Australians at War Film Archive

Sydney.

My father had been in the navy and my mother was English. My father was in the merchant navy and that’s where he met my mother and they married in London and then they came to Australia. Well, being in the merchant navy meant

that you know, her husband wasn’t home very often. So he left the merchant navy and then he couldn’t get a job for quite a while ‘cause this was the Depression and everybody was looking for jobs and you had these men who would come around with their little cases selling cotton reels, tape, pins, all sorts of things like that, and my mother, she could never

say no and she would always buy a packet of safety pins, and as a result we had so many safety pins, they lasted us for years, and anyway Dad eventually did get another job and when the Second World War started, he applied to join the Royal Australian Navy but he was a bit too old, they didn’t want him, but as the war progressed and they wanted more personnel in the navy, they approached him and so he

joined the RAN [Royal Australian Navy]. My father was, I was lucky, my father, he was not an educated man, but he had an innate wisdom and he always made me feel good. He always made me feel special and that’s very good for one’s self-esteem, your self-image. It gives you a lot of confidence

and security, and he always used to say, not always, but he once told me when I was quite young, he said, “You’ll go through life and you’ll meet many many people who you think have everything, but if you look at them and think about it, you’ll realise that you always have something that they don’t have,” and at the time I was quite young. I don’t think I knew what he was talking about, but as I grew older and I thought about this I thought, I just realised it was just so

true, and he was a great one for quoting proverbs and sayings, and one of his favourites was “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” If you became unhappy or, you know, or a bit agitated about something he’d say, “You can’t do anything about it, don’t cry over spilt milk, get on with it.” And that’s great advice.

Yeah, yes indeed, yes.

I

loved school, loved school but I didn’t get enough of it. I wanted to; I left school when I was 14. That was the age in those days when you could leave school and I was terribly disappointed because I was expecting to go on to school.

A nurse. Always wanted to be a nurse.

Two brothers.

Excuse me. One was older and one was younger and my older brother, he was born with dislocated hips which for the first nine years of his life he spent in and out of hospital because in those days, I think they know much more about that condition today than they did then, and he came out of hospital finally when he was about 10 and

he was home for a year and he was drowned and that was an absolute tragedy, and my mother, she just about had a nervous breakdown because his body wasn’t found for three days, but the Salvation Army saved her. In our street we had a Salvation Army Citadel and when they heard about this tragedy they just came in and

they looked after us. They were wonderful, and as I think I told one of the girls on the phone I will always contribute to the Salvation Army when they have their charity sessions.

Yes.

I had so many jobs.

I’d have a job, I was mainly in factories working in dressmaking places and then if I had a job in a factory I’d invariably get – they’d put me in the office but I just hated all that because it wasn’t what I wanted to do, and then finally when I was 18 I thought I’ll do nursing

now, but my father wouldn’t sign the papers. So I thought, right, now I’ll join the army and at that time you couldn’t leave a job or get a job without consultation with the Manpower Department. So I bowl along to the Manpower office and told them what I wanted to do.

So they said, “Oh well, we’ll come out and see your employers.” Well, they did and my employers were furious with me. I mean, this job, I didn’t have enough to do. It was just so boring but employers didn’t get rid of you because they knew that they wouldn’t get anybody else. Anyway when they came along to see my employers, I mean, they had no option, they just

had to let me go. So that’s when I joined the army.

Yes, yeah.

Oh golly. When was war declared?

’39. Well, I joined the army in ’46.

Oh yes. Oh yes, definitely, because of Dad and he’d been everywhere and knew all about various countries and so, yes, everybody knew about the war. It was, for some it was a release in so far as they could

get away. For others it was just a tragedy because mothers particularly, because mothers knew that they may not see their sons again and that’s a tragedy.

Well, being in Sydney we went to,

what do they call it? Rookies [novices] camp, I think, at Ingleburn which is just outside of Sydney and you did this course there. I don’t remember much about that at all, but when I joined up I wanted to be a teleprinter operator and that being the case you were then sent to Bonegilla where we started this course and then half way through the

course the powers that be switched us to doing a driving and mechanics course because they wanted to release men who were in jobs that could be done by women, and that was quite interesting because we learnt to drive three ton trucks and went all around the countryside around Bonegilla, which is very pretty countryside

and there were four girls assigned to a truck with a sergeant who was the instructor and whilst it was your turn to drive the other three would sit in the back, and we had one girl who was a frightful driver. We were so scared when she was driving. We would sit in the back and we would sing just so loud to overcome this fear we had.

Anyway she did eventually get her licence but at the end of this training we went on bivouac I think for four or five days around that countryside and it was very rough, very rough, and after a few days we stopped at a place called Nug Nug, which is at the base of Mount Bogong and there was a little

stream there so we all dived in and, it was winter time, but there were no facilities for ablutions or anything like that so we made our own, and at night time they would have this enormous camp fire. That was a lovely time, we’d all sit around there and sing. No, that was good. Then having finished this course, I’m not the slightest

bit mechanically minded and I just learnt it all by rote and having done the course then we were sent to Melbourne where we were camped in the middle of Fawkner Park. This camp had originally been used by the American Army but they refused to stay there because it was too cold in winter, too hot

in summer. So they put the AWAS [Australian Women’s Army Service] in there and there was a huge wire fence around the place. The local people complained about our washing on the line. That was quite an education.

We were what was called Don Rs, this is despatch riders, and there were two girls assigned

to a utility truck and you delivered despatches all over Melbourne. This included camps and some of the mansions in Melbourne that had been taken over by the army for various offices, and then there was one run that we used to call the ‘rat run’.

The 6th office was at Grosvenor, which is a big mansion in Queens Road, which is up for sale at the moment. It looks rather unloved at the moment which is such a pity because it’s a beautiful building. It will probably be demolished. Anyway, that was the 6th headquarters where you had heavy wireless and cipher and this run then from Grosvenor in Queens Road to Victoria Barracks in St

Kilda Road, and this was done every half hour 24 hours a day and was called the ‘rat run’.

Oh yes. Oh yes, in the middle of the night it was very quiet of course. I mean the traffic wasn’t as bad then as it, as bad today as, no, I’ve got it back to front. You know what I mean.

And the Chinaman used to take their vegetables to the market and they’d be going along St Kilda Road and the dear old Chinaman, half the time he was asleep and the horse took him, but if you wanted an apple or an orange you’d just call out. We used to call him Charlie. You’d call out to Charlie and tell him you wanted some fruit and he used to give us the fruit. Likewise the milkman. They

used to go along St Kilda Road with their horse and cart you’d get a pint of milk or whatever.

Could be, could well be.

One of the places we used to go to was the PMG [Postmaster General] headquarters which was in Spencer Street, and it was on the first floor and it had

a circular, a winding staircase, metal staircase, and you’d be going up there in the middle of the night and one night I was going up this staircase and there was a fellow half way up the staircase exposing himself. So I managed to get past him and shoot into the office and tell the guys and they rushed out but of course he’d gone. Well, after that we both went up the spiral staircase.

There were other funny instances. We never ever, we were supposed to if we had a puncture, we were supposed to do it ourselves, but we never ever had to do it ourselves because there were just so many army personnel on the road that the guys would stop and they’d do it for us. So we never ever had to do that.

Oh no, you really didn’t have to try. There’s quite a good feeling between,

you know, if you were in the army you were all pals. No, you didn’t have to do anything like that. They just offered.

Yes. When I was being demobbed, in the army if you enlisted in Sydney you had to go to Sydney to be

demobbed and when I was in Sydney waiting to be demobbed, I was driving staff cars which I didn’t like and ambulances. The ambulance, that was awful because we drove the ambulances to a railway siding at Concord and then these young men would be put in the

ambulance and we’d take them to Concord Hospital and they arrived in these railway carriages that had, all the windows were barricaded and these young men, they were just like zombies. These were the shell-shock victims. Now whether they were drugged to keep them quiet or not I don’t know,

but they were, the conditions under which they were, which they arrived were shocking. They were unkempt, they were dirty and I just, I was so shocked and I was just so angry that these young men were treated this way and it was then that the full horror of war struck me and

I’ve never forgotten that to this day and I hate war. Broken bones can be mended but minds, I mean I guess some of those guys spent the rest of their lives in hospital and I was just appalled at that. Staff car driving, I’d place officers in three categories. The first category

are the gentleman officers. The second category were guys who were so puffed up you thought, what’s wrong with you that you, you know, a couple of pips on your shoulder make you feel as though you’re JC [Jesus Christ] himself. The last lot, we used to call them the WHS, that was the Wandering Hands Society, and

you, the best way, I mean I was just so young. I joined up when I was 18 and you just sort of move away and I just used to glare at them because you couldn’t abuse them and tell them just what you thought of them because you knew that ultimately in that situation their word would be believed and you just wondered about

how much they would believe from you. So that’s my opinion of officers.

Oh well, I just used to glare at them. Did you say a stern word?

Oh a look, no, it was mainly a look. I’d just glare at them.

Oh yes, and I used to be so angry because I used to think how dare you treat me like this, and I think they probably knew what I was thinking.

No, I didn’t have any problem. That managed to calm them down.

Yes.

Oh no, wait a minute. No, when it ended I was at Fawkner Park.

Oh yes, there was everybody tearing around the place and everybody very very happy.

No. At Fawkner Park, we just joined hands and went around and around and around.

Well, that was one of the reasons how I came to get out of the army earlier because I was going to do nursing and you

could get out of the army earlier. This wasn’t before the war ended, it was just that all the paperwork and all that sort of stuff took so long that if you were going into one of the professions like nursing or teaching or doing a university course you could get out earlier. So that’s what I did, having wanted to do nursing for years and years and years I finally got to

do it.

The Alfred. This was quite convenient because living in the middle of Fawkner Park I could just whip over the road to do all the preliminary office work. So I did my training and loved it.

Nursing?

No, not much.

No, the thing, when I was in the children’s ward at the Alfred we used to have quite a number of mothers, or children whose mothers when pregnant were in Europe and they didn’t have a proper diet, and as a result of this quite a number of these children were born with all sorts of

abnormalities and illness and that was rather sad, but not servicemen. No, wait a minute, sometimes we had quite a few ex-servicemen came in with kidney problems and this was due to the fact that when they were in the services they just, they took

sulphur drugs and they took them indiscriminately and as a result they had, they developed kidney complications. Some of them were disastrous but they just kept on popping these pills and that’s what happened eventually.

In what

way do you mean?

Oh, you changed around all the time. You do three months, male surgical, female surgical, male medical, children, psychiatric, a bit of everything.

In my second year of training.

Oh, he was a blind date.

Yeah. Well when I finished my training I intended going to the west to do my midwifery, instead of which I got married.

Oh yes.

He used to talk about the various places he went to, countries, and what happened, ‘cause the merchant navy, that wasn’t government controlled. The merchant navy, they delivered merchandise, food, all sorts of stuff and they didn’t have

convoys and all these ships to protect them. They were on their own.

Yes, but he, this wasn’t obvious. It couldn’t have been frightening if he wanted to go back when the Second World War started. No, he seemed to be able to cope with that very well, but when he was in

the Royal Australian Navy he was more or less doing a teaching job at Garden Island and it was during this period that the Japanese sent these submarines into the harbour and one of the ships that was a training ship at Garden Island, that was bombed and there were many young men who were killed and Dad was

devastated at that. I mean he would’ve been one of the victims had he been working at that particular time but he wasn’t and they were all young men and he was very very upset, very sad, ‘cause he used to bring these guys home and particularly the Englishmen because my mother was English and she loved that when these young fellows came because she could talk about London and

the old country.

Oh yes, incessantly. London Bridge and Trafalgar Square and all these well known places, and when I eventually went overseas and went to London the extraordinary thing was as soon as I arrived there I just felt I belonged. It was the most uncanny feeling

and I think it was all this indoctrination when I was a child. Mum never ever went back but I think she may have liked to, but of course finances didn’t permit that.

No, no.

Australian citizen. My father,

his father was Norwegian, not that Dad knew much about Norway, but, now what was the question again? I’ve forgotten.

Oh yes. Oh no, totally Australian but very proud to have an English mother and a Norwegian grandfather.

No.

No, didn’t know him at all.

Oh, about the Zeppelins. They were frightening apparently, made them run for cover and there was all this – I don’t quite know,

I think Zeppelins were a type of bomb, I’m not quite sure, but they wrought an awful lot of damage.

I don’t know anything about that.

Oh yes, they met, my Mum was walking down the street and these naval men were walking behind, simple as that, and I don’t know just how much influence he, well, obviously he had quite a lot of influence, but as far as

his experiences, I don’t know about. He was a great tease, Dad, in a way. In a gentle sort of way, never cruel, always very gentle.

Mum was a firebrand, she’d fly in the air. She had this very quick temper and she’d get upset about trivia and I remember

as a child looking at her when she was sort of, you know, going crazy about nothing and I used to think I’m not going to be like that when I grow up, and I wasn’t but she was a very very kind feeling lady, always seemed to be making a cake for somebody who was in some sort of trouble or she felt they needed it.

And then she worked for the Red Cross for quite a while. I’m not sure what she did with the Red Cross but she worked at the Red Cross. It was all voluntary, but she was very caring and kind. She didn’t mellow as she grew older. Neither of my parents grew to any great age. Dad died in his 50s and Mum died in her early 60s, both from cardiac conditions.

So I never expected to live as long as I have. With that sort of history you think, well, but I’ve certainly outlived both of them.

I’d say Australia became her home definitely, yeah. She made friends easily.

I can remember her telling us when she was coming to Australia, that must’ve been extremely rough because, in more ways than one, because they didn’t get enough to eat and one day they must’ve been close to land somewhere and one of the sailors on the boat managed to catch a pigeon and gave it to Mum and she made a pigeon pie on the boat. I mean that sounds crazy,

doesn’t it, but that’s the stories she used to tell. She always used to say pigeons make wonderful pies. She didn’t ever try it on us but.

No.

I think initially she might’ve been rather homesick, but Mum was a person, she’d make the most of things. Both my parents were like that, and she got involved with the community and then of course with my brother being in hospital for so long, I mean she was kept pretty busy

because he used to have the operations at RPA. Have you seen this program on television, RPA?

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and at the opening of this program in the foyer’s there’s, the floor is tiled and I can remember as a child, I mean George and I spent a lot of time going to hospital. You’d go in the foyer and there was this

beautiful tiled floor which I always admired and then when I saw it on the television I thought, oh, I know that, and once they were convalescing, these children, following operations, they went to Collaroy which was a rehabilitation hospital and it was a big old home and at the back there was

a verandah, semi-circle, and they used to wheel these kids out onto this verandah in their beds in the summer time. They didn’t worry about the effects of sunlight in those days, and George and I, at Collaroy the beach had a lot of rock pools, and George and I used to spend hours and hours at these rock pools while

Mum would be with Ronnie. Ronnie was a child everybody loved. He had a beautiful personality and the nurses used to come along and give him a hug and I think that’s where I decided I wanted to be a nurse, but that kept Mum

very busy.

Look, we just accepted it. Ron would be having an operation, he’d get over the operation, we’d go to Collaroy then it would be time for another operation and so it went on, and it was just a way of life. We just accepted it and George and I,

even though there was a tremendous amount of attention paid to Ronnie, we didn’t ever feel left out. It was just part of our family life. You just have to accept these things. Not that that was our attitude. We just accepted it full stop.

Oh, they didn’t have to pay for that, and you see in those days they didn’t, surgeons and physicians, they worked on an honorary system and they would work in the hospitals free of charge. That prevailed when I was first doing my nursing.

Yes,

And they would devote so many days per week to working in the public hospital. They were treated like little gods and some of them acted like little gods too, but nevertheless they were obviously generous men.

I think so, yes.

I

don’t, no, I don’t, but I can remember Mum talking about them. She thought they were absolutely wonderful and they were. To think that they could get him to walk again and when he did finally walk he walked with a limp, but he did walk whereas previously he couldn’t.

Gosh,

that’s a good question. Oh no, they had school within the hospital. That’s right, yeah. I don’t know, probably so many hours per day, but yes, they did have school.

No. When he was at RPH, that wasn’t very far from home, but Collaroy was a long way away and we would only go there on weekends.

But anyway he knew that we couldn’t go there as often as when he was at RPA, and that was another thing, you know, that was accepted. Not enough acceptance today I don’t think. Too many people jumping up and down.

Collaroy?

I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t remember that. But I guess it took over our life but as I say that was our life, that was it.

I went to the local primary school and then I went to Arncliffe Domestic Science School and that was only, that only went to second year

and that’s when I left. I expected to go on to Kogarah Girls’ High School, but no, no, you go and get a job. So that was that. I was just so disappointed because I loved school and I was a good student. But anyway that’s what I was told to do and that was it. I couldn’t do anything else about it.

Some did but the majority didn’t,

because you know, it was Depression and just people just couldn’t afford it, another mouth to feed. No, you go out and get a job.

I’ve always had a thirst for knowledge and I read a lot. I’ve always read a lot.

I just loved it. I was never bored, just loved school.

Oh, they were great. I always seemed to make friends with teachers and drag them back home, and I can remember one of the teachers. I lived in an industrial

suburb and one of these teachers came from Artarmon which is on the North Shore of Sydney and she took a group of her students to her home. Artarmon on the North Shore, it’s you know, the North Shore is rather beautiful, and I can remember this house. I thought it was a palace and it was beautiful.

I just couldn’t believe that anybody would have such a big house to live and so beautiful, but that was an experience.

Oh yes.

No.

Yes, yeah. No, we had some great teachers. They were very good.

Female.

Not a great deal as I recall. You leaned a lot about history and geography which you don’t seem to do very much this days, do they? And English of course, but no, I don’t recall anything about the

war.

Oh yes. Yes, all the explorers, Leichhardt, Burke and Wills, all those chaps. Oh yes, a lot about Australian history, and the geography of Australia too. Sometimes I say to my grandchildren, you know, ask them what’s the capital of

Western Australia? Haven’t a clue. So they don’t go into that very much these days. Times change. If you live long enough it’s very interesting to observe the changes and the way society changes, people’s beliefs, but human nature doesn’t change

but a lot around you does. So I hope you grow to a great age and then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about, and fashions, fashions are fascinating. Like you see the fashions change and my daughter, she says, “Oh, we talk about something or other,” and I say, “It’s just coming

around again, it’s been here before.”

Shortish frocks. Not a lot of slacks. I don’t know whether I owned a pair of slacks. I must have, but all I can remember is frocks.

That was coming into the stage of the ‘bobby sockses’, you know, short socks and shoes and oh, ballerina dresses with skirts that go way out here. Yeah, that’s about all I can remember.

Social life revolved around the church and they had tennis, table-tennis, dances on a Saturday night. They used to put on plays, but mainly

around the church. This is where I think the churches let young people down today. They haven’t created enough interests or activities within the church and it became sort of a big family because you knew everybody. No, it was very good, very good.

I played tennis and the dances. Oh, and I was in the choir and went to church every Sunday. That’s about it I suppose.

No, no. I believe

but no, I wasn’t religious. Not in a fanatical way, anyway.

Oh no, no, no. They were good people but they weren’t devout and devout people are not necessarily good people, I don’t think.

Sorry?

Well for me?

Dad never went when I was going off to church. He always used to say, well say one for me, and Mum went to church occasionally but not regularly. No, they weren’t devout, and George, my younger brother,

he never went to church. He was a bit of a villain.

Yes, yep.

Yeah.

You learned cooking, hygiene,

bookkeeping, typing, that sort of thing.

Yes.

It’s in-between. I forget what they used to call it, but it was just a couple of years in between primary school and high school.

I don’t know about common, but that’s the way it was.

Mmm.

Yes.

I suppose they did but I don’t know what it was.

No, don’t know.

She was very careful, very frugal and once, I can remember when my father was unemployed a big bowl of soup would be the meal of the day and it was so thick you’d just about be able to stand the spoon up in it,

but it was extremely wholesome. She used to make our clothes and Dad was a great gardener. So the Depression, you were aware of it but it didn’t affect you because you were never hungry, you always had clothes to wear and you were given a lot of love.

So it didn’t impinge all that much, but they just got on with it.

Oh, I don’t know, we always seemed to have, oh Mum was, she was very, she was quite clever

really and she would make toys, this is soft toys and I was unaware of being deprived of any toys. I guess it was because everybody else was in the same boat, and you used to swap toys. We used to do that quite a bit.

Yeah, yeah, but when I look today and see the abundance of everything I just wonder how young people are going to get on if they ever are in any sort of crisis having been used to an abundance of everything, too much.

Yep.

Yes. It was a big thing about this high and I always loved listening to music and I can see myself now sitting on the floor listening to the ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] classical music and Dad used to call it my tinkly music because I just loved it and it wasn’t because I’d been

used to it. I just loved classical music and then they used to have children’s programs you could listen to, and then there was, I think it was Bob Dyer and Bob Day later. Oh, and another thing I used to do was, Dad was a great

card player, euchre, and he belonged to this euchre club and he must’ve been a pretty good player because he was always winning theatre tickets and Mum never ever wanted to go so Dad took me, and we went to the Tivoli a lot and saw plays like White Horse Inn, Naughty Marietta, The

Pyjama Game and a lot of vaudeville. That was, I loved that. I used to feel very special going with my father.

Oh, sort of, sort of.

I used to prefer plays to the Tivoli

and Roy, have you heard of Roy Rene?

No? Roy Rene, he was a great comedian and he was on the Tivoli circuit quite a bit. Of course they would have a chorus line. There was a lot of dancing, singers and jugglers and magicians,

a bit of everything.

Yes, yeah. I can remember sitting next to Dad and Dad nearly falling off the chair laughing and I didn’t know what he was laughing about. Oh no, it was quite risque, but everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.

Probably about eight, yeah. But the plays, I loved the plays.

Not much to me. Mum and Dad always wanted to listen to them, but not me. I was probably a bit too

young.

It did to Mum. She was, you know, most concerned about that.

Well, all her family were there and

it wasn’t so much, she didn’t say a lot but what she did say you were aware that she was concerned. She used to say, well, they won’t have to put up with the Zeppelins but I think they had to put up with much worse actually.

Oh, they just thought it was terrible. I mean I think if you’ve been through one war, there’s another one declared, you don’t want a bar of it because you know how horrendous it can be.

You know, even this present war that’s going on, well, they say the war’s over but there’s still loss of life going on so it’s not over.

Oh, you

know, the powers that be said it was going to last, you know, they always say it’s going to last so many months or a year, and of course it goes on and on and on. So you just don’t believe these politicians, you get that way anyway.

Yeah. Well they seemed to – everybody

seemed to be fired up and wanted to contribute in some way, and you know, there were people knitting and making cakes and sending cakes. You could buy these, what were called, Willow cake tins and they were round and they had a lid and you made the cake in this tin and you put the lid on it and then you had

to sew it up in calico, which sounds crazy, but that’s what you did and then you wrote the address on this calico, and that was to the boys. My mother used to send them to me when I was in the army and it was great because some people never got cakes. The people who did, well, you always shared them around.

Yeah, my mother was.

I think that you could, you could just make cakes and there was a group who sent them off. It was just a voluntary thing, a contribution to the war effort.

Yeah.

What was she doing? I think she might’ve been in an office. I’m not too sure about that, but there were all sorts of things you could do. I mean, there was food rationing, there was clothes rationing, so you had to be a bit inventive to cope with all this

because you were only allowed so many eggs, so much butter, so much sugar and clothes rationing, well, you had to make do with that too, but when I was in the army I didn’t need clothes rations, clothes coupons, so I used to give mine away, and I mean it used to be rather difficult if somebody was getting married because

they’d need yards and yards of fabric to, you know, make a wedding gown.

Yes. There was a lot of that actually which was good. People can be extremely generous in certain situations and help one another.

No, that was good.

Travel, couldn’t travel, and food of course, food rationing and clothes rationing. When I was in the army, when I first came to Melbourne in Collins Street, they had what they called the ACF,

which was the Australian Comforts Fund and they had tea rooms and, in Collins Street, it was opposite the Australia, the Australia Hotel that was. You could go in there and it was rather cosy. They would have these lovely chintzy table cloths on the table and a little bowl of flowers and they had, you could

have pies and pasties and scones and all that sort of stuff, and then they also had an office where if you wanted to be billeted somewhere on your days off they would arrange if for you, and I, when I first came to Melbourne I was a bit homesick so I thought I’ll go and get a billet,

which I did and I went to stay with this family in Kew and they were very kind and I always stayed with them, excuse me.

And they had this beautiful old home in Kew and they had,

all personnel could go there like army, navy or airforce, and sometimes some of the guys would come along and Mrs Gordon would say, they won’t be back. You know, oh, and some of the girls too. They wanted a good time, they wanted party time and plenty to drink. Well they didn’t get that there, but that didn’t really worry me. It was just

the home atmosphere that I appreciated and I went with them, went to stay with them on all my days off.

They had one daughter, she was in the air force and they other two children that were younger. No, they were wonderful people, they were English. They were wonderful people and there were a lot of families who were doing that

during the war. And then you could also, theatre tickets were donated through the Australian Comforts Fund and also at Fawkner Park there were tickets donated. So I saw a lot of plays during that time.

There was

the Comedy. The Comedy was the main one and of course there was the Tivoli. Yeah, mainly the Comedy, oh, and Her Majesty’s. So you know, there were a lot of generous people.

Oh I think White Horse Inn again. I mean

they keep putting, they haven’t put it on for years and years and years but it was often repeated, you know, many years later. Oh, and I went to some symphony concerts.

Town Hall.

‘Cause this, the big complex we have today, that hadn’t been built then, but the Town Hall, I still think the acoustics at the Town Hall are the best. It’s a lovely Town Hall.

Oh yes, yeah, yeah. Some from the church and the neighbourhood. Oh yes, quite a lot of them.

Oh, it just, there weren’t as many fellows at dances and everybody seemed to be

writing letters to their boyfriends or sending cakes, and then you’d hear that somebody had died or somebody was missing and there were these lists in the papers and that was devastating.

Well, much the same as they do today, endeavour to be supportive and as caring as you can without being too intrusive.

I think they just made an announcement, because you know, they came thick and fast

for a period there. It always made everybody sad and then until the next wave. Oh, not good.

No, no, no, not really.

Yes, one of the guys from

the church. But boy and girlfriends were different situation to what they are today. They were just, you were more or less just friends and there wasn’t the sexual activity in those days that there is today. Different world.

Yes, yeah.

Yes, still love the movies.

Oh, Robert Taylor, Clark Gable, yes, can’t think of any more, but they were the two.

Oh, there’s Gone With the Wind, Tale of Two Cities, that was Ronald Coleman. I don’t know whether The Third Man was in that era, and a lot of the British films, they were wonderful.

No, I don’t think so. I think their productions are better and most of their actors were better. No, I just prefer British films.

Oh yes. Well they were a source of giving you more news because it was the custom prior to, if you

went to the cinema on a Saturday night there was always a newsreel and then there was always this travel, not Fitzpatrick, there was always a travel film, wasn’t very long and that was the custom, the travel film and the newsreel.

That was very much vetted I think. They didn’t show you anything that was too horrific but it was bad enough even so. The theatre was always silent when the newsreel was on, when they were showing

aspects of the war. It was very silent, in between the smoke ‘cause you see, you could smoke in the theatre in those days. There was all this smoke billowing around.

Oh, it’s something I realised later. Oh yes, well

it would have to be vetted I would say.

There was always the politician saying how well, you know, we were winning the war. Oh yes, there was always that.

Oh yes, in the early part of the war, oh definitely, definitely.

Oh, mainly trying to encourage the public to be patriotic and save your country. All that stuff.

For England. Definitely for England.

Well, do it for Australia, but you were also doing it for

England, and Winston Churchill being the great statesman that he was and being a marvellous orator, this made people feel that they wanted to help and Australia in those days was very much royalist, very much. So therefore people felt that they were helping England

and indirectly helping themselves. Yes, Winston Churchill was extremely influential, extremely.

He was a great orator and he was very much respected.

Oh yes, I’d say he had quite a lot of influence.

Yes.

That they made a lot of china. You’d lift up a cup, ‘Made in Japan’, and Mum always said, of course it’s inferior.

Oh everybody was really afraid because they were so close, and they were regarded as a cruel race in a way. Not all of them of course, it’s never all of them, and being, I think being so

close. This is what people were afraid of. They were called the Yellow Peril, still called the Yellow Peril by some, but that was very much, oh, the Yellow Peril.

I think so, yes, yeah.

Not good. I can’t quite describe it, but they were always small and not tall and always grimacing. Not very flattering at all.

Oh yes, this was very much drummed into you by the politicians and oh yes, very much so.

They weren’t happy, you know.

I think many people were frightened and worried that this was going to make the war longer which it did of course and people, by this stage they’d had enough of war, had enough of it.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Yes, well, people have had enough of this present business, don’t want anymore, but man being what he is I guess it will still go on.

I think so.

I think so. I’m not sure about that.

Yes, yeah, because they were wanting to replace men with women so that they could send the fellows overseas. That’s what it was all about and a lot of people said, “Oh, women won’t be able to do this, they won’t be able to do that.” Well, the women did it very well indeed.

Oh yes. I mean they were everywhere, the women, doing all sorts of jobs.

They were everywhere, oh everywhere.

Oh, they looked good. They looked good.

Oh uniforms, if they’re well designed, can look very smart. Yeah, all the three services, their uniforms were all good and you felt, having been you know, encouraged to be patriotic you felt good in uniform, felt that

you were doing something for your country, although I mean I wasn’t terribly patriotic but at the same time you did feel that you were doing something.

Well he was, in the Second World War he was an instructor type

at Garden Island.

That’s near the, you know the Harbour, Sydney Harbour? It’s near the Botanical Gardens, not far from there and they had a ship there that they used probably for teaching methods, you know, information, and that’s what he used to do.

Oh no, no, this was, when he was at Garden Island he was in the RAN, that’s the Royal Australian Navy.

Yes.

Oh. I don’t know.

I

think it was just sort of general naval teaching, what duties one performed on a vessel.

Well that was, you know, I was telling you about the boat that was sunk and the

boys who were drowned, that was the one that was attached to Garden Island.

Yes. That’s why he was just so upset, and he was just lucky he wasn’t there, ‘cause he didn’t live there because he lived in Sydney and he came home every day, every night. Yes, that

was, Dad was just devastated. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so upset because these were guys who he used to bring home. Mum would feed them and they’d play with us. No, it was very very sad.

Sorry?

Yes, yes.

And there were quite a number of them who were on the ship. Yes, I’d forgotten the name until you mentioned it then.

They were quite a way away. Like the fringe beaches within the harbour, the nets were way beyond that and you could barely see

them really.

Well everybody was, couldn’t believe it and then when they got over that there was this absolute fear that that having happened, what else could happen

and that really brought war to the front door, you know, it was scary.

I think security improved tremendously.

I don’t know about behaviour, but security was one thing that was tightened tremendously and not, you know, you were told not to sort of gossip and pass on rumours. Not only because rumours were dangerous but because there could be eavesdroppers. This is all part of security of course.

No, no.

Oh yes. Dad was, he loved the beach and it used to

be an outing when we’d go to the beach. We didn’t have a car and Mum would carry this case, a case you know, ordinary case with food and we’d catch the tram to the Quay and then we’d catch the ferry to whichever beach we were going to go to and we’d be there for the day, and when I think about it now, I think the energy, how on earth could they be bothered, but they

did, and we used to go to Clifton Park, Nielsen Park. We rarely went to Manly ‘cause they felt it was too crowded at Manly, whereas Clifton Park and Nielsen Park, they had these adjacent sort of parklands. They weren’t exactly parklands but they were,

they were like parks and there was plenty of room to move around without falling over someone.

Are they? Yeah, well I haven’t been there for years and years.

Yeah. What’s it called?

Oh yes, that was, I can remember

seeing that place in the spring time when the wisteria was out and it had one of these verandahs right across the front and this wisteria was growing along this verandah. It was beautiful and of course it was elevated and it had this magnificent view of the Harbour.

Not to my knowledge, not to my knowledge. No, I don’t remember.

No, not really, no.

Yeah.

But the Harbour’s so big, it’s huge. No, I don’t remember.

Probably, there might’ve been something at La Perouse, but I’m just guessing here. I don’t really know for sure.

I don’t remember the ships but I remember the sailors, and when they did come in they were everywhere and of course the girls all used to go crazy. They created quite a lively atmosphere when they were here, but then

the army were here as well. I can remember seeing trucks with these dark men aboard in their American uniform. I don’t know where they were, oh this is, oh yeah, that’s right, that’s in Sydney. I don’t know where they were stationed but there were a lot of them here, but then General MacArthur was here too. I think this was his headquarters.

I don’t know whether that was necessarily Sydney. I think that was Brisbane actually where his headquarters were, but they were in Sydney a lot of them.

Well, I

think the male community were very anti because the Americans had so much money and they could get all the girls, and of course the Australian servicemen and the civilians didn’t have the money to spend that the Americans had. So the fellows weren’t, the Australians weren’t too happy.

I think he thought they were there to do a job and that was it.

No, I don’t think so, don’t remember.

No. The former part of the question, yes, I thought, “I wonder how many of them are going to come back,” particularly when these casualty lists were printed in the paper because that just went on and on, these lists.

I don’t think one ever stopped reading, but you did feel oh, when is this going to end? Because it seemed to go on for so long.

I don’t know about shifting. I thought it was terrible. No, it didn’t shift.

I think it has greater impact when it’s somebody directly connected to you. You can feel sorrow for other people but not to the degree if it’s somebody close to you.

I think it was different, different.

I think I was probably in the army ‘cause I’m, I was a year and a couple of months older than him

so I would’ve been in the army then.

No.

Mum told me. I mean he had, he was sort of wafting and you know, he was all over the place, was George. Now George is a good subject, a very good subject.

Oh, he’s, well do you want me to go into that?

I don’t know, don’t know. I think he always sort of,

he always looked up to me, but he seemed to get into situations, George. He married and then he had a defacto wife and children all in a line and then he was living in a caravan park. This is in Queensland or

northern New South Wales and there were two families close together, husband and wife in these two caravans and children, and they had a ticket in the lottery and they won this ticket and George’s wife and Gwen’s, the other wife, Gwen’s husband, they just nicked off and there was

George left in a caravan park with two children. Gwen had four and George, they tried to trace this couple and couldn’t, so George looked after Gwen and her children and so that was six children between them, and they eventually had a child and then George eventually married Gwen

and, but George tells this, used to tell this tale about he was in hospital once having a hernia operation and his legal wife, first legal wife came in to visit him and then his defacto came in and then Gwen came in and the patient in the other bed said to him, “Hey George, what’s with you, you know, all these women coming in

to see you,” and George told him who they were. This gives you an idea of the sort of person he was. He was happy go lucky, he was kind and I mean for a man to take on that responsibility. Anyway I think I did say they, Gwen and George eventually married and Gwen was,

they were just great together and I used to visit them up on the north coast and it was always a joy being with them, and George would, he was just so overweight and he’d grab hold of me sometimes and he’d say, come on little sister, I’ll give you a big hug, and he was just a delight, and he died about 18 months ago now

and I was just so sad because he did calm down as he got older, but you never knew what he was going to do.

Well yes, he was in a way. When my brother died Mum devoted all her affection to George and at this stage Dad was in the, he was away

and no, he couldn’t have been away. Anyway he was away part of the time and when George really needed a father Dad wasn’t there part of the time and I, with hindsight I realise that I did feel a wee bit rejected, but then I always had Dad who, you know, just gave me so much affection.

So I didn’t miss out, but yes, he was a bit of a lovable villain, he was.

No, he went as far as Queensland I think. No, he didn’t go overseas.

No idea.

Well one of the things they did was they’d provide meals, but the important thing was they asked her would she like to help them with an old

men’s home where they used to hold a jumble sale and Mum went along there and she did this for years. Sometimes I’d go with her and I hated it because I used to hate the smell of old clothes, but Mum loved it and this was an opportunity for her to think about something else and it did help her,

and she, as I say, she did that for many many years.

I don’t think so. You were aware that people felt sorry but to actually tell you, no, and

of course the custom was in those days, was that before the funeral the body would come to the house in the coffin and stay there overnight and people would come in to view the body. Oh, it was barbaric, barbaric custom, and I didn’t want to,

but I was sort of made to feel that I should and I think that’s wrong to make a child do something like that when they don’t want to.

Mmm, and for many many years I just couldn’t go to funerals, just couldn’t. I am over that now but I still don’t like it, but for

years I just couldn’t go and after my brother died, Mum would go to the cemetery every Saturday afternoon, to Rookwood, and I would go with her and they used to have a stand there where you could lock up your bucket and your brush ‘cause Mum used to scrub the grave. I mean she

really needed counselling because she was just obsessed. It was awful.

Oh well her mother was, you know, she was in England. No, it was the Sallies only. I mean the neighbours were very good but it was the Sallies who were just so positive in what they did, and they did it in such a way that you didn’t feel they were intruding. They were just so, and they were marvellous

to George and I. No, it was the Sallies mainly.

He didn’t mind, and it was just once a week she’d go to this jumble sale.

Oh yes, their bonnets, the lassies.

Oh yes, because at one stage we used to go to church there. This was before I started going to the Church of England because I was baptised as a Church of England, but as the Sallies were so close we used to go there and I can remember

they were, I was taking cornet lessons, yeah, the cornet, that’s right, and I was getting on very well with these cornet lessons until I learnt that they expected me to go around on a Friday night and play the cornet with the band outside the pubs, and I thought, no, no, no, that’s not for me, and then the lassie would go into the hotel and sell the War Cry which was their publication.

No, those bonnets.

No, no.

Oh yes, they’d form a ring and they’d have their cornets, tambourines, trombones

and away they’d go and then somebody would give a little sort of sermon and ask people to be saved and that was what they used to do on a Friday night. I think it was Friday night, it was either Friday night or Saturday night.

That’s right, and then of course you’d

invariably get the hecklers and they just used to smile at them and ignore them. Well, they couldn’t sort of get into a fight with them really.

Oh, derogatory sort of remarks and tell them to go home and that sort of stuff.

That was before Manpower really

came in. That was when I first left school, I could chop and change, and I’d just, you know, go to a job for a day or two and I’d come home and I’d say to Mum, “I’m not going back there again!” Oh, she was just so patient with me when I think about it now.

No, but there was no way I was going to go back to some of these

places.

Sometimes they, they used to do a lot of piece work in some of these dress factories and I didn’t think that was right. You were just, almost like a big, you know, soldier behind you egging you on, or if somebody was rude to me.

I don’t like rudeness, I never have. Things like that, or else they were dirty. Some of them were filthy and then as time progressed then the Manpower came into being.

Newtown, around the Broadway, you obviously

know Sydney a bit? Yeah. Camperdown, around that area.

Cleanliness for one thing.

And in some situations where there were machines there weren’t sufficient safety guards and all that sort of thing.

Not quite as blatant as that, but lunchrooms that weren’t clean and floors that weren’t swept regularly.

Just general cleanliness.

No. Oh, another thing was, you know, male harassment, that was rampant.

Yeah, that was really bad in those days.

That’s right.

I think what is called sexual harassment today. You know, as I was talking about some officers belonging to the WHS, well a lot of

these men in industry were like that and felt that it was their right. Yeah, that’s about the worst.

Not really, not really because these fellows took it as their right and women were sort of not strong enough to stand up to them.

Oh, in a half-hearted sort of way, not sufficiently positive to have an impact.

One most frequent accident was machinists would get the

needle going through their finger, but that wasn’t any fault due to the factory. That was just, that just happened with machinists because they got a bit careless.

No, no.

No, I’m not aware of that.

No. I can remember when my father signed the papers for me to go into the army.

He said to me, “My girl, you’ll know all about discipline!” Well my girl, it didn’t worry her at all. Everybody was in the same boat, you were all doing the same thing. You just did as you were told. It was no problem.

Oh yes, yes,

there were rules, but basic sort of rules.

I think rules in the army made more sense and there’s nothing worse than rules that makes no sense but which you have to abide by.

I think that creates a lot of antagonism.

I think initially it was to get away from a boring job and I was starting to feel I’d like a little freedom, but that wasn’t really a great issue, it was just being disappointed that I couldn’t do nursing, so what else am I going

to do? So as there were these recruitment drives going on for women to join the services, I thought, yes, that’s what I’ll do.

I don’t know the answer to that question. I’ve no idea.

Posters mainly. A young woman up on a poster there somewhere looking all glamorous in her uniform. Yes, that was the main type of recruitment.

No, no.

Could be. They have to get the most out of it.

Not really, no. You were allowed to state what you wanted to do

and as I said previously, I wanted to be a teleprinter operator. Well I started that, but then when they were short of drivers there was no consultation, you were just told that’s what you were going to do.

At one of my jobs there was a women there

who used to talk about teleprinting and I suppose she must’ve been pretty good at telling me about it because I sort of thought yeah, that’s what I’d like to do. I didn’t know much about it at all really.

Oh, it was associated with Morse code but beyond that I don’t know.

Yes, yeah. Well see, I was in a signals unit, great unit, 6.

You mean women in signals?

I wouldn’t know.

Oh they were. They were fair and whilst it was all women, there didn’t appear to be any cattiness. It was good, great atmosphere.

No, no.

Oh yes, they were everywhere.

Oh, it was in Sydney somewhere. I don’t know where.

You filled in papers and your parents, or your father had to sign them, but I don’t recall any sort of interview. You were told, once all the paperwork was done you were told where you had to report to and that was it as far as I can remember.

They didn’t, no, I don’t think they did.

Oh well, they, the Sallies’ hymns and I think it’s the Methodist hymns, there’s a slight similarity, but some of the Sally hymns they’re really imprinted up here.

Oh no, you wouldn’t want it.

Oh no, I couldn’t do that.

Don’t you know Hear the Pennies Dropping?

You do actions to it as well.

\n[Verse follows]\nHear the pennies dropping,\n listen as they fall. – Oh God! –\n Every one for Jesus,\n he shall have them all.\n

Well Joan and I, we threaten to sing to the others. No, no, no, no. And There is a Green Hill Far Away, that’s another hymn.

No, no, you’ve had your fill.

Oh yes, general information they want.

No, it wasn’t known then. It wasn’t all that, when my children were born it was just coming in then, and it wasn’t till after I’d had two children that I learnt that I was Rh negative.

Oh, not the first two, but the, I went to a second doctor. I went to another

doctor by the time I was pregnant with Andrew and that’s when I learnt that I was Rh negative. I was just so, I couldn’t believe it. But anyway.

None outstanding, no, no.

No, not to my knowledge.

I think it’s out near Sutherland somewhere and then, in those days of course, it was sort of

mostly bushland but there was a camp there, a training camp, and we marched a lot. I don’t remember what else we did. It couldn’t have been terribly important.

Oh yes, because you’d seen it in the street.

Oh yes. They were most particular about that, that you got the right size.

Both.

No, wait a minute. I think the slacks we used when we used to maintain our vehicles. No, it was skirts all the time, summer uniform, winter uniform.

Oh, cross section of the community, and I mean there weren’t too many of them that went into signals. I don’t recall what they were doing. I think a lot of them were probably office workers. See, we

were only there for six weeks and then we were sent to Bonegilla.

Yes.

No, no. ‘Cause having come from Ingleburn and being there for six weeks only, when I got to Bonegilla I didn’t know anyone.

Oh, there were a couple of others, yes.

No, no.

It was exciting. New territory. No, it was exciting. And there was always home. I mean, you know, you always had contact with home so you always had

a comfortable base so that enables you to go forth

Mark somebody or other, that’s all I remember. But these instructors, most of us girls were young and

these fellows, they were men in their 30s.

Absolutely, and some of them were, we knew they were all married, but oh, did they have a party!

WHS, get it right.

Not as far as I was concerned, no. There was nothing there you’d want to give any encouragement to actually.

No, they were just ordinary guys, ordinary guys, who knew about cars.

Yeah, that’s right, absolutely.

You just did what you were told.

No, not really, no.

Well, when you, you know,

these three ton trucks and I mean I’d never driven a car before in my life. I thought, no, I can’t do that, but you did. And it’s amazing, in the army when you’re learning to drive they taught you to double the clutch and when I came out of the army and it was some years before I had a driving licence, civil driving

licence, I went for this licence and the instructor said, no it was the policeman, that’s right. Off we went and I just doubled the clutch because that’s what I did ordinarily, and he said, “Have you been in the army?” And I said, “Yes, how did you know?” He said, “Oh, you doubled the clutch,” he said, “we can call this a day, we won’t worry.” So

it’s amazing what becomes automatic after a while.

You just do this, just double, I’ve almost forgotten how to do it now. That’s how long since I did it, but you just put your foot on it twice.

No idea.

Just do it.

Oh yes.

Well they’ve usually got some sort of a, you don’t see many of them about today, but you do see them occasionally. They have what appears to be a canvas type over a frame on the back and of course it has a, you know,

all these gears. I think why they taught us on three ton trucks is the fact that you weren’t going to wreck the gear box because you had to go through so many gears before you got to top gear.

I think it’s got about six or more. Now don’t take that as gospel.

Oh yes, on a big stick.

Well it’s similar to the way, the wheel, the gear stick here and the clutch and the brake, the accelerator. Oh no,

wait a minute. Good question. The gear stick was just so long.

Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, and when you crashed the gears, oh, it made the most shocking sound, really bad.

They seemed to be

pretty patient sort of guys. No, they didn’t say much. I mean they expected that you were going to do that in the initial stages. I think probably as you progressed if you continued to do it, like this lady who we were all scared of, they weren’t too happy about that. No, in the main they were very pleasant.

No, no.

Oh, there were always a couple of those around who you could have a good giggle about later on, but in the main they were just ordinary sort of guys.

Some of them we did. Don’t ask me because

I don’t remember.

Nothing special about them. Only their bulk and they were just so big.

I think they were Fords

I think. I don’t remember. I might have a photo of one in there. I’ll have a look.

Not very comfortable? Oh no, no. No, they’re not.

Not enough springs in the seats and all that stuff.

No seating. We used to sit on the floor. We’d sit behind the cabin the three of us.

No, no, but boy oh boy were there some close shaves. I think this is why we, you know, we’d had, initially we had some close shaves and that made us very wary.

No, she didn’t ever get to that but it just went so close at times. Where the three of us, the other three, we were all fairly safe sort of drivers. Well, you had to be in a 3 ton truck, and when we were on this, when we were going for our licence

around some of that country around Albury and Bonegilla and so forth, we’d be going around mountains and you’d be looking down and you’d think that’s a long way down there, so you had to be careful.

It’s very beautiful some of it.

You’ve got mountains, gum trees, perfect peace until we came along. It’s just beautiful Australian country and Albury, well, that was just like a big country town, you know, the main street down the middle, pretty ordinary, but it was

the country outside Albury and Bonegilla.

No. Oh no, this is Albury you mean? Oh no, no. I think they felt that the army was an intrusion. Good for their businesses but I think they would’ve, they could’ve done without us.

Especially on the weekends when we’d go into Albury on leave.

Oh, we used to go to a restaurant and have a decent meal. Not that I’m saying army food wasn’t – it was good wholesome food, but it was nice to indulge yourself in a restaurant and have a nice meal. Oh, and go to the theatre and they always had dances there. Yeah,

that was about it. No, I don’t remember anybody being looked after by the community of Albury.

No, no, no, no.

‘Cause we were privates too, you know, that makes a difference. Probably the officers were but not the privates.

The latter yes, but the dances at the camp they were fantastic. They had a great band and that was all army personnel. No, they were great dances.

No, didn’t have any.

Oh, you could if you wanted to. Oh yes, there were lots of romances went on and you could in the evening, there must’ve been a curfew there, but in the evening you could go for walks to the Hume

Weir and that was fabulous because you had these lovely balmy nights and of course the stars looked so big and this reflection on the water, it was a beautiful sight. They were good.

Yes, yeah.

Not really, but amongst some of the Don Rs there were. There was a wedding at Fawkner Park. One of the Don Rs was marrying a soldier, but not in my immediate – there were about four of us who were friends. I still write to one of the girls, and we were New South Welshmen thrown amongst

a lot of Victorians.

That was okay, but you certainly felt a greater affinity to the New South Wales, Welshman.

There always is. It’s a bit stupid I think.

No.

It must’ve been weeks and weeks because there was not only the practical part, there was the theory. You had to know how an engine worked and as I say, I just learned that by rote. Oh no, it must’ve been weeks.

No, but we used to do our own oil changes and maintenance and we started off with a manual grease gun and that used to be really hard work because sometimes some of the grease nipples would be blocked and you’d just have to push and push and push. So it was a red letter day when we

were introduced to electric grease guns. That was a great day.

Oh no, this was when we were doing maintenance on our vehicles at Fawkner Park.

They were utility trucks.

Yeah, sort of, yeah. Instead you’re pushing in, instead of

pulling out.

Mmm, get your licence.

It must’ve been about 40, must’ve been, and it was a series

of driving and being asked to do this or do that, and then there was the written exam. That wasn’t done on the bivouac, that was done back at the camp, but it was just mainly driving. We didn’t maintain those trucks.

No hoist out in the mulga [out away from cities].

Hoist.

Oh, these ablutions in that gorgeous bubbling brook. That was memorable. Feeling dirty and then being able to have a wash.

They adapted extremely well ‘cause we always knew we would. Oh no, that was no problem, no problem.

How

do you mean? In what way?

Can’t think of anything off hand. I mean there were rules.

You knew you had to obey the rules. If you didn’t do well you’d get into trouble so you obeyed the rules. I think perhaps when in camp life at Fawkner Park we would have liked a little more freedom but it wasn’t too bad, but no sort of burning desire to do something that

one wasn’t able to.

I think I would’ve liked a more responsible position other than driving, but then you see, I was so young

but most girls who received commissions, they were all older and had had, you know, experience in civilian life, but when you join and you’re so young you have no experience behind you.

Yes.

But I’m, you see, I lived in Melbourne for over 50 years, 58 years. So Sydney is a long time ago.

Well you were aware of that because, today it’s still a beautiful park.

No, not really. The trees are still beautiful, they’re still big and oh, I forget how many years ago it is now; the AWAS had a fountain, little fountain, a bubbler fountain

built in Fawkner Park with a plaque on it saying, you know, it was commemorating the stay of the AWAS in the middle of the camp. That has since gone because the vandals got to it and all the rest of it. But no, it’s much the same. Unfortunately the bubbler’s gone. I think they took the plaque off and they put it on one of the buildings within the park.

That is one of the toilet blocks, if you please.

Yeah, yeah, maybe it was a cricket stand, but anyway.

No, I don’t know them.

The other side of the road.

That’s in, on the corner of, wait a minute, St Kilda Road, isn’t it?

Yeah.

No, no, you can’t. No, you never could because

there are buildings on the Punt Road side, buildings on the St Kilda Road side and Fawkner Park is between extending from Toorak Road to Commercial Road.

Oh yes, that’s further on.

No, but certainly right in the middle of the park and there were huts, there was a gateway, you went in the gateway and there were huts either side. As you first went in there was the office and there was an RAP office [regimental aid post] and then on the left there was a rec [recreation] hut where you could play table-tennis. I think they had a piano there.

They had a scungy library and you could, you know, just sit there and have a game of table-tennis or something, and then all the parks were there, all the huts stemmed from there. There was this main centre way and then on the right there was a mess hut. That was a big hut,

and that’s about it, but all these huts all around.

Metal beds and when we first went there we received this long hessian bag the size of a mattress and then you went to a certain room where you filled up this mattress with straw and then you sewed the top

up and that was the mattress. After a while you learnt that the shot was to really to fill up this mattress so full because then you didn’t have to go through the same procedure too soon. Because what happened was the straw eventually goes to a sort of a powdery consistency and then you turf it out and fill it up again.

But when you filled these mattresses up so full you almost needed a little step ladder to get into bed, but they were very comfortable mattresses, strange as it may sound, but they were comfortable.

It didn’t seem to. I think the hessian was, you know, very closely knit. No, I’m unaware of that.

Huts.

Oh yes, they were waterproof, but there was no heating or cooling. They were just so hot in summer and cold in winter.

Mmm, but what we used to do every now and again at night time if we, you know, got very cold, there was an old guy there who used to attend to the boiler and it was only a little room where he sat and, you know,

fed the boiler and we’d go down there with great slabs of bread and long forks and we’d make toast and sit by this fire. He just loved it. I mean he was an old guy. I think, you know, the thrill of all these young girls visiting him, he’d never had it so good.

Oh golly, it must’ve been a couple of hundred, must’ve been.

In the main, yes, because the Don Rs, we were all in one or two huts and then your cipher girls, they were together and the teleprinters and yes, all the various sections seemed

to be together.

Oh yes, it was all totally sig, and we would, we the Don Rs, we’d be taken to Albert Park where our vehicles were parked and we’d be given our assignments for that day and then at the end of the day we’d take the trucks back to Albert Park

and then we’d be taken home to Fawkner Park, and that’s how it worked. The main sig’s office was Grosvenor. Next time you go along Queens Road have a look and you’ll see this.

That’s right.

Yeah, that’s Grosvenor.

That’s right. Well, that was the main sig’s office.

Yes, from Queen’s Road, that’s right.

Yeah.

And you know Albert Park when you’re going around the lake

and you come to double gates, big double gates, have you noticed those?

No, there’s a street that goes, when you come off around that road and you want to go up to Clarendon Street, then you go through big double gates. They’re not ever closed.

Well just before you get there is the Albert Park barracks. Maybe it’s not there anymore.

All right.

Well it was there a long time ago because I used to play golf there when

I was at the Alfred. The golf course has been there a long time.

It must’ve been, because you see I went straight from the army into nursing and we used to go to the golf course to have a game of golf.

No, we had, we’d go from Fawkner Park to Albert Park to get our truck and then we’d drive to Grosvenor. We used to park down, just behind Grosvenor there’s a narrow lane, we used to park our vehicles along there when they were, when we were waiting for something or other.

No, they were the same with the exception of a badge. You know how each unit has a different badge and the sign’s is blue and white.

No, no.

Totally female at Fawkner Park.

There was one woman who goes to reunions, named Grace.

She was a captain or a major. She was a delightful woman. She is still a delightful woman today, very ladylike. Really lovely person, but they were all good. No, they were all so fair.

And that’s, I think that’s wonderful. I can’t stand unfairness. No, they were all good, but we used to, in the hut we had one girl. You know, it’s interesting when a whole group of females, children, whatever, are thrown together they all seem to find their own level. We used to have this girl in the hut who our particular group,

we used to think she was uncouth, she was dirty. I don’t know how she got away with that, but she was, and anyway, we just didn’t like her, and it was many years after I’d come out of the army and I was at a reunion and we were talking about people in the hut who we’d never seen since the day we left Fawkner Park, and

I said to them all, “I wonder what happened to so and so.” They said, “She’s doing the same as she did then,” and I said, “What was that?” And they all started to laugh at me. And they said, “Don’t you know what she was?” And I said, “No,” and they said, “She was a prostitute.” She used to get under the wire at night apparently and go about her occupation.

That’s what they told me, and ‘cause I was just no naïve. I mean, but it just didn’t occur to me, and then when I learned about it I thought well, that’s interesting, the fact that, you know, nobody liked her. Not because she was a prostitute but it was just her generally that was somewhat unpleasant.

So there you go. I bet the locals wouldn’t have liked that had they known about it.

No, no, no.

Yeah.

That was the rookie camp.

All I can remember is marching. I don’t remember much else about it and we must’ve been given some tuition because I can remember sitting at a desk somewhere.

So just what they were talking about I have no idea.

From 18 onwards to mid 20s, some even a bit older. There weren’t very many 18 year olds.

Probably about half a dozen or so.

Yes. No, no, no,

they had huts there.

Oh gee, probably about 15 to 20.

I had to overcome my modesty. That was the hardest part for me, being thrown in with all these women and undressing in front of everybody. I found that very difficult, however

I got used to it.

Oh really?

Not that I’m aware of, no. I think I was concentrating on my problem in coping. At one camp they had this latrine unit, deep pit latrines and there was a long board

with holes in it and you, no divisions in between. I found that revolting, didn’t like that at all.

Yes, yes indeed. No, that wasn’t good.

Oh, I found that great because I thought they looked good. They were smart uniforms.

How do you mean?

Virtually none because you had to wear your hair at a certain length, your hat at a certain angle and collars and ties, you know, just straight, so forth. No, there was no – and if

you did endeavour to exert your personality that was very much frowned upon and you were told about it.

Probably, yeah, probably. Yes, if you get the extrovert types, they’re the ones who, you know, there were some girls who were always trying to get away with long hair. Well, they were wasting their time because you

didn’t get away with it. Just like I said, you know, rules are rules, you’ve got to obey them, otherwise take the consequences.

Transgressions? I think I might’ve been a bit of a goody goody, for a while anyway.

Oh yes. Sorry?

Oh no, she was the only one. No, she was the only one. Some of them would go AWOL [absent without leave] and you know, the punishment for that just wasn’t worth it. Anyway I had no desire to do that. I was quite happy doing what I was doing, but

always at the back of my mind was the thought that this isn’t what I want to do.

Yeah. I mean I wanted to be doing nursing. I was just marking time, literally.

Well, it’s just like any vehicle you drive, you get used to it, and you know what you can do and what you can’t do, and we had pretty good instructors. No, that wasn’t any problem really.

Oh, right.

Oh yes, they were heavy, no doubt about that, but as I say you got used to that too and when you were driving that

make of truck all the time you got to know its idiosyncrasies.

Well, the heaviness to begin with and the manoeuvrability, that was limited, but you see, I hadn’t ever driven before so I had no yardstick as to what was a light car and what was this, what was that. I had no yard stick there.

I think it was the fact that they were so heavy, but apart from that, no, not a problem.

I think that why we were taught on three ton trucks was

so that we wouldn’t wreck too many gear boxes. That’s my own personal thinking on the subject, but I mean we were never going to be driving three ton trucks all the time. It was just to learn on ‘cause girls went, “Oh, no no,” some of the girls in transport were driving trucks, but in the Don Rs, no. We were driving

utilities.

No.

No. We knew that once we got our licence we wouldn’t be driving those trucks, that we would be driving utilities.

We knew that because that’s where we were going to be after we finished our training.

A good question. We must’ve have because that was quite a change. Don’t remember that.

No.

Yes, yeah.

Now this is at Bonegilla you’re talking about?

All I can think of is that the females were in this sort of section of their own, so when you were within that section you were under the jurisdiction of the females,

but otherwise it was the men, the men who were in the teaching role. Whereas the women, they were attending to the general maintenance of the camp, of the women.

Well, they weren’t really mixed. I mean there was always

a line of demarcation. No, they never really mixed. Socially yes, but otherwise no. The fellows were confined to their role and the females theirs. Actually when you think about it now, it was very well organised. Yeah.

Oh yes. Oh yes.

Oh, you could sneak out at night time I suppose. Some of the girls did. Yeah, there was mixing. I mean human beings being what they are, bound to be, but you always knew the ones who, you’d sort of cover for them too.

You know, girls were engaged, having love affairs, so you’d help them along the way.

Or if somebody was, their absence was being investigated, you’d sort of band together a bit, make excuses, you know, they were here, they were there, they were everywhere, and of course the person who was asking wouldn’t go looking. So you knew

they were fairly safe, or they knew they were fairly safe.

No, no. When you get a lot of women together like this they all seem to form little groups. It’s not exactly cliquey, but they’re sort of little groups. Like the girls who were from New South Wales,

they just automatically remained friends, close friends, but yes, you form your own little group of friends. You’re not friends with, well you’re acquainted with everybody else but you’re not friends with everybody else and there is a difference.

There were five of us. There was one, two girls from, one from

Lismore, one from just out of Lismore, one from Molong which I believe is not far from Orange. There was me and then there was another girl from Queensland. There were about five or six of us, and we used to, on days off, if our days off coincided, we’d sort of do things together. Except when I’d be, when I sort of established my billet at Kew, I went there for my days off and I’d

just mooch around. We didn’t always do things or go out some place, but it was just being within a family unit that I enjoyed.

At Kew? No, this was a private family.

Oh yes, they were from Fawkner Park, yes.

These girls as well, were there too.

We all came

down from Ingleburn to Bonegilla and then we came down to Fawkner Park so the association was a long one and we all got on well together. No, it was a good group.

One I do, yeah. Oh no, two I do, but one, I was closer to

one. There’s always one in a group who you’re closest to and I still write to her. She was a bit older than me. She eventually became a sergeant because they, you weren’t upgraded unless you were a bit older. I guess they thought that if you were a bit older you had a bit more experience, a little more maturity than the 18 year olds. So that was that.

It didn’t. She went off to another hut. They segregated the, all the privates were together, all the sergeants, da da da and so it went along the line. No, that didn’t affect the friendship.

Oh yes, they’d have little gardens outside their hut.

In one of those photos there’s a sort of a garden outside the hut. Oh yes, some of them were beautiful. They took great pride in them.

Sort of, not like I am today. No.

Well, in their part of the camp, yes, they had gardens.

At Bonegilla there must’ve been a camp nearby for the Italians and they used to come into the camp and they were the ones that used to dig the deep latrines. All the lovely jobs of course, and they used to wear maroon uniforms, top, shirts

and pants, but they were all very friendly. And when, I was just talking about when we went on this camp at Portsea, we were in the sand dunes at Portsea and we came across these fellows in these maroon uniforms so we knew they were Italian POWs [prisoners of war], and they eyed us up and we eyed them

up, and they ended up having a picnic. We were having a picnic in the sand dunes and in the end they ended up joining us. We invited them. They were such nice guys, they really were, and there was one in the group who could speak English and that worked out to be hilarious at times. I’m not quite sure where their camp was at Portsea but there was a POW camp there.

They had a pretty free rein. I don’t think that they, they weren’t soldiers. They were Italians who happened to be in Australia or they were POWs. I’m not quite sure, but they were given, you know, a pretty free rein.

Oh, it was, you know, hands and expressions and then if we were really stuck the guy who could speak English would interpret. That was a fascinating experience. We met them again a couple of times and they were just so overjoyed that we would even talk to them and you felt just so sorry for them, to be treated like that,

and they came from, I’ve not been to Italy but I believe Italy is divided into two as far as socio-economic groups are concerned and these guys came from the higher level. So they weren’t mafia types. They were quite nice guys.

In their 20s.

No, they couldn’t have been much older than that.

Oh it was, it was fun and we were just so overwhelmed but they were overwhelmed that we would speak to them. ‘Cause this is what the guy said to us, “We think it’s wonderful that you spoke to us and then for us to be invited to your picnic.”

So that was a nice experience.

Oh, you’d be walking by and they’d be digging away and they’d give you a wave and a wink and that’s about the only, that’s as far as the contact went.

No. I mean I don’t think there was anywhere

they could’ve gone, and no contact probably because I mean there wasn’t the high Italian population in Australia then as there is now. No, they wouldn’t have had anywhere to go.

Only English. These young English sailors who on the Kuttabul,

Dad used to bring them home, but they were the only ones.

I don’t know the answer to that.

They must’ve been driven there I’d say. They were used as working parties and any other sort of menial task that needed doing, it was allotted to them.

Well, they were held from time to time in the rec hut. Oh yes, there were all sorts of handcrafts and so forth. Yes, yeah, that was

quite well catered for really. I don’t remember any lectures or talks, don’t remember, but I remember the arts and crafts.

Needlework mainly. I’ve always done needlework. That’s one of my passions today, is patchwork. I used to work a lot with felt. Fabric was

not readily available because it was rationed. You weren’t going to use a lot on craft when you could make yourself a frock.

No, no.

Not the YW, no.

No. No, there was this body called the ACF [Australian Comforts Fund]. It was voluntary, I don’t know who started it, but these women they had these shops for want of a better name where you could go and have lunch. They had one at Albury too, in the middle of Albury. The seemed to be everywhere and

their function or their aim was mainly to provide some sort of comfort to the troops and they did that very well. They were all very friendly and all this lovely food they used to cook.

No.

Oh, the same sort of things they had in Melbourne. Not the billeting, but certainly

a place where you could go and have a cup of coffee and something to eat within a nice atmosphere.

Only for troops.

Yeah. They did a good job.

Oh yes.

Once a year and

when you were going on leave you would always travel by troop train and on the way there were designated stops where when you, when the troop train stopped, along the platform would be these long trestle tables and masses and masses of cups and plates and plates of fruit cake. They were great on fruit cake. So you’d pile out, and sandwiches, and you’d pile out, sometimes it would be in the middle of the night

you’d pile out of these trains and have a drink and something to eat. That was all free, you didn’t pay for that.

I think the army did that, ‘cause troop trains, they always seemed to travel during the night. It was rarely during the day. Where was one of the places we used to, oh, we always stopped at Albury ‘cause Albury had the longest platform in Australia I think.

Yes, that’s right.

Railway personnel, all these ladies there in the middle of the night filling up the cups. That was fun.

Oh gosh. About three hours I suppose. I’m not sure. I’m just

guessing. It probably took longer than that because you used to take, they used to make lots of stops but not necessarily at the railway stations. It was probably to let other trains go through I guess. Yes, always in the middle of the night and then you, I don’t think we went to Central Station. I think we went to another station out of Sydney.

Bit vague about that.

Oh, with the first leave probably about a year. You only had one leave a year.

There seemed to be more service personnel everywhere and

when you were going anywhere locally and you happened to wear a uniform everybody would stare at you because they knew you, you see, and sometimes you’d wear civvies but you didn’t have that many civvies because they were sort of old hat by then, and then to buy clothes, you were limited because of clothing coupons.

Oh, I’d become more mature, less innocent, more tolerant. My mother was a lady who, she was very derogatory about Catholics and Jews. When I was in the army of course I met a lot of Catholics and I thought they’re no different to me.

So my changing, my thinking changed along those lines and my thinking changed about Jews when I was, I did quite a bit of special nursing. This is when you go into a patient’s home and look after them within their own home and my experience with Jewish people was they were just so generous and they would,

you got to the stage where you didn’t say you liked anything because they’d want to give it to you. Mind you, they always got their pound of flesh out of me, but that’s the way it operated, but I just found they were just so delightful and generous. So I thought, “What’s Mum talking about?”

No. Oh, I didn’t mention it, better

not to mention it. She’d tell me her experiences in London.

I thought it was very frugal, but I had good education in frugality,

and just having the bare necessities.

Well the first year, he didn’t join the air force until I’d been in the army for about a year. Oh, he was still scallywagging. He used to, in those days the trams in Sydney, the conductor, they had a

sort of a step outside, and the conductor would walk along this step and collect the fares. He was there in all weathers, and I would be on the tram, this is when I was a young teenager, and George, he used to what was called ‘scale the trams’, and the conductor would be on this side and George

and a couple of his mates would be on the other side and he’d see me in the tram and he always used to call out to me and I would sit there po-faced making out I didn’t know who this larrikin was, but he delighted in that. It was terribly dangerous because, you see, if another tram passed there were these fellows, but they managed to hop off. If another tram

was going to pass, they’d hop off. It was terribly dangerous but that was a sport for them.

Not much different really. No, it wasn’t, wasn’t much different. When we used to, in later years

when we used to be together, he always used to tell this joke about me on the tram. There was Doreen sitting there and you should’ve seen the look on her face. Ah, he liked telling that story.

Yeah.

But then when he joined the air force, I saw him once when he was in the air force. He happened to be in Melbourne and it happened

to be the time of the Melbourne Cup and George liked gambling so he said, “Well, let’s go to the Melbourne Cup.” Well, I was able to and that was an experience. The only Melbourne Cup I’ve been to, haven’t ever wanted to go to another one. So we did that, but I didn’t see him much because he was mostly in Brisbane and further north.

George was mad keen on betting on horses and he was running to and fro to wherever they put on the money. What was interesting was the fashions, not as elegant as they are today,

and of course the horses were beautiful, but having seen the Melbourne Cup I wanted to go home. I thought, “I’ve had this,” but it was an experience.

Yeah, that’s right, ‘cause we were both in uniform. But you see, that was a venue for pleasure and

a social outing whereas most personnel, service personnel would be working, otherwise engaged, but there were a lot of them there nevertheless.

Who knows, who knows?

I’m not sure whether it was three weeks or a fortnight. I had a friend in Sydney who wanted me to go on a camp with her and it was called Young Peoples’ League and we went out of Sydney a bit,

not far, and they were holding all these lectures and you stayed overnight, that’s right, and as I was listening to these lectures, I thought, “This sounds Communistic to me,” and it was. It was the indoctrination of young people by the Communist Party. So I said to Joy, I was asking her questions about how long she’d been in this

group and her two older brothers were very much involved in it. I thought oh well, that’s the last time I come on this camp. I wasn’t interested in Communism.

Very much anti the establishment and wanting to change things and they were very dogmatic about issues

which I didn’t appreciate because there was no, there was no, as far as I was concerned there was no reason or it seemed to me the things that they were advocating would just cause dissension and I didn’t want to go along that path.

Not a great deal, but I knew enough to know that I didn’t want to be involved in it.

Well you were either extremely pro or very much anti. I think people

who were dissatisfied with what was happening in the country, apart from war this is, they would be very much for it and wanting to change everything, and talking about a Utopia. Well, there’s no Utopia on this earth, not the way they were advocating it,

and what they were preaching was that you’re not going to get this peaceful situation and everybody on the same level unless you created considerable havoc.

No, not, well I mean, if you want to upset systems sometimes violence does happen,

but no, they weren’t, they averted that. It was pretty subtle in a way but you got the drift of what they were advocating.

No, I wouldn’t say secretive because I mean I was invited and I mean I wasn’t a member, but that’s why there were inviting new people, young

people. They were all young, younger than I was. That was their method of recruiting, getting you to go on these camps and then indoctrinating you.

I don’t know the answer to that. Well, I mean at one stage in politics,

Communism was quite strong and then it just faded away. I mean you hear so many people today who had been members of the Communist Party during that era and then 40 years hence they, you know, bad news. Didn’t want to know about it.

We used to go swimming in the river, and there seemed to be quite a bit of pairing off too. Couples would just disappear into the shrub and I think probably a lot of young people used it for that purpose, if they had a boyfriend or whatever. Good way of having a bit of freedom.

But that wasn’t, you were just aware of a bit of that going on but that didn’t apply to everybody of course.

No, no. Oh no, no, it was mainly politics, that was their aim.

There must’ve been at least 50, at least I’d say. Yeah, it must’ve been about these 50.

Well, she just accepted that, because they knew I wasn’t around. I was on leave, I was going back to camp so I, you know,

wasn’t too strong about that. I just said, “I don’t think I’ll be going on one of these again.” I didn’t give any reason, she didn’t ask, so that was that.

Oh no.

Eureka.

I think it’s E-U-R, Eureka, E-K-A I think.

Yes, that’s right. Oh, it might be U-R. Anyway you can look it up.

Being with Mum and Dad again and just mooching around, catching up with old friends.

No problem at all. It was easy.

Well then you’re going back to other friends again

and to a life you know. It’s just a matter; it didn’t take a great deal of adjustment either way. You were happy to go on leave, you were happy to go back again. No, I had no problems there.

Well, by that time I’d been away from home for a while and

you do get over homesickness, and no, I’d seen them and had a good time with them so that was that.

Oh, always, and my mother was a good letter writer, always sending me parcels with food.

Biscuits. Everybody was overjoyed

when I received a parcel ‘cause we’d have a party. That was really good.

Oh absolutely. Mum would send this parcel, all these contents in a carton and everybody would hover around and we’d dive into it straight away. Oh no, you always shared, always,

and, well everybody was the same, you always shared. It was good, good atmosphere, good way to be.

Once we had finished the course at Bonegilla, you didn’t know initially where you were going to be sent ‘cause girls were sent all over the

place, but once those plans were in place you were told, and we were quite happy to, and we four or five all came to Melbourne so that was good. We weren’t parted.

I’ve no idea. I don’t know.

Yes, yeah.

No, I don’t know the answer to that.

I don’t think you would’ve had much chance of changing, having been trained for all those weeks, I don’t think the army powers that be would’ve looked upon you saying, “I don’t want to do this, I want to do that,” I don’t think that would’ve been

countenanced. I don’t think so.

Oh, it was much more civilised at Fawkner Park even though it wasn’t luxurious, it was better than Bonegilla.

Oh, and you were doing a job too. That made a difference, and there was more freedom being in the city and all the other things you could do in a city which you can’t do in the country. Whilst I loved the country, I liked the things you could do in the city.

I liked going to the theatre.

What else? Oh, just having more freedom, that was good, and you could go out with your friends and go to galleries and parks and all that sort of thing.

Well you always had so many days off a week. I’m not sure how many. I don’t remember that. It

must’ve been two, not sure. In those days that was always regular, you know, your time off.

Oh yes, yeah.

And when you went out at night,

after a certain hour, probably after sundown, if you were coming from the city, when you got off the tram there was an old soldier at the tram stop and he would escort you down the path to the camp. And when I say an old soldier, he was old.

Oh heavens, he seemed like a grandfather to me. I think he quite enjoyed that job.

Mmm.

Oh yes. He got to know you, you got to know him, and he’d always ask you where you’d been and always interested in what you were doing out at that time.

No, he was in his khakis.

Oh, he wasn’t, he was just a private. I mean you wouldn’t have a major caught escorting the girls down to the camp.

Yes, yeah. Can I have a cough please?

Well, your friends, your immediate friends, and then I used to go to Kew and frequently go to the theatre with them, and that’s about it I think. Yes, that’s about it.

Not all the time.

Oh well, naturally you’d have to sleep during the day and they had one hut where you would sleep when you were on night shift, but you didn’t do that, you didn’t do night shift a lot. I can’t remember how often we did it but it didn’t go on for weeks and weeks.

Oh, it must’ve been, they were long shifts so it was probably about 9.00 until about 7.00 or 8.00 in the morning.

I’m not absolutely certain about that but I do remember they were long shifts,

yeah.

That’s the way it worked.

Well, there were always two of you to a vehicle and you always worked with the same person, and one day you’d drive, the other day she would drive.

Yeah.

You sit there, and this, I think the reason for this was as a security purpose. I mean if you were a staff car driver you were the only one driving, but if you were a Don R there was always two of you.

Yeah, the latter.

And then some of the fellows used to say, oh well, it only took one fellow to ride a motorbike. Now you’re replacing us and it takes a vehicle and two women. They used to like quoting that.

Yeah.

Yes, yeah. It wasn’t good if you didn’t.

I don’t know. I don’t know whether you could request a change, but that would’ve created quite a bit of unpleasantness I would imagine.

No, I don’t know of anybody doing it ‘cause I was with the same girl for, all the time, and so was everybody else. You always worked together.

There must’ve been but I was unaware of it. Yeah, I was unaware of it. The girls in the transport unit,

they always drove alone but then they were usually transporting people so there was always somebody with them.

Yes, there was a transport unit, but it was a very small one.

They were driving big trucks, the three

ton trucks.

No, not after I left Bonegilla.

Oh, that was okay, much easier than three ton trucks, more comfortable.

Nothing, nothing

much, once you got used to it. It was just one vehicle was heavier and bigger than the other, that’s all, and you didn’t have as many gears to change.

Mmm, mmm.

Oh, that took a bit of getting used to initially, but when we used to go along St Kilda Road and continue along,

what’s the continuation of St Kilda Road? Once you, if you were taking that direction at the junction of Swanston and Flinders Street there was a policeman on duty. There weren’t traffic lights and this guy always seemed to be on duty and we used to call

him Smiley, and whenever we came along he’d always change and we’d always get the go ahead sign. He was great, terrible job though, but that’s all he did all day.

It must’ve been, ‘cause I mean we considered it quite a busy intersection in those days,

and I mean there was only half the traffic then than there was today, probably even less because there was petrol rationing too in those days. So people couldn’t use their vehicles as much as they would today. So we considered it a busy intersection then.

That was railway yards, Jolimont.

That was, you’d just stand in Flinders Street and you could look down and see all these railway tracks and trams. Well that’s all gone now. They’re probably still there but they’re underneath. I’m not sure about that, must have a look. I rarely go to the city.

I’m not a city lover, and being here I don’t have to go to the city a lot because we’ve got some very good shopping centres within reasonable distance, and I’m not a shopper.

I think we used to be over at, oh, you’d get up in the morning,

have your shower, have your breakfast and I think we were over at Albert Park by 8 o’clock. You would have your check-in, you’d be given your job for that day which could be the rat run, or you could be going around the city and to all these various

big homes. One of the homes was one of the Coles’ homes and the caretaker there, must’ve been a quiet day because we’d always go in there and we’d always say to him, “Oh, this is a beautiful place,” and one day he said to us, “Oh, you should, would you like to see the nursery?” “Oh yes, we’d love to see the nursery.” So we went up to the nursery and it was as big as this

house, whole area. Beautiful stained glass windows and of course there weren’t the toys in there, but it was a beautiful room and it was so big for a nursery. I often wondered what some of those houses were like when they were given back to their owners because in some of them they put up partitions to make sort of single offices

and then the general wear and tear on these homes must’ve been considerable, and there were a lot of them.

I don’t know. I don’t know, and then quite a few of them were used as embassies. There was one in Punt Road, Punt Road Hill, and then there was Frogmore,

which is in Mont Albert Road. It was only a couple, that was air force, Frogmore, it was only a couple of years that property was sold and sold as building blocks and the most palatial homes built on them. ‘Cause Mont Albert Road is the golden mile of Mont Albert.

Well, you had to call at these places as they were listed, but one of the places we used to love to go to, there was a gorgeous pastry cake shop in Clarendon Street which was just so close to Albert Park, and we’d go there and

pig out on something or other. It was a beautiful shop.

Good question. I think we might’ve gone back to Fawkner Park for lunch. I don’t remember that. Maybe I was too full of

pastries.

Oh, it was always paper, big manilla envelopes sealed with red wax.

Yes.

Always had to be signed for. Yeah.

That’s right.

Well, you know, a despatch rider. That’s what they did, take the despatches.

No, you didn’t know what you were doing until you booked in at Albert Park,

and a good trip was when we’d go to Bacchus Marsh. That was a long trip. I used to like that because there was a barracks at Bacchus Marsh, and then there was another one way over the other side of Melbourne. I used to like going there too because you got away from the traffic and the city.

That was about the longest I think.

Well no, not really because all these trips, a certain amount of time was allocated, but we always used to bring from Bacchus Marsh, we’d always bring some guys back to Melbourne ‘cause they were on days off and they

knew that the Don Rs were calling there and we’d always give them a ride back.

Yep, yep.

I know they sat in the back, whether they were covered or not I don’t remember.

Yes, I think we did, yeah, and as I say all these trips were worked out as to how long they would take you. The ones that varied a bit were the traffic ones because of traffic, but I mean they weren’t that stringent that, you know, it was difficult to cope with ‘cause that was accounted for too. So sometimes you’d have a bit of spare time

up your sleeve.

Yeah.

Oh, the personnel at Albert Park. They had an office there and we’d report to them when you’d finished your

shift or the job that had been allocated to you, and then you’d leave your vehicle there and then you’d be taken back to Fawkner Park.

We did our own maintenance. Refuelling was done from Albert Park ‘cause they had a section there that was just like a big garage. They had petrol pumps and

hoists. We used to do our maintenance there.

Greasing, oil changes, general cleanliness of the vehicle and we used gallons and gallons of kerosene cleaning the underneath part of the car and when you’d finished your maintenance it would go up on the hoist and the sergeant would

come along and rub his finger underneath the car just to see that it was clean. Absolutely ridiculous but that was the system.

I can remember one day we moved the nut from the sump and didn’t get out of the way in time.

Oh, that was a disaster. I think that anybody who was buying an army vehicle in those days would’ve received a wonderful vehicle because they were so well maintained, and we were always taught that before you turn, once you’ve turned the ignition on in a car, check POW. That was petrol, oil, water. Never forgotten that, still

do it, and it’s amazing how these things stay with you. I feel very strongly about keeping a vehicle maintained and also not to let the petrol level get really low. Try to keep it at least half full. That’s not always possible, but that was what was advocated

and I still do all those things today. Not clean the underneath part of the car.

No thank you.

Yes, yeah. Oh, this gave you a feeling of ownership and you didn’t want anybody else getting into your vehicle and messing it up, ‘cause when you

went on holidays and you came back and somebody had been driving your car or had been in your car and it wasn’t up to the same standard that you maintained, you used to get very cross.

None really, you couldn’t put stickers anywhere. No, that’s all no, no, no, no. No, no means at all other than

taking pride in its appearance, and you had to do that anyway.

Markings?

They were khaki.

I guess it did, probably ‘Property of the Forces’, I guess.

I don’t remember that one.

I don’t think so, don’t think so.

I don’t remember any.

Yes.

Well it was introduced when some of the girls who were teleprinter operators and various other jobs were using Morse code all the time, and sometimes at some stage some of them used to get a bit Morse happy. So they thought that if they could have a camp and these girls could do down there and

relax completely, it would take some of the stress away and initially they were queuing up to go down there and then the novelty wore off and then they were looking around for people to go down there, so we interstate people, we always volunteered. So we ended up having about four holidays a year at least and you’d go down there

with an officer and you looked after yourselves completely. You cooked, you know, kept the place clean and then you did whatever you liked. It was wonderful.

There were several small huts which housed four girls and there were bunks on, there was a small door, that little hut, that photo I showed

you, you went in the doorway and then either side there were two beds, bunks and then we had a mess hut. Oh, it was wonderful and during the day you used to do what you like, and we did all the, we looked after ourselves completely, cleaning, cooking, all that sort of stuff.

And they had, at Portsea in those days they had what is now the Lord Mayor’s camp, it was a barracks for prisoners and that’s not the word, that’s not the right word, but it was a detention barracks and these,

these fellows had to spend time at – it was like a prison because there were MPs [military police] there and I remember one day there were big gates, wooden gates, and I had a little sort of look through the door. One day I happened to have a look through there and there were these soldiers, it was summer time, and there were these soldiers with these great –

Yes, there were these soldiers in this quadrangle running around in full winter uniform with these enormous packs on their back and there was the MP just haranguing them to go around and around and around, and I thought this is barbaric, but that’s the way they were

punished, and you sort of thought what are they achieving by that? And we used to go to a camp sometimes at this place and in the end we stopped going because we hated dancing with the MPs, but anyway they made it into a more peaceful place by making it the Lord Mayor’s camp for children, and some of the girls from the Alfred used to go

down. These children came from the country, they were under privileged children I believe, and they went down there for six weeks during the Christmas school holiday break and they just had a holiday but they always had a nurse down there just to attend to any minor accidents and the girls used to love going down there.

It was six weeks, so you had to be pretty committed.

Yes.

No.

No, it was after the war, and I don’t know what it is now but I don’t think it’s a children’s camp anymore. We have a little house down at Rye and I go down there as often as

I can. I love it, and over the years it’s changed hands a few times, but it was a children’s camp for a long time. I must have a look and see what it’s doing now. After I came out of the army many years, but I don’t know.

A fortnight.

That’s why we loved it.

Oh, it was, and the officers who came down with us, they were always fantastic. That was wonderful.

Oh, it became, well it was close, you see, you

were all together. It was more intimate, they learnt a lot about you and vice versa.

That was wonderful.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Well, one of the officers

who used to come down with us, her name was Elva Carr, and she was a captain and when she left the army she held a high position within the police force and she was also a very good artist I believe. She’s not alive anymore, but she was fantastic, used to play games and I think she enjoyed it equally as much as

we did. So she was good.

Absolutely, it was good all around, and the freedom was wonderful. No, they were good times.

We were taken down there. The army provided transport. We didn’t have any transport whilst we were there

but they would take as down and leave us and then they’d come and pick us up.

No. We used to walk everywhere. This, Portsea and the surrounding places were not as – weren’t as many people about, and I mean over the years that we’ve had this little house down at Rye, the building that’s gone on down

there is too much, too much.

Oh yes, absolutely. Yes, we’ve had this little house for about 20 years or more. So we’ve seen a lot of changes.

Yes, absolutely, that’s right.

I think there were one or two. Whilst I was unaware of it at that stage, with hindsight, yes, yeah, there were.

Yes, yep. I was naïve of a lot of things.

Well you become more worldly and aware of things, but I mean there were some things that I missed altogether, like the girl who used to get under the wire and about lesbians. I only realised that many years later.

Well, you became aware. I don’t think I knew what a lesbian was in those days and then when I did, you think back and you think, oh yes, yeah. You knew that they were different but you couldn’t, I couldn’t pinpoint it. Same as homosexual, they weren’t, wasn’t talked about very much either.

But with the media you see, the media educates people tremendously. Good ways and bad ways. Yes, there were some.

I think we did have some. I’m trying to think whether that was when I was nursing or whether I was in the army, but whichever it was the doctor who gave this lecture, she was so insensitive and she made it sort of repugnant. No sensitivity at all. This has got

nothing to do with the army or nursing, but years ago there was what they used to call ‘mother and daughter’ or ‘father and son’ lectures. Well, Bob had the job of taking the three boys, and because Libby was the last born so I had the job of taking her along to this lecture. I’m not quite sure how old she was. She might’ve been nine, ten or something. She might’ve been a bit younger. Anyway we duly go along to this lecture and it was very

well done but there was supposed to be a follow-up lecture and by the time the first lecture was finished I thought, What else, what on earth else can they tell them?” So on the way home I said to Lib, “Well now, if you have any questions about what you’ve learnt tonight I’d like you to ask me instead of talking about it with your girlfriends,” I said, “because sometimes people get things garbled.

So, you know, if you have any questions,” and she said, “Oh yes, I have a question. I said, “Oh yes, what’s that? She wanted to know how to spell something, and I thought, “You weren’t ready for this. Oh dear, oh dear.”

Not to my knowledge, no, no.

No. You were aware of the American influence because of the number of American personnel who were here, but there were more of them in Sydney than there were in Melbourne, but there were always a few here.

Don’t remember much about that.

Yeah.

They’re just normal as

I recall. Don’t remember much about that at all.

Yes, they did. It was only – or did they run all night? Look, I’m not sure.

No, it was civilian service run by the government. All these facilities in those days were run by the government.

Yes, they wore a uniform. I think they still

do today, don’t they?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh yes, yeah.

What they used to do, this is civilians, they would

build dugouts in their backyards, which when it rained would be half filled with water. It was ridiculous. No, I don’t remember anybody sort of you know.

Oh well, I mean psychologically it was

probably good because they’d think, “Oh, I can dive in there if there’s an air raid.”

Yeah. Drown.

Yeah, probably.

Was this the Pyjama?

I remember that name, but I still don’t remember the brown out. Yeah, I remember that name now.

Don’t know anything about that?

I remember I was driving along Little

Collins Street and somebody knocked into the back of me. It wasn’t, it was just so minor but that’s the only time.

No, no, don’t remember any accidents.

No, no.

No.

No.

No.

No, probably because I never ever went. No, I don’t remember.

You were aware of its existence if you had friends who had American friends, and they used to talk about silk stockings. Silk stockings and chocolates I think, but as

I say there weren’t as many Americans in Melbourne as there were in Sydney. But that’s what the guys used to specialise in, silk stockings.

Mmm.

I had a boyfriend who –

I had him before I went in to the army and then he went into the army and he went up north and we used to correspond the entire time I was in the army but then when I came out, well, that was all finished. That wasn’t on.

Mmm.

I don’t think he was too happy.

Oh, it made them more independent, gave them a better self-image, they were aware that there were so many things that they could do which for years they were told they couldn’t. Yes, it made them a bigger person all round.

No, I don’t think it changed anything.

Well, you didn’t meet very many. The closest I ever got to them was when I was staff car driving and you see, at Fawkner Park, that was run entirely by female officers. There were male officers at Albert Park administrating,

you know, what we did. Like you know, organising shifts and where you were going to go during the day but that’s really the only officer contact I had.

That’s the wandering hand job.

There was very little you could do. With the puffed up ones, they were in the main very arrogant and rude and you just had to ignore them because you couldn’t

just tell them what you thought of them. You just couldn’t because you knew that they would have more to say than you would.

They just treated you like dirt sometimes and

it used to make me very angry. I used to think how dare you treat me like this, and there was very little you could do. You’d just try to ignore them and just give them a look of thunder.

No, they didn’t intimidate me. Maybe it would’ve been better had they done so, but they didn’t. They just used to make me angry.

No.

Oh, there are always those, always doing the wrong thing but that was just their temperament. No matter what they did they’d probably be doing

the wrong thing, like me dear brother.

You like that one, don’t you?

There were always the love affairs going on, and you know, everybody would be,

it was exciting knowing who was going with whom. It used to be quite a giggle actually, but the funny thing was, see, most of these blokes were married and of course these affairs didn’t last very long, but I guess in the main they were, you know, a decent bunch, but you’re always going to get,

in a community like that, there’s always going to be affairs and so forth.

I think that today there’s not the secrecy that there was then.

People are more open.

Well, I don’t know whether they were adulterous, they probably were, but I don’t know. And of course I think there wasn’t the pill to be used in

those days and I think that women would go so far but they’d go no further because they didn’t want to become pregnant. And there wasn’t the knowledge either then, but I mean women know so much more about their bodies today. Not that they all take notice of it; there still seem to be all these unwanted pregnancies.

I don’t know. I don’t know of any.

Well, I think that if they did become pregnant they would have been discharged. See, ‘cause you weren’t supposed to get married, but we had a wedding at Fawkner Park so I don’t know about that.

Mmm.

They had a minister, had a padre. Oh yes, great excitement.

I’m not sure. She may have been discharged, because you weren’t supposed to be married. If you married in the army you were discharged.

Don’t know.

That happened whilst I was at Fawkner Park.

There’s a little photo there showing people dancing around.

No, there’s another one there

of a group at Fawkner Park.

That’s right.

I mean as soon as we heard about that everybody went crazy and that’s what they did on the spur of the moment. There was much laughter and happiness and that’s what they did, but then they had this other big celebration at the shrine where all those people congregated.

I was there at Fawkner Park. It was a very joyful time.

No, no.

Well, just keep the machine going. You just can’t suddenly stop the

army operating, not within the city anyway.

No specific orders. I think we were, yes, we were told to go to the shrine, but you only spent so much time there. You weren’t there all day, just for the speeches

and so forth.

I knew what my future was going to hold. No problem there.

Yes, but I always knew that’s what I wanted to do. Probably I hadn’t, you know, well I couldn’t have got

out of the army unless the war was over, but I had some friends who were nursing at the time and I used to spend time with them on days off or nights off. So I was able to find out just exactly what I had to do as far as work and application and all that sort of stuff.

So I went ahead and did it.

The system was if you enlisted in Sydney you had to go back to the city of your enlistment to be demobbed, and that’s why I was there.

Well, it was waiting for all the book work. That took quite a while. I suppose I was there for a couple of months just waiting for these papers to come through, and as soon as they did, that was it.

No, because

I was living at home anyway.

That took quite a bit of adjustment, but that sorted itself out really.

Yes, well Mum had to get used to me and I had to get used to her.

There was compromise on both sides, but it was a balanced compromise on both sides so that was all right.

He was always pleased to see me back. I had a very special relationship with my father.

Army. I don’t think the army would’ve wanted the public to see what was going on, or if they did they should’ve been

ashamed of themselves.

Not instruction, but one of the girls who was doing this, or had been doing it for a while, she said to me, she asked me had I ever done it before and I said, “No,” and she warned me that I would see sights that I would find disturbing and that’s exactly what happened.

We picked them up from the railway siding at Concord and they were put in the ambulance and then we took them straight to Concord.

No, not dozens but there were quite a lot, quite a lot, and they’d come all the way, they’d come from the islands and then they were landed at northern Queensland somewhere and then come by train all the way down the coast to Melbourne, to Sydney, under those conditions.

They had orderlies, ‘cause as I said, I don’t know whether they were drugged to keep them calm or whether it was just such acute shell shock. I don’t know that, but they were just like zombies.

Oh yes, nothing physical. It was all mental cases.

Oh, reasonable condition. I suppose they were all a bit thin, but they weren’t emaciated.

Oh, they all looked sick and of course they were all just,

all bearded. Some of them looked like monkeys, it was a terrible sight.

Oh, as you would expect them. They weren’t cruel in anyway. I mean they had to be directed into the ambulance and they had to be helped because of their mental

state.

No, didn’t talk, didn’t do anything. They just allowed themselves to be guided wherever.

Dirty clothing whatever it was. It would have had to have been army issue. They were so dirty, so unkempt.

They smelled. It was awful.

Yes, yeah.

No.

Oh well, you just kept on going to and fro.

Bars, bars. It just, when I first looked at it, I thought, “This looks like an animal truck.”

Mmm.

It was most disturbing. I’ve never ever

forgotten it. And to think, I think that what, the fact that they were treated this way, I thought “Why couldn’t they have been treated in a better manner and looked after in a better manner.” I mean these were men who went away to the war and probably most of them were

sensitive men. This is what war did to them. It wasn’t their fault. I just thought it was an absolute disgrace.

Yes. I imagined broken bones and blood, but not this mental tragedy. I didn’t sort of think, I didn’t know anything about that, but to see it, it just gave me an absolute horror of war

to think that this unseen tragedy, no bones and blood, could be so –

No, well, that’s true. I mean I didn’t know that war could do this to a human being. So I mean who would

know? You just wouldn’t imagine that unless you saw it or unless you were told, and even if you were told it would be hard to believe.

No.

I think it was public knowledge that you had these shell shocked men,

but it was the way that they were treated that I found so disturbing. I mean they must’ve been on that train for days to be in the state they were in.

No,

but knowing a little bit about Heidelberg they would’ve been very well looked after in a military hospital.

No, that was when I was in the army. We used to go there; we used to take despatches to Heidelberg.

And the fellows there were very well looked after and

at that stage, I mean some of the fellows at Heidelberg, they were shell shocked and then when I saw these fellows on the train I thought, heavens, you’re going to be in that hospital, maybe some of them forever.

In driving the ambulances, no. We were – I was the driver and then there was an orderly with me.

No. I was just so horrified I just couldn’t say anything much. I think

I might have somewhere along the line said something to one of them. He said, “This is just war.”

Oh yes, yes, probably. I’m a great believer in counselling but I didn’t know anything much about counselling in those days.

I would say so; the fact that it’s so vivid in my memory today indicates that, yes, in answer to your question.

No.

Oh yes, from time to time, yeah.

I didn’t do much nursing in this line because I don’t think I could have for any length of time. I would’ve found it just too distressing. The same as

babies who are very, very sick. I’m not very good in that direction either. No, I wouldn’t want to nurse too many of them.

Mmm.

Oh, it was probably about a month I suppose, six weeks.

No, because

I was glad to get out because I wanted to get on with what I wanted to do, but I had some good friends, I had good times and it was a – and I learnt a lot, grew up a lot, matured a lot. So there was a lot that was good about it.

Busier.

But it was still Sydney, still the cattle trucks up, not that – I mean Melbourne is so well organised as far as streets, but Sydney, you can see the cattle trucks if you close your eyes, but it’s a great place. I mean I love both Sydney and Melbourne for different reasons. They’re two wonderful cities.

Oh, well when you’ve got that natural beauty of a harbour, that’s magnificent. Something that is natural, not man made.

A lot of happiness and also a lot of sadness, progress, building, lots of food in shops, lots of clothing, no more rationing. Well the rationing did taper off, it didn’t sort of, you know, chop out suddenly, but there was a lot more of everything.

The same again, tapering off. It was gradual, but most Australians were glad to see them go.

No, I came

to do my training in Melbourne because it was three years here, four years in Sydney. So I thought I could do with a year up my sleeve.

I was far more mature than lots of the kids who were starting, because I was nearly 21.

And the rest of them were 17 and 18.

I did nursing through the Rehabilitation Scheme which I think they gave – sent a cheque every now and again. I think there was a regular cheque, and also you were allowed,

if you wanted extra books you could buy them. Well, they paid for all your books. You bought the books and you had to get the signature of the tutor sister to say that you needed these books and they recompensed you then.

Sorry, what was that?

No. Oh, one of the friends from the group that I was with in the AWAS, she did her training in Sydney, but she’s the only one.

Yes, absolutely. I think I nursed in all for about 35 years in

between having babies and all the rest of it. It’s a wonderful profession because you can still put your family first and do what you love doing. I reckoned it kept me sane because it was mentally stimulating instead of getting in with groups of mums who, they used to talk about cooking and kids, and I used to think, oh my God. So you know, a little bit, I’ve never worked full time

since I’ve been married. I’ve always worked part time, but yes, it’s lived up to my expectations and more.

I don’t know whether it did. I’d have to think about that.

Probably made Australia grow up perhaps, but that’s the only thing I can think of at this stage. Might be it made the rest of the world perhaps a bit more aware of Australia, but I mean there are thousands of Americans who don’t even know about Australia today. So there you go.

Oh, we had no option because we were very much a royalist country at that stage. Had no option, and then when the Americans came into the war and the Japanese, I mean we had no option.

Not when you think of the Changi prisoners of war, no. Is war ever just? I don’t think so.