The Earliest Days of Trenna AND Greg – Part 2

Part 1 of this series is here.

Slow Progress

By Greg

Postscript to Part 1

Trenna had apparently shunned me at the end of our first date, yet she said she was fine with me calling her?

I replayed the evening over and over in my mind. It had seemed to go so well. The conversation had flowed so easily. And through pure chance I had brought her favourite wine to take to the restaurant.

Apart from the end, the only part that wasn’t magnificent was how hot that Indian food was. It was a warm January night and the food was really spicy – we were both sweating.

Still I didn’t think that would be any reason not to say goodnight properly.

I got the answer from Trenna some months later, once we were living together. And in case you haven’t already twigged, the food from the curry had started to give her huge stomach aches, and she was sure she was going to have diarrhoea.

THAT’S why she was so keen to get into her house so quickly, and not to have any witnesses!

Radio 6NR

I rang Trenna a day or two later, thanked her for a lovely evening and invited her to the Sunday Session that following weekend.

The Friday before that was interesting and it followed on from something I had mentioned to Trenna when we had that first date.

At the time I was working for the Curtin University Student Guild. The university had it’s own community radio station, on the AM band, it transmitted across the whole Perth metropolitan area.

I didn’t normally have a role to play at 6NR but as it was the Summer holiday period a lot of their usual programming was suspended and they were filling in however they could.

A colleague at the Guild, Graeme Senders invited me, and another colleague, David McCormack to come in to the station on the Friday night and do a one off guest spot. I agreed and said I’d do a show based around 1970s Australian rock music.

David and I arrived at the designated time, probably about 9pm and Senders was already on the air. We agreed that David would do his spot first while Graeme handled the faders and knobs.

I had never considered David to be very organised so I was amazed when he pulled out a script he had written and proceeded to do a very polished radio show about punk music.

I had picked the tracks I wanted to play, and had my armful of vinyl LPs but I certainly didn’t have a script. Thank goodness no one listens to community radio!

After David’s gig it was my turn. It was about 10pm by now. I winged it, even though I was ambushed by Senders with quiz questions at one point! Stressful or what.

If you are doing a retrospective of Australian 1970s rock it would be impossible not to include Daddy Cool, a seminal band of the era. And the obvious choice of a Daddy Cool song would be “Eagle Rock“. A song so good it inspired “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John.

But, I didn’t want to be so obvious.

A Misapprehension

Now, for many years I have thought the song I chose was “Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box“. It was on Daddy Cool’s, marvellously titled album, “Sex, Dope, Rock and Roll: Teenage Heaven“, which incidentally was just called “Teenage Heaven” when released in the USA!

As it turns out, I have been under a misapprehension for years. I actually chose the song “Cadillacin'”, as part of a trio of songs with a motoring theme.

Anyway, I played the song and when I back announced it I said “… and I played that one for Trenna”.

When the mics were next cut Senders said “was that a dedication I just heard?” He knew I didn’t have a girlfriend.

“Ah, yeah, I’ve only just met her, but she seems very nice”.

The rest of the guest spot went uneventfully.

However, when next I was with Trenna she said that she had in fact been listening. She said she was in bed, with the radio on, listening, waiting for me to come on.

She said that when I made the dedication she was so embarrassed (even though there was no one else around), that she shrieked and pulled the covers over her head.

What’s more, on the Monday she was at the morning tea table at work (HBF) and talking about the weekend. She mentioned my show. And her workmate Bernie (a woman) said “No! My husband and and I were listening to that, and were LOVING the music choices”.

For my part, I was amazed that there were more than 3 people listening to 6NR that Friday night!

As a small aside. You will know from Part 1 of this story that I had just shaved off the bushy beard I had had for a number of years. I looked quite a bit different. Whilst we were doing the radio show, Senders said “It’s Greg’s voice, but I don’t think that is Greg”.

The Sunday Session at the Cott, and Smooching on the Beach

The ability to drink in pubs in Western Australia on a Sunday has had a long and tortuous history. In 2022 it is fairly unregulated and licensing laws are quite liberal.

However, that wasn’t the case in 1988.

On a Sunday, pubs were allowed to have two “sessions”. The first was for a couple of hours around lunch time, and the second “Sunday Session” were typically either 4 – 7 pm or 4:30 – 7:30 pm.

Now, anyone smarter that Western Australian legislators of the 1960s and 1970s would know that this is a recipe to get as many young people as possible into a limited number of venues, and to get them to drink as much as they can in 3 hours (and then drive home). BTW, the minimum drinking age was 18 years old.

However, from a young person’s point of view, Sunday Sessions were fun!

The Session I had invited Trenna to was at “The Cott” (the pub now known as the Cottesloe Beach Hotel), on the beach front at, you guessed it, Cottesloe Beach. Cottesloe is a beautiful, white sand beach, and Sunday sessions in January are warm with a wonderful sea breeze taking the edge off the summer heat.

In those days the grassed beer garden would be teeming with people 18 (or 17 or 16) to 35 years old. If you couldn’t get an outside table you just stood around in a circle drinking beers chatting, laughing, joking and watching everyone else.

People of both genders were scantily clad.

My friends and I didn’t always go there for the session but it was a popular choice in Summer.

Trenna had been ready when I picked her up from her Girrawheen duplex, which she shared with her dog, Prickles. She was wearing a pair of fairly short shorts and a singlet top – perfect session attire.

A number of my gang of friends were there when we arrived and introductions were done. She was drinking Tia Maria and Coke, but fortunately, not at the same rate as she did when at the Cine Cellars. See that story here.

A Misleading

Trenna’s naturally friendly disposition had her chatting away to all my friends and appearing to fit in right away. I’m sure she was still wary and apprehensive about how things were going.

As it turned out this provided the ideal opportunity for my friend Col Perry to sew some seeds of mischief.

Col: “So, I guess I’ll see you at the party on Saturday?”

Trenna: “Um. What party?”

Col: “You know, the big party on Saturday…..Oh! Greg hasn’t invited you to the party? Whoops! Perhaps Greg is taking someone else? Don’t worry about it.”

Trenna: “Oh!” (Worried look on her face.)

Fortunately I was observing this. I try to intervene…

Trenna: “Greg, What’s this party I’m not invited to? Colin here says…”

Greg: “There is no party, he is just stirring you up. Piss off Perry!”

Col: (Laughs and turns his attention elsewhere.)

Trenna: (To Greg) “Are you sure there is no party?”

Greg: “Absolutely no party. Perry just does that sort of thing. Just ignore him.”

Trenna: “Mmmm!??”

Greg: “There is no party, I promise!”

Trenna: “OK.”

Disaster averted. For the benefit of the reader, there was no party.

After the Session

It’s hard not to enjoy drinking ice cold drinks, with friends on a warm summer’s night. So by the time we left the Cott Trenna and I were both in a pretty good mood.

Girrawheen is quite a way North of Cottesloe so we started driving in that direction along the coast. The conversation continued to flow like honey.

As we got to Trigg Beach Trenna said, “oh Trigg, I haven’t been here for years. Let’s stop.”

“Great” said I. “I’ve got a blanket in the back, shall I bring that? You know, in case we want to sit down for a while?”

“Good idea.” Whoo Hoo!

Pretty soon we were on the white sand, by the light of the moon and sitting and then lying on the blanket. There was a lot of cuddling and kissing going on. It was pretty intense, but it didn’t look like we were going much further that night.

At one point we were lying on the blanket in each other’s arms, when I could see over Trenna’s shoulder a big rat, wandering around, having a bit of a forage. It got as close as a couple of metres, but there was no way I was going to say anything to spoil the mood.

Luckily, one of us made a sudden movement or noise and the rat realised how close we were and bolted to the rocks to hide.

It was another one of those incidents from when we were courting that we didn’t fully disclose to each other until some time later.

End of Part 2...

HERE is Part 3