Читать книгу The Firefighter Blues - Alan Bruce - Страница 18

During our years at Greenacre, Dad worked as a bus driver for a short while but he always seemed to gravitate back to what he knew best; furniture removal. He would sometimes be on the road for weeks, leaving Mum to look after us and the house. She would be working her day job then come home to a house full of neighbourhood kids, homework, washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning. My parents were definitely not afraid of hard work, I’m just not sure if they utilised their drive and enthusiasm to their best advantage. I’m now convinced they brought with them the ‘British Council House’mentality. In their world, only the rich owned their homes, it wasn’t for people like us. The best we could do was put our name on the register for a government Housing Commission house. The list was long and the wait could be years, but Mum and Dad saw that as our only option.

With primary school over, I had been attending Punchbowl Boys High School for three months when a letter arrived from the NSW Department of Housing. It was 1969 and we had been offered our first permanent address since arriving in Australia. Dad was on shift work at the time so he was home. He was over the moon because our new residence was in the same street as one of his best mates, Paddy McHugh. He and his family became lifelong friends after meeting at East Hills Hostel. Mum wasn’t so sure about our prospective address. I remember how her face went an awful shade of grey when I ran up to the bus stop to greet her.

‘Mum, guess what? We’re moving to Green Valley.’