EARLY DAYS.

It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Smiling faces I can see
But not for me
I sit and watch
As tears go by

From an early age I found myself on the outside.   My sister's being 3 & 4 years older than me meant that my early days were spent with them reluctantly looking after me, dragging me reluctantly around with their friends and always telling my that I was too young to join in their games.

We spent our first years in Australia living in a variety of boarding houses and single rooms which were as I remember full of 'undesirables' as my mother was want to call them. One place was so awful, a single room in an old boarding house full of drunks, that  we children called it 'the ookey house'.

My dad worked a variety of jobs and my mother did house cleaning during the days.  This is where I realized how the 'other half' lived.  I can remember grand old houses in Sydney's affluent North Shore suburbs, where the children had toys a plenty and friends galore.  As the cleaner's boy I was left to watch from the outside and listen to my mum being spoken down to by her employers.

Then because my parents didn't have the spare money to send me to pre-school I was sent to the local kindergarten half way through the year and half a year behind the other children.  While the other children were given lessons I was put in a corner to play until my teacher would come over and give me individual tuition then leave me to finish my work and return to teach the class.  It was hard to make friends.

In 1st class I received my first lesson in bullying and my first realisation that somehow I was different.  This came from my teacher!  Now I do know that I was never a naughty child and tried my hardest to listen and learn.  This was from a fear of discipline that I had long learned to expect if I ever misbehaved.

My father had an uncontrollable temper which is what I most remember of him from my early childhood.  Not only would he shout and yell at the slightest provocation, but he would frequently lash out at us with his belt.  If one of us was naughty, we would all receive a belting.  Me being the boy got it hardest and more than my sisters.

I remember the exact day.  July 20th 1969.  We had all the infants school in our classroom watching the first moon landing.  At the end of the broadcast my teacher went around the room asking many children to name the 3 astronauts.  I clearly remember at least a dozen or more children being able to only name one astronaut - Neil Armstrong.  Then she asked me and I proudly stood up and named two astronauts - Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.  Her reply was to yell at me and demand I name the third astronaut.  When I couldn't she went to her cupboard and returned with the cane.  In front of
all the children she caned me two times on each hand.  I was 5, tiny and absolutely gutted and of course I cried, she caned me once more on each hand because I cried.

Going home that afternoon, 3 or four older boys who had been in the class room ganged up on me calling me a cry baby and pushing me over.  One snatched my school bag and tipped it out onto the ground.  Then they took my pink spelling book and ran off laughing.  I was to scared to tell my parents about either event.

The next day when we had to write our our spelling words my teacher saw that I didn't have my book with me.  She caned me again.

This time due to the sever bruising on my hands I couldn't hide it from my parents.  Expecting a belting for doing the wrong thing I was surprised that my father got angry with the teacher.  The next day he left work early, arriving at school at lunch time demanding to see my teacher.  I will never forget her words or his reaction. 'I don't like your son'.  My father slapped her so hard across the face that she fell over the desk and onto the floor.  From that moment on she totally ignored me in class.

A few months later my parents bought a house a few suburbs away.  I went to a new school, had a wonderful teacher Mrs Hawke and began to make friends.  The golden years were about to begin.....