I was going to do the wet season in Darwin doing diversional therapy for Team Health. But they fired me; so had to come and stay with Dad in Hervey Bay for four months. Which has proven to be an excellent idea. It has been a huge trip down memory lane.
The first fifteen yers of my life was the most brilliant adventure. We took off and became lighthouse keepers when I was three. I did my first year at school by radio.
But there was no future in lighthouse keeping so we moved to Whyalla an industrial port town. There we were poor, not lot of money for lollies. But we had home baked goodies and ginger beer. We had a boat; the Jabberwocky. There were heaps of camping tips and a driving tip all the way up the East Coast on one occasion.
Then Los Angles; better schools, better houses, better shops, better places to eat out. Disney Land, the Space Shuttle. They fixed my hand-eye-coordination and overbite. I turned ten there as was then eagerly anticipating being a teenager in California
But things fell through as they do and we had to move from a nice middle class suburb of California to Alice Springs, I turned thirteen in Alice Springs, and then to Darwin. My whole teen angst period was flavoured with “Everything would be better if I was in Los Angles.”
Doing School Of The Air and living on lighthouses, sailing around the spencer Gulf, California, collecting aluminium cans from the Aborigines across the Tod River in Alice Springs, Darwin, a trip to Bali.
Then things went wrong, I was doing year ten, I was passing everything except maybe PE. I was showing a lot of promise in public speaking. My hobbies were: Dungeons & Dragons, electronics kits, programming computers, making rockets, exploring drains. Half way through year ten my parents sat me down and talked me into dropping out of schools to get a chef’s apprenticeship. Over the next two years I get fired from about eight cook jobs. I had to settle on three years in bakeries. Then working for my Dad as a TV antenna installer. Ten hours a day six – seven days a week. I plea for part time casual while I take courses. But it is made clear this is a completely unreasonable thing to ask for.
I showed an interest in art, theatre and philosophy. But my parents maintain that these things are just for the middle class. “Those things don’t count James.”
I rescue a lot out of the fifteen years of bullying: Madam Vita’s drama class, community radio, Cavanagh Theatre, travel, study, learning to juggle, starting out with the clown. Being diagnosed with repressed clown syndrome by Chantel the Fairy.
The next twenty five years has been overcoming the madness bought on by youth: psychiatric hospitals, The Steps, clinics, rehabs, counselling, church. Seven years of kid’s parties and festivals, twelve years helping run a circus, six years of Christian study. Mum & Dad have been hugely supportive during this period of recovery. Free food and rent, cars, computers, a caravan, bailing me out of trouble I don’t know how many times, administrative support, working The Steps.
I have sanity today as I enter a daunting new stage of my life. Where I can’t call on Mum & Dad for support like I have in the past. Mum is dead and Dad is preparing to die. I have no wife and kids; I was too crazy to sort that out when I was young. But I have sanity and a good life skills. I am in my prime, the best is yet to come. I have another twenty five – thirty years of adventure in me.
Clown Artist Philosopher 