Rich Kid, Poor Kid

The year was 1987. The location Perth, Western Australia. I was 10 years old and in the midst of the excitement of America’s Cup which was to be staged outside of America for the first time in 132 years in Fremantle, WA. The city of Perth then was a backwater compared to its powerhouse status of today. With a population of just over 1,000,000 it was considered an isolated and insignificant city on the national arena. Hence an international event such as the Americas Cup being held in Perth/Fremantle was a period of great excitement for the city. I recall my parents and other adults frequently talking about it. 

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Perth 1987

For me however matters were much more simple and straight forward. I used to spend a lot of time with my best mate, Alistair Bright (who I called Ali). I used any excuse I could to be away from home so after school each day I would walk home, eat and go straight to Ali’s place. He was kind of rich from my perspective – he had a pool, a commodore 64 AND a VHS Video player with a remote control! The summers needless to say were spent in his pool. Winters were spent playing spy hunter on the computer and watching movies like Top Gun, which was also our favourite soundtrack, Police Academy and Ferris Bueler’s Day Off.

I was jealous of his life, his parents owned the local newsagency and via well to do parents, who lived on a river front property in Bassendean with their own jetty, and a lot of hard work, ran a very successful business. They owned a yacht which was moored at East Fremantle and used to have yacht club big parties on the weekends. In hindsight they were the epitomy of the hard working upper middle class of the time. 

School holidays were the best and we used to spend all day in the pool. Our favourite pastime in the pool was maiming wasps. The wasps would be attracted to the chlorine and the water in the summer and would fly around trying to sting us. Then we would go into sniper mode and wait until the wasps would get close to the water and then double team them with splashing until they couldn’t fly then we would kill them – they were public enemy number one!

A common ethical concern for Ali and I during summer were the other kids in our grade at Kewdale Primary who would want o be our ‘friends’ when it was 40° and their parents wouldn’t pay for them to go to the Belmont Aquatic Centre. All of a sudden whilst we were in the pool we would hear these guys calling out to us from the front of Ali’s house. We’d go out and have a chat and of course they would be so chummy – Ali had learnt the hard way in previous summers that as soon as the days started getting shorter and cooler all of a sudden you would be on the outer. I remember the feeling of seeing them looking at me so enviously and liking it. I felt so loyal in that sense to Ali in that he knew I was a good mate to him at any time. It was also one of the few times I can remember feeling a sense of prestige and entitlement and I liked it.

The differences between Ali’s background and mine could not be more different. His house was like a mansion to me – big and spacious with modern appliances – an office, a sunroom. My house on the other hand was old, rented and did not even have hot water on demand. My step dad, Ken, would have to light the woodchip heater each night to heat up the water and all hot water demands needed to be met for the hour or two after the heater was lit. My step dad was a welder and my dad a storeman. My family drove around in a 1981 Mitsubishi Express Van with seats fitted for me and my brother in the back (very dorky) and Ali’s family a 1986 VL Commodore ‘Americas Cup’ limited edition. I suppose it was my first real experience of class division and gave me something to aspire for.