The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll, (the third hour of drowsy morning name). Shakespeare

There was a sound that carried straight to my room where I waited, in the house gone suddenly quiet, as the other members of the family industriously disappeared to the various remote tasks they could find, so as to remove themselves from any  involvement in what had occurred and what was to come. The sombre (but certainly more dreadful sounding to me), foot-falls of my father as he climbed the back steps, echoed on the concrete, solid and unyielding. The sound as dreadful and foreboding as a battle drum. That sound fell upon my ears, as the tolling of the bell before a battle (hence the reference to Henry the Fifth). He approached the back kitchen door. Passing the small laundry, in which sat the just as scarey standing wringer tub washing machine, with the hand mangling rollers.

Yes, several of us had lost a certain amount of skin off the back of our hands and received more than a few bruised fingers from the crushing hard rubber rollers, when trying to feed in the sheets or other wet washing. The rollers, once engaged with a flip of the small trigger handle, would crush the excessive water out of the material in preparation for hanging out on the Hills Hoist® washing line. The Hills Hoist® was a very clever Australian invention (hey, credit where credit is due). For those not familiar with the name or reading this in a country foreign to Australia or New Zealand. The Hills Hoist® is an outdoor four-armed multi-line, height adjustable rotating drying device – also made a great swing, so long as your parents didn’t see you. But could only handle children of a light weight as any children over 40kg (multiply that by four – one on each arm) tended to cause a slight downward deviation of the poles. Lets be honest, it was designed for washing of around 25kgs in weight, not 160kgs of children having a great time. The cause of such downward bending could quickly be diagnosed by any parent and recriminations always followed.

But that is sufficient attention to the drying side of washing. It was the terrifying, tissue eating rollers which caused the real pain when washing. (unless the rotating hoist pole caught you on the back of the head, which occasionally did happen). The rollers did not distinguish human flesh from fabric when engaging with their full pressure squeeze. It took at least two crushings to discover there was a quick release on the far side of the swivel roller arm. Usually on the side furthest away from where you were standing or just out of reach and angle to be able to release it. Besides, usually you were too busy trying to pull your hand out of the roller with your other hand, screaming in the meantime for help, before the rollers gathered in your entire hand, then arm, then shoulder… it was terrifying to get the hand caught.

(continued tomorrow).

With all the jumping and shouting

With all the promotion currently underway for the 2012 London Olympics it of course leads to reflection of the broad jump and the world record for the shortest jump ever made. I am sure the attempt by us to jump from the steps into the pool water and instead coming down hard on the side of the pool (minor injuries occurring only) and causing a flattening of the upright metal wall, must fall into challenging that record. If we had been able to leap immediately to our feet or, had the metal been firmly balanced, it may have sprung back instantly. This may have caused us to be catapulted away across the grass with landing zone undetermined, but it would have saved our lawn and our father’s vegetable garden from the flash flooding wave of water that gushed out of the pool, frantically escaping the abuse by the rowdy children. The powerful wave of the rapidly breaching water sweeping us away from the edge and flooding the grass, garden and garage entrance.

If I recall, the pool held about three thousand litres of water and it was not a quick fill situation. I think we had the hose in and filling the pool overnight and into the following afternoon. Creating the excited anticipation for us all, looking forward to the first pool swim of the summer. It was also not supposed to be a quick empty situation and such an incident occurring, in about eight seconds after the failed landing/collision, meant that the pool would not be refilled for a week at least (if it was early in the Summer), and not again at all (if it was late in the Summer). Of course, regardless, those responsible, following a certain (undisclosed) punishment, would also be banned from entering the pool, as well as earning the ongoing angry disappointment of our fellow brothers and sisters.

Strangely, we didn’t accidentally collapse the pool only once. I believe we did it at least once a year. Accidentally. We were aiming for achievement. For success by leaping confidently from the steps, clearing the top edge of the pool surround and successfully landing with a splash into the water, triumphant. It may not have been our fault that this would result in either a partial or total collapse of the poolside. It may have been simply that in setting up the pool each year, the position of the pool was not constant, but, our enthusiasm to try always was, regardless of the consequences (nee:punishment). 

This of course brings me back to what started this thread of thought (24/4/2012), awaiting the meeting with my father after the incident with my brother. 

(continued tomorrow)

Ring of fast water

As I mentioned yesterday, the pool was constructed of a ring formed by a strip of metal on its edges and when filled with water, the thin metal wall, with the pressure of the water pushing outwards with equal force, stayed upright (see physics again, I keep saying kids should be taught that first). We would dive from one side to the other of the pool and force a wave to wobble the entire ring, destabilising the shape. Or we would dive across the pool from different quarters and cause waves to collide at varying points. It became a regular game to see who could displace the most water. Another regular way was, when three (or more) of us were in the pool, we would start swimming around the inside of the pool as close to the edge as possible in an attempt to get a whirlpool effect happening. Then taking diving leaps as we went around, chasing the feet of the person in front of us, we would try to force a continual wave up the side of the pool. If we were fast enough, when we stopped pushing the water around we would float and let the spinning wave drag us along around the edge.

The back concrete steps as mentioned, were a place where the banished would sit, watching the privileged still playing in the water. Or, occasionally when any of us would be told to take a 15 mins break out of the water. We would sit, often shivering with the hypo-thermically induced chill from swimming too long in the cold water during our cool summers. The water draining off our skin, forming a small pool beneath our trembling bodies on the rough concrete of the step.

The area of grass where the pool would be set up on each year was just at the rear of the house, below the ‘boys’ bedroom window and to the right side of the steps (if you were coming down them). And, incidentally, was only a yard or two away from the side of the steps.  The rest of the yard below the pool was the annual vegetable garden patch and the lawn running down to the back fence. Near the rear of the fence at the back of our yard was a small apple tree. The far side of the yard was where the garage, unfamiliar to cars, and the small work shed sat. All of this seemed well spread out and large in appearance to we children. Though it was probably no more than five or six metres across, to the wall of the shed. But surprisingly the day one of us decided they could jump into the pool, a pool containing several thousand litres of water, from the concrete steps, and didn’t quite make it, was the day we had our first glimpse of flash flooding and the consequences (and I’m not referring only to the destruction of areas of the yard) and the aftermath of such a failed attempt at superior splashing.

(continued tomorrow)

Pooling the resources

There was a time I remember when the idea of jumping from the concrete steps at the rear of the house was a real challenge. We possessed a pool. I say possessed, because it was certainly not an in-ground pool. It was a ‘Parapool’. A long strip of corrugated metal which when joined by a metal seam piece, would form a large specific and sharp edged ring of metal, around a metre in height and 3 metres across. The dangerously sharp metal edges covered with a thin band of metal slit tubes, clipped on and sightly overlapped. The rubberised skin liner was then laid around the inside and the wall edges were stretched over the metal covered lip and held in place by similar slit tubes made of plastic.

Over the years many patches had been applied to the liner, but it all held the pressure. Not just the water, but the pressure of many children splashing, diving, running around to make a whirlpool and trying various aquatic based experiments, including the building of homemade aqua lungs out of plastic bottles. Once again, knowledge of physics would have been useful as you can’t just put a tube into a plastic bottle and weight yourself in the pool planning to breath only from the bottle. There was something about needing ‘air pressure’ not just air. Another tip is when ‘weighting’ yourself to stay underwater, make sure you have a quick release. Needing other family members to jump into the pool, fully clothed, to haul you out because a plastic bottle only holds about two breathes is not a way of winning friends. At least they were prepared to save me.

It was our annual thrill anticipating the setting up of the system. Our father complaining slightly about the annual killing of the lawn where the pool would be set up for the summer. The knowledge that the summer weather was going to soar as high as 28 degrees Celsius. And that there would be a lot of splashing and yelling and screaming, as we thoroughly enjoyed the use of the pool. The steps also served as the punishment spot when someone was ordered out for mis-behaving or excessive noise. To have to sit on the hot concrete steps for a time while the others continued to play and tease the punished was terrible. 

The pool usually took about 30 hours to fill, so once the hose was started the excitement built. It was discovered with use of the steps. that the pool could be emptied in about 12 seconds.

(continued tomorrow)

One Step at a Time

There was a slope to the side of our house which meant the guests visiting had only to step up three steps to be level at the front door, but at the rear were the big concrete red-sided steps, eleven in all that led up to the laundry and the back door. Yes, with our family there had been a few stumbling and falling accidents over the time we lived here. Particularly in the winter when the steps could end up with a layer of ice-freeze across them and you could inadvertently slid off their surface and come down hard on the concrete edge or, if slipping too quickly, collect a whack to the lower back. I’m sure that all of us, at one time or another, had taken such a fall. Coming up them you could occasionally stumble and fall to whack your knees and scrape a hand, when you were small. I doubted there was a chance my father would now stumble coming up the stairs, which was probably a good thing as in the event of anything like that happening I would be blamed for being the cause of it. Which would only have added to the arriving punishment.

Remembering the concrete stairs rising up from the back yard. There was always that thrill of jumping from the steps as you ran down them. We were kids. You’d be chasing one of the other kids or the dog, one of the two we had while there (but one I will talk about later – Michael O’Shaunessy, yes that was actually the dog’s name).  As you leapt down the stairs you would try to jump from the third or forth step from the bottom, trying to clear the concrete path and land on the grass. I do say trying. There had been a few instances where one of us, not quite clearing the path, would land on the edge before the grass, causing the ankle of the lander/landee (okay, no such word) to twist, roll and/or sprain. This of course meant the person being chased would pause, turn and usually laugh. Adding to the temper of the fallen, or, if chasing the dog he would immediately turn back to you evoking visions of Lassie running to the aid of Timmy. But no. The dog would think you were playing as you rolled on the grass in pain and he would immediately jump on you and start licking or snapping at you depending on how worked up you had made him prior to your fall.

If the snapping turned to biting and you started calling out in pain, trying to shout above the dogs excitement, while hiding your face from his teeth or tongue, a slightly non-concerned voice would usually call out from the kitchen area above. “Keep it down out there.” The sole level of concern exhibited. Or, that classic comment when being mildly savaged by an excited terrier, “You kids stop teasing the dog!”

(continued tomorrow)

Little Boxes, in the garage

I'll come back to those telephonists at a later date, right now I was distracted with remembering many of the things in our garage, that was never used for storing a car, that my fathers gaze had drifted across as he made his way to the back of the house. Apart from a multitude of old telephones and redirection boards, which my brothers and I often enjoyed messing about with, even though we weren’t supposed to, there were other boxes too. Many of them taped closed, always a way of piquing the curiousity of any young boy. A bit like placing a wet paint sign on a bench, everyone wants to touch it to see if it really is wet. Or is it our way of verifying if the information that we are being told is accurate?  Do we doubt everything?

I had no doubt that my punishment was coming. Distracting myself with thoughts of the garage was helpful. And the contents of many of those boxes were never revealed to me. They were taped closed and many had arrived at the house from our last address that same way, never opened but moved at each address. I wonder how many were never opened over the years and even after leaving the house, and the decade later when the family left the house, if any followed them, still unopened? Even today I have a few boxes like that. But, it is my intent to sort through and really discard what I have no real future use for. There are always things though. Things that evoke memories and act as pleasure reminders. Things that add reality to certain parts of your life. Or you think add hard facts to a moment that occurred. Like I said about this blog. This is my history, as I remember it. It may be inaccurate in parts, or even completely wrong, but it is my version.

It may be that I have made certain memories of events work a particular way, as a way to insulate my memory. But that is how all of us develop and reason. Isn’t it? We learn from our mistakes and react to them a particular way. It doesn’t mean I hide from what I have done when I shouldn’t have. But, as you can see from this current story I probably have several ‘boxes’ in my head that are taped shut, with memories packed away which are never actually opened. A glance at the ‘label’ reminds me I need to hang on to that particular ‘box’. I must carry those ‘boxes’ with me no matter where I go or where I end up. But the ‘boxes’, those certain memories, remain with me. 
(continued tomorrow)

I probably heard him

 My father passed by the Cacti and around the corner of the house to the back of the property. I probably imagined him pausing to survey the yard before approaching the back steps. To his left would be the small shed where his prized tools were stored (“Not to be touched for any reason. Ever!”). Below that small shed, the garage, which opened onto the back street I had so recently run along carrying the dead weight of my bleeding younger brother. I say opened, but in the few years we lived there I only recall that happening merely once or twice. Not ever having a car in the family, it was instead full of all sorts of things. Perhaps that was the introduction to my slight hoarding instinct that occasionally strikes me in these later years. That certain need to have things I don’t really need, but would hate to throw away. One thing I remember seeing in there was old office telephones.

I have mentioned my father worked for the Post Office. One of the reasons we moved around the country as much as we did. I have also mentioned that this was at the time when the Post Office was also a bank and it was also responsible for housing much of the telecommunications of the day. When I worked for the Telegram delivery section (more on that in a later blog), I recall attending several times a week the main room of the telephonists. Where several rows of women, and some men, sat all day at the banks of the holey boards. In front of them a collection of small plugs on cables which would be pulled out and plugged into any one of the multitude of holes in front of them. All the while issuing brief comments to the caller, “Stand by please”, “Connecting you now”. Not only did they make those comments, but usually they would be continuing conversations with persons on either side in between this. They would say something,  listen to the caller requests, acknowledged the caller request, pull out one particular plug and run it to a particular socket, to put the caller in touch with a more distant operator or to an actual number, and, back to the conversation they were having with the person on each side.

It was a wonderful thing to watch. The complexity of the telephone system, the sheer volume of people employed to connect the thousands of telephones in our town. And to consider this manual dance of connections was being performed in cities all over the world, from rooms of hundreds of telephonists, to the small country operator, the world spoke to each other because these people put them in contact by manoeuvring a plug from one socket to another.

(continued tomorrow)

 Alone and waiting

I believe I have already mentioned how the sudden hush had fallen on the household and the rapid departure of feet to various areas of the house and yard signalled that my father had arrived at the front gate and in a few short paces would be inside the front door, if it had been open. It wouldn’t be, as it was usually only opened for special visits and in this case no one would not want him to think they were waiting and listening for him.

Do you ever notice how quickly, when initially a group have been involved in something together and when an explanation is required by someone of higher authority or having to face a real confrontation, you can suddenly be left standing alone, despite any mass prior involvement. Standing solitary and obvious, as a lone pine on a high hill.  I suppose unions and such have faced this issue many times, and some major leaders (and persons in any structured form of employment to be honest), when the response to a particular unsavoury incident has everyone all stirred up and involved in the matter, until the actual incident has to be explained, or worse, has to be justified. As soon as the main leader is facing forward the numbers who had formed the support, thin, like fading mist as each finds a reason why it may not be necessary for them to actually be there, in person, or to be seen to be involved.

I was definitely alone now. All the fun of the park, the joy of the kite flying, the excitement of the caught kite, the thrill of the problem solving had definitely evaporated. Washed out of my system by the rush of adrenaline and fear at the thought of the accidental death of my younger brother in the journey home and now the upcoming meeting with my father which would require an explanation of all that had transpired.

So my ears strained even harder for the sound of his tread down the side of the house past the small cactus garden, which I only mention now, as the memory of the garden is also that it was used as a form of punishment at our house (at least once that particularly remember). An awful punishment of ‘having to weed it’. You couldn’t avoid getting prickles from the cacti and then afterwards you had to sit with your hands in a dish of milk to get the prickles out. Not just drawing out the prickles but it certainly drew out the punishment. Why would anyone outside of a desert keep cacti?. To punish your children.

(continued tomorrow)

Lightning strikes twice! Trust me. 

 A long time asked question of any child is the simple “Why?” We have all heard this. We have all uttered it many times in many stages of our growth and development from a mere infant to the adult we are today. “Why ….. is the sky blue?  …… is the sun hot?….can’t I have another?......  do I have to stop?” or the classic that seems to enter our minds and perpetually surface at different times in our lives, “Why me?”

I sat in the room wondering (yet again), why me? Waiting for my father to arrive. Having been ‘part’ of the cause for yet another serious accident, resulting in another serious injury affecting a member of my family, again. The examination of any statistical information would never assist in answering this question truthfully. There are billions of people on earth and likely hundreds of thousands of daily accidents all around the world. Or are there? Isn’t it possible that due to certain approaches of concentration of certain circumstances those accidents may only be focused in one particular place, one particular group of people or, unfortunately, focused on one individual. You must have heard people say, “he’s/she’s so unlucky”.  Statistics will play with the odds and the figures, with such phrases as “the chances of running into a number 8 needle, sticking out of the ball of wool, left by your aunt on the arm of the chair….is one in 417,657,231”. But think about it! That means there is a chance someone will have that happen. A ‘chance’ that someone will be the one. Ashley Brilliant had a saying I saw some years ago, “it’s a million to one chance, that I’m the one in a million” That is the point. Someone has to be.

Perversely that also does not prevent the odds for similar or completely different incidents happening to the same person. Statistics will simply spread the myth that because lots of people engage in using needles, then an accident such as that happening will only happen there once. Wrong! There are people who have been struck by lightning more than once. And most of us grew up believing that “lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place”. Another grossly incorrect phrase. They may not have been standing in the exact same place (more on that in a later blog), or even the same vicinity, but they have been struck. Twice or more. People say, “How unlucky” and “What are the chances?’ forget it. Those people are choosing to believe the myth spread by statistics. It does, and can happen, more than once, to the same person. Just because there are people all over the world it doesn’t mean the focus of any incident will be. I know. Here I sit waiting to explain why it has happened here, to me, again.

(continued tomorrow)

Accidents will happen (Elvis Costello?)

Accidents occur regularly and it’s not just based on the number of people. While today much is made of statistics by the powers that govern, it appears merely as a way to make broad decisions rather than actually find out what the individual may want or need. As a child I discovered my parents tended to make many decisions based on what was an arbitrary non decision making democratic system. In that it didn’t really give us a choice or option, but directed us to think, react or behave in a way that suited their decision. Think about it.

Do you ever recall your parents asking, “Do you want a smack?” Modern parents may not understand the question, as they are not allowed to smack at all, or so many think. This was long ago when ‘parents’, without government intervention, were actually responsible for deciding the appropriate behaviour of their children and if required a smack may have been given as punishment, instantly handed out as a reasonable form of behavioural correction.

The often-uttered phrase by my mother, “Do you want a smack?” was not generally presented with any other option. It was never “Do you want a smack or an ice-cream?” (In fact the reason you may have been given the ultimatum was because you were performing inappropriately, because you actually wanted an ice-cream). So there was generally one alternative. Stop whatever you were doing that made your mother ask the question, or receive the smack. This would teach you a basic form of decision making without necessarily improving your decision-making skills. A choice would develop your decision-making skills. “Do you want a smack, or to go and stand in the corner with your hands on your head for a time?”  Then you would have to decide. Which had the greater pain? Which would inconvenience you most? Which could you tolerate? Regardless, you would still have to stop what you were doing, but you felt more empowered as you had a choice. It would be your decision. You would decide. Your parent would get the benefit of the change in behaviour and you the benefit of making a considered decision.

However, as I waited for the arrival in my room of my father (I was still sitting there, still expecting some form of retribution for my part in my brothers accident), I doubted he would be interested in granting me options for the upcoming punishment. At least death had been removed from the table, as my brothers head injury, while severe, had not been a terminal as I had first thought.

(Continued tomorrow).

 How statistics hurt

How to explain the prevalence of accidents within our family? As young as I was I had heard of statistics. As I understood it then, it was a way of telling us of what we were part of, or not. An example I remember, watching an annual television show for a ‘telethon’ (Fundraising 24 hour programme where celebrities and others do things to help raise pledges and donations for a cause). The shows focus was for ‘mental health’ and when they gave us the statistic that one in ten people would suffer some form of mental illness (This was the 1970’s and yes, that figure has since been hugely revised) I was curious. I must have worried about it, for later I looked around our dinner table of a family of ten.

I obviously had some strange expression on my face as I recall my mother looking at me slightly concerned and asking what was wrong. “I was just wondering which one of us” was my simple reply. “Which one of us what, dear?” My mother tried to continue the thread of the conversation. This in itself was a major achievement for our mother, with such a large family gathered along both sides of the table and multiple conversations, requests for passing of dishes, management of table skills and maintaining an equal, or fair (and there is a difference), division of shares of the bounty, echoing around the room, she was usually able to answer, address or spot some infringement simultaneously. Right now for a moment she was focussed on my concerns.

“I was wondering which one of us would have the mental problems?”

All noise ceased. Cutlery frozen in mid movement. It was probably one of my older sisters who snickered first, understanding the full implications of my innocent remark, and, it was enough to trigger a quick unexpected slap on the back of my head from my father. My head being slightly closer to the table due to my trying to look down the length of the bench at the time, knocked forward into the mashed potatoes I had just secured from the serving dish a moment before as the dish had passed me by. This of course caused a more significant outbreak of laughter. ‘Eat your dinners’, was the slightly snappy comment from my mother, although I definitely saw her trying not to laugh as well. It only added to the moment. Before much longer everyone was laughing about the comment, the mashed potatoes and the slap. One of us was definitely going to suffer mental health problems and it would probably be me. In a simple way I had just encountered the issue many people have with statistics. It may not apply to me, but there are consequences anyway.

(continued tomorrow).

Silence quieter than possible

 If there is such a thing as ‘super’ hushed. Then my family, in various parts of the house, who had been whispering to each other while I waited, suddenly achieved ‘super, super’ hushed to the power of ten. An uncertain fearful stillness fell, loudly, if you catch my drift, throughout the house. It could only be they had simultaneously heard the arrival of my father onto the front path. There was a rapid scattering of persons. I distinctly heard the door to my sister’s bedrooms close. The toilet door next to my room also quietly shut. The sitting room, where my brother had been placed when awaiting the ambulance, just a few short moments before (an hour or so), had been cleaned up and suddenly sounded as if it had disappeared into a vacuum. There was even a pattering of several feet down the back steps which I know wasn’t the dog. I was definitely being abandoned to the wolves.

Well, abandoned to the decisions of my father. And when punishment was on the line… he made pretty big decisions. I often wondered if he was like that at work. Did the tellers at the post office (you remember when the post office used to have tellers and was a bank as well?), did they cringe when he walked the floors checking on the operation of his staff? Did a clerk, who had made a minor mistake want to throw themselves on their spike rather than face the potential wrath of the manager? Or was it only on the home front? I can’t imagine him making a staff member stand in the corner of the office with his hands held above their heads because of an error in calculations. Or taking the bike from the telegram delivery boy (yes, that was a job, before faxes, computer emails and text messages and, it was only boys who did it– more on that in a later blog), would he have deprived the ‘boy’ of his bike because of a bad delivery. I wonder.

However, right now I have more to wonder about than my father at work. I was wondering if my brother was going to survive the night. Since he was already confirmed as alive, logically, anything that happened to him now, was out of my control, so couldn’t be my fault, could it? Was that too simplistic? Lets face it I was certainly the oldest boy in the family, but I was still very young. I had not set out to deliberately rip his scalp apart. It was an … accident. And even then I had heard of the saying. Accidents will happen. Now my problem was to explain to my father… why they happened so often our family specifically.

Isolation for everyone

I sat in my room straining to hear the voices of other family members for, whenever one us was in serious trouble, those in the rest of the house went from normal shouting, ‘yelling’ and talking to ‘super-hushed’ breathless whispers, which made it even harder to hear through a closed door. At times like that I know our mother must have wondered why normally when she said ‘be quiet’ to one of us, the decibel meter may have fallen by one or two degrees at the most. She must always have been surprised to hear just how quiet we could really be when we had to. Like I said, fear is a great motivator. Our mother also had a standard comment when one of us were in some form of isolation pre punishment, and one of the others wanted to ask something, she would say immediately “do you want to join him?”

This of course must have been rhetorical as well, my parents obviously both had the knack. The question never really worked because, if someone else was sent to the room, given we shared rooms anyway, then you weren’t in isolation anymore and you would quietly talk to each other and eventually we would start playing together with the blocks (nowadays branded ‘Lego®’) or the Meccano® . (I put the registered label in as I think you have to).

As we discovered once, when another of my brothers and I had been sent to our room to ‘think’ and await ‘the return of your father’ for something we had done when we shouldn’t, we discovered that you don’t go to your room and start playing with toys. We were well into our play, about an hour or so, when the door to the room swung open forcefully and the operator, my father, with a massively angry glare on his face looked hard at the space where we were supposed to be sitting in thought on the bunk bed and he only observed blank space. We of course, very surprised by the door flying open, had looked up towards our glaring father with our eyes wide in startled fear like a pair of headlight-caught rabbits, hands frozen in mid construction. We then, like a bad comedy (like most modern bad sitcoms are unfortunately) turned our heads from where we were looking, to where we were supposed to be sitting on the bed. Meanwhile our father, face frozen in angry expression turned his head slowly from where we were supposed to be sitting to where we were. It would have seemed funny to any observer, unfortunately there was only us. Suffice to say, since we weren’t sitting and thinking about what we had done……. the punishment achieved an instant doubling of the eventual penalty and deprivation from the toys involved. School fairs and church rumble sale (garage sales) and other charity collections benefited greatly from our mistakes as kids over the years.

Sitting and thinking

So perhaps at that moment in time there was a special connection between my father and I. As we both sat, he on the homeward bound bus, and me on the edge of the bunk-bed in my room. Together, in thoughtful unison. Despite the ever reducing distance between us.  A real connection between the two. A ‘mental bond’ of sorts between father, and the son. As we sat thinking about the same thing, sort of, he, of what form the punishment would take and me of what form of punishment I would receive. But regardless, it would have been a moment that was special. A very rare occurrence. Something that I’m sure, given his regular utterance of, “are you really one of mine?’, was not something that occurred between us with any regularity.

I’m pretty sure I was one of his, but I suppose that was between my mother and he. People would say I had my ‘mothers eyes’ (I would swear she still has them), and only now, as I age, I do often notice the definite similarities to my father’s features appearing on my visage and physical form. Occasionally it causes a slight shudder as I catch a partial glimpse in a reflection or the odd unexpected connection on seeing a photograph. Yes, I can definitely confirm I am my father’s son. Mind you, I’m sure like many questions he asked me then, this was also rhetorical.

He may be gone now, and I may have survived the particular punishment he dispensed (again) but his presence is definitely there. It has certainly tempered how I perceive punishment and also how I respect authority. Good Authority. I’ll still go toe to toe with poor leadership, bad management and disrespectful behaviour, often at personal loss to myself, but I will never willingly stand by and allow bullies to control others, cruelty to hurt others, nor exploitation to occur if I can assist in stopping it. A person must never have power over another and misuse it. My father, in his own way, taught me that.

However this wasn’t then. Those lessons came later with reflection. We were young and my younger brother was on his way to hospital, his head (later identified as his scalp only) split open by the edge of a wooden stilt (currently lying in the grass in the park, forgotten in our rush to render aid), thrown by me, to free a trapped kite. The incident had occurred because of my good intentions, to spread the joy for us all wanting to fly the kite. The incident had ended with one down (‘Medic!’), several children shocked, no doubt one or two slightly traumatised and all worried about inclusion in the blame game, and myself, sitting in my room waiting for the axe to fall again.

(continued tomorrow)

Not Long Now.

There I was, sitting on the edge, my bunk edge, a precipice, overlooking the likely future demise of myself, perched in fear and panic. Knowing my father would soon return from work, and, once the other versions of the tale had been told he would.... erupt. Probably. Without necessarily confirming the actual first hand details, facts or even the personal reasons such an event had unfolded. Relying instead on the witnesses and hearsay to sway his judgement. And with my job today I know only too well how unreliable a eye-witness can be. Despite their intentions. Despite the belief in what they 'think' they saw. Most eye-witnesses are never accurate. The majority of witnesses did not see the whole incident, or even half the incident.

Consider  witnesses at a traffic crash. Who will say " I heard a crash and looked around and saw...." They are describing the event after the crash, the resulting motion and interaction of vehicles, pedestrians and the like. They are not eye witnesses, but simply 'reactive' witnesses. Certainly what they have seen, may contribute to solving what has occurred, but, no matter what they say, if they did not see the entire scene, before the incident, as the incident occurred and the actual crash and resulting mayhem, then they are not, and never can be, an eye witness. The know a version. Limited within a set of boundaries, clouded by hearing, sight, personal knowledge and personal stress. They can provide a fragment, but not a conclusive scenario.

My father was very good at doing just that, reacting with a  certain clouded judgement. Without truly hearing or considering my side of the story. My version, my reasons. He would say ' who do you think you are?' (this was of course rhetorical, silly me) and 'What was happening inside your head for you to go and do this' (whoops, rhetorical again, my mistake) Father would dispense his just opinion of what he thought, then dispense some form of a punishment. I'm not saying he wasn't fair. He just tended to react swiftly without thoughtful consideration. I think he put more thought into the method of punishment and it's delivery, than he did into the analysis of the actual incident. He would be homeward bound now. Carefully considering the sequence of events that led to the latest 'Dwyer' experience (of which there were many).

(Continued tomorrow)

Respect My A......

I probably knew almost every inch of the wall in my room. Intimately. Having reflected on it many times in such episodes of doom. All right ‘doom’ is likely an excessive term for the periods of ‘fear’ in which I waited for, ‘the return of your father’. The mere words signified a definite threat, and ‘impending death’ always seemed to hover in the air along with the utterance.

I will also here, briefly raise the modern issue facing many parents, teachers and figures of actual legal authority, where young people don’t appear to listen anymore. They wonder why not. They don’t seem to care, they don’t respect….We did. It was definitely fear in many cases, but, it was also a very healthy respect for positions of authority and our parents. Today I encounter so many people who cannot understand the attitude of the younger generations. So many adults who say things such as, “If I misbehaved like that when I was young, the local police sergeant would give me a kick in the arse… and if it was serious he would threaten to tell me dad or me mum. That stopped me misbehaving’.

So yes, we were frightened of the results of misbehaving, because we knew there would be a punishment. An actual consequence to our actions with a real lesson to be learnt. That was what happened then. Now, it is the apparent lack of consequences that seems to produce most disrespectful and most bad behaviour. They don’t care…. Because they don’t fear. That’s pretty extreme and simplistic. But it rhymes. It is of course more serious than that, but respect for your parents was important.

I respected mine. I didn’t agree with many of the punishments I received or the seriousness of those punishments, or occasionally the extreme level of punishment, but I did understand. I learnt and in many ways I have not turned out too badly. However, this is the future. Right now (in this story) I am sitting in my room on the edge of the bunk with the door closed, straining to hear the conversations of my family members in the rest of the house. All awaiting the return of my father.

(continued tomorrow)

 The wait began

 So the ambulance crew arrived and were led through to our lounge and attended to my brother, and confirmed he was very lucky and was definitely alive. Thank goodness. Ipso facto, so was I, for a while longer. (Probably) It was possible I would be alive for a few hours or so. My father wouldn’t be home till at least 5pm. Unless of course, on hearing the news he would finish early and catch the first bus home.

Did I mention we lived at the end stop of the trolley bus for the valley area. Right at the turnaround, which was always fun on early frosty mornings; of which in Dunedin there were many. As the blue sparks flared from the connecting bus poles on the electric powered overhead lines. Often the bus poles would dislodge from the lines as the trolley bus would manoeuvre the turnaround. The poles would clatter around at the back of the bus and the bus would come to a stop. The driver dismounting from the bus and going to the rear to pull out the cable and reset the power poles on the lines before starting off again.

So, even if my father left work straight away, it would still be twenty five minutes minimum before I would hear him arrive home. Unless he took a taxi home. No, my father wouldn’t do that. He occasionally arranged a taxi if he was going out for a special social evening, but I don’t recall him ever rushing home from work, for any family disaster. He had probably got used to them.

At least in my head I thought I would now remain alive until my father returned home and had heard the story from the others. No doubt my version would be heard last. But that was a good thing. It meant a few extra minutes of life. Not that I would be doing much in those few extra precious moments, as no doubt once my brother was out of the house I would be sent to my room to wait for my father’s imminent return.

My brother’s initial treatment had been completed quickly, efficiently and without too much fuss by the ambulance crew. It was more the panic of those around the ambulance crew that slowed things down, created the noise and the stress. My brother, now moved to a stretcher, was then transported out of the house and off to the hospital for a date with a needle and thread. A very sharp needle and a very, very, long thread. I recall it was about 48 stitches later they managed to hold the cut together.

(continued tomorrow)

Sirens and echos

the gate was eventually opened and I carried my wounded brother inside. Amazed that despite his weight and my small stature, I had managed to convey him from the park and along the road to the rear gate without actually dropping him. At least, not that I recall dropping him. (My history, remember?) Suffice to say, once inside the yard, a fair amount of noise and general confusion followed. Apparently he was still breathing, so that was considered a really good sign, for me at least and, also for him of course, but for very different personal reasons. If he wasn’t dead, then there was a chance I would also survive ….. for now.

The ambulance was quickly called, the phone operator having to source the purpose of the actual request from the noisy re-fed versions of several key witnesses to the person trying to make the call. All loudly throwing their specific versions forward now, to escape inclusion in the expected aftermath of the incident. Evidently things became confused as the crew when they arrived said they had been advised that a child had fallen off a stilt from a tree while flying a kite and injured his head. The reason probably was a little irrelevant. No doubt they had known our address well. No doubt the neighbours wouldn’t have been too surprised to see yet another ambulance shortly pull up outside our address, lights flashing and siren sounding, having driven the length of the valley to our house. No doubt anyone down the length of the valley on seeing the ambulance heading north looked and nodded sagely to one another, “Dwyer’s house again? I wonder what for this time?”

We had a ‘way’ with incidents. It wasn’t that we set out to cause problems; they just found us… and collided with us in many unexpected ways. If we had had the electronic games of today back then, instead of being out in the world…. Well, who knows, we may have had electrocutions as a result of playing them. Not that we escaped that form of incident (more on that in a later blog).

So, as soon as my brother was inside and the phone call to the ambulance was being made we found whatever we could to put on his head injury to staunch the flow. Wet cloth first, then a towel, which rapidly became stained with blood. Have I mentioned how deceptive head wounds are? Another towel, “Not that one, that’s a good one.” I remember hearing from one of my older sisters. That’s right. Help my brother but don’t ruin one of the only good towels we have. He was eventually lying on the couch, head swaddled like an overdressed swami as the sound of the approaching siren echoed around the valley.

(continued tomorrow)

It was my idea... unfortunately

Not that growing up in a family of eight children meant you were ever lonely; it was more that you were ‘never’ alone. Right now I was feeling I wanted to be alone, alone and a long, long way away from the current problem. Distance from the problem would definitely help, particularly once my father found out what had happened, and, whose fault it was that his second youngest son was currently bleeding out while in the arms of the eldest son. But remember (blog entry - April the 4^th, 2012), ‘I’ had insisted on throwing the stilt as it was ‘my idea’. I owned the idea and no-one could have it. I thought of it, I worked it out, then it was just my idea, years later it would be “I had the intellectual property right”. I may later have regretted the selfishness of my decision, but it was my actions that were responsible for the incident and I could not deny that…. As much as I may have wanted to, because by now, everyone else was making sure I couldn’t deny it. Distancing themselves as quickly as possible.

I managed to reach the high rear wooden gate of our house and looked up through the wire mesh fence towards the top of the red-sided cement steps at the back. I was crying heavily, emotionally drained of the adrenalin dump that had begun with the decent of the stilt and its unfortunate collision with the head of my brother. Looking up, I thought I could make out a shape that I hoped and, at the same time dreaded, was my mother. On this point I don’t remember if it was, I seem to recall that my mother was working at the time of this incident and it may well have been one of my older sisters who came out to the porch to see what had happened. Yet I recall my mother later saying I was screaming like a banshee’. Though that may also have been second hand. My mother often had the ability to witness something based upon other sourced received reports. That was a real ‘psychic’ ability she seemed to have. You would almost think she had been there.

But as I said, I couldn’t see who it was. I couldn’t even reach up and open the gate to get into the yard. My brother hung motionless and bleeding in my arms and I stood on the back path that ran out of our yard, unable to reach up through the gap in the gate to reach the latch. The others meanwhile had raced up to the fence to point the finger and call out the news of the disaster to whoever it was standing on the back steps.

‘Open the gate!’ I screamed.

(continued tomorrow)

Speak up and be heard

In the later reports I heard, the word had got around the neighbourhood and the suburb and carried up the valley to the farms on the hillside very quickly (well, my word had, as the volume was very intense as I staggered along in terror), that a terrible murder had occurred and the killer was grief-stricken. Screaming that the victim was dead and fore-telling expectations of revenge by senior members of the family of the deceased. Of course it was simply that everyone had heard me screaming ‘I’ve killed him’ and ‘Dad’s going to kill me’, every local and even the pensioners via their electronic assistance, which, in those days were not very effective and mainly changed voices into noises comprising of rattles and high pitched whines. I always recall speaking to anyone wearing the early hearing aids, watching them  constantly fumbling for them and looking at you with suspicion, until they reached an understanding of what you were trying to say as their device translated the voice into the various chirps and squeaks their hearing had adjusted to listening.

Old Mr Campbell on the corner nearest the park must have heard it all, from the moment the stilt first connected with my younger brothers head, to the full aftermath once I arrived home. Until I reached the back gate and, even when inside the yard my voice did not fade off like a ‘doppler’ effect of a passing siren. I gather from all that I certainly proved I had a good set of lungs. And I needed them, as I struggled carrying my blood-soaked brother along the back road to our house, trailing behind me the other children terrified by what they had seen and not wanting to be the first home with the report of what had occurred. Mr Campbell had come to his door and I had looked across as we ran past to see his head bobbing around trying to see exactly what was going on. I remember him wearing a pale shirt and thinking, apart from the blood my brother was paler than that. He was dead.

It was around then that one of the other children had suddenly realised they could distance themselves from any blame (as most children do very early in life) and ran past me to get ahead and call out very loudly (but not quite as loudly as my screams) to anyone near my house who would hear “Greg’s killed Rhys”… I think even then it registered on my young persona. No matter what goes before…You are on your own in this world.

(Continued tomorrow)

The road home

He wasn’t dead. But his body was definitely lifeless. Still and floppy, and probably a fairly light, ‘dead weight’. As I lifted him, the blood from the head wound immediately staining my shirt, I pulled him towards my slight (and short) frame and I still recall his head, pouring blood and ‘lolling about’ loosely. I can safely say, I have seen ‘lolling’ and I now know what the term ‘lolling’ really means. I struggled forward through the long grass leaving a crimson trail in our wake. The stilt abandoned, the kite forgotten. The cries and screams of the other panicking children rang out loudly and blended with my own strident cries of fear as I staggered towards home.

The soccer fields in the park were reached across a short wooden bridge. To call it a bridge is simply abiding by the definition of the word. It was really just a short track of wooden slats on two cross beams, above the storm water channel, leading to the fields through the gap in the hedge to the dead end of the street that ran behind our house. Dead End. How appropriate.

The road leading to the park ran behind our house and its surface was sealed and several houses on either side held some of the original tenants of the area, now pensioners, mostly living alone, and a family of girls whose father kept a fairly impressive home garden of some strange varieties of ‘European (or maybe Greek) vegetables, using ‘foreign looking’ growing techniques and interesting bird scarers. Our father also had a vegetable garden, we remember digging it over regularly each year, but it always seemed very….. ‘English’ in comparison. Their father also appeared to have trouble not just with keeping the birds away, but also with keeping the local boys away from his girls as well. If the boys didn’t park out the front of the house, they drove around and cruised up the back street, very cool like, until having to stop and reverse back out as it was not suitable for a u turn, generally watched by the girl’s father until they had gone out of sight down the back street corner.

It was down that street I now ran, carrying my bloody brother (if you just started reading this blog today, no, I’m not being mean) my ‘bleeding’ brother, and, screaming so loudly the pensioners must have reached for their hearing aids to turn down the volume. “Dad’s going to kill meeeeeee!” I cried. Yes, It was all about me. I ran, staggered and stumbled down the road with my injured brother clasped in my arms. Running towards the back gate to our house, wailing ‘like a Banshee’ as my mother would later describe it. I knew I was dead, but, maybe, there was still a chance for my brother whom I thought was probably was dead as well, but the chance that he may be faking it. Okay, I’ll be honest, the severe head wound made that a pretty remote possibility.

(continued tomorrow)

I was dead! (My second thought)

Yes, terribly selfish of me I know, but let’s look at this logically. My second thought was very, very important. It also related to my first thought. So in some ways that was my third thought. My fourth was definitely back to my second thought. I was dead. Not now, not immediately, but once my father found out… and my mother… I was dead! By now I think we are at the fifth, six and seventh… and depending on the multitude of punishment scenarios that flew through my head with lightning speed, we may as well say, around a hundred thoughts came to me in that very instance of my younger brother bleeding and crashing to the soft grass. I was dead.

The blood raced out of my brothers gaping head injury as if trying to create a minor torrent and carve a channel through the grassland of the park. I was definitely dead. There was a slight groan from my brother….he was not! He was not…. The thought sluggishly worked against the torrent of other emotions. He … was… not…. Dead.

I still was regardless, but he was not. He was hurt, but alive. He was bleeding profusely, but he was alive. He was losing blood, lots of it, so he could die. I was dead.

It was the sudden shouting and some screaming of all of us at the park, which really got me moving. ‘He’s not dead’. I remember calling out. ‘You’ve killed him!’ was the insistence of the majority gathered. “He’s dead!’ the opinion of the rest.  I was racing back to my second thought when my body raced forward to the prone form. The blood was already covering his face and staining the grass. First Aid! Application of pressure, staunch the wound, cover the injury to prevent dirt. All was forgotten. Out the window. Those Thursday nights in the scouts hut, messing around attempting to strangle one another with a poorly tied triangular bandage or covering the head like a blindfold to annoy the ‘patient’, the fellow cub or scout. All was forgotten as I swooped and lifted my younger bleeding brother in my arms. He was unconscious, but not dead. He didn’t even groan. He was dead! It was a short repeated battle going backwards and forwards in my head as each thought traded blows with the other.

I believe I have mentioned that I was not tall? Short is another word for it. So the action of ‘swooping and lifting’ raised his injured body a little, a very short distance from the ground. I don’t believe I dropped him on the first attempt, but as mentioned on day one of this blog, this is my history and how I remember it. I gathered my younger brother into my arms, reminiscent of those ‘Great War’ portraits, the soldier lifting his wounded comrade. I was back to thinking…. ‘He’s Dead!’. I’m really, really going to cop it.

(Continued tomorrow)

 It was looking very bad

We froze. The stilt having just sliced open my younger brother Rhys’ head appeared to hang in the air behind him. Rhys, head sliced and blood immediately pouring from the wound paused in mid-step, even the blood appeared to hold its flow. The very air seemed stilled. This sudden slowdown of information and apparent stopping of time, may be natures way of really focusing us on what is really important to assess. Forget thinking about your worries, your finances, favourite movies, music….and ….. focus on the critical. Then again, I have heard it argued that time doesn’t change it is simply the sudden dump of Cortisol, a naturally produced hormone from the adrenal gland sometimes called the ‘stress hormone, that floods the brain. It is thought in some people, Cortisol rewires the brain to handle the traumatic incident. There is also a train of thought that some brains, once rewired, stay that way. I think if that was the case, my brain has been rewired more times than I wish to consider (but that may explain why so many people wonder what goes on inside my brain anyway).

However, back to the story of ‘the Kite, the Stilt, and the Brother’. We stood there. Our faces horror-struck, as every one present then vocally, groscremoagased (Groaned, Screamed, Moaned and Gasped) simultaneously. It was likely that sound then caused a further time shift (or the Cortisol) The stilt fell to the ground, landing in the long grass, yet I still believe I heard it crash with the sound of a falling building. My brother folded to the same grass, a stunned look on his face (with good reason). He however, appeared to land in the grass with the gentlest of sighs. It may have been the breath escaping his body, my senses seemed to be so heightened that I was seeing in extremely vivid colours and hearing everything in every frequency.  I recall hearing someone behind me, his, or her teeth began chattering. Strange what you become aware of.

 

My brother was not moving. The blood was. The blood ran freely from the dreadful cut. His scalp was torn apart. The Skull beneath clearly visible… at least it seemed like that.

He was dead.

At least… that was my first thought.

I was dead. That was definitely my second thought!

(continued tomorrow)

Brain in motion 

The unexpected movement at the base of the tree was more of a surprise than any of us were prepared for, as the flying stilt began it’s descent, that movement from behind the pine trees wide trunk (we were smaller then), was about to create a catastrophic incident. Well to me catastrophic, to him extremely painful, traumatic and yet highlighted to all of then, or at least in the ongoing berating by parents, family and all over the next few weeks and occasionally raised again at gatherings, highlighted to us the nearness mortality has to a single moment and to the incredibly significant difference a degree or two can make between injury or fatality.

The trigger for the apparent time shift was this simple movement, from stilt flight to tree trunk to body in motion, breaking the stored images retained in our senses. While focused on the flight, something in our peripheral vision recognised something was out of place. As the eyes transmitted the data to the brain, massive calculations occurred. Far faster than any of my previous considered thoughts involving the planning, trajectory and action to put the stilt into flight and rescue the stricken kite.

There was something moving into the path of the descending missile. The arrival of my younger brother (who I mention again now had been told to remain at home and not to attend the park), suddenly changed a funny and exciting attempt at problem resolution into a life-involving critical incident. My brain registered it all in that fraction of a second. Stilt falling earthwards and body walking beneath. My voice was activated as the stilt fell rapidly downwards, practically still vertical (one of my better throws) and the intersecting path was likely to be the very centre of my younger brothers’ head.  

It may have been that by screaming out to him “RHHHHYYYYSSSS!! (Rhys, his actual name) his brain received a critical message to “stoooooooppppp!’ (not that he ever really listened to me) or it may have been the level of panic in my voice, but the way the world works I’m trusting it was the sheer look of terror that must have gripped my facial features, that caused him to momentarily pause and consider the ‘fight or flight’ instinct that resides in us all. There is also the possibility that it was simply his short legs trying to walk through the long grass below the tree that slowed his forward momentum just enough for the falling stilt to miss plunging directly into his head, the results, had that occurred are not beyond any doubt. Instead the stilt fell fractionally forward of his face and in the angle of its motion one squared edge of the timber stilt sliced into the top of his face. His motion still forward causing the stilt to roll over the top of his head like a four foot blade slicing the skin open in a single cut running to the back of his head. If time had slowed for us just before this moment, it came to a dead stop now!

(Continued tomorrow)

Time waits for no man….just slows down apparently.

The gaze upon the stilt passing so near to the kite was unexpectedly diverted to the base of the tree, where movement had suddenly caught my eye. It was then that the strangest effect we experience as humans, and often used effectively as a device in film to emphasise the moment, occurred. Time changed. Drastically. Time completely altered to what we normally expect. Time broke all the rules of everything we had been taught (well, taught later in high school). And this wasn’t the first time for me, but it was certainly the most pronounced I had experienced in my early years.

I will go back for just a moment to the March 31^st entry (re kites) and more importantly the real entry for April the 1^st. There were mitigating circumstances, but the punishment has already occurred so that cannot change anything, it is in the past…. And you can’t mess with time? .....mmmmmmm? I will just mention that ‘The group gathered at this incident ‘all had our parents permission to attend the park’. And as mentioned, those present were all gathered safely behind me, the caber-stilt tossing aeronautical mathamatician, who was about to fail his basic safety check. Horribly fail. Regardless of any excuses. Shot down in his moment of brilliance (I am referring to the actual idea of using the stilt to ‘nudge’ the tangled kite from the tree). Shot down as rapidly as the stilt having reached the moment of apogee, was now returning to the earth with all the appropriate consideration towards Newtonian physics and the general natural effect of gravity. Because gravity existed before the law was discovered, lets be honest about that.

And the time existed before the laws explaining it as well. So, time decided what happens next. Right now as the stilt began its return and my vision was drawn to the base of the tree, time shifted its gears. All of them. Like an eighteen-wheeler truck as the driver approaching the first slow corner after five hours of straight driving on the Nullarbor Plains. Time went from normal and wrenched itself down through the gears to the slowest of possible moments. I’m sure everything happened as normal. At the ‘normal’ speed, unless everyone in the world, whatever they were engaged in, at the exact same moment as we witnessed this specific incident, discovered time slowing down. Five billion people (I think that was the population of the world back then), experiencing a shift in the fabric of the universe. Time. Really slowing. Creeping in fact. A mere dawdle across the canvas of a part of a minute. But I don’t recall any news reports. No major world headlines. It was I am sure in my head and everyone else’s there watching. Staring, Eyes drawn to the base of the tree.

(continued tomorrow)

Stopping is not necessarily sudden…..

I prepared myself, gathered up the fallen stilt, more aware now of its weight and with the ease of the new, I flipped it up into the air. It rose majestically, soaring vertically for all …of…. two …..seconds, well, nano-seconds maybe, before the base drove outwards and it began to ‘flop’ sideways, well short of  even the lower branches of the tree and far below the level of the snared kite. This of course brought howls of further laughter and derision from the assembled. Not put off even yet, I retrieved the fallen item for a further attempt.

Now I trust you can recall when I first started this particular episode of what appears to have become the ‘Great Kite Saga’ (see March the 31^st ) I mentioned that even kite flying in our family could be dangerous, and never more so than on this particular event.

I have noticed over the years, with many accidents and injuries, particularly in my current occupation, that head injuries bleed an enormous amount, at least blood ‘appears’ to pour from any head wound with greater quantity of the escaping essential life force than does a simple cut to the arm or leg, save arterial injuries, which, while serious, are also fascinating in their visual form of expulsion of the blood from a wound (more on that in a later blog). Arterial blood often goes for ‘distance’, but most head injuries go for ‘area’ and look much more serious than they really are. But try explaining that to a child who’s head is cut and to his older brother (both of whom are in shock), who honestly believes that the huge amount of blood pouring from the head and covering the face, shirt and body in the space of just a few seconds, is fatal.

I got ahead of myself, not to spoil the incident I’m explaining, but to demonstrate how a simple action can go so horribly wrong.

As I said, having re-gathered the stilt and again ensured that everyone was back from me, having already seen the randomness of the falling stilt despite my apparent accuracy in projected direction, I launched the wooden missile yet again. It soared much straighter this time and while we all momentarily ‘ooohed’ and ‘ahhed’ at the flight that came so close to reaching the wedged kite, it was at that moment of apogee that our attention was drawn elsewhere. Elsewhere was, in this instance, near the base of the tree, as time suddenly entered that strangest of phases so often experienced by car crash participants and those involved in serious accidents and extreme events.

(continued tomorrow)

Parables and parabolas

So,  there I was, armed with the vertical staff of assistance, the stilt. About to transform it into an upright projectile, with just enough force to lightly ‘nudge’ the kite free from the clasping hold of the tree. To ensure I did not apply so much force that the kite could be struck or damaged. This is again where knowledge of real physics could have assisted.

I was planning (in my head I will add), a motion as sophisticated as any future space docking, and even more importantly un-powered. For, once released from my grasp there was no further control save the stored energy and motion caused by the action of the caber movement. I was mentally calculating an action to achieve maximum apogee (a word I learnt in later years) in that anticipated parabola with the surface of the earth at the very point of contact with the kite. A moment when the stilt would achieve a fractional weightlessness with the ground before surrendering itself again to the effects of gravity and plunging back to the grassy earth …….having achieved its planned mission (or so I thought).

I ensured everyone was back behind me…. Several steps back as, like any NASA sky-shot, there was a certain amount of apprehension as to the initial accuracy of that first throw. Even I was fairly sure my maths would not come out right the very first time. I took hold near the base of the stilt, I raised it straight up, supporting its perpendicular position momentarily with my other hand. I visually gauged the distance to the tree limb where our kite lay forlornly, its motion in the gently swaying tree adding further significant calculations to my aim. I tensed and prepared to exchange my stored energy into the stilt (did your physics class ever sound like this?), which, just as I began the downward motion, prior to the upward acceleration, my guiding hand releasing from the stilt’s side, like a fuel cable falling away from a Saturn V rocket, in that moment, the stilt……immediately and rapidly over balanced and fell to the ground.

Collective laughs burst out from those behind me, in a breathless release of tension and the immediate shout from one or two standing there to, “Let me try!”, “Let me!”. “No!” I insisted. “It’s my idea, so I’ll do it!” (how I would regret that insistence).     

(continued tomorrow)

When physics proves it’s worth.. 

So there we were, several very short people standing in the tall grass at the end of a large park, below the towering pine tree, which appeared to be mocking us, as it held out kite hungrily in its branches. We gazed up into the swaying limbs, well above the combined height of at least three of the tallest ‘under-tall’ persons present. The tree may have stretched high above us, but it was just a tree. We certainly were small but we were young, thoughtful and resourceful. The tree might have our kite….. but we had stilts!

 

Yes, before you ask, we did try to extricate the kite by the line, recovered after it had escaped from its handlers. We coaxed it gently, we tugged the line, teased it away from various small twigs which snapped and fell to the ground, we jerked at the line which was tangled in the insignificant (or so we thought) branches, yet the tree held the kite firmly. The ‘inconsiderable’ branches held the line, which we pulled at and tugged at and …..snapped.

 

Have you ever noticed that unlike the string or rope that you saw in the cartoons you may have seen at the movies (and back then you used to get cartoons before the main feature… and a short film), have you ever noticed that a long length of string when falling from a height does not tumble neatly in a sequence of ‘nearest to furthest’ when it falls in a pile at your feet, rather it spills outward in a mass of chaotic vertices's, piling one part, then a section towards a further length away in a confusion of swirls and spirals and a ‘clump’ (abbreviation for ‘collected lump’?) is formed. That ‘clump’ lay in the grass and the tree creaked loudly (with laughter I am sure) as we again considered the option of climbing for the kite. As to whom would climb… that became a matter of debate. It was then that inspiration struck!

 

‘I’ll use the stilt’ I stated excitedly. Various heads turned to look at me blankly. The concept of how I intended to use the stilt had not yet entered their slow thoughts. Their thoughts were obviously still entertaining the idea that even standing on the stilt would not create sufficient height, but I had gone well beyond that. I had seen the television broadcast (yes we did have a black and white television in the house for special occasions at this time) of what was the annual spectacle of that wonderful world class presentation ‘The Edinburgh Tattoo’ shown at New Years and I had seen and remembered the incredible highland sport of Caber tossing! 

(continued tomorrow)

And there the kite sat, gently mocking us.....

It was decided by way of discussion and agreement, that the tree was of suitable thickness and the branches, carefully considered, would hold the weight of one of us, should one of us climb the tree, up several branches and then work our way out along the kite-clutching limb to free the kite. But which of us? The height of the first available branch was taller than any of us could directly reach or could reach if standing on the shoulders of the tallest of us. I have already mentioned that I was short, well, so was the rest of the family. Our mother towered at 5 feet, 1 inch (perhaps 2inches) and we were all that height… or shorter. This could have been a contributing factor in us possessing that wonderful apparatus of exercise and entertainment, stilts.

I must again digress and explain why I mention the stilts. Now the stilts we possessed at the time (more about other stilts will be followed in a later blog), were the traditional 4 ft long square timber length with right angled narrow steps, a ‘step up’ from the base. You would stand on the wedge and the extension of timber would be tucked in under your arms. You would try to maintain your feet on the small narrow step as you climbed up, stepped, staggered, wobbled and sometimes hopped, dramatically, in a variety of speeds, in a straight line (if possible) as you generally overbalanced forward and pitched towards the earth. Several attempts (and falls) later you got fairly good at bouncing along with short steps at about a third the speed of the average elderly walker with a frame.

But it was very satisfying to achieve the motion. And then, once a few falls on cement had occurred you moved to something softer. For example, when used in a grassy field all was great! You could almost race along, until you hit a soft patch or a rabbit hole and one stilt disappeared up to the base of the wedge step, leaving you standing lopsided until the original forward momentum you had achieved re-asserted its control and you spin sideways off the stuck stilt. There are so many ways to fall, and generally the ground doesn’t get softer. Don’t ever raise the argument that physics doesn’t help outside of the classroom. It would probably have helped prevent at least 98% of our various injuries over if we had been taught applied physics and the real importance of its application in year two of school.     (continued tomorrow)

 But this blog entry is the real one for April 1st….

Flying kites (see March 31^st) could be dangerous, just ask my brother. And this is one of those moments where history is as I remember it. Trust me… there were mitigating circumstances to what occurred and there was a punishment for ‘my’ actions (though my pleas to consider those circumstances were not listened to at the time of receiving the parental disciplinary decision). I can say that at the time (despite what we may have occasionally thought of each other in later years), all of us were pleased that the incident had not been fatal, as it could so easily have been, and we, fortunately, still have our family of eight siblings alive today.

I recall the American cartoon series ‘Charlie Brown’ and the character Linus’s on-going kite-eating tree saga. We knew what that was like. While a kite crashing to the earth is exciting (and demoralising), losing a kite to the destructive spike-like reaching branches of a tree is devastating. Partly because the kite, if not recovered, hangs there and you feel the sense of the tree tormenting your lack of aeronautical skills. Reminding you that ‘you’ had the kite on a string… and that the tree couldn’t move, but still managed to snare your kite.

It was one such incident that led to a serious injury. The kite having escaped it’s operator, hung forlornly in the branches of one of the pine trees at the Northern end of the sports fields. We (who all had our parents permission to attend the park) gathered about the tree and looked up analytically. Clearly the branches of a pine tree are thicker than many others, such as the poplar trees, which lined the southern end of the grounds. And the kite obviously had suffered less damage as it lay in the branches, the line caught around some smaller twigs. We should be able to get this one down without too much trouble. …….. Oh, the misplaced confidence (continued tomorrow)

Dear Mr Da Vinci...' 

or 

'When hanging from70ft on a kite and discovering how hard the ground could be'

It was the ultimate idea we had had as kids. Can’t remember whose idea it was, but it was probably around the time we were into reading about Leonardo Da Vinci and his many brilliant ideas, and having some access to scrap timber and such materials. The idea of jumping from the roof with a sheet, aiming for the temporary swimming pool (see earlier blog entry) was low down on the list of dangerous ideas in comparison. We had a ‘Great’ idea. Lets make a flying wing! So after much discussion and rapidly drawn plans, no physics involved, (we were too young to have started learning that!), just sheer enthusiasm (the same enthusiasm that got us into many situations), we started building our ‘Super Kite’.

We managed to get some narrow square timber lengths that we were allowed to cut up. Weight? It didn’t matter did it? We were making a kite and the cloth would keep us air-borne. The Da Vinci book we were referring to for directions was for young readers, so I guess it was their fault for not including that information, information which may have prevented the following disaster.

Understanding that even with a ‘Super Kite’ the park wouldn’t be suitable as a launching place we would need some serious height to get started… a run up.

It just so happened that at the end of the valley where we lived at the time had a native reserve, ‘Bethunes Gully’, and just as the name suggests it ran about a kilometre up to the head of the valley, a gully with high side cliff walls about 70 feet above the creek running through and dense bush along the edges of the creek below. Perfect!

So not having access to a car (our family never owned one) and with several pieces of manufactured super kites hanging from various sides of our bicycles, we, the  prospective aeronauts slowly made our way North up the valley. (for the rest of this story refer to the date and time of the entry – real blog will be after midday)