In this Issue

Playhour

Pine Trees

Classical Music

Girls Crystal

Berkhamstead

Famous Five

Hello!  My name is Sylvia, and I am a Baby Boomer.  A child of the 1950’s.  My middle sister Margaret is also a 1950’s child.  My youngest sister Alison is a 1960’s Baby Boomer.  Who coined the phrase Baby Boomer, and why did the phase end in 1964?  Why not 1965 or 1966?

I am a first generation Australian, bought up in a strictly British household, with a strictly British upbringing.  Classical music, all classic literature. No TV, only a radio whose dial was permanently stationed on the ABC.  I remember Mum and Dad listening to and laughing to remember Hancock’s Half Hour.  Mum listening every day to Blue Hills.  Because of this upbringing, I am pro British, very bookish, and an unashamed Royalist.  Strangely enough, the classic children’s literature never appealed to me. My English Grandmother would send out classic children’s books for me, like The Wind in the Willows.   I would try and read the books because they were given to me for birthday presents and Christmas presents, but they didn’t appeal.  What did appeal though, were the Annuals that were given to me at Christmas time from Mum and Dad!  School Friend Annual!  Girls Crystal Annual! That was the stuff.  One year Mum and Dad gave me Enid Blyton’s Five On a Hike Together as a birthday present.  This was so exciting.  Two Trees, Gloomy Water, Saucy Jane.  Open moorland, a ruined house, a lake.  The Five doing exactly as they want.  To a young girl, this was absolutely fabulous reading, and was my introduction to Enid Blyton.

One day Mum bought me Playhour.  I think it must have been from that moment on, my addiction began.  A few years later it was decided I would get School Friend.  It would be delivered with the morning paper.  I would eagerly look forward to the day – I think it was a Wednesday.  If for some reason School Friend did not come, I would be devastated.  My world would be at an end.  I would threaten to run away, break into floods of tears, and become unmanageable.  However for me, it was an absolute catastrophe. My world WAS at an end.   Eventually though, I realised that if it didn’t come that particular day, there would probably be a double up next week.  Most of the time, this is how it worked..  Eventually I tired -. of School Friend, and switched to Girls Crystal.  Then, for a little while, switched to Princess, then back to Girls Crystal. I came to love Bessie Bunter and The Silent Three very much indeed. Of course, Mum would have had to organise and re-organise this.  She (And the local Newsagents must have got sick and tired of this constantly changing of the order!)  No wonder sometimes that the weekly was delayed!!!  Also around this time I managed to read any Secret Seven and Famous Five books I could get my hands on.  The Secret Seven were not too bad, but not nearly as exciting as The Famous Five.  I identified with Julian, Dick, George and Anne.  George’s home at Kirrin, Kirrin Island, Billycock Hill, Smuggler’s Top, the Welsh mountains, the open moorland all became part of my psyche.

Because I was brought up in a very (Then) isolated area where there were not many people around, reading became a priority in my life.  Both Mum and Dad were avid readers.  Dad hailed from Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.  Mum was born in Melbourne to English parents.  My English Grandmother would send out to us on a regular basis Motor Sport, Hertfordshire Countryside, Illustrated London News, sometimes Tatler and other society magazines.  All of these magazines I would devour as quickly as I could get my hands on them.  Even at a young age I was extremely interested in the society glossies, especially Tatler.  Tatler, in fact is one of my monthly indulgences today.  I devour it from cover to cover.

Although I was born in the hills, most of my childhood was spent at the beach.  There were no neighbours, no children to play with.  In those days, it was predominantly a holiday area.  Therefore there were quite a lot of houses, but they would be vacant for most of the year.  Apart from my books, the beach and sand hills and swamps became my friends. When a jetty was built about a mile away, this was the ultimate.  Walking out to the end of the jetty, jumping off the end into clear water.  Feeling the hot wooden planks under my feet.   I would build cubbies in the sand hills.  Bridal Veil creeper is a great roof for a cubby.  Picking Wild Turnips.  Pig Face, with its’ fat fleshy ‘leaves’ and pink flowers was very pretty.  Sometimes amongst the pink flowered there would be yellow.   The hot sand in summer was an exhilarating experience.  Puffing up sand hills, running full pelt down sand hills, across the flat strip of sand, jumping over seaweed to the water.  Crystal clear water.  Light blue here, dark blue there.  Very very calm in the mornings.  By mid to late afternoon, when the sea breeze was in, there would be dancing horses further out, and quite choppy in shore.  Much warmer water than in the morning, when the water would be cold.  There were quite a few islands around.  One had a sand bar that could be traversed at certain times of the day.  It was great fun to walk over to the island.  The shallow water in the middle of the sand bar was always warm, I would just lie in the water for hours.  Day dreaming of the doings of The Famous Five, The Secret Seven and all of the other characters in the Enid Blyton books. This particular island was also serviced by an old Army Duck.  It was wonderful to stand on the beach to watch this strange looking machine coming across from the island, onto the shore, and then actually keeping coming up onto the sand.  It was actually quite scary to see this – to a child’s eye – big ugly machine, with its’ wheels high and dry on the sand.

The smell of Pine Trees immediately takes me back to the hills.  Unbroken views from the hills to the flat country, where the horizon becomes a blue haze.  Views from high hills to smaller hills, and across valleys, again to a blue hazy horizon.

Swamps also held a fascination beyond imagination for me.  In fact, about the ONLY American book I have read and liked is Elizabeth Enright’s Gone Away Lake.  My primary school was more or less surrounded by swamps.  Mysterious places. Sun shining, making reflections in the shallow water amongst the reeds at the water’s edge.  Reeds and bullrushes swaying in the wind.  Maybe catching sight of tadpoles in the water!  Shallow water, dark silent, deep water.  Catching tadpoles was a major hobby.  How exciting, watching them grow into bigger, fatter tadpoles, growing their legs.  How sad, sometimes, when they would be dead, floating upside down in the water at the top of the jar.

One day, some people came to live permanently in the area.  They had two daughters of my age, and a younger son and daughter.  I became quite friendly with the eldest girls.  One day I went to their place and was shown their book case.  Instant adrenalin rush.  There on the shelves was a row of Famous Five books that I had not read.

I was not a popular child during school years.  I was a very tall child, and had to wear glasses, and also sported odd hair cuts.  Dad would cut my hair.  Why Dad and not Mum, is beyond my comprehension!  Because there was also no interraction with other children after school, I was always alone, and didn’t develop social skills that other children had at that time.  Therefore I was very shy and didn’t mix well.  Looking back now, I think people also read me wrongly.  They would think I was aloof, unfriendly, standoffish.  I was called names – Silver Beat, Coat Hanger.  These names hurt me dreadfully.  I didn’t know how to answer back.

Because of this, I would retreat into my books.  Books became my friends, as with, the beach, the sand hills and accompanying vegetation, and the swamps and reeds and bullrushes became my friends.  Over the years I have developed a heightened awareness of the countryside, the ocean, vegetation, clouds, sun, wind and rain.  Discovering that differing atmospheric conditions give qualities of light that are changing constantly.  For instance, that house across the way, that row of Poplar trees, those distant hills, the ocean take on a completely different hue when atmospheric conditions change. The colours of trees change with the quality of the light.  Heat hazes also give their own special effect.  All of these things exhilarate me.   Looking at a tree in the morning is totally different to looking at the same tree in the afternoon.   Looking at trees just before a storm hits is spectacular.  Etched against a leaden grey sky, the trees shimmer with the is still shining on the leaves of the trees, although the momentary vision will disappear as soon as the rain hits.

Mum and Dad had a collection of Agatha Christie books.  These I read at quite an early age.  Miss Marple fascinated me.  Although I couldn’t quite grasp all the details, these books were wonderful.  They still are.  Death on the Nile is one book I haven’t read, although have seen the movie over and over again, and it enthralls me still.  Dad had quite a few books on railways, cars, a lot of technical books.  Also, with the opening of BP Refinery he was presented with a set of books on the origins of BP from COR.  There were a lot of photographs in these books, all of which I would devour constantly.

Dad was a CFR Technologist at BP Refinery, Kwinana.  He was constantly sent away to work either in Melbourne, Sydney or Singapore.  This left Mum and my sisters alone a lot of the time.  One period was when President Kennedy was assassinated.  This period in time has been etched in my mind permanently.  Another time when Dad was away was during the Cuban Crisis.  Both times I lived in mortal fear of something dreadful happening to us, even though we were thousands and thousands of miles away from the actual events.

I was constantly looking for more reading material.  One day at primary school, I discovered a small cache of small, thin books at the back of a cupboard.  They were probably discarded compulsory primary school reading magazines, however to me the stories were really exciting.  One that stands out in my mind was to do with smuggling and coastguards. 

The Alison books by Sheila Stuart are also special to me.  I was given Alison’s Island Adventure as a Sunday School prize.  In the Library there was Alison’s Cliff Adventure, which I read over and over again.  Alison’s Island Adventure has also been read over and over and over again.  I now have nearly the whole set of the Alison books.  What a shame these are not now in print.

I am sure Dad was secretly disappointed that I was not a boy, although he never said so.  I was certainly brought up like a boy.  Dad’s interests rubbed off on me.  He would tell me of his interest in trains, planes, cars.  He would spend hours at Berkhamsted Railway Station, as close to the edge of the platform as he could, to watch the Flying Scotsman and such trains thunder through the station on their way to London, or vice versa.  He had a motor bike from the age of 14.  He wanted to become an air line pilot.  Thus I heard all about Biggin Hill and other WW2 air fields.  However, his ambition was thwarted when it was discovered that he had eye problems during WW2. This would eventually result in Retinitis Pigmentosa.   He would take me to Perth airport to watch the planes land and take off.  The noise of the jet engines gave me an adrenalin rush to me.  Trains – steam trains – give me an adrenalin rush.  The smell of the coal, the trains’ horns, the sight of a steam engine working hard gives me an adrenalin rush. To this day, I still have that adrenalin rush.  I would be dragged out to help him with fixing the car.  His ultimate addiction to classic cars has manifested itself onto me.  He taught me to drive.  He was a very very hard task master.  I would howl my eyes out nearly every lesson, however, I never gave up and passed my driving test first time.

Mum would sing.  She imparted to me a knowledge of all the old songs.  Old Time Music Hall.  Vaudeville.  I love the old songs.  Neither I or my sisters have inherited her beautiful singing voice though.

Social history interests me greatly.  What did those people think, who trod this ground before us?  What were their lives like? How did they feel about the current issues of their day?  Were they happy?  Did they have a love of the countryside that they looked at?  Did they also think about what the people before them thought, and so on?

In 1969 I read my first Schoolgirls’ Own Library.  These were borrowed books, I never had any of my own.  I didn’t even know they had existed until then.  Hazel Armitage, Evelyn Day, Amber Leigh, Jane Preston, Anne Gilmore and Judy Thomas quickly became my favourite authors.  I wondered for years and years what these ladies looked like.  Wondering if they were writing from their own experiences. soon became very popular with me.  Manorcliff was special.  Queenscourt Co-Ed was also special.

Years later, when I was married and had my first child, I thought that collecting and keeping these old Annuals was not the done thing now that I am married and a mother.  The Annuals were donated to charity.  What a mistake I made, as my gut feeling told me that I was doing the wrong thing.  The 1980’s and 1990’s consisted of me re-acquiring that I had let go.  Discovery of a small cache of The Schoolgirls’ Own Library started the collecting craze again.  The adrenalin rush was there when I saw the familiar covers. 

About 1995 I acquired a small collection of The Schoolgirls’ Own Library, first series.  This was another adrenalin rush, as I didn’t know that there was a first series.  Then I was blown away by learning that the authors were men!  This of course, destroyed my original perception of that these lady authors looked like!

Amongst these first series SGOL was a Cliff House and a Morcove School. The Cliff House was immensely readable and was satisfying.  However the Morcove story was a competely different kettle of fish.  It took me such a long time to get into the story.  Nothing really exciting happening yet, I thought.  Too much silly detail of Paula being caught out by Naomer.  Silly study teas in Study No 12.  Where was the plot?  Come on, get ON with the story! Too much detail given to an escapade of Cora Grandways.  Come on, get ON with it!!!  Anyway, I persevered with the first story, and put it aside for weeks on end.  Then I came to hear of a couple more Morcove SGOL available.  I thought – well may as well get them because they are so old.  Picked up the second story.  Same style of writing, read it in some what bored fashion.  Put it aside.  Then I began to think about Paula, saw how funny Naomer could be.  Read all about Pam Willoughby.  Slowly came to read about, and become to know the different characters.  It was a very slow process.  There was no immediate jumping into the plot, like I found with the second series of SGOL. 

I put the Morcove stories aside again, and went back to reading my growing collection of second series SGOL.  There was a vague disappointment about the stories.  There was not a lot of interraction between the girls of which ever story I was reading.  So I picked up the first Morcove story I had so desultorily put aside.  Sat down and REALLY CONCENTRATED on the story.  Like a fish properly hooked on the end of a fishing rod and slowly played and reeled up, I was slowly played and reeled right into Morcove School, into the hearts of the girls.  Became part of the Study 12 coterie.  Identified with the trials and tribulations of the girls. Then I began to wonder what Betty and Co looked like.  What was the architecture of Morcove School itself like?  What did Cora’s motor bike look like?

But that’s all another story…..

Now in 2005, not much has changed.  Things that excited me as a child still excite me today.  The countryside, the beach, secret swampy places, the sun shining on the water, warm friendly breezes, the anticipation of a coming storm, grey angry skies, the sun trying to shine through gaps in the clouds all fill me with exhilaration.  However, I also now have Morcove and the girls and mistresses as the major part of my psyche, culminating in an addiction that started in my childhood.

More next month from Rick Croucher and me! Send in your reminiscences, go on, make someone smile with your memories of those long-gone days!