'Morning ALL ...
Still pretty quiet and now our Lyn in Vic wants to head off of a few
weeks holidays. I'll hibernate you after I send through one more
installment of dad's current yarn as your sister should really get a
kick out of this bit.
They'll be available in the list archives and you can get later
installments from there ... the next one has great insights into
grandma's money management skills and the purchasing of a new MG from
the UK by paying cash!
(Make sure you get back to me when you return so we can re-activate you!)
Before I hand over to dad, here's a appropriate little quote from one of
today's death notices in the West Australian:
[ When an old person dies, it's like burning a library ]
I'm glad dad left us his oral histories before he headed off. Here he is
with today's yarn:---->
Church life played a big part in our lives right through this period. My
mother grew up in Brighton and had a lot to do with the Methodist Church
in Male Street. I don't know where she met my father, but it was
probably there. They were married in that church in 1911 and mother's
memorial service was held there in 1973. They joined the Carnegie
Methodist Church when they moved to Munster Avenue and after we were
born, Len and I started Sunday school there. As we grew up we continued
attending the Carnegie Methodist Church and made a lot of lasting
friendships there.
We were in our teens during the war years. I was apprenticed at the
beginning of the war and the engineering industry we were in was
declared a protected industry because it was so vital to preparing
weaponry - building aeroplanes and tanks and making rifles and
ammunition and everything else that was needed. So Len and I had to stay
home and work.
Most of the young men from the Carnegie Methodist Church either joined
the services or were called up and conscripted into the army when they
turned eighteen. Rather than get conscripted, a lot of them chose to
join the Navy or Air Force. But those of us who were in protected
industries just kept working.
During that period, a lot of the young people from the Methodist Church,
and around about, used to attend ballroom dancing classes at Porters. It
was a private house just opposite the church in Neerim Road and they had
a big hall, or sleep out, at the back. One of the daughters who would
have been in her thirties by that stage, started teaching ballroom
dancing. As a result, on Saturday nights in particular, a lot of us
would go ballroom dancing at one of the nearby Town Halls in either St
Kilda, Caulfield or Malvern. That was great fun.
The St Kilda Town Hall had a big ballroom and in the centre of the
dancing area was an island bandstand with two bands on it, back to back.
One would playing old time music while the other played modern music.
They would play alternatively. The modern band would play a foxtrot and
you'd get up and dance around. Then they'd stop and pretty well straight
away the old time band would start up and we'd have an old time dance.
Being young and with plenty of energy, we'd often go St Kilda Town Hall
and dance the whole night, with barely a stop. It was great fun.
The music was quite often provided by a piano, a saxophone and the
drums. That would be the minimum and if you were lucky, there might be a
violin and maybe a trumpet. Of course this was the era of the big bands,
so they would try to imitate Glenn Miller and Tom Dorsey and those sort
of people. It was good music and we certainly had a good time, I can
tell you.
The dances were well conducted. Alcohol was never allowed and certainly
no bad behavior. I remember one night at the Malvern Town Hall when
jitterbugging was considered to be a pretty wild sort of dancing.
Sometimes during the barn dance or the foxtrot, a few of us young ones
would get our partners out on the side doing some of those fancy steps.
The attendants would spot us and they'd be right around and have a sharp
word with us - "any more that and you're out."
Late in the war time, I suppose nineteen forty four or something like
that, a gentleman friend invited my mother to the pictures one night at
the Waverly theatre in East Malvern. I remember there was great mirth
amongst the borders when she recounted her experiences that night.
Apparently they were sitting somewhere in the theatre down near the
front and it came interval and the gentleman friend went out to buy ice
cream. He came back with two Dixies - the round containers of ice cream
with a cardboard lid and a wooden spoon forced into the lid. And when he
got back, he handed my mother one of these ice creams and apologized. He
said, "Look, I could only get one spoon, would you be able to eat yours
with the lid?" So mother proceeded to do that, but I don't think she
ever went to the pictures with that gentleman again.
<----< to be continued >----
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Genealogy: Tracing yourself back to better people
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