CHAPTER 1
Learn from yesterday, Live for today, and Hope for tomorrow
Albert Einstein
We all have our own beliefs, I guess.
I always knew there was more to life than to touch, see, and smell. I remember my mum going for psychic readings when I was in my teens. It fascinated me but she never spoke of anything she had been told by the psychic reader.
I was pregnant and married at eighteen and thought I had it all; we were travelling around Australia with all our belongings in a panel van. That was the seventies for you, not a care in the world.
We made it as far as Townsville when, the car broke down. It was the bell-housing, and we had no money to fix it. So John, my husband, got a job and we moved into a caravan park. My brother Dennis, his wife Glenda and her family were staying there too. We had company for a while, but they moved on and kept travelling. I remember spending most of my time cramped in the caravan.
I was glad when December arrived; it was time to have my baby. I had no idea what I was in for, or what to expect; I had no one to tell me. I was on my own with this one, and on December, 5, 1974, a nine pound baby boy was born. We named him, Gavin, and that little boy was what helped keep me strong for the next twenty years.
Six weeks after Gavin was born, we had the car up and running again and off we headed- unregistered, no driver's license, and with a baby in the back. We were headed to New South Wales and guess what? We made it all the way, not a cop to be seen.
Scone was our destination. Mum and Dad had bought a pub called the Willow Tree Hotel. Things were looking up. We had somewhere to stay, and I had a job, and a mum to help with the baby. I worked in the pub and John worked in a bike shop across the road from the pub for a while. We stayed in Scone for two years, and then moved to Aberdeen. When Mum and Dad sold the pub, I ended up with a job at the meat works. I stayed there for a few years, and Jon worked there as a fitter. I made a lot of friends there, including a few who were 'interesting' to say the least. Like the Knights, I'm sure some of you have read that story. My brother Dennis, moved to Scone after seeing them a few years earlier in Townsville, but sadly, by that time, he and Glenda had separated, and he was with his new partner, Pam. Dennis and Pam only stayed a few months. They headed back to Townsville where they stayed. After some time, Mum and Dad had packed up and moved to Orange. I missed Mum and Dad; we often went over for a weekend.
My marriage was a struggle from day one. I guess I just wanted things to work and Gav to have a father. Who the hell was I kidding? After we moved to Denman, I was working at the Royal Hotel as a barmaid and I hated it. Gav had started school for the first time at Martindale, a very tiny school, just out of Denman. I remember that look on his face that first day, God love him. John was working at a lawn mower place in Muswellbrook, but we didn't stay there long.
We moved back to Aberdeen and I went back to the meat works. John got himself a job working in a bike shop in Muswellbrook, so he was in his glory. It was a Harley Davidson shop and he came to own many Harley's. He loved buying the early model 65 pan knuckle and shovel head motors that looked like they were ready for the scrap heap. He would rebuild them; he was very good at it, and always made good money when he sold them. With new cash in hand, he would head off to Mount Wilson to buy the next one. My lounge room often had bike parts in there getting rebuil
