Forged with Flames (6 page)

Rowena and I were due to compete against each other that coming summer in the one-hundred yard and the one-hundred-and-fifty yard races at the interschool sports. I loved the longer event, enjoying the feeling of building up speed and flying around the bend. But the hundred-yard race was much more difficult because I could never get that burst of power you need right at the end. Rowena was strongest over the hundred so that race would be the more testing. I started to practise twice a day when the last of the really cold weather was behind us and I could concentrate on running the whole spring.

Rising at six-thirty, I would drag my tracksuit on over my shorts and creep down the stairs and out into the quietness of the fields. It was beautiful then, the day crisp and new, and it felt as if the world was all yours. In England you're allowed right of way in fields so I found one that was fairly flat and didn't have cows in it, and just ran and ran until my stomach told me it was breakfast time. After school in the evenings, I'd do it all over again.

I kept getting myself out there week after week without any idea if I were improving, not having a stopwatch. It did get tedious sometimes getting up so early every day and trying to keep motivated doing it alone; and there were mornings when I really could have stayed curled up in bed, but I was absolutely determined. I was going to beat Rowena Crowther. I don't remember telling my parents what I was doing over those two or three months but they must have twigged because they both came to watch me race on the big day of the sports meeting; usually only Mum came.

Finally, the sports day arrived—the Saturday just before we broke up for summer holidays in June, 1965. I was so nervous getting ready that morning, tying and re-tying the shoelaces of my runners to get them just right, wondering if all the hard work would pay off. What if I'd just got fitter but not faster? What if Rowena had trained and
she'd
got faster? I hadn't told anyone about my ambition to beat her and I was glad I hadn't—losing to Rowena would be disappointing enough after weeks of training without the ignominy of everyone knowing about it.

The sports were held at a school in a nearby town. It was a sparkling clear day when I arrived at those grounds proud and excited to be part of Nelson Grammar's team. Just walking around in your shorts as a competitor was a thrill. Dozens of parents had already arrived to watch, as well as the teachers and students from the competing schools. Parents greeted each other and stood in little knots chatting. Spectators lined the rope that separated off the running track, edging in beside each other, peering over each other's shoulders, waiting for the next event to start. Some people brought their own chairs or sat on the grass behind the track, but most stood, moving about between the competitions to get a better view. A fairground atmosphere pervaded despite the competition and rivalries.

My first race against Rowena was the one hundred yards, held in lanes off to one side of the oval. A couple of friends wished me luck as I made my way to the track but I was so nervous I barely registered them. I knew my parents were watching somewhere but I couldn't see them anywhere close to the track. I told myself over and over, ‘If I can win this race, the longer one will be much easier'.

I was trying to stay calm as we got into position at the starting line, but my heart was already taking off on its own race. Toes on the line, poised in starting position, I smiled across at Rowena. We were rivals but there was no animosity between us.

The gun went off. I started well. Rowena did too. We were neck-and-neck as we sped down the first twenty-five yards of the track. We soon left the other competitors behind; the race was now between the two of us. Legs straining, elbows jabbing the air, we sprinted side-by-side. The finishing tape neared but I didn't fade as I usually did. As we entered the final ten yards we were still inseparable. I focused hard and began to pull ahead. The crowd was cheering, the shouting reaching a climax; they could see we were both putting all we had into the finish. I thrust my body across the line, finishing first, with Rowena hard on my heels. I'd done it! People rushed up to pat me on the back. My friends gathered around, delighted and excited. It was wonderful and exhilarating. Rowena had made me push myself to the limit. I'd discovered an inner strength and determination that I'd never considered possible.

There was hardly time to settle down again—perhaps twenty minutes—before the megaphone called us up for the one-hundred-and-fifty yards. I walked around, warming up, flexing my calves, moving about with a new confidence. This was my best race; I loved the feeling of running round the bend and dashing ahead of the pack at that stage. The hardest contest was over and the training had paid off. I knew I could win, and I did, easily. I was on such a high: I felt invincible.

Beating Rowena instantly gave me new status at school and meant much more besides. For the first time I realised my body was something I could command. I realised, too, that I actually thrived on a challenge and on achieving the goal that went with it. The ability to “hang in”, and push on, was to prove invaluable when I faced a far greater challenge than I could ever have conceived of, years later, on the other side of the world.

5

IN RETREAT

I
might have been successful athletically but it was at this time that the rest of my life started to stumble and fall inwards.

Until I became a teenager, I'd always been what a report card would have called a ‘bright and interested student', a girl with a gold star for participation. I adored anything that meant standing up in front of an audience—show me a dais and I'd be on it. At Wheatley Lane Primary, I relished our weekly poetry sessions, effortlessly reciting whatever poems were chosen for the lesson. Whenever the teacher asked pupils in the big class to read to the “babies”, my hand was always the first to shoot skywards to volunteer. I just loved having a classroom of small faces tuned in on me as I read.

I embraced drama in the same way, often clinching the lead role in school productions, including the role of a grouchy old man who was the bad side of a weather vane. My friend, Jennifer, played the part of the finely dressed lady who was the good side of the vane but my character had all the funny lines and drew the biggest response from the audience. Another
mother even turned to Mum and said, ‘I think Ann is going to be an actress one day!' In my early years at Nelson Grammar, too, I had no hesitation at all in taking to the stage in a starring role in
Macbeth
or
A Midsummer Night's Dream
.

But all that changed when I became a teenager. A horrible creeping shyness overtook me, starting subtly at first at the beginning of Fourth Form, and later worsening until it was extremely socially debilitating. It added a whole new dimension to the term ‘painfully shy'. Whenever the teacher asked me to speak or read in class, I'd be overcome by nerves and embarrassment; my heart would beat as it had when I had the night terrors at five and my cheeks would flush pillar-box red. I'd been moved into a new class at the start of the year, separated from my friends of Third Form, but this didn't explain it. It felt as if I'd become another person.

The fear and anxiety had resurfaced with a vengeance.

Now, the attention I'd craved as a child and had enjoyed as a winning athlete, became my worst enemy. I'd stare down at the desk determinedly to avoid the teacher's eye when parts were being shared out for a play or when a student was needed to read aloud in class, desperately hoping it wouldn't be me. I spoke less and less, and would overhear my friends explain apologetically to anyone who asked about my uncommunicativeness that I was just shy and quiet. I was so self-conscious that when it came down to myself and another student being chosen as captain of our form, instead of feeling proud, I was struck with terror at the thought of what the captaincy might mean and was relieved when the other student won. Even when I was running or playing sport, which came so naturally, I suffered under the pressure of being watched. Before long, even the slightest contact
with other people became almost overwhelming. The more someone tapped at my shell, the more I retreated inwards. The more I thought about it, the worse it became. Someone would only have to look at me and I'd blush, and nothing I could do or tell myself could stop it.

On top of the shyness I was ashamed of how I was behaving, as if it were a weakness, and tried to cover it up—not easy with a face like a beacon. I never talked about it with anyone, including my family and friends, and became proficient at avoiding attention, isolating myself as much as possible. Being alone was the only time I felt alright. I'd take Tammy, our Shetland Sheepdog, out on long walks through the fields or along the riverbank. We'd wander together and I'd find a place to stop and sit down, or lean against one of the old dry-stone fences and talk to her. Tammy understood.

As I retreated from social life, I started to become painstakingly correct at everything I did, honing to perfection whatever I could still control. I didn't want to do anything wrong, anything that might draw attention to myself, and if I did, at least praise was the right sort of attention. My handwriting transformed from a fairly messy scrawl to what someone later described as a ‘ten out of ten' script; neat and vertical, letter-perfect—a handwriting analyst would have had a field day with it!

My bedroom, always pretty ordered, now became immaculate with everything tucked away into drawers or lined up and in its place. I had an old-fashioned dressing table where all my china ornaments sat on little mats, but now I ordered them so that they were always perfectly centred which entailed me forever moving them slightly to the left or right. In the dressing-table drawers all items were arranged precisely together in symmetrical piles. My
mother never needed to remind me to tidy my room or complain about things being on the floor. On the surface I was a parent's dream teenager. If I couldn't control the rising tide of red that made its way from my neck up, or the out-of-control galloping of my heart, then at least I could order other parts of my life.

Being around boys was the worst thing of all. Boys tease. One of them, a short, freckled boy who had come up with me from primary school, just loved humiliating me. He would always pipe up ‘Let's hear Ann read!' because he knew I'd go bright red. I was such an easy target.

I'd look around at all my friends—amazingly I still had some—and marvel that they appeared so full of confidence. The bonds with my close friends, Brenda, Jennifer and Eileen, saved me from becoming totally isolated, yet I couldn't even explain to any of them how my world had become so changed. Had I talked to them about my problem, I'd probably have found that they had their own insecurities, but back then I was convinced I was alone in my torment. It was easier one-on-one—the anxiety would fade and I'd catch a glimpse of the real me that I always knew was trapped inside. Day after day, I'd fight this silent inner battle. Later, after the bushfires, I'd wonder if the reason I was still alive was because I'd lived during my teens and beyond, with the intense agony of being so socially dysfunctional; I was used to handling extended periods of intense pain on a daily basis.

My experience of the opposite sex was limited to one unfortunate, if memorable, date during my school years. Because of my crippling shyness, especially around boys, it came as a complete surprise when I was nearly sixteen, to learn that one of the prefects at school actually noticed me. David took one
of my girlfriends aside and told her he was interested. After my friend then told me, I became conscious of David being around wherever I was—at lunchtime, during breaks, hovering hopefully as we came out of school at the end of the day. This was a big deal—there was a lot of kudos involved in being fancied by a prefect.

I was even more surprised when David handed me a note on a scrap of paper one day inviting me to go out with him on Saturday night. My friends, as intrigued as I was, urged me to say yes. I'd never even talked to this boy, but decided to take what was, for me, a bold step into the unknown, and accept his invitation.

Most of my friends had been potty about boys since they were fifteen. They seemed to talk about nothing else, gathering at recess on Monday morning, comparing notes from the weekend and revelling in sharing the details of their encounters, however minute, with anyone who'd listen. I felt completely awkward in these conversations, never understanding what all the fuss was about—I was obviously a late developer in this area. Playing sport was much more interesting!

My interest piqued though as the first date with David approached. I was actually going out with a boy. I dressed carefully that Saturday evening: a short skirt—but not
too
short, little blouse and cardigan, and smart white knee socks. Quite conservative—definitely no heels or make-up. I had a clipped, neat pixie haircut at the time, like Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music
. I'd asked the hairdresser in Nelson to give me that cut which every second woman in England apparently wanted as well. My girlfriends, Brenda and Jennifer, had theirs cut in exactly the same style.

Much to the amusement of my family, I was palpably nervous before the date, muttering things like, ‘I don't really want to go', ‘I won't know what to say', ‘I don't know him', and ‘How do I look in this cardigan?' They were probably relieved that I was going out with a boy at last. Women married young then, many before they were twenty.

David and I had agreed to meet outside the Grand Cinema in Nelson, a four-storey grey-stone building with a steep slate roof rising solidly out of the centre of town. Although I was early, he was already there when I arrived. David, too, was smartly dressed, his red hair neatly combed and parted. I felt so awkward, but took heart that he'd decided that we would go to ‘the pictures', which meant we wouldn't have to struggle to find things to talk about. We exchanged a few words—the most words we'd ever said to each other—and got our tickets, David paying for mine, after which we made our way into the theatre, squinting hard to see our way in the dark and locate two empty seats. Many other people had come to see the film that night, too, and had already filled most of the cinema. The movie was
Tarzan and the Valley of Gold
—not exactly my first choice—which had just come out in mid-1966 and was bound to be popular. I was sure I could see a few spare seats near the front but, call me naive, I agreed when David suggested we sit in the back row.