In the 1970s my dad—bemused by my interest and under sufferance—taught me a few manly skills. My younger brother and I learnt to use hand drills, the vice and C-clamps, how to plane wood and chip out wedges with a chisel. To ‘measure twice and cut once.'

 

The highlight of time in the shed was learning to use the arc welder—a volatile machine with unlimited opportunities for failure. We could have caused a fire! We risked slag burns to our clothes and skin; flash burns if the giant helmet slipped from our small heads or we forgot to close the visor.

 

Worse still, I could disappoint Dad by over-welding a hole or clumping welds into an untidy mess. I treasured my time in the shed but knew it was an uneasy thing that could be taken away at any moment. There were reminders in Dad's question: ‘Wouldn't you rather be with your mother in the kitchen?'

 

‘Hell no!' I would have said if swearing had been allowed. Bombe alaska couldn't compare to a sparking welding rod in an arena of high expectations. All food did was disappear into people's mouths and had to be made again a couple of hours later. In the shed we built useful things that would last.

 

My heroes were mostly men, apart from Katherine Hepburn who was feisty and wore trousers, and Audrey Hepburn who fit with my love of heels, makeup and fashion, especially the vintage op-shop finds I mixed and matched with hand-me-downs. Both actresses were witty and sophisticated, with compassion and endearing fallibility.

 

After a weekend TV screening of Hatari I longed to run away to Africa and work with wild animals—and John Wayne! Half of me wanted to be the actor, while the other half wanted to fall in love with him. Not the conservative ‘Duke' persona but his Sean Mercer character from Hatari, a pushover prone to falling eye-rollingly in love with an emotional, creative fish out of water.

 

Beyond the shed there were plenty of life skills to be learnt: building a fire, changing tyres, tying on fish hooks and sinkers, setting a line and driving boats and cars.

 

Once we drove an old Holden station wagon to Three Springs so it could become a farm car for our cousins. The Holden travelled well. After we'd arrived, my brother and I had some driving practice along the kilometre between the front gate and the house. A minute after I took over, someone spotted a wheel rolling into the paddock before the car listed to the left, bare axle ploughing into the dirt. The wheel nuts had been loosening all the way from Perth and had finally jumped free. I'd been driving slowly and had been taught not to panic. Still, the incident quickly became a funny family story in which I took some ribbing about driving like a girl and wrecking the car.

 

At sixteen, my first ‘proper' driving lesson was in Kardinya's shopping centre carpark on a Saturday afternoon. These were the days when the shops closed at midday and the bitumen was deserted. We were in Dad's work ute and he was nervous about it getting damaged.

 

‘If in doubt, all out!' he instructed me after explaining the pedal arrangement three times. In other words, hit the brakes and clutch if danger arises. I was doing well but Dad's nerves got the better of him and he started to panic about a tree between two empty bays a hundred metres away. ‘Look out for that tree! Don't get too close!'

 

‘Dad, that's miles away.' I steered to the left at the terrifying speed of twelve km an hour in first gear.

 

‘Look out! Look out! he shouted as we edged to within eighty metres of the tree. ‘All out! All out!' he cried at the fifty-metre mark, and I gave up, easing on the brake and clutch and coming to a full stop, at which point Dad yanked on the handbrake.

 

We swapped seats and he took time to catch his breath, wiping his face with his hanky, before driving us home. ‘I'll let your mother teach you from now on,' he said on arrival. We never spoke of it again.