Open Writing

In January 1959, six months after our wedding, Jan had to fly to Mackay in Queensland Australia to look after her mother who was having heart problems. Jan's father was working with Westinghouse in Townsville prior to his being transferred to the Ipswich railway workshops. Her sister Susanne was at school, boarding at a family friend’s house in Ipswich.

Before leaving Canada Jan had unexpectedly fallen pregnant and was having trouble with her pregnancy. The foetus apparently had not completely adhered to the uterus.

Her flight to Australia was long and once again exhausting. Apart from an overnight stop in Honolulu, she flew to Sydney, waited for few hours at the airport there, took another flight to Brisbane and yet another on to Mackay. She arrived in Mackay completely worn out. In fact her mother's first comment to her beloved daughter was that she should vacate her own hospital bed for her daughter. Jan was very distressed when she miscarried. Somewhere amongst Jan's treasured memento's is a piece of doggerel that I sent to cheer her up accompanied with a tiny toy poodle I named Suzy Q.

Jan’s mother seemed to recover somewhat now that her daughter was back in Australia.

It was a very difficult time for both of us, as our plans were now completely in disarray. We had hoped to build up our capital base by saving one salary for at least another six months before visiting Jan's family for an extended working holiday. Our long-range plan was to set up our own business sometime in the future in Vancouver. Many years later we did set up a business, but not in Vancouver. .

I took six months leave of absence from General Motors and sailed for Australia on the Orient Line's SS Orsova in June 1959. I had a pleasant voyage, as the group at my table decided to do our sight seeing together at the ports in the United States of America, Hawaii and Fiji.

Jan was at Pyrmont wharf to meet me and we spent a couple of days with her Aunt Lita Garrard at 10 Hugh Street, in Ashfield before taking the train to Brisbane to meet her parents and sister. I met other members of her family in Sydney and found most of them a cheerful lot. On our train journey to Brisbane we saw wattle bushes in full bloom alongside the tracks.

We stayed with Jan's parents for a few days in their rented house in the inner Brisbane suburb of Red Hill before moving into our own flat in the suburb of Toowong. Jan’s parents were in the process of having a house built at Corinda, a nearby suburb to Ipswich where her father had just started his new job in the railway workshops.

Our plans were up in the air once again as Jan had become pregnant almost immediately.

I found a job as the manager of the propriety section of F. H. Faulding's Brisbane warehouse. My inexperience in management and the antipathy to this 'foreigner' shown by the young men under my control made life very difficult. Not to mention the very real problem of my trying to understand the Australian accent when people were ordering drugs and medicines unfamiliar to me. I must have 'begged their pardon's' many times.

I was also becoming more and more disgruntled with my low wage and the limitations of future prospects. I was also feeling trapped as Jan did not want to travel during her pregnancy and was resisting returning to Canada while her mother's poor health continued.

I was particularly despairing that our future was out of our control with events not going as planned.

It was a very hot and trying summer in Brisbane that year. Jan spent most of the day lying in a cool bath trying to cope with her pregnancy.

When our daughter, Jennifer Anne, was born on the 28th of June,1960, I was most indignant at hearing the news from Jan's mother instead of the hospital. It seems petty now but at the time it infuriated me and added to my feeling of being an outsider. We needed every penny in Brisbane merely to survive. I strongly believed that I was being coerced into staying in Australia against my will. I was not a happy man.

After almost twelve months in Australia at my insistence we made plans to return to Canada. As I had only taken six months leave of absence from General Motors, I was hoping earnestly that my option had not lapsed and, if possible, we could once more start saving to continue dreaming of owing our own business.

© Clement 2006