Life in Sydney

We made some good friends at Cranbrook Hotel. In particular I remember Marie Lawrence with her young son David whom Barbara delighted to babysit. Her husband was an army padre in the AAF but they had been missionaries, in the Solomons I think. She was great fun, and then there were the Newman family whose daughter Margaret and I became close friends.

Across the road from the hotel was the harbour and a café which sold delicious milkshakes, and where Robin used to go and watch the fishermen. They used to throw their catch up on the quay and frighten Robin, who was standing on the edge trapped, and on one occasion Mummy had to go and rescue him.

On other occasions we used to take the tram into Sydney. On Saturday mornings some of the big department stores used to have children's variety performances, with actors and comedians and magicians, and song and dance artists entertaining us all morning, followed by a very sticky cream tea. Presumably the idea was that the store made money out of the toys we persuaded our parents to buy for us. In our case this was nothing!

On another occasion I remember climbing one of the pillars of Sydney Harbour Bridge with Mummy and Robin and having our photographs taken at the top in nautical headgear. I think that picture still survives in one of the albums [see right].

After a time we left the boarding house and moved into a very nice bungalow in Vaucluse [6 or 7 Gulliver Avenue], which overlooked Sydney Harbour and had a lovely view of the Bridge. This was just above Kambala School within walking distance. For a long time I was not able to understand how we were able to afford such a nice house, but I gathered later that it was because the owners of the house had evacuated themselves to the country, terrified of being bombed should the Japanese arrive in Sydney.