Working Life - 1969/70

I started work in April, 1969 and my letter of appointment told me to start my first day in the Rates Dept, but when I arrived through the Adelaide Street entrance of City Hall I was told that I would be working in Cashiers.  The girl I was replacing had taken the job in Rates.  I didn't really care at that stage, but with the clarity of hindsight I can see that my life would have been entirely different if I had never met P.  I would also have never met the best friend in my life, L.   I started off sitting at the desk beside P learning B's job, which was to collect all the cheques from the cashiers on a regular basis during the day, use an electronic adding machine to total the amounts then to cross-check this figure against the cashier's total.  I became very good at touch-typing the keys and could always "feel" when I'd hit the wrong one, so my totals were usually correct.

I'd then run all the cheques and the adding machine tape through a Microfilm camera.  At the end of the day, I would prepare the enormous deposit slip, with a carbon copy, to accompany the cheques and cash to the bank.  Even back then, the totals were a staggering $1million + per day.  These were the days of micro-mini skirts and I wore the first pair a platform shoes in the office, earning ridicule from my workmates, but the effect displayed lots of bare, shapely leg.  I spotted L across a waist high divider in the Licensing & Metered Parking section.  She also subscribed to the long, shapely leg philosophy and I knew she was a kindred spirit before we even met.  For some reason, the "boys", including P, delighted in flicking rubber bands at my legs, but I was damned if I was going to let them know it bothered me.

On 20th July 1969 we watched Neil Armstrong step onto the surface of the Moon on multiple TVs set up in the City Hall's main auditorium.

B moved on to some other department and I took her place.  I seemed to be the only one to notice every time I had to collect money for a birthday, engagement, wedding or baby, some of the cashiers would take the money straight out of the till.  I asked one day out of sheer curiosity and was told they all received an allowance for "unders".  Crooks!  I also noticed that the boys who counted the 20c pieces from the parking meters, also left at night with bulging pockets ... nobody else seemed to care.  The most amazing sight was the absence of male staff from lunchtime onward on Friday.  They all went to the pub and never came back.  I used to feel quite conspicuous, being the only one left outside the boss' office, but he obviously knew and took no notice.

Easter weekend 1970 saw Twin and A in the front seat of his panel van, four others including me crammed into the back and two others riding pillion on the two accompanying motor bikes, as we headed off first to A's brother's place in Sydney, then out to Bathurst for the races.  We were all hopped up on NoDoz (caffeine tablets) and drove straight through the night then crashed on the floor of D's house in Paddington.  When we got to Mt Panorama A took us out onto the track and tried to make his van fly, but it didn't really have the engine for it.  It was so funny that every guy we met just happened to be a "racing driver" as if this was a magic formula to get a girl hot and bothered! ☺

As night fell, Twin and A made it very plain that nobody else was welcome in the back of the van, so the rest of us spread out a ground sheet and tried to sleep on the cold, hard ground.  I've never been so bone cold in my life, then or since and I'm not sure if I went off to sleep or slipped into a state of hypothermia.  I woke with a rude shock, to find one of my male travelling companions with his hand in my panties ... to get there he's unzipped my jeans!  After I'd thumped him away and demanded to know what the hell he was doing, his pathetic excuse was a plaintive ... "I thought you were awake".  Yeah, right!  I bet he was sorry I woke up.  The racing was pretty boring and time dragged.  We were supposed to head back early on Monday, but Twin and A were having too much fun.  Nobody seemed to care that I had to be at work on Tuesday morning, our birthday.  Twin phoned Mum and Dad and told them the van had broken an axle and to make my apologies at work.

When I got back to the office on the Wednesday, I'd been transferred into the Licensing & Metered Parking section, because a supervisor BK who lived not far away from me, told everyone I had big parties at my house every night.  He was not only an idiot, he was wrong.  We lived on the widest part of the winding street, so everyone parked in front of our house as it was the only place buses wouldn't have to squeeze past.  He assumed these people were hanging out at my place constantly!

In Licensing & Metered Parking I started off creating files for all complaint letters, then moved over to conduct searches and type summonses.  Parking regulations at that time gave a person 14 days in which to pay their ticket, then the charges would escalate as we incurred search fees from the MRD (Main Roads Dept).  The parking officers, who had engineered their uniforms to look as much like the police as possible, were a bunch of swaggering jerks.  There were three copies of every ticket.  The orange card was affixed to the windscreen wiper, the white original and blue carbon copy stayed in the filing cabinet.  As the paid tickets were received, the copies were removed to another area.  After the due date, I had to separate the unpaid originals from their copies, bundle them up and take them around to the EDP (Electronic Data Processing) Dept.  Here operators would key punch all the information onto cards and these cards were then read by the massive computer.  A few days later I would return to pick up the originals and an enormous printout produced by their line printer (a multi-part sheet with an original and two carbon copies).  I would then manually de-collate and burst these sheets into separate, matching stacks and walk the original to MRD.  Everyone around me hated these days, because I filled every available waste paper bin with sheets of carbon paper.

MRD would send me back a stack of Statutory Declarations, naming the vehicle's owner and giving address details.  After I matched them with the original unpaid tickets, I would take them up to the huge, grey Xerox copier.  It had a curved glass and instead of a hard, flat cover it had a rubber mat that I would lay over the glass before hitting the start button.  I used a form letter that was embedded in a piece of curved perspex to exactly fit the copier's glass.  There was a cut-out piece on the back of the perspex that allowed me to place the original copy of the ticket before making the copy.  So I would stand there for an hour or more, lifting back the rubber mat, removing one ticket and replacing it with the next before hitting the start button.  These letters were sent to the owners demanding immediate payment of the fine plus search fee and threatening court action if the new amount remained unpaid.

After two weeks, I would match the Stat Decs with the unpaid tickets so all the typists could start work on summonses.  These long documents also had multiple carbon copies, which were a real pain to correct as we had to place cardboard under each sheet of carbon paper, then rub out the error on each page before retyping (the CC always smudged or if you rubbed too hard, a hole developed).  It was a legal document so no liquid paper was allowed and it wasn't until after I left work in 1973 that they brought in word processors to make the job easy!

The parking officers had to record every word of abuse the driver had said to him by writing on the back of the white original.  In turn, this horrible writing had to be deciphered by us, so we learnt all the four-letter words under the sun.  One pathetic driver actually used his parking ticket as toilet paper, then sent it back to us through the mail.  The stupid idiot left all the vehicle's details and ticket number in place so it was easy for us and Australia Post to trace him and bring charges.

Although my new section was in the same large office and only separated from Cashiers by a waist-high divider, it was another world.  Our boss was a little man, in body and spirit, who wouldn't let a woman smoke within sight of the public counter, but a guy could walk up and talk to the public with a smoke hanging out of the corner of his mouth.  Mr K would never speak to you at his desk, because he didn't like being stood over so he'd say, "Talk to you in a minute" and when you sat down, he would come over to stand beside your desk.  He made all the women work out a roster for making the morning and afternoon tea/coffee.  We would have to serve the men at their desks.

One sleazy accountant made the mistake of running his hand up the back of my leg, so that afternoon I doctored his coffee.  I emptied a large blob of glue into the bottom of his coffee then emptied an entire glass bowl of pins into the glue ... well, I didn't want him to swallow the pins!  I kept my eyes on him as he took his first couple of sips and watched the colour drain out of his face.  He never touched me again and even went so far as to ask me out.  What a freak!

L and I got our revenge on Mr K by meeting in the ladies room, where we'd sit on the couch and smoke a few cigarettes together.  Each time we walked out, we were gone for about 30mins, so he lost a lot of productivity with his sexist attitude.  We also had lunch together over at the Carleton's Ladies Lounge.  In those days, it wasn't really acceptable for women to drink with men in the Public Bar.  We each ordered toasted ham and tomato sandwiches (45cents) with a Blue Lagoon (Gin + Blue Curacao) cocktail (45 cents).  The barman loved experimenting on us, so we tried Black, Red, Mauve and Green Lagoons too.

We didn't do this every day, because after 6 cocktails at lunch we could barely walk back to the office ... remember we were wearing platform-soled shoes.  We would spend a blissful afternoon not getting any work done, phoning each other to have a quiet giggle or carefully walking around to the ladies for a smoke.  I don't know who lead who astray, but we didn't really care.  We made plans to buy a VW Kombi and just travel around the country until L met K, a budding cop (meaning he still had a neck).

Twin wanted to marry A, but Mum and Dad wouldn't allow it so she deliberately set out to get pregnant.  She and A were married in September 1970, renting a house in Ashgrove and baby H was born in February, 1971.  Twin was a bit overdue, so A decided a good fright was in order and took us for a midnight walk through a large cemetery.  They visited the spot where they first kissed, in a rather large tomb.  It worked remarkably well. ☺  Let me point out that although we visited several cemeteries at night, we were not vandals and never did any damage.

Following are some of Twin's wedding day photos, showing our entire family.  At this stage, she worked in a bridal store and designed both our outfits ... she had so much artistic talent and such potential!

                                 

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Mt Gravatt - 1969.

A brand-new house means lots of work, landscaping the grounds to prevent storm-water and mud from pushing in under the front door and flooding everything under the house during the first storm.  Dad and I got drenched and filthy digging a channel across the front door to divert some of the slush running down the bare slope from the road.  He hired some landscaping contractors, who conned him into paying a lot of money up front, laid some shoddy concrete mowing strips around a large rock retaining wall then promptly disappeared.  He hired a jackhammer so he and I could take turns breaking up the concrete.  He then hired someone who knew what they were doing, to expertly finish the job.

Toward the end of grade 10, every student in Queensland had to sit a compulsory Scholarship exam.  My results were listed in the newspaper and posted to our new address.  I was one of the few who was offered a free trip to QIT (Qld Institute of Technology, now QUT).  My father thought it was a ridiculous idea because, and I quote, "It would be a waste of time, since you're only going to get married and leave work to have children".  He drafted my letter of refusal, which I copied in my own handwriting for him to send off.  I never thought of arguing with him, but it hurt that I was held in such low esteem.  He sent me to a secretarial school in the city to increase my shorthand and typing speed ... it seemed that his only ambition for me was to hang off some man's every word!  He then organised for me to get a job in the Local Government with him.

Meanwhile, Twin was working and stealing money in a city department store.  She made a friend there who lived at Hendra, so we would go over on weekends and take turns getting drunk, although she seemed to have a few more turns than me.  The legal drinking age was 21 then, but at 17 we never had any problems buying alcohol.  We would buy a large bottle of Gin or Vodka and not nearly enough soft drink to go with it, so would polish off the bottle straight.  As she became very drunk, Twin would become very violent and the only way to handle her was to hold her down until she ran out of puff.  Luckily, I was always bigger, stronger and abhorred violence so much that I didn't retaliate when she tried to hit me.  I always hated the idea of losing my self control, so I never drank enough to get what we called "paraletic". 

One night we went to a party at another friend's place in South Brisbane.  Twin met her man, A and decided that she wanted to move in with her friends.  Rather than confront Mum and Dad, she packed up in the middle of the night and just left.   She woke me to tell me she was leaving, so it wasn't a total shock when the uproar started at the crack of dawn the next day.  When our parents finally realised she wasn't coming back, they told me I would have to leave too.  Why, when I didn't want to leave?  To look after my sister, of course!  Were they crazy?  I was so sick of being "the responsible one", so I thought good riddance.

We had some great parties at South Brisbane and would sometimes go into work without any sleep.  In the early hours of the morning, the bakery behind the house would perfume the air with fresh bread.  We'd jump the fence, buy a loaf and let the butter melt into huge slices.  Heaven!  We moved from there to a house in Taringa and from there to a flat, three bedroom plus sleep-out, in New Farm.  Four girls shared this space and one by one, they lost their jobs.  I was the only one employed who could pay the rent, $19 per week.  Sadly, my wage was just over $38 per fortnight.  We ate big bowls of noodles, smothered in tomato sauce.  One by one the others moved home, until we were left with no other option.  I have no photos from this time period because during one of his visits my parents' house before we married, my fiancée removed and destroyed any photo with a man in the picture.

Meanwhile, I was being pursued by a guy at work I'll call P.  When I first met him I thought "Every office has to have one" ... he was so arrogant and a real smart arse!

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East Brisbane - High School Years - Grade 10

Have you ever felt the fear, that all the secrets you've got hidden away will somehow be exposed?  This period is where I started honing my skills at blocking out and suppressing anything I wasn't meant to speak about.  I became so successful, I could even stop thinking about these secrets to the point were I almost forgot, but I was always sick with dread that it would all come to light.

We arrived home from school one day to see a police car parked outside the house.  When we walked in, a police woman was sitting at the kitchen table with Mum.  One of Twin's friends and shoplifting buddies had been caught and she had named everyone in their gang.  While I stood there feeling sick with fear, my sister calmly told the woman it was all a lie and invited her to search our room, knowing she wouldn't find her hiding spot.  She told us that wasn't necessary, apologised for disturbing us and left.  Twin was a very good liar!

Our 16th birthday rolled around and for the first time we had a party with invited guests!   Our cakes were two matching hearts on a large board and Dad filled an enormous punch bowl with one bottle of red wine, one bottle of white wine, a large can of fruit salad then topped the mixture off with a bottle of ginger ale and one of lemonade.  All the kids loved the "fruit punch", to the point where they were chewing on the fruit in the bottom of the bowl.  I guess none of their parents thought it was appropriate to feed alcohol to 15/16 year olds?  Unknown to anybody at the party, Twin was already one month pregnant.  When she realised her predicament, she made me swear not to tell our parents.  I don't know what Twin was thinking or whether she was in denial, just hoping it would all go away but she should have kept her mouth shut at school.  Someone told the Head Monster, who promptly phoned Dad and told him to come to school to collect his pregnant daughter.  Imagine hearing that kind of news over the phone?  Mum and Dad were floored, unable to understand why Twin had kept it quiet for so long that an abortion was out of the question.  They contacted K's parents and were shocked to discover that Twin had told them her parents were alcoholics ... I'm almost sure they were more shocked by this "slander" than they were by her pregnancy!

K was forbidden to see Twin again and she became a virtual prisoner trapped inside the house as Mum and Dad tried to hide the "shame" of her pregnancy.  Mum actually said "What will the neighbours think!".  When we would go out for a drive, Twin was hustled out to the car bundled up in an over-sized coat.  She picked the perfect day to go into labour, my only day off in the middle of my final exams, 7th November 1968.  She woke me up early as she tried to cope with the pains and I woke our parents.  They left me at home and rushed her to the hospital.  Later that night, they arrived home to tell me Twin had given birth, with the assistance of forceps, to a large 8lb+ baby boy called R.  Mum had warned the nurses that Twin was not to see the baby, because he was being given up for adoption, but they had placed the baby into Twin's arms and she became hysterical, refusing to give the baby up.  I don't know how, but Mum forced her to give R away ... and I think something broke in Twin after that event.

Mum and Dad told me to lie when questioned at school about the birth; I had to tell everyone the baby died!  I couldn't understand their reasoning, but it didn't really matter because as soon as grade 10 finished for me, I went home and created a bonfire in the back yard to burn all my books and uniforms.  We then packed up and moved to our first, purchased, newly built house in Mt Gravatt.

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East Brisbane - High School Years - Grade 9

If you attend any Australian school, you know that sport is compulsory!  Like it or not, we were expected to participate in our House teams and give our all!  School spirit and all that nonsense ... athletic carnivals and swimming meets.  Every school I attended in Queensland had its own swimming pool and swimming lessons for me were my own personal nightmare.  I used to beg Mum to write me a note to get me out of that torture, but as she couldn't understand my fear (read that as abject terror) she never cooperated.

Ever since I'd been thrown from a horse at four years of age, I was absolutely terrified of heights.  No one understood that fear, not even my twin who would take great delight in pushing me as high as she could, if I let her get anywhere near me while I was on a swing.  Swimming lessons were OK with me until it came time to learn to dive into the pool.  I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so I stood on the edge of the pool feeling so sick that I wanted to throw up.  My teacher lost patience with me and simply shoved me in, where I panicked and swallowed half the pool.  This tactic only succeeded in increasing my fear exponentially!   So you can imagine how hard it was for me to attempt athletic pursuits such as the high jump or hurdles.  I realised I couldn't rely on anyone to help me, so I solved my problems in the only way I could, I learnt to forge my mother's handwriting.  According to my notes, my menstrual cycle was not only very erratic, but extremely painful and heavy ... this was such a lie; I was regular as clockwork, never felt any pain and it was over in about three days.  My notes described various accidents such as broken toes and twisted ankles, getting me out of my uncomfortable sporting activities.  I did sign up to learn Fencing and I'm sure that because I loved it, the school decided to can these lessons after one month.  I also signed up for Judo and learnt a few tricks before our instructor died of a heart attack!  I played a few games of Netball, always in the position of Goalie because I could shoot a goal from anywhere in the circle, but I never felt any real love for the game.

Those students who did not participate in sporting activities were "punished" by typing up English notes for our teacher.  We actually cut stencils, which were used to run off multiple copies on the Roneo machine (an older form of duplicator that was cheaper to run than a copier).  I loved this job because it not only increased my touch-typing speed, but I absorbed so much information that I never had to open a book to study for English.  I never opened my text books or read Shakespeare's Henry V, but still managed to get straight As for English.

This year brought about a change in our reality.  My sister and I had different circles of friends and as we socialised outside our home for the first time, we discovered that it wasn't normal behaviour for parents to get drunk every night and beat the hell out of each other.  You may have wondered why we moved around so much and this is part of the reason.  We left every rental property damaged in some way.

Every night Dad would bring home two bottles of Dry Sherry and he and Mum would drink the lot.  They would either sit at the kitchen table or Mum would lie on the floor in front of the TV while Dad sat on an armchair.  Every time Dad would get up to go to the toilet, Mum would gulp whatever was left in her glass and tell me to "Quick, pour me another one before your father gets back".  She was playing catchup because Dad drank a lot during the work day too.  Most of his business meetings were conducted in Hotels, but don't get me wrong ... he was a high functioning alcoholic; a top Manager in Local Government.   If they didn't pass out where they were, they fought both verbally and physically.  In the first instance, my sister and I would try to wake them up and get them to bed, but more often we were woken by the violence.  Although terrified, we would go out and try to stop them hitting each other.  We had made our decision long ago that when our parents split up, I would go with Mum and my sister would go with Dad.  The only problem was ... they never split up!

Here we have another reason for our nomadic existence, Dad had the unfortunate habit of telling his bosses exactly what he thought of them.  In fact, both Mum and Dad actually thought they were superior to everyone else, to the point that they had no friends!  On rare occasions, when we were invited out for dinner our parents were perfectly polite to their hosts, but the moment we left they would start tearing them apart and criticising every detail of the event.

So for as long as we could remember our entire world consisted of four people, but now as my sister and I expanded our horizons we started to see our parents more clearly and it became Us against Them.  I had been forced into the role of my sister's keeper after she was hit by the car and now I had to keep all her secrets from Mum and Dad.

After school, my sister and her friends would haunt the local shopping centre and steal anything they could get their hands on, such as makeup (Mink false eyelashes for goodness sake!), swim suits and other clothing hidden under their school uniforms.  It became so prevalent that our school was banned from going to the shopping centre at all!  She had a fool-proof hiding spot in the base of the old radio/record player in our room.  It had a wooden cabinet, waist high and solidly built, but our parents had forgotten that one of the front panels opened to allow for record storage.  This is where she hid her booty and our cigarettes.

Twin loved to dance while listening to the radio, so she "Stomped" (this dance consisted of thumping one foot down hard on the floor, then moving your weight to the other foot ... a basic two-step with attitude ☺) in the one spot, right in front of the player.  I stared in horror one day as she suddenly disappeared up to her waist in the floorboards!  I was laughing hysterically, with tears streaming down my face as I tried to pull her out of the floor.  Luckily Dad ran in to help rescue her, because it was a very high set house and she was facing a long drop to the concrete below.

Before the Beatles changed the world as we know it, the music/dance culture fell into three distinct categories. ie.  Mods, Rockers and Surfies.

• Mods followed the British Carnaby Street fashion trend and music,
• Rockers of course followed Bill Haley/the Comets, Elvis etc. with greased down hair, black clothes, fluro socks, pointy toed boots and hot cars/bikes.  Boys were called Bodgies and the girls, Widgies.
• Surfies didn't actually surf ... they posed while listening to The Beach Boys etc.

As you can see from the photo at left, we considered ourselves Mods and Mum made us the outfits to go along with the trend.  Twin idolised The Rolling Stones in particular Brian Jones, so much so that she tried to copy his hairstyle.  She used every form of bleach to try to get the look correct, for example, Snow White, Ajax powder, Peroxide and when desperate ... Acriflavian - an orange coloured antiseptic!

Mum was horrified, because every time Twin came out of the bathroom, her hair colour had changed.  The last straw was when she used a colour called "Cleopatra Blue Black"!

Mum sent her straight up to the hairdresser to get the colour stripped out of her hair, but of course Twin lied telling Mum the hairdressers wouldn't touch her hair for fear it would break off at the scalp. She won again, as you can see in the following photo.

Mum and Dad were chain smokers so it was only a matter of time until we tried it.  They usually rolled and smoked Capstan tobacco, but Mum loved Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes which were incredibly strong!  On the rare occasions my sister could pinch one, she would light up in the bathroom then throw the butt out the window.  She would come back out bathed in sweat and grey in the face, but she always went back for more.  The only drawback to her plan was the fact that the driveway was under the bathroom window and the gold tipped butts gleamed in the sun.  Our favourite hangouts were Langland's Park swimming pool and the Triumph picture theatre.  A chocolate malted milk shake cost 22 cents and a packet of 10 cigarettes cost another 20 cents!  We had been smoking for years before Mum and Dad gave up and allowed us to officially smoke in public at 15.

We had never been given any pocket money, so we simply pocketed our tram and trolley bus fares and walked 2km each way, every day, rain or shine.  If we made the mistake of leaving any of our cigarettes in our room, Mum smoked them after conducting her daily search.  She confiscated my book on the Hells Angels and berated me for reading such filth, which she was able to quote with some accuracy ... she was such a hypocrite.☺  She was also an habitual martyr, always ill, managing to cut herself "accidentally" whenever she used a sharp knife and taking dives (pretending to faint).  Occasionally after a drunken fight with Dad, she would crawl into my single bed (reeking of alcohol) to seek sympathy and to sleep with me.  I hated it!

I know my account sounds cold-blooded, but after years of this behaviour, all the sympathy had been drained out of me.  Dad assisted in snapping me out of my enforced caretaker role, because one night Mum had gone to her bed to wallow while we watched TV.  She called out for me to come to her, but Dad told me not to go.  He said "If you go in there now, you'll be doing it for the rest of your life!".  His words were like a slap across my face, so in shock I sat still and ignored her pleas.

At 15, Twin found a boyfriend.  I can't remember where she found him, but he (I will call him "K") gave her a beautiful, black Cocker Spaniel puppy we called Sammy (because he looked like a seal).  K gave Mum various bottles of Christian Dior perfume and Step Limoges atomisers, so Mum didn't trust him one bit!  Mum and Dad insisted that I accompany them whenever they went out together ... as if I could act as a chaperone or exert any control over my sister!  Can you imagine how humiliating it was to be the unwanted third wheel?

The first party we attended was at a house in Kangaroo Point.  Every room in the old Queenslander boasted an enormous mattress on the floor as the only furniture ... plus they had set me up with a blind date.  I would have been happy to be struck blind, rather than see the man who was waiting for me!  He was so ancient, well over thirty☺, and when I resisted his efforts to drag me out of the kitchen into one of the bedrooms, he moved on to someone else.  I was quite happy to remain in the kitchen and only saw Twin and K when it was time to leave.  To put things into perspective, this was 1967 when free love and drugs were being explored enthusiastically ... by everyone but me!

A pattern emerged for our "evenings out together".  Twin and K would drop me in the city and promise to pick me up at a certain time, if I would wait for them in front of the Treasury Building in Queen Street.  Between drop-off and pickup, I would go to the movies both to kill time and avoid being accosted on the street by every man in uniform.  It didn't matter what uniform they wore, they all said they were off to Vietnam the next day and only wanted a girl to give them a memorable farewell.  I'm patriotic, but only up to a certain point!  Although I felt nothing but sympathy for anyone going off to fight in a war, my response was always, "Good luck and see you later"!  Some nights were harder than others, because K and Twin were often late picking me up.

So you can see from the above, it was all my fault when Twin got pregnant, because I hadn't been doing a good job of looking after her, according to Mum and Dad. ☺

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East Brisbane - High School Years - Grade 8

What a difference, going from the top of the primary school to the bottom of a very new high school (it had only been open a few years)!  The uniforms were disgusting ... what were they thinking!

• We had to wear white gloves - OK in winter but in a hot, humid summer?
• We had to wear a wide-brimmed panama hat, with a rounded crown, in summer and a dark blue, beret in winter.
• Thick, ugly, flesh-coloured stocking held up by a suspender belt.
• Sky blue short-sleeved dress, buttoned down the front with a full skirt, belted at the waist.  It had small, blue and white checks on the collar, lapel and sleeves.  The hemline had to be no more than 3 inches above the knees, when kneeling!
• We weren't good enough for lockers, not until grade 9, so we had to cart every book we owned, backward and forward every day ... the reason for my scoliosis!

We dragged ourselves to school the first day, horrified that someone would see us in these hideous ensembles, only to discover that everyone else had bashed their hats into quite a cool shape and they had pressed pleats into their skirts.  They looked like they were straight out of a St. Trinian's movie.  Awesome!  We couldn't wait to get home!

For some reason when choosing subjects, my sister chose German and I French ... we were separated into different classes at last!

The Head Mistress would regularly pop in and make all the girls kneel on the concrete so she could walk past us with her ruler.  This amused all the boys no end!  If she found some hapless miscreant, she was dragged away for a lecture.  My sister and I had observed how to get around this minor annoyance by simply hitching our skirts up under our belts and tucking the overlap flat.  Consequently, we wore mini-skirts whenever the Head Monster wasn't around and simply yanked them down at her approach!

OK, so we had a bit of attitude and one of the Prefects was drunk with power and hated us on sight.  My sister and I were caught by her and made to kneel in public.  When we didn't satisfy her 3 inch test, she ordered us to immediately pull out all the stitching to bring our hems down.  Naturally we refused, so she ordered us to go to the girls' toilets where she intended to take our hems down herself.  Again we refused, so she told us we better not come back to school like that tomorrow or nothing would stop her.

After we told Mum everything that had gone on, she wrote a blistering note to the Principal accusing the Prefect of overstepping her authority and threatened that if she touched us, she would be charged with assault.  We received a formal apology and the Prefect was told to keep away from us. ☺

There was a boy in my class who had a certain fondness for hitting girls with his ruler.  He would aim for arms, legs, the back of the head ... anywhere he could get a reaction.  In our classroom one morning before school, he made the mistake of hitting me.  I picked up my ruler and clipped him straight back, over his ear.  Unfortunately I had forgotten that my ruler had a metal strip running down one side, until the side of his head started bleeding freely.  He started screaming like a girl when he noticed the blood and his two friends carted him out to find the school nurse.

I knew I was in big trouble, but to be called up to the office while we were all standing on parade on the quadrangle ... total humiliation!  The Principal's words over the loud speaker were, "Would the girl who hit (Bully Boy) over the head with a ruler, come to my office immediately!".  I had to step out of my class line and do the walk of shame in front of the entire population of teachers and students.  I walked with my head high and my back straight, determined to not show any fear.  The Principal was spluttering with rage and looked more like Adolph Hitler than usual.  He told me they had called an ambulance and he was going to call the police to have me arrested.  He told me to go home and bring my mother back immediately.  Naturally, I strolled home and explained the situation to Mum.  We caught a taxi back and I was made to wait outside the Principal's office while he spoke to Bully Boy's mother and mine.

I heard Mum tell him it was my time of the month (she knew it wasn't) and it was a bad time for the boy to hit me.  His mother said it was only a small scratch on his head, nothing to worry about.  She also said he had always had a problem hitting girls and as she left, thanked me for hitting him because she hoped it would break his habit.  It did too ... I never heard of him hitting another girl.

Toward the end of year 8 everyone had to be tested for TB.  We were lined up and given a Mantoux test.  My sister had no reaction and had to be immunised but my strong, positive reaction meant I had to have a chest X-ray (which was clear) and I skipped the injection.  I remember when I was quite small, having some sort of large sticking plaster placed on my back between my shoulder blades.  I had come in contact with someone with TB and was showing symptoms, so Mum had to wash me carefully for days to avoid getting the plaster wet.  It never amounted to anything more than a temporary annoyance.

Also around this time, all grade 8 students had to sit an aptitude test to decide which classes we would take next year.  It was easy to work out the leading questions, so I engineered my results toward the Commercial course.  I would have loved to move into Science but that would mean dissecting frogs and things, too much of an Ick factor for me.  Ever since I was small, I had a problem with fainting spells, especially at the sight of blood.  My first episode was sitting on the classroom floor in grade 1.  While we were singing, I trailed my hand over the floor and picked up a splinter in my finger.  The next thing I knew, I woke up on a couch in the Teachers' lounge.  Getting immunised at school was a nightmare ... you can't imagine how many times I would race back to my desk to sit and put my head on the desk before I passed out.  I had fainted so often, I could recognise the warning signs.  The sight of blood would quickly make me keel over and, this is embarrassing to admit, even the sight of someone bleeding on black and white TV would do the trick - pathetic!  So Science was definitely out, even though it was the only course that would allow a student to progress to grades 11 and 12, then on to University!

I would have liked to do Manual Arts (woodwork and metalwork), but girls were not allowed and the Domestic course (sewing and cooking) bored me to death.  We only had those four pigeon-holes to be crammed into, so I really had no alternative but to learn Shorthand, Typing, History, Bookkeeping, Maths A, Maths B, French and English.

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East Brisbane - State School Years

Our next move took us to Eskgrove St, East Brisbane.  This house had a large back yard adjacent to Mowbray Park.  Although we had an enormous Mango tree and a magnificent Jacaranda, there was still plenty of room to play games of Badminton.

We started school in grade 5 at East Brisbane State School.  It was my misfortune to be reading aloud when the Deputy Principal poked his head into our classroom one day.  He gestured for me to continue as he walked in, sat down and closed his eyes.  When I finished my recitation task, he opened his eyes and said "That is how the English language is meant to be spoken".  He thanked me and walked out of the room, but every so often he would arrange to drop in and request that I read to him.  This was the first time it became apparent to me that I spoke differently, although in the Snowy Mountains the other kids accused me of being a "Pom".  To add to my embarrassment, my sister and I reached puberty in the 5th grade.

At this time there was a major change in Queensland Education.  It was decreed that Primary School would encompass grades 1 to 7 with High School covering grades 8 to 12.  So as we moved into grade 6, all the grade 7s and 8s went off to High School.  Surprisingly, there were a number of girls in those higher grades who had to leave due to pregnancy.  There was a very strange boy in our class who was expelled for exposing himself while he shaved his pubic hair ... his nickname was "Boo Boo"!

When we moved into grade 7, Mum was making us the most fashionable clothes.  She could just look at a magazine, make up a pattern and the clothes were perfect.  Pin striped pants suits, A-line dresses with keyhole necklines ... we were the trend setters at the school.  The Principal thought our influence so great that he tried to convince me to wear a uniform, sure that everyone else would follow suit.  Sadly, every uniform he gave me to try on just never seemed to fit.  Such a shame! ☺

I should name and shame our grade 7 teacher because he desperately wanted to get my sister alone after school, but I stayed in the doorway by saying I wasn't allowed to go home without her.  He gave up after a while, but one of our classmates bragged about being in a sexual relationship with her father, who would stagger out of the pub across the road to collect her after school.

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Living in Brisbane.

From Wynnum West, we moved to White St, Wavell Heights (northside again) and attended Nundah State School.  I really enjoyed this school, which had a great music programme and our Tuck Shop orders were delivered hot to our class room.  This is when I discovered there was no Santa Clause.  Mum had given me a note for the shop and told me specifically not to open it.  This was so unusual that I opened it to discover an order for craft beads and a message to the shopkeeper to keep the items hidden from me.

My sister and I always woke early on Xmas morning, but this time we had beaten Santa to our stockings ... they were empty.  We went back to sleep disappointed but woke later to find our stocking contained dolls, with those beads around their necks and wrists.  Apparently Mum and Dad's big night had made them sleep in a bit later than normal.  Although upset about the Santa myth, I still thought the Easter Bunny must exist. ☺

We next moved to Arrowsmith St, Camp Hill (southside again) and attended Camp Hill State School.  Our teacher was so old and her skin so crepey, that she'd scream at you if you even brushed past her (Look what you've done, you stupid girl!), because she would get another blood blister.  Our class was picked to go up to Mt Coot-tha for the taping of the Channel Niners, hosted by Jim Iliffe.  We spent the entire day in the studio taping a week's worth of programmes.  My sister and I made sure to sit on the floor at his feet, so our faces were always on screen when the camera cut back to him.  We were picked for some competitions and won some prizes, including our first ice-cream cake (packed in dry ice).

One Friday night, a large portion of the school including our classroom burnt down.  A teacher had forgotten to turn off the urn in the kitchen, it boiled dry and the fire took out the Admin block and one wing.  Our classroom became the shady spot under a large Poinciana tree and our class had its photo in the paper under the title "The Tree of Knowledge".

I should mention that although we were fraternal twins, Mum always made our clothes the same ... she was a fantastic dressmaker.  This photo was one of the rare occasions that we ever allowed ourselves to appear in the same clothes, at least until we wore High School uniforms.

Here is also where Dad decided to teach me how to ride a bicycle.  He stood at the top of the sloping back yard and started pushing my bike.  I made him promise he wouldn't let go ... he lied!  I slammed into the back wall of the house and stormed off in tears as he was bent over, laughing hysterically.

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Brisbane, 1959.

It was our first trip on a plane, a prop job.  I had lamb chops for lunch, but promptly lost them into the paper bag hanging off the seat in front of me!  We first stayed in Gordon Park on the northside of the city, then moved to Blackwood Rd, Manly West on the southside.  After a short time we relocated a few blocks away to Preston Rd, Manly West.  On Cracker Night (Guy Fawkes Night), all the kids in the street got together and pooled our fireworks.  Our Dads set off Roman Candles, Bungers, Sky Rockets, Catherine Wheels and Tom Thumbs giving us one night a year, when the infinite normality of the suburbs was shot with utter magic.  It's a shame that a few reckless and evil kids got it banned, spoiling it for the rest of us.

We had started Grade One in Wallacia and attended a few schools in the Blue/Snowy Mountains.  Now we started at Wynnum West State School, catching a bus to and fro.  One of the rumours floating around was about a crazy old man who hated kids so much, he would rush out onto the footpath to chase off any children walking past his house.  My sister insisted that we had to see this guy, so we skipped the bus home to walk past his house.  Of course nothing happened, except we were very late home to be met at the door by a very anxious mother.  My sister told Mum our teacher had kept us after class and we had missed the bus, so a very angry note was written.  I argued with her but for some strange reason, my sister actually handed the note to the teacher!  We were called into the Principal's office for a "please explain" and Mum was humiliated.  I don't know why my sister found it easier to tell a lie than the truth, but it became a habit from an early age.

Mum left the house rarely.  From the time we lived in the Snowy Mountains, she would send me to the shop to run errands.  As kids sometimes do, I got a bit sick of it one day and put on an act demanding she send my sister.  No problem ... my sister grabbed the note and the money, ran across the road and got hit by a car.  I was in the front yard and saw her go up into the air, land on the roof of the car then roll down the windscreen, over the bonnet to land on the road.  The terrible scream of brakes brought Mum running out of the house and I will never forget the withering look she gave me as she passed.  In my mind and Mum's, it was all my fault.  Her leg was broken, both the tibia and fibula.  She was taken to the Mater Children's Hospital where doctors wanted to insert a metal plate and pins.  I have no idea why Mum refused, but after ranting about "bloody, stupid doctors" she removed my sister to the Royal Brisbane Hospital where her leg was simply plastered for about 6 months.  Twin's leg was weak for the rest of her life.

We lived in a small, one bedroom flat with an outside toilet (even when the sewerage line came through, the landlady insisted the toilet stay outside!).  My sister and I shared a double bed, while Mum and Dad slept on the pull-out couch.  I paid my penance by being clobbered by her cast every time she turned over.  To add to my sister's misery she contracted Measles, so spent a long time digging a hole in the plaster cast to run a knitting needle up and down her leg.  Naturally, as soon as her Measles had passed I came down with it too.  As I was recovering I asked Mum what the lump on my stomach was, only to hear her groan "Chicken Pox"!  At least we had TV, which had only just started in Brisbane.  TV became my wonderful world of escape.  I had every programme, on every channel, memorised ... nobody needed a TV guide with me around. ☺

My sister had lost more than six months of school therefore she had to repeat Grade Two, so Mum and Dad insisted that I be kept down with her, to keep her company.  Our birthday arrived and I received the best present I'd ever seen ... not a draining board, dish mop and plastic plates like Xmas, but an amazing electronic, remote controlled  Elephant.  It was covered in white plush with a bright red diamond shaped, jewelled panel on its forehead and a magnet in its trunk so it could pick up metal logs.  It even made a trumpeting sound as its trunk curled up into the air ... I was fascinated.

I also had an unwanted admirer at school.  He used to wait for my school bus every morning and sometimes Twin would say I wasn't coming to school today, so I could sneak out without him seeing me.  I couldn't work out why he kept hanging around ... I was in Grade Two and he was in Grade Six.  One day he insisted on giving me a pearl ring.  As I was telling him that I couldn't take it, he ran off so I was stuck with it.  When I got home, I went into the kitchen to pour a glass of water and Mum saw the sunlight gleam on the ring.  Of course she could recognise real gold so she questioned me and carefully examined the ring.  It was 18ct yellow gold with a real pearl held in a claw setting.  Alarmed, Mum rang the boy's mother thinking he had stolen it, but she assured Mum the ring was his to give to whomever he wanted.  I wore that ring every day until I was married ... when my husband P, knowing the story behind it, threw it away.

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The Snowy Mountains

After we spent some more time in the Blue Mountains, Dad's work took us into the Snowy Mountains, where we lived in one of the Thiess Brothers' temporary villages built for their workers.  The Snowy River Scheme was the largest engineering project ever conducted in Australia and brought workers from all parts of the world. There was a large general store run by Mr and Mrs Poon and a huge open-air movie theatre where we also had our Xmas party.  My gift was a small, metal stove/oven with miniature pots and pans (indoctrination started early for girls ☺).  All the houses were small and slightly elevated, with just enough room for small children to scramble underneath and play in the dirt.

Perched on top of a hill, we had a one-room school that catered to all children from years 1 to 8.  I remember being embarrassed by the teacher who held up my book to show the class and criticised me loudly for not colouring inside the lines!  Our sporting houses were named after the mountains in the area and we found a wombat that had burrowed his home into the school's grounds.  This was the first time I saw someone have an epileptic seizure.  To a 6 year old, he looked almost as big as the teacher and we were very frightened, but the teacher calmly picked him up and carried him back into his office to care for him.

We were invited to a friend's house for a champagne breakfast and on the way home I told Dad that I didn't feel well ... I was so dizzy that I had to lean against the side of the house for a few minutes.  Dad thought it was very funny that I was drunk.  My sister and I also had our first experience with cigarettes, sneaking down under the house and lighting up.  But the clouds of smoke coming out from under the building attracted the attention of a neighbour and we were busted.

Winter was magical!  The blackest clouds I'd ever seen rolled in and started delivering their snow.  Trees sparkled with icicles, which we broke off and sucked as we walked to school in our little, bright yellow galoshes.  To help us get up the hill to school, the men had driven huge metal spikes into the middle of the path and strung up a heavy chain between the spikes.  We hauled ourselves up the hill, hand over hand.  We thought it was great fun, especially when we kids got together on a large sheet of roofing iron and slid down a smaller hill.  Of course we dreamt of having a real toboggan!

We loved winter but Mum loathed it, mainly because my sister and I were hit with repeated doses of pneumonia.  Our medicine was in the form of capsules and my sister had no problem taking her dose, but I could not swallow those rotten things.  Mum gave up trying and cracked the capsules into strawberry jam for me to take, but I can still remember the foul taste of that powder.  I had always hated the taste of eggs and Mum fretted that my health would suffer if I didn't eat them so she tried to disguise the taste using curry powder ... as if egg can ever taste like anything else?  I will never forget her final attempt, when she handed me a cold glass of frothy orange juice ... did she honestly believe that I wouldn't taste the eggs she had whipped into that drink?  As long as I live I will never, ever forget that flavour!  I wasn't allergic and I loved her cakes and pancakes, which she always made with either cocoa or orange peel, yum!

Dad had his own problems with the heating unit.  I remember it looked like a pot bellied stove with a large pipe going up into the ceiling.  I don't know what Dad did wrong, but we woke up to the smell of smoke with a scorched ceiling following the winding pattern of the pipe.  We climbed into bed with Mum while Dad and a friend crawled around in the ceiling checking for fire.

At Xmas, one of Dad's friends arrived at our door with a large Hessian bag that was in motion.  He'd brought us a turkey, but it was still alive!  He and Dad went outside and chopped its head off and my sister had a great time chasing after the other kids with the head sitting on a piece of cardboard.  Mum had the unenviable job of plucking and cleaning the bird ... the smell was so bad that I couldn't even think of eating my turkey lunch.  The only upside to this event was when Mum presented us with two magnificent Native American headdresses she had made from the turkey's feathers.  The other kids were so jealous as we made a tepee with sheets hanging over the clothes line.  The Xmas/New Year break saw some heavy drinking among the adults, with the inevitable consequences.  One of Dad's mates burst in one day looking for a hangover cure.  He grabbed a glass off the counter and half filled it with Scotch, before downing it in one gulp.  He wouldn't believe me when I, crying like I'd just lost my best friend, told him that he had just swallowed my pet lizard (Lenny) that I kept in that glass.  Dad assured me that Lenny wouldn't have felt a thing!

The Snowy Mountains is where I experienced my first earthquake.  I was inside the house when the shaking started and it was so strong it knocked me off my feet.  After I picked myself up and ran outside, I could see all the cracks in the ground. We worried about the tunnel collapsing, until Dad came home to reassure us.

Not long after our seventh birthday, we were told we were moving to Brisbane.  All our friends got together for a farewell party and presented us with our very own toboggan!  We were ecstatic until Dad gave us the bad news that it never snowed in that area of the country.  I can only imagine the looks on our faces as Dad took our gift and handed it back.

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The early days.

I was born in the early 1950s in Sydney, Australia. I had a twin sister who was 20 minutes older and a brother 10 years older.

My parents were party animals I suppose, because they laughed about the first time my sister and I got drunk ... it was after a big night and they had both slept late.  We were toddlers and started exploring the debris left over from their party, drinking the dregs left in some of the glasses.  By the time our parents arose, my sister and I were staggering around the room, quite ill.

Yarranabee Road, Darling Point.

The first memory I have was when my father picked me up and pretended to throw me off the balcony.  It was night, we were very high up and I was so terrified I clung to him as he laughed his head off.  He was never a cruel man and probably had no idea that I would remember that fear.  We moved from the house in Darling Point when I was 2 years old, up into the Blue Mountains.

We lived in towns such as Lawson, Warrimoo and Wentworth Falls, where we saw snow for the first time. Dad stood at the open front door with a huge grin on his face and as I walked down the stairs he pelted a snow ball at me!  We loved it, even when the snow melted in the spring because the grounds of the Convent next door transformed into a massive field of large daffodils.

A newspaper photographer snapped us as we welcomed our Aunty L home from New York.

After my paternal grandfather died leaving some money to Dad, we moved down to Wallacia. It was nestled in the foothills beside the Nepean River, where our parents leased/managed a guest house and riding school.  To this day I still love the smell of horses, chaff and even the odour of fresh manure is tolerable.

The guest house had two maids who nicknamed us "the Duchess" and "the Gypsy".  We even had our own small playground with a type of merry-go-round and a swing.

My grandfather had also left us his pacer, a magnificent animal that my sister fearlessly rode.

Our only entertainment in 1956 was the radio, records and the occasional Ball my parents would host in the ballroom attached to the main building of the guest house.  I will never forget the magnificent ball gowns or cocktail dresses ladies wore, nor how handsome the men looked in their dinner suits (tuxedos).  Dad would let me dance with him while I stood on his shoes!  I can still remember the beautiful smell of Mum's red lipstick, something I've never smelt since.

My favourite radio show was a mystery called "No Holiday for Halliday" and the first song I fell in love with was Mahalia Jackson singing "Whole World in his Hands" (click these green links to listen on YouTube).  When some Americans came to stay with us they played and sang "Jamaica Farewell", "Island in the Sun" and the "Banana Boat Song" introducing us to Harry Belefonte, who I immediately fell in love with ... although I tried not to be unfaithful to Nat King Cole whom I adored!☺  They also taught us to make delicious iced tea!  As you can see from one of the following photos, I had a black doll and I couldn't understand why anyone would want to wear this pasty, white skin.  I wished I had been born with black skin until much later when I first heard about racism ... then I couldn't imagine that I would ever have the courage to stand up to such mindless hatred!

When I was 4, I was poisoned.  I don't remember how it happened, but I vividly remember Mum and Dad, with me sitting between them in the front seat of the big, black Buick, racing to the hospital.  We picked up a motorbike policeman who, once he heard Dad's story, gave us an escort all the way.  My head was drooping as I drifted off to sleep but Mum kept slapping my face and yelling at me to stay awake.  This was the only time I was ever hit by either parent.  At the hospital, I gagged as they shoved a rubber tube down my throat and pumped my stomach.

Later my parents told me the background story.  Apparently my sister was very sick and was prescribed small doses of medicine, ie. half a teaspoon.  When not in use, this bottle was placed on top of the wardrobe, but it seemed I wanted what my sister was having so badly that I pushed my bed over to the wardrobe, climbed up, grabbed the bottle, opened it and drank half the contents.  Strangely, I remember everything else including all the people at the guest house lined up outside as we drove away, but not this incident.
Not long after, I was thrown off a horse and, catching my foot in the stirrup, got dragged for some way before my brother could catch up and stop the animal.  From that day on I was terrified of heights and the only horse I could ride was "Snowball" ... she was as wide as she was tall and could never do more that walk at a sedate pace. ☺ My brother and sister teased me of course, but that's perfectly normal in any family.

That December my brother died; he was only 15.  I have no memory of his death so I'm sure that I've blocked it out.  All through our childhood Mum and Dad insisted that he died of pneumonia, but their level of grief was so high, they went into deep mourning every Xmas.  My sister and I knew they were lying, but it wasn't until after I was married that I demanded to know how he really died.  They told me that they found him in a wardrobe ... he had hung himself with a dog leash!  I can't even imagine how any parent could cope with the death of a child, but to find your only son hanged?  Unimaginable!  Only then did I begin to understand all the drunken, depressed Xmases in our house, their violent fights and my mother's agoraphobia.

Mum told me that my brother had become deeply religious, spending his free time with a Catholic priest, keeping many bibles and other religious texts.  He also criticised her for wearing make up and for the way she dressed.  This is why I find his suicide so hard to understand, because it's supposed to be a mortal sin.  Although our family was Anglican, Mum said the only thing that saved her sanity after J's death were regular visits from that same Catholic priest (his guilty conscience?).  I will never know why J died, but I've speculated over the years.  He was an only child for 10 years ... did he feel neglected when his twin sisters arrived to claim all the attention?  Could he have been gay and too afraid to go on with his life or was he molested by that priest who helped Mum with her grief?

Back to 1956 and we moved away from Wallacia for a while, but Mum and Dad returned to give the guest house another try.  Sadly, the dry winter brought bush fires and I remember Dad leaving with the other volunteer fire fighters armed with only wet, Hessian bags to beat back the flames while Mum, guests and the staff hosed down the roof and gutters.  The sky was full of sparks and we could hear the roar and see the glow of the flames on the other side of the river.  We accommodated everyone who had lost their house or been evacuated.  There was no money to help with expenses, so when the floods came in summer and the guest house was again full of refugees, Mum and Dad became bankrupt.  Dad had already traded the Buick in for a two-toned blue Zephyr and we watched sadly as it was repossessed.  Later I remembered that the rubber inner-tube we used for swimming was still in the boot of that car.

Our Dad always tried to do the right thing by Twin and me, but sometimes we just didn't cooperate.  For example, the time he took us to the movies to see Pinocchio.  We were enjoying ourselves right up until the giant whale swallowed Geppetto then we lost it!  We were terrified.  I was crying and shaking but Twin was screaming so Dad, utterly embarrassed, dragged us out and rushed us home.  Another time he took us to the Circus ... an enjoyable night out, surely?  And it was until all these little people (we called them Dwarves in those days) rushed out into the arena wearing cowboy outfits and shooting guns.  I nearly died of fright and tried to climb my Dad like a ladder, hanging over his shoulder so they couldn't get me.  Again, we beat a hasty retreat and I think Dad swore he would never take us to another show.  ☺ 

He would come home from work every Friday with two Golden Books and strange as it may seem, Twin and I always picked different books.  We never fought over toys or other possessions because we had completely different tastes.  Everyone kept giving me stupid dolls when all I really wanted was a train set or a chemistry set, but I loved it when our Aunt, who travelled extensively, sent us a parcel from Hawaii.  It contained real Muumuus and two fresh Frangipani Leis, packed in dry ice.  During her travels, she also sent us silver charms from all around the world and dolls in their national costumes, which I've kept in excellent condition to this day.

My favourite charms are a tiny roulette wheel that actually spins and a set of real playing cards, enclosed in a miniature silver box from Monte Carlo.

My favourite dolls are a Native American girl in a beautifully beaded, fringed, leather tunic and pants and an Hawaiian girl in a flowered top and grass skirt.  Twin's favourite was an Eskimo in a lovely, furry hooded jacket and pants.