Charles Errock [8] Teen years
Charles Errock 8 Stories from the Teen Years
1] The Clearview Garden Bowling Club
We had to leave the Abbot Bowling Club because the government took the ground over. We transferred to Clearview. The abattoirs were financially doing well. So we ended up taking about $12,000 plus a lot of equipment to the Clearview Garden Club. I enjoyed my time at the Abbot Bowling Club because one of my friends was the chairman of the club, and one of the lads I played with was a schoolmate from at Peterborough. So, I enjoyed very much my time in the Abbot Bowling Club. Socially, it was very good. I was lucky enough to play in a winning pan outside [?]. We went to Clearview. And we took all that money and stuff, and Clearview was showing very strongly at the time. So it combined with them, and for the first 3 or 4 years, we're very good. But somehow they gradually went down the ladder. They couldn't get top players. And, so, I guess, overall, Tuckerway, Abboteurs Bowl, and Clearview, I played for about 20 years of bowls. I was fortunate enough to play in four winning Pennant sides at a lower level. I'v never been good enough to make the top level.
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Nancy, my wife, had at one stage eight major surgeries in 12 months, and that held us up a bit. Then, of course, we had grandchildren Kathleen and Bradley coming to stay with us. Katherine was going to Uni at Adelaide, and Bradley was during his apprenticeship in butcher at Port Adelaide. We always considered a privilege to have them with us.
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But after coming back to Adelaide, we went from one final cruise after another. We had been around New Zealand, then, we went to Phuket up and down through Malaysia, Singapore, and quite a few other places. That was very good. But I could tell then that that was the last one we were going to be able to do because Nancy's health was failing. Especially with the rheumatoid arthritis, she was feeling it very hard.
But we would go off for a weekend or a week to some small country places where there was a seaside so that I could do a bit of fishing and set up red pitcher [?] tent sometimes. Some other times, we would get a cabin and stay in a cabin to make it easier for everyone.
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2] Holidays in my early teenage years, especially with Cousin Louise
In my early teenage years, when I had holidays, I used to spend as much time as I could with my Auntie Glady in Adelaide. Uncle Charles, her husband, had a job with the Advertiser Limited. He was in charge of printing machines, so he worked in permanent afternoon shift. He had to be there in case it broke down.
But then, while he was there, he'd be maintaining one of the other machines that they weren't using.
I had a cousin called Louise. Her name was Elizabeth Louise Allen, but we always called her Louise. But when she grew up, she decided she was going to be called Liz. So, she became Liz from then on. When I go to Adelaide, of course, Louise would have places she wanted to go with me. Louise was a bit younger than me and Auntie Glady would allow Louise to go to places only if I go with her. I was very glad that Auntie Glady let me take Loise to places.
This was in my early teen years, just after I started work in 1948. And I remember I coming home from work one day, and ready to go to football practice. But there was my Auntie and Louise. Louise had been having horse riding lessons in Adelaide, and Auntie Glady brought Louise to see my horse. Louise settled up in my horse, and but Auntie Glady wouldn't let her ride the horse until I'd ridden it to make sure it was quiet. He was as quiet as a mouse.
Anyway, I put on my football boots. I only put my riding boots on and went, and led him away. But he didn't want to move for a start. That was funny. But anyway, I jumped on him, and tried to jig him up, and he wouldn't go. So, I kicked him in the ribs with my heels, and he bucked and threw me over his head.
Luckily, I landed on my back, and all it has done was to wind me, you know? And then I looked at him, and what she had done was she saddled him up early in the day. Louise had put him, hooked him up on the fence close to a bull ants nest. So there were bull ants all over his belly. So I'd took the saddle off and hosed him down. He was quite as a mouth, so I put the saddle back on. We had a 10 acre parcel, so I rode him around a couple of times, and only grabbed him when I was convinced that it was OK for Louise to ride him. So, she got her wish, and she rode him.
But they [?] came up on the mix, they call it the mix from Adelaide, and they used to get in from Peterborough [?] on lunchtime. And the next morning, they got off, and went back to Adelaide. So she just came up to ride the horse. That was OK.
Louise was very clever . She was Dux [?] of her class in year 12. She went on to learn Russian because of her father's nationality. She knew that one day she would go over to Europe, and check up on him, which she did.
She married Madeleine. He was captain of the South Australian rugby team. I never had much to do with it. I went to her wedding, and shortly after that, they went up to New Guinea. He taught as a Grade 7 teacher. He was doing an apprenticeship as a mechanic when she married him. He must have completed it. Then, he got a job as a trade teacher.
Every Christmas, I sent her a card and wrote a letter. And she would do the same, you know, and it went on quite a few years. Then, all of a sudden it stopped. I sent her a couple of Christmas cards and letters, and never got any reply. Didn't know why. Then, many years later, I was sitting in the lounge one night, and I saw in the news that this lady had been appointed to one of the top positions Adelaide Uni.
Don't know. It was a burst of close to that anyway. It was Louise! So anyway, I phoned up and I asked, "What's going on?"
Why? I hadn't heard from her, and her husband instead. And I suppose that's why she stopped in New Guinea for quite a while, and then came back to Adelaide and she got this top job at the university.
I said to her, "OK, Liz, I have to catch up with you." We were having some problems at the time, and I was very, very busy, and I never got around to it. But we were great mates, and I should take her out. And I remember she wanted to go to Semafore for for a swim when we were both younger. And Auntie Glady said, "You're not to not to dive off the jetty. You make sure that she doesn't dive off from jetty." But she' was smarter than me. She got a into a bayous at home, just pulled her dress over. When I went off to get changed and when I came out, she was up the jetty waving to me, and she would dive off. That was Louise.
So then another time, she wanted to take me to take her roller skating. Well, I'd never done roller skates. All I got was a few bruises, and she had a lovely time because she obviously had been practising and I never had skates on at all. So you can imagine what I was like, trying to keep up with her. No hope.
Then another time, she wanted to go learning to dance.
We went to Alby Hall because I heard that it was the top dancing place. When we got there, I got quite surprised. It was a very big hall, and there were security guards at each end of the hall. I danced like winning the country. [?] I had learned to dance a lot earlier, and I was dancing my own style with a kind of tapping. The instructor stopped the music and stopped me, and said, "I am the instructor here. You do as I say, not as you do."
Louise always knew when I was coming. She would all work out something for us to do together. But, later on, it wasn't possible for us to catch up with each other.
A few years ago, she died of cancer, and I went to her funeral. I didn't know anyone there because we did not see each other for many years.
Then, Auntie Glady moved from Mitchell Mitchum [?] to Adelaide City. On the Credible Terrace [?], right opposite the Waterworks,
Main Gate was not being our course has had no waterworks but EWS those day. [?]
And she moved to this place. It was a big place. Had a big sleep. And I stripped out steeping place down the side. And it was a Miss O'Brien so dressmakers. They made complete outfits for people going overseas. They were well known.
Phyllis Totill [?] was the married name. Forgot other ones married now, but I used to go there, and I used to enjoy that. I could go off wherever I wanted.
They had dinner together as a chef and I'm in Normanton[?]. Was a physiotherapist in that right? And they had dinner together, and always sat there to talk because there was no television in those days. And they all talked very well because they were all very well travelled. The conversation usually got round to politics. They usually solved the world's problems, always over a glass of Sherry to start with. We had a glass of sherry before they like.[?] Louise usually got bored with the talks. But but I loved to listen to them because, I learned a lot. Yeah, they're very good.
3] Cousin Terry 13:39
This story is still about my teens years.
And anyway, this other Phyllis Chathill's sister, her partner in the business, she had broken up with husband. She had married a chap that was a top businessman in Adelaide. Really, at the top of the tree, and they had a son called Terry. She said to me one day, "I'd love you to come out and stop with us with Terry." Terry used to play baseball. But he had an accident. He got a bamboo injury in his eye and he went blind in one eye. And his mother wouldn't let him play baseball anymore. And he hated that. But the parents pulled up all the fruit trees out of house at Clarence Gardens and built Lawn Tennis court, But Terry wasn't that keen on tenniseven though I thought it was great.
I only went there once. I went there to stop for a week, and we had to go up in the morning and have a game of tennis. But Terry was very naughty. Yes, he tells his mother we were going one place, and we'd go somewhere altogether different. So I went along with it and that. Then, one evening, he said, "I'd like you to meet my father," and I said OK, I said, "Where is he?"
"He lives on McGill Road, and he works in the tramways."
So we've got to tram out to where he lives. Terry's father was great at sketching. So he sketched us both. They were terrific sketches. And then I walked in the place and it was really ill lit. It was dull. At any rate, we stopped there for a while with his dad.
But sadly, Terry, he never changed. In those days, I used to read the law courts that were printed everyday. The law courts were printed in the Advertiser, that was up until when Don Dunstan became premier. He stopped that, but I could see that Terry was getting into trouble more and more. At first, he's probably had his father and his stepfather got him a job. In the firm, he worked. Terry knocked off the petty cash. That was his first. So anyway, the years went by, and Terry was always in the law courts and something. Eventually he was declared an "habitual criminal." I don't know what they could do anymore, but it was very sad. I think it all resulted from the fact that his mother's marriage broke up, and they wouldn't let him play baseball when he lost the use of his eye. I think that he was bitter about that for the rest of his life. It was an experience, and that was a story for me.
I think I mentioned Serial warder. [?] I met him there. He became an orphan while my Auntie was in America, and when his mother was on a deathbed, Auntie Glady promised that she'd always take care of [her ?] herself. And I'd never heard anything until this Christmas. Well as a character, Uncle Jack Strang obviously taught him to be a Barber. As a brass of offended, I assumed he did because he was a barber [?]. But during the war, he joined up the Air Force and he went up. I don't think he got any further than Darwin, but he became an electrician.
And he came back to Adelaide. I know he was going to say that he was going to be the greatest electrician in Adelaide, but like most things he's started, he never made the great. Then, he got tied up in the trucking business. He had a horse. with two other friends called Mountain Eagle[?], used to get the back of the field and fly home, and run second all the time. I don't know whether they ever won a race, but I listened on the radio afterwards for a long time, yeah. Then he got more and more involved in it. And unfortunately, he had the Barber shop. in the Enfield terminals on Main North Road [?], and in the same building, this girl had a hairdressing salon. They got together and eventually married, but it didn't last very long.
I think Sue will probably spend all her money and his on his trotters, and that happened a couple of times with him. I think he was married three times. That I remember. And if a marriage failed, so did his Trotting. Yeah, I know. He just got absorbed in it and he lost all the way along. And last time I saw him, he went to England. And he got into trouble over there. Because he was in the Air Force during the war, he had some mates over there, and they put him on an RAF plane. Came back and they dropped him off the top end, Darwin, somewhere. they let him off. Then he made his way down.
And Andy Loner that used to have a hairdressing salon in Rundle St. She moved to Finn's Building. [?] on the main road in Adelaide. She was there for quite a few years, and then, trims [?] wanted to expand. So they found a place, and it was on Brown Street in West Adelaide.
She was telling me that he walked in to her salon. And he was telling her and her clients how famous he was as a hairdresser, doing the hair for ladies so and so. Been waiting, you know, lady and waiting for someone to anyway. When the customers went out and Auntie Loner said, "OK, Buster. Back come back down to Earth, and tell me what's really happening in your life." That he was broke, and everything. But she said he was all we we. Pill and the spice. And they started putting all this sod. ?? [20:56]
But anyway, last time I saw him, he was on his way to Queensland. He said that someone else was going to invest in some cosmetics thing, and they were going to make a fortune up. Whether he did or not, I definitely never heard of him since that. But that was an experience that I forgot to say anything about before.
So, they were the few things that I missed out telling you about.
4] Boxing match at age 14
There was one storry about boxing in my teen. It was one fight that I didn't want to have. I always said I wouldn't fight anyone out of my weight. I got on pretty well with people. I was very competitive in football and everything. But this one person, somehow he took a very much a dislike to me, and he arranged this grudge match with a lady called Colin Betty. He was being trained by Perry Sailor, who was fairly well known, professional top amateur. I'm not sure whether he was a fighter at the time.
They used to go up there to train, and they used to cut wood. And that the railways used to leave so many trucks in the siding there. If they filled up a truck with wood, they use to light up the steam engines. Well, I think they got paid a pound for them. So you know, if they were not far up there for a week, and they showed up two or three trucks, they got paid for that. And he was teaching this Colin Betty to see how to fight. So, anyway, I just thought it was a joke from the start.
Then I found out that they had made these arrangements, and I thought, "Well, he is a year younger than me, but is about two stone heavier. But I'd had a fair bit of experience by then with the YMCA, the railway boxing, and Athletic Club.
So, I thought, OK, if I do fight him, I'll have to box him. [23:39]
because of xxx sales training [?], he will be over there, and we done [?] knock him out, and all done. [?]
So at any rate, I didn't commit myself, but they went ahead, made all arrangements. But then, I found out the chap I'm with, Jack Tassel was to be the referee, and I felt a lot better about that because I knew Jack. He would not let anyone get hurt. He would stop the fight straight away if anyone looked like getting hurt. That was one safety thing I had, so I decided to box him.
I've only never fought more than three rounds. And if I wanted to make a foreground bout and I thought I'm going to find that harder boxing them, but because you're selling [?] back on your own toes most of the time, moving around, you know, and I didn't mind.
If I told my father, he wouldn't let me do it. And so I had no one else. But one of my mates, he decided to step in, and be my second sort of thing,
But really, when you're fighting like that, you need someone watching your fist and your feet. Make sure you get your feet in the right place. But anyway. So we set going, I thought well. I know he is gonna try to knock me out. And I'm gonna try to make sure he doesn't. And we got through to just about halfway through the third round, and I've got my feet. I got off balance, and he landed a punch on the top of my. And real heavy punch and I didn't go down, but my knees buckled a little bit. But then, I looked, and for some reason, he dropped his hands. And so I drove my right fist right into his side effects as far as I could. And because he'd relaxed, he went down. And Jack counted up to about 8. Then he lifted my hand up. He wouldn't let him go any further. He didn't get up anyway. So, I got out of that, with a very sore jaw. Luckily, it didn't break, and I got out of it alright.
It was a fun fight that I never wanted to have. And this Colin Betty went on a lot later to become a heavyweight champion in South Australia, have his own gymnasium. His daughter Sharon Betty was Miss Australia. But he never forgot it.
I was at Dorset [?] one night. And, he said, did I want to come outside for a rematch? And I looked at him, and I said, "Carl, that is stupid." I'm not that stupid. He would have killed me at that. But anyway, but that was all. So, it's just one little incident that I forgot to mention.
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5] In conclusion
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So there there are quite a few things that I haven't got around, but I've decided not to worry. Today will make it the end. I've enjoyed doing it, but the more I do, the more I remember. And the harder it gets to sort things out.
But overall, no. I've had a fallen, fruitful life and. With the family that I'm extremely proud of, my own five children have all done very well.
And I've watched my. 11 grandchildren, most of them are professional now.
They have gone right through uni. Architects and lawyers. But they're still down to Earth people. It's all from working class background, and so I'm extremely proud of that. And by the end of January or February, I've got 2 babies. So I will have then 11 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.
And of course, I won't be around to see pair of pair of a progress.
Hopefully for a funeral years yet, but you don't realize how many decisions you have to make during your life.
You know, and I think back over some of the decisions I made.
Do I have regrets? Well, yes, I do have some. Some decisions I made that all seem the right thing to do at the time, but when I look back, perhaps they weren't quite as bright as I would have, but that's history and you can't do nothing about it. No one got hurt or anything by it.
But yeah, just that I think I'm disappointed about a few people. Especially people that I work for and then left sort of thing and for different reasons
But that's mainly in the hotel. Not in the railway track, but there for 41 1/2 years and I'm very proud of my record there, because I started right down the bottom and worked up to top position, well semi top position when I finished.
The best advice I was probably ever given is that each and everyone of us on this Earth have got one thing in common, and that is "We are all different." And if you're going to be successful, you have to be hail fellow. Well met and learn to tolerate the difference in people.
And. If you do that, then you usually get on pretty well and I think I managed to live by that. Of course, there's always the odd person that you can't talk, right?
I knew a few people that were very bad. And you can't do nothing to change that.
But the majority of people are more good than bad.
I've always been only average at everything I've done.
Sporting wise, I played a lot of sport, football and tennis, and I tried very hard to play cricket. But I've only had a very average but very competitive. And those were what happened on the football field, stayed on the football field. Not like it is now, you know.
But I made-up my lack of skill with aggression, and my idea was that the person I knew I couldn't beat, I tried very hard to make sure he didn't get to use the ball so I played a great football for 10 years.
I never, ever got once I got in the side. Never ever got dropped. I would say if the whole time, then I gave it away. Because married with four young children, I've had problems with my back the last year I played, I had to manipulate unanesity 3 times to get the sacrilege joint right on my back. And so I gave it. Then I was still playing pretty fair football, but yeah, it was fun and I could go earn a bit of extra money working case on the hotel by that so.
Yeah. So I guess that's about all I can say about my life.
I mean, I do have some regrets, but overall I would say that I've been had a full and fruitful life. And very proud of my family.
And I had a loving wife.
To you. And. She was very.
She couldn't work because she had rheumatoid. Bad when we were in Port Lincoln, when once the four children finished school, she did take a job with Coles, probably 12-18 months. And she loved that. Because early in her life, she worked at Myers for quite a while before she went nursing, and she enjoyed doing that. And when we came back over here, she had three Avon rounds he used to. So, as he used to say to me, well, I think I'm more of a social worker than a naval.[?]
It feels like that people talk to her. And that and she was devout Christian, but she never lectured people. She never preached. She said she was a sower of seeds. She used to sow seeds wherever she could.
And I've fixed you down that pretty successfully.
And we had babysat 10 or 11 grandchildren when they are small. So she had great influence on them. And they know that. Realise that you know.
I hope that I haven't left anyone out, but I think I've covered just about everything.
Herㅇeboutness, did it have a great effect on raising children or grandchildren?
Oh yes, she had inbuilt ability to size things up. It's only to meet someone. Couple of. And she would know all about them. She'd work them out, you know. She's good like that,
She was dearly loved by all her grandchildren. at her funeral, We never, we never ask any of them to say anything, but the whole they all were there, got up and walked, but well, her and.
You know, and yeah, I realized then you know how much Influence she'd had on them, and I still do. Still talk about it. Yeah. I think I have a nicer. As I said, I keep remembering different. Yeah, but there's some stories I've decided not to tell. OK? So we'll leave it at that, I think. So yeah.
But thank you very much for coming on. Them the opportunity.
I have wanted to do it for some time. But it's such a big job. But I'm very fortunate. Very fortunate in my life.
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6] Now, about the pictures.
No. I thought this one. This is. Here I was telling you how I was. Yeah, sitting there, catching the abyss and feeding the algae.
I got that done. Yeah. Yep.
You've done that one. OK, we'll put that one out. I think you took the.
Check. Yeah, I not not this one, but I took. I got a picture of your daughter.
This one. So you put something on handy.
Yeah. Ah. Yeah, yeah, I I I'll do it again.
Next we see.
Do you have a picture of when you are like in your 20s? Hey. Yeah.
Yeah.
What's the weather? Get off speaker.
Now, did you if you got photo of that nap I got from the clown? Yeah, I thought that was worth.
Yeah. Some pictures like one picture in your 20s. Yeah. OK. Or the 30s and 40s and so on.
Well. And I was doing my national service training and. This picture here. OK. Appeared on the front page of the Sunday Mail. As well as 18. That's when I got called up. National service training.
Yeah.
He wants to hit that outskin my fingers, my.
OK.
Fingers inside, numb and hell yeah.
This one.
That one. That was on the front page of the.
And you're just.
Yeah. That's the only wood saw. Fix the Sunday Mail up Sunday that was on the front page, so at 18 then.
I.
First foods, I'd always remember that. 51. I had never done except the final. I got sick and I couldn't play, but I played more other games around here. So they put me in the.
I.
Bye. Let me when I represented South Australia. If you say kiss, please yourself. Wait to bring him.
I. I'm not.
Some pictures with. Your wife?
Oh.
Here.
Well, you'll have to go into the. Lounge and you get.
OK.
Yeah, I forgot. Yes, yes, definitely. Definitely. So we'll go. OK. We'll have to come with me.
Yeah.
We'll bring it back in here. Yeah, we met one of the girls, Nancy. We all have five children. When? I was 21. So you gave them. This was your this was your life.
Ah, OK. She kept Everything she could, you know, you know, have this issue off on the telly. And that was just like that.
Yeah.
She made a book for so anyway. They put this plan together. That's the top 1 then. Let's do it.
And. Yeah. Yes, it's down here. That's when the marriage, and that's later on and off.
Yeah. Yeah, I took a picture of. This this one Kind of combines everything.
Oh, OK. Yes, very. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. In the back, I think.
Comes out big something.
This one.
You know, they're stuck in all the various, yeah.
I'm afraid of changing things.
Oh, don't worry. That that's fine. Yeah. The charms over there.
OK.
And then. OK. So that's the way in the garden and. That's when I suppose, when we're in in about our sisters house. That's funny.
This photo has some. Clear quality of photo is not too not too good.
With that one there.
Yeah, I think if this one is good.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah, yeah, 'cause you are relatively still young. Yeah, whatever works for. These your children.
Yes.
Maybe I take a picture of this.
Stan, Michelle, Deborah, Dennis and Roxanne.
Oh, OK.
Yeah.
So one picture with a kind of almost everyone in.
Well, that's the bad little thing.
Definitely.
The one on the wall maybe? Maybe Michelle can later, if she wants to include something, she can come up with some. Yeah.
That's not saying.
Yeah.
We've got all those out from the in the lounge on the wall. My oldest son. Put that together when? Nancy started with Alzheimer's so she wouldn't forget anyone.
Yeah.
That's didn't work
OK.
It's better.
They've grown up. This same picture. Is that the?
One that, yeah.
Yes, I get a lot older than.
Mm. Yeah.
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