women. They chewed gum like cows chewing their cud, spoke in loud voices and sat with their legs spread wide open, in the most un-lady-like manner. Although I was nowhere near as bad as these young girls, I know that I was aware of my unusual behaviour at their age of twelve to fifteen. So much so, that I was almost convinced that I was schizophrenic.
I thoroughly enjoyed dressing in widgie style clothing, which was classified as being totally unacceptable. Olivia Newton John gave a certain amount of respectability to the trashy widgie style in the movie Grease twenty years later, but in the fifties, it wasn’t classified as respectable. Nice young girls didn’t wear their hair with a kiss curl on their foreheads, nor did they wear tight peddle-pushers and skin tight sweaters. Any girl that did,was regarded as being a tart. On the other hand, I also enjoyed dressing up to the nines, wearing a conservative style dress, stockings, patent leather shoes and gloves. The contrast was so striking I could only liken it to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
I remember going to a rock and roll picture at the Wintergarden with Jenny and we were flicking cigarette ash on the heads of the two young fellows who were sitting in front of us. Both Jenny and I were swearing like troopers and trying to act really tough.
The boys were inoffensive young chaps who were trying to be nice to us and we treated them with utter contempt. We just wanted to be anti-social little misfits. The following week, I went to see a love story movie at the Rex picture theatre in Fortitude Valley on my own, dressed up to the nines. I sat in the darkened theatre and behaved in the manner as I was dressed, like a well-behaved, good-mannered, young lady. The lights went on during interval and I nearly died a thousand deaths when I recognised one of the young fellows from the previous week. He came over to where I was sitting
Boy ‘Hello, don’t I know you?’
I replied in my best elocution voice,
Amelia ‘I don’t think so.’
He looked directly at me
Boy ‘I’m sure I’ve met you somewhere.’
I put my nose in the air with all the haughtiness of a stuck-up little prig
Amelia ‘I’m sure I’d remember you.’
I gave him a coy, little smile, and all of a sudden his face dropped open like a mineshaft Boy ‘You’re the one who sat behind me last week.’
I shook my head as if I had no idea what he was talking about.
Boy ‘I can’t believe how different you look it’s as if you’re two different people.’
I couldn’t contain myself any longer, I just burst into laughter. We sat and talked for a few minutes until the second feature. On leaving the theatre at the end of the film, I was as pleased as punch with myself that I had made someone else as confused about my changeable behaviour as I was.
Towards the end of our last year at school, I thought it was time to be honest with Edith and Mum. So, one night at the pictures instead of sneaking off to the toilets for a smoke I lit one whilst sitting between them. It was an eerie feeling having two pairs of eyes peering at me in disbelief. They never said one word. I guess sitting in a darkened theatre wasn’t the time or place to throw a multi-coloured fit.
I would have liked to tell the mothers on that television show to try not to despair and to try not to force them to conform. The girls probably won’t outgrow their tomboyish behaviour, but I feel sure that they will eventually modify their behaviour somewhat as time goes by. I think that they’ll never be wilting wallflowers and never be afraid to speak up for themselves. Probably to everyone else’s horror.
Jenny began sneaking out of a night time and meeting older boys whom we had talked to at in the park on our Sunday afternoon meetings. The fellows were members of a motorcycle club and were all in their late teens. Jenny’s reputation went from bad to worse and unfortunately, I heard rumours that I too was being branded as a low-class moll as well, all because I was her friend. I disapproved of Jenny’s night time activities as much as everyone else did. I ended up having a big argument with her and I told her that if she wanted to lower herself to that level that it was her prerogative to do so. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to be dragged through the mud with her.
Mother Mathias had been transferred to another school about two years after I started at the catholic school but she had donated her lethal weapon to Mother Romanus, a thick rubber strap which was actually a strip off the floor covering from the church. It was approximately eight inches long and two inches wide and was as thick as two wooden rulers glued together. Anyone who got hit with it would remember it for the rest of their lives. I had copped it for spreading the story about my classmate’s father committing suicide and on several other occasions. On my last day of school, I snuck into Mother Romanus’ classroom and took the offensive weapon from her desk. I did what every kid in the school had wanted to do with it. I cut it into very tiny pieces and took it back and placed all the pieces back in her desk. I am very proud of that achievement, I believe I prevented a lot of kids a great deal of suffering. As a last act of defiance, three or four of us climbed up to the big church bell and pulled the rope to make it toll our happiness of our first taste of freedom.
In retrospect, looking back at my childhood, I was considerably lucky really. I had all the opportunities any child could ever want. I found out months later that Jenny fell pregnant and because of her age she had been taken through the courts. She refused to give the names of the fellows she had slept with but the police had charged some chaps with carnal knowledge. Their solicitors proved in court that she had accepted cigarettes and a bottle of Coca-Cola during their liaisons with her and she was proven to be a prostitute for accepting these items as payments. Jenny gave birth to a baby boy the following November and the baby was adopted out.
Hannah had arranged for me to work at Barry and Robert’s Supermarket in the city during the Christmas holidays. My job entailed filling the shelves when the stock started to get low and being a general dog’s body. My main memory of my six weeks working there was wearing a grey and red uniform that was at least two sizes too big for me. Being only five feet tall, I’ve always had problems getting clothes to fit me and Barry’s uniform department was no different. Co-workers and customers alike often had a good laugh at seeing me scampering around in a uniform that should have only reached below my knees but instead it flowed around my ankles. At the end of my six weeks I had become quite attached to everyone who worked there, not to mention becoming attached to my wage every week.
On Dad’s insistence, even though he was no longer living at home, I was enrolled at Stott’s Business College in the city to learn typing, shorthand, and business principles. As with piano playing, the keys on a typewriter were absolutely impossible for me to master. The harder I tried, the more agitated I became, the more agitated I became the more my hands sweated. The result being a soggy mess everywhere, three months of that form of torture was more than enough for me. So much to my parent’s dismay, I beat a hasty retreat and got a job as a shop assistant at Penny’s Department store. I was put in charge of the toy department, which was second only to being in charge of the lollies and chocolate department. In those days the toy department was like a little house separated from the rest of the other departments. All the counters were around the entire length of the four walls with the exception of the three doorways to allow the customers to enter. The area between the counters was supposedly for the customers to walk around to look at the goods on display. It was nothing unusual for me to be on the floor on all fours crawling around playing with different toys. Of course, if I was copped by the floorwalker Mr Mac (as he was affectionately known), I would invariably come up with the story that some naughty kid had been playing with it earlier and I thought the kid had broken it and I was just testing it out. Toys weren’t
