Share your history winners

The Winners
The team at the Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia is delighted to announce the adult and junior winners of the Share Your History promotion.

Best Adult Entry: Women on Drilling Rigs - Making History in Women’s Professional Employment Opportunities in Australia by Marjorie Apthorpe

Best Junior Entry: Votes for Women by Imogen Forbes-Macphail

The editorial team were impressed with the quality of the entries received. We would particularly like to congratulate four of the junior writers for their lively, well written submissions: Jennifer Mumford for The Flight of the West Coast Eagles, Victoria Gill for VII British and Commonwealth Games, Tim Brockhoff for The Amana Plane Crash, and Ben Zuidersman’s The Inspirational Life of Beryl Grant.

We would also like to make special mention of Ean McDonald. He sent in an impressive 18 submissions covering a fascinating range of topics.

Community Interest in HEWA

The Share Your History promotion was first conceived in response to keen community interest in the Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia project. We decided to capitalise on that interest and invited people to contribute their own stories for publication on our website. The community responded with enthusiasm.

Share Your History Guidelines

People with factual stories about Western Australia were invited to send in 1000 words or less on a history relating to an incident, place, person, occasion or thing. It could have happened one hundred years ago or just one year ago.

Adults and children were invited to send in their histories.

The submission needed to be:
- Western Australian in content
- submitted electronically
- about the past
- 1000 words or less
- an original, previously unpublished factual work

Media Interview Contacts

Dr Jan Gothard: Editor, Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia
Tel: 6488 2187

A/Professor Jenny Gregory: Editor-in-Chief, Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia and Director of the Centre for WA History and UWA Press.
Tel. 6488 1343.

List of Authors and Entries

A selection of the best Share Your History entries have been published on this site. Writers whose entries are included will receive a voucher entitling the bearer to 20 per cent discount off the price of the published Encyclopedia purchased direct from UWA Press. The best junior and adult entries will receive a free Encyclopedia.

While the authors have exercised every care to present accurate data throughout the content of their submissions, no responsibility is implied or accepted for any inaccuracies.

ANTONIA, Veronica (as told to Patrick Antonio)
Memories of Riley Road, Claremont

APTHORPE, Marjorie
Women on Drilling Rigs: Making History in Women’s Professional Employment Opportunities in Australia (Winner: Best Adult Entry)

ARMSTRONG, Walter P. C.
Nalya – The Place That Was

BROCKHOFF, Tim
The Amana Plane Crash

BURSEY, Brian
Culture Shock on the Wharf 1949

CAMPBELL PRIMARY SCHOOL EARLY LEARNING CENTRE
A Selection of Stories

COOPER, Marie
Palace Bootmakers

CRAIG, Bruce
Memories of Kondut in the 1930s

FAULKNER, Annabel
George Lewis

FORBES-MACPHAIL, Imogen
Votes for Women (Winner: Best Junior Entry)

GETHIN, Margaret
‘Fogs’ Wyatt: The Weather Man

GILL, Victoria
VII British and Commonwealth Games

GREGG, Alison
Carnarvon Tracking Station

HARRIS, Linda
Point Walter Migrant Camp 1966

HILLS, Debbie
A Lighthouse Keeping Family

KEYS, Oliver
The Perth Swan Bell Tower

KIDD, Courtney
Ernest A. La Souef and his Association with Perth Zoo

KINGSTON, Louise
John Bell

LUCY, Helen
Bellevue Primary School (1903-2004): The End of an Era

MALPASS, Joan
John Watson Rutherford

MCDONALD, Ean
Blackboy Hill Commemoration
Boddington Gold
Cathedral of the Holy Cross at Geraldton
Claude de Bernales
Coral Bay
The Dilemma of John Septimus Roe
Hyde Park Festival
Kagoshima Park
The Old Quarry Amphitheatre
Operation Clean Up
Pelican Point
Perth Boys’ School
The Plank Road
Playlovers Dramatic Club
Self Help Builders
The Western Australian Border

MCGREGOR, Mary
Synopsis of an Immigrant’s Life Since 1955

METCHER, Patricia
Ian Metcher, A Pilot at Last

MILLER, Geoff
Edward Mayhew: Pharmacist, Businessman and Scholar
William Howitt: Woodcarver and Artist

MOYNIHAN, John
Derby 1975

MULHOLLAND, Madelene
Uniforms of PLC

MUMFORD, Jennifer
The Flight of the West Coast Eagles

MURRAY, Hannah
Mosman Park

O'SULLIVAN, Sr Flo and Michelle LILLICO
The Sisters of Mercy in WA

PATERSON-MILLER, Toby
The Dental Link to the ‘Sugar and Tea’ Train

PRICE, Desma Rose (submitted by Melanie Price)
And Grandad only Had One Arm!
Growing up Near Cunderdin in the Early Twentieth Century

RENNIE, RichardThe Mulgaphone Radio

ROGERS, Philippa
Named Trains of WA
Honeymooners and Yanchep Park

RUMBALL, Gwynva
The History of Guiding in Melville Project

SOLONEC, Cindy
Employment Matters in the West Kimberley During the Mid 1900s

SORENSEN, Irene
Recollections of Irene Read (Nee Dobbins) of the 1920 and 1930s

TREVELYAN, James
Robot Sheep Shearing

TUNSILL, Kate
Meekathara School of the Air

WESSON, Jane
An Unremarkable Life: Allan Alfred French

WHEATLEY, Delma
Death at Mt Morgans: A Tribute to and Elder Brother 98 Years On
Jack Henderson: A Memoir of Mt Morgans

ZUIDERMAN, Ben
The Inspirational Life of Beryl Grant

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MEMORIES OF RILEY ROAD, CLAREMONT
By Veronica Antonia (as told to Patrick Antonio)
Veronica Antonio is the daughter of William and Sheila Joyce (nee Collopy). Her parents moved into their new home at 46 Riley Road, then Claremont, in 1929 and while in that home raised six children. This section of Riley Road was the farthest part from the Swan River and contained few houses, the road being unsealed. Big areas of bush and sand still existed in this area.

Mr and Mrs Gra Stirling lived in the house opposite the Joyces. Both came from WA pioneering families. Mr Stirling was a relation of Governor Stirling and his wife, Vi Wansborough, came from a York early family.

No sewerage system existed in this street in the 1930s. The Joyces had a septic tank but many used a "thunderbox" toilet at the rear of their blocks. A weekly nightcart removed and replaced the pans. This cart used a lane at the back of Riley Road, a lane that still exists.

For transport, most people used the tram service, the terminus being at the corner of Victoria and Waratah Avenues. Later, a bus service provided public transport, the nearest stop for the Joyce family being at Melvista Avenue, near Stone Road. United Bus Service owned and operated this service and among the fleet was a double-decker bus. Sometimes the Joyce children returned from school in this bus. No designated bus stops operated in those days as the bus stopped at any corner requested. A letter on the bus indicted the bus route. "J" stood for Jutland Parade, "M" for Melvista Avenue and "W" for Waratah Avenue.

At the foot of Riley Road, a garden called Masons Gardens, owned and operated by the Mason family, grew a variety of vegetables. As this area was wet, provision of water presented no problems.

The sealing of Riley Road and the extension of Stone Road attracted great attention from the children who excitedly ran behind the steamroller and other road-forming machines. The tar smell seemed magnificent.

The Joyces, being Catholics, every Sunday trudged through bush and often pushed a pram through the heavy sand to get to Saint Thomas’s Church, Claremont. Later, a public chapel, built onto the Carmelite Monastery in Adelma Road eased this situation considerably.

The nearby river attracted the children; the water in the 1930s and 40s then unpolluted. A favourite activity of some children was using a kylie, a sort of V-shaped piece of metal, to stun fish and allowed them to be caught.

Further along the river, towards Perth, the famous or infamous hot springs existed. Oozing warm water from the earth attracted the children and they enjoyed many playful games. At night, though, these innocuous activities were replaced by all sorts of ‘going on’. Some people landed in court because of such things as ‘frolicking in the nude’, then regarded as obscene.

The iceman came weekly to refill the ice chest, the chief cooling system in many homes. As he moved along the street, the excited children followed and he gave them pieces of ice that had fallen off ice blocks. Few people owned refrigerators in the 1930s. A Coolgardie cooler, an iron frame covered with hessian through which water ran, provided a sort of ancillary type of food cooling. These cooling devices usually contained not-so-perishable foods.

One morning every week the grocer called at the back door to collect an order and that order was delivered the same afternoon. When this grocer came with the groceries, he brought a bag of boiled lollies. Most women stayed at home in those days so this system of dealing in groceries operated well.

The baker came daily also to the back door carrying his wares in a basket. The baker’s conveyance consisted of a horse and cart, his horse sometimes being fed from a nosebag, a bag containing chaff and strapped over the horse’s head. This horse had a hat on his head and through this hat two holes allowed his ears to protrude! Sometimes the horse left his manure on the road and then residents hurried to collect these droppings and put them in their rose gardens.

During the Great Depression, a man cut clothesline props from the surrounding bush and sold them to Riley road residents. The clothesline consisted of a piece of wire strung between two poles and the wire needed a prop to hold up the wire when loaded with clothes.

The sole person having a phone connected was Mrs Freeman-Smith in the next street. She allowed certain other residents to receive calls on her phone. To signal the person required, this lady blew a whistle in blasts of one to four, each blast signalling a certain person.

Big groups of children played in the bush without a single disagreement. There were many goannas seen but never a snake. Perhaps the noise or vibrations on the ground frightened them.

Radio came to the Joyce household about 1935 and brought great excitement to the children especially for the children’s session and Uncle Peter. On birthdays the children really believed that he had placed a present in a certain place in the home. Broadcasts were intermittent and stations closed for a couple of hours during the morning and afternoon, the day’s broadcasting finishing at about 1030pm.

The humble home at 46 Riley Road has long since been demolished to be replaced by a modern structure in a suburb now called Dalkeith. It seems so sad that this home that held so many memories is now gone but that is what we call progress.

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WOMEN ON DRILLING RIGS: MAKING HISTORY IN WOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN AUSTRALIA
By Marjorie Apthorpe (Winner : Adult Entry)
Until 1981, women geologists were not permitted to work offshore on petroleum drilling rigs in Australia. This severely hampered women’s attempts to gain seniority within exploration companies. Despite frequent protests, technically competent women were always ignored for promotion, due to their ‘lack of practical rig experience’. The policy of maintaining offshore rigs as an all-male domain was industry-wide, and there was no such thing as enforceable equal opportunity legislation in those days. Complaints to Western Australian government agencies, whose brief was to promote the interests of women in the workforce, resulted in the confession that the authorities were powerless to act in this matter.

One day in March 1981 that all changed due to a technical problem. The Woodside offshore well North Rankin No. 6 was drilling and the target reservoir had not been reached at the expected depth. The question was asked, is the reservoir deeper than expected? What age of sediments is the well drilling in now? Should we go on drilling? To answer these urgent questions, Woodside decided to send their palaeontologist Marjorie Apthorpe and production geologist Judy Garstone out to the drill ship on the North West Shelf. We had 18 hours notice to assemble essential equipment (microscope and accessories, steel capped boots, overalls and so on) and present ourselves early in the morning at Perth airport to fly north.

Our arrival on the crew helicopter on 6th March created something of a stir on the drill ship Regional Endeavour. Not all the crew were happy about this radical new staff development; we were told that at least one driller had to rummage for shorts to cover his normal off-duty garb of underpants. A four-berth cabin (the smallest available) had to be emptied of men so that we had somewhere to change and get a few hours sleep between long shifts. The cabin was decorated with sexually explicit Penthouse posters of women, as was the sample logging shack where we spent most of our working hours. Finding our way around and watching the drilling operation was continually interesting.

Immediately after arrival I was busy searching for microfossils in the sediment samples pumped up by the drill, looking for the age of the rocks we were drilling through. From the fossils I could see that we were higher (younger) in the sequence than had been predicted, so the word given was “Keep drilling”. That established, Judy and I took turns monitoring the samples for a couple of days. After midnight on day two, I sent word to the chief drilling engineer to say the samples I was looking at were within 30 metres of the top of the gas reservoir. Within a few minutes the drilling bit, far below us and well ahead of the samples, was cutting into the top of the reservoir and the gas pressure was showing up on the monitors of instruments in the logging cabin. We had finally reached the sandstone reservoir, and it contained gas! Collective relief spread rapidly through the entire crew. After that, life revolved around the cutting of cores, measuring, labelling and describing rock types, and documenting the indicators of gas and oil in the cores. Now it was Judy’s turn to use her expertise as she documented the reservoir geology and reported back to head office in Perth.

We spent two weeks on the Regional Endeavour that trip and enjoyed the experience. We also learnt a lot about the practicalities of drilling and recovering samples. Later the same year I made another two-week trip on my own to the same drill ship, for another well with a different set of questions to be answered.

Our March 1981 trip was really the beginning of a new era for women in the petroleum industry. Women quickly became accepted as part of the team of geologists, reservoir engineers, palaeontologists (usually palynologists) and others who now regularly travel to offshore rigs to work. Young women entering the petroleum industry today are often totally unaware of how recently this acceptance of women occurred.

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NALYA - THE PLACE THAT WAS
By Walter P.C. Armstrong
Nalya has no postcode, nor is it likely that you would find it on a map of Western Australia. Yet in the early part of the twentieth century it was a close-knit community located some 14 miles (22 km) east of Brookton on the road to Corrigin. The only reminder today is a granite obelisk bearing a plaque commemorating the pioneers in the area. My paternal grandfather, Andrew Armstrong, was one of the pioneers. I began life there on my father’s farm in November 1913. The settlement boasted only one building. The structure of mud brick and galvanised iron was used for community gatherings, church services and in 1917 also as a one-teacher school, with an enrolment of some eight students.

With World War I raging there was an overall patriotic fervour that gripped everyone in what was an outpost of the British Empire. This was never more evident than when the men, including my father (Tom Armstrong), volunteered for action with the first AIF. It even gripped me as a pre-school five-year-old who played attacking games at home while shouting ‘Kill Kaiser Bill’.

With my father away at the war the responsibility for the farm fell to my mother Daisy. I was too young to realise the stress she must have suffered. One thing, though, was very clear. She was terrified of bushfires. On more than one occasion I remember standing outside with her to watch the smoke from a fire not far away. What would happen if the wind drove the flames in our direction? We were fortunate to escape.

When it came time for me to start school I had to walk about 3 miles (5 km) along a dusty road and through a neighbour’s farm. At school the patriotic fever continued. Boys and girls were taught the soldiers’ marching procedures as we circled the playground dozens of times. We thought of ourselves as becoming real soldiers fighting the detested Germans, and it came to pass later that some of us did in World War II.

But life also had other facets, and here are some of the things that loomed large in the mind of a six-year-old:

1. Towards the end of my first year at school there was a lot of talk about the school break-up. This did not seem sensible to me. If indeed the school were to be broken up, where would the classes be held next year?

2. A cricket match was organised with the local team playing a team from Brookton. My experience with matches had been limited to using them to light the fire in the kitchen stove. How on earth could a match be part of a game of cricket?

3. I also learnt the need for realism in public performances. I was merely a blind boy whose part was to walk slowly by myself across the stage. The spell was broken when a penny was tossed onto the stage, and I quickly bent down to retrieve it. The response from the audience was immediate!

4. Mixed bathing. There was clear-cut rule that students were not to swim in the creek that ran nearby. One summer day found the temperature so high that the older students decided to disregard the swimming edict. They had no bathers, but that did not seem to matter as boys and girls stripped and had a great time cooling off in the pool. I will not detail the repercussions.

5. When it was announced that the school inspector would be coming it was a move to panic stations. This included a rehearsal in which we worked to give the correct answers to certain set questions. One thing stands out from that day. The inspector asked various pupils to suggest a number under 50. He would then write the number on the blackboard, but always in reverse, so that for example 12 was scripted as 21. This went on until it came time for one boy, who nominated 33, with the cryptic comment, ‘See if you can mess that up’!

6. The weekly train from Brookton to Corrigin would arrive at Nalya just after school finished on a Monday afternoon. Here was a golden opportunity to establish the correct time, for in those days there was no media coverage, or quartz movements to give it to us. But the guard of the train would surely know so my duty was to check with him to enable us to then adjust our clocks at home accordingly. This worked well except for one occasion when the guard dismissed my enquiry with the comment, ‘You are too young to know’.

7. Excitement ran high at school when it was announced that Father Christmas would be coming on a Saturday afternoon with a present for each scholar. We spotted the dust rising from the road as Father Christmas arrived in an old horse-drawn cart. It was truly him with his red coat and hat (made – unbeknown to me – by my mother). The joy of the scholars was intense as the presents were handed over. I was the last one in the line. As Father Christmas was about to put the present into my hand I looked him full in the face. Then to the consternation of the whole crowd, I simply said, “Why, it is Grandpa”!

These are some of my earliest experiences in Nalya.

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THE MULGAPHONE RADIO
By Richard Rennie
The Mulgaphone is a uniquely Western Australian wireless set (radio receiver). They were manufactured in Perth between 1924 and 1929.

The first broadcast radio station in Western Australia was 6WF. It was established in 1924 by The Westralian Farmers Limited Cooperative to broadcast news and entertainment to the rural community of Western Australia.

However, government regulations in force at that time required that radio receivers be ‘sealed’ sets, that is their tuning had to be locked on to those stations for which the owner of the set had paid an annual fee of £4-4-0. Westralian Farmers found that there was no ready supply of ‘sealed’ sets available in Perth from either local or overseas manufacturers that could receive 6WF’s wavelength. As a result they decided to manufacture their own radio receivers, which were branded the Mulgaphone.

The Mulgaphone was announced in January 1924, when the first orders were being accepted. To comply with the sealed set regulations the Mulgaphones had fixed coils and a tuning condenser that gave only limited coverage of the radio spectrum. Their reception was centred on 6WF, then the sole local radio station, whose wavelength was 1250m.

However, within the first month of 6WFs operation the sealed set system was abandoned by the government and the Mulgaphone was redesigned, first with tapped internal coils and then with plug-in coils (usually 'basket weave' or 'honeycomb' type). This made it possible to tune to other stations with wavelengths in the range 250 - 2000m. Often eastern states’ stations could be received at night.

The Mulgaphones were manufactured from a mix of imported and locally made components in workshops in the Westralian Farmers building in Perth. Their design and manufacture was supervised by Walter (Wally) Coxon, the chief radio engineer for the new station and probably Western Australia's leading radio engineer at that time.

Coxon was contracted to manufacture 4000 sets. However it is estimated that only about 1200 Mulgaphones were actually made in the period 1924 to 1929. At least four different models were manufactured. These ranged from a crystal set that could only be heard through a set of headphones, to a five-valve set that was capable of using a horn loudspeaker. From the few Mulgaphones that have survived it is apparent that there were many variations within the range of models sold.

Manufacture of Mulgaphones ceased when 6WF was taken over by the Australian Broadcasting Company in 1929.

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THE AMANA PLANE CRASH
By Tim Brockhoff (Junior Entry)
On Monday the 26th of June 1950 the Australian National Airways Skymaster Amana, the flagship of the company's fleet, crashed into a wooded hillside northwest of York. Of the twenty-four passengers and five crew, only one man managed to get out alive. His name was Edgar W. Forwood, aged sixty-seven. Unfortunately, his condition steadily deteriorated and he died on Saturday of the same week.

Three victims of the Amana plane crash were the Bishop of Riverina (Dr C. H. M. Murray), the Dean of Newcastle (the Very Rev. N.J. Blow) and Mr K. Douglas, the managing-director of the Winterbottom Motor Co. of Perth.

The Amana departed from the South Guildford airport at 9:55am and four minutes later reported that they were "on course for Adelaide". Aviation authorities reported that the plane crashed at about 10:15am, which was confirmed by an eyewitness.

The Amana crashed on an isolated 60,000-acre property, owned by Mr Roy Inkpen, which was almost twelve miles in a direct line northwest of York and about four miles from the main road. Leonard Bruce McNamara, the eyewitness who was living on Mr Inkpen's property at the time, reported that at 10:20am he heard the sound of the engines cutting out and ran outside to see a flaming mass in the sky. The mass then disappeared from view and soon afterwards there was a loud bang.

Mr McNamara climbed into his farm utility to inform the police. Meanwhile two ambulances could not spot the crash and drove straight through to York. Mr McNamara joined up with the ambulances and guided them back to the crash. The plane did not notify the South Guildford airport of a problem with the engines. In fact, there was not a word from the plane after they reported that they were "on course". This puzzled aviation officials as any problem as large as this would have given plenty of warning and would have been easily spotted by any of the crew onboard. In fact, the airport attempted to contact the plane several times, without response.

It has not been determined why the plane crashed, but it is presumed the plane caught fire in mid-air suggesting that there was a fault with the engines. In 1950 planes were not equipped with black boxes so there is no evidence of what happened. The Amana seemed to be trying to turn just before the crash, heading back to Guildford or a cleared field a few miles away, although the closest landing strip was the Royal Australian Air Force station at Cunderdin.

Eighteen of the twenty-eight victims of the crash were so badly burnt that they were unrecognizable. Those eighteen were buried in a mass grave in Karrakatta cemetery on Monday of the next week. Among the victims On-board the Amana were eight adults and an infant who had Western Australian residential addresses.

Five bodies, including that of the commander, were thrown from the plane as it crashed through the trees and the bodies of the co-pilot and the two airhostesses were found under the front of the wrecked fuselage. Three of the four engines attached to the plane were found strewn away from the plane, one of which was found in a gully almost 150 yards away. A T.A.A. plane left thirteen minutes after the Amana and saw it go down. The captain of the plane reports that about thirty-five miles ahead he saw a large flash of light, which mushroomed up into the sky for about six seconds.

This crash was, and still is, the worst aviation disaster in WA’s history and the fourth worst in the whole country.

CULTURE SHOCK ON THE WHARF 1949
By Brian Bursey
The family stood at the rail aboard the migrant ship SS Dorsetshire eagerly seeking their loved ones waiting on the wharf below, amid a sea of up-turned faces and fluttering white handkerchiefs. The year was 1949, in the Western Australian port of Fremantle.

The young woman who stood with her husband on the wharf pointed, ‘There they are…there…see the neck of Dad’s double bass? Just right of the one, two, three - the third lifeboat.' Her husband counted. ‘No, I can’t!' She pointed again and said, as if humoring a child. ‘Look, there darling'. `That’s lifeboat number five. You’re supposed to count from the sharp end. Your dad’s bass stands out. That’s better than a white handkerchief.’

Aboard the ship, the seventeen-year-old youth and his elder brother, together with their father and mother, prepared to struggle down the swaying gang- plank that had been lowered by the crew. His father carried his younger son’s drum kit; the large bass drum on his hip and the snare drum, cymbals and stands in a suitcase. The boy carried his father’s double bass with an air of pride. Three months prior to sailing from England he had commenced lessons with a West Indian player called Abe Claire and had managed to put in a great deal of practice during the six week sea journey. His desire to become a jazz bassist had become very important to him.

His elder brother refused point-blank to have anything to do with handling the musical instruments. ‘I feel a right twerp even walking off the ship with you dressed the way you are. Bloody embarrassing!’ The young musician could see nothing wrong with the American- styled suit that he had tailored in Shaftsbury Avenue for £5. All the musicians had their suits made there. It was a dark brown gabardine with the latest long lapels, drape-backed jacket, trousers with very narrow bottoms and two inch turn-ups, and a cream shirt with a long spear-point collar. The outfit was complimented by a candy-striped necktie and white sponge-soled shoes, kept free from any stray shoe polish. The pièce de résistance was a pair of rimless glasses – with plain glass – which many of his young musical friends were wearing in England. `You look like some sort of bloody…ah… pseudo Gene Krupuk! The brothel-creeper shoes and that bloody awful haircut, with the duck’s tail at the back. I don’t want to be seen dead with him Mother.’

To the young man, his elder brother’s remarks were water off a ducks back. He knew that his dress sense was far ahead of his ‘square' brother, who, when in England looked quite the country squire when heading up to the pub for his Sunday drinks with his sister – who now waited on the wharf. A Harris Tweed suit – not a jacket – but a suit made from tweed, with a split up the back. He looked as if he should be riding a horse! Why he wore one lemon coloured woollen glove on his right hand and carried the other glove in the same hand was strange. The pipe clamped firmly in his mouth completed the aura of the country squire. No wonder within the family his nickname was “The Baron".

At the bottom of the gangway, two wharfies stood waiting to assist the passengers with the precarious first step onto Australian soil. One was a dissipated Chips Rafferty look-alike, and his mate Jacko was short, barrel-chested, with a large beer-belly to match. Their mode of attire was strikingly different to that of the young musician with the double bass. In fact it was simplicity personified, namely, one pair of black boots, one pair of East Fremantle footy socks, one pair of black shorts (with a hole in the seat), and one navy blue singlet (faded). His mate Jacko differed only in his style of footwear and footy club preference. One pair of South Fremantle footy socks, very worse for wear. One pair of very old footy boots with the studs removed, and of course the ubiquitous blue singlet and black shorts.

The tall one with deep red hair was examining the Poms as they stepped ashore and murmuring significant comments as to their suitability as future Australians. Jacko just stood and rolled a smoke from a tin of Havelock Fine Cut tobacco. ‘Hey Blue’, said Jacko, sotto voce, ‘cop the knockers on the little Sheila in red.’ Blue stared in absolute wonder. `Strike me! Yer could rest a cupla’ full schooners on them and yer wouldn’t spill a drop!’ ‘Come on luv, watch yer step, yer could topple over if yer don’t watch out.’ `Bloody ‘ell Blue, y’game arncha? D’ya see the size of ‘er old man?’ ‘Jacko my son, a faint ‘art never won a … bugger me!...will ya ‘ave a look at what they’re sendin’ us now’. `Where…what?’ `The joker with the over-sized violin. Will yuz’ ave a look at the gear he’s wearin’? Fair dinkum I dunno what this bloody country’s comin’ to.’ Jacko, embarrased by the size and shape of this alien instrument, cracked the usual tired and worn out gag … `Betcha can’t get that under yer’ chin mate! … Ha,ha,ha.’

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A SELECTION OF STORIES
By Campbell Primary School Early Learning Centre
Here are some stories that Kindergarten children told to their teacher Mrs Wylie during the learning about 2004 the Year of the Built Environment. Our place of learning Campbell Primary School Early Learning Centre was established and officially opened during 2004 so it was rather pertinent that we included it into our learning. Children looked at a series of photographs to see the construction, from bushland through to them arriving and then much of the playground/carpark was done during the school day and they saw the workers and the machines in action.

There was trees and no buildings and then they wanted to build a Kindy at the place. There’s not much trees left. The builders brought the stuff to make the Kindy. The gates came and the roof and a cement path. A digger made a line to put pipes in for the sprinklers. They wanted grass and a playground. The Kindy was built. The teachers came and they made the classrooms pretty with all the stuff. Then it was time for all the kids to start. They were happy. I love Kindy.
By Maddison

When it first got built the builders were working on their tractors. They made the buildings, pavements and the playground. They watered the garden with the huge hose. Gravel made a place to walk on because there was too much sand. There’s all kids there now and teachers and they brought their stuff, their classroom stuff. When I first came I feeled different, a little bit crying and then when I left I wasn’t because I had a good time and my Mum picked me up.
By Maslin

Once upon a time there was lots of trees and they cut them down and built a Kindy. The workman used sand and stilts to keep the walls up. They put the roof on with a big crane and a big ladder. Then the concrete came so people don’t get sand in their shoes. When the concrete was dry they put the grass in and the toilets. It was all built. Kids start going in.
My Mum said “Have a nice day.” I was excited. I played with the trains.
By Jack S

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PALACE BOOTMAKERS
By Marie Cooper
I would like to tell you a little about a boot repair shop which older people will remember. It was called ‘ Palace Bootmakers’. The name referred to the fact that it was in the Palace Hotel building on the corner of William and St Georges Terrace Perth for many years. I am not sure what year it commenced but it must have been before World War II because I remember Wally Lothian, who was the owner of the business when I became the Senior Shop Assistant in early 1960s, telling us he returned from the war to his job in the shop. The owner at that time was a Mr Silverlock. Mr Lothian and he were partners until he bought Mr Silverlock out. The reason it was called bootmakers was that Mr Silverlock did actually make boots and shoes in the early days.

Wally Lothian had served his apprenticeship under Mr Silverlock. The business transferred to the corner of William and Murray Streets where it ran for a number of years until Mr Lothian died in the 1980s. It was in its time an icon of Perth.

I joined the firm in 1962 having returned from England, my home country. Jobs for seniors without a trade were hard to come by and the Commonwealth Employment Agency which at the time has premises in Wellington Street found me the job. Although I hated it at first and tried hard to find something more to my liking preferably in newsagents, I ended up staying for over 20 years.

The shop was very busy and, although small, had eight workers when I first started. It was cramped, hot and we worked hard. We worked over 40 hours a week over five and one half days. We had two week’s holiday a year. I do not remember how much we were paid, not a lot I remember. There was nowhere to go to have lunch so I used to sit in Forrest Place (now known as Forrest Chase) and eat my sandwiches. I could not afford to go to a café. If the weather was really bad I would go to Coles in Murray Street and buy a cup of soup or tea. We only had half an hour for lunch so could not go far. In the summer when it was really hot I used to go to the Library in Beaufort Street to cool down. It is now the Museum.

The conditions under which we worked would not be tolerated today but for all that there were compensations. I met many of the rich and famous of Perth and in later years of my employment when the business was not so busy due to the throwaway mentality, I had time to chat to some when they dropped in to have repairs done. Mrs Edgely was one of my favourites. I found most of the upper class, as we call them, to be very approachably and friendly. My boss was surprised at the way I used to chat with them. I always remember him saying one day. Do you know who that lady is? She is worth millions, lives in Peppermint Grove. How can you and she talk as though you live next door to each other? He could not understand they were just people who happened to be richer than we would ever be.

I ended up working at the shop for over 20 years in which time I saw many changes in Perth, which became quite a modern city. The old buildings gradually vanished. I was working in the shop when the AMP building opposite was demolished and the new modern one put up. The noise and dust was awful. It seemed such a shame to have so many buildings of so much glass in a city in which the temperature during the summer is high. Nowadays of course buildings are air-conditioned. We had a fan but it did not help much. It was hot work in summer and cold in the winter. As far as the shop itself was concerned I liked the wooden floor. Although on my feet all day I had no problems with my legs and feet. When we shifted to the more modern shop in an Arcade on the corner of Murray and William Street the concrete floors played havoc with my legs and I almost quit because of it. My father suggested a rubber mat with holes which I stood on. This did the trick.

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MEMORIES OF KONDUT IN THE 1930s
By Bruce Craig
If anyone asked you, ‘What town do you come from’? we always said with great pride Kondut, 140 miles (235kms) north of Perth in the wheat belt. Now Kondut wasn’t exactly a metropolis but it was where Dad and Mum did most of their weekly shopping, received their mail, delivered most of the farm’s wheat production, received and sent goods by rail, participated in the social and sporting activities that abounded in those early days and sent their children to primary school.

Kondut as I first remember it, consisted of one corrugated iron house, (which I think was a shop in earlier years), a local hall built of cement bricks with a weatherboard constructed room the width of the hall attached to the back of it. The hall had a nice jarrah floor, which was highly polished with ‘Bee’s wax and sawdust’, to make it slippery for dancing. The attached back room was called the supper room, for it was in this room that the local ladies would prepare and serve supper at these dances. However the main use of the supper room was for the children of the Kondut district to use as their schoolroom, as Kondut never had a proper school building. Next along the street was the Kondut store and post office, with the owners’ living quarters attached to the back of the shop. This also was a corrugated iron building.

Those three buildings completed that side of the gravel road. On the other side of the road we had the railway line, with the fully enclosed wheat bin running parallel and close, so as when it had to be emptied, the wheat could be transferred directly into railway trucks for transport to Fremantle. On the same side about 100 metres further south, was a flat area used for temporary storage of grain and called a ‘pig pen”. Between the wheat bin and pig pen, was a machinery -loading ramp, again so as it allowed direct loading into rail trucks. Further along on the same side were the railway stockyards, used by farmers when sending stock to market by rail.

The two-room Railway station was on the shop side of the railway line, nearly opposite the loading ramp. It was here at the station where small parcels of all descriptions were off loaded for the district residents, from the goods and passenger trains, at all hours of the day and night. To protect the parcels from the weather, the train’s guard, would place the parcels in the enclosed room but such was the honesty of most people the room was never locked. If you were expecting a parcel, you just went into the room, sorted through the items there, found yours, and away you would go. I don’t think a system like that would work today.

The other room was enclosed on three sides and had a large red bin, in which the mail in canvas bags from the post office, would be placed under lock and key and when the train travelling to Perth came through, the guard on the train would remove the mailbags to be taken to Perth. A similar thing would take place, when the train travelling from Perth stopped at the station and the guard would place the incoming mailbags into the bin, for the postmaster to pick up.

Also in this room was a telephone belonging to the railways, to be used by the train guards to phone up the next major station down the line, to let them know what time to expect their arrival. People waiting at the station often used it to find out why the train was running late and when they could expect it to turn up. Railway timetables were not very reliable. These phones worked on a Morse code system.

The only other building in the town site was a small corrugated iron shed, along side a weighbridge, on which farmers would weigh their loaded wheat trucks when delivering wheat to the wheat bin. The loaded truck would be weighed on arrival and the weight noted by the bin attendant and after the load of wheat had been delivered to the bin, the truck was weighed again and the difference in the two weights was the amount of wheat that the farmer would be paid for. This system is still used today but in a computerised form.

So that completed the actual buildings in the town site and the only other thing of note was on the outskirts, in the form of a horse racecourse with its bush stables and two or three small tin sheds for the officials and for the ladies to serve refreshments. There was, on course on race days, a bar and ice cream stall operating.

For the energetic folk, there were two anthill constructed tennis courts, with a bush bower shed to provide shade for those not taking part out on the courts. In the bower shed hung the very large water bag for all to quench their thirst and it was in here that the wonderful cup of tea, sandwiches and cakes were partaken of, during a break in play.

So you now have an idea of the town of Kondut, as I remember it in my early days. This was the place where my parents and many more district residents supported and looked to for their daily goods and social contacts. C/o Post Office Kondut was the address to be seen on the mail and parcels received. Kondut was like so many more little townships that were part of the lifestyle of the country people in that era.

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GEORGE LEWIS
By Annabel Falkner (Junior Entry)
He was born in Petersberg in South Australia in 1899, and spent his childhood years growing there. When he reached adulthood he moved to Kalgoorlie Western Australia, where his approach into the world began.

World War One had the most major effect on George’s and many others’ lives. Being just a boy when he was sent, George had no idea of what to expect of the time ahead of him. At the age of fifteen years, George Lewis was trained as an explosives officer, and soon found that his task for the war would be to set up bombs. When he arrived along with all the other young men who believed to be fighting nobly for their country, George realized how a war was fought. He was sent in with a battalion group of 400 soldiers, all trained as explosives officers. At the age of fifteen or sixteen years, George had the terrible ordeal no one should have ever experienced. Along with all of the other injuries of the war, there was one he may never have recovered from. George and the other officers were setting up a bomb when it exploded. Although he came out alive, he had his best friend’s dead body splattered over him before his eyes. George Lewis was one of the two soldiers who came out alive in their battalion group from the war, and though physically alive, emotionally scarred forever.

Transport on the goldfields in Western Australia was a very difficult but necessary task for mining companies. In the 1930s, after his childhood war was over, George provided a reliable source for people to travel by air to the outback for mining purposes. The mining was a very important part of the development of Australia’s economy at the time, as gold was a major export. George’s career of flying all began with his meeting of Joe Thorn. Through conversation with this American man, George gathered the information Thorn managed the goldfields in Kalgoorlie, but had great trouble getting to and from mining sites. He needed to travel by plane to the sites, as any other means of transport was incompetent. George added that as well as making planes, he could fly them. After conversation it was decided that George would fly the aeroplane Joe Thorn supplied to the mines as a means of transport for injured workers, supplies etc. They set up their own company by the name of Goldfield Airways. Places such as Meekatharra, Roy Hill, Mt Magnet and various others were visited while flying in the Avro Ansons and Tigermoths around Western Australia for Joe’s observations of mine sites. George not only was a part of the longest lasting airways company used for mining, but by flying out to the outback to help retrieve gold, was used as a key component in building the Western Australian economy.

A call for help was never denied when in the hands of George Lewis. Being the most reliable flyer in the industry proposed voluntary responsibilities that George grasped with open arms. His career in flying was not only based on mining, but George willingly took on the responsibility to take care for the members of the outback. As there were no medical services in remote living areas in the outback, when a person fell ill they would have to be taken to another town to regain health or even life. Planes were the only suitable means of transport being the quickest and most reliable. With the use of George’s company plane, he would respond to calls for help and fly the outback dwellers to the closest hospital when they fell ill. His first mercy mission was in 1934, when a young boy caught pneumonia and needed medical treatment by a doctor immediately. George flew the boy from Kalgoorlie to Esperance to gain treatment, saving his life. This mission was the first step in the formation of the Australian Aerial Medical Service Eastern Goldfields Branch. From then, patients would charter him and his planes if a crisis occurred. George was the only operator in the state and charged one shilling per mile (five cents per two kilometres flown). His services were so successful that the communities of Perth and Kalgoorlie raised money to buy the Service bigger and better planes which would service the whole of Western Australia. In 1937, the Australian Aerial Medical Service Eastern Goldfields Branch was established. We know it today as the Royal Flying Doctor Service. George was paid an annual fee by the Service for his work as a pilot and maintenance of planes which he provided for twenty-two years.

George never took one thing at a time. Working parallel to the first steps of the Flying Doctor Service, George had also been requested to extend his work with the GFA (Goldfield Airways) for charters. His flying expeditions then consisted of flying from Esperance to the Kimberleys and similar distances. He bought a second aeroplane for this task, and was working constantly for the mining company being involved in exploration work. George flew geologist and petrologists widespread over WA searching for minerals and oil. He was asked to find people lost in the vast expanse of the outback, and every time found and returned them to safety. He built up an ‘encyclopedic knowledge’ of the WA outback, and his skill in finding places is still today remembered as legendary.

George’s work and life just kept expanding. He did aerial photographic surveys for more mining companies following from the purchase of his new Avro Anson, and at the same time settled to have a family. Whether my Grandpa ever ‘settled down’ though is a debatable subject. He married, and had two children while still keeping his flying career. His life was well spent, and when in 1990 at the age of ninety-one it finally ended, it was one that all close to him could look back at and be proud of.

References:
Fletcher, T. 1997, ‘The Life and Times of George Lewis’, Logbook, March, pp.8-13.
Webb, M.J & Webb, A. 1993, Golden Destiny, City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Western Australia.

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VOTES FOR WOMEN IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
By Imogen Forbes-Macphail (Winner: Junior Entry)
The battle for female suffrage in Western Australia was very different from most other parts of the world. The Forrest government practically handed women the vote in 1899 to try and neutralise the rush of radicalism from the Eastern colonies and the goldfields. This made Western Australia the third place in the world to give women the vote, after New Zealand in 1893 and South Australia in 1894. But during the time when it did not suit the government’s purpose to grant women the vote, there were still several major feminist organisations which agitated in various ways for basic rights and enfranchisement.

One of the most influential of these was the Women’s Christian and Temperance Union (WCTU), a nation-wide women’s association with a major section dedicated to the issue of the vote. It was first introduced to Western Australia in 1892 by Jesse Ackman, an influential American feminist. In October 1893 Elizabeth Nicholls, the Australasian president, came to be present at the first annual WCTU convention in Western Australia, and also at the first suffrage meeting to be held in the colony. By the next year the organisation had amassed so many signatures for a petition on female enfranchisement that it stretched for a mile. The motion was supported by Mr W. Traylen and Mr George Throssell (members of the Legislative Assembly), but not by many others—including other women. At this time, Janetta Foulkes was delegated the role of Suffrage Superintendent of the WCTU, and another important feminist association was formed, the Karrakatta Club.

The Karrakatta Club, like the WCTU, was not originally or solely a suffragist organisation. It began as a literary discussion group, but later developed into a forum for discussion about the situation of women, while under the presidency of Lady Margaret Onslow. Within this circle, women could debate, discuss current issues, and publish papers. Edith Cowan, future politician, and Lady Forrest, wife of the Premier, were some of the original members of the club. Lady Forrest’s husband, unfortunately, was one of those who hindered female enfranchisement when it was proposed in Parliament in 1896 by MP J. Cookworthy. Premier Forrest had three main reasons for his refusal. Firstly, that women had not asked for the vote themselves (obviously ignoring the petition mentioned earlier). Secondly, that there was no precedent in Britain (not that these precedents were always followed either as married women were not allowed to own property in Australia until twenty-two years after English women had secured that right). Thirdly, that it was not a ‘matter of urgency’.

The next year, there was a revival of the motion by Walter James. His argument was not whether it was expedient for the country, but whether it was just. Unfortunately, this Bill too was defeated. At this time the WCTU gained new energy as Christine Clark replaced Janetta Fowles in her role as Suffrage Superintendent. Clark began intensive campaigning, proving that women did want the vote themselves, and encouraged suffragette meetings. One of these, held by Anna Throssell, sent yet another (ignored) letter to the government, stating that ‘in the opinion of this meeting it is desirable that for the best interests of the Colony the Franchise be extended to women’. Another of Christine’s publicity moves was to try and get as much about the vote into the press as possible. The WCTU column in the West Australian, ‘News and Notes’, became almost solely focused on suffrage, and the editor happily published letters and positive editorials in the same paper. All this campaigning finally culminated in a renewal of the motion, again by Walter James, in 1898, which was humiliatingly defeated.

On the 27 of April 1899, the last major suffragist group was formed. Christine Clark held a meeting at the Leisure Hour Club in Perth, at which she founded an organisation solely devoted to feminism rather than Christianity, the Western Australian Women’s Franchise League. However, by this time the fight was almost over anyway—due to pressure from the goldfields rather than the suffragettes.

At this time, the goldfield areas were pushing for more equal representation in Parliament. Forrest realised that this would strengthen his opposition, as most of his support came from the over-represented city areas. However, if women were enfranchised, then the proportion of city people would rise (not many women lived out in the goldfields), and most were expected to vote conservative. He declared in June 1899 that a discussion on the issue would take place. In July, when Walter James once again introduced a Bill for female suffrage, Forrest gave his support. The Bill was passed by the Legislative Assembly by a majority of eleven, and by the Legislative Council on the 17 August 1899—finally giving Western Australian women the right to vote. This meant that they were the only women apart from those in South Australia to vote on the 1900 Federation referendum. At the next state election, there were even proportionally more women than men voting (so much for not wanting the vote).

In 1901, the year of Federation, women were finally given the right to vote at a national level. It still took them another nineteen years before they were able to sit in Parliament, but once they were, Edith Cowan was elected to the Legislative Assembly in the following year. In many ways, Western Australian women were the most progressive, producing the first parliamentarians, ministers and premiers in the whole of Australia, and often among some of the first in the world.

References:
Kirsten Lees, Votes for Women, The Australian Story, Allen and Unwin, 1995.
A Matter Of Public Importance: Votes For Women, 26 Nov. 2003 (website)
Launching the Ship Of State: A Constitutional History of Western Australia (website)

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‘FOGS’ WYATT: THE WEATHER MAN
By Margaret Gethin
A brand new year had just started and it was on this day in 1938 that Ray Wyatt at the age of 25 and newly married, stepped off the train from Adelaide at the Perth station, with his wife Joan. He had come to commence the preliminary work in connection with the setting up and maintenance of a Meteorological station at Maylands aerodrome.

The Commonwealth Government had provided special training to meteorologists and university graduates to enable them to provide weather information for civil aviation purposes. Ray, an assistant meteorologist in Adelaide commenced this special training in May 1937 in Melbourne. At the conclusion of the training he was stationed at the Adelaide Weather Bureau until he left for Perth.

Having been provisionally appointed to the position of Assistant Meteorologist for Maylands, Ray had to provide information to fight an appeal in October of the same year to support his claim to keep that appointment. He provided details of his work history with the Commonwealth Public Service and his educational qualifications. At the conclusion of the training in Melbourne he had successfully gained second position in the Examinations having received creditable marks in all subjects and in competition with men of more than 20 years experience behind them.

His appeal was successful and he subsequently arrived in Perth. He commenced giving meteorological reports to the air services in Western Australia and brought Maylands into line with the principal aerodromes in the eastern states.

The station at Maylands was temporarily located in the hanger of the Australian National Airways - in the ambulance room. The room was only big enough for one person to work in and the desk was the ambulance table covered with a sheet of plywood. At a later date the station was given an office in a Department of Civil Aviation building.

With the increase in aviation it had now become necessary to observe and compute upper air readings for the pilots and one of the methods was to use balloons. While still in Adelaide, Ray found that during the winter months it became necessary to begin special balloon flights before daylight and to be able to observe the progress of the balloon, he had constructed a lantern that was attached to the pilot balloon. This lantern proved very satisfactory and was adopted by the Adelaide office. It is assumed that he continued this practice at Maylands.

Duties as an Assistant Meteorologist included general forecasting and verification of same, and preparation of monthly returns to Central Office including extra duty claims. Initially the general weather information came from the Perth Observatory and the required information was issued to airline pilots operating to and from Maylands. In 1940 forecasts were required for the routes Kalgoorlie to Perth, Bullsbrook and District, Wiluna to Perth, Wiluna to Kalgoorlie, Perth to Onslow and Carnarvon to Onslow. Special warnings were also required to be given to the RAAF should dangerous weather conditions develop during the afternoons.

The determination of wind velocities were also an important part of weather forecasting as well as storm warnings to make for the safer operation of the aerial services.

Local weather conditions were sent by radiotelephone to pilots of planes approaching Perth and prior to their departure. Also included were weather prospects along the routes.

In mid-1938 officers of the Meteorological branches were invited to apply for vacant positions and Ray’s successful application to the newly created position of Weather Officer in Charge came into force in November 1938.

Ray’s commitment to his work was such that on a recreational leave to Adelaide he was prepared to visit Parafield office (South Australia) to compare methods. He wanted to travel by aeroplane as he considered “it would be of much assistance in forecasting to have passed over the route”. In his request to the Commonwealth Meteorologist in Melbourne he suggested that Australian National Airways might “allow a substantial concession on the airfares” for him and his family because of the experience gained. He was also prepared to travel to Essendon Aerodrome (Victoria) and the Central Bureau to get further insight into the process of air mass analysis and other aspects of the work over there. The last suggestion was not taken up, but a free return journey from Perth to Adelaide with Australian National Airways was provided.

During the war Ray transferred from civilian life to the RAAF and was employed as a Weather Officer in the services. At some stage he was moved to Corunna Downs in the far north of Western Australia, near Port Hedland.

After the war Ray was appointed to Guildford Aerodrome (Western Australia) as the office had been moved there from Maylands sometime between 1943 and 1946. Apart from a 19 months transfer to Darwin Weather Office in 1946, Ray was stationed at Guildford until 1960 when he returned to Adelaide for the last time to work at Adelaide Airport, West Beach until his death in 1962.

Ray’s wife Joan said that “Ray was given the nickname ‘Fogs’ as he often forecast fogs”. The family always appreciated getting an up-to-date weather forecast before leaving home each day whether it be foggy or not.

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VII BRITISH EMPIRE AND COMMONWEALTH GAMES
By Victoria Gill (Junior Entry)
The world of the 1960s, which had celebrated the turn of the new decade with the 1960 Olympics, was the time when Perth had its turn to show the nation that it could take on the task to host the best sports people from around the Commonwealth for the Seventh British Empire and Commonwealth Games. Perth had never really been host to anything so international so the job of moving Perth forward onto the international sporting stage was a major task. The Western Australian Government planned a costly Athletes Village that was hailed as the best ever and two major stadiums that would serve Perth for many years past the event.

In preparation for the event the Western Australian Government went to major lengths to make the athletes comfortable. They held a competition for the design of a home that would be the design of 150 homes in the new part of City Beach. The land worth at the time was £200,000. These homes gave a desirable lifestyle that many athletes of that time wanted. The houses are still in evidence in City Beach with the bungalows sold after the Games to private citizens. The two main sporting arenas were Perry Lakes, which still serves young athletes of Western Australia today, that cost one million Australian pounds to build, and Beatty Park, that hosts many significant events for Perth.

To open the Games, Prince Philip arrived in Perth a day before the opening, on the RAAF Convair from Canberra, and drove through the streets of Perth while being greeted by hordes of people that lined the streets. Yes, Perth was in its finery with banners on building and people in their Sunday best, waving flags and cheering. “Perth will become the sporting capital of the world during the Games,” pronounced the Melbourne Age, and the world was about to see if Perth could handle this.

The sweltering competition on the track between the athletes was almost beaten by the temperature which consistently rose to over 100ºF for the first three days of the Games. The first day was, not a success with officials blaming a poor turnout to the track and field events on the heat when in truth there was incorrect advertising for starting times. The Melbourne Age reported on these mess ups stating, “Perth, which has worked hard to stage the Games, is in danger of spoiling its greatest moments.” But the races had to go one and the six-mile race was the starting test for the runners as the heat continued to scorch the track.

The day of the six mile race dawned with 104ºF heat and more than one competitor found the race too hot before it had begun. All in all, seven out of the eighteen starters dropped out due to the extremity of the conditions. Bruce Kidd of Canada made the full six miles in a baseball cap, and added a gold medal to his neck. Kidd also pushed through to win bronze in the three mile, though he was beaten to the line in outstanding fashion by both Murray Halberg, of New Zealand, who won gold, and Ron Clarke who took home another silver for the host nation. Halberg’s team mate Peter Snell won gold later in the one mile event, after this Halberg enthusiastically pronounced, “It’s amazing how often Snell and I have won double, and last night we were determined to put the old firm of Halberg and Snell back into business again.” He was referring to Snell and his own victories at the 1960 Rome Olympics where the duo won gold in the 800 metres and 5,000 metres and were won within just hours of each other.

Beatty Park was the stage for the giants of the aquatic world who broke nine world records, seven by Australians, two by the English. The swimming legends Dawn Fraser, Murray Rose and Ian O’Brien performed spectacularly with eleven gold medals to be accounted for between them. Kevin Berry, also an Olympic medalist, achieved three gold medals to make Australia’s domination of the pool complete. Off the diving board, and Brian Phelps of England won the double gold in men’s diving, while Aussie Susan Knight did the same double feat in the women’s competition.

The 4 X 110 yards medley was a greatly anticipated race because the three favourites had each one girl in their team who held a world record of the individual equivalent of their leg. Pam Sargeant became the second member of Australia’s team to hold a world record when she smashed Ludgrove’s record in the first leg. The rest was a matter of holding the lead, and when Fraser dived in there was no swimmer in the pool that could out race her. She finished Australia off with a world record of four minutes forty eight point eight seconds. The Seventh British and Commonwealth Games were coming to a close and all around the world countries were celebrating, this was a year where every country that entered would win a medal.

As the closing ceremony was commenced few people remembered the hitches in the early parts of the games. The friendliness of the people of Perth was echoed in the closing ceremony when sports stars like Dixi Willis, who had earlier won the 880 yards final in front of her home crowd, walked arm-in-arm with the woman she had just beaten, Marise Chamberlain. Others like Bruce Kidd, Seraphino Antao, Dawn Fraser, Murray Rose and Geoff Dynevor paraded around the stadium to the cheers of thousands of fans. The unscheduled serenade of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ brought athletes and spectators alike to tears. Perth finally bade farewell to the athletes whom they had cared for and supported no matter what nation they come from. The world needed no more proof Perth could keep up the standard of sport and community on an international level.

References:
Dheensaw. C, 2001, ‘The Commonwealth Games Then First 60 Years 1930-1990’, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney, New South Wales.

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CARNARVON TRACKING STATION
By Alison Gregg
Most of the kids in our street in Carnarvon in the 1960s could count down from ten to zero before they learnt to count from one to ten. ‘10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-Ignition-2-1-0-Lift off!’ was their regular, joyous playground chant. It was part of their everyday play, learnt from their parents on the staff of Carnarvon Space Tracking Station, tracking Gemini and Apollo missions in the space race to the Moon.

The Station (call sign ‘CRO’) was established in 1963 in preparation for NASA’s space science research and manned spaceflight programs. Carnarvon was chosen because it was one of the few locations able to track spacecraft launched from the US into Earth orbit, then at critical points in transit, and finally into orbit around the Moon. CRO’s geographical location meant that it was the first station within the NASA network able to confirm that a newly launched spacecraft had achieved orbit, and provide precise details of its path – information critical to the success of each mission. While some CRO equipment operated 24-hours a day all year round, Tracking staff were always rostered round-the-clock during missions and in the lead-up training and fine-tuning trials that preceded them. Everyone was on call during spaceflights. CRO also supported large numbers of unmanned missions sent to gather data on activities beyond normal land-based range - sunspot activities and solar flares among them.

Staff were recruited from around Australia, the UK and anywhere else that could provide the 200 or so highly skilled physicists, electronics engineers and technicians needed to keep the station operating. Many came with young families, eager for adventure and happy to start a new life in what was then a remote, little-known outpost on Australia’s northwest coast. Antenna arrays, communications and control buildings sprouted on the red sand hills of Brown’s Range, 11 kms out of town. Staff were employed by contractor Amalgamated Wireless (A’Asia) reporting to the Australian Department of Supply. CRO was established to provide operations and maintenance for all NASA missions, to relay communication and to support and provide crucial information direct to the astronauts and NASA’s Manned Space Flight Center at Houston.

CRO staff gained renown throughout the network for their accuracy, technical efficiency, reliability and ingenuity in inventing effective solutions to problems that inevitably arose in this untried field. It was a pioneering role and they revelled in it. For the staff themselves, CRO brought an opportunity to work on state-of-the-art programs and equipment, and network with likeminded professionals around the world. It also brought travel and educational opportunities. Few had visited the US before being sent there for NASA training.

Trackers’ families benefited too. Many came to revel in the different lifestyle Carnarvon provided. They joined local sporting teams, took to fishing and swimming; gave strong support to a wide range of local service clubs, churches and community organisations. Many savoured their first taste of outback station life and small town living. They joined the local drama and music groups, formed a Trackers’ pub band, staged an annual Ball, built floats for the annual Tropical Festival street parade and they partied. Mission times - when work demands took absolute precedence - were difficult for families, but everyone there at the time remembers the elation of each successful conclusion and the splashdown party that followed.

For Carnarvon, the station meant an inflow of young families and singles with high technical skills and a willingness to adapt to new conditions. Some were disappointed, but most revelled in the opportunities Carnarvon provided. Several stayed on in the town after the Station closed in 1975. In 1994, 25 years after the first Moon landing, over 100 former staffers and families travelled back to Carnarvon to celebrate that anniversary. Now, using electronic communications that are in part a spin-off of the 1960s NASA program, they still keep in touch with each other and the town.

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POINT WALTER MIGRANT CAMP 1966
By Linda Harris
The Witkowski family arrived in Fremantle aboard the Fairsea on 28th April 1966, and stayed in a caravan at the Point Walter Migrant Hostel for six weeks until the middle of June 1966. My parents Marian (Mike) Witkowski and Ann Witkowski wanted to immigrate to Australia to give my younger sister and I a “better way of life”. My sister Janet was five and I had just turned seven when we arrived.

The first impression I got of the place was the long dining room and our first meal which was baked beans on toast. To this day the smell of baked beans reminds me of Point Walter. We wore “flip flops” (thongs) for the first time during this period and I found them very uncomfortable and hard to walk in. Within the first couple of days there, I was unfortunate to get into the middle of an older children’s rock throwing fight and stumbled into the dining room of the hostel bruised and bleeding. I was immediately taken to Fremantle Hospital were my head was promptly shaved and stitched up. Not a very good start I’m afraid.

Point Walter is on the Swan River and was turned into a Migrant Hostel after formerly being used as an Army Barracks. It was supposed to be for short-term accommodation when Australia embarked on a policy of post-war immigration. These were times when there was the White Australia Policy in place and the catch phrase was “The cradle can’t do it, let’s bring out a Brit”. So this became the home of up to 1200 British migrants otherwise known as the “ten pound Poms” as that was the cost of the assisted passage at the time. If a family chose to leave within a two year period then they would have to reimburse the government the full amount of their fare.

The swimming was great and I have lots of happy memories jumping off the Point Walter Jetty and taking my chances swimming back to shore amongst the jellyfish. We had a small shop on site and I would buy two Black Cat bubblegums for one cent and a Choo-Choo bar for three cents. What times they where when you could get ten cents a week pocket money and still have change! What happy days.

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A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPING FAMILY
By Debbie Hills
In 1957 my father became a lighthouse keeper. He and Mum, then 23 years old, packed their clothes, bedding and cookware; rented out their war service home; divvied up their furniture and car amongst family, and boarded a plane north with their three small children.

After a 14 hour boat trip from Darwin, they anchored in Cape Don lagoon at the tip of the Coburg Peninsula. A lightkeeper appeared through thick monsoon rain to row them ashore. Their possessions and stores were ferried by a trolley that the men pushed to the lighthouse station up a long sloping rail track through woolly-butt gum trees and wild grass as tall as a man. My parents, Lew and Elaine Hills, had a wet start to their almost twenty years in the lighthouse service.

Cape Don had three keepers. Each house on high stumps had wide shuttered verandas all round, breezeway passages crisscrossed down the centre, and French doors or tall windows in every wall to catch any breeze. In the Wet, mould attacked clothes and books; prickly-heat rash flourished in sweaty creases and Sand flies stamped hot red dots all over us. We learned to hold our slices of bread up to the light to pick out the weevils.

While Dad kept watch up the tower at night, carted kerosene for the lamp, cut grass, painted and laboured, Mum learnt to make bread and manage with supplies shipped in twice a year by the lighthouse ship “Cape Otway”. Mail and groceries came once a fortnight by boat from Darwin. Dad, a Navy electrician, became a carpenter, plumber, painter, mechanic, radio operator, and paramedic, while Mum became a nurse, teacher, baker, dressmaker, hairdresser and accountant.

Within six months Mum went to Darwin where I arrived, the last of four children born within three years and ten months. At 37, my father made up for his late marriage. I was three when we left Cape Don for Cape Leeuwin in the far south west of Western Australia.

As junior keeper Dad had the cottage closest to the tower. We children caught jilgies at the old Water Wheel, and swam in the little rocky pools around the station. The two eldest, Lew and Bev, went to the little black clapboard primary school in Augusta, followed by Jen, then me. At Sunday school in the main street, with our sixpences tied into the corners of our handkerchiefs, we heard bible stories in shafts of sunlight where dust motes danced like prima ballerinas.

Just after the 1964 floods when the Alexandria Bridge washed past the assembled crowd at the Augusta Hotel, we moved to Eclipse Island, off Albany where Dad was Headkeeper. On Eclipse, he told us, birds live underground and rabbits live in the trees. He was right. The Island is undermined by mutton birds that stream up at sunset like black kites to toss and reel in the gales echoing their shrieks. Rabbits burrow under Peppermint trees that the wind spreadeagles against the steep rocky slopes.

We had our last Guy Fawkes Night there, our firecrackers launched like the flares of the lost as our Guy, made from old khaki overalls stuffed with newspaper, slowly knelt in the flames.

When the fortnightly mail boat came, everything was hauled onto the Island by a crane which dangled a big round cane basket above the dinghy rowed over from the larger boat. From the bobbing dinghy, the landing above looked as sturdy as a handful of toothpicks snagged in a rock crevice. At the landing stores were loaded into a “skip” suspended on wire rope over tall trestles to the top of the Island, then lowered onto a trolley that the men pushed on rails to the three purple brick houses squatting under one asbestos roof.

We made cubbies in old chook roosts, and played Cowboys and Indians in the groves of wild Arum Lilies. We all did correspondence school until my brother was sent away to the Hostel in Albany so he could attend High School the following year.

After three years at Eclipse we transferred to Cape Leveque, north of Broome. Then a two-man station, Leveque is a tropical paradise of blood red soil, turquoise sea, vivid greenery and brilliant white beaches. We lived by the tide. Tide out meant fishing and shell collecting. Tide in meant swimming.

The mail plane came fortnightly, and the lighthouse ship “Cape Don” came three times a year. We had down-the-road neighbours for the first time – the Browns at Cygnet Bay Pearling Farm, and the Catholic Mission at Lombadina. Occasionally the Navy dropped in for a barbecue and movie show on our front lawn. There was no television, telephone, commercial radio or regular newspapers, but we had ABC radio. In 1969 we listened as Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.

Cape Leveque was semi-automatic, with a radio beacon so we had electricity all night! There were no shifts up the tower, but Dad got up to send off weather reports. His torch light moved up the hill in dots and dashes. When the light stared like a persistent eye in any one direction it meant that he was killing a snake.

After five years, we moved back to Cape Leeuwin where this time, as Headkeeper, Dad got the house closest the gate and the crowds of tourists. Bev left for nursing training at Fremantle Hospital; Jen boarded in Bunbury for senior high school, and I caught a bus each day to Margaret River High School from the Scenic Road turnoff. My brother was now a junior clerk at Bruce Rock Shire Office. When Jen and I graduated we also left for the city. Our lighthouse time was over.

Soon after my father retired, and my parents joined us. And one by one the lighthouses became automatic until there are no more families living as we did - listening to the tide; keeping an eye on the weather; watching that magnificent beam sweep the horizon.

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THE PERTH SWAN BELL TOWER
By Oliver Keys (Junior Entry)
Costing millions of dollars to build and one of the most controversial buildings in Perth, the Swan Bells is now a tourism destination in Western Australia.

The building of the Bell Tower was one of the first steps in the state government’s Barrack Street Jetty redevelopment program and was proposed by the then Premier of Western Australia, Richard Court. In November 1999, the construction of the Swan Bell Tower began. The erection of the Tower took the good part of a year and was completed in December 2000, just in time for its opening on New Years Eve to celebrate the new millennium. Eighty-two and a half meters tall the Swan Bells is one of the largest musical instruments in the world. Of the six levels, the top is an observation deck. One part of the deck looks south across the Swan River and the other north at Perth city.

There are 18 bells featured in the Swan Bells Bell Tower. Twelve of these bells were given to Perth as part of the 1988 bicentenary by the cities of London and Westminster along with five specially cast bells that are not included in the bell tower. The other six came from various other sources.

The twelve original bells hailed from the St Martin-in-the-fields church, the parish church of Buckingham Palace. Originally located in Trafalgar Square, in London, the bells have rung to celebrate many historical events. These include the English victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588, the homecoming of Captain James Cook after his voyage of discovery in 1771 and the World War II victory at El Alamein. The bells have also celebrated the coronation of every British monarch since George II in 1727 and rung in the New Year at Trafalgar Square for more than 275 years. The bells have been in existence since before the 14th century and were recast in the 16th century by Queen Elizabeth I. They were again recast between 1725 and 1770 by three generations of the Rudhall family of bell founders from Gloucester in England. The London Diocese of the Church of England and the parish of St Martin-in-the-fields gave authority for the project to proceed.

The additional bells cast in 1988 include one from the City of London with help given by the City of Westminster, and three bells bestowed by a consortium of British and Australian mining companies. The sixth bell was added into the ring by the West Australian Government to mark the second millennium.

Below is a table of the differing Mass, Note and Casting Date of the bells in the Swan bell tower.

Bells marked with an asterisk (*) were given by the Cities of London and Westminster or by the consortium of British and Australian mining companies.
The bell marked by a hash (#) is the one added by the West Australian Government.

The bells add up to have a combined mass of 8809 kilograms and a combined approximate age of 829 years. They play a variety of notes.

Bell No. Mass(kg) Note Casting Date

#Treble 241 D# 1998
*Second 238 C# 1988
*Third 263 B# 1988
*Flat Third 261 B 1988
*Fourth 254 A# 1988
Fifth 279 G# 1758
Sixth 263 F# 1770
Seventh 284 E# 1758
Eight 300 D# 1725
Ninth 370 C# 1725
Tenth 390 B# 1725

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ERNEST A. LA SOUEF AND HIS ASSOCIATION WITH PERTH ZOO
By Courtney Kidd (Junior Entry)
Ernest A. La Souef was born on September 13, 1869, and from that very moment, his life was based fully around nature. As a child he lived in a small country cottage in Gembrook, near the Dandenong Ranges, with his mother and father, his grandmother - who was a passionate, if untrained, nature artist - and his eight brothers and sisters. His home was abundant in plants, and many species of wildlife: platypuses, bellbirds, lyrebirds, koalas, kangaroos, and many others. His family had a small holiday home at Ramahyuck, where they would spend Christmas each year. In 1887, when he was eighteen, he met Miss Ellie, whom he fell in love with. They became engaged, and married at Ramahyuck Mission Station, where they first met.

La Souef was a man of fine appearance, with medium build. He wore a moustache, and had deep brown, wavy hair. He was a well-loved man, with a personality that allowed him to stand out in a crowd. He was an honest man, who had a good, clean sense of humour. He had a strong sense of values, and was courteous of everyone he met. He was the kind of person that had no trouble getting noticed. These characteristics allowed him a pleasant life.

He received his position as Head Director of Perth Zoo in 1897; the year before it opened to the public. He had been commissioned the nearly impossible job of designing, and managing the construction of the zoo on a small budget of £4000, which was funded from the West Australian Government, by the President of Perth Zoo, Winthrop Hackett; apparently a stubborn, pushy man. Here is a passage from an entry in La Souef’s diary:

"...he just pressed me altogether beyond my strength, and made me rush on with all the work. I had to design everything myself, and find out the cheapest and best ways of doing the work, and do it quickly. I knew I must make no mistakes, for my President (Mr Hackett) never forgives a blunder, and always judges a thing by its success. I was so harassed for money, and so overworked that I felt I would break down altogether, but I am feeling much stronger now, and I have got the gardens really going. People who were against the zoo are turning round, and I have converted them to the zoo by dozens” ... and in another entry he wrote ... “They (the Western Australian Government) spent £15,000 on the ballroom at government house, while the mint and observatory must each have cost a fortune, and I have only got £4000 pounds for carrying out such large work as making a zoo of thirty six acres."

This pressure placed onto him by his superiors, both financially, and physically, induced him to show to them that, despite all their negativity on the whole thing, he could, and would make this zoo to his best ability. His stubborn will aided him in forming a natural masterpiece, with tropical, extravagant plants from all around the globe, combined with a variety of beautiful, wild animals. Perth Zoological Gardens became a gem of Western Australia, with tourists coming from uncountable distances to visit the angelic, pulchritudinous gardens and wildlife.

La Souef had a deep sense of responsibility towards the zoo and finished everything he had in mind to improve it. The mouth-watering beauty of his surroundings that are such a vital element of Perth Zoological Gardens are said to have been what the visitors remembered most fondly of. La Souef flamboyantly displayed the gardens during concerts, shows, competitions and delightful dances, with fairy lights lacing each and every tree and bush within sight. Many visitors commented on the sheer beauty of these concerts. Here is one such account:

"The grounds are beautifully laid out. The aromatic flowerbeds, ornamental ponds and rockeries, gushing fountains, miniature castles and turrets make it a charming place to spend an afternoon and evening. At night the grounds are illuminated with hundreds of different coloured lamps which send a rainbow radiance over the scene. Concerts are held every Saturday evening during summer, and there is a really fine quartet called Orpheus whose harmonious blending of sweet music in the lovely summer nights is well worth listening to."

La Souef was a man with a deep love for nature, and horticulture, and so created Perth Zoo with a wide variety of beautiful, tropical plants, his favourite, however, being the tall majestic palm trees that have always been such a prominent feature of the Zoo. They were perfect for dangling fairy lights during concerts, that would sparkle and twinkle wildly, above the visitors admiring faces. La Souef’s fine choices of plants have given Perth Zoo a fine exhibit, that is still standing proudly today.

He worked at Perth Zoo as Head Director for a memorable thirty-six years. His departure was a sad day. At his departure ceremony, this song was dedicated to him:

"Farewell and Adieu

The tigers are growling the Dingoes are howling
The noise of bewailing is heard in the zoo
The elderly lions and all their young scions
They weep as they bid you farewell and adieu

(Chorus) Farewell and adieu, farewell and adieu
We weep as we bid you farewell and adieu.

The panthers and leopards are sheep without shepherds
The crocodile mourns and the hippo looks blue
Your parting enrages the birds in their cages
The monkeys are moaning farewell and adieu

The camel is grieving, the elephants leaving
his dinner untasted, as is the gnu
The peacock and emu, the crane and the seamew
are screaming in anguish farewell and adieu

So all the poor creatures, with grief on their features
are moaning and groaning, “oh what shall we do,
with sorrows eternal, we’ll long for our colonel
we can’t bear to bid you farewell and adieu".

Ernest La Souef died in Margaret River at the age of sixty-eight, in 1937.

References:
W.H. Tyler 1999, Battye library, Perth zoological gardens the First hundred years 1898- 1998 [accessed 5/11/04] pp.20-21.

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JOHN BELL
By Louise Kingston
John Bell was a remarkable human being. He was born in Armadale, Western Australia on 4th December 1935 to Edward and Emma Bell, both descendants of first settlers.

When he was eight he did swimming lessons at Crawley Bay in Perth and witnessed the magnificent Catalina flying boats landing and taking off. This inspired his life long passion for flying boats. He left school at thirteen to travel to the east to join the Air force to learn to fly. Unfortunately during this time the rules changed and he had to learn to fly privately. Such was his determination he earned the money by washing others’ uniforms and polishing their boots on his day off. He was finally granted an honourable discharge from the Air force and commenced work for an aerial spraying company in New South Wales. It was difficult and tiresome work and when he was offered a job back in Western Australia he jumped at it. He left to travel back across the Nullarbor, a dirt track in those days, with a pie and a bottle of lemonade in his trusty Willy’s jeep. He was forced to stop half way across when the rear springs snapped and spent a week or so on a farm repairing his vehicle.

Back in Western Australia he commenced work for a freight company flying supplies up to the north of the State. By chance he heard of a position spotting whales for the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company in Albany. He started as their first full time pilot in 1961 flying a Cessna 150 the company leased from a local pilot. In 1963, the Whaling Company bought their own plane, a Cessna 173 on floats. It was housed in a hangar on the Kalgan River and was a familiar site to the locals taking off each morning about daybreak to travel the forty miles to the edge of the continental shelf to join the company’s three chasers. In 1961, John was involved in a rescue of one of the Chasers’ skippers’, Ches Stubbs, who had lost the lower part of his leg which had been caught in the rope attached to the harpoon. John, in rough seas, landed the floatplane and flew Ches back to awaiting help. He received a Bravery Award, presented at Parliament House. Many stories and poems have been written about the event. In 1967, the company changed their type of plane to the more efficient push-pull Cessna 337. It had a much longer range and because of the two motors, floats were not needed giving the pilot better vision. It could also take off from the local airport.

In 1971, with the future of whaling uncertain, John moved to Geraldton to take up a position flying supplies out to the Abrolhos Islands for the cray fishing industry. The hours were exceptionally long and he missed Albany, so when the chance arose to return to Albany and open a museum at the Whaling Station, with some part time spotting, he jumped at it. The first museum, a half-round Nissan hut was opened in 1974. After the station closed in 1978, he and his family continued to operate the museum until he was offered the position of Manager after the Jaycees Community Foundation was given the shell of the Whaling Station in 1980. This proved to be a very successful partnership, with the development of what is now Whaleworld. John was also involved quite ironically in whale spotting surveys for the Western Australian Government. One of the last chasers, the Cheynes IV, which is a formidable site as you approach Whaleworld, is testament to John’s determination. He was told that no amount of money in the world would be enough to shift it, but he designed a plan that was not only cheap, but also very simple.

He also collected wartime aircraft, which were housed at Whaleworld. His ultimate dream was to fly passengers up the West Australian coast to Ningaloo Reef in his Catalina.

His life was cut tragically short on March 13th, 1996 when his Cessna 337 crashed at Manypeaks, east of Albany whilst searching for drugs. John Bell was my father and I am very proud of the legacy he has left for the people of Western Australia.

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THE SISTERS OF MERCY IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
By Sr Flo O’Sullivan and Michele Lillico
The first group of Sisters of Mercy in Australia landed at Fremantle on the 7th January 1846 after responding to a request for Sisters to establish a foundation in the Swan River Colony by the then Bishop of Perth, Dr John Brady. Bishop Brady told them of thousands of children in need of education in the colony. This request struck a chord with the Sisters because at the heart of their mission was the education and relief of the poor and destitute. Six Sisters and one postulant were sent with Dr Brady from the Baggot Street Convent in Dublin Ireland.

The arrival of the Sisters of Mercy in Australia in 1846 was only 15 years after the founding of the Order by Catherine McAuley. Catherine McAuley had earlier in 1827 set up an Institute of Mercy in the heart of Dublin, dedicated to the relief and education of poor and destitute young women. This had lead to the establishment of the religious Order known as the Sisters of Mercy in 1831.

The Sisters had no accommodation arranged for them when they arrived that first day as they were not expected and had to quickly find somewhere to stay. They were able to rent a cottage until the following week. This cottage was the Whaler’s Arms, where a Mrs Martha Crisp, a very kindly Methodist lady gave them accommodation. The building was situated close to the present premises of Sharp’s Tobacconist on the corner of Barrack and Hay Streets, directly opposite the Town Hall. Their next residence would be a small house located on St Georges Terrace, opposite the main entrance gate to Government House. This house would become the first convent of Mercy in Australia and also serve as the first Mercy school.

Throughout the past 156-year story of the Sisters of Mercy in Western Australia, the Sisters have been women of action, providing support and care whenever it was needed. In the early years of the colony, and despite primitive and intimidating conditions early in this century, the Sisters undertook to establish schools in many areas throughout this vast state. The early works of the Sisters of Mercy were the establishment of the first successful schools in Perth, and the first Ladies College in Australia, thus having a significant impact on the education and wellbeing of the early settlers.

From Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie, Norseman, Leonora and Menzies in the goldfields, to Donnybrook, Bridgetown, Harvey and Dardanup in the southwest to York and Toodyay in the wheat belt, to the metropolitan area, the Sisters of Mercy operated many suburban primary and secondary schools. Health Care and Aged Care also became well-established works including the establishment of Mercy Hospital, Catherine McAuley Centre, Edgewater Mercy, Mercyville Hostel and Villa Maria Hostel.

The 150th Anniversary of the arrival of the Sisters of Mercy in Western Australia was celebrated on Tuesday 9 January 1996. A re-enactment ceremony, held at the site of the very first school at Victoria Square (now Mercedes College), brought to life the first steps of the landing of the first pioneer sisters thousands of miles from home.

Today there are 17 Congregations of the Sisters of Mercy throughout rural and urban Australia, and there are two foundations in Papua New Guinea and Pakistan. They continue to follow their vision and mission which is to know God's loving kindness and to share it with others. While the Sisters in Western Australia no longer have direct teaching roles in their schools they continue to provide services to those most vulnerable in our society such as Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, youth, the economically poor, people in rural areas, women, migrants and refugees.

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BELLEVUE PRIMARY SCHOOL (1903-2004) THE END OF AN ERA
By Helen Lucy
The completion of the rail line from Fremantle to Guildford in 1881 and its extension to the Eastern Goldfields in the late 1890s, led to development of the greater Midland area which included Bellevue where the presence of clay deposits suitable for brick making had been found. Along with the marshalling yards, the abattoirs and the relocation of the State Railway Workshops from Fremantle to Midland completed by 1904, the area developed even more. By 1903 the population of Bellevue exceeded 600. Local children at that time went to school at either Midland Junction or Smiths Mill (now Glen Forrest) by train.

The owner of the Bellevue Hotel and Member for the District, Thomas Wilkins, approached local government and Education Department authorities about the need for a school to open in Bellevue. In 1902 a local landowner, Edward Robinson, offered a quarter acre of land for school grounds with the option of another block for £30. The government agreed to take the offer from Mr Robinson and a one-classroom school with accommodation was built.

The school was officially opened on 28 September 1903 with 53 pupils and one teacher. Numbers quickly grew and by October there were 77 pupils enrolled. At the beginning of 1904, there were 120 students. Those early years led to further additions to the school and extra staff being employed. More requests were made by the Head Teacher for furniture and materials for fencing etc to accommodate the growing population. In November 1906, a bell and post was installed in the school grounds by the front gate. In 1970, it was moved and placed inside the school corridor.

Bellevue Primary School, in its long life always took pride in the gardens and trees on the property. A huge Marri tree, believed to be between 300-400 years old was situated in the centre of the playground and remained a main focal point of the school. The school emblem was based on the tree.

Disruption to education occurred during World War II when the Army commandeered some schools for use. In 1942 the school was used as a stores depot. It is believed that during this time electric lights were installed and the school quarters demolished and a rose garden was planted.

Post World War II there was a major increase in numbers at the school due to returned servicemen’s children entering the school system and the influx of European migrants. It is believed that at some time during the late 1950s and early 1960s a family at the school represented almost every European country. Many new students spoke no English and teachers spoke no other language. Now in this day and age, it is encouraged that languages other than English be taught at our schools.

The constant changes over the years in student enrolments and needs always brought the school community together whether fighting for improved resources or increasing the number of teaching staff. Changes in government brought changes in funding and methods of schooling. In the 1950s, the threat of closure loomed due to a lack of numbers when another school opened one kilometre away but the school still remained open.

In 1998, talks of amalgamation between Helena Valley and Koongamia and including Bellevue under the Local Area Education Plan angered many parents and students. The fight to stay open was on! Many meetings were held with dozens of letters written to local government authorities, state politicians and officials from the Education Department. Finally, after years of uncertainty, the decision to close Bellevue Primary School was announced to parents by letter in December 2002. Students from the neighbouring Koongamia School would relocate to Bellevue during the demolition and rebuilding of a new combined school on the Koongamia site to be opened in 2004.

Official centenary celebrations began in July 2002 with the unveiling of the centenary banner by one of the oldest ex-students, 97 year-old Mr Ernest McSwain. The chosen motto was “A Century of Friendships and Learning”. On 1 November 2003 the school’s centenary was celebrated on the school grounds. Over eight hundred past students, teachers and staff, parents and their families attended over the course of the day. Their ages ranged from the very young to the oldest living ex -student who was 97 years old. It was a huge success with memorabilia on display in the library, a formal ceremony with speeches made by invited dignitaries in the undercover area and photographs taken of old classmates under the old Marri tree. Refreshments were served and the feeling was one of happiness and celebration. The oldest ex-student, Mr Ernest McSwain and oldest ex-teacher, 94 year-old Mr Roland Cantwell, cut two birthday cakes and received commemorative medals for their efforts. A reunion to be remembered!

A highlight of the day was the launch of the much-anticipated book containing the history of the school and stories written from past students, teachers and parents. The compilation of the book was truly a community effort. A local man volunteered his time and resources in formatting and organizing printing. Members of the Residents and Ratepayers Association collated and typed the stories and research for the formatting and funding of the project was provided through a grant from the City of Swan and donations from the P & C.

The official closure took place on the afternoon on Tuesday, 9 March 2004. Past students, teachers and families attended to listen to the final words of current students and leaders of the school community recounting their memories. The flag was lowered and the siren rung for the final time. All students and staff members were presented with a commemorative medallion.

After over 100 years of providing public education to local children, the Bellevue Primary School site has been sold to a private developer. The school bell, which dates from 1906, provides a link to the past and has been relocated to the new combined Clayton View Primary School in Koongamia.

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JOHN WATSON RUTHERFORD
By Joan Malpass
John Watson Rutherford (1831-99) was just one of around 9,718 convicts that came to Western Australia to help build the prosperity of the colony between 1850 and 1868. He was born in 1832 in North Shields, on the outskirts of Newcastle, Northumberland, England. He arrived at Fremantle as a prisoner on the ‘Stag’ on 2 June 1855. He later went on to help populate Western Australia by having ten children.

It seems that J.W. Rutherford came from seafaring roots as his marriage certificate shows his father as John Rutherford, Mariner. John Rutherford was married to Elizabeth Watson. John and Elizabeth had five other children, who were all younger than John Watson. These five siblings were Mary Ann, Susannah, Elizabeth, Alexander and George.

Britain was re-assessing her criminal system at that time and beginning to keep more of her lesser offenders at home. Rutherford had a short criminal record. His first conviction on 29 July 1850, when he was aged nineteen, was for stealing lead from a building. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment. His mother Susannah Watson had died of cholera in Newcastle in 1849 approximately one year before he was first convicted. The Cholera Enquiry Commission of 1854 found that cholera was consistently high in the Newcastle area with poverty, poor housing and sanitation being major factors in its continuation.

According to Robert Hughes, ‘poverty begets theft, monotonously and predictably’. Four fifths of all transportation was for ‘offences against property’. The crimes for which Rutherford was transported were amongst the 6% for ‘theft of wearing apparel’. On release from his first prison sentence Rutherford stole a pair of boots. For this offence, on 1 January 1851 at Unphany Assizes, he was sent to prison for one year. His occupation was given as sailor and his religion as Protestant, Northumberland. The1851 census index includes an entry for John Rutherford aged eighteen years, occupation sailor, birthplace Shields and prisoner at Morpeth. English Prison records at the time show his next of kin as his father together with two brothers and three sisters residing at North Shields,

Following his release, Rutherford quickly re-offended. At the 1852 Quarter session, in Hexham, Northumberland, England, he was convicted of larceny in that he stole clothes off a clothesline to the total value of eight shillings. The deposition stated that he: did feloniously steal take and carry away Two pairs of fustian Trowsers of the value of three shillings, one fustian Jacket of the value of three shillings one fustian Waistcoat of the value of one shilling and one Shirt to the value of one shilling of the goods and chattels of John Brookbank against the Peace of our Sovereign lady the Queen her Crown and Dignity.

For this crime, he was sentenced to fourteen years and transportation. At that time he was just twenty-three years old, and single. He is on his arrival at the ‘Stag’ in May 1855 as being five feet seven and three quarter inches with brown hair, hazel eyes and a fresh complexion. His appearance was stout and he had two bracelets with a rose, shamrock, and thistle on his left arm. His occupation was described as chain maker.

When convicts arrived in Western Australia, they were usually sent to labour on public works. John Watson Rutherford was sent to Vasse. He obtained his ticket of leave on 30 August 1856, fifteen months after he arrived in WA. With this ticket of leave he was able to work for private employers for normal wages. He worked as a timber worker for many years. Places he worked at included Bealup, Ludlow Bridge and Yokanup.

He married Elizabeth Burton, daughter of Thomas Burton, on 20 August 1860 in Busselton. They went on to have 10 children. The children were Emma, Susan, John Thomas, George, Michael, Elizabeth, Robert, Mary Ann, William and Margaret.

His second son, George Rutherford, was born at Bealup. George later married Rose Anna Smith at Quindalup. George had a son, George Arthur Rutherford, born 17 August 1896. He married Eva Lucille Smith.

Arthur George Rutherford was born on 17 August 1927. On 3 September 1949, he married Kathleen Vida Sylvia Plunkett (born 12 July 1930). Shane Arthur Rutherford (son-in-law of the author) was born as their youngest child on 11 May 1965 at Busselton Hospital.

J.W. Rutherford was granted a conditional pardon in 1863. Apparently taking advantage of the system he had been through, he subsequently employed thirty-four Ticket of Leave men on occasions between 1863–1876. On 21 February 1899 he died at Fremantle aged sixty-seven years (Registration Number 803).

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THE DILEMMA OF JOHN SEPTIMUS ROE
By Ean McDonald
A glance at the road systems of Greater Perth Metropolis in the suburbs a little way out north and east from the centre reveals strange patterns in the form of many long roads seeming to radiate out from the banks of the River. Although somewhat obscured these days by subdivisions cluttered with crescents, cul de sacs and parklands, a critical examination will show the basic underlying stretched out patterns. This can easily be seen in places from Caversham westwards though Lockridge to Dianella, from Bayswater through to Bedford, and again from Belmont eastwards through to Kewdale. Roads like Benara, Marshall, Morley Drive in the west, and Abernethy, Belgravia and Hardey in the east still run alongside one another for many kilometres all heading directly away from the banks of the river.

If that was “Town Planning” as it was practiced in the early days of the Swan River settlement, then one may wonder where John Septimus Roe learned his trade. It seems to belie logic and lifestyle of any era. There was however a deeper reason than a ruling of straight lines; as was done later in some suburbs said to have been “Town Planned ” by experts. A great deal of the “planning” came about because of a repeated dilemma faced by J S Roe as Surveyor General of the new Colony.

As Perth became known in the “Old Country” as a desirable place to have land holdings and even to settle, there were many wealthy and influential families anxious to grab a little of the pickings in the growing settlement , perhaps to occupy an errant son or two. Those who had friends in high places naturally prevailed upon them perhaps to call in a favour or two by way of a nice friendly letter from on high to Master Roe. Such a letter could read, “ You will no doubt oblige me by considering a grant to my dear friend Charles, a title to say two thousand acres of land fronting the Swan River “

As these people descended upon the colony in droves besieging Roe with their “requests” he simply ran out of such acres. He puzzled on how to divide so little river bank among so many grantees. He racked his brains to find a solution. He could give the grants in area terms but soon ran out of river banks.

His solution was brilliant. As long as the lands of his new “settler” fronted the river he had complied with the instructions of his London masters. He apportioned the river fronts in very small pieces maybe a hundred yards or so. A one thousand acre Lot could be achievable but it could then be nearly three miles “long”. Today that would be one hundred meters by about four and a half kilometres.

Benara Road is about nine kilometers long. It could well have been a boundary of a grant to a very important person of two thousand acres , and Roe could have rested in comfort satisfied that he had fulfilled his obligation to give the favoured new settler chap his land, indeed “ fronting the Swan River “.

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BLACKBOY HILL COMMEMORATION
By Ean McDonald
Blackboy Hill at Greenmount was part of a grant of land to Captain Stirling.
In 1914 a camp was set up on the hill where 32,000 men, about 11 percent of the whole of the State’s population, were trained for the A.I.F.

The camp was used as an isolation hospital during the influenza epidemic of 1919, and again used for emergency lodging of unemployed men during the depression of the 1930’s.

In 1957 the Returned Services League, learning that the State Housing Commission intended to build housing there, asked for some of the land to be a commemoration site. The site was dedicated by Bishop Tom Riley and the first sod turned by Governor Sir Charles Gairdner in 1958.

Design was entrusted to Architect Ean McDonald but it was not until 1962 that enough funds were raised to build the main features. The entrance gateway arches were built in 1989, since when the Shire of Mundaring has cared for the complex.

The centrepiece is simply a sculpture commemorating the spirit that arose among the young Anzacs of 1914 – 18, and is hopefully passing on from generation to generation among young Australians forever. It need not be warlike, but rather is one of love of country and pride in contribution to its future.

For these reasons the main axis of the complex is along the line of sunset on 24th April, the night before the Gallipoli landings. The words on the central podium say it all, “Commemorating the Spirit of Anzac that arose from this soil of Blackboy Hill”

At sunset every evening for some forty years now has gathered a group of young people of Scouting groups with their parents and others who celebrate that Spirit of Anzac and their country Australia, and they mount a vigil that lasts until dawn on Anzac Day.

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BODDINGTON GOLD
By Ean McDonald
In the midst of depression in the 1930S, the WA Government created schemes to maintain dignity among its workers as well as feed their fam