Trust me, I'm a doctor
They still haven’t noticed, more than 24 hours after sticking my Grandma’s ring on to my left ring finger.
Anyway.
I wanted to write about trust today, because it’s a topic that means a great deal to me on any number of levels. I’m thinking a lot about the issue at the moment, because of a book I’m reading.
The book is called: Broken Lives, and it’s written by freelance journalist Estelle Blackburn. In it, she details a time when Perth changed from being a small(ish) country town where people left their keys in their car, left windows and backdoors open, and often slept with their houses completely unlocked.
That’s the kind of place Perth was. People trusted each other. Young working women thought nothing of catching the last bus home to meet their fathers at their front gates, after walking six or seven blocks home from the bus stop. You could trust that nothing would happen, if you went to bed with your bedroom windows open.
But then Eric Edgar Cooke came on the scene, and destroyed all that. Over a period of about 10 years, he committed at least six or seven murders, countless burglaries and car thefts, savage sexual assaults and several extremely vindictive hit and runs.
Perth changed. People got scared. They lost their trust in the community, with each other. They didn’t know if the man next door or the man who ran the newsagency down the road was the Nedlands Monster.
That trust never came back.
Rosemary Anderson died as a result of Cooke’s perverted interest in running down young women who were walking home late at night. Rosemary’s then boyfriend, John Button, was sent to jail for her murder, a crime he did not commit, despite an alleged unprovoked confession to the act.
Estelle uncovered major discrepancies in the prosecution's case. It was common knowledge that when Cooke went to the gallows (as the last person hanged in WA) he was asked if he had any final words. He took the bible from the presiding Methodist Minister’s hands, and said, “I swear on this bible that I killed Rosemary Anderson.”
John Button served 10 years hard labour for a crime he did not commit.
He is now a free man, has had his conviction quashed, and he has been pardoned by the Government, because of the fine investigative journalism Estelle possessed. She won a Gold Walkley for her services to journalism, and was named in the Queen’s Birthday list this year for her services to same.
It has been a fascinating read, not least of all because I once walked the streets that Cooke did, before me; I have visited friends who lived in flats in which he once burgled, murdered, assaulted people. That is a very, very eerie thing to realise.
So it got me thinking.
About my levels of trust, and what affects those levels.
How many times have I walked down dark and unlit streets, after catching the last bus home, and thought, ‘it’s only a few blocks. I’ll be right.’? How many times have I accepted lifts from strangers, who seemed trustworthy at the time? How many times have I been so out of it that I can’t remember who drove me home, or even how I got there? How many times have I woken up in a stranger’s bed, not even knowing what suburb I’m in?
What was I trusting, when I placed myself in those risky, potentially dangerous situations? Fate? The universe, to bring me home, shelter me?
What did I believe existed inside of me, that would pull me through?
I spent a great deal of my twenties in a perpetual state of ruin. My beloved grandma died, and then at 26 I started getting counselling for stuff that I started remembering had happened to me as a small child.
I realised that I’ve never been shown or taught what to do with my trust. I went through a long, painful period of just throwing my trust at anyone who looked as though they might not mind too much receiving it, and paid the price for that. Several times over.
So now I know this: trust is something that you have to work at, whether you are the trust giver, or the trust receiver. It’s not something to give or receive lightly. It means a lot to me, and if you trust me, I can guarantee that I will not let you down. I expect the same in return.
People of my generation growing up in Perth will never know what that place was like, before Cooke came along. He changed the face and the community infrastructure of the city forever. Most people in Perth have a connection to Cooke, some more tenuous than others, but still there. That’s how prolific his criminal activity was.
No one knows Perth in that trusting, 'she'll be right' kind of way anymore.
I think that’s a shame, a great loss.
What do you think of trust? How do you decide whether to trust another person, or not? Have you had experiences where your trust has been betrayed, or experiences where your trust has been upheld beyond your highest expectations?
Answers on a postcard, please. Or in the comments section will do.
