Children play in the puddles at
Bradfield Park in 1958.
Credit: Bruce Adams
Attending the HPE Nonstop Technology & Business
Conference 2025 (Nonstop TBC25) had me doing a deep look back into the history
of Connect and before then, to ITUG. This took me back so many years to Nice,
France, in 1992 and to Orlando, Florida in 1993. My entire life within the
Nonstop Community seems to have played out, bounded by Nonstop nee Tandem
Computers’ events.
But the time spent walking the exhibition pavilion (a less
than stellar reminder of past exhibition floors spanning acres), led me to
think back to my childhood, growing up in Lindfield, NSW Australia. Of course,
to those that know me well, I use the phrase growing up quite loosely, as it
continues to be a work in progress.
Not sure what triggered the association but all the same,
the fondness I have for Nonstop events is very similar to the fondness I now
have today of my childhood home. What may have triggered these memories has
been the photos posted to this site by good friends Don and Anne Marie who have
been travelling through the Mediterranean touring sites Margo and I once
visited.
Perhaps too it is the balmy days accompanying the arrival of
Autumn in the Florida panhandle where the sting of long summer days has left us;
we just had our last evening where the sun set at 7:00pm and will have to wait
for many more months before we see the return of longer days.
My childhood home was built by my father, Roy Buckle, under
the able supervision of my mother, Coreena Buckle. When I was born, I was
brought home to a shed Dad had built, a structural dry run, for what would then
occupy his time for a number of years as he built a two-story home.
The land was purchased immediately after the war and it was
located near a WWII Air Force (RAAF) camp in what we called Bradfield (not to
be confused with the new city of the same name rising from the farmland near to
the new Sydney airport). It was a camp that led down to the Lane Cove River and
into the Lane Cove National Park where the young lads swam and a place where,
in my youth, I spent many afternoons – a period photo above.
Following the end of the war, the RAAF camp was turned into
an immigration housing estate where English migrants were mixed with those from
Yugoslavia. Only two streets separated West Lindfield from Bradfield and there
were numerous kids from the camp attending our primary school. A photo of this,
in my timeframe when the only shops were inside Bradfield, atop this post. Could
that be my younger sister, Judy, among the children at play?
With land in hand, access to war-service loan, limited to a home of only 1100 square feet, Dad was innovative in that the plan he submitted allowed for a second story to be finished later. A design that at the time was said to be a Cape Cod – recent photo below.
My earliest memories are from the time I had my own room,
upstairs, on the northern end of the home. From what I can tell from the floor
plans I have recently seen it has become the master or main bedroom – photo
below.
However, the center of our home was the kitchen, as it was
for all new homeowners of the day. It was in our home that we routinely
entertained families from Willoughby Gospel Hall (including visitors who
arrived on the Sunday morning and where hospitality couldn’t be ignored).
There were a number of business visitors for midweek dinners as there were occasions when we entertained high school mates. The kitchen in the photo was taken following a serious extension to the back of the house, covering the former clothes lines – yes, Australia’s Hills Hoist – that left only a small barrier between the house and the shed. This was yet one more project of Dad and was completed early 1970s as I recall.
But the big event of the year was always Christmas where the
entire Buckle clan would gather. Data would arrange tables in a T formation so
that we could seat everyone. Mum, together with aunties Pearl, Daisy and
Winnifred, the kitchen became a cramped, chaotic mix of laughter along with
fierce rivalries clearly visible. Amusing to say the least.
Just yesterday Margo and I set down to watch the Netflix movie
“Nonnas.” The cooking situation in the
restaurant that brought together four feisty grandmothers reminded us both of
our childhood – mine in Australia and Margo’s in Poland. Clearly despite the
war, distance and differences of language – our childhoods and family cooking
were nearly identical. Seems like Nonnas everywhere had similar expectations
when it came to cooking and serving meals.
However, what struck me even as our big technology event was
under way, was the food that was prepared and served to all attendees. My
thoughts quickly took me back to those days in Lindfield where Dad had
converted the shed to be a frame for garden vegetables – anything that grew up
as a vine could be found (passion fruit, beans, apple cucumbers, the choko vines
of course, and yes, below there was rhubarb, beetroot, onions and more.
Chickens were housed in an adject area to the East and the
area to the north of the chicken pens was totally dedicated to potatoes, the
annual crop providing an almost yearlong source of starch. An updated recent
floor plan, below -
This was a phenomenon repeated up and down the street. Our
street in the suburb of Lindfield was not paved and was the center of all
activities once school closed. As we skipped past vehicles delivering groceries
off the back of a truck – initially horse, drawn – bakery carts, and the
occasional neighbor’s car we just had fun on our scooters and bikes.
Yes, we were those kids that were let loose on the streets
to play and to roam the neighborhood until it got dark.
There was no television back then and the single phone was a
rotary. We used the phone to check the time and to set a wake-up call. Again,
why this sudden rush of memories? Of my Uncle David, who lived in our house
very early on, arriving in a new car every time he visited. Of the brotherly
competition between Dad and Uncle Earn, both in the printing trade (as was
David) and the outings with Aunties Daisy and Winifred in their VW Bug.
It turns out, that we are all sensitive to sounds, smalls
visual cues and more and for one reason or another, my childhood adventures
came back with a rush. All too soon, none of those times in Sydney, following
the end of WW2, will be recalled.
I thought about writing this post for several days.
Unconsciously, I suspect and like most of us, we have fond memories of a
simpler time. Of a sense of community with shared intentions – a education, a
job, several sporting outlets, and more. Yes, I began playing Rugby at school and for
the district (West Lindfield) before I was ten. I remember how our little
school team qualified for a district championship that we lost on the playing fields
of East Lindfield where decades later, sister Judy was deputy principal.
By
the time I reached High School, and for a number of years,
I was playing Rugby Union and Rugby League – Union on Saturdays, League mid-week.
(Modern photo but yes, back in the day, this could have been me with the ball!)
That’s neither here or there but still, I find in the daily
bustle within the technology field, that I have a growing fondness for those
times. All too often we are caught up in the rapidly changing world of IT. And
no, this post wasn’t created using AI. Scary, not scary. However, the
technology season is definitely changing. Will it be fun or fury? Will we still
be allowed to play in puddles?
But with more than five decades in IT, it’s a reminder too of
a technology pattern that expands and contracts, almost continuously – centralized
versus distributed, in one form or another. Indeed, there is nothing new under
the sun, or so I have come to believe. It’s almost as, in looking back at my childhood,
it was a time before Autumn and what we were all part of were the lazy days of
a long drawn-out Aussie summer. Will we be as welcoming of the colors of Autumn
in these times?
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