Trenna’s Rough Notes on the 1980s Before Greg

Notes by Trenna, Intro and Extra Information and Stories by Greg

Introduction

This is another in the “Rough Notes” series. It is a term I made up for this website and describes several documents on Trenna’s iPad where she has accumulated information to help in her effort to tell her story.

This one is just a list of some landmark events from the 1980s. I have used them as a prompt and have added a number of stories and clarifications of what she was alluding to. I have also included some photos from the 1980s.

You can see Trenna’s Rough Notes on the 1970s HERE.

1980’s B4 GREG

REFERENCE SOURCES

My memories
Photos from Family + friends.

1980

1980 – March Cruise
I HAVE SHORT HAIR

1981

January – Brett Aukim born
March – Elizabeth Baker born
16/10/81 – 12/4/82 – USA
I HAVE LONG PERMED HAIR

1982

September – My 25th Sheraton

1983

1984

Hibernate studying mature age TAE Tuart College. Final Exam Mid November. English, English Literature, and Scaling Test

February – Melinda Seckington born

1985

March – Jan & Neale marry

1986

February – Nancy’s B’day, my place Trivial Pursuit.

May – Tobias Seckington born
23/6 – 4/7/86 – I attend Train the Trainer Course, have left group section.

October – Jan pregnant, leaves HBF.
December – Michael Blackwood born

1987

July – Jose B’day (cakes for Mel & Toby) at Barb’s.

September 11 – I turn 30!
October – Colin has his 37th b’day with our family @ his place.

Some Extra Information, Added by Greg in 2023

Here is some extra information on a few of the events Trenna has mentioned above.

The 1980 Cruise was on the Centaur from Fremantle to Singapore, Hong Kong and Manila. She went with her friend from HBF, Jan.

In 1981 Brett and Elizabeth are born. Both are children of Trenna’s sisters.

She also mentions the USA Trip. There is a seperate series of posts about this trip. The USA Trip Diary starts HERE.

Trenna’s 25th Birthday Party

Trenna refers to her 25th birthday in 1982. There is a bit of a story…

As Trenna reached the age of 25 she couldn’t remember having a birthday party (because she never had one). As no one else was going to organise one for her she decided to take matters into her own hands and invited a bunch of friends to have an evening meal with her at the up-market Clinker Grill in the Perth Sheraton Hotel. Perth’s newest and swankiest hotel.

From all reports it was a very successful night, nice food, and the drinks flowed freely. Everyone had had a good time – until the bill was presented.

It turns out that Trenna hadn’t been explicit that she was expecting everyone to pay for their share of the meal. An awkward silence fell over the group. A few people reached for their wallet or purse, a few didn’t. Then someone said “if anyone here thought that Tren would have enough money to pay for all this, they must be bonkers!”

Laughter all round and everyone chipped in enough money to cover the bill and a small tip. Disaster averted!

TEE and University

In 1984 Trenna decided that she really needed to go to university to further her career prospects. However, if you have read The Kitchen Tapes, or read the post “Dead at 27 and Never to Marry”, you will know that she wasn’t given the option of completing high school.

So Trenna, who was working full-time at HBF enrolled in night classes to complete the two university entry subjects English and English Literature. She later told me that she had done pretty much nothing other than work and study that year.

She was rewarded when she sat the Tertiary Entrance Exams and got a University Entrance score of 368.26, which was a score high enough for entry to most university courses.

The next year she enrolled in a Psychology degree at the University of Western Australia. As it turned out this coincided with a period of “compulsory” overtime at work, everyone was required to do more hours.

Trenna also realised that there was no public transport in the evenings to get from UWA back home to the (then, outer) northern suburb of Girrawheen where she lived. She therefore had to rely on taxis and this was a considerable burden on Trenna’s already stretched finances.

I am pretty sure that at this stage Trenna didn’t have a driver’s licence. She had wrongly assumed that she was too blind to get one. (There will be a seperate story another time about how Trenna ended up getting her licence.)

The extra time at work and the extra expense meant it was very hard for Trenna to study, and she withdrew her enrolment during her first semester.

However, her matriculation into university stood, and in later years she did successfully complete quite a few units of university study.

Other Clarifications

Melinda, born in 1984 was Colin and Jose’s daughter.

Toby, mentioned in 1986 is Colin and Jose’s son.

By June 1986 Trenna had been selected to join the Training Section of HBF and her employer sent her on a Train the Trainer training course. Trenna loved the course, and she did tell me a story which I shall now relate to you.

Serviette Candles (or are they something else?)

The Train the Trainer course had attracted people from a wide range of employment situations, from both the government and the private sector. Part of the way through the several day course, participants were given the assignment to prepare and conduct a training session, to teach a skill to their class mates.

Trenna went home and wondered exactly what she would teach everyone. As luck would have it someone had recently given her a woman’s magazine to read, and in it was a pull out supplement on various ways to fold cloth serviettes – or napkins as Matron would call them.

The next day when the instructor asked who would like to do their training session first, Trenna eagerly volunteered.

When she announced what exactly she was going to teach the group, a beefy bloke from the Fire Brigade exclaimed “Oh no! I’m going to be hopeless at this”.

However in no time at all Trenna had the whole class engaged and producing folded napkins that looked a lot like candles.

Everyone was pleased with their newly acquired skills – especially the Firey who couldn’t wait to show his candle to his wife – and Trenna was convinced that she loved training people.

As with so many Trenna stories, their is a postscript. When she and I got together she showed me how to fold a napkin into a candle and I still have that skill.

Often at the end of a night at a restaurant, or some other meal, like a wedding breakfast, she and I would make candles from all the napkins lying around. I don’t think we ever encountered anyone who had seen napkins folded in that particular way.

Fast forward a few decades to November 2015. Trenna and I flew to Alice Springs in the very centre of Australia. I was attending a work conference. As usual Trenna didn’t attend the conference dinner, but I wanted to as the key note speaker was former High Court of Australia judge, The Honourable Michael Kirby.

I had met Michael at a function about a year earlier when we were both speakers at the same event. I wanted to say hullo to him again.

I was blown away when I walked into the grand ballroom of the Alice Springs Lasseters Resort. All the round tables were set up laid out for the meal, silver cutlery, nice china plates, and at each person’s place, a crisp white napkin, folded in the Trenna style as a candle!

A Few Other Clarifications

Also in 1986 the “Jan” mentioned is the same one she travelled with, and who got married and that had a son, Michael.

In 1987 Jose who is mentioned is Colin’s wife.

And of course I got together with Trenna from 1988 so dates after 1987 are excluded from this document.