In the first few years we lived at #6 Bifrons Court, Launceston, Dad’s study was a very nice upstairs corner room with good view over the street.
Unlike Mr Bennett of Pride and Prejudice, who never gave up his study, probably under pressure from Mum our father did eventually relinquish his, converting it to a bedroom so each daughter had a bedroom/study. He retreated to the downstairs rooms to read in peace, listen to the radiogram or watch TV. It is interesting how the usage pattern of rooms in that house changed with family needs.
For some years Mum and Dad rented a beach shack for part of the summer school holidays. In the late 50’s Mum’s parents died just months apart, leaving her some money, part of which she used to buy a block of land at Greens Beach, and Dad and Mum arranged for a small house/shack to be built. As a result, we were able to spend the whole summer, plus winter school holidays and long weekends down there. Dad, though, always took his 4 weeks’ annual holiday from Christmas to late January, and I now realise it might have been a nice respite for him as we three and Mum spent time ‘down at the beach’, while he worked during the week and joined us for the weekends. He certainly couldn’t afford to take time off from his practice several times a year. It’s interesting to talk of being ‘down at the beach’ since you drive northwards from Launceston to get there, and to me, north is ‘up’. We drove back up to town by driving southwards 🙂
Dad’s batching was no great hardship I think: his mother, Gran Padman, lived just up the hill, and his Rotary club had a mid week dinner meeting. I’m sure Mum left a bit of suitable food around, so he wouldn’t have had to cook too many dinners. With a sandwich at the office for lunch, weekday breakfasts were his main daily catering experience, and I’ve written elsewhere about Dad’s cooking prowess. He enjoyed telling everyone the entirely believable story that once while batching he ran out of bread for toast to put his poached eggs onto – so he put them on Clix biscuits/crackers !! Whenever he talked about ‘batching’ it all seemed to be a bit of a fun, self catering, making-do adventure thing, always emphasising the potential to improvise creatively in a pinch, problem solving, I guess, a good influence in my life.
As I entered the final year or two of school, sometimes my plans or needs were incompatible with the rest of the family’s, and I did not want to go ‘down to the beach’, so was allowed to stay in town with Dad. Part of the deal was to cook an evening meal for us both, to be ready when he came home from work. I loved doing that grown up thing, as by that time I was becoming quite a reasonable cook and recipes turned out either like Mum’s or looked like the picture in the book.
One night while batching with Dad, he suggested we have dinner at The Brisbane Hotel. I was thrilled. In those days, so different from today, only adults dined out at such swish venues, and always without kids, so this was to be a real treat. I wore my sunday best winter clothes – the coral coloured fine wool dress, stockings, my first ever high-heeled black shoes, plus my new coat. I don’t especially remember what I ate, but I’m sure the menu would have included soup of the day, roast of the day, and either jelly and icecream, or apple crumble with whipped cream. What I do remember is the hotel dining room tables set with blindingly white, impeccably ironed table linen, really shiny cutlery, glassware, and gold-rimmed and logo printed plates. The waiter pulled out my chair and pushed it back in, treating me exactly like all the adults in the room. It was an unforgettable evening with my father.