Ghosts of Childhood by Neil Landers

Author:Neil Landers [Landers, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Books Unleashed
Published: 2015-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LSD and Other Hospital Drugs

I was unable to get regular newspaper work in Sydney but the ABC gave me casual reporting shifts while people were away on summer holidays. In particular, I helped cover Australia’s changeover to decimal currency on February 14, 1966.

After that I went to the Wagga Daily Advertiser as a sub-editor. Skills I had first learned not long before I left Hong Kong I had to brush up and improve. How best to sub-edit stories, how to lay out pages, how to write heads that fitted and might “grab” readers, and how to scale and best use photos.

Down on the production floor, where the pages were put together on metal plates, I had to again master the esoteric art of leaning over type in reverse image that was covered with black ink, while trying not to get any on me, and trying to spot anything wrong. That was so anything serious, particularly in heads or captions, could be fixed in time for the first edition. We had proof-readers, but they were part of a process that often took too much time.

I quickly got on top of the work. But adjusting again to an Australian country town was even more difficult after living in Hong Kong, Tokyo and London. I also still had a mass of unresolved tensions from my childhood. Adding to that was anger resulting from reactions to me, during my brief stay in Sydney, from some people I had previously known at least slightly.

By far the most upsetting incident, however, occurred in Canberra, soon after I went to Wagga. I had only once, and briefly, visited Canberra, our national capital. It was not far from Wagga, so I made it my first destination after I began working there, and had a few days off to go somewhere.

On my first morning in Canberra I was walking through the civic centre when I saw among approaching pedestrians Clem Lloyd, who had been my best friend before I first left Australia. While I was in Japan I had exchanged a few letters with him, the only time in my life I have ever exchanged personal letters with any man.

I had not, though, seen him since first leaving Australia. Happily I walked towards him with my hand extended and asked how he was going now. His face darkened, he did not shake my hand, did not answer my question, and backed away from me as if I had leprosy. This was a person who, until he had learned I was still alive after my car accident, had planned to go down to Melbourne for my funeral. I never saw him again in the flesh.

This went back partly to that accident. When I returned to work at the Sun as a casual after it I had no problem with anyone at the Sun, where I worked on a large floor at the edge of its reporting section. But just across a centre aisle were the Herald journalists. A few

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.