92 Josephine Wood (Hankin) Continues Her Descent into Hell - Part 2: 11 November 2024

Josey had her abortion in December 1954.  Her oldest son (my brother) Bill Hankin was used to provide cover so the money paid for the abortion could be washed clean and safely declared on the doctor’s income tax return.

Just before Christmas 1954, mum took Bill to see a doctor.  Bill say nothing was wrong with him and he had not complained about being sick.  Bill saw an elderly doctor in the Port Melbourne area who looked briefly at his throat and declared that his tonsils needed to come out.  Tonsillectomies were routine in the 1950s.

Because our family had no health insurance, a trip to the Royal Children’s Hospital should have followed because then the operation would have been free – but that could happen only if Bill really did need to have his tonsils out, and there was no trip to any public hospital. 

Bill was taken to a converted old fashioned Port Melbourne house where the laundry had been turned into an operating theatre.  During the 3 or 4 days that Bill convalesced in a room in the house, he received no visits from mum and I know I was never taken to see him.

Bill was placed in a room with 6 older men who all thought it was a great joke that he was there at all, but they never explained why. 

While Bill was recovering from having his tonsils out, mum was undoubtedly in a different room in the same house recovering from her abortion.  Once mum recovered, Bill was discharged into Josey’s care.  The charge for the abortion was camouflaged as the cost of Bill’s tonsil operation.

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The one lesson Josey seems to have learned from her abortion was that she should always give birth to more children rather than have any more abortions.

Although resolving never again to have an abortion, Josey ignored the Catholic teaching that said she must not commit adultery.

Mum’s adultery was the underlying reason for our inexplicably sudden move from Fisherman’s Bend to Research in December 1956 – a move that saw us transplanted into a house which was unfit for habitation.

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William (Bill) Nash was a womaniser and an entertainment organiser for the British Army in WW 2.  In 1956, Bill Nash was the driving force behind the Fisherman’s Bend Migrant Hostel “Show”.  Every hostel in Melbourne had its own Show and every Shown put on performances  for every other hostel.  The Fisherman’s Bend Show was one of many.

Mum appeared in an act with Bill Nash which even to my young mind seemed very strange.

The act went like this …

A tramp (Bill Nash) was sitting on a bench in a park reading a newspaper.  Josey approached the bench and instead of running like buggery, she sat down on the bench.  The tramp then produced a pair of scissors and started cutting pieces of her clothing off.  Josey pretended to protest but stayed on the bench.  Instead of Josey heading for the hills, she allowed the tramp to keep cutting away at her clothes.  It was truly cringeworthy stuff and it played out while someone hammered away on the stage piano.

Counting backwards from when Patrick was born on 17 March 1957, Josey became pregnant with Patrick on about Sunday 8 July 1956.  By Sunday 16 December 1956, she was about 24 weeks into her pregnancy.  It would have been impossible for anyone to not notice she was pregnant.

I am completely certain that Bill Nash was Patrick’s biological father and that we left the hostel in such a frantic rush because someone had told Cliff that Josey had been having an affair with Bill Nash.  Dad wanted to immediately remove Josey from the place where she was having her affair with Bill Nash.

 

The photo above was taken on 8 August 2013.  It shows Patrick Hankin.

 

 

I do not know when this second photo was taken.  It shows a different Patrick – Patrick Nash.  Patrick Nash is the grandson of Bill Nash.  I have no doubt at all that Patrick Nash is the nephew of my brother Patrick Hankin.  

We had to live for months in a house that was not fit for human habitation because our mother Josephine Wood had been unable to resist the temptation to fuck a man who was most definitely NOT her husband.

Instead of doing any of the stereotypical things that the movies love to attribute to the bullshit called “toxic masculinity”, Cliff did not beat Josey up and he did not abuse her in any way.  Instead of all those possible actions that would have given modern moralisers an excuse to condemn him, he immediately removed Josey from the scene of temptation and tried to persuade her that she should love him instead – by working impossible hours so he could earn enough money through honest labour to pay the mortgage of ten pounds per week – roughly what he could earn for working a 40 hour week – and to also put food on the table so we could eat.

Cliff was a great man who never complained.  He never raised his voice in anger in my hearing.  He never raised his fists in anger to anyone and he never treated anyone disrespectfully.  Cliff could easily have beaten anyone to a complete pulp because he had worked all of his life in extremely hard labour and he was immensely strong – but he never abused anyone.  Instead of getting angry and using violence, Cliff smoked cigarettes non stop and he could easily have drained several breweries of every drop of beer that they could ever make.

Cliff was a great man who was married to a woman who was so bird brained she had no ability to see the quality of the man she was married to. 

Instead of realising how blessed she had been, Josey kept dreaming of how much better off she would be if she could only fuck someone other than her own wonderful husband.

Our headlong flight from Fisherman’s Bend Migrant Hostel was not the final attempt by Cliff to deprive his wife of the opportunity for further adultery.

Nor was Patrick was not the only child Cliff had to raise as his own even though someone else had been the biological father.