Remembering Kenilworth - Glimpse no.1

During the summer holidays I find myself looking beyond the clutter of suburbia to images of Kenilworth. I re-live sitting on the verandah and gazing at the gently rolling hills, slipping into the cool silky water of the Mary River, laughing with friends, and walking along the Obi Obi Valley road in the last light of the day.

Back in the 1980s, exhausted after two very demanding years, I was recommended to have a break at Kenilworth Homestead, then owned by the Rowes. It was their family home, a historic homestead on a large, beautiful property on the Mary River.

It was a foretaste of heaven. I loved the people, the place and being free to walk and swim – alone or with others – in an incredibly peaceful setting. The sheer beauty of the place seeped its healing into me. Its gently rolling hills, the pulsating greenness of the grass, Jim’s garden where I often sat – a riot of spring flowers with an enormous wisteria, fragrant jasmine looping through the trees, larkspurs of every colour, and innumerable others.

The Rowes and I enjoyed one another’s company. (They were, in fact, some of the most hospitable people I’ve ever met.) Jennifer with her effervescent personality bursting into joyful song as she cooked and washed; Jim, the Gentleman Farmer, equally at home driving a tractor or reading; lovely Elvira, cuddling baby Rebecca while she chatted happily or arriving laughing with her husband David; and Justyn, who kept us laughing with his antics and clattered coffee cups in the kitchen at two in the morning as he studied for his Year Twelve exams. It was here, too, I met Jennifer’s God-daughter Laetitia (of Loquacious Laetitia blog) and spent many evenings walking and talking with her.

So began a series of holidays at Kenilworth. This hot weather nudges to my mind memories of the evenings Jennifer would set up tables grouped together out in the garden, and invite me and other guests to join them for the evening meal. As the sun sank beneath the horizon, slanting shafts of light through the trees, a peace would settle on the land. The hot air would turn balmy and caress our sunburnt shoulders. And we would – as usual – talk and laugh while Justyn (and often Paul) provided constant entertainment. (Justyn has lots of acting ability, a good imagination and a terrific sense of humour, so he made an excellent comedian!)

Kenilworth anecdotes are without end so I’m sure you’ll get more glimpses at some stage. I just wanted to mention one that stood out to me as a newcomer to Kenilworth.

Jim was one of the gentlest, kindest men I’d ever known. He really was. He knocked at my bedroom door at 6.30 each morning.  “Do you want a cup of tea, Jeanette?” he’d ask. And in response to my half-conscious mumble, he’d shortly produce a cup of steaming tea and two slices of buttered toast laden with marmalade. He was one of those people who are rarely ruffled, take everything in their stride. A real Aussie farmer, he’d weathered droughts, floods, the works.

He had a dry sense of humour and I didn’t always know when he was joking. Okay, I’m a bit gullible. Well, so I’m told.

To walk into the township of Kenilworth, which I enjoyed doing, one had to cross the old bridge across the Mary River. I looked at it in dismay. No footpaths. No railings. And not a very wide bridge.

What would happen if an enormous truck came or two cars passed each other while I was walking across it?

“Jim,” I asked, “what would you do if that happened?”

“Jump!” he replied, without missing a beat.

“Seriously?”

“Jump!” His face was impassive.

I thought of that long, perhaps twenty-something foot drop. The water was usually shallow with sand banks. An old branch draped with debris poked up out of the water. I imagined myself hurtling through the air and splattering onto a muddy sandbank – and  shuddered.

But I suppose he was serious. I mean, the alternative . . .

So what I really did was: peered carefully both ways, straining my ears for the drone of an engine, flung a quick but fervent prayer heavenwards, then ran across. I never did have to jump. Perhaps country born and bred people just stroll across, trusting the cars to give way to them. And I suppose they would.

That old bridge was broken and washed away in one of the many floods. I hope the new one has footpaths!

Jim has passed on to those greener pastures of heaven now. We all still miss him. But I suspect he’s sitting under a heavenly gum tree, smiling as he thinks of us, and saying in his philosophical way, “There’s a season for everything. It all works out.” As he had said when the land ached with drought or flood waters lapped towards the Homestead.

I carry a little piece of Kenilworth in my heart still.