Wayne used to live by the railway line and when a train came by the hammers would knock on black domes and lights would alternate from side to side hypnotically flashing a warning as the passenger train to Warranambool came or went. At other times a freight train would come clickety clunking by. They’d go slow because they couldn’t speed through the crossing. A blaring horn would shout a warning before going through and the toot would echo off roof tops and the mount until it faded away to mutter. Sometimes for fun we’d put a twenty cent piece on the tracks and later retrieve it, flat as a proverbial pancake, the queens head mangled out of shape. They always seemed to be long carolling affairs these freight trains- I seem to remember elongated rectangular open top cars with large slots down the side and A.N.R. [Australian National Railways I think] on the side. There were also black oily tankers which seemed to be magnets for dust and grime.

We’d play Cricket out in Wayne’s backyard where I usually scored pretty low and then his mum would call us in for a round of banana sandwhiches and cordial. I loved the way that she sprinkled them with brown sugar so that after you’de bitten through the smiling white ply wood layers of bread you got to a sandpapered filling of mushy banana and corrugations of sugar. The cordial was usually green and probably made us jumpy all afternoon. Time didn’t seem to matter then – in fact there was so much of it that it was a case of trying to invent things to do, hence the interest in the railway, or climbing trees; bring up so high without any fear of falling, invincible we were. Riding bikes from one end of town to the other, hanging out near the aquamarine pool during summer- daring each other to dive off the high board, waiting in line dripping and partially shivering. Swimming from one side of the pool to the other holding our breath, feeling like a furnace was in my lungs as I swam the last ten feet. So hard to do, to stay completely underwater the whole time- resistance, swimming against the tide avoiding other plodding bodies doing laps above.