We walked a lot in those days, we called it “going by Shank’s Pony”. Most of our neighbours didn’t own an automobile, we were one of the lucky families. My father had invested  in a Model T Ford, but it was used for special occasions only. Sunday afternoons we would all pile into the car and go off into the country for a drive. One of our special destinations was a little country town by the name of Craigieburn renowned for it’s spa, where cool sparkling water bubbled out of the ground. We would fill our cups and drink the health-giving waters, then we’d fill up our bottles to take home.

During one winter’s day, we were out in the country as usual, and my father stopped the car by a large fenced-in paddock where there were lots of tree limbs lying about. He decided here was a chance to gather some firewood , so we set about gathering the wood and stacking it on the running board of the car. We were so intent on our task that we didn’t notice a man approaching on horseback, when I did see him, I remember thinking how handsome he looked in his jodhpurs, riding boots, his tweed jacket and carrying a riding crop. He turned out to be the owner’s arrogant son, and he demanded that we return all the wood we had gathered and get off his property. As we headed back towards the car to unload the wood, my father whispered to Ralph to hurry ahead and start up the engine, which he did with two swift cranks of the handle. We all ran as fast as we could, jumped on board, and careened off down the road, my 12 year old brother at the wheel, leaving the man yelling after us and brandishing his whip. My father felt that we weren’t really stealing the wood, as he said, the limbs looked like they had been laying there for years, just rotting away.

On winter afternoons coming home from our expeditions in the country, we couldn’t wait for our father to light the fire in the kitchen so that we could toast crumpets over the open flames   As soon as they became piping hot and crispy, we would slather them with gobs of butter, there is nothing better on a chilly day.
Many times when I came to live in the U.S., I’d often think of those hot crumpets and could almost taste them. I wasn’t able to buy them in this country. There was another English treat that I would often recall with fond memories and that was the  Devonshire teas that we always enjoyed when we went driving  in the country. There were very few places in the rural areas in those days where Sunday drivers could stop for their afternoon cup of tea, so private homeowners began offering the travelers a place to stop off along the way to enable them to have their favourite brew. I’m sure this custom began in England. Devonshire tea consisted of freshly baked scones smothered in whipped cream and strawberry jam, along with large pots of freshly brewed tea which was served up to us at little tables set up in the gardens of their homes.
 
Walking as much as we did, people in the town got to know ones’ neighbours, everyone was more friendly then, and perhaps more compassionate towards each other. Often when I was with my mother she would often make flattering comments about a neighbour’s washing hanging on the line, saying ‘what a lovely looking wash’. I could never understand what was lovely about washing hanging out to dry. But then it became obvious to me that the dazzling whiteness of the sheets and pillowslips, the spotless towels etc, every article neatly pegged, sheets together all in a row, towels and so forth, appealed to my mother’s sense of perfection. I am sure the women in the town judged their neighbours by the appearance of their clotheslines!

To be continued. . .

My friend Dorrie loved my beautiful doll and asked me several times if she could take it home overnight, I finally relented, knowing only too well that her parents couldn’t afford to buy her a doll. Sad to say, when she returned it to me it was broken. As I said, we received just the one gift, another year my sister wanted a tea set, I don’t remember what mine was, but a week later when I was out shopping with my mother, as soon as we walked into a department store, the most adorable pink teddy bear caught my eye. I can still see him sitting high on a shelf amongst other toys left over from Christmas, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. We had already received our gift, so I suspected my mother would turn me down if I asked her to buy the teddy for me. To my surprise she didn’t refuse me, I walked out of the store carrying what was to be one of my treasured belongings. He was a lovely pink bear with a big blue ribbon around his neck. I must say I was quite selfish about letting my sister share him with me, I wanted him all for myself.
 
Many years later after I was married and came to live in America, my husband and I were invited to spend Christmas eve with friends of Paul’s mother. It was a cold night and we trudged through a winter wonderland of softly falling snow to the front door of their home. I will always remember walking into their warm spacious living room and seeing it ablaze with lights and a welcoming fire in the large stone fireplace. A beautiful Scotch pine Christmas tree stood by the fireplace, illuminated with coloured lights and sparkling ornaments. Underneath the tree the children's’ Christmas presents were piled high. It was all so enchanting, I could see snow falling in big flakes outside the windows, and to me it was a perfect “Currier & Ives” Christmas scene, my first memory of many to follow. When I looked at the mountain of presents under the tree, I couldn’t help but think back to my childhood with our single gift lovingly placed on our kitchen table. In the case of the two Stephani children, long before they had finished unwrapping all the presents on Christmas morning, their mother told us later that they began complaining it was too much. They were so overwhelmed that it took all the pleasure out of Christmas morning! 

Speaking of Xmas traditions, there were always the plum puddings that my mother made each year. Several weeks prior to Xmas, she would prepare the puddings with all the wonderful flavours of the dried fruits, the spices and the ginger, the grated lemon and orange peels, the raisins, the currants mixed together with the suet and flour, and perhaps a drop of rum. The mixture was then poured into cotton cloths and tied up with string into a round ball. They were steamed for several hours, then hung in the pantry until they were ready to be served, then steamed again for several hours more before being served. I must admit I never really enjoyed the taste of those rich puddings, but I made sure I always got my share because I knew there were 3 penny pieces to be found. We would chew each bite carefully hoping we were going to come across that little treasure. If the first slice didn’t produce a threepence, we’d ask for another slice, in my case, not for the taste, but for the money.

This came about because my brother Ralph had decided one day to cut off my curls. My mother took pride in curling my sister’s and my hair every evening before bed. She rolled our hair up in long ‘sausage curls’ using strips of old cotton sheeting. that we called ‘rags’. This particular day, Ralph enticed me into a small area underneath our house that we used to stack firewood, and he proceeded to hack off my long curls. When he got halfway round my head  he decided it was time to stop, he then started on my sister. He cut the curl off the top of her head, clear down to her scalp. At the time my mother was entertaining one of her friends, and when my sister and I walked into the kitchen, they were aghast at the sight of us, me with one side of my hair chopped off above my ear, and Joyce with her bald spot. I’m sure my brother received a few whacks on his legs that day with the leather strap from behind the washhouse door.

Christmas time was in the heat of summer, far removed from the typical northern hemispheres, with it’s snow and ice. Never-the-less, we kids found it very exciting. School was out for 6 weeks and people vacationed either at the seaside, or at a guesthouse in the hills. Of course it wasn’t the custom then to have a Christmas tree or any of the other yuletide decorations throughout the house. And instead of the traditional turkey, as in the U.S., we had roasted goose. Santa left one gift for each child on the kitchen table, and there was always a saucer for each one of us filled with an assortment of expensive nuts as well. One year my sister and I were delighted to find two beautiful sleeping dolls, one for each of us. They were quite large with moveable limbs and lovely dark blue eyes with long lashes that closed when we laid them down. They were each dressed alike, my mother had made their lovely dresses and bonnets, mine in lavender, and my sister’s in a pale yellow, which was the way our mother dressed us, same outfits, different colours. My doll had real hair, in fact it was my auburn hair that my mother had saved and fashioned into a wig with long curls.

Next to the shoemaker’s shop was the local butchery. It was often my responsibility to go there after school to buy the meat for our evening meal. My mother told me before I left for school what she wanted me to buy, and she gave me the money, which I carefully tied up in the corner of my handkerchief  for safety. Butcher shops in those days all looked alike, carcasses of the animals were skewered with hooks and were hung around the shop on stout iron bars. There was a chopping block in one corner, and the floor was covered with sawdust to soak up the blood drippings. Sheeps’ brains and tripe, the lining of a sheep’s stomach, as well as liver and other organic meats were often on my list. I would watch the butcher lay the sheep’s head on the chopping block, and with his heavy cleaver, he would split it in two and scoop out the brains. As I stood and watched him, remarkably I never felt at all squeamish, it all seemed so natural, as did seeing the butcher carve up the animals there in full view.

Australians consumed a lot of lamb, Sundays it was always a leg of lamb, and during the week, it was either lamb chops, cutlets or a lamb stew. We also ate rabbits, which were very plentiful and inexpensive. The early English settlers had brought the rabbits into the country, and having  no predators to kill them off, they proliferated in large numbers. Shark too was a favourite, which were always plentiful in the Australian waters, we referred to their meat as ‘flake’. Speaking of favourite food, I have to mention the Aussie meat pie, which we always bought from the bakeries, homemade pies never tasted quite as good. It wasn’t uncommon in those days to see people walking along the street during winter especially, eating a hot pie, or the ever popular fish & chips from the local fishmongers, which when bought, were rolled up in wax paper then newspaper. We would tear off the end of the rolled up bundle and eat from it, this way the fish and chips stayed hot until the last mouthful.

Opposite the school there was a little boot repair shop, the shoemaker had a pet cockatoo that kept him company as he sat all day repairing shoes. On warm summer days when our classroom windows were open, the cockatoo’s loud screeches reverberated around the room. Often we would go across the street after school to watch the shoemaker at his work, and also talk to the bird. It had quite a vocabulary, which was interspersed with profanity. Mr. Jones was always glad to have an audience, and he took great delight in showing us some of his tricks, one of them was the art of the disappearing pennies.

As I mentioned previously, I enjoyed school, in fact I disliked having to stay at home if I was ever sick, which didn’t happen too often. I have two rather embarrassing memories during those years. One was when I was in the 3rd grade. The toilets were situated outside in the school yard, away from the school. Whether the lesson was tedious that particular morning I don’t recall, but a number of children in the class were asking permission to leave the room, it was a good excuse to get away. By the time they walked through the building, across the school yard to the toilet block, dallied awhile and returned to the classroom could be time consuming. The teacher finally lost her patience and told us that nobody could leave the room until recess. A short time later, I felt a strong urge to relieve myself, I started squirming around in my seat and  trying not to think about my discomfort. It didn’t work, I became so desperate that I finally raised my hand. The teacher flatly refused to let me go, I sat there still squirming until I could no longer control myself, I had to let go. The floor apparently slanted towards the front of the room and the stream made it’s way down to where the teacher stood, passing underneath five or six desks. I was so embarrassed, my underwear and dress were saturated, the seat of my desk as well, so I took my leather schoolbag and sat on it for the rest of the morning. I wonder if the teacher ever felt guilty, I was always well behaved in class, that’s why she put me in the back seat, and I’m sure she knew I would never try to pull a trick on her. 

On another occasion when I was in 5th grade, there was an incident that happened where I got into trouble with the teacher. I was seated across the aisle from a boy who I liked immensely, his name was Jack Irving and he was one of the smartest boys in the class. Our desks were in the very back row of the classroom  At the time, I had a fancy cigarette box (some expensive cigarettes were sold in elaborate tins in the 30’s), and I had filled it up with lots of little glass beads. This particular day, I had taken my tin of beads to school in my bag, and some time during the morning I decided to put it out on my desk where I could admire it. Jack kept looking across at it and finally his curiosity got the better of him. He suddenly reached across and grabbed it. As he was about to open the lid, I quickly jumped up and slammed it down on his thumb, causing him to let out a squeal of pain. The teacher came hurrying down the aisle to see why there was such a commotion, Jack was her pet, she didn’t punish him, only me. I was made to stand in the corner of the room for the rest of the morning, which was the worst punishment for me, I always disliked being so conspicuous.

Our 4th grade teacher was an elderly woman, she was very strict and stood no nonsense from the class. One day she caught me biting my fingernails, it was a nervous habit I had, and she made me stand up in front of  the whole class and be told that I was a cannibal.

One of the boys, Georgie Evans, came from a very poor family, he always wore oversized hand-me-down clothing, and most of the time came to school bare-footed, even on frosty mornings. He was a very rebellious lad, and he disrupted the class constantly.  Our elderly teacher had no patience with him whatsoever, and she would lay the leather strap across his hand at the slightest provocation. In this day and age she would be accused of child abuse.

Our 6th grade teacher Mr. Roberts, was quite strict as well, but he wasn’t in the habit of demeaning his students. He was a married man, but it seemed obvious to us that he had a soft spot for one of the female teachers. She was younger, and I can still see her now in the dress that she wore most of the time. It was a light crepe-de-chine frock with a large red bow at the neck and ribbons that fell softly down in front almost to her hemline, not a very appropriate way for a teacher to dress, but she did look very appealing in it. Whenever Joyce, Dorrie and I walked down the Gaffney Street hill on our way to dancing class, we would see Mr. Roberts walking her to the train station, wheeling his bicycle alongside him. It was an indication to us that he was human after all, and not the strict disciplinarian that he portrayed in class.

Summers could be very hot in Melbourne, and to make things more unbearable, some days we were prone to hot northerly winds off the desert, which often carried top soil from an area we knew as ‘the Mallee District’, red soil that was deposited on the city and suburbs of Melbourne. It made breathing difficult, eyes would become sore from the grit, and if there was clothing on the line, they would have to be re-laundered. Windows and doors would have to be tightly closed and sealed off so the grit wouldn’t permeate the house. On some of these hot days, the wind would suddenly change it’s direction, we could smell the ocean, and the temperature would drop at least 20 degrees inside of an hour. We referred to it as ‘the relief’, and I can still hear my mother saying “I hope the change comes soon”, knowing she would soon be standing over a hot stove preparing the evening meal.

Winters could be cold and damp, although we never had snow, only lots of drizzly rain, and cold winds. Our homes weren’t centrally heated, or even insulated against the cold, only the kitchen, the dining room and lounge room had fireplaces, and it seemed most of the heat went up the chimney. We spent most evenings around the kitchen fireplace, warming our hands and feet, knowing full well we would be suffering with painful, itching chilblains the next morning. We would listen to the radio, play ‘Five Hundred’, my father’s favourite card game which he taught us all to play, while our mother sat darning or knitting.. It was always a very pleasant time of the day, we were all together, we were a close-knit family, we enjoyed the luxury of caring parents, and we kids, for the most part enjoyed each other’s company. I had a fetish about cleaning my fathers’ fingernails whenever I got the chance. Being a type-setter, he would always have ink under his nails, and I loved to dig it out. He didn’t particularly like me doing that, but he suffered through it anyway. He preferred me combing his hair, my mother as well. I could see myself working in a beauty shop when I got older   I liked to practice on my brothers’ friends as well, Ron Buchanan was one. Each time I worked on him, I would shape his straight hair into waves, and after a while, his hair began to take on a natural curl. He thought the result made him look much more handsome.

I can never forget the night when I accidentally pushed my young brother Max into the fire and he burned his hands. Whatever the reason I don’t remember. Did he get in my way, or was he doing something to annoy me?  He was always such a well behaved child so it couldn’t have been much. I was horrified at what I had done, my mother was very upset with me, but no more than I was with myself. I knew I didn’t do it on purpose. I could never deliberately hurt that little boy!

At bedtime my sister and I put our nightgowns on in front of the fire, and were always reluctant to leave the warm, cozy room to go to our bedroom, knowing too well that as soon as we got into bed, we would shiver between the ice-cold sheets until our bulky eiderdown covers and woolen blankets warmed us up.  Frosty mornings were always unpleasant, the house would be so cold and there was never a fire lit during the daytime, only at nightfall. One particular morning I felt so cold that I begged my mother to please light a fire. She told me to take my skipping rope outside and skip. It worked. She knew as soon as the morning sun gained strength we would have a lovely sunny day.

Saturday night was bath night, my sister and I shared the tub. We had a ‘chip heater’ and to get enough hot water to fill the tub, my mother used wood chips to light a fire in the heater, which was installed alongside the bathtub. It took quite some time to heat enough water, my mother kept adding more and more wood. One evening my parents had gone to the local schoolhouse where all the townspeople were required to go and register their votes to elect the local town officials. Voting in Australia is compulsory. We kids were left in charge of my aunt Thelma who, before she married uncle Will, lived with my grandmother next door. Being bath night for Joyce and I, my aunt proceeded to heat the water. We were both in the tub, she kept the taps turned on and she kept putting more and more wood in the heater. We wanted her to turn off the water, but she refused, it kept getting deeper and deeper and my sister was getting more and more scared, she thought we were going to drown. She stood up to get out of the tub, but my aunt told her to sit down and be quiet, the water kept coming and my sister was screaming as it reached almost to our chins. To this day, I never understood why my aunt would do such a thing.  She was very demanding of my sweet grandmother. While she was keeping company with Will, her husband to be, she would arrange to meet him in the evenings after work, and she insisted that her mother wait at the gate until she got off the bus. As soon as my grandmother would catch sight of her at the end of the street, she would hurry inside and put Thelma’s dinner on the table  That way she wouldn’t waste any time before getting herself ready for her evening out.

During those years it was common for salesmen to go from door to door selling their wares. There was the Raleigh man selling elixirs like medicines, salves for aches and pains, flavourings for cooking, etc., the mercer who sold bed sheets, bath towels and dish towels, another selling cottons and threads, needles and pins and so on. It was said that Sidney Myer started out by hawking his wares around the town, he eventually built a store on the main street of Melbourne, and now it is the largest department store in the southern hemisphere, so large that it takes up 2 city blocks. Whether true or not, is debatable. There was  another rumour going around town that the little old match lady who sat on the same corner year after year, was quite wealthy, in fact they said as soon as she packed up her matches at the end of each day, she would walk around the corner to her expensive limousine. That would be hard to believe, but who knows!   

A lot of homeowners didn’t encourage these men, in fact it was quite common to see notices on front gates proclaiming “No Hawkers or Canvassers Allowed”. My mother never turned them away, in fact she bought most of her linens and medicines from these men who came around regularly, she realized they needed to provide for their families through the difficult pre-war and war years.
I must confess that there were times when my mother didn’t need to buy any supplies, so if she happened to see a hawker coming down the street, she would herd us together inside the house, shut the door and we were warned not to make a sound until after the man had left. She never liked saying ‘no’ to them.
One year my mother bought a complete set of  encyclopedias. They were contained in their own cabinet and I am sure were quite expensive. I spent many happy hours poring over those wonderful books.

Springtime was the time to collect mushrooms. We would take our billies (pails) and tramp for miles across the paddocks around our home in search of them. The season only lasted a short while, we were limited to the time we had. Cow pastures were the best places to look, we would turn over the plops of cow manure and if the soft earth underneath showed cracks, we knew there would be a mushroom hiding underneath. Most times though, the fully developed mushrooms were waiting just for us to come along, some were as big as saucers. These were the real tasty ones, with their dark brown undersides. Those mushroom excursions every year were always so much fun for us kids, we always went home with our billies full, and couldn’t wait for our mother to serve them up. She fried them in butter to bring out their flavour, then she would simmer them in milk and serve them over toast. What a great luncheon treat!

In the days of yore in England when landowners had fences erected around their properties, they provided a turnstile for pedestrians to cross over from one field to another, these were a series of steps over the fence. Instead of having stiles built, Frank decided to leave 2 small openings on either side of his paddocks so that the people could take a shortcut to the train station. The herd of cows lazily grazed on the land and were never a threat to the people crossing through, but when spring arrived, it wasn’t always safe. The reason being that the large gum trees on the edge of the property were home to a colony of magpies, and as soon as the fledglings were ready to fly, their parents would begin a barrage of dive bombing any unfortunate individual  crossing through, their aim being  to scare them off. As soon as you heard the swoop of wings, and rush of air, you knew you were being attacked, you never had any pre-warning. We heard of people being pecked on the head, we even heard of one of the local lads losing his cap, a bird carried it off. So when Spring arrived I made sure I went the long way home, I hated having those warlike birds flapping around my head.

 My sister and I owed some of the enjoyment of our young lives to our local milkman. He was a bachelor who lived at the bottom of our street with his elderly parents and his unmarried sister Lucy. Their older brick home adjoined the cow pastures where Frank kept his herd of animals. Joyce and I, along with my friend Dorrie, enjoyed watching him bring in his cows at the end of the day. The animals always knew when it was milking time, they would be waiting at the gate ready to be taken into the barn, he had names for each of them, and would call them by such as he brought them in, come on Bessie, come on Sally!  We girls would go into the barn to watch the milking in progress, I always loved the smell of the hay, and in the wintertime it was always warm there. Even the smell of the manure was not offensive, in fact one year we heard that the Melbourne zoo had put out a call for worms to feed the reptiles, so we spent several afternoons after school digging through the large pile collecting the wiggly little critters. I can’t recall if we ever made any money from that venture.

Every Saturday morning Frank had business to attend to in the city, so we girls rode along with him in his little utility truck. My sister rode up in the front with Frank, she was always the talkative one and Frank enjoyed her company. Dorrie and I, being tomboys, preferred riding in the back with the tailgate down, dangling our legs over the edge. Now that I think of it, we could quite easily have fallen off. After Frank finished his business in town, we would then make regular stops along Sydney Rd., first at the greengrocers to buy wonderful juicy oranges from South. Australia, and large tasty bananas from Fiji. Next came our favourite cake shop where we bought cream puffs, lamingtons and vanilla slices, and our last stop was at the milk-bar to buy candy and soda pop. With our bounty, Frank then drove to what we called ‘the Gum paddock’ which was a wooded area of eucalyptus trees in the outer suburb of Broadmeadows, and here we would gorge ourselves on all those wonderful treats. I would say that Frank was a lonely man and I feel sure that he enjoyed the company of us kids. On our school holidays, he would drive us down to the beach where we would take a picnic lunch and spend the day splashing around in the ocean and building sand castles, and many an evening he came to the house with his pockets bulging with lollies, and we would play board games. I know we added so much to his life, as he did to ours. 

Many, many years later, after I had lived in America, I went back to Australia to stay awhile, and one day I ran into Frank, who by this time was quite elderly. He was in the local hardware store and he didn’t know me after all those years. I told him who I was, all he could say was ‘where is Joyce now’. He wasn’t a bit interested in me or my life, but I didn’t mind, as I said, my sister was always his favourite. 

Speaking of Franks’ cows, one night his herd strayed from the paddocks, which was rather unfortunate for him. They eventually wandered into our yard and proceeded to eat down our prized lemon tree. Frank was most upset about us losing our tree and he wasted no time in replacing it. My father planted it alongside the old one, but over the years the damaged tree began to flourish, and the fruit on it was so much bigger and juicier than the one Frank had given us.

Once a year Auntie Clare and her 3 daughters, Ilma, Joan and Nola would come to Melbourne for a fortnight’s visit. It was always an exciting event for us, they traveled by steam train, which was an overnight trip from Sydney, and they would arrive the following morning at Spencer St. station where we were all waiting, grandmother, aunts and cousins. Joyce and I adored our older cousin, we thought she was the most gorgeous creature on earth, and we loved going places with her.  She was so striking, she caught everyone’s eye.  Not only was she beautiful, she had a wonderful personality and she loved to sing all the popular songs of the day. In fact an American band leader heard her sing and wanted her to join his band and take her back to the U.S. She taught us the popular songs of the day, the one in particular I remember was “Smoke Gets in your Eyes”. That tune always brings back such sweet memories. Her father Tom Noble was a very handsome man with a wonderful tenor voice. Her mother was a beautiful woman as well.

I still remember a certain incident when Ralph and I spent our holidays with my aunt in Sydney after Ralph returned from the war. On this particular day she took us to visit the Sydney zoo, and in the same carriage on the way there, we sat across from a very handsome distinguished older man who kept glancing at my aunt throughout the trip. As we arrived at our station and stood up to leave the train, me being the last one out, the man grabbed my arm and said “you are an attractive young lady but you will never be as beautiful as your mother”.

Life for women in those days meant a lot of hard work, not having any of the conveniences of today. No refrigerators, no washing machines, no synthetic materials that didn’t need ironing, every piece of clothing had to be meticulously ironed, I remember my mother ironing sheets, pillowcases, table cloths which were used every evening at dinnertime, napkins, handkerchiefs {men and women all carried hankies in those days}, and even the bath towels and dishtowels. 

Mondays were always washdays, I remember my mother having to light a fire underneath the copper in the washhouse, then all the bed linens, towels, shirts, underwear etc. were boiled until they were spotless. The heavy wet clothes were then lifted from the copper by a stout wooden stick into the troughs, where they were rinsed in cold water, then transferred to another trough to be hand squeezed as dry as possible before they were hung outside to dry. The coloured clothing was washed by hand as well. I always disliked Mondays, coming home from school and seeing my mother so tired. And as weary as she was, she always prepared an appetizing dinner for us. Monday night was always lamb rissole night made from the left over Sunday roast. There was usually a pudding as well.

Tuesday was ironing day, this was an all day effort as well. There were always the starched articles that had to be sprinkled with water first, then rolled up and left for an hour to absorb the moisture before ironing. The rest of the week was taken up with baking, cleaning and sewing. My mother made all on my sisters’ and my dresses, she was a professional tailoress when she was single. It was interesting that a neighbour of ours confessed to my mother that she sat at her front window and watched Joyce and I walk to school each morning, just to see what we were wearing.

Once a month, my mother and her sisters would arrange what they referred to as ‘a day at home’. This meant that each sister, along with my grandmother, would take their turns in providing a special luncheon for the others. The only sister who was absent was Auntie Clare, she had remarried after the death of her first husband, and had gone to Sydney to live. These get-togethers for the sisters and their mother was a special occasion and one which they all looked forward to. It gave them a chance to catch up on all the family news, remember, there were very few telephones in those days!

Not only did my grandmother live on our street, along with my father’s sister and her family, my mother’s younger sister Auntie Vera and her husband Alfred Alexander came to live on Essex Street as well, in fact they lived next door to the Anderson’s. Alf Alexander was a descendent of a lineage of German counts.  He worked for the Melbourne Herald daily newspaper, which at the time was owned by a man named Murdoch, and whose son now is the internationally known newspaper magnate Sir Rupert Murdoch. Uncle Alf was a proof reader for the newspaper and it was his responsibility to critique all of the articles for correct spelling and grammar before the paper went to press.

Auntie Vera was a very kind, caring woman who was always ready to help people in need. They had 2 sons Ronald and David, before a baby girl was born to them, but sadly died soon after. I can still see that darling little baby encased in a tiny satin-lined casket all dressed up in ribbons and lace. The little white coffin had a scalloped edge all around the inside top edge, which reminded me of the fancy chocolate boxes of the day. I can’t ever remember seeing anything so beautiful, and yet so sad. My Aunt gave birth to another daughter, a change of life baby, several years later. Anne was always a rebellious child, to the extent that when she reached her teen years my aunt enrolled her in a Catholic convent, even though the family wasn’t Catholic, she thought the nuns were the best people to deal with the child.

Uncle Alf  had a nephew and niece who were both well known in Melbourne in the entertainment field, they acted in plays on the radio, his nephew also acted in several movies and plays when television began. One movie was “Breaker Morant”. 

When Ron was a teenager, his father bought him a Magic Lantern, a new fangled innovation which was one of the first home movie projectors. Ron was anxious to show my sister and I his new toy.

Uncle Alf was instrumental in Pascoe Vale having it’s own public swimming pool. He tramped the neighbourhood getting the people to sign a petition which he submitted to the city council. He didn’t swim himself and I don’t remember his sons ever going, maybe they did. Another time when bush fires raged through our area and the Wilkins house on our street was burned to the ground, he canvassed the neighbourhood to raise money for the destitute family, he also rallied the local men together to help rebuild their house.

As I mentioned, Mrs. Martin next door had an unfortunate married life as well, her husband was a drunkard.  Once in a while he would arrive home in the foulest of moods after imbibing too much liquor, and he would threaten the family with a shotgun, telling the frightened kids he was going to kill them all, including their mother. The 5 kids would run for their lives, and my mother would take them in, even though Mrs. Martin was never inclined towards being a friendly neighbour. She felt compassion for the children knowing they needed a place to sleep. Their father was a cowardly little man, and when drunk he vented his feelings of insecurity and lack of self esteem on his family, knowing they were unable to defend themselves.

One night after they all fled, he went into the pantry, took all the homemade jams and jellies from the shelves, uncapped the lot and dumped the contents all over the pantry floor, I suppose his way of showing disdain for his wife, then he tracked the sticky mess back and forth throughout the house before he fell into bed and passed out.

Another nasty incident I recall was when he came home late one day in a drunken state, and the frantic kids came running into our house. The next thing we knew, he was banging on our door demanding that we release his family. The Martin’s oldest boy Cyril, told my father to get a length of rope, and between them they tied the man up and left him on the ground, where he screamed obscenities at them, threatening to kill them as he rolled around kicking and squirming. He became exhausted and finally gave up.

My father’s sister Aunt Dorrie and her husband Charlie Long eventually bought property across the street from us and raised 3 children. Aunt Dorrie was a non-stop talker, as my father often said of her “empty barrels make the most noise”. She didn’t have much time for my mother, although, I must say, she treated us kids well enough.  In fact she would often send my cousin over with a saucer of clotted cream for me because she knew how much I loved it. She kept a cow in her back yard and always had lots of milk and cream.  She had formed an alliance with our next door neighbour, Mrs. Martin. Both these women had unhappy marriages and my parents enjoyed a close relationship, and I do believe that they resented my mother for that reason.

Charlie Long was chief accountant for a large matchmaking firm in Melbourne by the name of Bryant & May, I think the only company in Australia that manufactured matches, which were a much needed commodity in those days.

I recall he belonged to a Harrier’s club and every Sunday afternoon the men would get together in a group and run for miles across the hills and dales, all dressed in their singlets and white cotton shorts. He once told my mother when I was a baby, that I was the prettiest little child he had ever seen. He did have a funny eye, so maybe his vision wasn’t perfect!  

I was so happy when my father decided to have a tennis court built on our property. He learned the rules of the game and he taught us to play. Ralph and I eventually became excellent players and later Keith. Every evening after dinner, Ralph and I would play until it got so dark we could hardly see the ball. On weekends though, the court was off-limits to us. That was when the court would be hired out to groups of tennis enthusiasts and also local clubs. Eventually Dad had another court built, and both courts were taken over every Saturday and Sunday. I never looked forward to the weekends, I didn’t like losing the privacy of our yard, and too, our beloved courts were handed over to strangers.

A group of people from one of the local churches came every Sunday afternoon, and one year they arranged a tournament amongst themselves. On this particular day, the ladies team was missing one of it’s members, so the team captain asked my father if I would fill in for them. I really didn’t have any desire but my dad encouraged me, and in the end I agreed. It was a very hot day, the sun was beating down on the court, but the heat never bothered me. I knew I could outplay most of the women, which I eventually did. The match came down to me competing against the best player on the team, she always won her games, and I had often wondered as I watched her play from our dining room window, if I could ever beat her. Now was my chance. My father was watching from the sidelines and I made up my mind that I would win for him. I played my heart out and eventually walked away the winner. Nobody clapped as I left the court, the winner was to receive a cup, but in my case, I wasn’t about to be presented with the trophy. My mother became quite upset over the whole affair, and several days later she made a special trip to the team captain’s house and insisted I be given the cup, of course she should have saved herself the effort. I told her I didn’t want their cup anyway, I was just glad that I had proved to myself I was good enough. And too, I had given my dad a lot of  pleasure watching me win. He was always so proud of his kids.

  
I regret now that I didn’t take time to play tennis with Max, he was a lot younger and I suppose we older kids preferred playing with opponents who could play as well as we did. I remember seeing Max with his racquet in hand many times hitting the ball against the side of the garage. That was a shame!

I must say I can’t remember my first day in school, I probably set off with my brother Ralph and he saw to it that I got to the right classroom. Parents didn’t coddle their children in those days, we learned to be independent. I do remember my sister’s first day, I took her to her classroom but she refused to let me out of her sight, and she followed me to my classroom where she clung to me and wouldn’t let go. The teacher tried to pry her loose, but she cried and screamed, eventually someone dragged her off. I was always the shy one and  now that I think of it, I am surprised at my sister’s actions because she was always the gregarious one in the family, my brothers were also rather bashful. I loved school, and I especially liked all the sporting events. In the 7th grade I won a cup for being the best all-round sports girl. I was very proud of that achievement, and to this day I still have that cup.

Now that I look back on our happy carefree childhood, I have come to realize, even though we took it for granted, we lived a charmed life. Mothers didn’t work in those days, we’d never heard of latchkey kids, baby sitters, or pre-schoolers who were prematurely pushed out of the nest because their mothers were employed outside of the home. Mother’s place was always in the home, and a man’s pay cheque normally provided a  substantial income.

The Fruit Orchards
My father’s job in the printing trade earned him a comfortable living. He had worked for the same company from the age of 14 years where he started as an apprentice, and even during the great depression of 1929 when so many men were laid off from their jobs, he went to work every day. At the retirement age of 65 he still wasn’t disposed to giving up his lifelong duties, and he continued working until he was well past his 70th year. He was a very quiet, private person who loved his garden and from him.  I learned to love the garden as well. I would often sit beside his spade as he worked, turning the soil, I loved the sweet smell of the earth. He planted a large orchard in the rear of our property, there was always a variety of fruit to choose from, peaches, apricots, lemons, oranges, pears, apples, figs, and even an almond tree. The orchard was encompassed in an enclosed area where we had a hen house and fowl run, so the trees were well fertilized. We also had a quite an extensive strawberry patch which provided ample fruit for eating, as well as for wonderful jam that my mother made each year. Our pantry was always stocked with homemade jams, strawberry, apricot as well as fig. My father planted a quince tree, the fruit was quite sour to eat, but made wonderful jelly. Our apples were also used for jelly making. My mother would cook the fruit to a pulp, which she would pour into a large gauze bag and then she would string it up over the bathtub, where it hung for several days dripping into a large pot. She then added a gelling mixture to the juice to form a clear jelly. There is nothing more delectable than homemade jelly. 

Nectarines were one of my favourite fruits, my father planted a tree, but unfortunately it died off and he never replaced it. Our next door neighbour’s tree was always laden with fruit, and to our delight it so happened that the tree grew alongside the fence that divided our properties, and was only an arm’s length away. It was too much of a temptation not to help ourselves when nobody was looking.

Selling Apricots  With My Friend Dorrie
 One summer, my friend Dorrie and I decided to take advantage of all this fresh fruit at our disposal, we had set our hearts on seeing a particular movie that was showing at the Capital Theatre in the city, and here was our chance. Dorrie knew she couldn’t ask for money at home, her father was out of work during the depression. We planned on picking a bucketful of apricots and selling them around the neighbourhood, the only problem was we didn’t own scales on which to weigh them, so we made sure each individual bag was filled to capacity. We had no idea how much to charge, so we agreed on the small sum of 3 pence a bag. In no time the local housewives bought us out, we were blissfully unaware that we were offering them a real bargain. When my mother returned home after shopping, I proudly informed her of our clever scheme, thinking she would be pleased, instead she promptly told us to return the money we had earned and tell our customers to keep the fruit. We were devastated, I couldn’t understand why she did such a terrible thing, but later I came to realize that she didn’t want her neighbours thinking the Carr family needed money by selling their fruit. I did eventually see the movie “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine”, I can’t remember if Dorrie ever got the opportunity. I loved the movie, it starred  Henry Fonda and Fred McMurray, their first movie of both their long and distinguished careers.
As I mentioned, Dorrie’s father was out of work for several years and whenever Dorrie and I came in from school each day I would see her mother sitting at the kitchen table peeling potatoes. These were a government handout to people in their circumstances, and I got the impression that her family subsisted on potatoes. They owned  two cockatoos, one was a lovely pink and grey galah, which they kept in a cage outside the kitchen door on their tiny back porch, the other was a large sulfur-crested white cockatoo that they kept in the kitchen on a wooden perch. At one end of the perch was a little tin cup that held the bird’s seed, and at the other end was the water cup. The cockatoo was chained to the perch, he was able to strut back and forth where he kept up a running conversation. The floor beneath his perch was covered with newspaper, but it was always such a mess from the birds’ droppings, along with discarded seed. Being used to my mother’s spotless kitchen, the Anderson kitchen to me was always so uninviting, the thought of eating food there made me feel queasy.

Dancing Lessons
My sister and I started taking dancing lessons not long after we moved to Pascoe Vale. My first memory was seeing my precocious sister, who was 4 years old at the time, standing on the stage singing  “My Melancholy Baby”. Several times a week we would go straight from school to our dancing instructor’s home. She lived at the bottom of a long hill on Gaffney St., her name was Marjorie Whitworth, and in her younger years she had belonged to a dancing troupe who performed on the stage of the popular Tivoli theatre, a vaudeville house in the city. She would take us through our tap and ballet dance routines to the music of her player piano. Not only did we find so much pleasure in expressing ourselves in the dance, our big moment though came when we were able to perform on the stage. This was when our pantomimes were held each year at the Coburg Town Hall in front of a large audience. We children helped with promoting these venues by going around the neighbourhood every day after school to sell tickets. This we did several weeks before the big event. It was such an exciting time for us. One year my sister and I played the lead roles, she was the ‘Fairy Godmother’ and I was ‘Cinderella’. My pet cat was portrayed by one of the girls who was our star acrobat. My friend Dorrie was one of the Ugly Sisters. My mother sewed all our dancing costumes, although the elaborate ball gowns our teacher hired for the occasion. Luckily for Dorrie, her dancing lessons were free as her older brother Fred was keeping company with our teacher. Eventually  they became husband and wife.

Ghost Stories, The Post Master’s Dastardly Deed
Every Sunday evening my sister and I would go along with Dorrie and her brother to the Whitworth house and we kids would sit on the floor in the front hall, along with Marjorie's’ 2 half sisters, huddled around the radio, and with the lights turned down low we would listen to the regular Sunday night broadcast of ghostly stories narrated by George Edwards. We would become absolutely petrified. On the way home Dorrie and her brother Fred would leave us on the corner of our street, and we would run as fast as our legs would carry us until we reached the safety of home. On the corner there was an old house where Mrs. Ford lived, she was an elderly woman who kept to herself, we rarely saw her. At night she would sit at her organ in the front room of her house, with the shades drawn and a candle flickering in the darkness, casting ghostly shadows. We could hear somber eerie music coming from the house, and we kids imagined all kinds of horrors going on inside. We were too scared to walk on the footpath in front of her house, and even across the street we ran until we were well past it. Our foreboding materialized into reality, as it turned out later. A lodger met his untimely death there. The man’s name was Bertie McLean. He had recently been appointed as postmaster by the district after the death of our long-time elderly postmaster. He was a bachelor and needed a place of residence within walking distance of the post office, which was located on the main road connecting our street. Mrs. Ford, who lived alone in her big sprawling house, was the likely candidate. Eventually Bertie became enamoured with his own self importance, being the recipient of this important position in the community, and so he decided to buy himself an automobile befitting his station in life, an expensive British roadster. He kept it in Mrs. Ford’s garage at the back of her property, which opened up onto a lane running alongside the house. We kids walked down the lane every morning to school, we would often peek through the opening between the doors, which were heavily padlocked, to admire that beautiful automobile inside. Bertie’s enjoyment of his new car was short-lived, he found he couldn’t afford the payments, so one night he set fire to it. The following morning on our way to school, we were shocked to see the burned out garage, and when we peered inside we could see the beautiful roadster reduced to a blackened shell. Bertie expected to claim the insurance, but it was very obvious that he was the perpetrator, so instead of waiting to be prosecuted, he shot himself in the head.

Another house in the district that set out imaginations agog, was a tiny cottage on the next street. Two spinsters lived there, and like Mrs. Ford, they were rarely seen. They dressed in somber dark clothes that dated back to the early part of the century, we were sure they both were witches and we didn’t ever dawdle near their cottage.

It’s Remoteness and Lack of Conveniences; The Coolgardie Safe, The Night Men 

At the time that we moved to Pascoe Vale we were lacking a lot of conveniences. The iceman came by our house regularly during the summer when we lived in Coburg, but not so on Essex Street, not at first anyway, and I remember the unusual looking Coolgardie safe on the side of our house where on the really hot days we would keep certain foods, butter especially. If it was kept in the house, by dinnertime we would find a pool of oily liquid in the dish. Coolgardie safes it seemed to me were introduced into Australia by way of India where the English first used them. They were usually 4’ high wooden frames with fine screening on all sides and stood on legs. At the top was a leaden tray with flanges all round to hold water. Long narrow strips of linen hung down on all sides of the safe, the top ends of which were placed in the water to soak it up. The idea was, the breeze blowing through the wet straps cooled down the inside of the safe. That was our refrigeration. 

We had no sewerage as well, which meant that we had the ‘night men’ as they were politely called, come once a week to remove the pan from the outhouse and replace it with a fresh one. These men were big strong burly individuals, they had to be to enable them to lift that heavy pan onto their shoulders, or even their heads, and carry it to the front of the house where the horse drawn cart stood. We always knew when the ‘night cart’ was near, by the obnoxious smell. I remember seeing the driver one day sitting up in front of the cart eating his sandwiches, and I thought to myself, how could he enjoy his lunch with that putrid smell wafting around him. I was always uneasy about spending too much time in the outhouse for fear the night man would suddenly come along and open the little door in the rear. 

My Brother Keith
Keith was the next sibling to arrive, I’m sure he was born at home like the rest of us, but I can’t recall any of the circumstances of his birth. He grew into a very handsome little boy, with his big brown eyes and an appealing look of mischief about him. He was strong willed even as a young lad, I remember when he was 6 or 7 years old and my mother decided to enter him in a quest for the best looking child, sponsored by one of the Melbourne newspapers. He didn’t take to the idea, especially when my mother proceeded to curl his hair with the curling iron. She had no sooner finished when he promptly ran into the bathroom and put his head under the tap. It didn’t completely get rid of the curls, there was a slight hint of a wave visible and can be seen in the studio portrait for posterity. Keith always had his own perspective about the way things should be, which often conflicted with my mother’s way of thinking. Perhaps my mother admired his spunk, even though he was a child who tried her patience at times, he knew she had a soft spot for him.

The Night Max Was Born
The night my youngest brother Max was born happened on one of the rare nights that I was away from home, I was 11 years old at the time and my close friend Dorrie had asked me to sleep overnight at her house. Her family  lived on our street, so my mother gave me permission to do so. I often wondered if she was aware that the new baby would arrive that night. It was a warm February evening and we girls slept on the Anderson’s front veranda. We talked and giggled half the night away and eventually fell asleep. We were suddenly awakened early the next morning by my sister who was standing at the foot of the bed yelling, “wake up, we have a new baby brother”  Even though I was 11 years old, I had no idea my mother was pregnant, that was a word that was never spoken around children. We were very naïve when it came to the mysteries of sex. I knew my friend Dorrie had been adopted, as were her older brother and younger sister. Mrs. Anderson sometimes took us to the Broadmeadows Foundling Home for abandoned children, where we would see many newborn babies in their cribs awaiting adoption. My mother had warned my sister and I never to discuss Dorrie’s adoption in front of her, but one day on the way home from school Joyce inadvertently let it slip out. Dorrie became very upset, she started to cry and accused us of lying. 

I quickly dressed and ran all the way home, and from the moment I laid eyes on that darling little baby, I forever felt a kindred spirit towards him. I couldn’t wait to get home from school each day hoping I could take him out in his beautiful cream wicker pram with it’s blue leather lining, the same colour as the baby’s eyes. I felt so proud whenever people stopped me on the street to admire him. He was such a contented baby. 

My mother told me years later what had transpired the night Max was born. The doctor in attendance sat nonchalantly by her bed calmly dusting his rubber gloves over and over, then when the baby started to put in an appearance, he came to her assistance, cut the cord, and that was it. My mother remained in bed for the next week. As pre-arranged, a local woman by the name of Mrs. DeWan, came to the house each day to prepare our breakfast, and to make sure we kids got to school on time, then she would tidy up the house, take care of my mother’s needs during the day, and then prepare the evening meal before setting off for home to prepare dinner for her own family. Mrs. DeWan liked to keep up appearances, she always looked attractive in her pretty summer frocks and her high  heeled shoes. Each morning she came with a clean apron, and house slippers in her bag. Little did she know that when my sister and I came in from school each day, we would head for our bedroom where she had tucked her shoes safely behind the door, and we each took turns in tripping around the room like a couple of flappers.

The Incident of Ralph’s Thumb, Me the Adventurous Four-Year Old, My Sister Joyce,  Moving to Pascoe Vale

I have very few memories of my early childhood at A’Beckett Street, at the time I was born I had one sibling, my brother Ralph Henry who was just 2 years old. My first memory occurred on one particular morning when I was 18 months old. My mother had put me in my pram, as was her usual custom, while she waited for the fruit and vegetable vendor to arrive, and she stationed me on the narrow pathway inside the front gate. In those days the vendors delivered their wares around the neighbourhood in their horse-drawn wagons, the milkman, the baker, the greengrocer and the iceman. The greengrocer procured his fresh supplies daily from the central market in the city, direct from the local growers. He had a ready market, the housewives would always be at their front gates awaiting his arrival. This particular morning while I sat in my pram, my brother was amusing himself by swinging on the front gate while my mother was at the curb preoccupied with choosing her usual supply of fruits and vegetables. Suddenly Ralph began screaming. My mother rushed to him and discovered that his thumb was jammed between the gate and the gatepost. The top of his finger was almost completely severed and was barely hanging by a thread. Being a baby, I of course didn’t realize what had happened, but the trauma was very evident and I still have the picture embedded in my mind. Afterwards I don’t recall who took care of me, probably my grandmother from across the street. My mother, in relating the story to me years later, told me that my Uncle Claude, who was living at home with his parents at the time, heard my brother screaming and came running. He grabbed the top of my brother’s thumb, put it back in place, held it there, and ran as fast as he could to the local doctor’s surgery nearby, with my distraught mother by his side. The doctor put one stitch in the tiny thumb and Ralph carried the scar for the rest of his life.

Another incident that concerned me, of which I have no memory, was when I was 4 years old, and which when told to me later intrigued me, I was apparently quite adventurous at an early age. My father was employed as a Compositor {type-setter} for a firm by the name of Renwick Pride which was situated off Lonsdale Street in the city of Melbourne. I watched my father leave each morning for the train station, so one day I set off after him, without my mother’s knowledge. I of course had no idea how far I would have to walk, whether I ever reached the railway station we would never know. Somewhere along the way I became either weary, or I had lost my way, and I was sitting on the steps of the local grocery store where my mother found me later when she set off to search for her errant child. Apparently I was a contented baby and didn’t cry a lot. My father told me when I was older that he didn’t hear me cry until I was 13 months old.
I was 17 months old when my sister Joyce was born. I don’t remember her as a baby in the house on A’Beckett Street, I’m sure she has her own memories though. Eventually the cottage became too small for our growing family. My father bought a large tract of land in Pascoe Vale, a suburb adjacent to Coburg, and he contracted his friend, who was a master builder, to build a larger home for us. I do have memories of the day the furniture van arrived to transport our furniture and our belongings from A’Beckett Street to our new home on Essex Street. My mother sat in the cab with the driver, with my sister on her lap. Ralph and I rode in the back with the furniture, we were able to look out over the tailgate and watch our pet dog lope along behind, and my father rode his bicycle in front leading the way.   

Pascoe Vale in those days was sparsely populated, I remember my father telling me that he didn’t want his family growing up in Coburg where he considered there was too much traffic. It was the 1920’s, and when I think back, there couldn’t have been many cars on the roads at that time, I would say that it was a time that the horse and buggy ruled the streets. We lived on the crest of Essex Street, the Moonee Ponds creek ran at the bottom, and there were lots of open fields and meadows all around us, we children were free to roam wherever our fancies took us. The only public transportation available was the train from the Pascoe Vale station that took my father to his job each day, but when it came to us visiting our grandparents in Coburg, there were no buses, these came much later. These regular visits for my mother and us children meant we had to walk several miles to where a rather unique horse-drawn cab was waiting. It was a covered vehicle, similar to the Hansom cab, the difference being that we entered it from the rear using two steps. The cab driver sat on a high seat in the front. I must say it was a very comfortable means of transportation, the padded leather seats ran down either side of the cab facing each other and accommodated 8 passengers. In rain or shine, it didn’t matter how cold and rainy it was, or how hot the sun beat down on us, our little legs carried us those relentless miles to the cab stand. When my mother had her heart set on visiting her parents at Pentridge nothing stopped us, and I don’t ever remember any of us complaining, it was another of life’s necessities, as well as being an adventure.

The Allots , Life at Pentridge Prison

I always have fond memories of my maternal grandmother Mary Allott, she was a dear, sweet lady, a lady in every sense of the word. It was ironic that such a refined lady married my grandfather William Allott, whose life was completely committed to dealing with the criminal element of Victoria, but he was quite a distinguished figure never-the-less.  My mother was one of six children, five girls and one boy.   She and her sisters and brother spent an idyllic childhood growing up in the small rural town of Beechworth, Victoria where their father was in charge of the town’s prison. Later in life, my grandfather was promoted to the position of Governor of Pentridge Gaol, a prestigious position in the state of Victoria.
The prison was situated in Coburg, a northern suburb of Melbourne. It was originally constructed by the early settlers, along with the help of the criminals themselves. A huge massive bluestone building, constructed in the late 1800’s, it was until recently, the main prison for the hardened criminals of Victoria. In my grandfather’s day, murderers and other habitual criminals were hanged on the gallows, and it was expected of him to be in attendance at each hanging, which was followed by the mournful toll of the prison bell to announce to the town that the unfortunate man had gone to meet his Maker. I just vaguely remember him as being a portly kindly man who always carried a little white paper bag in his jacket pocket filled with an assortment of boiled lollies. He enjoyed having us reach into his pocket to help ourselves to a sweet. 

At the time he took over the post of Governor, the family’s residence was located within the prison walls, separated from the main prison. The comfortable home with its’ lovely gardens was referred to as “The Quarters”. When we children were small, we often went to visit our grandparents there. The warders who guarded the prison were stationed on the high walls overlooking the whole compound where they were compelled to walk constantly back and forth along the parapet. On our visiting days, we would ring the bell outside the great walls to announce our arrival, and one of the men would open the small gate to allow us to enter. Prisoners who were trusted felons, often worked in the Quarters, some taking care of the gardens, others performed menial tasks like washing windows, polishing the silverware and various other household tasks. We kids always looked forward to these visits, it was exciting to us, especially when our cousin Ilma came to live with her grandparents after the death of her father. He had died during the bubonic plague after the 1st World War. She owned a pet wallaby which she was allowed to keep at Pentridge, it had room to hop with great leaps around the quadrangle, and we kids loved to chase it. 

My grandfather died while he was still Governor. One evening while he was taking his usual nightly stroll down the main street of Coburg where the prison was located, he suddenly fell ill, so he sat down in the tram shelter, and that’s where he was found. He had died of a heart attack. My grandmother had to vacate the Quarters, so she bought property adjoining my parent’s home, which my father owned, and had a home built there. This was later when we moved to Pascoe Vale.

The Carr, Avery and Smart Families

Our home was a modest cottage located on A’Beckett Street, in Coburg, a northern suburb of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. My father, Henry, Herbert, William Carr had purchased the house several years before he was married, which was opposite his parent’s home. He was 31years old at the time of his marriage. He first set eyes on my mother at the local train station in Coburg, where they stood waiting for the train each morning to take them into the city, where they were both employed, her name was Myrtle Allott.

My father was the oldest of 5 children, 3 boys and 2 girls. Their father, my grandfather, emigrated with his mother from England when he was 7 years old. We never heard any details of his father, so apparently there was some reason for this, whatever it was, good or bad, one can only surmise. Perhaps there is an intriguing story there!  

His mother was a well educated woman who was born into an illustrious family in Great Britain. Her maiden name of Avery was well known throughout the British Isles, and for that matter, its’ far reaching Colonies around the world, Australia included. The manufacturing firm produced weighing scales which were used by shopkeepers and merchants throughout the land. It was very common to see the name of Avery wherever we shopped, and also to find Avery scales on many street corners and arcades in the city. The price of a penny afforded us the luxury of checking our weight. A little bit of trivia here, when my son was at a train station in Sri Lanka several years ago, he watched the porter weighing luggage on an Avery scale. 

Being as well educated as my grandfather’s mother was, she decided to give him lessons at home, he didn’t attend the public schools. When my grandfather grew to adulthood, he went into the banking business, eventually becoming a bank manager. An interesting occurrence in his young life happened when the infamous bushranger by the name of Ned Kelly, along with his gang, robbed the bank in Euroa, a small country town in Victoria, incidentally where my brother Keith’s family lives. The bank manager ultimately suffered a nervous breakdown, so my grandfather was sent there to take over the position.  He was lodged at the one and only small hotel in town.  The chambermaid at the establishment was the daughter of a local farmer, her name was Phyllis Smart. She caught the attention of my grandfather, and eventually they were married. As far as her being our grandmother, we children had no special love for her due to her off-handed attitude towards us.

On the other hand we adored our grandfather, we always enjoyed our visits with him, he was a charming man, even in his old age. Seemingly, he retained good health throughout his long life by the fact that he had all his teeth up until the end, he was even able to crack chicken bones, for what reason I don’t know! He was well past his eightieth year, when the day came that he decided it was time for him to pass on, life held no more pleasures, and like the American Indians who left their tribes and wandered off into the wilderness to await death, my grandfather took to his bed, and for a week shunned all food, and quietly slipped away. 

When my father was a lad growing up, his father was often missing at the dinner table, and his mother, knowing that it was long past closing hours at the local public house, sent my father out to look for him. He was the oldest boy and he knew it was his responsibility to bring his father safely home. More often than not, he would come across him sitting by the wayside, too intoxicated to move.  Regardless, my grandmother raised 5 healthy children, and kept the home fires burning as it were.

It was the Christmas of 1921, and according to my mothers’ calculations, I was overdue by two weeks, which prolonged her discomfort and curtailed her activities. Had I known,I would have been more considerate instead of delaying my arrival until three days after Christmas. I was born in my parent’s bed, as was the usual custom in those days.

The midwife in attendance at my birth was responsible for my name. She suggested naming me Izobel, “and use the German spelling”, she said. After much thought, my mother decided that the name was more appealing than the one she had chosen for me, which was Roma, so I was named Izobel Mary, Mary being my maternal grandmother’s name.

I decided to go on an adventurous journey back into my childhood when my children asked me to record whatever knowledge and history I might have of our ancestors, which unfortunately is limited. It was then that I decided to relate, along with some of the facts regarding our forebears, my childhood memories of life growing up in Australia.
This segment of my memoirs covers the time I left my home and came to live in America. Some day I hope to record my impressions of my new country and the people I came to know. But for now, these are the memories I recall with so much pleasure and sentimentality. My reflections are of a wonderful carefree childhood, how lucky we children were to be truly blessed with such thoughtful and compassionate parents who graciously showered us with kindness and understanding.
I feel very privileged  to have been born into that long ago ‘Innocent Age’ of the Twenties and Thirties in “The Land Down Under”, so mysteriously unique and remote from the rest of the world.

Izobel "Judy" Enzweiler