CHAPTER ONE CONTINUED..................

The problem for Ted was, he knew the part about insufficient income to be correct and he knew his family life was collapsing; falling to bits due to uncontrollable outside influences like his mother-in-law and work commitments, – he was desperate, and convinced himself he had to come to terms with the need to make changes quickly.

As the pressure of the mother-in-law on their marriage escalated his home-life became unbearable. He gave Rene every available penny and although he rarely drank, never smoked, and worked longer hours, it was never enough. Feeding, clothing the family, and paying the bills were onerous and overly demanding responsibilities. He soon became suspicious and uncertain as to the whereabouts of sums of money spent; supposedly, it went on living expenses, so he was told, but he could see no value for money gone and highly expected the mother-in-law convinced Rene to spend it on her costs. When Ted approached Rene and questioned her about his concerns she denied it, he knew she was lying to protect her mother but had to be seen to believe her or he would have burdened himself with perpetual quarrel, he knew any hint of contention between them was exactly what the old, ugly, ill-tempered mother-in-law wanted to achieve.

Subsistence was tough and food was very scarce. Tim had a couple of pigeons for pets and the desperate times limited Ted’s options so he killed them and prepared them for the dinner table. Only he knew of the choice of family consumption which hardly gave enough nutrition to sustain their destitution for any period of time. Tim was told by his father he must have left the coop door ajar when he cleaned it and that was how they escaped. He was not proud of his deception and considered lying to his son as the last straw. He finally decided enough was enough, the incident helped him further realise his present situation was an unnecessary ordeal having no worthy foreseeable prospects for family happiness or any chance of opportunistic affluence.

Around the time of Don’s birth, as living circumstances continued to worsen, Ted spoke of moving to Australia. Rene reacted bitterly and adamantly rejected the idea. Her mother responded with lots of hope of getting rid of him and with apathy said to her;

       “Let ‘im go. You’d be better off without ‘im anyway.”

       “Stay with me. I’ll look after ya. He’s nothing but a no-hoper. Don’t worry ‘bout him, he doesn’t luv ya.” As if this was not enough, he was bombarded on all sides by disparaging comments from others such as relatives and the like who had no idea about Australian life, yet with grand pessimism they would tell bad stories against the move, stories of snakes, sharks, spiders, large flying things and bush rangers. Rene was not impressed but Ted was determined. He saw the move as an essential prerequisite to keep his family together and decided it was time to be strong and show conviction towards his principles. Everyone was his antipathy, including those he cherished, but he stayed loyal to his judgement and continued investigations towards plans to immigrate to Australia.

BUY BOOKS:         http://www.amazon.com/author/dennisdurant

MY WEBSITE:       http://dennisdrnt.wix.com/fictitious-facts

GOOGLE BLOG:    http://dennisdrnt.blogspot.com