“School is a shock; at the age of four we sit in desks all day and learn the first half of the first-grade year.  Our teachers are very strict.  It’s a time of children being seen and not heard; we are not allowed to move or speak.  It’s a soul-destroying experience.  Some children have holes in thin clothing and no shoes and in the winter their legs and feet are caked with mud, and they have continually runny noses.
 
Gas producers are now attached to the back of most cars, because of the fuel shortages and petrol rationing.  There is very little traffic as most cars have been put up on blocks until after the war.
 
Mother is packing food parcels for her sisters in England.  Dried fruit, flour, spices, all the ingredients to make a really large fruit cake, go into a large square parcel that is sewn into calico and double wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.  As most of the food for England is imported, they are now down to one quarter of their normal food rations.
 
These are the days of military conscription for all men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five.  With so many men and women joining the defense forces there are not enough workers to maintain essential services at home.  Industrial conscription, the so called ‘Manpower’, is a necessity, directing labour into munitions factories and other services.  When my older sister Maureen leaves school, all the girls from her class are employed by the T&G Insurance Company in the city.
 
All manufacturing is now concentrated on the war effort.  Luxuries have been cut down.  Each family has ration books with coupons for food and clothing.
 
Clothes manufacturing is considered one of these non-essential industries, so no one has many clothes.  This is not altogether the fault of rationing as no one has the money to buy them.  It doesn’t matter; we can only wear one dress at a time anyway.
 
‘The Sun News Pictorial’ and ‘Age’ and ‘Argus’ newspapers have headlines about the war and maps of where the fighting is on the front pages.  It’s stale news.  There is a slogan, ‘Loose lips, sink ships.’  Mail to and from the troops overseas is censored and some letters have more holes than writing.
 
Each house must have black out blinds; no chinks of light can be shown.  This is policed at night by air raid wardens who knock on your door if any light can be seen.  Mother goes to air raid practice every Thursday night.
 
Householders have been advised to dig air raid shelters.  Everyone is digging up their back yards.  Then we have a wet winter and the trenches fill up with water.  We sail toy boats in ours.  I only ever heard of one that was completed, roofed over, seats, carpet and all.  It fell in when it rained. 
 
At school it’s a different matter.  They are serious about air raids.  Four long open trenches, over six feet deep have been dug in the area where the boys played football.  When the Black Rock air-raid practice siren goes we march into the trenches and sit silently, cross legged on the ground with wooden pegs in our mouths for over an hour, until the siren is turned off and quiet reigns once more.  We are told that the pegs will stop us inhaling gas, but they are really to stop us from biting our tongues if a bomb drops nearby.
 
The older boys like to bully us and say, “Do you believe that if you say ‘Heil Hitler’ three times he will come and take you away from your Mother?”  “No.”  “Then say it!”  We run off, tight lipped. 
 
Children are always talking about, “If the Japs come.”  As younger children, this makes us feel very insecure.  We know that if there is an air raid we can all be evacuated straight away with the school.  Some of the kids have fathers at the war.  They don’t talk about them.  They are used to it now.  Life is very uncertain for us, but we are happy and resilient and accept it without question, because it is all we have
 
14/8/1945.  The war is over, peace has been declared!
 
Dad has had the bulldozer at home at Black Rock doing repairs on it.  He has been wondering how he can get away with driving a dozer with caterpillar tracks on sealed roads to the foreshore to load it onto the truck from a sand hill.   Everyone is out driving, going crazy.  What an opportunity!  He sets off; the tracks are chopping up the sealed road…  People in cars are tooting and waving flags at him and cheering.  They think that he is driving a bulldozer down Beach Rd to celebrate the end of the war!
 
Everyone is flocking into the city tonight to celebrate.”
 
 
Bev Morton
April 2025
 
 
An extract from a still to be completed autobiography…
​

On the outbreak of World War two my father enlisted in the army. My Mother, older sister Maureen and I found accommodation with a Swedish woman at Black Rock in Melbourne. Our landlady is a lonely woman who likes to walk on the cliff tops at Half Moon Bay and stand looking out to sea. Maureen and her new school friends are convinced that she is a German spy. They are doing their bit for the war effort by observing her from the ti tree bushes that line the coast. “There she is again, looking for shipping!”

Some mornings Mother calls, “Beverley, come along, we are going into the City.” This is exciting. At a moment’s notice we jump on a tram. At Sandringham station we quickly negotiate the high step from the platform onto the train. I sit with my nose pressed to the window pane trying to memorize the names of the stations. At Flinders St Station we rush up the ramp; it’s easier when you hurry. It’s obvious that its war time, the crowds are all women and children.

Sometimes we emerge from the station to find Swanston St blocked off to traffic. Mother says, “Quick Beverley, there’s going to be a march.” We rush across to take our place at the barricades as platoons of khaki clad soldiers, heads held high, eyes straight ahead, arms swinging, feet pounding the road in perfect unison sweep past. We clap and feel very proud of them. Then the barriers are removed and the City resumes its usual bustle.

Draught horses champing at the bit and blowing steam through their nostrils stand impatiently at street crossings, waiting for the traffic lights to change. Amid strong smells of horse sweat and leather harness I watch huge iron shod hoofs and long white hair flowing from their fetlocks as they mark time, anticipating the change of lights and activity. These are proud powerful horses pulling heavy drays, some laden with beer barrels. Wizened elderly men perched on high seats on the drays, handle the reins. Lighter horse drawn carts are delivering food to restaurants. There are very few motor vehicles on city streets, due to the fuel shortage and petrol rationing. 

When the lights change big green trams clank their bells as they move off.  We avoid stepping in horse manure as we cross the road.

We pay the gas bill at the Gas and Fuel building in Flinders street, where the continually revolving doors are a challenge to small children. Visit the department stores of Foy and Gibson, Buckley and Nunn and the Myer Emporium. Have lunch at a nice restaurant with a tall glass of lemonade in a thick heavy glass.

The flower stalls along the footpath in Swanston St are very busy. The scent of huge bunches of violets fills the air.

On a corner of Swanston Street outside the State Savings Bank there is always a man selling toy furry monkeys attached to a stick with a string. This is where I put the brakes on and usually go home with one.

Dad comes home on final leave before leaving for the war in Europe. He brings presents and it’s great to have him home again.

He is leaving tonight and he’s going to show me the train, the “The Spirit of Progress.” He says it’s the best train in Australia. The ‘Spirit’ has been reserved tonight as a troop train. The platform at Spencer St Station is packed with families and young women embracing and kissing soldiers in uniform. Emotions run high.

Dad, wisely defusing the situation, carries me down the platform to see the engine which is getting up steam. I only have eyes for the train, until he is gone

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Bev Morton
March 2022