This blog is mainly about my journey as a self-publisher author. However, today I am uploading a piece about a chance conversation with Barry, once a senior proofreader for some major Sydney newspapers. This conversation took place at Easter. How circumstances change! It’s now only June and, since then, I have been informed Barry has moved to a nursing home in Brisbane to be closer to his daughter after a fall at home. And yesterday I discovered the Westfield Hurstville branch of The Coffee Club has now gone.
It was early Easter Saturday morning. I had never seen the main street of Hurstville so empty. Not since the eighties anyway. I recalled one Sunday morning in 1988 when living in Mortdale and I went up to Hurstville to find something to eat. Along the whole main street there was barely another car on the road and one lone kebab shop was open. This was before the Chinese made their move here in droves. Recent Chinese arrivals, who previously tended to live in the inner suburbs, were venturing further afield and had chosen Hurstville as a hub. And the story just grew and grew over the years.
Fortunately, the entrance to Westfield Shops was open, though it was tomb-like inside. As part of my morning walk, I have the occasional habit of catching the train to Penshurst or Mortdale and walking the rest of the way to Hurstville to visit the Coffee Club, my favourite cafe inside Westfield, where I can enjoy a long black (I joked recently that it’s a dragon -（龙）lóng- black coffee). As i drink my coffee, I like to read a chapter of whatever book I was into at the time. I don’t often engage in conversation with others on these morning cafe visits.
The Coffee Club is an open space, a thoroughfare for workers and shoppers, but it has a relaxed atmosphere. The day starts slowly here and it’s comforting to recognise other early morning regulars.
But this Easter Saturday the place was shuttered up. Even at 8.10am, there was no sign of life, except for a fellow sat at a table in the dimly lit space, a man who gets about with the aid of a walking frame.
I didn’t know his name though I recognised him because I’d seen him on and off over at least the past year. I’d never spoken with him. He has a frail build, and always sits at the same table against the eastern wall. Various people stop and say hello to him each morning. He’s popular with some of the staff who work in the shopping centre, like the cleaners and the security guards.
As I stood close to him, we both shared our sense of surprise at the place not being open. We concluded they may be opening an hour later than usual because of altered Easter trading hours.
We chatted a little. A Greek lady stopped to say hello to the old man, and told us how, as a young girl, her family had very little food. That was in Greece during food rationing after the end of World War Two. She told us her family lived amongst the twelve islands, known as The Dodecanese. In the mornings her father would say he’d make her a coffee and that this would make her stronger, while her mother berated him, telling him not to fill her up with too much coffee. She reminisced how it took a long time to adjust to life in Australia, another heroic migrant story that begs to be remembered. She still liked her morning coffee but had also been caught out this morning.
I know little of Greece, which I admitted to her though I piped up and proudly said I knew that Dr Archie Kalokerinos was voted the Greek Australian of the Century. ‘Do you know his story?’ I asked. Both nodded as if it was yesterday’s news.
The old man interrupted to say he needed breakfast. I suggested the cafe upstairs is not bad for coffee, as long as the alarm of some nearby shop is not screeching as it often is- some mornings for over thirty minutes. The fellow agreed and invited me to sit with him there where we could continue our talk. So we farewelled the Greek lady who was heading home for her coffee.
Once at the upstairs cafe, the old man stopped to say hello to people at another table while I arranged my coffee. He soon returned and ordered his scrambled eggs on toast and capuccino.
He introduced himself as Barry. He was 89 years old and had lived in the area for many years.
After some small talk about ourselves, I asked Barry what his line of work was. He said he was the chief proofreader for several major Sydney newspapers- the Telegraph for eleven years and then the Herald.
Barry told me how, in his heyday as a proofreader, reading the papers day in and day out, he felt he knew what was going on in every country in the world. I told him how this reminded me of the time when I worked in a government department that processed refugee applications. To make good decisions, we needed lots of up to date country information from all around the world. Some decisions makers took their job very seriously, often clambering to get enough information to support their decisions, whereas I worked close to a colleague, Kneale, who reckoned he only needed to read the Herald each morning to know most of what was going on around the world.
Barry told me nowadays he was still busy because he visited people in hospital, patients without family or friends. He said the hospital gave him free parking there. He next mentioned his broken sleep, which he kept coming back to during our conversation over the next hour. He leaves his phone on all night because some of these people call him at odd hours, like one o’clock in the morning and he prides himself on always being on call. He said some nights he doesn’t sleep at all, but he feels okay, maybe gets a little tired and nods off in the afternoons. He reckoned he loved being alive so much that he had little time for sleep.
We touched on his interest in helping people and how some among us have suffered traumas others may not understand. He warned me he often cries when he talks about the subject he was about to mention- he said he felt especially sorry for homeless people, and was on the verge of tears while saying how he had lots of new clothes at home which he often shared with the homeless people he meets on the street.
I found Barry intriguing, and told him the story of a chief metallurgist I worked alongside at the steelworks in Wollongong and who suffered from bipolar disorder. Not getting the right treatment, he eventually lost his job, got divorced, and ended up living on the streets. I commented how such people can have many different backgrounds and few of us know what they’ve been through. He nodded in agreement.
I asked Barry whether he prays or meditates when he doesn’t sleep. He said no, though sometimes he prays for people when they’re in trouble. He said he doesn’t watch tv, but he has two radios and they are set on different stations, one is news and one is classical music, and he alternates between them.
He told me that after his breakfast, he would meet the shopping centre workers on a floor upstairs and share food with them as he worries they don’t earn enough to eat well. Though he joked that he hasn’t told them where he lives- just in case they get a little bit too friendly.
I began to tell Barry about a friend of mine, Geoff, and how he had recently written a few books about his early childhood traumatic experiences. For most of his life, he had never stopped to deal with these memories until in his late fifties when he was hit by a car in Sutherland and woke up a few days later in Sutherland Hospital, and memories flooded his mind. But Geoff’s is a huge story for another time.
This prompted Barry to tell how his commitment to welfare went back to the early days of his work as a proofreader. For that job, he worked at night so he often had spare time during the day. One day he heard there was a child refuge near where he lived (somewhere around Enfield) and they housed girls who had been removed from their home for domestic violence reasons. He offered to work there as a volunteer and the manager said, ‘We’ll see how you go,’ and it went well.
He taught the girls to play sports like cricket and football. One day, when it was raining, he took them inside, got out some books and crayons, and handed out aprons for them to wear. In the group, there was an eight year old girl who never spoke with anyone, never even engaged with others. But that morning, she brought her apron over to him and gestured to him for help to put it on. Barry, struggling to speak, said the memory of this moment alone still brings him to tears. He was so upset at what these children had been through and the sort of care they really needed.
Meanwhile, the cafe was getting busy. All the tables were full. We got to our feet. This had been one uplifting cup of coffee. I was soon back on my morning walk with a new lightness in my step.