BROTHERS IN ARMS...A BROTHER’S LOVE

Goggomobil Dart...(Fibre-glass body)

Randall and me in the Sprite...around the time we became engaged

Randall in his New York Apartment...East 88th Street, Upper East Side, Mabgattabm New York City

Taken in the front yard of Randall's parents' home in Geebung...the afternoon of our very relaxed wedding party...and a party it was...21st March, 1976.  No flowing white dress for me...not my style, or desire....

A feast of mud crabs Randall and his best mate, Peter, caught in Lake Weyba, Noosa.Heads..circa 1984.  And feast we did!

The hands of old Father Time are moving very quickly this year - faster than Scott McLaughlin’s Ford Mustang GT, or Sebastian Vettel’s Formula One Ferrari.  Once again we’re on the downhill race towards the end of another year.  Christmas is around the next corner, down the road a bit.  New Year aka 2020 is furtively peeking over the horizon, ready to pounce.  Sorry to have to bring your attention to these facts.  I’m probably wasting my breath, though...no doubt you’re already aware.

2019’s turbulence is never-ending.  For those dealing with the heartbreak of devastating drought and destructive bushfires let’s hope relief and peace of mind come soon.   Life hasn’t grown any easier for our battling farmers and graziers, either, as they watch their livestock and crops wither and die. Their resilience is beyond belief.  

Life writes its own biography.  Life writes the script.  We are the cast...mere players.

This year I won’t be making Christmas cakes.  It will be the first Festive Season in a very, very long while I won’t be doing so...fifty years or more.

For many years I made an extra fruit cake to be part of a tantalising potpourri of Christmas treats for Randall, my ex-husband.  Randall loved my fruit cakes.  He spent quite a few Christmases with me here on the mountain.  We’d spend the day talking and laughing, covering old and new territory while feasting on fresh seafood, with music playing in the background.  One Christmas he brought with him a couple of freshly-cooked mud crabs...crabs he’d nabbed in pots set in the lake in front of where he lived down on the Gold Coast.  He knew I loved mud crabs.  He loved them, too.

Throughout the years my rich, moist Christmas cakes were an integral part of our shared mutual Christmas traditions, but no more. 

Sadly, Randall passed away on 14^th August.

This Christmas the Lions Club charities will benefit from my not stirring the bowl, mixing the fruit. Perhaps I’ve done enough stirring for one year ...but, although moving quickly, the year is not yet over...

In 1963 a handsome, brash, young man with a silken, resonant voice – a voice envied by his peers - arrived in Gympie, my hometown. eager to take command of Radio 4GY’s airwaves.  It was not only his looks that grabbed attention...it was the car he drove, as well...a little white Goggomobil Dart (Affectionately also called...."Goggo")!   The townsfolk had never before seen the like!  

The two-seater Goggo had no doors.  The seats could be raised up and backward...and in you climbed.  In those years, straight, tight skirts were in fashion, too!!  Fun! Fun! Fun!  And it was fun....

Randall set many a young lady’s heart a-fluttering, but it was mine he stole. 

Randall was an intelligent, highly-knowledgeable person, one who could turn his hands to almost anything...without having had formal training in whatever it might be. His mechanical and carpentry skills were skills I always admired.  He was well-read. His knowledge about so many vast and various subjects never ceased to amaze and intrigue me.  His mind was like a sponge...it absorbed so much,  and held onto what he had researched/read.   From when I first met him as a young man of 19 years, what he had stored in his mind held me in awe.  We used to talk for hours upon hours...

After a couple of years at 4GY he moved on to Colour Radio 4IP, Ipswich, to join the original “Colour Radio Good Guys”.  Colour Radio 4IP, in the mid-Sixties was a brash, brave radio station that dared take on the larger, more well-known Brisbane city radio establishment.  Ipswich is 45kms, give or take, from Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland.   

Colour Radio 4IP shook up the radio world, arriving on the scene with a huge bang, taking no prisoners – offering no apologies.  Colour Radio 4IP and its lively, young, keen announcers, and its solid ownership and management (Sir Frank Moore and Allen Brandt, respectively...and respectfully), beat the city stations regularly without missing a beat. 

Between 1965 and 1977, 4IP was the most successful music...hit music...station in Brisbane, and surrounds.  

In the early ‘70s the station moved from Ipswich to take up residence in its new studio in Brisbane’s CBD.  There, the radio station continued taking over the city’s hit music airwaves.  Later the station morphed into River 94.9...and it still commands a wide demographic across south-east Queensland.

Upon Randall’s passing, to my surprise, I received emails from a couple of “voices”/”faces” from the past...people I never knew very well...and have not seen or spoken with for many, many, many years....each expressed their condolences...and, still, to this day told me, as I mentioned above, how they always believed Randall had the best voice.  I concur....he did.

Before Randall left 4GY, he and I become engaged.  A few months after he left Gympie, I, too, left the town.  I relocated to Brisbane to live and work.  Brisbane was a lot closer to Ipswich than Gympie.   Toowong, one of Brisbane’s inner western suburbs is where I chose to live, just around the corner from the Toowong Railway Station.  The train trip to Ipswich was a reasonably short trip.  It was an even quicker trip from Ipswich to Toowong for Randall in his blue Austin Healey Sprite!

Randall had dreams. Dreams he’d harboured long before he and I met.  I wasn’t prepared to stand in the way of those dreams...they were his, not mine. To stop someone from fulfilling their dreams was not my way.  

Vividly, to this day, I remember the night we first discussed what he wanted to do - his dreams.  We were sitting side by side on the top step...on the verandah...at my home...the in which I'd been raised.  He'd arrived home to my place from his on-air evening shift at 4GY, as he always did before going home to the flat he shared with a friend, another 4GY announcer (who remains a very good friend of mine.  He, his wife and I spoke together only last week).  

That night, Randall and I sat there, side by side, talking well into the wee, small hours of the morning.  Even though I was hurting inside, naturally, not once did I try to sway him from his chosen direction.

For nine years Randall lived and worked in New York City, as well as, when time allowed during his odyssey, exploring various other areas and countries throughout the world.   

For his first couple or so of years in New York Randall was in the employment of the New Zealand Mission to the United Nations.  His direct employer was the now late Frank Corner (1920-2014) who at the time was New Zealand’s Ambassador to the United Nations and the United States.  Randall held Frank Corner in very high esteem. When, in 1967, Mr. Corner and his family moved to Washington as New Zealand’s Ambassador to the US, Randall left the NZ Mission, and, for a brief period worked for the British...the UK Mission to the UN.

In my possession I have the letters Randall wrote home...letters written not only to me, but those written to his parents, as well.  He was a prolific letter-writer in those years.

While Randall was fulfilling his dreams, living his life in “The Big Apple”, and travelling to Central America, Europe, the UK, and Northern Africa...i.e. Morocco...I remained in Brisbane, gainfully employed by the The Kolotex Group of Companies (hosiery, mens/women’s wear/Glo International – metal mesh handbags etc.,)...going from strength to strength in my position within the company as the Queensland office expanded, and the national company grew. 

After leaving his work with the various Missions to the UN, Randall managed a bar and restaurant - "O'Brien's"- on the Upper East Side.  During the summer months he managed the sister-bar on Long Island.

In the meantime, even though knowing I couldn’t, and didn’t want to stop Randall from following his desired path, I decided to marry.  The step I took was in rebound...I knew that at the time...as did those close to me, but take it I did.  I’ve never regretted the short-lived marriage of around two and a half years.   It probably stopped me from doing a lot of stupid things...

My first husband, Mervyn and I had known each other for a long time.  Actually, his family home was in a street over the back from where I grew up – in Gympie.   

Mervyn, like my older brother, was a lifesaver in the Noosa Heads Surf Lifesaving Club.  He was a couple of years older than my late brother, Graham, and five years older than me (still is)!

Even though Mervyn and I never dated, as such, in the early ‘60s he was living and working in Brisbane, but always returned home on the weekends of the Gympie ball seasons...and he always partnered me to the balls...four balls per ball season....in the years between 1960 to 1963. It was before Randall appeared on the scene....and changed the landscape...

Over the years my first husband and I have remained on good terms, as have I and his second wife.  There’s never been any reason for the situation/attitudes to be otherwise.  He has never had a bad word to say about me, nor have I about him.  His wife and I have always gotten on well...only last week she and I spoke with each other via the phone.  We don’t ‘socialise’, and we never have...but we’ve always respected each other. Their three children...a girl and twin boys...now adults in their early to mid-forties...have always been aware of my existence.  There is nothing to hide...we have nothing to hide.

Randall arrived back to Australia late November, 1974.  We immediately picked up from where we’d left off.  The only difference was when he stepped back on Aussie soil he spent a couple of days at his parents’ home in Geebung, a northern suburb of Brisbane, before moving in with me.  Once more, I was living back in Toowong, having moved from New Farm, an inner city suburb, after Mervyn and I parted six years previously.

Thirteen years after our initial meeting Randall and I married - in March, 1976; eleven years later we divorced. 

However, to the end, we remained the best of mates. We were in regular contact; every other day - often every day.  Often, I go to reach for the phone...to ring him about something or other...something of interest to us both...or either one of us...and then, reality hits me in the face....

Over the past couple of years Randall’s health deteriorated.  It’s been a bleak time for those who loved him; those who cared about his welfare. 

Earlier this year I wrote about a pleasant luncheon Randall, his brother and I enjoyed at St. Bernard’s back in January.  I’m grateful to my ex-brother-in-law, Howard, for making that special interlude possible.  I knew it would be the final time...I knew from that day forth things would never be the same...we would never share moments such as those ever again...

Out of love for his ailing brother, without complaint, Howard, was there for Randall during the past couple of years; and more so over the last few months.  Howard and I were in constant contact.  Most of our contact we kept from Randall.  In particular, I didn’t want Randall to think we were conspiring...we talking about him behind his back.  We were...but for very good reasons.  Howard agreed, and willingly went along with my covert operation.

Having sold their home on the Sunshine Coast earlier this year, with plans to hitch their caravan to their giant four-wheel drive/SUV to become “grey-nomads” for a while, and head off around Australia, Howard and his wife put their plans on hold.

They relocated to less than a stone’s throw from – within arm’s reach - of Randall so Howard could attend to his brother’s needs. 

Standing up to the plate, Howard, about 18 months younger than Randall (and me) was a loyal, loving brother.  My admiration for him has no limits. 

An unassuming man, he’s never had the desire to blow his own trumpet; to fly colourful flags to show compassion. He has never sought accolades...he deserves many.

Out of the goodness of his heart, selflessly he was there for his brother. Nothing was too much trouble, or too difficult for him.  He feels the loss of his brother greatly...as do I...

There are people in this world – like my ex-brother-in-law – the humble, quiet doers - who deserve recognition, respect and appreciation.  He has mine... 

Vale....Randall....11^th January, 1944....14^th August, 2019

Tipsy Christmas Cake: Place 250g chopped prunes, 200g chopped dates, 450g raisins and 250g sultanas in bowl; add 200ml port and 6tbs rum or brandy; cover.  Soak 1 day or up to a week; stir occasionally. Preheat oven 160c. Beat 250g butter and 250g dark muscovado sugar until light and creamy; gradually beat in 3 large eggs until smooth; add a little flour if mixture curdles. Stir 250g S.R. flour, 1tbs mixed spice, 1tbs cinnamon and 100g glace cherries into creamed mixture with the fruit; mix well; spoon into greased, lined, deep, 23cm round cake tin. Bake 30 mins; reduce oven temp to 150C for a further 1-1/2 to 1-3/4hrs. Cool in tin 1hr; turn out onto wire rack to cool. Decorate with extra cherries, and/or walnuts, almonds or pecans, if liked. Cake will keep 2 weeks in a cake tin, but as it is very moist should not be kept for any longer.  If liked, slice and freeze.

Raisin Apricot Cake: In a medium saucepan, combine 2-1/2c water, 1-1/2c light raisins, 2c chopped, dried apricots and 1/4c sugar; simmer slowly 30mins. Cool to room temp.  Cream 1c butter, 1/2c cream cheese, 1-1/2tsp vanilla and 1c sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in 4 eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after additions. Sift 2-1/2c plain flour and 1tsp baking powder.  Fold half into creamed mixture; fold in cooled fruit mixture; fold in remaining dry ingredients. Fold in 453g chopped glace cherries and 454g mixed dried fruit. Bake in greased, floured tube pan, or 2 greased, lined small loaf pans at 162C about 1hr. Cool in pan/s, 10mins before turning onto wire rack to cool completely.