sabato 19 dicembre 2020

Australia // Sydney - New Year's Eve 1963: The Bogle–Chandler case, part 1

-- My sToRy -- 


Buongiorno mondo! It is such a long time since I last spent a word on my lovely Sydney.
I miss you every now and then ... I can't believe it was 5 (almost 6) years ago...

Tonight, I'd love to talk about a particular district of Sydney - The Rocks...
I won't tell you about the history of this area, maybe in a later post, I'd rather tell about the lives of the people there. Margaret Chandler

'I believe we secretly love each other'

The Rocks - Summer 1962
Margaret Chandler

With one hand to Joe and the other to the bag, Margaret was struggling to walk through the crowd. Her heart was beating too fast to catch what was happening. 

Geoffrey, her husband, might have been late that night for dinner and she desperately needed him to be there. He was a researcher at the CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, just at the very beginning of his career. 

Margaret was a housewife, bringing up their children, taking care of their house... well she knew how to 'behave'. 

Her heart was now up her throat.

'It struck me that perhaps a lot of the people you see walking about are dead. We say that a man's dead when his heart stops and not before. It seems a bit arbitrary.' - G. Orwell, Coming Up for Air

"Haaaah", Joe and Kathrine were fighting and her head was too noisy to catch what was happening.

She turned on the TV and finally she managed to be there. 

She saw her slender figure walking with Joe among the crowd only a few moments ago and she realized in that moment what was all that mess: WOMEN RIGHTS FOR A BETTER FUTURE. Well, she might have spent a word on that too. 

Their house started to become claustrophobic. The life of a housewife was not really what she was dreaming of. 


Acting - 
That was her ambition. But Geoffrey didn't seem to like it that much, so she just went on...
till one day... 

it was pouring with rain... Joe and Kathrine were at her mother's place.. she was bored of that rain... she entered the Governor Hotel for something strong. 

A voice from the back: "Margaret..Don't drink alone. People always find out, and it ruins a reputation"
Margaret: "Oh, Gilbert..." - Gilbert to the bartender "Nevermind.. I'll take the same".

Gilbert Bogle was physicist at the CSIRO. He was a colleague of Geoffrey.

They spent a good two hours in front of their margaritas... talking about everything... It was like fresh air for Margaret. She would have never left ... but the children were waiting for her. 

Walking back home ...  the sound of his voice coudn't leave her. 

[to be continued...]

'There are a lot of people like that. Dead minds, stopped inside. Just keep moving backwards and forwards on the same little track, getting fainter all the time, like ghosts.'
G. Orwell, Coming Up for Air


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