MY MOTHER and I spent the years spanning World War II on my grandfather’s farm at Quamby Brook and then, when Mum remarried at the end of World War II, we moved with my stepfather to a rented home at Hawley Beach. After a couple of years at Hawley we moved to another rented house in Port Sorell, and then to Hobart in 1950.

I think the Hawley/Port Sorell area was even more beautiful then than it is now, not least because it was largely undeveloped apart from a couple of properties at the end of the road and a scattering of holiday cottages, most of them owned by Devonport families. The principal farming property at the end of the road was “Larooma” owned by Don Moncrieff whose wife Peggy went to school with Mum in Launceston in the 1920s. The neighbouring property was Hawley House owned by Colonel Houghton, one of whose sons still lives there and operates the property as a bed and breakfast and restaurant facility. Indeed, both Larooma and Hawley House have remained in the same families for over half a century.

One of my chores at Hawley was to ride my bike half a mile or so to Hawley House in the morning to collect the milk in a billy and lose most of it trying to negotiate the roots and ruts in the rough road on the way home. And then, having eaten breakfast, I remounted the bike and, joined by the two elder Moncrieff children — Tim and Sally — headed off a mile or so in the other direction to catch the school bus to the Wesley Vale Area School, halfway to Devonport. Before the bus arrived we would leave our bikes in the scrub near the road.

All of this was after spending a couple of years at Port Sorell Primary School where the imposing and elderly Miss Hammersly taught some thirty children across six classes in the one room. She had the figure of a Bulgarian weightlifter and a face to match — with a few random whiskers — but a heart of gold. She taught the basics of literacy and numeracy with a skill and enthusiasm that had the class transfixed. She was dignified without being remote; kind without being overly familiar; informed and informative without being boring or didactic.

Those years at Hawley and Port Sorell were probably as close to idyllic as I shall ever experience. With World War II recently finished and the allies victorious, the pervasive atmosphere was one of freedom, optimism, release from fear and uncertainty. Looking back with nearly six decades of perspective there was also an uncomplicated simplicity about that time. The climate was benign, the land and sea scapes were magnificent, the community was cohesive, beaches were clean and uncluttered and you could get a feed of flounder by dragging a seining net across the sand at night on various beaches around Hawley and Port Sorell – a communal occasion with everyone pulling, urging, sharing the catch and taking the results home for tomorrow’s dinner.

One could learn how to swim from Mr. Ray in the Rubicon River behind Port Sorell, look at the fishing boats resting on the mud at low tide and, on the way home, smell the ‘couta being prepared by Mr. Groves at his smokehouse, keen with the expectation of having a slice with lashings of butter before the week was out. True, there was the occasional juvenile dust-up, notably the brawl I had with “Fatty” Pringle outside the store-cum-petrol station which ended in a bloodless tangle on the ground before the storekeeper, Mr. Brumby, stepped in to enforce a draw and send us on our way.

Wesley Vale Area School, where I undertook most of my primary schooling, was notable for falling in love, becoming actively involved in team sports and falling foul of Ted Addison. For most of my time at Wesley Vale Miss Fleming was my class teacher and I thought her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen or was ever likely to see. Unfortunately, the relationship foundered on lack of reciprocation, a fifteen year age difference and heavy competition from every other boy in the school.

That Wesley Vale Area School should encourage participation in sport was not surprising given that the area was notable for names like Sankey and Baldock.

As for Ted Addison, he was the owner/operator of the bus operation that included the Port Sorell-Wesley Vale school bus service and this important role happened to coincide with the rapid flowering of my rebellious streak or, as my parents so often asserted, I seemed “… determined to learn the hard way.” The hard way in this respect meant being put off the bus — because of brawling, throwing things and the like — and having to complete the journey on foot. In most such incidents I was of course the victim of devious plots by others. Well, sort of … sometimes.

The wounded appendange

For all that, however, perhaps the most significant event during my time at Wesley Vale Area School was my hospitalisation. Family legend has it that I arrived home from the school bus one afternoon and, upon arrival, waved a note from the school doctor and declared loudly “Mum, Mum, I have to be circumnavigated.” We must have been studying the great explorers at the time! Mum duly read the note to discover that it recommended strongly that I should indeed be circumcised. Shortly after this exchange the operation was undertaken at the Mersey Hospital in Latrobe and I returned to school.

It soon became apparent, however, that all was not well with the urine discharge equipment. Putting it as delicately as I can, I found that I was piddling around corners. That is, I would aim straight ahead but the stream would head off to the left, nearly at right angles. Now this sort of problem may be fine if one is relieving oneself alone in the bush but it can be seen as somewhat anti-social if the stream finds its way straight into another kid’s boot, cuff or pocket. Not being sure if this was a temporary consequence of circumcision I did not immediately declare my problem on the home front but battled on, excusing myself during class rather than running the risk of saturating some big kid’s sock during recess and getting bashed up for my troubles.

Eventually, however, I owned up and, after insisting on examining the wounded appendage, Mum went on the warpath rattling every doctor and bureaucrat in the system and threatening retribution via every conceivable avenue, probably including the Privy Council in London. The result was a terrified medical fraternity and another visit to the Mersey Hospital, this time in an adult ward because the children’s ward was full. I was in a bed next to that of a massive axeman with muscles on his eyebrows . He had obviously been informed by the nurses why I was hospitalised but proceeded nevertheless, with a wink and a grin, to ask why I was there. I would respond by putting my hand over my nether regions, becoming scarlet in the face and hoping like hell that he would be discharged within minutes.

In the event, the second circumcision operation was a success and I was soon hitting the porcelain with unerring accuracy. Why wasn’t the operation done at birth? I have no idea. Perhaps Mum forgot or, as I like to think, the doctor at the birth thought it was a foreskin worth saving, intact and in place.

In my morose moments I miss a lot of things, including that foreskin.

I just thought you’d like to know.

Nick Evers