FAMILY BREAKDOWN (part 1).

They're creepy and they're kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They're all together ooky,
The Addams Family.

As I predicted our return from England would be far from happy.  Mum and I returned to be greeted with neither warmth or enthusiasm from either my father or my middle sister.

The following months seemed to get worse rather than better.  My father became even more irritable with my mother and me.  He seemed to be particularly jealous of the close relationship that my mother and I had developed.  This came to a head one Saturday morning when he walked into the lounge room to see my mother putting on her bra in front of me.  He called her a slut and told her it was neither moral or natural for a teenage boy to see his mother half naked.

I found this not only amusing but quite pathetic, considering I only had to go down to his shed and see hundreds of filthy pictures of women having all sorts of thing shoved up them simply by looking at his porn magazines.

My middle sister not only showed no enthusiasm at my return but also refused to have anything to do with me.  Before I had left our usual afternoon routine was to walk our two dogs together down in the bush.  From my first day back she told me she didn't want me to come and could handle both dogs on her own.

After some weeks, I decided that she obviously had a reason for not wanting me to come.  One afternoon when she went out with the dogs I went up to the back garden.  From here I could use the bush and cliff top which ran the length or our street and by clambering down the rocks intercept her along our usual walking track.  This route was to be of great comfort the following year.

By this time our street had been completely built out.  From the bottom of the hill on our side was one vacant block. From there the sandstone cliff rose steeply and there were 5 new houses built, all of which shared a dirt access road running behind their properties.  The first house was lived in by a family called the Morrison's.  

From day one they had been seen as unwelcome due to their rudeness to other neighbours and not to mention the fact that both father and son rode motorbikes.  They also owned Pitt Bull Terriers which they used to let loose on the access road in an  attempt to frighten the other neighbours from using it. They were from Northern England and my mother used to call them 'ruff as goots'.

Of course creeping down through the bush who should I come upon but my sister and John Morrison.  My sister was really angry and told me to get lost, but John was surprisingly calm and told my sister it was fine for me to stay.  He even let me take the dogs further down the track to walk them all.  This would happen every afternoon from then on.  He and my sister would stay at the start of the track, John would let me have a smoke with them and then I'd take all four dogs walking.....

I thought he was really cool.  Of course I knew he and my sister were probably having sex while I was walking the dogs, but who was I to say anything?

My parents found out by accident.  One of the neighbours happened to go walking one afternoon and spotted my sister and John kissing.  They wasted no time in telling my parents who immediately banned my sister from seeing him.

My father was particularly furious and I remember him really laying into her with the belt when she at first refused to stop seeing him.  But as my father didn't get home from work until 8pm and Mum didn't get home until 7pm my sister was free to meet him every afternoon during the week.

December 18, 1976.  A week before Christmas and we were expecting family friends over for dinner.  My sister was unusually helpful all day and spent several hours sewing a new dress to wear for the occasion.  Besides, as I have mentioned earlier, having strange feelings all day towards my sisters actions, it was even stranger to find her up in the back garden in her brand new dress, burning all her school books - she had just finished Year 10 and passed, as always, with flying colours.

I went down and mentioned to my mother that I thought my sister was acting strange.  Mum brushed it aside as she was busy preparing for our guests.  That was around 4pm.....we would not see my sister, except for a few glimpses, for another 5 years! 

YEAR OF CHANGE

Oh! England, my Lionheart!
Peter Pan steals the kids in Kensington Park.
You read me Shakespeare on the rolling Thames--
That old river poet that never, ever ends.
Our thumping hearts hold the ravens in,
And keep the tower from tumbling. 

1976 was a decisive year both for me and my family.

It started off normally enough and then during the Easter holidays I was aware that something was going on.  My  parents would suddenly stop talking when I entered the room and my middle sister started becoming distant towards me.

My middle sister and I had become very close over the past year.  My older sister had started working and had a life of her own.  Dad had been given a promotion at work and was now the supervisor of a building firm.  His company landed a contract to build new surf life saving clubs along Sydney's northern beaches.  We had been regular beach goers, like most Sydney-siders, but this now gave us a whole new world of fun and independence.  Spending all day on the beach, while dad worked during the holidays and finding a whole new group of cool, non-judgmental friends.  A passion I would pursue at every possible opportunity until I left school and home.

We also were playing tennis each Saturday.  This had started through a classmate of mine whose mother was the secretary of the club and was trying to recruit more players. Much to her dislike both my sister and I proved to be very proficient players and by the end of 4 weeks both of us had been promoted to the 'competition league' whilst her son was still in the practice section. Before and after tennis my sister and I would hang out with her friends, including her boyfriends and I finally started to feel not only grown up but excepted.  Of course, this meant I had to keep quiet about the fact that my sister was regularly having sex with boys behind the tennis court sheds!

I don't remember what  finally brought it up, but one Saturday morning I knew my parents were discussing me and I demanded to know what they were talking about.  That's when they told me my mother was taking me with her to England for 8 weeks holiday.

For a boy who was a total anglophile (thanks to my mother) and whose only holidays had been spent in the bush this was the best news of my life!  Of course being me I nearly blew it a few weeks later when my friend and I had our ears pierced.  This was the latest fashion and we had gone to the 'camping store' where a very hippy type lady had used a two blocks of ice and a needle to pierce our ears.  OUCH!  I felt so cool, and sore, going home with a gold sleeper in my ear.  My parents promptly told me it was either the earring or England!  England won.

England was everything and more than I had expected.  We spent two weeks with my Aunty in London where she lived. Visited every famous place - The Tower, Buckingham Palace, St Pauls, The Houses of Parliament, Madame Tussaud's.....

My most lasting memory of London was the day mum spent 3 hours in Harrods deciding on a coat to buy.  In doing so she managed to befriend an American tourist.  He was in his 30's, traveling alone and as camp as a row of tents!  Mum would like to think it was her charm and social ease which ended up with him touring for the rest of the day with us, and paying for everything including afternoon tea, but actually it was the fact that I let him spend the day with his hands feeling my bum at every opportunity as we walked down The Mall and then  let him rub my crotch under the table during afternoon tea.  I was already of the power of my boyhood sexuality.

Then we spent a marvelous 6 weeks in my mother's ancestral village in Cornwall,  The happiest time of my life.  For the first time I was surrounded by a loving family. Grandparents who spoiled me, Great Aunts and Uncles, second cousins, new village friends and everything was beautiful.  The only 6 weeks of my childhood I can remember when not a cross word was said and I didn't get belted even once.

Cornwall was a magical, mystical love affair for me.  My mother had a car and we drove to all her childhood haunts.  The medieval villages, quaint seaside towns, the spooky moors, historic manor houses.  I was in love with everything.  My mum became a different person overnight, surrounded by love and family.  I was so enamored with the whole experience that I begged her to let me stay with my grandparents and finish school in England.  I didn't want to go back to my former angst filled life in Australia.  Of course this was out of the question and after another 2 weeks in London we eventually returned.

If only we knew what was waiting for us.......

HIGH SCHOOL DAZE....(part 1.)

Sitting in the classroom / Thinking it's a drag
Listening to the teacher rap / Just ain't my bag
The noon bells ring / You know that's my cue
I'm gonna meet the boys / On floor number two!
Smokin' in the boys' room
Smokin' in the boys' room
Now, teacher, don't you fill me up with your rules
But everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school. 

Like most gay boys, High School wasn't the best time of my life.  It was 1975, white Australia and living in the outer suburbs you were expected to be rough and tough.  Besides the culture shock of going from the security of primary school to the insecurity of high school I had a lot of things going against me.

I was small, a 'wog' (something which had never been an issue before) and gay.  In those days you were gay if you didn't play football or cricket - end of story!  I did ballroom dancing and played tennis.  I didn't particularly like any of the boys in my class, though I did befriend some who I knew my parents would approve of, which would later give me an excuse to visit my real friends on the weekends or after school.

This was a time when bullying was the norm.  Being fat, wearing glasses, having red hair, being small, or having an accent were all  open invitations to get bullied.  As for being effeminate, well then you were fair game for all.

There were 3 boys in particular who took great delight in bullying me.  For the first 6 months every change of class, every moment waiting for the teacher to turn up was a nightmare.  You can take the punches, the dead legs, the spitting, being tied to the basketball pole by your tie, but what gets you the most is the indignity of having it done in front of 20 odd other boys, none of whom ever stepped in to help.

This never happened in the playground though which was a blessing. Firstly, my sisters were both going out with older boys in the school and the bullies were soon to realize I had protection.  Secondly I hung around with some fairly wild boys from other classes. Thirdly I was a smoker and got early entry into the toilets where only the toughest boys hung out.  All my life I seem to have had an affinity for really tough, wild boys.  They liked me and I liked them.  Often this came with a price tag - but one I didn't mind at all!

For such a rough school I was surprised how many boys were into gay sex.  In fact years later I would run into at least 6 of these boys all working the streets of Kings Cross.  Sadly every last one of them would be dead within the next few years from heroin overdoses, including one boy I had known since I was 7. 

When all else failed and my protection wasn't around, then like most gay boys you would find me hiding in the library at lunchtime!  There were two days a week when most of my friends did lunchtime sport practice and I became a library monitor.  Here I could indulge my passion for reading, lord it over the other misfits, and took great pleasure in reporting overdue books from any boy who bullied me to the librarian.

Walking from school to the station each afternoon could sometimes be a problem.  Few of my friends went the same way so the bullies would often waylay me before I reached the train station.  Once there though I was safe with my sisters and their boyfriends.  Or Cory was always there to keep an eye on me.

The teachers weren't much better either.  Most were young and ineffective in controlling the hooligans who made up a large part of our school, or they were old and took every opportunity to stop class and cane boys.  We had one teacher in particular who delighted in this.  He was small and used to jump down off a chair while administering the cane, always making sure he hit you right on the end of your fingertips where it hurt the most.  If you tried to pull your hand away, then it was instantly two more canings!

We had boys though who thought this great sport and held competitions throughout the year to see who got caned the most.

By the end of my first year, the bullying died down, mostly.  Being my 'own worst enemy' I would infrequently invite another round by back chatting the bullies, or blowing kisses at them, just to stir them up. Doing impersonations of famous gay TV characters was my specialty.  While most of the other boys found them hilarious, my 3 bullies would sneer and indicate that they would be waiting for me.....

One day however sometime during my second year, they got their timing wrong.  They had ganged up on me in one of the corridors during change of class and were pushing my head into a cupboard and 'dead-legging' me (this is where they knee you really hard in your thigh), the cupboard was to help stifle my agonized yells.  One of my older smoking mates suddenly came around the corner and told them to 'fuck off quickly', which they did.

That afternoon at the train station, at least 7 older guys were waiting at the station for them.  They hammered the living daylights out of all 3. For a school where daily fights were common this was the worst I had seen.  Bloody noses, black eyes, screaming girls - even the station attendants were to scared to intervene.  The message got across though and aside for continued name calling or derogatory comments these boys never touched me again.

Everyone of my 'heroes' calmly and happily took 6 of the best the following day from the headmaster.

I spent all my pocket money buying them fags, and regularly gave head jobs to 2 of the boys as a way of thanks. 

So I got through my first 3 years of high school, made enemies, made friends but found the freedom from home that teenage years allow.  Year 3 would be a traumatic time for me, but this was due to family issues, that would drastically affect me and ensure that the remaining years at high school were both torturous and a time of rebellion and limit testing for me.

THE GENERATION GAP

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation

These lyrics are definitely the antithesis of our family life, but images which I longed to have as a family reality.

Australia in the early 70's was a time of both political and social revolution.  Data says that if you were born before 1965 you are a baby boomer and if you were born between 1965 and 1980 you are Generation X.

Well I believe that for those of born in the early 60's the lines are more blurred.  I believe that for those of us whose parents embraced the cultural and social changes of the times then they are more Generation X.  For those of us whose parents staunchly refused to change with the times we are definitely Baby Boomers.

My parents were definitely of the latter type.  Politically conservative and with the parenting ideology that 'children should be seen and not heard'. They were so conservative that we even stopped attending Sunday mass when the church modernized and replaced organ music with guitars! 

This is where I can explain our family dynamics a little more clearly and allow my parents to be seen in a more sympathetic light. 

My father was a deeply frustrated man.  Scarred by his childhood war and post war experiences and separated totally from his family.  Unable to express his intelligence both verbally and career wise and deeply frustrated that we were not the totally obedient, honour thy father family that he wanted us to be.

My mother was also deeply frustrated.  Expecting a loving and romantic husband and happy family life as she had experienced in her childhood.  She ended up with a domineering, quick-tempered and verbally abusive husband. 'Bloody stupid woman!' was his favourite pet name for her, and not just in front of the family.

Mum (I would realize much later in life) with her constant nagging, correcting of my father's poor English and obvious disgust of my father's bad habits was actually the catalyst of most of the discord in our family.  Although, according to her she was of course the victim and as we spent much more of our time with her than our father, we blindly believed her.  

When Mum finally 'got with it' (her phrase) it would profoundly affect only my father and myself.  My oldest sister already had her own work life and friends and my middle sister, little did we know had her own secret life and would soon be gone.

Mum befriended our new, younger neighbours, started dressing in the latest fashions ('bloody hell woman, what are you wearing' was my father's usual remark), and started throwing amazing parties in our new completed downstairs rumpus room. Her best friend was 'the only openly gay man in the neighbourhood' and she started going to see plays with gay men and often transsexuals performing lead roles.  She also became my best friend...and convinced me that my father was my worst enemy.

We children simply wanted to be like all our friends whose families were harmonious and supportive and in our eyes indulgent towards their children.

For us, it was we who had to indulge our parents.  Rules were strict and social events were always centered around our parents whims.  We never socialized with our school friends families, but rather with our parents friends.

For my sisters this was not so bad, but for me it was always an ordeal.  My parents friends all had children much older than me, or in the case of one family, children who were total nerds - rich spoilt brats. To rub salt into the wound, my father would suddenly turn into Mike Brady at these events.  Acting the perfect, fun loving and indulgent father, but only with the children of their friends.  My sisters and I allowed to straggle behind.  We were not amused!

While our school friends spent their holidays at the beach we had to do our father's bidding and found ourselves camping every holiday and long weekend up some god forsaken mountain, or bushland swamp.  Knee deep in freezing water, indulging my fathers obsession with finding gemstones.

I think I enjoyed it more than my sisters though.  My mother was thoughtful enough to limit our digging and sieving time to a few hours each morning.  Then after a few camp chores we were free to wander.  Always told 'not to go to far', I of course ignored this rule and would wander for hours along the creeks, in the bush, or amongst the rocks, totally absorbed the wonders of the bush or countryside and my own little world.

Even better was that a few years into this we were joined by a family who had 3 sons.  All of whom were very good looking and all of whom I was to find out quickly enjoyed sex as much as I did.  It's every gay man's fantasy to do it with brothers.  Well at 13 I was doing it with 3 at the same time.  One my age, one a year younger and one who was 17.  We even snuck away once during a Christmas party at their place and romped around in the bedroom while all the adults were downstairs drinking.

There would many other boys, usually older on different holidays.  It didn't take long for them to befriend me and I was happy to indulge them.  My poor sisters were always trying to chat up these boys and would be upset every time at  my uncanny knack befriending them and spending most of my holiday with them.  I assume my parents just thought it was hero worship - the older brother I never had.

Weekends were a mixed bag.  The general routine on a Saturday morning was that we all had to creep around like mice before 9am, while my father read the paper and listened to his favourite radio station.  Which played a combination of church, classical and country music.  After this we all had to help him in the garden, which my parents were still constructing.

As mush as I enjoyed gardening and seeing our  steep, scrubby and rock strewn backyard transform into a delight of gardens, fishponds, bridges and BBQ area, working with my father was a nightmare. Dad not only made us work hard but was constantly criticizing us for not doing things exactly his way.  Even if we did exactly as he instructed us he still found fault and we at best got called useless idiots or at worst belted.

Clever me soon found an escape plan.  I swapped the house-cleaning with my mother.  She was happy to give me the job and Dad was happy to have his useless son out of his hair.  I was a house-keeper extraordinaire!  By 12 midday I would have the house spotless, ironing done, windows cleaned, furniture polished......

After lunch we were free to do as we pleased as long as we were home 10 minutes after the street lights came on my parents didn't care or often didn't even ask what we had been up to.

My oldest sister seemed least affected by our upbringing. Being the oldest she was the most indulged and allowed many liberties which my other sister and I were not.  My middle sister was smart and extremely pretty.  She managed to appear the perfect angel, whilst I on the other hand deliberately went out of my way to rebel against authority of any kind.

I wasn't a bad kid, no worse than most of my friends, but from an early age I liked to throw it in people's faces - challenging any alleged unfairness or prudishness just to shock people.  As my teacher had said ' my own worst enemy'.

But I didn't even have to try to get my father angry.  I remember once a friend and I were exploring the cliffs behind houses towards the end of 'our neighbourhood'.  We came across a vegetable plot and my friend promptly jumped down and pulled out every vegetable in the garden.  I honestly and truthfully tried to stop him and took no part in the vandalism.

Later that afternoon a man knocked on our door.  He was speaking Czech to my father.  My sister and I thinking it may be a long lost relative both went outside whereupon my father grabbed us both by the hair and smashed our heads together!

The man returned an hour later.  His neighbour had seen the incident and explained that I had done nothing wrong.  The man was kind enough to come around and apologize to me - my father never did.

ABUSED OR AMUSED?

Oooh, here's here again.
The man with the child in his eyes......

By year 6 of primary school everyone seemed to know that I was gay.  I was in the 'dummies' class and surrounded by a bunch of rough, tough but friendly boys.  I loved it.  I was soon making friends with boys who not only introduced me to smoking, but also drinking, communal wanking and sometimes more. 

They accepted me and never judged and opened my eyes to a world of parenting that my mother would have died had she known.  Single mothers, parents who let their kids smoke openly, parents who smoked dope in front of their children, parents who let their kids do whatever they wanted.

This was a world away from my own home life.  Discipline was strict, swift and often unwarranted. My parents argued like cat and dog almost every night and mum still kept up the pretense that we were a normal family - as if the neighbours couldn't hear the constant fights and beltings going on!

I had started ballroom dancing classes - my mothers idea of an acceptable sport!  Actually I really enjoyed it and became quite good at it, even going to weekly competitions on the weekends.  But the best thing was that I got to get out of the house one night a week for 3 hours, do something I liked, and during our break the male dance instructor even let us smoke outside.

Always be wary of men who let children smoke. It wasn't long before he had singled me out and after a few months of befriending me he asked me if I could help him upstairs with the costumes for an upcoming competition.  Of course that turned out to be him getting me to strip down to my underwear so he could take measurements.  Next he has his hands inside my underwear 'just to check the label for size'.....then before I could react he is on his knees and giving me oral, whilst whimpering!  This would happen at least a dozen more times before I finally stopped the lessons.

It was one of my new friends who introduced me to Warwick.  For years we had been allowed to use our back neighbours property as a short cut.  This was a short steep walk through the bush of our back garden and theirs which eventually led to the highway.  From here it was a relatively flat walk to the town centre, railway station and school.  This saved us at least half the walking time and lots of steep hills which formed the road access to our house.

One afternoon walking along the highway with one of my friends he took me into meet his new friend.  Warwick lived in a small fibro cottage by himself.  He was 28 (but I'm sure now that he was probably more like 38) and was the local cricket coach.  He was friendly with all the local boys, most of whom I knew and let us hang at his house every afternoon.   Usually we'd just talk and smoke and feel really cool.

You could drop in anytime and he was always happy to see us. Most times there were 5 or 6 boys hanging around, but some days it was just me.  My parents both worked and it didn't matter as long as I got home before 6.30pm. One day he was smoking a joint and let me try some and from there it led to us laughing and him starting to tickle me.  Of course his hands started wandering and then he's asking me if I was getting hard.  He showed me that he was hard and said that's what grass did to you.  I let him touch me down there, but when he tried to unzip me I said no and it was time to go home.

11 years old and hormones and peer talk about sex is pretty much all you have on your mind.  It was only a few days later that I returned and let him do what he wanted.  The first time I didn't touch him, but soon after I was keen to.  We did this countless times over the next three years, before he seemed to lose interest - I didn't realize it then but obviously I was getting too old for his tastes.  We remained good friends right up until I left home.  Whatever else, he was another refuge away from my boring and often troubled home life.

Further along the highway lived another boy called Corey.  He was 18 and I knew he was friends with Warwick.  So I wasn't surprised on afternoon walking home from high school when he invited me back to his house.  No one was home and he took no time in pulling out his enormous hard penis and making me blow him.  Grabbing my head and forcing himself deep in my throat as he came.  When he was finished he slapped me hard across the face and laughed.  I loved it and went back for more at least twice a week until the end of the year when he finished school.

IDENTITY CRISIS....

They criticize the way I talk,
and laugh about the way I walk,
Tell me if you can 
What makes a man a man?

I don't believe I ever had much of a chance to be anything but gay.


Growing up in a house with 2 older sisters.  A mother who idolized gay men and abhorred any form of roughness or crudeness, and this at a time when Aussie culture was all about being rough and crude.  Beer drinking, barbies and sheilas! 

  A father who was hardly there and when he was was either angry, demanding or totally absorbed in one of his many hobbies.  These were actually obsessions which, thankfully took up most of his time, but which also took up any spare money so we were always the poor kids in the neighbourhood.

While our friends had swimming pools, pushbikes, skateboards and a variety of games we had none of these, or very few.  Meals were plain  and simple - grilled lamb chops, boiled potatoes and carrots most nights of the week.  Meanwhile there was always a good supply of expensive cheeses and salamis for my father. Even milk was rationed to ensure there was milk left for dad's nightly coffee and for his morning thermos.

Mum wasn't the best cook and our favourite meals were always the very few times my father cooked.
I soon developed a passion for cooking and once mum started working full time in a shop and we had some extra money she was happy to let me try recipes and cook the weekend meals.  By the time I reached high school I was cooking at least 3 or four times a week.


In year 5 of primary school where for the first time since year 1, I had another teacher who didn't like me.  From day one he singled me out and I retaliated.  'Your not like your sisters are you boy?' was the question he shot me on the very first day of class. 'No sir', said I, 'they're girls!'  This caused a great laugh from my classmates but ensured that the rest of my year was miserable.  The following year after his report card to me which ended with his personal comment 'is his own worst enemy' I was downgraded to the lower class. Much to the horror of my mother as I would now be with the rough, dumb boys and naturally was met with a sound belting from my father.

It was also in Year 5 that I realized other boys saw me as different.  This didn't happen at school but on my first trip away from home.  My mother booked me into a two week 'christian youth camp'. In some remote bushland retreat near the beach.  It was great fun and we did all the things you do at camp - sing a longs, bush hikes, games, canoeing and even water skiing.

However from day one the other boys in my cabin, most of whom were country boys nicknamed me sissy.  I didn't know if this was because I was small and a pretty looking boy (snow blonde hair and bright blue eyes) or because I acted like a girl.  They weren't particularly nasty about it but that was my name for the entire two weeks.

It didn't help either when one morning, early on in the holiday, I woke up to find all the other boys laughing at me.  I slept on the top bunk and suddenly I realized that I am now on the bottom bunk with another boy and only in my underwear.  I definitely had gone to bed wearing pyjamas?!

When our cabin leader had gotten the other boys up and out to breakfast he explained to me that I had fallen from the bunk during the night and he had put me on the bottom bunk in case I rolled off again. I didn't remember a thing and had probably knocked my self out when I fell.
He was a young and, as we all thought, cool guy in his early 20's.  He told me to switch the sheets from my bunk and sleep on the bottom bunk and then went to the communal breakfast saying he would come back and check on me.

Later, when all the other kids were off on their morning activity he returned.  I didn't think anything odd when he locked the cabin door behind him/  He took my temperature, felt my head and checked to see if there was any bleeding.  Then he asked me to pull my pyjama top up so he could check for bruising.....eventually his hands wandered down to my pyjama bottoms and then slipped inside.  It was the first time a man had touched me this way.  Lots of boys had but never a grown man.  He silently gave me a blow job while he beat off.

It was after this that I realised that I enjoyed having sex with men and that I was gay. For years I had been mucking around with other boys, I'd regularly been penetrated by my older neighbour, but just thought that was normal.  But at camp the secretive way I was abused by an older man made me realize not only that I enjoyed sex with men but that it wasn't the proper thing to do.  This was to  be the beginning of many experiences with older men.

PSYCHIC OR PHYSCO? (part 2).

I knew my sister was planning something from the moment mum and I arrived back from England.  This was more due to the change in her behaviour and personality than any intuitive sense.

But the day she ran away, Saturday December 18th 1976 I woke with a strange feeling of emptiness and a memory of dreaming of my sister during my sleep.  At 4pm that afternoon she went up into the back garden and disappeared from our lives.....

I knew Billy was dead even before I reached the Darlinghurst Police Station.  I had been with a client and during the act, could not get Billy out of my head.  The parlour rang me to tell me I had to go straight to the police station.

Billy was  the reason I left home and gave up my teaching degree at college.  He worked for one of Sydney's most powerful and wanted, but untouchable underworld figures - Abe Saffron. The police informed me that Billy had been found floating in the rooftop pool in a hotel in Oxford St Sydney, dead from a heroin overdose.

I hadn't known Billy long, but you know when a person does drugs, especially heroin and Billy was definitely not a drug user.  The police armed with that statement and the knowledge that I had also come into contact with Abe Saffron advised me to leave Sydney.  In fact they even threatened me with arrest if they saw me back on the streets or in the parlour.

 

A few days later and I moved to Adelaide with two boys I had been working with.
Eventually I ended up living with a wonderful guy and his boyfriend who basically adopted me.  They lived in a complex of 3 adjoining flats and we all became the best of friends.

This was the time I started really getting into drugs.  Mostly smoking joints, but we also took LSD and Magic Mushrooms occasionally.  Twice during that time I had unexplainable events happen both revolving around Billy.


The first was waking up one night and hearing Billy clearly calling my name.  I heard it at least 4 times and then my neighbour and his barking dogs came rushing down the side passage.  My neighbour hadn't heard anything but his dogs had become agitated and started jumping at the window to be let out.
 The second time was even stranger.  Admittedly we were all on LSD at the time.  Sitting in the lounge and being crazy.  I looked up at the kitchen window and said 'Oh look there's Billy'.  I could see his face clearly.  Two of the girls also saw a face at the window and screamed.

Put it down to tripping, but for whatever reason we had been taping our night on a cassette recorder.  Other friends rewound the tape and listening back it was really eerie.  Not only could you distinctly hear a change in our tone in the minutes before the event (we all started getting louder and more hysterical in our conversation) but in the background you could clearly hear the two dogs begin growling and getting louder and louder at the same time.

Then one night I had a dream about my father.  Not my favourite person but I woke up and just knew I should ring home.  My father had been seriously burned the night before when a petrol canister blew up while he was working and he had been rushed to hospital.

A year late and I'm living in Crown St Sydney in a very old 3 story terrace house with 2 friends.  My two friends both chose the basement rooms to sleep in and I had the 3rd floor front room.  On the same floor was a small bathroom and a tiny wood paneled back bedroom.  I don't remember how many nights it was before I began to feel a presence every time I went upstairs which made me feel scared.

Then one night I woke up and thought someone was using the bathroom on my floor.  There was no one there but I couldn't shake the eerie feeling which I got looking towards the back bedroom.  




From that night I firmly closed the door of the back bedroom before going to sleep.  The next night at around the same time I woke again. The back bedroom door was ajar.  This would happen every night for the next 5 or 6 weeks until one night I had a really big fight with one of my flatmates.

I went upstairs to my room deciding whether or not to stay.  The back room decided it for me.  The longer I stayed the stronger the negative vibes came from that room.  I would like to say I could hear an angry voice telling me to get out, like in the movies, but I can't.  But in my head that's all I could hear, getting louder, stronger and more negative with every passing moment.  I rang my parents at 2am in the morning and said I was coming home.

As the taxi arrived and I walked down the stairs I could feel a great triumphant surge of energy behind me....the house had won!



Drugs and lifestyle would get the better of me for the next 20 years.  That's not to say I didn't have other episodes which I will mention in later chapters.

But the night my 'partner' of 10 years died, December 17th 1995 was one worth mentioning.

He had AIDS and that night I had left him knowing he would die before morning.  He had slipped quietly into a coma around 9pm.  His wife (explanation also in later chapter) was asleep in one of the visiting rooms and I couldn't wake her.  The nurses assured me they would wake her when the time came and I went home emotionally and physically exhausted.

Asleep in bed I awoke shortly before 1am.  Standing in the bedroom doorway was my partner.  His image as clear as a picture.  He was calling my name again and again.  When the telephone rang a few seconds later and his image disappeared I didn't need to answer the phone to know he had died.

 

Finally and coincidentally I actually had an event last night.  Maybe it's been all the  reminiscing over the past few days.....

My current partner and I run a guesthouse.  Most evenings I cook dinner and afterwards he returns downstairs to chat with guests and work on the computer while I stay upstairs watching TV.

It's a routine that rarely varies.  I'm watching TV and suddenly in my mind I'm thinking my partner is with some-one having sex.

This morning while I am doing my room rounds with the manager we find that one of the unoccupied rooms has been slept in.

I casually ask my partner, 'who was sleeping in room 4 last night?'
His grinning reply, 'Oh that was me'..........

 

PSYCHIC OR PHYSCO?  (part 1).

Hammer Horror, Hammer Horror,
Won't leave me alone.
The first time in my life,
I keep the lights on
To ease my soul. 

I've been strictly chronological so far but today I want to break from that and fast forward through various events which honestly happened throughout my life. Coming from a Celtic background superstition and the supernatural was a constant cultural theme.


From the age of about 7, I started having out of body experiences.  Asleep in bed I would suddenly find myself floating above my sleeping self.  Sometimes just hovering above the bed but at other times drifting through the window and always viewing my sleeping self from above.  Then suddenly plummeting back into my body and waking with a jolt.  I could actually feel myself hitting my own body and the sensation would cause me to sit upright, stunned and remembering the whole experience.  This was not a one off occurrence but a repeated one which continued well into my teens.

A few years later and I began to have premonitions.  I can remember 3 distinctly occurring as repeated images, like a film stuck on rewind and others were just feelings.



My parents were having a party one weekend in our newly built downstairs rumpus room.  People were inside, outside on the lawn and a group of people were upstairs on our front verandah.  I was standing at the foot of the stairs and a young child, no more than 3 or 4 years started climbing up the stairs.  By the second step I was seeing an image of the child reaching the top and crawling across the verandah and falling off.  This image kept flashing through my mind over and over until, too late I screamed out and saw the child slipping under the verandah rail and falling, thankfully onto our lawn.

Another time my father and I were coming back from a camping trip (another one of his attempts to make 'a man out of me'.....We were stopping to visit friends in a rural town and driving along a long dirt road.  I had a feeling we had taken the wrong road and even told my dad so.  His response was to tell me to shut up as he knew the way!

Up and up we climbed along this winding road.  Again visions repeating in my head.  Clear images of our car hurtling over a steep cliff.  The same image over and over and over.  This time I was aware enough to heed the message and at the top of my voice screamed 'STOP!'.  I must have sounded convincing enough because my dad slammed the breaks on and we came to a skidding halt. Inches away from the edge of the road which ended without warning at the top of a hill.  No stop sign, no barriers, just a sheer drop of a few hundred metres straight down.



Then there was my high school friend's sister.  I often used to visit his house with another friend after school.  His sister was best friends with my older sister.  They were both really cool guys and I was secretely in love with Lex.  The other boy Robert I would later meet in a gay night bar years later.  A beautiful looking women who confused me for ages telling me all about my past high school days before revealing his former identity.

Anyway, the three of us were at Lex's house one Friday afternoon, smoking and watching TV.  His sister was planning a weekend trip with her boyfriend and leaving that night.  When it was home time I went out to his sister and told her to have a fun trip or something like that.  She was obviously touched and gave me a long hug.  Again pictures in my head.  She was there, she wasn't there, she was there, she wasn't there...... I left feeling upset and trying to piece together the message of my visions.

On Monday Lex wasn't at school. Monday evening my sister told me that Lex's parents had been to her school and the police as his sister had not returned as planned on Sunday evening.  A few days later and their disappearance was on the news.  A few weeks later their abandoned Combi Van was found, with all their personal possessions still inside, in a bushland area miles from their planned route.  To this day they or their bodies have never been found.

1976 and my mother and I were on holidays in England.  My first time on a plane, my first time since I was a baby that I had been to England and one of the greatest experiences of my life (the impact and repercussions of this trip I will detail later).

I was only going because my mother's cousin had sent air fare for one of the children to go with my mum.  My older sister was already working and my second sister was in her 4th year of high school with approaching School Certificate exams.  So I was the lucky one.

My mum's family all lived in the same village and had done for over 300 years so we had relations in every second house in the village.  Sadly my Great Uncle died the day we flew from Sydney.  We spent a week in London with my mums' sister before driving down to our ancestral village and arrived a day after my Great Uncle's funeral.

My Uncle was really looking forward to our visit and had spent weeks repairing and cleaning his daughters old bicycle for me to use during our stay. Their house was the quintessential English cottage.  Over 200 years old, hand built from cob (mud.straw, animal hair and dung) and set in a beautiful garden on a hill overlooking the wooded valley towards the sea.



I loved visiting and spent lots of time with my Great Aunt, often staying overnight.  One day I decided to ride my bicycle to our family cemetery located in the next tiny village.  Not only are most of the family graves there but inside the old church are commemorative plaques to various members of my mothers family.  I took flowers and after being given a tour of the church by the rector I was taken to my Uncles grave.

I had slept in their house before this and given their bedroom, sleeping on the bed where his body had been laid after he passed away.  My Great Aunt, naturally, did not want to sleep in the room.  A few nights after my cemetery visit I again spent the night there.

I awoke sometime during the night to the sounds of extremely heavy breathing.  Loud and constant.  Thinking it was my Aunt I ventured outside onto the hallway and towards her room.  Everything was silent the minute I left my room.  I crept right up to my Aunt's bedroom door but could hear nothing.



Returning to my room I was immediately aware of the sound again.  I stepped outside, silence, I stepped back inside and the same loud breathing sound again.  The more I sat, the louder the noise got.  To the point where the room itself felt like it was breathing and I could almost imagine the walls slowly rising in and out.  I wasn't scared.  The noise was comforting and reassuring and often thinking back I imagine it to be something similar to the sound of being in a womb....I was convinced this was my Uncle's way of making contact with me.

Eventually I fell asleep, peacefully and without being scared.  This was to happen each time I slept there.