Local writer, Gwendalyn Kneebone, has started documenting her memories of Coburg during the 1950s and 60s. This story is a postscript to Paddy Egan’s Dog, a poem publish in Issue 7.
The material for a story can come through the back door more often than from that so-called light bulb moment we writers covet.
If the clinging cliches can be unpinned most tales are plain and plain language tells them best.
My mother was kind. She welcomed post-war arrivals to the street. She swapped local food for new recipes (parsley for Tabbouleh). She helped to fill out official forms which were never in plain English.
So her kindness led to closeness and disclosures.
After Paddy Egan and family were no more, a new home was built two doors down. Very much a new monied brick pile that should have smothered history.
The new owner called a local priest for an exorcism.
She told my mother that her little girl reported seeing a woman weeping in her bedroom, on many nights.
She also said that when the old house came down there were many large old bones under the old wood stove.
They may have been from the prison farm for the dog. Or not.
By Gwendalyn Kneebone – as recalled
The Coburg Meddler 