Saturday, October 26

I’m sitting at my computer, as I often do, drawing a blank, as I often am.  My assignment for my Writing Group this week is to tease out, from my imagination, a few hundred words on one of three  nominated topics.  Nothing comes to me.  I can’t even decide which topic I will choose.  Something Precious?  Yes, I do regard some things as precious, but they’re very personal.  John Green said once that a writer is an ‘introvert who wants to tell a story without making eye contact’, which describes me to a T.  I want to tell my story without giving away too much about myself.

Could I write about Dark Secrets without stumbling into clichés and predictability?  Probably not, so I’m left with My Special Place.  I’ve had a few special places in my lifetime but which one deserves to be singled out for special attention?

Pondering on this dilemma, I suddenly realise that my very special place is staring me in the face.  The screen saver on my computer is a view of Sydney.  In the middle is Sydney Tower, with its famous revolving restaurant.  On the left is the building site of Barrangaroo where yet another Casino is being built.  On the right are cranes, employed in erecting even more units to meet the insatiable demand.  So there it is – Sydney, my special place.  Maybe a city the size of Sydney shouldn’t qualify as ‘a special place’; after all, there could be millions of ‘special places’ for millions of people all contained in that metropolis.  I could even identify a couple myself: Luna Park, for example, or Coogee Beach.  But Sydney holds a special place in my thoughts; it’s the most special of my special places.

I first heard of Sydney sometime during the year 1950.  At the time we were living in Scotland in a bleak industrial town still trying to get over the ravages of war. My family lived in a tiny apartment in an old tenement building with no bathroom, no electricity and a shared toilet.  It was a great day when Dad came home from work and told us he had been offered a job in Australia and we were moving to the other side of the world.  Our ship would take us to Sydney.  That very name took on a magic aura for me.

My teacher at school made a fuss about our move and found pictures of this fabled land, including one of a school class being taught out-of-doors, under a eucalyptus tree.  This became the symbol for me, of our Shangri-la and, because our ship would deliver us to Sydney, all of the hopes and dreams I had of a new life became focused on this one special place.

We left Scotland in a cold and dreary December and arrived in Sydney in a warm, sparkling Australian summer.  Before travelling to our new home in Wollongong, we had ice-creams and milkshakes in a milk bar in Pitt Street and, to an 8-year old, used to unrelenting rationing, this was the height of luxury. Although, we didn’t live in Sydney at first, it remained the symbol of all that was good.  We went there for special days out: to go to Luna Park, to visit the zoo, to swim at Manly, to marvel at the Harbour Bridge.

In later years we did live in Sydney, at Drummoyne for a time, and, in the first years of our marriage, at Coogee and it has never lost its magic.  The Opera House has now been added to the list of my special places 

We travel there still, to sail on the harbour, to see a show or to have a special meal at one of the great restaurants.  It’s been nearly 70 years since Sydney first became my special place and it’s special still.