We arose at half past six. Tiki was in a cranky mood, but at least she acknowledged that she was! She believed that her period might be coming two weeks early. I washed my hair and, in spite of her mood, Tiki dried it for me as John Burles played Lloyd Price’s bonzer recording, “Personality”, on 2KY. Hearing it never fails to take me back to the school I attended and where I was living when it was atop the charts in 1959.
At lunchtime, I was shocked to learn that tomorrow’s trifecta at Flemington is to be held on the Yan Yean Stakes and not the Melbourne Cup. After work, I joked with Tiki that the runner, ‘Brallos’, must be a “tit” for the Cup. However, we weren’t laughing in West Botany Street when, once again, smoke began to emerge from the steering column of the ‘Galant’. Despite this, I continued to drive us home. I rang Tiki’s parents’ only to learn that there was no answer. We walked to the Miranda T.A.B. on Kiora Road and invested fifty-cents, each way, on five horses in tomorrow’s big race. They being: “Gold And Black”, “Salamander”, “Sir Serene”, “Major Till” and, of course, “Brallos”.
This time it was Tiki’s turn to ring her parents’ home. She had success in learning that her father had returned from Wyangala Dam and, therefore, we are going to take the car to him after dinner. Meanwhile, I am watching “The Big Match” on Channel Two. It features Watford, a club from England’s Fourth Division, of which rock star, Elton John, is the chairman, and its defeat of Newport by two goals to nil.
After “Willesee”, Tiki drove to her parents’. I held “Dad’s” mechanic’s light for a good hour while he removed the steering wheel, took apart the steering column and discovered that some of the grease, which he had placed on the blinkers’ mechanism, had been smouldering.
We joined the others and watched the last half of the premiere of the “The Last Man From Atlantis”, on Channel Seven, which, in total, had run for two hours.