BINGO!

Nazareth House, Rednal
(formerly Herbert Austin Motors billet for apprentices).

If one gets married into a family that you can fit into with ease, and your father and mother-in-law treats you as a human being, involves you as a member of the family - you are truly blessed...Mum and her new mother-in-law Elsie were Bingo buddies for years. 

Their release from working jobs as cleaners was to drink, smoke and shout BINGO or HOUSE! for a few extra quid.

The estrangement she felt by her own mother who she didn't know existed. It was easy for the Nuns to lie her mother was dead and that's why she was in an Orphanage.

 The big lie was revealed when she found letters in the Mother Superior's office. It was her task to clean. Fatefully she saw her name  on some envelopes and discovered a Mother writing to her from Birmingham, England.

My Mum Kathleen was 16years old.  A strong sense of injustice made her wait for the head 'penguin' to return.


Mum's dreams came true, including her decision to have her children christened into the Church of England at Saint Wulstan's conveniently located in the same street.

Kath's mother was a Roman Catholic and married a devout Polish Catholic man, so Kath senior was mighty disapproving of her grandchildren breaking the Clarke family mould.

The final nail in the coffin of belonging to any fold of religious faith especially to Kath's Mother church was when I was born.
A priest was doing his rounds in the QE2 hospital. He found the new Mother in bed with a brand new baby and asked if she was Catholic.

I told him I wasn't religious but I was christened one, so he said to come to him to arrange for the christening, but when he asked about your father and I told him he was a Protestant he said Canon Law classed you as a bastard!

Julie - the Papist's bastard 1963
crocheted blanket made by Kath Higgins nee Clarke,
God-parents Auntie Pat & Fred Shakespeare.

The Higgins clan were not church-going except for the spiritual insurance of baptism on their off-spring, a common ritual for most English families.

Higgins: Twin Christenings, Exeter Rd. Selly Oak 1965

In the early years of her married life to Brian, Kath soon showed her sense of  injustice at the inequalities in their relationship when it came to their social life. 
They had never really gone out together as a couple, because it was always with Bri's mates. Then when the kids came along she was the one who had to stay at home, cook his dinner, have his shirt ironed for him to go out for a pint.


Kath resented being the little Mrs. at home. Life was too short and when he didn't come home straight from work either and his dinner was cold she boiled!
She knew where he was alright... a few doors down at the cafe, an illegal card game was on, so she watched the clock, sent me back up the stairs to bed, and made a phone call to the cops...

My dad never knew who had given the police a tip off until 1999 when Mum told me it was her. The police had raided the cafe and Dad managed to escape out the back in the nick of time. When he burst in through the door, out of breath, explaining he had jumped over peoples back garden fences to avoid getting arrested, Kath played innocent.
If Brian wasn't going to take her out, then his mother would! She and Elsie were supports and companions - it helped they enjoyed similar recreational pursuits: Bingo and Darts.

In the early 1960's women couldn't be members of the Selly Oak Ex-Servicemens Club, or the Hubert Rd Social or Conservative Clubs where their husbands were members. 
Women were banned from the Snooker rooms, which irked Mum when filled with the Whiskey spirit; Defying the rules she would march into the back room, pick up a cue, until 'guided' away by an embarrassed husband...if only Dad had championed his wife's desire to have a game of snooker with him, but he didn't have it in him to challenge the establishment.


Joining a card game like Cribbage, Pontoon or Poker was discouraged. I suspect the men were afraid of a woman beating them for example, Kath Higgins! The Committee succeeded in diverting their female folk into the entertainment room with Bingo!
Every Friday night the kids knew they would have a babysitter, and in later years I would sit with Grandad who had Parkinson's Disease so if he had a fall I could phone the club to reach Nan.

So popular grew the game in the 1960's with the associated money raked in for fundraisers that there was Bingo running four times a week, and there were other games elsewhere to fill in the missing days.
It wasn't regarded as gambling, or a harmful addiction. You grew up accepting it was an integral part of community culture. I experienced the adrenalin pumping, heart racing, breathtaking build-up to having your last two, then one number called, to win a cash prize.
Children could discreetly attend Bingo if there wasn't a babysitter available. A mother would take her child to sit and be quiet with their drink and crisps and if you were lucky your mum would let you mark a booklet for her. 


Kath and Elsie also travelled further afield on the buses to have a different experience of  a game of Bingo. One such night the pair walked up Dawlish Rd. to catch a bus down to Stirchley where there was a large commercial Bingo, with a large jackpot. For one brief moment my Nan stepped of the kerb to see if the bus was coming and a car came speeding around into Raddlebarn Rd. and run her over and over...


At Selly Oak Hospital she was dead, but only for a brief time until the doctor revived her. It would be a long road to recovery, but everybody knew she was going to be fine when she wanted to go around the club for Bingo!


Darts was another shared recreation of daughter and mother-in-law. 'Ladies Darts'  was not taken seriously in the pubs and clubs but there was a team put together at the Conservative Club, where her father-in-law, Albert was a member.
Kath took home the trophy cup for seven years in a row, and stood with pride-of-place on the mantle-piece. When the Conservative Club closed down a couple of committee members came to retrieve the cup
When her marriage to Brian was over and he was living with Barbara, Elsie went out of her life too. It was a double loss. Kath didn't understand why her mother-in-law had to withdraw from their relationship because her son had another woman. 
A time-line of rejections was mounting, but she would keep calm and carry on.....sod the lot 'em fuel for daily combustion! 

Kath's mother wasn't aware of her daughter's prowess at darts and other games - or how good she was at crafts,  how popular she was as a work canteen cook! Their contact was brief and unpredictable. 


Kathleen senior kept her distance physically and emotionally, even from her grandchildren. There were a couple of Christmas's that showed promise when presents were given and an invitation to Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. It was pleasant. Strange. We were the outsiders.


Mum reckoned it was obvious that she could never be good enough - as though she was like a stray cat, needy and demanding and my Grandmother didn't want to give her what she needed; the story of her origins, and why she was abandoned and sent to Australia?

 Photo taken by Grandmother on surprise visit before emigrating. Zoo excursion.

Who could have predicted that in 1978 when Kath and her new husband  Derek who had genially esconced himself into the affections of  the family would emigrate to Melbourne? Then,
within a year she would disown her own daughters for her drunken life with him? She was afraid she would end up lonely. He was her mate.


Unlike my mother who invited her mother to her wedding at the last minute, I didn't want to invite Mum and Derek to mine. Their  alcohol fueled behaviour  would embarass me. It made it easier that I didn't have their address. We had become estranged.


My husband Roy and I did drive overnight from Adelaide to Melbourne airport when my sister informed me of their return to England. We said goodbye civilly at the airport waiting for their departure back to Birmingham, where they missed the pubs and clubs.
It was incredible that HERstory was repeating itself; Sporadic contact by long-distance was made when they saw fit to let us know where they were living. It was about ten years where we didn't even know if they were dead or alive, then a call in the night to say they were having a great time in Canada or Malaysia!


Fortunatly I too was blessed with a dedicated mother-in-law who said she regarded me as her own daughter.
Our first generation Australian daughters had a doting grandmother growing up - a vital ingredient to a sense of belonging and identity with strong Yorkshire accents!

 Nancy and Archie - grandparents to Jasmine and Haley, Highett, Victoria 1990.

Suffer little children......

One common punishment for resiliently rebellious children like Kathleen Clarke and Margaret Coyne was to tie the little bastards to the gum tree over the bull-ants nest.
"How Sister Rita thought up punishments like that, I'll never know. She was worse than Hitler!" is what they both told me in separate moments of place and time, confirming all the worst abuses which were a part of institutional life. 

St.John's Orphanage, Thurgoona NSW
 Kathleen Clarke 3rd row down 5th from right.

Instilling terror in a child by dressing them in red and putting them in a paddock with a bull was another method to break the spirit of a girl, but it didn't matter how bullied Mum(or Margaret)was, how many times a nun's belt would be unfurled, there was nothing to do but sulk and drag your feet and cop it again. 


Like any prisoner of circumstance, there were times when looking for ways to escape needed the right opportunity, like a cricket match when the ball came sailing through her airspace and dropped behind close to the fence and the dirt road.


Instead of bending to retrieve the ball, Kath kicked it further until she reached the gap and dropped to the ground, slid under and ran for her life!


When you're a kid the distance and tree cover you've kept to, is no match to the Daverns and their truck with the hawkish eyes of a fat, red-faced fuming nun. Home-made calipers with bricks and sticks addressed such behaviour. With only five nuns to a hundred little terrors.


The litany of Deuteronomic curses for their disobedience was constant and when the New South Wales Welfare worker came every six months to check on the orphans, one nun sat on either side of their charge in her medieval garb whilst the officer asked their State Ward, how things were going in the new country....Fine. Kids were a bit shy.


Everything was fine in the promised land. No mention of any harm by nun or priest was heard. When it was Mum's turn to take Father Ryan's dinner across to his house, alone, she was quick to not get too close because that priest gave her the creeps and it was whispered about that he was a 'dirty old bugger'.

Margaret confirmed told me of a rape. She was sent to Victoria when found pregnant and returned without the baby boy - over the border back to the place of the crime. Nothing said by anybody.


It wasn't all bad. There was the casual escape into the graveyard where the nuns were buried to smoke some tobacco the odd-job-man bartered for stolen farm goods.

SNAP! 
1996 I travel to St.John's Orphanage, Thurgoona to
see where Mum was in the 1950's and meet Margaret Landsdowne nee Coyne who came out on the ship with my mother,from Nazareth House, Birmingham! She confirmed the punishments as true.

The girls would crush eucalypt leaves to erase the illicit tobacco smell. Kath was surrounded by mountain and rural landscape more massive than the Lickey Hills back at Nazareth House in Birmingham. "Carrots" horizon had broadened in her psyche, and she was losing her Brummie accent, and picking up the colloquialisms of the Australian girls.

Perfection at  St.John's Cemetery, Thurgoona 1950's.

Being anti-authoritarian wasn't  only because Mum had orange hair as a kid, or the priest saying she had the look of the rebel Irish in her, (although she went really crazy when they chopped off her long plaits). It was strong within me, at nine years of age too - the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter.


I can picture myself  coming to a stand-still at the crossroads of Exeter and Tiverton Road thinking so clearly; My Dad did not deserve my love. Or God! If there was one. There was too much suffering in this world and it was mainly on women and children. 


Dad had committed adultery. God was no use. It was all lies to do as you were told...by men!  I wanted to ease my mind of all these thoughts. I wanted to be free of Dad, and free of God. I wanted them to disappear. That meant I didn't have to attend Catechism anymore.


I looked at the big old Church of  St. Wulstans, and the hall  where my sisters and I had gone to Sunday School, leaving mum to have a lie-in, and guessed I was leaving childhood behind. 
Perhaps if the teacher had been less dull I would have stayed and made it to Confirmation, but when I questioned what was being said, to probe for a deeper understanding the instructor said there was no time, and I had to accept the Word of God, full stop.


I reasoned it was worth the risk of getting into trouble by God.  He should understand me anyway!  My father was a hypocrite. Always espousing moral certitude, the difference between right and wrong and he had destroyed my respect for him.  He had accused me of being a liar when I had gone up the hill to Nan with the truth that he was having an affair with Barbara from around the club.


When Dad lied to Nan too and told me off for saying lies to her,  and sent me to bed, I felt crucified. No wonder... I was absorbed in painting the Easter Mural on the classroom wall depicting Jesus on the Cross. 


Mum screamed at Dad as he brought his cases down the stairs. She called Barbara all the course names she could think of.  I didn't blame her for taking Dad away. I viewed her with disdain, as she pulled pints and men at the bar with her gold necklaces falling into her cleavage and flashing her false eyelashes.
Why Dad was leaving us for a woman who flirted with every man was beyond me. I was now resolutely on Mum's side - Your Father has always been selfish! Always gets what he wants, and now he thinks he's gone up in the world with her siting beside him in his new car.
After 12 years of helping him with his business, bringing up his kids, and now he can afford a Rover he pisses me off. That's all the thanks I get." 


Mum had suffered all her life all because she was illegitimate. She'd survived the cruelty of the nuns, came back to Birmingham when she was 18 years, but didn't get on with her mother. 
She'd had a baby boy but it died in the first week. The blood didn't match. The twins had a total blood transfusion and the last Rites performed by a passing Priest, but not the boy. Would Dad have stayed with us if he'd had a son? Maybe that was why the marriage was over. Yes! Like mum said, Dad was a Bastard, not her!


I didn't want to speak to him anymore. He didn't even tell us where he was living. It was like a disease in our area - men leaving their wives with the burdens and daily grind of bringing up the kids so they could go off with the Secretary or  bar-maid. 

In the back garden Exeter Rd. 1972 before heading
up the road to Brownie Guides.

I still had the Brownie Guides at the Church Hall, with Brown Owl leading the pack of pixies, gnomes, and elves....We were busy rehearsing a play of The Pied Piper and I was learning a solo song. 

Only a year before,  I had been pulled out of school to go for a family interview at  Australia House. We were going to emigrate to Australia.  Mum had always wanted to go back where the sunshine was, intuitively sensing a second trip would be a second chance of success - at least where the loads of washing would get dry in an hour! 
She reckoned Dad's ideas and his Protestant work ethic would enable them to build the home of their dreams. 

In the background, there was the hope a new life away from the ordinary temptations and habits was the solution 
to their crumbling marriage. 
The corrupting influences of his native Selly Oak & Bournbrook would dissipate in the spacious isolation of a NSW country town!
The day before we were supposed to set sail on the cruise ship for ten pounds each, Dad chickened out.

Under orders from Mum, my dad tried to explain why everything had changed. He couldn't emigrate...leave his Mum and Dad behind. He would miss Selly Oak! 
Mum didn't have any strong family ties, but he couldn't leave his Mum, or the house he was born in.
I listened, head bowed. Being eight years old I trusted my Dad knew best. It was an instinct in me to imagine myself in his shoes, unhappy not seeing Nan ever again.

Returning to the corner of my childhood Revelations! - My return to childhood home of Exeter Rd. Selly Oak. Birmingham, England. My house is on the other side. August2010

(c)copyright Julie McNeill Oct 2010

all rights reserved