Childhood Memories.....

Welcome to my Childhood memory lane... Sorry if this seems a little long winded, and by all means leave whenever you feel you want to, I won't be offended! Otherwise may I suggest you get yourself a nice hot drink, or a stiff one, your choice and continue....

My first memories were really of school in a village called Midhurst, in the Southern part of Taranaki, in the North Island of New Zealand. We had a big airy home that had huge gardens with lots of beautiful flowered terraces or steps, and mum spent alot of time in those gardens. We lived just outside of Midhurst and we would have a small bus ride to get to the school. We moved a few months after I begun school into Midhurst, not far from the primary school. Again this was a big old house with high ceilings, and room under the house. Sometimes we would walk over the farmers paddocks behind our home looking for field mushrooms, in the weekend and after school. At times we would gather bucket loads of them, and Dad would drive us kids, that picked the mushrooms to New Plymouth to sell them to earn pocket money. My mum had had my baby brother by this stage but he was a very sick baby and was in and out of hospital alot. A year later, my youngest sister was born and came home to live with us, while my younger brother was still in the hospital in New Plymouth. Mum grew beautiful roses along the front and sides of the house. We kids played many games, and sometimes they would get a little rougher than intended. Like all beings, I have my share of scares and stories behind the scars... It was on one occasion when we were playing tag outside the house and mum had just pruned the roses back for the year, when my older brother pushed me into one of the rose bushes. The sharp pruned branch stabbed deep into my knee and took months to heal. Another time we were heading off to go mushrooming when I ran through the old Marcarapa's at the back of our house into the field and tore up my feet in hidden barbed wire, we were very lucky that time as a friend who was a doctor, was visiting and was coming mushrooming with us! We had a huge field in front of the house as well and it was near the old boxthorn hedge that I found a blue plastic felix cat toy that was my prized toy till my older brother threw it into the fire one day. We then moved into a house that was right behind the school. Dad did some alterations to it and I use to try to help him, but I think I got in the way more than helping. We had very old and huge Rhododendron Trees and Bamboo in the top corner of the property and they made natural caves and hiding holes for us kids to play in. We had several tree and play houses in those bushes, and I think a few of the other neighborhood kids would come and play in there too at times. The house was on top of a slope with a road that separated us from the school at the bottom of the slope. There was a large shed at the bottom of the slope before the road, and there was alsorts of concrete molds that were stored there. Next to the shed was 2 very tall majestic thin trees, mum planted a garden there soon after we arrived and found bones there. They were taken away by an old Maori man and mum didn't go near that area for along time! It was soon after this that I had my very first premonition, and begun to have them regularly much to mums' distress... We had 2 old bikes that didn't have brakes, and when we were feeling brave would pull them up to the top of the slope, hop on and go full speed down the hill and crash into the solid bushy hedge that was our properties' boundary before the public road. We would try to see who could go the fastest or make the biggest impact on the hedge! Behind our house we had a huge chicken run, and one year dad brought home a live turkey, that we were to fatten up for christmas, I remember being really scared of the turkey, and mum teasing me that if I didn't be good, she would set the turkey one me! Dad had traded it for some veges that he had grown in a market garden that he had developed between the diary and the pub. I loved working with him in the garden, we would talk about all sorts of things and sometimes he would tell me of things he did as a kid. One of my chores was to get the bread and milk from the local dairy co-op shop. And also sometimes to get something from the local dairy which was closer. I liked the dairy owners, they were kind and generous, sometimes on a hot saturday afternoon, they would give me a nearly finished ice-cream carton to take home to share with the rest of the kids, a real treat as ice-cream was very expensive and we could hardly afford to ever have one. Another fond memory of time with my dad was baking with him. He was really clever and we would bake huge slabs of Scones on a wet sunday just before lunch for a treat. My dad had a job in New Plymouth at this stage, working in cranes before his work took him onto an offshore oil rig. He would be away for months at a time during this time, and I missed him terribly. Mum drunk alot during his absence, and I think this was her way of coping with the situation. When he came home, I didn't want to go to school, cause I was frightened that I would come back after school and he would be gone again. Which would happen after he had completed his off time from the rig. My youngest brother had finally come home from the hospital for good by this stage, and my oldest sister was very protective of him, and we weren't even allowed to touch him with out her permission or watching over us! We had a dear friend who would come and check on us while dad was on the rig, and once he took us up to New Plymouth to see dad off on the big boat that was taking the crew and supplies to the oil rig. I was excited for the trip, but cried when we had to say good bye to dad as the boat left the harbor for the oil rig. It was hard on everyone and I think that tho the money was great it wasn't worth the physical cost of the family my dad would often say.... Just before I celebrated my 8th birthday, Dad came home from the oil rig for good, I was so happy! He then moved, taking me along with my older sister, to Te Wera, out in the back blocks of Eastern Taranaki. Our father worked in the forestry there and it was an awesome place to live and go to school at Huiakama Primary. The rest of the family lived in Midhurst for quiet a time, and then eventually moved in with us. After school we would go to the forest or down to the local farmers place and help out, or play in the huge orchard below our rented home. We were sure our house was haunted, and often heard and felt stuff that no-one could explain away! Te Wera was a hot place and we often would have spectacular thunder storms in the height of summer that would rattle our home! One winter there was so much rain that we heard a loud cracking noise and just managed to watch a hill not far from our home give way into a huge land slide. After the rest of the family moved in with us life took a turn towards unhappier times for me. Mum drunk more and was hitting us more than ever, and my older brother began to bully us younger kids around. He was very violent and unpredictable. One moment he would be laughing with us then beating us, then running off and telling mum we had done something to deserve it! Which was never true, then if she was drunk at the time, she would give us a hiding too! It was also during this time that my older brother began to sexually abuse me. "Grown up mummy and daddy" games he called it. Emotional blackmail was his greatest weapon, I loved my father more than anything in the world, and my older brother would tell me that if I didn't play his games with him he would tell dad what a bad child I was and that dad would leave and I would never see him again, and the whole family would know that it was my fault dad left. We lived there till 1980. At the age of 12, entering my teenage years, the "supposed" best times of our lives.... We moved to the back blocks of the King Countries. Our father had got a job at Puketiti Station, a 9,000 acre Sheep and Beef Farm, as a general handyman. There were some really happy times mixed in amongst all the down times, like: The farm was filled with "Tomo's", Limestone caves that can stretch for many miles deep under the earth. One of our favorite things to do was to enjoy caving trips with the various Caving Groups that would come during holiday times from throughout New Zealand. We also got to ride horses and explore the huge property. The farm had huge range of forests, paddocks and steep limestone hills and cliffs, with rivers meandering through the valleys. We rode out to the old homestead were once it use to gaciously stand and I was blown away with admiration for the pioneers that worked tirelessly getting the farm cleared from the bush to have paddocks to graze the cattle and sheep in, so many miles away from anyone else... We would help in the Woolshed during dipping and shearing times, and watch the shepard's work their dogs in the yards below our home. At spring we would help with the docking of the lambs and any calving that was needed. During the summer time we enjoyed swimming in several places of the river, and in Autumn would pick bucket loads of fruit that we would make in to jams and preserves. In the winter we would spend time playing down in the old woolshed, pretending to be shearer's, rousies or shepard's, while the rain drummed on the sheds' tin roof above us. Sometimes Dad would take one or two of us on his hunting runs, and I often would cry quietly for the animal that he would shoot or the dead possums he would skin on his possum run. Occasionally he would find a baby "joey" possum and bring it home for us kids to bring up. They were ungainly animals when they were young, always clinging on to you for dear life! And we would have races with them in the hall way when we would have more than one in the house at times. Being nocturnal, they sometimes created more problems then they were worth at night when we were trying to get some sleep and they would be make a racket! We would let them go in the bush, thinking that it would live happily ever after, when really dad would kill them and skin it before we got home from school. I was given a pet rabbit by a friend from College, and named it Mr Evans, after my dad! He was a big black rabbit and was fun to watch and spend time with, one day he got out, and we never did see him again, oops! As time continued to move on, our family situation continued to worsen, by this stage, my older brothers' games where more frequent, and I was getting more depressed and tired of them, but still too frightened to tell anyone. I had begun to terrorize and lash out at my younger brother and sisters, a reaction, from what my older brother was doing to me, and I began to find it harder to communicate with anyone, what was going on for me... As the problems at home and at school continued to escalate, I became more and more withdrawn and sullen. My home life was filled with pain from my older brother and mother, my father was working longer and harder to keep paying the bills that a family of 9 creates, and the amount my mother drunk and smoked away. I grew anger and more vengeful by the month. My mother drank alot and often would find any excuse to met out her justice of punishment with a jug chord. Anyone in firing distance wasn't safe. I would stay awake at night waiting for my mother to pass out where ever she had been sitting, drinking. I would come out of my room and see her lying there, and I would feel sorry for her, so I would clean her up and any other mess she had made, drag her to her bed before my father came in from his Possum Hunting, then I would go back to my bed and wait till my father had finally gone to his bed, slip out of my bed again and wait till the fire embers were nearly out, I had a huge fear of the house burning down, and so had to make sure the fire was out before being able to go sleep. Up early to help with the chores, and catch the school bus by 7.30am, just to continue another day of HELL at the school. To return home, worrying when and how my older brother was going to have a go at me or whether mum was in a foul or good mood, do my chores, milk the cows, and help with our meal, do the dishes, try and keep out of my older brothers' sites, clean the house, try and figure out my homework. I had no-one that I could talk to, no-one to tell, all that was unraveling in my life. There was no-one to say it will be alright or no one to just give me a hug and tell me that I make a difference. Just after I turned 14, I decided that I couldn't take any more, life was one big cruel ball of Hell and I didn't want it any more, in final desperation, I tried to commit suicide. I decided that no-one would care nor miss me, it would be soon over. I had it all figured out, throw myself of the huge limestone cliffs that are jagged and unforgiving, that were not far from our home, even if I somehow managed to stuff up and survived the fall, I would drown in the river below...Yeah right! Obviously someone out there forgot to fill me in on the big picture! I woke up on a little sandy bank that I hadn't seen from the top of the cliff, and with only a few scratches, a rip in my old handme down jeans and feeling quite sore I got up and realized that I wasn't meant to die, not even to brake a bone, but continue to suffer in this world. Well that Sux! On my walk home-ward I remember yelling, "I can't even do that right! Well if I am meant to live, then get me the hell out of here!". When I walked into my home, my mother saw my ripped jeans and gave me a hiding with the jug chord for being careless with my clothes. 2 days later I was packing my little bag and going to a friends place to work in their dairy after school and during the holidays.

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