Yesterday we hit the surf at Austinmer. It was heavenly, catching waves, diving under the white wash, tasting the salt. I always feel youthful in surf. Like the young girl at the Weekender, up near Gosford, where Stan’s parents had a holiday home by the sea. I forget I’m in my mid-fifties.

I didn’t grow up with direct access to the sea. The St George region wasn’t far though, but during the weekdays we were landlocked. Swimming was in chlorinated pools in Bexley North or Kingsgrove, the next suburb, either in backyards or at the Olympic pool on Preddys Road, where the Collins family lived.

Our street Laycock Street (named after Hannah Laycock , the first settler of the area, who was granted King’s Grove Farm – in 1804) was a typical neighbourhood. The area once had teeming wildlife: kangaroos, wallabies, koalas and possums jumping around the bushland and platypuses swimming in Wolli Creek. That was all long gone and replaced with a grid of monotonous red brick dwellings, with a garage, a driveway and a backyard (garden) and a small front yard. Beyond the front fence, there was more grass, which you were responsible for mowing, even though it was government owned. Over the years, some families put on extensions or clapboard second stories, called cape cods. Some had in-ground pools or the cheaper above ground ones, with blue plastic liners. We had an above ground one. It was behind the garage, next to the mulberry tree.

And then there were our neighbours… Mr Tierney was pretty deaf from the First World War in Turkey. He loved my dog Skipper and gave him a roast on Sunday. Mrs Smith was elderly too and used to wave at all the kids who tore past her front fence like tornadoes. Jenny, down the street towards the park (common) was my age, but she didn’t play outside much. She pulled a kettle over herself when she was a toddler and had horrific burns. Her parents were overprotective. The Catholic family across the road – the Kregans. There was a big divide between Catholics and Protestants in those days, as if we didn’t share the same Christ. Mr Kregan used to yell his head off at his wife on Sunday mornings. Dad used to mow the lawn to drown out the din. The Greek family across the road, who grew wild passion fruit along their fence and gave you sugar coated almonds when you visited. Their home was well ordered and civilised.

But the family we moved in and out of, without boundaries, was the Crundwells, right next door. The four kids were adopted. Christine was my age. She was a beautiful Polynesian. She was born with two digits on her upper thumb, one being removed at birth, leaving her thumb looking like a boomerang. Stephen was my brother’s, Shaun’s, age and had a cluster of moles on one cheek, which was a medical mystery periodically studied at the Children’s Hospital (equivalent to Guys in London). We didn’t give these traits a moment’s thought. They were our best mates and we ran around with them in a pack.

Mr Crundwell was a civil servant and loved classical music. He never went to the pub like the “working” men, like Stan. Mrs Crundwell was a teacher. They drove a Combi van. They were Methodists. We abbreviated their names to Mr and Mrs C – an Aussie trait –a typical way of addressing the parents of your mates.

Mrs C’s problem was that she had a really blazing temper –she was a hollerer. You instantly knew when you turned up at the back door unannounced whether to tread warily or not. If she was on a rant, the family would normally suffer in silence, but occasionally, Mr Crundwell would have a gut full and put his foot down. Then he would bark back out orders to clean the house up. The house was always a bit of a tip. Sometimes he’d even say, “bloody”, despite being a Methodist. Then you knew he was really fuming. Then Mrs C would become as meek as a lamb. She’s clear up and Mr C would retire to play The Nutcracker on his record player. 

Mr and Mrs C let me use their Encyclopaedia Britannica whenever I wanted, which was a lot, as I was good at school. When I was 10 I took an IQ test with the rest of my class and I was asked to attend an Opportunity C school in Hurstville, for academically gifted children. It was the same one that Clive James attended decades before, but Bev took advice and thought I was better off staying at Kingsgrove Primary.

Today, we will go for a surf again and then catch up with the relos for the afternoon. It’s Mum’s birthday on Saturday so we’ll all be together for a change, except for Anna and Hugo, who I miss.