won’t know unless you try.’ My love of, and affinity with, the land and the bush evolved from him.
Apart from hunting, which I learned from Dad, I loved to wander alone in the bush through the sweet-scented tea tree scrub, clambering over moss-covered rocks and across ferny gullies. I was not lonely. Kookaburras laughed overhead from branches in the big, shady gumtrees. Salamanders scarpered across rocks and fat goannas raced surprisingly fast to scale the nearest tree trunk or slip into the water. A platypus family lived in one section of the river. They playfully splashed and somersaulted near the bank while mid-stream, a pair of black swans glided by. The river and the bush, forever my friends, connected me with my soul and gave me strength to suppress my anxiety and food thoughts.
Almost.
4. SWEET SIXTEEN
At 15 years of age, I didn’t look thin. I mean, I didn’t look like I had a food or weight problem. I played tennis and hockey, enjoyed cross-country running, went to dances and worked on the farm; I ate most of the meals Mum dished up and, when visiting the homes of friends, I ate the meals there, too. This avoided many embarrassing moments, but I began to feel uneasy because I wasn’t developing like other girls.
The breasts that had distressed me when I was 11 had disappeared and my chest was flat. Mum, concerned that I’d not had a period for almost three years, took me to a doctor in Bairnsdale. He wrote a prescription for tablets and said to take them for three months.
My girlfriends did not know about my secret. Totally outgoing, they were starting to socialise with boys and encouraged me to keep up with them. Several were joining the Glenaladale Young Farmers’ Club and persuaded me to go along too. With 62 members, this was the largest and fastest-growing Young Farmers’ club in East Gippsland, and one of the most active in the Victorian Young Farmers (VYF) organisation. Aged between 14 and 25, the members met at 8pm on alternate Thursdays, in the Glenaladale Hall. The club calendar was full of cultural, agricultural and social events—including dances, rabbit hunts, progressive dinners and debating competitions—which attracted young men and women from miles around. Some, like me, were still at school, but most were working—usually the young men were on farms and the girls, while living on farms, had secretarial, teaching or nursing jobs in town.
Within three weeks of taking the tablets prescribed by the doctor, my periods returned. I was relieved and so was Mum. Now that I was growing up she didn’t call me Tim or Toby, and she encouraged my budding femininity by meeting me after school one day to shop for some teenage clothes: a pink jacket, a dark green tartan winter shift, a light blue pair of jeans, a pair of dark blue sneakers and pink lipstick.
To top it off, Mum bought fish and chips for me to eat on the way home. I was looking forward to finishing those tablets because although they had fixed me up and my breasts were filling out, they had made me gain weight. In 14 weeks I had gained about 7kg, making me 55kg. I was unhappy about this and tried to suppress growing unrest by helping on the farm and keeping fit. Sometimes on weekends, I milked the cows to give Dad a break, and I did more jobs on the tractor now that I had learnt how to change the gears. Running helped me feel stronger and happier and, being a member of the school hockey team, I regularly ran up the river and back for practice. All was going well but, after finishing the tablets, I missed another three periods. Mum took me back to the doctor and the news wasn’t good: ‘Becoming normal will take time, but don’t worry. Take these tablets for another six months,’ he said. ‘I hope I won’t get fat,’ I said. Within a month my periods resumed and I felt relieved, having feared they might not come again.
The medication was stirring my hormones and desire for independence. My parents would not allow me to go on a date until I was 16 but a friend, Rodney, wanted to escort me to a Young Farmers’ meeting. The VYF organisation was often referred to as a marriage bureau but I didn’t think the regular Thursday-night meetings should count as a ‘date’. However, Mum was adamant. ‘No,’ she said. She kept me on tenterhooks for several days before delivering this blunt judgement. My anxiety compounded to the point where I exploded, ‘Why not?’
‘Things happen,’ Mum said, ‘and I’ll tell your father if you keep on about it.’
My courage failing, I blurted, ‘Why haven’t you told me about the facts of life? Why haven’t you explained how babies are made?’ During lunchtime at school my girlfriends had whispered about ‘intercourse’, and laughed when I asked what the word meant. They explained and, feeling repulsed and horrified, I took their suggestion and borrowed a book on procreation from the school library.
Despite growing up on a farm, where I saw bulls mount and enter cows that were on heat, and nine months later watched the same cows giving birth, I remained ignorant and naïve about this wondrous act.
Feeling increasingly stressed, I began to wonder what those tablets were doing to my hormones. For the first time in three-and-a-half years I began to count calories, allowing myself no more than 1500 calories a day, to give myself a sense of control and security.
I am on a diet! I want to lose 3kg.
I was progressively eating less and exercising more but Mum occasionally had some pull, usually when she made chocolate crackles. The sight of those rice bubble crunchies made me forget my diet. Momentarily. Eating sugary food was pleasant but guilt quickly kicked in and I would have to go for a long run to regain my sense of control. Being outdoors and being physically active helped me feel good within myself.
At home we were becoming more modern, the latest update being hot water from a tap. A Lindenow tradesman installed a hot water service and a new slow-combustion stove that, besides being used for cooking and baking, heated the water. Hot- and cold-water taps were fitted in the bathroom and our big cast-iron bath with claw feet was boxed in. I was pleased, as our bath had looked horribly old-fashioned with its feet on show. The copper and our big firewood box were taken out of the washhouse, making room for a shower to be installed.
Dad had the first bath using the hot water system. Until now water for our bath had come from kettles carried from the kitchen stove, or buckets carried from the washhouse copper or the briquette heater at the cow-yard. I had the first shower; I’d envied friends who had a shower in their homes. Until now I had used a dipper to wash my hair, bending over in the bathtub. Now, I stood as a continuous spray of warm water washed the suds from my hair and down my body. This was bliss. I hoped the household improvements would help me feel more like my friends. Something was preventing me from connecting with them—I was on the periphery, rather than within, their friendship circle.
Academically I continued to achieve and in October The Examiner newspaper in Tasmania sent a letter announcing I was the Victorian female winner of a 1500-word essay competition on the ‘Apple Isle’. Dad was in the dairy when I told him and he left the cows alone for a moment to give me a big kiss. The prize for the boy and girl winner from each State was a week-long tour of Tasmania. This was exciting but, feeling anxious, I climbed high into the branches of the loquat tree outside our back door and ate bunches of the small yellow fruits, dropping their shiny round brown seeds on the ground below, until I felt bloated and sick.
At the end of the school year, just prior to Christmas, I joined other mainland essay winners and flew, on what was my first flight, from Melbourne to Launceston. From there we travelled with a chaperone in a bus around the island. We explored the former penal settlement at Port Arthur and, having recently read For the Term of his Natural Life by Marcus Clarke, I felt for the convicts at this isolated outpost, far from loved ones in England. We ate sample chocolates from the Cadbury’s factory at Claremont, and went to the drive-in theatre, our bus parked sideways so we could see out the windows. By now I had a crush on Philip, the Victorian boy essay winner, from Portland. We sat together and Philip introduced me to French kissing; I remember
