Back when I was a child in the ’50s and ’60s, it felt to me that we lacked for nothing, even though our small family lived frugally. Most of our clothes were home-made; Mum was very handy with needle and thread. The old treadle sewing machine was the sound-track of our lives as Mum cheerfully manoeuvred fabric, accompanied by Dad’s loud and tuneful whistling while he was engaged with some project in his workshop, or digging and hoeing in the vegetable patch.

Although relatively uneducated through formal training, my father was an intelligent problem-solver, a creative hard worker. If he didn’t know how to do something, he’d find out through practical application.

His workshop was an additional space beside the garage where his pride and joy was parked – the always-shiny Standard Vanguard car. Being with Dad in his workshop was my ‘happy place’; I was made to feel useful in the glow of his love. There was an enfolding atmosphere of peace in his presence, in the familiar smells of sawdust, paint, turps, grease… the smell of an oily rag.

Not only did I enjoy the aromas in Dad’s workshop, it was also a visual pleasure to see all his tools so neatly arranged in their designated places on the walls. Jars of nails, screws, hinges, rubber washers, nuts and bolts – all the paraphernalia of a handyman – were carefully placed on shelves. Camping equipment peeped from boxes, awaiting the next family adventure. 

An old leather jacket and Dad’s heavy army coat hung from hooks. Hanging beside these past-life trophies were ‘his’ and ‘hers’ overalls. Dad’s were stained and marked through years of toil, while my little cut-down ones were still embarrassingly clean. Sometimes I spilled things on myself on purpose to get them more like Daddy’s. I remember being delighted one day when, while ‘helping’ Dad change the oil in the car, the pressure in the oil-can sprayed filthy gunk on me.

Dad made up a little ditty: “Keep clean as best you might, all right? Protect your clothes from blight, or Mum’ll get uptight.” 

I didn’t know what ‘blight’ meant. Dad sometimes affectionately called me a ‘silly little blighter’; he called by brother a ‘silly little bugger’, and he sometimes muttered to himself if he made a mistake, “You stupid bastard”, so I learned there were degrees of admonishment. Sometimes he said to Mum if she got in a flap about something, “Don’t be a headless chook.” I didn’t know what a bastard was, but I did know about chooks, because we had some. It was my job to feed them. I was scared of the rooster.

Later, I learned from a bullying boy at school that my brother and I were both ‘bastards’, because we were adopted. When we told Daddy what the mean boy had yelled it was the first time I saw him get angry. I was confused. Dad had called himself a bastard. Was he adopted, too? Mummy cried, then gave us treats for a whole week. So I didn't actually mind being a bastard – it had perks.  

I loved my times when I was Daddy’s little helper in his workshop. Sometimes I’d just stand on a box and watch what he was doing. He’d be creating some useful item for our home, a bookcase perhaps, or fixing up a battered old bicycle he had rescued from the rubbish dump for one of the neighbourhood kids so they could play with us.

Sometimes I was encouraged to ‘help’. If Dad was working on a carpentry project, I’d work alongside him, hammering nails into an off-cut block of wood he’d given me, with a handful of precious nails to practise with. Occasionally, my over-enthusiasm led to the block being hammered to the work bench by mistake.

“Don’t bash them all the way in, then you can practise getting them out again with the claw part of the hammer,” was his sensible instruction. “Try hard not to bend them, sweet pea, so I can use them later.”

Dad was a young man during the Great Depression. Gaining practical skills was important in our household; the lesson of economy equally important.

To help me practise using a hand-saw, he’d grip a length of branch from the fruit tree prunings into a vise on the workbench beside him, and let me loose with the saw.

“If you are up in a tree cutting a branch off, remember to sit on the part closest to the tree trunk.” He delivered this piece of sage advice with a dead-pan face, waiting for it to register with me what would happen if I sat on the OTHER end of the branch while cutting it.  

My father died over twenty years ago, and I have lived more than three score years myself, but still these days at stressful times I imagine myself back there beside him in my childhood years, listening to his wise counsel, feeling his quiet patience and encouragement. It calms me into a mellow mood. Being in Dad’s workshop with him is still my ‘happy place’.

My life has benefited for the life lessons and enjoyments he imparted: I can whistle; I like the smell of wood and oil; I enjoy eating fruit and vegetables; I love camping; I am good at recycling and living economically; I have a flair for making up silly poetry; and I am good with my hands – able to knock in a nail with a minimum of hammer blows.

Additionally, I never wear light-coloured clothes; and I have never fallen out of a tree.