“I was born in Bonalbo in 1954. Dad was a Postmaster there and was transferred to Coraki in 1956 and then became Coraki’s Postmaster. I grew up on the Richmond river literally. Mum’s biggest fear was that she’d lose me to the river and to a degree she did in the sense that we were in it every day. I had a wonderful country childhood because they were the days where you’d have breaky and take off as long as you were home by 5pm for tea. It was a typical lifestyle for kids in the 50’s and 60’s. Coraki was my universe.
It was an idyllic childhood except for two tragic things. I lost my little sister Leeanne, who was my very best little mate. She was 5 and I was 6. She died in 1961 from Golden Staph. She was misdiagnosed and placed in an oxygen tank which exacerbated her condition. My memories of her are standing in the back of our FJ Holden waving to me and that was the last I saw of her. It really knocked Mum and Dad around. I had a brother Peter 2 years older at the time and another little sister Amanda came along in 1963 and she is still with us thankfully. We lost Peter about 11 years ago to Melanoma.
In October 1965 Dad got a transfer to the Post Office in Manilla near Tamworth. We reluctantly left Coraki which was my world well and truly. I could talk to people from 8 to 80 because I grew up around the Post Office. Dad was a champion golfer and they still have a tournament in his name, Harry Beck.
My Dad passed away in 1965 at the age of 40 and that nearly destroyed Mum. He was the love of her life. He had one of the very first heart valve replacement operations and the attending surgeon at the time was Victor Chan. It was one of the first. He was a social smoker and a social drinker but was quite a fit man. One of my lovely memories is watching golf with him. I was very close to Dad.
We came back to Coraki and life was not the same. We were used to a pretty good standard of living, we got to holiday in Burleigh Heads and when we returned it was very different. Mum was a single mum with 3 kids and we lived accordingly and the saddest thing about that is Mum found out who her real friends were. This whole financial security thing has been a real thing with me throughout my whole life. I drive my wife mad with it and yet the only time I didn’t feel secure that way was during that period.
Dad’s condition was from a disease he’d picked up during the war in New Guinea so we became Legatees and that allowed Mum to get a nice home in Castle Hill which would be impossible now unless you won 3 lottos but then it was like a country town. It was hard leaving Coraki.
My Mum was born with one arm and she’s a remarkable lady. The interesting thing is Mum’s left arm is her little arm as she calls it. I’ve actually met a few people including kids who have exactly the same formation and all the left arm too. Mum brought up 4 kids, drove a column shift car and was never out of work. She worked at St Anne’s aged Hostel in Ryde and she grew up on a sheep farm with an alcoholic father who was 20 years older than her mother. She’s still with us and she’s 93.
Mum remarried about 18 months after moving to Sydney. He was a widower with 2 sons and a nice man. I went to Castle Hill High. The downside of Mum marrying Keith was we moved to West Pennant Hills and my school was at Castle Hill. I only got to see my friends at school and I dreaded the holidays. I spent a lot of time alone. I’m very happy with my own company because I had to be but I was lonely. Two things saved me — my love of football and music.
Radio in the late 60’s was with Ward Austin, 2SM, 2UW, all those guys became my heroes. I was born when Elvis had his first hit record and I’m old enough to know all those old songs. 2LM must have been way ahead of it’s time because there are no songs that I’ve ever heard from the 50’s or 60’s that aren’t familiar. The only way I know of them is through 2LM and TV shows at the time like Bandstand or Countdown.
I became best mates with a guy at school called Steve Hogan. We were like brothers, we both went into teaching after school and we both loved music. I always sang but we had to learn an instrument at teachers college because they were the days when teachers were all rounders. I showed Steve a few chords on the guitar and Steve is pretty driven so he taught himself to play really well. We’d sit around and jam and found out Steve had a voice and he was a natural harmony singer. We were novices but we got an audition gig at a wine bar called the Brewers Elbow in Artarmon. We only had our guitars and sang our 6 songs. To our dismay the Manager asked us to play on Friday nights. He saw something in us and persevered with us. We got better and we got gigs all over North Sydney and around the city. We played 5 nights a week plus still teaching during the day. We also did a lot of weddings and parties. I got some Congas and a tambourine so we could add more to our repertoire. We were called Hogan and Beck..very original…It was such a good time. Steve currently still heads the Australian Van Morrison show so they tour overseas and are still very well respected.
I taught mainly in the Western suburbs and had a crisis of career after 8 years, took a year off, travelled and reluctantly went back to teaching. Special Ed was something I wanted to do so I got into Deaf Education for 8 years which took me to the Riverina and North Rocks Special School. I was a signing deaf teacher and male so I was a rarity in that profession at that time.
After a few not so great relationships I went to the Hawkesbury Trainers Ball and I met Lynne who was seeing someone at the time who was a bit of a dick. I made up an excuse to go where she worked and we ended up going out. After only a few dates I told her I was serious about settling down, having a family and going back to settle on the North Coast. She said.… Yeah, that sounds alright. Within 14 months we were married and Jacob was on his way.”