Campbelltown

Dad’s career as a train driver took his family to Campbelltown for the second time after two years in Lake Cargelligo.  This was to become the family’s home town for the next twenty years.  Unfortunately our arrival got off to a bad start when Dad was unable to acquire a home in time for the start of the school year.  As a result we were all forced to live in tents for the first few months.  These were large tents that we could stand up in.  They were provided for us by the Railways department and were situated next to the train tracks.  As a result of this temporary accommodation we were looked down on as a poor family and we children became the victims of taunts at our schools.  It took a long time for us to live this down, but eventually we were finally able to move into our permanent home in Chamberlain Street.

One bright spot in those early days in Campbelltown was the weekly picture shows.  My brothers and I were each given a shilling pocket money each week.  The cinema cost nine pence so there was three pence left over for an ice cream or a lolly.

I had a final year in primary school in Campbelltown.  There was no high school there so I had to travel by steam train to Liverpool Girls High School  –  the roughest school in the state.

I had actually qualified to go to a selective high school at Parramatta but my parents wouldn’t let me go there as they felt it was too far away.

I was a fish out of water at Liverpool.  I was a dreamy academic kid with no sporting ability and was bullied cruelly..

At the end of my time there, when the school learnt I was leaving at age of 15 they called my parents to insist that I should continue on to the Leaving Certificate.  That night my father came to my bedside and said I had to leave school as he had three sons to educate and I was only going to get married and would therefore not need an education.  I thought then that this was the right thing to do.  (No thought of women’s lib at this time!).

He then got me a job at Warby’s local bakery.  This was not what I wanted at all.  And strangely, for the only time, my mother agreed with me.  My Auntie Gwen whisked me away to stay with her and she got me a job as a copy girl on the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the city.  I was to be trained as a journalist.  After a couple of weeks I was transferred to the Women’s Weekly “Baby Talking” contest.  A picture of a cute baby would appear in the Weekly and thousands of mothers would write in to state what they thought the baby was saying.  My job was to open the letters and sort them into the best ones for the Editor.

I could see it really was a dead end job so I left.  My thoughts then were that I really wanted to go nursing.  My parents wouldn’t give me permission to do this until I was 18.  So in the meantime I worked at various local jobs.  One was as a secretary for a local GP, Dr Ivor Thomas, for a year.  I remember that he was a heavy smoker.  He would lean over his patients with ash lengthening on his cigarette which I was always afraid would fall on them!  A later job was as a typiste/clerk for a local factory, Crompton Parkinson.

In the meantime my social life revolved around the local Methodist church in Campbelltown after being “saved” in a Billy Graham crusade.  I attended church services regularly, joined the church junior fellowship and taught Sunday School.  This was my main social activity, though it was subject to very strict moral attitudes.  No dancing was allowed at church functions.  Once, greatly daring, I wore lipstick and make-up to such an event.  The next day two senior church members called on my mother to present her with a cake of soap for me to purge my face of such scandalous muck!  Neither of my parents came to my defence!  On another occasion I was taught about evolution at school.  When Dad heard about this he got the minister, Rev Bohanna, to tell me that this was all wrong as we didn’t come from monkeys!

I then decided to do psychiatric nursing as the course was shorter than for full nursing.  Big mistake!  I started at Parramatta psychiatric hospital and was put in the women’s admissions ward.  An out of control patient would be brought in with sometimes several burly policemen holding her down.  We would then take over.  Electro-convulsive therapy was all the rage at the time and the patient would be tied down and given the electric shock treatment without anaesthetic.  The doctor and sister would then go to morning tea and leave me with up to seven recovering patients!

Once we had an escapee at night and I was sent out to search for her in the creepy night gardens.  Needless to say I didn’t look too hard!

I coped with all this quite well but the shifts were 12 hours for two days then one day off.  Night duty was seven straight nights of 12 hours.  Unfortunately my feet gave out.  I suffered painfully from my big toes being forced by a growing bunion across over my middle toes, a condition known as Hallus Valgus that I inherited from my Mum and Nanna.  After 12 hours on them I could hardly move at the end of each shift.  .  After consulting with my GP he insisted that I give up nursing.  It wasn’t until I had a foot operation more than forty years later that my feet were finally repaired and I could walk without pain.  It took this long for surgical techniques to be developed enough to ensure a successful and pain free outcome from this type of operation.

With nursing now out of the question I was at a loss as to what to do with my life.  I answered an advertisement from the NSW Public Service and was interviewed by a lovely old man on the Public Service Board who gave me several options and invited me to go and try out the positions.  One that I looked at was with the Minerals Museum at The Rocks, and another was with what was then called “the Welfare” (now Department of Community Service, or DOCS), so of course the latter won out.

I was given my own job in “Private Adoptions”.  My workplace was in William Street, in the city.  In those days, before the Adoptions of Children Act in 1965, anyone could give a baby to anyone provided the natural mother consented.  The adoption would be arranged by matrons of hospitals, nuns, GPs, etc and then handed over to solicitors to complete the formal paperwork.  The adopting parents would supply references, a District Officer (DO) from DOCS would do a home study, and the solicitor would present all the completed documents to me.  My job was to verify the mother’s consent, confirm the references, and then to write a comprehensive report for the Director’s signature.  In the meantime a Section 51 Certificate had to be issued by me to allow an adoptive baby to leave the hospital.  When this was done the solicitor then presented the  case in court and the Order of Adoption was made.  Of course this was obviously a reverse of what should happen in adoptions where adoptive parents should be subject to a proper assessment before being given a baby.  However, that was how it was done then.  The Adoption of Children Act came into force in 1965 and changed it all, and for the better.

While I enjoyed the work my boss at the time convinced me that I should do the District Officer’s training course.  This was a big  opportunity for me.  I was in my early twenties by then and had to think seriously about a fulfilling career.   The course consisted of two years of study at Sydney University for two nights a week with eight exams a year covering such subjects as legislation, rules of evidence, psychology, children’s health, social science, etc.

There were only two women DOs appointed to each office in the state and, although we often had the most difficult cases, and passed all the same exams as the men, we were only paid 90% of the male salary.

To get experience, my boss at Private Adoptions, to whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude for his encouragement, suggested that I transfer to a District Office.  I initially spent a few weeks at Newtown DO where I was mentored by a remarkable senior DO called Barbara Burgess.  She was completely fearless and would often march into male-only saloon bars in hotels to demand a drink.  No bartender was game to refuse her!  I then went to Liverpool DO which was much closer to where I was still living at home in Campbelltown.

The person who came for me to train before I left Private Adoptions was a young woman called Sandra Montague.  She was to become my very best and truest friend for the next 40 years.  Because she became such an important part of my life, I’d like to break off here to talk a bit about her.  We often met for lunch despite being in different offices.  We grew closer and later went on a cruise to Fiji together.

Sandra Vivian Montague lived with her parents in Thornton Street, Five Dock.  Her father, a veteran of the New Guinea campaign during WW II, died suddenly on the bowls green.  He insisted on completing the game despite feeling sudden chest pains!  Sandra remained in the family home to look after her mother as her older sister, Marcia, had long since moved out.  She followed my path in training to be a DO.  She had a great love of antiques and this led her to eventually leave DOCS to open her own antiques shop in Croydon.  This was not a great success, partly because of a poor location, so she eventually had to give this up.  She kept many of the antiques in her home and I later inherited some of these from her.  A particular item that I really treasure is a pair of bronze-cast small scale Marly horses (based on the original life-size marble statues outside the Louvre in Paris).  These take pride of place in our home to this day.  Sandra requested that these never be sold off but should be kept in my family.  I have asked my son Peter to ensure this.

Sandra returned to DOCS and rose to become a District Manager.  She hated this role so eventually took early retirement.  In the meantime, following the death of her mother, she had moved from Five Dock to a unit on the Pacific Highway at Roseville.

In between all these career moves Sandra travelled extensively and adventurously.  No challenge was too great for her: parachuting, scuba diving, even competing in the Iditerod dog sled race across Alaska!  She travelled to many countries, including Antarctica, and visited the UK in particular many times, once with me.  She also travelled with me (and with Chris as well) to Hawaii and New Zealand.  Shell collecting became a hobby in later life and she won many prizes at her local shell club for her artistic shell displays.  Her knowledge of shells led to a part-time volunteer position at the Australian Museum helping to classify exhibits.  She was also a collector of fine jewellery, much of which has come to me.

After I retired we went to Mona Vale beach together, usually once a week, where she fossicked for shells on the beach, apparently a rich source of these, while I walked up the nearby hills.  Then we chatted over cups of coffee.  This was the time that she provided me with such wonderfully strong support on the occasion of the death of my son Michael in 2002.  More on this terrible event at a later chapter.  Sadly, Sandra’s health declined steadily over the years and she eventually was admitted to Neringah Hospital at Wahroonga where she died in January 2010 at the age of 67.  Chris and I scattered her ashes in the sea at the northern end of her beloved Mona Vale beach.  Even now, years later, I still miss her dreadfully.  She never married or had children.

Now, back to my starting career as a trainee DO.  Liverpool DO was chaotic.  The great social housing estate of Green Valley had just been opened up and every day we would have queues stretching out of the door and around the block, lining up for emergency assistance of every kind.  I learned to talk would-be suicides down, to save epileptic babies while they were having fits, and to help as many as possible with financial assistance.  This assistance was pretty paltry with hard and fast rules which we would try to apply as generously as we could.

It was exhausting work, and then I had to drive in to Sydney University in the evenings twice a week for two hours of lectures.  There were hours of study, and every few weeks I had to sit a tough exam.  All this was good preparation for the arduous work of becoming a DO.

At this time I acquired a bright blue, red-upholstered second hand FJ Holden for 50 pounds.  This was the joy of my life!  I wish I had a photo of this to show here.

In the public service in those days employees had to be in by 9am and sign out at 5pm.  The boss at Liverpool DO would come in and watch the clock and then sign off the work book.  If you signed in afterwards and had three late days you were in trouble.  My boss lived in Campbelltown so I would often pass his car to beat him to work.  He described it once as seeing a little blue dot in the distance then whoosh past with hair flying and a wave of a hand.  I would be sitting at my desk with a cup of tea when he arrived.  That car could go like a rocket!

Despite such a busy working life I still had time for a social life at Campbelltown, not only with the Methodist church.  I went out with several boys over the years.  An early one, Lionel, used to pick me up in his truck at the train station after school and drive me home.  Later on, another one, named Ray, insisted in walking with me every day to work (I was then at Cromptons) and asking me out every time.  I had no interest in him and continually refused.  Then one day, hoping to shake him off, I accepted with the intention of making the occasion so unpleasant for him that he would never ask me out again.  I didn’t work and he still persisted.  He appealed to Mum, and she thought I was cruel and heartless to treat him this way!

In my late teens I formed a serious relationship with a man called Bart who was two years older than me.  He was a fitter and turner, a keen dancer and extremely handsome.  We made a really good looking couple at social events.  He was not particularly bright, and, although I loved him, I could see that a long term relationship was never going to work out.  He put a deposit on a block in Springwood in the lower Blue Mountains and planned to start a dance school in that area.  However, with my feet the way they were, dancing could never be a major part of my life.  I eventually broke off with Bart because of our obvious incompatibility.  I was heartbroken for a long time afterwards but I knew that this was the right decision.  I then threw myself into my work as a trainee DO.

I passed all my exams easily.  My final training assignment was to plan a day’s work for the Chief of Field Operations.  He would then decide, on the basis of my progress so far whether and where I would be appointed a DO.  This was very political because if you were sent to a remote country office you knew they didn’t think you had much potential.  At the end of a very nervous day the Chief said to me: “How would you like to be posted to Canberra?”  Of course I was absolutely delighted as this was very much a plum posting.

At that time, because the job needed a car, I was given finance to purchase a new one, so I traded in my beloved FJ for a new VW and headed to Canberra.  I still recall that glorious feeling of freedom, leaving the past behind and coming to a new fulfilling future.

Next page:   Canberra