Bonzer Words!: Waiting For The Ship To Come In
...My grandmother was fond of telling us that we would have whatever we wanted when our ship came in. This ship was always running into storms, and getting lost. I can't remember how old I was before the ship faded from my mind...
Shirley Henwood recalls her early days.
My first memories of my grandfather and grandmother are in their grocery shop in Geelong. We, my mother, father, sister and I lived with them in the house attached to the shop. The excitement of being given a penny to spend once a week, like a real customer, is vivid in my mind. For a penny I could buy a little white bag of assorted lollies, and eat them all by myself. Or I could have a bag of sherbet or a liquorice strap. My favourite was a stick of barley sugar, twisted like a rope.
This shop is the setting for my adventure with the lion in the cupboard, which could have been the cause of a lot of my fears and phobias as I was growing up. My grandmother was fond of telling us that we would have whatever we wanted when our ship came in. This ship was always running into storms, and getting lost. I can't remember how old I was before the ship faded from my mind. I suppose it was a bit like Santa Claus. You don't remember when you stopped believing, it just grew on you.
Ezra Hesketh had fallen down the hold on one of the ships he was working on, and henceforth had a gammy foot, which gave him a lot of pain, and a limp, but I have never been aware of him going to a doctor while I knew him in Australia. It seemed that doctors were not used—unless in a dire emergency—or they weren't in our family. His foot kept him from any active war service. During the big depression, my grandparents kept a number of families from poverty by not charging them for their groceries, without complaint. They ran up a tab, which they promised to pay back when they were able. To the poor, my grandparents were looked on as saints.
Before the shop, he told us there were two sections* in Esperence, a city over in Western Australia. One of these sections was for me, and one for my sister Joy.
I believe he did own these sections, as he also owned a house in West Preston, which was tenanted. Whether straitened circumstances decided the fate of the sections, I can only guess, but gradually it became clear from overhearing conversations, that the sections had been sold. When my grandfather sold, or closed, the shop, people came with money to give him to repay his kindness during the depression. Whether a little or a lot he was always grateful and gracious.
We moved temporally into my grandmother's cousin's house at Essenden, by a railway line. Ellen Hill had two daughters Rachael and Rosie, who were ruled with the proverbial 'rod of iron' by their mother. When the trains went by, the house shuddered and shook, and it felt as though the train was coming right through the house.
Gradually, as my health became worse, I was used as an excuse in the Courts, for the tenants to be asked to leave 69 Leicester Street. I was nine years old then, and my sister, Joy was four, when the case was finally won by my grandfather. The yard was covered with cobblestones, with a lane at the back of the house, where the dunny man collected the dunny tins. Big sheds at the back of the block were where my grandfather had kept horses when he was running a carrying business with horses and a dray. I often asked if I could have a horse, seeing he had kept them here. But the answer was always no. There was no money for horses, or even if it had been possible, there was nowhere to ride it around here. I'd have to wait for 'our ship' to come in.
The house at Leicester Street was white, with a red tiled roof. There was a front veranda, where my grandparents could sit in the stifling heat of summer, when we and the other neighbourhood children played on the street.
My grandfather's sister, Ruth, lived not that far from us, across the paddocks. This was as far as the tramline went then. She lived with her husband Jim Bennett, with their children Edith and Mary. They often came around to us for a visit, and we visited them. My mother's cousin Edith had been born in England, and Mary in Australia. Jim Bennett was a collector. A merchant, dealing in things to buy and sell. Maybe he was the original Steptoe and Son (without the son). His big yard was always full of what looked to me like piles of junk, but he seemed to be able to make a living out of it.
One night Jim was attacked, mugged, and robbed. He always had a wad of money in his wallet, which would have been well known. He was never the same again.
From then on, my grandfather was always concerned about his sister, Ruth, but I never quite understood all the ramifications. I was too young to be told anything, and I wouldn't have been told even if I'd known what to ask.
* a 'section' was a sub-division of land.
† a 'dunny' was an outside toilet, usually made of timber.
© Shirley Henwood
Shirley writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
