From: noahidebooksforever@gmail.com   
      
   The Life of Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly   
      
   Chapter One   
      
   I am not really sure what my oldest memories are, but I do remember being in   
   the kitchen at Berridale (7 Bent Street) playing on the chairs we had, which   
   had black vinyl, being chairs I had played on often, doing a rocking horse   
   motion on them around the    
   kitchen, and thinking right at that point, in thoughts which had slowly   
   developed for a while, I will remember this time for the rest of my life. And   
   I have never forgotten it. I was born on the 20th of November 1972 Kingston   
   upon Hull in England in the    
   United Kingdom. I was born at the Hull Maternity Hospital, which Mum tells me   
   is no longer there. What had happened was my older brother Matthew was born in   
   Cooma Hospital on the 21st of October 1969 and my older sister Brigid was born   
   in the same    
   hospital on the 26th of October 1971. But when it came to the third child,   
   myself, mum decided to have me in England in Hull, were she likewise had been   
   born. She was born on the 7th of July, 1937 (meaning she turned 70 on the   
   7/7/2007 – which is    
   probably why 7 is her favourite number). My mother’s name is Mary Philomena   
   Daly nee Baker. Dad was born Cyril Aloysius Daly on the 11th of August 1922 in   
   Sydney. I remember, in those early days, the world book dictionaries we had,   
   and the set of world    
   book children’s encyclopaedias. We still have the dictionaries, but the   
   children’s encyclopaedias are long gone. They had a games section of a   
   jungle map which you followed from page to page, as well as a volume of kids   
   activities which I liked to    
   look at. I remember a big box which dad brought home from work one day, which   
   we played in in the back yard for a while. And I remember the first day   
   thinking that when the ‘Goodies’ came on (on ABC at 6) that I would still   
   keep on playing in the box.   
    But I think that the others went inside when the Goodies came on, and I went   
   in shortly afterwards. The Goodies were big to me as a kid, and so was Dr Who   
   which ABC put on right after the Goodies. They are my earliest childhood TV   
   shows I remember,    
   alongside The ABC News at 7 (which is still the time they show it) and the   
   Saturday morning Cartoons. I remember ‘Point of View’ which they showed   
   before the cartoons at 12 which was a political commentary show. When ‘Point   
   of View’ came on I was    
   usually watching TV, waiting for the Cartoons. The ‘Whacky Racers’ was a   
   show I remember, were the hero turned into a bad guy as well. Star Wars was a   
   big thing because every one was talking about it, and when what I thought was   
   Star Wars was    
   supposed to come on TV I was broken when the blackout occurred and we missed   
   nearly all of it. In fact it was just the Star Wars holiday special (but I   
   didn’t know at the time) and perhaps it is a good thing I missed it because   
   Mr Lucas maintains he    
   would prefer if it was totally forgotten. I read online that some people   
   consider it Star Wars canon, because it contains plots which supposedly tie   
   into the saga (ie Chewbacca visiting his family). Later on, when I learned   
   about confirmation names, mine    
   was going to be ‘Luke’. It was going to be ‘Luke’ for a long time,   
   mainly because of Star Wars ‘Luke Skywalker’. But I ended up choosing   
   ‘Tarcisius’ just a few months before my confirmation because I read a book   
   in Year 6 at St Pats in    
   Cooma in the back on St Tarcisius. I also read one on St Pancratius, but was   
   scared of the way St Pancratius died (I think he was beheaded) and preferred   
   the death of St Tarcisius. I guess I ended up choosing Tarcisius because I   
   thought that was the    
   spiritual thing to do. I pinched my dad’s 2 cent and 5 cent coins almost   
   straight away from his jar, because I knew they bought lollies. I kept on   
   pinching from mum’s purse into my teens. It was where my arcade money came   
   from. I was convicted a lot    
   and felt guilt, but always brushed it aside. I remember, later on in Cooma,   
   getting busted for pinching lollies from Woolworths, and they took us to the   
   police station. We were under age and just got a warning. It is the only time   
   I have been to the    
   police station for illegal activity. I have never been arrested, and have   
   worked hard to make sure I won’t be. Anyway, God dealt with the pinching   
   gradually through my life, and I learned my lesson eventually. I do remember,   
   though, that whenever I    
   pinched some money and mum asked who was pinching from her purse, it was   
   normally always me, but I would deny it to her face. I am not really sure if   
   my siblings ever pinched money. There was this time, though, in Cooma, when   
   Aunt Molly accused me of    
   pinching a dollar, but it actually wasn’t me that time. I think she had just   
   mislaid it. Like ‘Swiper’ from Dora the Explorer, pinching was my main   
   problem, but apart from that, looking back, I usually feel I was a good kid   
   with a good heart. I was    
   usually gentle throughout my school years, and did not like fighting, and was   
   picked on because of it. I was extremely unpopular all the way through to the   
   end of year 10 at St Patrick’s. Fortunately, they were never too violent   
   towards me, usually    
   just occasionally calling me names and letting me know my place at the bottom   
   of the hierarchy. Throughout those 11 years at St Pats there were a lot of   
   hard times, but there was an occasional moment here and there when things were   
   just a bit okay. My    
   teachers were Mrs Macminnamin in Kindie, Sister Susan in year 1 and 2, Mrs   
   Jones in year 3, Mr McHugh in year 4 & 5, Sr Ann in year 6, and then various   
   teachers in high school. I first went to the pre-school in Cooma north before   
   kindie, but only    
   occasionally. I remember a few times staying at the big house up the top of   
   crisp street at the top of the hill in Cooma – the very big mansion like one   
   – after pre-school for some babysitting. I can’t remember the people, but   
   they had a shack were    
   I remember thinking there was a fox there. It is a big part of my memory. Mum   
   tells me they asked me questions but I was playing them for fools as a little   
   devil. The first day I got home from kindie, mum tells me I undid my shoes,   
   took them off and said    
   ‘Thank God for that.’ I remember I was trying to be dramatic.   
      
      
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