbours made us a very good offer for the farm so we sold everything yet again and left there each with one suitcase and a bag of golf clubs. Reg got a job for the summer driving one of the big mowers on the course which he enjoyed at first but then found it monotonous but he stuck with it and played golf every evening as it was light until 10pm.
In early September we flew to Sydney where we met by Madeline, Tom and Nick, all of whom were living there. Nick had just started his own business in Desktop Publishing, he had no money for an office but was running it from home. He suggested that Reg and I go into the business with him and Reg was keen. `No way’, I said `I don’t know anything about computers’. `I’ll teach you’ said Nick, so I reluctantly agreed and that was the start on our involvement in Allette Systems which miraculously is still running today, 37 years later. We started with one computer in the apartment of Madeline and her boyfriend Al and another computer in our apartment which was in the same building in Victoria Street, Potts Point. The first thing Nick did was to instal the Typing Tutor on our computer so that we could learn to touch type, which we did, taking it in turns to use our one computer. Our first big account was converting all the plays published by Currency Press to electronic files, we had no scanner in those days so I typed them all.
After a couple of months Reg decided that he didn’t like the job or Sydney so he took the car, his golf clubs and the tent and travelled all over Australia looking for a place he liked in which to settle. While in Melbourne he visited a factory called Austrak where they manufactured small multipurpose tractors with attachments such as a post hole digger, a mower and a blade. He felt that there would be a market for them in Canada and offered to set up a factory for them in Weyburn, Saskatchewan which he could do because we had both taken Canadian citizenship back in 1980 so that we could vote in federal elections. He made a great success of the venture and also played a lot of golf and got his handicap down to zero. After two years he came back to Sydney and announced that he had seen a really beautiful golf course in Tasmania, he was going to build a house right near the course and he was going to play golf every day, which he did.
When Reg retuned to Canada I could no longer afford to pay the rent so one day when I saw an advertisement for a Boarding Supervisor at St Vincent’s College I applied for it, had an interview and was offered the job which was ideal as it gave me a place to live with all meals supplied, utilities and phone paid for and a very congenial job for someone who had already raised 6 children. My responsibility was with the Year 12 boarders, about 30 of them each year and our rooms were in a big old three storey building in Challis Avenue called Bethania. The girls were lovely and so were the staff and the job carried the added advantage of giving me free time while the girls were in school so I was still able to work for Nick who by then had been able to rent office space and hire a couple more staff. Later in my spare time I was able to do a Master of Arts in Women’s Studies at UNSW, a course in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) and get a second job as proof reader for a trade magazine called Mediaweek.
In the generous school holidays, I either used to drive to Melbourne to spend time with my mother or fly to Hobart to spend time with Reg who had done exactly as he had planned – built a house (he was the owner-builder and subcontracted the trades) right near Royal Hobart Golf course. That’s the interior on the right with its lovely Tas oak cathedral ceiling and on the left we are planting our first garden in Seven Mile Beach.
Reg played golf every day and also worked as a volunteer at the course, using his own tractor to do clearing and other jobs there. I stayed at St Vincent’s for 6 years and then thought that life in Hobart looked good so resigned from my various jobs in Sydney and moved to Hobart and indeed life was very good in Tasmania and I spent 23 very happy years there. We lived for 6 years in the house that Reg had built, during which time our lovely grandchildren started to arrive – Luca in 1996, Camille, Piper and Erith in 1998, Jasper and Linus in 2001 and Mika in 2002. We had a lot of wonderful visits from them all and a special delight was that Madeline and Craig moved to Hobart when Camille was a year old so Linus was born in Royal Hobart Hospital and we did a lot of babysitting, what fun!
We saw another house that we liked, this time backing on to the practice fairway of the golf course with a large piece of unclaimed land behind it where we grew fruit and vegetables. We owned 5 acres in Seven Mile Beach (also near the golf course) and built on it so moved yet again, a larger house this time to accommodate our frequent visitors, plus a double attached garage and a very large shed. (photo on the right)
During this time, I had not been idle. I had become a very active member of University of the Third Age, serving on the committee for many years and giving courses most years. I had also been invited to join the Hamilton Society which is the oldest literary society in Australia and I served as secretary there for a number of years. I joined Royal Hobart golf club and played twice a week with the women plus every Sunday morning with Reg. I was never much good but always enjoyed the company of my friendly fellow members plus the fresh air and exercise. I also used to swim early in the morning every day for about 5 months of the year, from November until about the end of April. One year I bravely kept going until May 7 th but my teeth were chattering.
We began a routine of going to Cable Beach at Broome for a few weeks every year – there I am riding a camel on Cable Beach - and one year while waiting for our flight in Perth Airport Reg said `I think we should start thinking about downsizing.’ I saw his point; our big block was a lot of work to maintain and we really didn’t need such a big house.
When we got home we started looking for either a block of land in the same area or a house that was already up that we both liked. We had several friends who were residents at Roches Beach Living (photo below), a retirement complex in Lauderdale and they all loved it there so we sold our house, bought a unit off the plan and rented while ours was being built.
It wasn’t long of course before I was on the committee, secretary again and newsletter editor and generally involved in life there. Reg had two heart attacks but made a good recovery each time, returning to golf and his work at the golf club and still enjoying life but then he had a stroke which curtailed his activities somewhat. He had made it very clear both to his family and to his GP that he wanted absolutely no medical intervention if he had another stroke and he wanted to die at home so when that time came, I nursed him at home until he died, with the invaluable help of Celene, Madeline and Tom and daily visits from Reg’s friendly GP. Reg was so happy to be cared for by people he loved and who loved him that although we all grieved at having lost his wonderful company, we felt that we had all contributed to the best possible death – just what we would all want for ourselves when the time comes.
He was a wonderful person, totally unselfish and always good humoured and cheerful no matter what happened, the most optimistic person I have ever known and we all agreed that we were tremendously lucky to have had him in our lives. We made all the funeral arrangements ourselves, I gave the eulogy, Madeline was the MC, family members spoke and Celene chose the music which was all Dixieland jazz because that was Reg’s favourite. We all felt that he would have enjoyed the celebration because that was what it was – a tribute to a truly marvellous human being.