Chapter 19

A note in the diary on January 2 indicates that I was busy writing a paper on the Haemagglutination (HA) Test for Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia (CBPP). The technique behind the test was based on my finding that polysaccharide from supernatants of cultures would attach to sheep red cells. When the so-called "sensitised cells" were placed in contact with antibody specific for the CBPP organism the cells immediately clumped. The clumps were so large that they were readily visible to the naked eye. Serum lacking the specific antibody failed to produce clumping. Later on further modifications to this reaction resulted in another new test that was also applied to brucellosis by Plackett.
New Year was welcomed in at Cousin Eva Shovelton's home at 11 Glen Drive, Eaglemont. Eva is the daughter of James, Dad's oldest brother, and thus she was Eva Selkirk Cottew, before marrying Harry Shovelton the founder of Gum Leaf Paper Products. Present were Marcia, Graham, Ainsley, Robyn and myself, along with Mitzi (Campbell-Brown) Smith who was with us at the time on holiday.
Soon after Mitzi's departure on 4th January we started preparing for our own trip to Brisbane. Temperatures were about 980 F in the garage. Left on 8th January at 9.15 PM and arrived at Coonabarabran at 2pm next day. The journey of a little over 600 miles took 17 hours, but the car was not particularly fast, even with the pedal flat on the floor. Also much of the trip was at night when more care needs to be taken. We stayed at the Poplars Motel for that night before moving on to Brisbane at 7.15 am, arriving at 8.30 pm.
The 17-hour trip to Coonabarabran was fairly tiring for a single driver and now we look back and wonder how we did it. The authorities today frown on excessively long stints of driving as fatigue is now recognised as a major cause of accident.
Such rapid trips interstate were a mixture of pleasure and pain. Five people in a small car with luggage was not a happy situation. It was usually in summer holidays that we drove from Melbourne to Brisbane. At this time it was usually dry and hot and there was little relief from the heat, as the cars were not air-conditioned. On one occasion memorable for Marcia, she nursed a very small Robyn on her lap for the whole 1100 miles. Graham and Ainsley were pretty good considering that car travel for such a long time was rather boring for them. Added to that Arny suffered from travel sickness. Occasional squabbles punctuated the pleasant silence. Territory in the car was carefully guarded.
Returning to the theme of pleasure and pain, Marcia and I loved the driving as se saw beauty in the countryside with trees farms and animals in varying light and shade and colour. The towns, the gardens and the people all made for interesting viewing. I believe the children were better off for the experience of seeing our vast country in this way.
Here could be an appropriate place to revive an incident that occurred on one trip. With no air-conditioning in the Ford Prefect or the Volkswagen Beetle, cool water to drink became a necessity. We took a leaf out of the books of the country folk and used a canvas water bag to cool the water. Slung on the front bumper, the rapid evaporation as we travelled cooled the water well. The dust on the outside did not interfere with the potability of the water. There was some canvas taste but as the children usually had cordial with the water this did not seem to matter. Now as mentioned before, Arny was inclined to feel unwell. To combat this we tried various ways to get her to take tablets to quell the nausea. She steadfastly refused to take them. She was of course quite young at this stage. Our next door neighbour, Ian Ellis, recommended that we put the tablet, crushed, in with a powdered orange fizzy drink called Heinzade. That was fine, and Ainsley drank it. This continued until the time that Graham noticed there was a difference in the appearance between his glass of orange juice (Heinzade) and that of Ainsley's. Quicker than a speeding bullet he drew attention to the difference, saying, "What has Ainsley got- I want some of that! As soon as Arny heard that she stopped drinking. Our ploy was foiled. That is the trouble with having intelligent children.
The 11th January was Mum's 76th birthday. Brisbane had temperatures of 80-900 F and 60% humidity and we spent the day at Payne St, Torwood with Marcia's parents.
We saw the tennis at Milton, watching Roy Emerson play and remembering that I played with him in our tennis club at Dutton Park, run by Nowell Taylor.
When we arrived back after this holiday, summer had already finished in Melbourne and we were into coat and jumper weather.
One day around this time Robyn made a farm fence with blocks, asked us all to admire it, and then packed all the blocks beautifully in the box. Rob when just three was putting her own tooth paste on to the toothbrush and when I came in to check she said "It was a bit messy so I cleaned it under the tap" which of course just washed all the toothpaste off. Rob informed me that Ainsley's school is just over there (School Road) and "Day's" school is in Holland Road. She sings Baa Baa Black Sheep, Waltzing Matilda and London's Burning.
In August we were working with a test for bovine tuberculosis, examining antibody in blood of cattle vaccinated with BCG. At this stage we decided to seek bloods from natural cases to see whether a detectable amount is present in active and recovered cases.
A night at Graham's High School showed us the quality of the education and we were somewhat comforted by that. We were keenly sorry that we were unable to afford to send him to Caulfield or Carey Grammar as we had hoped.
Marcia's mother has just written 26/9/64 to inform us of a house available at Miami at 20 pounds a week, which is about the cost of rentals at beach resorts here.
I am painting the 8-drawer chests bought unpainted for Rob and Arny at this time. It would be wrong to dwell on the parlous state of our finances at this time of our lives, but it would be foolish to let any reader consider that we were in any way well off. Indeed it was not until long after the children had left home, and my status at work had improved that we had "something behind us".
I noticed a comment in the diary of February 1964 that read as follows- " …this evening was a happy one until the cheque book came out to dispose of $170 (85 pounds) worth of accumulated bills. Fortunately Marcia and the Woman's Weekly had retired together at 9.30 to the bedroom, while out here the tension mounted. When the task was done, the bank balance was also nearly done! This reminds me of one time when we were visiting Cousin Eva, who could be described as being rich. The topic of bank balances came up and she said to the assembled company "I like to keep my balance in double figures!” I agreed, as only that day my balance had reached eleven pounds, but Eva added to her comment, "in thousands!”
The Volkswagen was on its last legs, requiring expensive parts that were hard to get, when the garage offered me a price for it in bits on the floor. We agonised over putting it together as is or having some parts replaced or selling it in parts. We needed the car but could not afford a new one and did not trust the second hand ones. Eva, like a visiting angel somehow divined our problems and offered to help us to buy a new car. We were tremendously grateful to her for this. Of course she also was grateful for our visits and some of the small jobs she used to allocate to me on occasions. We also entertained Eva frequently to both dinners and afternoon teas. She enjoyed the interaction with the family and felt a part of it. She was very fond of and interested in the children. Her own contact with daughter Jean and Eddy and their children was not always happy or very frequent.
On November 27 I took delivery of the new Holden EH model 179 motor of colour Barwon Blue and Fowler's ivory. After the dear old VW whose departure was followed with sad eyes, the new car is a dream. It is in size relative to the VW like a bus, with a quiet and powerful motor. Rob says it is "Fantastic", Graham is in his 7th heaven while Ainsley is somewhat non-commital possibly because of her tendency to travel sickness, but probably very happy. The diary describes our profound gratitude for being able to purchase the car and just how well it drives compared with our previous cars, which were all small. Retrospectively, the house to which we were heading at the end of the year was the A frame at Miami, and there is a photo somewhere of us, the car and Elaine and family.
Instead of saying we are going to Miami, Rob announced that with "My Father is taking us in the car to Mi-mi-ow (pronounced mee-mee- oww) just like a cat. Rob at three is delightful. She is sensible, full of fun yet considerate, thoughtful, polite, helpful and loving to us and to A & G. As often happened, tonight I was taken by the hand to assist with toilet, teeth and changing. It was all done stepwise with no fuss, but plenty of method. Looking for sleeping clothes in the drawers of the new chest Rob said, "It might be here- oh, no, not there!” "A blue jumper to keep me warm". Words do not do justice to the expression on the face. At another time, Rob said when her jacket was on inside out that it was "inside ways".
Grah was working out the wheat on a chessboard problem. In this he was showing at a fairly early age the promise of interest in mathematics that later led him to take maths at Monash University where he excelled in all subjects, gaining his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. It was fairly natural that he would later pursue communication and computer associated work in adulthood. I think now that the puzzle referred to was a classic. One grain of wheat is placed on one square of a chessboard. On the next square twice that number of grains were placed. Twice that number were placed on the third square and so on. It may be hard to believe but by the time one reached the 32nd square, one would need grain in the billions to place on the square.
Arny was doing money sum practice. She was conscientious in her schoolwork, and did well both at school and at University. Besides her scholastic ability Ainsley soon showed leadership. In final year she was voted into the position of Captain of the School at Strathcona. This was a popular choice of teachers and pupils alike. She gained a scholarship/cadetship that permitted her to attend Melbourne University, but had to commit herself to teaching with the Department of Education for some years. Ainsley took this on so that we would not be paying for her attendance. After gaining her Bachelor of Arts she studied for a further year to obtain an Honours Degree, followed by a Diploma of Education.
Robyn followed Arny at Strathcona. She coped well with the studies at secondary school and opted to study at RMIT (the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, in the Faculty of Architecture, a course of Interior Design for four years. She became conversant with principles of design and the techniques of building construction.
In addition to their scholastic prowess they individually learned and displayed characteristics of thought, problem solving, self discipline and management skills. I hope to devote more space to aspects of their development with Marcia's help later on in this work.