Every year, on the day after school broke up for the summer holidays, we'd be on the road at 4 am —to beat the traffic our dad would tell us, and we wouldn't return 'til the day before school started 6 weeks later.
We were headed for Dromana, a sleepy seaside village on Port Phillip Bay, where our great Uncle Ralph and Aunty Elsie had a boat shed on the gently lapping yellow sand beach. Their caravan sat behind it like an appendage and our family set up camp in the small flat of land across the road under an overhanging hill of wild tea tree scrub.
We had a square stand up white canvas tent with poles painted bright blue. Our dad Chassa-boy had painted them all himself. It all packed neatly into a bright blue trailer we towed behind our cream coloured Chevvie. The tent housed a central living room, side bedrooms and verandah kitchen with gas stove in the front. We had deck chairs, a camping table and stools for meals and card games, but our long summer days were all spent on the beach.
The boat shed doors opened onto the sand, the old clinker row boat it was built to house was rolled out daily and lay at a tilt on the sand ready for use. Inside the oldies could escape the heat, sitting in their deck chairs, reading the newspapers, doing the crossword, drinking beers, dispensing glasses of ice cold lemon cordial on demand to us salty sandy kids, and at lunch time magically producing cold meats and sandwiches from the ice chest. Once when I was reminiscing fondly about those days my mother Marj said all she could remember was making tomato sandwiches from morn 'til dusk. And perhaps she did, for in my memory she is in the shadows, not the foreground like Chassa-boy, who was in the water throwing us up in the air, playing cricket and badminton on the beach, taking us night fishing.
We didn't need supervising or entertaining. I was content to spend the day at the edge of the sea, lying in the shallows in my facemask and flippers, fascinated by the world of tiny shells and sea animals rolling about in the lapping of miniature waves.
My brother Pip lived on the water, paddling his blue and white banana ski out as far as he could go, and later sailing the family Heron, a small sailing boat that Chassa-boy built with his bare hands.
There were after dinner games on the beach too, where the teens would dig a huge whole then all jump in it covering themsleves with a blanket. Someone else had to guess how many people were in the hole and name them. Then I guess they were out. Looking back, it was a great way to get close and physical and according to the adults, all good clean fun. We had beach bonfires too and went night fishing in boats with small lantern lights, gliding silently across mirrored water, spearing the gar fish that lay just under the surface of the water. Uncle Ralph would cook them up for breakfast and serve with a lashing of baked beans from a tiny tin of Heinz just our size.
On cloudy days my brother and I would turn away from the beach and climb the tea tree hill behind our camp, following a myriad of grey sand paths and tree root steps. Spiky banksia blossoms would stick into our bare feet, but we would carry on oblivious, to reach the road above, sweaty and thirsty. In that road, in a tall imposing white house lived our great Auntie Eva and her husband Frank. They would greet us with ice cold lemon cordial and some kind of sweet biscuits, the like of such deliciousness I have never tasted since. A tour of their large garden woud follow and they would load us up with tomatos and cucumbers to take back to camp.
The aunts and uncles of Chassa-boy's family were a fine, hardworking, golfing and bowling lot. His father Roley had about about ten siblings and from difficult beginnings in the depression years they had all done well; all owned their own houses, worked in solid, secure jobs and retired on well deserved pensions. Uncle Ralph had his own furniture making business that went from strength to strength and is still going today. How Marj fitted into this family is not clear. Certainly Chassa-boy's mother Deanie would have preferred a dolly bird to an intelligent artistic woman who loved to read more than she loved to gossip. I know she felt on the outer from time to time among this boisterous beer drinking, card playing crowd, but she had her own large family of aunts and uncles who loved her too: Aunty Peg, Saisie and Molly were all strong women and there were some uncles too, so there were certainly plenty of rellies to visit all over the state. The early home movies and brownie box photos show life going on as normal. Birthdays, christenings, packing the old Ford to go on holiday, hiking at Wilsons Prom; not a crack or a whiff of what was too come. Perhaps the early life of a family is always like that.
We were headed for Dromana, a sleepy seaside village on Port Phillip Bay, where our great Uncle Ralph and Aunty Elsie had a boat shed on the gently lapping yellow sand beach. Their caravan sat behind it like an appendage and our family set up camp in the small flat of land across the road under an overhanging hill of wild tea tree scrub.
We had a square stand up white canvas tent with poles painted bright blue. Our dad Chassa-boy had painted them all himself. It all packed neatly into a bright blue trailer we towed behind our cream coloured Chevvie. The tent housed a central living room, side bedrooms and verandah kitchen with gas stove in the front. We had deck chairs, a camping table and stools for meals and card games, but our long summer days were all spent on the beach.
The boat shed doors opened onto the sand, the old clinker row boat it was built to house was rolled out daily and lay at a tilt on the sand ready for use. Inside the oldies could escape the heat, sitting in their deck chairs, reading the newspapers, doing the crossword, drinking beers, dispensing glasses of ice cold lemon cordial on demand to us salty sandy kids, and at lunch time magically producing cold meats and sandwiches from the ice chest. Once when I was reminiscing fondly about those days my mother Marj said all she could remember was making tomato sandwiches from morn 'til dusk. And perhaps she did, for in my memory she is in the shadows, not the foreground like Chassa-boy, who was in the water throwing us up in the air, playing cricket and badminton on the beach, taking us night fishing.
We didn't need supervising or entertaining. I was content to spend the day at the edge of the sea, lying in the shallows in my facemask and flippers, fascinated by the world of tiny shells and sea animals rolling about in the lapping of miniature waves.
My brother Pip lived on the water, paddling his blue and white banana ski out as far as he could go, and later sailing the family Heron, a small sailing boat that Chassa-boy built with his bare hands.
There were after dinner games on the beach too, where the teens would dig a huge whole then all jump in it covering themsleves with a blanket. Someone else had to guess how many people were in the hole and name them. Then I guess they were out. Looking back, it was a great way to get close and physical and according to the adults, all good clean fun. We had beach bonfires too and went night fishing in boats with small lantern lights, gliding silently across mirrored water, spearing the gar fish that lay just under the surface of the water. Uncle Ralph would cook them up for breakfast and serve with a lashing of baked beans from a tiny tin of Heinz just our size.
On cloudy days my brother and I would turn away from the beach and climb the tea tree hill behind our camp, following a myriad of grey sand paths and tree root steps. Spiky banksia blossoms would stick into our bare feet, but we would carry on oblivious, to reach the road above, sweaty and thirsty. In that road, in a tall imposing white house lived our great Auntie Eva and her husband Frank. They would greet us with ice cold lemon cordial and some kind of sweet biscuits, the like of such deliciousness I have never tasted since. A tour of their large garden woud follow and they would load us up with tomatos and cucumbers to take back to camp.
The aunts and uncles of Chassa-boy's family were a fine, hardworking, golfing and bowling lot. His father Roley had about about ten siblings and from difficult beginnings in the depression years they had all done well; all owned their own houses, worked in solid, secure jobs and retired on well deserved pensions. Uncle Ralph had his own furniture making business that went from strength to strength and is still going today. How Marj fitted into this family is not clear. Certainly Chassa-boy's mother Deanie would have preferred a dolly bird to an intelligent artistic woman who loved to read more than she loved to gossip. I know she felt on the outer from time to time among this boisterous beer drinking, card playing crowd, but she had her own large family of aunts and uncles who loved her too: Aunty Peg, Saisie and Molly were all strong women and there were some uncles too, so there were certainly plenty of rellies to visit all over the state. The early home movies and brownie box photos show life going on as normal. Birthdays, christenings, packing the old Ford to go on holiday, hiking at Wilsons Prom; not a crack or a whiff of what was too come. Perhaps the early life of a family is always like that.
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