I was watching a video on YouTube this morning from the B1M channel, which is all about large construction projects. A thought drifted into my mind that my dad would have been interested in this, had he been alive to see such things. It made me think, what was he doing when he was my age? An interesting concept.
So let's have a look. My dad was born in 1930. So when he - as I am now - was 50 years of age, that would have been 1980. Wow, that is a long time ago man! I was not expecting an answer way back when. Crikey, I was only 8 years old (well, strictly speaking, 7, about to turn 8) at the time. It would have been about a year after we moved to Hong Kong. I was at KJS, in form 3 I think. Dad was working on the MTR, at that time I believe at Shau Kei Wan.
The photo is not of that time, it is when we were on a Singapore holiday a couple of years later. I do have a reasonable suite of photos from my childhood, but few from that late 70's - early 80's era. I might need to raid Ma's collection next time I'm over there.
In those days, as I recall, Dad was very work-focussed. I can't remember if he left before me in the mornings, but he certainly came home later. He also worked most Saturdays. Occasionally, he would take me with him to the office on a Saturday morning. I would sit there while he did his paperwork, and then sometimes accompany him when he walked around doing a site inspection. Dad spoke Cantonese, which amused the locals immensely, especially when he got angry and swore at them. In our family it has long been recognised that Dad had a very short temper, losing his shit over almost nothing sometimes. But for serious stuff - when things went badly wrong - he was almost always calm and rational about it. These trips with Dad on a weekend were important for me, because that was when I spent the most 1-on-1 time with him. Dad didn't ever really delve into my life or feelings much, not that I remember anyway. It was just a hanging-out thing. If also often ended in a decent Asian dai pai dong lunch, which was always very welcome!
Mum and Dad would probably have an outing or guests about once a month. I remember Tony & Liz King, Anne & George Windrum, and that's about it. There may have been others, but it is those that I remember. T&L lived in a big detached house up in the hills somewhere, and had three gorgeous daughters. They were all 3-7 years older than me, so I was just a chubby kid hanging around at the odd weekend visit, but I do remember them! So yeah, entertaining was something that happened a little bit, actually I'll post a photo here of Veronica and Dad at T&L's house. This would have been very much in the right timeframe, as V was only there for the first couple of years of HK - so right about when Dad was 50!
The other thing that Dad enjoyed, was going for a swim. Whether it was at the river in Cobram after he retired, or the condo pool in Singapore, or indeed, at our old club - the Kowloon Cricket Club in HK. We had family membership there for decades, and I still remember our old membership number - B22. Yet another example of how the number 22 seems to be ubiquitous in the Brown family. Sunday mornings would always be church - St. Teresa's in HK at that time. Gosh I should write an article about my Catholic upbringing one of these days too. Old-fashioned, toxic, predatory, and generally shite. Anyway, the KCC on the other hand, was awesome! We sometimes went for lunch - I recall them having a buffet and a dish of black bean mussels that I was particularly fond of (not a big mussel fan now though). Often though, we would just go to the pool, at the rear of the property, for a swim and sometimes an ice cream. Mum would sometimes take me there after school too, when I was doing swimming lessons. I still recall having the 25m and 50m badges sewn onto my swimmers. When I went with Dad, he would do a couple of laps, and I guess I would just muck around in the water, as kids do. I don't recall having any school friends who went to this club. These were the days when club membership was part of expat packages. I suspect it was one of the first perks to go by the wayside, although for HK I wouldn't know.
The other thing we did sometimes was go for lunch elsewhere on a Sunday. In HK it would likely be yum cha, which then, as it remains now, was my favourite. OMG I love dim sum! And of course in those days, with every place having trolley service, and Dad calling out in fluent Cantonese for the baskets he was looking for, we were always popular. Perhaps not quite so popular as how it used to be in the halcyon days of the Browns in HK when my siblings were there, plus a couple of uncles and their families. Dad used to tell the tale of yum cha trolleys circling our big, round family table like it was Custer's Last Stand, and of empty baskets being piled 10-deep on the ground so as to save table space.
Another thing Dad liked to do along these lines, was go to the airport. In Singapore I guess it was because the airport was an amazing place, but even in HK - Kai Tak in those days - a few times per year we would go there on a Sunday afternoon, browse through the shops, and find somewhere to eat. I don't think I have ever heard of anyone else seeing the airport as a destination for anything other than travel. Perhaps in the new Changi mall attached to one of their terminals these days, but certainly not otherwise.
So there is a bit of an insight into how my father led his life back in 1980, when we were living in Hong Kong. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it smacks of routine, but as I find in my own life, that's pretty much how it goes. Sometimes one needs to break out of that routine - even today my son Daniel asked me why we always do nothing on the weekends. Living in a smallish rural town has a fair bit to do with that, but routine (and rest) also play a key part. It's good to reflect on life way back when though, and to realise that I had, and still do have, a pretty good one.
