Names have been changed, though I'm not sure why I've bothered,as most of the Hawthorn Gully neighbours are probably as dead as the Dodo.

Hawthorn Gully in the Adelaide Hills,back in the 1950's was not the built-up suburb it is today,but more like a small village, surrounded by all the village idiots. That's probably a bit unkind; they were certainly eccentric and yes, some were still idiots.

My parents and I and later my sister, lived in Hawthorn Gully from the early fifties to the mid-seventies 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 some of them.

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 and 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-ee! 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 goats-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 same tea-towel and then continued to wipe the dishes. My mother's stomach turned,as has yours,I'm sure,upon reading this account. Sorry about that.

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. Of course,today,no-one would turn a hair,but in the 1950's,behaving in this way was quite scandalous.

Up the road and around the corner,lived the Westons,who were the dirtiest old couple you could ever imagine.Their clothes were shabby and dirty (no,I don't think they were necessarily poor) and even their skin appeared to have several layers of grime. The old man had a hole in his ear,which looked like a maggot 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 and cart( both grotty), giving a whole new meaning to the term rattle-trap. Their house was just like you'd have imagined it to be,really disgustingly dirty,with ring-wormed cats yowling around the door. I hasten to add, though, that I never set foot in their house., but 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 a source of great 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 Hawthorn Gully had a phone at that time. 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 swore back at him and would try and hit him too. 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 could be model citizens.Who knows?

Diagonally across the road from us was perhaps the scariest neighbor of all.Psycho-man!He'd been in jail for assault or some offence like that. He was also quite mentally unbalanced but of course in those days illnesses such as Bi-polar 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 times 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 odd-ball neighbours.