9. THE SIXTIES: "THE TIMES THEY ARE A' CHANGING"

Their overseas trip had been, in Olive's words 'a real eye-opener'. She had seen the poverty of Asia and the opulence of Beverley Hills. She had experienced the alienation of New York and the intimacy of a quiet walk along a deserted Spanish beach. She had known the generosity of strangers and the rudeness of hotel clerks. She had been dazzled by the New World of America and affirmed her roots in the Old World charm of London. The more bohemian ways of 'Gay Paris' had confronted her sensibilities, and the 'smiling, polite Canadians'[1] had beguiled her. She and Norman had 'seen the world', often as the only Australians in the tour group and were left with a quiet pride in their country and a feeling of their right to belong as world citizens. The trip had many overtones of a 'second honeymoon', and she and Norman must have settled back into the rhythms of Adelaide life with satisfaction about their lot.

They took on the role of grandparenthood with generosity and pleasure. From 1960 to 1963, they added three new grandchildren to their number — Stephen Mitchell in July 1960, Lorene Peta in July 1961, and Frai Charmian in November 1963. They moved into a newly built house in Hawthorn. Chrissie was still a fixture in the household but, in January 1960, Grandpa Steve died aged 89.

Olive again set about the task of making a new garden that now included place for a swing and sandpit for the grandchildren. During the sixties, both Olive and Norman moved into their own sixtieth years and their lives settled into a more sedate pace than that of the late Forties and early Fifties. Norman joined the nearby bowls club, Olive returned to work at Central Florists, continued to meet with the 'baseball girls' and pursue her love of craft. However, events in the world and in her Canadian family were moving in ways that would have a significant impact on them and family relationships.

Through the sixties, there was a sea change in Africa and the geo-political map of that country was re-written. By the end of the sixties, only three countries, most notably South Africa, were left under colonial rule. The Berlin wall was constructed, straining Cold War relations further and the Cuban missile crisis brought the United States and the USSR to the brink of war. The USA was in turmoil as protests about the Vietnam War escalated. The Kennedys and Martin Luther King were assassinated. In 1969, less than 12 years since people had stood in the street to watch the path of Sputnik, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon and we watched it live on television. In Canada, Charles deGaulle incensed the Canadian government by publicly supporting Quebec's claims for independence.

However, it was on the west coast of Canada that events more personal to Olive and Norman were afoot. In 1964, Bob phoned to say that he would be able to make a brief visit to Adelaide. The excitement of the visit was overshadowed by another call, this time from Trish, indicating that there were serious strains in the marriage, but asking that nothing be said during the visit unless Bob initiated it. Respecting Trish's request, the visit proceeded with no one raising the matter[2], but the issue was now very much in Olive and Norman's minds.

I have no records of this time to give me access to Olive's experience, and my own memories are constrained by my own self-interests of a demanding job, a young family and a chronic illness. What is clear is that Olive set out to hold in tension her commitment to her 'Canadian family' and her continuing support for her elder son. When Bob's marriage dissolved and the letters from Trish were becoming increasingly strident as she gave vent to her hurt and pain, Olive wrote regularly and sent gifts for every birthday and Christmas. I do not know what she wrote in those letters as she walked the tightrope that allowed her to stay in contact with Trish without abandoning her loyalty to her son, but it must have drawn on all the skills in diplomacy that she had.

 

Olive at Chalien's fourth birthday, October 1963

Charmian, Neil, Norman, Olive and Bob at the Hotel Australia, 1964.

Olive had, of course, her own concerns. Norman was having health problems. He had developed diabetes and hypertension and, driven by a feeling that he was no longer physically able to deal with the maintenance of their house as well as a desire for greater financial security, he chose — against Olive's better judgement—to sell their house in Hawthorn and move into a smaller unit. This move was unsuccessful. Olive was unhappy in the confines of the small unit with the three of them — Chrissie, of course, still in residence — and wanted more space. They shifted again, to a larger house in Brighton and, finally to a unit in Toorak Gardens.

While they were at Brighton, Bob, now married to Barbara, returned to Australia. Neither Olive or Norman warmed to Bob's new wife, but they covered their dislike as best they could and accepted the challenge of continuing to contact and support the Canadian part of their family while offering support to Bob and Barbara. It was not easy for Bob to get work and, after some lean years in Adelaide, he and Barbara moved first to Perth and then, in the early 1970s, to Wollongong.

In the ten years since they had walked (in my imagination, hand in hand) on a quiet beach in sunny Spain and felt their life satisfying complete, Olive and Norman's life had become much more problematic. Norman's health was now declining and he was working part-time, Bob's drinking was emerging as a serious problem, and the family in Canada were struggling in more ways than Olive knew. I was not helping as I was developing political ideas at variance with my father's by publicly opposing the war in Vietnam in letters to the paper and joining street protests. The hopes for the future with which they had sailed from Sydney in 1959 had not come to fruition and the approaching Seventies must have looked very different to them from the possibilities at the end of the Fifties.

But through all of this, what I recall as I now reflect on the time is their quiet and good-humoured generosity. There were practical gifts of clothing for our expanding family, regular offers of baby—sitting (including precious weekends away with their invaluable contribution to our marriage relationship), and the loan of money (from probably fairly scarce resources) that allowed us to buy the land and build the house in Hawthorndene. When we had a road accident outside Port Fairy in 1968, writing off our car and our front teeth, Norman drove to Port Fairy to pick us up and bring us home again. Whatever was happening in the world and in their own lives, the commitment to their family was unswerving.

 

10. THE SEVENTIES: SADNESS AND NEW HOPE

^{In the seventies, JK Galbraith published a political commentary on the times dubbing it 'The age of uncertainty' and certainly the Seventies turned Olive's life on its head. Bob's drinking led eventually to the end of his marriage, the loss of his job at the Illawarra Mercury in Wollongong and, by the end of the decade, his return to face the total uncertainty of what lay in wait for him Canada. In 1974, after several months of hospitalisation, Norman died of congestive heart failure and, in the following year, I watched Olive's diminutive figure, stooped but firm with determination, walk across the tarmac at Adelaide Airport to begin her journey to Canada. She would have been just 70 and, as I approach that age myself, I begin to get some of the meaning of that journey. Not much more than 6 months widowed after 47 years of marriage, she set out alone to live with her Canadian family. There can be little doubt that her travel experiences of 1959 had contributed to a self-belief in the possibilities of international travel. But this time she went alone, driven by the need to build the bridge[3] across the Pacific that linked the Australian and Canadian heritages of her grandchildren.}

^{The Australia she left in 1975 had seen some happy events and some significant upheavals. The Adelaide Festival Theatre opened and, in 1972, Australia elected its first non-conservative government for 23 years, leading to a ferment in Australian politics that would end with the famous (or infamous, depending on your political point of view) dismissal of the government in 1977. Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin on Christmas Eve of 1974. The Australian stock exchange saw one the greatest madnesses of share trading as Poseidon Ltd, whose shares had entered the market at 50c each, soared to an mazing $280 per share and then crashed, virtually overnight, to less than a $1 when the vaunted mineral finds did not eventuate. People made and lost fortunes within days.}

^{In 1972, Ricki Gaelle was born to us and both Olive and Norman delighted in their new grand-daughter. Before Ricki's birth, Charmian had begun a new career as a swimming instructor, which she continued for a time after Ricki's birth, and then began what was to become a life-long commitment to craft by developing her skills as a potter. I made the beginning of a career change, enrolling in Psychology at Flinders University and purchasing the newly-established campus pharmacy.}

^{It was a time for Olive of loss, of uncertainty, but of the creation of new possibilities.}

^{The time of Norman's illness and death was a difficult one. She and I visited the hospital almost daily from July to November. For the most part, Norman bore his dying stoically, joking about some of the other men in the ward and their peculiarities. However, on one occasion, following some (probably unnecessary) surgery, we found him distressed and, for the only time in my recollection, I saw my father in tears. Olive held him tenderly and soothed him as I waited, a stranger to their intimacy. Twice I called Bob to come from Wollongong as we thought Norman's condition was grave. However, on both occasions, he rallied and it was not until November 13th that I received an early morning call to tell me that he had died in the night. I drove down to their unit at Toorak Gardens and sat quietly with Olive, shedding tears as we recalled Norman's kind and generous life. Three days later, after Norman's funeral that, true to her life-long commitment[4], Olive did not attend, Bob, Charmian and I returned to the unit with Arnie, Alice, Cyril and Lily. The next couple of hours were full of family stories and laughter, grief released in its more buoyant form of celebrating a life.}

^{The trip to Canada — the story of which follows—was one expression of Olive's good—humoured determination to get on with her life.}

^{'I decided that whenever anyone asked me to go somewhere, I'd say "Yes" straightaway and worry later about whether I had the energy,' she told me. 'I could always sleep in the next day!'}

^{She and Norman had joined the senior citizens' club at Burnside and she continued to go regularly. She continued to go to the 'baseball girls' meetings. Charmian and I often took her and her good friend Marge Milkins[5] for drives on weekends and it was on these drives, that some of the family stories were told and others hinted at. Chrissie, who had been a fixture in their household since the Second World War, had died only a few days before Norman and, bit by bit, the story of a person who, to me, had been a rather prim and sour old maid took form[6].}

 Minnie's Ring