Recollections

All my ancestors are now dead.  I'm an orphan. So for this history I've had to rely on my recollections a small pile of documents left by my mother. These include short biographies of several of her relatives. Following the female line; these recollections briefly span the two world wars; to the present.

Elsewhere on this site is Jordan's year ten report of interviews she conducted with her great-grandmother, before she died, her grandmother and her mother [read more... ]. Jordan's great-grandmother was a decade younger than my grandmother and brought up in Australia in totally different circumstances but there are some striking similarities.

And so to my mother and her family.

Politics ran in the female strand of the family; as plumbing did in the male strand.

Great-Grandparents - the 19th Century

My great-grandmother (Jane Dodds Gifford 1873-1935) was the daughter of a flour merchant, Robert Carmichael and Amelia Carmichael (nee Dodds).

This photographic portrait was made circa 1878. I still have the original in an elaborate frame.
My great-grandmother Jane as a child with her mother Amelia Carmichael

Jane married my great-grandfather (James Steel Gifford 1872-1946) on 24th October 1894 when she was 21 and he was 22.  

They had lived eight houses apart in Sarah St, Shieldfield Newcastle-upon-Tyne and no doubt met at church.  In the 1960's Sarah St. was condemned as slum housing and there is a photograph taken in 1958,  prior to its demolition, in the Newcastle Library.  The entire area was demolished and replaced by housing estate flats.

James' family had moved from Edinburgh Scotland to Newcastle when he was a boy.  His mother lived to a great age but little is known of his father.  When they were married he indicated that his father's profession was 'labourer' but he believed he had a different natural father and as an adult often attempted to track down his real father in Scotland. 

He was initially a journeyman plumber and successfully built his own business.  When my grandmother was a baby they lived in Howard St in Byker near to his business in Coquet St, in the shadow of the Byker Bridge; a short five minute walk from home.  Today the site is being redeveloped.  Their first house was also demolished in the 60's.  But they soon moved to a new larger terrace house in Rokeby Terrace. It is a pleasant suburban street by English standards as each house has a front bay window and is set back from the street by a small garden. It can be seen in Google street view today. It's a 40 minute walk, or 8 minutes by car, from the business. Jane's sister was moved into the house next door to keep her company.

They had four children (Joseph, Amelia, Orick and Violet) but Joseph died in infancy. 

A photographic portrait of Jane made around 1894. And my great-grandfather James Steel Gifford (Jim - Pa)

My mother wrote of her:

Jane (Jinnie), [my grandmother] was a typical Victorian wife and mother. She adored her husband, in spite of his frequent absences and infidelity, and lived for him, her children, her church and the Conservative Party.
Her sister was her constant companion. They lived next door to each other and went everywhere together. They belonged to what must have been one of the first branches of the Womens' Conservative Party to be formed after women's suffrage. The women had a separate entity to the men with their own party branches and hierarchy.
Every afternoon after the mid-day meal... they emerged from their homes to go to the Mothers Union at their church, a Party meeting or the 'Pictures'. They embraced the silent movies and then 'talkies' with joy,  They were known to every commissionaire at every cinema in Newcastle and seldom had to wait in a queue for admittance.
A big event was the annual Church Bazaar when they were in charge of the Work Stall. To this end they bought whole bolts of material and spent months sewing it into a range of men’s and women’s clothing.
Christmas and New Years Eve was always spent at her home and she preserved the rites of New Years Eve scrupulously, not only the 'first footing' by a dark man but the payment of all bills, cleaning of the home, fresh linen on all beds and bathroom and the soiled linen washed ironed and put away.  The only time I saw her annoyed was when someone forgot the rules and washed their hands at 11.45 p.m.
My personal recollection of my grandmother was of a gentle lady who always was there for me in the somewhat stormy relationship I had with my mother. Her death when I was twelve was the first real loss in my life and had a profound effect on me.

Jane was devoted to her husband throughout his life and willingly overlooked his openly kept mistress, Kitty Sims, who was also his office manager at the business.  He was charming and much liked by many ladies; including my mother who was fond of her grandfather and secretly continued to visit him after her mother fell out with him.

She wrote of him:

"For some years he had a large Ford touring car which he drove with considerable flair. He was always impeccably dressed and had a taste for pearl &/or diamond tiepins and rings.

He loved animals and there was always a stray cat and dog or two which he had rescued and for which he found homes, all the cats were called Jiggers a name which remained in our family for some cat generations. He also kept a guard dog usually a Newfoundland, at his business premises, which would eat an intruder but which was putty in his hands.
These premises were at the end of and partially under a culvert which joined the suburb of Byker to the City and which carried a road and tram tracks. His office was at road level and it is typical of his sense of humour that he had a WC mounted on the roof to advertise his business... 
He enjoyed the good things of life and spent a lot of time away from home at horse races. He was always at home for Christmas but spent every New Year at the Hogmanay celebrations in Edinburgh.
Although a good provider for his wife and three children he also had a mistress who remained with him until his death. 
My personal recollection of my grandfather is of a generous, kind man...  After my grandmother's death my mother fell out with him for some years but I used to visit him from time to time without her knowledge. He came to my wedding and I took my first child Richard to see him on what turned out to be his deathbed." 

When she was a teenager his eldest daughter, my grandmother, Amelia Louisa Storey (1896-1982) known as Minnie, found his blatant infidelity hard to take. One day when her father was away on business, Kitty sent the office boy around to the house with a pay packet containing the housekeeping money. Minnie answered the door and infuriated by the insult of a pay packet sent to her mother, went around to the factory and strangled her.  Leaving Kitty unconscious Grandma marched, or perhaps cycled, back home and announced 'I've murdered Kitty Simms'.  Fortunately, Kitty had just fainted or was foxing. I've heard several versions of this story from my mother, Grandma herself, and my mother's cousin.  It was told as being typical of Grandma's approach to life in general. 

After my great-grandfather's death Kitty Sims, who apparently remained attractive, emigrated to Canada where she married (a plumber?).

Minnie in turn married a plumber, Alan Storey, my grandfather (1894-1958).  Alan's father (George Mattison Storey 1858-1933) like James Gifford had started as a journeyman plumber and built his own plumbing and hardware business. But unlike her other grandfather my mother found him stern and unapproachable. His father (Robert) had been a carpenter. 

She wrote of him:

"(he) was a typical Victorian father - a martinet who believed in "spare the rod and spoil the child" and that his children were his to order as he pleased... (who) apprenticed each of his 5 sons to a trade appropriate to his business, himself being the Master. There was no appeal against this...
The four children of his second marriage all passed the entrance examination to Grammar School (ie secondary education) but only the eldest boy Clifford and youngest girl Isobel (Poppy) were allowed to take up the scholarship. No subsequent attempts to break out of the mould were allowed, in Alan's case both an opportunity to take the entrance examination to Teachers' College and to become articled to an accountant were foiled simply by refusing to sign the necessary papers.
My personal remembrance of my Grandfather is of an irascible old man who rarely smiled or offered any expression of affection.
It is interesting to note that of the fourteen children born to George Mattison Storey's eight children, all had secondary education and eight continued to tertiary level two becoming engineers, one an accountant, one a bank manager, two teachers, one a doctor and one a professor of applied mathematics."

Alan and his brother Clifford initially took over their father's business; to which they had previously been apprenticed. 

My mother wrote:

Following their father's death Alan and Clifford set about rescuing the business. Clifford, who had been in an engineering regiment during the War was a qualified electrician.  They put a competent manageress into the shop and widened its scope to include electrical appliances, china and glassware.  They employed a carpenter and apprentices and journeymen in their own trades and tendered for work in new building projects as well as the home repair business, which their father had relied on.  After various unhappy experiences with tenants in the house it was decided that Alan and Amelia should live there and so when I was twelve 98 Heaton Road became our home.  Some years of growing prosperity followed, overshadowed by the threat of war and in 1939 Britain declared war on Germany.

The shop at 98 Heaton Road is still there and now sells baths, bathroom furniture and fixtures.  How little things change.  But their home behind and over the shop has become student accommodation.

Grandparents  - the 20th Century begins

My great-aunt Violet (1901-1984) Minnie's sister, married a Danish manufacturing plumber (Paul Koford1899-1972). They had two children (Jill and Paul); cousins to whom my mother was very much attached; and whom I have visited in Denmark.  Denmark is across the the channel from Newcastle as the Vikings frequently demonstrated.  There was once an overnight ferry but now you need to fly, go via Holland or catch the ferry from Harwich. Many settled in the area and the Geordie language of the Tyne valley retains many Danish words and intonations.  My great-uncle Paul liked to catch a bus into the working class areas just to listen to the people speak.  

My grandmother, Minnie, was a good student, a Girl Guide and an excellent swimmer (if not such a good strangler).  She rescued a man, John Richardson, from drowning in the River Wear at Finchale Abbey, at the age of 14, when she was out cycling.  I have a Testimonial presented to her by the Royal Humane Society to this effect and handwritten letter from if Agnes Baden-Powell, founder of the Girl Guides, congratulating her on her ‘plucky conduct’ that ‘will be a grand example to all the girls of England’. Finchale (finkle) Abbey is more than 16 miles from her home and I have been unable to find out if she had cycled there alone that day or if perhaps she was there with the Guides. [Since I wrote this it has been confirmed that she was there with the Guides - see the comment below]

Royal Humane Society Instituted 1774 Supported by a Voluntary Contributions PATRON His Majesty the King VICE PATRON H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught. K.G.,   At a meeting of the committee of the royal humane society held at their Office, 4, Trafalgar Square on the 17th day of October 1910 Present Admiral Sir George Digby Morant K.C.B. in the chair It was Resolved Unanimously That the Honorary Testimonial of this Society Inscribed on Parchment be hereby given to Amelia L. Gifford for having on the 26th of May 1910 gone to the rescue of John Richardson who was in imminent danger of drowning in the Wear at Finchale Abbey and whose life she courageously assisted in saving.       FAL Claughten Secretary       GeoDigby Morant Chairman

The B-P Girl Guides       June 15th, [1910] My dear Miss Gifford I have been wishing to write and congratulate you on your plucky conduct in saving life in the flooded river , which must have been all the more difficult when fully dressed.  We all thought it splendidly brave of you to attempt such a deed, and it will be a grand example to all girls of England. The medal to which you are entitled has been forwarded to the committee to present to you, with best wishes Sincerely yours  Agnes Baden-Powell

While there were constraints on the degree of interaction with the opposite sex, there are photographs of Minnie as a late teen in the country in the company of young men, including my grandfather; well before she was married. And obviously her sister was free enough to be able to meet and marry a Dane.

Her marriage to my grandfather was delayed by the First World War. 

Lance Corporal Storey (on exercises in the Territorials prior to WWI)

Initially a corporal in the reserve (the Territorials) Alan rose to the rank of Battery Sergeant Major in the Royal Field Artillery. He was gassed and wounded and retuned to England in 1918, having been awarded the military medal for bravery. 

This was not without confusion over the spelling of his name:

They finally married in June 1922 (when Minnie was 26).  My mother was born ten months later.  They had only one child. 

Minnie was no stranger to work. At the age of 14 she was a dressmaking apprentice possibly to her aunt Amelia who was a dressmaker.  Then, until she was married, she worked in a chemist shop.  Both her mother and aunt had an ongoing interest in politics and women's suffrage that she inherited. During the Second World War she quickly rose within the Women's Voluntary Services to become Area Commander.   The WVS ran canteens and provided emergency aid to those hit by air raids and so on.

Alan was commissioned (with the rank of Major) and commanded the local Home Guard Unit. 

Major Storey MM and Mrs Storey (Area Commander WVS) during WWII

When the company armoury was hit by a bomb the weapons were temporally moved to their house including mills bombs in the cellar; and a Browning machine gun in the dining room. Their house was subsequently damaged by masonry, and a flying window stone, when a house in Cardigan Terrace, behind theirs, was hit by a bomb.

After the war Minnie became more active in local politics and went on to become an Alderman; Sheriff of Newcastle on Tyne (1969); as well as Lady Mayoress (1971). 

Grandma on the left - outside the Civic Centre Newcastle-Tyne (circa 1971)
Madge Graham on the right (actually they're both on the right)

Alan continued to build a thriving business while supporting Minnie in her political life.  He in turn was active in the Masons and Rotary. When Clifford died in 1957 his widow wanted the business wound up so that she could realise her share. This property on Heaton Road was sold and new business premises rented. My grandparents bought a new home at 27 Dovedale Gardens, Heaton where I visited and stayed with her on several occasions. 

Grandma never learnt to drive but had an official car on Council business.  As I quickly learnt when driving her, she expected her driver to behave like a chauffeur. In a famous incident recalled by my mother she opened the family car door while the car was moving to have it swiped off by a wall.  This she steadfastly blamed this on my grandfather. 

For my grandmother, a high point in her life, was attending Buckingham Palace in 1955 to be received by the Queen and to be presented with her MBE.  

While my mother was happy for her mother, she considered this enthusiasm for royalty misplaced as it perpetuated class difference and represented all that needed fixing in Britain.  She disliked her mother's black and white approach, her passionate likes and dislikes and her preparedness to put principle, particularly Party, Queen and Country, ahead of everything.  Possibly in rebellion, my mother more than once remarked that she ‘wouldn’t cross the road to see the Queen’ and habitually referred to her consort as ‘Phil the Greek’. 

Notwithstanding my grandmother’s achievements and somewhat formidable bearing, I was taken aback when she deferred socially to my father’s relatively impoverished sister.  My father’s family was professional - not quite upper middle class, a very subtle difference. 

On another occasion I was amazed to see her address one of the richest property developers in the North of England as she would a shop assistant when we visited him in his enormous Edwardian country mansion on ‘Party matters’.  He had risen from the working class.  Such is, or was, the British class system. 

My Mother - The Twenties Onward

Vera McKie (nee Storey) 1923- 2009

As a teen my mother was in turn freer than her mother; but nevertheless felt constrained by her mother’s control. 

She went to a selective state school where hat and gloves were compulsory; talking to boys in uniform prohibited; and the local dialect was suppressed. 

Until my mother’s death she was friends with another girl in Sydney from the same school.  Their mothers were political foes but of course had committee memberships and the Council in common.  Mary's mum was Labour and equally politically active having been Lord Mayor.  Under Harold Wilson in the 60's she was made Dame Catherine Scott.   Both daughters had educated English accents, Mary's a little more 'Geordie', as befits her Labour background.   My mother softened hers in Australia but the full accent popped out when talking to other English women of the same generation.  When I first visited England I was amazed to discover that my privately educated female cousins had strong northern accents. Speaking 'Geordie' is now in fashion. I suppose Cilla Black's terrible Liverpool accent is to blame.

While they were not supposed to speak to boys in School uniform; my mother had a mixed social group who considered themselves at least partly, intellectual.  She was academically gifted and might have gone on to university but for the great depression that began while she was in primary school.  She was very widely read and would have liked to have continued her education; except her mother prevented it.   

At her mother’s insistence, she left school at 16 to become a contometer operator, to help out the family finances.  Contometers were elaborate mechanical computers, used for ‘number crunching’ in the days before electronic computing.  She got a job using this machine at CA Parsons, the Newcastle engineering company that manufactured steam turbo-alternators for electricity generation and turbines to power ships. 

For reasons of class her life was not like that depicted either  in DH Lawrence’s ‘Women in Love’ or Huxleys ‘Chrome Yellow’; but her friends had liberal opinions, smoked and met in tea houses; and to my grandmother’s chagrin one of my mother’s male friends was Jewish.  Jews were particularly unpopular and blamed for the Depression by many.  But despite her mother's protestations, my mother regarded her choice of friends to be her own affair.  

At Parson's she met Stephen McKie, who was a cadet engineer, with a sports car and 'a bit of a reputation'. Soon after they started courting the Second World War broke out.  Stephen immediately signed up for pilot training with the RAF and they made a fine couple.  Vera was exceptionally good looking at 17 and Stephen who was 23 was dashing in uniform.  When he got his wings and was on coastal patrol in his Hurricane fighter, he could fly in to see her, a romantic figure in his fighter pilot’s Irvin Jacket and silk scarf.  But the war was not a game, many people got killed.

All Stephen’s squadron, except him and one other, were killed.  He was still a Flight Sergeant and was given the opportunity to take an officer’s commission and go to Canada as a flying instructor.  But he skipped the officer course and instead flew to Newcastle to marry Vera so that she could accompany him to Canada.  As he told us, his choice was between keeping Vera and dining in a different mess; an easy choice.  In four days in July 1942 she had a green wedding dress; bridesmaid; cake; ring; church; and a reception with all their friends.  She was 19.   

And so she went to Canada. Stephen went ahead and Vera made the Atlantic crossing, with a lot of other women; at the height of the U-boat activity.  Unlike the return trip this was a high speed run to outrun the submarines.  Then all she had to do was cross Canada.  She and another girl missed their train and had adventures on the way.

There are lot of photos of the newlywed’s time in Canada. It was obviously a new world. They did a lot of horse riding and my father did a lot of flying; teaching Canadians, South Africans, Poles and Australians to fly.

They admired the Australians they met, and that influenced an important later decision.  But Stephen had been in a serious ‘prang’; an aircraft crash that began the worsening spinal injury that eventually stopped his flying and had him repatriated to England. 

Vera had been pregnant in Canada but my older sibling did not survive to term.  She was very distressed by the loss of the child and the potential of a crippled husband and had a miserable 21st birthday, alone in Medicine Hat in Canada, waiting for transport to follow Stephen back to England.  

Unlike the fast trip across in a lone ship, the trip back was in a convoy that zigzagged as slowly as the slowest ship and took 16 days. 

And so at last the War was over and I was born.  Apparently I was conceived in hospital as an experiment to see if ‘things still worked’.  Stephen was in and out of hospital but back working at Parsons and completing his engineering thesis on high voltage insulation. Then Peter was born.  They were busy renovating their 3 storey house while food and materials rationing was still very much in operation. Vera kept all this together:  two small children a wounded veteran, a house in turmoil, and oh I didn’t mention Juggins, our huge Bullmastiff dog.

Then bad news, Stephen had every prospect of becoming a paraplegic.  Unless they moved to a warmer climate he could not be expected to recover.  They booked passage to Australia but the waiting list for a sea passage was so long he might have to pass another winter in northern England.  So they sold the house and with all the proceeds they bought, three very expensive, one-way air tickets to Sydney.

My mother worked, off and on, throughout their long marriage, initially as a medical receptionist; generally when they were saving for property or a car; later to assist in my father's business.  

At other times she was active in various local committees and charities; amateur theatre and so on.  Through the 1950s and early 60s Stephen became the general manager of increasingly larger factories.  Then he headed a research lab and finally dared to try his hand as an engineering consultant.  Executive cocktail parties were attended and held. Vera was the perfect hostess. Stephen painted her portrait in an evening dress; it was hung in the Woman’s Weekly portrait competition and won one a minor prize.

She was beautiful, clever and for her sons, sometimes a little frightening.

My mother loved her father very deeply and was totally distraught when he died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage on March 13th  1958; while laying some carpet at home.  He was just 63 years old.  I vividly remember her distress; because she was in Sydney, on the other side of the world. 

She wrote:

My personal memory of my father is very happy.
When my mother was away from home we did all the things she didn't allow like reading at the table, listening to classical music at full volume and going for walks when he would explain things like how to train a howitzer to shell a building not in sight! 
He insisted on my secondary education when my mother would have had me leave school at 14 and remained calm when my mother and I disagreed as we did frequently.
The birth of my sons was a great joy and when Stephen’s health compelled us to leave England he supported our decision in spite of loosing them.
His death was the second great loss in my life after my Grandmother Gifford.

She was less loving about her mother, she more than once told me that her things at home were not private, her mother regularly went through them and didn't let her close her bedroom door.  After such a search, after my mother was already married, my grandmother attempted to reprimand her for having in her possession a medically, and sexually, explicit marital manual. My father and grandfather came to her defence but it was very traumatic for her. 

Because of my father's war injuries that had him in and out of Concord Repatriation Hospital, in Sydney, during the 50's, my mother's contingency plan should he die was to return to England.  She was keen that I, and to a lesser extent Peter, would not become too 'ocker' .  This had some unfortunate outcomes for me fitting in at at school during those early years.  But once her father died, and after Grandma's visit to Australia the following year, there was a complete about-face; we were now Australians and proud of it.

Vera told me, when she was calmly expecting her death, that she had initially been desperately unhappy in Australia.  She was only 25 when they arrived; with two small boys. The first Australian girls and women she met in rural Thornleigh were uneducated and quite nasty towards her;  they openly mocked her strange ways and ideas.

Fortunately things looked up when the old lady next door died and the Spencers (and their parents the Stocktons) moved in.  Verna Spencer had been a Fort Street High girl in the 30's, before going on to Sydney University, and her husband John was an engineer, like my father.  They had two children Colin, my age, and Lyndal a baby, a third, Ian, came later.  Fort Street was (and still is) a selective state school, like my mother's, and they immediately had a lot in common. Verna became her life-long friend.

Mrs Stockton, Verna's mother, became like a grandmother to me.  Her retired husband was a keen photographer and gardener.  This was a big task; as their block, like ours, was 100 feet wide but over twice as deep.  He was mainly remarkable to us children for being repeatedly bitten by Funnel Web Spiders. This requiring several emergency ambulance trips; and for getting very upset when we trampled his plants.  It's all under townhouses today.

Vera then rapidly made more friends, discovering that there were violinists (Ruth Mann, who's husband Alan is now, posthumously, world renowned for having taught some of the World's leading brass players); teachers; readers; craftswomen; ballet; opera and theatre-goers aplenty; once she knew where to look.  About this time she got involved in the Australian Council for Women then because of us, in the scouting movement.  John Spencer Verna’s husband was the NSW Scouting Commissioner.  Then it came time for us to go to High school.  Suddenly she was active in the Ladies Auxiliary at Normanhurst Boys’, where she met some of her closest and longest friends.

About half way through high school Stephen decided to leave the corporate world and begin a consulting business. With Vera's unwavering support Stephen abandoned the security of a safe employed career to establish a consultancy based on his specialised knowledge of the requirements of Australian Standards and Specifications in the electric and electronic industries. Over the next 25 years he built a world-wide connection with international companies wishing to meet the Standards in Australia in order to market in Australia.

My father's consulting business was a huge risk and again Vera went to work; for Stephen as his first secretary.  But the gamble paid off, Japanese firms wanted to hire an Australian consultant to help them design western appliances.  Vera learnt and excelled at Ikebana flower arranging and Japanese cooking and we all learnt to use chop sticks.  She was always very handy.  She could cook and sew very well and we once timed her knitting and found that she was faster than the Australian champion (as published).  She had a special technique, learned on the ship returning from Canada.  At first she knitted, crocheted and sewed out of necessity, later she added needle point and did it out of love or charity.

Over time they prospered.  They seemed to be set to have a long and happy retirement.  But then Stephen became embroiled in a patent dispute when a company allegedly infringed one of his patents.  He was outraged and wouldn't settle, so they simply fought him through the courts for over a decade to his eventual financial ruin.  

Fortunately, Vera had sufficient independent resources for them to buy a unit in a retirement village in 1989 where she quickly became involved in the life and politics of the Village, and such Villages in general.  But Stephen was a beaten man. After a final spinal operation in 1991 he gradually became confined to a wheelchair and then bedridden, succumbing to death in his 85 year.

Values

My parents were socially liberal in comparison to earlier generations. This came mainly from my Father's side. His brother always claimed to be a communist, all the while heading the local office of a British multinational. Politically my father considered himself a professional manager, not a capitalist, but he had to negotiate with the unions and although he had time for individual representatives, as an institution regarded the union movement to be counterproductive and irrational.  I don't think he, or my mother, who was his greatest confidant, ever voted Labor.  

My mother's background was less liberal than my father's although her parents were not prudish in a religious sense. 

My grandmother was on various school councils when I knew her. She herself had a somewhat unconventional family and was well aware of the issues of teenage single mums and other social issues.  My grandfather was also quite worldly having been in a senior NCO and then an Officer in the army; managing the things that young soldiers get up to.  He loved music and was a good baritone, singing in the Northumbrian Male Choir and performing in productions of the local operatic society. 

As later became the norm for most families after the 60’s, my parents never had any issue with nudity; for example when coming or going to the bathroom; or on hot days in the privacy of the garden.  I was amazed the learn that some boys had never seen their mother naked.  My father painted as a recreation and we had several of his works, including a nude study, hanging in our living room.  This occasionally raised an eye among my friends.  As a family we often went to the Art Gallery of NSW where we came to admire the, somewhat better, paintings of the Australian Impressionists as well as the Gallery's large Pre-Raphaelite collection.

My mother read a wide range of literature; and through her network of friends usually managed to get hold of anything controversial like Lawrence’s  ‘Lady Chatterley’, Henry Miller’s ‘Tropic of Cancer’, Roth’s ‘Portnoy's Complaint’ and Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’.  However there an expectation that whatever it was must have literary merit. Some popular literature was deemed interesting only to be mocked as an example of trash.  But I don't recall ever being prevented from reading anything.  There was open discussion with us, even as children, on any topic including sex, politics or religion. 

My mother wrote in my father's eulogy:

All of this was shared with Richard and Peter as they grew up, together with his broad philosophy of life, love of animals, music and art and huge enjoyment of debate on almost any subject. It was said of the McKies that what in other families would be a knock- down argument was to them a friendly discussion!!

I’m told that at the age of two, when my brother was imminent, I corrected a doctor who tried to tell me that ‘mummy was going on a holiday’ by telling him, as any child might today: ‘no, mummy has gone to have the baby that’s in her tummy’.

Nevertheless my mother had rules and limits.   She was often critical of stupidity in other women.  For example, she was highly critical of the wives who while travelling to Canada with her, to join their husbands during the war, had affairs during the trip.  Apart from the disloyalty, adultery was a serious lapse of good taste, was likely to injure all concerned, and suggested a lack of self control.

My mother was particularly keen to ensure that my brother Peter and I could cook and sew.  We both learned to cut out a pattern and use a sewing machine and Peter is, or was, quite a good knitter.  In the kitchen we were taught to bake cakes and roasts; fry, grill and boil; prepare vegetables; use the oven; the pressure cooker; and the Mixmaster; and follow a recipe book. We were also required to wash the dishes and dry them on alternate nights.

My grandfather had a great love of horses, one reason he had for have joining the Territorial Army before the First World War.  My parents learned to ride in Canada where it was one of their main recreations.  As a result Peter and I were taught to ride and taken to riding school every weekend for some years. We advanced through early show jumping (low jumps) to dressage; so that, on a trained horse, we could turn left or right, progress to a trot, stop, and back up, without using the reins, or with reins held, but the commands invisible to an untrained eye. 

We have both continued to use these various skills throughout our lives.  Peter once stopped a runaway horse in Centennial Park and returned it, riding bareback, to its owner.

On the other hand we were not allowed to have pushbikes until we left home; allegedly because of the dangerous road we lived on.  I did not learn to ride one until I lived in London and used one to ride to work; as I often did later when living in New York.

You can learn a bit more about my mother by reading my full Eulogy to her [Here... ]

This generation - the into the 21st Century

I don’t know how my mother might have brought up daughters as I have no sisters.  

But I have helped bring up daughters. 

Like my parents, their mothers and I have generally allowed them to know whatever we believed to be true; from the age they were able to comprehend.  As a young child Julia was fascinated by, and frequently watched, the video of her own birth that was made by Emily who was 12 at the time and was present at the birth. 

We took them to various entertainments including the ballet and light opera.  Travelling down William Street, when Emily was around eight, I was taken aback when she started to sing ‘Lovely Ladies’ from Les Misérables, musing on the prostitutes there who were waiting ‘for a bite’  ( …Whores, Lovely ladies; Waiting for a bite; Waiting for the customers; Who only come at night…).  A couple of years later when in Paris, Emily and I went to the Folies Bergere and enjoyed the show - particularly the magician. There were similarly aged French children in the audience and there was no question about her right of entry to a show with adult content and considerable nudity.  She was at the time attending an Anglo-French school in London and followed some of the show better than I did. 

Later when it was performed in Newcastle (on Hunter - NSW Australia) we took the three older children to the musical ‘Hair’.  The nudity and the F-word were not a problem (they were familiar with both); but we felt parental advice was necessary around drug use; and abuse.  Who was Timothy Leary ('dearie' – in Let the Sunshine In) and what did he advocate?  What were the outcomes? [read more... ]

But we did censor some media when they were young.  It is obvious that the depiction of violence does badly affect children, particularly boys; when they are exposed to it their behaviour noticeably changes.  ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ induced Lachlan to pick up a stick and start hitting things.  So horror and violence were banned when the children were young.  I was appalled when I inadvertently took Emily to see ‘Gremlins’ when she was five; a gratuitously violent film; as is the ‘Home Alone’ series of films.    Some quite good films like Arnie in Total Recall are ruined for children by gratuitous violence (and the stupid ending); that mars (pun intended) the interesting existential questions it raises. 

We also found that we needed to protect Julia, who started to become computer literate from preschool age, from the violent video games played by Lachlan; her much older brother.

As I sit here writing one of Emily's life drawings, of a female nude, hangs on the wall.  Apart from being a professional engineer Emily, like her mother is a talented artist.  And Julia too, a now a medical science graduate,  has had one of her paintings hung in a competitive exhibition.  

I see absolutely no evidence that their upbringing has done them any harm but on the contrary Emily, Julia, Anneke and Lachlan seem very well balanced and socially engaged.  They all have University degrees and Lachlan has a PhD in marine science.  All have jobs; none are drug addicts, gambling addicts or sex fiends.  Nor do they swear habitually.  They all have strong opinions and in my view exemplary, self-developed personal values that, as I expect, are not a simple reflection of mine or their mothers'.  This is an outcome of having been exposed to a wide range of adult ideas early and calls into question all this censorship that was once believed to be so critical to a child’s proper upbringing. 

Similar freedoms, perhaps a little later, have been enjoyed by journalist Jordan and her economist/bureaucrat brother Heath.  Jordan, Heath and Emily are now parents themselves and so the next generation has begun.