Episode 13 - SVW Tapes - 20th June, 1981

...That was until birthday. We've actually had the party. We had Rachael's party last Saturday. She had a pool party, of course, and lots of fun. And we've just got back, it's about 11:30, we've just got back from the first of the Chastain Park summer pop concerts with the symphony. And Rachael is armed with her autograph book and now has the autograph of Dottie West. And in case you don't know who she is, she sings with Kenny Rogers quite a lot, she has done, and she's one of the big top country and western singers. She's quite flat-chested compared with Dolly. She said, in case... she said, "My name's Dottie, not Dolly, and just remember I'm the redhead one." And somebody screamed out something about her size, and she said, "Yeah, I think Dolly's about 5'8"... or maybe when she's lying down."Anyway, Rachael... I think she said 7'3"... she had a pop song, number one record, which also became the top commercial of the year, and you may know that it's totally lost for everything that's fun, or whatever. And she had made that record. So at the last of the show tonight, all these people were waiting to get into the dressing room, and she followed the police outside. Of course, Rachael has battled past the police. I think she's going to spend the entire summer dodging cops. But she's waiting outside there and with Maitland and John. I gathered up all our junk because, of course, we go armed with ice buckets and goodness knows what. The background music tonight is all our fans going at full blast, hell! And anyway, the cop said to them, "Oh, you with coach?" And they said, "Oh well, no." The guy said, "Oh well, it doesn't matter," and he let them on through. Anyway, they got to talk to her for quite a while. John told her that when... back don't come back? Rachael said Danny told her that he played baseball or softball with Kenny Rogers in 19... and Maitland said, "I don't believe that! Played ball with Kenny Rogers?" And he said, "I don't think..." Dad said that? Sure enough, I said... I got him. I said, "Rachael claims you said you played baseball with Kenny Rogers?" And he said... he sure... Kenny Rogers was Kenny Rogers in the first... years ago. But of course, he's very famous now, and he was doing all right then, but not so well years now. And they came to New Zealand and too... they'd be... organised a softball game, which apparently John played in. She told him about... who called her today apparently from China, on holiday.

So that was the first of the concerts. We're going to how many this year? We've finally got season tickets for the children, both Fridays and Wednesday nights, or both. Wednesday... here it is Tuesday night tonight, but there was one Tuesday night concert, all the others, with the other seven, will be on Wednesdays and Fridays. And there's a list a mile long, I'll send you the list. But a few of them are George Shearing, Chet Atkins, Billy Eckstine, Stephane Grappelli, Steve Allen, Ella Fitzgerald again, which the kids are looking forward to, the Manhattan Transfer, Judy Collins, Mel Tormé, and the Fifth Dimension, Richard Hayman, and Nancy Wilson, just some of the concerts that will be on this year. So it should be good. The weather there tonight was, of course, as always, fine, but it's the humidity that, of course, gets to you. But tonight it was really not too bad at all. So hopefully it will continue that well. I don't know. We took a swim about 7:00, and we ate about 8 o'clock, and then we just went off to the show at 9:00. And by then, you know, the sun's gone down. You can... we probably won't take our dinner the other... this year because the kids want to eat before 9:00, and it's alright if you eat at nine, but if you go at seven and sort of have your meal beforehand, it's so hot. Anyway, so that's the beginning of that.

We're, of course, are in the summer holidays now, our first two days into the summer holidays. And the last week of school was just Bedlam. I just didn't know how we were going to get through the week. It seemed to be a mass of parties and field day. We had to choose them because we'd been to Cumberland Island and St. Simons the weekend before. So it was a very busy time. I suppose if I should go really back to... I got your tape yesterday, too, by the way. Thanks so much. It was very nice to receive that. And this may well be the last tape you get before you go to Australia. And if you let me have the address, well, I'll just send on mail there. And then I'll tell you when I'm sending the last letter so that you know that you've had it. Send the other stuff back.

It was really interesting to hear about the police training college. It must be just gigantic. And you know, real good to hear that it was all in operation and all that stuff. Although, but it sounds like almost... the police aren't leaving their jobs, I guess because... of the radical economy? They are tending to stick with it? You're not training so many, or whatever. Anyway, let's go back to Cumberland Island. We left on the Thursday... well, of course, we left on the Thursday after we had done Tom Sawyer. I was in no mood to really be thinking about getting away to Cumberland because I was still trying to get us all organized and dressed and everything for Tom Sawyer, which I went to see before I left, of course. We had to have all the photographs taken, and Miss First repeated everything after all the parents had gone to get photos of the kids for the newspaper and goodness knows what. And we did our bit, and it all went off real well. It was actually very well done, and the kids enjoyed it, and they did a real good job of it. And lots of parents turned up to see it.

So, we left about... Thursday midday. Well, of course, in the meantime... I didn't even think about it till we should have almost got to St. Simons, but I had left my bathing suit behind. Well, thank you again, Susie! Finally get to the beach, and you haven't got a bathing suit. And you know St. Simons and Sea Island... I was not about to buy a bathing suit there, four times the cost of anywhere else, and have to rush and just sort of buy whatever they had anyway. So one night, it was funny, it was becoming so hilarious, the fact that I had no bathing suit, I had to go in and get one. But I'll explain a little.

We drove down. It took... we were the first car there because we didn't stop at all. Most of the cars stopped quite a few times for candy and Coke and God knows what. You know, these kids... unbelievable how much Coke and junk they drank. And some kids were sent off, you know, with 40 bucks to spend on absolutely nothing. And so we got there about 5:15. We left at midday, so it took us about five and a quarter hours straight driving, we didn't stop at all. And the last car got there at 6:00. Well, we stayed at the Methodist retreat called Epworth by the Sea, which is really very nice, and it can cater for probably 800 people in a weekend. It has a large cafeteria. The meal was $7.50 and $6.00, which was really good for the kids at least. It saved them eating quite as much junk as they might have, except that, of course, there were machines everywhere, and these kids have money, they... something... they were going out fishing and stuffing themselves with food and Coke. I mean, we had girls waking up in the morning with candy in their hair and goodness knows what. Well, I was probably very fortunate on the way down to probably had the smallest car, so that meant that I didn't really get to take too many. But you know, some of these people with the Great Lake American station wagons... although Meredith did restrict them to five to a car, you know, but some of those American station wagons, because they had the seat... two back seats and then another backseat where to the back that turns the other way, they can take when we're on field trips... take anything up to 14-16 children without a lot of trouble. But you know, it always worries me that if they should have a prang, it would be a major catastrophe anyway.

So we get down there, and that night we swam, and then we had ghost stories. Meredith read ghost stories of St. Simons. As it happened, they always have ghost stories on these trips. And Father Bob was with us this year, which was a load of fun, and he sang us songs. We had one about Jesus that he sang to 'The Last Post', which we all joined hands to sing each night. And he was really fun. Well, we all tried to get to bed early. The girls just could not sleep. I mean, it was like chain reaction. With three chaperones in our cabin and, I guess, about 10 or 15 girls... well, you know, one would giggle, the others would all giggle. Then they start passing Jolly Rogers, which is a candy... no, Jolly Ranchers, I believe. Calling the wrong thing. So anyway, they finally went to sleep at half past twelve, one o'clock in the morning. And we had roaches in the cabin. They were air-conditioned, which was very nice because it was very hot down there, but of course, it seemed nicer because there was no humidity, and there was the sea breeze. Well, we got up early next morning. I got... I woke up, really funnily enough, I was awake before the girls, waiting for the first little chitter-chatter, which sure enough, came. And then they were... couldn't control... they couldn't keep quiet until the others were asleep. So I got up and went for a run around the island and had a look at some of the fancy houses. And then when I got back from that, they were all starting to gather and wake, and they... because the moment they wake up, they start playing with electronic toys and all this stuff. And anyway, we went off to breakfast. And that morning, Meredith said that we had to go do our sightseeing. She was pretty good, you know, she insisted that the children do a certain amount of sightseeing before they had their little pleasures at the beach. So we did the Christchurch, which I sent you the postcard of, and we did Fort Frederica, Fort Frederica, which was an early British post against the Spanish. And once the Spanish... one of the Spanish wars anyway was over, they abandoned this town and left these poor people that, you know, the shoemaker and the chemist and the doctor and all that stuff. And they really had nothing left once the forces had gone, or whatever they... the battalion or whatever they called them in those days. And finally, the place was taken by fire, but there's still all the remains of the houses there. And there was a car there, by the way. So that was very interesting. And it's out like in the marshes, you know, the marshland is interesting. The more interesting the more you read about it. John brought back a great book when he went down with Graham and them, and I think if you read and understand the marshes, they become much more of a fascinating area. There's a lot to be learned about the marshes, and it's just interesting the way the Indians lived there and the first white men, and it's fascinating in the birds and, you know, the armadillos and all the different animals and that they've got down there. Fascinating. So we did Christchurch, and we did the pier, and we did the lighthouse on the island, and we did this, that, and the other thing. And then about 11 o'clock, the kids wanted to go horse riding. Total disaster. Rachael had said she'd like to go because she, you know, having been to Westminster and everything, where horses... We get there... oh god damn it! This woman was a real army major. She just let them get on the horse in two seconds. She told them whether they could ride or not. The same thing happened with the kids in the afternoon. One in the morning that I was taking were doing an hour-long trip for $7.50 an hour. Kids in the afternoon were doing a $12.50 for two-hour trail. She got them on those horses. She said, "No, she can't go out. She can't go. She can't go out." They're not, you know, riding well enough. Well, that was fine, and I completely appreciated that she needed to have the last words and that after all, it was quite a responsibility. However, she should have just said, "Right, what if you want your money back?" Yeah, that wasn't where it was. No, they stayed in the ring. And she said what? Their money? I mean, we could have got off, whether... still had to pay our money. And they stayed in the ring. How... these damn horses are so damn pathetic! This is supposedly an elite, bloody country club type place in the country. And here were the horses failing to follow one another, cannot do a damn thing. And if the horse in front... you...? The damned horse behind would not move because the other one wasn't moving. Rachael spent the whole hour with her feet up the horse's bum. She was just starting... tears in the end. And the woman... one other girl said to me, "Well, I think I could get Rachael's horse to go." And I was so angry because one of the girls she would not let down, Margaret, had two horses of her own. Now, that kid knew how to ride a horse. Anyway, that was all beside the point. Rachael was going to the other girl, and they were changing horses. She said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "Well, they're going to change horses." And she said, "Oh well, I think your time's up." I said, "It's quarter till 12." I said, "You know, and they got on at like far past eleven." I said, "Their time is not up." You know? The kid peeled off horses a little better, but Rachael sort of into big tears. I think the horse riding is very expensive, and they're all such old nags at places like that where they're public horses. You know, it's understandable. It's like lending your manual drive car to somebody that's never driven, you know, only driven an automatic.

Anyway, so that was that. And then in the afternoon, we went all went there and had lunch for Father Bob and the whole team and all the boys. And there was... and then we went to a very fancy beach in the afternoon, which is called The King and Prince, which is... The King and Prince is a hotel, very fancy hotel. And then we just swam right kind of next to it. And you could swim out in front of it, in fact, it's a public beach. But you know, there's all these fancy umbrellas and everything, and the people were all lying there with their screens and potions, you know, one doesn't seem to be very welcome. So we swam down the beach. I didn't have a swimsuit. So finally, it was so hot, and I wanted to get some sun, I just wore running shorts, and I took... I just had a bra on. Father Bob had to walk, but they were having me on. Father... poor Father Bob couldn't sit down with us because he had to keep walking left and right and up and down the beach because I was sitting there in a bra. Well, he was laughing because I said, "What's the difference between a bra...?" And it was not a see-through bra or anything... "between a bra and a bikini? A few stripes or something?"You know? Anyway, so that afternoon, when we got back from the beach, people got... got a lot of sun that day talking sun and sunburn. And then we went back, took them back to the Epworth by the Sea, and they all went swimming in the pool before dinner. Well, then I shot over into Brunswick, which is the nearest town across the causeways and through the toll bridges and stuff. And I rushed into Sears, was the first shop we see is there... there's no shop to go buy anything really, any clothes. So... but anyway, I managed to pick up a really nice bathing suit, bright turquoise, and everyone just loved it.

Where the next day was the day we went to Cumberland. That night, we all went out to the beach, and we wandered on the shore, and we went right out with the tide. We looked for... oh, what do you get from down there? Silver dollars? And we had a lot of fun running along the beach and stuff. And then we all went to the ice cream parlour. Because we were following one another in the car, the first car had no intention of going to the ice cream parlor and drove on back to the camp. And we were all following, see? So we all end up back at the camp, and Meredith jumped out at the stop sign before we get there and says, "Where are you going?" "Down going to the ice cream parlour!" So we all turned around and come back again. When I lost me? They have got there by this stage. And I'm following…