Grandparents; William Archibald Scott, Ida Mildred Rabjohns.

Ida Mildred Rabjohns and William Archibald Scott on their wedding day.

Nanna and Grandpa

Ida Mildred Rabjohns

When Ida Mildred Rabjohns was born on June 23, 1912, in Nambour, Queensland, Australia, her father, Augustus, was 28, and her mother, Edith, was 28. She was one of eleven children. She had three daughters with William Archibald Scott. She later was divorced and then married Reginald Cairney. She died on March 21, 1986, in Gosford, New South Wales, Australia, at the age of 74, in the presence of her granddaughter, Tania Questel, of heart failure.  She had blocked arteries but was otherwise in good health.  She had lovely skin and her hair was mostly still black. She had painful arthritis and her hands were very gnarled and swollen from this. She also had osteoarthritis and had a mildly hunched back. 

She and Pop Cairney had a lovely life in Woy Woy, NSW (19 Carrington Avenue).  They had spent many years gardening, tending their aviaries and birds, fishing in the nearby waters and travelling to visit her sisters in Queensland once per year.  

Pop pottered around their little cottage, adding dodgy extensions, creating gardens and water features, and engaging in creative hobbies from his extensive shed complex in the backyard.  In the shed he proudly displayed his "Doctor of Motors".  His structures and creations were the source of much amusement to relatives.  For example, his back verandah foundations were pots, above ground, filled with concrete to hold the posts.  His idea for the bathroom was a cold concrete tiled bath on the floor (with all sorts of resin fish etc he had made glued to the walls) and a number of electric heaters focused down onto the bath. 

The garden was wonderful and productive.  There was nothing that Nanna and Pop didn't grow and abundant mandarins, oranges, passionfruit and paw paw were always being distributed to friends, neighbours and family.  Nanna was not shy about taking cuttings from everywhere to stock her garden.  Once we went with her to the Botanic Gardens in Sydney and she left with her bag bulging with cuttings. Little rivulets were pumped around under bridges, under paths and into the fish pond.  It was a place of fascination to us small children.  In the backyard was the grave of their beloved dog, Butchy.  It was an elaborate grave. There was also an aviary full of birds and they had other cages around the house.  Nanna loved birds.

They had a small motor boat and regularly went fishing at Ettalong and thereabouts, out to Lion Island and off to Patonga.  Nanna was very funny and lively and during fishing expeditions her excitement mounted and she would cackle, laugh and crack jokes, especially as each fish was caught.  

She was always quite loud and funny.  Her whole family was known for being this way and whenever the sisters got together there was hilarity.  Even her mother, old, blind and confined to a wheelchair, was popular with neighbours and visitors because she would cheer everyone up. My father liked her for this reason.  I remember him putting his hand up her dress as she climbed the stairs at our house and she laughed loudly and pretended to be offended.  There were always practical jokes between them.  Nanna also did everything loudly, washing up clattering the dishes, talking loudly in the picture theatre, and non stop talking around the house.  

Nanna always kept her house immaculately and there were numerous ornaments, doilies, covered furniture and gadgets. It was only just before she died that she was unable to keep it up.  Pop eventually had to be placed in a nursing home because he kept wetting the bed and Nanna, sick with heart pain, needing surgery, had let housekeeping go.  She couldn't sleep or eat.  It was awful to witness. 

William Archibald Scott

William Archibald Scott was born on November 4, 1904, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He died in October 1979 in Avoca Beach, New South Wales, Australia, at the age of 74.Bill Scott was my grandfather, although I hardly knew him.  He lived at Strathfield in a house with his sister, Phyllus (Aunty Phyl). He had become reclusive and, in old age, had dementia.  I remember visiting there once and he did not acknowledge our presence really.  He left the TV on although it was only showing a blurry test pattern.  I remember his bookcase full of chess books he had won.  He was an avid chess player and played many international opponents simultaneously via letter. He also spent many hours with a pencil and paper doing math equations, especially logarithms and maths pertaining to nautical engineering and navigation. After his sister died suddenly of a heart attack he could not look after himself so Mum and her sisters packed up the house and sent him to live at Avoca Nursing Home, near our home at Copacabana.  We visited him frequently and Mum kept tab on his finances and welfare.  When we visited he had no idea who we were and mentioned once to me that he was on leave from the navy and would be returning to work soon.  From the verandah at the nursing home he could see the ocean and he spent many hours looking wistfully out to see, examining passing ships. 

Aunty Phyllis (Johnston, Anderson) as a nurse in the war (left), as a child (middle) and as a civilian (right).

Grandpa was badly effected by the war and he had "shell shock".  Who knows what the problems were but he definitely had much trauma in WW2 aboard the famous ship the Sydney and later on other ships.  At one stage I believe he was shipwrecked and had to be fished out of the shark infested waters in the Battle of The Coral Sea.  I know he was aboard the Sydney when it sank the the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni during the Battle of Cape Spada in the Mediterranean Sea on July 19, 1940.. They received a large silver medal to commemorate this and his was donated to the war museum in Canberra. There were few left in existence because most were sank when the Sydney sank with all hands.  Grandpa remained reclusive but corresponded regularly with Captain Collins, from the Sydney until he died.  Grandpa and Captain Collins were both transferred off the Sydney shortly before it sank.

After the war Grandpa and Aunty Phyl moved in together and took care of one another.  He worked as a painter.  They led a simple and frugal life. I remember he simply rode a pushbike around if he needed to go anywhere and used his fingers to sprinkle salt onto his meals rather than use a salt shaker.  Phyllus had also survived the war.  She had served as a nurse and had many momentos of her service including poems written by the soldiers and artefacts like ornaments made from melted down toothbrushes etc.  She nursed both allied and enemy soldiers. Although a nurse during the war she worked for Arnots upon her return to civilian life.  Their house was cluttered with all sorts of precious objects, memorabilia, and sentimental objects.  I suppose that their early lives of hardship had made them want to hold on to things and to each other.

Aunty Phyl had been very good to my mother and her sisters growing up and had, amongst other things, taken my mother to the Royal Easter Show every year.   Mum had been a sickly child and had spent much time indoors at home.  Nanna had anxiously filled her with forced doses of cod liver oil etc. Mum took to painting and became an accomplished amateur artist.  Having no children of her own, Phyllis lavished love and attention on my mother and her sisters.  Grandpa and Aunty Phyl  had another brother, Richard Andrew Scott (Uncle Dick), who also had no children, and he too loved and cherished my mother.  He actually wanted to adopt her as a baby, arguing that he and his wife were unable to have children.He offered Nanna and Grandpa a piano and commented that they could go on to have more children but they could not do it. Uncle Dick and his wife remained childless and he went on to travel extensively in Australia taking photos of every town and city of his time, collecting an extensive photographic library of early twentieth century Australia.

Above; Ida Rabjohns (right) with her sister, Lilian and her three little daughters, Janice (back), Robyn (in lap) and Carol.

Nanna and Grandpa were married in Queensland.  Nanna's sisters told my mother than he was quiet, intelligent and genteel.  Nanna was very pretty and outgoing. Together they had three daughters. The marriage was not a success and Nanna later remarried Reginald Cairney.

William Archibald Scott, (left and right), wedding to Ida Rabjohns (middle), Ida Rabjohns (Scott) (centre right)

Grandpa was the son of Ada Bradshaw and Robert Johnston and his life was not easy.  Ada was widowed when her first husband, ...... Scott, went down with his ship, the Thistle (he was an engineer). She had one son to him and his name was Richard, known to us as Uncle Dick. Some time after the ship went down Ada gave birth to my grandfather, who was known as Bill Scott.  This was because, in those days, if a man was lost at sea a widow could not prove her widowhood for at least 7 years, when it would be recognised.  During that time she must have taken up with Johnston and had my grandfather, but this was shameful so we were always told that Scott was the father.  

Eliza Blake (left), Ada Bradshaw (centre left), Grave of Ada Bradshaw (Johnston, Anderson), (centre right), William John Johnston (right)

Grandpa's military service records (National Archives of Australia; Canberra, Australia; Service Cards for Petty Officers and Men, 1911-1970; Series: A6770)