Managers Blurb

Since 2003, Australian and New Zealand Military Brats of Singapore has held annual reunions, Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney, Christchurch, Melbourne and this past weekend, Singapore.  My fellow Brat and good friend, Gill Pennock, took on the task of putting together a reunion booklet for each of those reunions and asks each year that i write what she calls my 'Managers Blurb' to go on the first page.  The following was my 6th and most challenging to write, for it wasn't to be that i make this pilgrimage back to the place we love so dearly.  

My turn will come, there will be more.  

Today, they are all coming home from a great weekend and the emails and photos are coming in to tell me about it and to show their smiles. 

This is when i am at my happiest, for this is what it is all about.  My cup runneth over...

Here you all are back in Singapore.  The home you knew for 2 years of your young life which you flew out of up to 35  years ago leaving a part of yourself behind and perhaps never fully understanding what that was or why.  Until now.

We all know the understanding of that can't come in just one sentence and it has taken years of reacquainting yourself with the Singapore Brat that you are to come to terms with the whole experience..yesterday and today.  

We've explored the reasons; our impressionable age at the time, the unique school, the easy going lifestyle, the cultures we were surrounded by, the unusual sights and smells, and the undeniable spiritual essence of the place.  All of those things and more made the experience very Special.  We had gathered from different parts of two countries to a tiny island, all of us Brats.  Children of Australian and New Zealand Defence Servicemen.  

We went back to our country of birth where that special experience became a fading memory over the years that followed.  We were desperately holding on to it but there was no one to share it with to keep it alive, so that part of the child you were remained in Singapore in the depths of somewhere inside, waiting to be awakened.

Fate determined that all of those young souls would come together once more, to help each other find the Singapore Brat within, to wake them up and encourage them to come out and play again.  

So here you are, you have finally made the pilgrimage back.  Some of you have been back before, but this is different, this time you are back with others who want to be there for the same reasons, and they want to be there with YOU.

It has been seven years coming and all Thanks must go to Mike Ellis for his hard work and dedication to his commitment to make this weekend a most memorable one.  

Mikes team,  Steve 'Jonesy' Jones and Iain Cruickshank (Australia)  Bronwyn Lord (New Zealand) Monique (Singapore)  Thank you for all your support and help.  Thanks also to Gill Pennock for once again providing us with the traditional Reunion Booklet.  

May the Singapore Brat inside you all come out to play this weekend, to laugh, to cry, to remember, to feel alive again forever.

Happy Memories,

jo

Jo Rendle

Founder of Australian and New Zealand Military Brats of Singapore.

Proud to Be a Brat.

Hello...Goodbye

From around the age of 8 i learned how painful the word Good bye can be.   Pre pack and Uplift out of the way, we were leaving Melbourne posted to Amberley RAAF Base (Qld) I had just started to make some friendships, just started to learn the meaning of friendship, and we had to go.

The station wagon packed up, in the back three little girls, two bassett hounds, some birds and a penny turtle, we drove off that night after the removalists left.  I loved the road trips, i still do, but i clearly remember how i felt as we drove out of the suburb we'd lived in for the past 3 years.

I'm never going to see them again.

Ugh, the devastation, the trauma, the drama of an 8 year old little girl.  We'll write to each other, i thought, its ok we will keep in touch, we said we would.  I watched the little world i'd known  disappear from sight as i lay in the back of the station wagon (we could do that in those days)  and looked out the window until i could only see stars in the sky.

Arriving at our destiny the norm was to find temporary accommodation, usually a motel, until a house became available and you also had to wait for the removalists to show up with your belongings. 

There was a new house and backyard to explore, boxes to unpack, neighbourhoods to get acquainted with, kids to say hello to and of course a new school to get ready for.  New sounds, streets, faces, names and most probably new weather to become aclimatised to.

Time passed, the pain of those Goodbyes faded. You were so busy being the new kid on the block that you never did get around to writing that letter you promised your friend from the last posting... with all your heart - "pinky promise, cross my heart."

I ask myself today, has this process of Hello/Goodbyes throughout our young lives affected how we perceive friendships, relationships and meaningful relationships in our adult years? 

Did it have an impact? Should it have? and is that a good or bad thing?

I think statistics say that no matter what kind of upbringing you had it depends on a number of other factors.  We're all going to respond differently to different circumstances and situations for different reasons.

A number of Brats have asked me if i know the statistics on Brats failure rate of relationships.  I don't, but i could do some research on that, it might be interesting.

   

I don't want to look at the negatives of a Brats upbringing though, i think its a frutille exercise.  We are who we are, we experienced life the way we did - because we did.  Our Fathers career was chosen before we were born, or because we were born ...they wanted to give us a better life than they had.  They wanted their children to experience life, the good and the bad, in hope to shape us into thinking feeling beings.  Sure, there are Brats out there who might say their Fathers didn't think like that nor realize the consequences of their career choice to their Family.  

Lets face it though, i know that you know that it takes a particular type of man to swear their allegiance to Queen and Country - "so help me God".  How could they possibly foresee the effect that would have on their Family, especially if they grew up a Civi, but there was something different about them from the average Civi, there had to be. They were risk takers, adventurers, honorable men, they dared to step out of the world they knew and into the unknown.  Loyalty and commitment must have been important to them, or if it wasn't, it soon would be after they signed on the dotted line to Serve their country.  I like to think that they wouldn't have been accepted if someone hadn't seen those qualities in them..or even an inkling of them.

So you were most likely already destined for a somewhat 'different' life from the norm, and the women they married, your Mothers, must have had some appreciation of those qualities at some point in time.

How we embraced or rejected the life we were born into, as with anyone from any walk of life, would determine how we coped or struggled and ultimately how we live our lives today.

to be continued...

Pre-pack and Uplift

Moving around as we did, following our Fathers postings, was a great adventure of wonderment, anticipation and excitement but as with most moments of glory we collected our share of battle wounds along the way.  You don't get something for nothing in this life, thats just the way it is.

The first postings i guess you're too young to understand what was happening.  One day a big truck comes, strange men are walking around your house emptying your cupboards into boxes while others are taking your furniture to put into that big truck.  You hadn't noticed that some of your toys had slowly gone missing the weeks before because your Mother had started to pack quietly at night in preparation for this day while you slept.  

As the house contents disappear out the front door during the day you find ways to amuse yourself in the empty spaces or a cleaned out room.  You climb into yet to be filled boxes and play with the packing paper, and when you start getting in the way you are told to go outside and play, oblivious to the changes that lay ahead.  The grown ups are busy, men are shouting orders, "left, left, now watch that step, easy..eeeasy", your parents are talking in anxious whispers to each other.  

At the end of that day, dark time is coming, the truck and noisy busy men have gone and the house is filled with echo's.  Everything you knew has just driven away and the empty shell you are standing in suddenly looks and feels very different.  

An empty house is a very strange environment, to this day i still don't feel comfortable in hollowed out places.  I think it reminds me of endings when it should bring feelings of new beginnings. Whenever i move into a new home which is yet to be filled with your furniture and effects, i fight the urge to flee, fight the resentment of having no choice but accept the changes. 

  

Flight or Fight, Fight or Flight.

The only way i get through it is to sit on the bare floor of the new lifeless dwelling, lean back against a wall and wait for this urge to pass.  I need to take in the new surroundings, see the potential, place the furniture in a design my mind is starting to make.  I need to turn this house into a home. Slowly my thoughts shift because i have made myself see the positives from this change, i get up and i start that long and seemingly never ending  chore of unpacking.  

As each piece is pulled out of the boxes and put in its place, which i know will be moved many times before i leave that home to go to my next, (and there will be a next..always) the feeling of flight gradually disappears. I am accepting and adapting, I'm deciding to make the most of what is and what lays ahead and letting go of what was.  

I'm then ready to look forward to the next chapter, the next adventure.

That is the ritual.

It is the only way we know.

Where are you from?

How many times have you been asked this over the years and what do you reply?

I take a deep breath and say, "Well, i was born in Brisbane but my Dad joined the RAAF when i was just 4 months old" ..i pause.. and continue with a quick mumble of "and then we lived all over the place."

The pause, followed by the quick fading mumble, is a result of experiencing that well known glazed over look in the eyes of the person who asked the question.  I used to have a longer reply that went something like "and we lived all over the place, so i don't really consider myself a Brisbanite, or a Queenslander for that matter, actually i'm not really from anywhere."

I learned to stop myself when i saw that glazed over look, hearing the voice in my head saying "stop jo, stop now, they aren't interested and you've lost them, save yourself, don't say any more." 

Thats where the pause comes in, it helps me to know if its time to listen to that voice and the mumble is when it is too late and i couldn't stop the words coming so they just faded out to nothingness. 

What is our Identity as ex dependents of Australian and New Zealand Defence Force Personal? 

Do we have one?

The 'ex' in ex-dependants suggests that something is over, out of, and we certainly aren't dependents of our Fathers anymore, some may have never had contact with Military in any form since their Fathers 'got out' or when they left home and became independent.  I left home when i was 17 and my Father retired from the RAAF in 1986 after 23 years of service, with another 3 or 4 years as a Reservist, yet i still consider myself a Brat.

Why?  Because Brat is my place of origin, my home base, my upbringing therefore way of life.

We humans culturally differentiate as a means to understand each other (or show our ignorance's) We use our senses to sum up another.  The way they look, their accent, sometimes the way they smell, allows us to decide how to communicate with them, rightly or wrongly, consciously or unconsciously.  Whether they be from a different country, a different part of the country we live in, city, suburban or country folk, generally this determines what kind of person they are and how we will interact with them.  Be they friend or foe?  

What our senses first tell us is confirmed with some questions or if we wait until they voluntarily tell us themselves. 

Our place of origin backs up that all too human first impressions thing, it can define us or contradict the whole theory, never-the-less, we use it.  With pride or shame we announce where we grew up to show the world why we think the way we do, what culture, environment and influences shaped us to be the people we are today.

I don't have a one word location, it can't be found on a map, not even in a street directory.  Where i am from doesn't physically exist.

I am, however, a product of a particular culture, a very different and somewhat  hidden culture, perhaps even invisible, because in my post Vietnam War youth, the Military wasn't thought of by the civilian population the way it is perceived and welcomed today.

The culture i belong to, has a language of its own, it has no defined religious beliefs, its people have an adaptive resilience and a unique understanding of the world and human behavior.  

We are the product of our Military Fathers and our Military Wife Mothers, but the Brat culture was formed, shaped and created by and for us because we didn't feel as if we fit in anywhere else. 

A culture which is ours, strongly influenced but not fully understood by our parents and the Australian and New Zealand Defence Force.

No flag to fly, no anthem to sing, no sacred ground to rest when our time on earth is up. No bugle will play at our funerals yet the sound of the last post hits the very core of our being in a way we will never be able to describe nor explain.  

There is a sense of pride within our culture. I don't dare compare with those of our Fathers, but we have our stories, our fair share of battle wounds and glories, we served our time as the brats of Defence Servicemen.

We earned the title and wear it with pride, but it means nothing to anyone but you and I.

Where are you from? they ask. 

I'm from nowhere, I'm a Military Brat, says I.