Frank Turney

I'm sure I've started more than one of these blog posts with words to this effect, but anyone who knew my Dad knew he liked a drink. Over the course of his life I think he put away enough to fill the Suez Canal. For the last five or 10 years of his life as I watched him get older and his mental faculties hardly withered, I found myself marvelling at how he kept going. I was born in the early 1970s when cigarettes, fast food, alcohol and all the other vices we're plagued with in the Western World had already been identified as being bad for you. I remember being a kid with mild asthma and being terrified of smoking because it seemed like grown ups all did it, which meant I would too one day, and (whether this actually happened or I dreamed it), a doctor said smoking would make asthma worse. I thought if I ever touched a cigarette to my mouth I'd turn around to see the Grim Reaper already standing behind me. I pretended to smoke rolled up newspaper in the backyar...

Most of my memories of time among my family from when I was a kid centre around mum. I suppose it was partly the social mores of the 1970s where the dad went to work and the mum stayed home to keep house and raise children. I remember my mother rejoining the workforce when I was in my very early teens (it might have been earlier), but a huge part of my father's identity throughout my early life life was of him being at work. We didn't see nearly as much of or interact with him as we did with mum. Depending on who you ask he either had an amazing work ethic or maybe wanted to spend time out of the house. I never witnessed any danger or threat of violence but it's no secret among any of you my parents didn't have the most harmonious of relationships. Just one of the points of contention was that he worked six days a week every week without fail. But on top of that I hardly remember him having any holidays or even a day off here or there. If he did it was a very s...

Sydney's Brighton Le Sands will mean a lot of things to me throughout my life. Joanna and I stayed at the Novotel when it was brand new. Every time we'd drive to the city or airport when I was a kid the signs warning you there might be sharks in Botany Bay would fascinate me. I was on my way to the city to see a play for a school excursion one day when the bus broke down on the corner of Grand Parade and President Avenue. We waited for an hour and missed the play before another bus came and took us back to school. That same corner holds other significance for me too. It was the location of a small Esso service station where we spent a decent number of hours as kids during school holidays while Dad worked there. There's an apartment block there now, but before that it was still a service station and muffler place for years after Frank managed it. I can tell you exactly when it was and how old I was because, like a lot of formative events in my life, I only need to rem...

I never had much success with the opposite sex. I didn't even have my first girlfriend until I was 17. Most of my childhood and teenage years were punctuated with long bouts of agonised unrequited love where the girl in question didn't know I was alive or didn't care how much of a deep well of anguish I'd sunk into over her. Now, before I go on, I should point out that my parents played very specific roles in my family. My mother was always my direct interface with the rest of the world. If I wanted permission to do something, I asked Mum. If I was confused about something in life, I asked Mum. If I hurt myself, I went to Mum (I still remember one of us getting some horrific graze from falling over one day and Dad's first instinct was to put Dencorub on it). If it was anything about being in love or girls, I went to Mum. Dad was more of a protective shell around the outside of all that. I knew they paid a mortgage and put food on a table because he went to wor...

After a small but welcome financial windfall the girls and I had a lovely holiday about 10 years ago, spending about two weeks over in Queensland. The second half of the trip was spent with my beloved Auntie and Uncle at the house on the hill in the relaxing wilderness of the Noosa Heads/Tewantin hinterland and we had a wonderful time eating, drinking and bonding. The first half was just as much fun but very different. After a gruelling night on the redeye from Perth we checked into a high rise hotel in Burleigh Heads and slept it off all morning. For the rest of the week it was our home base for spending every day at the Gold Coast theme parks (Movie World, DreamWorld, etc). Now, if you spent any time with me when I was a kid or a teenager you'll know I was a bit of a wimp. I didn't like horror movies, my hand puppet of The Count from Sesame Street gave me nightmares so badly we eventually had to get rid of it and I certainly never liked roller coasters. When Australia...

Anyone who knew Frank knew he loved a drink. In fact when the opportunity arose he tended not to stop. It was hard to live with but alcohol bought out all his natural tendencies – everyone loved him because he was so accepting of everyone, quick to laugh, even tempered, easy going and with his very own kind of sense of humour. When he had a few under his belt Dad was even more gregarious, friendly and funny. Again, it's different when you live with it than when you just see it occasionally, but nothing bought those tenencies out in him more than in large gatherings of family and friends with plenty of food and amber fluid. I remember plenty of family milestones at which he was always in the background dancing, imbibing to excess and playing the fool for everybody. One in particular was David's 21st birthday, in the Southern Cross Room at the Manchester Rd end of Gymea Trade Union Club one evening in the winter of 1989. I can't remember everyone who was there, but D...