30. Three Score Years and Ten

Bert turned 70 in 1961, the year before Doll's visit. On 2nd June, 1962,  while Doll was staying with them, Bert, Nell and Doll went out to lunch with Albert. After they got home, Bert, still the fixer and maintainer, climbed on to the roof of the house to do some repair work. This time, however, like his father before him, Bert suffered a heart attack and fell - from the roof. He was dead when he hit the ground.

Doll and Nell managed to summon help. Telephones were not common in every house in Australia in 1962. Albert had one for his business, but no other family members had a telephone until later in the 60s. News of a death was delivered by the police going to the homes of next of kin and passing on the news.

Albert arranged the funeral and cremation at Woronora Cemetery. Sylvia and Grace's children were deemed too young to attend a funeral and were not allowed to go. Irene and Ray went.

Sylvia was rocked by her father's death and took some time to come to terms with it.

Bert's ashes were scattered in a rose garden at Woronora. When Nell died, many years later, Sylvia's children had memorials for both of them installed in the rose garden where Nell's ashes are buried, at Woronora.


In his lifetime he had done his best with the hand dealt to him, worked hard, served his country, reached out to new things, seized the opportunities that came along and provided for his family no matter what. Although he placed no importance on education, he was enterprising and prepared to take risks. He built a better future for his descendants.

Doll stayed on for a few weeks after Bert's funeral, then flew home to New Zealand. During the flight, somewhere over the Tasman Sea, Doll also suffered a heart attack. She died on the plane. She was 69.

Fred 1962

Fred lived another three years, but on 24th September 1965, he too died of a heart attack. He was 64.












Syd visited Australia and New Zealand later in the 1960s and died of a heart attack in 1972, aged 76.

May, Fred, four grandchildren, Barbara and Ian c. 1981

Les lived until 1985. He saw his daughter married in England and return to New Zealand.  He visited Australia again in the 60s. He had four grandchildren, including twins, when he died, aged 82.

28. News from England

Amongst Bert's papers there are eight letters from his mother, Emily, between 1947 and 1952 and one Christmas Airgraph letter from 1943. In 1943, Bert's brother Syd is still in the Army, along with his son, Sydney and Doll's son, Jack. Emily is living with Les in Hendon, but visiting Hounslow often.

It would seem that few of Emily's letters to Bert were answered. Grace wrote to her grandmother during the War and sent her food parcels but Bert, although quite literate, was a poor correspondent. Emily's letters are a mixture of family news - mostly about her brothers and sisters - news about rationing in Britain, questions about Bert's family and pleas for more news and photos.






In 1947 her letter is sent from Stan's house at Prittlewell, Southend-on-Sea. From 1948 to 1951 she writes from Brookfield, the home she bought with the sale of the mineral water business, now leased by her brother Charles and his family. From 1947 until 1952 Emily lived with her brother, his wife Kate and unmarried son, Charlie. When Kate died in 1948, Emily kept house for Charles and Charlie.

In 1947, aged 79,she writes : You will be sorry to hear that Aunt Kate passed away 26 July. She had been a great sufferer for some years but we all miss her very much. Poor old Uncle seems lost without her. Young Charlie is still single and living at home. I do the cooking for them at present. Glad and Ted come in to do the rough cleaning,  and washing Glad takes home to do, but I really do not want the job now. I feel too tired now to do much work. I still have a lot of muscular rheumatism and I find the stairs trying.


She passes on news of her family - the Keens, her sister Alice, brother Dick and Charles' son Arthur.

Doll lives nearby and sees a lot of her mother. She has news of Les from New Zealand when he moves there in 1947. By 1949 Les has bought 2 acres of land and is starting out on his own.  Syd and Stan are sporadic in their visits and she yearns for news from Bert and Fred. What news she does get comes mainly from Bert's daughter Grace and very occasional letters from Fred and Bert.

She has news of cousins' children marrying, and uncles and aunts aging and her own activity.







In 1951, news of her sister Alice's death is overshadowed by the death of Doll's husband, Fred. He had been ill and in hospital, but expected to live for some years if he took things carefully. Doll's grief is exacerbated by her daughter, Meg, moving to New Zealand in 1952, along with her family. Les put them up until they bought land and put up a garage they could live in while building a house.

Emily would like to be independent herself, but sees no way of achieving it.
She organises, through Grace, for Bert's signature on a document that allows her to cash in an insurance policy she held on her children's lives.


Rationing was in force in Britain until 1954. In 1951  Emily reports: We are still rationed to meat, and only 3oz butter, ¼ lb marg, and 6 oz sugar, 3 oz bacon, 3 oz cheese a week, some weeks 1 egg and some 2. Are you able to get plenty now? What we miss most, I think, is sugar, or at least I do.

She complains, as the years go by, of rheumatism, bronchitis and a bad back. Before Christmas 1952 she has moved to live with her son Syd and his wife Flo and has been confined to bed for some weeks. She was, by then, 83 years old.

In August 1952 she sent Grace a photo of herself in the garden. She says it was taken by Maud, presumably her niece, Maud, or Molly, Keen.  She asked that Albert reproduce it for her and provide it to both Bert and Fred's families so their children 'can see what their Gran is like'. Albert obliged. He retained memories of staying with her as a boy, when she bought him a pair of trousers and put a penny in the pocket, telling if that if he left it there he would never be broke!





In spite of her news and cheeriness, her letters have a sadness and pain.
She very much wants news of her family, of their daily lives, of the small news of their hopes, fears, tribulations and joys. She asks again and again for photos. She is grateful for surviving, and getting by, but she pays the price of a mother whose sons migrate across the world for a new life in an age when telephoning is a luxury and travel is slow and expensive.

On 20 May 1953 she writes to Grace wishing her happy birthday.  She is lucid and alert - commenting on the Coronation plans and on Sylvia and Len moving into their own home.

On 21 November 1953 Doll wrote to Bert to tell him their mother has quite suddenly developed dementia and has not known any of the family for six weeks. Doll has gone to stay with Syd and Florrie to help with Emily and Stan calls in each week. Eventually Doll took Emily to live with her but, within a couple of years, could no longer cope and Emily moved into a nursing home.

Doll left Southampton on the Southern Cross  in September 1959, arriving in New Zealand on 26 October. She travelled as a tourist, but never returned to England. Her son, Jack, followed on the Rangitane in February 1960 with his wife Kathleen and daughter Sheila.

Of Emily's six children, by 1960, two were  in Australia, two in New Zealand and two in England.

Emily outlived her son Stan by several months. He died of a heart attack while drinking at the Bell Prince Hotel, Southend-on-sea on 21st January 1961, aged 61.

Emily died in the nursing home towards the end of 1961, aged 91.

26. Into the 1950s.

By the 1950s Bert's life was settled and more comfortable than it had been since the years before his father died. He was wiry and active. He had given up smoking. The only beer he indulged in was Horehound Beer, a non-alcoholic drink purchased every now and then from a stall in Sydney's Central Railway. His children said this was all Nell would allow him, but Bert was a follower of health foods, and Horehound had a long history of association with the English mineral water business that Bert's family had been a part of.

Bert also had raisin sandwiches, banana sandwiches and bread and honey most days - certainly his own choice, not shared by anyone else in the household. He had a 'fizzy drink' each day after his evening meal - Alkasetzer - to aid his digestion. On weekdays Bert drove to work early. On his way home he often stopped to see Grace, still living in Mascot, and estranged from her mother.

Nell had the evening meal on the table at 5.00pm. If Bert was late, his meal was in the oven of the coal-fired stove. Bert was mostly home before 4.00pm, working in his shed. Just before 5 he would come into the house and wash-up in the large bathroom, scrubbing his hands with solvol, lathering again and again, pushing the lather down each hand until it was clean.

After the evening meal, he and Nell retired to the sitting room, in front of the radio. Nothing came between Bert and the radio serial, When a girl marries. 






There were celebrations with the Harris's - their friends from the Orontes - or with Fred and Clare - around the pianola.

Bert had a permanent booking on Saturday nights at the Botany Empire Cinema - upstairs, first row on the right, a double seat. He and Nell rarely missed.

On weekends there were still the drives into the bush. Sometimes Nell would spot a plant in the scrub and call for Bert to stop. She would dash into the bush, dig up or snap off enough to try growing it in her bush-house. Bert still grew vegetables and flowers for home consumption and Nell kept chickens.

Bert paid for Sylvia's two children to be born in the Pacific Private Hospital in Brighton-le-Sands, perhaps hoping to prevent his daughter having the difficulties that had plagued Nell's pregnancies.

Bert badly wanted a grandson. When Sylvia's first baby, born in 1947 was a girl, Bert refused to look at her for a week, and called her 'Sonny Jim' for 16 months until Sylvia obliged with a boy.















He was always kind to his granddaughters - but in his world a boy was what counted.

He had no time for women drivers, women in public life, or education for women.

Albert's photography business thrived in the 1950s, leading to Albert becoming the photographer for Woolworths in Sydney, near the Town Hall. He had a small studio there were he took photos, which he developed in a darkroom near Central Railway. Irene learned to colour the photos and Beryl served as receptionist.

Grace and Brenda Grace

Grace and Sid had a daughter, Grace Brenda, born in 1949. Sid worked at the Bunnerong Power Station, near the Botany Bay heads.

Bunnerong Powerhouse from Banksmeadow School 1940

In 1953 Sylvia and Len bought their own home in Livingstone Avenue Botany, the same street that the family had lived in when Bert worked on the Banksmeadow retaining wall. Bert and Nell drove over to visit on most Sundays, sometimes staying, sometimes taking everyone on the routine drive to the bush.










In the school holidays Nell and Bert would take Sylvia and her children on day trips to places like the Captain Cook landing place at Kurnell.

On the way home, Bert always stopped to buy ice-cream for everyone - vanilla between wafer biscuits.

21. Bonnie Doon Nursery

Nell and Bert in Bonnie Doon Nursery

Bert and Nell put all their energy into establishing a nursery. They raised seedlings to sell in Paddy's market each Friday, along with flowers and a few vegetables.. They did everything themselves - creating the products they could sell.

Bert in his shed with boxes of seedlings

Bert brought fruit boxes home from the market on Friday and turned them into seedling boxes.



The children were expected to help, particularly pricking out the seedlings, a task the older children hated, but Sylvia, the youngest, was happy to do.

The back of 98 Banksia St house with seedling beds

 It was relentless, demanding work.









Albert got a job at Bailey's Tannery, but was expected to help out after work and on weekends. He hated it and wanted to be out with his friends - and with girls.

Bert and his dahlia crop

Grace worked in the nursery and also "went into service" as a domestic help to a family at Brighton-le-sands.

Bert was known to friends and others outside the family, as 'Ted', from his second name, Edward. Nell, his mother, sister and brothers, always called him Bert, and he had no trouble moving between the two. It was as if he kept his life in two compartments. The names rarely crossed over.


                                                                             

Bert needed a truck to get his products to market. He enjoyed driving and tinkering with the truck as much as he enjoyed the cultivation of plants.
























He also loved and kept dogs, most bought in Paddy's Markets.

Albert and Grace with friend Tommy Meehan

 Albert and Grace joined the Methodist Church's Youth Group and made many friends. Albert went fishing and rabbiting with mates from work and also from the church group.

Albert fishing at Cronulla

Grace, Nell and Albert at Banksia St c. 1935

They were finding their feet in Australia and wanting their own lives and independence. They were also throwing off the constraints of the Great Depression.

16.1920 - a new decade.

The 1920s began with great hope for returned soldiers like Bert. There were however, worrying signs. Bert wrote to his old Captain, Clement Bailhache, in early 1920 and received a long reply.


The "bit of bad luck" Bailhache refers to was most likely another miscarriage. Nell had four miscarriages, mostly quite late in her pregnancies.

Bailhache, even in 1920, is fearful of an economic crisis.

He views the main barrier to recovery as the demands of the working man for higher wages and better conditions and elaborates at length and with some eloquence. He offers, in summary, the view that: There's only one way and it applies to all of us - hard work and absolute, rigid, cheeseparing economy.

It wasn't only the working class that were deaf to these entreaties in what became the Roaring Twenties .

He concludes with an appeal to Bert.

The letter is interesting, not just as an example of the British class system at work, but for its thread of fear and despair, of the friendship of two soldiers, divided by class, but sharing the discomfort of a world changed forever.

When his grandchildren knew him, in the 1940s and 1950s, Bert was a conservative thinker and voter.It seems likely that he would have agreed with his old Captain, rather than disagreed, although he is unlikely to have been vocal about his views outside of his family.

The cherished engineering job evaporated in March 1921.

With all his skills and War service, Bert, like many others, was unemployed, with a wife, an seven-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter. His mother and brothers were also struggling. His two youngest, and most enterprising brothers, looked for a way out.