Reaching Out ToThe City Lights...Chapter One...

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(I included some photos of myself taken between the ages of around 14 years to 26 years of young, as Wazza made reference to personal pics in his comment. I have posted these pics way back when I first started this blog...so I hope you don't mind)

From the moment I left high school to commence my working life in a local law firm, I was urging to leave Gympie, the town in which I was raised and educated. I desperately wanted to "spread my wings" and fly away. Every weekend during the summer months and more, from September through to the long weekend each June, I spent at the coast, soaking up the sun, swimming and surfing. During the week, other pastimes filled my leisure hours. At one point, I was a member of the Gympie Drama Group, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Amongst my group of friends there was always a party or a get-together happening somewhere. The parties were more “get-togethers” than actual “parties”. My friends and I enjoyed philosophical debates amongst each other. We were all keen readers. During that time, my hungry mind eagerly devoured the writings of Kant, Kafka, Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst many, many others. I was introduced to the works of Kerouac, Dorothy Parker and C. P. Snow, the English novelist and physicist. I became enamoured of his series of novels, which began with “Strangers and Brothers”. His books still have pride of place amongst my personal library. I intend reading them again. Books were a major part of my life then. They still reign supreme.

Music always played a role in my life from as far back as I can recall. My mother played the piano brilliantly and frequently. I took piano lessons for five years. I learned ballet for a lot less time. Music was a part of our household, whether it was the piano, radio or recordings. Of course, as a teenager, music featured heavily wherever I went. At the party/get-togethers a lot of jazz, blues, folk, intermingled with good modern “pop” of the day, played their parts in our inquisitive, maturing minds.

I was been asked to enter the "Miss Australia Quest" representing the Gympie area. This I did with four other young women from the town. It was a great experience. I know, I for one, enjoyed it immensely. It helped me gain confidence within myself. It was lots of fun and also it was a very good excuse for me to have a new satin ball gown made and a very fashionable Chanel-style suit made of pure wool, the colour of which was a golden yellow. I felt very smart, indeed! My teenage years in Gympie were eventful and filled with fun, mostly.

Employed as a legal secretary during the day, this was to hold me in good stead throughout the ensuing years.

However, I was eager to leave the entire behind to move on to a “new world”. During my lunch break one day, I raced home excitedly to breathlessly break my news to my mother. My great “plan” had been concocted in my mind during my morning’s dictation! Mum who was dressing and putting on her make-up at the time, in readiness to go into town, sat patiently listening as I carefully explained my decision to join the air force. Of course, by joining the air force, I would have to leave Gympie and head down to Victoria, which is a very long way from Gympie, hearth and home. After I’d finished gushing out my grandiose idea to my mother, she barely blinked an eye, nor did she turn towards me when she had her chance to offer her opinion. Slowly directing her gaze away from her own reflection in the mirror as she toyed at her lips with her tube of lipstick, she looked at me and said, “I think that is a wonderful idea, love.”

My mother’s blasé, calm and agreeable reaction certainly burst my bubble right there and then on the spot! I had been expecting a “battle royale”, so I was bitterly disappointed and defeated in one foul stroke. To me it sounded like she was happy to get rid of me! I never did enlist in the air force. Nor did I become a nurse, which was another of my mind-explosions one morning, with a repeated effort of running up and down the hills of Gympie to my home during another lunch hour to announce I was going to Brisbane to train at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Somehow the edges of my plans were removed when everyone agreed they were good ideas! I had to learn to beat “them” at “their” own game, I decided! I wasn’t going to be defeated. I just had to go about the matter of my “escape” differently!

As it turned out, I didn’t really need any grand plans or schemes. The day came when it was the “right” thing to do. Very few obstacles or objections were placed in my way. On reflection, I don’t remember exactly how all the pieces fell into place, but into place they did fall, one by one. I announced I was going to move to live and work in the city, Brisbane. Immediately I started turning the wheels towards that direction. My boss, John Jeffery, upon my handing him one month’s notice, said he wasn’t surprised at my decision. He’d been expecting it. Immediately, he picked up his telephone to call a solicitor/lawyer friend of his who was a partner in a Brisbane firm.

“I’ve a lass here who wants to live in the city. Do you have a place for her there? You do! That’s great!”

Looking to me, my boss said, “When can you start?”

“Umm…six weeks, I…I guess…I’ll need a little time to settle in etc.,” I stammered in return.

“Okay….she’ll be there at “such–and-such-a-time at such-and-such-a-day”,” he replied.

That was it! As simple as making a telephone call, I had a job. No interview was required. Country girls were snapped up by city law firms like we were rare pieces of gold at that time. Now, all I had to do was find somewhere to live, again by remote control.

I wanted to “flat” by myself. (a “flat” is a unit or apartment to those of you who have never heard of this description). Even back then I wanted desperately my own “space” and didn’t take kindly to the idea of sharing my living area with anyone else. My mother and grandmother wouldn’t hear of it, though. That was one thing they put their collective “foot” down upon. Begrudgingly, I telephoned a girl I used to know, who had moved to Brisbane. Explaining my plight to her, she agreed to help me out if she could. My timing was perfect, again. Fortunately, a workmate of hers had a younger sister who was looking for a “flat-mate” to share her expenses etc. Everything was falling into place for me, and as yet, I’d not even left Gympie to put the square pieces into the square holes or the round pieces into the round holes. All I needed to do was work through the four weeks to the day of my departure, pack my meager possessions and buy a train ticket. Again, the winds were blowing favourable for me. Our neighbours’ house was being painted during this period. One of the painters drove back to Brisbane every weekend to spend time with his family. Willingly, he offered me a lift whenever I was ready to leave Gympie.

To be continued......

PS...the pictures shown are of Gympie and the pictured Federation-styled building with the bridal cars in front of it is the restaurant/function house in which I was chef, when I moved back to Gympie in 1998. I spent a further four years living there and working at "Gunabul Homestead Restaurant/Function House, before moving to Tamborine Mountain, where I now live.