My Windows, My Views ... My Life and Travels

Barbara McCarthy

Description

As a child of a British air force family, Barbara was troubled by the absence of a stable home-life, a difficult relationship with her father, and too many school changes to have a traditional education or make connections and friends. Her fragmented early life became so entrenched in her being that even as an independent adult in Australia, moving and travelling became her life-style, continually leaving relationships, homes and life behind her. With the realisation that she had a story to tell of her survival, of her achievements and successes over a long life, with more than a few missteps along the way, as well as some amazing travels, Barbara began to write her story. In the telling she uncovered layers of herself and her life that had once left her wondering ‘who am I, really?’ She discovered who she is - and that there was a happier side to her story too.

Sujets

• Malarndirri McCarthy
• Biography
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris AU
• Date de parution: 16 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669830542
• Langue: English

Extrait

MY WINDOWS, MY VIEWS ... MY LIFE AND TRAVELS



Stories from a long life well-lived







Barbara McCarthy



Copyright © 2022 by Barbara McCarthy.

Library of Congress Control Number:
2022912363
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-3056-6
Softcover
978-1-6698-3055-9
eBook
978-1-6698-3054-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.





Rev. date: 08/05/2022




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Contents
Preface
Part One
First Thoughts
About My Big Brother
Marriage—The Early Days
So Who Am I Really?
My Early Years: Stone, Staffordshire
Raf Harrogate, Yorkshire
En Route For The Far East
Raf Drigh Road And Karachi Grammar School
On Leave From Pakistan
Nanna’s House: Stockton-On-Tees, County Durham
My Birth And Survival
Raf Warton, Lancashire
Lake Road, Ansdell, Lancashire
Raf Wildenrath, West Germany
Raf Bircham Newton—Near King’s Lynn, Norfolk
Raf Kirton-In-Lindsey, Lincolnshire
Beaconsfield, Near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Aden, South Yemen
Fun In The Sun
Combe Martin, North Devon, On The Way To London
Lee Green: South East London
Rippon Hall Farm—And Apple Picking
St Helier Hospital, Carshalton, Surrey
Part Two
Difficult Times
More Big Decisions
Getting There
Frankston, Victoria And Gould Street
Frankston To Mt. Eliza And Midwifery
A Great Many Changes
Prahran Via Frankston
About Moving And York Street, Prahran
And What’s More . . .
Abbotsford—Not A Village
Kyneton And Tylden
Cowes, Philip Island
Three Big Life Events Down And More To Follow
And Last But Not Least . . .
Part Three
Early Lessons In Holiday Planning
Karachi Reverie
Blackpool, Lancashire
Europe Tripping
The Lake District
Cummango Homestead
Mildura, Victoria
Mombasa, Kenya
China At A Glance
Kirkcudbright
Japanese Idyll
Yamba
Cruising
Hoi An, Motorcycles And Vietnam
Queensland And Surfers Paradise
To Bali—With Love
Travelling Solo



Preface
It seems to me that I have written all my life: newsletters, policy and procedure manuals, newspaper articles, information booklets for new mothers and radio presenters, and film reviews, but I have never written for myself—until now, that is.
My story ( My Windows, My Views ) is not just an autobiography or memoir but also a historical account of 76 years of a full and eventful life. There are stories of travel with my Royal Air Force family—there are word pictures of my early English life, of Pakistan and Aden in the 1950s and 1960s, and of my own coming of age. It is also the story of periodic family dysfunction and sadnesses that happened along the way. It was as raw and personal for me to write as it is for others to read. This is an adult book.
There is commentary about many cultures, interesting people, and my family included in my writing, but most of all, this is the truth of a life’s journey which I have survived, despite many missteps along the way.
I began my story by asking, ‘Who am I?’ (which became an early working title). I seemed to have had so many reinventions of my life that I became uncertain about my true identity. I asked myself the question and answered it myself as I wrote, allowing my memories to direct the narrative.
There are few really happy stories in the first two parts of my book, so I wrote a third part—tales of travels from my life—as an addendum. Part 3 is in a different writing style and more satirical. It was also much more fun to write.
My whole story is attached here for you. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Yours sincerely,
Barbara McCarthy



The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

I WILL JUST TELL THE WHOLE STORY, my own story, in my own voice, with recollections put to paper as they come into my mind. My memories will just pour on to the page, or they may not. However, there are many fleeting small memories creeping into my mind before I even start, which are impossible to ignore, because isn’t it also the minutiae in life, the incidental happenings, that helps makes up who and what we are and who we eventually become? There are so many things I want you to know about me and what I want to understand about myself in the telling.
I am slightly anxious at wounding others by my introspective reflections as I look through the windows of my life, but these are totally my own memories and my own views, thoughts, and feelings, and I can say with sincerity that I am not pointing a finger at anyone, nor recriminating, blaming, or intending to offend. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that some of my disclosures might surprise some readers.
I have reached out to counsellors occasionally in my life—at times when I have felt that I could not find in myself ways to negotiate the steps to overcome a problem. Invariably, in these soul-searching sessions I have been asked questions, by diligent therapists, about my past, about my place in the family, about my siblings, and most particularly, about my relationship with my parents. I have not ever wanted to go too far into those thoughts, not even on my own and in reflective mood; delving into past memories has often left me with a sense of sadness, of discomfort even, but in the safety of my advancing years and with the freedom to tell all about myself, I will allow my memories to surface as they will, and I will write it here.



Part One



FIRST THOUGHTS
I REMEMBER SOME HAPPY TIMES in my childhood, but I have no clear memory of being warmly hugged, and certainly not by my father. He was never comfortably demonstrative and certainly did not initiate closeness—we were not like that as a family. We were British, and so I thought for a long time in my early childhood that it was normal not to display open affection. If our early life experiences teach us about closeness and connectedness, then it is no wonder that I have never been demonstratively affectionate, and often not easy to emotionally connect with, either.
Because of my position in the family, as oldest daughter of six children—four boys and two girls—my understanding of our family life and times is different from that of my younger brothers and sister. The father they knew as they were growing up had been rounded off over time, and I saw that he was closer with them, more caring, than he had been with my older brother and me; also my mother became less emotional, calmer, and more philosophically accepting of her lot in life as she grew older.
I have no doubt that my mother loved my father; she was certainly always loyal to him, although she was treated badly by him at times. His lack of concern at leaving her alone and unsupported so often as he pursued his own interests both hurt and angered her, and she showed it. She was quite a fragile soul emotionally, and physically fragile too later in her life, and his abuse of her when he had been drinking to excess was unforgivable—whisky in particular made him an ugly drunk.
I was witness to many of their alcohol-fuelled scenes, and once, when I was a teenager, my mother screamed for me to help her as she cowered in her chair under his threatening bulk. I was frightened to get between them, fearing that he would turn on me too, but I did intervene, using my fists on his back to get him off her before shakily retreating upstairs to my bedroom and shutting the door behind me with my heart pounding. This was just one of many instances when no discussion, apology, or explanation followed, and no reference was ever made to this incident that troubled me greatly.
In the last year of her life, my father fractured my mother’s ribs in an argument which she told me about but I didn’t witness. When she described it, I recognised that this assault wasn’t one of their major fights, not a violent attack like I had seen before—on this occasion, he seems to have just pushed her in some trivial quarrel about the smell of garlic on her breath, but her ribs had fractured very easily. In hindsight, this was most probably due to secondaries in the bone from an undiagnosed lung cancer that I hadn’t suspected was progressing so rapidly. I was not surprised by the lung cancer (she was a lifelong smoker), but I was still saddened when she told me she had coughed up blood when she was on holiday in England and I was upset that she would not go to a doctor until just six weeks before she died. She was only 65.
After each of their altercations, their rows, Mother forgave Father always, outwardly at least, and then they reunited behind closed doors and that was the end of it for them, but not for me.
I don’t know quite w