The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Fay Berry 2013 © – Chapter 7 – 1964 – 1965

Christmas 1964 and I was pregnant with my third child. It was a very busy year. Jeff was making charts and working away on studies and preparing for Easter camp in April-May where he was to lead the studies that year.

We had quite a lot to do with Andrew and Stephen Hill that Xmas because Jeff was preparing Bible inserts on the Temple of Ezekiel’s Prophecy Bible. In those days there were no computer programs to make the job easier, and everything had to be done by hand – drawn up and illustrated and prepared for the printer.

One weekend we decided to make a concerted effort to get it completed and Andrew had architectural drawing skills so his services were very valuable. A whole bunch of young people came to our house and stayed the night. They brought sleeping bags and worked until they needed to sleep and we worked through the night in shifts and by the end of the weekend we pretty well had it done. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen feeding the ‘hordes.’ Then before done on the Monday morning a group of us went for a walk along the beach. We watched the sun rise, and walked from West Beach down to the Surf life Savings Club further south along the beach. After all the years, I remember that weekend as a very precious occasion, spent with very good friends doing work that we felt was valuable.

In January 9 1965 The Australian Christadelphian Central Standing Committee sent a letter to the Recorder of the Enfield Ecclesia regarding discussions they were having regarding National Service Training in relation to young brothers and Sunday School Scholars. They advised that they were preparing a letter to go to the Defense Minister reiterating the Christadelphian viewpoint on military service and stating their assumption that the new National Service Act would include the same provision for exemption from call-up of those holding a conscientious objection to military service as was provided in the previous National Service Act. How blessed have we been in this country that we have been able to be able to maintain our conscience on National Service, without maybe being thrown to the lions because of our beliefs.

In 1965 we were still in contact with Ian Leask in South Africa and he used to run a Scripture Study Circle from Durban North in Natal, which he had named “How to Understand the Bible.” Ian wanted Jeff to design advertisements for lodging in the African papers. Ian said that he had been sick recently with a very severe “tummy” disorder. He said it was probably because he had come home from a preaching effort in October in a state of exhaustion and then when he arrived back home, he found he had been made a director of his company and so he had been forced to work exceptionally hard to catch up since then.

I also was still corresponding with Sheila Bailey from Qld. She and her husband Stan were two of the hosts at the 1957 Southport Youth Conference and it was their advice and support that given me the courage to make some important decisions in my life at that time. My Mum and Dad had been up in Qld and had met up with Sheila and it is so sad that her husband Stan has died from cancer.

Up until 1965, Jeff and I were members of Adelaide Ecclesia and looking back, they were such happy years. The ecclesia was small enough to be “intimate” and it felt like I knew everyone in the meeting. Since then ecclesias have multiplied and it is no longer possible to “know everyone.”

There were two very dominant families in the Adelaide ecclesia at the time. There was the Wauchope family and the Mansfield family. The patriarch of the Wauchope family was now Gordon Wauchope and his wife and the Mansfield was “overseen” by James Mansfield Snr and his wife. In the end what developed was really two modes of thinking. The Wauchopes in my present view, personified “Grace,” and the Mansfield’s personified “Law.” Well I know the Mansfield’s would strongly disagree with me on this summation, but looking back, that is how I see it, although I certainly did not see it that way at the time. In those heady days of the early 60s, I was one of the “Law” group and by “Law” I mean that the Mansfield’s through HP Mansfield, emphasized the study of the Bible and we used to call HPM, “verse-by-verse Perce.” On the other hand the Wauchopes, or the “Grace” group were a gentle, loving and kindly group with a lot more wisdom than I ever gave them credit for at the time. Looking back, I would say that if we had all been wise, instead of severing apart as we did, into “The Temple” and “the Suburbs” we should have remained together and have worked to harmonise “Law and Grace” and remained one group, full of love and good works.

Well, that is not what happened, of course. Instead about 80% of the young people (including Jeff and I) followed our Pied Piper, HP Mansfield, out into the suburbs where we formed the “Suburban” Youth Group, and 20% of the Adelaide youth stayed and became simply “the Adelaide Youth Group,” and that is pretty well how it has remained over all these years, pretty well right up to the present day (2017).”

It is only in the latter years of my life that I have really appreciated that those pre-60s years at the Adelaide ecclesia were in actual fact, “the good old days,” the days when there was only one main ecclesia, and a couple of small ones, and I knew and loved everyone and held no animosity towards any of my brothers and sisters. But wisdom take a life-time to filter through and lodge in one’s psyche doesn’t it? I guess that is why God gives us three score years and ten, so our “black and white” view of life has the chance to mellow and become a beautiful “blue,” the color of godliness.)

Well, Jeff and I followed HPM to Woodville and handed in our resignation to the AB of the Adelaide ecclesia, in a rather “accusatory” letter to Peter Hurn, if I rightly remember. Our letter of resignation was accepted by letter on 7th September 1965, and we became members of the Woodville Ecclesia. How different were our lives from that time, out in the “real” world, no longer under the protection of a benevolent and gentle ecclesial environment. My brother Graham will appreciate this. He was baptised when he was, I think, in his early 20s and then went to Sydney to live. After a very checkered career and absence from Christadelphian meetings for a very long time, now at the age of 80, he looks back to those pre-and early 60’s as the best and happiest days of his life in the warmth and loving care of the Adelaide ecclesia and of his family.

For myself, after a lifetime of ups and downs, I love Christadelphia! Yes, it is and always has been flawed, and there may be many other parts of the “body of Christ” in other places that I know nothing of, but this is my part of the body of Christ, and flawed or not I love it, and am grateful that I am a part of it. So I am at the time in my life where “Law and Grace” come together and bless each other. I love “Adelaide” and I love the “Suburbs” and I will visit wherever the word of God is taught and loved.

Well between the years 1960 to 1965 Jeff and I had three of our children and there were the Polio injections and the bouts of asthma and excema. So much of this time is a blur; children and nappies and Easter Camps and birthday parties and costumes and kindergarten and Sunday School. And those nappies! They were not the nappies everyone uses today, disposable and purchased from the supermarket, they were big squares of cloth with vicious pins you had to stick in two corners, trying not to spear your child in the process. They leaked at the corners and never, never retained what they were supposed to retain, and they took up so much space, when you wanted to go anywhere. And I remember the washing machine with its hand rollers to squeeze the water out of those nappies. A horrid, horrid process it was washing those nappies. I can still see myself out on the back lawn with a whole pile of dirty nappies with a garden hose, trying to get the stuff off them so they could be washed. I never was, never have been, and never will be a good “housekeeper” like my mother and grandmother, never! I was always glad that I breastfed all of my children because at least I didn’t have to find room for a bunch of bottles and formula when I wanted to somewhere. Our daughter Debbie, was a very bright, very sharp, but a demanding little girl whose one word was “Why?” Judy was so much easier to handle. She just seemed to follow along in Deb’s footsteps and Jim, well he cried a lot, and with good reason, with two older sisters to tease him, particularly Judy, who from a very early age had an active sense of humor.

John and Verna Martin were good friends, and they were very kind to us. We inherited a lot of their ‘things’ as their children grew up and ours followed on. They gave us their “walker,” an amazing contraption someone had made for them. It had four wheels and a seat hanging on chains with a round circle of metal piping at the top and a narrower one at the baby’s waist level. My children were like lethal weapons when they used the walker. At seven or eight months old, they could run up the passage of our house at the rate of knots, and pity help the older child who got in their way. They would come up behind the unsuspecting older child and the walker would collect said older child at the back of the knees. Older child would collapse into the walker and baby would proceed to pull handfuls of hair out of the back of older child’s head. Pandemonium would follow.

John and Verona also gave us our first car, an old Essex; one of those with a running board and stick gear lever and you had to double declutch when driving. Also, they they loaned us their car to take up to Easter Camp at Glenlock one year when Jeff was leading the studies there. Unfortunately, as time went on, we saw less of them because we attended a different meeting to them.

On the 30th November, 1965, Jack Manser, Des’s and Brian’s and Kay’s (and the rest of he Manser children’s) father, died. Jack used to work for my father and he and his wife Kath were dear friends of mine. They were so loving and kind to me and I will never forget them. I have sat on their big double bed of a Saturday morning with all the kids and we would laugh and chat and giggle and then go out into the dining area and have a wonderful breakfast of “whatever was there.” What that meant was that not being a wealthy family, if there was no “Vegemite,” or “honey,” or some other ingredient for breakfast, then you had “whatever is there.” “Having” or “not having” in those days did not seem to matter much to anybody really.

My brother Graham’s daughter, Sharon Lee O’Connor was born on 23rd February 1965, and our son James Ian Berry was born on 7th June, 1965. Jeff and I were so delighted to have a son and I remember thinking how nice it would be to have one more boy at some time in the future, and then we would have two girls and two boys, the “perfect family.” Well, that didn’t happen, God had other plans for us.

It was around this time that I began sending Debbie to the Kidman Park Kindergarten. Looking back on how Jeff and I were “parenting” our children, I remember that I feel we expected way too much of our eldest daughter. I remember one occasion, well, I actually don’t REMEMBER this occasion, but Debbie told me about it years later and I was very much upset by it. Apparently I was  running late in dropping Debbie off at the kindergarten, so I asked her if I could drop her off at the end of the street and asked her to walk to the kindergarten by herself. To me as an adult, it would have looked like a very short distance, but to Deb as a little girl, it would have seemed a very long way.

Well, Deb tells me I dropped her there and instead of walking to the kindy, she was so afraid being by herself that she went into the front garden of the first house in the street, and crouched down there for ages. Eventually a woman came by and saw her there and asked her what she was doing, and she walked Debbie the short distance to the kindy. When I picked her up after kindy, she was so “ashamed of herself,” (she told me so many years later) that she didn’t tell me what had happened. I still feel so bad when I think about this. How could I have done that? I remember also, that because we didn’t “keep Xmas,” I required that Deb not sing the Christmas carols at the kindy and this too was very painful for Deb, so she told me.  I am so ashamed of these stupid things we forced on Deb in those years because we were so rigid in our beliefs at that time; so much pressure on such a little girl. Well, she survived our “parenting” I am glad to say.

In 1965 we finally paid off the deposit on our “Housing Trust” house and our house mortgage finally came into being. These days, young people seem to start their lives with “everything,” but we certainly didn’t. It took us a long time to get the basics of everything, and with Jeff’s particular “bent,” they were always second hand when we did get them, not that I cared about that. However, I remember that Lydia and Joe Mednyanski purchased their house and then purchased their whole house of furniture on “hire purchase” and so they had everything “nice” from the start. I reckon if we had done that, all our stuff would have been paid off as their’s was, in a few short years, and our buying of sundry non-matching second hand material cost us so much more in the long run.

After Jim was born, when he was about three months old I had photos taken of Debbie, Judy and Jim together by Rembrandt photographers. I am so glad I had these photos taken,because I feel that photos are so important to keep memories bright. These days with mobile phones and such, photos abound, but not in those early years. The photographer had great difficulty taking good photos of both Deb and Judy, but for different reasons. Judy was simply uncooperative, whereas Debbie was too cooperative. It took ages to get Judy to sit still, and Debbie to smile “normally,” and not too widely with her eyes screwed up. It was a real nightmare trying to get good photos. In desperation, the photographer at last, by accident, clicked the camera just at the precise moment when Judy looked absolutely angelic and we got the most beautiful photograph of her, looking  like a little doll. Debbie smiled too widely in most of the photos, but they were “acceptable.’ We would say, “smile Deb,” and Deb would screw her eyes shut and her mouth wide open, not a good combination, but in the end the photos were taken, and they were lovely, and I was grateful.

1965 and John Knowles went to NZ and on his return he presented Jeff with a whole lot of information from the New Zealand Organic composting society and Jeff became obsessed with everything “organic.” In our back yard we built a big compost heap that looked like a volcano and smoked from the top. Whenever I go along the banks of the small stream that runs in front of the Brewery in Adelaide and look at the model of the volcano there, I think of our compost heap back home in those early years.

When I left High School, I had gained my “Leaving Certificate,” at the time this would have been sufficient for me to go onto University, but my Dad would not let me go to University, because “there was no point, because I would get married and would not need a university edcuation.” Well, In 1965, married and with three children, I found out that my “Leaving Certificate” was no longer a passport to University, and that if I ever wanted to go to University, I would need to “matriculate.” There was no way around it, no way at all. These days they make it so easy for adult’s to recommence their educations, but not in those days, I think they did the opposite but none-the-less, I decided I needed to sit for “adult matriculation.”

To get my matriculation I would have to attend classes part time and get subjects such as English, Biology, Ancient History, Modern History and a Language!! And it all had to be done by 1968 and it was now 1965. At the time that I found this out, the Exam for Matriculation English was due in about a fortnight’s time! You didn’t have to attend classes, you could just enroll and sit for the exam. I knew I could not afford to waste a whole year out of the few short years I had before 1968 to get my matriculation, so I simply HAD to sit for and pass English. What was I to do? I had to sit for the exam in a fortnight’s time, surely that was impossible?   How was I ever to do that? I had read none of the prescribed books and none of the poetry books and no plays. How could I pass a matriculation exam at a fortnight’s notice?

Well, I went to see my friend Dianne Schwerdt, She was a lecturer in English at the University of SA. She was my little bridesmaid when I got married. I asked her “Di, how can I pass this exam?” And this is what she told me. She said, “in English every question that will be asked on the prescribed reading material, both the novels and the poetry, will be about ‘themes and methods of expression.’ What you need to do is go to the library and get copies of last year’s exam papers and read them very carefully. Then look at the syllabus for the year and find what are the prescribed books both novels and poetry and plays. Choose one novel and one play and one poet. Then choose a theme that runs through that novel, play and poet. For example, in the book Othello, you could choose the theme “black vs white,” or if you chose the poet as John Donne, then you could use the theme of war that runs through his poems. Then in all of these take a lot of notice of “their methods of expression,” and you can write about those. Then,” and here was her main and most important advice,  “You haven’t got time to read the books and poems and plays, so find some ‘prefaces’ of the books and merge them into one document and learn them off by heart. They will quote from the book or the play or the poet with one or two line extracts from each. Learn these off by heart.  Also for the ‘unseen’ part of the exam, you will need to prepare that and whatever question they ask you will have to make what you have prepared “fit” the question, you will have no other choice or option.

Well, that was my dear friend Di Schwerdt’s advice and I took it. I went home and did my preparation. I prepared a document containing all the necessary information and learned it off by heart, and it WORKED! I was able to sit for the exam and in that exam I not only passed, but got a CREDIT! I even found I had a prepared answer for the ‘unseen’ part of the exam.  There was an option to write a newspaper article about an author, or novel or play or poet that I had studied that year. I wrote a newspaper article on “the reason for the great upsurge of interest in the poet John Donne in the 20th century.”

Passing matriculation English was only the beginning because I still had other subjects I had to study for and sit an exam.

Diary Entries
19640220 Thursday – Letter to Jeff from Ian Leask
Dear Bro Jeff. Your  letter came as a surprise and a pleasure. Many thanks for your careful and detailed reply. I have done very little Scripture Study Circle work this week as I suddenly felt ill on Sunday afternoon last after exhorting in the morning. It hit me in the tummy and I think it is just a matter of exhaustion. I have had some extremely latte nights for months now and it has caught up on me. When I returned from a preaching tour early last October, I found I had been made a Director of my Company. The result has been that I have started earlier and work later each day since that time, but I have not allowed it to encroach on the time I set aside for Scripture Study Circle work. That means I am on the “go” all day until late each night. Apart ffrom an acid tummy, I feel exhausted but hope that it will wear off in time. I have had two early nights in a row and feel a little better.

I think I am well “clued up” in regard to newspaper advertising – choice of page and issue, and position on the page. The Cape Times has a special weekend issue which has an enormous circulation but it brings replies from hundreds of “coloured people” who just want something for nothing and never get anywhere with the teaching we give them. Bro. Mansfield refers to “negroes” and “africans” as “coloured people” so I suppose this must lead you to think I am speaking about Africans of a dark skin. I am not. In this country we have the most insoluble racial problems in the world with Afrricans (who are NOT Negroes – negroes come from West Africa and have little resemblance to the aBantu people who inhabit South Africa). Then there are Indians of many religions – Hindus, Muslim, and so on They are very caste conscious amongst themselves and still follow to a certain extent the practice of “untouchability.” There are also the “coloreds” whom I have mentioned.d They are a mixture of Malays who came to this country in the days of the old Dutch East India Company which was situated at Batavia – now Indonesia), and the indigenous Hottentot who has completely died out. They also have a small admixture of white blood in them. When a writer writes about “the colored people of South Africa,” he gives a broad impression to the rest of the world but a limited applications to every South African. We think he refers to the Malay folk of the cape.
Teaching Plan.

When I first started, I issued what I called the “SL” Group of lectures. These covered the Truth in all its aspects of Doctrine in 13 lectures and broke down established beliefs so quickly that it was too much for most people to take. I then wrote the Revised Lectures which you have been sent. …As the student advances in the Course and comes back for more, we send them copies of the Herald of the Coming Age. When they are very advanced, they get the Logos too. This is a very popular magazine, but I am afraid we shall have to suppress the issue of December, I think it is. In this number, Perce hammered me rather cruelly by misquoting me out of context and using it as an opportunity of slating our Government.  He said my summons by the Special Branch was “an indictment against the Government of the country.” Everyone outside of South Africa will believe that but ALL South Africans, whether for or against the Government will know that Perce was quite wrong. It was an indictment against the Churches in South Africa which are riddled with Communism. All of them have been screened and the Christadelphians (and the Scripture Study Circle inn particular) has come out best of all. Col Willers, the big man in charge, is now a very good friend of mine and has every confidence in Christadelphianism in South Africa. I have been  asked to become a Member of the Organising Committee of an anti-Communistic body recently formed but of      course, I had to decline. God is quite capable of dealing with this menace and will use it for His purpose. God does no require my assistance. If we were to send out that copy of the Logos, it would be a tragedy for we would lose so  many students after having brought them so far. Perce’s article also dealt at length with the integration problem of “colored people” (presumably Negroes) in USA. It had a pro-integration bias although it admitted that segregation was causing terrific tension in USA. All South Africans will know of this trouble in USA and they will also know that the only country in the world which practices “apartheid” is at peace and there is no racial tension (except what the Press falsely writes about). Having drilled my students NOT to bother about politics, it will do us harm to distribute Perce’s’ biased opinion on impressions gathered during a hasty visit. The general impression amongst Christadelphians in this country to that issue has been that Perce, having grown up inn a country which is the most pro-apartheid country in the world and which will not permit any entry of Africans into their country, is hardly in a position to pass comment upon South Africa, or for that matter, America. It is a great pity because many students look forward to their copy and will write and ask where this issue is. How can I answer them is going to be a problem.

It is not the time to advertise now. I prefer to wait until UNO gets busy again with Africans banging tables every time a South African delegate speaks. Then, when Britain votes against her best customer and takes part in a censure of South African affairs while permitting no interference with her own internal affairs, South Africans be more united than ever to resist world pressure but at the same time, they begin to think in terms of Christ’s Coming. The Government is very alive to the dangers which lie ahead of this country since the rest of the world has no knowledge of our problems nor do they have the foggiest idea of solving them. Funnily enough, the most worried people are the educated Africans who dread black rule here. The world cannot see the havoc black rule has caused in other African States but these Africans can and they don’t want a repetition here. They know of the thousands and thousands of African refugee’s who are fleeing from “freedom” in other African states, and news gets around amongst these people, because they are coming HERE.

I agree so much that the time is short. I am one of the few Christadelphians inn South Africa who pays a great deal of attention to the writings of Dr Thomas. Furthermore, I never break down the visitors belief. I build up our own and leave him/her to ask the questions. I figure people have an “attention ratio” so change to a different theme or line every five minutes,” thus holding attention for a longer time.

Durban has grown because the brethren and sisters have worked and I think God gives the increase only when one works. With love to you and yours from my wife Agnes and me.
Your brother in the Lord Jesus,
Ian Leask.

 

19640603 – Letter from Sheila Bailey-
My dear Fay, Loving Greetings – I had hoped that you would have had this letter before your Mum and Dad arrived back from their trip, but so often things do not turn out as we plan them. Just after they left I had to chance to work – quite unexpectedly and up until yesterday I have been very busy. However, I now have a few days off until Monday when I start again. So before then I have several letters to get away – including your very long overdue one.

I was so glad to see your people again Fay and appreciated their spending the time to come out for a short visit. They both looked very well. No doubt by now you have caught up on all the news and they have duly remarked the babies’ progress but then again all too short. We certainly had a feast of fat things that week end. It always seems to revitalizer an ecclesia to have such a speaker, he can speak from personal experience (without being in the least superior) if so many things in the world he has seen that point to the near return of Christ. I think it must be a wonderful and yet a very humbling experience traveling for the truth as he has done. We have all followed his travels by way of the Logos with much interest so that to have him speak personally to us was most satisfying.
Judith and Lindsay have grown so much since you wre here I doubt if you would know them. Lindsay is taller than both Judith and me and grows more like Stan in so many ways for which I am very glad. He is still at High School and his results in the Junior exam at the end of the year will decide whether he goes on to senior or s tarts work. Judith is very happy in her office work for a Wool Broking firm and to my great joy she was immersed in July of last year so that I feel that one part of the job Stan and I started together has been completed and I pray that if Christ tarries Lindsay will make that same decision.
They both lead rather busy lives with various classes and study groups and I find that with my own activities both ecclesial and otherwise there is no time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t say that there are not great moments of loneliness and longing for Stan but the only sane way to over come grief and loneliness is to let the work of the truth fill my life and draw the greatest comfort and hope from that work and our wonderful believe.

Dear Fay, I hope this partly makes up for my long silence and if I delay rather long before answering the letter I hope you will understand that at the moment the typewriter is on one end of the table and Judith’s lovely new one is on the other end and I am able to use in her absence. Thank you for the photos of Debbie and Judith. They look lovely children and believe me I have first hand information that they are. Now if their grandparents think so highly of them, I wonder what their parents thing? Need I wonder? Etc. We have been very happy to have Brother Mansfield in our midst.