As It Happened

October 1964 slipped into being without fuss or ceremony. Canberra was like that, calm, orderly, a city still deciding what it wanted to be. Norman and Sandra had been there scarcely ten months, yet the rhythm of the place had already settled into them, or perhaps they into it. Most of what had unfolded since their arrival had been deliberate, planned with the steady patience learned from years of war, migration, and sheep.

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1963 arrived without asking permission. Australia moved forward with the quiet certainty of a continent convinced of its own luck. Sir Robert Menzies remained Prime Minister, his voice familiar from radios perched on mantelpieces and workshop shelves. Newspapers spoke of Australian military advisers already in Vietnam, small numbers for now, though the tone suggested temporary things had a way of becoming permanent.

Canberra in 1960 with a population of around 56,000, felt less like a city and more like a polite suggestion someone had started building before fully committing. Roads led somewhere important-looking and then ended abruptly, as if changing their mind mid-decision. Signs pointed toward departments still in scaffolding. Gardens appeared planned by committees, sensible shrubs, dignified paths, nothing too expressive.

1959 arrived with its usual lack of ceremony, though Australia behaved as if someone had sounded a brass band. Holden released its new FC range, sedan, wagon, utility, an incremental improvement that Australians embraced with the fervour usually reserved for royal visits or test cricket. The Menzies Government returned itself to office, content with its own familiarity. Canberra, still half sheep paddock and half promise, issued declarations about national development, dams, roads, powerlines, the vague optimism of a nation convinced growth was inevitable.

It wasn’t long before the first letters arrived. Plain white, stamped, the kind of correspondence that could make a grown man itch just looking at it. They weren’t addressed to BainesGate Pastoral Pty Ltd, no, that would have been sensible. They were addressed to Norman Baines personally, as though the Taxation Department had discovered some secret truth that only he could explain.

They notified the authorities, because that is what responsible people do when preparing to set fire to history. The police were polite but faintly puzzled. The fire brigades, both rural and city, were more practical. Forms were signed. A permit was issued. The rural crew offered to attend and keep the flames in their proper place, as though fire were a dog needing a firm hand and occasional biscuits. Sandra, Norman and Sean accepted with gratitude. None of them trusted symbolism to behave sensibly once ignited.

Sandra moved before she thought. One moment she was staring at the book, the next she was halfway out the kitchen door, firing a single command behind her:

“C’mon. Erry up!”

Armed with the stack of documents, held not triumphantly now, but with the solemn practicality of people carrying something that might matter later, they moved upstairs to the kitchen.

It was a cup of tea in the kitchen, late enough in the afternoon that the light had begun its daily ritual of softening into something more hesitant. Long shadows gathered in corners and along the skirting boards, as though the house itself was preparing for night. The tea was hot, strong, and slightly over-stewed, the kind made more from habit than craft, and no one complained.

By now, speaking with Sean had become no different to speaking with one of their own boys, only taller, broader, and with a habit of thinking before answering. He was family by proximity and time, not blood, though sometimes those categories blurred in rural places where loyalty mattered more than biology.