CHAPTER 6
THE HASKING STREET HURDLER
Mrs Jones walked wearily down Hasking Street, Caboolture - handbag on one shoulder and bags of groceries in each hand, wearily heading for home.
A casual observer may easily have dismissed her as ‘just an old woman’ - and so she was, except... but where do we start those exceptions - exceptions to what we like to call ‘today's standards’? Standards Mrs Jones, who had lived a tough if not severe life, would likely call ‘soft’.
Elsie May Jones was certainly not soft. Short and fat? Well... maybe, though ‘a little rotund’ might be a more appropriate, more kindly and more respectful term to use. Fat, you see, so often has the misleading connotation of a lifetime of good living. I can assure you this was certainly not the case with regard to Elsie May Jones - oh, no!
She was the sixth born child of a working-class family, back in the UK in the 1920s. A very different world then, when working class and poor were two sides of the same coin. A time when a meagre meal was consumed with gusto – as it could well be the last meal for some time. Life could be tough - very tough. Later, when still only a young woman, she was subjected to the awful rigours of the regular aerial bombardment in London, called The Blitz; which eventually robbed her of her husband, her only child, her home and every single possession in it! If she had not been out working that day, she too would have been dead - and thereafter she often wished she were...
The strict rationing of foodstuffs ensured she kept her then somewhat Spartan figure throughout the war years and the post-war reconstruction period that followed - and eventually on into a new marriage. The couple’s desire for a completely new start in life led them to migrate to Australia – this was in the early sixties.
Arriving in Queensland with very little money, helped re-hone her natural capacity for the good old-fashioned
‘make-do-and-mend’ spirit. It was this spirit that ensured she and her family survived and went on to survive, if not prosper in Caboolture.
Now on this day, having been widowed again for a number of years and living alone, she was what some might readily call ‘a tough old bird’; and I don't think she would object to that description one bit! For she had fought ‘the good fight’, as she saw it, just to survive! She had the tired lines on her face to prove it and every line, as they say, could tell a story. She joked that her face looked like an old gramophone record - though many people today would have no idea what that was or meant. She was at that time, I believe (and I wouldn't dare say this in her presence, more out of respect than out of fear), nigh on eighty years of age.
She was just thinking what a very nice, quiet, peaceful day it was. As she continued to walk down Hasking Street, not far from the busy centre of Caboolture; it seemed as if she was the only one out walking – there was just the odd car whizzing by. However, when she got near the very end of the street, a man, one she later described as rather shifty, stepped out from a doorway - in front of her. He was certainly young, not more than twenty something and roughly clothed in daggy jeans, T-shirt, and a back-to-front baseball cap.
She tried to avoid him - but he moved to block her path, determined, it seemed, to accost her. She was more than a little frightened – and who could blame her for that?
The man made a grab for her handbag! She tried to back away… but he was much too quick for her. Her groceries fell to the ground. Cans and bottles were spilling out across the pavement - fruitcake and biscuits, quickly trodden under foot in the struggle, for possession of the bag.
As her bag was finally wrenched from her grasp, any remaining trace of her initial sympathy for his apparent deprived status, quickly evaporated. Her strong, basic, instinct for survival – one that had been so well honed by past experiences, came rushing to the fore.
Now villains that assault older folk, like Elsie May, tend to make absolutely no allowances for the possibility their intended victims may well have played other, more active, roles in life - roles hidden behind their outward appearance of age and frailty. For the villains, that can sometimes prove to be a big mistake on their part!
In this case, strange as it may seem, memories of an earlier time when she was a young agile member of the war time Women's Land Army in the UK working on farms, humping large bags of wheat and other produce that many men today would find difficult to move; came flooding to mind. Her spirit buoyed by these thoughts of those ‘active days’, gave her new-found strength. So, instead of pulling away, as he may well have expected - she stepped in closer! Then turning her back to him she put her arms up over her head, grabbed him firmly by the collar with both hands - and then bent forward, somewhat sharpish...
Her assailant was pulled completely off balance by the surprise move, so that under the impetus of his own body weight, he found himself rolling up and over her shoulders and dumped, like a sack of old potatoes, upside-down and hard up against the wall; striking his head on the pavement with a real nasty thud. His limp, winded, almost lifeless, body toppled over to one side. He lay there motionless, stunned, bleeding from head, nose and mouth.
Elsie May stretched and shrugged her shoulders, rubbed her hands together and was more than surprised to find she hadn't hurt herself at all – not a bit! Then looking down at the crumpled form, she felt a twinge of compassion for her somewhat damaged assailant. ‘Oh, Lord... what have I done? I never meant to hurt the poor little bugger’, she thought.
As she was about to take a closer look, he stirred, pulling himself into a more upright position. Then slowly, very slowly, leaning on the wall for support, he managed to struggle to his feet.
'Here,' she said to him, 'if you're up to it, you'd best come home with me - I only live just at the end there.' She pointed to her unit. The man glared, threateningly - bunching his fists. 'Now don't you go starting any of that,' she warned. 'I'm not frightened of you, my boy! Hey! Maybe you should be more afraid of me, eh? What do you reckon to that, then?'
The poor fellow didn’t look at all well. So, giving him her broadest smile, she said: 'Come on, old son. Let's go and get you cleaned up, eh?’ Then she sniffed and said ‘A hot bath or shower wouldn't be out of place either - now would it?'
As the fierceness left his face, she continued: 'When you've cleaned yourself up - proper mind, then maybe, just maybe, Sonny Jim, I'll feed you – if you’re well behaved. Then you can bugger off! Go your own way, as good as new. Perhaps, with the odd dollar or two in your pocket, eh? What do you say, mate? Coming… are you?'
Saying nothing, he helped her collect her groceries and together they moved down the street. It was just another day in Caboolture - more people on the street now and more cars swishing by. Nobody taking any notice of the old lady and her dishevelled companion. As different as the proverbial chalk and cheese you might say. Yet... did they not share a certain something now; respect, understanding and love for one's fellow neighbour?
I do hope so - don't you?