Childhood...

There were no locked doors... My parents allowed me to walk from school, from Bowen Terrace near the Story Bridge to visit a girlfriend. Her Sabbath started on Friday night at six o'clock, I had to be home by a quarter to five, and I lived in Eversley, Walker Avenue, in Teneriffe. For me, that was a great walk. I loved it. Children today, they get driven everywhere. We could pick fruit up from wherever, gooseberries, whatever was growing. By the time we got home, we were too full for tea sometimes, but it was great. To be quite honest, now that you've brought me back to my childhood, my favourite food has got to be gooseberries and mangoes. They gave us mango boils. You didn't go to the supermarket to by a mango for six dollars, you picked them off the tree - yes, the stringy mangos, but still, who cared? We didn't even know about Bowen ones then.
 

Recreation...

I read a lot - my parents used to bring home big stacks of comics from the auctions - Ritchie Rich, Veronica, Archie - I had a big stack of Phantoms and if I'd have kept them I'd be a rich woman. But there were times when I wasn't grateful - at the end of the Phantom one it said "to be continued' and the continuing one wasn't in the lot...

Mum and Dad used to say "If we can hear that wireless in the next room it's too loud." Our house being a Queenslander, it had the filigree across the top of the door. We didn't think that was fair. I wanted to listen to the hit parade, top twenty, on full

boar. But my father, when he was in the prisoners’ camp... couldn’t see very well, but it enhanced his hearing. I thank my parents for my hearing today because I can hear things others can't hear because I was made to listen to the radio so low.

Eversley...

My father used to buy houses that were a bit run down, just like Eversley was, fix them up, sell them and then buy another one. But with Eversley, we kept that, but we moved and bought another place, that burnt down.  So we have to come back, and live on the lower side of Eversley. I have the photos here of Eversley, it's a grand mansion, built by a retired sea captain so that he could overlook the boats coming up the river.… Now it's been made into a rabbit warren, really, for the mentally ill. There are many people getting pleasure out of all the great big rooms that we used to have fun in. They've pulled out the mango trees, they sold off the tennis court, so that somebody could build a house on it, and they sold the back part, that was like Tenerife Park, so that they could build a house on it. And the croquet lawn up the side, as you'll see in one of those pictures, it's been dug up for a swimming pool for the mentally ill people. The mentally ill people have got to have somewhere to stay. What breaks my heart is, is that Eversley has changed. That's all.

My Father...
 

My father was a POW in Changi for 3 1/2 years and he was much respected by his men. He'd gone blind, like all the men, through malnutrition, and was stick thin. He'd gotten fattened up again on the ship home though, and his sight had returned. My sister was 4 - 6 weeks old when he left. She didn't know him from a bar of soap and all she said to him was "Guess what? Mummy bought me new socks."

Talking to:
 

Audrey	Callie	Gloria
Grace	Giuseppe	John