A Fleeting Diversion

Kylie and I don’t have kids. No specific reason, but there are a number of factors that have led to this state of child-free bliss. Not least of which is the immense size of my head when I was a baby. Kylie shudders at the mere thought of giving birth to something that garganutan. If we do have kids, something that might cause a bit of disagreement is how free range they’ll be. I have a feeling that I’ll be a little more laid back than Kylie. In the same way that the ocean’s a little more damp than the desert.

Writing The Great Cricket Swindle has sent me on a path of nostalgia, thinking about other childhood hijinks. Today’s going to be all about Lionel and his farm.

Lionel was an eccentric old farmer, who’d appear at the local school fete to give tractor rides on the oval. Everyone knew who Lionel was, but outside of those fete days, you never really saw or heard much of him.  

For a while when I was around 8 or 9, I spent quite a bit of time hanging out with the Luskin Way kids, particularly Jon Tompson. Jon’s house, on the northern side of Luskin Way, backed up against Lionel’s farm. We’d quite often jump the fence and go and run around in the mud. We’d stand at the edge of the pig pen, taunting Doris* until Lionel came out and yelled at us. And of course, Lionel would put us to work – feeding animals, spraying nisects - all while we were thinking we were just goofing off on the farm.

Some mornings, if I’d slept over at Jon’s, we’d jump the fence and go and make ourselves at home for breakfast with Lionel. One day Jon dared me to run in through Lionel’s front door and out the back, grabbing a slice of toast on my way through. After that, we didn’t go to Lionel’s much. He probably had some words to Jon’s mum.

I’ve just been looking at Google Earth to get my bearings and make sure I had the street name right. Sadly, Lionel’s farm is now just another block of houses. I really shouldn’t be surprised. Even at the time, the cynic in me noticed how the newly constructed part of what is now Bimbadeen Close came to an abrupt end at Lionel’s fence. As though the developers were just waiting for him to drop off the perch.

View Lionel’s Farm in a larger map

But back to the point of the post. Let’s look back at the facts:

• Eccentric, reclusive old guy
• Lives alone on a suburban farm
• Allows kids to come over and play

If there was someone like this in your suburb now, would you let your kids go near him? Or would that be the street you wouldn’t let them walk down? If we ever have kids, I want them to be free range kids. I want them to be able to ride their bikes around the neighbourhood, to walk themselves home from school and go to the park on their own. I want them to leave the house in the morning and spend a day having adventures, only reappearing when the sun’s going down.

It makes me sad to admit that letting them hang out with somebody like Lionel is probably where I’d draw the line. But I’m glad that my parents, and those of my friends, didn’t.

*The pig’s name probably wasn’t Doris. Blame A Country Practice for hardwiring the association Pig = Doris into my head.

It was the summer of 1984. I’d just been to watch my brother Luke play cricket at Liles Oval in Redhead.

No nine year old is going to sit still for 3 hours and watch a game of under-12′s cricket, so me, my other brother Ben and some of the other siblings had our own match up against the toilet block wall. We were right into it, especially when bowling – rubbing the ball on our pants to get that red stain, just like Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson did.

On the way home from the game, mum and dad dropped me off at my friend Richard Hudson’s house. I’m not sure why, and to this day I don’t know who it was, but Richard had another friend there. It may have been someone from his baseball team. Let’s call him Babe Ruth. Some might say not much has changed, but at the time, I wasn’t particularly comfortable around new people. Combine that with the natural conclusion that Babe was muscling in on my friendship with Richard and you might be able to understand the reason for what happened next.

Richard noticed the red stain on the front of my shorts. He looked quizzically and asked “are you playing cricket this year?”. There was no way I was going to say “no, we were just playing on the sidelines and rubbing the ball on our shorts”. That would just look silly and childish, and knock me down a peg against the more athletic, genuine sports player Babe Ruth. So of course, I answered “yes”.

“Who for”, he asked.

“Redhead. Under-9′s”

“Who’s your coach?”

“One of the kids’ dad, Mr Thirkettle.” (This was a brilliant piece of on-the-feet thinking – Thirkettle was the surname of a kid in Luke’s soccer team.)

“Who’s the captain?”

“Me.” <backpedal> “Well, we take it in turns, it was me this week.”

“I should come and watch you play one week.”

“No, Mr Thirkettle doesn’t really like anyone other than family coming along. It’s too distracting.”

I’d gotten away with it. But what I didn’t think about was that a cricket season extends over a couple of months. This lie would have to last.

Around the same time, I’d started taking piano lessons every Tuesday afternoon. This meant that I could no longer come over and play after school on Tuesdays.  Cricket’s way less gay than playing piano, so as far as anyone in my class knew, I had cricket training on Tuesdays.

Just like the Brady kids’ house of cards, this whole sham came tumbling down a few weeks later. Unlike the events that fateful day at 4222 Clinton Way, it wasn’t our lovable, scruffy dog Tiger who brought it all crashing down. It was my younger brother Ben. Adam Hitchcock came riding past while Ben and I were in the front yard one Tuesday afternoon. He asked if I wanted to come for a ride, and just as I was about to say “Can’t, got cricket training”, Ben piped up with “nah, he’s got piano practice”.

I took Hitchy aside and spilled the beans, asking him to keep it quiet. But the cat was well and truly out of the bag. By recess time the next day, everyone knew about the budding pianist-slash-liar in their class.

Thinking back, there were surprisingly few repercussions. I wasn’t teased for playing piano (anymore than I was for my glasses and my duck-like running style), and the whole cricket sham barely got a mention. Within 9  months, I was using my musical talents to accompany the school choir on xylophone, proud (or at least less ashamed) of my undeniable geekiness.

Two years later and I was at a new school. I even joined the senior boys cricket team.