Category Archives: Autobiography

Spiritually Faithless!

Article, Autobiography, Gay Interest, General Interest, , , , ,

First published in “Talkabout” magazine October/November 2007. I make no secret of my intense dislike – an understatement – of organised religion! No singular institution in the history of nankind has had such a stultifying influence on mankind’s collective mind! It has caused more deaths and suffering than all our wars combined, has held back the advancement of civilisation, and is singularly responsible for the hi-jacking of common sense, logic, and free thought! It’s sheer hypocrisy on being incapable of practising what it preaches, and being unable to judge itself so, is staggering in its breadth! Right at this very instant, somewhere in this world, people are being massacred or tortured in the name of religion! This is my perspective!

“Batter my heart, three person’d God…”

John Donne Holy Sonnet XIV

I started watching “The Abbey” on ABC TV on Sunday night. What a time-trip back to when I was 23 and living in an enclosed monastery, following the Rule of St. Benedict, at Leura in the Blue Mountains. How I ended up in a monastery – and eventually left – was quite a journey. One might even say a quest, a search for identity, spirituality and this unfathomable thing called faith. I found the first, still hold onto the second and lost the third along the way.
The quest started when, as a 12-year-old Protestant boy from very Congregational Sylvania, I managed to get into one of the states leading Catholic boarding schools – St Gregory’s Agricultural College in Campbelltown. They had filled their Catholic places at the school, and were willing to take Protestants. I lucked in. I have to admit that I loved going to school there, though with most of the boys being from country regions I didn’t make any life-long friends. I learnt to really loathe sport – Marist Brothers and their bloody sports – which I had just disliked up until that time. Also had a fleeting homosexual encounter with another boy…in speedos…in the pool. 

However, it was the Catholic religion that overwhelmed me. It wasn’t just one aspect of Catholicism, it was the whole shebang! The beauty of its rituals; the whole mystery of the mass; the adoration of Mary and the saints; the dogma and theology; and the people who devoted themselves to enacting and teaching these beliefs. As someone who had come from the sparse simplicity of protestant services, it took my breath away. So much so that at the end of my first year there I converted, being baptized in the school chapel with my history teacher, Mr Higgins – who, being a chain-smoker , stank of nicotine – and one of the Year 12 boys, Tim Sheen, as my sponsors. Little did I know that the priest who baptized me was, several years later, to be arrested for molesting his altar boys. My appetite for religion, especially the theological aspects of it, was voracious. In 1969 when I finished my final year one of the brothers asked me if I would like to join the Marist Brothers. Despite the faint inklings of a vocation, the Marist order really wasn’t my cup of tea. While at St Greg’s, I had a personal confessor from a Discalced Carmelite monastery at Minto. Through him I had quite a lot of contact with the monastery, including attending vocational seminars. 

I found the contemplative lifestyle much more to my taste, though decided to wait a few years before making any decisions.
In 1976 I contacted a small enclosed monastic community in Leura called the Community of St Thomas Moore, who followed the Benedictine Rule.
The community lived in this rambling old convent originally owned by the Sisters of Charity. It had the monk’s enclosure at one end of this huge ‘H’ design, the chapel, visitors parlors and Prior’s office at the other end, and a huge retreat section in between. The community supported itself by running retreats. As the youngest novice it was my duty to rise at 5am to set up the chapel for morning Office and Mass. I would then go to the common room in the enclosure to start breakfast and set the tables, as well as turning on the heaters to warm the enclosure. At 5.30 I would circle the enclosure with a bell to raise the rest of the community to prayer. Between prayer and work the day went very fast, with grand silence starting at 9pm and going through until after breakfast the next morning. Despite it being a tough life – and don’t for one minute think that these men are uneducated or unaware of what is going on in the world – I loved it. I loved the strong sense of community, the calmness of quiet contemplation in long silences, and the daily rituals of work and the Divine Office that bind communities like these together. The church regards these communities of enclosed religious as ‘powerhouses of prayer’, and there is little doubting that if you are on the inside. 

A very strong visual image of my time there, and one that has always stayed with me, is of being in the kitchen at 5.30 one morning and looking out the window. The monastery was set on the edge of a valley, and it was an icy cold clear morning. Outside the window was a leafless tree covered in frozen water drops glistening in the sun. Beyond it, a mist was rolling up the sides of the valley. It was one of the most profoundly contemplative moments I have ever had in my life. It was as if I was the only one observing this beautiful scene, as if it had been reserved especially for me for some purpose that was yet to be revealed. I can still see it in my minds eye as I write this. Now that’s impact!

However, one of the ‘problems’ with the large periods of introspection and contemplation that is part of the monastic ideal is that you tend to look deeply into yourself. Fears and hidden truths are often revealed. This can either lead one deeper into the religious nature of their community, or alienate you personally from the community. The realisation I came to, the fear I had, the thing that I was running from was that I was gay. Hiding in a monastery is not a healthy thing to do if you are gay – though heaven knows there are enough caught in this situation. Many stay on through fear of who they are. They think that if they work themselves to the bone, and pray hard it will just go away. It doesn’t! It ends in a life of bitterness, recrimination and self-loathing. Many, like me, decided that to really live life without hypocrisy they had to leave the safety of the enclosure and go back into the world. The decision to enter a religious community is difficult enough on its own. 

The decision to leave is even harder. Driving through the gates to go home was quite devastating for me, knowing that I was leaving all peace and tranquility behind me. I hoped to carry it inside myself, but the hectic, tumultuous real world makes it difficult, if not impossible. Another world awaited me.

I still didn’t come out immediately. My family was quite formidable and I knew I would have to choose my time well. In the meantime, I worked for and eventually became manager of Pellegrini & Co Pty Ltd – not familiar with the name? It was a huge Catholic emporium, supplying not just devotional goods such as statues and rosary beads, but furniture, church plate and vestments to all the local churches – firstly in Sydney, then to Melbourne where I came out. By this time my father was dead, my family alienated. Melbourne was a safe space for me. In the way of enforcing contrasts in my life, after I left Pellegrini in the early 80’s. I became manager of a sex shop in Oxford St called ‘Numbers’. It is often joked about that I gave up ‘praying’ for ‘preying’.

I must say that at this stage my faith was going through a shaky period. The fight for gay recognition, rights and anti-discrimination was in full swing, and the Catholic Church was one of the biggest bugbears to these rights. I joined “Acceptance” Gay Catholics in Melbourne, though not initially to fight the good fight, so much as a way to meet people through the shared common ground of religion. It was through “Acceptance” – I eventually became committee secretary, as well as working on several working groups – that I realised just how discrimination could alienate a group of people. We could only go to Mass in one church in Fitzroy, and then only at a certain time of the evening. The Servite Fathers, who were an independent order and not under the auspices of the local Bishop or Archbishop were the only order who could conduct our First Friday Home Masses. At one mass at my unit in West Brunswich confessions were going to be held in my bedroom. I had all this porn attached to the back of the bedroom door – as you do when young and single – and went to considerable trouble to ensure paper was taped over it to hide it. Evidently during one of the confessions the paper suddenly gave way, and priest and confessor were confronted with all these pictures of naked men. I believe the priest didn’t bat an eye, but I have to wonder if there weren’t additional sins for the guy with him to confess. Over this time I just got angrier and angrier at the hypocrisy of it all. Coming from Protestant roots, I still carried a lot of the simpler theology with me, and often found myself arguing against the stupidity and naivety that had crept into the Catholic religion through the centuries, which we were (are?) still living with, and decrying its inability to move forward and fit into a more contemporary era. It gained me quite a few friends, and earned me a few enemies. I got so frustrated that I dropped religion altogether, and have never really found my way back.

I returned to Sydney on the tide of HIV hysteria, and religion for me became even less relevant. Hearing our dear religious brethren, especially those in politics advocating hunting us down and locking us away in quarantine; the way they flaunted the view that this was God’s retribution against the gay community fuelled my increasing hatred for religion. Despite HIV being something that should have initiated reconciliation between my lost faith, and me it just drove a wedge in.. The soul-destroying slaughter of all my friends, lovers and acquaintances over this time didn’t bring me back to faith. However, it did cause me a revaluation of my need for spirituality of some description. The free-form style of the funerals that were going on over this period made me realise that we all practiced ‘faith’ in many different ways, and that having faith wasn’t the same as being spiritual. You could have one without the other. Religion, to just about everyone I knew, was an alien concept with little tie-in to their lives. However, many were searching for spirituality. One friend in particular surprised me by returning to the rudimentaries of faith just before he died. 

He did make me wonder what I would do if faced with the same situation – would I call on a priest and fall back to my Catholic faith; would I contact someone more in tune with the simplicity of my original faith, such as MCC; or would I just continue to refute it all up to the time I died. It is something I still ponder occasionally. 

In my search for spirituality I tried a return to a more primitive religion in Wicca, but found it unsatisfying. I studied the writings of Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn but found it too weird – and scary; the Jewish Kabbalah – real Kabbalah, not Madonna’s version – but found it too deep and complex, and I didn’t feel I had a lifetime to study it in.
So, I guess that in some ways I am still searching. It is not an easy world to find faith or spirituality in. Certain groups in our world have distorted the concepts to such a degree that you wonder what they find in the dry, humourless, destructive force they call religion. Others go on preaching what they don’t practice – and astoundingly never realise the contradiction; intolerance and hatred is rife. The Zen ideal is possibly the closest to pure spirituality that I have found, Buddhism being the one religion that seems to be the reverse of all else that is surrounding us. Like the monastic ideal, you can find peace in contemplation and meditation, something that cuts off the noisy world around us, and causes us to withdraw into ourselves.
Over the years, and before meeting my current partner, I have asked myself what I would do…where I would go…if I found myself old and alone in this world. I thought I would eventually return to a monastery, try to find all that I had lost. There are many who would tell me that faith is easy to find – it is just a pure act of selfless belief, a mere blinkered view to all the external forces that fight against faith; submission to dogma and ritual. I can no longer do that. I question too readily, and demand answers that aren’t esoteric.

So back to “The Abbey”. The five women who have gone into the Abbey to see if they can withstand the rigours of the monastic life are all in need of some form of self-redemption. Despite renunciations and doubts they are all seeking ‘something’. It is easy to see why Sister Hilda is the superior of this monastic community. Full of faith, a sense of humour, immense amounts of understanding and compassion, she is indeed the monastic mother. Just by listening to what these 5 women say, she is, possibly unknown to her, being a counsellor. In five weeks time when these women leave the monastery to go back to their normal lives, they are going to be intrinsically changed – you can see it already. They are going to confront things that they don’t want to confront, and if they allow themselves to just sink into the life of the monastery, to let it surround them and not fight it they are going to come to an understanding of themselves that they never thought possible – and their lives will be forever changed. I know. I’ve been there. Perhaps you can take the boy out of the monastery, but you can’t take the monastery out of the boy!

And as for me…well maybe John Donne and I fight the same demons;
“…I, like an usurpt towne, to’another 

      Labour to’admit you, but Oh, to no end,

      Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,

      But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue,

      Yet dearely’I love you,’and would be loved faine,

      But am betroth’d unto your enemie:

      Divorce mee;’untie, or breake that knot againe,

      Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I

      Except you’enthrall mee, never shall be free,

      Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”

John Donne; Holy Sonnet XIV
Tim Alderman ©October 2007

 

Viral Games!

Article, Autobiography, Gay Interest, Health Information, HIV/AIDS, , , ,

Originally published in “Talkabout”, September 1999.

In May 1999 I had one of the scariest HIV-related experiences I have had since my encounters with CMV in 1996! I literally, for a brief period of time, lost control of my feet. Already having problems with peripheral neuropathy, this just added to the incertainty and conjecture surrounding the causes. Initially, I couldn’t walk a steaight line up a footpath, but staggered from left to right with no control whatsoever. It got so severe that I eventually had to resort to using a walking stick to get around! Cassie Workman was at a loss! Thyroid, cortisol, B12, folate, a CT scan, Gallium scan all done to negative results. It took a further MRI and lumbar puncture test to reveal that at some stage during my transition from one drug combination to another, the virus had crossed the blood/brain barrier and got into my brain! By the time it was discovered, the new combination had kicked in, and problem resolved itself. It was a scare I could have done without, as the symptoms were also indicative of some very serious – and deadly – brain disorders! HIV in those days was good at throwing curve balls!



  The moral to this story is to never brag! I had been telling a work colleague of a rise in my weight to over 70 kgs, a record weight for me, and a record I was damn proud of. Within a few days of this, however, chaos had set in, and the treasured weight was going to have to be fought for.

This bloody virus just never leaves you alone! I stare at the magnetic scan images in my hand, and admire just how sneaky it can be. The pale grey ‘clouds’ that drift over the image of my brain are evidence of its brief visitation, the disorientation and fear it caused, all too recent to be forgotten.


 It started so simply. As I have mentioned in other articles, I returned to work just 18 months ago. My health, including T-cells and viral load, had been excellent for this period of time. I guess I may have become a bit complacent, thinking good health was something I could now take for granted. As has also been mentioned in other articles, I have severe peripheral neuropathy in my feet. It is slowly progressing, and is about half way along my feet. When the staggering started, my immediate thought was that it was just another phase in the progression of the PN. I could not walk a straight line, and when walking up the street, staggered quite visibly from one side of the footpath to the other. At the time this was happening, I mentioned to people that I wasn’t feeling ‘right’, I couldn’t put a finger on what it was, it was just a general feeling that things weren’t as they are supposed to be. I was going through some changes to my combination therapy also at this time, and thought that may have had something to do with it. Well, it did! But not in the way I expected.

The next phase of the illness consisted of a feeling of chronic lethargy. It became an effort not just to get up in the morning, but to get dressed, and to motivate myself to get up the street to get to work. I lost my appetite, and libido. Then I started to drift off to sleep on the bus in the morning, this symptom extending to falling asleep at home as soon as I sat in front of the TV, both these things not being normal for me. It wasn’t until I nodded off to sleep in front of the computer at work that I realised something was going seriously wrong. 

A series of tests was started. I had iron, folate, and B12 tests. They were all normal. I went to Albion St Clinic and had a test for a disease called Addisons (the symptoms for this disease were identical to what I had), and it also came back negative. I went and had Gallium and CT scans, and nothing showed up. By this stage, my walking had deteriorated to such an extent that I was relying on a walking stick to get around. It was thought I may have had bio-chemical depression brought about by returning to work and suddenly finding myself with the prospect of ongoing life, so I was, reluctantly, prescribed anti-depressants. My weight dropped to 58 kgs, and I literally had no appetite at all. My partner and I had up until then a very healthy sex life, and this dropped away (quite rapidly) to nothing. He started to get very concerned, though managing to hide it. Going out anywhere with me, especially with the walking stick, was a long ordeal. The only advantage to it was that I always got a seat on the bus.


My doctor eventually ran out of possible causes for my condition, and made an appointment for me to see a neurologist at St. Vincent’s Clinic. He put me through a long consultation, with a series of tests to check reflexes and responsiveness. During the consult, he asked me to do a number of simple walking steps like heel-to-toe, and I was unable to do them without losing my balance. His diagnosis wasn’t hopeful, telling me that it could have been one of several very nasty diseases, including one called PML (Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy). I don’t actually know what it is, but the look on his face said all that had to be said. There was a possibility of undetected Syphilis infection from years ago, but a test soon cancelled that option out. He wanted me to have a lumbar puncture, but rang me the next day to say I was to have a magnetic scan first, just to see if anything turned up. These scans are more thorough than CT scans, and more likely to show up problems.

If you are claustrophobic, don’t even consider these scans. You have to stick your whole head inside this small cylinder, with ear- plugs in, and foam wedges to hold you steady. The machine itself makes a noise like a pneumatic drill. I took one look at it, and said ‘no way unless you knock me out’. They did!

As mysteriously as all this started, it began to reverse. I returned to the neurologist a week and a half later, he being as surprised as I was to see I was walking again. He had received the scans, and they showed evidence of HIV infection on the brain, quite visible when viewing them.


To say this frightened the shit out of me is an under-statement. I have always been very good with my treatments, and consider myself about 95% compliant, which is pretty good, considering how long I have been popping pills and, at times, the quantity I have had to take. Somehow, the virus had used an opportune moment between combinations to cross the blood/brain barrier. Everyone on combinations take at least one drug to prevent this happening, so it shows you how persistent the virus can be. It doesn’t so much hide as sneak around, looking for opportunities to invade various parts of us that are not so well protected. If I ever thought there was an argument not to take drug holidays, this is it! What damage it could have done to my brain if left unchecked horrifies me, especially the prospect of Dementia. They seem to think that the anti-virals brought it under control, and for my sake I would like to think the same.i

A month after all this and I am back to normal – appetite, energy levels, libido, the whole works. I hope to return to work within the next month. It looks as though I will still have to undergo a lumbar puncture (they’ll have to knock me out for this one, too!), as they want to know what drugs I have become resistant to. Over the period of the illness my viral load did a rise, the first in almost two years. The frightening part is that within one week, it rose from 3000 to 19000. It is now back under control.

I have lived a long time with this virus Almost all my time as an active gay man has been spent as HIV+. I have put up with, and survived, a number of HIV related illnesses. I intend at this time to live a lot longer with it. If drugs and hope are the ways and means I will have to use to follow this intention through, then that is just what I will do.     

Tim Alderman ©2000 (Revised 2017)

An Eye For An Eye – Life After Cytomegalovirus Retinitis (CMV Retinitis).

Article, Autobiography, Gay Interest, General Interest, Health Information, History, HIV/AIDS, , , ,

This article, recently resurrected, was originally written in 2012, as I sat in the loungeroom at Ashgrove (Brisbane) after a panic attack drove me from my bed at 5am. I have revised & reedited the piece to cover the period between then and now. The original was published in “Talkabout” in 2012.


I shouldn’t actually be alive! And if it had been any time other than when it was – 1996 – that would have been the outcome. However, timing and medicine are everything, or so it seemed in that period of huge leaps in HIV care and treatment. As a 42-year-old HIV+ gay man who was admitted to Prince Henry Hospital (now closed) at La Perouse in Sydney, weighing in at 48kg, with chronic CMV retinitis, chronic anemia, chronic candida and 10 CD4’s I guess you could say I wasn’t well, and the truth be known my thoughts were more attuned to the after-life than being given a future. So, blood transfusions happened, heavy dosing of drugs happened (curtesy of my current regimen) and gancyclovir injections into the eyes happened – but perhaps most importantl…the new protease inhibitors happened and in combination with my other drugs created miracles. My severely depleted CD4 count did a small, slow rise, and my 100,000 viral load slowlt dropped to 10,000. Though still very weak and sick, I walked out of Prince Henry a couple of weeks later, then spent the next 18 months getting my health – physical & mental – back on track.

At this stage I could crap on endlessly about all the strategies that I used, the anabolic steroid therapy to treat Wasting Syndrome, the fears and uncertainties, the sheer strength of will needed to reconnect with life, not to mention the huge mental shift that drove my life off into uncharted territory and resulted in the man I am today. Blah, blah, blah!So instead of boring you with all that, I want to concentrate on the one aspect of all this that is still impacting my life today – the CMV retinitis.

Say CMV to most people these days and you will just get a blank look. It is an insidious disease, and one that was greatly feared in the era of rampaging AIDS infections. It is a virus that pretty well everyone has present in their body, but is usually only activated in immune-suppressed people. In its retinitis form it attacks the retina, and can spread to the macula by slowly destroying the cells. It is painless, though can be evidenced by a greying of vision and the appearance of floaters. If untreated it will eventually lead to blindness. By the time it was detected in my eyes a lot of damage had already been done, and I was aggressively treated with intraocular injections of gancyclovir…yes, that does mean injections directly into the eye. What fun! At the time this was going on, they were looking for guinea pigs to trial gancyclovir implants – called Vitrasert implants – in each eye. I volunteered, had two operations to insert them, then found that the 4% chance of developing cataracts turned out to be 100%, so back for another two operations to remove them, and replace the lenses, plus some laser work. The end result of all these operations and expectations for me was that they hadn’t caught it in time in the left eye, and despite a tiny sliver of vision I was effectively blind in that eye. Despite a lot of scar tissue, the majority of sight was saved in the right eye at that time.

It takes ages to adapt to changed vision, especially when one eye is effectively blind, so over the next 12 months I became accustomed to having accidents, including several falls thanks to tree roots bulging through pavements and bus seats that were just out of sight range. It gets to a point where you no longer get embarrassed. Both eyes appeared to stabilise, I adjusted to the changed vision and in some respects life went on. Apart from the falling over, other negative issues included an avoidance of crowds and busy places, and 3-D cinema was a total waste of time. You do adapt strategies, but it is not yourself that you need to worry about, but other people. There have been a number of occasions where I thought a tee-shirt emblazoned with the words “Vision-Impaired Person” would have been handy.

Vitrasert Implant (https://www.retinalphysician.com/issues/2014/september-2014/coding-q-amp;a)
It was 2008 before I had any further problems, and that was with my blind eye. It developed what I thought was a grain-of-sand-in-the-eye irritation, so off to the ophthalmologist at RPA hospital, who then passed me onto the Sydney Eye Hospital. When specialists start passing you on to other baffled looking specialists you know you have a problem! Evidently the blind eye didn’t realise it was blind, and decided to start creating a new system of blood supply to the eye, which in turn was in the wrong places as well as increasing the pressure in the eye. There was a new injectable drug around called Avastin which cuts off the blood supply to cancer tumours, and it was decided to inject this into the eye to stop the new blood system developing. So, off for another intraocular injection. It did the job, but I was also told that the interior of the eye was collapsing, and that in time it would change colour. Oh joy of joys. Over the next 18 months it changed from a normal looking eye that just had no vision to this oddly coloured eye which made many people think I had two different coloured eyes (a genetic variance). And this is how it still looked until 2014.

However, this is good old HIV we are dealing with here, and it doesn’t like being ignored. Just as you think the worst of your problems are over it throws another bit of shit at you. I had been told previously that with the amount of scar tissue present in my good eye that there was a real chance of the retina detaching. So, shortly after moving to Brisbane, when the good eye started swapping between clear and blurred vision and finally settling on blurred, I knew something was wrong. A visit to A&E (on ANZAC day 2012) resulted in no clear result, so off to the RBH Eye Clinic the following day. The retina was off, and floating around, and there was a scare, with them thinking the CMV had reactivated…hard to believe seeing as I wasn’t immune suppressed, had a high CD4 count and an undetectable viral load – and another scare when they realised that I had highly toxic implants in my eyes (though long inactive, as they discovered). Instead of collecting some eye drops and toddling back home as I expected, I was put straight into a ward, and within 24 hours was in the operating theatre. A bad recovery room experience with an Asian Nurse Ratchet, whereby they weren’t informed that I was blind in my left eye, and leaving me to come-to in total blackness, occasioning a major panic attack is something I could have done without. The ongoing problems of anxiety and panic attacks (and this article being written at 5am) is something I am slowly getting over thanks to counselling and a letter to RBH formally requesting they look at the procedures and communication in the recovery room. My vision is now officially classified as blind. Glasses help a bit, but it is now a matter of me adapting to a low-vision life and devising some new strategies to deal with it. I can still read, though the font is huge, obviously I can still write though currently using huge fonts to do it. In 2013 I attended Southbank Institute of Technology to do the Certificate III in Fitness. I am not only the first 59yo to do the Certificate…I am the first severely vision-impaired person to do it. Threw TAFE into a panic, as they had to develop strategies to deal with me, and make sure tutors were on-board and up to speed. As much as I loved the experience, and the youngsters around me were absolutely wonderful, I came to realise that I was way too slow at moving around a gym to be a PT, so went no further. Atthe same time, I had done white cane training, and though finding the canes handy in certain circumstances – like whacking my way through the city – it is, as a general rule, more a hindrance than a help. However, it is great for getting seats on public transport!

In early 2015, after ongoing problems with my blind eye, and not wanting to go on infinitum with drops, I opted to have my blind eye removed. Unlike the old days, they now put an artificial ball into the socket, and attach the muscles to it, so it moves like a real eye. I had a prosthetic fitted, and to date no one has detected that it’s artificial.
However, my vision in general is now very severely impaired. Every trip outside my front door is a potential suicide mission – not to nention ducking and weaving around two Jack Russell Terriers at home…but I still challenge the risks, and get out and about under my own steam as often as possible. If anyone wants to date me…I’m a high maintenance date these days. Being night blind, I need to be guided around, and I move very slowly and cautiously. However, it has been pointed out to me that I can still spot a hot butt from some distance away! Some Gay traits over-ride everything!

As for the future… who knows. I am trying to develop the “living in the moment” way of my dogs by just taking each day as it comes. I have had a lot of help and support, and despite whatever may happen that will always be there.


As they say, there are none so blind as those who will not see! I still walk my dogs every morning, I still read & write, still do my genealogy and my DJ mixes, go to gym, do the shopping, get around to local restaurants and cafes so I can’t complain. Life should always be an empowering experience, and the best way to achieve that is to own your disabilities – instead of letting both HIV and disabilities rule your life…YOU rule your HIV and disabilities! That is the road to freedom!


Tim Alderman.

Copyright 2012 © (Revised 2017)

On Being A Black Sheep!

Article, Autobiography, General Interest, , , ,

“Regrets? I’ve had a few! But then again…too few to mention! I did what I had to do, and saw it through without exemption…but more, much more than this – I did it my way!”

“In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family.”

I never planned to be the black sheep of my family. Perhaps genes had something to do with it; perhaps environment; or we can poke a finger at the times we grow up in – all are likely causes! But sure as hell, life experience, that need to survive (stronger in some of us than others, I’ve noticed) is a very definite cause.
I’m not the first in my family. My Great Grand Uncle, George Rickinson Swan Pickhills, was another. For the times he grew up in (the mid-1800s up), he was not a conformist. Outspoken, openly critical of others including governing bodies,  had no tolerance for idiots, and went about things with an actions-speak-louder-than-words attitude that gained him respect amongst his peers, and set him firmly against the establishment. A true role model if ever there was one! My cousin Dianne was also one who bucked the fitting-in trend, and did things her own way. I think she saw aspects of me that no one else in the family noticed. 

Even for someone growing up through the 50s& 60s, I don’t think I ever really conformed. It wasn’t an obvious choice to not fit in, but more like a realisation that if I didn’t stand up for myself, I would always be doing that which I didn’t want to do. Surprisingly, I always seemed to be accepted as an individual, even in a world where individuality was not an accepred norm. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of it, and certainly would have caused the most frustration in my family – oblivious to me, of course – was that I had a definite leaning towards the more creative side of life, rather than a sporting or physically active side. This showed up in various ways in my pre-teen years – I avoided sports for starters, much to my fathers frustration. He tried initially to get me to play soccer – I loathed it, and did everything possible to avoid contact with the ball. After that…tennis – but no, not interested. I managed to avoid sports for the entirety of my school life – no mean feat – by hiding, wagging it with other boys who felt the same, or volunteering for other duties. Truth be told, I didn’t hate sports altogether. My experiences with softball were very positive – but it’s not an Aussie sport, is it! And I loved athletics. I was a fery good runner, triple jumper and high jumper, but no one ever offered athletics as a viable alternative within sports, nor offered any encouragement to be trained in or follow such a path, so it went by the boards. Over the years, I’ve had cause to reflect on that!

I had a furtive imagination, which showed itself in my essay writing, my love of reading science fiction, and my ability to invent games to play at home. I loved nothing more than to be tucked out of sight, in a quiet corner with my hound, devouring a book. In high school, I was active in the choirs, theatrical productions, and writing – successfully, and often  with hilarious results – my own twisted interpretations of Shakespearean classics, performed during parent & teacher occasions at the schools. 

But of all the driving forces that create black sherp, the three singular and most significent events were the ones that had the potential to destroy me, but instead hardened me, radicalised me, and instilled the survival instinct in me. The acquired abilities to see through all the bullshit of others around me; to cut those out of my life who either let me down, or disappointed me; to realise early in my life that I was different to most around me, to embrace the difference, and despite making some very bad decisions along the way, always remaing true to myself; going against the grain, which created its own sets of problems; defying authority – ditto for creating problems; and the ability to live alone, to be able to be a solitary individual yet never let it drown me, has served me well all my life, has given me a tough exterior (and often interior) that has helped ne survive even bigger issues as life has trundled along. 

The first toughening came when, in early 1965, with me at the grand age of eleven, my mother left home. I can’t say I didn’t understand why she left. I was an intuitive child, and had, on occasion, seen and heard things I oerhaps shouldn’t have, and drew my own conclusions on things happening around me. This created, at home, a first taste of independence. Years of watching my mother do things around the house paid off, and with the help of neighbours we scraped by. I learnt not to iron nylon socks. The second thing that happened – bringing Nancy Thompson in as a housekeeper – was a catalyst for the third – the death of my 7 year-old brother, Kevin. Nancy taught me real survival skills, however not enough to prevent my brothers fate. Enough has been written about his death – there is a long article on my blog here “Kevin Pickhills – The Unspoken Name” – for me not to go into it here, however the effects on my life from this catastrophic event were to have repercussions for decades to come. To stand up to Nancy, you had to be tough – she was a bitch of the first degree – and she unintentionally taught me mental toughness – something one really shouldn’t have to learn at 11 going on 12 – and to alienate myself from all that was going on around me. She was the first to publicly acknowledge – in a newspaper –  that there was an “effeminate” side to my nature. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I’d known of it at the time. Perhaps I would have breathed a deep sigh of relief! She taught me survival against all odds!

My relationship with my father – not the best at any time, as I and Kevin had both been bullied by his hair-trigger temper, and the leather strap he weilded in the name of discipline – was fraught with tension, distance and disassociation after Kevin’s death. My final toughening had been invoked, and from that time on, whatever was thrown at me rolled off…at least on the exterior. From that time on, I was at war with my father, his family, and the world. He hated rock music…so I played heavy rock. He told me not to drink…so I drank…to excess. He told me not to smoke…I smoked. He forbade me growing my hair…I grew my hair. He told me to finish school…I left at 4th form. He told me to get a trade…I ended up in retail. Whatever he wanted, I did the opposite. At one stage, he threatened to “knock my block off”…I left home, and never went back. When he committed suicide in 1978 (carbon monoxide poisoning, in his car, in the bushland around Vincentia) I went through the motions of grief, but inside I was glad. Not only had Kevin’s horrendous death been avenged, but I no longer had to fear whatever retribution would have happened by finally fully living my own life. I could publicly acknowledge my sexuality as a gay man, and get on with it! It was exhilerating! 

I don’t know that contracting HIV in 1982 really impacted my life as much as it should have. I have always thought that I had fought tougher battles, and indeed when asked about it in an interview in the late 90s, I stated that despite everything I had been through with HIV and AIDS, the death of my brother had impacted my life more. By this time, I had found ways to be a black sherp in the community. My years of managing a sex shop in Darlinghurst, my forays into “gutter” drag, my taking charge of many aspects of my health care, my defiance at taking drug regimes the way I want to take them, instead of how they should supposedly be taken, my refusal to allow HIV to be a “secret” part of my life, my refusal to see the negatives of a very negative disease, by empowering jyself by not becoming a victim, all pointed me in different directions to what most others were taking. I made one atrempt to return to jy old trade of retail, hut it felt like a step back, a return to a world that I had now left behind. I went to university, I went to TAFE. I started my own husinesses, took my life off into directions that I wanted…and fuck the world, and fuck anyone who thought they could tell me what to do! Even my vision-impairment has pushed me into black sheep territory. I learnt to use a white cane, then refused to use it because it can be as much of a hindrance as a help. I still do things my own way, and despite sometimes being my own worst enemy, at least I feel like an individual. There is not a single thing I do that my father – or mother – would approve of…but then, I’m happy. I don’t know that they ever were!

Back in the late 70s I reconnected with my mother. It was as much a curiosity thing as anything else. She had remarried, and I had a half-sister, with 18 years between us. I didn’t particularly like my step-father, but I didn’t have to live with him, so didn’t much care. With so much water under the bridge, my mother and I had little in common. By the time I reconnected, I was on the verge of coming out (after my fathers death), and by the time I returned from Melbourne in 1982, not only had some friends accidently outed me to her anyway, but I was well and truly an out gay man. She tried the “Oh, it’s all my fault” victimised mother line, but I told her to get over it. In many respects I hever clicked into her family (or her into mine, I have to say). She was hospitalised to have her bladder remived – due to cancer – in late 1997. No one rang to tell me she was in hospital. Being a bit peeved at not being notifued, I rang to enquire why. I was told that there just wasn’t time to ring everyone – though mind you, the rest of the family knew. Made me realise just how far down the pecking order I was in her new family. I rang her in Westmead Hospital on Christmas eve, wished her a happy Christmas – and that was the last time we spoke. She made no attempt to contact me, nor I her. The last I heard she was still alive, and in her 80s. When asked recently if I shouldn’t contact her, being as she possibly won’t be around much longer, and I might have regrets if I didn’t – I replied…no, and I won’t! We all make our own beds!

I’ve lived most of my life on the outer edges of things. I have no regrets about that. If being a black sheep makes me an individual; if it gives me unrestrained freedom to express myself; if it means I don’t quite fit in; that I can just be me – then I luxuriate in it. Life took the 11 year-old child, and bashed (figuratively) and moulded him into the adult I became, and the senior (who still refuses to be what society expects me to be) that I am developing into. Its led me down some dark allies, crossed some roads against the lights, and balanced on the edges of many cliffs – but at all times there was light, safety and balance at the end of it. I have walked in the illustrious company of others who also follow the outer paths of life. It us never the easy road, though perhaps the more satisfying. 

I don’t know that a black sheep can ever be white, or even a shade of grey – but then…perhaps we don’t want to be! 

Tim Alderman (C) 2016

A Ghost of a Business

Article, Autobiography, General Interest, , ,

The original font & graphics for Alderman Providore

The ghosts of my business still survive in cyber-space. Alderman Providore started in 2006 as the next step along from Alderman Catering – a truly exhausting, though exciting business doing top-end party catering. The Providore was designed as an online business – still a very daring and risky step to take in 2006. It was started with $5000 that I begged, borrowed and stole (not really) and was originally a small store on Ebay, created from Ebay templates. 

By the end of 2006, I paid a website designer to create a site for a business, registered the name and domain, used a friend who is a graphic artist to design the typeface and graphic, and aldermanprovidore.com.au hit the internet. I bought gourmet grocery products from all sorts of rare and unique mum ‘n dad, hobby, localised, unknown businesses and created a unique space for their products. The sales started as a small trickle, but grew exponentially over time. David & I introduced product tasting parties, and along with some targeted advertising the business grew and grew. 

At the end of 2008, due to a personal interest in tea and teawares, and due to the rapid expansion of that area, I launched a second web site TeaCoffeeChocolate using the same premise as for the providore, along with a very large range of organic and free-trade products. 

Alderman Providore products in a magazine Christmas gift guide

By this time I had altered the business plan to embrace products from outside Australia IF it was a product that could not be sourced from within Australia. At this time an overhaul of the Alderman Providore site resulted in a fresher, more contemporary look. Magazines started approaching us for both advertising, and to supply products to use as props and in gift guides. Reps from companies contacted me about stocking their products. Sales grew and grew, and we had built a reputation for service, quality, uniqueness, pricing, and product delivery. Ideas were added – and subtracted ,often through being impractical. 

As Christmas 2009 approached, I started early purchasing preparations, and started to stock up on what should gave been our biggest Christmas ever. Like all small retail businesses, I purchased 20% more stock each year, which usually just covered growth, and ensured I wasn’t stuck with stick at the end of the season. If you didn’t get in early, and the product sold out…then bad luck. And the stock rolled in. Cakes, puddings, glacé fruit, sauces, relishes, fruit mince, biscuits and more. I was excited, and pumped for the excitement to come.


Then greed came to town. People who abuse the systems, deal illegally and fraudulently, who use other peoples money to satisfy their own selfish need. They created a monster that came to be known as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Everyone stopped buying. Online purchasing, in a growth phase at that time, was the first to be hit. That Christmas I sold…nothing. Thousands of dollars tied up in stock…and no market. By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, I was effectively broke. Money the business earned was sunk back into it. There was no excess. I remember ringing David, and a pudding supplier in tears, because, thanks to somebody else’s greed my business, my dream, was destroyed.
Early 2010 I put the business, good will, and web sites on the market. It sold to a mum in Brisbane who had an interest in food (but as I was to see…not a passion), and so it changed hands, and eventually a new name. Before we moved from Dulwich Hill to Brisbane, we had a HUGE market in our backyard to clear out the remainder of the stock. Anything left from that went to Vinnies.
So, for some unknown reason, today I searched for the ghost of my business. And it’s still there. A lot more than I expected, in fact. And a story of a past glory came out of it. Who knows what the future holds, as dreams do live on!

http://www.homemadefood.com.au/index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=40&sobi2Id=676&Itemid=73

http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac;jsessionid=A5A960B20A0BA88AA9B4AFAA81406D95?sy=afr&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=1month&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=brs&cls=2353&clsPage=1&docID=SMH1004131I1G64QPB2R

The Alderman Providore masthead

Tim Alderman (C 2016)

Life in Kellett Way, Kings Cross, 1985.

Article, Autobiography, Gay Interest, Humour, , , , ,

A 1985 fluff piece by Adam Carr for “Outrage” magazine. Adam was visiting Sydney to report on Mardi Gras, and was a friend of my boyfriend at that time, Damian Guy. We were living in Kellett Way in The Cross at the time, behind a strip club. He came to visit us for dinner, and the next thing we knew…we were an article! Again, a lot of editorial license is used, and it is quite a funny piece. For the record, there was NO pink in the flat – it is one of my hate colours – and NO mantelpiece of tiny ornaments lol. For the sake of identification, Damian became “Shane” and I became “Tony”. We had no idea he was writing it, and the look on my face when reading it in Outrage, and the dawning on who it was about, must have been priceless.
  

   
Tim Alderman (C)2015

 

Living with HIV – 1987 Style.

Autobiography, Gay Interest, Health Information, History, HIV/AIDS, , , , , , ,

This is an interview on “life” with HIV that I did back in 1987 with “The Bulletin”. When I read it now, I cringe, as it seems so naive. The reporter, whose name I can’t remember now, knew absolutely nothing about HIV…or the gay lifestyle! As you can tell, his grasp of it was no better after talking to us, and editorial license is in full bloom, with distortions, misrepresentations, and fact twisting the order-of-the-day. However, the thinking of the time is evident if you read between the lines. At two years after official testing was introduced, none of us really expected to survive. It was party, party, party! At this time, I had already lost several friends. It was very scary times. Just part of my lived history now.
   
   
Tim Alderman (C) 2015

Exorcising Demons!

Article, Autobiography, biography, Family History, , , , , , ,

I hate my parents! No…perhaps that is a bit strong, having now written it. I dislike my parents…closer to the point, but now a little too soft.. I’m indifferent towards my parents is perhaps closer to the truth. Yes, I choose to ignore them, and in many instances, regret having to admit that they ever existed at all.

Maybe they loved each other, maybe they didn’t. God knows, love wasn’t exactly a subject openly discussed or displayed as my brother, Kevin, and I grew up. It is sad that Kevin had to be the one to pay the price for whatever did not exist (https://timalderman.com/2012/04/23/kevin-pickhills-the-unspoken-name/) and for what was not discussed, in their relationship. Did we have a happy childhood? In truth, I would have to say yes, though I’m aware that having said that, it is only myself that I speak for. Kevin may have been of another opinion, though, of course, we will never know if that is so.. He has been in his grave for the last 49 years, but I can assume that he would agree with me on that one point – a happy childhood.

It wasn’t difficult to have a happy childhood in the 50’s, and early 60’s. In fact, it appeared that childhood was destined to be that way, almost as if preordained. The weather was perfect – though there are those who say that idyllic weather is part of a co-joined memory of everyone’s childhood – we had perfect neighbour’s, perfect house, perfect pets, and apart from the fact that this is Australia we are talking about, it could almost have been a real-life episode of ‘Father Knows Best’. I was given reasonably free rein to roam Sylvania with my mates, and my dog, Trixie. Kevin in those days was a bit of a millstone around an older brothers neck, but who did not see younger siblings in that light? A necessary evil, in fact.

My childhood, like most who lived through those times was, in many respects, an urban myth. Up until the end of the first decade of our lives, the Easter bunny still delivered Easter eggs, the tooth fairy still left money for dearly departed teeth, and Santa stll came on Christmas Eve to deliver pre-ordered gifts. The only swear word I knew was ‘bloody’ – and had my backside beaten for using it – girls were definitely yucky; and when a school pal whispered into my ear one day about what I actually had to do to a girl to get her pregnant, I screamed, threw my hands in the air and ran!. Nobody would ever do anything that disgusting! Perhaps an inkling of my future lifestyle there! Anyway, I had watched a movie on television by this time, and had it on full authority – in my own mind – that women got pregnant by being kissed, which is why I went out of my way to avoid those situations.

Was it obvious that my mother was unhappy, and planned to desert our happy home? I wouldn’t say it was obvious, but I certainly knew that something wasn’t right. When I got home from school the afternoon she left, and found her gone, I can’t say I was really surprised. In later years, when I was temporarily reunited with her after my fathers suicide, she confided to me that she knew my father was having an affair.. I was more concerned with the issue of her leaving us with a father who was to prove mentally unstable. She claimed that when she left, she had no idea where she was going, or what she was going to do. She couldn’t have managed dragging two young children along with her. I accepted that explanation though must admit to never being entirely happy with it.

That my father was unfaithful to her, I never doubted. Within a fortnight of her leaving, a housekeeper named Nancy was suddenly introduced into the home. It wasn’t that she was identified as ‘housekeeper’ so much as the fact that she knew a little bit too much about us, was a little too familiar with the house. Add to this the fact that she spent the first night on the divan on the back verandah, then suddenly moved into the master bedroom – on my mother’s side of the bed – and even a twelve-year-old doesn’t have problems doing the math. Kevin and I hated her from day one. She was trying to act like a mother, but she knew she wasn’t, so discipline was a problem from the beginning. I hated her because she wouldn’t take orders – well, not from me at any rate. As far as I was concerned, housekeepers took orders. That was something else I learnt from television, and it also proved to be a lie.

For my poor brother, life became an absolute misery. You have to remember that these were still days of witchcraft, and ignorance. If my brother had lived another ten years, he would inevitably have been diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). However, in a time of witchcraft, his chronic disobedience, his problems with learning, and his hyperactivity were considered to by symptomatic of mental deficiency, and that was exactly how Nancy treated him – as someone who wasn’t ‘all there’. I had no problems with him, he was my brother, and pain in the neck or not, I had the patience of a saint with him, teaching him language, and reciting nursery rhymes to him until he knew them verbatim. He spoke what my parents referred to as ‘double Dutch’, and even though they had trouble understanding a single thing he said, I was always there to translate. I could never work out why they could never understand him! He spoke quite clearly, as far as I was concerned. But Nancy wasn’t even liberal enough to want him to have a translator. She just wanted him out. She was about to get her way.

Nag! Nag! Nag! God, if Nancy could do anything, she could nag. Some women are just born to it, and she was one of them. She treated Kevin and I like criminals and outcasts. We were watched 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and nothing crept by her – believe me, I tried. But worse than dobbing on me to my father for my occasional raids on the sacred biscuit tin, worse than alienating us from our friends and neighbours – you wouldn’t believe how many people she poisoned my father against, or in turn poisoned them against us – was that she picked on Kevin. I couldn’t protect or defend him from her. She was like an unrelenting demon from hell. If he looked at her the wrong way, if he spoke to loudly, played when she wanted him to sleep, spoke when she wanted him to be silent, she was on his case. And she made sure the old man knew all about it when he got home from work – and that was ever the threat. Finally he cracked, just caved in to what she wanted.

Fuck, he was a weak man! I think that shits me more than anything. He sprouted all the morality and principles on God’s earth, but when it came down to brass tacks, he just gave in to whatever was easiest. I could never believe that just getting rid of Nancy never seemed to be an option. Fuck knows, nobody else would have put up with her. Compared to my mother, she lived a life of royalty. I have tried to work out over the years how she
managed to stretch the money my old man gave her to do things that mum never seemed able to manage. The only conclusions I can come to are that he either gave her a hell of a lot more money than mum ever saw, or she had an income outside of what she earned housekeeping for us. It is a question that will never be answered now. Christ, she even moved her son into the house, who in turn became Demon from Hell #2. My old man even did up a car for him, and moved him into my brothers bed, which heaven knows he had no need for, being dead at this time. Which I guess brings us to Nancy’s revenge, and what was to be her downfall.

That Kevin would never have gone over The Gap at Watsons Bay, on that fateful 16 December 1965 night if Nancy had not come along is not even a debatable point. It would not have happened. Full stop! Even my mother suffered unaccountable guilt over my fathers actions, beating herself up over leaving home, leaving us in such volatile predicaments. Did Nancy herself ever feel guilt over what happened? In my observations…no! To her, a problem had been removed and life went on. Her alienation of people we knew now carried over to visiting sympathisers, close family, the media! She closed ranks, and not because it protected anyone, but because it was a further extension of her power. My curiosity at trying to come to terms with what had happened, trying to comprehend the sheer personal magnitude of it, was met with icy emotion, steel resolve that nothing and nobody was going to offer me any enrapturing arms, or sympathetic tears.

While all this turmoil went on, several other events occurred – I was, at no time, informed about what was going on with my father! I was kept completely in the dark, and apart from what I have been able to glean from press reports at the time, I am still in the dark about. I wasn’t even notified of his court cases! There was an attempt by my mother to take me back, which happened with such sudden and unexpected ferocity that it had the opposite effect on me to what it should have had…it scared the life out of me, and sent me bolting to a neighbours home for protection. And there was a custody battle between my mother and father, accompanied by threats – truly – from my fathers sisters on what I was to say to the judge to ensure my father – certainly not my parent of choice – retained custody. Nobody gave a flying fuck about what I wanted…it was all about spite, vindictiveness and control! Being a 12 year-old in the 60s was not to have any rights. You just did what you were told!

As for my fathers brief incarceration, there was one visit, and I was “encouraged” to write regularly, whether I wanted to or not.  Upon his release, Nancy stage managed his coming home to be a scene out of “Leave It To Beaver”, complete with me running up the road and into his loving arms! It was done reluctantly, I can assure you. My father and I effectively had no relationship from that time on, and when he committed suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning in 1978, there were no tears shed on my part. After his return, life’s disruptions continued, with the selling of our Melrose Ave home, moving to a shoebox flat in Kogarah – still with Nancy in tow – a name change from Pickhills to Phillips, and me having to change schools, leaving behind everything and everyone I knew. I ended up at a Marist Brothers boarding school in Campbelltown.

Still, there was one consolation – and again, it was unexpected, and came like a bolt from the blue. Dad arrived home at the flat one day, just in time to hear Nancy in one of her vitriolic tirades at me, for having helped myself to a biscuit from the Sacred Biscuit Tin! Now, whether he suspected that this may have been going on, or whether he was surprised to find it going on I will never know. Suffice it to say that, for the only time in our relationship, he stuck up for me, and bundled me into the car and took me to an aunties. I never saw Nancy again! Like ai cared!

My father and I never reconciled over Kevin’s death. Like with most of the unpleasant things that occurred in his life, he just pretended it never happened. Not Nancy, not my father, nor any of his family ever mentioned Kevin’s name again. It would be 35 years later before I felt comfortable, and able, to write about his death, to tell his story. A reconciliation with my mother just after his death likewise proved futile and fruitless. Too kuch water under the bridge by then. I believe she is still alive, and in her 80s. If my stepfathers death is any gauge, I will hear of her death several years after the event. I am not expecting to shed tears over that event, either’!

Tim Alderman (C) 2015

Another Coming Out Story!

Article, Autobiography, biography, Gay Interest, History, , , , ,

“Life’s not worth a damn till you can shout out – I am what I am!”
Gloria Gaynor – I am What I Am

There is nothing worse than being 9 years-old in the 1960s, knowing that you are different to all the other boys around you, and not knowing how or why, or even having a word to describe it. I was just “Different”!

My father had a word for it though..poofter, though I could never quite work out who or what these poofter people were…perhaps from a country I hadn’t heard of…maybe! In the car one day with dad in the passenger seat, and Uncle Peter…a mate of dads…driving. There was a guy walking along the footpath in a pink shirt. My fathers window was quickly opened, and in unison both father and uncle screamed “POOFTER” out the window. On observing the guy through the back seat window…I could see nothing to help me define that word! However, I have a word to describe my father! It came into my vocabulary shortly after that age. Cunt! As you can already see…this was not a family who would facilitate…or appreciate…my coming out as gay!

Now let me see…what qualities singled me out as “Different”; playing with the girls in the school yard for starters. And unlike the boys, they accepted me into their girls clique with no recrimination or name-calling. I was an excellent skip-roper, and picked up the intricacies of French skipping (done with elastic) very quickly. It could have been my playing with dolls, which my mother actually bought for me…secretly of course! Or my penchant for hiding away in quiet corners and reading books…or my total dislike of sports…my keen eye for fashionable ladies wear…my creative science fiction inspired composition (essay) writing… my artistic streak…my perchant for playing “dress up” in my mothers clothes (which perhaps lead to the evolution of my gutter drag persona…Cleo…in the 1980s)…even my over-active imagination all kept me apart from the other boys I knew. At the beach I was attracted to…and stared at…guys in Speedo swimwear. This was the era of nylon Speedo briefs, and the young men hung very nicely out of them, to say the least. Even the nylon briefs with a “modesty panel” across the front did nothing to hide their manly virtues, as the panels tended to ride up, further emphasising their manliness! And I tore adverts for men’s underwear or photos of lifesavers or any other scantily dressed males out of magazines and newspapers. These adverts, for underwear such as Jockey y-fronts, or Bonds horizontal fly s’port briefs showed no real bulges…but I could imagine them, so to me they were erotic (and now my underwear fetish). I imagined a bulge on the lycra-clad comic strips heroes of the time…The Phantom, Superman, and Batman and Robin.

I also had my first orgasm at 9…and that was something I wasn’t prepared for. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I wasn’t even looking at anything that I fancied…just sitting class, gazing out a window. An erection…which I knew nothing about…just happened. Slightly moving backwards and forwards produced this pleasing sensation…and within seconds I blew. Confusion reigned, as it was such an unexpected occasion. I never mentioned it to anyone, though there was a thorough examination of my cock at bath time to make sure everything was okay. It was! I also started growing pubic hair, which I used to pull out as quickly as it appeared as I was embarrassed by its growth. A discreet viewing of the other boys in the change room revealed no hair on them, so this was obviously a freakish thing happening just to me. My parents weren’t great with the birds and the bees stuff! However, it must have clicked with them that something was going on…perhaps a discolouration in my Jockeys…or the fact that I learnt to masturbate by rolling onto my stomach, and rubbing my cock on the sheet until I came, thus unknowingly creating stiff patches on the sheets…may have been a hint that puberty had started. Nothing like a Christian sex pamphlet discreetly left by the bedside to educate you in the dynamics of sex. I was horrified! No wonder I was confused! Thank heaven for my little stash of adverts!

So I guess I just tucked all my “Different” away. After leaving school, and starting work, I hung out with a large group of people, so I came into contact with other gay guys who were included in our group, and as with many other things in my life, I accepted them on face value. However, they were nearly all in the display areas of Grace Brothers (in Roselands shopping centre), and were very effete…something I couldn’t relate to, so I guess it sort of added to the confusion I was already going through. If gay=effete…then I mustn’t be gay. It seemed logical at the time, especially with no other role models to help guide me through the confusion. So I went through the 70s dating girls, though never making sexual advances to them. It wasn’t even something I considered doing. The girls, in turn, loved going out with me because they felt safe, and knew I wouldn’t go in for the quick grope…and I often helped them buy their clothes. Jo was a girl I used to date who was kind of my “beard” (a term used to describe girls who used to act as girlfriends to stop family from asking difficult questions). She was quite a beautiful girl and I think my old man thought she was a potential marriage mate for me. She did try to seduce me one night, but when I fought off her advances…things must have clicked with her.

The next thing I know, she’s taken me out to Oxford Street in Darlinghurst, pointing out all the gay venues to me and taking me to a gay coffee lounge called “Nana’s” in Bourke St (which became a very popular Vietnamese restaurant in the 80s) where I was introduced to the owner, Nana, and his partner Cupcake.

Author in thev1970s on a solo vacation to Magnetic Island.

Yet there was one occasion when something almost happened. I would have been about 17, and worked for a menswear company at Roselands called E.L. Downes. There was a Clark Rubber store on the lower ground floor, and the manager there, named Barry, who was quite a handsome older man, served me on several occasions. I used to wave as I passed the store, and he used to sit next to me on the bus after work, as we both lived in Kogarah, though on opposite sides of the railway line. As I passed the store one lunchtime, he grabbed me and asked if I would like to go out with him. Without even a blink, I said yes! Told my workmates, and they just encouraged me…and it just didn’t dawn on me that obviously THEY knew I was gay! Talk about naive! Anyway, that weekend I met him at the station…at this time I was living with just my father (my mother left home in 1965), and there was no way I was telling him I was going out with a guy…and we cabbed it into The Cross to this VERY ritzy restaurant called “Mrs Beeton’s Tent”. I’d never been to such a sophisticated…and expensive… place, so was a bit dazzled by it all. Anyway, we got a cab to go home, and he was holding my hand in the back seat. All I could think was…what’s going to happen from here…what am I expected to do! If he asks me home, I’ll go…just to see what happens! The cab got back to Kogarah, and dropped us off at a small park in the main street. He grabbed me by the arm, and started pulling me towards the toilet block, telling me he couldn’t take me home, as he lived with his mother! A toilet block for my first sexual experience with a guy was NOT the romantic experience I was expecting, so broke his grip, said “my father’s expecting me home!” and fled up the street. Missed opportunities! Oh well, such is the life of the shy and naive! Not surprisingly, Barry never spoke to me again, and caught a later bus home from that time on.. When I think about it now, I just shake my head. Considering how outrageous I was to become…I can’t believe my actions that night!

Just after this I started renting with friends in Granville. It was around this time that I started buying bits and pieces of gay porn, and buying “Campaign” newspaper (it became a magazine at a later date). One old closeted gay guy I worked with at Pellegrini & Co knew I was gay, and he evidently wasn’t the only one. My flatmates took me to a party at the home of two gay guys they knew…John & Ray. They had me sussed out in the blink of an eye, but I ignored their innuendo and sly comments and continued to deny it. My flatmates found out by mistake when I went to Campbelltown in the latter half of the 70s to help my step-brothers (he also later turned out to be gay) wife who had had a stroke. I asked my housemates to bring up some clothes for me as I was staying a while, and…much to my horror, and despite a phone plea to ignore the magazines in the drawer (like that was going to happen!)…they unearthed my stash of gay porn mags, and actually kept hush about it until after I came out. In the interim, I had sex with one girl…Veronica…a friend of my female housemate, and who had a young daughter who actually idolised me…just to make sure I wasn’t straight!After having to fantasize about a man to get to orgasm with her, I think the dye was pretty well set…though Barry may have seen Kharma at work, as I shouted her a very expensive meal at the Millionaires Club in Darlinghurst on our first date, and she said no to sex as she wasn’t on the pill…that came after our second date. Yet I still didn’t come out, despite knowing for sure.

Me just before leaving for Melbourne at the Capitan Torres restaurant in Sydney circa 1978

However, circumstances were about to present me with the window of opportunityI needed, and the wherewithal to come crashing out of my closet!

In late 1978 my father committed suicide in bushland near his home in Vincentia, on the NSW south coast.. I am not going to go into details of life with my father, but suffice it to say it was tense. I cried a few crocodile tears, then clicked my heels and rejoiced. My sense of freedom at last was overwhelming! I don’t know what I would have done if this situation hadn’t presented itself. I could never have openly come out to him, as the repercussions could have been dire. As it was, I was moving further and further away…in a relationship sense…from all my family (I am not going into the complexities here, but…oh boy!) so it is possible that to live my own life, and be who I had to be, I would have cut them all off earlier than I did…or maybe Melbourne would have happened anyway, irrespective of anything, and I would just have cut them out of my life. I guess the simple fact was that I was an outcast…the black sheep of my family. One way or another…I really didn’t give a fuck!

In the middle of 1980, the retail company I worked for – Pellegrini & Co Pty Ltd – asked me if I would be interested in going to Melbourne and troubleshooting two stores they had down there. I jumped at the chance. So I flew to Melbourne, set up house in Cumming St, West Brunswick, and started to set in motion the cogs that would change my life, starting a whole new phase that would take me in directions I could never have imagined.

Now, this was no easy matter. Cogs can be complicated mechanisms. The two stores – one in the Myer Centre and one in Hardware Street were in a mess, and by the time Christmas 1980 rolled around, I had not even started having any social life, let alone coming out and banging my way through Melbourne! That was to come! After spending that Christmas and Boxing Day on my own with a bottle of whisky, I decided I needed to do something about it! But what? I went through the classifieds and social group listings in the gay press, mentally started ticking or crossing them out, then going through a process of elimination with the ticked ones, according to where I thought I might or might not fit in. One group seemed to stand out – Acceptance Gay Catholics. I knew not only all the ins and outs of the Catholic Church…but I managed businesses for a Catholic retailer. Seemed like a match made in heaven, so to speak! So I made a phone call, found out whose home the next First Friday Mass was held at, and the next First Friday found me heading out to suburbia to Max’s house for my first gay outing. I told no one I was not yet out, and not being from Melbourne they wouldn’t know if I was or not. Right up to the day I left Melbourne no one I knew was any the wiser.

So the guys all started piling in…and not exactly a pack of spunks, though a couple of lookers amongst them. Turns out the Servite Fathers conducted the masses for them. Not being under the jurisdiction of the local bishop, they were free to do what they liked.

A clone is born…Cumming St West Brunswick 1981.

After the mass there was a meal, then we hit Melbourne for a night out. My first gay club…The University Club in Swanston St. It was gay there every Friday and Saturday night. Started dancing with the guys from the group, and decided to play it safe by dancing with, then going home with, one of the older, plainer guys. At the grand age of 25 I was about to have my first gay sexual experience. It wasn’t the bells, whistles and fireworks I was expecting! In fact…it was a total dud!

Frank, naturally thrilled to bits to have a quite handsome bit of fluff come on to him (actually he made the first move – on the dancefloor! I wasn’t experienced enough to know that if you weren’t really interested, you said a polite “no thanks” and moved onto the next). I didn’t want to seem rude, so said yes when he invited me home, despite fancying a couple of the younger guys more. A steep learning curve here! So, Frank had a car and offered me a night at his place. I can’t remember where he lived now, but it was quite a drive out of the Melbourne CBD. No sooner was I in the car than he had my cock out, and out it remained all the way to his place, despite several near misses due to his…distraction! I often wonder what other drivers thought as Frank’s head disappeared from sight at every red light! Once we got indoors, I decided the ball was in his court and I would leave it up to him to drive proceedings. He assumed I was a young slut and would know how all the mechanisms of gay sex unfolded. Frank was also a bit old and stale, and not the most sexually adventurous person to go home with. From my perspective, I wouldn’t even be leaving the starters blocks with this one. Not an auspicious beginning to my gay sex life, having held myself back for so long. The next morning, it was breakfast, then finding out that I would be getting myself back into the city…on a train. Well, fuck you too, Frank!

At an Acceptance function just prior to returning to Sydney. Fred Diamond (left), Max (Centre) and me.

I started attending not just the First Friday Masses, but Sunday Evening masses as well, held in the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in North Fitzroy, and any of the other Acceptance social occasions that cropped up on the calendar. Thankfully, Frank attended pretty well none of these with any regularity, so it was quite a long time before I ran into him again. In the interim, I found out from Fred – we’ll get to Fred shortly – that he and the other young guys at the University Club that night were quite surprised to see me go home with him. Learn to say no is the first rule of survival on the gay scene!. So over the next few months I met the other members of Acceptance through the masses, or parties in their homes, and get-togethers in a few local eateries, and gay venues such as The Laird Hotel in Collingwood, Smarties Nightclub in North Melbourne, and Pokies, a Sunday night drag venue in St Kilda. My evil plan was working…I was starting to lead a gay life!

In the meantime, I wanted the world to know I was gay. I wrote to my ex-Granville flatmates and ‘fessed up…only to find out that they had known since the night they packed my luggage for Campbelltown. They had met my mother, who I had only just been reunited with prior to coming to Melbourne. On a visit to see her, they notified me by mail, they had accidentally outed me, thinking that I had notified her at the same time as them! They also informed me that she already suspected that I was gay, though she never brought the subject up with me. Years later, back in Sydney, I made no effort to hide my sexuality from her, though on a mother/son lunch in the city one day, she informed me that she blamed herself for it. It became a moot point between us, and she has never really reconciled herself to it. Tough shit! I wasn’t taking a step back for anyone!

After my rather unsettling encounter with Frank, where nothing more exciting than some oral happened, things went from bad to worse. I fell in love with Fred, who edited the Acceptance newsletter, and did a gossip column under the pseudonym of Jodi A Frean. Fred and I had a difficult sex life for the 6 months we were together, and being the innocent I was, I never picked up on the signals about his sexuality. Firstly, he was into light S&M…at least I knew that was, thanks to reading “The Joy Of Gay Sex” before venturing into the Gay void…and secondly…he was a beat quean! He, Danny (who was the second man to fuck me, and went to it like a rabbit on heat) and Jim (who gave me a handjob in the shower, after a swim at a beach house we went to for an overnight stay) were the only three Acceptance members I got off with. Another, Tony, who I should have been more attuned to, as he was more my type, had a crush on me, which I suspected, but unfortunately never followed up on.

At a Mass at my flat in West Brunswich, a very handsome man…Barry (I know…the same names seem to keep cropping up in my life)…caught my eye. He stayed after everyone else left. We chatted, he helped clean up, we drank some more wine, and ended up in the bedroom, where he had the great distinction of being the first man to fuck me. The sheer eroticism and intensity of getting fucked blew my mind! I took to it like a duck to water, and never looked back!

So, that was the start of my sex life. The next thing to do was to expand my horizons. A lot of thought went into it…I wasn’t a risk-taker so the beats held no appeal, no did the shadowy world of the sauna. I had been…unnecessarily… steeling and prodding myself to go to a nightclub in St Kilda called “Mandate”. It was to be another life-changing experience! I was terrified when I ventured there for the first time. It was unlike any nightclub I had been to before in that it didn’t have an entry where you just walked in. The door was closed, so I went and stood on the oppisite side of the street to see what was going on. It didn’t take long for it to dawn on me that, after watching several patrons arrive, that one knocked to gain entry. A security measure, obviously. So, over I go, knock on the door to find that a tiny window in the door opened, and I was being scrutinised by a drag queen. In my clone gear I obviously passed muster, as the door opened, I paid my entry, and up the stairs I went (NOTE: it was a good deal later that I found out that there were also under-stairs activities…though not my scene).

With Glenn W, the Sydney guy, at an Acceptance function. I foolishly allowed him to talk me into returning to Sydney…a mistake for both of us!

Here, I entered a world of men, and music, that set my heart blazing. There was a bar area to the left of the stairs, to the right was a communal area with a barred cruising area surrounding it, and to the rear was a copper dance floor that was to be pretty well my sole obsession over many, nany visits there. I loved Mandate. I loved its masculinity,  its testosterone-charged atmosphere, the pure maleness of it. If I had to imagine Nirvana in these early coming out days, Mandate was it and in the not too-distant future, the Midnight Shift in Sydney when I returned to my roots. I had my first pick-ups there, had my first public blow-job on the edge of the dance floor, met some wonderful men including a man called Brian Pryke who I had the most esoteric sexual experience with (and communicated with for a while after returning to Sin City), and some of my worst sexual experiences including a Dutch pilot who had the most disgusting dose of smegma I have ever encountered, and left me with the gift of anal warts. We live and learn! At Mandate I was introduced to dance floor filling icons such as Lime, Phyllis Nelson, Carol Jiani, 202 Machine, Shirley Lites, Tantra, KC and the Sunshine Band, Patrick Cowley, Sylvester, Divine, Paul Parker, Seventh Avenue, Peter Griffin, Hall & Oates, and many other artists who started my ongoing love for dance music. The wonderful nights I had in Mandate will live in my memory forever.

I continued my work and socialising with Acceptance (including some cross-denominational “spiritual shenanjgans” with a member of Angays (the Anglican version of Acceptance) until I returned to Sydney. They gave me a wonderful set of friends that kept me ocvupied constantly, and a rather frantic social life. I think that what disturbed me the most about being an out gay man in a Catholic social group was the “subtle” stigmatisation that we just seemed to accept. Though the Servite Fathers, who celebrated our home masses, were unequivocal in their support for the gay community, the particularly internalised discrimination and alienation that was integral within the Catholic church itself,  seemed to be tolerated more so than finding ways to support us. I always felt that much of the support came more from obligation than caring and understanding.

And while talking of the Servite Fathers, I must relate a home mass story here. First Friday Masses were shared amongst the various homes of Acceotance members. When I volunteered my flat in West Brunswick for one, I found I faced a dilemma. Confessions before mass were usually held in a private room, and the only one in my flat was the bedroom. The entire back of my bedroom door was covered in pictures of men in various poses and states of undress…mainly naked…and erect! In my wisdom, I decided that this was not an appropriate thing to have on display in a room where gay men were confessing their sins. Rather than remove all the pictures, I decided to tape a large sheet of brown paper over them.  Evidently during one of the confessions, the tape gave way, causing the paper to fall to the floor. Evidently there was a brief pause in the confession as the priest eyed off the door full of naked males, then continued on as if nothing had happened. The exposition was the cause of much hilarity for the rest of the night, with the priest commenting on my “good taste in art” as he departed.

The only other churches that catered to us were St Francis in Lonsdale St, and Holy Trinity Church in North Fitzroy. And even then we could only attend masses at certain times on Sundays. It felt very alienating, and was one of the reasons for me joining the Gay Rights Lobby when I returned to Sydney. For me personally, well….I was an Athiest disguised as a Catholic…just to secure myself a social life, though going through the actions of being a Catholic, and arguing stronly against the banality of much of Catholic belief and doctrine at every opportunity, which caused me no qualms. Only once was I dressed down regarding my staunchly held opinions, and I was stronly supported by the group I was with, as they did not believe in blind faith. There is hope yet in the world.

I went on to become Secretary on the Acceptance committee, and also a member of their social activities sub-committee. But I was about to make a really fucked-up decision that was about to yet again change my life’s direction.

It was at an Acceptance barbecue that I was to meet Glenn W, who was visiting Melbourne, and lived in Waverton in Sydney. It was a period where the Pellegrini head office in Sydney were quietly hassling for my return. Glenn quite swept me off my feet, and after several months of correspondence and with a position as assistant to the General Manager offered to me back in Sydney I rather foolishly decided to return.

So ended my wonderful, unforgettable life in Melbourne. Plans were afoot for a massed goodbye for me at Tullamarine, but to avoid what would have been a very tearful occasion, I quietly flew out the night before.

Glenn W turned out to be a psychopath! Another disastrous love encounter! Would I never learn! But that is a Sydney story! As is the early days of HIV, already being hinted at in the Melbourne gay press. Hard times ahead…and just as I was starting to enjoy the life that “coming out” was presenting to me. The Sydney story was about to begin!

Tim Alderman

(C) 2015

Mind The Gap – Sun Herald, Sunday May 28, 2000

Autobiography, biography, Family History, , ,

The 1965 incident with Frederick Pickhills was my family, and my brothers death. I have covered the case in my article “Kevin Pickhills – The Unspoken Name.”


Words by Glen Williams
Like the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, Bondi and the beaches, the Gap is a must-see for tourists and locals alike – a place of shattered deams, unsolved mysteries and dramatic beauty.

You are lured here by the view – high above a seething ocean, veiled by sea spray and circled by noisy gulls. The final 25 steps rise from a road that winds back toward the city and all of a sudden here you are – white knuckled, clutching the safety rail, yet drawn closer to the edge. Free-spirited sightseers and single-minded fishermen have all looked down from this spot, captivated by the churning sea and beckoning rocks below. To get this far you must turn your back on Sydney and when you do, its soaring towers and sparkling harbour disappear – replaced by a vast, distant and empty horizon. See the tourists turn their backs to take a photo, of a windswept spot where others before them turned their backs on life.

This is the Gap, Sydney’s infamous “drop off” point, a sweeping arc of wave-blasted sandstone gouged into South Head. Long before there was a Bridge to climb and way before the Opera House welcomed its hordes, this majestic sweep of coastline, in places more than 100m high, played lively in the imaginations of locals. It still does.

It is a place of intense contrasts. Stand at the safety rail, look straight out to sea, and the full brunt of nature hurtles toward you. The noise, a screaming fury, almost knocks you over. Turn around and the harbour and city skyline are displayed in all their glory. And, like the contrasting views, life and death manage to co-exist here.

Ask a Sydneysider their impressions of the Gap and they’ll tell you it’s lunch at Doyles, and a beer at the Watsons Bay Hotel. They’ll say it’s the best vantage point from which to catch the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. And, either in hushed tones or with insensitive grins they’ll tell you, “It’s where people go to jump.”

Howard Courtney will tell you about the night out with his wife and friends which began with dinner at Doyles. One moment he was enjoying the company, the next, he was over the cliff’s edge. “We’d just finished eating and decided to take a walk up there to show our friends what the place looked like in the dark,” he recalls. “We got up to the safety rail and there we found a pair of shoes and a handbag. I looked over the Gap, and down on a ledge was a woman. I could see she was ready to go again. She was crawling out towards the edge. It was dark but I could clearly see her.”

Overcome by the woman’s plight, Courtney kicked off his shoes and socks and, calling to his stunned wife and friends to run for help, leapt over the safety rail and out of sight.

“I didn’t think,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t remember how I got down, and I suppose had it been light, and I’d seen the reality of the drop, I might not have gone. I only know my wife wasn’t too pleased. I managed to make it to the girl. She was crying and I held her and tried to pacify her until the police came. I clearly remember she had scars on her wrists.”

It was March 1973 and newspapers reported how Courtney had clambered 40 feet (12.9m) down the cliff face to reach the 21-year-old woman. She was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital in a satisfactory condition despite a broken leg, internal injuries and shock. Police said the narrow ledge had stopped the woman from plunging 200 feet (60.96m).

“I’ve often wondered what happened to her. Where she ended up,” Courtney, 65, says. “I haven’t been back to the Gap since, but I remember it as a place of dramatic beauty.”

A fence – a sturdy hardwood affair mostly, waist-high and wrapped in cyclone mesh – is intended to prevent people from getting too close to that “dramatic beauty”. But as Woollahra Council carpenters Stuart McKinlay and Bill McLeary know only too well, those wanting to be at one with the view will find a way over the barrier. “There’s a lot of maintenance work,” says McLeary, 56. “We’re often up here fixing the fence. We can’t really stop anyone,” adds McKinlay. “Most are just trying to get a closer look.”

The cheerful tradesmen double as unofficial tour guides of the area and are well-versed in the Gap’s history. As the tourist buses pull up, sometimes 72 in one day, the amiable pair will don their second hat. They’ll point tourists to the rusted anchor from the ill-fated Dunbar, wrecked in 1857 after surviving an 81-day journey from England. Before it could reach the shelter of Port Jackson the ship hit enormous seas and a gale force wind smashed it onto the rocks below. Of the 122 people aboard, only one, Able Seaman James Johnson, 15, survived. “Imagine coming all that way to die here,” says McLeary. “It’s just not fair, is it?”

The men will also gladly help tourists take what they believe is the perfect Gap photograph. “A bus will come along and disgorge a whole heap of Japanese tourists,” McKinlay says. “They’ll race to the rail and take a photo straight out to sea. I mean that photo could be of any sea, any horizon. I tell them to look behind them at one of the best views they’ll ever see. So we’ll take a photo for them, we usually try and line up the Bridge, something that says ‘Sydney’. We’re like ambassadors for tourism.”

Ask them to explain the Gap’s attraction and their initial answer is the view. “Well, as you can see, it is spectacular,” says McKinlay. “It’s also such a well-known place for the obvious reason,” he says, then falls silent. “Um … people like to jump. It still goes on but it’s kept real quiet.”

Indeed, the great unspoken has been associated with the Gap since the mid 1800s. The first recorded case of someone taking their own life here was of 35-year-old Anne Harrison, a publican’s wife who leapt to her death in 1863, after grieving for her nephew who fell from the cliff top. But the two men, who recently nailed plaques detailing the telephone numbers of Lifeline and The Salvos onto the fence, are reminded of more recent tragedies.

There was the man who, in 1993, murdered his former girlfriend then tried to end his own life by driving off the Gap at great speed. “He meant business,” McLeary says. “He tore down here at a million miles an hour, smashed through the fence and became airborne over Jacob’s Ladder – that part of the Gap where the rock fishermen clamber down.”

The car flipped mid-flight and became wedged on a ledge. Miraculously the man survived. “He’s in jail now. They called us straight away to fix the fence.”

Neither man underestimates the dangers of their work, especially McLeary, who admits to being scared of heights. “I’ll climb over the fence, no worries,” he says. “But there’s some spots where you’re right up on the edge. Stu does those.”

Residents of the area moved here to enjoy the ceaseless roar of the ocean and that view. They didn’t intend to be caught up in the broken lives of others or to become heroes. But that is what has happened to some over the years. In the 1960s, Mrs Eve Bettke and her husband Anthony were known as “The Guardians Of the Gap”. Together they brought scores of people back from the edge. In one week alone they dragged back 27 people. News reports from the time tell how the Bettkes, who once lived across the road, kept a vigil from their house, scouring the cliffs for anyone lurking too near the edge. Often they’d invite potential suicides back to their house for a comforting chat.

Don Ritchie, 73, has lived in Watsons Bay all his life and has been involved in several rescues at the Gap. Some of the people he’s saved have actually sent him thank-you cards and gone on to enjoy life. Like the Bettkes before him, he keeps watch over the Gap from his house and has climbed over the fence to talk to people who are contemplating taking their own lives.

Ritchie has lost count of the number of rescues in which he’s been involved. He was awarded a Bravery Medal from the Royal Humane Society in 1970. “That involved a young girl,” he says. “I came home from a function in 1969 about one o’clock in the morning and straight across the road was a girl sitting on the edge in the dark.

“I went over and talked to her and as I did she kept moving close to the edge. I gave the wife a signal and she called the police. The press picked up the message and arrived first. Their arrival unsettled her so I got over and I pulled her back. She was screaming abuse at me and kicking like hell. She got a bit of leverage by pushing off the rail with her feet and she nearly pushed us both over.”

Still, Ritchie prefers to dwell on the Gap’s positive stories. “There’s often people playing musical instruments in the park,” he says. “And the music wafts up over the cliffs, it sounds beautiful against the sounds of the ocean.”

Bill Fahey, 75, remembers being called out to the Gap a couple of times a week when he was with the Police Department’s Cliff Rescue Squad from 1955 to 1985. “Mostly suicides,” he says. “but also injured fishermen and those knocked down by the seas. I tell anyone who is down in the dumps to always hold on, because a new day will bring change, hold on and wait for the new day.”

Fahey singles out one particularly macabre incident in the early ’60s that has stayed with him through the years. “A bloke had pushed his three children off then thrown himself over,” he says. “There were four bodies at the base of the cliff and we had to go and bring them back up. We got down there and there was this fisherman who just casually stepped over the bodies and kept right on with his fishing. I’ve never seen such single-minded behaviour in my life.”

There is a magnetic force at the Gap that compels people to venture dangerously near to the edge, he says. “I’ve felt it myself. Through the years I’ve spent long periods of time looking out to sea. I remember one time sitting, looking over the edge and I could feel my feet being pulled. The water definitely has a draw. The perfectly sane can feel it. But for all the dramas I’ve seen played out there, I still regard the Gap as one of the most beautiful places on the coast.”

Gap historian Claire McIntyre feels so close to those who’ve taken their lives here she’s written a book about them. “They’re not just obscure people who’ve jumped, they’re people like us,” she says.

The former director of nursing believes the Gap is a very spiritual place. “Just to be there is a spiritual experience,” she says. “There’s a definite draw, you can’t ignore it. As I got more involved in the writing of the book, my daughter was concerned that I was disturbing the dead. I totally disagree. As far as I’m concerned these people have a story and they are not just a statistic. I think I’m helping to put them to sleep.”

McIntyre says she too has felt the Gap’s pull. “I love it best on a very stormy, southerly day. I call them angry days. The waves are hurled up the sides of the cliffs and it’s almost like a suction pulling you towards it. To me the Gap is like a magnet.”

It is the role of Rose Bay Police to respond to any incidents at the Gap. On average they are called there two or three times a week, though these incidents are not always suicide related. Today, the Gap’s churning waves and jagged cliffs harbour many unsolved mysteries. Rose Bay officers are still investigating the Caroline Byrne case. Byrne, a model and fiancee of Gordon Wood – a former chauffeur of Rene Rivkin – was found at the base of the Gap in June 1995. Investigators also have their hands full with an unrelated gangland-style murder.

Local resident John Doyle has heard all the stories; the tall tales, the myths, the cruel realities. After all, the members of his famous family have lived alongside the Gap for five generations. As a boy it was his backyard, his playground. “I’ve lived here all my life,” Doyle, 66, says. “I’ve played on the Gap, I’ve been in trouble with the police for climbing down the Gap and wagging school. But it’s a pretty sombre place, really. We lost a really good mate down there. My brother Timmy was playing with him down there and he got washed out through the blowhole. That was 40 years ago now.”

Doyle, who now manages the Watsons Bay Hotel, believes the Gap proves somewhat of a disappointment for today’s tourists. “A lot of people say, ‘I’ve just been up to the Gap and I couldn’t find it’. Or they’ll tell you they’ve seen bigger Gaps in their own backyards.”

Master of suspense inspired by the Gap

How appropriate that the master of the cliffhanger, Alfred Hitchcock, should find himself drawn to the ominous cliffs of the Gap.

It was Friday, 6 May, 1960, and Hitch was in Australia to promote what has become an all-time classic motion picture, Psycho.

“Alfred Hitchcock thinks Sydney’s Gap would be ‘ideal’ for a suspense movie,” David Burke reported in The Sun-Herald, on 8 May, 1960.

He took an umbrella with him. “Just in case I decide to float over the edge,” he explained. “Before I make a picture I must always experience the hero’s emotions myself.”

“He poised his roly poly figure on a railing of the safety fence and looked down on the rocks hundreds of feet below,” Burke wrote. “The westerly blew his umbrella inside out; the renowned chins and jowl quivered with the cold. But his eyes lit up to saucer-like proportions.

“Ah, yes, ideal,” beamed the master of suspense. “I can see it all. The villain has the hero on the edge of the cliff and is slowly pushing him over backwards. We have close-up shots of their faces. Then we have close-ups of their feet, scuffling on the brink. The wind is shrieking … the waves are boiling far beneath … we know how far the hero has to fall.

“At the last moment he wrenches himself free and the villain goes over the Gap. Yes, a really ideal setting for suspense.”

Generation gap

1857 The Dunbar is wrecked in pounding seas on the rocks at the foot of the Gap after travelling for 81 days from England. Of the 122 aboard, only one survived – 15-year-old able seaman James Johnson.

1863 First recorded suicide. Anne Harrison, 35, jumps to her death after grieving the death of her nephew who fell from the Gap.

1857 The Dunbar is wrecked in pounding seas on the rocks at the foot of the Gap after travelling for 81 days from England. Of the 122 aboard, only one survived – 15-year-old able seaman James Johnson.

1907 The Dunbar’s anchor is recovered by divers. It is incorporated into a memorial at the top of the cliff. The wreck becomes a popular spot for divers.

1942 Police Department’s Cliff Rescue Unit is organised.

1960 Alfred Hitchcock, in Sydney to promote Psycho, declares the Gap “ideal” for a suspense film.

1965 Frederick Pickhills of Sylvania, tells Vaucluse police, “I have been over the Gap with my son. I had hold of his hand.” Pickhills was charged with the murder of Kevin Pickhills, 7. Pleading guilty in court to an amended plea of manslaughter, Pickhills was released on a five-year good behaviour bond.

1975 Sydney Harbour National Park is established. the Gap is included in the National Park.

1991 Singing star of the 1970s, Mary Jane Boyd, leaps to her death from the Gap on July 20.

1995 Model Caroline Byrne is found at the foot of the Gap in June.

2000 Police are still investigating the circumstances surrounding Byrne’s death.

© 2000 Sun Herald