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Family History Brown Bradley Ketley Cheeseman by Rose Thelma Brand 29 November 1980 Our son has asked me to write what I know of our family, all of those who went before us that our children and those who come after them, might know from whom they were descended. So now, as near my 75th birthday I think it is time I begin. Perhaps it will be disjointed at times, I am no author, but all of you, our beloved children, who are interested may learn a little of our people, some of them as I saw and knew them, others of whom I heard stories, of their lives and doings, none of them great heroes - just people. 25 March 1981 To start with my children, I will start at where our life seemed to start for me - where I met your father. It was a blue and white day. June 1922 and some of my young friends had asked me to go on a picnic to Rodd Island, which in those days was a very popular place for everyone - old and young. My younger brother had been born on the month before and I had to do my chores before I left, and frantic that I had missed them, I ran down the road to the river. Then as I reached the approach to the wharf, known as Thompson Street Wharf, I saw a rowing boat coming over from Rodd Island and there were a few of my young friends calling to me. Hurriedly I scrambled down the rough approach and clambered down the steps to the boat, and as I greeted the young laughing ones there I heard a voice say "Thelma, this is David" and as I grasped the strong hand held out to me all the blue of the sky and the blue of the water seemed to be reflected in the bluest eyes I had ever seen. He told me after - long after - that as he saw me coming he had thought, 'That’s my girl!' But in that lovely moment I knew I loved him and would do so, all the days of my life - and ever after. We went to Rodd Island and it was such a lovely day, and we were together all the time. For several years we were happy, we went to parties, dances, picnics, pictures and had a wonderful time, and then there was a lovers quarrel and for quite awhile we did not go out together and both nearly broke our hearts over it. Then a day came when we met and made it up and David bought me a lovely ring with three diamonds. We saved and saved which was terribly hard in those days of tiny wages, but eventually we had a deposit for a house and we married, such a lovely, lovely wedding. We never knew that there would be such complete happiness in the world. We had a lovely week at 'The Headlands', Austinmer. The next year at the end of January we had a week at Woy Woy Bay in a cottage on the edge of the water. We called it 'Suicide Cottage' because we stepped out the front into the water and out the back on the mountain but it was just about perfect and we laughed forever after about the feather bed that nearly folded up over us. It was our lovely second Honeymoon. The Brands The Brand’s came from Scotland. My husband’s father was born in Greenock,Scotland as his father before him was. They were both named David. My husband’s father was born on the 28 February 1874 and his mother died1 while he was young and his father came to Australia and settled in Newfarm, Brisbane where he married. The lady’s name was Iliff. I do not know her Christian name. They had a family. Barbara who was 6ft 4in tall, Sybil, Angus and Ethert. They had interests in Burns Philp Co. My husband’s father became a marine engineer serving his apprenticeship at John Brown Engineering on the Clyde, Glasgow and at 29 years old married Rosetta Josephine Brown. My husband was born on the 17 February 1904. They lived in Annandale where he was born and then Drummoyne, Balmain and Melbourne for a while. There were six children. David, Angus, Jean, Julia, Ethert and John. Ethert was drowned when he was eighteen. The others all married except John, known as Jack, but the three of them were divorced and only Angus had one son who was named Donald. I have lost touch with them over the years but they are all alive up to this date. My husband’s father was a typical Scot, kind and generous to a fault, which sounds contrary to public opinion, but there are two kinds of Scots - the miserably mean and the very generous. He was friendly and outgoing, like my husband, of solid build about 5ft 8in in height and had very blue eyes. We got on very well together and agreed on practically everything. He loved football and was a Rugby League follower. He had played soccer in Scotland. He was outspoken and frightened of no man and would lay down the law in no uncertain manner when he was sure of his facts, many a good argument I heard about football when the season was on. He was a strong, healthy man mentally and physically - a happy man. He developed an ulcer late in life and died when he was about 70 years old from a cerebral haemorrhage. They broke the mould of these Scottish gentlemen. I was very fond of my father-in-law and deeply regretted his passing. His eldest son is so much like him and our son will not go far wrong if he is too, and his son and all those that come after please God. The Browns My husbands mother Rosetta Josephine Brown was born 23 October 1880. She had dark hair and blue eyes about 5ft 3inches tall and fairly solid build. She had been a beautiful woman, loved entertaining her friends and family. She died in 1963. Her father was a sea captain James Brown, a good man who cared for his family after his wife died giving birth to twins. There were four children, Henry, Helen, Rosetta and another son who was thrown from a horse and died fairly early in life. James Brown was a sensible man and apparently managed very well. He bought a hose for each of his children and willed them a life interest, with each ones house to go to their children. It meant a home for each one, or income, as long as they lived and their children inherited a neat little sum later. David James Brand David, my husband was born on 17 February 1904 at Annandale, Sydney. He went to Drummoyne School when he was six years old, as his family was living in St. George’s Crescent, Drummoyne at that time. When he was four years old they went to Melbourne and lived in Richmond. His father was an engineer on a trading boat the 'Upola' trading between Melbourne and the Solomon Islands. They stayed there for a year or two and then went to Drummoyne. They had lived in Renwick Street before they went to Melbourne and lived in a house there, which was next door to Mr Clare who was the owner of the old Clause Picture Show in Victoria Road, which was between Drummoyne and Gladesville Bridges. Renwick Street was the one behind Bridge Street nearer the river. He went to Petersham High School and they returned to live in his mothers’ house in Balmain. After leaving school he worked with Fairfax and Roberts a big jewellers in Sydney and while there passed the entries at the Customs House for the big Central Railway Clock which was imported from Gent & Co in London. He learnt accountancy and worked at office work for some years and insurance then left that and learnt welding when World War 2 started. We married on 5 April 1930 just as the depression was starting and had only been married six weeks when salaries were reduced and men discharge everywhere. We were fortunate. His firm decided to reduce wages all around instead of discharging employees and we were only too glad to do this, as once a man was out of work he could not get another job, and could only go on the dole, unless he had a private income and few had that. The dole was tickets for food - nothing else. Rent or payments on homes could only be got by those who could devise ways of getting some money. Lots of people lost their homes to the mortgager. Just after we were married the banks closed and we got caught there. Money we had in the bank was frozen and lots of wealthy unscrupulous people made fortunes by buying bank accounts for a fraction of their value and holding on to them until the banks functioned again. We had put a deposit on a house and land in Drummoyne, or Five Dock really as it was just on the border, when we were engaged. So we were fortunate with the small wage my husband received we battled along. Our two little girls were born Gaynor 5 June 1932 and Marcia on 6 October 1935. David and I were so happy. It was a battle to manage in those days but we saw so many people worse off than we were; and we were grateful for our blessings. The war started in September 1939, we heard the paperboys calling in the street through the night and the papers carried the announcement of the Declaration of War on Germany. From there on, the work for defence was on. My husband worked at Cockatoo welding. He worked on warships as they came in nearly blown to pieces, worked day and night. Certainly money came in but everyone was very worried; from 1942 to 1944 the war went badly for the allies. Ration tickets were issued to everyone for food and clothing. Things could be bought in certain places for very high prices. Tobacco was practically unprocurable. Tobacco plantations were destroyed in the fighting. The ships could not carry cloth and leather for private citizens, it all went for clothing for soldiers, and for medical attendants etc. There was no ordinary imports or exports. My husband grew his own tobacco and dried it in the garage, we were living in Lyons Road then. There was little alcohol; so they made their own beer and became experts. Our girls went to Russell Lea School and then onto Drummoyne for Primary. We had big blinds on the windows, which we pulled down in case of air raids. There were three scares. One when Darwin was bombed, and when the Japanese submarines got into Sydney Harbour and sank the ferry 'Kutabel' in their attempt to sink warships in the Harbour and once when an unknown plane flew over Sydney. We were at the pictures that night and when we saw the wardens and first aid people quietly coming in we hurried home. The street were all dark as all lights had been turned off and no house could show a light, we wanted to get home to Gaynor and Marcia whom we had left with my parents while we were out. When the war ended in September 1945, much to everyone’s joy, there were great celebrations. When the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in March 1932, I was expecting my first baby the following June and my husband and parents did not want me to go to the celebrations so I missed that and now the war had ended and I was expecting my third child the following January, I was determined I was not going to miss out this time. So with our two girls, their father and I went into town and walked over Pyrmont Bridge as no traffic was allowed to go so close to town as there was thousands of people all heading for Sydney town for celebrations. People danced and sang in the parks and everyone was so relieved it was all over. We were living in Lyons Road at this time and here in the January of 1946 we brought our son home, ten years and three months after our Marcia was born and 13 years and 7 months after Gaynor. So we were such a happy family we never thought we would have another child and out little son made our life complete. The ten years we lived in Lyons Road were, I think, the happiest years of my life, it was all just about perfect. The girls had grown into two lovely young women, and it was while we were there Gaynor met Peter Williams whom she later married. Peter went to England for a year and she waited until he came home when they became engaged. They were married on 31 October 1953 after we had moved up to Lenore Street, to care for my parents. Then Marcia met Keith Dalton and they were married on 13 April 1956. We cared for my parents for five years until mu father died and the continued looking after my mother for another two years. Then my brother came to look after her and we moved up to Ryde to the home we bought there, and Bernie Fenton came and lived with us and I looked after him until he died from a heart attack. Our son finished school and became an apprentice in the Railways and did very well. He was happy and loved football and his church and friends, we did very well and we improved our home and garden, which my husband loved. I started to learn painting and loved that, and when I started selling paintings I was so thrilled. I would never have learnt if it had not been for my dear husbands insistence, his interest and love for which I will always be eternally grateful. Then our son met Josephine Edwards and fell in love with her and they were married on 10 August 1968. My husband and I missed our children but knowing they were all happily married to good people gave us happiness and we became used to being on our own again and had our lovely grandchildren to love. The Bradley’s My grandfather was Charles Bradley and to me it seemed he had always been old. My father was his youngest child so I suppose by the time I was born Charles Bradley was already in his sixties. Grandfather was a tall thin man very dignified and courteous. He had beautiful thick white hair, which waved slightly and was brushed back from his forehead. He had a white moustache and beard, which was short and pointed like Edward VI wore his. His face was thin and nose straight and his eyes very keen and blue grey and a little deep in his head like my fathers were. He spoke in a soft very English voice and his hands were long and slim and well kept. Probably they had never done any hard work for Grandfather was very much an English gentleman and never let anyone forget it either. He had owned coal mines in England but the mines fired and he was ruined and they had to leave their home 'Tiverdale Hall' in Tipton, Tiverdale and came to Australia in 188310 where my grandfather set up a Real Estate Agency in Summer Hill and lived there for many years and died at age 92. My sister went to England in later years and saw the old gates of Tiverdale Hall still partly standing and brought home a piece of wood from the gates. An old identity she met told her he had known my grandfather and his family when they lived there. The estate had been subdivided and the house pulled down and many small houses built there. My grandparents were cousins. My grandmother’s name was Phoebe Bradley. She was small and plump and very sweet and kind, but she died when I was very young - about 1916 I think because my elder brother was a baby and I am 8 years older than him. My grandparents had five sons, Herbert, Edward, Walter Arthur and William Albert (who was my father) and two daughters Patricia and Maud. Only Arthur and Herbert had children besides my father. Arthur’s were Ruby, Charles and Thora and Herbert’s only one boy was called Bertie, so his name was either Herbert or Albert. Aunty Patty told me how she and grandma used to hand out food to the miners after the mines fired trying to help them but the mines and the money was gone and they could not continue for long. Patricia was very haughty but Maud was sweet and gentle, very tall and thinner like Grandfather but more like Grandma in nature. Patricia was shorter and plumper but like Grandfather in haughtiness. I went there and stayed sometimes with my cousin Ruby who was called Trixie. She was born on the 22 February the same as I was but was 2 years older. I loved her and we got on very well together. We played and made sandwiches out of nasturtium leaves which grew in the garden and we ate our meals together carefully supervised by Aunt Patricia who was a stickler for the right behaviour and we must not put a foot wrong or we were corrected. We slept in front of the fireplace in one room and Trixie would tease me and say there was a bogeyman coming down the chimney and I would be terrified and then she would laugh and say she was only pretending until I would laugh too. As she and Charles and I grew up we went on picnics together and loved each other. She and Charles contracted TB somehow and she died when she was 19 years old and Charles a year or so later and I was very unhappy for a long time. I always missed her. I never knew my other cousin Bertie. They went away somewhere and I never saw them. Edward, my father’s brother, had two sons, Walter and Charles, and though I knew them when we were young, we drifted apart. Grandma was a Bradley and once I saw a picture that Aunty Pat showed me of the Bradley home, their cousin’s home, it was a great white mansion with columns and a big verandah right across the front and lawns sloping down. The picture I saw also of Tiverdale Hall was a big Tudor style house with diamond pane windows and ivy growing up the walls. Perhaps it is from them I get my love of English things and my longing to see England sometime, though I do not think I ever will now. My father told me once that his grandfather was Sir Walter Bradley, but of that I know nothing more. Beryl, my sister, went to England once and went to Tiverdale and met an old identity in the local pub that said he knew the Bradley boys and then Beryl saw the land where Tiverdale Hall was. It had been demolished and the land cut up into allotments where lots of cottages had been built, and also saw the gates which were falling down and brought a piece of wood off them. Tiverdale is in Tipton, Birmingham and would have been a big industrial area even in those days. William Albert Bradley 16.8.1880 - 9.1.1957 I loved my Father very dearly and I do not think he knew how much or how proud I was of him. He was a very proud man and reserved and it would not have been easy to just tell him. Always it was Dad though, who helped with homework, bound our wounds, taught us to care for our hands and nails and many times he brushed my hair and praised it telling me it was like silk. I was never afraid to go to him for help when I needed it and he would say "never mind we will see what we can do about it", and he taught me never to despair, to do a job well and to finish it, and to be just. This is what I have tried to do with you my beloved children that I might always help you as he always helped me - my beloved Father. But we should talk more to each other about what is in our heart and when we love and are proud of our dear ones and not be afraid to say so. The moment slips by and our loved one never knows how we love them or how proud we are of them. My Father was a clever man and a specialist in rubber. He made the first rubber hot water bottle here in Australia at Perdriau’s Rubber Works in Sydney where he managed the Surgical Department. He also designed and made the rubber bath for 'the Man in the Bath', a soldier of World War 1 who had a vast amount of his skin burnt off with mustard gas which the Germans used, and he spent the rest of his poor short life in the bath of warm water. He made many other things during the war which were secret and very few people knew about it. He also had the first rubber tree grown successfully here in the open. It was given to him by a plantation owner from the islands as a seedling and grew to a very large tree of which Dad was very proud and when there was talk of growing rubber here some officials came to see it. He was a great fisherman and often took me to the 'Gutter' at Manly rock fishing with him. We used to go fishing at Chiswick by Lysarts factory. In those days the bottom of Burn Avenue at Drummoyne was just mud flats and mangroves and no houses at all and we walked around the banks of the river to Chiswick where wattle and bush flowers abounded and the air was so lovely. Many a lovely Leather Jacket we caught there. He even learnt to make shoes and made me a very nice pair. He retired at 65 years and was given a great send off and lived till the age of 79 years and 5 months when he died after a heart attack. He was born at Tiverdale Hall, Tipton, near Birmingham, England and came out to Australia with his parents when he was 3 years old.11 When I was tiny we lived in Leichhardt. We had lived in Gowen Street, Summerhill where I was born for a few years and then moved to Edith Street where we lived while my Father was building a house for us in Flood Street, Leichhardt. It was a timber house very well constructed and I often wondered where my Father learnt how to build a house but it was always that way, if he needed to do a thing he would have a go at it and he practically always succeeded in making a good job of it. When I was eight years old we sold that and bought a house in Lyons Road, Drummoyne. Here my brother Albert (Bert) was born and World War 1 erupted in the following August 1914. Here we were living too when in the beginning of that year my maternal Grandfather died. I can remember going to the Hospital (RPA) in a hansom cab with my Mother and Grandmother. My Grandparents had lived in Haberfield where my Grandfather had a beautiful garden and nursery where he grew beautiful and out of the ordinary shrubs and plants. He had a guava tree that had most beautiful fruit and was still there for many years after he died. When I was 12 years old my Father bought land at 8 Lenore Street just over the boarder into Five Dock - Drummoyne and built a house there. Five Dock then was still quite rustic. From Bunt Street to North Road, Five Dock it was only a rough country road with only two houses on the road, Lyons Road as it was named. They were Tate’s House between Tate Lane and Bunt Street and Russell Lea, which was a very big house further on after Bunt Street on the right side going to North Road. This house after the war became a hospital for wounded returned soldiers. My Uncle Arthur was there for some time. Down near the river along what is the Marine Drive now, there were golf links and was quite undeveloped. We played a lot down there. There was an oak tree growing near the bank of the river and we often got mistletoe, which grew on the oak tree for our parties. There were stepping stones that led across to the Point where Rodd’s Tomb was. Someone from the family who had once owned all the land around there was buried there and a girl or boy would often be dared to go there, but only the very daring would accept the challenge. Mangroves grew along the waters edge and the mud would squelch between our toes. Once my older brother threw a rock which rebounded off another and hit his face cutting it across his nose almost from ear to ear, it mended but many an adventure we had on that quiet shore where now there are just streets of houses. I had always loved sketching and poetry and wanted to learn to paint but mother thought artists were terrible people and would never let me learn. So I had to learn the piano instead and though I liked music my real love was art and it was not until I was married and my husband encouraged me to learn painting that I ever achieved my ambition, but the babies came along and there was so much else to do that it was not until my son was growing up that I ever had much time to give to it. Then I started to sell my pictures now and then and I have never lost the thrill of knowing that someone thought my pictures worth buying and hanging in their home. When Mr Whitlam was Prime Minister (and what a Prime Minister!!!) That’s the kind we need now. His dry wit and caustic remarks are history and our country thrived under him, a true gentleman. One day Mrs Whitlam opened an art show in which I had exhibited four pictures and [she] bought one of mine, a white and blue daisy picture, a type I loved. I did several of these each one different and one I gave to Anne Telfer, a friend of Gays. She had sold quite a few pictures of mine in her coffee shop and because I was grateful I gave her a lovely one in an antique frame, which I loved. I don’t know why I gave her this particular one which I loved and not some other, because I sold every one of the same type I did, and I have not one myself now. If it had not been for my Dear husband encouraging me to learn painting I would never have painted in oils and I am eternally grateful to him for this. He was so proud when I did a good painting or sold one, and I usually got a good price. He framed my pictures beautifully for me and that would have helped them to look so good and sold well. So he too must take credit for my success and happiness in my achievement. The Ketley’s My mother was Rosie Hilda Ketley and was married to my father on the Thursday night before Easter. 27th April 1905. She was born on 17th October 1885 and died on 30th November 1968. She was born in Ryde in the little stone cottage situated where the golf links are now. Grandfather had an orchard there and my said all the children used to sit under the fruit trees and eat fruit and she always said her lovely skin and complexion was due to this. She was a very good wife and mother and cared for all of us and her home very well. My father told me once that she was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. Even when I was quite grown I remember [her] as having a beautiful complexion, very dark hair and green grey eyes. Emma Ketley. Born 1849 - 1941 Emma Ketley was my dear Grandmother, my mother’s mother. She was a small woman, slim and neat, about 5ft or 5ft 1 inch high. She has small features and hands and feet, grey eyes and I think her hair would have been brown but of course I only remember it as grey. She wore it parted in the middle with a bun at the back. Grandma always dressed very neatly, wore a bonnet tied with ribbons and sometimes a heavy corded silk cape heavily embroided with felt beads all of which was beautifully kept. She could mix and talk with everyone and they all loved her. After Grandfather died she went from one to the other of her children helping them. She lived with us for many years in Lyons Road and later at Lenore Street while I was growing up. When she was 25 years old, she married my Grandfather and when her first child was a baby she went to live at Ryde at the orchard my Grandfather had there. There her other children were born. Florence was the first child then there was Winifred, William, Rosie (my mother) and later two girls Elsie and Ruby who died, one of diphtheria and one of typhoid, when about 6 and 8 years. Both within a week or two of each other.12 Poor Grandma. Grandma hated the life on the orchard. She was very much a person who loved life and people and I suppose the loneliness and hard work on the orchard was something she did not like, and in those days Ryde was very isolated and there would have been no conveniences at all there. Probably she used a fuel copper for washing with all those children and a husband who worked the land there would have been lots of heavy washing. There must have been a fuel stove and kerosene lamps - the modern woman would find it a hard exacting life. Grandma was very clean and everything about her so neat, she must have worked very hard. She told me that the first day she went there to live she walked from the station (which must have been West Ryde as that would have been the nearest) and carried the baby Florence, and if she had a baby she must have had a bag with necessities for the child and when she was nearly there she sat down on the side of the road and cried. Poor tired Gran. All her children had lovely skin especially my mother and she said she thought it was all the fruit she ate on the orchard. Mum had greeny grey eyes and very dark hair and she said that when she was born they named her Rosie because of her Rosy cheeks. They stayed there for quite a few years. The orchard was where North Ryde golf course is now, and the old cottage facing B___ is where my mother was born. Grandma said that when she left there she said, "I hope I never see this God-forsaken place again". Then they went to Ashfield to live and it was here that my mother met my father and they were married on 27th April 1905. Mum said it was the Thursday night before Good Friday and that it was a beautiful night and she always remembered riding with Dad in the hansom cab in the beautiful light of the full moon. Grandfather died at the age of 75 in February 1914. They were living then in Haberfield and then my aunt lived there and Gran went from one to the other until her sister was ill and she went to Balmain to look after her. When Aunt Carey died Gran and John Geary, Carries husband, married as Gran said it did not look nice living in the same house so they had the Anglican minister at Balmain come and marry them and they went on a trip to Manly for their honeymoon. We resented it a little but I suppose Gran was lonely. They were then aged Gran in her late eighties and John in his early nineties. When John died Gran who inherited his house sold it and went to live with her daughter Winifred at Ryde where she died aged 92 years. John and Martha Cheeseman They were my Grandmothers parents and came out from England when they were married and started a butchers shop. She was tall and thin and he was stout. That is all I know bar the fact that Grandma said he was a rich man’s son who married a servant and the family disowned him. Gran said she thought he had changed his name, as apparently he must have been very hurt and unhappy. Grandma was born in 1849 and there were a few children older than her so perhaps if I try to reckon it out, say 3 children about 3 years apart and the parents were married at 24 years (an average) they would have been 30 years old in 1849, so they might have been born about 1819 or thereabouts.14 David Brand was born about 1840 Scotland, married and came to Australia. Had a son David born 1874 and daughter Jean born in Greenock,Scotland. Wife died15 and he remarried. Had a big interest in Burns Philip. The son David born 28 Feb 1874 married Roseneath Brown in 1903. Six children David, Angus, Jean, Ethert, Julia and John. David born 1904 married Rosie Thelma Bradley (born 1906) in 1932. They had 3 children, Gaynor Rosemary, Marcia Diane 1935 and David Bradley 1946. 10. Arrived Melbourne in January 1887 11. The Bradley’s came out to Australia in January 1887, arriving at Melbourne on the “Superb”. 12. Elsie died 18 Jan 1895 aged 8 years 7 months. Ruby died 11 Dec 1894 aged 4 years 10 months. 13. Emma Ketley (nee Cheeseman) 27 Apr 1847 - 28 Apr 1939 was married 11 July 1876 aged 26. 14. John was born about 1801 and Martha about 1814 (both Kent, England). They were married in Kent about 1832 and arrived in Sydney on the "Alfred" on 16 January 1839. 15. They were divorced in 1881. See David Jolly Brand's biography. [Note: I’m not sure when this was written, but it was obviously after July 1995.] So many years - where have they all gone? So many years! Thinking back, so much I can recall - thank you God for memory, my first are baby memories - my mother taking me to see Grandma, the train that went over the bridge and puffs and puffs, the picket fence where Grandma lived in an old fashioned house and the time I cut my wrist and I sat on my Dadda’s lap while a doctor stitched it, my Dad I loved you. Then came the war and the flu and Gran and I cared for the rest of the family who all had it - the marks and the red cross to put in the window for help - Even the I cared for Mum and Dad. The golf links on the marine drive were a haven for children to play. We went down there and walked over the stepping stones to where Rodd’s tomb was but no one was brave enough to go near it so we climbed the big oak tree and took mistletoe to hang at our parties. As we grew we loved it and had so much fun. Music, songs and lovely food, but we all had to help clean up after. We went on holidays to Woy Woy mostly and when Dad bought a car it was great fun. Dad took me fishing and we walked around the mangrove to Larsarts factory and fished off the rocks there and could see across to Gladesville Bridge. We caught Leather Jacks mostly and they were plentiful. One day I amazed myself by catching eight big ones. Then when I was about twelve or eleven Dadda took me to Manly - the 'gutter' as it was called and we climbed up and down on a rope ladder. I became expert with a rod and line. It was dangerous and mum never knew how much but Dadda looked after me, we were good pals. Beryl was giggly and hated that kind of thing and wasn't game any rate and the boys - Bert was too young and Bruce was not born till I was sixteen. Sunday morning Dad took us to see Grandma Bradley. She was little and plump and good fun and Grandpa was tall and thin and very English and austere. Sometimes Trixie my cousin was there and when I stayed sometimes, we made sandwiches with nasturtium leaves that grew by the back door step and slept in front of the fireplace and Trixie would say a boogie man came down it and I was so scared, she would laugh and say she was just pretending. She was lovely and we both had the same birthday but she was 2 years older than me. She died when she was nineteen and I was so unhappy and then her brother Charles died about 2 years after her. He was in the Royal Navy then. I left school when Bruce was born. Mum said she needed me to help her. I would have loved to learn to paint by an old teacher nearby but Mum said artists were not nice people and I did not need to mix with them, but as soon as I married my dear David, he said "now you are going to learn to paint", and paint I did. Oh, those lovely days. Bert was born on 10th September 1914 and Mum went to all the conscription meetings afraid that Dadda would be called up, but of course he did not. He did a lot of secret work for the government and designed and made a rubber bath for 'the man in the bath'. There was big article in 'Smith’s Weekly'. A poor young soldier that had nearly all his skin burnt off with mustard gas which the cruel Germans used at times during World War 1, and he spent the rest of his poor young life in it. Dad also designed and made the first hot water bottle used in Australia and many other things that he was not allowed to talk about. He was 50 years with Perdriau Rubber works and most times had 200 men and women under him, right up till it became Dunlop Perdriau. I had to mind Bert after school most times. Beryl just whinged continually. When I was 12 years we moved to Lenore Street where Dad had bought land and had a nice house where I lived until I was married - cooked and worked like a slave - why didn’t I revolt? Because children didn’t in those days. We just did as we were told. We went bird nesting down the golf links and swam in the baths down on the marine drive and then as I grew older went to Fishers Baths down the bottom of Moore Street. We took our lunch on school holiday and I learnt to swim well. Beryl who could dog paddle used to jump off the spring-board down the deep end and I would wait down underneath and life saver her to the steps and none of this ‘wait an hour after lunch’, eat it and dive in straight away. Once I found a set of girl’s clothes on the seat near me and told Mr Fisher and the poor man went diving for the body. Only to see the missing body come back from a rowing boat ride with a boy. Did she get a tongue-lashing. Later we went to Davis baths near Iron Cove Bridge and there I learnt to swim better and dive well. I loved the sea and when I went out with David we used to go on Sunday to Cronulla with two friends Alan and Elsie and we would go to Sutherland by train and then get the steam train to Cronulla. We surfed and sun-baked all day and had the loveliest time. They were such happy days. On Saturday nights we went to the pictures and got up in the gallery (the 2nd storey) and ate ice cream and chocolates with all the young people we knew and were never bored. There was an usher there that kept an eye on us. The boys in the crowd (football and church boys) entitled him 'Creeping Jesus' which was awful. One night one of the boys had lifted the back of the seat up and off and could not get it back again and this all happened just as the usher was coming up the aisle. It was hilarious, we were nearly in hysterics as the boy would have got thrown out had the usher seen, but he did not and that saved the situation. I do not remember whether the boy even got the back of the seat on. I suppose not. Sometimes we went on moonlight excursions. We hired a launch and cruised around the Parramatta River and landed on Rodd Island and danced in the hall there to music. I went about with a boy named Don Cameron, then in the early part but then another boy Terence Winter who later became an officer in the government but this was just boy and girl stuff. We were all just in our last years of school or college and no one had much money, so all the fun was very youngish. Then beautiful days when I went to a picnic on Rodd Island, which I have written about previously and there I met my David, my dear Love, whom I will never cease to love, the Father of my beloved children, my dear, my beloved David. He loved me always, and still does I know, and although I cannot see him - cannot touch him, still I sometimes feel him near me, feel his presence and his love and I know God in His love and mercy will allow me to meet him again. We had happy days together before we married. We went swimming, surfing, bush walks, dancing and he took me to first nights of many wonderful plays, musical shows 'No, No, Nanette', 'The Merry Widow' and even to see Pavlova dance and we saw her do her famous dance 'The Dying Swan' - the last time she ever did it and 'Giselle'. Then came a time when we quarrelled and I would not see him or go out with him, but everywhere I went he was there trying to talk to me and eventually we made it up and soon after he bought me a beautiful 3 diamond engagement ring and we saved and bought a block of land from a builder we knew and he built a cottage on it for us. We put tenants in it till we had saved enough money to get married and buy some furniture, but when we asked them to move, the lady was expecting a baby and would not. So we still got married and lived at my parents’ home for a while. But then there was a recession and the banks closed and we were very restricted as to what furniture we could get but David had been paying for a dining room suite and I had put a bedroom suite on a lay-by so what with that we had to make do. The first night we slept on a mattress on the floor as they had sent the bedroom suite that day - all except the bed! Through the night I woke and could hear rustling noises and when we switched the torch on which we had under a pillow we found it was mice! So the next day we bought mousetraps and soon disposed of them. They were happy days. We had our Dear first baby to love and cherish, our first little girl. Then came our second. Three years 3 months later came our 'Cookie' as we called her for a while. When David came home from work I would have put her in her pram in the Lounge room (we had furnished by then) to sleep while I cooked dinner and he would wheel her out singing "Lookie, Lookie, Lookie, here comes Cookie" which was a popular song at that time, and then her big sister, our little Gaynor, would talk to her and play, putting her toys in the pram, for Marcia to play with. |