Growing up in Orange in the 1970s and 1980s I was well aware that life wasn't fair. It's a different city now. Full of weekend wine money and foodies who complain about the cost of organic vegetables. Back then, every second person worked at Email, a whitegoods factory, before lowercase email was even a thing, or at Bloomfield hospital, a mental health facility, they'd call it now, but back then it was a crazy house, full of crazy people, including several of my relatives, who worked there mind you - it's a fine line - my grandmother, Doris Maude, was a matron there. We had "aunties" who were patients, we spent weekends on the sidelines at hockey, where the fields were situated, mingling with full on crazy people. But that's just what we did, what happened in this working class town. My high school, on the wrong side of town, was on the NSW disadvantaged schools list, no one, until the year after mine, in 1985, had ever got over 400 in their HSC. They took us to Centrelink at the end of Year 12, told us nothing about university. There weren't a terrible lot of prospects.
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In all honesty, I couldn't wait to leave. Not that I had prospects. I only came to Canberra because a boy I liked from a school in Tumut, a school we had interschool visits with, was coming to Canberra to go to university. I didn't want to go to university. I just didn't want to get a job and stay in Orange. So I applied to the Canberra College of Advanced Education, as the University of Canberra was known then, to become a teacher. A semester later, and a change to journalism and the rest is history.
But I have never forgotten where I came from. A town where people did it tough, where on any given Friday night, a detour back a block off the main street you'd find people just a little bit under the weather, sleeping it off in the gutter. A town where school mates would be pregnant in Year 9 and have three kids before the rest of you left Year 12.
And when I came to Canberra, I was blown away. Here was a town full of smart, educated people, full of people who earned six figures, who had university degrees, or were from places such as London, or Sydney. Wow, Sydney.
But now, 30 years down the track I realise that Canberra, too, has its dirty little secrets. That this shiny, fancy town, is not all it is made out to be (and, to give credit, where credit is due, mainly by people who don't actually live here).
That our Canberra is a city full of people who are doing it tough. Full of people who are faking it. Full of people, who, if we're honest, even on their two SES wages, thanks to life choices and decisions they've become immersed in, are finding it difficult.
But it goes deeper than that.
I've been in contact this past week about all things concerned with Anti-Poverty Week. That's been reminder that here in Canberra there are plenty of people with nowhere to sleep of a night, with little opportunity.
And then on Tuesday night I went to see the film I, Daniel Blake at the media launch of the British Film Festival. Cannot recommend the program enough.
But on this night, we were watching I, Daniel Blake, a heart wrenching film which I don't want to explain too much in case I give away too much.
But just to say it doesn't paint a pretty picture about the welfare state. And, really, in most places such as Australia, or Britain, or the United States, the stories are similar.
Too many people are poor. Too many people are living day to day, week to week. Struggling to put food on the table and to find work. Shoplifting to get tampons. And too many people are too proud to admit it.
So here we were watching a film about single mothers who think it's a solution to turn tricks so they can feed their children and I've indulged myself in a glass of wine, asking the gentleman next to me if he minded if I rested it on the communal tray between our seats.
No worries, he said. And then I've turned to talk to my friend, and in all my clumsiness, knocked said glass of wine over. Sorry, so sorry, god, I'm sorry.
But my lovely friend got up and went to get me a top up. And the man with the damp socks next to me, turned and said something along the lines of, if you spill that glass over my $200 shoes, threatening somewhat, $200 shoes, am I meant to be impressed, intimidated?
All I thought was, you wanker, and restrained myself from throwing my second glass over your face. And don't think I didn't notice you hogging the armrest for the rest of the night. Dickhead.
And as I bawled my eyes out when this mother, this woman, stole bloody tampons, I got so bloody angry that this tosser next to me was so angry that I accidently spilt my pinot grigio over his bloody $200 shoes, I just didn't know what to do.
I wanted to shove his $200 lace-up up his backside and ask him to think about what it is that actually matters.
So, in the end of all of this. Get out and watch the film festival, order a wine, don't worry about your shoes.
I, Karen Hardy, am telling you that no matter how shite you think your life is, it's not that bad.
