“In between time I’d started Ballroom Dancing when up to 18 you couldn’t drag me onto a dance floor. Someone said to me..You like the girls Rex? I said Yeah! He said..Well how you going with that? I said… Not too good, I’m a bit slow. He said… ‘Do yourself a favour and go and learn Ballroom dancing’ so I did. I would travel to Phyllis Bates in Pitt St every Saturday. She introduced the Fox Trot to Australia. Yes, it did make a difference with the girls…a big difference.
At 23 I migrated to Canada. I had all my medals for Ballroom dancing except my Gold. I won the state bronze which obviously isn’t as up there as the silver and gold but Dad took it as winning the State. I had to explain to him but he was proud of me. In his eyes I was always the dummy. My siblings were smart and Dad often used to say Rex will finish up working on the Sanitary Cart. I had no interest in school. My brother Gibson ran away 3 times, I ran away twice. Gibson slept in a big drum down by the army camp by himself. The next time Gibson, myself and two other mates ran away they had the State alert. They couldn’t find us. We were sleeping under the bushes at Tuggerah Lakes and thought we’d head to Kurrajong where my Grandfather was. Eventually we were returned home.
I needed to get away from my stepmother so I had booked 8 months in advance to take a boat to Vancouver. In those days it took 17 days. I’m not much of a letter writer but I had to write home and tell my father how pretty it was. I danced my way down through the states and I was received well. I was offered a job to teach at Alberta because Ballroom was their pinnacle. I didn’t end up taking the job because Winter was coming on and it was too cold for me. I decided to move to England and it was dead. The halls were dirty and cold so I got very disillusioned. There was 5 of us travelling at that time so I got a carpentry job which was great and I did well.
I have known my wife Helen for a good 42 years and we’ve been married for 33. I met her when she was working at a restaurant in Wooloomooloo. We kept running into each other in different places. One day as I was crossing the road I heard a voice say …Hi! What about a Christmas drink? It was Helen and she only worked around the corner. Long story short I didn’t see her again until I put a not under her windscreen. Helen never washed her car, even now and because she walked to work so she hadn’t seen it. Eventually she saw it and invited me over for dinner. When I arrived she opened the door and shoved a glass of red in my hand. She sat at the piano to play as she was learning classical music at the time…bloody awful but she was trying. Out came the duck she’s cooked hanging over the plate. I tried everything to get this duck to fall to pieces but all it did was slide off my plate. That’s how we started. I was in my 50’s and she was 19 years younger than me when I asked her about contraceptives. She said she couldn’t fall pregnant anyway. One day she said I’m pregnant and we laughed. We were happy! We married. I always wanted a big family. I had 2 children from a previous marriage so we have four, three boys and a girl. We have one granddaughter and she shines at everything she touches.
I had a slight stroke last year but they couldn’t find what caused it. I was pretty lucky, though I get pain in my legs and I get tired faster. I think the medication makes me feel worse.
Helen and I both had properties and we’ve always been very good at buying properties together. Helen was born In Melville House here in Lismore. Normy Melville was her Grandfather. Her mother died when she was only 3 months old from a Melanoma. They removed it from her leg and it ran. They said she should terminate the pregnancy but she wanted the baby. Her father was Dr Opie. Helen went to Pymble ladies college as did her mother for their education. When our first was ready to start school Helen wanted to come back as she had inherited Melville House and she thought she could do something with it. When the Olympics were on we rented out rooms and liked it. We met some nice people so she turned Melville House into a stylish Art Deco Bed and Breakfast which is still going strong. She also had a degree in Social Work and worked at the hospital. Consequently we often rent our houses out now to Doctors.
We have a lot of property’s between us up here on the North Coast, many here in Girards Hill. We took the fences down and turned all the back of the properties into one big park from Keen St through to Dawson St. All the houses we bought were dreadful and needed big renovations which is my passion. We started a nice garden as well and I can light up the whole parkland. It’s 2 1/2 acres of parkland and we laid a lot of grass. It was $12 a metre for the grass which is like carpet. People wander through and they love it. You can have a picnic here and it’s beautiful. Helen and I still do all the work ourselves which keeps us busy. We will not be in an old peoples home. I will be sitting here in the sunroom looking down on this beautiful open space.”