My Dad was the dominant, not to mention domineering figure in my early years. He was a forceful character whose overbearing personality left its indelible mark on the lives and characters of myself and my brothers.
He was born in Albury in the year 1910. He was the son of George Carter who was himself the son of an Irish bride who had been forced to emigrate at a young age because of a prolonged potato famine. George was the youngest of eight children of this Irish bride who died at the age of 34. George himself married twice before eventually settling down with his niece, May Carter. At the time of my Dad’s birth George and May were in the process of establishing themselves on a tenancy farm in a town called Walla Walla which was some 30 or 40 km to the north of Albury. They did not marry until a passing priest became available for them.
Chris and I visited Walla Walla in 2006 during one of our caravan trips at the time. We called in at the old schoolhouse there. They obligingly dug out an old school register for us from around 1920. Sure enough, there was Dad: the name Richard Thomas Carter inscribed there in faded handwriting!
Dad was the second of nine children that George and May had between them. This was in addition to the children that George already had from his earlier two relationships. There is also some suggestion that he may have also had another relationship with an aboriginal woman known as Auntie Mary Ann.
My Dad grew up working on his father’s farm. He had no shoes so he used to put his feet in the fresh cow pats to occasionally warm them. The major part of the farm’s income came from dairying. Part of Dad’s daily routine included driving a horse and sulky in the mornings to take milk to the nearby town to sell.
Dad’s mother, May, died in 1928 in childbirth with her tenth child who did not survive. She was just 37 years old. George suffered a major stomach cancer and died the following year at the age of 64. This double tragedy then left the children to fend for themselves. They were forced off the tenancy farm and had to travel in the horse and sulky to Albury to seek accommodation and to find a way of earning enough money to live on. At that time my Dad was just 18. The next sister down, 14 year old Elsie, who became known as Dick, was the hero of the next few years. She alone raised the five younger children while Dad went out to look for work in extremely difficult times. Dick had to take the youngest child, Arthur, to school with her because he was only two years old at the time. Those were extremely hard times. Fortunately that soon eased when some sort of welfare payment was made available to them. This also gave my Dad some degree of independence though he still sent money home when he could. So the family settled down in Albury with Dick managing them while my Dad went out to work in whatever jobs he could get. These were the years leading to the Great Depression and so work was extremely hard to find. He undertook various occupations: farming, shearing, even selling insurance (which came to an abrupt end when he punched his manager, for whatever reason, but not a good career move!).
Eventually Dad travelled to Junee and there he came to meet his future wife Audrey Harvey. The story of how they met and married is told in the “My Mum” chapter. At that time he was still working as a shearer so he and his new wife settled down in Junee while he continued to work from there.
Eventually I came along in 1940 when Dad was by then 30 years old and my mother just 21. The “Junee” chapter of this website tells the story of how my brothers and I grew up in that town.
Dad was persuaded by Audrey’s father, known as “Pop” Harvey, to apply for a job in the railways. This was then and still is a very safe and secure job, something that was very important to him. He then became a trainee steam train driver.
My father loved the big steam engines he worked on during the war. Later he would tell terrible stories such as the one of throwing a dead baby in the firebox to save a woman’s marriage. Whose baby? Who knows? Some years later he was transferred to Lake Cargelligo, a small town in the midwest of New South Wales, before his final move to Campbelltown.
Dad was very sentimental about his family background, particularly regarding his mother, May. He told of how she used to read to her family each evening after the evening meal. However he was extremely conscious of his illegitimacy, having been born before they got married, and so he craved respectability. He felt he achieved this in marrying my mother and having children. When I was little he would take me out in the pram and bask in the admiration of the old ladies in the town.
Unfortunately, there was a dark side to my Dad’s character. He had a violent and frightening temper and was extremely narcissistic. We weren’t children in our own right – we were his children. One of my earliest and most terrifying memories was when I was about four running like the wind around the block being chased by my raging father. To be fair, most of the time when we were little he was a good and loving father, but once we were old enough to challenge him he would freeze us out.
My father’s temper was so violent he would tear down screen doors and punch holes in the plaster walls. He was over six feet tall and powerfully built which made him even more terrifying. He and Mum would have blazing rows and he would disappear for days and then would return and have a passionate make-up. It was all a game to them but back then we thought it was deadly serious. Once when we were teenagers Dad had Mum on the ground with his cut-throat razor at her neck. I was frozen in terror but my brother Rob got out a shotgun and was loading it to shoot Dad when someone knocked on the front door and broke the spell. Rob told me later that he had every intention to shoot his father. How different and tragic our lives would have been if that had happened.
Dad would cold-bloodedly beat us with his razor strap or a switch from a tree if we were cheeky or naughty. He stopped beating me as I grew up and would just ignore me and he stopped beating my brothers when they were able to either escape or challenge him.
Despite all this we were always well fed and well clothed. Dad worked hard and grew all our own vegetables, cut our hair and mended our shoes. Money was tight as Mum never worked but they managed to buy their own house and an old car. We never felt poor or deprived as most people around us led similar lives. He would take us for the occasional camping or beach holiday and made sure we had our Saturday afternoons at the pictures, There we would see a B grade movie, a serial, a cartoon and a main feature, all for nine pence. We were each given a shilling a week which left three pence for an ice cream or lollies. These movies stirred our imaginations and we played exciting imaginary games like “Hopalong Cassidy” and the “Drango Kid”.
Sunday was for Sunday school and church and then fellowship as we grew older. I became very religious at the time after I was “saved” by the US evangelist Billy Graham. At the age of 12 I declared I would become a missionary! Each Sunday school anniversary I would get my one new dress for the year.
I’m sure that my parents loved us as much as they were able to, and Dad always believed that they were the best parents in the world.
In later life Dad would tell us stories about his life on the railways. Unfortunately I remember very little of his tales! As steam trains were phased out he retrained to drive the new electric trains in various parts of the rail network. However he always retained a fondness for the old steam locomotives, particularly on country routes.
The above picture, with Dad on the left, appeared in a tabloid magazine of the 1960s called Everybody’s. There must have been a story accompanying this picture but I cannot find it anywhere.
Eventually Dad was able to retire at the relatively early age of 60. The year was 1970. The lifetime rail pension available to him was a generous one and it was indexed annually. So he and my Mum had quite a comfortable income stream to live on. They bought a cottage in the coastal village of Culburra, east of Nowra. This cottage was little better than a fibro shack, though situated on a large block. I was very upset that Dad couldn’t have found something better to make Mum more comfortable, especially as she was going to be stuck at home for most of the time while he indulged his passions of fishing and bowls. But being overseas at the time there was nothing I could do to try to persuade him to change his decision.
So, Dad’s retirement rolled along for many years. In addition to fishing and bowls he started a new hobby as an amateur lapidarist. He set up a workshop in his garage where he set about cutting, grinding and polishing a variety of stones which he fossicked for in various places. I still have several quite pretty rings and pendants that he made from this hobby.
In the meantime I returned to Australia and eventually had my family of two sons, Michael and Peter. We went often to stay with my Mum and Dad (Nanna and Pop to our boys). Dad was a wonderful grandfather to them as they grew older, and they adored him.
So retirement life continued for my parents in this leisurely vein for over 20 years until a major tragedy occurred. My Mum suffered a sudden and massive heart attack and died at the age of 73. This was a shattering blow to Dad. He had given up fishing by then but continued playing bowls as he struggled to keep his life going.
As part of his new life Pop made a decision to go on a round Australia trip in his brand new red Holden with Len Wright, my sister-in-law Fran’s uncle. It was a great adventure for both of them, particularly at their advanced ages, but they were both resourceful types so we had no great concerns for them. Unfortunately Len fell ill when they were only part of the way round and they had to cut their trip short.
As Dad approached his 90s he now found that both his eyesight and hearing were starting to deteriorate. His erratic driving was now becoming a major concern. His GP continued to pass him fit to drive despite his having many narrow escapes from accidents on the road. Finally, on a long drive in the country, he lost control of his car and crashed it near Canowindra. His car was patched up and he then had another accident near our place in Turramurra. More near misses followed in Culburra. Eventually Chris and I realised that he was never going to relinquish his driving license voluntarily, and his GP was going to continue to pass him as fit to drive, so we were forced to dob him in to the authorities. He lost his license and then graduated to mobility scooters.. Here again, with his eyesight getting worse, he continued to be a menace on the local streets. He was also no longer coping well at home so we persuaded him, with great difficulty, that he should move into the local retirement home.
It was here that he fell into the clutches of a much younger predatory female named Jean. Dad became infatuated with her. She had already been married four times. Dad had unwisely been boasting of how wealthy he was with his generous railways pension income. To us she had clear designs on making him husband number five. Alarmed at the prospect of seeing him lose all his money to Jean, Chris and I spoke to our financial advisor and to our solicitor. Both strongly advised that I should use my power of attorney over his affairs to transfer his money from his bank account to a new one in the joint names of my brothers and myself. I felt bad about doing this but Chris and my brothers asked me whether I thought Dad’s money should go to Jean or to his family. There was no choice. The transaction was quickly completed. Of course, we took none of this money for ourselves until after Dad’s death. It then fell to Chris to explain to Dad how we were now looking after his financial affairs. For his pains Chris then became a thief in his eyes. Dad then made the mistake of complaining bitterly to Jean that his family had stolen his money. Within two days Jean disappeared without even saying goodbye to Dad who was left bewildered and heartbroken by her sudden departure. But at least my brothers and I felt vindicated in what we had done.
As more time went by Dad’s mobility declined and he suffered a fall which resulted in a fracture to his hip. He was operated on and moved into the nursing home facility. Chris and I were in Queensland at the time in our caravan. We rushed back to Culburra but there wasn’t much we could do. He couldn’t walk any more. We engaged (and paid for) a local friend of his to visit him on a daily basis and make sure he was as comfortable as possible. We drove down to visit him as often as we could, as did my brothers, but it became clear that his quality of life was deteriorating. He eventually died peacefully in his bed one afternoon on 14 December 2006, soon after a visit from the friend that we had engaged. He was just a few weeks short of his 97th birthday.
There was an ironic twist at his funeral service. Dad had been getting increasingly paranoid in his later years, and this came to a head one day when he sat down to a meal prepared by my sister-in-law Fran. He suddenly accused her of trying to poison him. She graciously forgave him for that. Later, after his death, she sang a lovely song at his funeral service. Also, on this occasion Chris read out the eulogy. As a result of this arrangement we often joked afterwards that the two who played leading roles at Dad’s funeral service were the poisoner and the embezzler!
He was buried at Nowra Cemetery in the same grave as my Mum. Here is the eulogy that Chris read out (for which I wrote the words):
It is my privilege, as the son-in-law of Tom Carter, to present this eulogy to you today. Tom was known within his family as “Pop”, and that is what I will call him as I speak to you on this occasion.
Pop, as you know, lived for a long time, almost 97 years. When I first met him he was already in his mid fifties and looking forward to retirement. He welcomed me immediately into his family, though part of his welcome might have been relief that someone was finally going to marry his daughter Annette!
So, much of what I came to find out about Pop came from the stories that he and others told me over the years about his earlier life. And what a life it was! It is difficult in today’s welfare society to imagine how he and his eight brothers and sisters had to cope with suddenly being made orphans, homeless and impoverished, in the depression years in rural NSW. As the oldest son, though still a teenager, with his sister Elsie, universally known as “Dick”, he became de facto parents to his younger siblings. All of them grew up to eventually lead their own lives and raise their own families. Ironically, at the end of Pop’s long life, it is now only Dick who survives him. But there are over thirty nephews and nieces in this extended family, and some of them are here with us today.
As Pop grew up he found work mainly on the land, shearing or droving or anything else that he could turn his hand to. It was a hard life and by all accounts he was something of a wild character in his younger days. After many years of this, the time eventually came when he found a woman who tamed his excesses and gave him his own family to raise: Audrey Harvey, our Nanna. This was in the town of Junee, where Annette and I were fortunate enough to spend a few days just recently. At the same time, Pop found a job with NSW Railways, and this was to lead him to a career as a train driver, and a lifelong love of steam engines. After several moves he settled into a permanent home in Campbelltown, before his eventual well earned retirement to Culburra.
Pop and Audrey had four children, nine grandchildren and (so far) one great grandchild. Pop was proud of them all, and indeed had every right to be: many have tertiary qualifications and successful professional careers of their own. We and they are leading lives as far removed from his early years as it is possible to imagine.
For the 36 years of his retirement in Culburra Pop regarded the area as his slice of heaven, fishing, bowling and continuing his lifelong abundant gardening. He set up a barber’s chair in his garage and offered all the old men in the area a “short back and sides” haircut. They would then sit around and solve the world’s problems while Audrey served them tea and her famous scones. The best value around for two dollars! Pop also, as a community service, would visit and cut the hair of all those in the area who could not travel.
The sudden death of his beloved Audrey in 1991 after 52 years of marriage came as a great blow to him and he continued to grieve for her to the end.
He then took to travelling around Australia extensively in his adored red Holden car and had many adventures and happy trips.
About 4 years ago he entered the hostel section of the Culburra Retirement Centre when he could no longer manage at home. Then, with his health deteriorating he spent the last 6 months in the attached nursing home section.
My earliest memories of Pop from when I first met him are of sitting round the family kitchen table in Campbelltown, vainly trying to get a word in as all the arguments raged from everyone present. So now let me get a final say – Farewell, Pop, we love you and will miss you.
As with my Mum the funeral directors were John Price and Sons. Chris and my brothers were his pall bearers as they had been for Mum.
Next page: My Mum
Nett 