Tag Archives: personal

2024 in review 11

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September

The highlighted ones first appeared in September

Browse September

Now I guess I must be a “living treasure”….

Posted on  by Neil

My classmate Harry certainly is!

I can’t give away too much, obviously, but in the past 24 hours I received a moving email from my 1959 classmate Harry, whose health issues are relevant but must remain private as I have no permission to discuss them. Let’s just say they make writing difficult.

But Harry — with many a dollop of mischief and humour but with an underlying very clear serious purpose — is wanting to put down some stories of his own family, especially of his parents. I understand this very well and have been doing the same these past 20 years!

Harry, I might add, is the proud grandfather of this young man:

Ah, the Class of 1959 is still chatting in this 65th anniversary year!

On being a treasure

The idea comes from a great day I had in the company of Mitchell, a Class of 2000 member, at the end of December 2001 when he kindly drove me out to Sutherland where we explored both his and my family histories, including the living, as Mitchell — now 42 and a teacher! — reported at the time.

We got back in the car and drove to Sans Souci to visit Aunt Beth, who I was prepared for by N’s reports of her alacrity. But nothing could have really prepared me for one of the most remarkable women I’ll ever meet. I’d only considered abstractly the notion of the elderly as living treasures; after yesterday, I have a concrete example. She told some amazing stories, and she’s immensely proud of her grandson Max, who I’d love to meet some day. We spent just 45 minutes, but there was never a dull moment!

See also Sans Souci, Aunt Beth, First Australians, Sydney High…; Aunt and uncles: a found photo.

Christisons: My mother’s siblings Uncle Neil, Aunt Beth, and Uncle Roy, taken I would guess in the early 2000s. Aunt Beth passed away in September 2007, Uncle Roy in November 2011, and Uncle Neil in May 2014.

So maybe we oldies do have a mission, like Old Dan in Judith Wright’s “South of my Days”. Even if no-one is listening….

Oh, they slide and they vanish
as he shuffles the years like a pack of conjuror’s cards.
True or not, it’s all the same; and the frost on the roof
cracks like a whip, and the back-log break into ash.
Wake, old man. This is winter, and the yarns are over.
No-one is listening
South of my days’ circle
I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country
full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep.

Yes, I have done a bit of family history too…

re Whitfields and Christisons

Posted on May 2, 2017 by Neil

Scroll down from this link to see the complete family history posts

My late father, Jeffery Noel Whitfield, was born in Shellharbour NSW in 1911. His grandfather, William Joseph John Whitfield, was still alive in the Picton area of NSW at that time. He was born in Sydney in 1836.

aaa014.jpg

J N Whitfield in his RAAF uniform, World War 2

William Whitfield, father of William Joseph John, born 16 Mar 1812 , Parish of Drumgoon, Cootehill, Co. Cavan, Ireland with his wife Caroline Philadelphia West

When I was growing up we were told very little about what happened before him. How did the Whitfields get to Australia? As Barry Allan notes in his family story Black Sheep and Gold Diggers, “Bill never mentioned that his own father had been a convict as well. It was socially unacceptable to have criminals in the family, and most families who had one invented all sorts of fanciful stories to explain how their ancestor came to Australia. These stories survived, often being embellished over the years, until the stigma faded and the truth was eventually discovered generations later.” Indeed, Jacob Whitfield, the grandfather of William Joseph John, arrived in Sydney as a life-sentenced convict from Ireland in 1822.  I first told that story here some years ago: Family stories 3 — About the Whitfields: from convict days…..

Sequel

See my October post We met again at City Diggers 65 years on…

I said in May

… Emails have been going back and forth. Just now I have replied at length to classmate Harry Goldsmith, who had written — and I edit a bit:

Neil, and you can tell by the turning my voice I am slightly angry, I really don’t mind you correcting me on my Latin. I know that Domini is “of the Lord” being the genitive Kate, I just had a temporary mind block. You can possibly see that I am dictating this which is why the words are disjointed and often wrong. You will recognize “Kate” should be “case”.

But this is not why I am angry. You know I’m not angry, really just pretending every time I go through K, which is not very often, I wonder how Neil Whitfield is, and then when we have a chance to meet at the school reunion, there is no sign in. Where the hell is he? What is he doing? why doesn’t he show himself?

And what about his Illawarra line mates… (and Harry here lists several and mentions that Roger Dye had died)… you would know because you lived on the same train line.

So Neil, speak up. Give every man his day. Why have you been avoiding me and how are you and I hope you are well.

Harry G

I replied:

Thanks, Harry for missing me on the day, but I opted to be there in spirit as public transport from The Gong on weekends could be better, and though well I do not get up to Sydney as much as I did. On the other hand, Sydney High and myself have had many a reunion, as the day I was teaching and K J Andrews looked through the window at me. Really! Talk about deja vu! Or when in 1985 Bob Outterside told me I owed him a Maths assignment from 1958 and even got an old markbook out to prove it!

Yes. my teaching career was not entirely linear 1966-2005, but most of 1985 to 2005 was at Sydney High.  Hence my pedantry about Kim Jaggar’s name. And yes, The Gong 1970-1980, except for a stint 1977-8 seconded to Sydney Uni. Then Fort Street after The Gong, then in the book business in Glebe, then SBHS with excursions to Wessex College of English 1990 teaching mainly Chinese students, Masada College at St Ives 1988-9…. Interesting, looking back, and I learned a lot.

And the Illawarra Line kids! Also Ted Oliver (Hurstville). Ian Toll of course, and others from Sutho Primary – Arno Eglitis who became a Maths teacher, Robert Burney, Ross Mackay who was at the reunion…

I did my reunion via my blog – I’m a mad blogger, have been for 20+ years, and the Facebook OBU Group.  The entire string of 65th Reunion entries on the blog is here: 65th Reunion | Neil’s Commonplace Book (wordpress.com)  Being a blog they go backwards chronologically, but I hope you can give them a go. May be memories there.

Best wishes,  

Neil

And as I am writing this Harry has replied! “…my career was almost exclusively in the computing field,, I think really in becoming director of information technology at the ABC long before the revolution of the 80s (computer Revolution)….” And it seems I taught his sons! I will now go to the archives to check that. Yes, seems I did!

And yesterday

… so siring a line that now includes the amazingly multitalented Ky Baldwin, and yes we did talk about him too yesterday.

Yesterday Harry came down to The Gong. And sampled the famous barramundi, while I had roast lamb.

I took no photos yesterday, just the ones in my mind — or should I say our minds? The talk hardly stopped as memories went back and forth. And many another topic from religion to history to current affairs….

Yes, a very good day indeed.

2024 in review 10

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August

Browse August

This one chose itself. After all, the day after it first appeared I wrote: Thanks to those who have made yesterday’s post the most viewed of my August 2024 posts.

A song for dark places

Posted on  by Neil

“Your sending this video has been timely.” 

Those are the words of a friend sent late last night via Facebook Messenger. And this is the singer who just happens to be live on YouTube right now! (Subscribers only.)

And this is the song:

Depression is a monster that takes your heart as prey/ while it leaves you drowning/ and takes your breath away/ now it’s too late to save the day
It could be your mother’s son/ It could be your father’s daughter (anyone)/ the funny guy at school/ the girl you thought was the one

Depression Is A Monster is ~Written by: Ky Baldwin ~Audio Production by: Ky Baldwin ~Mixed by: Ky Baldwin Video ~Directed by: Ky Baldwin ~Produced by: Pacifica Films ~Cinematographer: Miles Dahl

My friend writes (in part):

“I ran short of time before listening to the last one & in a way it was perhaps the way it was meant to be, such was its impact. As impressive as the video & the vocals are it is the insights,images and potent messages in the lyrics that moved me to tears & touched me on the deepest level….”

She then speaks of the ongoing struggle of a loved one, to whom she has now sent the song.

I thought of Rob (1961-1989)

In the following exiract from a story I wrote partly as therapy as the events it describes were actually happening I have disguised the true names but every word is otherwise true.

September 14 1989

— I miss that man so much.

— I know that Luke.

— I don’t know what to do about his birthday. I phoned but there was no answer. He doesn’t want to see me. It makes me so angry.

— Listen, Luke, he told me to tell you he still likes you. Take it from me, when he’s like this you just have to wait.

Luke cries publicly, there in the Unicorn Bar at 10 pm. Not something he would normally do. Later at the Oxford, trying to be wise I say something like breaking up is a bit like a death and you grieve and…

September 19 1989

I am in the Albury with friends, the usual cocktail hour chat after a day’s work. A cry from the other side of the long bar. It is Luke. Wearing his long white coat. When I go over to him I see his face red and swollen, tears streaming.

— Colin, where have you been? I’ve been trying to find you all day. I have something to tell you.

— What’s wrong, Luke. Tell me.

For a while he just cries unable to talk.

— Tell me.

— It’s going to hurt you.

— Tell me.

A dozen possibilities but not this one.

— J is dead.

Frozen.

— Tell me it’s not true Colin. He’s just run away…

I ring J’s father in Wollongong immediately. “Yes, Colin, J has passed away. He rang me on Father’s Day and said he was going to Melbourne. He obviously did not intend to go. He hired a car and…”

Apparently he died on his birthday.

— It’s true.

For over a year after that every time I heard this song I would burst into tears, not least if I heard Sylvana sing it in the Albury Piano Bar.

In that year I had help

See Memory upon memory…

Email from long ago…

Yesterday I received out of the blue an email from Cedric Bullard! Who? Well, he has appeared several times in this and earlier blogs, on Mothers Day in 2023 for example:

1989 was in many respects a personal annus horribilis encompassing a burn-out that forced me to give up my job at Masada — at one point I was off the radar to such an extent that my mother sent the police to do a welfare check and the Deputy Principal of Masada came to Paddington to see what was going on. Therapy with the amazing Dr Cedric Bullard in Randwick really helped. By the end of the year I was working again at Sydney Boys High. There was also the suicide of a dear friend and the death of my father in 1989. So Tiananmen did not really occupy my thoughts at the time.

In fact what she did was reported me missing! Then the cops did a welfare check. The point being that at one stage I had not been to see Mum over in Glebe for a while and she could not ring me as at that time where I was living in Paddington did not have a phone. I would normally contact people from a public phone. Later in the year I had an arrangement with my friend PK who also lived in Paddington to sit at his place on a workday morning so that Sydney High could contact me if my services were required. Worked well. After if I was not working I would have coffee at the wonderful Oddies which was close to PK’s place. In the missing weeks I could most often be found in Centennial Park contemplating the ducks….

Or recalling 1989 in a 2019 post.

Living not far away was an old Wollongong friend, indeed a decade or more earlier an ex-student. Sadly, on 14 September 1989 he took his own life. I was deeply affected, and even more so were his family in Wollongong and his former partner. Again, homophobia had a role.

In the midst of it all, as therapy really — and indeed at the time I was undergoing therapy with the wonderful Cedric Bullard — I committed the whole thing to writing, as fiction, but not a thing in it didn’t happen pretty much as I told it. You can find the whole thing here. 

Later in 1990-1 when I was no longer Cedric’s client he was the key person in helping Michael Xu out of a sticky situation which threatened Michael’s ability to stay in Australia. That story I cannot make public here. But both Michael and I have good reason to remember Cedric. For several years Cedric indeed sent us Christmas cards every year when M and I were living in Surry Hills. I also taught Cedric’s grandson at Sydney Boys High, and recall meeting Cedric again when said grandson had his Year 12 Farewell Assembly later in the 1990s, but I had not heard of or from Cedric since that day.

Until yesterday.

Using the “Mail me” facility on my blog he emailed me.

Hullo Neil,

It is wonderful to see all the wonderful accomplishments of a master of masters.

Cheers,

Ced Bullard

In the course of the exchange which followed he revealed that “Last Wednesday, my Sweetheart Libby died in my arms.”

When I heard about Nate Byrne’s panic attack on live TV a couple of weeks back I posted:

I know exactly what this is like! In a blog post I wrote: “And yes there was a price to pay for me from those days…. Anxiety attacks, agoraphobia, temporarily stopping teaching…. Thanks to certain friends and to some professionals — Dr Hans Knutzelius of RPA, Cassy Workman, Cedric Bullard — psychologist and counsellor extraordinaire and one of the best people I have ever met…. And James Harker for the time I worked in his bookshop — and Neos which I edited all through this!”

Back in 1983

I was editing Neos, I was spinning out in some ways (mostly anxiety) and entering a career hiatus, and I turmed 40. I could not conceive 2023, the year I would turn 80! But here it is and here I am. Mind you there was no generally available Internet then, and no blogs either…. REPOST: In 1983 I learned more than I knew I was learning…

The breaks in my career are totally explained by these episodes, some of them of many months duration.

I am aware of at least two Facebook friends for whom these issues have been or are live right now. In some cases they say so, in others I can read the signs.

Ky’s song is for you

My former neighbour and her family

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At the end of yesterday’s post I shared this:

This is Hailey in the Coffee Shop at City Diggers in 2020. Many a time did she serve me!

The Go Fund Me Page

linked

Our beautiful Janet left us unexpectedly at 50 years young on 21.11.24
She was full of love, laughter, personality and always did her best even in the toughest of situations. She left behind 5 children – Joel, Lochlyn, Jami, Ashley and Hailey who are heartbroken and will miss her deeply.
Due to her sudden passing, we are needing assistance to raise money for a small respectful service to celebrate her life and give our farewell.

Janet

Views we shared when Janet and I were neighbours