BROTHEL DAZE.....

Little Joe never once gave it away.
Everybody had to pay and pay.
A hustle here and a hustle there,
New York City is the place where 
They say 'hey babe, take a walk on the wild side'...

It wasn't NYC, it was Sydney and the brothel was located in the inner city suburb of Surry Hills.
This was not the Surry Hills of today, with it's designer warehouse apartments, modernized terraced houses and swanky re-furbished office buildings.  No, this was the suburb caught between urban decay and demographic change that was slowly starting to take place.

A suburb on the very fringe of the city which was a mixture of warehouses, small factories and businesses, Tooth's Brewery and Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire. Of old terrace houses, steep streets, narrow lanes, remnants of Sydney's original China Town still lingering in the form of household mahjong gambling dens, and noodle making shops. While some grand old colonial houses still remained, most were tiny, vermin infested terraces, many abandoned with drug addicts squatting inside them, or housing elderly long standing welfare residents. 

Everything about the suburb in the early 1980's suggested decay and abandonment.  Belvoir Boys, the brothel where I would work for two months was no different.  Located in a tiny, two up, two down Victorian workers terrace, with the usual kitchen and bathroom extension at the back, it was a seedy brothel, but also a haven from what I had just experienced.

Being raped did not have a hugely damaging effect on me.  Even though I can still recall the night and some of what happened, I was so out of it during the whole experience that I was able to feel neither pain nor fear.  Being dumped, penniless and battered in the early morning was what I remember most.  This is when the shame set in and also the resolve to never allow myself to get in that situation again, or so I believed at the time.

The brothel (a few years later I would actually work in a 'parlour') became my home and saviour for the next few months.  I won't go into detail about the clients as later I will devote a whole chapter to this area, but I do remember my first.  A middle aged man on business from the North of England.  He paid $20 for a head job and near the end asked, 'eee lad, is it alright if I cum in your mouth?'.

My favourite, who also became an almost daily regular, was a young wealthy guy from one of Sydney's elite families who always paid me double and also bought me gifts. Clothes, a gold watch, my first bottle of aftershave - 'Grey Flannel' - and often took me out to lunch or dinner.  The one I remember the most though was an extremely elderly gentleman.  He was dressed in an old baggy suit and used a walking stick.  For this reason we had to go in the front downstairs room, which was normally where us boys would sit during the day.

He took off his jacket and shirt, then his trousers, and then his wooden leg!  We did nothing but sit together with his arm around me while he talked.  He told me that he was married and had grandchildren and had been secretly gay all his life but had never had sex with another man.  We both cried when he told me he first realised when he was buried alive in the trenches with another young soldier in WWI for two days.  They had clung together, fearing death and while waiting rescue they had fondled each other and kissed.  After being dug out they never spoke of the incident again.

The boys I worked with were a real mixed bag.  A few like me from suburban working and middle class families, escaping the tedium of their school and home lives.  Some purely professional  who worked the job like it was a regular 9 - 5 office job, and some really sad boys whose childhoods had been filled with both physical and sexual abuse, often by their fathers or other close relatives.

During the days it was generally quiet, except on weekends, so we would mostly watch TV, go into the city shopping, or often spend the morning at Prince Alfred Park at the public swimming pool.  In the afternoons and evenings it was all go.  We were busy from early afternoon until around midnight.

I and another boy, Jeff, were the two most popular boys there.  He was 19, tall, blonde haired and blue eyed.  I was 17 (and looked 15) and between us we saw probably 80% of the clients.  One Friday night I serviced 9 clients in a row, only stopping to shower before going straight back upstairs with the next client.

I was earning anything from $40 on a quiet day to over $200 on a busy day.  That was an absolute fortune both for me and most people back then.  6 months later, I would be back living with my parents again and working in a menswear store from 9am - 5.30pm (9pm on Thursday nights and 8-12pm on Saturdays) and earning $135 per week!

A few blocks away, and frequent visitors, were another group of sex workers of a totally different kind.  They worked for HOD (the House of Dominance) which was a famous and much frequented B&D parlour in Sydney at the time.  These guys were earning double what we were, generally with little or no sex involved, but the work was certainly something you had to 'be into'.  Sadly most of them had really horrific stories of sexual and physical abuse, many at the hands of institutions where they had been raised, or placed.  

25 odd years later, the much respected private college I worked for bought this very same building to use as one of their teaching campuses - they were both shocked and amazed when I told them of it's former use!

We also had drag queens working at the brothel.  The first I had really met on a personal level. I was intrigued and surprised.  The only transsexuals I had seen were either on TV or performing at the clubs and these were the totally over the top, in your face type.  The queens working at the brothel were nothing like this, in fact, except that they wore women's clothes and make up they were pretty much the same as the rest of us.

On Friday afternoons all the factories in the area would close at 2pm.  There would be an influx of  'straight' guys all wanting to see a tranny.  Whether or not it's specifically true in all cases, but I was told that most of these 'factory' workers came because it was cheaper to get a head job from a tranny than a real girl.  It was also pre AIDS days so the fear which later caused a sharp decline in the sex work industry for a year or two wasn't an issue.  

It was so busy that often the boss would get me to dress up shortly before 2pm.  One or other of the girls would do my make up and I would work as a tranny for the next 4 hours.  It was really easy work, and most of the guys didn't care that I didn't have tits (either implants or hormonal), they just wanted a head job from a 'girl'.

So for two months I lived on the wild side.  Loving every minute of it.  The clients were all easy and it felt much safer being in a brothel than working the streets.  The boys became my friends and confidantes.  We shared our lives, sometimes our money and looked after each other.

Then one afternoon I was on an out call and I received the phone call about Billy.  A few hours later I was being interviewed at Darlinghurst Police Station and being told my life was in danger from one of Sydney's most notorious underworld figures.  The ironic part of it was, that one of the interviewing officers, would later become infamous for being one of the most corrupt and dangerous criminals in Sydney!  2 days later I was in a car with two of the boys headed for Adelaide......and a whole new life.

RUNAWAY BOY....

You leave in the morning with everything you own in a little black case.
You stand on the platform, the wind and rain on your sad and lonely face....

That pretty much sums up the day I decided to run away from home and life.

Mum had come with me to see me off on the country train bound for my new life in teacher's college.
I had no regrets for what I was about to do, only a guilty feeling for the hurt I knew I would cause.

Chance encounters can change a person's life.  This is what happened to me during the short time between college orientation day and starting college.

During my days at the Cross, I had met a group of boys who lived in a shared flat on William St.  They were all young, gay and , unlike me, living the life they wanted.  It was they who introduced me to the 'gay scene'.  The gay clubs of Oxford St, which until then I had no idea even existed.

I was hooked from my first night there.  Hundreds of people just like me.  The music, the drinking, the drag shows.  It was in 'Patches' night club where I met Billy.

By the end of the night we had become the best of friends and I had told him of my dread of having to go to teachers college in a country town.  We went back to his house and stayed the night and in the morning made plans for me to move in with him (and his parents) instead of going to college.

I left the train with my bag at the first stop and made my way back to Billy's house.  For 4 days we did nothing but stay in his room, only going out to the kitchen or bathroom.  Billy, I discovered wanted to be a drag queen.  He encouraged me to to the same and we spent lots of time experimenting with make up and clothes before going out in drag for our first time.

He didn't want me to work the streets and knowing that was the first place my parents would look for me, I agreed it was a good idea.  At night we went to the bars.  Patches, Cappricios, on to the Taxi Club and ending up back in the Cross at 'Les Girls'.  Watching the amazing shows and spending a lot of time re-doing our make up.  What a sight we must of looked!

This lasted for about 6 days.  By this time my scant savings were running out and Billy's father came home drunk one morning and caught us in bed together.  Until this time neither his mother or father had seemed to care - I had even been introduced to them as Billy's new boyfriend.  However catching us in the middle of sex was enough for his father to tell me to pack my bags and go.

It was the last time I would see Billy alive.  

With no where else to go I headed back to the Cross.  No plans, nowhere to live, no real idea of what I was going to do.  I remember sitting in the 'Bottoms Up' bar at the Rex Hotel (one of the seediest hotels in all of Sydney) for most of the day.  Towards the early evening I met a boy (I don't remember his name) and after a few drinks he invited me back to his house.

We had sex and then he said it would be okay for me to stay with him and his flatmate if I wanted.  His flatmate turned out to be a 60 something year old man, who was quite happy for me to stay, provided I let him watch (and sometimes join in) me and the other boy having sex.  Who was I to argue?

The two of them were really nice to me.  I had a roof over my head, dinner cooked every night and during the day I could still work the fountain to make extra money.  

It was on one of these working days that I met a young guy called Terry who sat and chatted with me and asked if I had ever thought of working in a brothel.  He convinced me it would be really profitable for me and much safer than working the streets.  Not only would I be protected from any unsavory or dangerous clients, but being under age, he could guarantee me protection from getting busted.  Believe it or not, the 'Fountain' where most of the under age boys worked during the day and early evening was directly in front of the Kings Cross Police Station.

I didn't say yes straight away but kept the details in my head.  It would only be another day before I would desperately need them.

That afternoon I got into a drinking session at the Bottom's Up Bar with a group of seemingly friendly gay guys.  I had made $60 during the day and was waiting for my friends to finish work so I could get into the flat (I didn't have a key).  

One of my drinking 'buddies' invited me to go with him to the toilets and smoke a joint.  I was so trusting and naive.  Within 20 minutes not only was I feeling stoned, but I started spinning out.  On a bar stool, my head exploding and my arms and legs so wracked with pins and needles that I was trying to pull them off, and screaming with the sensations I was feeling.

I vaguely remember the barman saying something to my friends and them clearly replying 'It's okay, he's my brother, I'll take him home'.....

At 3am in the morning, after being raped repeatedly by at least 5 or 6 different men, I was thrown out on the street somewhere in the back streets of Paddington.  Bleeding, still suffering the effects of Angel Dust (which I was told later was probably what the joint had been laced with) I staggered as best I could back to my friends apartment.  I had to wait until 6am before they woke up so just sat holding myself in a tight ball on the stairs.  My money had been taken and my clothes were torn and I was bleeding still from my anus. 

Up in the flat, after a hot shower and a warm and soothing cup of tea, the older guy told me I was too much trouble and had to find somewhere else to stay.  He gave me until the afternoon to get out and it was during this time that I decided to go to the brothel and see if I could get not only a job but somewhere to sleep.....

CAREER CHOICES.

I made my first career choice at the end of Year 10.  I wanted to do a hairdressing apprenticeship.  Not only because I had been given an offer by a 'friend' who I had met during my beach hitch-hiking, but also because I was now realizing that this was an area where I would be accepted, in fact almost expected, in being gay.

I was desperate to leave school.  The thought of continuing to be abused and humiliated for another two years was too much to contemplate. On top of that, I would now be in a mixed sex school and the idea of being victimized in front of girls was frightening. 

In retrospect it would have been both an ideal and sensible option for me.  I would be mixing with people who accepted my sexuality, learning a trade and earning money, and away from the 'yobbos' who made my daily life hell. 4 years later I would become a  hair model for some of Sydney's top hairdressing salons.

My parents were totally against the idea of me leaving school and wanted me to complete my Higher School Certificate. In their defense, they wanted what they considered best for me. I begged, I pleaded and eventually told them how miserable I was at school and that I was gay.  Mum immediately said 'do you think we didn't know?'  Dad went mental and threatened to drag me to Kings Cross (Sydney's Red Light district) to show me the 'depraved' lifestyle that he believed awaited me.  He wasn't to know but that was to become a proven prophesy.

So I continued my final years at school, not all bad, and not all friendless.  I had no heart for it though and managed to attend only the classes I enjoyed, Art, English and History and miss the rest for most of the two years.  The Brothers didn't care if you attended or not.  In the morning you were marked on the role in your home room and again at the end of the day.  They were stupid enough to put me in a home room with an adjoining fire escape!  So once the role was marked my one true friend, Patricia and I would sneak down the fire escape, and once classes started, run through the fields and get a bus to her house, spending the day listening to music, smoking joints, munching out on her wealthy parents well-stocked kitchen before heading back to school.

As a result my final grades were abysmal and I had very few career options available.  One of which was going to teachers college.  This I chose as a last resort, but could only gain entry into a college situated about 150km away from Sydney.  I would have to live in.

But I need to back track to explain how I ended up working as a prostitute instead of going to teacher's college.

At some stage in Year 11, while at the local library, doing school work I chanced upon a book simply entitled 'Prostitutes'.  It was a series of short stories on the contemporary lives of London sex workers.  I was fascinated.  Not only by the lifestyle, but also by the fact that this was something I not only had done, but without payment, but that I could do it in England where I desperately wanted to be.

During the holidays I hopped a train and went into Kings Cross one morning.  It was just a few weeks after they had opened the new Eastern Suburbs railway line with a station at Kings Cross.  I had never been there before and exiting the station I had no idea which way to turn or where to go to solicit.

I picked the right direction and found myself at the El Alamein Fountain, an iconic landmark set in a park on Darlinghurst Rd.  It didn't take me long to realize that I was in the right place.  It was a beautiful Sydney spring day and the park was the ideal place to sit and take in all the sights and sounds of this bohemian suburb.  I was fascinated by everything and everyone.

Before long, probably less than 15 minutes, I guy in a red sports car pulled up and started chatting to me.  He asked if I was 'working' and when I replied yes he said 'hop in'.  He drove me down to the Boy Charlton swimming pool, which I would realize later was a notorious gay pick up spot and we had sex in the change rooms.  I didn't like the fact that half a dozen men were looking either under or over the door, but I did like it that within 40 minutes I had earned $20 (which was roughly a days pay back then) and the event was no different to my other encounters with previous older men.

He drove me back to the Fountain, and after walking around the Cross for a while and having lunch at McDonald's I returned and met another guy.  Only in his 20's, from Switzerland and very good looking.  He was staying at the Gazebo Hotel and we went to his room.  The sex was fun and he paid me $30.  So in less than half a day I had earned more money than I had ever seen and it hadn't been difficult.

I would continue to do this most Saturdays  for the next year.  Generally only seeing one or two 'mugs' as they were called before returning home with money in my pocket.  On Sunday's I spent the day at the beach as usual.

At the end of High School, I continued doing this on an almost daily basis, lying to my mother and telling her that I was going job-hunting.  I got away with this for about 4 weeks.  Stupidly I had not only been saving money in my room, but had kept a record of my 'earnings' in my diary. Not only that but I had also given my home phone number to one young 'mug' and he had rung one day when mum was home.  She became suspicious and went through my room.  She found the diary but not the money.

Strangely as upset as she was with this she did not tell my father.  However she confined me to the house, ringing from work every hour for the next few days.  Then she told me she had got me a job near where she worked.  I was trapped. The job was in a poultry shop and was not only hard work but disgustingly smelly.  Thankfully they were only hiring me for the busy pre-Christmas period so within a short period I was again jobless.

Now I was more careful.  I went to the local job agency daily and applied for many jobs with no success.  But I did have the application forms and interview times as proof so Mum had to believe that I was going to these interviews, which I generally did, but managed to supplement my income 2 or 3 times a week 'working the fountain'.

I will return to this period again as it was a short but eventful time for me and far to detailed to cover in one blog.

In mid January the college I had been accepted into held it's orientation day.  My parent's proudly drove me the 150km to the college and stuck with me every step of the way.  I wasn't unhappy to give it a try, and knew that although my mother hadn't realized that I would need an income, which she could not provide, to study there, that I had the option of coming back to Sydney each weekend and working to earn my living expenses.

What stopped me was after the orientation when we headed into the nearby town.  From the moment we got out of the car and started wandering the historic streets of this famous gold mining city, I was the target of all the local yobbos, who immediately identified me as a poofter and were enjoying themselves calling me it as loudly and aggressively as possible.  My father didn't say a word.  My mother said 'just ignore them- your better than them'.

I was about to embark on another 3 year nightmare journey of ridicule and abuse - being a small country city I also realized that physical abuse was even more of a likelihood.  I had a month before I started.  My parents were not giving me an option.  Now I had to make the heartbreaking choice of doing as my sister did, devastating my parent's lives again, or putting myself through 3 years of continued mental and physical abuse......

COOL CONTRASTS.

The last 3 years of my school life were filled with many contrasts.  While I hated almost every minute of my new school, I cherished my new found freedom every afternoon and weekend.

Once I got off the train I had the freedom to stop at Warwick's for a couple of hours or spend my afternoon with Mark (Mrs C's son) in the bush with the dogs.  Neither of my parent got home until well after dark so I had at least 2 hours of freedom every day.

 At Warwick's I could meet up with my old friends, and some new ones - by this stage Warwick had recruited a whole retinue of younger boys.  Amazingly this was due to his friendship with his near neighbours who had two sons.  Warwick and the boys father both coached the local cricket team, so in their eyes he was just a friendly mentor type.  Years later many of these boys would come forward and report to the police of Warwick's molesting them.  I also was called to the police station to give a report as my name had been given by one of the boys.  Of course, due to my own criminal record and past life as a sex worker I was not asked to give evidence.

Warwick was duly sentenced some 30 years after the events.  I know we all have different viewpoints and I do assume that some of the boys were both sexually aroused and sexually confused at the time, but although legally committing a crime against minors, Warwick was, in my experience, neither forceful nor particularly demanding in his sexual appetite.  I'm sure at the time most of the boys enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

My older sister, who was working in the local bank, was seeing one of the boys from our neighbouring suburb.  Initially she started seeing the younger brother, then as teenage girls do, she fell in love with the older brother.  She was with him for 3 years and he, his brother and their friend Max, became a regular part of our household.

The two brothers were nice guys, but typical rough, tough going nowhere boys.  Max was the only one of the 3 who was still at high school, finishing his HSC (university entrance exams).  They were all into cars and motorbikes and not much else.

On the weekends I would often tag along with them.  A few kilometres from our house was an old disused section of highway.  It was in the middle of the bush and had long since been replace by the new highway.  It stretched for about 4 kilometres and was only accessible through a 'locked' gate (which the boys soon unlocked) and was the perfect place for them to ride their motorbikes.

With them and my sisters girlfriends we would spend hours riding the bikes.  They only had one motorbike and took turns both riding and doubling us along the track.  The first time I was on the back of the bike with Max, he told me to put my arms around his waist and hang on tight.  Off we went as fast as I had ever been before. Away from the sight of the others Max took one hand off the handle bars and put my hand down onto his hard penis.....


Max was one of the best looking guys I had known.  We were time poor and both knew that we couldn't do anything that day.  But Max would often visit before my sister returned from work and let me give him a blow job.  I remember years later having to feign surprise when my sister announced that everyone was saying that Max had 'turned gay' and was hanging around the gay scene in Sydney's Oxford St- though I never recall seeing him.

My real escape and passion though was still at the beach.  My mother's best friend and her mother both had houses on one of Sydney's northern beaches.  I would spend the best part of weekends for 3 years there and loving it.

 Not only did I love surfing but it was the one place where everyone was cool and non-judgemental.  I didn't have a surfboard, but either body surfed or used a 'surf-mat', which is a blow up rubber 1970's version of a boogie board.  I could ride with the best of them. 2, 3 and even 4 metre waves were no deterrent to me and I could spend hours behind the breakers hanging with the cool surf dudes waiting to catch and ride the 'perfect wave'.  I was even cool enough to enter the water from the rocks of the headland with the best of the surfers, rather than taking the safe, but tiring, option of battling the breakers from the beach.

It was here I would find many illicit romances with both other visiting boys or as I very quickly found out with the older surfers.  It didn't take much from being asked to help them zip up their wet-suits to being asked to meet them at the dressing sheds at some stage during the day.

 We lived some 20 km from the beach in a straight line.  Getting there was closer to 30km as I would have to travel  12 km by train, then catch two different buses,ending up with a 1km walk to get there.
In the afternoons, if I wasn't getting picked up by Mom I would ditch this and hitch-hike home, or to the railway station - still a 15 km drive through national park bushland.

Getting a lift was no problem.  Usually it was was with young guys and girls who had been surfing for the day.  It would be during these drives that I was introduced to pot smoking and on many occasions end up somewhere in the bush stoned and having sex with many of the hot young drivers.

I also fell in love with live theatre.  This was a time when Australia was emerging from it's 'cultural desert' image and live theatre was all the rage.  Of course it was expensive and the only theatres were in the city.  To finance my trips I had to find money.  There were two ways I did this.  Either I trolled the neighborhood on weekends going odd-jobs.  Gardening, washing cars, mowing lawns etc or, along with my friend Mark did the 'milk money' run on Friday nights.

It was still an innocent and safe era back then.  And while people locked their front doors during the day, everybody still kept a spare key under a flower pot or in the letter box.  We also had the long since vanished milk deliver every morning.  You would leave your empty (scrupulously washed by my mother) milk bottles next to the letterbox each night and they would be replaced by new filled ones the next morning.

I know people often say 'it's the next best thing to sliced bread', but honestly one of the greatest inventions of that time was the plastic milk bottle top!  Milk was delivered in glass bottles with foil lids and also came full fat!  That meant that the first inch of the milk was pure cream.  As young kids we used to fight for this first creamy part of the milk.  That is of course unless the Currawongs hadn't pecked their way through the foil and lapped up the cream before you got to it.  Currawongs are Australian birds, like large Magpies, with a beautiful morning song, but also an annoying habit of breaking through the milk tops and drinking the cream - so when plastic, full seal caps were invented we were all thrilled.

Anyway milk was delivered daily and once a week, in our neighbourhood on Saturday mornings, you would leave the week's bill money in one of the empty bottles.  So on Friday nights Mark and I would often meet up, generally sometime after 11pm and do the 'milk run'.  Trawling the suburb and collecting the milk money.  We never did our own neighborhood and were clever enough to pick a different area each week.  Some nights we would collect over $20 each which was a fortune back then.  It took many months and repeat visits before people got wise and started replacing money with cheques!

So despite the misery of school days and the constant tense home environment I managed to find peace, fun and my own identity.  I knew it wasn't the norm but I had never wanted to be part of the norm and couldn't wait for the chance to begin my own life away from the boredom and restraints of suburbia...

 

HIGH SCHOOL DAZE....(part 3).

For those of us who knew the pain of Valentines that never came.
And those whose names were never called when choosing sides at basketball.
It isn't what it seems. At 17.

Far from being a centre of academia my new school would prove to be a centre for elite snob-ism, victimization, bullying and homophobia.

The school was set in a semi-rural suburb in north-western Sydney.  It was set high on a hill with wonderful panoramic views of small acreages and bushland stretching all the way to the distant Blue Mts. The grounds were enormous with several playing fields, the school campus, a seminary for the Brothers and it's own farmland.

From day one it was a nightmare for me.  I had already made up my mind that I didn't want to stay there and had the idea that if I behaved badly enough that they would expel me.  Unfortunately the school had never expelled anyone in it's history and punishment was either in the form of the 'strap' or Saturday morning detentions.

The boys were all from rich, catholic families and lived in the surrounding suburbs which at that time were considered to be the new elite suburbs.  They took their status so seriously that mothers would drive their Mercedes and Volvos all the way up to the main office (instead of dropping their children at the school gate) and emerge attired in evening gowns, complete with corsages and coiffured hair-do's.

I was one of only two new boys that year in the whole school, both of us in the same year.  Coming from a rough public school wear uniforms were at the most dirty and worn sloppily, suddenly I was expected to wear 'dicky' uniform of powder blue trousers and shirt with a maroon and yellow striped tie and maroon blazer - even in the summer time.  Uniforms were inspected daily at morning assembly and was to prove one of the catalysts for my misery.

Australia in 1978 was still very macho and totally behind the rest of the world when it came to music and fashion.  While everyone was listening to rock bands like ACDC, Kiss and The Angels, I had already discovered The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The B52's and Kate Bush.

Accordingly I had my long blonde hair cut into a Paul McCartney style - I wanted to keep it long as I was still very much into the surf scene on the weekends- and before I started school had done alterations to my uniform.  I was good with a sewing machine, a skill learned from my mother, and had cut and re-sewn my tie so it was straight and narrow.  Unpicked the flaired trousers and made them 'drain-pipe' style and stole my fathers black winkle-picker (pointy toe) black shoes.

My own worst enemy!

I was tormented for this look even before I arrived at school.  I had to catch two trains,with a 15 minute wait at the main terminus station and then a school bus.  At the terminus station dozens of boys from other private schools all traveled around the same time.  I was instantly labelled 'poofter', spat on, pummeled and laughed at every morning for the next 3 years.  Both morning and afternoon.

Again it was not the bashing's which affected me so much as the humiliation of being ridiculed in front of dozens of people daily, and not once did a single person come to my defense.  On the school bus it would be the same.  If it had been just a few boys I could have coped and probably retaliated but each day it would be 10 or 12 boys tormenting me, and when they had finished another group would start.

The school was strictly divided into grades with each 2 grades having their own areas.  I became the target of almost every boy in both years. Name calling, being spat at punched in the stomach walking between classes.....far from being supportive the Brothers seemed to not only allow this to happen but some even seemed to take perverse pleasure in inciting it.

Again my own worst enemy.

The school values were based purely upon your sporting prowess.  You either joined the Cricket, Rugby, Swimming or Athletics team.  Now for years at my former school I had avoided P.E classes and sport afternoons.  The sports masters last words to me before I left year 9 were ' you know Richard, they won't let you write your own notes to get off sport in the Catholic School?'

They didn't!  I was expected to join in all classes with enthusiasm.  It's really hard to do swimming training when you've just spent 5 minutes in the change rooms getting kicked and punched!  Of course the Brothers either stayed outside or choose to ignore my beatings if they saw them.

My biggest mistake was about 3 weeks into my new school.  We were having the Athletics trials for the school district. I'd already not made it into the Rugby, Cricket or Swimming team and was told by our Form Head Brother that I was expected to not only participate but get onto one of the teams.

With 200 odd boys all trying out for different events it was easy to lose myself in the crowds for most of the afternoon.  Eventually the Head Brother found me and put me in place for the 16000 metre event.  This was an open age event and I was expected to race against boys up to 3 years older than me, and being small, nearly twice my size.

16000 metres is 8 laps of the football field!  Now one thing I could do was run.  And run I did.  By the fifth lap I was lapping scores of other boys and by the 7 lap I was half a field ahead of everyone.  For the first time boys in my class were actually cheering me and teachers were calling my name with respect.  The senior girls who were watching were all cheering for me wildly - funny how I was the only boy in the middle school to have senior girl friends but I was still a 'poofter'.

Then I realised what the consequences of winning would mean.  I could easily have won with at least 500 metres before any other boy crossed the finish line.  Winning would mean not only being on a team of thugs, but after school and Saturday morning training.  It would mean giving myself to the school and Brothers and students I hated.  I ran towards the finish line and stopped about 3 metres from the line and sat down. My own worst enemy.  From that day on I was pariah to both students and teachers.

Of course I would make some friends, but that wouldn't happen until the following year.  For my entire Year 10 I was bullied and verbally abused by the students at school, likewise on the way home on a daily basis, and victimized by the Brothers and teachers.

In 1978 Sydney still used mainly trains which were nick-named 'red rattlers'.  They were red (obviously) and had been designed in the 1920's.  Some were so old that they really did 'rattle' as they sped along the tracks. They also had manually operated doors which could be opened by sliding them by the handles both inside and outside the doors, this could even be done whilst the trains were traveling.

At my old school I had often ridden with my friends, doors open sitting with our legs outside the moving train just for the fun and dare of it.  Now traveling home from my old school after a day of abuse and humiliation and knowing that at home my parents would be arguing or my father would find an excuse to belt me, I often found myself sitting with the doors open, legs dangling out and wanting to jump from the moving train.

Eventually the 3 years passed and unlike most students I would definitely neither miss or cherish my high school years.

HIGH SCHOOL DAZE...(part 2).

1977 was a miserable year but also a good year for me.  At home my parents were constantly arguing and growing further and further apart.  Mum extended her working hours and Dad changed jobs, working for a transport company which kept him out till 8pm 5 nights a week.

On the weekends he absorbed himself totally in his new obsession.  Gambling on the horses.  Saturday mornings he would spend listening to the racing forecasts and studying the forms, totally oblivious to the rest of us.  Saturday afternoons he would spend at the TAB betting and generally losing.

I was left pretty much to my own devices.  I could spend the time with my friends, usually at Warwick's (who was no longer diddling me) with a host of neighbourhood boys. Friends from school became even closer and suddenly I was being invited to their houses with their mother's blessing.  The most surprising of all was the 'pool lady', Mrs C.  After my attack by the Morrisons she let her son who was my age meet me every afternoon to walk the dogs and often invited me around with him to play Atari or swim in the pool.

The neighbours in our street also had more time for me, often letting me hang out and chat and smoke with them - they were all mostly younger than my parents and definitely of the new generation.

I found my first boyfriend that year also.  I was well aware of my own sexuality by this stage.  While my friends all had posters of Evil Knievel  or sports cars on their walls, I had pictures of my TV heartthrobs....Scott Baio, Bobby Driessen and Leif Garret on my walls.

Billy was my age and lived in a house on the highway.  It was directly next to the long drive way which led to my back neighbours.  The driveway ran between two rented houses and led to a large field, totally private, hedged in by fences at the front and one side and bush on the other.

I often spent time just sitting there, away from the world or my parents arguing and one day after a particularly bad morning, in which I had copped a belting from my father for trying to intervene between them, I had escaped there and was sitting, smoking and quietly sobbing.  Suddenly a friendly voice from behind me said hello.  Before my eyes was the most beautiful boy I had seen. 

Billy's family had just emigrated from Italy.  He was my age, with a face like a cherub.  Dark hair, big brown eyes and beautiful olive skin.  His English wasn't great but it was enough for us to start talking.  Like all continentals he saw no wrong in putting his arm around me to comfort me.  This was to be the start of a beautiful friendship.  It wasn't long before we were meeting every afternoon and found a totally secluded spot in which to smoke, talk and eventually kiss.

It wasn't sex for some weeks, but it was love and romance.  I think we were both desperately lonely, he was an only child whose parents were working jobs day and night.  The sex eventually happened, slowly and naturally.  There was no furious fumbling or embarrassed fondling.  It was natural and beautiful....just like the romance movies I used to watch every Friday night with my mother on 'The Golden Years of Hollywood'.

3 months later his family moved and we never saw each other again.

At the end of the year my mother, totally embarrassed at having the whole town and school know about our family life and dramas made the disastrous decision to send me to a Catholic High School which was about 15 km from home.  She thought it would be the best thing for me and in her eyes it would take me away from the constant gossip of our neighbourhood and give me a better education.

How wrong she would be.  By this time I was finishing year 9 in high school.  I had great friends, none of whom cared about our situation, many were in the same or worse situations themselves.  Even the bullying had basically stopped.  One of my 3 bullies had even taken my aside early in the year, I thought to bash me as usual, but he quietly told me he was sorry about my sister and hoped I was alright!  I think he was he one to keep the other bullies from tormenting me.

Besides that I had joined the school drama group and was loving it.  Mixing with equally weird boys and some really cool teachers.  I had one year left before going on to be a senior, and in my school the continuation rate from Year 10 to Year 11 and 12 was only about 40%.  That would have meant I would be amongst the nicer boys, in smaller classes and have much more individual attention from teachers.

But no, mum wanted to send me to an elite school, where not only her snobbish friend's son attended but also one of the local neighbourhood boys.  It would become the worst year so far in my life......

FAMILY BREAKDOWN... (part 2).

It would be a miserable Christmas and New Year for us.  We had no idea where our sister had gone but we did realize that she had run away and not been abducted.

From me, my parents found out that our sister had been secretly seeing John Morrison each day after school.  From my older sister we found out that during our trip to England that my Dad had kept our middle sister a virtual prisoner in the house, as much as he could.  Not allowing her to go out on weekends, coming home early from work to make sure she was at home studying, cleaning and cooking.  My older sister also told us that the whole time we were away was a constant battle between my father and middle sister. My older sister had spent most of the time with her work friends to avoid the hostile environment.

Some time towards the middle of January we discovered that my sister had been on the passenger list for a Qantas flight to England on the evening she had disappeared.  She was 16 and as far as we knew did not have a passport nor the money to travel there.

That was when my father confessed not only to his autocratic treatment of her during our trip but also revealed how she could have acquired a passport.  My parents kept all their documents in a locked metal box in their bedroom cupboard.  Dad confessed that whilst Mum and I were away he hadn't been able to find the key, but assumed that Mum had taken it when she took her passport.  The key had cleverly appeared a few days after our return.

My parents, armed with this knowledge made no attempt to contact the police.  Either about the fact that John's parents must have played a part (they had used his passport to forge his signature on the documents required to grant my sister a passport). nor that John had technically abducted a minor.

My older sister continued to stay out as much as possible while I was stuck at home watching my parents breakdown.  Mum was constantly crying or blaming my father for what had happened.  My father was constantly angry and depressed and found every opportunity to take his frustrations out on me.

One day, while the Morrisons were at work, my mother ran down and intercepted their mail.  Amazingly there was a letter from my sister amongst the mail.  This letter told us that John and my sister had traveled to Scotland where they had been legally married in Gretna Green.  This is a famous town where for centuries it has been legal to be married by the village blacksmith!  It also gave us an address to write to.....

This my mother stupidly did.  Of course we received no reply from my sister but from John's parents we were to go through living hell.  My mother and I were in the local shop a few days later and Mrs Morrison flew through the door, grabbed my mother by the throat, called her a 'fucking thieving slut' before slapping her across the face and pushing her over the magazine rack onto the floor.  This happened in a shop full of our neighbours.  Again my mother did nothing except to pick herself up as calmly as she could and leave the shop.

Our neighbours also copped abuse.  The access road became a track of terror.  The Pitt Bulls were left out all day and began ravaging the neighbours gardens.  They even buried wood with nails sticking out into the access road and two of our neighbours had punctured tyres.  Unlike my parents our neighbours called the police.  They also began to have less and less contact with us, naturally.  Even my mother's best friend, our gay neighbour eventually told my mother it was safer for him to stay away, this shattered her.

One late afternoon as I was walking the dogs, the Morrisons drove past, screeched to a halt and Mrs Morrison got out with a large tyre lever and went for me.  Terrified I released the dogs and began running.  Round and round one of our neighbours houses, screaming and banging on their front door with each circle.  This mad 40 something year old women chasing me and calling me a 'fucking little poofter'.  My neighbours eventually rescued me, but again my parents let the incident go.

So mum cried.  Dad started drinking.  Night after night crying, drinking and arguing.  Until one night it got so heated my father attacked my mother with a kitchen knife and she ran screaming down the road in her nightgown to the same neighbours.  I was left with a drunken, sobbing father.  I was so upset and angry that I picked up a lamp and attacked my father.  Our neighbour arrived just in time to stop me from really hurting him.

So that was our life, eventually things got better but would never be the same between any of us, at least until after I had left home.  My sister and John returned towards the end of the year, but except for me we would only get a glimpse of her occasionally leaving in the car or returning.  For the next year every time we stepped onto our front verandah we would look down and see their house and know she was there. I used the cliff top track and a secret hiding place which I constructed from branches where often I would go and watch the family in their kitchen or back garden. longing to talk with my sister but knowing I probably never would.