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Boys, Bernie, Annabelle and Helena[1]

On the 25th August, Wild Boys was officially launched at the BackTrack Shed by Professor Annabelle Duncan, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England. The launch was an exciting day for me … the public acknowledgement of years and years of hard work was very affirming, and what follows is the gist of the speech I gave that day.

Many years ago, when an early chapter of Wild Boys was published in Griffith REVIEW, Bernie Shakeshaft said to me: ‘How lucky are we that you came down to the shed.’ At the time, my response to him was: ‘How lucky am I that I came down to the shed’, and even though writing Wild Boys has involved a significant amount of personal sacrifice and hardship, I can still say: ‘How lucky am I? I got to be part of something – a whole other world – that not many women experience, and I learned a lot about life in the process.

One of the unexpected outcomes of writing Wild Boys is my ongoing affection for the BackTrack boys – both past and present. I’ve come a long way since my first day at the shed – when I rocked up, full of nerves, to find Bernie driving out the gate, saying: ‘I’ll be back soon… just go inside and meet the boys. They’ll show you around.’ It’s fair to say I was completely out of my comfort zone that day, but I soon realised that there was nothing to fear.

Like many things in life, we fear what we don’t know, and fear and prejudice usually arise from ignorance – from not understanding and not being able to feel empathy towards a group of people who are different to you. Part of the reason why I wrote Wild Boys was to provide an insight into the ‘wild boys’ in our community – to shine a light on what it is to be a teenage boy who, for various reasons, struggles at school and can become known as a ‘loser’ early in life, simply because he doesn’t fit the system. That’s a pretty harsh judgement for a society to make upon a young person, so I wanted to write something that would influence the way people think and feel about wild boys, something that might encourage them to care more and judge less.

Recently, I helped set up the school program at the shed, and I got to know some of the boys who are currently at the shed. One day, we had to go somewhere for lunch on the spur of the moment, so I said to the boys, ‘Let’s go to my house and have a BBQ there.’ When we reached my house, the boys jumped out of the troopie and dashed off to the backyard – where they started making a BBQ and cutting up onions and chopping wood and fixing the back fence and cutting back all the overgrown bushes in my garden.

I remember some people were surprised to hear I’d invited the boys back to my house that day, but I didn’t see any problem – because once again, there was nothing to worry about. Those boys were so generous with their help, and open and friendly – just as they’ve always been with me. I’m not at the shed much these days, but one of the joys of my life is when I’m downtown and I hear someone call out: ‘Hey, Helena!’ and I turn around and it’s one of the BackTrack boys. For some reason, that simple exchange always makes me feel like the world is becoming a better place.

The story of the seven original BackTrack boys who feature in this book is very moving. Yes, there’s a lot of swearing, and a few times where the boys lose their way. But when they were given help to get back on track, those boys made the choice to accept that help and move ahead in life – to rise above the trajectory that was set out for them and to emerge as winners, to become known as the ‘Magnificent Seven’ – and that was a wonderful thing to witness. At the back of Wild Boys is a section where those seven boys share the lessons they learnt from their time at the shed. It’s only recently that I’ve been able to read this section without becoming very emotional because the responses are so deep – so beautiful – and this is from a group of boys who, for the most part, struggled at school and were often in trouble with the police.

That’s why the BackTrack shed is so special – it gives young people who don’t fit the system a place to shine, where they too can emerge as winners in life. It’s like one of the boys says at the end of the book: ‘Everyone needs to find a place … and from there you can grow. The shed gave us that place.’

So, how lucky am I that I got to see all that happen – and to write about it so that others can also experience the beauty of what goes on down here and understand how positive change comes about in a community. Along with documenting the early days of BackTrack, Wild Boys also describes how Bernie helped me through a pretty challenging time in my life. I never expected to write about myself in this book, but, really, once I started coming along to the shed, there was no way that I was going to come out the other side of this experience without my life being transformed in some way because that’s what happens here – people’s lives are transformed.

I used to rely on Bernie’s help quite a lot, but he’s a good mentor – a good teacher – because I hardly ever need to ring him now. I still run into troubles, of course, but mostly, instead of ringing Bernie for help, I go back and think of the lessons I’ve learnt in the past – and how I can apply that knowledge to the current situation I’m struggling with. Many unique ‘Bernie-lessons’ are in the book – and I’m sure others will find them just as useful as I did.

Like I said, I don’t get down to the shed enough these days – I’m like the dog that runs along the outside of the pack – but I think I will always carry the experiences I’ve had at this shed close to my heart, especially some of those times with the BackTrack boys.

Crowd1[2]

 

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Well, I’m out of the editing wilderness at long last, and lots has happened since I last wrote. First pages are done and dusted, second and third pages have been checked by the team at UQP, my memoir has a new title – Wild Boys: A Parent’s Story of Tough Love, and the book is now at the printers. Hooray! A friend came over the other day with a couple of fancy beers; we sat by the table – with a candle, a platter of food, and some wildflowers in a jam jar – and celebrated the end of this stage of the process.

Wild Boys_first pages

Receiving the typeset pages in the mail was very exciting. For nearly two weeks, I read and re-read the pages until the words were a blur – adding things, rubbing them out, adding things again, making sure everything was right – and then I sent the pages back to UQP. Since then, it’s been hard to settle. My editor says the time between finishing work on a book and waiting until it actually comes out can be a bit weird for an author. I’m finding that to be true, so I’ve decided to use the next two months to get healthy. In an effort to restore a normal sleep pattern (after all those early mornings / late nights of editing!), I’ve given caffeine the flick. I’m slowing my mind, sleeping more, and, like a bear waking up after a long winter, I’m noticing a few changes in my world. My back fence is falling down, the house needs painting, and my garden has turned into a jungle. I think I need to find a friend with a chainsaw … but, first, I must take some time to recover.

So, instead of frantically trying to get the house in order, I’ve been playing guitar, writing songs, catching up with friends, and watching movies with my ten-year-old son. I’m still dreaming about the caravan I wrote about in my last blog post. I even wrote a song – ‘Caravan Dreaming’ – where the chorus is: To me it looks like freedom / a life of simple ease / hear the sea outside my door/ saltwater’s on the breeze. I’ve been writing songs for about a year now. I like how the music and lyrics come to me unexpectedly – while I’m out walking, or cooking dinner, or hanging the washing. I have to listen closely and ‘catch’ each song before it disappears. As for the caravan, my 19-year-old son has taken it to a permaculture farm in northern NSW, a bush wilderness with pigs and chickens and geese. I’m heading up that way soon for a visit – to meet his friends, to swim in the river, to sit around the fire pit and share meals, and to collect wildflowers to put in jam jars.

A goose I'd like to meet

A goose I’d like to meet

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One day, when I’m out of this editing wilderness, a place I’ve been stuck in since Boxing Day, I’ll write a proper blog post again. First, I need to regain some energy. The last six weeks have been huge. I’ve learnt a lot about writing, life, truth and forgiveness. I’ve had some lonely times, and I’ve had a few weird anxiety attacks in the night. But I’ve also done a lot of good work. None of it has been easy, though. On my walk this afternoon, I noticed a family having relaxed Sunday drinks, and a woman was laughing – loudly and freely – like she didn’t have a care in the world. I was envious.

A few weeks ago, I bought an old caravan for my 19-year-old son’s birthday. Today it arrived in my front yard, where it is resting for a few days before my son heads off to the north coast. I sat in the caravan today and looked at the bamboo leaves outside the levered window and thought: I could live here. Such a simple home – and I only paid the equivalent of a week’s groceries for it. Why did I give this caravan to my son, I wondered. I want to go away in it myself … escape from endlessly editing my manuscript.

I’ll get through it, of course – and the UQP team have been absolutely wonderful – but there are big decisions to face when you are about to publish a book which is, among other things, a family memoir. Recently, when I was complaining to my online writing group about some of the problems I was encountering, one of the members said: ‘Helena, although I know it really sucks right now, I think the difficulties that are making you never want to write memoir again are also what will make the memoir excellent.’

I think she may be right, but oh my goodness … who’d be a writer, eh?

PS: I submitted my PhD on the 16th December!