Saturday night, October, 24th 1975.
I met Joelle at the Greyhound Pub. She was from France, working in
Richmond and researching Pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones. I knew of a Burne-Jones stained glassed angel in a church in the village of Shoreham in Kent.
Joelle was going home to spend Christmas with her family, but I had no plans. On TV, The Old Grey Whistle Test featured John Lennon, live from New York performing Stand By Me, and I thought, I’ll go to New York for Christmas. I arrived in New York with very little money, thinking that I would get by somehow, meet people, never anticipating how cold it would be. My denim jeans and street market leather jacket would afford little protection from those icy winds. The airport bus dropped me off on Manhattan Island somewhere. Only a few of the streets had names, all the rest just had numbers and it was getting dark. I stopped a couple and asked if they knew of any cheap places where I could stay. I was hoping they would take me home. The guy looked straight through me. He didn’t know of any cheap places and said … but if you don’t find somewhere soon you sure as hell will freeze your arse off.
I spent the night at the YMCA; the hotel where Mark Chapman would spend the day before shooting John Lennon in front of the Dakota Building. My money went fast. I pulled out my address book. Donna! I met her in Greece. She lived in Boston. I arrived during a blizzard, it was wild, I had never seen snow before. After days of eating Donna’s family’s food it was time to return to New York and Kennedy Airport. The Hell’s Angels packed Amtrak carriage was homely enough after the cold of Massachusetts. Arriving after midnight I walked through the frozen and empty streets to the East Side Bus Terminal. It was closed. I spent my last dollars on a taxi to Kennedy. At 3am Kennedy was deserted except for a couple of cleaners and in the Piccadilly Bar a beautiful French woman, a small child and Donald Sutherland. At last it was 11am and time to board. After begging the $4 embarkation tax, I was so relieved to get on the Heathrow bound 707, I forgot to remove the film from my bag; it was fogged by the X-ray machine. Off the tube at Hammersmith, the air felt warm. I took off my jacket and strolled down Fulham Palace Road to home, 59 Finlay Street. Joelle was there.
The end of January I was back in Western Australia, renting a room in a house in Fremantle leased by a musician and a poet. With a view of the river the house was named Tranquil Waters. February and March passed and on Easter Sunday, when my family visited, I announced in a borrowed suit, I was leaving. The month of May found me with Joelle. She was living outside London in a small bed-sit in Staines. She kept her milk and butter cold outside on the window sill. I found work in a computer leasing company. I knew nothing about computers, they just needed someone to keep the warehouse tidy. Once I had untangled cables and sorted out space type junk, there wasn’t much to do. Computers were the size of industrial sized refrigerators in 1976. We rarely visited London from Staines. Life was quiet in Staines. After dinner in the evenings we played Chicken Checkers and on weekends went for walks and made drawings. The summer of 76 was hot. So hot I swam in the Thames.
Towards the end of summer we left England for France and lived with Joelle’s parents Guy and Jacqueline and brother Benoit in Nancy; then with sister Nanou in rue des Couples in Strasbourg. Mao Tse Toung died. Mum had sold my motor bike and guitar and Jacqueline bought the blue boots for Benoit but with nothing else to sell, early November I returned to London. Crossing the Channel I heard on the ferry that Jimmy Carter had been elected President. A few days later I left London for Perth.
I moved into Claremont’s Bay View Mansions by the river; a one bedroom flat for $30 a week and Dad had found a job for me, $90 a week working in the factory that made the aluminium windows he sold. The factory was the other side of the river miles away in Kewdale and I had a dodgy car. Leaving for work at 6.30 in the morning, the leafy beach side, western suburbs’ roads were empty; while on the other side of the river; the eastern suburbs, the roads were packed. In December, 1976 Joelle arrived. A borrowed push started car used to fetch her from the airport.
With Joelle’s visa about to expire; a wedding was planned for after work on Friday, June the 10th, 1977, in Tim and Diane’s Solomon Street, Fremantle lounge room. Singer Kathy, sang the McGarrigle Sisters’ melancholy, Heart Like a Wheel; photographer Leon’s roll of film, not properly loading inside the Nikkormat produced no photos and not realising the preacher expected to be paid he wasn’t paid, nevertheless we were married. On the chilly long weekend Monday we celebrated with a picnic at The Combe, under a luminous, overcast gray, that covered the entire winter sky.
July, 12th, 1982, blue eyed Remi was born and July, 13th 1985, green eyed Alix. Four more eyes to watch the world with. Remi and Alix are yet to visit Fulham Palace Road. This story is for them.
Towards the end of summer we left England for France and lived with Joelle’s parents Guy and Jacqueline and brother Benoit in Nancy; then with sister Nanou in rue des Couples in Strasbourg. Mao Tse Toung died. Mum had sold my motor bike and guitar and Jacqueline bought the blue boots for Benoit but with nothing else to sell, early November I returned to London. Crossing the Channel I heard on the ferry that Jimmy Carter had been elected President. A few days later I left London for Perth.
I moved into Claremont’s Bay View Mansions by the river; a one bedroom flat for $30 a week and Dad had found a job for me, $90 a week working in the factory that made the aluminium windows he sold. The factory was the other side of the river miles away in Kewdale and I had a dodgy car. Leaving for work at 6.30 in the morning, the leafy beach side, western suburbs’ roads were empty; while on the other side of the river; the eastern suburbs, the roads were packed. In
December, 1976 Joelle arrived. A borrowed push started car used to fetch her from the airport.
With Joelle’s visa about to expire; a wedding was planned for after work on Friday, June the 10th, 1977, in Tim and Diane’s Solomon Street, Fremantle lounge room. Singer Kathy, sang the McGarrigle Sisters’ melancholy, Heart Like a Wheel; photographer Leon’s roll of film, not properly loading inside the Nikkormat produced no photos and not realising the preacher expected to be paid he wasn’t paid, nevertheless we were married. On the chilly long weekend Monday we celebrated with a picnic at The Combe, under a luminous, overcast gray, that covered the entire winter sky.
July, 12th, 1982, blue eyed Remi was born and July, 13th 1985, green eyed Alix. Four more eyes to watch the world with. Remi and Alix are yet to visit Fulham Palace Road. This story is for them.