Blog 273 – Canberra in 1970, Part 1 – 10 June 2025

My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

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I had arrived in Canberra on a rattletrap train called The Spirit of Progress with my pregnant wife.  We knew no one at all in Canberra and we had been dumped in a hostel called Beauchamp House – pronounced as “Beecham” by the local Canberrans.   

My work location was in the half of a wooden building that had not been extinguished by a recent fire.  The building was in Canberra city centre and was called Jolimont House.

My life was not very promising, even if working as a public servant was much easier than working as a labourer.

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Margaret loved visiting her friend Ann in Ireland.  This is Margaret in Ireland on 15 June 2013.  By then, I had been granted the miracles of a reprieve in Margaret’s health.  I had walked the Camino in Spain praying for just this miracle – and got it.

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This life … Your gift. Breath inside a breath … God is, This life … Your gift. Breath inside a prayer … God is Give Love Always

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To do the impossible, we have to keep going when “common sense” says we should give up.

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Go with a clear, open and receptive spirit, and the universe will not treat you badly.

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Long Time Sun – Sung by Amrit Nam Kaur May the long-time sun Shine upon you All love surround you And the pure light Within you Guide your way on Guide your way on May the long-time sun Shine upon you All love surround you And the pure light Within you Guide your way on Guide your way on May the long-time sun Shine upon you All love surround you And the pure light Within you Guide your way on Guide your way on Guide your way on Sat nam

I know Margaret is in a much better place where she no longer has to endure the constant pain that never left her in the final years of her life.

I still miss her so very much.

Accept what is and keep moving.  Swallow the sh*t sandwich and keep moving.

There is nothing else that offers any hope of survival.

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Beauchamp House was a shock.  The cost of living there for one week was more than the wage I was going to be paid by the Immigration Department once it got around to actually paying me my wage as a Graduate Clerk.  If we continued staying in Beauchamp House, and if I actually paid the accommodation bill there, I would never have the money to rent a flat for us to live in.

We had to move out of Beauchamp House fast – before the first of the fortnightly accommodation bills arrived.  What money I had scraped together would have to be used to pay for a bond on a flat and for the two weeks’ rent in advance.

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The cost of living was so high in Canberra that most public servants received an additional payment called a “living allowance”.  I was eligible for the living allowance, but it would be weeks before I got my first payment.

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I enrolled at Australian National University as a part time student in three subjects, hoping that my scholarship would pay the fees.  I had no idea how I was ever going to get to lectures or study for the exams in the subjects – but I enrolled anyway.  I always keep as many options open as I can.

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I focused on our most immediate needs.

We had to find somewhere to live.

While I went to work at the Committee on Overseas Professional Qualifications in the burnt out hulk of Jolimont Building, my wife started flat hunting.  We did not have the luxury of being too fussy.  If we were still there when Commonwealth Hostels Limited demanded their money, we would be in a mountain of trouble.

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When we moved into a cheap flat in a multi storey block of flats in the Canberra suburb of Campbell, we had zero furniture; the few sticks of furniture we did own had not yet arrived from Melbourne.

Canberra has bitterly cold weather but I worked out how to get some warmth for us even though we had no radiator.

I turned on the oven and opened the oven door.

It was better than nothing – but not much better. 

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Terrible situations can be overcome.  Whatever you do, do not panic.

Add meaning to your life by acting with purpose.

When you add meaning to your life, the way out of the terrible situations becomes clearer.

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I will tell you more tomorrow.

Blog No. 272 – Successfully Dealing With Terrible Situations, Part 8 – 8 June 2025

My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

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Continuation of Blog 270.

Although I had passed my exams and had qualified to get my university degree, I still had to find a job and make sure I was able to take care of my new family.

I was offered a job selling life insurance on a commission basis, but apart from selling insurance, the only real job offer came from the Commonwealth Public Service.  The CPS offered me a job in Canberra but it did not start until March 1970.

I had to find work long before then.

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Margaret on the 3rd of February 2005.  We were in New Zealand and her health was poor.

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Treaty House at the Museum of Waitangi, North Island, New Zealand.

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Adelaide city centre as seen from deep within Morialta Park on the 15th of August 2005.  The blue immediately above Adelaide is the sea and beyond the sea you can just see Yorke Peninsula.

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In the face of fear, be daring, In the face of anxiety, trust. In the face of impossibility, begin. Forget misery and do your best. If there is ignorance, give knowledge If there is disillusionment, give purpose. Where there are reasons for concern,  Reject despair. When failure beckons, hold on to hope, When facing death,  Believe in your own future life, Always give the sacred gift that money cannot buy Give Love Always

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To do the impossible, we have to keep going when “common sense” says we should give up.

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Go with a clear, open and receptive spirit, and the universe will not treat you badly.”

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Long Time Sun – Sung by Amrit Nam Kaur May the long-time sun Shine upon you All love surround you And the pure light Within you Guide your way on Guide your way on May the long-time sun Shine upon you All love surround you And the pure light Within you Guide your way on Guide your way on May the long-time sun Shine upon you All love surround you And the pure light Within you Guide your way on Guide your way on Guide your way on Sat nam

I wept while this song was played at Margaret’s funeral.

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I ceased work as a labourer with Pethard Industries wrapping insulation around the overhead pipes at the Ford Motor Company factory in Broadmeadows when the Commonwealth Public Service told me I had to work in Melbourne for the four weeks immediately preceding my official start date in Canberra.  I have no idea what work I did at that time; I have zero memory.

My wife and I were given tickets for an overnight train trip from Melbourne to Canberra and we left from the now abolished Spencer Street Station.

I had expected someone would meet us at the Canberra Railway Station when we arrived, but there was no one there.  I knew I was supposed to work for the Immigration Department but I had been given zero information about the location of my work or anything else.  I had been told accommodation would be arranged for us in Canberra, but I was not told the name of the accommodation or where it was located.

I had never left the State of Victoria after my family arrived in Australia in 1952.

I had barely $5.00 in my wallet.

Credit cards did not exist.

I knew no one at all in Canberra.

I kept a clear head and told a taxi to drive us to the Immigration Department in Canberra.

When we got to the Immigration Department, I walked in the front door, said I had arrived, demanded to know where I was working and demanded to know what accommodation had been organised for me and my wife.

I doubt anyone felt intimidated by me.

My pretended bravery didn’t come close to fooling me, so it certainly did not deceive anyone else.

After a period of waiting, I was told I was working with an obscure branch of the Immigration Department called the Committee on Overseas Professional Qualifications in the Jolimont Building in Canberra City centre.

The Jolimont Building no longer exists.  When I got there later that day, I discovered it was a wooden building which had been set on fire about two weeks earlier.  The COPQ staff were working in the gutted remains of the building.

I was also told that my wife and I had been booked into the Beauchamp House.  I have found this about Beauchamp House.

The building was originally known as Acton Private Hotel. It was renamed Beauchamp House in recognition of William Lygon, seventh Earl of Beauchamp, Governor of NSW from 1899–1901. The Australian Academy of Science took possession of the site in 1985 and, following refurbishment during 1986–87, gave the building its current name in recognition of philanthropist and Academy Fellow, Sir Ian Potter.

Beauchamp House was operated by a government agency called Commonwealth Hostels Limited.  Commonwealth Hostels had one primary goal – charge as much money as it could get away with, while providing as little in the way of services as it possibly could.  Commonwealth Hostels was the same agency that had operated Fisherman’s Bend Migrant Hostel, where our family had been stuck in Hut J 3 for four terrible years when we arrived in Australia.  The services at Beauchamp House were about the same as at Fisherman’s bend Hostel – simply awful.

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This is what was then called Beauchamp House.  Life there was miserable.

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It was now most unlikely that I would ever be a lawyer, but I knew I could provide a decent living for my family.

I focused on the immediate needs of that day.

We needed somewhere to rest and eat and I needed a lot more information before trying to work out a plan.

We slept that night in Beauchamp House and I reported for work the next day at Jolimont Building. 

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Terrible situations can be overcome.  Whatever you do, do not panic.

Add meaning to your life by acting with purpose.

When you add meaning to your life, the way out of the terrible situations becomes clearer.

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I refused to panic.

I would work out an answer when I had more information.

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I will tell you more tomorrow.

Blog No. 271 – Successfully Dealing With Terrible Situations, Part 7 – 7 June 2025

 

My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

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When I finished Blog 269, I had just driven my fiancé home after being at the edge of death because of a fever after I got the Hong Kong Flu in 1969.

I caught the Hong Kong Flu three weeks before I was due to sit my final examinations for the Degree of Bachelor of Jurisprudence

I was given a major blessing through catching the Hong Kong Flu.  

My son Chris was conceived during the weekend after I had driven my fiancé home.  My feeble attempt to drive back to the flat had been brushed aside and I was told to sleep it off.

I did sleep a lot … but I was awake some of the time.

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Margaret and me at my son’s marriage to the stunningly beautiful Mary.

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Mary and Chris on the wedding day.  It was a typical Australian knock everybody out with heatstroke day and I loved every moment of it.

Another photo of Chris and Mary on the day they married.  When fathers fantasise about the woman they want their sons to marry, they picture someone like Mary.  Just imagine how thrilled I was that day!

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In the face of fear, choose to be daring, In the face of anxiety, choose to trust, In the face of impossibility, choose to begin In the face of universal misery Minister to every single person, Where there is ignorance, instil knowledge Where there is disillusionment, instil purpose, Where there are multiple reasons to worry,  Instil singleness of heart Where faced with failure, hold fast to hope, When faced with death,  Believe in a living future, Always give the gift that money can never buy Love

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We do not have to be saints to do the impossible, but we do have to keep going when we want to give up.

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Go with a clear, open and receptive spirit, and the universe will not treat you badly.”

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I got the Hong King Flu in the evening of Friday, the 10th of October, 1969.  

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My fiancée visited me in my tiny flat at the very moment that my body was feeling the effects of the flu.  

I became very ill indeed.

My fever was so high that the sweat kept evaporating from my face and became steam in the air above me.

The only safe way for my fiancé to get home was for me to drive her in my Morris Minor.

To drive her home, I forced the fever to break, I forced my body to stop sweating and got out of bed and drove her for 40 minutes to her home.

Although I banished the fever for just long enough to drive to get my fiancé home, my body collapsed and refused to let me walk once we arrived at our destination.

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I stayed the weekend.

A few weeks later, I had sat my examinations but did not yet know whether I had graduated with a degree.  Both I and my fiancé did know that we were about to become parents.

We were both aged 20.  

We were very much in love and we definitely wanted to get married, but there was a significant legal issue preventing us from doing what our hearts wanted to do

In 1969, the age when Australian law recognised you as an adult was 21.  Marriage before you hit age 21 was possible – but only if both your parents gave written consent.  You could ask a court to exempt you from needing parental consent, but that was impossible for us.  I couldn’t contribute towards the rent so paying for a lawyer was impossible.

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Somehow, I had to persuade my mother to sign the papers – but she was the woman who had thrown me out on the streets without any money to my name.  Getting her to agree to anything would not be easy.

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Terrible situations can be overcome.  Whatever you do, do not panic.

Add meaning to your life by acting with purpose.

When you add meaning to your life, the way out of the terrible situations becomes clearer.

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I refused to panic.

I confronted my mother with the papers and placed them in front of her, demanding that she sign.

She refused of course.

I refused to let her refuse, asking her if she really wanted her first grandchild to be illegitimate.  In 1969, a heavy social stigma attached to all children who were born outside of marriage.  The everyday swearword “bastard” was used then – and it was cruel.  Although it is still used now, it no longer carries any weight.  A “bastard” was the vile name thrown at children whose parents were not married when they were born.  Yes this word was thrown at children.

Mum gave me a look of pure hatred as she signed the papers.

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Months later as I waited anxiously for Chris to be born, I read a novel called “The Bastard”.  I have no idea what was in the plot or who wrote it.

I kid you not, as Chris struggled to be born, I was excluded from the birthing room, so I read a cheap novel called The Bastard. Mum would have been furious.  When I told my wife later, she laughed loudly.

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I will tell you more tomorrow.