Recorded 7 June 2018
Leaving Craig House
GM: Today is Friday the 7th of June, 2018, I’m with Trenna Mahney. Tren, tell me a bit about, you had been living at Craig House whilst you were at school until third year high school. What happened then?
THM: Well I was in 3rd year and Craig House was going to close in 1972. I don’t know why, we assumed they had run out of money.
The food had definitely become less enjoyable to a lot of people. They hadn’t stopped feeding us or anything like that, but we did get a lot more offal. Every part of the body, nothing went to waste.
In the olden days my sister’s assure me that they only ever got liver or brains or something like that once a year. It was nothing like I talk about. But offal was regularly on our menu. I fortunately liked all sorts of food, so I didn’t find that a bother.
I haven’t paid much heed to what would happen once 1972 came to an end.
Slow Developer and Sue Makes Me Some Bras
I was a slow developer in all sorts of ways. I was completely flat chested. I remember that one of the girls, I think it was Sue, felt sorry for me because I was the only girl not wearing a bra and I was 15.
I didn’t get my period until I was 15. I thought I had, but we decided that once I had it, and I never got it again (for ages) it was probably that I had got it from doing hurdles and had broken my hymen, so I’d had bleeding, but it wasn’t a period. I didn’t get a period until I turned 15 in 1972.
I was immature in many ways. I never had boyfriends. I loved the Partridge Family which had started on telly, so I was really in love with pop stars.
I used to collect pop star cards, and I knew all about them. Helen for example, who is the same age liked music so her music taste was going from lollipop to more sophisticated Beatles records.
I would do the same thing and I would just look like a dag
Although we still at 15 bought records together because we couldn’t afford a single by ourselves. We bought The Beatles Hey Jude, ah, well, it was Revolution and Hey Jude on either side. I wanted one side and Helen wanted the other.
I can’t remember which one I wanted now but I have got the singles till today, and our names are written on each side. I sort of think it was Hey Jude I wanted, but I’m not sure. [GM: I subsequently checked, Trenna’s name is on Hey Jude and Helen’s name is on Revolution]
Anyway, so Helen became sophisticated to my mind, because she got more beautiful. When her mum did turn up, and her mum did come and stay and work at Craig House doing the laundry for a while, Helen ended up getting a shaggy dog haircut which was really cool and in fashion, and she got a gorgeous blue jumper which she looked really cool in. She started to look attractive.
She would wear her hair in braids, and little braids with cute clips that were in at the time, and she would look like a surfie girl.
I would do the same thing and I would just look like a dag with my hair pinned back off my face. I was still wearing those cat’s eye glasses which never changed. I think they might have got a bit smaller, but that’s all.
Then Sue made me a pair of bras. She cut a triangle out of a pink pair of old flannelette pyjama pants. They were pink and white squares, and a couple of triangles were cut and they were joined at the middle. The straps over the shoulder and holding them around the back were made of bias binding.
I remember I wore them to school and I felt so good that I was wearing bras to school. But someone, and it had to be a girl, because only the girls knew, someone dobbed and told one of the boys.
And it was found out, and the boys would come up and they would try and pull my uniform off, or pull it out, or unzip it to show that I was wearing bras, and it had got around and it was so humiliating.
I don’t think I wore them again to school because I didn’t want it to happen again. The only thing that was good about them was that they were made of flannelette so instead of having to wear a singlet they kept my nipples warm, so my nipples didn’t stick out.
But that was the only stick out part of a boob I had, my nipples.
Everyone else had boobs so I was undeveloped in that way, and I was undeveloped in maturity. Everything was literal. I did take everything literally, and I believed everybody, especially my friends. So if someone said something, I believed it. I was very taken in like that.
Yet, I also thought I was savvy in some ways. I would figure out things.
Like in my many books of Agatha Christie that I read. I would always figure out who the murderer was before it ended, and stuff like that.
But yes, I was definitely still a child at 15. I hung out with the boys. Helen had a boyfriend, Neil, an 18 or 19 year old guy who had come over from England and who lived up the road. Not at Haddon Hall where all the band guys were.
We hung out with the guys from the band who, did, at the time, the Rock Masses were very in fashion. Bakery was the band and the Rock Masses were over the river at the Anglican Cathedral [St Georges].
The sound would travel very easily, and we could hear these rock masses going on, and one of the bands was called Bakery, with the lead singer Tom Davidson.
He lived at Haddon Hall with some of the other guys of the band, not all of them. But I did find out that Peter who was from Mike, Pete and Danny [MPD Ltd] he was in the band at some stage.
There were lots of band guys who lived at Haddon Hall. It was a really run down castle, with big grounds. [GM: Helen tells me that Haddon Hall had been divided into separate apartments and rented out. And I have found out in recent weeks that an older neighbour of mine, who Trenna knew, rented one of those apartments around the time we are talking about.] It would have been about 2 acres of grounds, it was a large, large area.
That allowed them to play without causing disruption to the neighbours. Their music was heavy music. They got a local number one hit called Trust in the Lord and you know it was a heavy metal sort of song in a way.
They all had long hair and all the girls would go over there. Most of the girls went over there because the guys fancied them. I went over there because they thought I was really sweet, and there was a dog that was always over there so I would look after the dog while they were practising.
I used to talk to the guys about the days of MPD, so they were interested in me, because there was stuff I knew because of my big sisters. I don’t think it ever occurred to me then, I was the same age as Helen.
More on Helen
Helen met a boy further up the road called Neil. He was very much an instrumentalists. He played the guitar.
He always wore sort of Kaftan tops. He was what we called good looking, and he was 19, so considerably older than us 15 year olds.
He absolutely fell for Helen, and Helen did go out with him. And there was a guy Steve, who was also from up that way but he dropped her in the shit at the pub when she got caught out with being underage and he didn’t stick by her, he left her.
So Helen dropped him. [GM: He too was a few years older than Helen.]
Neil was so cool, and he and I used to talk together. But again, just because he knew I was Helen’s friend. Again, I don’t think he ever thought that I would be the same age as her. I was just one of the girls from whom he could find out information.
I do remember walking with him one day when Helen couldn’t come out because she was doing something. I was walking along the edge of the river wall with him and he started skipping along saying “I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love!” He was talking about Helen.
I told Helen she thought it was really cool, and Matron invited him back to Craig House for dinner. He had to wear a shirt and tie, so he had to borrow one of the boys’ ties. I do remember that he was invited, but I don’t remember who’s shirt he wore, I’m sure he would have had to get it from someone, one of the boys.
He came to Craig House and he had to sit at the head of the table where usually the legatees sat. I’m sure he would have eaten food that he’d never seen before!
[GM: Here is a link to a small but interesting story about the Rock Masses written in 2011 and published in The West Australian newspaper.]
Helen did that. She always had a boyfriend, from the time she was 14. There was Steve, and there was Neil, and then there were the guys at school whose names I always forget.
There was a guy who had a very Greek or Italian name. He had really fuzzy wuzzy hair but he was a cool dude. And then there was this other guy who used to hang out with a lot of boys who gave me a hard time.
I begged Helen to ask him not to. I think his name was Rob. Anyway I said to her “could you please get him not to call me awful names because I’m a friend of yours”. Initially she didn’t want to do it, but eventually she did it, and in the end I didn’t get called awful names.
As far as she was concerned, our teenage years from 13 to 15, the end years of our life together [at Craig House], I don’t think she considered that she hung out with me. Although she did do things with me.
Admittedly, she said, I used to hang out with Anne Pover. Anne Pover was just a daggy girl from the country. I shared a room with her, I didn’t hang out with her, but I wasn’t rude to her, so whoever was there I just was friendly with.
That sometimes included the older girls like Sue and Julie. Julie and Sue and I hung out, I know because I’ve got photos that show just us. You know, doing impersonations of the Joe Cocker album, singing like Joe Cocker, and stuff like that. Helen wasn’t there.
I don’t know, I think Helen had decided that she was cool because she liked Cheryl Rowe. Cheryl Rowe was definitely a bit older and carefree and ran wild.
There was Helen, Cheryl Rowe, but she also had a brother Perry, who Helen liked. Then there was Kim Harper. She also had a brother, Brian. All the cool girls called Brian “Joe”. I never did. I always just called him Brian. And they all saw me as a kid. Whereas they all fancied Helen.
it was like all times at Craig House, no one really knew how to be, or show any empathy for each other. No one sort of felt for each other, or displayed any feelings for each other, because we all had our own woes
All the boys fancied Helen, and the older boys fancied either Julie and Peta. Peta was there for about 6 months. Julie was there for a couple of years, Julie Foster, and she looked a bit like Helen, having long blonde hair.
When it came to the end of the year, it was like all times at Craig House, no one really knew how to be, or show any empathy for each other.
No one sort of felt for each other, or displayed any feelings for each other, because we all had our own woes.
Helen’s mum often never came to get Helen. Her mum was an alcoholic and she would move around the country, and then she would have an affair with a man. And then the way to get over that was just to take off and do a runner, and she would forget about Helen.
She would say she was coming to get Helen because she had to go and find somewhere else to live. So Helen would be excited waiting for her mum during the holidays, and her mum wouldn’t show.
So Helen would be at home at Craig House by herself. I don’t know why she didn’t get to go to any of the other legatees or places she had been before. Maybe the people she had been with just didn’t feel that Helen wanted to go there, because they were very nice people.
I remember the Roxboroughs as lovely people and you know I envied that Helen could go there because she was closer to town and to the girls from school that lived around South Perth.
They lived in Kensington and I would stay with the Andersons in Ardross, which was over the river and a bit further away. So I don’t really understand all of that.
Helen had a very nice legatee and he used to take her out, and take her to farms and stuff like that. Helen never really shared any of that with me, so I don’t know.
I think Helen was suffering and I never saw it. I think she was more upset about Sally-Anne being expelled from Craig House. I never knew that at the time. I knew that Sally-Anne was there for only a short time and then she left.
I never particularly liked Sally-Anne. I mean, she wasn’t awful to me, I just didn’t take to her, and I think that was an age difference.
She was ready to rebel and I think Helen liked that in Sally-Anne. Helen did get to go and stay with both Sally-Anne and at Southern Cross with Kim and her brother Brian.
So Helen got to stay with some of the families of the kids who lived at Craig House, and I think that made Helen feel like she wasn’t quite like me.
I was an orphan, and she wasn’t really, so I don’t really know, but as an adult Helen has told me of things she was jealous of about me. I was never jealous of Helen. I just wanted to be more like Helen, and I always considered her my best friend, but I don’t think that feeling was reciprocated. There was an assumption, rather than a knowledge.
[GM: I asked Helen about this too. She said “That’s interesting. I always looked at Tren as stronger than me. I think I envied Tren because she had siblings and I went with her a couple of times to Nancy’s Bassendean rental to stay the weekend. I thought it was amazing to be fussed over. Of course I realise now that having siblings isn’t always the best experience.”]
School’s Out, Craig House Closes
When it got to the end of third year it was such a change too because third year was such a sort of groovy year in a way. We had done subjects at school that were a lot more interesting and modern. It was clearly the 70s.
We were 70s people, and everything was written in that fancy 70s writing. I knew how to do it, all my files had this colourful writing on. And I knew about bands and music, and there was the big thing about who liked Sherbet and who liked Skyhooks and all that sort of thing.
And the girls at Craig House would get up to mischief, having midnight feasts when the lights went out. We would have to do everything in darkness.
Sometimes we’d raid the fridge and stay up till midnight telling spooky stories or stories about, you know, what cum tasted like, which I didn’t fully understand. All I knew, or learnt, was that it was salty.
I knew these things had something to do with sex, but I really didn’t know enough, and no way in this world was I gonna ask because it would show that I didn’t know. So I just let all these things wash over me. There was talk about this all the time.
So it came to be that it was the end of the year. There were the people who were going on at school and I had just assumed that would be me, because I hadn’t finished school.
I was in third year and I thought I would go on to 5th year. I didn’t choose to go on to 5th year. I just thought that that’s what would happen. Because, for one, Helen was going on.
I didn’t know if that was because I was so ugly or if it was because I was going to die
She was going to Swanleigh where she would board. There were a number of kids who went there too, like Brian and Peta and I’m not sure who else went. I know a couple of the boys went so I just thought that’s where I would go.
The only thing I really hated the idea of was going to be another place that I would have to settle into, and that I was going to be the daggy girl all over again.
It was mostly that the school that I was going to have to go to would be a new school [to me], and it would be one that I would be going into 4th year and I didn’t know whether I’d be in a class with anyone I knew. I doubted I would be in Helen’s class because I was in a higher level than Helen.
An Escape From Bullying
Anyway, one night Matron called me into her study and my legatee Mr Hollingsworth was there. I don’t know if school had finished, because to me this all seemed to happen in a day, but I don’t know. But this is what I do know.
There was talk about what would happen to me after Craig House closed. They said “I know that you know that you have a condition and you know that like your mother, unfortunately you’re not going to live very long…”.
And Mr Hollingsworth said “so no man would want to marry you”. I didn’t know if that was because I was so ugly or if it was because I was going to die.
I hadn’t put two and two together at that point to realise what that meant – I wouldn’t be able to have a baby or anything like that. I just sort of thought, “well that makes sense, no one would want to marry me”, and that I would die.
And [they said] that Child Welfare would only cover me until I was 16. So for the next few years after that I believed that they would only cover me until I was 16, but in fact I was a Ward of the State until I was 18.
But what they were saying was they were unprepared to pay for me to go on to do further education, and that what I needed to do was to get a job so that I could pay for my own way in the world, as soon as possible.
But at that point I didn’t know that. I just knew that they would not support me. They would not cover me after I was 16.
[GM: This story of why Trenna should leave school is alluded to in the story “Dead at 27, and Never to Marry” which is here.]
The Andersons had asked, or had said that they would like to adopt me. Before they said anything to me, Matron had spoken, I thought she said she had spoken to Nancy and so had Mr Hollingsworth.
According to her they had all agreed that it was the wrong time in my life to be adopted. They asked me what I thought about that, and I didn’t have a clue. I just said “oh, you know, I suppose”.
I didn’t really understand it except that I knew that Nancy had done that thing before when I wanted to be adopted, when I was much younger by the Reids, and Nancy had told me to lie and tell them that they didn’t feed me, so that they couldn’t adopt me.
[GM: The sad story of the potential adoption is told here.]
So this time I just said “well I don’t mind, I don’t know”. So Matron said “what we’re going to do is we’re going to send you to a place called Girls Friendly Society”.
The name made me cringe. It was a place that was in the city. It was a hostel for girls who came down from the country to learn to be nurses, because you had to do that in the city, and to learn to be a dental nurses, and to learn to be secretaries and other jobs that girls learnt to do.
It was considered that in my Achievement Certificate I got very good marks for typing, and it showed that I could do typing really well. That is true.
I actually liked typing because I always wanted to write a novel. So I thought it was good to be able to type. They said “what we would hope is that you could be very bright, and get through the Key Personnel course.” I never understood that name, and that I would go to Key Personnel Business School as it was called, and I would learn to be a very good private secretary.
They said I could get a job and I could earn my own money. The moment I heard that bit I thought, “sounds good to me. It’s only going to be girls at GFS, and girls were always much nicer than boys.”
There was no more Craig House
I don’t know if they told me at the time the subjects I would do at business school, but I liked the idea that I could be a private secretary and earn money. And I just heard that “earn money” that meant that I could buy clothes, and I didn’t have to go to another school.
I don’t think I gave a thought to the adoption by the Andersons because I thought that decision had already been done and dusted.
But when I did see the Andersons next, because I spent the Christmas holidays and longer with them before I went to GFS in, I think, March. I stayed with the Andersons and I think I felt a sense of animosity.
I would say now, it wouldn’t have been a word I would use then, but I sort of felt like they thought I had been the one to say “I didn’t want to be adopted”. It felt like Aunty Jan (Mrs Anderson) was crueller to me than usual.
I think that was all in my mind, because I’m sure Auntie Jan made me a skirt to wear to Key Personnel. It was a tie-at-the-back skirt, and some other things I don’t really recall.
Everybody Just Went Home
But the end of Craig House was a bit of a fizz off. We seemed to all just go our separate ways.
I don’t remember there being any kind of send off or special party. If there was, it’s something I’ve deleted from my memory, but I don’t believe there was. I think everybody just went home.
Helen’s mum was obviously around because Helen and I went our separate ways. I do remember that we agreed to write to each other, but apart from that it just ended. There was no more Craig House.
Matron had said that I could have the things in my folder, which was a file that was kept in Matron’s roll-top desk in the corner of her study, with the Vat 69 based vase sitting on it, next to the fireplace that had burnt down the blue room when I first went there.
Her study was where we used to play Mahjong on those really good afternoons when Matron was in a good mood.
This file was just kept there, and I think it just was where, when we got our school reports we’d put them in the file. Also when we got a certificate or something of merit, like I got lots of athletic certificates.
And I think when I wrote some short stories, maybe the one that I wrote was put in there which was considered to be material to send me to the psychiatrist because it was a bit gruesome. I also think it was like where my list of pocket money was kept, and my bank books and just stuff that wouldn’t be too personal that I wouldn’t be able to see.
Matron was going to go straight down to the farm, to her sister Faith’s farm, the Hemsley’s farm. She was going to be there so she had told Uncle Frank, Mr Anderson, being that he was a legatee and a Freemason that he could just come on the following Monday and pick up my folder.
She said she would leave a note. Mrs Goodrem was there on the Monday and didn’t know anything about it.
Mrs Goodrem was an elderly lady. She was a cook and she wouldn’t have had the authority to do that and she would not give him my files.
Uncle Frank never got angry but he was getting very annoyed that he had come to collect this folder and it wasn’t there. I often wondered whether he was annoyed at me because I should have brought it with me when I left, but I wasn’t allowed to take it, Uncle Frank had to take it.
So I never got that folder and he tried several times. So did I later on in life. I tried to find whatever became of any paperwork that was there at Craig House.
It was never held by Legacy, or they said that they never had it. They said it probably was just destroyed when Craig House was destroyed.
So that was at the end of 1972. You know, it had seen my life, my most formative years of my life, from when I was 7 1/2 to when I was 15.
Living there with people who came and went from my life. All those children were children of some sort of sadness in their life. There being the death of someone, either one parent or both their parents.
It wasn’t until I left there that I realised up to that point in my life I had known more people in my life who had suffered horrible things in their life than those who had had good things in their life.
I wonder if that’s why I always looked for the people who had the most stable life after that? I went through a period of rebellion, but then I realised stability could be something that could bring you happiness, or perhaps I just left that all a bit too late.