Bet and Jess were actually friends of my mother. We lived in Hobart – three little girls and a mountain of steps to the front door.

Jess, who came from Queensland, was visiting her sister when my father met her. Within days she was living with us and helping my mother with the family. Jess studied at night, got a job, but still lived with us until we moved to Launceston. We loved her.

Betty came from Penguin and was a trainee teacher in Grade 1 at Elizabeth Street State School. I was very unsure of myself, so much so that I regularly bit the corners off my collars! The teacher didn’t have time to show me any special attention, but Betty encouraged me and gave me confidence. Meanwhile the Penguin Methodist minister got in touch with my Dad to ask him to look out for Betty. She became best friends with Jess and was at our place more often than not.
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‘Auntie Elsie’ lived with us in Launceston. Her real name was Elsie Kemp whose father made Kempo soap. I’m not sure why she lived with us except that she was a member of Moral Rearmament as was my mother. One memory of  Elsie was after the family had arrived home from church one Sunday. She said to Mother, “Beth, the Lord has told me I’m to have pineapple for lunch.” My mother’s reply, “Well Else, the Lord has told me that you are to have custard and stewed apple like everyone else”. When a new baby was due, Auntie Elsie said, “I’ll look after Dorothy and Thais but I won’t have Carmyl!” I might say the feeling was quite mutual.

So dear Bet took me up to Penguin for a fortnight with her family, which consisted of her mother, her white-bearded grandfather and Murray, her 16 year-old brother. Murray only had one arm as he’d been run over by a train when young.  I was about six and my only memory was of Murray showing me a mouse trap and telling me to put my finger in it – and of course I did. Murray later became a Baptist minister and his claim to fame was that when the bridge broke in Hobart, his was the car dangling over the edge.

We moved to a small town near Beaconsfield while Dad was in the army. Bet came to visit and needed to see a doctor. Dr. Suerth was an Austrian Jew, who had escaped to Italy, converted to Catholicism and ended up in Beaconsfield. The long and the short of it was that Betty ended up as Mrs. Suerth. They married at the Ulverstone Catholic church, with broad steps up to the front door. Some Penguin Methodists stood on the steps as Bet entered the church calling out, “It’s not too late to change your mind Betty!”

The Suerths later moved to Hobart and Jess and Bet were reunited. Both visited us on occasions. Jess came to our wedding and wrote it up for the Geelong Advertiser. She had the knack of describing the fabrics of the dresses in terms only used by a modelling agency!

We visited them both in Hobart a couple of times. These wonderful women died only recently, both well into their 90s. They were pretty special people.

​Carmyl Winkler
March 29, 2023

I mentioned this title to my son, who wisely commented, “Well it all depends where you set the bar.’

By most people’s bar, my athletic career would be a complete failure – in the seconds for the school hockey team, playing in D Grade in the church tennis team, last by a third of the pool in the year 9 swimming sports.

But I once won a race at the Sunday School picnic. I was about 18 and we were running on the sand at Torquay and somehow I managed to beat Joycie Ford, well-known as the best runner in the race. My athletic husband-to-be couldn’t have been prouder!

But if the bar was low in that field of endeavour, it was right up there in the academic arena – second wasn’t good enough. I did once get PL, pass at a lower standard, in Year 9 Art but any other subject was grist to the mill.

I was fortunate enough to live in the era of Commonwealth Scholarships. They weren’t too hard to get and the associated living allowance was dependant on your family income so I did well in this regard.

However university was in Melbourne and we lived in Geelong so money had to be stretched to cover living expenses. I enrolled at University Women’s College and sat for a College Scholarship and was successful. With both scholarships I had just enough to live on. Students working at paid jobs during the term was not even considered in that era as learning was a full time task, especially for science students who had 3 hours of practical work each week for each subject as well as lectures.

First year science – and a pretty raw recruit. Notes were taken during lectures and, in Physics, a weekly problem sheet was handed out. The first one was headed with a Bible quotation:

‘But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves’

I diligently did the problems but didn’t think to further check over or rewrite each lecture.

A Science degree required two terms learning Science French or Science German. I decided to do this in my first year and, while no oral work was required but simply the ability to translate  scientific articles from these languages into English, my love of languages inveigled me into spending too much  time on this subject.

By exam time I had a large amount of material to revise and ,yes, my results were an utter disappointment – one third class honour and three passes. I lost my college scholarship and felt utterly miserable.

I spent the three month Christmas holidays as a pseudo-nurse at the Geelong Hospital. I saved every penny and made it financially to the end of my second year when my results were good enough to have my scholarship restored. By the end of my third year I was offered a position as Physics tutor at the college.
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Sometimes we have to fail first time round to learn about what life asks of us.