Keeping in Touch With Cheryl: A Memoir

CHAPTER 1

It was a hot August day in 1954. In a rented two-story house in a small village situated between Rome and Naples and lying seven kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea, my mama was in labour and was said to be having difficulties getting the unborn to come out. It was likely that the child was having second thoughts about entering the world because he was going to be dragged screaming into this theme park called life. ‘Look, I don’t want to come out because there are too many people and all the rides look too scary, especially the roller coaster’ (translated from Italian). Humans though, being creative creatures, had other ideas; the tracks had already been laid, so it was just a matter of holding on with sheer grit.

According to Mum, there were two other older females assisting with the birth who were apparently very experienced, which is not surprising, given the large families that were the norm at that time. Mum was the eldest of 11 children—10 girls and one boy—and she eventually had seven of her own. Of those, the first died of malaria at 14 months of age, and the second was a still birth. The last sibling, a girl, was born some 15 months after myself. I can only imagine how many more bambinos (children) would have come along if my papa hadn’t died when he did. Necessity being the mother of invention, the two weighty ladies proceeded to gyrate their buttocks on top of my mum’s stomach until the baby’s head was facing in the right direction and then was finally extricated from the womb as thunder and flashes of lightning from a summer’s afternoon storm announced the arrival of the child into the world.

The town and commune in southern Lazio, Italy, is situated on the northwest bank of the Liris (also known as the Garigliano), with a suburb on the opposite bank about 18 kilometres from its mouth, at the point where the Via Appia crosses it by a bridge called Pons Tirestius. The region and town have a history of being invaded and conquered by various kings and armies over centuries.

According to my late stepfather, following his visits to the region, he described the people as rude and unwelcoming. After centuries of being conquered and treated as pawns on a chessboard, it is not that surprising for them to adopt such a façade.

The town suffered heavy bombings during WWII. Mum recalls watching the German soldiers march towards the village while bearing her first child. They then proceeded to shell and destroy most of the houses and buildings. The Germans then rounded up all the able men, apart from my father, who had managed to hide, with the aim of taking them across the Switzerland border and into Germany as prisoners of war. It was while on a train going north that my Nonno (grandfather) managed to escape their clutches.

The rest of the remaining villagers, including women and children, were forcibly transported towards a camp in the region of Calabria, located in the south of Italy some 400 kilometres away. It was along the road that Mum witnessed the true horrors of military insanity, for one could view the decaying bodies of soldiers and civilians on each side of the road who were killed and piled up, one on top of the other. ‘Yes, where have all the soldiers gone, gone to graveyards everyone, when will they ever learn’ (Peter Seger, ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’; 1955). Yes, nothing has been learned. The lunatics running this world have developed new ways to carry out mass killings, whether it be from the sky, under the sea, or from thousands of kilometres away. The villagers, though, eventually returned, following the liberation of Italy by the Americans and their allied forces in 1945.

Following the end of the war, the townspeople went back to their meagre existence while attempting to rebuild their shattered lives. The churches once again were bustling with women, making up a large part of the religious services in anticipation of the long-awaited second coming of Jesus Christ, while the men preferred to engage in heated discussions about politics, either at a bar or the piazza (public square). Daily life, though, was not without its usual quota of mishaps—like the time when I fell into a fire and had my genitals burnt at the age of one and, according to Mum, Papa was the only one who could console me. There was apparently a strong attachment formed between father and son.

The south of Italy was economically poor, with very little manufacturing or agricultural industries. The town itself didn’t even have a sewage system, and toilets were as scarce as hen’s teeth. All bodily excrements were largely disposed of into a chamber pot. With the size of the families, these got quite a workout. Mum recalls having to regularly get up at either two or three in the morning to empty the near overflowing bowls over the balcony and onto the cobblestones below. The family was fortunate, as Papa was able to etch out a living by travelling to other villages and towns, selling various wares (nuts, etc.) off the tray on the back of a motorized three-wheeled Piaggio Ape (ar-pay). In the spring month of May 1956, Mum’s world once again fell apart.

Regional elections were being held, and as such, a great deal of activity was taking place in the village. At one point during that day, Papa was asked to accompany a local resident to collect some vino (wine), an errand that he was reluctant to help with but agreed nevertheless. On the way, his ar-pay was hit by a vehicle coming out of a driveway, and because of the collision, he died after suffering a heart attack at the age of 42.

Mum would often mention that, after his death, I would stand on the balcony screaming inconsolably, calling for Papa to come home, but he never did. It was to be one of many losses. Sometime later, a court awarded compensation to the surviving spouse and to each child, but the course of history had already been determined. In the year following Papa’s fatal demise, Mum began to correspond with a brother of Papa who lived in Adelaide, Australia, with the aim of the family migrating there.

The Italian presence in Australia predates the First Fleet. James Matra and Antonio Ponto, both of Italian descent, were aboard the ship Endeavour with Captain James Cook on his voyage of discovery in 1770. Convict Giuseppe Tuzo arrived with the First Fleet and eventually settled in Sydney. Hundreds of Italians permanently settled in Victoria following the gold rush of 1850. After, their numbers were limited by the 1925 Australian Immigration Act. Following WWII, however, there was to be a large increase in migrants, mainly from southern Europe, and many of those were agricultural workers from southern Italian regions, including Sicily and Calabria. Because many who arrived were single men, proxy marriages to women back in Italy were common practice (Origins: Immigration Communities of Australia).

The allure of a country offering work and prosperity for many was as intoxicating as the wine that they drank. In the 2006 Australian census, 199,124 people were counted as having been born in Italy. The majority settled in Victoria, but a strong presence was also found in South Australia. My uncle was already established and was a cobbler by trade, making shoes from his house in a northern suburban home in Adelaide.

The offer of just having the two eldest boys come over to live with the uncle was initially made. For Mum though, it was a case of all or nothing, and she stuck to her ultimatum. Her maternal instincts and sheer will, managed to win out in the end, for in August 1956, the entire family was watching the Bay of Naples slipping further into the horizon as the passenger ship, named Australia, steamed towards ‘the land down under’.

Imagine a 31-year-old, widowed mother along with her five children, ranging in ages from 10 to 1, departing their ancestral homeland and emigrating to the other side of the planet. There were no reports of ships that had gone before us that had fallen over the edge of the earth, but little did we know what a cultural shock lay in store: a land where men were called ‘blokes’ and woman ‘sheilas’.

A novel titled They’re a Weird Mob, written in the early 1960s by John O’ Grady under the pen pseudonym Nino Cullota, and later made into a movie, provides an entertaining and insightful social commentary on Australian society of that period—specifically, a male, working-class society. The story follows a newly arrived immigrant named Nino Cullota, from Sicily, Italy, and his awkward interactions with the Anglo-Saxon characters of Sydney. So, take a gander at the book or film and don’t forget it is your shout next mate, Cobber (referring to the custom when drinking in a pub). While light hearted, many of the non-fictional migrants, including my family, suffered badly in the ‘land of Oz’.

There is a photo lying around somewhere of me as a three-year-old dressed in a blue and white sailor suit on board the ship. Without any hint of modesty, I would say the boy looked a cute and handsome specimen, with chubby cheeks. It was highly probable, not remembering any part of the sea voyage, that this image did have its drawbacks. Due to being on a confined ship, the cheek pinching must have been relentless, with total strangers wanting to make their affections known.

The older passengers most likely would have approached the boy and smiled while leaning down with their outreached arm to, the thumb and first finger joined together, slightly twist the cheek while uttering, ‘What a cute adorable, little boy.’ The cheeks must have been battered and bruised by the end of the voyage, which lasted about two months, the face resembling the colour of a cooked lobster. In later years, the other parts of the body were also going to look the same, after experiencing the menacing burning rays of the Australian sun upon the naked flesh of a light-coloured European Caucasian male.

Back on the ship, it was said that Mum was ill for all those weeks, suffering from seasickness. Fortunately, there were many fellow paisanos (countrymen/women) to care for the children and keep them occupied and amused. The passenger liner finally arrived in Australia in October 1958.

The family finally disembarked from the ship in Melbourne after travelling some 20,000 kilometres or so, since the distance also covered the ship sailing down the Western Australian coast and across the Australian Bite. A journey that took some 2 months. After disembarking in Melbourne, we were greeted by my uncle and were probably under the impression that his home was in a nearby town. The travelling however, was not done.

Wasn’t it enough to spend all those days at sea and now to find out that we had to catch a train to reach Adelaide, some 700 kilometres away from Melbourne, Victoria? Even Neil Armstrong, who flew to the moon, would have protested at such treatment. The distance did have one upside.

When the family began their trip in the month of August, the Northern Hemisphere was in summer. By the time we arrived in Adelaide, the Southern part of the world was well into spring, and therefore, we were able to experience almost six months of continuous warm weather. As a four-year-old, this seasonal occurrence may not have registered but simply contributed to retarding a young child’s development while interacting with a multitude of imposing and conflicting worlds. There were moments over the course of many years when they all threatened to collide with each other, causing overwhelming physical and mental paralysis.

During the early months following our arrival in Adelaide, the living arrangements seemed to offer a sense of continuity, due to the Italian language being spoken in the household. The choppy waters of the ocean voyage were still recent memories, but they were nothing compared to the huge swirls of disharmony that would lead to the family being evicted. According to Mum, the uncle, who has long been dead, became less and less tolerant of the recently arrived intruders living in the same household and began to physically mistreat each child, causing huge rifts between the adults. It was not too long before the authorities were called in concerning the children’s welfare. It was deemed that the sleeping arrangements were cramped and unhygienic, as the bedding had not been changed for weeks. The five of us were also considered to be malnourished. After being forced to leave the uncle’s home, Mum was referred to the Roman Catholic Church for assistance. How much pain and despair can a woman, widower and mother endure in such a short space of time?

With no means of support and nowhere else to turn, the Church provided temporary accommodation and work for Mum at one of their colleges. All five of the children were either placed at the same facility or at separate orphanages run by nuns of the church. The separation of the whole family was to change our individual lives irrevocably for many years to come.

CHAPTER 2

This is going to be the tricky part, Cheryl, especially in attempting to retrace almost 60 years of history and, more importantly, do it justice. The entire past must be virtually dissected and then reassembled to gain a greater insight into what the contributing influences were that led me to adopt the various internal traits and outward habits that followed the developing child into adulthood. The real challenge also, is attempting to make sense on all aspects of human nature and the world. All that has been physically and materially created in that time has been and continues to be redefined largely, based on what ideologies and beliefs are trending on any given day. What one finds is that fear is generally the motivating force underlying the general decision-making processes within the individual and collectively. It certainly was a triggering factor behind what and who I was to become.

Entrenched fear tends to lead one to take shelter under a veil of secrecy and deceit, to escape further pain and suffering. In reviewing my childhood, it was concluded that I too learnt how to lie and cheat and thereby hide behind a mask rather than expose the real me to the outside world. Throughout the course of us being together, you could see through the charade and yet your faith in my ability to remove the mask was unwavering. For now, it is back to those early beginnings.

The impressive two-story building used then by the orphanage was situated in a north-western suburb by the seashore of the St Vincent’s Gulf. Approximately 60 boys aged from 6-9 were cared for within those walls and placed in three separate dormitories, according to their age. The majority of those were from Anglo-Saxon backgrounds, and up to then I had not been exposed to the English language. As well as not knowing any English, I was also not familiar with any Australian or Anglo-Saxon standards or values and cues to social interactions. This apparently made little difference to the nuns because they were carrying out God’s work and thus not giving a shit where you came from. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Australian government had a Whites-only policy on its books, meaning that only those of certain skin colours were allowed into the country—a policy that was only removed from the statute books in the mid-1970s.

The three years spent at the orphanage were a blur, and for most part I have very vague or no recollections of day-to-day routines or events, names or dates. I do, however, recall experiencing constant fear and anxiety whilst a resident there, which probably gave rise to becoming a bedwetter at that time. I became terrified of the dark because during the nights, I would cower under the bed sheets for fear of being found out that I wet the bed. The nuns would walk through the dormitory during their intermittent rounds, flashing their torches with the expectation of no one breaking the silence. Little did they realize that to a small child, every squeak was like an almighty thunderclap—every step felt like the rumblings of a huge earthquake. If one was found out, then there would be hell to pay, and so it was more prudent simply to lie there shivering and trembling until one either fell asleep or it was time to get up. Going to class lessons was not much better.

Coming from an Italian background and gaining a rudimentary education proved extremely hard. The nuns only taught English, and they drummed it into you. For a while there were nightmares about that stupid ‘cat sitting on a mat’ while learning the alphabet. I began to feel shame and guilt and developed a sense of inadequacy while not being able to keep up with the other pupils. The nuns weren’t sensitive to cultural differences, having had minimal exposure to care for newly arrived migrant children, but would that have made it any easier? They were ‘daughters’ of the church and were there to impose strict adherence to Catholicism, regardless of whether one was White or Black or what language they spoke. After being belittled on several occasions in the classroom, one’s self-image tended to take a battering.

One of the features during those years spent at the orphanage was that, and this was common practice, the church taught that anybody who committed a sin or was deemed bad would be sent to hell, and there would be fire and damnation brought upon them. For me, being from a different culture and social setting, everything I did was deemed to be wrong and thus seen as a sin. Thus, I came to fear almost the immediate retribution of God; I became fearful of my own shadow. In so doing, many of the details of the days spent there have been virtually erased from my memory vault.

Everyday life whilst at the orphanage contributed to developing a sense of overwhelming and debilitating fear and anxiety. I came to believe that God was punishing me, for the nuns taught that those who were naughty were going to be sent to hell. The seeds were thus planted that would result and lead to a lifetime of inner psychological and emotional turmoil. Apart from the physical and emotional abuse that was endured, the likelihood that I was subjected to sexual abuse whilst at the orphanage could not be discounted, for it is possible that the memories of such abuse have been irretrievably repressed.

According to records obtained in later years from the Professional Standards Office of the Roman Catholic Church, it was noted that I sometimes went to stay with Mum for holidays, but I have no recollections of those times. To the best of my knowledge, the orphanage had a practice of placing residents out with other families not known to the child for weekends and during holidays. A submission given to an ‘Inquiry into Children in Institution Care’ by a former resident of the orphanage was found posted on the internet in 2015. The testimony seems to verify that such practices did indeed take place. The statement also refers to the child being sexually abused whilst staying with total strangers on the weekends.

There is no way to verify if the account of his experiences whilst at the orphanage were factual or accurate, but given all the revelations regarding the sexual abuse of children over the last 5-10 years, it is a strong possibility that the claim was credible. Was I a victim of such abuse while at the boy’s home? There currently is no way of knowing. Nevertheless, if one wants to instil fear in the population, then it would be ideal to do so while they are young. Child abuse, in all its forms, doesn’t just happen randomly; rather it is built into the system by those who have an agenda to follow. The practice is systemic, and the world has only recently begun to wake up to the depths of its depravity.

The Australian government reluctantly set up a royal commission in 2013 to investigate how institutions dealt with the incidences and reporting of child sexual abuse following strong public pressure. Surprise surprise—the commission had to be extended to deal with the avalanche of victims coming forward to tell their stories. America, Europe, New Zealand and many other countries have all had their dark and sordid past exposed. One only has to read David Yallop’s Beyond Belief: The Catholic Church and the Child Abuse Scandal concerning treatment of children by the Irish Catholic Church to get a broader picture of how deep the abuse goes.

The way it works is that the system, built on control, needs to manage the children while they are young and innocent by instilling fear into them so they become like putty and are more easily moulded and manipulated to conform as adults. It is a simple formula used for centuries, whereby the life force energy within humans is sucked out of them like vampires feeding off the blood from their victims. The revelations rising to the surface on an almost daily basis act like the proverbial stake being plunged into their collective evil heart—the voices of all those whose very souls have been tortured but can no longer be silenced. It is worthwhile at this point to address what is meant when referring to ‘child abuse’.

UNICEF, in a study of child maltreatment in the Asia and Pacific region, referred to the following definition for what constitutes child abuse: ‘For the purposes of this study, child maltreatment constitutes all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power’ (Krug et al., 2002). The United Nations now has a charter on the rights of children as a response to the way children have been treated by various cultures and governments over the centuries. The point being made here, Cheryl, is whether I would be justified in claiming that I was subjected to child abuse when placed at the orphanage, according the definition adopted by the United Nations. The answer would be yes because even the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged their part, as will be mentioned later in the book.

Many of the memories relating to the treatment of myself and other residents from those years spent at the orphanage may be irretrievable, but some that can be recalled do highlight social attitudes present at that time. An event that now comes to mind is that of the orphanage setting up a stage on the oval where children would perform for invited guests, and one of them was the Governor of South Australia. It was Christmas Eve, and on that night, the residents of the orphanage were given presents by Santa Claus. The gifts included cowboy costumes, toy plastic guns and rifles and there was also Red Indian clothing along with bows and arrows. The next day, all the boys would be on the oval playing cowboys and Indians, and there were often scuffles because just about every boy wanted to be the cowboy because they always were considered the good guys and triumphed over the ‘red savages’.

The Australian Anglo-Saxon population had the same disdain and hatred of the Black indigenous people, placing them in the same category as ‘wild animals’. They were the low of the low. Other cultures were referred as dagoes (Italians), wogs (Greeks), and slantly eyes (Asians). Anyone else was referred to as ‘red commos’. There was clearly a class social order.

At the time of writing these memories, Mum just recently celebrated her 90th birthday while not being in the best of physical health. She is riddled with arthritis throughout most of the body, which makes her virtually housebound. Her condition can be directly linked to having to undertake a number of jobs to etch out a living, so she could feed, clothe and house the children. The work often required her to scrub floors on her bare knees, so others could walk over and dirty them all over again. Yes, cleanliness is next to Godliness. The shoes were of those who were programmed to believe that their nation was in deed the ‘lucky country’. ‘Australians let us rejoice, for we are young and free’ (Advance Australia Fair). Those eroding shoes were also worn by the sleeping masses being blindly led by their faceless oppressors. The wear and tear on both my mother’s body and mind would eventually cause a great deal of grief and pain.

My mother, as mentioned, was doing cleaning jobs at a college run by the church while being separated from her children, yet she summoned the strength to visit each of the orphanages on alternative Sundays. This necessitated catching two separate buses for the journey there and returning, which would take up to eight hours of her rest day. She was given no assistance by the church, as the bus fares came out of her meagre wages. Even God was able to rest on the seventh day. Mum continued to slave away and put some money aside.

At the end of 1963 I, along with the siblings, were released back to the care of our mother. At that time, the gunshots that killed President Kennedy were still echoing around the world, along with the music from the Beatles, whose records were topping the music charts, and the black and white television was taking a prominent place in the lounge rooms of family homes. It was against this background that Mum was able to rent a two-bedroom, semi-detached villa in North Adelaide, a light industrial inner suburb. It was at this house that some of the habits learned at the boy’s home began to manifest themselves in very nasty and painful ways. One was frequently