A Dedication

This book is dedicated initially to Sister Denise, OSB, whom I knew for only a short while but with whom I spent lovely hours exchanging tales and experiences, comparing ours with the unfortunate lives of other women. Denise, who had had such a hard life growing up in Maine was sadly taken from all her friends in 2007 when a car driven by a drunken young man ploughed into the one in which she and two of her companions were traveling in Richmond, VA. Unfortunately they were all killed.

I think of Denise every time I re-read the many little cards she gave me or slipped under my door when I lived with her community for a few months in Virginia, USA, in 2006.

In addition to the dedication to Denise, this book is for all those unsung heroes who get on with their lives after experiencing tremendous struggles with their gender. Many commit suicide in order to rid themselves of the extreme pain, discrimination, and often violence against them. Many are successful and change without much antagonism from others. Some are attacked by violent bigots and left maimed for life, while others, like Claire in this story, are attacked verbally, especially by family members who refuse to accept change. So this story is dedicated to all those who have struggled in one form or another with their gender identity, especially the members of ‘Edinburgh TransWomen,’ a community group based in Edinburgh, Scotland, of women who share similar stories of their past lives.

Bella Waxman

Forword

It is obvious from the start of our lives that boys are led to believe that their lives are more worthwhile than their sisters”; mothers favor sons over daughters, daughters learn to defer to brothers, sons model themselves on their father. Little boys learn, by osmosis if not by explicit lessons, that the world is fashioned to suit the male of our species, and that they are entitled to any advantage given to them.

Burton, Betty (2004) Josephine and Harriet.

HarperCollins, London, UK.

The Enigma

While this story is essentially a work of fiction, characters and some events in the novel have been based to some extent upon those experienced by a number of women I have known and who have shared their stories with me. In many ways therefore, it is somewhat biographical. While I have obtained permission to use the experiences of others, I have been careful to change personal and place names. Nevertheless, many events portrayed in this novel tend to be based on true happenings.

I have relied also on my own experiences of places, individuals and events, especially with parents and siblings, to build up a story that is both factual and at the same time a work of fiction. Some events may have been related due to the detail being in the public domain, but others are imaginary even if they might bear the name of places which exist somewhere, on any continent. In such cases, a place name in this story may not bear any resemblance to the actual town or place which is so named.

Many of the stories attributed to the main character Claire Wilson, are based on her life experiences. The only friends, who know of her past apart from her family, are all supportive of her bravery to follow her dream. Toward the end of the book and into its sequel, The Nymph outlines colleagues who walked away from her to leave her almost destitute. As for her family, with only a few exceptions, they have discriminated against her. Of those around her today, no one knows of her past and as a result she lives a peaceful life. When Claire and I saw on ABC 7.30 (Australia) in February 2014 a program which outlined the life and struggles of Lieutenant Colonel Catherine (Cate) McGregor of the Australian Army, who had gone through a similar gender change, it was very painful for her. She realized that if someone was identified in the public media as a notable person in their own right, then a gender change was big news. For Claire, and many of those women and men who are simply ordinary folk who have undergone a similar change of gender, there is no publicity, no public acknowledgement of their struggles and they simply blend into society without “a bang or a whimper” (Victor Hugo).

It happened again when Claire watched Cate McGregor, now described as a transgendered RAAF Officer, address the National Press Club of Australia one lunchtime in April 2015. She had matured as a woman and spoke eloquently, though at times with obvious melancholy in her voice, but there was universal acceptance of those in her audience. She described how everyone, from the Prime Minister downward, had accepted her almost universally. Hearing this, Claire became somewhat morose, being so conscious of many in her family and former work colleagues, who opposed her. Claire has over the years had some family members, especially in the USA and the UK come out publicly to support her, but by and large she has found that when people know she was transgendered, the more they reject her, no matter how beautiful she might have become in the process.

Bella Waxman 2015

Prologue

2002

Claire and her fiancé Harvey had been to visit Sharon Nixon, a woman with whom she had previously shared what some might say was an intimate life. Harvey had suggested he meet Sharon after Claire had started to tell him her story. At first Harvey told her that he really didn’t want to know the gory details as he would make his own mind up, in his own time and in his own way. On that particular evening, at his home in Cleveland, just south of Brisbane, she had given him the bare essentials when he said: “Look Claire, I don’t really want to know any more. As far as I am concerned you are a woman whom I have fallen in love with and that is enough for me. To be quite honest, I wouldn’t have known anyway, so let’s leave it at that, shall we?” This from a man who, upon meeting her for the first time at a picnic shelter in Yamba, on the NSW Northern Coast, had presented her with his business card and a color photograph of himself wearing a dark blue blazer, shirt and tie. Claire was to discover later that this was an unusual way of dressing for Harvey, who normally passed his days in a Hawaiian brightly-colored shirt and a pair of pale colored shorts.

Now as they drove away from Sharon’s home in Elgindale in Harvey’s Mercedes, without turning to look at her he commented: “To be quite honest Claire, now that I have met Sharon face to face, I would have said that she is much older than you, not the other way around.” Claire had to smile to herself as Sharon was five years her junior and Harvey was also her junior too, by ten years. It seemed that at sixty-two Claire was constantly being told that she looked as though she was in her forties. Even friends in her local women’s service club took her for a much younger woman. It was assumed that she might have been perhaps a fan of the late Elvis Presley because of the age she was perceived to be. But Claire certainly wasn’t an Elvis fan and never had been. In actual fact she had been raised on the music of Victor Sylvester and his Ballroom Orchestra, as she loved ballroom dancing. In fact, at one stage in her teens she had been a member of a ballroom dancing group in the city of Aireborough in Yorkshire.

Harvey continued, “You know Claire, had I not known any different, I would have said that Sharon might have had a gender change as she has masculine qualities.” Claire was shocked, as she had known Sharon intimately. Harvey, with a broad smile spreading across his face, chuckled to himself. He did like to make outlandish statements. That was Harvey. On her part, she simply smiled to herself as she knew both her own story and Sharon’s too. But as Harvey was not really interested in any information that was in his own words “secret women’s business,” his brain turned off as Claire, his fiancée, opened her mouth to make comment.

According to Harvey, she was supposed to take great interest in his “pastimes,” like his golfing, his fishing, his crabbing and his other interests, all his needs and desires. There was the time when they were traveling into Brisbane one morning, when he suddenly exclaimed: “Did you see that truck?”

“What truck darling?” Claire stared at Harvey as they drove along the highway in his Mercedes.

“The one we just passed. Don’t you ever take note of what we see?”

“Yes darling I do, but I am not interested in trucks.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m just not! Women tend not to look at things that men look at, just as you constantly remind me that certain things are in your own words, ‘secret women’s business’.”

“But this is different Claire. That is the model of truck I need to carry my golf clubs, my crab pots and my fishing rods. After we are married we can sell your Hyundai and we’ll then have enough money to buy a truck like that one we just passed.” Claire went hot and cold in rapid succession. There was no thought that Harvey might sell his Mercedes of course. No, that wouldn’t do. As they were engaged to be married, her needs had to become subservient to Harvey’s needs and desires.

“Oh so, it is my money you want, is it?”

“No! Don’t put it like that Claire.”

“What other way am I to put it. You want us to get married so you can sell my car which is bought and paid for, just so you can indulge in one of your cravings. No darling that is not going to happen. I am definitely not going to sell my yellow Hyundai. Perish the thought.”

Harvey went into a deep sulk, and did not come out of it for the rest of the day. Claire presumed that it had been his intention all along to indulge his cravings at her expense. So she had to put her foot down firmly, and now was the time.

Harvey had even gone to the extent of deciding where they were to be married. It was to be in Brisbane’s Anglican Cathedral and attended by his cronies in a movement he called the Knights of St Jerome in which he was apparently known as a squire, prior to becoming a full knight. He was going to ask the bishop to marry them too. Claire was not consulted. She was merely a woman and was obliged to follow the lead of the man in everything. That was what it so often said in the Bible, and that was Harvey’s belief. To her, such outdated beliefs stemmed from one disgruntled and extremely bigoted man called Sha’ul of Tarsus, known by Christians as St Paul. She found it difficult to believe that after almost two millennia, people believed such ancient garbage.

As for Harvey, it came to a head one day when, through her tears, Claire cried that he never took her anywhere, unless it was to a free luncheon. In fact the second time they had dated, it was at a small restaurant on Queensland’s Gold Coast, near Surfers’ Paradise, and he actually admitted, nudged by some pointed questions from her, that he had won two free tickets for a meal by answering a question on a local radio program. That was Harvey, anything for free. So this time he had promised to take Claire out to lunch, followed at her insistence that they go for a long walk on the beach. All was fixed for a particular day.

Claire had already booked an appointment at a beauty salon in Cleveland to have her usual three-weekly acrylic nail refill while Harvey admitted he had a meeting with his psychiatrist. Yes, she knew that alarm bells should have rung loudly in her head at this news but she supposed she must have had blinkers on at the time. She was certainly not aware that he consulted a psychiatrist. But don’t lots of folk have a psychiatrist, even if she didn’t? Well, perhaps Claire might have done a few years earlier, but that was for some other reason, which will be explained later as her story unfolds.

Claire had given Harvey a particular time to collect her from the salon but he turned up half an hour early expecting her to be waiting for him with shiny red nails. When the nail technician told him to come back in a half hour he sulked and told Claire to be at his Mercedes around the corner when the assistant had finished.

An hour and a half later, after she had been sitting in the hot sun near his car for at least an hour or more, he calmly strode up, unlocked the doors and climbed into the driver seat. His dearly beloved was expected to step forward, open the passenger door herself and sit down, close the door and act as though nothing untoward had happened. Harvey then sped off as though he was in an enormous hurry. They had only traveled about a kilometer when his mouth opened, “Oh by the way, I’m playing golf this afternoon.”

“But darling what about the magazines you were planning to take to the Seamen’s Mission, and then our lunch and walk on the beach?”

“What lunch and walk on the beach?”

“You said we would have a nice lunch out and then after dropping the magazines off at the mission, we would go for a stroll along the beach.”

“Did I?”

“Yes you did.”

“When was that?”

“Last evening after I complained you never took me anywhere and then again this morning before we drove off.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, you did, so there.”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind. I am playing golf this afternoon.” Claire really didn’t know what to say as she was so shocked at his change of mind, ignoring what to her were the exciting plans they had made the previous evening.

They drove back to Harvey’s blond-brick residence in silence, Claire fuming inside, wondering if he could see the steam coming out of her ears, as her face slowly changed from normal to hot and flustered. Back at his house, trying to hide her anger, she asked, while trying desperately to keep a cool countenance: “Shall I make you some lunch darling?”

“No, don’t bother. I will get some lunch at the club.”

With that he went back into the garage, threw his golf clubs into the car’s trunk and reversed out of the driveway. The electrically operated garage doors slowly descended leaving Claire, his beloved future wife, staring into nothingness. All she had in front of her was a black fog, accompanied by a deepening silence.

Why was I putting up with this treatment? Claire had to ask herself. Was she so desperate for a guy like Harvey that she would put up with anything he verbally threw at her? They had previously split up for six months to see how they both felt. Claire had suggested the separation following her discovery that he was secretly dating oriental girls through the Internet, causing her to blow up over the issue. She had told him in no uncertain terms that if they were to be married, then she had to be the only one he was to date. So, after he departed for his golf club, Claire decided to have a look on his computer to see if he still had photos of a selection of Chinese girls on his screen saver. Thankfully, he hadn’t, but she was still suspicious, so she looked through his folders. Ahah, you bastard, got you. She mouthed softly, but with venom in her voice. What he had done was to sideline the portraits which had previously been on his screen saver to store them in a new folder. So, Harvey was obviously still online dating. Hmm!

That does it, She said to herself, closing his machine down and then walking defiantly back into the kitchen. What was she to do? Moving into the bedroom she methodically packed her case and carried it to the front door in readiness for loading into the back of her bright yellow Hyundai. But then, turning sideways saw her car, still under the side awning of the house and the gates were locked. Harvey had driven her car in the previous evening prior to his intention to mow the grass at the front of the house, which as it happened, he then forgot to do, instead staying glued to the television, watching the cricket. Typical man, she thought.

Claire went into the garage and spying her blue metal tool box, which he had taken from her shed in Elgindale; she found what she had been advised was ‘a shifter’ and was able to undo the hex-headed screws on the gate lock. Yey! What a clever girl, Claire thought to herself. She drove out her car and replaced the screws on the lock, putting her case and the toolbox into the back of the Hyundai.

However, driving off in so much anger she had cleanly forgot to check the washing machine, to see if she had left any laundry behind. Crying all the way to Grafton, it was almost evening when she took a room in a cheap motel on Pacific Highway, bought a burger and fries from McDonald’s and cried herself to sleep. Clearly she had fallen for a nut case and no mistake. Or, was he typical of many men, full of their own importance and to Hell with interfering women?

Driving back up to the Tablelands the next morning, Claire decided that as she had already sold her beautiful pre-Federation cottage, she would find a new home on the coast as it was certainly cooler than in the New England during the summer months. How she arrived home she really didn’t know as she started thinking of her enigmatic and often traumatic past. Why had one particular guy told her that she was a parasite on society and should have been drowned at birth like an unwanted kitten? Why did people turn against her when they knew or had been told of her past? Certainly Claire had many friends whom she had not told and they remained loyal. Even a couple of her older friends, who had known her for many years, had stayed loyal. So why was she a victim of her birth? Why were some people, especially many of her relatives, so cruel and brutal in their condemnation of her? Claire appeared to be no different to other women, having the same physical and emotional characteristics, so why was she attacked from time to time by those who knew of her past?

As she once again recalled her former life, so many events brought tears to her eyes, together with tremendous heartache and melancholy. But here, right now, her story begins again, so that folk might understand why women like her are sometimes victimized. Is it any wonder that Claire describes her life as an exploding enigma?

1

1940

Claire’s mother, Olivia Wilson (née Levine) had always imagined her first born would be a girl. Olivia’s sister-in-law, Deborah, who had married elder brother Jeremy, had given birth a few months earlier to June; the first girl of her Levine generation, and Olivia hoped with all her heart that she also might give birth to a girl. Her older sister Elaine had had a boy to Norrie Stevens, so Olivia thought it was definitely time for another girl to be born into the Levine clan.

On the other hand, Milton, Olivias husband, was expecting the new baby to be a boy. Kate, the wife of his older brother Clive, had given birth to Kirsty eight months earlier, and Daphne, the wife of Milton’s brother Sandy, had given birth to Coralee, about the same time. So the next generation of the Wilsons, should, by rights, be a boy one presumed. But Milt, as most people called him, not only presumed, but claimed that he, like many pseudo-macho misogynists, full of his own capabilities as a self-proclaimed full-bloodied male would have a son, and no mistake. ‘A man’s a man for a’ that’ the majestic Scots bard had written. Men who sired female babies, in Milt’s opinion were less than full-blown men – more on the side of the ‘poofters’ he detested, than real men like himself, although he did not exactly refer to his brothers in those terms. On Claire’s part, with a man like that as a father, she was to experience so much of his character growing up in Micklegate. Known as ‘Micky’ to most of its residents, it was an outer suburb of the city of Aireborough in Yorkshire.

So, Claire was born in the winter of 1940. In her later childhood and teenage years she always imagined it snowing on her birthday, whether this was wishful thinking on her part or not, she never could recall. You see, Claire certainly had no recollection as to whether it was snowing when she was born, irrespective of her feeling that it did. But no one ever told her, so maybe it was indeed a figment of what might later be described by some members of the family, as her wild romantic imagination. Nevertheless, as Claire grew up in ‘Micky’ she developed a fascination for the cold white stuff and would spend hours glued to the French door in the dining room looking up at the sky, as the flakes floated gently down to settle on the back garden. It was as though the sky was falling apart and covering the earth with its flakey residue. She was mesmerized.

Many years later, in fact, well into her womanhood Claire had been standing next to a window at Cousin Olivia’s house (yes she was named after Claire’s mother) in Detroit, Michigan, looking up at snowflakes falling when Olivia commented with a puzzled expression on her somewhat rotund face: “You really have a fascination for snow, don’t you, Claire?”

“I suppose I do really. As a little girl I was fascinated by the snow and spent hours staring at the sky, watching individual snowflakes to see where each one landed.” So, to some degree, the die had been set. Me and snow went together like crackers and cheese, or plums and custard, Claire presumed. It was a given.

But, like all babies upon being born, she supposed she might have slept most of the time, as it takes a lot out of a baby coming into the world. Although Claire was not to know it at the time, she was born a few months into the earth shattering event which was to be known as the Second World War, or World War II, depending on which side of the Atlantic Ocean one lived. All she had recollection of in her first few months was looking up out of her gorgeous soft-brown eyes at her mum, as she enjoyed refreshments every few hours between sleeps. One supposes like most babies she may have cried too, in fact it was most likely that she did. But Claire was to have no recollection of any of this and no one ever told her of anything that hinted at her being fond of crying. In all honesty, she could not remember her mum or anyone else for that matter, saying that she was a good or a bad baby. Not that it matters today in the 21st century, as she tried to recall how her life on this planet began, linking bits and pieces together as one might a 1000-piece ‘advanced-level’ jigsaw.

There were a few things Claire did remember though. For example she distinctly remembered sitting in her baby carriage, looking out over the cover which was navy blue, with a silver woven design running around the edge. She also remembered being in her cot looking through the white bars. Milton, her dad, was in the habit of telling folk that in order to go to sleep the child would ask him to: “holy hand!” – Her babyish way of asking him to hold her hand. As Claire grew up, she listened to this joke of his over and over again, which somehow made her feel inferior, portraying her as a somewhat effeminate character which her father despised in all males. But then lots of folk remember little things like this. So in that way Claire supposed she was no different to other kids. Or was she?

In 1940, it was not uncommon for women in Yorkshire to give birth at home, and this was true for Olivia Wilson, but under the supervision of the local midwife, Nurse Middleton. Claire’s birth was in that category as she was born in her parent’s front bedroom. Their house was in a street called Sandy Peth, off Hawkhill Drive, Micklegate, which is today a major suburb of Aireborough. Her parents, Milton Stanley Wilson and Olivia Eliza Wilson (née Levine) had bought the house new in 1938 when Olivia worked as a shorthand typist in the city center and Milton was a draftsman in the drawing office of Burnley Aircraft, which had a factory in Overton Road. Olivia had attended Our Lady’s College, a High School for Roman Catholic girls, just off Woodthorpe Lane, past the Brotherton Tower of Aireborough University. In her senior year, however, Olivia had left Our Lady’s to attend a course on shorthand and typing at Clark’s College, which was later, to become a high school. Olivia told Claire about this many years later when she passed an entrance exam to attend that very same school.

Claire’s father Milton, known as Milt by his brothers and friends, was born in Casterley to James William Wilson and Penny Wilson, who had herself been born in the nearby village of Monk Farley as Penelope Stanley. James Wilson had been a coal miner but had received local, relatively minor, fame as a musician, playing cornet in the Casterley Prize Silver Band. Claire used to think that her granddad had played cornet in his colliery band, but later discovered in a book she bought in Casterley itself that her paternal grandfather played in the town band instead.

Olivia, Claire’s mum, had been born to Wilhelm Louis Levine of Micklebrough and Marjory ‘Porty’ Levine. That nickname was short for Porterhouse, named after a close friend of the family. Nanna Levine, had been born in Sunderland as Marjory Porterhouse Jackson, but as Wilhelm had been transferred from Micklebrough to the southern English port of Chatham because of his work with the Navy, Marjory gave birth to Olivia when they were renting a house in Fosterham, Kent.

At the start of World War II, Micklegate was regarded by its residents as an outer village of Aireborough. In fact Claire’s parents, the Wilsons, always believed it might have been outside the Aireborough boundary as her mum and dad added near Aireborough as part of the return address on the backs of envelopes. But, and this was an exciting ‘but’ in Claire’s view, Aireborough Corporation trams traveled right up to Micklegate from Wingate via City Square. In fact, the trams terminated opposite the Regal Cinema, in front of Alfie Guy’s greengrocery shop, and where Billy Sharpe used to sell newspapers inside the opening of the dark-green-painted wooden tram shelter opposite Mr Guy’s shop.

Billy’s voice was quite sonorous when he announced the headlines of the Yorkshire Post, the Yorkshire Evening Post or the Yorkshire Evening News. The Yorkshire Evening Post always came out like Air’n Poe. To Claire’s mind this was a foreign language. Growing up she could never, for the life of her, understand how newspaper vendors mispronounced the names of the papers they were selling. However, Billy only seemed to sell papers at the terminus in the winter and spring, as one year when the Wilsons were on holiday in Scarborough, they not only saw Billy but actually greeted him as he was selling newspapers on the sea front. You see, the Wilsons were in the habit of going for their summer holidays the first two weeks in August, like so many folks did at that time. The first Monday in August was marked on the calendar as ‘Bank Holiday Monday’. But let’s backtrack a little.

The house in which Claire was born was described as “a half-pebble-dashed semi-detached residence.” She recalled once seeing a bill of sale for the house and thought she saw that the price was £830 plus extras which totaled £65. According to her dad, the ‘extras’ had been charged because he decided when the house was being built, to move two walls a fraction, and typical of Milton, he had knocked them down one evening, so that they had to be rebuilt. He had left a note on the door telling the builders that he wanted the wall moved “another foot to the rear.” That was the reason why he had to pay extra. Of course, by 2010 standards, the cost of the same desirable residence or ‘des res’, might have been around £185,000 or even more. The price of progress, one presumes.

The Wilson’s ‘des res’ was described as part-pebble-dashed because the upper storey on the outside was rendered and pebbles thrown into the wet cement before it dried. Claire could never forget this as she and her mum were forever sweeping up the pebbles that fell down every winter, especially after a heavy frost. Sweeping up the residue at the base of the walls in the spring was testimony to the unsuitability of that type of rendering for the Yorkshire climate. But then she later saw many houses in Scotland with this type of external wall rendering, and wasn’t the Scottish climate worse than that in Yorkshire in winter?

The front door of the Wilson residence was very beautiful in Claire’s eyes. It had colored lead lights in the upper panel, depicting a sunset, with rising or setting suns in each lower corner. Later, possibly in the early 1950s, her dad welded up some new tubular metal gates at “the works” in Starfield and he made them in a design which mimicked the rising sun motif on the front door. Claire always remembered the color of the finished gates – maroon; because it happened to be the same color as the base of the rocking horse her dad had made for her one Christmas, as a present from “Father Christmas.”

Their semi-detached house, or duplex, was built on a site which gently sloped down from the footpath and so while the front garden began at ground level near the bullnose-topped brick wall, her dad had created a level lawn which was separated from the house by a low wall made from thin slabs of sandstone, which to Claire’s horror became a haven for woodlice, which she was later to refer to in Australia as slaters. If one of those critters landed on her she would run about in all directions to get rid of it, jumping up and down in the process. Her pet hate then, and even into adulthood, was anything ‘creepy crawly’ such as woodlice, earwigs and spiders. Oh yes, and moths, which would fly into her bedroom in autumn and plague the life out of her until she managed to corner them, and put them back through the open window before closing it. Claire recalled that on one occasion, sitting up in bed reading with her back to the bed head, a large moth must have flown through the window unannounced. The next thing she remembered was something crawling up her back inside her pajama top. Screaming blue murder she ripped off her jacket and pummeled the poor unsuspecting creature to death. It had obviously been so disorientated to find itself flapping around in the dark crevasse between her skin and the fabric, to its ultimate demise. Needless to say there was little of the moth left after her brutal onslaught. Olivia had dashed into Claire’s bedroom when she heard the scream, thinking the worst had happened, only to find her child in the late stages of performing the annihilation of a poor unsuspecting creature of the night.

But getting back to the plot; the front garden of the Wilson’s house in Sandy Peth, comprised a small lawn with the corners cut off at an angle, and in the center of the lawn was a circular bed with a standard tea rose. The surrounding borders had such varieties of plants as golden rod, red-hot poker, lupin, perennial cornflower, antirrhinum, and daisies and in summer blue lobelia and white alyssum, which Milton and Olivia always planted at the front of every border in late spring. The thing Claire didn’t like was finding earwigs inside the antirrhinums, or snapdragons as they called them. Milton pronounced these blooms aunty-rye-nums and he made fun of Claire’s American Aunt Diane many years later when she pronounced them as anti-ri-nums. But then Claire’s dad was always in the habit of making fun of people, especially our star girl, or whatever she was at the time.

The front door of the Wilson house was set back slightly from the front wall alignment by a curved wall. There was a concrete canopy over the front entrance, which also had side windows with ‘rising sun’ leaded lights too. Dividing the front step from the driveway was a narrow piece of earth in which Milton had planted a yellow privet hedge. Minor detail perhaps, but Claire could never forget how things looked as she was growing up. Her bedroom window was above the concrete canopy mentioned. So what we are trying to do here is to paint a picture so that the reader may be able to imagine Claire’s world at that time. She saw things through the eyes of a child. The main point is that she had a bedroom at the front of the house and her window faced the street, above the front door. Oh yes, the driveway to their house was separated in those days from the Rooney’s driveway next door by a fence, not that the neighbors had a car of course, compared to the Wilson family which did.

As children, Claire and her brothers called their neighbors Aunty Margaret and Uncle Henry. Living with them in the same house was Miss Scotia, whom the Wilson kids referred to as Aunty Edna, and Edwin Scotia, whom Claire referred to as “Uncle Eddy.” Olivia told Claire that “Aunty” Edna and “Uncle” Edwin were the younger brother and sister of Aunty Margaret. Uncle Eddy used to wear a brown bowler hat and Claire thought him exceedingly smart. Uncle Henry, she recalled, was a plasterer and often arrived home from his jobs in white dungarees covered with plaster dust. As a toddler Claire was constantly being reminded of the times she would knock on the Rooney’s scullery door and ask: “Is Uncle Eddy coming out to play?”

Claire was constantly reminded by her dad of one particular story: The Rooney’s had had a ladder propped up against their side wall as Eddy had been in the act of painting the surround of the windows to the stair landing and the toilet, both of which were directly above the scullery door. According to Milton’s version of events, while Eddy was messing around in their shed for something or other, a wee child wandered around the end of the dividing fence and when Eddy came out, he was to see Claire up six steps of the ladder shouting: “Bush, wanna bush.” According to Claire’s father, she had wanted to help with the house painting.

This story was often one of the highlights of conversation by Milton and Olivia when entertaining the few visitors that graced the Wilson’s home, when the guests showed an interest in the children and their antics, much to Claire’s embarrassment. It was like a cracked gramophone record, always the same story, time and time again. Dah di dah dah! Ho hum! Claire was not amused.

The Wilson house had two door openings to the driveway; one of these gave access to the space under the staircase, and was referred to as “the coalhouse.” This was a good place to hide when the Wilson kids were playing hide and seek. The key was always left in the door so that they had ready access when they needed to fill up the coal scuttle. This brings us to one of Danny’s tricks – but wait…

As Claire was growing up, like most children she was afraid of thunder and lightning. When it thundered, her mum would try to quieten her by saying that the noise was only the coalman delivering bags of coal into the coalhouse. But Claire became wise to that explanation and would hide under the table whenever the noise came down from the sky.

One time, when the children were playing hide and seek in the yard, Claire had hidden in the coalhouse. Her darling brother Danny (with tongue in cheek), after realizing she was inside, locked the door from the outside and put the key in his trouser pocket. It was not until a few minutes later that Olivia heard her eldest child screaming blue murder, together with a constant banging of a tiny hand on wood. She realized what had happened. Of course, Danny pretended he knew nothing about the eldest being locked in, until Olivia asked him to empty his pockets. Upon opening the coalhouse door, Claire was told not to be such ‘a big baby’ for crying, while Danny was merely told not to do it again. But as Danny could not be trusted, he did it again on a number of other occasions.

The door next to the coalhouse door, separated from it by a small window with a fresh air section at the top covered in metal gauze, was the door to the scullery; a word that seems to have gone out of fashion nowadays in favor of the word ‘kitchen’. The scullery was in actual fact quite small and apart from having a gas stove, which today might be referred to as a gas cooker, it had a copper boiler in the corner, in which all the dirty clothes had to be boiled and washed. Next to the boiler was a wooden draining board which sloped into what was known as a Belfast Sink. This was an oblong heavy porcelain sink in which the “wee bairns,” as Nanna Levine called them, were bathed every night before bed. Opposite the gas stove was a wooden table covered with an oil cloth and above which were two shelves for the pots and pans. At the end of this table was a cupboard the center of which opened up to what was called ‘the cubby hole’ through which plates of food could be passed into the dining room next door. This was certainly a modern kitchen by post-war standards.

Milton’s garage at the end of the driveway was framed and clad in timber, with outward opening timber doors, painted a shade between grass green and bottle green. Between this garage and the Rooney’s gray-painted garden shed, was a space wide enough for little children to squeeze into as a hidey-hole. Into this area Olivia, and Margaret from next door, were in the habit of laying down their clothes props, out of the way of mischievous little children. In those days revolving clothes hoists, the likes of which Claire was to discover many years later in Australia, had not been invented, along with many things taken for granted today.

During the war, a small bin was placed at the entrance to the long clothes prop space and into it, after every cooked meal, went the cauliflower stalks, the potato and carrot peelings and left-over bits of bread. In fact, any food that the Wilsons and the Rooney’s thought might be edible to a pig would go into ‘the pig bin’. It was emptied each week by someone who obviously distributed the contents to local pig farmers. The Wilson children had been told about pigs because, as Milton constantly reminded them, pigs gave them their Sunday bacon. But of course during the war; and for six years afterward, bacon was rationed, as was most food. But people had to manage as times were hard.

In summer months, the back garden of the Wilson residence was a picture, as Olivia and Milton planted lots of annual bedding plants and perennials. Like the borders at the front, the back borders were also edged in blue lobelia and white alyssum, planted alternatively. Behind these varieties were petunias, salvias, beds of pansies, Sweet-Williams and in the middle of the large border between the Rooney’s and the Wilson’s back gardens were yet more red hot pokers, golden rod, perennial cornflower and lupins. Claire’s favorite flowers were the Sweet-Williams as they had the most gorgeous perfume of all. But she particularly liked the long stems of the various colored lupin flowers. These became a long-lasting memory throughout the rest of her life, especially when she became a brief resident of Prince Edward Island, Canada in her sixties, where lupins and golden rod seemed to be indigenous to the province.

The dining room was the main room at the back of the house, but the Wilson’s regular babysitter Moira Fogarty, who lived across the street; referred to it as ‘the house’ as that was the name her Irish family had given their back room. A glazed door with side windows, which the Wilsons referred to as ‘the French window’ gave them a picturesque view of their back garden. In winter, Claire loved to stand at the French door looking out, becoming entranced as she watched the snow falling. She did wonder if she would ever get tired of watching snow falling. In later years in Scotland, Canada and America, and even on the tablelands in Australia from time to time, Claire was always so excited when snow began to fall.

The French door opened outward over a concrete step, across an area of grass, to yet another concrete step which in many ways was to prove quite disastrous for a certain little person. That was the time Danny and Claire had taken a couple of burlap sacks from the garage and stepping into them thought they would have a sack race on the back lawn. Olivia was watching them through the scullery window and witnessed the two children step into the sacks before Danny shouted “Go” and raced off toward the other end before Claire was fully into her sack. Danny fell down a few times which gave her the opportunity to pass him as she headed for the narrow end of the lawn. “I beat you” Claire shouted and carried on.

Danny was not happy about this and shouted, “But you cheated when you passed me.”

“That’s the whole idea silly.” Claire answered, as she jumped onto the adjacent crazy paving but then tripped. Mum saw her fall and dashed out of the scullery. Claire’s head cracked on the edge of the concrete step. There was blood everywhere and Olivia carried Claire inside and up to the kitchen sink. There she bathed her little child’s huge cut and swelling, before she took her up to bed. The swelling was reduced by cold compresses and by the next morning Claire was just left with the pain, which Doctor Kelly said would heal in time.

When Milton arrived home from work, Olivia blamed him for his uneven paving but all he said was that all boys had to take the rough and tumble of playing and dismissed the incident, more importantly wanting to know when his dinner would be ready. A few weeks later, Milton finished replacing the grass in the area outside the French window, by laying yet more crazy paving leading toward the offending concrete step. Then he completed the lower crazy paving path that curved its way to the back of the garden. This ended under an archway in a trellising fence. In the border between the Stewart’s and the Wilson’s back garden was a crab apple tree and Olivia, assisted by Claire of course, made the most gorgeous yummy jelly from those tiny yellow apples. Claire’s job as Olivia’s assistant was the stirring and pulping. “A great little helper” she was often described.

At the far end of the lawn was a rockery, under which was the air-raid shelter. At the high side of the rockery and stretching across the garden, was the trellising fence mentioned previously, over which Milton had been trying to train climbing roses. The archway in the trellising led down yet another two concrete steps, to the vegetable garden, the center piece of which was his pride and joy – the greenhouse, in which Milton grew his prize tomatoes. But let’s get back to the beginning, instead of munching on her dad’s yummy tomatoes.