Over Sixty Spring 2022 Digital

18 LIFESTYLE ISSUE 2 | 2022 | OVERSIXTY.COM.AU For nearly 70 years, Blue Care’s dedicated team has been working with Queenslanders to design and deliver the care and support you need, empowering you to live life your way. That’s why we’re proud to have won the Quality Service Award for Home Care in Queensland. Award-winning care bluecare.org.au ★ ★ ★ 2 0 2 3 • V o t e d b y A u s t r a l i a n s • 2 0 2 3 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 2 t e d t 3 ★ ★ ★ Q l d H o m e C a r e S e r v i c e s Telling stories MARIE GORDON REMINISCE I t hadn’t been an easy year. A second mar- riage for me at the age of 40 meant that my two sons, aged four and 11, had to break in a new dad, while he had to work at the uneasy role of stepfather. There were four personalities, all complete with short fuses, ready to send off sparks in all directions: me the defending mother, he the uncertain father, and the kids wishing they were someplace else. To top it all off, winter came early that year. That was all we needed – a long, cold winter. The greatest consolation was our open fire, a novelty to us all. My husband and I were content to toast bread and marshmallows, or just hold hands and stare into the fire, but the boys soon got bored. They scrapped, he snapped. I stood in the middle, tense, torn between loyalties. And that’s how winter dragged on until one night during a brief pause in hostilities, he asked: ‘Would you like me to read to you?’ We would. We all agreed on that. Quite a large-sized chunk of his attraction was his voice. At full throat it could thunder and roar, or it could hold enough warmth and tenderness to melt my bones. It also had the power tomake the hair on the back of my neck rise in salute. Yes. We wanted him to read. In the glow of the fire we snuggled close, prepared in mind and heart for adventure via Treasure Island . We listened in blissful silence, broken only by occasional gasps of laughter as Long John Silver came alive with his lilting voice and his rich, rolling Rs: ‘Now young Hawkins… you are as smart as paint. I see that when I set my eyes on you.’ And Captain Flint, Long John’s parrot, would squawk: ‘Pieces of eight, piec- es of eight.’ Thefirst night, the expressive, resonant voice went on and on until sleep claimed the boys and missed me by a whisker. The next day my four-year-old said to me, ‘He talked it good.’ Suddenly he’d acquired storyteller status. He‘talkeditgood’everynight,alwaysending on one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s cliff-hang- ers and so engaging our imaginations. It seemed each day served merely as a prologue for the joys to come after dinner – a meal we now sailed throughwithout fights or fuss over untouched food. After we’d eaten we suddenly had two will- ing wiper-uppers who just as happily dived into a bath and pyjamas in order to settle by the fire to find out what Jim Hawkins heard while hiding in the apple barrel, or what was the ‘fresh alarm’ that brought Jim ‘to a stand- still, with a thumping heart.’ He enjoyed it, too. I could tell by the way he settled, wearing a half-grin, book in hand, waiting until we had to beg him to begin. Night after night we lived in the 18th cen- tury with Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver and crazy Ben Gunn. We shuddered at the very mention of the ‘black spot’ or that devil Black Dog and we laughed at Long John’s giving of his ‘affy daffy’. The reading was suspended if he had to work late or attend meetings. I, who until then had been accepted as an okay bedtime storyteller, made no attempt to bridge the gap. I knew when I was outclassed. When the last page had been turned and the final word had been spoken, we heaved deep, regretful sighs. We wanted it to go on and on, but it was over. So too was the cold, bleak winter. The kids, now grown, will never forget that time – the winter of our deep content. The simple act of storytelling had broken through my sons’ defences, leading to a trust that eventually extended to the fixing of bikes, the flying of kites and the building of cubby houses. It wasn’t all plain sailing, but after that drawn-out winter spent with Long John Silver, the boys were ready to return to the present: to their new life with a new dad – who definitely showed promise. Contribute an original, unpublished story and, if printed, we’ll pay you cash! See page 9 Photo: Getty Images LIFESTYLE Our first winter as a family couldn’t have got off to a worse start BONUS SECTION WIN!