Not Your Ordinary Housewife

26





When we had been winding down the Canberra office, I had begun to research my father, Allan Proctor. At that time staff at the Australian War Memorial provided me with his full service record and I received my first photo of him. I did indeed bear a strong resemblance to him; because of his youthful appearance, I could see why his call sign was ‘Babe’. He had done three tours of duty, but it was in 459 Squadron that he had obtained his Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in 1942. The citation told how, under intense anti-aircraft fire, he sank several large escorted enemy vessels, displaying ‘outstanding courage and devotion to duty’.


I also learnt from the RAAF records that in 1986 his cousin, Maude, had claimed his war medals. Staff forwarded to her a letter from me asking about his medals and offering to buy them. The tone of her reply was lukewarm; she’d sold his medals years ago, saying she hardly knew Allan. She did, however, give me some information about another of Allan’s cousins, who lived on the New South Wales Central Coast.

Ian Proctor proved remarkably easy to find. I phoned him and explained that I was Allan’s daughter. In contrast to Maude, he could not have been warmer. A retired BHP engineer, he and his sisters had idolised their older cousin. Ian had been overseas at the time of Allan’s suicide; when he returned, the family was reluctant to discuss the painful tragedy. My unheralded appearance now shed new light on all that.

Ian told me how everything Allan and his parents owned had been left to Maude. He felt sure that the reason for her tepid response to me had been fear that I would claim her inheritance— something that hadn’t even occurred to me. He was angry that she’d disposed of the medals without contacting him; he’d been close to Allan and would have bought them in a trice.

Meanwhile, I had placed ‘information wanted’ ads in various air force and squadron newsletters. Numerous calls and letters produced an array of photos and memories. Without exception, all were flabbergasted to learn of my existence. I listened to the stories of Allan’s old air-force mates as they talked about him in glowing terms. He had been extremely popular for his bonhomie and well respected as an exceptional pilot—the youngest in 459 Squadron. It seemed he was a happy-go-lucky person with a larrikin streak that saw him pull such stunts as flying under powerlines in a Mosquito.

Allan’s former navigator in Wales filled in details for me of the two similar raids for which he’d received his DFC. Both were against convoys of German merchant vessels off the coast of Tobruk, which were, under escort, supplying Rommel’s desert forces. Apparently, Allan flew just above the ocean to avoid enemy radar detection. To maximise the element of surprise, he approached from the direction of a nearby German airfield. In broad daylight, he repeatedly bombed one of the merchant vessels, which was flanked by destroyers, from only masthead height while being fired at. Three Messerschmitts gave chase, but miraculously he managed to escape. Little wonder, I thought, that he later displayed post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

I was contacted by a retired pilot who had co-written a DC-4 operations manual with Allan for Qantas. He believed the stress from Allan’s involvement in the pilots’ union   and from the pressure of flying the new super constellation airliners was to blame for his suicide. My informant and several of the other senior pilots had also known Egon, and it occurred to me that my two fathers may even have known each other: Egon often flew to Papua New Guinea with Qantas on Department of Civil Aviation business. This potential interconnectedness was mind-boggling, but it was something I’d never know for sure.



However much we argued, Paul was always supportive of my quest to trace Allan’s old friends. It was as if his relationship with Brian was being lived out vicariously through me. Any letters or phone calls were greeted with great excitement, and at such times our daily irritations would melt away. Paul even designed a brochure for the Mosquito Aircraft Association of Australia, which was raising sponsorship for the restoration of a plane at the RAAF base at Point Cook that Allan had flown.

Over the years there continued to be a steady stream of ex-air-force personnel contacting me. Several were convinced that Allan had been involved in clandestine operations after the war. Some of his Qantas friends had hired a boat to search for his body when he died, and they had written letters about his disappearance to various government departments and politicians—to no avail. I was dubious, but nonetheless I wrote to ASIO seeking any file they had on him. They confirmed that none existed.

Only one of Allan’s friends had known about Trudie. He related how, one drunken evening, Allan had revealed his love for a beautiful woman ‘up north’.

I was also learning details of his disappearance. Apparently a fisherman coming into Sydney Harbour saw a body floating face up and tried in vain to recover it. Later he confirmed Allan’s identity from a photo.

Eventually I obtained a copy of the Daily Mirror article from which Trudie had learned of Allan’s death. It described his disappearance as a great shock in aviation circles and reported how the police were doing a ‘top secret’ investigation. The interview with Allan’s mother told how ‘she knew of no reason for him to disappear’. I reflected sadly on how Trudie denied his parents the missing jigsaw piece in his suicide puzzle that might have allowed them to make sense of the tragedy.

In 1993 Allan’s old mates from 459 Squadron invited me to visit Sydney for Anzac Day. Paul accompanied me and it was a deeply touching experience as they regaled me with anecdotes of Allan’s antics and achievements. Later Paul and I drove to North Head, where we stood with the ocean four hundred feet below, pondering how he had taken his life there.



Unexpectedly, I received a call from the secretary of the Association of Retired Australian Airline Pilots (ARAAP). He’d been contacted by one of Allan’s mates who had been in Sydney for the Anzac Day march. Passing a militaria shop at Wynyard station, he recognised Allan’s photo and medals taking pride of place in the window. Later he’d seen my ad in the air-force magazine Wings.

Armed with the shop’s name, I excitedly phoned and purchased them immediately. Apparently the collection—consisting of Allan’s photo, plus his Department of Defence citation and service record—made them worth thousands of dollars. When the medals arrived, I held the silver cross, with its purple-and-white-striped ribbon, tenderly in my hand. It was an unbelievable stroke of luck to have found them—the only tangible things I had of my father’s.

I rang Trudie, who was overjoyed to hear I’d secured Allan’s DFC and campaign medals. We talked about their relationship, although I had difficulty picturing them as a couple. I wondered what had connected wild, war-weary Allan to this insular religious zealot.

Since my first contact with her, I had spoken to a raft of my cousins—some of whom were themselves adopted—and to my other two aunts, all living in Brisbane. I connected with both aunts: one painted prolifically and penned haiku poetry; the other was an amateur photographer and short-story writer. They were thrilled to embrace me as a member of their family.

Most of all, I was speaking regularly with Auntie Bess, who confided that Trudie was a habitual liar—something I’d already gleaned from my dealings with her. Trudie was also a pathological hoarder: no-one had been inside her house for years—not even Bess, who lived opposite. My aunt said I should thank my lucky stars I had been adopted; she insisted that my relinquishment would have had minimal impact on her sister. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help wondering if the hoarding hadn’t been an emotional reaction to all the loss she’d suffered in her life.

Auntie Bess also explained about Trudie’s teeth—apparently there were still some stumps lodged in her gums which would need to be extracted before dentures could be fitted, but she refused to seek dental treatment. Trudie also neglected her house: the front door was rendered inaccessible by piles of yellowing newspapers and the old weatherboard was riddled with termites. Once, when Trudie was away, my aged aunts had crawled around under the house to assess the termite damage: its floors had rotted and there were gaping holes throughout, over which Trudie had strategically laid planks as walkways.


Bess was sufficiently worried that her sister would fall through the floor of the old Queenslander that she called a health inspector. The house was subsequently condemned and then bulldozed in mid 1993. Trudie immediately moved into a flat with the assistance of some local nuns.



Years later, in June 2004, I was at work when I received a call that Trudie had died from a stroke. Although saddened, my grief paled in comparison to that experienced at Dory’s passing. Our contact in recent years had waned, reduced to the mandatory birthday and Christmas cards.

Nevertheless, Shoshanna, now twenty, and I travelled to Queensland for the funeral. Although successfully excluding me from her world during life, Trudie had no choice in death. I placed a sympathy notice in the paper from ‘the daughter lost to adoption’, effectively announcing my existence, just as Paul had done with Brian.

I only ever saw Trudie twice. On the second occasion—in her coffin—her arthritic hands clutched a photo of Bob Farmer, the husband she was with so briefly.

Walking into the Ayr Catholic Church as chief mourner was an undeniably surreal experience. Feeling something of an impostor, I watched as all eyes fell on me—the daughter she’d kept hidden from this large congregation.

After the funeral, my aunt requested our help in cleaning up Trudie’s flat. I’d read about hoarding disorders before, but nothing prepared me for the reality of the squalor. All available space was cluttered with stuff. The place was unliveable. Her kitchen was caked with filth to the degree that cooking would have been unfeasible; her bedroom was so messy that she’d been forced to sleep on the couch; and she’d been washing her clothes by hanging them out and hosing them down, as the laundry was over-run with vermin. I knew excessive hoarding was classified as a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder, and I now understood why she had never let me visit. I was saddened to be learning more about Trudie in death than in life.

It took days to disinfect and clear the tiny apartment; several dump bins were filled to capacity. Among her mouldy books I found the photos and cards I’d sent, completely covered in mildew. Apart from a few trinkets, I brought home very little: some Women’s National Emergency Legion insignia from her time in the Australian Women’s Land Army, four copies of Bert Hinkler’s biography, and a badge and plastic mug from the Catholic Women’s League.

These, I felt, symbolised my birth mother—and I would treasure them—but how different from Dory’s multi-faceted life. There was no doubt in my mind: I was Dory and Egon’s child, not Trudie and Allan’s.