Australians at War Film Archive

I was born in Nurse Barry’s Nursing Home, in West Melbourne, and I

was the first girl after three boys. So you can imagine there was much rejoicing, and drinking on one side and rejoicing on the other side. My mother was absolutely overwhelmed to get a girl, after three boys, but then she didn’t know she was getting another three boys, tailing onto that, did she?

We had a happy childhood. My parents separated, God knows how many more my mother would have had. But that’s beside the point. We lived a happy life. We lived in Milton Street, North Melbourne, for a start. And then when my parents separated I went to Oakley. I went to the convent at….

the Good Shepherd Convent in Oakley, and we lived just on the other side of Oakley town, and we walked

a good mile and a half to school, everyday, and back. We enjoyed every minute of it. My brothers were the greatest characters that God ever put on the face of the Earth. To start with their was Kieren, Jack, Jim, me, the first girl after all those boys, Mary Grace…She was called after

a very famous…Grace Dylan, who’s sister was down when her sister pulled her under in the Mary Creek. That didn’t have any stigma on our lives. It must have had to a degree when I remember it for so well. We walked to the Good Shepherd Convent and back home everyday.

The whole bunch of us. We had a cut lunch that was prepared the night before. Might I add, we had a very happy childhood, despite the fact that we didn’t have a father. My mother kicked him out, or went out herself, so she took the lesser of two evils. Mum was a very, very tenacious women. And

I say that in the highest possible terms. If she had to, she would have gone out and killed an ox, if it would have helped us any. She educated the lot of us. I think I told you, one of my brother’s was chief petty officer at the City Court.

They had pernitions of honour, if you like. That was Mum. He who shoots at the moon, hits the highest tree. That was her motto all the way through life, and she never, ever sort of wavered from that. What was good enough for other people wasn’t good enough for my mother. But,

as you can imagine, we had hand-me-down school uniforms and all the rest of it. But she struggled through and she must have struggled through, because the goals she aimed for in the game, she reached.

Every Saturday we would stand around this great big dinner table in the kitchen, and we’d all cook and bake and everything was made ready for the following week. Scones and everything for the weekend. And Mum, she did everything on a shoestring, but did everything. I can’t speak too highly of my mother. All I’m

sorry is that I didn’t speak as highly of her while she was alive, and that she knew how I felt. But it was a happy childhood, even without a father. He wasn’t satisfied with one woman, he had to have two or three on the side. But Mum, she aimed for the highest tree and reached it.

As I say, my parents split up when I was quite young, and I can’t remember it making that much difference to us. We didn’t say, “Oh, dad’s gone,” and cry or anything else. But if had been who had gone, we would have known. But all I can think of is father had a fawn jacket on with a green shirt, that didn’t exactly go well together. His colour sense wasn’t the best. And that’s the only living memory I’ve

got of my father. But my mother, I can remember, that was the staunchest woman that was ever bred.

I was brought up as Catholic. I was brought up by the nursing nuns.

And Mum had all our clothes laid out on the bed, ready. If you didn’t go to seven o’ clock mass, you missed mass, so you can understand how she with regard to her religion.

All our clothes were laid on the bed on a Saturday night, ready for first mess on Sunday, because if you didn’t go to first mess, you missed mess and that was it. We would all be spruced up in our good clothes. They were hand-me-downs most of them, but still. We all trailed off…

I suppose they were the first bit of religion that I remember. Our good clothes were all laid out for first mass, because if you didn’t go to first mass, you missed mass, that was it.

Yes. Funny you should mention that. What was it? “Proddy dogs, jump like frogs, in and out of the water.” That was one catch-cry. And you’d get the reply. “…in and out of the water.”

It was done in, as I say, like fair play it was, to a degree. I mean we would shout out at the proddy dogs and they would sing back to us, and we’d think it was fun. These McDonalds, that were friends of my mother’s, and these kids used to make up slogans, too, just the same.

I was only seven or eight. I’m 88 now, that’s a long time ago, isn’t it?

Well, it’s not as sharp as it used to be, but I can still quote Shakespeare.

Well, I think we jumped in and out of the water for fun.

My brother Baron, I have to call him ‘Baron’ because that’s all we ever called him. As I said, he looked like a bloody baron, because he was colour blind, and he used to wear hand-me-downs from Sausage Clancy, I suppose some of them were. But Saturday was cooking day, so we made, I think I told you, bachelor buttons.

The whole gamut for the play lunches, for the weekdays for lunch and for play time. And we’d have a little sandwich at play time. Which was not your lunch-time, but what you would take out of your lunch

at playtime, so that you could have a little sneak of something on the side. That would be a special, whatever Mum made up for us. But we never ever appreciated what our mother did for us, because you can imagine what she did. In retrospect, I don’t think any mother would ever, ever do what my mother did. She was just a marvel, and made our lives harmonious.

Which was a big thing, to rear seven kids, without a man there to clip them into shape or whatever. And to remember so vehemently, if I like, the night my father left. That stood out, and I would have only been seven at the time. My mother, absolutely broken-hearted, and me saying, “Well, at least you know where he bloody is.”

That was my reaction. Because he wasn’t much good for her anyway. As I said, I used to say to him, “It wouldn’t hurt you to get up and help Mum.” Even a young child as young as seven could see that he wasn’t doing his part. And to remember after all these years, it’s almost historical, isn’t it?

And I can remember my mother fainting. I suppose it was a kind of faint when I look back on it. But I can remember him getting all dressed up. He got all dressed up in his fancy gear. As I said, he was…very

beautifully groomed. Always beautifully groomed and everything, my father was. I suppose he was reared that way. Always the vivid memories of Mum fainting and I said,

“Well, at least you know where he is.” That was my reaction. And Mum saying “I loved your father.” And I can still see her saying…this was her response. “I loved your father.” I know what I would have done to him. He wouldn’t have been any good to anyone else, I’ll tell you.

Look, in retrospect,

I can still hear Mum, crying herself to sleep. And we’d meet him, and you could see, she still loved him, no matter what he had done to her. She still loved him. And, as I say, to have to meet a man every second Thursday, in order to get a pay packet. Which she did. She had to meet him every second

Thursday. That was pay day. We’d go to the Victoria Markets. The provisions were paid that day, and she would get everything ready for the next fortnight. So there were some lean droppings at times, I can tell you,

but for the most part, she made it coped well for us. She really did.

Well, in the first instance, it had to be food that lasted because there was only ice chests. So that it had to bee pre-cooked food, mostly probably roasts and stews, I suppose.

All I know is that whatever was prepared, we enjoyed. And every meal time, especially after my father left, we enjoyed. I mean we would be making a noise and everything else, whereas when my father was there, you dared not make a noise. You didn’t make a noise when he was there. But Mum,

she lengthened the ropes. That’s one good thing. We did have a far easier time when my father left, then when he was there. I can see my father and my mother to this dying day….I can see the look on my mother’s face, still.

The look on her face when I said, “At least you know where he is.” And she said, “I loved your father.” He wouldn’t have been good to anybody else, I tell you. But even though I was only seven, I would only be seven. And

it wasn’t a hatred of my father, it was for what he’d done to my mother that set inside me. I just couldn’t get over how a beautiful woman like her, and a well educated woman like her, could be so ill-treated. Not satisfied with seven children in eight years and nine months, and to be treated like that.

His family were sort of good stock, and all the rest of it. As they called it in those days. But as I said, she was educated, she was a clever woman. She could

ramp through the dates of history, and a clever woman, and to be treated like she was. She had to make ends meet. A wonderful memory, a terrific memory she had. A great mother, a great cook, she was a great everything, and we didn’t appreciate her.

She met him every Thursday. Thursday was pay day in the public service in those days. I don’t know what kind of a pittance she got from him.

No, she met my father every pay day. With the public service then it was fortnightly. You can imagine a mother who met her husband every second Thursday, to get this pittance, that she educated us all on, but she was determined to educate us.

Mum was the one that went without, us kids didn’t. And to see that look her face of, “You can do it” to the kids. And that’s what we did. We were expected to achieve so that’s what we achieved.

As I say, we went from this….Mum, her motto was “He who shoots at the moon will hit the highest tree.” And that was her motto all through life.

So you can imagine, it became ours, too. You can see the ones that achieved…I wasn’t that much good. I edited the children’s pages of a monthly magazine, which I enjoyed no end. I loved it. It wasn’t so much the kudos,

it was achieving that got to me.

Oh yes. We went on pay days, when they fell on school holidays. All I can remember one time him saying to me….I had a

whatsitname in the neck. And he said to my mother “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get her to wash her neck.” And it wasn’t. And my mother was so hurt. I could hear her sobbing in her bed that night. She was hurt to think that he thought it was a dirty mark. That we weren’t bathed. We were only bathed every Saturday night.

Of course we were. We couldn’t afford the water for anymore. And I mean, the very fact that we hit the highest tree, we achieved what she wanted us to achieve. Well, how many boys become second highest ranking in the

city corps? If you’re not achieving, you don’t reach those heights. Baron was exceptionally clever. He was third on the pecking order. But Mum, she had this…

You must achieve.

She was. She was very strict. That was the whole thing, was you achieved for the highest tree, because that’s your aim.

It wasn’t always my aim, I had eyes on boys, too. Which didn’t please Mum no end. But my brothers were motivated all the time by Mum.

She drew us into line. But there was a certain laxity. But it was a

relaxed sort of laxity. We would do our tables at night, all around. And God help you, you’d get something thrown at you, a quarter pound of butter or something, if you missed your turn. But it was all done in good humour. Mum was never one to box us over the ears. We got our cracks when we needed them. But can’t you see

see a mother rearing seven children….Even the laundry in those days, you can imagine. And what she got for it. We all went off to school. Your shoes were well cleaned the night before and things like that.

My favourite school was St Anthony’s Oakley. I thoroughly enjoyed that because of the walk to school.

The big long walk to school, because it was all along Worragal Road, and Worragal Road was a jolly long road in those times. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was relaxing, and fun. My brother would have a cane and he would be cracking you…,”C’mon, we’re late for school. Get moving,” and all this.

Baron, Jim, he had a great influence on our lives, the younger girls lives he did. Because he was an achiever and we had to be achievers, too. He married a beautiful called…

Phyllis. “Nothing is too good for my Philly.” He loves his Philly. The same with his kids. It’s a pity that we’ve sort of grown away from…

Well, let’s say we were all out of the same boat. The nuns themselves, the teachers themselves, were great teachers. They were an order that didn’t go out…

Recluse, isn’t it? They were in the bounds within the…It was strict, to a degree, and yet it was

very funny. It had it’s humour, too. One nun sang….,’Moonlight and Roses’. She lull-lulled the tune, which we thought was absolutely wonderful. A nun, ”moonlight and roses and wonderful memories of you.” Nuns didn’t sing those sort of songs in my days. We sang more

hymns. “Jesus loves me, yes I know, for the Bible tells me so.” We had, you could call it a dream run almost. I still feel as though I’m coming out of this great big dream. I only wish my sisters were here

to bolster me up, if you like. Because being the last one left with any memory of all this. It becomes hard after seven, and be the only strutting the stage if you like, if you can call it that.

“Sis, go and tell Sausage Clancy that we’re wagging it from school.”

I’d run and tell Sausage Clancy and he’d pinch something out of father’s ice chest, which is was in those days. He pinched an extra…I think that’s where he got the name from, pinching an extra sausage. He supplied us if you like. That would be our play lunch or something…

Dear old Sausage. We wagged it a few times. It was always me that got the blame. It was me that was swinging the billy as we went along….Of course, we didn’t have watches in those days. So Mum would be ready to pounce on me.

The other two, Baron would get let off scot-free. Because it was my idea, it wasn’t his idea. He wouldn’t leave me in to temptation, it was me who lead the others.

There was a big park in….

Yes. Most of it was in Oakley, because most of our

wagging and whatever was done in Oakley. It was when we were swinging a bucket, coming along, home from school. And Mum would be out, wondering where in the devil we had got to. And of course, it was always me that led him into temptation. “It was all your idea. I know who’s idea it was. Jim wouldn’t think of things like that.”

Anyway, whatever days they were, they were great days. They’re imprinted up here. Look how long they’ve last.

None. The only ones I’d know would be my uncle Jim. He’s long

since dead. The First World War….Only Uncle Jim was involved in that. That was Mum’s brother. I can remember him coming home with the hat turned up,

and that’s all I can remember of Uncle Jim. Coming into the house with these great big boots on, and I felt like saying to him, “Wipe your boots.” We had this thing at the front door where you had to wipe your boots, but he was never told to wipe his boots. A scrapper, where you could wipe your boots, and the adults

did it without having to be told. I didn’t do it, I was let off the hook. I couldn’t be bothered, sometimes.

No, he didn’t so much. But Philly, the love of his life…He was committed to his teaching so much, he didn’t have time for a lot of other things outside his teaching. He was a committed. He just loved

to pass knowledge on. He’d say, “Sis, if you could just teach one child the ‘ABC’ you haven’t failed in life.” That was his whole idea. You need to do more than that in life, don’t you? But Baron thought that was pretty good.

“It’s an old slouch hat with the side turned up,” or something.

“But it means the world to me.” It was an old slouch hat, so that’s the song.

That’s First World War, of course.

Not very much, because I went to a school taught by nuns,

that taught within an order. They didn’t go out into the world like the nuns these days. But if I had my school to live over again, I would have the same school life. Because it was absolutely fabulous.

No. It didn’t happen as

far as they were concerned.

Uncle Jim came back, I say after the Armistice. Because I can just remember,

as I said, the shoe scraper that used to be at the door. And I queried, “Where have you been all this time?” So I must have remembered that he had been there before, then he was missing, and then he came back. But things weren’t telegraphed….There was no

phone and easy access, that we knew of in those days. You just didn’t get news in those days. Poor old Uncle Jim, he wouldn’t know what a phone looked like. As a matter of fact, when we got the first phone on, nobody wanted to pick it up. “Who’s going to pick it up?” That’s how we were with the phone.

We soon grew used to it. And then Mum saying, “I’m not paying any more phone bills!” She laid down the law then.

He was gassed.

As a matter of fact, nobody knew where he was, and he was walking along Errol Street, North Melbourne, and my brother went up and said to him, “I think you’re my uncle.” And they exchanged names. And he said, “How did you pick me?” He said “Because you’re so tall.” He was well into the six footers, and I suppose

there was a certain family resemblance. A lack of communication in those days, too. I mean, there weren’t phones and things like that, people having access to phones. My brother walking up to this fellow and saying ,“You’re my uncle.” You wouldn’t need to do that these days.

No, my uncle was a naggy scientists. They were wanted on their field of battle, if you like to call it that, whereas he knew more about crops and things like that.

Someone who knew how to keep up the supply. I suppose that’s what it would be. I was so young, and I only knew what I peeped through the keyhole at. What you heard through the keyhole. I used to tell my father it wouldn’t hurt him to get up and help Mum. He used to say, “One of these days

she’s going to rule this house.” And Mum always said, “The truest words your father ever spoke.” But I don’t think that was true either. I didn’t rule the joint, I half-ruled it. Somebody had to do it.

Do you mind! The Catholic Ladies College of East Melbourne. ‘CLC’.

Oh dear, my mother would roll over in her grave. Presbyterian, especially. I went to Catholic Ladies College.

But they were the happiest school life that anybody could ever possibly want to have. There was a Miss Rush who taught us. She taught German,

what else? French, German, Geometry, Trigonometry. She could teach a lump of wood, she really could. She was an absolutely spot-on teacher. You came out her class thinking ‘I learned something again, today.’ That’s how she was.

She could strike a note and you would whistle it coming out.

Yes, she called out….We would get up to go to school and find not a lunch cut or anything else, because she was called out to deliver babies, at some ungodly hour during the night. And there would be nothing there for anybody to eat or drink. But there you are, she was fulfilled.

That was a nurses role in those days, to be called out and deliver babies. No pay attached to it. I suppose they got paid…I can’t remember whether Mum got paid or not. Maybe they did.

All I know is, “Where’s Mum?” “Oh, some bloody baby being delivered,” one of the boys would say. By that time, we were able to fend for ourselves. We would be in our 11s, 12s, or thereabouts. We were nearly at the stage

to let Mum off the hook a little bit.

The whole trouble with my father was, when you’ve got a bit on the side…

well, you know damn well that you’re not getting the Fully Monty. And Mum was feeding, clothing and educating seven children. She would go to the market on a Friday afternoon,

and then she would have these two great big baskets of fruit and vegetables and what have you. Provisions for the family. And that would be Mum’s contribution to the larger, if you like. My father’s contribution was nil. So

mum, she not only provided for the family, but she provided in the other way as well.

I couldn’t stand the sight of him. I said to my father at one stage,

I said “It wouldn’t hurt you to get up and help Mum.” And he said “One of these days, she will rule this house.” I can still hear him say. But I thought that someone had to give to him, that he should be reminded that he had a goal in life, too. It wasn’t just up to Mum

to get up and do it all. But the cap never fitted him. He never thought that he had a role in life. He got a nudge from me, anyway.

Yes. I still am, too.

Yes. very religious, we were. Mum’s sister was a nun. I don’t know whether that made any difference. Mum’s sister was in an enclosed order as well. We didn’t see much of her, very, very seldom, I know.

(BREAK)

My mother was the most wonderful mother that anybody could ever possibly have. In as much as she taught us children morals. She taught us an instinctive thing, that you are here to help people. You are not just here to go through life whizzing along, but

you’re here to help people, too. To get up at three o’ clock in the morning, with something, and help deliver a baby for someone who was having trouble delivering a baby. She never ever knocked anybody back. Even though it was at the risk of her children, to a degree. She had a dual role, if you like. She was a very provident person, she really was.

And you know the thing I utter regret, in all my life, and I will regret it to the day I die, is that I let a car go past with a bit off my mother’s overcoat, and then went with her to buy a new coat. For me. Not for her, for me. And I’ve never regretted anything like that as long as I live,

and I never will. She’s not here now for me to re-pay it. But if she was here, that would be the first thing I’d do. Go down and buy her a coat.

Year Twelve. For Year

Twelve, they wouldn’t do it now, for what you do now, I did two English.

English Lit. German, Expression.

But I was lucky that my mother was an educated woman. Mad keen on educating her kids. And you’d get up and down the passage, reciting,

in the bath.

(BREAK)

The Pickle, Plums and Prunes Society.

That’s what we call ourselves. The Pickles, Plums and Prune Society.

Yes, that was at St Andrew’s Oakley. The Pickled, Plums and Prune Society. I don’t know where we got the fancy name from. I didn’t

make those up.

Well, we had to scratch our name, in blood. Or sign or name in blood, rather. Then inscribe it on our hand. The Pickles, Plums and Prune Society. That was…

…,.

That was the First World War?

I know we were with the Pickles, Plums and Prune Society.

The Second World War?

I would have lived in Oakley, then, wouldn’t I? I was mad because I had two brothers younger than me,

I can’t think of whether it was raised because my brothers were young enough to be called up. So that they weren’t called up.

But I was savage on war, in as much as, they didn’t have freedom to do it, if they wanted to do it.

They had conscription, yes. I was savage on that because I had a brother at the time who was…

It was the fact that they were conscripted. They should have had the freedom to do it, if they wanted to do it, and that’s what made me savage.

’37 it would have been, because…We met when he was thirty five, but I thought he should have had the freedom if he wanted to, not be conscripted into the army.

He was

a butcher. His father was a butcher. His father had his own business. But he always wanted to be a butcher. He went into it, opened a butcher’s shop. And he though that people should have

freedom of being able to do what they wanted to. Not being forced into the army, although he did join up in the finish.

We used to go to the dances on a Saturday night.

And he thought that people should have freedom of choice, and he was adamant about that. That people should have the freedom to choose, whether they wanted to join up or whether they wanted to be conscripted. Of course, when they brought in conscription…He was in the meat industry

and he thought he should have had that freedom. That’s why he joined up, in the finish, because he thought you should have your freedom to do as you want to do, not as what the government wants you to do. I backed him every inch of the way. Naturally you do when you’re young and stupid.

He chopped his leg with an axe.

As he said, he thought that he shouldn’t have been told, because he had an injury to his leg. He chopped his leg with an axe. He should have been able to be conscripted into the army in some capacity. He

thought that shouldn’t have made….He could have done a desk job. Pen pushers, they used to call them. He thought freedom of choice was important, that you should not be conscripted. But whether he would still think that, I don’t know.

Poor darling.

No, I wasn’t a bit. Because I thought they all should have had freedom of choice.

Yes, they volunteered for overseas.

Yes, he did.

No, I thought it was his

freedom of choice. To fight for your country is something that you should, as I say, have freedom of choice. He thought the same way as me. I backed him all the way.

….Mary sat outside and held his walking stick while he had that freedom of choice.

It was over my dead body to a degree.

Well, when you say dead body, because they were thrown in whether they had freedom of choice or not or whether you went in walking on a walking stick. Well, you didn’t have freedom of choice if you went in on a walking stick.

He went in on his walking stick. My husband had a very determined chin, and my mother said of Fonce, that no matter what else he had, he had freedom of choice.

I went to work in a newsagency, sub-agency,

and of course you opened up the pages everyday, and all you could see was what was happening in the war. Of course, you’ve got all these terrible examples of man’s inhumanity to man. Which didn’t help one little bit.

I was crooked on them, and I was all for fighting them.

They had a choice, whether they fought or they didn’t fight. He chose to fight, so and I chose to back him to the hilt.

(BREAK)

A sub-agency I worked in, and you’d open up the paper every day and there would be what people chose to do and what they didn’t choose to do, but I still think they should have had that freedom of choice.

Well, you got a big packet of papers everyday and you slit them open and you’d see all these atrocities and everything else, and you’d think, ‘Well, he’s got right on his side.’ He should be fighting.

(BREAK)

Yes, I knew plenty who did. Not plenty, but I knew some that did.

Oh yes, don’t you worry. They did, too. It used to make me so mad. I think they had freedom of choice and yet….Those men who were choosing to fight, they were going into the army to fight for their convictions, too, just the same as the women were.

I’m not thinking very straight at all, here.

(BREAK)

Like various aspects of the thing. People come in and they give you their opinion. And then I’ve got my viewpoint.

And people come in for a pound of butter and they’ve got another aspect of it. And our aspects don’t catch up with everybody else’. I got this phone call. “Hello, darling.” I said “Nobody calls me darling but

my husband.” I hit that on the head. He said, “Well, who do you think it is?” I said, “You must be my husband. I wouldn’t accept a call from anybody else that called me darling.” So he said, “You hit the nail on the head. I’m your husband.” I said, “Where in the bloody hell are you?” He was just around the corner.

He was AWOL,{Absent Without Leave] they called it in those days.

He waved down a goods train. He caught it down. From Albury.

I wrote a message, “Greater love hath no man, or woman.” I really thought that was the pinnacle in my life. My husband taking all that risk. Which he was. He was taking a hell of a risk.

Every single day. There wasn’t a day that went past. They didn’t always

make sense. But he always wrote some piece of passage. It might have had very little in it. It might have only been the weather, or something else. But there wasn’t a day that passed that he didn’t write some kind of a message.

Yes, this fellow, he said, “I thought you would like to go to the pictures.” Clarke Gable, I think from memory. I said, “My husband is away fighting for the likes of you.” You’ve never heard anything so patriotic in all your born days.

I wasn’t as forthright then, as I would be now.

And this woman that worked with me. The message had come through for this woman. I can’t think of her name.

And she came in and said, “My husband…” I can still hear her saying it. That’s no way, is it, to deliver a message in war? It should not have been sent in that way.

Well, can you imagine? No, you couldn’t imagine because you’re not a woman. You have to be a woman. And just a bare postcard or something saying, ‘Your husband is missing in action.’ How do you cope? Especially when it comes through a third party like me. Where it would come through a third party or even a fourth party, saying, ‘Your husband

is missing in action.’ I think these days they would have a far better way of delivering messages now than they had then.

They asked me out.

The Americans came into the shop. “Would you like a date?”

Actually, I had a little kiddie, him, running around. They were on our side, so you couldn’t be too forthright, could you? Really. And not only that, he was running around like a little trooper. I wasn’t interested in anybody else.

I had a husband that I loved dearly.

Oh, you have no idea, the propositions you would get. I was not interested. I don’t think they were that interested either, but they propositioned you a bit. I was sticking to my husband, through thick and thin…

Oh, Leonsky.

He was cut down to size, quick smart, wasn’t he. Leonsky.

Oh, I think he was a white soldier.

I think we were scared of them.

I was protecting one child this way,

and I was protecting my modesty in the other, which I’m sure I was. Not only that I was working for my cousin in the shop. In the first instance, I was faithful to my husband, and I wouldn’t have any foot shoved in my door, thank you.

Not only that, I was not interest in any other man but my husband.

Because I was a faithful woman. I hadn’t been married very long, you know.