Personal Details
My Resume
Details
Experience
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Employment History
Strengths and Weaknesses
My Diary
Purgatory
Paradise
Paradise Lost
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Part I - Purgatory
1923 to 1956 and August 1956 to July 1997 |
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- 1968 - Age 12
- When we got to Perth, it was very, very hot. We stayed in a place called a
hostel which was a lot like an army camp. The sun burnt my skin badly and I had
to stay in the hospital. The nurses are very nice but they talk funny and keep
saying "Pardon?" each time I say things. I have to speak like them so they can
understand me.
- We went to a big hall and got told about all the creatures that lived in
Australia and how we should never touch them. I listened and got very
frightened. There were so many snakes and lizards and spiders I didn't want to
go outside. Then one day I woke up and there was this huge hairy spider on the
roof above me. I screamed and ran out, tripped down the stairs and landed in a
pile of very sharp plants. When my dad had killed the spider I took a can of
stuff called bug-spray and used the whole can in my room. It made my eyes sting
and my throat hurt, but I didn't want to have spiders in my room. Each night I
searched the room and changed the bed to check for spiders and snakes and
things. I carefully stuffed toilet paper into every hole I could find in the
room to stop them coming in after I fell asleep.
- My dad took me down to the water and said it was time for me to learn to
swim. All the others can swim, but I've never been near this much water before.
He made me walk to the end of the pier and I looked at the water. It was very
brown and had lots of jellyfish in it. I stepped back and said I didn't want to
get into that water because I didn't like the jellyfish. He picked me up and
threw me in. I splashed at the jellyfish in panic. They are so slimy. I managed
to get to the ladder, but my dad shouted at me that I wasn't coming back this
way and that I had to swim to shore. I learned that swimming isn't hard, but I
was so scared I got to the shore really quickly. I stood shivering and shaking
thinking about all the slimy jellyfish and he came up and said "That wasn't so
hard was it?" I said nothing and ran back to the hut.
- My dad got a car. It is called a Falcon. It was so much bigger than the ones
in England. We packed everything into it and drove for so long my brother,
sister and I fell asleep. My mum said we had arrived in Mount Barker. I couldn't
see the town and she said we would be staying on a farm until we could get a
house. We were to be on our best behavior.
- The farm is so different from England. There is no mud, just dust. And the
ground is red. And there is hardly any grass. And it is hot. And flys. Lots of
them. They climb up our noses and into our ears. I already hate the farm.
- The farmer is very big and has two sons who are older than me. They ride
motorcycles all over the place and play chasey with the sheep. The farmer looks
at me and shakes his head a lot.
- Once the farmer took my arm and said "Ok. Time to be a man" and dragged me
to a huge shed. It smelt so bad I could hardly breathe. The floor was covered in
sheep stuff and there were two dogs barking and running around. There was also a
sheep tied up there. He sat on it, pulled its head back and slit its throat with
a huge knife. The blood went everywhere. I jumped back to stop it getting on me.
The farmer grabbed the twitching sheep by its back legs and jammed it on a hook.
He then slit the belly of the sheep open. It happened so fast I just stood with
my mouth open. He reached into the sheep and tipped all the insides out onto the
floor. The dogs leapt onto the stuff and were quickly covered in blood. I stood
there feeling very sick as I watched. The heat. The flys. The dogs slobbering
over intestines. The blood and the farmer standing there holding bits of sheep.
This was hell. I was in hell. I threw up and ran out of the shed.
- The school is not nice. All the boys are farmers sons and are even more
rough than the ones in England. They keep making fun of the way I talk. So I
decided to stop talking. I just keep my mouth shut and try to hide. I can't win,
I'm just too different from them and I'm the only English kid in the classes.
- The PE teacher has tried to get me to play football. The game they call
football isn't football. It's just a fight with a lot of kicking. And the
players for both sides are all mixed up over the field. They jump on each others
backs to get the ball. And they hold it like rugby, but then kick it. I think
this game is dumb. The PE teacher said I was a pommy poof and told me to stay on
the edge of the field and carry water. That's ok. I don't know what a pommy poof
is, but if it means I don't have to play this game I don't mind.
- I stay by myself mostly. I get up, have some breakfast and hide till the
school bus arrives. I then hop on and huddle at the front. At school I go far
from the school between classes and just sit and rock back and forth singing to
myself with my lunch. On weekends I go off all day and sit near the water tower
throwing rocks at frogs in the dam.
- We have moved to a new house in the main town now. It's a very small town
and has only one small set of shops. But at least I now I have a room to myself.
Although the shops are different they also sell knickers and things called
pantyhose. I have managed to steal quite a few things now and keep them hidden
in a big shoe box under my bed. When everybody is asleep I get up and silently
dress up and dance with myself and imagine being a girl soon. Silence is so
important. This house has really thin walls and you can hear all sorts of things
through them. Mustn't get caught.
- I get into fights sometimes. The boys want to show they are tough I suppose.
I don't use any rules and just use whatever is handy. I am not interested in
playing fair. If I lose I get hurt, if I win I don't. It's easy. I must win.
Fingernails, dirt, sticks, knees.. I broke one boys nose once when he pushed me
onto the ground and jumped on me and started banging into me with his hips like
rabbits do. The other boys thought it was funny, but I bashed a rock in his face
and kicked him and then jumped on his hand as he lay on the ground. The other
boys dragged me away and all of them kept hitting me but when they finished,
they left me alone.
- I have bought a steel ruler and carry it in my pocket everywhere now. If any
boy trys to fight with me I bring it out and slash at them and scream. They all
stay away from me now.
- I have only made one friend. His name is Gary. He is very tough and I follow
him around and do stuff for him. I like Gary. I like to listen to him and watch
him. He has really nice eyes. When he comes to my house I get all excited and
want to wear my best jeans and T Shirt. I get all warm inside when he says he
likes me.
- I think of things for us to do and he does them. We pushed a big railway
carriage off the tracks once by undoing it from the other carriages and rolling
it as fast as we could down the slight slope at one end of the town. It crashed
into one of those buffer things and bounced off onto its side. We also stole
sweets and things from the shops. It's really nice when we sit on the kerb and
eat ice-cream. Sometimes I want to hug him, but I know I'm not supposed to do
that.
- And once we accidently killed a dog. It lived across the street from my
house and it yapped a lot. He stood at one end of the fence and I stood at the
other. He called it and it ran to him barking and yapping. Then he went quiet
and I called it. It was very funny to see the dog run back and forth getting so
angry. Then it stopped and looked ill, and fell over. Gary got scared and ran
off, but I opened the gate and went to see how the little dog was. It lay on my
lap panting and then just lay still. I cried a lot and picked it up and took it
to the front door of the house. An old lady answered the door. I told her her
dog was dead and I was so sorry. She asked me in and we had tea and cakes. Then
we went into her back yard and dug a small grave for it. She sat in an old chair
and cried while I wrapped it in its little blanket and buried it. I put a little
cross and some flowers where I had buried it. We sat on the old chair and cried
together. I kept saying I was so sorry and she just held me in her arms and
rocked.
- And once we found a grader on a building site down by the school. Gary said
he could drive it but couldn't get it started. I spent a long time looking at
the engine and figured out there was a piece missing. I searched the boxes of
tools and things in the cabin and found a black thing with six thick black wires
coming out of it. I went back to the engine and pulled off a plastic bag over
where I thought the thing went. It had little clips on the side to stop it
falling off. I clipped it on and looked for where the black wires went. There
were six little metal things on the side of the engine and I pushed the ends of
the black wires onto them. Then Gary got the grader started. He was lying. He
couldn't drive it. He pushed levers and turned things and suddenly it started
moving. We rode it around the yard, but Gary wasn't strong enough to turn the
wheel properly and it went down a track towards the dam. We tried to turn it
away, but it was stuck in grooves in the track. We jumped off and it drove into
the dam.
- Once we climbed a tree and I fell out into some rolls of barbed wire. I
couldn't get out and it hurt a lot. Gary climbed down and was laughing. I
shouted at him to get me out, but he was laughing so much he couldn't. I got so
angry I managed to get free and jumped on him and slapped his face. He stopped
laughing and punched me. I got so angry then and started to punch and scratch
him even though I was crying. He grabbed me and held me so I couldn't hit him.
It felt so nice with him holding me. I stopped crying and just let him hold me.
Then he pushed me away. I asked what was wrong and he just looked at me really
strangely. Then he went really red and walked off. I ran after him and kept
calling him to stop. But he didn't. He avoided me then. I felt so sad I cried a
lot. I don't know why he doesn't want to be my friend anymore. Sometimes at
school I go and sit next to him, but he gets up and walks away. I feel so sad.
- My dad makes me chop wood for the fire in winter. The wood is called mallee
root and is so hard I just can't, but he says it will build my muscles up. I
don't want big muscles. It takes ages to chop even the smallest piece and the
axe bounces off a lot. One Saturday he made me chop the mallee roots in the
rain. He said it would build character. I was so angry I stood in the rain
chopping the things all afternoon. My mum came out and said I should come in out
of the rain, but I was so angry I just chopped and chopped at the wood and kept
thinking I wished the roots were my dad. Even then I only managed to chop enough
for a few days.
- There is a playground next to our house, but nobody uses it because it is
just sand and has glass and rocks everywhere. I did something bad and got sent
out to the playground once and told to stay there. I found a tennis ball and
kept throwing it at the wall trying to make it break. I got very angry and
started jumping on it. It still wouldn't break. So I got a rock and whacked it
as hard as I could. The rock bounced back and hit me in the nose and made it
bleed. I just sat on the end of the slide until I got called in for dinner.
- One time I was sitting in the playground and Gary came there. He stood at
the gate and I was so happy I could hardly sit still. I hoped he wouldn't go
away. He came over to me and said "Hi". I was so happy I nearly fell down. I
wished I had combed my hair and had my best T shirt on. I said "Hi" back and we
sat on the slide together. He put his hand close to me and I wanted so much to
hold it, but I didn't want him to go away again. We talked about all sorts of
stuff and he said he missed doing neat stuff with me, but he didn't think it was
right. I asked him why and he said I was a poof. I asked him what that meant and
he said it was a boy who f*cks other boys. I asked him what 'f*ck' meant. He
said that it's when a boy sticks his dick in another boys bum. I stared at him.
"I don't want to do that to you!" I said, but he said I made other boys want to
do that to me. "I don't believe you!" I said, but he said that that was what I
wanted. I shook my head and said I just wanted to hold him and kiss him. He
stood up and said he couldn't do that and walked away. I ran after him and held
his arm. He turned to me and I looked at him. He looked so unhappy. "Please
don't go" I said. He looked at me and I could see he was nearly crying. I
started to cry and wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. He pushed me
away and walked off. He never spoke to me again.
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