Probably the most beautiful in the series. Love, ambition, family and health. Here's to you!
history
At times it was a circus
Just love these stories of life growing up in Bicton - giggles every time it's replayed!
And that is how the Mucky Duck Bush Band came about
This spirited talent started off our programme in Fremantle. What a legend. Please note, there are references to deceased indigenous people in this sound bite.
Mum set the office alight
Love this; discussions about the home grown local business, plus hysterics, equals an hour well spent.
I used to photograph the dead bodies
Crazily good; what a life he's led! It was a great way to kick off our third day of sessions in Fremantle.
He wasn't good looking by any means
We had the most lovely time with this lady during the Fremantle sessions. So honest and so kind. A really refreshing hour!
I met my husband at a wonderful badminton club at the church hall.
Do you know what it’s like when there’s eyes following you around? This went on for several weeks.
Me and a friend of mine were both Sunday school teachers. So we’d often go over to the cupboard to get things ready for that week’s lesson. He came around to the cupboard one time and said ‘Can I do something’. I thought ‘Oh what’s going on here!’. He was a very shy boy. And then the next week he asked me to go out with him.
He wasn’t good looking by any means, but I also had been told for many, many years that you don’t marry a good looking man.
On our first date we drove to one of the beaches and just talked. We quickly realised we could talk to each other. My mother had always said that you have to marry someone you can talk to. I realised that night that I really liked him.
He started buying me a present every week. When he was in Fremantle on a Saturday morning with his mates, he would go into one shop or another and buy something for me. The first time was a lipstick holder, then a powder compact, a lovely butterfly broach, I think there was a scarf. I’ve still got them. And then I just made a comment, I didn’t really mean anything by it, but we had started talking about our future and I must have said ‘oh you’ll do me’ – so he said ‘Really? Really?’ - and the engagement ring was the next present I got. I was thrilled.
It would have been my wedding anniversary yesterday. I say that because it would have been, we would have still been together. It wasn’t to be; he died 18 years ago. The big C. We battled for 14 years. I was carer for a long, long time. I did have help. My husband was in and out of hospital, back and forth all the time. It was a long, hard battle. At the end he refused treatment, said I can’t take any more. I’ll never forget that day. We had an appointment actually to reassess the whole situation. I dressed him, he was ready to go. Waiting for the taxi. And he said to me ‘I’m not going. I’ve thought it all through.’ I said ‘OK just sit there for a few minutes until you really, really know for sure.’ So he did that and he said ‘No I can’t take it anymore, I’m not going.’
When he actually died it was a very big break. We had had our wedding anniversary – 45 years – in the September then he died the following May. The strange thing about it, the day he died, we had no warning that it was going to happen. It was his heart that gave out. They left us in the room for about an hour and it was a mixture of feelings; a lot of regret, a lot of peace, a lot of thanks, relief.
But then you just have to get on with your life. Even our parish priest – in his little talk - he said ‘You never heard of either one of [them] by themselves, they were always together.’
Cottesloe 2015: I TRADED WITH THE SHOPKEEPER
Our final excerpt in this series takes us to the end of the war, when our storyteller was eventually demobbed back in the UK. We hope you enjoyed this special series.
"At the end of British activities in Egypt we went from Egypt, right across France to Lyon. Even went through Monte Carlo. We went by train.
I went around all the music shops during that time; many were damaged. I remember going into a shop full of music. The music was in good condition, brand new. I traded with the shop keeper 2 bars of luxe toilet soap for a Chopin étude, opus’ 10 and 25. I managed to get the music back to England on 2 bars of soap! 2 bars of soap was really something valuable. It was rare, not in great supply. I still had that music when I got back to England.
Eventually I was transferred to the army reserve to perform piano for the armed forces through ENSA (the Entertainments National Services Association). Right at the end of the war, when arrangements were being made to send troops back to the UK from France, we found ourselves in the extreme north of France and I was told I had to go join a unit in Dartmouth, where I got demobbed."
THE SYSTEM WORKED WELL
Here is the second in our three-part August series about time serving in the British army during WWII, from a man with so many stories that we can't wait to sit with him again to hear more. We love his frankness, his dry wit and his cheeky behaviour!
"In our off time, a rugby club had been organised by a major, or someone high up, because the morale in the army was going down as we seemed to be losing all the time. We played against the French army. They beat us - they beat me – because I was carried off the field! I was transferred from where we were playing in France to the 63rd General Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, needing an operation on my knee in order to be able to walk. All because of a rugby game!
I was then transferred to be a first class clerk for an officer in Suez. As a clerk I had a recognised lunch hour. During lunch hours I tried to keep fit. We went swimming in a roped off area in the ocean in Port Tewik. We took possession of a dhow boat moored there and we used to dive off the mast into the water. A trainer took me under his wing and taught me to box for maybe 2 years. I did weight lifting as well.
At that time I had a good deal of freedom. I could hitch hike if I wanted transport. Just went down to the road and signalled to get someone to stop. You could get practically any kind of transport. The system worked very well. I played the organ at a wedding in Cairo and turned up at the wedding in an army truck. No one thought that was particularly strange, they just accepted it."
THE LUMP IN MY THROAT
We are delighted to have had the opportunity to speak with such a fantastic and interesting man. There was so much morethat we wanted to hear from him but unfortunately we have not yet had the time to hear his whole story. Our storyteller was born and raised in County Durham, UK in the 1920s. Extremely talented at languages and music, he was a professional classical pianist as well as a teacher. Over the course of August we will be releasing his memories of being called up during World War II.
"I was called up to serve in the British army on 16 October 1939 and served with the Royal Engineers Corp. I didn’t realise that I was ‘in the war’ when I first got called up. I was trained immediately. It's funny, but I can still remember my 7 digit army number today.
Royal Engineers was a non-combatant unit. We did about 6 months in France – that’s all the British forces lasted for there. At one point I was within 8km of the Siegfried Line, a famous loading off point for the army.
When the unit was retreating to the north of France, my commanding officer suggested that if I wanted to save all my music I should put it with the office papers and it would be taken with everything carried below. I remember the lump in my throat as we marched out of Brest, leaving my music behind in an effort to preserve it. It was all music I’d picked up in various leaves, as I’d moved about quite a bit in the north of France. That’s when I saw the unit base going up in flames. That’s how the Germans dealt with any allied possessions that they came across."