I was born Dianne Fay Alley to Sydney Alley and Jean Wiltshire in 1948 in Brisbane but when I went home with my Mum, I was Dianne Fay Richardson and my parents were Bert and Fay Richardson.  Yes, I was adopted, however I wasn’t told that until Bert (Dad) and Fay (Mum) had both died in 2001.  I presume that for the first ten days of my life, until the adoption was finalised, I lay alone in a hospital cot. I don’t like to think about that as I believe newborns need lots of skin contact, breast milk and love from their parents but I think I turned out OK even though I missed out on those 10 days.

Hivesville Hotel. Authors image.

After we left hospital, we lived in a flat at Tugun on Queensland’s Gold Coast for a short while as our new house was being built on Razorback Rd in Tweed Heads. I can’t remember anything about the inside of that house but I can remember the garden.  It was very steep; had a rotary clothes hoist and an extensive shade house with a lovely pond and lots of plants – and frogs.  I did love to have a frog in my pocket – much to Mum’s horror. At that time, Mum and Dad had a business in Tweed Heads called Twin Towns Radio.

From Tweed, we moved to the Hivesville Hotel near Proston in Queensland’s Burnett Area in 1953. The grand old building still stands and gets great reviews on Trip Advisor.  It was originally built in 1911 from red brick and was named the Proston Hotel.  In 1935 a fire destroyed the building and it was rebuilt by 1937 and renamed the Hivesville Hotel in 1953. I have little memory of living in the hotel except that the headmaster and only teacher of the Hivesville School boarded with us and I walked to school with him. 

We didn’t stay long in Hivesville, moving quickly to the Jimboomba Hotel, between Brisbane and Beaudesert in 1955.  Jimboomba was a very small village then, with a one-teacher school, a hall, a shop and a railway station.  In those days, hotels were only allowed to trade for a couple of hours of a Sunday and to be able to buy alcohol at a hotel you had to prove that you were a “bonafide traveller”.  Jimboomba was the required distance from Brisbane which meant that Brisbane people who wanted to go to a pub on a Sunday, could drive out to us where it was a party-like atmosphere with a pianist.  No such thing as drink driving back then! Of course, the men would go into the bar and the ladies had to sit in the lounge.  Jimboomba has boomed since those days and is now a large metropolis.

Dianne ready for St Michael’s College. Authors image.

I went to the Jimboomba school for the remainder of 1955 and then I moved to a new home in 1956 on my own.  My parents sent me to board at St Michael’s College, the junior school of St Margaret’s College in Clayfield in Brisbane. I’m pretty sure that this was the most unhappy time of my life.  I hated it. Fortunately, I was allowed to stay at home in 1957 which was when we moved again.

In 1957, we relocated to Donnybrook, a fishing village on Pumicestone Passage on the mainland and across from the uninhabited end of Bribie Island.  My parents had bought a mixed business.  Our corner store sold everything from baked beans to petrol; the petrol pump actually was a pump, and you had to pump the handle to put petrol in your car. The business had 45 boats with 11 having inboard motors as there were no outboard motors then. The other 34 boats which we hired out included oars, as well as a launch.  Dad was professionally fishing and crabbing.  We did not have mains power but had a generator to produce our own electricity. 

The population of Donnybrook was tiny but it swelled considerably during school holidays when many tents would spring up in the camping area.  It was a lonely existence for a child but in the school holidays, there were plenty of friends to play with. I loved to row out into the channel, sit quietly fishing for whiting or bream; read my book, or even do maths problems. I know that’s a bit “nerdy” but I loved doing maths and loved being on the water, so for me, it was perfect.

Dianne, in amongst the crab pots at Donnybrook, with her catch, a sole fish. Authors image.

I attended Caboolture State School and then Caboolture State High School and I loved school.  I would ride by bike a couple of kilometres over rough corrugated road to the bus stop where I was picked up by a red truck which had wooden plank seats going from the front to the back of the tray.  There was no comfortable cushiony seat for me. Perhaps the highlight of my time at Donnybrook was getting up at 5am, getting into an inboard boat to go out and check the crab pots.  I would steer and Dad would pull in the pots, retrieve the crabs and tie them with string.  Being out on the water at sunrise is magical.

In 1962, we moved again.  Chevallum, near Palmwoods, was just a few houses, a one-teacher school and our business in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast. This time my entrepreneurial parents had bought a poultry and citrus farm with a poultry abattoir on site. This meant that instead of serving in the shop and cleaning boats, I was now feeding the chooks, packing eggs and picking oranges.  I still rode my bike a couple of kilometres down to the bus stop but this time I did have a proper bus to take me to Nambour State High School where I completed Grade 12.

Our home at Chevallum. Authors image.

We even had electricity too!  But, we had no septic and had to go down to the backyard dunny to use the toilet.  Spiders, snakes and other nasties awaited us there!  This was not enjoyable.  However, the mulberry tree on the way to the toilet was a bonus when the fruit was ripe.

This was my last childhood home because early in 1966 I headed off to Brisbane to Queensland University.  There’s more to come on a later day though, as I’ve lived in another 20 homes in Nanango, Kingaroy, Bundaberg, Cloncurry and Mt Isa and, of course, Brisbane during the other 60 years of my life.  It’s been quite the adventure!