Fascinating prelude , Jack , can't wait for the next chapter.
Well you asked for it, Les.
But first a caveat. I admire your ability to reveal your feelings and emotions and in some ways envy you this ability but it is not in my makeup. It may be the Germanic background or perhaps grandfather Parker came from Yorkshire. And you know what they say “Tha can allus tell a Yorkshireman, but tha can’t tell ‘im mooch”. Also, I have an ability to dismiss from my mind those things I would rather forget, and there are many of them, and they won’t appear in the narrative although that may make the telling more boring.
And so, in this segment I look at my early life in Hinton, a small town elevated above the flood plain on the confluence of the Hunter and Paterson rivers, until I left home to go to Canberra in 1960.
It may not have been an idyllic childhood but in many ways it was. I was an only child and my parents gave me unconditional love and overindulged me to extent their limited means would allow. One of my first memories was as a 4 year-old pushing my toy car to a new home about a kilometre away. Dad had been working as a residential farm hand and had been offered a share farm which as I understand it means that the owner provides the land and buildings and the farmer hands over half earnings from the property.
I spent a lot of time on my own as a kid but I had a horse and a bike by the time I was eight and I never envied the town kids their life style. I had more freedom and wandered over an incredibly wide territory and had many adventures, most of them in my own imagination. In fact, for a strange reason I was the envy of Hinton kids. Before flood mitigation in the Hunter Valley, it was subject to many floods. We had 22 in 1950-51 and a record flood in 1956. In floods, Hinton was an island with supplies being dropped in by air or after the floodwaters had become less treacherous by Army Duck, a large amphibious vehicle originally used to land troops and equipment in the Pacific in World War II. None of the Hinton kids had ridden in an army duck but I did – twice. The first time was in a 1949 flood when I had to urgently get to hospital to have my tonsils out. The second was during the 1956 flood when I needed to get to the Doctor in Morpeth to fix a broken arm. I had been racing another kid down the main street of Hinton on a horse I was exercising when a cow raced out of a Lantana bush. My horse went straight into it at full gallop. I am not quite sure what happened in the next few seconds but the horse was uninjured, I had a green stick fracture of the arm and I never found out what happened to the cow.
I should mention my education. My parents taught me basic reading and arithmetic and thought this would allow me to remain at home until they thought I was old enough to catch the bus to the nun’s school in Morpeth which was about 5 kilometres away. The Education Department thought differently and so at six years and four months, I started at the Hinton public school in October 1948. I was lucky, and the teacher was willing to take a flexible approach and so I spent 2 months in first class, and 6 months in second and third classes in the next year.
I started fourth class at the nun’s school in 1950. One of the shocks was that I was expected to wear shoes to school. It was a primary school but some of boys were fourteen and serving time so they could leave and get a job. I was no doubt a bit of a smart alec and they would sometimes lock me in a broom cupboard at lunch time to teach me respect for my elders. It didn’t work but I still suffer from mild claustrophobia.
When I was in sixth class, the Nuns advised that I was younger and less mature than the boys that would be in first year high school and that I should repeat sixth class. This would have the added advantage that I might win a bursary to pay fees and texts. This didn’t work as I was bored repeating the same stuff and I didn’t get a bursary.
I started school at Maitland Marist Brothers in 1954. I did study after classes with the Sixth class primary kids in the junior school and got the bursary at the end of 1954. One of my disappointments was that I couldn’t represent the school at rugby league for the first years. The school had weight grades from 4 stone 7 pounds(29Kg) to 8 stone 7(54kg) and an open grade. When I started school, I was over 10 stone (64kg)and you can’t let 10-year-olds play with 17-year olds in the open grade – they would be slaughtered. In my final year at school (1959) I played in the open grade at 15 stone 11(100 kg) and it was the fittest I have been in my life. Team mates included Jimmy Morgan who later played for Australia and Brian McGuigan of wine industry fame. While I am name dropping, John Bell, the Actor, Theatre Director and Manager was also a classmate for a year.
History repeated itself and in 1958 I was talked into repeating fifth year because I was considered too young and immature to go to University. They were right this time. Even if I had repeated many times it would have probably been the case but that is for a later story. Also, it is interesting that high school in New South Wales is now six years
