I am a big believer in supporting children to achieve their
dreams. The dreams may not always be
achievable, but children need to work that out themselves and move onto the
next dream.
However, Kibby recently announced he wanted to be a
bogan when he grew up.
“Why?” I managed to choke.
“So I can ride motorbikes.”
Becoming a bogan is easily achievable.
I didn’t know how to respond, but childhood aspiration is
something I’ve been thinking about with the release of my first book. I hadn't recalled ever wanting to be a
writer, but some interviewers and many people have asked questions along the lines of how long
have I wanted to be a writer and when did I start writing.
I’ve been reflecting on those questions and it turns out I’ve
had repressed memories about writing. I
did want to be a writer in my early years and I did write ‘a great literary
work.’ My mother is responsible for
ending a potentially stellar pre-teen writing career that would have eclipsed
JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer!
Here’s what happened.
Growing up in PNG was a great way to encourage children to develop an insatiable
thirst for reading. There was no TV and no video and reading was one way to
pass the time.
There was one problem with reading a lot as a kid - the
young and confident reader turned to adult literature. When I was 10, my friend, the youngest of
eight, introduced me to Harold Robbins’s, The Betsy which contained the
first sex scene I ever read. For some
reason, page 26 sticks in my mind.
In my final year of primary school, 1979 when I turned 11,
one of our texts was The Disappearance of Odile. I remembered a girl intending to kill herself
and a male character who was ‘inside Odile” which, you can imagine left me
perplexed at that tender age. A child's version, perhaps, of The Exorcist? As I
wrote this, I wondered if I had remembered the book incorrectly because surely,
a primary school text would not involve suicide and sex. Here’s a reader’s review I found online:
The Disappearance of Odile was first published
in 1971. It is an unusual book for Simenon. He tries to get into the mind of a
young girl in her 20s who is contemplating suicide, and shows her as regaining
her love of life through an attraction for a young man who saves her life.
I remember adults in PNG saying that children grew up
fast. That’s not surprising if sexually
explicit readers were on the primary school curriculum!
I remember devouring The Amityville Horror and Carrie
and The Exorcist long before I finished primary school at 11.
The early exposure to adult literature wasn’t the
limit. I don’t think there was film
classification in 1979 when each week at a family club venue we gathered to watch the latest 35mm thriller. Hitchcock's film, Frenzy is indelible in my memory.
As I was typing this post, I thought I must have distorted memories of the main
character raping and strangling women so I checked online:
In London,
a serial killer is raping women
and strangling them with neckties. Most of the film takes place in Covent Garden which at the time was still the wholesale fruit and vegetable market district.
Fairly early in the film, the audience sees that fruit merchant Robert Rusk is
in fact the murderer. Brenda runs a matchmaking service that Rusk used until he
was blacklisted for beating up his dates. One day, Rusk shows up at her office
and tries to seduce her; when she spurns his advances, he rapes and strangles
her in a fit of rage.
I remember the murderer strangling Brenda with a neck
tie. Her voice gurgled and her bare
breasts wobbled as she struggled, without success, against him. I remember
thinking the scene could have been improved by some blood and gore (and the tongue should have been removed).
Anyway, at some point during 1979, I wrote a series of short
stories, fit I thought for publication and, with luck, being adapted to film. I must have known the content was forbidden
for I hid them under my mattress (therein lying a small problem in relation to
publication). There were graphic tales
of vampires murdering and/or raping monsters.
Ghosts tormented the living or held down people in their sleep and
tortured them. There were explicit
murders with blood soaked axes, knives and sickles.
Above all, I believed I was creating extraordinary literature!
I churned out these short stories in my HB pencil, having no
end of inspiration from the movies I watched (there were also Saturday
matinees) and books I devoured.
Until … I returned from school one afternoon and was
unsettled by the silence. Mum should
have been in the garden or kitchen or lounge.
There should have been Maureen McGovern or Glen Campbell blasting from the
cassette player.
“Muuum,” I yelled. Perhaps an earth-bound spirit had attacked
her.
“I’m in your room,” she said and added ominously,“Catherine.”
She only used “Catherine” when I was in trouble, but the way
she said it this time meant things were much worse than an earth-bound spirit
dismembering a loving mother of three.
And they were. She
was sitting on my bed, holding my opus magnus which amounted to a reem
of paper covered in pencil along with sketches of characters (to assist the film directors and casting agents).
It was then I noticed my bookshelf was devoid of all my monster,
ghost and vampire literature. Not The
Amityville Horror. That was my
favourite and it provided no end of inspiration for my work. Things were bad, but they were about to get a
whole lot worse.
“There’ll be no more writing,” said Mum. “And you’ll see
I’ve removed your books.”
There was more.
I was grounded for a month and each afternoon I was to work
in the garden. I have memories of shovelling and pushing wheelbarrow loads of
dirt in the burning, equatorial sun.
The worst punishment was being given and told to read the
collected works of Enid Blyton and Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables
which I steadfastly refuse to touch.
I ignored Enid Blyton until 2002 when I read a collection of
short stories titled, Watch out for the elephant to TK and Sutchy. I
wept at the innocence of Blyton’s writing which disturbed my sons to a greater degree than watching MA rated thrillers.
“There’s something wrong with Mum,” said TK to Sutchy.
In 2009 I put my thirty year old grudge to rest and picked
up Anne of Green Gables. I cuddled up to Seffy each night and read,
weeping at the simple beauty of children’s literature.
“Why are you crying?” said Seffy. “It’s not even sad.”
Strangely I am now repulsed by reading graphic violence and detailed sex scenes (I don't watch TV or anything on a screen).
A reader (and viewer) is capable of USING THEIR IMAGINATION.
It took me a long time to work out what I wanted to do when I grew up following the psychological trauma of having my literary ambitions being dashed, but I am sticking with writing for the moment, God willing.
I don’t know what to do about Kibbim’s aspiration to
become a bogan. Do I let him pursue his
dreams of fuel-fuelled adrenalin rushes? (Mental note to stop him Youtubing clips of kids riding bikes) Or do I nip a potentially gifted
spirit in the bud and wait for him to mature and hope he chooses something that
is at least environmentally friendly?
I
wish he loved reading and writing.
