Friday, March 21

 We've started watching the latest series of the UK show, Unforgotten.  We've always had a preference for TV from the UK , although there's some good stuff from Canada and New Zealand.  Most of the shows from the US are rubbish and some of the Australian offerings make me cringe.  We saw a couple of familiar faces in this series of Unforgotten: one was Michelle Dotrice who played the long-suffering wife, Betty, in Some Mothers Do 'ave 'em.  That show was made in 1973 so she's a bit older now and the part she played was a long way from the young, attractive wife of Frank Spencer.  In this series, she is fat, ugly and shabby.  However, I suppose it pays the bills, although, as she was born in 1945, she should really be retired and drawing her pension.

The other familiar face we saw was a fellow who played a policeman called Dave in The Bill, first launched in 1984.

Today's story is one I wrote as part of a series influenced by the life of Marilyn's father and his early life in Sydney.

MRS ROBINSON                                                                            23 APRIL 2021

 

Barbara sat in her usual spot, on a packing crate outside the corner of a shed on the Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo.  She came here most afternoons, sometimes sitting for an hour or two, but more usually just for a few minutes.  Somehow, the visits gave her a sense of peace and a new resolve to carry on.  The wharfies who were working there, always acknowledged her, tipping their caps and muttering ‘Good Afternoon, missus.’

 She thought, as she often did, that there was something ghoulish about this habit of hers.  After all, the Finger Wharf was the place where her husband had died, in a careless accident when unloading a ship.  They had been married less than six months, hardly time to get used to each other’s ways.  She remembered how she had felt when Jack had asked her to marry him, and how embarrassed she had been when her students had found her writing ‘Mrs Jack Robinson’, in her best cursive script, over and over on the blackboard in the Plunkett Street classroom where she was teaching at the time.  The memory made her smile.

Barbara knew that she would have to give up teaching when she married Jack; the rules were strict: married women would not be employed by the Department of Education, but Barbara would have paid any price to be married to Jack. And now, less than six months later, she felt that her life was in ruins and she was faced with the dilemma of how to re-build her future without Jack beside her.

Perhaps, she thought, I’m being too pessimistic. There was one very bright ray of light which she could hardly believe.  The headmaster of the Plunkett Street School had taken her aside at Jack’s funeral and, twisting his cap in his hands, had whispered, “I’m sorry if this is the wrong time to ask you, but do you think you might be interested in coming back to Plunkett Street to teach?  The young woman who replaced you has not proven to be satisfactory and has decided to seek other employment.  The Department’s rule regarding married women, of course, does not apply to widows.”

Barbara was, on one hand, delighted with the offer but, on the other, was unsure whether she wanted to stay in Woolloomooloo.  It had always been a working-class suburb although more recently, struggling artists and writers had been attracted to settle here by its bohemian atmosphere.  Unfortunately, criminal gangs had also moved in and there were frequent fights as they fought for supremacy.  The police seemed powerless and the newspapers were filled with stories of the vicious fights between the Razor Gangs, led by notorious madams, Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine.

Perhaps she would be wiser to start her new life in one of more genteel suburbs being developed along the coast south of the city.  However, the decision that she would stay in Woolloomooloo was settled after an invitation from one of the school parents who had come to offer her condolences.  Barbara knew that Mrs Lofting was a well-known author of novels and articles, under her pen-name, Margaret Fane, and was delighted when she was invited to attend a meeting of the Sydney Poets, Essayists and Novelists Club, which was being held later that week.   Barbara was interested in literature and had even written several poems of her own which she had shared with her students, although she was sensible enough to realise that she had no particular talent in this area.

Barbara arrived early at the Lofting household to meet the rest of the family. There were five or six children but Mr Lofting pointed out that only the youngest two were his; the others had been fathered by the Editor of The Bulletin whom she would, no doubt, meet later.   This casual acceptance of what, in her mind, was bordering on scandalous, surprised Barbara and she realised that perhaps her outlook on life was a little too narrow.

At the meeting, Barbara was introduced to the father of the older children, Mr David McKee Wright, who did work at The Bulletin but she also met, drank coffee with, and conversed with people she had only ever read about: Ethel Turner, Mary Gilmore, and Banjo Paterson among them.  Even Dorothea Mackellar was there, travelling from her home in Point Piper by chauffeur-driven car.  It was a wonderful highlight in Barbara’s rather sheltered life

Barbara was grateful for the gesture of friendship and sympathy which had led to her invitation but was under no illusions that she would be invited to be a regular attender at the PEN Club.  However, the realisation that Woolloomooloo was home to such creativity gave her optimism for the future.

Barbara Robinson, accepted the position at Plunkett Street Primary School, she continued with her writing of poetry and even submitted one or two pieces for publication in the NSW School Magazine.  She devoted the rest of her life to her students and took a special interest in those who had lost a parent.  In later years, many of her ex-students would talk, in glowing terms, of their favourite teacher, Mrs Robinson.