Eccentric Neighbours

By Lindsey-Jane Doley. Adelaide, SA

Names have been changed in this true story, though I’m not sure why I’ve bothered, as most of the old Hawthorndene neighbours are probably well and truly dead by now.

Back in the 1950s, Hawthorndene, in the Adelaide Hills, was not the built up suburb it is today, but more like a small village, occupied by our neighbours, who I once rather unkindly referred to as the village idiots. Well, they were certainly eccentric. (Not us of course, just everybody else.)

My parents and I lived in Hawthorndene from the early ’50s to the mid-’70s and saw many changes, but particularly in those earlier years, this little settlement seemed to attract an odd assortment of residents, our strange neighbours.

Here are a few.

We lived on a corner block. Directly next door was vacant land, then on the next block to that was a house occupied by a Mr and Mrs Gardener, their two daughters, and a collection of dogs and goats. Mr Gardener was English and had a plummy accent. His wife and two girls were Australian, but they spoke in a plummy way, too — an affectation, I’m sure. They used to shout coo-eee! to each other, which used to echo around the little valley settlement. The two girls played violins and both used to do practice outside in fine weather. My parents said it was excruciating to listen to. (No wonder the goats used to bleat so much!)

Speaking of the goats, Mrs Gardener used to bring around goat milk custards for me, as I was a baby then, but the custards had goats’ hair in them. My mother would very politely say I’d just eaten and that she’d feed them to me later. Of course, as soon as Mrs Gardener had gone, she’d promptly throw out the offending custard. On yet another occasion, my mother was in their house to collect something and she was in the kitchen. The two daughters were doing dishes and the goats were wandering around there, too. Chickens were also part of this  indoor menagerie. Suddenly, one of the goats did its business on the floor. The daughter with the tea towel bent down, wiped up the mess with the tea towel she was using, and then continued to wipe the dishes. My mother’s stomach turned. (As has yours, I’m sure, upon reading this account!)

Diagonally across the road from us was perhaps the scariest neighbour of all. He was quite mentally unstable, but of course, in those days, illnesses such as bipolar or schizophrenia were hardly ever heard of and certainly not talked about …

On the other side of us was a Mrs Harris, who was quite a pleasant elderly woman, but had the habit of wrapping cold, wet towels around her neck in the hot weather whenever she had to walk into Blackwood, the nearest large town, about one and a half miles away. She also carried an umbrella, which wasn’t such a bad idea, but the towels did look a bit odd. I also don’t know how long they stayed cool for. At some stage, Mrs Harris’s daughter was staying with her, and in hot weather, she didn’t bother with wet towels. No, she just used to strip down to her bra and pants and prance around their front garden for all to see. Quite scandalous back then.

Up the road and around the corner lived the Westons, who were the filthiest old couple you could ever imagine. Their clothes were shabby and dirty, but I don’t think they were necessarily poor. Even their skin appeared to have several layers of grime. The old man had a hole in his ear, which looked like something had eaten through it. They didn’t seem to be especially frail or in ill health, surprisingly, given how filthy they were. I remember quite well, seeing them go down our road with their horse (also dirty) and cart, giving a whole new meaning to the term rattle-trap. Their house was just like you’d have imagined it to be — disgustingly dirty, with ring-wormed cats yowling around the door. I hasten to add that I never set foot in their house, though some kids I knew from school had.

The funniest thing of all was their door bell. It was an old toilet chain. No, I’m not kidding. Everybody knew about the Westons and their grubby ramshackle house with its toilet chain door bell. It was often a source of amusement and fascination at my school, Blackwood Primary. All the kids thought it was hilarious. To my Mum’s horror, one day old Mr Weston knocked on our door and asked to use the phone. Not everyone in Hawthorndene had a phone in those days. I think Mum may have said it wasn’t working. 

I can’t think of our road and all the strange people who used it without telling you about a brother and sister, Janice and Leslie Chancellor. You could hear them coming a long way off. They’d be fighting and screaming. The boy was the elder of the two and pretty big and solid for his age. He was obviously a bully and punched and whacked his sister and swore at her all the way to school. I know this because if I arrived at school before them, Leslie was still whacking his sister upon their arrival. She also swore at him and would try and hit him back. I never saw them when they weren’t fighting, and I often wonder what happened to them. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or both were in jail. On the other hand, they might be model citizens. Who knows?

Diagonally across the road from us was perhaps the scariest neighbour of all: Psycho man. He’d been in jail for assault or some similar offence. He was also quite mentally unstable, but of course, in those days, illnesses such as bipolar or schizophrenia were hardly ever heard of and certainly not talked about. Anyway, he used to come over to our house and demand to borrow the iron from my mother. I’m not sure why — whether his wife didn’t have one or he  just wanted to make a nuisance of himself. This used to unnerve my mother, not surprisingly. In those days, people often didn’t used to lock their doors. Whilst at home, I think my mother usually did, as she’s always been very safety conscious.

I reckon this group of neighbours takes some beating and I challenge anyone to come up with a weirder collection. I’d love to hear about anyone else’s eccentric neighbours.