"one eyed Willy" - 1988, Age 11

Aah, what would my childhood have been like without The Goonies?

One eyed willy is an old selffish murderer who killed many pirates that got in his way. He killed anyone who came into his cabin because he didn't want any one touching his pearls, diamonds, money, and all his treasure. He was ugly and had one eye and a patch on the other side. He wore a red & white rag around his head & had a leather kaki jacket with diamonds on it like studs and had pearls on his patch and had a pair of pants that went about 2 1/2 inches past his knees and his pants are black. He wore no shoes and had cuts on his feet. He had one big scar down his face and had no hair and prickles on his chin and was very sun burnt.

LINES! - 1987, Age 8-9

I don't remember being a particularly naughty child, in that I didn't actively seek out trouble. But I did seem to be in trouble frequently, and managed to get a caning at least once a year (until it was abolished in the early 90s). The other popular punishment for naughtiness was 'lines', of which I did many over the years...

"OUR BUNKER" - 1988, Age 10-11

Our Bunker

Yesterday Tien, Ray, Sean and I made a bunker. It is made out of bricks that is 1/2 a metre long. The roof is made out of wire and branches on top. It has a dirt ground with weeds sticking out of the ground. The entrances is made out of old rags and branches that hang down.
   We have a fire place outside our bunker. We have some stones that we made our fire place out of. We found some tin and made a chimney. We cook our food on it in a fring pan. The fire is made out of sticks, newspaper, wood, bark and petrol. It is about a metre long. We keep some water nearby.
   We had a good look at the bunker. We thought we should put more detail so we went to the dump and we found a bed with muck all over and cocroaches crawling on it. Anyhow we brought it home and cleaned it and brought it back to the bunker. Now we can sleep the night on it. Now we didn't have any light so we went to the dump and found a lamp. Dad fixed it up. He brought it to the bunker. Dad found a table and gave it to us. We went home then. That night some punks came in and stole some things and wrote graffiti inside. The next day we went back to the bunker and we were mad. We made some traps around it and the next day we caught them and brought to the cops. The traps are some camouflage pits and a trip rope in front of it.
   The next day some bulldozers came into the bush a knocked the trees down. The bunker was gone forever. But we made a better bunker in a better place that nobody knows about.

**********

This scenario is mostly fiction, though I remember I did build my own above-ground bunker in our backyard garden at some point. It had a mesh fence roof, covered in leaves and palm fronds, propped up by trees at each corner. At the front facing the yard there was a long narrow horizontal gap to see through, and to point our toy guns out of. We'd pretend the dog was Viet Cong and "RATTA-TAT-TAT" at him (my favourite show at the time was Tour Of Duty I recall). A couple years later, when I was in grade 8, some friends and I did make a "hut" up in Toohey Forest. That comprised of weaved branches stretched across a narrow gully with a thick layer of leaf litter and pine needles to seal the roof. Turned out it's only real useful purpose was to keep our, er... 'literature' protected from the elements...

"ME" - 14 Apr 1986, Age 8

Me

I have brown hair and hazel eyes.

I am medium size.

Good things

I help my mum.

I help put the legos away.

(I wear my pants very very high)

"Dear Grandpa..." - 28 Sept 1988, Age 11

More rambling. I can't quite work out what inspired this one. I can't recall my grandpa ever sending me a parcel with an alien in it, so it's likely fiction...

29 Margary.Street.,

Mt.Gravatt.4122

29.9.88

Dear,
     Grandpa, I was so thrilled to get this parcel but I don't no what it is yet. I've looked in my Animal book that says it has every animal in it. But I love it because it can talk and its fun to play with. One problem it won't go to sleep. It always wakes me up threw the night and says, "Whatch TV, Whatch TV," until I found some thing else in the parcel. It was a piece of paper, but I couldn't read it because it was in French, so I asked my friend what it said.
It said, This creature is an Alien
     (b) It was civilized in Space on another unadentified planet!
     (c) It doesn't sleep, never until he's a sheet (?)
His best games are pool and swimming, even know he can't swim. I forgot to tell you, he was shivering when I opened the box up, maybe because he had a bumping ride. Hes playful with the dog because the dog gives him rides. I better go now before I run out of paper.

Your found (?) grandson

Ben xxxooo

"HEY MUM..." - 1988, Age 10-11

I'm guessing the task here was to write a conversational piece...

Hey mum can I go up into the caves.
Why do you want to go up into the caves.
To explore them.
Whos them?
The cave stupid.
You rood little boy
I'm not little and I'm not rood.
Yes you are.
No I'm not, And just forget about the aurgue (?) and let me go up into the caves.
Who are you going up into the caves with.
My friend.
Whos your friend, apparently I thought you didn't have any friends.
Ah get off, I've got heaps of friends.
OK just tell whos your friend.
Tien, Ray, Sean, Craig, my three brothers and my friend from church.
By the way you could of said friends and youv'e got two brothers not three.
I've got three brothers thats includings my dog, Pete.




Mt Gravatt was a great place to grow up. My house was just a stones throw from Toohey Forest, and the mountain itself. My brothers and I used to ride our bikes up there constantly, and there were heaps of weaving dirt tracks to explore. On the southeast side of the mountain, few people knew about the series of caves on the side of Mt Gravatt. The main cave was huge, and there were holes everywhere leading to this one big one. If you weren't careful, you could fall into these caves easily. And getting to them was an adventure in itself – we used to do a balancing act on a concrete pipe that stretched several metres above a deep gully. These days, the caves have been deemed a risk and have been boarded up entirely. At least they were the last I checked...

Someone uploaded photos of the caves here.

"THE DUCK WHO COULDN'T SWIM" - 1986, Age 8

A duck named "Donald", how original. This story is just a weak retelling of The Ugly Duckling. And my punctuation was poor at this point, I hadn't yet discovered the importance of quotation marks.

THE DUCK WHO COULDN'T SWIM

Once upon a time there lived a duck named Donald. He had a hard life. He said to the rabbit Could you teach me how to swim. Sorry said the rabbit. But I don't no how to swim either. Well I may as well go to sleep. That night he was dreaming that he was a lovely swan. So that morning he was a swan, and he could swim. So he invited all the ducks over to have a pool party. They had a lovely swim all through the year. Everyday I could hear them spashing. They had a fun life. And they lived happly ever after. END

"I like watching my wasp nest" - 1983, Age 5 or 6

Curiously, I don't believe I ever had a wasp nest to call my own...

"HOW THE SERPENT GOT TO THE STARS" - 13 May 1987, Age 9

Some of my favourite picture books in my primary school library were those based on Aboriginal dreamtime stories. In particular those by Dick Roughsey and Percy Trezise, namely The Giant Devil Dingo and The Rainbow Serpent...

So, I'm pretty sure the following story was heavily inspired by (or more accurately a direct rip-off of) The Rainbow Serpent. The last line clearly makes no sense...

How the Serpent got to the stars
   Once apon a time, these lived a Serpent Dragon that lived with an Aboriginal tribe. It played with the children. One day a little black boy had a ride on the serpent's back and fell to the ground and killed the little black boy.
The tribe was angry and killed the serpent and the dead baby floated to a group of stars. Now you can see the Serpent Dragon in the sky.