General News
5 November, 2024
WHERE ARE WE GOING? — A reality check! By Brain Lennen
In the aftermath of a break-in incident by alleged youth criminal, Brian Lennen looks at how youngsters back in the day used to occupy themselves.
Last week my wife Judy and I were victims of a home invasion.
The criminals had selected our home which is bordered by forest as a target.
While we were sleeping they entered our home stealing all our keys and taking our cars.
Fortunately we weren’t disturbed, as a confrontation would be too unpleasant to imagine.
Trying to sleep on the following nights, without success, my mind was hit with a barrage of thoughts, especially what did I and my peers (born soon after the war) do to amuse ourselves?
We lived in a tough suburb, Fitzroy, but we didn’t know we were disadvantaged.
We attended a government school with few facilities and large class sizes.
Discipline was to the fore, antisocial and aggressive behaviour wasn’t tolerated.
Discipline was strict and immediate and few excuses were accepted. We knew the consequences of our behaviour and our parents followed up reinforcing the actions of the school.
Most parents having lived through the war had survived its horrors and wanted to savour their good fortune to live in Australia (the land of the free).
Our parents, usually working in the local factories, lived from week to week, but they unashamedly celebrated their blessings.
As kids we weren’t flowered with an abundance of “paraphernalia”.
Our proudest moments were representing our school in a myriad of sports or becoming monitors or even house captains.
On special occasions we marched “en masse” to the beat of a bass drum to impress visiting dignitaries.
Many of us were enterprising finding a variety of ways to gather a few bob. I will outline some of these activities.
I sold papers (the Herald) after school and rushed to the drop off point to get to the shoe factory to catch the workers leaving Ossie Porter’s shoe factory before four o’clock. You had to know your tables to handle the pennies, half pennies and farthings.
My most fascinating customers were Dr Mannix and John Wren who purchased the Herald as they walked from St Pats to Raheen. Wren always gave me two bob (two shillings) for the sixpence paper.
Using Aunty Pat’s perambulator (pram) we collected newspapers to sell to the fish shop, fruit shop or grocers to wrap their produce. The same pram carted bottles (mainly beer at one penny a dozen).
For a treat you could get a brown paper bag of cracked biscuits or specks (bruised fruit).
A treat was getting a chip of ice from the ice man as he delivered blocks of ice for the ice chests. This came weekly but had melted within two days.
Usually butter was rancid, meat was dodgy and milk had to be bought in a pail at the local dairy.
Rabbit was the source of protein sold out of the back of a cart thick with flies as the owner cried out “rabbito, rabbito, get my lovely fresh rabbits!”
Only Bill the publican’s son had a real pumped up ball which he rarely shared and would go home crying (ball under arm) if you didn’t let him win the ball.
Usually we played with a newspaper ball wrapped in lacquer bands (from an old bicycle tyre). We played in the street with the lamp post as a goal.
You had to hit the post to score.
When my mates and I played in inter-school matches we beat superior teams with our deadly accuracy thanks to the skills learnt with the paper ball.
Our best friend was “George the Saddler”. Most people had him repair their shoes and boots but crossed the road to avoid his gaze (George didn’t really care).
My best mate “Nev” found an old ball in the bin at the Fitzroy ground and George restored it. He turned the case inside out, mended the bladder, replaced the lace and polished it until it was as new. He even came over to the Edinburgh Gardens and had a kick with us. We were stunned to see him drop-kicking the ball with length and accuracy.
One Saturday I found a closed sign on the saddlery and his son came out to tell us he had passed on. All my mates attended his funeral and discovered he was a champion junior footballer at Collingwood, but had been gassed in the war and lost 90 percent of his lung capacity.
Marbles were my forté. Not to be boastful, I was almost unbeatable.
We rode our bikes around Carlton and Collingwood down the lane ways looking for some victims. My preferred game was “big zing!”
On one occasion we ventured across the yards where some posh kids were playing “big zing” with reals (polished gem stones). I relieved them of their bounty.
Other money earners were delivering meat for “Fred the Butcher” or packaging tea, sugar and salt from the beaches into brown paper bags for Tonkins Grocers.
Many of us enhanced our reading skills through comics, The Phantom, Mandrake, Disney, The Katzenjammer Kids and Classic Tales were some of the favourites.
“Tippety Run” was a popular form of cricket in a restricted space and the factory wall was fantastic for “handball”.
How sad I am to think that some of today’s youngsters haven’t had the good fortune to take on “positive challenges” as we did.