My father part one.

Hello all,

I'm trying NOT to transcribe at the moment and a post I answered on an internet forum has prompted me to write about this person, my father.

My mother and father met in Darwin in the early 1970's. She a divorcee with 4 young children and he a divorcee with 2. They met, fell madly in love and were together. Cyclone Tracy briefly separated them, but they reuinited in Perth. They decided to have a child together some time after that and within a year, I was born. Sounds like a perfect story, right?

Well. Let me fill you in. Apparently there was a lot of fighting, abject poverty (apparently I was clothed in cloth nappies made from towels) and the marriage was anything BUT happy. Regardless they got married when I was around 18 months old, and then broke up when I was 2. Obviously I don't remember any of this.

What do I remember? A man who went to disneyland and brought me back a real Cinderella dress which I wore everyday until it disintergrated, his puppies, jumping on his bed with gay abandon as my now five year old loves to do. I remember his pool (remember this point for later) - just positive happy memories of my Daddy.

At some point in 1981, my mother decided to move back to Darwin and so we left and that was the last time I saw my father until 1998. From 1981 until 1998 - I dreamt, fantasised and hoped that my father would come and rescue me - I clung onto my memory of being taken to Myers and told 'pick anything you want for Christmas Alexis', of the big mexican hat - when the going got tough with my Mother during my teenage phase - I clung to his memory. I had to find him, I had to find him.

And so as I neared my 21st birthday - my Mother and I sat down - and decided to try and find him. We went through every phone book and rang every entry in Australia that had his name - but to no avail. I was upset but tried to pretend it didn't matter - but little did I know that my Mother had put an advertisement in a magazine that was printed in New Zealand and Australia and it was this advertisement that my cousin living in Auckland found. She rang me.

(now the following may read like a hillbilly novel - I swear this is true!! And it is possible you may think less of my breeding ;) )

My cousin had not seen my father since he had left NZ all those years ago (way before my existence) - but she could fill in some family history as I was apparently related to half of Auckland. My paternal grandfather was a Welsh man in the Navy, he met my paternal grandmother in Tonga, married her and took her back to NZ where they had 4 children (the oldest, my father). He then left her and went on to marry another ELEVEN, yes eleven wives all of who were Maori. He had children with each of them, hence the comments about many relatives situated over there.

My cousin and I shared quite a few stories and I planned to try and get over there. My mum was so excited by this, she decided to buy me a ticket to NZ for my 21st. That was around November 1997. In the early months of 1998, my Mum had another brainwave - she was sure my fathers family would still be residing in Perth and so took a chance at ringing a radio station that had talk-back (apparently v.popular over there), she told them the story and they asked to speak to me live on air...! Well, within a week I'd had a phone call from my paternal grandmother who lived in Perth and a phonecall from my Father who was now living in England!!!

I'm going to leave you hanging.. this story is far longer than I first thought. I might come back later and add more to the story.