PAGE FORTY-EIGHT: a different sort of church

When we arrived in Narromine, we discovered there was no Baptist Church and no Church of Christ, in this little town of only about two thousand people.

But the people in the Narromine-Trangie United Parish were friendly and enthusiastically welcomed our family of three. They loved having a young family with a baby, and when Danny grew and began wandering up and down the aisles, they didn't bat an eyelid.

In the church I grew up in and the one we attended after we were married, there was no printed liturgy. We may have occasionally said The Lord's Prayer, but we did not say any creeds or read from a prayer book.

However, although there are not set prayers, in actuality there can be a lot of repetition in the supposedly informal churches. And sometimes the oft-repeated things can be a de facto liturgy, except that it has never received the care that has been given to the written-down liturgy in the formal churches.

I was surprised when I found myself enjoying saying the creed and the order that results from a liturgy. Our second minister in our time at Narromine was Rev Joe Eddy. When Joe led us at The Lord's Table, he often said something like the following words to us:

Come, not because you are strong, but because you are weak
Come, not because you love the Lord a lot, but because you love him a little, and would like to love him more.

Then, in saying a prayer to help us to confess our sins to God, he would say something like this:

We have treated those closest to us in a way that we would never treat a stranger.

Joe also had his fun side. In one service, he colluded with Laura Forrest, the organist, and had us singing a well-known hymn to an alternative, but very well-known tune - but none of us could figure out where we had heard the tune before. It was maddeningly familiar, but what was it? After the service was over, he revealed we had been singing God's praises to the tune of The Pub with No Beer!

Danny with Grandad Sims

Our minister in our first year at the church was Rev Barrie Wright. He was very kind to us when we needed to get Danny to hospital quickly. One day when Joan was changing his nappy, she turned around for a moment to get something and found he had rolled onto the floor in that split second of time.
He seemed to be fine, and went to sleep, but the next day, he was in pain and Joan wasn't sure what to do. I was at school, and Barrie came to the rescue and very kindly drove Joan in to Dubbo for Danny to be looked at the Base Hospital.

The medical staff discovered that Danny had broken his collar bone. He healed quickly and everything was soon back to normal. But apart from his kindness, what impressed Joan was how Barrie observed the speed limits, shall we say, religiously. He was scrupulous to slow down to the speed on the next road sign a little before he got to it. The roads would be a lot safer if we all drove like our minister, who modeled the life he recommended to his congregation.

In the Narromine-Trangie parish, there were lots of little churches, as well as the two main ones. Dandaloo, Eumungerie and ... I forget the others. To cope with these demands, the minister had some lay preachers, both men and women.

Although I had been brought up with conservative views on lady preachers, (and still have conservative views) honesty requires that I record that the women in the parish usually did a better job! Their talks sounded prepared and interesting, whereas the men's talks were often rambling and sounded like they needed some work. 

table of contents

PAGE THIRTY-SIX: meet the family

Joan's mother and father, Nesta and Llew, were kind and welcoming to me. Mr Sims was a newspaper man. He was chief subeditor on the Newcastle Morning Herald and a most interesting man. He gave good advice, but mostly waited to be asked.

I like this photo of them with their two girls, Joan and Kay, taken in England, before they came to Australia as Ten Pound Poms in December, 1963.

I had been brought up as a Baptist and teetotaller, and had been led to believe that all people who drank alcohol were raging drunks. Mum and Dad didn't teach us that, but we certainly got that impression from Sunday School and church.

When Nesta offered me a Christmas sherry, I wasn't sure what I'd get myself into if I accepted it.

I remembered being told about the progression from a man taking a drink to a drink taking a drink to a drink taking a man.

But, as I transpired, I thought it had the most revolting taste: whatever did people see in it? I still don't like sherry, but have learnt to enjoy other drinks. Joan's folks were very moderate drinkers. I remember Llew used to enjoy a drop of Ben Ean moselle or, what he used to call rough red, by which he meant cheap red wine (I think).

When I got my second car, which was a 1967 maroon Morris Mini Deluxe, it wasn't long before the brakes needed fixing. I took the car to a firm called Better Brakes and the mechanic said:

Bad news, mate: it'll cost you $220 to get it repaired.

That was a fortune to me: my Teacher's Scholarship was $28 per fornight! Llew gave me some very sensible advice. He told me to get a second opinion from Delore Motors, which was a Morris specialist. After looking at my car, the mechanic said:

Bad news, mate: it's going to be expensive. I think it will be about fifty bucks.

I was amazed at the difference in the two quotes. Guess which one I went with? But I was also pleasantly surprised when I went back to collect the mighty Min. The mechanic smiled and said:

You're in luck. Not as bad as we thought. Thirty-three dollars

Someone later explained to me that the brakes place made their money out of the parts they sold, and probably replaced parts that the other place didn't think needed to be taken out.

While I'm ferreting around in old family photos, I can't resist including this terrific one of Kay and Joan at Stonehenge in about 1958, in the days when the public were allowed in. Kay is five years older than Joan, and is a fellow music teacher. She was in fourth year at Newcastle Teacher's College and Conservatorium when I was in first year.

One very helpful thing Kay did for me, in my second year of Teachers' College, was to invite me to come to Glendale High School and teach a small guitar class. I could hardly play myself! But it was a good experience to be put in charge of a few students, before being thrown into the deep end in a classroom of thirty kids!

Talk about Qui docet, discit! (That's the motto of the NSW Teachers' Federation and means "the one who teaches, learns." These days they have put it into more contemporary English and render it as "It's amazing what you learn when you teach.")

I had a painful learning experience one week, when a girl called Narelle brought in her nylon string, acoustic guitar and asked me to restring it. She handed me some steel strings and I had no idea that they shouldn't be put on her guitar.

Bang! The bridge broke right off and her cheap nylon string guitar was ruined. My father used to say "You'll never learn younger."


table of contents