Archive for the ‘history’ Category

I have very few photos of myself, mainly because I’m not particularly photogenic and I try to stay out of them, and also because I’m usually the one on the other side of the camera taking the pic. Tonight I was trying to tidy up the box we keep the photos in, and came across a few of me, so I thought I’d post some here.

First one, me as a baby. I had colic and used to scream non-stop apparently. Well, not quite true – I’d stop squawking while I was being fed, so I was fed ALOT! lol. Kind of a viscious circle really cos my dinner was what was making my tummy hurt. Poor me.

This is me and my sister Katrina. I’m digging our matching crotcheted dresses. They look to be exactly the same, which is surprising because Mum used to dress me in red (cos I had dark hair), and Katrina in blue (cos she had blue eyes). We hated it because we’d always get the same Christmas present, and as soon as Katrina opened hers up and we saw she had a blue whatever, I’d know instantly that I’d be getting the same thing, only red!

I still remember those dogs. They were battery operated, and you pulled on the leash and they’d walk along and bark.

I am probably one of THE squarest people you’ll ever come across. I’ve always been incredibly square and daggy. This pic says 1979, which means I was ELEVEN years old and still sitting on Santa’s lap. Now that’s daggy. Note the daggy hairstyle – a kind of ‘bushy thing on top of head’ look. As you’ll see in the photo after this, it only got worse…

Good grief that is BAD hair! This is a scan of a very blurry polaroid on my first day of high school. That’s my friend Jenny Key who lived next door in Blacktown. If you ever spot this photo Jenny and think the photo has come back to haunt you, don’t worry – you’re the one with the normal hairdo. (And drop me a line will you?) I was an incredibly daggy teenager – my favourite outfit was a red terry towelling tracksuite with white stripes, and occasionally, I even wore those ‘boob tube’ dresses – remember those monstrosities?!

As you can see, my taste in fashion was so sophisticated, I went from red tracky dacks to this pink and black polkadot number. This is me with Lauren, my first child. I look like I’m about 13 there but I’m actually 21.

This is me after I’d given birth to Alex, my second baby. I was about 25 I think. I look knackered!

From polkadot tshirts, we go to full medieval garb. Those are fake braids. This was at a university feast thingy. I spotted a UFO that night. (And I hadn’t been drinking).

This is one of my two blonde phases. Tons and tons of streaks which totally ruined my hair, but I liked it. It was great to have something to blame my stupidity on, other than myself.

Believe it or not, real people who weren’t drunk used to go out with these hairstyles in public.  They thought they looked cool and hot.  I beg to differ…

	1968 – the year that I was born, A la Mary Tyler Moore. This one isn’t too bad compared to the others.  I would think it would have involved sleeping with giant rollers digging into your neck and waking up with a crick, which explains why the head is tilted to one side.  Women have always suffered for their beauty.
	1958, one year before my hubby was born.  ‘Children! Children!  Be quiet!  Your father has had a hard day at work.  Here dear, here’s your slippers, your pipe, your newspaper.  Now I’m just going to tidy myself up before I cook dinner, do the laundry and clean the toilet.  Lipstick, check, hairspray, check…’
	1980. While us naturally curly headed people were struggling with the bane of our lives, people with straight hair opted for this very natural perm.  Unfortunately, they didn’t realise that they naturally looked like a poodle, not a human.
	1960. You too could have become a stunning sex symbol just like in this photo, with the latest designer spectacles, a thrice weekly visit to the salon and three litres of hair spray.
	1982. When I look at this photo I curse the fact that fashion always seems to come around again in cycles.  I dread this style.  I hope I’m bald by the time this one makes it around again.

Maybe it’s because I’m about to turn 40 soon (see my count-downer on the bottom of this page – argh!), but I’ve been feeling decidedly nostalgic lately. I’ve already talked about the old gadgets I remember from days gone by, but in this post I’m about to reveal a terribly embarrassing secret from my younger days.

If you’re not Australian, you may not have heard of the term ‘daggy’. A dag is actually the fly-ridden yucky bits which hang off the end of a sheep’s bum, but eventually, in Australian vernacular, it came to mean ‘nerdy, but in a kind of goofy lovable way’. So if you’re a dag, it’s a bad thing in a good kind of way…or is that a good thing in a bad kind of way? I dunno – now I’m confused!

Anyway, I have to confess that I was the epitome of dagginess in my youth. (Note the operative word ‘was’ hehe). I was a dag for a number of reasons.

I had a preoccupation with being what I was not. In other words, I wanted to be a tall willowy straight haired blonde. Instead I was short and plump and my head was topped by an unruly mop of curly very dark hair. These were the days of the Brady Bunch type stick-straight hair and straightening irons weren’t invented, and I was cursed with the kinky frizz from hell. Alas, with my own hair, I’d never be fashionable, so, (and I’m cringing to admit the next bit), I took steps to do something about it.

The first was to ask my mum for a wig for my birthday. I had visions of tossing my straight blonde wig hair about in the breeze like one of those models in the shampoo commercials. When my birthday came and I excitedly opened up my present I found…a wig…short, curly, very dark brown – exactly like my own real hair. I may as well have made my own head into the wig. Of course, I was a polite child, and thanked my mum, and then the wig was used to dress up our poor long suffering dog. She looked pretty darned funny, and if it weren’t for the extra hairy bits and the four legs, we could have been twins when she was wearing the wig.

The second thing I did was even more embarrassing. Obviously, the asking for a wig thing didn’t work, so I resorted to plan B. I took a pair of my mum’s nylon stockings (that’s ‘tights’ to you British!) and cut each leg into three strips. Then I plaited the legs so I had two lovely long braids which I tied off with pretty ribbon. Then I plonked the stockings on my head, and that was my ‘long straight’ hair. Yup, you heard me right – I wore stockings on my head as a wig. Now you will understand the full meaning of the term ‘daggy’.

Oh, btw, I was under the age of 8 when this happened – I swear! I have since bought the world’s most important and life changing gadget – an electric hair straightener, and my world has been different ever since.