60 in 60 #8 Dad, Pop, Peter Holt

 60 in 60. #8 Dad. Peter Holt

I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events and experiences.

The Holt family reunited at 119 Aberdeen St Newtown, our spiritual home.

                                                         With cousin Danny Delaney

With his little mate Keith Grimshaw

With cousin Gordan Flint and wife Phyllis

 

It is four years since Pop died. I miss him and think about him often. I have his computer at my ‘live away from home’ in Horsham and have set the screen-saver to a slide show of the 10,000+ photos he had saved on it. This means I get regular reminders of him and all the people he knew and places he went. I love seeing these images and am often amazed at how widely he travelled in Australia. He loved this country and there is very little of it that he did not visit on his many road trips. For many years I tried to convince him to take a trip to America where he had many blogging friends but he always said he was content to stay home and see more of Australia. 

He loved going on a road trip, on his own, or with his best mate Greenie. I accompanied him a couple of times, such as when we avoided thousands of kangaroos while crossing the Nullabor, and took the back road from Norseman to Hyden to visit Wave Rock en route to Perth. I went on his last road trip too, as we did a circuit around northern Victoria with visits to his cousin Gordon and Phyllis at Tallarook, nephew John and Heather at Shepparton, sister Merle’s grave, cousin Danny and Kath Delaney at Benalla, and old friends Jan Davies at Yarrawonga and Keith Grimshaw at Cobram. He loved visiting friends and family and did regular cross-country trips to visit us kids in Wudinna and Perth.

 

Pop used to tell me that he considered a person fortunate if they had 4-5 really close friends. He greatly valued his friendships with Alan Davies, Keith Grimshaw, Warren Green, Neil McQuinn and Allan and Lorna Banfield in particular, as well as many other friends scattered around the country. 

As mentioned in chapter 7 of 60 in 60, I don’t remember Mum and Dad’s marriage being close or happy so it was not a surprise when they divorced in 1970. As a kid I remember Dad as a strict disciplinarian and I received a few (deserved) beltings. Plundering the supply of BP cigarette holders in the shed to free the prized magnets inside was the reason for one of them. Dad was the BP rep for Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula and I remember going with him as he visited BP service stations at Barwon Heads, Point Lonsdale and Werribee and playing among the 44-gallon drums at the fuel depot on Melbourne Road. 

A handsome young man

 

My best memories are of Saturday mornings when Dad took us boys to play footy at the YMCA Little League in Geelong West. Bruce and I started playing for ‘The Toughies’ in our weekly battle with ‘The Terribles’ in jumpers that hung down past our knees. The following season we played for ‘The Terrifics’ culminating in a famous Grand Final victory over ‘The Dazzlers’. Fifty years later Pop and I had a reunion at Kardinia Park with my under 9s coach, Eric Nicholls, a former Geelong player. After Saturday morning footy, often played in the rain and mud, if the Cats were playing at home we would go with Dad to the game at Kardinia Park. He would stand on the terrace behind the goal while we kids spent the afternoon perched on the fence below the scoreboard, collecting empty steel beer cans to stand on or sliding down the dirt bank behind the terrace on flattened cardboard boxes. 

 

We occasionally went with Dad when he played golf at courses like Point Lonsdale and Indented Head where we spent the afternoon playing on a boat parked under the clubhouse while he sliced his way from tee to green. I say sliced because that’s literally what he did. Pop was right-handed at everything except golf which he played left-handed! He had such a terrible slice that he faced at a 45 degree angle to the green off the tee and watched his ball sail in a regular arc over the rough and back onto the fairway. He was a member of Gold Cross golf club with Alan Davies and played at Yarra Bend in Northcote, a course he described as the best public golf course in Australia. About a year before he died he came with Zach and I for a round there- we played, he drove the buggy- and reminisced about Gold Cross days and the annual golf trip to places like Yarrawonga and Wangaratta. In the years that I lived with Dad and Julie in Queensland we were members at Rosewood and played at places like Nambour, Toowoomba and Victoria Park in Brisbane where, during one bad-tempered round, I was sent back to the car while they finished their game. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with golf!!

Pop with Daniel

 

After the divorce Dad moved to Brisbane with Julie in 1971 where they ran the BP service station on Cavendish Rd and lived at 8 Fork St Mt Gravatt. The four of us kids would go up for the Christmas holidays each year. I remember eating pizza for the first time at Surfer’s Paradise, swimming at The Oasis, having Dairy Queen ice cream at Cooparoo, having races home from the servo after work, two kids in each car, and visiting Big Pa and Auntie Ada at Amberley. When the huge 1974 floods happened we were marooned in Brisbane for an extra week until we could finally get to the airport and fly home to Perth.

 

After a very troubled year in Perth I was “sent” to live with Dad and Julie in Queensland to get some discipline! We lived at Rosewood where they owned the Caltex service station, then moved to Toowoomba in 1976. Julie ran Express Rubber Stamps and Pop drove a school bus while I went to Mt Lofty High School. Although there were still times of trouble and conflict I was pulled in to line (a bit) and I have lots of good memories of my three years in the Sunshine State. We drove to Melbourne so that I could go and see Spurs play in an end of season game and my beloved ‘Nanny Falia’* came back with us for a visit not long before she died. We took a couple of trips to Carnarvon Gorge National Park when the other kids came to Queensland and as we bush-walked I was a Datsun 240Z, Bruce was a Mini-minor and Peter King was some sort of sports car while Dad was the Mack truck blocking our path. Another trip, with Vicki and her friend Denise saw us flooded in again and stuck for days until a farmer towed us across a swollen creek with his tractor.

 

I moved back to live with Mum and the family in 1978. 

 

Dad and Julie sold up in Toowoomba and headed off on the first of their many trips around the country. I had a very memorable reunion with them at Millstream in the Pilbara. I was on a North-West school trip and they had come across the top end on their way to Perth. I celebrated Phil Kelly winning the 1979 Sandover Medal while sitting at their campfire and running through the camp announcing the news. 

 

When I finished school and started travelling (hitch-hiking) around the country I regularly met up with them when they were taking school photos for Pacific around Victoria and South Australia at places like Sale and Nuriootpa. By then they were based at Maryborough where they ran a few sheep. On one memorable visit I was called upon to chase down a renegade sheep called ‘Crazy’ who had escaped a paddock and refused to rejoin the flock. 

When I travelled overseas and lived in London for a couple of years I would grab any opportunity to phone home, oblivious to the time difference and waking Dad up in the middle of the night for an update on my adventures. Dad and I were both night owls and a visit to Maryborough, and later Gympie, usually ended in long talks into the early hours of the morning. Some of these discussions became a bit combative in the early years of my Christian conversion when I was determined to convince him he needed God. I learned to listen more and not push the issue and the brief tension in our relationship dissipated.

The weekend when we announced our engagement, 1985. It was about 9 o'clock in the morning but Julie said "I need a drink!" and cracked a bottle of champagne.

A visit to the farm at Maryborough

 

Sadly Pop and Julie’s marriage ended after 24 years. He was heart-broken and lonely for several years afterwards and always said his greatest regret was not fighting harder to try and save his marriage. He maintained his love for Julie for the rest of his life. After the turbulence of my teenage years (from having no children to suddenly becoming full-time step mother to a troublesome adolescent) Julie and I now have a close relationship and Carolyn and I enjoy catching up with her in Mildura or when she comes down to Melbourne/Geelong. I often ask her about times and events spent with Dad as she provides a strong link to memories of him.

 

After their split Pop hit the road again, ending up at Tin Can Bay where he found a supportive group of friends at the caravan park including Ken and Jackie, Lyle and Margaret and his good mate Albert. He found some peace here and later moved to ‘The Palms’ before settling at 74 Duke St Gympie. I visited him a few times over the next ten years, including taking Zach and Sophie up there at the end of our trip to the Sydney Olympics.

 

Pop would have happily lived out the rest of his days in Gympie if not for the fact he got bowel cancer in 2013. The following 12 months saw Alan, Vicki, Bruce and I all spending significant time in Gympie looking after Pop as he went through surgery, chemo and radiation treatment. He came through it very well with no pain or side effects but even after the final surgery to reconnect his bowel he never returned to ‘normal’ health or function which was a source of great frustration for him. 

At Tweed Heads, 2000

For years I had tried to get him to move back south to be closer to his family and he had stubbornly resisted, content with his self-described ‘hermit’ existence in Queensland. Getting cancer and seeing the huge amount of time and effort we kids put in to look after him brought him to the realisation that he needed to move to Victoria to be closer to everyone. 

A huge and hilarious garage sale followed and Alan and I packed up his house ready for the move to Geelong in 2014. There is no doubt that he enjoyed being back here, seeing family and friends more often but he never got used to the cold weather after the warmth of Queensland and I often found him huddled under a blanket, dozing in front of the fire and the TV when I called in.

The Holt men in Perth, early 2000s

 

I loved having him so close and we did lots of stuff together for those last couple of years, going to the footy, watching movies, cutting firewood, BBQs and meals, trips to Bendigo, Ballarat and Colac and the afore-mentioned final road trip. 

 

In 2016 we hosted a party for his 80^th birthday and had a great time with many old friends and family, including a surprise appearance by Neil, Joan and Heather McQuinn from WA. 

Greenie was there of course and Alan and Bruce came over from Perth for the big occasion.

Pop loved Australian bush poetry just as his father had before him. I wrote a poem called ‘Pushing Eighty’ for the occasion. A link to it is here. At the end of the night there was a final surprise, a Mr Whippy van serving ice creams to everyone. He had told me once that he wanted a Mr Whippy van at his funeral. 

“That was supposed to be at my funeral you fool!” he said. 

I replied “I thought it would be better for you to enjoy it with your guests”. 

And he did.

 

Dad loved movies and had a vast collection of DVDs (not all legal !), John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe (the cake for his 80^th featured the blonde bombshell). When we were kids he loved Frank Sinatra but (sadly) later in life he ditched Cranky Franky for Slim Dusty and developed a love for country music! I tried to sell as many of his hundreds of country CDs as I could at the garage sale but the other Holt siblings insisted that I keep his Slim collection. 

 

We had been planning another trip to Sydney in 2017 when he discovered the cancer had returned and was inoperable. He opted not to have any treatment and wanted to stay at home to live out his final days. Unfortunately that wasn’t feasible once the end neared and he was moved to Grace McKellar in Geelong. For the final two weeks of his life Pop was never alone 24/7. One of us stayed with him each night and during the day there was a steady stream of visitors from around the country. 

 

The first night I spent with him in the hospital was one of the most special times of my life as we shared some really significant moments and memories and I talked to him about the things I really wanted to say before he died. 

On the last day he was surrounded by his children and family including his first wife (Mum) with whom he had reconnected and built a very close friendship since his move back to Victoria. 

I was holding his hand and telling him I loved him when he took his final breath.

I loved him dearly and will always treasure the memories of the times we spent together, the road trips, the late night talks, the jokes and fun and the serious times. 

Pop was generous, funny and good company, loyal to his friends and proud of his family. He loved us deeply and did whatever he could to support and encourage us in any way he could. He had 11 grandchildren, a host of great grand kids and a wide range of friends, many of whom came to celebrate his life. I had the great honour of conducting Pop’s funeral service, and, as requested, Mr Whippy was there again.

* Nanny lived in Nathalia in the Goulbourn Valley and as little kids we couldn't say Nathalia, thus it was abbreviated to 'Falia". It was a complete misnomer because she was a wonderful Nan, definitely not a failure.

 

These are links to the eulogy and message I gave at the funeral.

 

 

 

60 in 60 #7 Mum

 60 in 60. #7 Mum

I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events and experiences.

 

It’s no surprise to say that Mum has been one of the most important people in my life. She and Dad divorced when I was 9 and our whole world changed. While I don’t have memories of their marriage being close or happy, it was at least stable. In those days people stayed together for the kids but even we weren’t enough of a reason to maintain their unhappy marriage. Suddenly Mum was a sole parent and provider and she rose to the challenge with aplomb. Raising four kids- Alan the eldest, Vicki, me and Bruce the youngest- on her own was bloody hard work, especially when one of those kids was difficult to manage (!) 

 

Many words could be used to describe Mum but the first that comes to mind is hard-working. She is a tireless and indefatigable worker, whatever the task may be, Mum is like the Energiser Bunny. Her energy is matched by her enthusiasm, so that once she has an idea or a goal nothing will stop her striving to achieve it. She has owner-built several houses and each time has worked until she dropped to make it happen- painting, decorating, building, modifying and gardening, and each time the house became a beautifully decorated warm and welcoming home where her children and grandchildren were, and still are, always welcome. Mum has the gift of hospitality and whenever we arrive, either expectedly or unannounced, there is always plenty of great food to share around the table or a meal whipped up out of whatever she has in the fridge and pantry. 

 

After Dad left Mum had jobs as a barmaid, a service station cashier, a delivery driver and a waitress. We lived in Newtown and Moolap in Geelong before moving to Perth at the end of 1973. We rented a house in Bayswater from Uncle Neil and Auntie Joan before moving to live on West Coast Highway, Watermans, overlooking the Indian Ocean. Throughout these moves I was unsettled and difficult…no, let me be brutally honest, I was little shit of a kid* who got into a lot of trouble, and that was just for the things Mum found out about! I was unsettled at school where I was often bullied or alienated, only my love of footy and my sporting talent gave me any credibility or currency with my peers. One of the worst episodes at school resulted in a teacher hitting and punching me several times in an incident that nowadays would probably see him lose his job, but in 1974 was brushed under the carpet. 

I ran away from home a couple of times and was making life very difficult for everyone so at the end of that year I was “sent” to live with Dad and Julie in Queensland. There are different versions of how that occurred but suffice to say that rather than just going for the Christmas holidays, I stayed and lived with them for the next three years. 

During that time Mum and her second husband Arthur, had a baby girl called Shannon.

 

When I was about 10 I fell in love with Tottenham Hotspur FC, a soccer team in England. I was obsessed with Spurs and knowing this, Mum arranged to meet the team when they came to Western Australia on an end of season trip. She got them all to sign a book which she gave me for Christmas. It was one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever received.

 

At the end of 1977 I returned ‘home’ to Perth to re-join the rest of the family. I had matured a bit and finally had a positive experience, at my fifth high school, Carine SHS**, where for the first time I fitted in and made real friendships. I’d like to say I had settled and no longer caused trouble but I can’t. I got suspended twice in my final year at Carine, adding a layer of irony to events that would occur several years later. 

 

While Mum has accomplished many things, in her own words, the thing she is most proud of is her children, and her love for us is the greatest driving force in her life. She has made mistakes along the way but her love and care for us is constant and inexhaustible.

Her love now naturally extends to her many grand-children and great-grand-children.

 

Mum is creative and talented and when she takes on a hobby she is gung-ho about it. I remember her ceramics period when I was a teenager. When she learned how to make teddy bears the house was soon over-run with bears of all shapes and sizes. Mum loves Christmas, especially the traditional images and trappings of a northern hemisphere yuletide and the house is transformed with Santas, reindeer, fairy lights and candle-lit cottages, snowmen and Christmas trees and nativity scenes. Our kids loved the Christmas celebrations at Nan’s house and of course the stupendous traditional Christmas lunches with all the trimmings and home-made plum pudding.

Mum and Arthur were restless and so there were moves back and forth across the city, from Girrawheen to Yangebup, Kelmscott and Armadale, then across the country to Moonta SA and Mirboo North near her beloved sister Evelyn in Leongatha.  Back to WA where Bridgetown became home but their tumultuous marriage  ended and Mum was alone again. 

 

During this time Mum achieved a life-long dream and went overseas for the first time, to Britain, where she travelled around the beautiful English countryside, exploring and discovering and making friends. The travel bug bit her hard because over the next few years she went to America and Europe several times. In the USA she connected with friends of ours from Calvary Chapel and my summer camp experience and has been back to visit Joshua and his family, Ron and Kay, Keith and Michelle and Paul and Vicki a number of times. Mum and Mona holidayed on a Greek island and she went to Paris with Auntie Ev and Uncle Ken. All of these journeys happened after she turned 60 and her energy and desire to travel has still not diminished.

 

Bridgetown is a beautiful little town and Mum made lasting and loving friends there. Still single and lonely, her good friends Udo and Viv encouraged her to seek love and companionship again. Subsequently I had the honour of officiating at the marriage of Mum and Walter. With us then living in Busselton there were many weekends and holidays spent at Cherry Tree Cottage. Soccer squash at the Boat Park in the main street provided hours of entertainment for all the family. Mum joined a co-op of like-minded crafters and artists and together they ran a craft shop for several years. She treasured her times with the Stitch and Bitch group, most of all her dear friend Mona who sadly passed away a few months ago. As I write this Mum is back in Bridgetown, staying at Mona’s house with her daughter and catching up with family and friends.

 

Sadly, third time lucky wasn’t the case and Mum’s marriage to Walter came to an end as well. Mum uprooted again and moved back to Victoria, first to a little place called Tatong, then Drysdale and finally to Narrawong on the SW coast near Portland. She has made friends, found a lovely church community and enjoys nothing better than scrapbooking, making cards and gifts for family and friends. She had a major health scare a couple of years ago and got a glimpse of her mortality but has recovered, all the more determined to make the most of every day and never to die wondering. Vicki and Don aren’t far away, in Casterton. We are in Ocean Grove and her dear friends Allan and Lorna are in Geelong so she is often on the road, visiting friends and family. 

Mum has a special relationship with her niece Penelope which provides an on-going connection to her sister Evelyn who died of cancer a few years ago. 

Mum is spontaneous, irrepressible and generous to a fault. She will do whatever she can to make her family happy. She is much more likely to wear out than to fade away. She has beloved friends across the country and around the world. At 83 she has slowed down a little, there are lots of aches and pains, there are challenges to contend with, like keeping her driver’s licence and climbing the stairs, but I’m confident she will continue to meet them the way she always has, with gusto and determination.

Thank you for loving me and always wanting the best for me. I love you Mum.

*Before he died I apologised to Pop for being a little shit when I was a kid. He replied, "You weren't a little shit Marcus, you were a big shit". I asked if he could forgive me. "Easiest job in the world" he responded.

It is a credit to both of them that in later life Mum and Dad developed a close and loving friendship again.

** There will be more about Carine High School in a later chapter of 60 in 60.

 

60 in 60 #6 Paul

 60 in 60. #6 Paul

I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events and experiences.

 

Our fourth child wasn’t planned but I thank God that Paul Levi Ablett Holt was born on November 21 1997. (He is named after my best mate Paul Frederickson).  He was such a blessing, a sweet natured little boy who endeared himself to everyone wherever he went. Sophie and Paul bonded instantly. We moved to Busselton when he was 6 so he had the added bonus of growing up in a beautiful seaside town with a great community and making heaps of friends at Cornerstone Christian College. Pretty early on I dubbed him Sport Boy because he loved sport. Any sports, all sports, he loved playing them and watching them. I have a treasured photo of him cuddling me after the Carine HS football team won the Smarter Than Smoking Cup grand final against the previously unbeaten Clontarf College. (I was the coach).

Paulie loved soccer and I coached his team for several seasons when he played for Cornerstone. Everywhere he went he met people and made friends. I was constantly amazed as he recounted stories of who he knew, who they played for or what school they went to or where he had met them. He was twice selected to represent the SW region in a week-long country week soccer tournament in Perth and this expanded his network of friends and acquaintances even further. 

I have two outstanding memories from this time. We had decided to move to Victoria for family reasons in 2010. Just before we moved Cornerstone reached the grand final which was played at Margaret River. Paulie and the team played brilliantly and won the game. The celebrations of players, parents and coach were a wonderful finale after five years of playing together and I hugged him with tears after the game before racing up to Perth for my niece’s wedding. The following week Paul went to Perth for the country week tournament with about 70 kids across a range of age groups. On the Friday evening I went to pick him up upon the team’s return. It took him half an hour to get from the bus to the car because so many kids wanted to say goodbye to him. He was smothered in hugs, handshakes and fond farewells from boys, girls, coaches and parents across every team. It was amazing to see how well-liked and popular he was. 

The move to Victoria wasn’t so smooth for him. The local school was rough and he was bullied, prompting us to take on home schooling for a term. When I got home from work after the first day I asked him “How was school?”. He replied, “it was good but the new girl talks a lot”. He then enrolled at a school in Geelong which was a little better before he caught us in a moment of weakness and convinced us to let him go to SEDA, a sports based school with a surfing program! After a year he opted out and started a horticulture course at TAFE.

While formal schooling didn’t work for him, Paul proved very adept at learning. First he taught himself to play guitar. Then he started learning Hawaiian and how to play the ukulele.

He met some young guys in Melbourne and came home one day and asked if he could move up there to live in a shed in their backyard! We thought he might last a few weeks but he proved more resilient than that and over the next couple of years he lived with mates in share houses and hitched his way around the country, supporting himself by busking and scrounging.

He met a girl and travelled with her for a while. In preparation for a trip to Bosnia and Germany with her and a group of friends he taught himself Bosnian! which made him an instant hit with her Bosnian relatives. 

To say he is resourceful is an under-statement. He can live on very little, he makes friends wherever he is and he has talents and skills that help him survive and thrive. He is clever and personable, a risk-taker, a thinker, a musician and a poet. Paul is a great mimic, he used to have us in stitches imitating Frank Woodley and Steve Irwin. 

Last year he started working as a dishwasher at The Goose restaurant overlooking the jetty in Geographe Bay. Within a couple of weeks they had offered him an apprenticeship to train as a chef. He was going really well and enjoying learning to cook when disaster struck and the restaurant burnt down! He has since picked up work cooking in a burger van and is keen to complete his apprenticeship when The Goose reopens. 

I loved Paulie as a cute little boy, and I love the young man he has become. I admire his self-taught skills, his inquiring mind, his resilience and adaptability, his self-confidence and his willingness to take on a challenge. 

 60 in 60. #5 Jordan

I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events and experiences.

 

I was outvoted when our third child was born. I wanted to call him Spike but the combined bloc of wife and mother-in-law vetoed my wishes so we settled on calling him Jordan. It’s a fine name and is often shortened to Jordy and Jord but Carolyn admits now that she thinks we should have called him Spike. Each of our children is unique, each has their strengths and weaknesses, and each of them is dearly loved. Jordy was a character right from the beginning. He had some developmental delay causing floppy muscle tone and was born with Nystagmus, a condition that makes his eyes move back and forth continually. One of his paediatricians even speculated that he may be blind. None of this ever held him back from becoming a funny, adventurous, curious and irrepressible little boy. Physiotherapy addressed the body tone and he became strong and “ripped” as a kid. One of my favourite pictures of Jordy was taken when I discovered him on the roof of my lime green Holden station wagon, waving a stick around in swash-buckling pirate style. For a couple of years, every day when I arrived home from work he would come racing out of the house and the moment I opened the car door he would launch himself into my arms. We played a lot of backyard soccer after school. 

 

Around about this time we started going to Augusta every January as part of the Scripture Union Beach Mission team. Jordy loved the big team environment and attached himself to one of the team members, Angela for two weeks. A year or two later it could have ended in tragedy. Once the big marquee was set up he and a few kids were jumping off the bonnet of one of the 4WDs nearby when he landed on the top of a star picket, slicing open his inner thigh. Thankfully we had a doctor on the team who took him to the local hospital and stitched him up. A few centimetres to the side and he could have cut his femoral artery… .  Jordan and Zach both loved reading and when he was about 9 I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy to him as a bedtime story over a period of several months. In an unplanned coincidence, the night I read the passage in which the One Ring was destroyed, when Frodo cast it into the fires of Mt Doom, was March 25, the very same date it occurred in the story. 

 

We moved to Busselton when Jordy was 13 and it was a good move for him. He made lasting friendships and developed a bond with Busso and the south-west that endures to the present day despite the fact that we moved to Victoria over ten years ago. 

Having taken Zach and Sophie to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, I engineered a way to take Jordan and Paul to the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne by organising a trip for a group of kids from Busso high school where I was the chaplain. It was a great trip but one of my clearest memories is of Jordy’s horror at the boxing, aghast at seeing people punching one another into submission.

 

He surprised us when playing the part of the pirate-ship cook, ‘Sam O’Nella’ in a school production of ‘The Pinafore Pirates’. I knew he was theatrical but hadn’t known he could sing. After that success he got a part in ‘The Boyfriend’ in a production in Margaret River, followed by winning the part of a punk in the British medical farce, ‘It Runs in the Family’. Another unplanned turn of events saw me get the part of the policeman in the play. Acting together was one of the highlights of my life as we found ourselves performing to packed houses for three successive weekends and, to my utter surprise the audiences loved it and were rolling in the aisles. I did a passable job but Jordy was a star. 

Jordan has had a few challenges along the way, and used a few unorthodox strategies to deal with them. He has always had great self-awareness and been completely open and honest about his choices and actions. He’s led a somewhat nomadic life for several years, spending time in both Victoria  and WA, working in a range of jobs but never settling.

He met a girl online and went to America to meet her and see if it would work in the real world. It didn’t survive but it was a great experience and opportunity.

 

Jordy is creative and passionate, a non-conformist with anarchist tendencies. His ability to find strange, bizarre and incomprehensible (to me) memes and websites is extraordinary.

He is blunt and fearlessly honest and can be harsh and judgemental at times. He gets fired up about stuff and pissed off with people. 

Yet, no matter what is going on in his life and his head, he knows with absolute certainty that we love him, just as I know with the same certainty that he loves us. That love has held him securely through some dark and difficult times and he knows it and is grateful for it. 

 

There have been some really positive things going on in the last few months. Despite the restrictions and inconveniences caused by Covid, Jordy has found a place to live which is working out well for him and is studying music production at TAFE in Margaret River which he is loving. While his choice of music doesn’t appeal to me (surprise surprise, death metal is not to my liking) he is really enjoying the course, accumulating equipment and tools to help him pursue his music and currently preparing for his first public performance. It is exciting and gratifying seeing him find something he loves and to hear the enthusiasm and excitement he feels about it.

I wish he was closer and that we could see him more often, but I am very happy that he is doing something he loves and living in a place that feels like home.

60 in 60. #4 Sophie

 60 in 60. #4 Sophie

I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events and experiences.

 

My Favourite Daughter was born on March 24 1989 in Perth. We all fell in love with Sophie at first sight. She became a curly haired toddler who adored her big brother (she called him Zach de wowwow, a nickname that still gets used occasionally) and, as was the fashion at the time, I took hours of video of the kids playing together. They were always entertaining and funny and if it weren’t for the fact they both liked to run around in the nude a lot, the videos would be great family entertainment. One of the things I treasure and most long for is for my children to be close and to love one another. As they were growing up there was a particularly strong bond between Sophie and Paul who is eight years younger than her. I have a stack of beautiful photos that reflect their love for one another.

 

Sophie was a model student for the first few years of primary school but when she reached a certain age and joined a particular group of friends she went off track a bit. Adolescence was a little rocky as her rebellious side kicked in. Nothing too serious but a bit of a jolt for us with our faith and ideals about family and raising kids. As I reflect on it now her non-conformist ways shouldn’t have surprised me, I was the rebel in my nuclear family. I did much worse stuff than Sophie ever did when I was a teenager, so much so that I was sent to live with Dad and Julie when I was 13. 

Sophie was working out who she was and didn’t necessarily want to be what we wanted. She moved out of home earlier than we expected but proved to be capable of looking after herself independently. She is sensitive and compassionate, creative and enterprising. She has inherited my scrounging genes and regularly finds treasures and bargains at op shops and on Gumtree.

Now, a few years down the track she is exactly what we want, a beautiful loving daughter with two gorgeous kids of her own. Friendship and connection to people has always been paramount to Soph and the relationships she developed in her late teens and twenties are strong and enduring, she is deeply loved and valued by her friends, all the more so now as together they’ve entered the next stage of life, becoming parents themselves.

 

Before that happened though, Sophie’s creativity blossomed through photography. She took beautiful and thoughtful pictures and her camera opened her up to the world, as a subject and as a place to explore. She studied at a photographic school in Melbourne and then had the good fortune to move into Swan Lake, a share house in Reservoir, where she met a steady stream of beautiful, interesting and creative people. That led to a trip to France to photograph her friends’ wedding and her first adventures in far away places, including a whirlwind stopover in China. She went back to Europe the following year to test the waters of a relationship with a young man from France but it didn’t work out.

What did work out was meeting Mikey to whom she is now married and together they have Matilda (Tilly) 3, and Corwin who was born in March this year. 

 

They lived in the rainforest area near Mullumbimby for a couple of years but I’m pleased to say they recently returned to live in Melbourne which makes grandparenting a lot easier.

Sophie shares many characteristics with her mum, including an uncomfortable level of worry and anxiety. There are challenges and stresses to deal with and the added responsibility of being a young mum sometimes weighs heavily upon her. Carolyn is always ready and willing to offer help and support and Sophie is grateful that ‘Ama’ is there and a source of love and encouragement for her and the grandchildren. I enjoy seeing the way Sophie loves and cares for her family, her love and connection with Mikey and her gentle and committed care for her kids. She is everything I could hope for as a daughter and I love her dearly. I’m pretty fond of Mikey too 

 

60 in 60 #3 Zachariah

 60 in 60 #3 Zachariah

I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events and experiences.

 

My first child, Zachariah, (The Heir) was born on May 29, 1986. It was one of the greatest days of my life. The miracle of birth, the start of a new life, the instant flood of love and endorphins are all indelible memories. There also came a dawning recognition of the awesome responsibility of parenthood. Zach was an awesome kid, especially considering he endured our many missteps as parents. By the time the 4^th one came along we had chilled out considerably and Zach has said more than once how much easier the younger boys got it! Sorry mate, we tried our best and learnt along the way. The result though was an exceptional man. I could not be prouder of my son. He is wise. He is calm and cool in a crisis. He is loyal and strong. He is a brilliant
big brother, right from the time Sophie was born, followed by Jordan and Paul. Many many times he has stepped in to help the other three Holt kids in a variety of ways when they were in need. Zach has charted his own course with thoughtfulness and maturity. I respect his opinions and enjoy talking with him about more than just the footy and the Cats’ fortunes ( although that is one of my favourite topics of conversation).

A few incidents stand out from the last 30+ years of being Zach’s Dad. 

One night when he was about 10 I forgot to pick him up from soccer training, only realising my mistake when I arrived home without him. Horrified, I jumped in the car and raced off to get him. I found him walking home, having trekked a few kilometres. He was not upset or bothered and didn’t go crook at me. I apologised profusely and offered compensation in the form of “Do you want to go to McDonalds?”. “No I’m fine, let’s just go home”. 

 

In 2000 I took Zach (13) and Sophie (11) to the Olympic Games in Sydney. We had a brilliant time, including seeing Cathy Freeman run several times. We stayed with friends and had to catch two trains to get to Homebush each day. There were huge crowds each night and a great festive atmosphere as we all made our way home. On about the fourth night Sophie and I got separated from Zach in the queues at the train station. I wasn’t worried but it was a little perturbing when he didn’t get off the train at our stop. About an hour later (around midnight I think) he came happily down the stairs having had quite an adventure. The train he boarded didn’t stop at the transfer station so he had to get off and catch a train back but it didn’t stop there either. A third train finally got him to the right station from where he caught the connecting train and arrived safely. He was calm and confident as he recounted his experience and my faith in him was confirmed. 

 

When we made the move from Perth to Busselton in 2004 Zach was in year 12. Rather than disrupt his final year of school we arranged for him to board with a family in Perth and stay at Carine high school. It was the first step in a series of transitions from adolescence to adulthood for Zach. He next went to Tasmania to do a six month youthwork course with Fusion and from there went on placement to Britain, working with Fusion and a local church youth group for eighteen months. The friendships and experience gained led to him working as a school chaplain at an alternative school in Perth upon his return to Australia. (You may recognise some similarities in our life journey by now). I love you Zach.

 60 in 60 #2

I am reflecting on and writing 60 blog posts about 30 people and 30 events from the last 60 years.

 

#2. My wife Carolyn is my best friend. We have been married for 35 years, having met at the YMCA and both coming to faith in 1985. We met in Perth in our mid 20s, only to discover that we both grew up in Geelong and lived three streets apart. Carolyn is so many things to so many people. Carolyn is a loyal friend and a loving and supportive spouse who has put up with a great deal of challenge and stress as a result of being married to me. She has stood beside me faithfully through it all and I’m proud to say that our relationship is getting stronger with every passing year. She is beautiful, sensitive, smart and funny. She worries more than she should and is always thinking of others and how best to care for them. She is a devoted and loving mother and I know our four kids treasure her and give thanks for the way she has always done everything in her power to look after them. She is now loving the opportunity to be a Grandmother, ‘Ama’ to our three beautiful grandchildren and I know the support she offers to the kids as they adjust to parenthood is invaluable and deeply appreciated. Carolyn is a caring sibling to her three remaining brothers and was a devoted daughter while her Mum and Dad were still alive. She is not content to grow old and fade away, rather, she is taking on new challenges, studying communication and mental health with a view to working in some sort of counselling field. She reads and researches across a range of subjects, always looking for answers and seeking to understand whatever is going on. She was already a great listener and her natural gifts will only help her reach this goal. 

She has the most beautiful smile. Her laugh is infectious. Her mind never stops. She has a strong faith and sense of purpose. She has a heart of compassion and empathy and gentle spirit but she is not a pushover, she has a quiet resolve and strength and won't put up with people's crap, especially not mine!

I am grateful that God brought us together and that He has blessed us in so many ways but the greatest blessing in my life is my wife Carolyn. Her love has covered a multitude of my sins. I hope and pray that I can be the husband she deserves for as long as we live.

60 in 60 #1

 As an exercise in reflection and in recognition of turning 60 today (!) I am cranking up the long-neglected blog for a series of 60 posts in 60 days (aim high Marcus).

30 posts about people, the other 30 about places, events and accomplishments along the way.

I'll no doubt leave some people out and forget about other important stuff in my life, but, I figure it's better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.

So here goes...

1. The most significant event in my life happened in 1985 when I became a Christian. At 24 I had spent a couple of years travelling and living overseas. I had achieved a few of my goals and dreams along the way (see later instalments for details) yet on returning home to Australia realised there was something missing in my life. I didn't know what it was but I was aware of its absence. I had tried plenty of the usual things, and had enjoyed most of them, but they weren't the answer I was looking for. 

I applied for a job at the YMCA in Perth and the interview became one of the most important meetings in my life. 

The bloke who interviewed me for the job was an American called Skip Joannes and he spent a lot more of the time telling me about Jesus than about the job. He told me stuff I'd never heard and never considered and the more he told me, the more my heart and mind opened to the gospel. It took another couple of months of talking and listening and asking questions, (and resisting!) but eventually I came to the conclusion that what I was hearing was true and that left me with two options: ignore what I believed and carry on living the same old life, or accept Christ and start a new life as a follower of Jesus. It's been 36 years since then and although my energy and passion have subsided since those early years of zeal, my faith has not diminished or been dented. Trusting and following God is the most important decision I ever made and one that I have no regrets about. 

NB.  I got the job and worked for the Y for a couple of years. We went to the church Skip pastored, Calvary Chapel Perth, for many years and I grew a great deal as a Christian because of his teaching and mentoring. Skip has long since moved back to the States and we no longer see eye to eye on politics but I will always be grateful to him for sharing his faith with me.