My name’s Neville Yates. I run a fish and chip shop and mixed business in the city of Armidale; I’ve been doing it for the past thirty-one years. Somebody once called me a straight shooter, the type of person who calls a spade a spade.
Besides being a stand-in dad for Ben, I have a wife, Robyn, and a daughter, Teunnang, whom we adopted from Kiribati.
I’ve been camping in Armidale my whole life. John Oxley discovered the place in eighteen thirty. It’s on the New England plateau in Northern New South Wales, midway between Sydney and Brisbane, with a population of twenty-seven thousand. It was named after Armadale in the Isle of Skye, but the early fathers couldn’t spell too well. Before the colonial settlement of New South Wales, the Anaiwan or Nganaywana people were the traditional owners.
A gold rush broke out in eighteen fifty at Hillgrove, forty kilometres east of Armidale, in the Rocky River and Gara Gorges area. The nearby town of Uralla was home to the famous bushranger, Captain Thunderbolt, who caused a maximum amount of trouble. Like Ned Kelly, the locals adopted him as a larrikin hero and tourist attraction.
The summer season in Armidale is short and mild, the winters long and unpredictable, with temperatures diving to ten degrees below, along with hailstorms, and winds of a hundred and fifty kilometres. At one time, hail stones, high winds and flash floods damaged a thousand homes and destroyed the Armidale livestock exhibition centre, which collapsed under the weight of the hail; the town was declared a state of emergency by the premier the following day.
The University of New England was founded in nineteen thirty-eight, first as an outpost of the University of Sydney, but then in its own right in nineteen fifty-four. The university was built around the old mansion of Booloominbah, and is one of the city’s main employers.
Armidale is also a cathedral city, being the seat of the Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops of Armidale. Canadian architect, John Horbury Hunt designed St. Peter’s Church and Booloominbah at the University of New England.
Armidale is what you call clean and tidy. We have most of the modern facilities. There’s a good cultural mix, ranging from your university academic-types to your townies, and including the odd Greenies and farmers. Whether Armidale is a Liberal or Labor stronghold, I can’t be sure; maybe it’s fifty-fifty. It could lean towards Labor. Armidale is referred to as a really lovely place – a good town for raising families. Some complain it’s hard getting to know people. Those who complain about it being hard to make friends probably can’t communicate too well.
The city has its share of race and crime problems, but on the whole, things are pretty peaceful. There’s a drug problem, but most places are cursed with a problem like that.
While I’m not keen on the weather, I have to say Armidale has treated us well. It’s a friendly city, and there’s always something to see. We have world heritage national parks right on our doorstep, and Coffs Harbour, over on the coast, is no more than a couple of hours away. I can always take a drive somewhere for a change of scenery.
The Armidale Cup is something of a big social occasion. We have a wool expo, and the autumn festival, parades and all that kind of thing. When you operate a fish and chip shop seven days a week, there’s not much free time.
People here think they know everybody’s business but they can often be wrong, and sometimes downright judgemental. I don’t socialise too much, although I sometimes mix with the racing crowd.
At the age of eleven, I went to work for extra money in a shop in Girraween after school. The shop changed hands regularly. My first boss was a Mrs. Kingelty. She taught me a lot, although there were times when I could have strangled her. The shop was converted to a grocer’s store and service station. Mrs. Kingelty was a hard boss. I worked for her, and others who bought the business from her. I worked until Year Ten, and after leaving school I worked full-time. Then Phil Hannah came along and offered me more money for shorter hours. After working eighty hours a week, I now worked forty hours a week for twenty dollars more. With Hannah I learned the ropes, right through ordering to managing the wholesale business. While that was happening, an opportunity presented itself. Joe Hannah owned most of the corner stores around the town. He owned a particular shop in Brown Street, the shop where I’ve been for the past thirty-one years. The shop had been closed, and Joe wanted me to take it on. I hummed and hawed about it. I didn’t have much money, about three thousand dollars, was all. Joe offered to lend me the rest. He went guarantor and introduced me to the bank manager, whom he knew. I shook hands with the manager, signed the papers, and he handed me fifteen thousand. We did the shop up, and Joe paid for the materials. We filled it with stock, and fixed up the fridges. Hannah carried me for the first couple of months, payin’ the bills. We had a gentleman’s rent agreement for sixty dollars a week. Never had a proper lease. Ten years later, Hannah said to me, “It’s about time we sold you the building. I can’t put the rent up. I think I better sell it to you.” We agreed on a price of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. A couple of years later we paid for it. Then we decided to re-develop. We restored the building to its old world charm, built a new section at the rear, then another at the side by using the storeroom, and built a flat on top. We called it the Brown Street Store, though everyone came to call it Neville’s shop. After renovation, we named it Neville’s Store.
I met Robyn, my wife, at a New Year’s dance at the local RSL. We had a few dances, and next day she rang and said she wanted to see me. I invited her over for coffee. The romance blossomed from there. Robyn worked in a produce store in Inverell. Her father and mother owned a bakery in Armidale. I halfway knew them. They also owned a motel, and that’s why Robyn came to Armidale a fair bit. She knew what running a seven-day business was all about, and ended up working in the business for twenty-two years.
I don’t mind helping people. The people I help are usually disadvantaged, people who have no money with which to do things. I give them the kind of help others can’t. It’s an outlook developed from observing things as a young bloke. I come from a big family, and every Sunday, we used to visit the small farm owned by my Uncle Jeff and Aunt Clarice. There, you could mix with every kind of culture: Aboriginals, Italians, Lebanese, or those just needing a square meal. Jeff and Clarice had six kids of their own, and everyone was invited to the Sunday get-togethers, and the roast. There might be forty or more people, plus hangers-on. Everybody brought a plate, or maybe some kind of dessert. I was a guest at those get-togethers for fifteen years, every Sunday. The reason for the get-togethers had nothing to do with charity. My aunt and uncle just loved big get-togethers. Jeff also liked a beer or two at the local pub, and anyone without a family, he invited out to the farm. Their house was tiny, so they eventually erected a veranda around it, and brought in a table that seated forty people. When you looked at it fair and square, Jeff and Clarice loved the company of strangers. There was nothin’ wild goin’ on; they turned up for the roast, a few beers, or the odd game of cards. Aunt Clarice was known to take in a few boarders, mostly those less fortunate, and she fed them all.
While I never regret the first time I laid eyes on Ben Tooki, I didn’t have a clue what was waiting for us up the line. It’s been what you might call a rough trip, but I wouldn’t change an ounce of it for the world.
Ben and his mother lived in a flat opposite the shop. He kept comin’ over the road, comin’ back and forwards over time, and that’s how I got to know Ben. He was a happy-go-lucky type of kid who wanted to help. He didn’t have money to buy things, so he came to do a few jobs, like filling drink fridges, while his mother studied second languages at the uni.
Ben was after someone he could look up to, ’cause all he had was his mum, and all Taoati had were women friends around her all the time. I thought of Ben as the son I never had.
Ben’s mum announced she was goin’ back to Kiribati, ’cause her contract at the uni was about to expire. Ben was flat-out wanting to stay in Australia. He begged for me to let him stay with us, and I couldn’t see any reason why not.
When Robyn first heard about the Ben adoption plan, she wasn’t a hundred per cent sold. What Robyn wanted was a family and a husband. She wasn’t interested in bein’ rich, but hankered after three or four kids. Most women think like that, I suppose. It hurt her when she was told she couldn’t have ’em. We had already been down the adoption road, and it didn’t work out. When she got over the initial shock, Robyn came to like the idea of Ben bein’ in the house. It was a whole new ball game, and life was a challenge every day.
When you take on a kid like Ben, others jump to the conclusion you must be queer, or something like it. Often times, I was carryin’ five or six kids in the car, goin’ to football, and they’d be all colours, from all nations, and you knew people were thinkin’, “What’s Neville doin’ with all those boys in his car?” When you run a business, people think you have tons of money, and that you can buy your way into things. It was that kind of thinkin’ that got Ben really burred up. We had a coloured kid livin’ with us, and people were lookin’ at us, and they were thinkin’, shit, what’s Neville doin’ with a kid like that?
I never understood Ben until I put myself in his shoes. At the start he was a nice, quiet kid, easy to get along with; he wanted to do things, and he was lookin’ to me as if I was family, like a close friend, or maybe even a father. He wanted male companionship and fatherly advice, some real assurance. It was hard to deal with him, ’cause he’d been ruling the roost with his mother. He came and went, and did most anything he wanted.
We had to stretch ourselves between three people now, and not just two. The truth of it is you can’t be selfish when called on to share things. Ben didn’t have much in the way of clothes, and that sort of thing. We had to make sure he went to school; paid his fees from then on, and met his friends.
Robyn found Ben a handful, but she also discovered a really interesting kid. When she tried to help him with his homework, he wouldn’t listen; it seemed like he didn’t want to learn. You can only go so far tryin’ to teach someone like that. Ben could do things when he set his mind to it, ’cause he was intelligent. But Ben only wanted to do what Ben wanted to do.
Ben adapted pretty well, but he was strong-willed. Robyn blamed me for giving in to him too much. The reason Ben had his own way was simply because it was a part of his culture.
We got him off to school every day, and he soon made a bunch of friends. He’d been used to spending a lot of time on his own; and he couldn’t speak much English. That’s why he came to the shop, ’cause he wanted to belong. He enjoyed meetin’ people and doin’ jobs he’d never done before. He never wanted to go back to Kiribati. Other friends from overseas stayed on in Australia. Ben wanted someone to do the same for him, by looking after him.
His grandfather, Tooki, raised Ben. He was tough on discipline, and wanted Ben to be strong, whereas I operated more on the soft side, which, I suppose, I shouldn’t have done. I treated Ben in the same way I was brought up. I tried inserting some values, but Ben had low self-esteem. I had to get him over that hump. In Ben’s culture, mates were number one. Those blokes were his mates, and Ben wanted to be cool, and do everything they did. They were his role models. Sometimes he’d hang out with the scummiest people, and then with some good people, but they got tossed aside, ’cause he thought it cool at the time. He liked Australia, but the old culture kept kickin’ in, like, “We do this in Kiribas; we do that in Kiribas.” And I had to say, “We don’t allow things like that in Australia.”
From day one it was clear we had a different type of kid on our hands. It worked out for a while, but in the second year, when Ben went back to Kiribati, it kind of wrecked him, the island lifestyle.
As far as trouble went, Ben was never the instigator; he’s usually the one to be picked on. It’s then he relates back to Kiribati, and takes on the image of the tough guy. It was strange ’cause we never fought or anything like that. I used to fight with my brother – we’d have the odd punch-up – but with Ben, until he turned eighteen, he never fought much at all. He just wanted to go out drinkin’ with his mates, because they were older, and he got with ’em and drank a fair bit.
I never understood the violence thing when it happened. I could usually calm him down, get him out of his situation; he’d be okay for a while, do his time, and then he’d be out there again. We had some hot words, and there were times we had some real punch-ups. When it happened, it really hurt. I never let him know just how much it hurt. I thought to myself, I’m supposed to be the grown-up, and Ben was the confused one because he didn’t have a real father.
One night Ben came home from fighting down the street; came back all cool and collected. Two hours later, these blokes rocked up at the house and started bangin’ on the windows. One of ’em threw a rock. I went out after him, and Ben acted dumb about it. Eventually, when the truth came out, I stepped in front of these blokes, and they told me what Ben had done. They wanted to kill him for it, and he was in the bedroom, hidin’. Ben lost his temper with me, ’cause I wanted to know what was goin’ on. I said somethin’ that set him off, and he said to me, “I’ll have you, too!” or somethin’ like that, an’ next minute he was throwin’ punches, an’ I threw one back, and Robyn was standin’ there, yellin’ an’ screamin’, “Don’t do that!” That only made him worse. Next day he was all sorry and all doggy, and he was makin’ up, cleanin’ up his room, and doin’ the washin’ up.
When it came to Ben and the law, it was about small things, small-time stuff, like malicious damage, throwin’ rocks through windows, or punchin’ out the windows of the school hall. Stealin’ cars was another thing, but he was really just a follower. He got in a utility with one of his mates one night, and they pranged the bloody thing. The police caught ’em. There were other times when I had to front the cops, and sort things out. Get him off – or get him out. We went to get some counselling from a guy who handled anger management.
A lot of Ben’s problems have to do with the fact he didn’t have a real father, whom he has ever seen or spoken to. I talked with Taoati about this, but she wouldn’t admit until Ben was lost that her relationship with Ben’s father, Robert Morton, was like ships passing in the night. Ben had the impression his father was something else, something that wasn’t true. Taoati has some good values, but she just lost control, I guess. She thought Ben would just grow up, and everything would be sweet. She never realised the problems he’d grow up with. I never told her half the problems. She’d only panic; she’d get uptight, and wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Ben’s a hundred per cent better now; he’s come a long way down the road. Low self-esteem: that was his problem. He listened to all the crap around and never concentrated on who he was, or who we were. It’s an important thing, self-belief. It was also a mountain for us to climb, learning about a new culture.
Over the years we’ve grown close to Ben, and I keep thinking of him as my own son. I never look at him like he’s got a colour. It’s a father and son situation. At the beginning, I wondered if it would work out, whether people would accept him.
Robyn had no time for racial prejudice. She was there to help anybody, if they needed it, and appreciated it. She was taught to help others; if something needed doing, she hopped in and did it. When Robyn heard about a little girl in Kiribati who needed an opportunity in life, we decided to adopt Tennaung. Tennaung is now fourteen; she’s been with us for nine years. Robyn was over the moon when she saw her. She was like a little doll. Robyn was hoping and praying she wouldn’t be as difficult and temperamental as Ben. She turned out to be a darling, with a good heart and a good soul.
You only come on this world once, you only pass through once, and any good thing you can do, any kindness, you have to show it now, don’t neglect it, ’cause you can’t do it if you’re dead and gone. Don’t defer it; don’t put it off. We won’t be passing this way again.