All Balls and Glitter (2 page)

At one cocktail party at our house on Ditchfield Road, when I was about seven years old, I thought I’d entertain the guests with a
performance. After announcing my plan, I rushed up to my bedroom to get into my costume. Out came the famous blonde wig/swimming cap, which had always had a dreadful stench of old musty rubber about it. I draped a bit of random fabric around me like a boa and slicked on some lipstick to complete my transformation.

Everyone was gathered in the living room. There was lots of shushing as I quite clearly got ready behind the glass doors. My sister Sue introduced me, and then I made my entrance in flamboyant fashion. I sang an original song I’d made up entitled ‘A Pimple on Your Bum’, which was my solo. It was a popular favourite at the Christmas concert that my cousins, the Lancasters, my siblings and I put on every year for the family in the front room at my nanna’s house – so for me, it was a sure-fire bet. The lyrics went like this:

A pimple on your bum,

A pimple on your bum,

It’s not gonna do some good,

A pimple on your bum,

A pimple on your bum,

It’s not gonna do some good.

Ah, with a pimple on your bottom you just can’t stop,

You go around town doing – a plop,

Well, you’re just smelly, unclean, and filthy too,

And now I know I’m not marrying you,

Now – I know – I’m not marrying you!

The act began well. The crowd was going wild and I started to get carried away. When the raunchy section of my song kicked in, I went crazy and began to perform a bastardized version of the cancan, only to misjudge one high kick that knocked the drink out of the hands of one of the guests. I was mortified, finished the show early and ran out of the room as fast as I could, crying my eyes out.

My father was not happy – in fact, he was furious, and I don’t think it was the drink I’d upset that was the problem. Dad was embarrassed that his son had got up in drag. He chased me through the house, screaming at me for dressing up like a girl. He was really angry. I found a hiding spot under Sue’s bed, which was at the far end of the house. He eventually came into the room, looking for me. I held my breath and was so quiet and still. But he knew I was there.

‘If I ever see you dressed like that again,’ he said, ‘I swear I’ll …’

All went silent except for his heavy breathing. Then, to my relief, I heard him walk slowly away back down the hall. I couldn’t return to the party all night from sheer humiliation. But I got over it and, clearly, the urge never left me.

My father was in the navy. He had enlisted at the age of eighteen, having seen an ad in the
Ballarat Courier
, and enjoyed a twenty-year career with a string of promotions. He served five tours of duty as part of the Far East Strategic Reserve, and saw active service during the Malaysian clash with Indonesia in the
Konfrontasi
from 1962. As Dad’s job took him all over the world, my formative years were somewhat nomadic, with the family moving every few years. My father was frequently absent: in fact, it wasn’t until March 1964, the month of my conception, that my dad finally met my older sister, Susan, who was already six months old. He’d left to go on duty when Mum was pregnant; the next time he got leave, he met his first child – and left Mum expecting number two!

I was born on 4 January 1965, in the middle of the Australian summer, the second child of Beverley June and Philip Revel Horwood. I made a late entrance, a week overdue, at 4.40 a.m., weighing in at 7 lb, 2 oz. Mum was delighted to have a little boy to go with Sue, who was just sixteen months old then. I gather that Sue was not so thrilled at the new arrival.

Just six weeks later, I was moving house for the first time, from Ballarat to Huskisson at Jervis Bay, New South Wales. My father
was stationed at HMAS Albatross, a naval airbase near Nowra, NSW, where he was responsible for directing anti-submarine aircraft and tracking helicopters. After a few months at Jervis Bay, we moved to a house in the base.

My mother tells me I was a very placid baby, who was able to amuse myself quite well. She would put me in a bouncing cradle and carry me out to the grass while she hung the washing on the clothes line. Obligingly, I would kick one leg and bounce myself to keep amused, and I would often doze off as a result of the motion. I also know, from Mum’s meticulous recording of memories, that I crawled on 22 September 1965 and walked on 3 December 1965, a month before my first birthday.

Mum always knew when I was going to sleep as I had a rubber toy, a farmer holding a pig, that had one of those squeaky things inside, which, when pressed, made a whistling noise. As I got older, I would put it underneath me, and rock back and forth to make it squeak, and at the same time, I would roll my head from side to side and make a sort of humming noise until I dropped off.

Throughout my childhood, I would rock myself to sleep for hours, and it drove Mum mad because she could hear my bed creaking. I had a blue pillow with a picture of an orange rocking horse on it, which I’d had since I was a baby in my cot, and I would clutch it while I rocked and sang. I did that until I was about thirteen.

I still have the pillow at home, along with my original teddy bear, which my sister Sue kindly mended over the years and put through much-needed washes, after which the fur always went a bit funny. But then, it was very old and I’m amazed it had any fur left on it anyway after all the torture it had to endure in my possession. Perhaps bizarrely, I was fonder of the pillow than I ever was of the teddy, which was never even named. It must have been the smell of it that made me feel secure, like a baby’s comfort blanket. Even as an adult, I have woken up rocking, but only if
I’m alone. When I’m anxious, I will wake up with my head spinning and I know I’ve been rocking again. Writing this makes me think I should look into getting myself some help.

After Nowra, our next destination was the village of Fareham, near Portsmouth in England, where we stayed while Dad completed two years’ officer training. He was commissioned a sub-lieutenant in March 1969. His ship, HMS
Eagle
, was a 55,000-ton aircraft carrier that hosted the first ever sea trials of the Harrier Jump Jet. It was at the height of the Cold War and Russian spy ships were constantly shadowing them. That was Dad’s normal life at the time, but it reads like the plot of a thriller now.

We were put up in a tiny two-up two-down. I had to share a room with my five-year-old sister, Susan, and our new sibling Diane, born on 3 April 1967, who was by then a toddler.

Many years later, in 2003, my mum came over to visit me in England and we went to see the house. It was much, much smaller than I’d remembered, but I suppose when you’re a kid, everything seems bigger.

One of my earliest memories, from around that time, is the night of 21 July 1969, when Mum dragged us out of bed to watch the first man walking on the moon. We watched it on our black-and-white telly and I thought it was incredible. It really stuck in my memory.

My education began at the small village school in Fareham when I was four years old. It felt really odd putting on my first uniform, which was a grey outfit that looked like a proper suit, with a little hat. I also carried a school bag that contained black plimsolls for PE.

The first day was awful. There were lots of people everywhere and loads of corridors, and I didn’t like having to hang up my shoes. Everything was too regimented after the relative chaos of home and I felt completely alone. I suppose I must have had an Australian accent, but I don’t remember anyone mentioning it or making an issue of it.

At lunchtimes, the school served hot meals, which I recall because in Australia that doesn’t happen. Mum made us packed lunches on most days, but once a week, at the start of class, we were handed a brown paper lunch bag on which a menu was printed and we had to tick what we wanted. The food then came round at lunchtime in the bag. You could have a cream puff, a hot pie or pasty. I used to love filling out the form and the smell of the cooked pies and pasties was fantastic.

After my father’s training had finished, we went back to Ballarat for a while, where I was sent to Queen Street primary school. The only thing I remember about my time there is my first ever attack of stage fright. I was in a nativity play and I didn’t know what I was doing. I must have been one of the wise men, because I recall that I had to hand someone a present, but I was horribly nervous and I didn’t want to go on. It was a feeling that came back to haunt me on the professional stage – but more on that later.

Every time we had to switch accommodation, we would temporarily stay with my nanna – my mum’s mum – at her big old Edwardian house in Ballarat. One of my very first memories is of an incident that took place there when I was three, before we went to England. I was playing in the front garden with Sue and she ran through the gate, so I followed. It was one of those old-fashioned sprung iron gates and as soon as she’d passed through, my darling sister let go. It swung back and smacked me on the head. While Sue carried on running and disappeared inside the house, I staggered in after her, crying, with blood dripping down my face. I had to have stitches and I still have the scar.

I was comforted by Fluffy, the little kitten that Sue and I had adopted from a neighbour who kept loads of cats. Tragically, only eighteen months after Fluffy had wandered into our lives, she was hit by a car and died. Sue and I had to bury her under the petunias.

Most of my recollections about Nanna’s house are fond ones, however. She kept chickens out the back, which we fed every
day with scraps from the kitchen – vegetable peelings and the like – and the contents of the grain bin. We’d dip into it, scoop up some grain and scatter handfuls of cereal about the chook house for the birds to peck upon. That was so much fun. Then we’d collect the freshly laid eggs for breakfast each morning.

Nanna didn’t have an inside loo, so we had to go to the outhouse. It was really scary, always full of cobwebs, and there was never any lighting. There were holes in the door where the eyes of the wood had come out. Sue and I suspected that people could perv through while you were on the lav, so we stuck toilet paper into the holes. It always smelt really musty because it was right next to the garage, which was full of old hoses and farmyard tools. The garage was a great playground for me, though, because I loved going through all the dusty old machinery and junk.

My grandfather on my mother’s side, whom we called Da – mostly because we couldn’t manage to say ‘Grandpa’ when we were little and the nickname stuck – passed away on 18 December 1970, when I was only five. I remember that we were told he had died and gone to heaven, and was happy. My only other memory of Da is of him pushing us on the swing that he’d made for us in the backyard of the house on Victoria Street.

It was while we were living in Ballarat, after the Fareham posting, that I managed to burn down the kitchen. In my defence, I was only trying to be helpful as Mum was pregnant at the time – but help like that she could have done without!

We had a wood-burning stove, which heated the house and the hot water, and every morning my mum would get up and light the fire. One morning in August 1972, when I was seven, I decided to do it myself. I got up early and beat Mum to it. I’d watched her do it hundreds of times, so I got the fire started without any problem.

Unfortunately, I forgot to close the stove door. The paper I had used for kindling then fell out. There were tea towels hanging nearby, which immediately caught light, and before long the
flames had spread to the cupboard and the curtains. I have never been so scared in my life. I started screaming and ran for Mum, shouting, ‘The kitchen’s on fire!’

The poor woman was seven months pregnant, but she moved as fast as she could in her encumbered state. She raced to the kitchen, went to the fridge, grabbed some cordial and used it to douse the flames.

I was devastated, and plagued by worrying thoughts: ‘What if Dad finds out? What’s going to happen to me?’

Dad was quite strict about things around the house. He would decide when we could have the heater on and when we couldn’t, so I was really frightened about how he might react.

Mum managed to cover up the damage using that awful seventies vinyl that looks like wood. She told me he never found out about the kitchen fire, but I’m sure he knew, because you could see the signs. He never challenged me about it though and I’ve not asked him about it since.

Sue, Diane and I were very excited about the upcoming addition to our family. We all used to dangle Mum’s wedding ring on a length of cotton over her tummy to see if it was a boy or a girl. According to the old wives’ tale, if the ring, when held very still over the bump, begins to spin round in a strong circular motion, it will be a girl; if it swings back and forth like a pendulum, it will be a boy. Just quite how that worked I have no clue, but it was an intrigue that kept us all interested and involved in the birth.

My sister Sue and I were that bit older than Diane and therefore able to appreciate the difference between having a brother or sister. I desperately wanted a brother as I already had two sisters and was surrounded by females. I thought it would be fun to do boy things, even though there would still have been a seven-year age gap, and I envisaged lots more boys’ toys to play with in the house. It wasn’t to be: on 29 October 1972, Mel was born.

Such a fuss was made of her when she arrived home, with the three older kids being told, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that.’ I guess I was a little jealous, but I retreated to my room and managed to keep myself busy by making and painting models, which was an enthusiasm of mine. I would often be found there building things like miniature ships and aeroplanes. I was always crafty – and I don’t mean sly. My parents encouraged me by buying arts and crafts kits for my birthday and Christmas, and I spent hours on the hobby. My aptitude would later prove to be a huge blessing when I was out of work and extremely low on cash.

We soon learned how to feed a baby and change nappies, which were the old terry towelling type with big metal safety pins that clip down and lock the pointed part in place so as not to stab the baby’s skin. And that wasn’t all: we discovered how to test the temperature of bathwater and bathe a baby without drowning her; how to put glycerine on the dummy to stop her crying; the trick of placing her in the baby bouncer to make her laugh and send her to sleep; how to warm up milk and test it on your wrist before feeding her; how to burp her after feeding, and where to place the towel for the inevitable vomit that would land on your shoulder. Mel’s presence turned us into mini parents and it was just as well because when Mum had our final sibling a few years later, our knowledge was an unbelievable help. Sue and I were old hands at it by then.