Of Trefoils and Travails

"We're Tintookies
What we do
Is try to make
Your wish come true!"

Today I am wearing a brown skirt and yellow top. It reminds me of my Brownie Guide days when Bloody Ern's nicotine-stained fingers would patiently grapple with a needle and thread to sew my badges on to my uniform. It also reminds me of the few times he would actually come into a Brownie meeting - instead of waiting outside in the jalopy, moodily listening to Hank Snow or something - and the single mothers would flock around. God knows why. I guess he was single and employed, so he seemed like a good prospect. If you could ignore the rampant nose hair and the permanent eau de bait that hung around. Of course, none of us, least of all Ern, were yet aware of his predilection for swanning around in a sarong and nowt else.

In 1978 a lot of my Brownie Guide meetings were held at Hedland Senior High School. We Brownies would troop in and the Big High School kids would be hanging around saying, "Oh look, here come the little brown eyes." Well, I was far too young to get that joke and being somewhat obsessed with setting the record straight would retort, "Uh-uh, I've got blue eyes." Fortunately I was just a little bit too young to beat up.

Anyway, I remembered this scene one day in a lecture at uni. Being a little older and wiser I finally got the joke...and blew a bubble out of my nose.