An Outback Nurse Read online

  Dad was killed in a traffic accident in Melbourne that September. He was only forty-six. My poor mother. I was six years old and Terry was four. Tony and Tim were fourteen and twelve. Tony ended up leaving school soon after Dad’s death, and worked for an accountant to help Mum with family finances.

  I can only remember seeing my father once; I suppose I was too young to remember the other times. In Wollongong, on route to Guyra, Dad came up from Melbourne to farewell his family. I was in bed and unwell with an infected foot, and he stood at the end of my bed. I was probably crying. I can’t remember him giving me a cuddle, but I’m sure he did.

  We had one year in Guyra. It was the first time I saw snow. Oh, and it was so cold. I loved the small-town atmosphere; everyone knew everyone. Every Saturday afternoon, the whole town went shopping down the main street. We kids would be given three pence and it would take us all afternoon to spend it. One penny’s worth of this, half a penny’s worth of that, a penny ice-cream which we ate while we took turns on the swings in the park.

  After our time in Guyra, my family moved to Wollongong to be near my maternal grandmother, and that’s where I grew up. We had a very happy childhood and adolescence there. Garc, as we called my grandmother, had moved to Wollongong from Milton after the death of my grandfather, and married a lovely man named George Allen. (Not to be confused with the George Allen, the founder of Allen & Unwin, who married my great-great-aunt Anne Eliza.) Garc and her George owned a large colonial house that had been divided into two flats: we lived in one and they in the other.

  There was a line of coral trees with bright-red flowers down the driveway, leading to a huge backyard. Garden beds of flowers and vegetables were scattered around the back lawn, and at the bottom of the garden there was a chookyard, Uncle George’s pride and joy. Every day he would take the food scraps from our chook bins and ceremoniously mix them with pollard. This feed mix had such a delicious smell, I thought I could eat it. Never did, though! We kids loved to go with Uncle George to feed the hens and rooster. We’d watch him pick up a broody hen and lock her in a special cage, with her own nest for laying and setting the eggs.

  We even had a well in our backyard that was covered with a cement lid about two inches thick. One day when the lid had been pushed back, my four-year-old brother fell inside. Luckily there was water at the bottom and it wasn’t too deep. Tim had to climb down a ladder to rescue Terry, and thankfully he was okay.

  I started school at Saint Francis Xavier Girls’ Convent, taught by the Good Samaritan Sisters. Some were lovely; one was a monster. When I was in sixth class one of the sisters decided I was to sit for a bursary to help with my education expenses. Every time I had a mathematical sum wrong, ‘Out here, Thea McGovern,’ she would say.

  As I stood nervously in front of the class, the sister would crack me across the hand with a long stick while she sat poised on her throne. I hated her. I told my mother about her. But of course nothing was done. No parents complained to schools about their mode of discipline in those days.

  I was an adventurous type, having grown up with three brothers and having a best friend, Nellie, who was as adventurous as me. We were ten years of age and went to school together at the convent. Every weekend, after my ballet classes, we would find something exciting to do.

  We’d climb Mount Keira, at the back of Wollongong, and swing on the monkey vines hanging from the trees, have a picnic on a different beach or in a different park along the South Coast every few weeks, camp in my backyard in a tent, go doubling all over town on my big brother’s bike, take the train to Sydney and walk across the Harbour Bridge, or go to the museum or the art gallery—or, in summer, just go to the beach every day. Life was safer in those days. Kids were free to roam without their parents.

  *

  When my mother met my father, she thought, Blow nursing, and married him after only two years of her training. Back then when a girl married she was expected to give up her career and become a housewife. Spinsters, as single women were called, were the only women who could continue working.

  ‘Now, Thea,’ Mum would say to me, ‘I think you should become a nurse and continue where I left off.’

  So that’s how I had the vision to become a nurse. However, it was touch and go for a while. I’d wanted to become a ballerina. Growing up in Wollongong, every Thursday and Friday afternoon and Saturday morning I attended the Enid Hall School of Ballet. I loved it and did an exam each year: tap, toe and ballet. We also put on an annual concert in the movie theatre, performing two or three routines. I longed to be a ballerina, but it was even more difficult in the 1950s than it is now, especially for a young woman in Wollongong. And there weren’t many other career choices for women, with nursing, teaching, stenography and university as the main options.

  Then Nellie said, ‘Come to teachers college with me! My sisters tell me that everyone has a ball.’

  Having put in an application, I went with Nellie to a seminar in Sydney for those interested in becoming primary schoolteachers. After the leaving results came out, I also applied to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital—where my mother had trained—to become a registered nurse. I had the interview and was told they would soon let me know the result. In the meantime I received a letter of acceptance to Bathurst Teachers College, plus a train ticket. I kept asking myself, What should I do?

  I waited and the following week was accepted at Royal Prince Alfred, and I have never regretted that decision. After four years of general nursing training, I went home to live with my family in Wollongong. Having applied to the local hospital for a position, I was offered sister-in-charge of Isolation. Confident about my nursing skills, I happily accepted.

  But all I wanted to do was travel overseas. I went to my cousin Gwen’s wedding in Guyra. In those days girls had a ‘glory box’: a collection of linen, doilies, pot holders, and anything else that would be required when they got married. Gwen had set up her glory box in her mother’s, my aunt’s, house. Every room was full of glory box stuff, and the whole town came for an inspection.

  Auntie Kate said to me, ‘Wouldn’t you love to have all this?’

  ‘Oh yes, Auntie Kate, how I would love to—and if I did, I would sell the lot and go to England.’

  My aunt was horrified.

  For nine months I worked full time while saving all my wages to go to London with one of my Wollongong friends, Jill Askew. Together we babysat, cleaned cars and had a fun social life with a great crowd of friends who, like us, had come home to Wollongong to work after completing their courses in Sydney.

  It was the rock and roll era, and we partied on at anyone’s home when their parents were away for the evening. I met Colin at one of these parties.

  Jill and I sailed for London on the Cunard ship the Orontes. Most ocean liners had two classes: first in the upper decks and second down below. Our ship just had one class, but we were still in its bowels, on ‘H’ deck, because we wanted to save our money for Europe.

  In the dining room we met a lovely girl, Anne Smidlin, nicknamed Smiddy, and the three of us became great friends during the five weeks it took to get to London via the Suez Canal. We stopped in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Naples, Marseille and Gibraltar, and arrived in England on Anzac Day. That was the start of an absolutely fantastic year with the most wonderful companions, travelling around England and Europe.

  The ‘in thing’ to do, so we’d heard before leaving Australia, was to hire a London cab to tour the Continent. So, of course, that’s what we planned to do, until we caught up with a nursing mate of mine in London, who said, ‘You can’t hire a London cab. It’s far too expensive. The thing to do is hitchhike.’

  ‘What?!’ we all moaned.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’ll go with you, and then we’ll have two pairs, easier for hitching.’ Three was sometimes considered too many, and two pairs meant you could go in two cars. Well, that seemed to be her thinking, anyway.

  Once this was decided, we had to obtain membership of
the Backpacker and Hostel Association, and buy our bed sheets, backpacks and other necessities. Finally we were ready. We rang my friend, only to discover that she hadn’t thought we were serious—and there was no way she could leave with us.

  Shocked, we decided it would have to be just the three of us, and we hoped our drivers wouldn’t mind. Actually, we felt much safer with three in a car.

  Our trip started with a ferry ride from England to Ostend, Belgium, where we caught a train to Bruges, the sweetest little fairytale town, with cobbled streets, quaint shops and a statue of Our Lady at every second corner. We found our first youth hostel: two hundred beds, very modern. We were almost ready to jump under the shower when we discovered there was only one tap. This was April in Europe, akin to the middle of winter in New South Wales. We had our showers amid continuous screams, but I must admit we felt amazing afterwards.

  Next day we were out on the road. Who was going to do that thumb sign first? ‘Not me!’ we all cried. Finally, having noted a small truck coming towards us, I plucked up enough courage to signal the driver. He stopped. The truck reeked of fish. Our very obliging driver indicated that one woman should go in the front and two in the back with the stinking tarps and nets. We didn’t care. We had our first lift and thought our driver was wonderful.

  What followed was a succession of fascinating, personality-plus drivers, ranging from a handsome middle-aged Italian in his Mercedes, who took us all out to dine in Ravenna; a truckie who produced a bottle of Rhine wine as we drove along the river Rhine; and a racing-car driver who wanted to take me to see the lights of Rome, and with whom I reluctantly went after being pushed into it by my ‘mates’.

  He picked me up at the youth hostel in his Lamborghini, and we observed the lights of Rome from one of the seven hills that form the ancient city’s geographical heart. Unfortunately he wasn’t as good-looking as his car, couldn’t speak English and was trying to be romantic. Every time he started to put his arm around my shoulder, I would start asking him questions in broken schoolgirl French. He knew as much French as I did, and as he stumbled to answer he would forget about his arm. Eventually he got sick of it, and me, and took me back to the hostel.

  In Rome I applied for a nanny position. Jill had procured a job with an Italian family, teaching English, so I thought I’d do something similar. I was picked up by a chauffeur-driven BMW and taken to a beautiful mansion on the Appian Way. Here I was interviewed by Signor Lollobridgida—the husband of Gina Lollobridgida, the Italian film star—in a gorgeous, classically designed room, while I sat on a luxurious pink velvet lounge. Of course he wanted someone to stay for two years, and it wouldn’t have been fair to stay for a couple of months and then leave. I had too much more to see on the Continent, so I declined the job and left. But I was thrilled with the experience of meeting someone famous.

  On my return to London, after a fantastic two months hitchhiking around the Continent, it was time to get a job. I didn’t want to work as a nurse; I wanted to try other types of employment, so I joined a casual work agency and went to Swan & Edgar, a large department store in Piccadilly Circus, to sell ladies’ suits.

  It was sale time and summertime in London. The suits were winter quality and horrid. Some customers would put one on and ask, ‘What do you think?’ I tried to give positive responses but it was very difficult as they looked ghastly no matter who tried them on. Somehow I managed to sell fifteen, so I was asked to stay on. No way! It was the standing around I couldn’t stand.

  I declined the offer and went to my next job at Kent Brushes in Bond Street, a very old, established firm that made everything from brooms to hairbrushes: they even had King George IV’s toothbrush on show in the front foyer.

  After several months of filing invoices, I couldn’t wait to get back to nursing, so I joined a private agency in London. I remember going for my interview in my best clothes, wearing little white gloves. They were impressed. Was it the gloves that got me the job, or the fact that they loved Australian nurses in England?

  I nursed some delightful, interesting patients. One was the mother of Hugh ‘Binkie’ Beaumont, a theatre agent who’d brought many fantastic shows to London, such as My Fair Lady. We sat up half the night while she told me of the antics of the film stars at parties in her son’s apartment; Kay Kendall and Rex Harrison were there one night, and Kay jumped over the lounge, much to my patient’s amusement.

  The film star Broderick Crawford was another patient whom I looked after in the London Clinic; and there was a Lady Solomon, from the Bahamas, but she wasn’t ill—she wanted a slave to pick up her clothes as she dropped them on the floor all the way down the corridor to her bedroom. I rang the agency the next day and horrified them when I said I refused to go back.

  I also nursed a Jewish lady who lived at Marble Arch near Hyde Park. She wasn’t ill either, but she just wanted company at night in case she had an asthma attack. I was told to make myself comfortable in a large lounge chair with footstool, pillows and blankets positioned near the end of her double bed.

  ‘Are you sure you are quite comfortable, Sister?’ she would ask several times during the night, after we’d chatted for an hour or so before sleep.

  I learnt a little about Jewish culture from her. She would light the seven candles on the menorah every Friday after her family arrived. It had to be as the sun set, and then they would pray. Her kitchen was divided into halves, meat and dairy, each with its own fridge, sink and utensils. I was told not to use a meat tea towel on dairy utensils and vice versa.

  She offered to take me on a trip to America as her nurse if I stayed with her all that year. But I was off on a jaunt to Scandinavia with Smiddy. I was sent back to nurse the Jewish woman later in the year. Once again she talked of going for a trip to America and wanting a nurse to go with her, implying that I could be the chosen one if I didn’t leave to see my brother in Canada. But I was ready to go, and on my own.

  I left London for Canada with ten pounds in my pocket. Everything was prepaid except for food between New York and Toronto. I travelled to New York on the Carinthia, another Cunard liner. It was the first time I’d travelled by myself, and I had a wonderful time. But funds were definitely getting low, so I pinched some bread and cheese from the dining room before disembarking.

  The Carinthia’s engineer, who had been quite attentive on the voyage, asked if he could show me New York. Well, what could I say? I couldn’t disappoint him. He took me to the United Nations Headquarters, the Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building. I adored New York. And it was all very ‘proper’.

  I only had one night there as the next I was on a train heading towards my brother, Tim. I dropped in to Niagara Falls for a night before continuing to Toronto where I caught the Canadian Pacific through the Rockies to Vancouver. Thank goodness I’d paid for food tickets to cover the three- to four-day trip. I arrived penniless to stay for six weeks with Tim and meet his future wife, Faye Drewes, an Australian from Newcastle who was working as a secretary.

  Although I was booked to return on SS Lakemba, Tim wanted me to stay and work in Canada. I just wanted to get home to see Colin. Sometimes I’ve wondered what would have happened had I stayed. I may have met some charming Canadian and lived most of my life in his country, missing out on my fabulous life in the Outback.

  4

  Our farewell party

  Mr Alan Perry spent the hour of my interview telling me what a wonderful time I was going to have at Wave Hill. He offered me the job on the condition that the general manager, Mr Peter Morris, hadn’t found a nursing sister in Darwin while on a trip there. Mr Perry would ring me that night to confirm. That suited me. I kept my fingers crossed that the general manager would have found someone.

  That evening, in a cab on the way to our farewell party at Smiddy’s home in Point Piper, I told Wylva of my interview and the expected phone call.

  ‘That’s great, Thea. I do hope you get the job.’

  ‘But I don’t want to leave Sydney!’r />
  ‘It sounds like an experience not to be missed. You take it, and if you don’t like it you can always leave.’

  ‘Yes, I guess so.’

  On arrival at the party, Wylva announced that I was expecting a call about a job on a cattle station in the Northern Territory. Everyone was so excited for me, but all I felt was trepidation. About 8 p.m., Mrs Smidlin came into the lounge where we were all watching slides of the Northern Territory.

  ‘There’s a call for you, Thea,’ she said.

  Apprehensive, I slowly walked to the phone. ‘Hello, this is Thea.’

  ‘Congratulations, you’ve got the job!’ Mr Perry answered.

  Oh my God, I thought, what have I agreed to? Am I mad? There was so much to think about. But it was hard to be miserable, with all my friends being so happy for me. I kept telling myself, Thea, if you don’t like it, you can just leave.

  5

  A disorganised organised tour

  There was an air of excitement as Wylva and I arrived at the CSIRO building in our taxi. Ten schoolteachers were chatting merrily to Steve and Adam, the CSIRO lecturers who were being paid to drive the twelve of us in their holiday time.

  Their minibuses were rather dilapidated: one was an Austin and the other a Volkswagen. I boarded the latter with Wylva and four other schoolteachers. I was feeling sad about leaving the city, and fearful at what I’d accepted, but I decided I’d worry about that when I got to Alice in two weeks’ time. This was another adventure, I told myself, which I was going to enjoy.

  We passed Central Railway and Marcus Clark’s department store on the right, continuing on until we turned into Parramatta Road. Just outside Sydney University, we slowed. The motor was making unusual noises—and we broke down. Unbelievable! There were, of course, no mobile phones, but we’d passed a garage not far back. Adam walked back to get help. After some band-aiding, we were off again with a new motor on order.