Shep Woolley - Rammit Mate I'm RDP

I’ll be driving along on my own, heading to work or down to Bunnings, and I’ll put on one of my Shep Woolley CD’s and I let him take me back to madcap days when life seemed less serious or made less serious by irreverent characters you came across in the Navy; when work was fun and we still got the job done; and today is today and tomorrow will take care of itself, so let’s have another beer – and I’ll shout out loud, right there sitting in the car at the lights, ‘Rammit Mate! I’m RDP!’  This is another of my favourite Shep Woolley songs.  I couldn’t do a better job in explaining what RDP is, so this is how Shep introduces it on his album:

“RDP – in every sailor’s life, there comes a period which sailors call RDP. This means, Run Down Period.  From the very first time a sailor joins the Navy he joins a grotty training establishment somewhere probably stuck out in the middle of Ipswich like mine was.  And you’re there for something like about, a year, you see, and when you’re leaving, you’re so bloody chuffed, you know, “I’ve had enough of this bloody hole, ooh if he got up my nose one more time I’d have him”, you know. And that is when you’re having your run down bit, you see.  And then you’re dying to get to the fleet, and you get to the fleet and you get on a new ship, and it’s great! – for two hours!  And then you start again, “e’ gives me the bloody earache e’ does”, you know, like that, you see. And this is what you call having a run down period, you see and in every commission and every sort of barracks you go into, at the end of it all you always have this RDP bit.  And the best part in a sailor’s life when his most important RDP comes, is before he embarks on that lovely ship called citizenship, you see, and he enters that great big cavern outside called civilian street, you see, and this song, particularly, I wrote, I was standing one morning on the gangway HMS Blake and I went out in the dockyard to have a slash and I came back and saw this submariner walking toward me with his mac on and his cap pulled down over his eyes and I said to him, “have you got the time mate?”  He said, “Piss off!” just like that, he did, and I thought I’ve got to write a song about that, you see – and so the ensuing song”:

Rammit Mate I’m RDP

(Shep Woolley 1940? - )

 

Chorus:

la la la  la  lala la  la la la  lala la,

la la la  la  lala la  la la la  lala la,

la la la  la  lala la  la la la  lala la,

         Rammit!  I’m RDP!

 

I was walking through the dockyard,

one morning bright and fair,

When a sailor came towards me,

he had long and shaggy hair,

And he looked for all the world as though

He didn’t have a care

And he said, why are you looking at me?

I said, well it’s your uniform, you really look a scruff.

He said, see me in me civvies mate,

I’m really quite the stuff,

And when I put me BRUT on,

I smell just like a puff,

I’m a smoothie from RND.

I’ve been to Honolulu and I’ve been to Tokyo,

I’ve been to San Francisco, most any place you’ll go.

I’ve been nine years in the Navy,

And there’s just three days to go

         Rammit mate!  I’m RDP!

 

There’ll be no more get your hair cut,

No standing out in road,

No more duty watches, no more RPO’s

No killicks, pigs or PTI’s now they get up my nose

       And Rammit mate! I’m RDP.

 

As I return me pusser’s dirk,

I’m sure I’ll feel the loss,

Two blue suits and steaming boots,

For now I’ll count the cost,

But I’ll stand outside the barracks and make rude signs at the Joss

        And Rammit mate! I’m RDP.

 

I tracked polar bears in Iceland

Film stars down in Nice

Grissly bears in Canada

And snappers in the fleece

But now it’s nearly over

And there’s two days to release

          Rammit mate!  I’m RDP!

 

I’ve held me share of punishment

I’ve sweated in the sun

I’ve had 9’s and fines and DQ’s

But now it’s nearly done

And now some silly basket has just asked me to sign on

         But Rammit mate!  I’m RDP.

 

But now I’ve stood here talking really long enough

I’ve got to go to barracks mate

You see, I’ve got to pack me stuff

Perhaps I might come in again

If civvy street gets rough

But Rammit Mate!  I'm RDP!

 

Here’s another Navy poem that I wrote, Kye and Cake Blues.  The genre is Navy, Shep Woolley, but influence for the rhythm came from an American folk, bluegrass singer, John Hartford (you probably know of him for the song he wrote and made more famous by people like Glen Campbell, Gentle on My Mind).  I’m driving along listening to a John Hartford CD that I picked up in a music shop or car boot sale, and I’m captivated by this song, Corn Cob Blues.  I love the monotone, talking style and quirky lyrics.  I just had to write a poem like that.
 2010.  Every kid who joined the Royal Australian Navy as an apprentice ‘MOBI’ remembers the winter evening ritual at HMAS Nirimba of risking encounters with senior apprentices, regulating staff and cranky cooks to reach the galley and get a kye issue in winter - hot cup of chocolate and  a piece of cake.  Like salmon in a mountain stream, success was not always a certainty.

Kye and Cake Blues

Now the cook stood guard at the galley door

Only picked up his hook two weeks before

The poster swivels on a government stool

And ships him out to Mobi school

The cook did Nam and believes in fate

But he’s never guarded kye and Madeira cake.

 

The first term sprogs grow bold in a week

They crawl on their knees through a muddy creek

The cook he snuffles at the air that stunk

And they blame dry cleaning that their battledress shrunk

So he studies the drain like a greasy lake

And ponders on kye and Madeira cake.

 

The seniors listen for the scran hall squeal

And they play another hand of mah-jong deal

The Reg Chief’s asleep by nine o’clock

Lurking in the shadows near the dhoby block

And everybody thinks how do they make

Cocoa kye and Madeira cake.

 

Well the fog rolls in and the cook he sneers

At a scran-bag birdie with his beret on his ears

He’s been back classed and looks corrupt

With his fingers all made from Bakelite cups

Still the birdie hopes the cook’s his mate

Or he gets no kye and Madeira cake.

 

Now a chippy with a pannikin excites concern

It’s twice as round as the cookhouse urn

The sprogs get to thinking it ain’t their night

And they jostle each other and start to fight

The cook wonders why his life’s at stake

Doling out kye and Madeira cake.

 

A fat kid’s ribbed when he turns up cute

Dressed in his slippers and a sleeping suit

His mother he knows doesn’t quite understand

And she wants him to play in the Mobi band

Night dress code you never can break

If you wanna get kye and Madeira cake.

 

The mob’s in a mood and the mood is hate

The cook stands up on an old milk crate

And he thinks he heard something said

About an O.D. chef and a mullet head

There’s only so long he can make them wait

For cocoa kye and Madeira cake.

 

Well the cook has a rage his face is red

And he orders all the Mobis off to bed

The seniors fume they were messed about

And they badger the sprogs well after lights out

The Reg staff plan for the next intake

As they clean up kye and Madeira cake.

                                                                J. O. White

Bakelite cup -   standard issue cup made of tough plastic.  Apprentices were given a cup as part of their kit.

Battle-dress -   clothing issued for wearing at night in winter (night dress). It consisted of heavy woolen black trousers and a waist jacket that could be buttoned to the trousers.  The jacket had two breast pockets and red Australia flashes on the shoulders.

Beret - naval apprentices wore a dark blue beret with a blue metal badge -  single anchor in a rope circle topped with the Queen’s crown.

Birdie - anybody belonging to the fleet air arm branch  -  aircraft apprentice.

Chippie  -  a shipwright.

Dhoby  -  to wash; dhoby block, bathroom.

Hook  - single anchor denoting the rank of Leading Seaman; picked up his hook -  got promoted to Leading Seaman.

Kye  -  a hot drink made from thick blocks of dark chocolate .

Mobi  -  name given to naval apprentices training in HMAS Nirimba  - used as an acronym for ‘Most Objectionable Bastards Imaginable’.

Mobi school - HMAS Nirimba  located at Quakers Hill, Sydney was the RAN’s apprentice training establishment from 1956 to 1988.

Mullet head  -  derogatory term for anybody of the seaman branch.

Nam - Viet Nam -  the Viet Nam war.

O.D.  -  derogatory term for anybody who is raw, inexperienced.

Poster  -  the person responsible for transferring personnel between ships and  establishments.

Reg chief / staff  -  regulating chief and staff responsible for administration.

Scran  -  food served up in naval ships and establishments  -  used as an acronym for ‘Shit Cooked by the Royal Australian Navy’.

Scran-bag  -  untidy.

Sprog  -  any apprentice in a lower term than oneself.

 

Harold Norse - I Am Not A Man

I first heard of Harold Norse when he was mentioned in a biography I read about W. H. Auden.  The biography told how, in 1939 Norse and his then friend/lover, Chester Kallman, went to the first poetry reading that Auden and Isherwood presented in America.  Auden met the pair after the reading and from that meeting Chester Kallman went on to become Auden’s lifetime lover and companion.  Harold Norse went on to become an accomplished poet in his own right – homosexual/gay liberationist; part of the beat generation (Ginsberg, Bukowski); befriended by William Carlos Williams who gave strong endorsement and support for his writing, calling him ‘the best poet of his generation’.  My next encounter with Norse was when I read his book, Memoirs of a Bastard Angel.  From Harold’s account of the meeting with Auden, I get the feeling that Norse believes it was he who Auden really fancied on that fateful reading night, but that his friend Chester went behind his back and ‘cut his grass’, so to speak.  The book is a good read if you’re OK about the homosexual, pre-aids lifestyle scene told with frank honesty.
Despite my introduction to Harold Norse, I have not read a lot of his poetry – not easy to find here in Australia – bits and pieces on-line.  One poem that I like and have been influenced by is ‘I am Not a Man’.  This poem would have presented a much more powerful statement back in the time it was written, and for that it serves as an interesting benchmark against which to measure social change.  When I read this poem now, forty-one years after it was written I am strengthened to believe all barriers, all prejudices, all bigotries, vilifications, persecutions, can disappear as our society evolves (hastened by people like Norse who are willing to stand up and speak out, and who have the ability to eloquently record it for the record).  I Am Not A Man is a challenge for all males who may be blindly caught up in some societal fabricated norm of what it has got to be to be a ‘man’.
 

I Am Not A Man

(Harold Norse, 1916 – 2009)

 

I am not a man. I can’t earn a living, buy new things for my family.

I have acne and a small peter.

 

I am not a man. I don’t like football, boxing and cars.

I like to express my feelings.

I even like to put my arm around my friend’s shoulder.

 

I am not a man. I won’t play the role assigned to me –

the role created by Madison Avenue, Playboy, Hollywood and Oliver Cromwell.

Television does not dictate my behaviour.

 

I am not a man. Once when I shot a squirrel I swore that I would never kill again.

I gave up meat. The sight of blood makes me sick. I like flowers.

 

I am not a man. I went to prison for resisting the draft.

I do not fight when real men beat me up and call me queer. I dislike violence.

 

I am not a man. I have never raped a woman.

I don’t hate blacks. I don’t get emotional when the flag is waved.

I do not think I should love America or leave it. I think I should laugh at it.

 

I am not a man. I have never had the clap.

 

I am not a man. Playboy is not my favourite magazine.

 

I am not a man. I cry when I am unhappy.

 

I am not a man. I do not feel superior to women.

 

I am not a man. I don’t wear a jockstrap.

 

I am not a man. I write poetry.

 

I am not a man. I meditate on peace and love.

 

I am not a man. I don’t want to destroy you.

 

Notice in the last line how Harold stops reflecting on himself, looks up, and addresses his audience.  That gesture is like a hammer blow that triggers a sense of shame – I don’t want to destroy you (so what’s compelling you, that you feel you have to destroy me?)

 

Reading Norse’s I Am Not A Man, made me think of areas of my life where I feel I’m out of step with the accepted norm.  One of those areas happens to be the town I’m living in – there’s a word, ‘parochial’.  Don’t get me wrong, Newcastle offers everything you might tick in a top ten towns to live in survey – open space, great beaches, fishing, boating, sport, on the doorstep of fine wineries, a nice, safe place to bring up the family, etc.  However, not having been born and bred in Newcastle, I see a problem with how the locals believe it’s so damn good that they just want to leave it the way it is; keep it a secret; become inbred.  So I’m thinking of the things I find irritating about the staunch defenders of this town, and I set it down with, ‘I am not Novacastrian’.  Working on my poem, I became aware of something about Harold’s expression compared to my expression.  Harold presents a calm balance between what he is not and what he is.  However, where I found I could easily state what I was not, by attacking the thing that set me apart, I was at a loss to state what I am.  I’m going to have to work on that!

 

2011.  Newcastle in NSW, Australia, is a working class town – former steel-works, coal shipping port, industrial blue collar jobs.  People born here, have their family from here, call themselves ‘Novacastrian’.  I’ve lived in Newcastle for near on twenty years now, but I’m still quick to point out that I don’t come from ‘round here.

 

I am not Novacastrian

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I’ve never spent a weekend pig shooting

on somebody’s private property

somewhere west of Nyngan or Narrabri, or somewhere.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I don’t have a holiday house at Bluey’s Beach

nor do I hitch my caravan to my Toyota land cruiser

each year at Easter,

drag it to the same park, same site

somewhere near Tuncurry

or on the banks of the Clarence River.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I don’t own a boat,

go fishing off the drop-over,

Stockton beach, Nobby’s,

or tow my kids around the lake on a rubber do-nut.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I don’t know how to build my own home

from plans I drew up myself,

with scraps of building material

pilfered from work, or a mate’s work

or bought second hand at Bunnings.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I don’t know any of the Knights players, personally

I think the entertainment centre’s a barn

the art gallery, a barn,

I won’t go to the trots, the show, the workers club,

Mattarra festival,

I don’t get excited over a Saturday night out

in Darby or Beaumont Street,

stagger around drinking, drunk, socially loud

in front of bullet-headed bouncers outside the Brewery

or Finnigans and ego charged youths from up the Valley.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I will vote out any political party

that has done nothing in twenty years

to secure funding for projects in their electorate,

that allows a city to stagnate, ripen

with concrete cancer rot,

I don’t point out, with pride

examples of inaction such as

the Great Northern, the Post Office,

the rail line, the Hunter Mall, Honeysuckle.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I haven’t worked in the one shed for thirty-five years,

owned the one house, paid for by the time

I was twenty-five.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I don’t get jealous

if you happen to have more than I’ve got,

nor do I gloat if you’ve got less than me,

or lose what you’ve already got,

I don’t count knowledge, education,

experience and culture

as things to get jealous over.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I don’t use the model car a man drives,

motor bike, chain saw, golf clubs or brand of beer

to classify him as a dick-head,

or someone clever.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

I don’t ride a push bike I had when I was a kid

in traffic along Stewart Avenue, wearing a crash hat

made from an ice-cream container.

I don’t own a furnace jacket from the steelworks

or use bicycle clips to hold up track-suit pants.

 

I’m not Novacastrian,

 

I’m not Novacastrian.

                                      J. O. White

Elizabeth Bishop - Manuelzinho

My selected favourite poem for this post is Elizabeth Bishop’s, Manuelzinho.  I’m acutely aware that Elizabeth’s writing does something for me.  Yet I don’t have anything of hers in my collection of poetry books, nor have I read much about her life.  It’s like I’m saving her for a special moment; don’t want to delve too deeply in case what I’ve already read and know of Elizabeth might dissolve as an illusion.  But I don’t think it will.  I like the ‘voice’ of Elizabeth Bishop – it’s earthy, a bit bold, with a cute playful touch of humour.  Many writers speak of finding ‘your voice’ to write in; I don’t know, but I feel it’s the unique, natural language that comes from your mind and resonates in your soul to bring forth unadorned expression in free verse; a pleasure to write and a pleasure to read.  In reading Manuelzinho, it’s like I’m visiting with the poet, sitting in her kitchen and she’s pouring a cup of tea and telling me about the hired help.  And despite the feigned annoyance, you can tell she really loves this character for who he is and you know she would not change him for the world.  There’s great affect in the way Elizabeth constructs the conversation – as if she’s talking to Manuelzinho, ticking him off, giving him a right good dressing down, and you sense he’s got nothing to say, nothing he can say, he admits, but he doesn’t understand, it’s just how he is and nothing will change him, and “ya gotta love him!”.  Elizabeth Bishop wrote this poem when she lived in Brazil (1950's - 1960's) with her lesbian partner, Lota de Macedo Soares, and it is clear she has studied closely the little facets of life at that time for the farmer peasant in South America.

Manuelzinho

(Elizabeth Bishop 1911 - 1979)

 

Half squatter, half tenant (no rent) –

a sort of inheritance; white,

in your thirties now, and supposed

to supply me with vegetables,

but you don’t; or you won’t; or you can’t

get the idea through your brain –

the world’s worst gardener since Cain.

Titled above me, your gardens

ravish my eyes.  You edge

the beds of silver cabbages

with red carnations, and lettuces

mix with alyssum.  And then

umbrella ants arrive,

or it rains for a solid week

and the whole thing’s ruined again

and I buy you more pounds of seeds,

imported, guaranteed,

and eventually you bring me

a mystic three-legged carrot,

or a pumpkin “bigger than the baby.”

 

I watch you through the rain,

trotting, light, on bare feet,

up the steep paths you have made –

or your father and grandfather made –

all over my property,

with your head and back inside

a sodden burlap bag,

and feel I can’t endure it

another minute; then,

indoors, beside the stove,

keep on reading a book.

 

You steal my telephone wires,

or someone does.  You starve

your horse and yourself

and your dogs and family

among endless variety

you eat boiled cabbage stalks.

And once I yelled at you

so loud to hurry up

and fetch me those potatoes

your holey hat flew off,

you jumped out of your clogs,

leaving three objects arranged

in a triangle at my feet

as if you’d been a gardener

in a fairy tale all this time

and at the word “potatoes”

had vanished to take up your work

of fairy prince somewhere.

 

The strangest things happen to you.

Your cow eats a “poison grass”

and drops dead on the spot.

Nobody else’s does.

And then your father dies,

a superior old man

with a black plush hat, and a moustache

like a spread-eagled sea gull.

The family gathers, but you,

no, you “don’t think he’s dead.”

I give you money for the funeral

and you go and hire a bus

for the delighted mourners,

so I have to hand over some more

and then have to hear you tell me

you pray for me every night!

 

And then you come again,

sniffing and shivering,

hat in hand, with that wistful

face, like a child’s fistful

of bluets or white violets,

improvident as the dawn,

and once more I provide

for a shot of penicillin

down at the pharmacy, or

one more bottle of

Electrical Baby Syrup.

Or, briskly, you come to settle

what we call our “accounts,”

with two old copybooks,

one with flowers on the cover,

the other with a camel,

immediate confusion.

You’ve left out decimal points.

Your columns stagger,

honeycombed with zeros.

You whisper conspiratorially;

the numbers mount to millions.

Account books? They are Dream Books.

In the kitchen we dream together

how the meek shall inherit the earth –

or several acres of mine.

 

With blue sugar bags on their heads,

carrying your lunch,

your children scuttle by me

like little moles aboveground,

or even crouch behind bushes

as if I were out to shoot them!

- Impossible to make friends,

though each will grab at once

for an orange or a piece of candy.

 

Twined in wisps of fog,

I see you all up there

along with Formoso, the donkey,

who brays like a pump gone dry,

then suddenly stops.

- All just standing, staring

off into fog and space.

Or coming down at night,

in silence, except for hoofs,

in dim moonlight, the horse

or Formosa stumbling after.

Between us float a few

big, soft, pale-blue,

sluggish fireflies,

the jellyfish of the air ….

 

Patch upon patch upon patch,

Your wife keeps all of you covered.

(forearmed is forewarned)

your pair of bright-blue pants

with white thread, and these days

your limbs are draped in blueprints.

You paint – heaven knows why –

the outside of the crown

and brim of your straw hat.

Perhaps to reflect the sun?

Or perhaps when you were small,

your mother said, “Manuelzhino,

one thing; be sure you always

paint your straw hat.”

One was gold for a while,

but the gold wore off, like plate.

One was bright green.  Unkindly,

I called you Klorophyll kid.

My visitors thought it was funny.

I apologize here and now.

You helpless, foolish man,

I love you all I can,

I think.  Or I do?

I take off my hat, unpainted

and figurative, to you.

Again I promise to try.

 

Like all of my favourite poems, Manuelzinho is a poem I can read over and over again – like a favourite song, I never tire of it.  Love the metaphors – and a moustache like a spread-eagled sea gull; donkey … who brays like a pump gone dry.

I’m posting my poem, Phil’s Story around the idea of a writer’s ‘voice’.  Like Elizabeth with Manuelzinho I could not have written my poem without experience and close study of the subject.  I was told this story that was so far from how my life has been.  I had to write it down for the simple fact I wanted to remember it so I could tell others.  I was struck by the ‘matter of fact’ way in which Phil described his experience, ‘wow, man!’  I started writing as if I was telling the story in real time to somebody.  I was aware of my conversational voice as I wrote and my first draft was practically as I left it and as it is now.
 
2011 - Every person has a story.  Sometimes those stories make you wonder about your own life - what you have experienced; the sufferings, joy, tragedies; that by quirk of fate shaped you as a person.  Most times those stories are never told, who would be interested?  It’s nothing really - just how it was. 

Phil’s Story 

 

Probably the name wasn’t always Chorusch,

Probably once was Choruschnenko, or

Choruschnekov or something …. avsky.

Phil’s father was Russian before the war,

Then could never be Russian again, a prisoner

When he should have heroically killed himself,

So he becomes a refugee and ends up in Australia.

That’s how I know Phil.

We’re practically the same age.

He was born in 1955.

Time enough for his father to do work for the Americans,

Driving a Colonel’s wife all over Europe on a sight-seeing tour,

Fall in love with a Hungarian girl, and

Escape the mess that Europe was,

Escape to the other side of the world.

Whatever Phil’s father thought then of Hungarian women,

I’m sure he was to revise it.

They met in Germany.

She must have already had children,

A daughter at least,

Because when they came to Australia there were letters titled ‘Dear Mum’.

In those days, who knows what you might do to have yourself survive.

Phil’s mother was a survivor,

She didn’t talk about the war,

Neither did his father

Except for a large scar on his thigh,

Where Phil reckons a bullet must have hit him from behind, and

Exploded right out the front of his leg.

He remembers the scar,

And he remembers how the prisoners would have to run,

From one wire surrounded compound,

Through a narrow wire race to another wire compound,

And as they ran through the race,

Food was thrown down at them,

Bread and meat and vegetables, and

They had to grab at it on the run,

And if somebody bent down to pick up off the ground,

Or stumbled, then they would be trampled to death.

 

That’s how it was then,

It’s just how it was.

 

He put it behind him.

Got a job at the BHP,

Got a loan for a house in Cardiff,

Grew beautiful vegetables in the back yard, and

Fathered six children in as many years.

Phil counts them on his fingers, one for every year

Himself in 1955, ‘56, Stephenie in ‘57, 1958, ‘59, and

Then there was his youngest brother Alan.

Looking at it, Phil figures his father had sex only six times.

You couldn’t say his mother wasn’t fertile

But fertility can be to do with motherhood, and

Then it can be to do with promiscuity and the grog, and

The temptation of having fun.

It seems that’s how it might have been with Phil’s mum.

They lived next door to a woman whose husband was in the merchant marine,

BHP ships, Iron Duke or Iron Monarch, Iron Chief, something like that.

The husband was away at sea for months at a time,

And his wife entertained dozens of blokes,

Introduced to the kids as ‘uncle’,

Got mixed up with it all and got bored with her own life,

And her own dull husband,

Trudging in to the steelworks each day.

Who knows when she decided to do something about it, or

How long she took to set it all up.

Phil reckons she must have had people helping her.

He was nine years old, 1964

Alan would have been only three or four.

This woman picks a day when her husband leaves for work,

Then she packs everything up in the house,

Sells off furniture, has people come around to pick stuff up,

Stores stuff in her neighbour’s garage,

Strips the house completely bare,

Leaves an empty peanut butter jar on the kitchen sink,

With a note, THIS IS SO YOU DON’T DIE OF THIRST.

Phil says months later,

He saw the huge Hornby train set that he got for Christmas,

In the window of a Newcastle pawn shop.

This woman then takes her six children,

And drops them off,

At a Church of England home for abandoned children,

In Mayfield.

Six kids aged nine to three,

Taken from their family home,

With no explanation, no possessions, no favorite toy,

Standing on disinfected tiles in the hallway,

Of a big old institutional mansion,

While matronly women fuss,

Soothe and speak softly to mummy,

As they stand between,

And usher her quickly down the stone steps.

Then the old women trying to make it exciting and fun,

As they entice the little clutch,

To come and see where they will be staying and sleeping,

And there’s a drink for everyone,

And something to eat,

Though it isn’t morning tea or even lunch time,

Pacifiers, just like in the POW camps.

Phil doesn’t know what his father thought when he got home,

The cleaned out furnishings and possessions fairly obvious,

But what about the children, where were they?

Where had she taken them?

I wonder at Phil, why his father can’t go to the police and report them as missing,

And be told where his children are,

Phil reminds me that it’s not how they did things in those days,

If a woman reported domestic violence to the police,

Then that was it,

The Police would protect the woman,

Tell the man to piss off,

Leave her alone, or else.

Apparently, Phil’s mother had reported abuse in the past,

This is where the lines can get blurry.

Was there violence?

Phil can remember his father losing it a couple of times,

Yelling, arguing, if that’s what violence is.

Phil says his mother reported being hit on the head with an axe,

She was helping in the garden,

Kneeling down holding a garden stake,

While her husband hammered it in with the axe.

That’s when, Phil says in his father’s defence,

The axe head came loose off the handle and fell on the woman’s head,

An accident,

Be that as it may, if you’re kneeling with your back turned toward somebody,

And they’re swinging an axe,

And then the axe strikes you on the head,

Then maybe it does make you think.

Of course Phil’s father doesn’t know if it’s because of the axe incident,

That the authorities won’t tell him what’s became of his children,

That they’re split up and scattered in C of E children’s homes,

The younger ones having been taken to a home in Taree by this stage,

Leaving Phil and his brother in the home in Mayfield.

Phil’s father simply walks away,

Falters on the loan on the house, loses it

And ends up having to live in a cheap rented room of a friend.

He goes to work each day at the steelworks in Mayfield,

And each day Phil and his brother walk the same few blocks,

From the children’s home to attend Mayfield primary school,

And back home again.

Phil says he can’t complain,

They were treated well in the home,

Not like you hear what happened in some of the Catholic homes.

There were twenty-four boys in Mayfield,

All around the same age,

Always plenty to eat,

And Phil figures they must have got colour television before anybody else ever did

Still, it wasn’t family.

Then one day out of nowhere but hope,

Phil and his father come face to face.

It happens in Crebert Street,

On an ordinary day,

Phil is dragging his schoolbag to school,

His father is driving to work,

Phil recognizes the family car,

The father recognizes his son,

I try to imagine what that chance meeting must have been like,

The joy, the feeling of rescue,

But Phil doesn’t remember it like that,

He says you have to understand,

He had been in the home for quite awhile now,

Had gotten used to it,

And he didn’t know the circumstances of how he had got there,

What part his father had played in the conspiracy,

Whether his father knew they were there at all.

You can only cry when you know somebody loved you,

And is lost desperate in their search to find you,

But Phil doesn’t know anything.

So he’s standing on the sidewalk in Crebert Street,

Watching his dad climb out of a car, walk towards him,

And neither of them cry,

My mind races, thinking of final rescue,

Phil gets bundled into the car and whisked away, surely,

Why couldn’t it be like that?

Phil said it couldn’t because his dad had nowhere to take him,

And anyway, he just couldn’t take him like that, kidnap him.

He had to be careful, the authorities, you know,

It wasn’t like it is today,

 

that’s just how it was,

says Phil.
                     J. O. White