He was a
terrible Father. To start with, he
dropped me on my head doing gymnastics in the bathroom when I was three and a
half, possibly just before my Brother was born.
I was knocked unconscious and had retrograde amnesia, had a partially
dislocated neck and spent most of the next few years in bed. However, my dear Father was in denial, and I
was always in bed because I was sickly, though without any exercise or fresh
air it is little wonder I became asthmatic and susceptible to every cough and
cold. Years later, I found out the
reason I never had any visitors was that my Family all believed I was a
malingerer and did not want to encourage me.
I asked him about it when I was in my Twenties, because I must have
remembered people talking about, and he agreed that it had happened, but added,
‘Fortunately, there was not lasting
damage.’
When I was
Six I was sent to the Mercy Hospital for a Tonsillectomy that was supposed to
cure my susceptibility to illness. I don’t know how susceptible I was, but I
do remember that nearly every year, even when we rented a house down the Peninsular,
I would only need to sneeze once and I would be confined to bed and the local
Doctor called. My room had all its vents
sealed, the windows were never opened and the Central Heating (one of the first
in Melbourne) was always turned up.
While there, I was abused by the Sisters of Mercy, but could not tell
anyone and became even more introverted than I had been. It was sixty years before I blurted it out to
a General Practitioner who sent me for Counselling.
He was a
man of great personal self-confidence and unassailable initiative. He expected the same of me and never forgave
me for my lack of initiative and a raft of other personal failings. While other Fathers, particularly Jewish
Parents, put pressure on their children to achieve, he kept telling me I could
do anything and he wasn’t going to be
like other Fathers, as long as I did something Professional.
He did not
take me into his business as an adolescent during vacations or whenever, when I
could have learnt useful skills, because he did not want me to work ‘in Trade’ or whatever he called it, though I
don’t remember him
referring to anything. He was himself
largely Class-free, and dealt equally with everyone man-to-man. I think he saw the world as a meritocracy
based on personal achievements, and he had risen to hob-knobbing with Princes
from peniless refugee, and expected I could do the same, without his help.
He
prevented me from more than a career in Industry, though ironically I was
streamed into Commerce at High School, presumably based on my Father’s occupation, not on his aspirations
for me. He also prevented me from turning
a childhood hobby of Puppetry into a career in Entertainment. So it was all stopping me from what he did
not like, but never helping me or encouraging me or indicating what he did want
for me.
I saw all
my cousins under pressure to into Law or Medicine, but I had no such pressure;
I could do anything, which to my mind was the same as nothing because ‘nothing’ and ‘anything’ are both ‘not something’. I grew up thinking I was rather
stupid anyway, mainly because I was away from school a lot and never seemed to know
what they were learning about when I went back after being sick. I have report cards showing I was away more
than I attended some years in Primary School.
Of course it didn’t help when he
was always telling me I was stupid.
Whenever I didn’t do something that
I hadn’t known he wanted
me to do, or started to do something in some way he hadn’t expected, he would say, ‘Don’t be stupid.’
After some Psycho-Drama at Augustine Centre when I was in my Forties, I
eventually convinced him to stop saying that, and we eventually became good
friends for the last few years of his life.
He had
fallen out with his own father who had died a couple of years before I was born. Although my Grand-Parents lived in the same
street in St Kilda, they belonged to Synagogues on different sides of the
Highway. My Maternal Grand-Parents were
part of the British Establishment. My Grand-Mother was proudly British, with siblings
born throughout the Empire and a birth in London’s East End. My Grand-Father never lost his Yorkshire
accent or his love of Cricket. Australia
was mostly half Anglican and half Irish, Roman Catholic, but unlike other
countries we had social harmony because there was no overt display so everyone
looked the same in public, and in that environment, Jews could remain equally
public and religiously anonymous.
Everyone knew we were Jewish but the only difference from everyone else
was that we had different holidays, didn’t eat certain things and went to
Synagogue on Saturday instead of Church on Sunday. I think that was it. We kept a wishy-washy sort of Kosher,
avoiding forbidden meats, but not worrying about the rest.
My Father’s Parents belonged to a traditionally
Orthodox, European Synagogue, where my Grand-Father had been a community
leader. Not long before he died, he had
been part of a break-away group that later grew into one of Melbourne’s leading Orthodox Communities. I don’t think he was exceptionally religious, and I reject epithets like ‘ultra-Orthodox’ for people who are just traditionally
Observant. My Father wanted none of it,
and being in Business and active in sport, was as secular as he found the rest
of the community. This must have started
when they lived in Montreal before coming to Australia. Anyhow, my Father had fallen out with his
Father, but I did not know this as a child.
I occasionally saw my Grand-Mother, who died when I was about eight, but
visits to her were often tinged by the presence of refugees from the Holocaust. Australia had joined the rest of the world in
turning its back on the plight of European Jews, which was already quite well
known in military and government circles, even if not widely discussed
publicly. Australian Jews were
Patriotic, fighting in the Australian Defence Forces, but were noticeably not
Zionists.
I had a
minimalist Religious upbringing, with a Bar Mitzvah that was form without content. A few years later, when my Mother died after
an agonising illness of ‘Women’s Disease’, I was quite unprepared for the
religious expectations that came with a Jewish Funeral, and missed out on
everything that might have come at that time.
I was always very introverted, remember, so I could not go out of my way
to learn or participate, but needed to be included and wanted, which I was
not. I blame my Father for growing up
without any sense of belonging. He had
done it, as a child-refugee, but I had not had his experiences, lying in bed
dreaming of adventures at the early age when he had been having them. For example, lined up in front of a firing
squad and being sent away at the last moment because he was but a child. Did I ever have a similar sense of my own
impending demise, while I was lying in bed with Asthma, unable to move or
breathe, thinking I was at my end?
One thing
in his favour was his attitude to punishment.
I don’t know where I
got my attitude to Morality, but I don’t think I ever did anything wrong deserving punishment. There was one occasion, perhaps a year or so
after we moved, so eight or nine when for something that I cannot recall at
all, he announced he was going to smack me.
I was terrified as he had never behaved like this before, usually
ignoring me. I recall running into my
bedroom and round the back of the bed. I
don’t think any
actual hitting occurred as I was by then hysterical and the whole thing was
stopped by my Mother. I have no idea
what evil I perpetrated.
