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

under the staircase. They are all fond memories, yet most of the time we lived life as paupers.
    The following year, Mum, my brothers Ian and Robbie, and I moved to Ringwood. We would be living in a house near Mum’s parents, who had arranged rental accommodation for us. The address was on the corner of Great Ryrie Street and Bedford Road. Known as ‘Corbett’s Orchid’, it was our first real house. It was a half-acre block with a huge yard.
    They were an odd couple, my mum’s parents, Nana Roy and Uncle Jock. Uncle Jock, Nan’s second husband, was a tall, bonny Scot with a broad accent and a beaming smile. He enjoyed life and loved us kids. Nana Roy, Mum’s mum, by comparison was tiny, grey-haired, and always busy. Their house was always spotless. She continually nagged Uncle Jock, yet his smile remained firmly planted.
    After a brief stay in the Great Ryrie Street house, we moved to Wilana Street in Ringwood, right next to Nana Roy’s. My first memory of this new address was vivid. It happened several days after moving into our new old-weatherboard house. I would have been about three or four. I recall lying on my back on the front lawn, staring up at a huge, tall, dead tree. There were clouds rushing across the sky. It was quite windy. Suddenly, the tree started to fall. I got up, rushed inside, and screamed the news to my mother. We ran outside. The tree was big enough to hit the house if it fell in that direction. Yet, when Mum rushed outside, the tree hadn’t moved. I’m sure I muttered something like, ‘It must have gone back up, Mum.’
    It was many years later that I realised the tree hadn’t gone back up. Like another train in the station that makes you believe you’re moving when in fact you’re stationary, I’d imagined the clouds had stopped and the tree was falling. Such a fright for any youngster is bound to be one of their first memories.
    There were four of us living in this seemingly large weatherboard house (many years later, I discovered it was tiny) with a radio. Yes, it was just Mum and her three boys; I was the middle one.
    It’s funny, but in years to come the sound of the radio would always be my first recollection of that house. It was always switched on. Mum used to listen to the radio serials: D24, which was a Hector Crawford production, Hop Harrigan, and others.
    Ringwood was an outer suburb of Melbourne — the last major suburb east of the city, and a 30-minute train trip from Flinders Street Station. I loved this new environment. Nana Heard would also visit regularly, and we often returned to Smith Street. The train trip was always exciting. Ringwood was different from Collingwood in many ways. For instance, instead of us having to go to a shop to buy bread, milk, and ice at Ringwood, a horse and cart delivered those items.
    Then there was the lavatory. Smith Street had had one with a chain that you pulled when you finished your business. It not only flushed; it made a low, hollow, bopping noise for ages. However, at Ringwood there was a whole industry involved around the humble lavatory, which was in a small room out the back. Once a week, at dawn, a man wearing a beret and a strange-looking leather cover on his shoulder would appear. He would run into our backyard carrying a can, open a rear flap to our lavatory, and remove the can inside it. Then he would unlatch the lid on the empty can he carried, attach the lid on the full one, and put the empty one under the lavatory seat. Closing the rear door, he’d heave the full one onto his leather-covered shoulder. The full can seemed to be very heavy. The man would sprint to the truck — commonly called the ‘night cart’ — shove our can onto the tray, and then the truck would move to the next house. There would be two men operating either side of the street; I watched them every time they came to our house for the first few weeks.
    Suddenly, our life changed