Chapter 8
OUR FAMILY GROWS AND WE HAVE A TERRIBLE YEAR
Our first son, Marcus Reginald, was born on July 18 th 1962. We had been thinking about the name of Mark if this one should be a boy but didn’t think it sounded good with Carr – then Reg said that he had had a good friend called Marcus whose name had never been shortened to Mark so we decided on Marcus. Reg had never said that he hoped for a boy and in fact I don’t think he did – having grown up in an all-male household he just adored our two little girls and relished experiencing the feminine side of life but I’ll never forget his face when he came in to the hospital that night (husbands were never allowed to stay in the hospital in those days while their wives were in labour) after Marcus was born. He looked as though someone had switched on a light inside his head and I then knew the meaning of the word `radiance’. Marcus was our largest baby – 8 lb 14 oz – and was tranquil from the start and almost never cried.
By this time Belinda was at Jubilee Street Kindergarten and we had a small old car as it was too far to walk. One morning I was dropping her off at kinder, Celene toddling along with us and Marcus asleep in the baby basket on the back seat of the car. As Celene and I walked back towards the car I saw that it was rolling down the steep hill in Jubilee Street towards the main road. I flew towards the car, wrenched the passenger door open, threw myself down on the seat and grabbed the foot brake to stop the car. I must have forgotten to put the hand brake on. I needed a brandy but Marcus didn’t even wake up.
As a toddler he had thick fair hair of the colour that is called `ash-blond’ and was very good natured – loved by his two big sisters he breezed through life, not even disturbed by the appearance of a little brother sixteen months later when Nick arrived on December 2 nd 1963. This time I was so well treated by the nuns in the Mercy Hospital that we called the baby Nicholas Clement after a very kind nun, Sister Mary Clement, who often looked after me – and Nicholas of course as it was December. While I was in hospital a council housekeeper looked after the children and did a good job but Marcus missed me and spent most of his time in retreat behind an armchair refusing to eat. The day I came home he ate practically a whole loaf of peanut butter sandwiches, making up for lost time. As I have said, while in hospital I would write a letter to each child at home every day (if they couldn’t read yet it was just a drawing of the baby) so that we kept contact and they knew I was thinking of them. Reg would call in each day after work for a quick visit and to pick up the letters.
No such thing as paternity leave in those days – Reg would get a couple of hours off on the morning I was to be discharged from hospital just to pick me up and drive me home, then he would go back to work and I would take up the reins again. I always asked him to bring the baby basket in the car (no capsules in those days or car seats either) so that I would arrive with empty arms to hug the older children – then the baby would be presented later. None of our children ever seemed to be the least bit jealous of the younger siblings, they all loved babies as much as we did. Before breastfeeding the baby, I would get snacks for the older ones and then I would read to them so that it was an enjoyable time for all. Babies mostly seemed to sleep from feed to feed and I made the most of that time to spend with the older children – and in those days a playpen was an essential piece of equipment. If the baby was awake and wanting a bit of entertainment, I would put him or her on the floor in the playpen in full view of the other children who would be endlessly entertaining but there was no danger of the baby being stepped on or tripped over. Reg’s bluestone patio was used almost from the day we came home – the baby would be put in the pram, tucked up warmly if a winter baby, covered with a mosquito net and put outside for the whole day as fresh air seemed to make them sleep well.
While all this was going on Reg had worked very hard to finish his Diploma of Physical Education and was doing an Arts degree part-time. Sometimes when he was studying for an exam, he would take a camp stool into the middle of a patch of blackberries on the vacant block next door just to get a bit of peace and quiet where he could not be found. It was hard work but worthwhile as it made him eligible for promotion. He was an excellent teacher and had been appointed to a lectureship at Melbourne Teachers’ College which meant a better salary and a job he loved.
Belinda had started school in 1963, the year Nick was born. She went to the Holy Family School in Mount Waverley and fortunately had a little friend to go with, Maree Diamond, who lived in the house diagonally behind ours. Mount Waverley was full of young families with several children. There was no state aid for Catholic schools in those days so it was up to the families to support them in every way possible. Our school could not afford to pay cleaners so the teachers swept and tidied the classrooms each day and the husbands did the cleaning every weekend, stacking the desks away and arranging the chairs in the double room for Sunday Mass – then everything would be restored after Mass for the next day’s school.
The fathers would also do the gardens around the school and keep the grounds in order and do any repairs that were necessary. The mothers would work the whole year making items to be sold at the annual two-day fete – children’s clothes, dolls’ clothes, soft toys, food of all kinds, anything we could think of that might raise money. The men would raffle a car and that alone would bring in £5000 and the women would make another £5000 so it was really a big help. It all sounds like a lot of work and it was but it actually created a wonderful atmosphere of solidarity in the congregation as the school was important to us and we were prepared to work hard to support it.
There was no money to hire substitute teachers so in the event of a teacher being too sick to work the principal would ring anyone known to be an ex-teacher. Sometimes it was my turn and I’d say `Yes, I can come but I’ll have to bring the little ones with me.’ I would be assured that that would be fine so off I’d go, park the baby basket in the corner of the room and the toddler would sit in a spare desk and I would teach whatever class it happened to be. A ruling came in during those years that no classes were to have more than 60 children in them. Previously some classes had been up to 100 children and a friend of ours used to help a nun at one of the other schools who had 120 children in her class. You wouldn’t think anyone could learn anything in a class that size and certainly the slower children probably didn’t, but they were quiet orderly working environments and the children did surprisingly well.
A year later in 1965, Maree’s little brother Brian started school and their mother Joan by this time had had another daughter and then twins. One of the parents always dropped the children at school in the morning but in the afternoon they walked home and because they had to cross a busy road either Joan Diamond or I would go down to bring them across the road. One terrible day it was Joan’s turn to meet them and she was a little bit late. Maree saw her coming and ran across the busy road straight in front of a car and was killed instantly. Belinda ran home to tell me, someone took Joan and her little ones home and I asked another neighbour to watch our four children while I ran back to the scene of the accident. It was then my job to go and tell Joan that Maree had not survived. That day will forever stand in my memory as the worst day of my life and I’m sure of Belinda’s too. The school was packed a few days later for Maree’s funeral, no doubt every parent in that room thinking `That could have been one of ours.’
Several months later the judge ordered that the inquest must be suspended until Belinda was called as a witness because she was the only person who saw whether Maree had walked or run. If she had walked the driver of the car (a young teacher at another school who had just got her first car) would have been charged with manslaughter but if she had run the verdict would be death by misadventure. Reg went with Belinda to the court hearing and said she spoke up clearly and confidently saying that Maree had run so the teacher was absolved of blame but no doubt the incident ruined her life.
That year, 1965, was our annus horribilus - not a good year for our family. Belinda had suffered from asthmatic bronchitis most winters so our GP suggested that I take her to the Children’s Hospital to have a battery of tests and a consultation with a specialist. There was a crèche at the hospital and I put the three younger children in there for the day while I took Belinda to the various departments for tests and x-rays and then a consultation with a pediatrician who told me that she was allergic to her own cold secretions so whenever she got a cold it would turn into bronchitis – but he was confident that she would grow out of it which indeed she did.
When I returned to collect the other three children from the crèche, I found that Nick who was about eighteen months old and who hated to be separated from me, had cried inconsolably all day despite the best efforts of Celene and Marcus and the crèche attendants to comfort him. I think he must have inhaled every microorganism in that hospital and a few days later he became extremely ill and was diagnosed with scarlet fever. The doctor said we must put him in hospital but I knew that the separation from me would kill him so I said I would nurse him at home. We were all in quarantine except Reg who still had to go to work but was not allowed to go near Nick, and we were all put on precautionary antibiotics. I carried Nick round day and night because as soon as I put him down, he would begin to cry – then cough – then choke – then vomit. By this time I was seven months pregnant so it was all a bit wearing but eventually he turned the corner and began to recover.
My due date to give birth in the third week of August came and went. I had been late with the others so wasn’t overly concerned. When I was a week overdue it was a Sunday and Reg had been to Mass alone but had been struck by an agonizing pain and came home literally grey and vomiting with the pain. The doctor came and said it was a kidney stone and he must go to hospital so a kind neighbour drove him to emergency at the Alfred Hospital. I remember Belinda saying to me `Mum if you have to go to the hospital to have the baby we’ll be orphans won’t we?’ `Don’t worry,’ I replied, `I’m not going until Dad comes home.’ A couple of days later it was my birthday, August 31 st , and Reg left the hospital, still not having passed the stone, and came home on the train to see us. On the way back he collapsed on the nature strip near Mount Waverley Station and some kind person picked him up and drove him back to the hospital where three days later he finally passed the stone, I collected him from the Alfred Hospital with the four children in the car, he dropped me at the Mercy Maternity Hospital and that night, September 3 rd 1965, the beautiful Madeline Mary was born – the first good thing that had happened to us in 1965!