Yes, there was a phone in Dad’s study, but I don’t remember ever making a personal call on it.
I was in Form 6 when Don went off to National Service in the Navy. I had wangled permission to go with him to see a film before he left but hadn’t really anticipated the opportunity of letter writing. Letters of six or eight pages regularly arrived and were duly answered.
The next year I was off to university, so Don’s letters continued, as did letters from my mother. Every Sunday night she wrote to any family member who was away and also to her sister, using carbon paper. The pages would then be sorted so that everyone had a top copy as well as an assortment of later copies.
In Indonesia, whenever we had nothing else to do, we’d write letters to a large assortment of family and friends. We had a modest post office in the Mess building next door. Mail seemed to arrive in bundles – none for a while and then a number together. Three weeks was about average time.
Sometimes a parcel arrived, mostly containing food such as packet soup. The prize-winning parcel was when my mother wrapped up a baby bath and posted it!
Don’s mother was very sick, and we desperately wanted her to know of the arrival of our baby before she died. Don wrote a letter that day and took it into the post office, explaining the urgency. The post-office man put it in his pocket to post in town. That letter never arrived but the next day, we each wrote a letter and they did arrive a few days before Mum’s life ended. The news of her death was received some weeks later from a relative who assumed we already knew. At least it wasn’t unexpected.
In contrast, six months later, my twenty-five-year-old sister and her husband died in a car accident. Again, the first letter we received thought we knew about it. Of course, the funeral was well over before we heard the news.
There was no fresh milk available in Aceh and a small tin of Danish powdered milk cost a fair proportion of Don’s salary, so the family sent several 3lb. tins over to us when Bronwyn was a baby. They took three months or more to arrive. When we visited Aceh thirty years later, our best friend told us that after we left, some milk arrived, and she used it for her own baby. She hoped we didn’t mind!
Back to country living in Australia. No home telephone. Walk around two blocks to the phone box if you wanted to contact your children in Melbourne.
Telegrams for important news. One said we had a new nephew named Solomon. We later found out the telegraph lady misheard – he was actually Simon.
My mother died unexpectedly. Three successive calls to our neighbour, who graciously called us in for each one.
We moved house. We had a phone! Twenty-eight years after we were first married!
Another ten years and we bought a computer and learned about emails.
Now I even own a rarely-used mobile phone.
But where will the great-grandchildren find the old letters to tell them about the past?
Carmyl Winkler
October 2024
I was in Form 6 when Don went off to National Service in the Navy. I had wangled permission to go with him to see a film before he left but hadn’t really anticipated the opportunity of letter writing. Letters of six or eight pages regularly arrived and were duly answered.
The next year I was off to university, so Don’s letters continued, as did letters from my mother. Every Sunday night she wrote to any family member who was away and also to her sister, using carbon paper. The pages would then be sorted so that everyone had a top copy as well as an assortment of later copies.
In Indonesia, whenever we had nothing else to do, we’d write letters to a large assortment of family and friends. We had a modest post office in the Mess building next door. Mail seemed to arrive in bundles – none for a while and then a number together. Three weeks was about average time.
Sometimes a parcel arrived, mostly containing food such as packet soup. The prize-winning parcel was when my mother wrapped up a baby bath and posted it!
Don’s mother was very sick, and we desperately wanted her to know of the arrival of our baby before she died. Don wrote a letter that day and took it into the post office, explaining the urgency. The post-office man put it in his pocket to post in town. That letter never arrived but the next day, we each wrote a letter and they did arrive a few days before Mum’s life ended. The news of her death was received some weeks later from a relative who assumed we already knew. At least it wasn’t unexpected.
In contrast, six months later, my twenty-five-year-old sister and her husband died in a car accident. Again, the first letter we received thought we knew about it. Of course, the funeral was well over before we heard the news.
There was no fresh milk available in Aceh and a small tin of Danish powdered milk cost a fair proportion of Don’s salary, so the family sent several 3lb. tins over to us when Bronwyn was a baby. They took three months or more to arrive. When we visited Aceh thirty years later, our best friend told us that after we left, some milk arrived, and she used it for her own baby. She hoped we didn’t mind!
Back to country living in Australia. No home telephone. Walk around two blocks to the phone box if you wanted to contact your children in Melbourne.
Telegrams for important news. One said we had a new nephew named Solomon. We later found out the telegraph lady misheard – he was actually Simon.
My mother died unexpectedly. Three successive calls to our neighbour, who graciously called us in for each one.
We moved house. We had a phone! Twenty-eight years after we were first married!
Another ten years and we bought a computer and learned about emails.
Now I even own a rarely-used mobile phone.
But where will the great-grandchildren find the old letters to tell them about the past?
Carmyl Winkler
October 2024
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