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Me and Pete:
Recalling a Fifties Childhood
Gerard Charles Wilson
The photo left: Me (right) and Pete (left) Christmas time 1949/50
It was, I think, the third week of December, 1960. It was a bright sunny morning, the shimmering summer heat already broiling the suburbs of Sydney. I had arrived home a few days before from boarding school, the Apostolic School run by the MSC fathers at Douglas Park, around fifty miles from Lane Cove, a suburb on the north side of Sydney. I don’t remember who went with me – except I remember Mr Allison was leading the way. Pete reckons Michael, my older brother, and my two sisters, Marie and Narelle were there, too. Michael says he has absolutely no memory of the occasion and Narelle says she vaguely remembers seeing Pete sometime and somewhere in a hospital bed.
I remember approaching the entrance of a red brick building, climbing narrow stairs behind Mr Allison to the first floor, and next thing standing to the side at the end of a bed, observing Pete flat on his back, his eyes still bandaged. I don’t remember what we said to each other. No doubt we swapped the usual comments, comments that passed unconsciously between two best friends who had known each other all their lives. I just remember staring a little uncomprehendingly at Pete lying rigid in bed, his head partially framed by the window to the side, through which the bright summer sun flowed out of a piercing blue sky – a sky that Pete was never to see in such vividness again. I remember saying something to Mr Allison as we left the Royal Prince Alfred's eye ward, something that expressed my sorrow at this latest drama with Pete’s eyes. I asked him if it was true that Pete had to lie flat on his back for six weeks.
‘Yes, Gerard, it’s true,’ he said, stopping and putting his hand on my shoulder. ‘The doctor has said that he must move as little as possible.’ He shook his head. ‘I have such admiration for the poor little bloke. He has such courage. He’s borne it all without any complaint. He has not moved.’
In December 1960 Pete was fifteen-years-old. The detached retina in one eye and the glaucoma in both eyes would continue to work cruelly until he was totally blind by 1976. I had turned fourteen in July that year. When I look back I see that that year at boarding school without the comfort and cousel of my mother and father had been an unsettling time. I think that Pete’s detached retina and glaucoma and my visit to the hospital signalled the drawing of the curtain over the little bright gap that still remained at that point of our childhood - a gap that showed glimpses of acrobatics on summer nights in the front yard, Saturday matinees, my Cyclops and athletic clubs, Pete's slide shows, neighbourhood hikes, hunting cicadas, trips on the tram to Balmoral beach, Christmas holiday trips to town..." So begins the author's reminiscences of a his childhood.
The Lane Cove Gang (the Wilson and Allison kids) Christmas time 1949/50 - Pete with the glasses and toy, me with the dopey expression on his left, no doubt in response to Mum telling me to close my mouth. Dad was taking the photo.
The Lane Cove Gang from left to right: Christine, John & Peter Allison, Michael, me (with my tongue out!) and Marie, and Mum holding Narelle. What memories!
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