Our old Front Door

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OUR OLD FRONT DOOR

In my mind eye our old front door still looks the same as it did in years gone by. I lived behind that door for the first sixteen years of my life and I still recall some the people who came to and through that door. Memories that make me laugh and some that make me cry. Some of these memories were of Family and friends some were just acquaintances but they all had a story to tell.

One is the story of a friend of my father. At seven o’clock on the dot every forth Friday in the month our front door bell would ring announcing that Mr. Fred Harris had arrived to play cards with my Dad.

He was always well dressed in his hat, suit and tie; he was also a well-spoken man.

Fred often came bearing gifts of lovely Marquetry wood work (that is the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures). These were given to my mum. Among the gifts was beautiful tea tray, and a jewellery box that I really fell in love with.

He also seemed to bring the rain with him, so the standing joke was if you were going out that night you had better take a raincoat with you.

Another person who came to our front door every day (though I only saw him in the school holidays) was baker bearing a big basket of lovely fresh bread. I could hear him coming because he was always whistling so we used to call him whistling Rufus.

He came in a cart drawn by a beautiful Clydesdale horse, which used to follow him down the street stopping in front of every house Rufus went into. I loved that horse and the lovely bread that tasted much better than the bread you get these days. I came home from school one day and mum told me the sad news the Whistling Rufus had passed away from cancer. The new baker didn’t even have a horse he only had an old ford truck and he was a surly man and he never whistled.

My Memory now goes back to a man we only knew as Frank. He would come to our old front door trying to sell tickets to live show in town that had finished month before. When we refused to buy any Frank would get very upset and say, “But I am selling them for less than half price.”

Frank was also the “Cloths prop man” you remember the long branches of wood with a fork at one end that was put in the middle of the clothesline to stop your washing dragging on the ground.

Well Frank would walk around the streets calling out “Cloths Props, - Clothes Props and we kids thought it was very funny to say things between his calls. “What did you have for breakfast” the answer “Cloths props, “what do you wash with” “Cloths props” and many other things too numerous to mention.   One day my Mum and my two elder brothers were on our front veranda, Mum was sitting in near of our front door shelling peas, while the boys were playing behind the wall. When Frank started to pass our house calling his trade Fred yelled out “What did you kill your mother with” Frank replied “Cloths Props” then he realised what had been said. The only person Frank could see was mum, so see was the one that got told off.

Many friends a family came through our front door at one time my eldest sister Shirley and her family were living in our house as well as my other sister Betty and her husband Rod. Where we all slept I cannot remember. But I do remember one incident that happened during that time.

Rod was having breakfast and my nephew Wayne who was three at the time was waiting for his, watching Rod as he ate. Rod had a bit of steak, first he turned it to the right then to the left then he turned it upside down and back again. This got too much for Wayne so he said in a loud voice “my father doesn’t do that, he doesn’t look he just cuts” which caused a great jubilation amongst everyone who heard his comment.

Friends always came through that old front door, for our birthday parties. My brother Fred often had big parties. Mum would ask him how many were coming and he would say “only a few” and twenty or thirty would turn up. Mum must have known for there was always plenty of delicious food.

Christmas was another time all the family came through that door.

  Christmas meant a feast. Mum always beat us kids out of bed on Christmas morning (around five am) to make the Christmas pudding which was so big it took hours to boil. And what a lovely pudding it was.    She would not stop working on Christmas morning till the lovely dinner was all served up on the plates of the crowd of people that came for lunch and that included her children, my nana’s and granddad, aunts uncles and later her children’s spouses and the grandchildren.    
 When we moved from Willoughby to the central coast all these activities came to an end, for it   was too far for most people to travel.

Our new front door was different somehow, never seemed to me as friendly as the old one.

Oh to live behind or old front door again- and be young enough to enjoy it.