Page 18 - Demo

Ditching the Guff4The Old PlaceFor Mum, in appreciationThey were the happiest years of her marriage,she would say later, spent in a humble hutin scrub outside town at Proper Bay;dirt floors, no electricity or running water.Those happiest years meantthree children born before she knew it,rain-water%u2019s slow trickle into a tank,doled out mean as a miser from dishes to floors,the maximum squeezed from each drop,frozen chunks of rainbow for the ice chest,delivered with tongs, finding one last sliverin the meltdown, ambrosia, savoured slowlyon fiery furnace nights.Those happiest years meanta washing machine worked by handand even nappies pressed with %u2018Mrs Potts%u2019flat irons, heated year-round on the greenand cream Metters No 1, red child-sizedkero lamps with full-sized acrid smell,nights with moving, looming shadowshiding monsters, but only just.