We were living in a Methodist parsonage in Launceston when Dad decided to enlist as a chaplain in the AIF, so we moved down the Tamar River 31 miles to Sandy Beach*.
Mr. Twomey had a grocery and post office and also organised milk delivery. My mother once found him out the back of the shop watering down the milk. Mr. Parry had a lolly shop on the highway a few doors away. I guess he sold something else, but I don’t know what it was. Mrs. Robinson had a baker’s shop a few doors in the other direction. These are the only shops I can remember but I guess there was a butcher.
There was a Methodist church with Mr. Fletcher at the helm, Mr. Swain with a sleek green bus that he drove to Launceston and back every day and the fish man who knocked at the back door each Friday with flathead for threepence each or flounders for sixpence. And that was Sandy Beach.
Beauty Point was a mile back with a big harbour, where we once saw a Catalina Flying Boat, and Beaconsfield was another three miles and that was where we went to school.
We had three girls, six, eight and ten, a younger brother who was three, our mother and Dulce who came with us from Launceston to give Mother a hand. Our house had an attic where some of us slept.
Mr. Twomey had a grocery and post office and also organised milk delivery. My mother once found him out the back of the shop watering down the milk. Mr. Parry had a lolly shop on the highway a few doors away. I guess he sold something else, but I don’t know what it was. Mrs. Robinson had a baker’s shop a few doors in the other direction. These are the only shops I can remember but I guess there was a butcher.
There was a Methodist church with Mr. Fletcher at the helm, Mr. Swain with a sleek green bus that he drove to Launceston and back every day and the fish man who knocked at the back door each Friday with flathead for threepence each or flounders for sixpence. And that was Sandy Beach.
Beauty Point was a mile back with a big harbour, where we once saw a Catalina Flying Boat, and Beaconsfield was another three miles and that was where we went to school.
We had three girls, six, eight and ten, a younger brother who was three, our mother and Dulce who came with us from Launceston to give Mother a hand. Our house had an attic where some of us slept.
Dorothy was in the top grade, a mix of grades 6 and 7. Mr. Calloway, the headmaster, was the teacher and sometimes caned the boys. Frank O’Toole could sing the first verse of Lilli Marlene in German, exciting admiration and suspicion. We learned to sing Land of Hope and Glory and Beautiful Dreamer.
I was in Grade 4 / 5 with the lovely Miss Dawes for my teacher. An inspector turned up one day and asked the class, “If an electric train is travelling at 60 miles an hour and the wind is blowing in the opposite direction at 40 miles an hour, which way will the smoke go?” Why do I remember? Of course, because I was the only one who said electric trains don’t have any smoke.
We made our own fun with Dorothy writing plays about Cavaliers and Roundheads and we girls dressing up and acting them out for Dulce, Mother and John. We read ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ to kind-hearted John so we could see his eyes filling with tears when the ant turned away the hungry grasshopper.
I was in Grade 4 / 5 with the lovely Miss Dawes for my teacher. An inspector turned up one day and asked the class, “If an electric train is travelling at 60 miles an hour and the wind is blowing in the opposite direction at 40 miles an hour, which way will the smoke go?” Why do I remember? Of course, because I was the only one who said electric trains don’t have any smoke.
We made our own fun with Dorothy writing plays about Cavaliers and Roundheads and we girls dressing up and acting them out for Dulce, Mother and John. We read ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ to kind-hearted John so we could see his eyes filling with tears when the ant turned away the hungry grasshopper.
One morning we were on the school bus and people were on the road shouting, “The war’s over! The war’s over!” We kept driving to school where we had a short ceremony and then got the bus home. Two days holiday! Mother organised us and we went to Launceston in Mr. Swain’s bus and stayed there overnight. There were heaps of people in the city streets dancing and shouting. I’m sure Mother wanted to give us an experience to remember and she surely did.
Carmyl Winkler
February 2024
*Now known as Ilfraville
Carmyl Winkler
February 2024
*Now known as Ilfraville
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