Australia cherishes its eccentrics. However, I am uncomfortable with the fine line between rat-bag, eccentric, and mental illness. Before I recount the story of Beatrice Miles, let me take you back to 1962, to the 2A Homeroom at Muswellbrook High School, in the Hunter Valley in the state of New South Wales.
We were a co-educational farming community, in the days well before the mining of coal consumed the economics of the valley. 2nd Form went from 2A down to 2F in the days of academic streaming. Laurel was short, with dark curly hair, a trifle overweight. On a regular basis, we would egg-her-on to perform the finale from ‘Swan Lake’. We knew it was wrong, because we had ‘lookouts’ posted. It was hilarious, exciting ... until she commenced. Then it was unbearably mean. Laurel was a victim of group bullying. I suspect she may also have been mentally ill.
| L 1948, R 1968. In the left-hand image, Bee is in the background with her arms clasping the small boy. What a normal loving hold that is. |
Bee (or Bea) Miles was also mentally ill, although this is not mentioned in any of the reports I have read. Yes, yes, it is freely known that she spent upwards of two years in Gladesville Mental Hospital in the 1920s having been sectioned by her father because of her licentious behaviour. Her family had lived at St Ives. Bee had attended Abbotsleigh School for Girls. Her father was an accountant. For heaven’s sake!
However, prior to being incarcerated, Bee had endured encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, often a side effect of syphilis, although this is not mentioned in Bee’s case.
For the next 40 years, she lived on the streets of the inner city, performing scenes from Shakespeare for a fee ranging from 6d to 3/- (six pence to three shillings). She would cajole, and even swindle, her way into and out of things, especially taxi rides. She had an ample girth and took to wearing a green tennis shade, tennis shoes and a scruffy greatcoat. The tabloids had a field day, egging-her-on, just as we did Laurel.
Dogged by ill-health all her life, in 1964 Bee entered the Little Sisters of the Poor Aged-care home in Randwick, where she died from cancer in 1973. Some contend that she converted to Catholicism towards the end. Surely that was under duress. Her ashes were scattered at the family plot in Rookwood Necropolis. Given her toxic relationship with her father, surely this was under duress, too.
