Читать книгу The Firefighter Blues - Alan Bruce - Страница 15

Hammondville Primary School was the first school I ever attended as I was too young for school in Scotland. Jenny, a year older than me, did spend some time at the local school back in Letham so she didn’t experience the first day jitters that I did, although, from memory, there wasn’t much to it. Mum had to work so I was simply dropped off with my sister, a quick hello to the teacher and Mum was gone. I recall an emptiness in my stomach but I don’t think it lasted long. Throughout my entire life, my father never stepped foot inside any school that I attended. Come to think of it, apart from dropping me off on my first day, neither did Mum.

The school student population was a mix of army kids, a few locals, and us … the children from East Hills and Heathcote Hostels.

Hammondville Primary is still in operation today and many of the original buildings are still in use.

There was a local bus that picked up all the hostel kids and dropped us at school. I was barely five years old and, to this day, can’t believe I managed to get to the bus stop on time, organise my money or tickets for fares, and pick up canteen lunches from the hostel.

I loved the trip to school. Apart from the bus winding its way through bush settings of red gums and paperbark trees, the activities inside the bus were just as enjoyable. As with most British kids of that era, singing ridiculous songs about your surroundings was very common and life on East Hills Hostel provided wonderful ammunition for the aspiring writers in our midst.

Every morning and afternoon, the crunching of the school bus gearbox was drowned out by a few choruses of Come to East Hills. Words pieced together by the local kids and sung to the old tune, Oh My Darling Clementine. Within minutes of taking your seat, all you could hear was:

Come to East Hills, come to East Hills.

It’s a place of misery.

When you get there, there’s a sign post

Saying Welcome unto thee.

Don’t believe it, don’t believe it.

It is all a pack of lies.

If it wasn’t for the manager

It would be a paradise.

Hostel life and music were so intertwined that no-one seemed overly impressed by the stars and future stars that lived among us. Teenagers who would go on to form one of the great Aussie/British groups of the sixties, the Easybeats, and their younger siblings who later established AC/DC, lived at nearby Villawood Hostel. East Hills claimed Snowy Fleet (the Easybeats drummer) and future pop sensation John Paul Young. Dozens more, like Jimmy Barnes and John Swan climbed from the creative chowder of the Commonwealth Hostel Scheme forming the foundations of rock and pop music for generations to come.

Initially, the accommodation arrangement was designed to provide temporary lodgings for migrants and give them time to find work, save a little money then hopefully move on to more spacious, comfortable and permanent housing. I'm sure East Hills Hostel felt like purgatory for some and heaven for others. My parents seemed to enjoy hostel life so, as a consequence, we remained at East Hills for close to three years. While Dad moved in and out of the factories along the East Hills railway line, working a few months until he found out the factory next door was paying its workers more money, eventually Mum was lucky enough to land a job at the preschool located within East Hills Hostel. This meant she could stop travelling great distances for work and be closer to her own children if needed. This may have been one reason why we stayed there for so long – it was convenient. That, and the fact that two years into our stay, my mother’s family emigrated from Scotland and, as luck would have it, moved into the rooms adjacent to ours. The timing was perfect as our dear friends the Langley’s had purchased a small parcel of land in the farming area of Bringelly and vacated the adjoining flat weeks earlier. On my seventh birthday, May 1964, my Uncle Grant, Aunty Sheena and their two young boys, David and Ewan, arrived with my grandmother on my mother’s side (Mary Gray). Not only did Mum now have her entire family with her, I had cousins to play with. Hostel fun just got better and better.

I'm sure those early years were unsettling times for my parents but having family around would have helped to ease the burden. The Bruce, Binnie and Spark families could rely on each other when times were tough and I'm certain this helped to lighten the load and ease the feelings of isolation and loneliness that beset some newcomers.

Mid year, 1965, my family bid farewell to East Hills Hostel. I’m still not sure whether my parents finally decided to leave willingly or they were given a little nudge by the hostel scheme administrators. Either way, it was the start of a rental cycle that would last for years.