Recorded 5 May 2018

Sadness Warning

[GM: I found this perhaps the hardest transcript (as well as the hardest recording), both because of the sad content, and it shows how Trenna blocked out a few years from when her dad died until she went to Craig House. I don’t think when we started the conversation that either I or Trenna had any idea where it would lead.]

GM:  Today is Saturday, 5th of May 2018.  We’re talking with Trenna Mahney.

Tren, yesterday you were talking about your early days at your family home and then at your auntie’s place.  Eventually you went to Mofflyn Homes.  Do you remember going there, and what do you remember about Mofflyn?

THM:  I don’t remember going to Mofflyn at all.  I just remember being there, so I don’t remember being taken there. 

Kindergarten

I don’t really recall much of the day to day life other than there were kids my age and I went to kindy, which I think I liked. Kindy was in the grounds of the Mofflyn Homes. 

Mofflyn Homes was run by the Methodist Church and the kindy was open to other children in the neighborhood.  The kids from the Home, I think this is the case, that we all wore overalls. 

And in every photo I’ve seen of us, we’re wearing overalls, when we’re at kindy. I think that was so that we were easily picked out as the kids from the Home, so they could keep track of who we were.

The other kids came, and they just wore pretty dresses and such. 

Our dad was very clever with his hands.  He had always made things like cars, [GM:  Trenna was aware that her dad, a motor mechanic, had rebuilt at least one car from a total wreck] and furniture around the home. 

He had got a war service home, which it was called a funny name, [GM: In a letter to “Auntie” Carmel Trenna’s mum says that the Housing Commission has offered them an “expandable home”] where you could add rooms on at the back and he would build the back of the house. 

So he built the back rooms of the house, and he also built furnishings like the girls’ dressing table and cupboards, and he built a swing, which I loved. 

Well, he did the same at the Home.  He did it, he loved children, and he seemed to feel like he needed to do good for the children, because he made all sorts of wooden play equipment that we could climb on. 

Like monkey bars, and those sorts of things.  He also made things for the kindergarten, and that helped him out with not having to pay quite so much for us kids being at the Home, because sometimes he was not able to pay for our accommodation properly.

The kindy I don’t really remember much of, but I seemed to get into trouble, and I don’t know if I was a ringleader, but I sort of think I was. 

I think I was a bit of a naughty girl and I would do the sort of things where I could implicate somebody else 

I think I was a bit of a naughty girl and I would do the sort of things where I could implicate somebody else.  And in that way I was not a nice little child, in that I would let someone else take the blame for something I might have dared them to do, knowing that I was pretty good at covering up my tracks, but they weren’t as good as me. 

They might be too nervous and get caught.  So I don’t think I was a very nice little child, to other children that is.  

I think adults thought I was a sweet little girl because I was a blonde haired pretty little thing up to the age of about 4 or 5, and then my condition, which was the same condition as Mum had, which was Marfan’s syndrome, started to become evident.

That was that I got taller and thinner and, although I didn’t wear proper prescription glasses till later on, I think I did get some sort of lenses [spectacles] to wear when I was in grade 1 to help me see a little bit better, but I don’t really understand what they were. 

At that stage I don’t think my lenses [in my eyes] had dislocated. I think they just had cataracts so they were very blurry to see through, and maybe the lenses that I got just helped to see through the blurry lens.  I’m not sure. 

But to me I was just the little skinny kid from the Home.

East Victoria Park Primary School

I do remember going to primary school.  That was East Vic Park Primary School.  It’s now known as the Park Centre Shopping Centre, and funnily enough, we [Greg and I] used to do our shopping there all the time, and some of the wall that was there when I was in grade 1, and the slope to the underground car park is the same as what it was when I was a child. 

Except going down underground was where the covered seats were, or wooden benches were for the kids to eat their lunches, and play-lunches on rainy days. 

So, that still reminds me, because I would sit on one of the little fences at play-lunch and I would sit and wait there for my sister Barbie to come. 

She was in grade 7 when I was in grade 1.  And I loved it, because she would come to me and she would often buy me a jam tart that I could lick all the jam or cream off.  I know I licked some top off that I really liked.  I loved that she was there because I was lucky to have a big sister there. 

I know I had friends there but I don’t remember classes other than the rules of what happened during school.  And that was that we all had to line up before we went into class and it was on a verandah.

We had to line up and stand straight, and we had to show our fingernails.  The teacher would go along and make sure everybody had clean fingernails, and we had to then turn our hands over to show that they were clean. 

The Huge Hankie Travesty

Usually it was the boys who were sent off to go and wash their hands.  And we also had to have a hanky with us, and so there wasn’t any time wasted looking for the hanky, we would have to come to class with the hanky with a safety pin pinned to our chest. 

I didn’t have any hankies, but at Mofflyn Homes they said that wasn’t the matter, that I could just get some sheets of toilet paper, and pin the toilet paper to my chest, and I know that people used to laugh at me, and I was so embarrassed to have toilet paper as my hankie.

I think I knew the difference between toilet paper and tissues so I don’t think they were tissues, or tissues weren’t really available then, I don’t know, but I’m very sure they were bits of toilet paper. 

I also remember lining up to get a needle. I think it might have been the rubella needle, but I don’t really know, and I know that some kids cried but I didn’t cry. 

I don’t remember at all sitting in the class. I don’t remember the teachers. 

The only thing I do remember is that I had a friend called Irina, and she was Greek and she was a bit fatter and she had long plaits and that she was my friend. 

We were going to be in a band. I don’t remember any other children’s names, although vaguely I do remember a little boy but I think that memory came back to me later, who was supposedly my boyfriend. 

he wrote to my Auntie Carmel and said I was an “A” student

I know that I walked to school.  I don’t know if I walked with my sister Barb, but I think I did, and probably the other girls who were my age, like Vanessa, but I don’t remember her being there. I just think she must have gone there. 

Anyway, when I was in grade 1 –  well, this is what I initially thought – that when I was in grade 1 I learnt to play the triangle, and I thought I was very good at it, and I thought that because the teacher said so and that it was a very important percussion instrument and that the percussion stood at the back of the band. 

We were going to do a concert at the end of the year.  Now, I went to school when I was six and that was in 1963, we started school. 

I know my dad was alive for most of the year because he wrote to my Auntie Carmel and said I was an “A” student and if I kept it up I would do well and he was proud of me, or something like that, but he knew I was doing well at school.

So I was doing well at Grade 1, but he died when I was in Grade 1.  He died on either the 20th or 21st of November 1963, around the same time as John F Kennedy died. I didn’t know all the dates at the time. 

My thoughts are, I’ve only ever remembered being at East Vic Park Primary School when I was in grade 1. I don’t remember any other time after that. 

Later on, when I tried to work out when I did move from Mofflyn Homes to the Legacy hostel [Craig House] whose records said I moved in July 1965 and that would mean that I had been at East Vic Park in grade 2 and part of grade 3.

And I don’t remember any of that whatsoever. 

I do remember I was very upset about this, being in this band and missing out, but as it turns out it mustn’t have been when I was in grade 1.  It must have been when I was in grade 3, because it was a band and it was going to be for the Christmas break holidays and we were all excited to be in it.  

But in 1965, in July, I had to go to hospital, to Princess Margaret Hospital to have an operation on my eye.

And I don’t remember any of that whatsoever

Now I know my Auntie Hilda took me to the hospital once, because I remember we caught the bus, and there was a man smoking, and he was smoking and blowing all his smoke all over her and me.  Auntie Hilda didn’t like it. 

He was sitting behind us and then his ash flicked down the back of my dress and it burnt me, and I jumped up. I remember Auntie Hilda got very angry and told him off, and told him to put it out at once, and that’s what he had done to the child.

So at that stage, the next thing that I know, I know that I was still at Mofflyn Homes because my friend Irina’s … our favourite lollies … well she knew my favourite lollies were sherbies.  We used to buy them at the shop on Kent Street opposite the high school.

I had two favourite lollies,  the big cough drops and sherbies, but sherbies were quite expensive – and she came to visit me in the hospital, and she brought a big bag of sherbies that you couldn’t shut at the top [because it was so full] and I was so happy that she brought the sherbies.

[GM: What Trenna didn’t say on the recording, but which she told me many times, was that the nurses confiscated the sherbies, we think because she was fasting for an operation, and that she never got them back.  She was sure the nurses ate them all! She also mentions this in Kitchen Tapes #6, here.]

Now, the moment I left Mofflyn Homes and went to live at Craig House I never saw any of those kids [from East Vic Park Primary] again until I went to high school when I turned 13. 

I didn’t recall them at all.  In fact I was embarrassed by some of them because they were people that I didn’t want to know.  They were either too daggy, or they were too black skinned [GM: I feel compelled to point out that in saying this Trenna was reflecting the view she, and the vast majority of people in Western Australia in 1970, had at that time.  Later in life, in fact only a few years later, Trenna became very strongly anti-racist and an advocate for equality] or in the case of the boy who had said he had been my boyfriend, he was too girly and I thought he was, you know, a boy who wouldn’t be interested in girls. 

So I know I must have lived at Mofflyn Homes after my dad died for another year – 1964 and half of 1965.  Barb and Nance both went to a Legacy hostel [Craige House]. Colin had already gone, and they went there in early 1964. 

So I was by myself for a year, and maybe a little bit more than a year. 

I’ve heard different versions of how I got to go to Craig House, the Legacy hostel, to be with my family.  One was that the Matron at Craig House thought it was cruel to separate me from my sisters and brother, and another one was that the others had to leave Mofflyn Homes because they didn’t take children once they were going to high school, and they also didn’t keep boys over the age of 10. 

That’s why Colin went first, although my dad had said that when Colin turned 10 that he could come home and live with him to help out at home.  I think he thought that perhaps Colin didn’t have to go on to school and might be able to help, like in his day, when he was a kid, and maybe didn’t have to go on to school past 12 years old, or something.

Anyway, I did remain at Mofflyn Homes.  I had some fun times whilst I was there. 

There was a place across the road where we weren’t meant to go – the yellow sand pits that were all cyclone fenced off.  But we could get through a hole in the wire and we would run and slide down the sandhills, and we would get buried in all the yellow sand, and then would laugh and laugh and laugh because we’re nearly choked to death!  [This is also mentioned here.]

Who knows what was in there, because the Agriculture Department was next door.  There were probably all sorts of chemicals that they wouldn’t  want us to go near.  I don’t think that at any stage we got caught, or at any stage we were told not to do it other than initially being told not to do it.

I think we just had free rein.  We’d go anywhere. 

We would go up to the pine plantations, and there were lots of pine trees growing.  We would just go into the pine trees and pick up cones and throw them.

It would always be cold and dark in there, and it would be scary, and we’d all get scared and have to run out of there. 

There wasn’t a lot of housing around.  The Smiths, who were the administrators of Mofflyn, finally got a home built on a block just up from the Home, but there weren’t houses all over the place. 

I do associate boiled eggs with listening to the football [on the radio] on a Saturday 

There were some, but there was also a lot of bushland which was great for us because we could do whatever we wanted to do.

Our dad had made us [Mofflyn kids] all that play equipment, and we did play on it a bit, but it’s such a shame, because, I guess if they had more control over us we would have been there to play on it a lot more than we did. 

It was probably used mainly when we were at kindergarten, and it was time to go outside and play, and that would be in an area that could be supervised. 

Otherwise we went where no one would supervise us because that’s where we could get up to the most trouble.  There was always rotten fruit or something like that to throw at someone or other.  [Such as described here.]

I remember little kids.  I know the food was not that good there, but I don’t remember the food really apart from that I do associate boiled eggs with listening to the football [on the radio] on a Saturday. 

I know we went to one of the other cottages to watch films from a projector, and I think I went to those, but they would have had to have been very light children’s ones.  The other kids all went because they were older than me. 

When I was 3, Nancy was already 13, or heading to 13, so they were already allowed to do things that I didn’t do.

I know that I did get a walkie-talkie doll from someone and I can only assume that that was after my dad died. 

Extra Sadness Warning

My dad died, which was very sad, and it was handled in a very funny way – but then again, I had no way of understanding how it would be done. 

I know I came home from school, and as I walked up the drive the other kids from school had all beaten me home, and they came running down to meet me, and they were all saying [Trenna uses a sing-song chanting/taunting voice] “your dad is dead, your dad is dead”. 

They didn’t know what they were doing except that they had information that I didn’t know, so they were thinking they were smarter than me, and I got into a fight with Vanessa and some of the other kids because I said “he is not dead”. 

Later that night – apparently earlier on Barbie and Nance, and I’m not sure if Colin was there, or if he was at Craig House, I think he would have still been there, they were taken into the matron’s office and they were all told together, as one, that our dad had died.

To this day I have no understanding why I wasn’t included in that group, where they could perhaps cry, but also comfort me, but [long pause] that didn’t happen.  I just don’t understand that. 

I just don’t understand that

That night I was in a room, and I thought it was a room I shared with Barb – Barb did say it was her room – but she didn’t sort of say it was my room – but I was in that room and she was in the room next to me when the house mother came to my room and asked me did I understand that my my daddy had died. [GM: There was a very long pause in the recording here and Trenna had tears in her eyes. When she commences it is a voice on the brink of crying]

And I don’t remember, I don’t remember screaming, but I do know my sister Barb heard me scream, and I wouldn’t stop screaming. 

And I know I wouldn’t stop screaming so the house mother told me that if I would be a good girl and go to sleep and not make all this noise, that she was going to go on a big holiday, home to England, and it was going to be on a big ship, and if I would be quiet and go to sleep she would take me on the big ship with her home to England, and wouldn’t that be nice? 

But I didn’t know what she meant, and I don’t know what happened after that because that was in 1963, and I think I just went on with school, and then I went off to stay with people during holidays. [GM: Trenna’s voice is still breaking up at this point.]

A Bus Trip, But Not to England

I know that it was after Dad died, because it was November. I know I went and stayed with people, I thought it was at Kalgoorlie, but I don’t know where it was. 

I know Mr Smith took me to the bus station and he put me on a bus, by myself. I wasn’t with my sisters nor my brother. 

They had gone somewhere else. I think two of them went together, and one of them, I think Barb, went to a place in Cottesloe or something, and it was near the beach.  

Anyway, I went there [to Kalgoorlie (or Kalgan) on the bus] and I had to go by myself. [Trenna also discusses this in Kitchen Tapes #6, here.] 

I had chickens and I put them down my top to keep them warm

There was a woman getting on the bus in front of me, and Mr Smith said could she please keep an eye on me because I was traveling by myself.  She said “yes” and I sat with her. 

She was an old lady, and I liked her, and I talked with her.  She was really nice and so were – they had a hostess on the bus – and she was really nice. 

I went up to a farm, and the farm had chickens, and I had chickens and I put them down my top to keep them warm.  I know I had a red jumper. I remember I was wearing a red jumper.

The only thing I remember about the house was that I slept on the top of a double bunk because they thought that was being nice to me, that I could have the top bunk. 

The room didn’t really have a door or anything, it just had a bit of hessian, and it opened to the kitchen, so it wasn’t a real bedroom and I do remember falling off the bunk. I was alright, I didn’t break anything.  

I also learnt that they had cattle that you could milk, and I learnt how to, well sort of learnt. 

I tried, I think I got a bit of milk out, but I don’t know how much because they had these big metal pails, and they would fill up with milk and it would have all green stuff through it. 

I wanted to know what the green stuff was and the farmer said it was grass.  He asked whether I wanted to try some.  I did, and I thought that it was a bit yucky to do so, but I sipped out of the bucket and it was very warm and creamy.  It was quite nice, but I was a bit scared of the green stuff because I didn’t know how they could have green stuff in their milk.  

It was hot, and I didn’t know why it was hot when it came straight out of the cows and it was early morning when it was cold and we were all rugged up.  I did do that. I had a good time there. 

I know I went to stay with various people, and I know the first lot of people must have been when I was very young.  They were called the Reeds or Reeves and they were very nice [GM: more on the sad story of the Reeves/Reids/Reeves in a moment]. 

I know my dad was alive because he went to visit all the people, who, after mum died, because she died in October, we all went and stayed with someone.   I stayed with my Aunty Hilda and I stayed with them for six months before I went to Mofflyn Homes so it would have been any holidays after that time.  

I don’t think we spent entire holidays at home with my dad, but we did spend weekends, or come out for days.  Sometimes I think we would see our aunties on those days, but I’m not sure. 

But that’s probably why I have some memories, that I thought we’re memories from before I went to the Home, because they said they never saw us after we went to the home [GM:  By “they” I am sure Trenna was referring to a discussion she had with her cousins Shirley and Kaye in 2018]. 

There might have been the odd day that they saw me and my sisters and brother when we came home with Dad.  Nana would come over to give Dad a hand to help out, and that would happen from time to time.  

Another Sadness Warning!

Time is all muddled up for me in this period, but I know I stayed with a number of people.  The Reeds I felt later on very sad for, because they wanted to adopt me.

I didn’t understand what that meant other than when they said to me that they wanted to adopt me and I would have a new family. 

I used to have a little tray table that they would set up right next to the telly so I could see what I was watching

My dad must have been alive because he had met them, or maybe I stayed with them a few times until he died or they knew I was never going to go home to him.  I don’t know, but he had met them, and thought they were nice.  

I liked them because they had either a daughter or a son and I played with them. I got on well with them and they had kids living next door, and I like playing with them, and they had a big weeping willow tree in the back of their garden and it was a really good cubby house.  They were nice to me. 

They let me watch telly and the thing I liked most on telly was The Flintstones. I used to have a little tray table that they would set up right next to the telly so I could see what I was watching. 

All I remember is that I had something like salad, but it had beetroot in it, and I loved beetroot, so I thought I ate really nice food.  

We did good things together except when they said they would like to adopt me, and then I would have a new family. I said “I already have a family”, and they said “yes, but you’d have a new brother or sister”. I said “I already have sisters”, and they said “you wouldn’t have to see them because you would have your new brother [or sister]”. 

I told Nancy that and she said “no, they won’t ever let you see us ever again” and “you’ve already got a family, you can’t let them adopt you because Auntie Hilda is going to come”.  So perhaps it was when Dad had died, so maybe I stayed with them over a couple of years during the holiday times, I don’t know.  

But Aunty Hilda had come to see if I was being looked after well, and there was someone from the Department of Child Welfare. 

Nancy had said that if I don’t tell them that they don’t feed me properly they’ll take me away, and I’ll never see my family ever again.

So I had to say, when they asked me whether they were nice and did they feed me well, I said “no they don’t feed me”.  I was asked “what do you mean, they don’t feed you?” And I said “they don’t feed me”. 

The Reeds were there and I remember they were really upset and they said “we feed her” and my Aunty Hilda got very angry, and said “how dare you not feed her, how could you not feed the children”. 

And that was the end of that, and I never did see those people again, and I wasn’t adopted. 

[GM: At the end of the recording I can be heard giving a massive exhale.  We were both exhausted.] 

[GM:  Very important note:  Trenna did NOT blame Nancy for this incident, because Nancy too was very young, and Trenna believed that Nancy thought she was acting in the best interests of the family.  However, Trenna often spoke to me about this matter and how her heart went out to the poor Reed family who she had done this to.  Trenna regretted it all her adult life, even though she had probably only been about 6 or 7 years old at the time.]

The next instalment in the Kitchen Tapes Series is “Dead at 27, and Never to Marry”, it’s here.