Summertime
‘Summertime, and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good-lookin’
So hush little baby, don’t you cry …’
George Gershwin’s lyrics to Summertime
My earliest recollection of summertime as a kid was during a long trip to Adelaide from Melbourne with my parents in summer. We were having a house stay with a lovely English couple and their young daughter, whom my parents had met on the P&O ship coming out to Australia.
I was about five and it was all terribly exciting as our family of four were crammed in a tiny car – probably with small roof rack – and travelling for what seemed an extensive distance. It was.
Melbourne to Adelaide is approximately 730kms but it depends which way you go. I can’t recall the route but the Morris wasn’t exactly a speedster.
My father Eric, fancied himself as an intrepid adventurer so everything in our kit had to have a purpose. He saw himself as Hemingway-style hunter and owned a lot of camping equipment so he could go wild boar hunting in New South Wales. His buddies were all macho males and they shared an obsession with red wine, retro muzzle loaders, expensive firearms and explosives.
Dear old dad had been headhunted by the Australian government. He was a highly skilled British chemical engineer specializing in explosives. Eric liked to blow things up. At a later date this would include his first marriage followed by another two unhappy marriages. We were his first family.
To my mother’s horror she had to return home on a speeding express bus with the cream of farming communities onboard. Ruth noticed immediately that many had coolers of booze under their feet or in the luggage racks. As distraction from the boredom of the endless road most folk ate, drank and cackled all the way. In the middle of the night they refuelled with deep fried food, coffee and cold milkshakes bought from truckie’s refuel & rest stops. I loved the bus and its wacky swearing passengers.
No surprises here that after our inglorious trip – with the Morris having a nervous breakdown on the way home – my father Eric bought himself a glamorous Citroen. The Morris never made it back to Melbourne and probably finished up rusting in a paddock somewhere.
As Eric took care of business after work, my older sister would sit next to him in the Citroen holding his sherry glass at the ready and shifting the gears on command. No kidding – this was the sort of driving behaviour you could get away with back then.
The Citroen acquired a reputation in our industrial suburb as being choice and stylish. Subsequently my father was asked to drive a neighbour’s daughter to the church for her white wedding in his splendid automobile. He obliged and refused to be remunerated for his trouble. Dressed in his best tailored London suit he looked suave and handsome. Even I noticed the bride was more ecstatic about his polished British charm than was seemly.
Anyway, we slept along the route to Adelaide in a couple of two-man tents. For the first time I got to appreciate just how enormous the sky is when you’re out of the city and camping in the bush. Everything was wild and beguiling at night with the constellations twinkling and strange animal noises seeping through the darkness.
The food seemed exotic as it was being cooked over a campfire in oblong aluminium pans with foldable metal handles. There were a lot of eggs, tomatoes and sausages and unusual but tasty concoctions were served up on tin plates.
It was the sort of food we never had for dinner at home. My mother was a wonderful cook and Ruth prided herself on her fine European cuisine and Indian curries. But I’d had it to the back teeth with Pork Vindaloo and Coq au Vin. Hot cheese jaffles and scrambled eggs on slightly burnt buttered toast became my thing. Everything tasted of the smoky campfire. It was great.
But the biggest thrill was when we got to camp at a beach in the bush. All night I could hear the surf breaking on the shore and the wildlife creeping, slithering and sneaking through the long grasses. Nightbirds cackled and swore and unknown animals in the trees screeched. I wasn’t scared, I was delighted.
Eric and Ruth had fancy camp beds but I was happy as a clam with a narrow inflatable bed and a musty sleeping bag. I didn’t know at that stage that when the inflatable inevitably got a puncture, I’d end up at 3.00am on the hard cold ground.
Well before the sun rose over the sea I was wide awake and prepped. Barefoot and wearing only my new Xmas shortie pyjamas, I quietly slipped the tent’s zip open and took off. I knew Eric and Ruth wouldn’t come to find me. Being obsessed with their own domestic dramas, they’d taken the easy way out and I’d morphed into a free-range child.
I ran down a dune and there it was – the beach. It looked just the way it had in my picture story books and I was entraptured. I ran and ran along the shallows before collapsing in a heap. And still the surf raged, seagulls screeched, the sea sparkled and the sun warmed my sandy, bare legs.
Nothing could ruin my joy – not even when I became aware that some unknown insect was sinking its fangs into my bare flesh.
It was the first of many Australian summers and already I was hooked.
image: an Australian beach cove down South.