I was the only child of elderly parents. My father died a week after my seventh birthday in 1934. Fifteen months later my grandfather died.
My grandmother, mum and I were the surviving family. I was told by everyone that I was a handsome and sensitive child, but it meant nothing. I was known then as Ronald, but would later take the name Trader when I began my acting career.
We belonged to the Church of England in New South Wales and were told at school that boys must be brave and girls must be good, a dictum from the First World War. I seethed with resentment at being adored but controlled by elderly women – Mum in her forties, Granny in her sixties.
My mother had been a ballerina with Diaghilev and toured South America with Anna Pavlova. On Saturday mornings I had to sit and watch her teach ballet classes. I was bored witless. Then one day I caught a glimpse of the girls changing into their ballet clothes. I felt a sudden urge to see more. I remember it was a new urge, an awareness, a curiosity that had suddenly awakened in me.
One day I plucked up enough courage to approach one of my mother’s gorgeous pupils. Eventually desire overcame shyness and I propositioned a blossoming 10-year-old called Gwenda. She blushed and ran away.
Gwenda must have told her mother because at home I was getting suspicious looks from Mum and Granny who were having a heated, whispered conversation that I wasn’t supposed to hear. The outcome was that my frustrated mum, in desperation, approached a downstairs neighbour in our block of flats, Mrs Betty Flook.
“Well, Mrs Faulkner, my son Ken is at school with the Jesuits,” she told mother. “If you send your son to the Jesuits they’ll very quickly sort him out. We have no such problems with our son.”
My mother responded: “But you are Roman Catholic, Mrs Flook! I couldn’t possibly send my son to a Catholic school.” Mrs Flook told her to give it a try and see.
Reluctantly my mother persuaded the Jesuits to accept me at St Aloysius College in Sydney. Although I loved it there, the problem with my mother’s pupils persisted. So in desperation she sent me to board with the Jesuits at St Ignatius College, Riverview, where she thought I’d be safe. I was, until one day at a rugby match against my old school I scored three tries. One of the priests called me into his study, where usually you got a lecture and punishment for misbehaviour. The dialogue went as follows:
“Are you happy with us here, young Ron?”
“Very, Sir.”
“Come here and sit on my knee.”
I felt very uncomfortable.
“You know why you’re here,” he said. “You haven’t learnt to pass the ball to let the winger score the goal. You insisted on keeping the glory for yourself.”
As he was lecturing me, his hand was slowly moving up and down my leg.
My discomfort grew uncontrollably.
“Look, Sir, I’ve come for the strap. Either hit me or I’m off.”
“Now you calm down,” said the priest. His hold on me grew tighter.
In terror, I jumped clear and ran into the playground.
That weekend I went home and at dinner I told my mother about it. She confronted the rector. His reply was: “Ronald is very young and highly imaginative.” She sent me back to St Aloysius. (As happened in so many cases, the errant priest was simply sent off elsewhere.)
There was a priest at St Aloysius whom I trusted, Fr Laurence Hession SJ. My mother liked him and told him of my problem. One day he called me in.
“Ron,” he said, “I gather you like girls? Do you know what a fuchsia is?”
“Yes, sir. We grow them at the orchard where I live.”
He asked whether I had ever tried to pull the petals off a fuchsia before it was ready to open. I told him I had.
“What did you find?”
“A beautiful scarlet centre, Sir.”
“And what happens to the fuchsia once its petals have been pulled off?”
“It just withers and dies.”
“Well, I want you to think of a girl’s secret parts as being just like that fuchsia. If you try to explore what’s inside her knickers you could damage her. What’s worse, you could end up the father of her child. Would you want to do that?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, give me your hand.”
He took my hand and gripped it very tightly.
“I want you to make me a promise. Until you’re 18, and old enough to know better, you won’t play around with young girls. When the time comes, you can ask your doctor to explain exactly what you need to know about these things. Until then, you shouldn’t even think about this matter. Not till you’re older.”
Largely because of the sensitive advice and guidance I received from Fr Hession and others, in November 1939 I converted to Catholicism. I studied all the dogma, the whys and wherefores, and a few years later forgot the lot.
I am now 90 and go to Mass once a week simply to say thanks for having enjoyed a fabulous life. Six months after my conversion my mother also converted. She considered Catholicism to be the best spiritual option by which to live. I think faith, hope and charity sum it all up.
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