ANZAC Day

I arrived in Sydney Australia on 10th July 1970 from Washington DC, USA.

Prior to that I grew up in New York City.

And lived in a small town in southern Virginia during my high school years. Arrived in the middle of Grade 9 and graduated in Grade 12.

At 17, I left home to go to Radford University, which is/was also a poor coal mining town, in the mountains of Virginia. Near Roanoke. 200 miles from home. And at that time, before the super highways, at least a 7 hour car trip.

When I left university, I drove across the USA in a Volkswagen. Accompanied by my best friend.

Anyone could do it.

And did.

All you needed was a contact in the Pentagon.

There were notices galore on the Pentagon’s bulletin board.

Always looking for someone to drive a car to a new posting. Cars that were owned by a member of the military elite, who were transferred.

All reasonable expenses were paid for by the military.

The Volkswagen was new and was the car of a Navy Lt Commander, who used it as a runabout in DC. And wanted it with him at his new post in San Francisco.

There was no rush to get it there.

So I could see the real America as I travelled the back roads to San Francisco, not the super highways.

My first job out of university was working for George Washington University. For Dr Docherty, the Dean of the School of Business Administration.

GW was only a few blocks from the White House.

Spitting distance from Georgetown.

And I was working with the elite of the university.

A heady first job that was hard to leave.

I truly loved that job. But I had to go.

If I stayed another day, I would still be there.

And not experienced the rest of my life.

My next job was with TRW Systems Inc.

I became the Administrative Assistant to the Head of the Graphic Arts Department.

Very top secret.

TRW Systems was designing the armed helicopters for Vietnam.

And I was part of the administrative group that worked with the graphic artists, technicians and engineers who were putting this top secret project together.

My security check was so stringent, it included my immediate family and some extended family.

This was when I learned for the first time that my father worked on The Manhatten Project.

Something he NEVER talked about.

But it was divulged to me when I went for my interview to see if I passed the Triple Top Secret Security Check.

Washington DC was a thrilling place to be for a young woman in the mid 1960′s.

Glamorous. Cultured. Exciting.

Until Martin Luther King was murdered on April 4th, 1968.

Then it turned ugly.

Just days after his assassination, I inadvertently walked smack into the riots which killed many people. And torched Washington. Almost to the ground.

Karma was on my side.

Because I took a wrong turn, I luckily drove straight into a police roadblock that was just being set up.

The police quickly escorted me out of the area that, until that day, I freely travelled through.

I would surely have been attacked by a black mob and probably murdered, as many white people were, for being in the wrong place, if I hadn’t been lucky enough to take a right hand turn one street too early.

Then the drug culture moved into Washington DC and the close by suburbs.

Quickly followed by the senseless robberies to buy drugs.

Along with the thrill killings. Or serial killings as they’re now known.

Combined with the brutal muggings just for being on the streets of Washington DC at night.

Rape became so common, it was no longer front page news. Page 15 news at the earliest.

Then the fear of just living there settled in.

My father stepped forward and offered me some very wise words.

“Leave America, Baby”, he urged. “There isn’t a big city in this country that’s safe to live in right now”.

He pushed me towards Australia.

He was an avid stamp collector on the world stage and was corresponding regularly at the time with a Digger who served in Cyprus.

So my father knew more about Australia than any other American.

My trip to the Australian Embassy in Washington DC was welcomed with open arms by the Aussies.

Come! Come to Australia! We need someone with your skills.

And they gave me not only a Visa, but offered me Permanent Residency. Which I graciously accepted.

I landed at Sydney Airport at 7am on the 10th of July 1970.

A man from Customs entered the plane, sprayed us all with DDT to kill all the unwelcome bug life, asked us to wait an hour, then gave us permission to disembark.

The taxi driver who drove me to Coogee was a Pom with an accent so thick, I couldn’t understand a word he said.

And charged me $15 for a $2 trip.

Immigration arranged for me to rent a bedsitter right across the street from The Coogee Bay Hotel.

The violent, drunken brawls almost every night reminded me too much of America, so I escaped to Randwick.

To another bedsitter in the basement of a house occupied by a prostitute with ‘Underbelly’ connections. Who recently married a top creative advertising guru. Who knew nothing about her past – or current – money making activities.

The daily comings and goings of the Sydney underworld unnerved me, so I took a peek at Balmain.

Affordable inner city, still very working class, not yet gentrified.

All the boxes checked.

Ken Jones, a local real estate agent, showed me a terrace house on Darling Street that was $15,000, 3 stories, a spiral staircase, 7 fireplaces, with glimpses to the Harbour Bridge and a ‘stretch your neck to catch it if you can’ view to the water of Sydney Harbour.

Not only was it was connected to The London Hotel by a side wall and passage.

It was also a wreck.

But with great excitement, I went ahead and purchased it anyway.

From two transvestites whose third partner in their triangular relationship died in my front parlour of mysterious circumstances.

And so in September 1970, I became the owner of my wreck of a terrace house. Financed through a solicitor by a little old lady who trusted me.

And planted my feet firmly into the soil of Australia.

I’ve been listening to the Anzac Day Dawn Ceremony broadcast from Canberra on ABC Radio National since Radio National inhaled its first breath of life.

And I’ve been moved by it every year.

The Bugler at this morning’s ceremony was ‘the best ever’.

His poignant rendition of The Last Post was so tender, it almost brought me to tears.

And reminds me of why I’ve never had a desire to leave this country since I first arrived in 1970.

Whatever the differences that may exist here, Australia is the most united and cohesive country in the world.

This Guerrilla From The Bush knows she’s living in the best place on the planet.

Take care,

Carol