This will be my third and final. I am calling these effusions drafts, because I am aware of the many omissions. For instance, I did not mention that our mother for a time in the 30s taught Sunday School at St. Mary’s, Kaimkillenbun, nor that from our earliest years she taught us to say our night prayers, kneeling at the bedside - something I continued to do for many years afterwards.
I think back to the Toowoomba years, and 1941. Keith was 15 years old when he started work at the Toowoomba Foundry; and I was 13 starting at secondary school. The war was on, but we were not all that much aware of it, even the recruiting rallies held in town were barely relevant to us, and the occasional air raid warning and drills into slit trenches did not change for us the remoteness of it all.
Our mother was more involved, of course, and I remember how she used to make camouflage netting, with occasional slight assistance from us. I joined the Air Training Corps when I turned 16, but fortunately for me, the war ended in time for me to miss out on a call up into the armed forces. I thank God for that. Keith, of course, was in a protected industry, and would not have been allowed to join up.
Work for Keith, School for me. This meant a new kind of separation, which continued later on. Keith made acquaintance through his fellow Engineering cadets with a group of young people who were attached to St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church - the P.F.A. - Presbyterian Fellowship Association.
They were a lively lot, well led, organising social life for young folk, social evenings, and the Fellowship Tea and Worship at Church on Sunday evenings. There was a tennis club comprising these young people mainly, with play on a couple of courts at the Presbyterian Manse. I was able to join in the tennis games there too, and I enjoyed the company. Keith drifted away from St. Luke’s Anglican Church because of this Fellowship, but I continued to go along there with my mother for Sunday worship, perhaps not as regularly then as I should have done.
A regular weekly event was going to the pictures on Friday nights, choosing one of the three cinemas. Two main features, news, and a cartoon was the regular diet, and there was also the luxury of a milk shake, and perhaps a hot pie sold there by the pie man. Afterwards we walked home, and that tended to be a slow journey, with frequent halts for conversation.
50 Herries Street was on a regular bus route to and from town, and we rode in Mr. McCafferty's bus on many occasions. This means of transport was supplemented by our push bikes, and Toowoomba provided many opportunities for us to ride to the various scenic spots. But at some stage, and while Ross Maclean was boarding with us, he and Keith became attracted to motor bikes. This caused our mother constant worry and concern. For one thing, the bikes had frequent mechanical problems, and for another, it meant that Keith could ride away from town, out on the highways. Mum was always on tenterhooks until he returned safely.
Foundry cadetship lasted four years or five, I forget which. When their time there was over, many of the cadets tended to leave for other positions, Ross went to Brisbane, and Keith found employment after a while at Walkers at Maryborough, a large firm which built ships and manufactured other heavy equipment. This would have been 1945 or thereabouts, the war was about to end, Roy Adams came home late in 1945, skin and bone from the Japanese Prison Camps, and our lives continued to change.
I stayed at 50 Herries Street until 1946, when I moved to live and work in Warwick. As Roy regained strength, he and our mother moved from Herries Street to a succession of places in and near to Toowoomba, engaging mainly in fowl and egg production. Keith and I had left the nest, our paths had divided and the only significant convergence after that was in 1951, I think it was, when Keith and Jo invited me to be best man at their wedding in the little Methodist (?) Church at Hemmant (Brisbane). I was then a theological student in Brisbane They went north and I eventually went west and our life paths remained separate from then on.
But blood is thicker than water. We share, to change the metaphor, a common root system - we are two separate grafts as it were, in the hands of our heavenly Gardener, to do with as he wills.
I think back to the Toowoomba years, and 1941. Keith was 15 years old when he started work at the Toowoomba Foundry; and I was 13 starting at secondary school. The war was on, but we were not all that much aware of it, even the recruiting rallies held in town were barely relevant to us, and the occasional air raid warning and drills into slit trenches did not change for us the remoteness of it all.
Our mother was more involved, of course, and I remember how she used to make camouflage netting, with occasional slight assistance from us. I joined the Air Training Corps when I turned 16, but fortunately for me, the war ended in time for me to miss out on a call up into the armed forces. I thank God for that. Keith, of course, was in a protected industry, and would not have been allowed to join up.
Work for Keith, School for me. This meant a new kind of separation, which continued later on. Keith made acquaintance through his fellow Engineering cadets with a group of young people who were attached to St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church - the P.F.A. - Presbyterian Fellowship Association.
They were a lively lot, well led, organising social life for young folk, social evenings, and the Fellowship Tea and Worship at Church on Sunday evenings. There was a tennis club comprising these young people mainly, with play on a couple of courts at the Presbyterian Manse. I was able to join in the tennis games there too, and I enjoyed the company. Keith drifted away from St. Luke’s Anglican Church because of this Fellowship, but I continued to go along there with my mother for Sunday worship, perhaps not as regularly then as I should have done.
A regular weekly event was going to the pictures on Friday nights, choosing one of the three cinemas. Two main features, news, and a cartoon was the regular diet, and there was also the luxury of a milk shake, and perhaps a hot pie sold there by the pie man. Afterwards we walked home, and that tended to be a slow journey, with frequent halts for conversation.
50 Herries Street was on a regular bus route to and from town, and we rode in Mr. McCafferty's bus on many occasions. This means of transport was supplemented by our push bikes, and Toowoomba provided many opportunities for us to ride to the various scenic spots. But at some stage, and while Ross Maclean was boarding with us, he and Keith became attracted to motor bikes. This caused our mother constant worry and concern. For one thing, the bikes had frequent mechanical problems, and for another, it meant that Keith could ride away from town, out on the highways. Mum was always on tenterhooks until he returned safely.
Foundry cadetship lasted four years or five, I forget which. When their time there was over, many of the cadets tended to leave for other positions, Ross went to Brisbane, and Keith found employment after a while at Walkers at Maryborough, a large firm which built ships and manufactured other heavy equipment. This would have been 1945 or thereabouts, the war was about to end, Roy Adams came home late in 1945, skin and bone from the Japanese Prison Camps, and our lives continued to change.
I stayed at 50 Herries Street until 1946, when I moved to live and work in Warwick. As Roy regained strength, he and our mother moved from Herries Street to a succession of places in and near to Toowoomba, engaging mainly in fowl and egg production. Keith and I had left the nest, our paths had divided and the only significant convergence after that was in 1951, I think it was, when Keith and Jo invited me to be best man at their wedding in the little Methodist (?) Church at Hemmant (Brisbane). I was then a theological student in Brisbane They went north and I eventually went west and our life paths remained separate from then on.
But blood is thicker than water. We share, to change the metaphor, a common root system - we are two separate grafts as it were, in the hands of our heavenly Gardener, to do with as he wills.
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