The View From Connor's Hill by Barry Heard Read Free Book Online Page A

Secretly, many a husband stayed away during those times, pretending to have absconded, because deserted mothers had preference when it came to what little support there was available to poor households from churches and other aid organisations. Sadly, after the severity of the Depression subsided, some husbands chose to stay away — particularly those who had offered little help to their family. I believe my pop fitted into that category somewhere.
    The dwelling at Smith Street wasn’t actually a house. The entrance was by a side street, and the front of the dwelling was a pawn shop, or op-shop. Typical of so many families who had suffered through the Depression, my father’s family had been evicted four times; their stay in Smith Street became the longest they had ever stayed at the one address.
    World War II saw the young men in the Heard family join the services — my father into the army, and his brother Cliff, the navy. On return from one leave, he married Mum. They moved into the tiny room at the Smith Street house; Nana Heard now slept under the staircase. The other five Heards had to fit into the remaining two bedrooms, but that arrangement didn’t last. Baby Ian arrived, and my parents moved to the big bedroom downstairs.
    Dad was then posted to Townsville, and he was there when it was bombed. Darwin, Broome, and Townsville were all targets of Japanese bombing during that stage of the war. Yet, as so often happens, our politicians kept knowledge of most of this from the Australian public.
    It was during his time in Townsville that my father became very ill with a blood disorder. At the time, this was diagnosed as having stemmed from his multiple broken noses. He had managed to break it several times while competing as an amateur boxer representing the army in inter-service bouts. He was ill for many months. The army, unable to offer any further medical assistance, discharged him from the hospital and the service. He returned to 23 Smith Street. It was 1944; the end of the war was in sight.
    Not long after he arrived home, Mum became pregnant with me. Dad immediately returned to civilian employment, but his health never really improved or changed for almost two years. Consequently, he struggled to keep working as an upholsterer. Between them, the entire Heard family eked out a living that paid the rent and put food on the table, but nothing more.
    By early 1945, I was born, and Ian had a young brother. Now it was my parents and we two boys in the big room. In January 1946, Mum fell pregnant again. Within months, my father’s lingering blood disorder attacked a major organ — his heart. He stopped work, and his health deteriorated rapidly. His brother Cliff, who still lived at Smith Street at the time, vividly remembers carrying my dad through the house and along the street to catch a tram to the hospital. He told me that, at the most, my father would have weighed roughly six stone. He died within days. Although Dad was given the simplest funeral, I know from enquiries and from talking to family members that, when my father died, the entire Heard clan was almost penniless and destitute.
    Three months after my father’s death, my brother Robbie was born. He was a blue baby — for him to live after birth required a full blood transfusion. Life for my mother must have been hell.
    The Heards all rallied together — one of the plans had been to adopt us three boys into the other Heard families, since by now three of them had married or planned to marry. Then help came in the way of Legacy. My father, being in the army, had been away during a lot of the war. He didn’t go outside Australia, but somehow his circumstances fitted Legacy’s requirements. Mum got a pension, and we remained in Smith Street.
    Oblivious to all of this, I thought my life as a youngster had been good. I can still remember Nana Heard, the house, and the upstairs area — the tiny room, and the alcove