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ROSA
Ros Collins’ first book, Solly’s Girl, was published in 2015 as a companion piece to Alva’s Boy written by her late husband, Alan. Like him, she strongly believes in the power of humorous literature; any serious intent is clothed with a self-deprecating wit.
Professionally, Ros Collins was a TAFE college librarian. In later years she was director of Makor Jewish Community Library (now the Lamm Jewish Library of Australia). She is interested in writing about Anglo-Australian Jews, often overlooked in fiction and memoir. ‘We have an 1830s convict in our family – aristocracy!’
Ros shares her 1928 bayside cottage with Roxie, a very British corgi with republican tendencies.
Ros Collins is on Facebook and Twitter. She also blogs short prose at: https://alanandroscollins.wordpress.com
PRAISE FOR
Solly’s Girl: A memoir
‘Straight away, we know this is no ordinary girl. Her name is Ros Collins and she is someone destined for an extraordinary life of bucking trends and taking adventurous paths … It unfolds like a conversation …’
– Karenlee Thompson, author
‘Quite simply, I thought your book was wonderful.’
– Rabbi John Levi AM DD, historian, author
‘Ros writes like a natural – I can “hear” her voice telling these stories as if we were chatting over coffee.’
– Lisa Hill, https://anzlitlovers.com/
Published by Hybrid Publishers
Melbourne Victoria Australia
© Ros Collins 2019
This publication is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without
prior written permission from the publisher. Requests and enquiries
concerning reproduction should be addressed to the Publisher, Hybrid
Publishers,
PO Box 52, Ormond, Victoria 3204, Australia.
First published 2019
ISBN: 9781925736113 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925736250 (ebook)
Cover design: Gittus Graphics
Photo of author on front cover courtesy of Ros Collins
Photo of author on back cover by Nigel Clements
Photo of Lambretta on back cover courtesy of Mr Jim Wilson,
Lambretta Club of Australia
That was how things were back then. Anything that grew took its time growing, and anything that perished took a long time to be forgotten. But everything that had once existed left its traces, and people lived on memories just as they now live on the ability to forget quickly and emphatically.
Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March
For Daniel, Peter, Toby and John
Author’s note: Individual preferences have been adopted for the spelling of transliterated Yiddish words.
INTRODUCTION
‘Hey, what you name? You have dog like Queen!’ The stocky little Italian waved at me from his front porch. His tall, dashing Greek friend smiled beneath a magnificent white moustache – partisan style – which rather clashed with his bike helmet and thongs. So I walked Roxie, the Welsh corgi, up the path to the verandah of their small cottage.
My name is Ros (Rosaline) but the two elderly men from Southern Europe who were chatting me up so charmingly promptly changed it; and so it is ‘Rosa’ who wanders through the following stories, sometimes fictionally, sometimes autobiographically.
The three of us reminisced about how things used to be, when we were all newcomers to this country. It was the eve of Anzac Day and we stood there in the weak autumn sunshine remembering the 1960s and a different society: we slept outside on the porch when it was a hot night and no one harmed us.
‘Hey Rosa! You pretty – you come again?’ they cried out, and I smiled as their voices wafted after me up the street, ‘Ciao bella Rosa, ciao!’
I was on my way to keep an appointment with my local doctor. He is from Georgia, not mint julep Georgia, the other one in the Caucasus, ancient Colchis where the Argonauts were heading, home of the Golden Fleece.
All of us now live in Australia, home of the superfine Merino.
Long ago, in the 1930s, I wore a satin ribbon bow in my hair and my grandparents also called me ‘pretty’, a sheyn meydl. It comes from the Yiddish. But I will not be taking you very far into Eastern Europe – too long ago in my ancestry.
It is a common misconception that all Australian Jews came here from places with unpronounceable names: Bialystok or Lviv or Częstochowa. Not so. The family of my husband, writer Alan Collins – including our convict – came from the slums of London and reached Sydney in the 1830s. I am a Londoner of more recent vintage.
My family history, Solly’s Girl (2015), is as accurate as my memory would allow, a companion piece to Alva’s Boy (2008), Alan’s account of his Bondi childhood. Rosa is much more personal – and freely written – and I have taken liberties with the truth. Memoir with a little fiction, or fiction with a little history? It’s hard to say. Memories with licence.
I write to entertain. ‘Life and times’? Shall we delve deeply into world history, cataclysmic events, or reflect on a dystopian future? I think not. Let me open a small window into some unfamiliar scenes of Anglo-Australian-Jewish life. Rosa’s journey starts in London and the finish line for this ‘ten-pound Pom’ will be Melbourne. Enjoy!
1
GOING TO AUSTRIA
‘Austria!’ boomed Aunt Dora, holding the black Bakelite phone well away from her National Health hearing aids. ‘You can’t possibly live in Austria!’ It was 1957 and post-war Jewish
