A Special Friendship in Aldinga Beach

Tina and Rowan Brown, and Me

Rowan and Tina Brown came into my life over a wishing well. Or, it might have been a broken dining table or chair leg fix. I can’t remember which came first. What I do recall is being delighted to find small, hand-crafted wishing wells for sale on their front lawn, which made me stop to chat soon after I bought a little donga in Aldinga Beach in 2005. I always wanted a wishing well, and it seemed like a good omen to find one so quickly. Rowan made mine full-sized, like their own.

A recurring dream brought me to Aldinga Beach. It started in Darwin when I finished a contract there and persisted during a 15-month pit stop in Melbourne. Most nights, I flew, swooped and soared with a magnificent wedge-tailed eagle that never landed until, one night, he alighted on Aldinga Beach’s silvery sands. That was it.

Taking the dream as a prophecy, I bought my house on a day trip from Melbourne. It had three rickety steps to its front door, no verandah, and bare yards. With a little bit of money to spare, I added a veranda back and front and fitted out the garage as a studio.

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Once I’d settled, Tina and Rowan became my mainstays. They turned bare yards into the gardens of my imagination and were always there to fix things for me, do a hard clean, replace fire alarm batteries on the ceiling, and do all the things an old lady finds difficult by herself. They drove me to and from the hospital on occasions when I was not allowed to drive or take a taxi.

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Rowan and Tina did so much for me, including putting Ikea furniture together. They packed and unpacked for me when I moved into Manson Towers in Glenelg. Rowan was always patient as I sat back in my throne of age, issuing instructions about where to hang pictures and playing with the location. Sometimes Rowan’s arms nearly fell off before my eye found the right place.

A Love Story

Rowan is an Aboriginal man whose family, when he grew up, refused to speak about their heritage. Tina is Caulfield Jewish. They met in the Gippsland region of Victoria near the Latrobe Valley. She lived in Traralgon as a new bride, and Rowan stayed on his best friend’s grandfather’s farm in Morwell-Traralgon. Rowan is a few years younger than Tina, and, at first, they were friends.

Rowan said that, on the farm, there was no water, no power, nothing. The old man kept a couple of gas bottles, and that was it. He was loaded but stingy. Tina used to feed Rowan, his best friend and his brother in exchange for helping her around the house and when she became ill.

Although newly married to her first husband, Tina lived in fear of his violence. One night when Rowan visited, he found her collapsed with a broken nose and bleeding profusely. He pushed Tina’s husband up against the wall and warned him never to touch her again, gave Tina his caravan key to keep and took her to the Lionel Rose Aboriginal Health Centre the next day. Their love grew from there.

Aldinga Beach

Six years later, Rowan and Tina moved to Aldinga Beach for work opportunities. Tina’s family was then living in Seaford, where they stayed until the couple settled. They both worked at Metro Meat, owned by the Adelaide Steamship Company until the Chinese bought them out.

After that, Rowan worked for an odd-jobs man for some time, and then they branched out on their own, together. Over the years, they built their own thriving home maintenance business that brought them to me.

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The Brown Family

The Browns married in 1988 but have been together for 38 years. Their family is close. In Tina’s words, ‘Everything we do, and everything we did without, has been for our boys, Nick and Alex, who live nearby.’

Their eldest son Nick is a long-distance truckie, a job he loves. He is dedicated to the CFS and adores his partner Emma and their girls, Alana, 15, Chelsie, nine (but thinks she’s 21) and Kayleigh, six. Emma is an enrolled nurse soon to be a Registered Nurse. When Nick comes to collect the girls from their grandparents’ place on Friday after his latest trip, they cling to him because they haven’t seen him for a whole week! Tina and Rowan look after their grandchildren whenever they are needed.

Son Alex took a different direction. He started working as a ‘checkout chick’ for Woolworths (promoted to management) while still at school. Alex is now at Flinders University, completing a BA in Environmental Studies (Geography) in the College of Science and Engineering. He is also doing a Diploma in Photography. Alex identifies as Aboriginal and Russian (but not Jewish like his mum). He records his travels in Japan and Bali and is a superb photographer, as his Instagram attests. Alex is the proud owner of two beautiful Huskie fur-babies, Sammy and Fidget, both girls.

Tina’s two sons from her first marriage, John and Nathaniel Howes live with their partners, Jalina and Petrina, in Melbourne and Perth, respectively. Each family has four children. John and Jalina have Jessie, Jorja, Maddie, Emmylou. Nathaniel and Petrina’s children are Makayla, Aidan, Eva and Addison. The families stay in touch, travelling to and fro when possible.

The Home Maintenance Business

Tina said she first joined Rowan in his fledgling home maintenance business because she hardly ever saw him because he worked so hard. They still work together, as a team.

For years, they have travelled as far out as Salisbury and to the end of the Fleurieu Peninsula. They go where the work takes them, to Mount Barker and the other side of town. Some jobs are casual, others more permanent for real estate agencies and holiday homes, plus Airbnb and individual but regular customers, like me. Their business grew by word of mouth, and they are very much in demand.

Garage Sales

A home-maintenance spinoff is the accumulation of gifts, goodies, and consignments that Tina and Rowan put on front-lawn display in quarterly garage sales. In addition, Tina is a confessed bowerbird who loves shiny, pretty things, which means that their shed is full of unique treasures waiting for someone to give them a new home. It was, of course, at one of these garage sales that I first saw Rowan’s hand-made wishing-wells.

The garage sales take three hours to set up in the morning and as long to put everything away. They are hard work. Tina said the best part is meeting all sorts of people, from different walks of life, those who are regular scavengers and those who drop by out of curiosity. The worst thing is that some people steal, which Tina thinks is silly because she is the genuine 20c lady if only people would ask. There are times, though, when it seems like too much. One day, she said, she may call an op shop and ask them to collect it all — one day.

The Menagerie

The Brown’s home is a sanctuary for dogs, cats, birds and turtles. Their garden is lush and beautiful, as you might imagine for people who make others’ gardens (and homes) lovely for a living.

            Turtles

Rowan built a beautiful bridge in his backyard, just like the one he made for me, but he had to dismantle it to create separate ponds with a pathway over the top for his five turtles because they are territorial. (The last turtle he picked up off a white line on Chalk Hill Road, close to death. He nursed it back to health in the bath for five days.)

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            Dogs

In addition to five turtles, the Browns have three dogs, two cats and nearly 50 birds. Tyko, called Psycho Tyko because he’s nuts, is a heeler cross Kelpie. Tierra is a chocolate Labrador who is overweight. Like Clarrie (adopted from me), they are also older dogs, but he’s skinny.  They all live inside.

Tyco eats anything, books, sponges, shoes. You name it. He is eight years old and not a puppy, so he shouldn’t do these things. Tierra has a lovely nature and is a beautiful, caring girl. The smallest, Clarrie, rules the lot. Because Tierra has meds morning and night, Clarrie thinks he’s getting the medicine as well, and it is he who alerts Rowan that it’s pill time, so the Browns call him a junkie. Tyco and Clarrie get a placebo, cheese on bread minus the pills, but Clarrie sets the pace.

Even though he’s the smallest of the three, Clarrie is so bossy, he stands in front of the food cupboard at 4 pm, staring at it, demanding food. He vacuums his meals. He is also the alarm clock for walkies. His life is not only in tune with the day’s rhythm, but he dedicates himself wholly to it.

            Cats

As a cattle dog, Tyco tries to round up the cats, named after parts of a cat gym where they hid for three weeks before they were game to come out to play. White and black Choobie is so named for chewing the tube of the gym where he hid, and black and white Shelfie got his name for hiding behind the gym’s shelf.

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           Birds

Of the birds, there are two flightless lorikeets, L1 and L2, surrendered to the RSPCA after someone cut off one of their wings. They were about to be put down until a friend interceded to give them a chance with Tina and Rowan. The Brown’s 45 other birds live in huge aviaries, a mix of finches, budgerigars, cockatiels, princess parrots, superb parrots, grass parrots and quails.

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The Scariest Thing

A little over three years ago, Flinders Medical Centre admitted Rowan with delirium. He spent eight days in ICU and 11 days in the hospital. After four days, doctors told Tina that Rowan could die if his fever didn’t break. Tina, Alex, and Nick thought they would lose Rowan. Both sons supported their mother, and Nick took her to the hospital every day as she doesn’t drive.

On day five, doctors diagnosed Rowan with waterborne Legionnaire’s pneumonia. They recognised that the symptoms had appeared in him, in reverse. Rowan’s lung function is now significantly impaired. Health authorities never found an official outbreak source.

After such a fright, Rowan and Tina now enter the House and Land lottery every year, and they alternate between hope and exasperation when they don’t win. Even the St John’s lottery has failed to bestow its favours on them. Although their landlord is good to them, they would love to have their own home before retiring.

A Final Word

Rowan and Tina Brown are dear friends. When my daughter Vanessa arrived back in South Australia earlier this year, they helped her settle into her new home as they did me when I moved into a retirement village. They treat us like family. Home maintenance may be their work, but everything they do is an act of love and attention. Just as they shower their family and animals with love and care, so too do they spread a little magic wherever they go.

Writing Tip

I wasn’t sure whether to add a writing tip to this post as I usually do because it is about friends. But I will, and I beg Tina and Rowan’s indulgence.

When you write about other people, honour them. Yes, this post is about my journey with the Brown’s, but it was they who showed me what was important to them; their love, their family, surviving illness and, of course, their marvellous menagerie.

Happy Writing

Wattletales

Click here to read another post about a beautiful garden.