Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - What were you doing in 1985?
Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):
1) Since this was Back to the Future week, I have a related challenge: Do you recall what you were doing in 1985? Family, school, work, hobbies, technology, genealogy, vacations, etc?
2) Tell us in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this blog, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.
Thanks for this great meme Randy because I have been wondering what I was doing then.
So I wasn't married yet...although Robbie and I were living together by that time (sharp intake of breath - my apologies in advance to those who don't approve of that sort of relationship).
We were living in Chelmer at the time in a rental property with a beautiful garden full of orchids. The house was owned by Graham Nosworthy. Robert and I were saving furiously for our first home and had $5656.95 saved by early May and $9k by the end of the year. There was a big storm on Friday 18 January and we had 4 broken windows. This may have been the big storm when the greenhouse was smashed up too. I note a few storms in my diary that year and blackouts. It was also the year of electricity strikes in Brisbane. Joh Bjelke-Petersen was the Premier then.
I was working at the ABC and driving a bomb of an old car - a Holden HR which I had owned for a couple of years. I had been living in Queensland for 3 years and was working shift work in TV Transmission which would have been called Traffic in a commercial station. Some shifts in my diary are 0715-1615. Other shifts are 1815-0015. In July of that year Bruce Paige resigned from the ABC and moved to the commercial channel - shock horror. I wonder if this is the year Jenny Woodward started doing the weather for the ABC. I have a note in my diary for some weather auditions in early December. It was the year of redundancies at the ABC and we lost lots of people. Unsettling times.
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| Wozzi near the Greenhouse at 88 Leybourne Street Chelmer |
We owned a pet - a crazy cat called Wozzi who I'd brought up with me from Sydney but he died later that year on Friday 13 September - a no good, very bad day. It was the same day I think that I broke my little toe on one of the legs of our very uncomfortable slat timber bed. I cried and cried like a baby. I cried again when I broke it again 3 months later the same way. We got rid of the bed soon after that I think :) OMG - I think our bed is 30 years old!!!
This was the year I went back to Uni part-time. My diary is full of dates for enrollment. It was the year I discovered Sociology. I liked it so much, I did a double-major.
My sisters-in-law-to-be were not living in Brisbane so there are trips to Maryborough on weekends to see Robert's oldest sister Patricia and babies Jim and Ben and letters to Julie and John who were living in Rockhampton, I think. Pat's husband Terry would come down and stay with us in Brisbane every now and then for work.
Birthdays seemed to have been celebrated regularly with a lamb on a spit. They were cheap then and a lot of fun to organise. Spits were made by the menfolk out of recycled materials....leftover wheels from old bicycles and the like.
I've written in the diary on 1 March that it was our Engagement Anniversary so I'm guessing we had been engaged for 1 year.
On 14 March I had dinner with my old school buddy Deborah who was living at 113 King Arthur Terrace in Tennyson - not very far from me in Chelmer. She was living in a flat at the back of the property and had not yet married Bernie. That happened later in the year. I have a note in my diary in August that my other old school friend Jill went to Canada for a couple of months towards the end of the year.
My exercise regime in that year consisted of walking with my buddy Loani and her partner Greg and playing squash with friends from time to time. Loani was pregnant with Ben and I had promised to be there for the birth but defaulted when Ben was late. I went on holidays to catch up with another old school friend Melissa in Perth instead.
On 1 April Robert's Aunt Alice's husband Billy Binstead died. There were regular trips to the Gold Coast to catch up with Robert's family.
Movies that I went to see with friends at the time were Amadeus and Mrs Soffel.
We celebrated my father's 50th birthday that year so I flew down to the Blue Mountains for his surprise birthday party.
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| Alex at 11 St George's Road Leura wielding an electric knife |
I have a note in my diary on 9 September "per light of the age 1864" which i think is a note from a conversation with my mother about researching the McLoughlins and when they came out to Australia. So I was doing a little bit of family history then.
I can't remember exactly what I was doing on 21 October. My diary just tells me that I worked 0715-1615 and that it was a Monday. The weekend before I had been whale watching with a friend from work, Di, and her partner Alan. I think that is when we camped on Stradbroke Island for the first time, completely unaware that we were to spend many more happy times there in the future but in different circumstances.
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| The camping ground at Point Lookout |
That year we had Christmas dinner with Loani and Greg and dear friend Bob. I worked on that day from 1000-1800. At the time ABC-TV was in Toowong in Coronation Drive and so I would have just popped round to 23 Lodge Street after work.
I have gone through some old letters from my mother to see if I can piece together any more information. Amongst other things, she mentioned the purchase of a Magimix on sale for $99. I am proud to say I inherited the Magimix a few years ago and what's more it STILL WORKS!!
So that's my Back to the Future story. What's yours?
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