Family history

1965

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 08:45:45 -0700

Not completely sure about the year on this one, but it’s plausible that Lucy is two years old in this picture. I’m having trouble remembering anything that happened in 1965. I don’t think we went to Nambucca, and it’s too soon for Binna Burra (Mum didn’t want to go until Lucy was 3). Maybe down the south coast at Wimbie beach? Pete remembers that happening in 1962. Did we go twice?

1964

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:36:54 -0700

Kate and Mum, sitting, I think, on the steps of Mrs. White’s house at Nambucca Heads.

This was the year that Dad became foundation professor of the Department of Political Science at UNSW. I was in third year, and my teacher, a young man whose name I forget (Mason?), had bulletin board for news clippings that we brought in, divided into local, national, and international. I was very disappointed when he put the item about Dad from the morning newspaper into the local section. I thought it was at least national, possibly international news.

1963

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:27:23 -0700

Here is Mum with her favorite 60s-born child, Lucy, the only sibling whose birth I remember. It was exciting and strange to have a new member of the family.

This was also the year of our first trip to Nambucca Heads with the Inglises and Turners, a tradition that continued unbroken until 1964. All sorts of memories there—rowing on the lagoon, family skits, going over to the ocean beach and learning to body-surf. (Let’s not mention the Christmas with pillow cases for stockings and no tree.)

1962

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:19:21 -0700

This is Kate outside the front of our house in St. Louis, with the Studebaker in the background. As Kate remembers in the previous entry, that was the year we visited Disneyland. Halfway through the year we returned to Australia. I remember being picked up at the airport (by whom?) and I remember the yard being very overgrown. Maybe that was the end of Dad’s gardening ambitions?

On the way home, we stopped in Hawaii, where I acquired a model of a Boeing 727. I lost it when I was dropped of at Cammeray one day and forgot to leave it in the car. I was terrified to take it in, because I knew there was a rule against bringing toys to school, so I left it outside on the grass, hoping against hope that it would still be there when school let it. Alas, it was not.

We used to play airplanes in the playground, arms out like wings. I was the only one who knew to taxi out to the runway, turning this way and that before taking off.

1961

Sun, 4 Nov 2007 11:21:30 -0700

The big family event of 1961 was the start of Dad’s sabbatical, first at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign then later at Washington University in St. Louis [corrected]. This is a picture of mum outside the house we stayed in St. Louis, 6955 Amherst St, with our Studebaker. I visited the Rubensteins a few years ago and they drove me past the house. I remember spending hours lying the floor of the living room drawing stick figure scenes (which mum threw away when we left). The Rubensteins also took me to the hill at the university above a lake, where Dad, John, Pete and I went tobogganning one day. I fell head first into the snow on the first run, and whinged and whined about it, so Dad told me to go sit in the car. He came back at some point to ask if I wanted to join them again, but I hadn’t finished my sulk yet. I never got the chance to explain to him that he should have come back later, or twice. Oh well. [Note: this page was originally posted as 1960, which explains some of the discussion in the comments.]

1960

Sun, 4 Nov 2007 11:20:55 -0700

Nothing much to say here yet, but I felt I should insert it to fill the gap made by my error about the sabbatical. Here, to hold the place while we wait for something more appropriate, is another one of Amy from about the right time, practicing the Egyptian hieroglyph gesture that later made her famous in the McCallum family.

1959

Sun, 4 Nov 2007 11:12:18 -0700

This is Kate and me playing in the backyard, where later there was a fish pond. I don’t think I knew that it was earlier a kid pond. The photo could be 1960, but Kate looks like a 2-year old to me, so I’m putting it here.

Mum says I used to run up and down the beach with Dad at around this age. As we would pass by Mum sitting on the beach with Kate, he would shout “we run because we must.” Presumably John and Pete were already old enough to play in the water by themselves.

1958

Sun, 4 Nov 2007 10:31:40 -0700

In February Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic, subject of an anecdote that I hope Mum or Ken will tell. In November, Menzies was re-elected for a 5th term. What does the photo have to do with McCallums, you ask? The girl on the right arrives at Harvard from Egypt in 20 years and meets the author of this blog, and the rest is history. Umm, will have been history? Whatever.

As for goings on at 30 Wilson St., Mum can fill us in, and perhaps John, who is the same age as Amy, and perhaps Pete, who has a good memory. I used to think I had memories of when I was 2, but I’ve forgotten what they were.

1957

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:12:33 -0700

Kate was born on December 6. This photo is of Mum and the 3 boys with Kate, looking out into the backyard of 30 Wilson St. There seems to be a rose trellis, which I remember in a dilapidated state much later. 1957 was also the year that Jørn Utzon was awarded the prize for the design of the Sydney Opera House.

1956

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:00:26 -0700

Bill (the author of this blog) was born on 31 August 1956. This was also the year of the Hungarian Revolution, the Suez War, and the first airborne explosion of a hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll. On the bright side, Arthur Miller married Marilyn Monroe, and television broadcasting started in Australia.