Dad’s travels around NSW as a shearer eventually took him to the south-western NSW town of Junee. Fate decreed that he found accommodation next door to a family from Penrith called Harvey. Tom Harvey was a train driver, and with him was his wife Maud and their three older children: Ken, Audrey and Gwen. Dad got to know the family well although they had very different backgrounds.
I don’t know anything about Tom Harvey’s family background. However, Maud, who I came to know as Nanna, came from a well known family in Penrith. She was born Edith Maud Price. Her father, Nelson Price, had a number of businesses centred around High Street, Penrith. In particular, there was the family funeral business, John Price & Sons which still operates to this day, though now under different ownership. There is a website that tells something of the family history and businesses.
How Nanna Price and Tom Harvey ever got together and married is a mystery to me, given their totally different personalities. Tom became “Pop” to me and was a kindly and affable soul who always had a cuddle for me and a shilling for my money box when I was growing up. He was a heavy drinker, indeed had a plaque bearing his name where he used to sit in his local pub, but was never violent or abusive. Nanna, by contrast, was much more straitlaced and respectable. She did not approve of Tom’s drinking, nor did she really approve of my Dad because of his rough exterior. In fact she didn’t approve of many people at all, though she always had a soft spot for me, and I loved her.
After Pop Harvey and Nanna Price married, her father, Nelson Price, built a house for them in Penrith on the proviso that they looked after his wife, also called Maud, in her old age. They did this reluctantly, as the two Mauds did not get on, until her eventual death. Pop then transferred as a train driver to Junee with Nanna and their family to arrive at their fateful coming together with Tom Carter.
Nanna Harvey, as she now was, was a big part of my life and deserves a special mention here. Her first baby, Ken, was especially large at birth which traumatised her against having more children. She even told her next child, Audrey, that she hadn’t been wanted. Audrey was brought up very strictly with not much love. After Pop died Nanna lived alone in her old home in Henry Street, Penrith, where we visited her often before she moved to a retirement home, the Masonic Village outside Liverpool. She ended her days in Liverpool Hospital at the ripe old age of 93. I just made it to her bedside before she died. I held her hand and she moved her lips. Her hand moved slightly in mine, then she was gone. I remain convinced to this day that she waited for me before going.
Nanna left me a beautiful pair of matching Chinese vases which she said she had acquired as a child. They are a wonderful adornment to my home and I want my family to keep them forever.
My Dad, living next door to the Harveys, later recalled his first glimpse of Audrey. She was picking flowers in their garden and wearing a blue dress. I do not know how long the courtship lasted but I don’t think it was very long. They became engaged and then married.
It wasn’t long before I came along to become the start of their family. My brothers followed in short order and so within five years there was a family of all four of us children with my Mum and Dad.
Soon after Robert, her last child, was born, my mother had a hysterectomy. I don’t know why she needed this, or where it was done, but at least it freed her from the stress of bearing more children. I stayed with Pop and Nanna Harvey, now my grandparents, while she was in hospital.
My Mum found it hard to cope with the requirements of motherhood. She was intelligent and could be friendly and motherly one minute and then suddenly turn into a screaming, red-faced abuser. She was fearful and spiteful and believed the worst of everyone. Throughout our childhoods my brothers and I learned to get up in the mornings and look at our mother’s face to know how to behave. One good thing about this was that we all learned to read people and atmospheres really well. This proved very useful in my future career and in my brother Rob’s career as a psychologist.
Mum reserved her most hurtful abuse for me in particular. “Remember who you are, Annette Carter” she would say (meaning nothing much). “No-one will ever love you” was another frequent comment (which I believed at the time).
On the plus side, Mum always cooked us a good breakfast and made sure that we had excellent packed lunches during the day.
Later, in Campbelltown, her difficulties continued. On one occasion she lost control of herself to the extent that she ran screaming out into the street wearing only a silk petticoat and had to be restrained and brought home. She had a good talking to from the local GP who succeeded in calming down. He gave her a cigarette to help her relax, not what you would get from a doctor these days!
Mum and Dad would have frequent blazing rows and sometimes Dad would disappear for days on end. He would then return and they would have a passionate make-up. It was all some sort of game to them, but to us children it was deadly serious.
During these years I had wonderful love and support from my Auntie Gwen, Mum’s younger sister by eight years. On one occasion she caught my Mum beating me and wanted to take me away to live with her, but my Dad would have none of this. Her marriage to Don Horstmann, a champion athlete in his youth (runner? cyclist?) yielded no children, so I became a sort of de facto daughter to her. They lived in Earlwood, then Campsie and never travelled.
Gwen’s Sunday morning phone calls to me became a regular feature of our lives for many years. She was very antisocial, even more so after Don’s death. She was addicted to Bex powders which eventually ruined her kidneys, leading to her early death at the age of 67. She made me the executor of her estate and left a generous inheritance to me and my brothers. Gwen and I loved each other dearly and in many ways she was the mother I would have liked to have had!
Chris had his 15 minutes of fame when he appeared alongside Gwen in a photo from our wedding which showed in this weight loss program advertisement:
By the time Chris came into our family Mum had calmed down somewhat. He and Mum hit it off well and he thought she had a wonderful sense of humour. Chris especially liked Mum’s milk joke which goes as follows:
There was a woman who went to a local dairy farmer and asked him to provide her with a milk bath. The farmer said “Well, sure I can do that. Do you want it pasteurised?” The woman said “No, just up to my chin.”
Chris has never got tired of repeating this story!
When Dad retired to Culburra Mum was quite justifiably disappointed in the two-bedroom fibro home that they moved into. She felt that at the very least they could and should have fitted it with a new bathroom and made it much more comfortable than it eventually turned out to be. Because Mum did not drive a car she became quite isolated in that home. Dad spent much of his time in retirement fishing and playing bowls. Mum on the other hand had few social outlets other than the neighbours. She did not have any outside activities that would have involved her more in the community. She became somewhat lonely in that home. Nevertheless they achieved a level of contentment in their more than 20 years of retirement in Culburra.
Chris and I visited them often with our own young and growing family. Their spare bed sagged terribly, yet Chris somehow found that he slept better there than he did anywhere else!
Tragically, this placid lifestyle was cruelly shattered in 1991 when Mum had a sudden heart attack and died quite unexpectedly at the age of 73 whilst in Nowra Hospital for unrelated non-urgent treatment. My brothers and I rallied round immediately to support Dad. I took time off work and stayed with him until some time after her funeral. Chris and my brothers were her pall bearers at this service. The funeral directors were John Price & Sons. She was buried in Nowra Cemetery.
Next page: My Brothers
Nett 