REACHING OUT TO THE CITY LIGHTS....CHAPTER SEVEN

 

6th April, 1966

                                       

Noosa Heads...looking across to Laguna Bay

                                           

Noosa Heads Surf Lifesaving Club these days.....

                                            

 

 

The “Top Secret” show at Lennons Hotel was a roaring success. Kolotex Hosiery certainly was no longer top secret. That evening, announcing our arrival we’d made a grand entrance into the Brisbane fashion trade. 99.9% of the invitees turned up for our promotional evening.

The function room, filled to capacity with interested buyers, departmental heads, store managers, boutique owners, advertising and media people, etc., buzzed with excitement. The “Top Secret” launch was the first of many bigger, more adventurous promotional evenings we were to produce, and entertain the trade with throughout the coming years. At this stage we were just dipping our toes into the shallow end of the pool. Many much more exciting times were ahead, though we weren't aware of that at the time.

Sales increased. Our little office became busier by the day. Along with the growth the stock in our small storeroom grew and grew as well. Excess stocks of the various styles of stockings and pantyhose were bursting out of the shelves. Soon, our staff of two expanded to three. A young lad was hired to assist in the storeroom with the packing of orders, also for stock counts and stock-control in the city retail stores, freeing up our boss to handle the pressing managerial, marketing and sales matters. After about twelve months, the young fellow left our employ and two young men were hired in his stead. Then we were four.

Sales in the country and regional areas, handled by our wholesale agents, were exploding daily, too. I didn’t like dealing with our agents. I found the head of the company to be a pompous snob and his son appeared to be headed in a similar direction…to be a carbon copy of his father. He was a spoilt “private school” left-over! Often I would see the son, a few years older than me, at various night-spots or social gatherings I attended. I always dodged him, not particularly desirous of his loud-mouthed company and over-inflated ego. My dream was that we, in our own office, could handle all our sales ourselves, without the wholesale agents.

 Randall and I continued to exchange letters. I wrote more often than he, of course, being “naturally gabby” in that department as friends of mine will testify to! He’d gained employment at a resort hotel in the North Island of New Zealand at Waitomo in the Waikato Region. He was having a wonderful time from all accounts. I didn’t stay at home packed in “moth-balls” either. At that time, so many years ago, I was a young, attractive woman who enjoyed life and all that it had to offer. I was damned sure I wasn’t going to sit around knitting. I was a hopeless knitter, anyway. I went out, met new people and had fun. I missed Randall, of course. I loved him, but I wasn't prepared to let life pass me by, not for him, not for anyone.

At a much-frequented nightspot, one night I ran into an old friend. During the Gympie Ball Season he would return from Brisbane where he lived and worked, for the weekend to escort me to the balls. It became an unspoken habit with us for whatever reason, that he was my regular partner at the balls. This was before Randall appeared on the scene. Mervyn, my ex-ball partner, was also a Noosa Heads Surf Club lifesaver, along with my brother, Graham. My brother had since moved to live and work in Mackay and was no longer a member of the club. Mervyn had been raised and schooled in Gympie before moving to Brisbane to work in telecommunications and study when he completed high school. He grew up in a home in a street behind where my family and I lived. As he was older than me, I didn’t know him when we were children.

From when I started going to Noosa Heads at weekends, he’d had a bit of a “crush” on me, but as he was five or so years older than me, he purposely stood from afar looking on, believing I was too young when we first met to be getting serious about anyone. He was right. I liked him. I always had. We both enjoyed surfing, rock ‘n roll, dancing and having good times. We had mutual friends. He would seek me out at the record hops and dances, but that was the limit of our “relationship”. When our paths crossed in Brisbane, we started seeing a bit of each other, going out for dinners, attending parties and various social events. His weekends were spent at Noosa with the lifesaving club. Sometimes I accompanied him, sometimes not.

Still engaged to Randall, I was in a bit of a quandary, torn between where my heart was…made tender and vulnerable by distance and absence. I found myself caught in a whirl at what was at hand.

Even though we’d known each other for quite some time, we’d only been dating for short period when Mervyn asked me to marry him. Caught up in the moment, I said, “Yes”. The news shocked not only me, but everyone else around me. A few detractors tried to give me advice, my mother included, but stubbornly I didn’t listen to them, nor did I listen to my heart…my inner being. I was susceptible. I wanted to be placed on a pedestal. and Mervyn had done that. I wanted to be “first” in someone’s life; Mervyn had placed me as Number One in his.

My personal life had been thrown into turmoil when Randall left. I’d felt lost and alone, then Mervyn walked into my small world with love and caring.

Finally, I wrote to Randall to give him an ultimatum. An ultimatum I’d never considered giving him when he first announced his plans to travel overseas, as I believed in his right to do for himself what he felt best to do, but now caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, I needed definition. I wrote saying, “if you don’t come home, I’m going to get married.” He didn’t come home, and true to my word, my threat, I got married.

Easter Thursday, 6^th April, 1966, at 6pm, five months after Randall left Australia’s shores I was to walk down the aisle to be married to Mervyn. Misgivings began to make their presence known, but I forged forward, forcing myself to ignore them, naively believing I couldn’t go back on my word or my decision. “Everyone knows”, I kept telling myself. “I can’t back out now.”

I’ve never been one to have pined for the whole “wedding catastrophe” of tulle, satin, silk or chiffon, penguin suits and lavish receptions, always believing it was a total waste of money. Following my personal beliefs, I had a sheath mini-length dress of white linen made for the event.

Our guest list, which included immediate family members and very close friends, was very small. We offended some family members on Mervyn’s side as he came from a large family, but I didn’t care. The date was set for our wedding. We were wasting no time. I could see no point in being engaged again. I'd already done that, and look what happened there!  I’d even refused an engagement ring.  I already had one, and look what good that did me! We mutually agreed we didn’t want to waste money on a big affair. I didn't want a “big do”, anyway. We promised "the family" we’d throw a party in Gympie at a later date to celebrate our union.

My brother, mother and grandmother arrived in the morning of the "day". As I’d taken only that day off work, I was busy organising the food for our “reception” that was going to be a small party held in my flat after the ceremony. Once again, I was the caterer. I’ve always been a demon for punishment, it would seem! Mervyn had found us a small one-bedroom apartment in Merthyr Road, New Farm, which we intended moving into after our marriage. Mum and Nana would remain in my existing flat until the day after our wedding, helping my flatmate with the cleaning up of the aftermath from the previous evening.

The time rapidly arrived. The clock ticked down. Soon it was time for me to shower and dress for my “event”. I could see the look in the eyes of my mother and grandmother, but they said nothing. I knew they still were unsure that I was doing the right thing, but they held their counsel.

We arrived at the Presbyterian Church in Sylvan Road, Toowong just before the appointed time. Mervyn was already in the church. I froze at the top of the stairs. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t move. Again the floodgates opened. Unstoppable tears poured down my face. I cried and cried. Mum and Nana tried to console me, telling me I didn’t have to go ahead if I didn’t want to. I shrugged off their words in a fruitless effort to compose myself. The minister came out to see what the hold-up was. Seeing the state I was in he told me to take my time because he had no other weddings or pressing matters to attend to that evening. I had all the time in the world to get myself in order, he told me. Poor guy he must have wondered what he had stumbled into. Finally, I calmed myself down; composed my fragile self, wiped away the remnants of my tears, took a few deep breaths and firmly held onto my brother’s arm. He walked me down the aisle to a beaming Mervyn, who was completely unaware of the drama that had erupted outside the church.

Without further delay or hitch, the marriage ceremony went ahead, after which the small group descended upon my soon to be previous abode for a party. And, it was a great party wherein everyone had a wonderful, happy time. My tears were forgotten. I was married….to Mervyn. We spent our wedding night in our new apartment before heading up to Noosa for a week’s honeymoon.  We had a passenger on the trip to Noosa…my brother, Graham, who intended spending the Easter Weekend at his second home…the Noosa Heads Surf Lifesaving Club.

The day I got married, Randall stepped aboard a flight to Canada, en route to New York. Separately, both of us were heading into the unknown...

Upon arriving in New York, Randall immediately found employment with the New Zealand Mission to the UN.  His boss was diplomat Frank Corner (later to be Sir Frank Corner)…Ambassador to the United Nations (1961-67) and the United States (1967-72). He was later New Zealand’s Permanent Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 1972 to 1980.  

 

To be continued....