Katie & the Sewing Kit – by Sheila

I took this photo of Jae & Katie at the caravan last month
I took this photo of Jae & Katie at the caravan last month

I have mentioned Katie a few times in this blog.  We treat Katie as a daughter, and Jae and her sister Gwen treat her as a sister, but she was actually born in Australia.  How we first came to meet her is a bit special.

In early 1987 I was phoned by a colleague of Stewart’s at the university.  He said that an academic and her daughter had just arrived in Canterbury from Australia and had rented a house in the next street to us, but couldn’t work the central heating.  Could I go and trouble shoot?  I  popped up the road, quickly switched it on and invited them back to our house for a cuppa, while their house warmed up.  Jo and her daughter, Jerusha, walked into our house that day and we were all immediately friends. Gwen and Jerusha were much the same age: it was like we had known them all our lives.

Jae, Jerusha & Gwen in 1987
Jae, Jerusha & Gwen in 1987

The three girls were into sewing, and when I saw a cute sewing box in the form of a haberdashery shop, I bought one for each of them. Jo and Jerusha stayed for about six months – and have stayed in close contact ever since.  Jerusha took her sewing kit back to Oz with her when she returned home.

Little sewing tin
Little sewing tin

When twelve year old Jerusha returned to Oz, she started at a new school and made a new friend, Katie.  Roll on another twelve years and Jo got in touch to say that Jerusha’s friend, Katie, was arriving from Australia to work here in August 1997, and could she stay with us for a few days before starting work?  Her arrival was scheduled for four days before Jae’s wedding and our house was absolutely full of people already.  However, we decided that we would fit her in for one night, then try and get her into the local youth hostel, so that she could stay there until she started her live-in job.

When Katie arrived in our house, we were in the middle of trying to get Jae’s wedding dress to fit: it clearly needed alteration.  I was busy making a meal for all the people milling around.  Katie and Jae were left alone with the wedding dress.  Katie spotted something she recognised on the shelf in Jae’s room – it was the little haberdashery shop sewing box – the same as she had seen in Jerusha’s bedroom in Australia.  It seems that in the blink of an eye, Katie had got the box down, opened it, and started the necessary alterations.  We were all absolutely amazed that this girl, straight off the plane, could find the right equipment to do the job and actually make real progress in doing it so quickly.  Katie made herself so useful in the next few days that there was no way she was moving out to a youth hostel: she was one of us!  She has spent lots of holidays and nearly every Christmas in our house since then.

Christmas at Sheila & Stew's
One of many Christmases at Sheila & Stew’s

I think the lesson from this is that you can make real friends from all sorts of different places when you least expect it.  People say that doing a climb like the one Jae, Oscar and I will be doing up Kilimanjaro is a real bonding experience.  You spend more than a week living in very close proximity to a group of other people and together probably share “blood, toil, tears and sweat” as you climb to the roof of Africa.  I think it is a near certainty that we will make new friends with at least one or two people in the group.  Wouldn’t it be nice if Oscar made friends with one of the other young teens who will be in the group, just like Jae and Gwen did when they met Jerusha all these years ago?

Gwen & Katie "on the town" in their 20s
Gwen & Katie “on the town” in their 20s

2 thoughts on “Katie & the Sewing Kit – by Sheila”

  1. Hi Sheila,

    I love this post, sometimes you make friends in the most unexpected ways & some of these last a lifetime.

    I had a big giggle to myself about one of your previous posts. Taping of smellys, this is something my sister did when I was little & we always had a giggle listening to the tape. Things you do when your little.

    Keep the posts coming & good luck on your climb!

    Cheers,
    Kim
    Ps your posts give me more insight about Gwen (your daughter is my boss) hehe!

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