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| Sydney, 1960 |
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| Snack time, Sydney 1960 |
A powerful reason for our happiness and light hearts during our year in London in 1961-62 and for many months on both sides of it was the adorable age of our two little children. It was the age of magic when they believed the Winnie the Pooh stories, believed that Mole and Ratty and Toad of Toad Hall could really talk, believed that Fern could hear and understand the conversations between Charlotte, Wilbur and Templeton, believed there really was a Cut-and-Come-Again Pudding (they wanted Wendy to make one like it, so she did, and surreptitiously added to it as she excised portions for them after each meal time. For a time this added to their belief - which I shared - that she was superhuman).
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| Feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square, 1961 |
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| Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens Autumn, 1961 |
Rebecca and David were only 15 months apart in age, almost like twins in some ways, very affectionate, standing hand in hand together in the face of adversity and all the uncertainties of those wandering years. It was the age of cute sayings, spontaneous bon mots. Like legions of other parents of youngsters at that magical age we wished we'd jotted their remarks down, but we didn't, and like those legions we soon forgot most of them. We have a good photographic record, and I'd hoped to find a few gems in Wendy's diaries, but the pickings there too are slim to non-existent.
Early in September 1961 we took a train to Cambridge. It was foggy as we sat in a crowded carriage at Liverpool Street station, every seat taken in our 3rd class compartment. As we waited for the train to start, David broke the silence to ask the profound question that all bright children ask sooner or later: "Mummy, where did I come from?" Wendy looked me in the eyes with an expression that spoke volumes, and told him how Daddy had planted a seed in her tummy and it had grown into a little baby - him. David gazed at Wendy with his big unblinking eyes and asked a second, practical question: "How did I get out of your tummy, Mummy?" So she told him that too, no nonsense about storks or cabbage patches, just the facts. David - and the strangers sharing our compartment - took it all in, asked no further questions. Then the train began to move and the clackety-clack of wheels on the rails drowned out further conversation. Soon the fog lifted too, and by the time we got to Cambridge the sun shone brightly down from a clear blue sky on what turned out to be the hottest day of that summer, with a temperature in the 90s.
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| Two youthful activists approaching Parliament House, Canberra, 1963 |
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| en route Sydney - Melbourne 1963 |
On June 9 1963 when we were living in Sydney, Jonathan was born, adding new responsibilities to Rebecca's and David's lives. They lived on in a magical world of their own for a few months more but slowly when Jonathan's congenital heart disease became apparent and as they took on more household duties, the dynamics changed and their magical world slowly faded away. Even all these 50+ years later, I still miss it.
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| Beside the shark-proof rock pool, Mosman, Sydney Harbour, Summer 1962-3 |
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| With Grannie Vera Last in our garden 98 Grasmere Road, Cremorne, Sydney 1963 |
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| Our little family, Jonathan aged 6 months Adelaide, December 1963 |
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| On Frozen Lake Champlain December 1964 |
Adorable! "Out of the mouths of babes" comments, eh?
ReplyDeleteWhere did they get the blonde hair?
From the collections of soppy poetry I have written, one is called "Clouds of Cotton", reflecting on the times my children were still full of questions and wonder - and I seemed so smart and magical.
We took many pictures when the first came along. Then a few more when the second and third appeared. I made efforts to record events and developments over time in one of my journals. If I had them, I would tape in corresponding photographs.
Thank you for sharing this time of your young family's life. Many parents may agree that although the earliest years may have been the busiest and messiest times, they were the most creative and rewarding.
T
Blond hair? Both Wendy and I had blue eyes, fair hair, freckles - low quotient of melanin pigment. It was expressed in our children's blond hair in early childhood, darkening slowly until adolescence when it became mousy-brown - at about the same time as magic vanished from their lives.
ReplyDeleteWow. Harsh on poor Jonathan! I think they still had magic together, all three of them - at least that's what it looked like from outside the family, hearing the history. Of course, every child has to grow up eventually...but the whimsy still existed in their hearts, as I well remember from David's tales to our children. He'd keep them amused for hours with stories of Gerald the Giraffe and Harold the laughing hyena.
ReplyDeleteSo all was not lost...