A couple of years’ back Your Girl Reporter was at a family reunion – we hold them often, but not often enough. We’re a good bunch, by and large, and I missed them growing up. I feel like I am a missing piece of the puzzle, slotting comfortably into place, whenever I attend.
The occasion was my uncle Mick Fogarty’s 80th birthday. Mick is my grandmother’s youngest brother and we gathered to celebrate, on a dry and dusty afternoon, somewhere in New South Wales.
Mick’s daughter Suzanne had done her work well and we were surrounded by displays of pictures, telling the stories of each of the many branches of the Fogarty family tree, of which the Spackmans are but a twig, as any Fogarty will tell you.
I was looking at a picture of my dad and his cousins, sitting around a table made of packing cases in the backyard of their place in Grenfell. I didn’t notice the small, older woman at my shoulder until she spoke. “That was my birthday,” she said. “We had raspberry cordial.” And with that she walked away. “Who was that?” I asked my cousin. “That’s Joan Byrne.”
The last time I had seen my extraordinary aunt was in 1969 at Hong Kong’s Ocean Terminal. She sailed for Japan that day in the Russian ship Baikal on the next stage of her long journey to London.
There had never before been an opportunity to ask my honorary Aunty Joan about her adventures after she left us in Hong Kong and there was no time on that windy afternoon for much more than a big hug. “I didn’t think you’d remember me,” Joan said.
When I did ask, she said that leaving Hong Kong had been both exciting and confronting.
“On one hand, I was alone again, leaving the security of friends and loved ones. On the other, I was moving on – seeking understanding of ideas and movements which had challenged me over the years. And yes, being in touch with the dreams of art, literature, drama, music and architecture which were of growing importance in my life.”
Most of all, Joan wanted to know what part the great achievements of humankind played in the lives of ordinary people in different countries and societies. But before there was Art, there was Drama. A passing cyclone turned the three-day trip into a seven-day saga.
“Many of the crew, who included Russian university students on part-time jobs during vacation, were seasick as huge waves rocked the ship,” Joan said.
“The few of us left standing had the run of the ship, including the kitchen. Watching a movie, we sat in chairs roped together to prevent them becoming sliding objects, but occasionally the whole row went sliding across the floor.”
The weather forced the ship to divert to Niigata, Japan’s back door, instead of Tokyo where Joan was expected by her hosts, a Japanese family introduced by friends from Hong Kong.
She spent as much of her time as she could in Japan travelling and immersing herself in its history and art.
“I also had a number of students for conversational English, including four men from my host’s engineering firm,” Joan said.
“As a farewell when I was leaving Japan, they took me to a nightclub normally frequented by men and the Japanese hostesses employed to entertain them.
“They were amused as the hostesses mopped my brow and asked me to dance. Another moment, when I was dancing with one of my hosts he whipped a dictionary from his pocket to try and get a translation of something I had said.”
Years later, Joan says she still hasn’t come up with an explanation to satisfy herself on two major issues: “One was the continued reverence people had for the Emperor, who played such a significant role in WW2.
“The other was the highly structured educational system. Yes, it was probably gearing a workforce for a manufacturing and business-oriented society – major aims of that era – but, to me, there was a danger of developing an unthinking population.”
But it was time for Joan to leave.
Off she went, bag and baggage, to Vladivostok – Noel Coward, Blithe Spirit
Vladivostok was a Cold War naval base at the time so Joan sailed instead to Nakhodka, to travel the great Trans-Siberian railway.
“A number of things had pushed me in that direction,” Joan said. “It was the longest railway in the world, it meant seven days on a train, Siberia was where the Russian dissidents had been exiled to… and there was that line from Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit…
“Most of the ship’s travellers flew from Nakhodka to Moscow but that was not for me. My dreams were too important.”
On the train Joan was shocked to realise that men and women shared the four-berth sleeping cabins. “I didn’t sleep much the first night after I was joined by three Russian soldiers. But they were perfect gentlemen and I soon realised the train crew were keeping a close eye on me.
“Other interesting cabin companions were a Russian peasant family, the grandmother with an empty eye socket. They fed me, showed me tricks and games, and chatted to me in a language I had no hope of understanding, all of us using sign language as far as possible.”
First stop was Irkutsk near Lake Baikal, home of the virgin sturgeon and that great caviar.
“It was around here that a number of early Russian dissidents were exiled. It was a wild, windswept area but strangely beautiful with the snow-capped mountains in the distance,” Joan said.
“I thought it was not too bad a place to endure exile. That is, if you had the money to establish comfortable living quarters for yourself. And it was near here that I saw a huge brown bear in the wild.”
It was still a long way to Moscow.
© Maria Spackman 2017
This is the latest in a series of posts chronicling the adventures of my extraordinary aunt, who spent two years as a teacher in Hong Kong before resuming her travels. You can read more of her story here:
My Extraordinary Aunt: Taking the long way to London – before she joined us in Hong Kong, Joan travelled through Asia.
My Extraordinary Aunt: In the shadow of Lion Rock – Joan arrived in Hong Kong in May 1967, where working conditions were about to lead to one of the most turbulent times in its history.
My Extraordinary Aunt: College Days in 1960s Hong Kong – When the school year began in September 1967 Joan started teaching at Wellington College to earn enough money for the next stage of her journey.
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