02/12/2025
Born In The 1950s
K. F. (Kevin)PEARSON
First sentence
His Dad said, ‘Don’ t walk on the grass.’
Toddler KF retorted, ‘I’m walking off it.’
The baker’s mare
KF knew Rosey, the baker’s horse,
fresh loaves delivered house to house.
Rosey was chestnut with white diamond on face.
She pulled his cart at an amenable pace.
She pooped on the road as kids would applaud:
convenience of delivery let it be allowed.
Rosey knew what houses ordered from the shop
outside of which she always pulled up.
When Rosey halts, the driver springs down
and almost runs to the back of the van.
When he opens the double door
the waft of fresh bread assaults the air.
He loads stiff-handled woven deep cane
basket with every loaf and roll that he can.
The baker delivers door to door and collects money left
usually in envelopes with no thought of theft.
Her chaff bag attached Rosey clip clops to a new stop.
He reloads his basket before she takes her next step.
So they continue for street after street.
Sometimes kids get a warm roll as a treat.
Kiddy KF needs to stretch up tippy toes
to give Rosey a farewell pat on her nose.
Weatherboard laundry
for Jocelyn Harewood
Her sturdy copper stick was white,
bleached from tree-brown by repeated
stirring of laundry in soapy boiling hot
water in the cooper tub each Monday
in the washhouse by the outside toilet.
KF’s slight mother hauls with her stick
hot wet dripping weight of white sheets
across to the nearest of twin concrete
rinsing tubs, with little KF at her washday
skirt like a puppy. She gives him a squeeze
then drags the sheet over to the nearest tub.
She turns cold water onto the first hot sheet,
steam arising in summer wafting out open louvers
now in winter emanating an illusion of warmth.
She turns and pokes and prods, again and again
with copper stick, separating out soap from the boil.
Time doing that churning allowing wet sheet to cool
enough to be handled, so now she can thread and spread
it through a tight hand wringer into the other empty tub.
Pushing handle of her wringer up and down, up and down
is tiresome and hard, water squeezed back into original tub.
This is hard labour, perhaps more than husband’s at work.
She sits a moment then heaves the wringed-out sheet across
to cane washing basket mounted on a four wheel metal trolley
with an old biscuit tin, chocker with pegs, wired to its front.
She rolls it over concrete path and mown lawn to clothesline,
steel-core wire stretched across the full width of the backyard,
her ‘puppy’ having followed her every move along the way.
She throws the sheet over, then stretches it evenly along line.
Now he’s a helper, hands up wooden pegs, child labour of love.
Once she is finished pe***ng it, she will raise up the washing
with a pole, to keep it from ground and to better catch wind.
Bread run
If Rosey, the baker’s horse didn’t come,
there once was a close corner bread shops
reached by a viaduct and suburban block’s walk,
where KF, aged six, took his eight pence for
their daily bread. He exchanged his Mum’s coins
for a warm loaf in a brown paper bag, saying ‘Thank you.’
He hugs it to him as he dawdles back towards home.
It’s aroma curls up to him like a temptation.
His small thumb and forefinger snip off a corner.
It is warm, crusty and tasty. No wonder he dawdles.
He snips off each top corner before the dark viaduct.
In sunlight he’s only a few steps from home.
He heads round the back to green flyscreen door.
He hands the paper bag to his aproned Mother.
‘What happened to the bread?’ ‘A mouse nibbled it.’
‘That’s a fib, You must never lie again. We can’t use this end.’
Rosey, too, we figured out took public holidays,
(We kids thought she would win the Melbourne Cup.)
KF imagined again the little grey mouse at top end
of the brown paper bag, heady with sniffing fresh bread.
KF received the same kitchen response, plus the threat
of telling Dad, but it was his going to primary school
that stopped him. Still, though the little mouse looms large.
Boys’ own footy with handpass
Youngster KF was a folder of newspapers,
usually the evening broadsheet The Herald,
two nights’ worth to make up enough layers,
which, after eight folds, he’d have thickness required.
Then he swung the pile around to fold the end,
the smaller width, tightly in, which he weighted
with bricks. When he lifted them off an hour later
he had a flat oblong about twelve inches by four.
He tied it with string to keep the flat bundle taut.
It was not round but had a gesture towards oval,
not to be kicked along the ground or dropped in a hoop,
but its raggedy make-up suited make-up AFL.
Now boys enough gather at the railway linear park
to play kick to kick and practise their marking.
It wouldn’t bounce but poor boys could dream.
handpass
Rural suburbs away, Mick Grubb, KF’s future mate,
‘the memory man’, remembered socks.
Sock after sock, preferably Merino, balled,
was stuffed tightly, one on one into a carefully
selected outer sock, pushed in deep till a knobbly
oval is shaped, the top knotted or tied with
loops of rubber bands, a shape of soft, rough
beauty that still won’t bounce but perfect for
a hallway kick to kick with his sporty brother
in those young days of inclement Koo Wee Rup.
Sixpence a book lending library Caulfield
for Mick Grubb
On Friday, once nine, KF’s mother took him
with her to walk the footpath with a few shops
to the Sixpence a Book Lending Library.
The other side of the road the railway verge
had a spaced row of mature date palms.
The shopfront was dingy, window taped
with five or six dust jackets of recent books.
It was crowded with books inside on shelves.
She chose Georgette Heyer and crime novels.
‘I love a good murder, you know,’ she said
to the two old women, sisters, who ran the shop.
KF chose William, Biggles and cowboy stories.
They leave, KF carrying a string bag full of books
around the corner to Mr Lauritz Fresh Fish Shop.
Tilted trays of many types of fish the length of the window
with water streaming down; inside shoppers three rows deep.
They enter and she awaits her turn for three flathead.
Dinner is had at the wooden kitchen table
immaculacy spread with pressed tablecloth,
battered fish, homemade chips and fresh beans,
while listening to serials on a beige Bakelite radio.
Old enough now, he helps dry dishes; then reads.
For most days he will have, ‘Enough. Go out and play.’
Unaware, KF absorbs sympathy for others by stories.
Thanks Sixpence a Book Lend Library. Thanks, Mum.
Derby Crescent
He had an old, retired wharfie friend
who told KF a tale when he was ten.
‘Give a poor man a shilling more in wages
he’ll spread the butter thicker on his bread.
That will help the grocer and that will help the farmer.
But extra shillings swell a rich man’s shut purse.’
That lesson was told at Derby Crescent.
Mother’s Call
KF’s mother only telephoned him once.
Her good suburban days needed no phone.
In her mid-eighties she was persuaded.
After her husband died, she had one installed:
a telecom handset on a Queen Anne table.
She answered KF who rang about her health.
She dialled to let him know his cousin had died.
(In Memoriam John Truscott 1936-1993
Returned from cool plush of your interior-designed Arts Centre
to gardens and Yarra, your Arts Festivals’ popular venues,
I praise you at last John Truscott, damned as role model by my father.
You showed me, and many others, my cousin, the civilised way.
You were a curly-headed tacker in Little Lord Fauntleroy suit.
You played violin in the green backyard at Eumeralla Road.
You started the strange trade of blacksmithing at Caulfield Technical School
but became, impossibly young, set designer at St Martin’s Theatre:
Robert Menzies and Dad disapproved (I was forbidden to see) your early West Side Story.
Your two-Oscar Camelot is Eumeralla Road remembered and lost.
And you gave me, last time we dined, a glimpse of my mother in wartime
I wouldn’t have otherwise had, child of a returned soldier father.
Fascinated, you’d watched her apply a light tan for her mocked-up stockings,
then, as straight as a ruler, paint on a black line for each seam.
The possibility of theatre was apparent. You went on and made it your own
and gave it, out there to the public; but to me gave an intimate gift:
a glimpse of my mother in wartime.)
Vocation
When KF is ten
still wearing shorts
in school uniform
as he’s walking home
he is set upon
by five bigger boys,
schoolbag with books
his only weapon.
They swear and insult.
Fat Boy, Filthy Mick!
He hears their boots scrape.
They are gaining on him.
A bashing is coming
on his own Crescent.
He is shaking with fear.
His ice-cream plops to path.
He crushes thin cone.
He can’t outrun them.
He makes a decision.
He turns to face them.
One has a knuckle duster.
His cap is knocked off.
They mock. He calls it unfair.
He slowly steps backwards,
one school shoe at a time.
He asks who they barrack for.
They tell him and ask him.
They mock him as they’re bottom.
He is three footsteps back.
He asks what grounds they go to.
One step back, two steps back.
So do they play for a local team
or are in school handball team.
One step back, two steps back,
his eyes on them through glasses.
They are spitting menace again.
He must retreat one house more.
Do they go to the Racecourse
to bet or to yabby in the pond.
Or visit the gallops at dawn.
One back, dash through iron gate.
Neighbour lets him into her house.
Shoos the thugs off. Finds dirty cap.
She serves soft drink; takes him home.
He is still trembling
in his mother’s arms.
His voice has saved him.
Little does he know
a job choice has been made.
He’ll be poet or an actor.
© K. F. Pearson 2025
Sixpence a Book Lending Library Caulfield
for Mick Grubb
On Friday, once nine, KF’s mother took him
with her to walk the footpath with a few shops
to the Sixpence a Book Lending Library.
The other side of the road the railway verge
had a spaced row of mature date palms.
The shopfront was dingy, window taped
with five or six dust jackets of recent books.
It was crowded with books inside on shelves.
She chose Georgette Heyer and crime novels.
‘I love a good murder, you know,’ she said
to the two old women, sisters, who ran the shop.
KF chose William, Biggles and cowboy stories.
They leave, KF carrying a string bag full of books
around the corner to Mr Lauritz Fresh Fish Shop.
Tilted trays of many types of fish the length of the window
with water streaming down; inside shoppers three rows deep.
They enter and she awaits her turn for three flathead.
Dinner is had at the wooden kitchen table
immaculacy spread with pressed tablecloth,
battered fish, homemade chips and fresh beans,
while listening to serials on a beige Bakelite radio.
Old enough now, he helps dry dishes; then reads.
For most days he will have, ‘Enough. Go out and play.’
Unaware, KF absorbs sympathy for others by stories.
Thanks Sixpence a Book Lend Library. Thanks, Mum.
Derby Crescent
He had an old, retired wharfie friend
who told KF a tale when he was ten.
‘Give a poor man a shilling more in wages
he’ll spread the butter thicker on his bread.
That will help the grocer and that will help the farmer.
But extra shillings swell a rich man’s shut purse.’
That lesson was told at Derby Crescent.
Mother’s Call
KF’s mother only telephoned him once.
Her good suburban days needed no phone.
In her mid-eighties she was persuaded.
After her husband died, she had one installed:
a telecom handset on a Queen Anne table.
She answered KF who rang about her health.
She dialled to let him know his cousin had died.
(In Memoriam John Truscott 1936-1993
Returned from cool plush of your interior-designed Arts Centre
to gardens and Yarra, your Arts Festivals’ popular venues,
I praise you at last John Truscott, damned as role model by my father.
You showed me, and many others, my cousin, the civilised way.
You were a curly-headed tacker in Little Lord Fauntleroy suit.
You played violin in the green backyard at Eumeralla Road.
You started the strange trade of blacksmithing at Caulfield Technical School
but became, impossibly young, set designer at St Martin’s Theatre:
Robert Menzies and Dad disapproved (I was forbidden to see) your early West Side Story.
Your two-Oscar Camelot is Eumeralla Road remembered and lost.
And you gave me, last time we dined, a glimpse of my mother in wartime
I wouldn’t have otherwise had, child of a returned soldier father.
Fascinated, you’d watched her apply a light tan for her mocked-up stockings,
then, as straight as a ruler, paint on a black line for each seam.
The possibility of theatre was apparent. You went on and made it your own
and gave it, out there to the public; but to me gave an intimate gift:
a glimpse of my mother in wartime.)
Vocation
When KF is ten
still wearing shorts
in school uniform
as he’s walking home
he is set upon
by five bigger boys,
schoolbag with books
his only weapon.
They swear and insult.
Fat Boy, Filthy Mick!
He hears their boots scrape.
They are gaining on him.
A bashing is coming
on his own Crescent.
He is shaking with fear.
His ice-cream plops to path.
He crushes thin cone.
He can’t outrun them.
He makes a decision.
He turns to face them.
One has a knuckle duster.
His cap is knocked off.
They mock. He calls it unfair.
He slowly steps backwards,
one school shoe at a time.
He asks who they barrack for.
They tell him and ask him.
They mock him as they’re bottom.
He is three footsteps back.
He asks what grounds they go to.
One step back, two steps back.
So do they play for a local team
or are in school handball team.
One step back, two steps back,
his eyes on them through glasses.
They are spitting menace again.
He must retreat one house more.
Do they go to the Racecourse
to bet or to yabby in the pond.
Or visit the gallops at dawn.
One back, dash through iron gate.
Neighbour lets him into her house.
Shoos the thugs off. Finds dirty cap.
She serves soft drink; takes him home.
He is still trembling
in his mother’s arms.
His voice has saved him.
Little does he know
a job choice has been made.
He’ll be poet or an actor.
