In 1942 my dad, Arthur John Tilbury, joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).  This is not remarkable in itself, but he had a wife and three children aged 11, 9 and me, aged 7, and was 37 when he joined.

After doing his initial training and being camped at both Caulfield Racecourse and the Melbourne Cricket Ground, he was sent to Townsville.  From here he was sent to New Guinea where he was attached to an American Airfield Construction Unit.  I don’t know if he worked on the actual Airfields, which the Americans called strips.

His position was more of a camp orderly.  His assistants were the local natives.  He was very friendly and often spoke about one of his native assistants.  Their main task was to stop the jungle from taking over the camps.

The first time he came home he hitched a ride home on a Dutch plane to Brisbane, arriving in the middle of the night.  Among the treasures in his kit bag were mother of pearl shells, small shell bracelets, native grass skirts, heavy hair combs made of wood, Japanese sniper boots and a Jap mortar shell that had been disarmed, which we used as a door stop.

Other things were chewing gum, tropical chocolate which melted at a higher temperature.  We looked forward to the tins of peanuts (we saw), but these turned out to be tins of 50 cigarettes.
 
He had plenty of cigarettes when he came home at the end of the war, a kitbag full, soon half the town was smoking American cigarettes.  He also had Japanese cigarettes and the wax matches needed to light them as the heads fell off ordinary matches.  Cigarettes were rationed at this time and almost impossible to get.

Dad returned to Australia for an operation on a crook knee.  He went back for another tour and was there when the war ended.   The military over ran the enemy and the strip reconstruction unit followed behind, sometimes picking up a straggler.

Dad would send Mum letters which were sometimes mutilated by the censor, Dad divulging sensitive information.  His unit was always on the move.   Places we got letters from included Madang, Lae, Aitape, Finchaven, Wewak, Goodenough Island, Rabaul, and there were others.

When the war ended and the troops were waiting to get home, they had plenty of time to play cards.  I don’t know how good a card player my father was, but he must have been better than the Americans as brought home several watches that didn’t work long account of rusting out, signet rings made using aluminium and material from windscreens from crashed planes, His second tour to the Islands, as they were commonly called, was 20 months.

Getting back to the treasures he brought home, he had two kit bags, one entirely full of American cigarettes, the other containing his clothes, everything marked with his number, 56884.  He had Japanese post cards generally showing cherry blossoms, Japanese money, and “invasion money” intended for use for when they invaded Australia.

The Americans gave their troops post cards of scantily dressed girls, sexy for that time, but with a message, “Don’t Forget to Take Your Atabrin”, which was to counter Malaria.  It worked for my father, as he never suffered from malaria, not like some poor souls.  Atabrin had a tendency, if taken on a regular basis, to cause the skin colour to turn yellow.

Dad brought home many photographs.  One that stood out to me at the time was of a head-hunter.  The photo was taken on the edge of the jungle and showed a severed head hanging from a belt made of human hair.

I have gleaned this information from memory, from over 80 years ago, but please don’t ask me what I had for breakfast.
​
 
Max Tilbury,
July 2024

As one might expect, my earliest memory is of my mother, perhaps earlier, though, than most would really expect.  I recall my mother lifting me out of my iron framed cot and breast feeding me.  My cot was alongside my parent’s bed in the front bedroom of Erin Vale.
 
My last memory of Mum also involved her being in bed, but a hospital bed, some four and a half years later.  She had contracted cancer!
 
Aunty Molly Walsh, mum’s sister, had taken me on a visit to the hospital sometime in January 1937.  There was a hospital table straddling Mum’s bed and on it, a jar of black and white humbug lollies.  As a four-year-old I was interested in the lollies and kept eyeing them off.  Whether in exasperation or with motherly love, she exclaimed “alright, you can have one”.  This is the last memory I have of her.  She died on 31st day of that same month.
 
My brother Pat was 17-year-old and as a big brother, he spoiled me and bought me a red trike.  He also purchased an upright AWA radio for the family.  He had a beautiful thoroughbred pony called The Yodeller.
 
World War 2 came upon us on 3rd September 1939.  Pat, putting his age up, enlisted in the Army as a Sapper (Driver) and was sent to the Middle East.  Unbeknown to us he was injured and returned to Brisbane in 1944.  He called back home on his way through.  I was living at Meg and Mary Caines’s property (Mary was Dad’s sister) at Swanwater North and Pat called unexpectedly.  I was 12 years old and hadn’t seen him since 1937.  I didn’t know him, I wasn’t told who he was, and wondered why he was taking an interest in me.  It wasn’t until after he left that I became aware.   (Next to Mum’s death, this has been the greatest disappointment of my life).  Pat carried on to Brisbane undoubtedly wondering why I hadn’t greeted him with open arms.  I imagine he was as disappointed as I was!
 
On Friday, 16th March, 1951, while working with VPC in Benalla, we conducted a Special Sheep Sale.  It was a long, busy day.  On arriving home at my boarding house I was presented with an Urgent Telegram.  It simply read “Pat passed away suddenly this morning.  Funeral Monday morning” … sender JOHN (another brother).
 
On Monday at the funeral I held Dad’s hand, unknowingly, for the last time.
 
On Christmas Eve of that same year I travelled to St Arnaud, to be met at the bus-stop by Aunty Kath and Toby.  They told me that Dad had passed away that same morning:  I suspect of a broken heart.  He had never come to grips with Pat’s death.  I was taken to the mortuary where I saw him lying, finally at peace.
 
In 1972 Aunty Kath and Toby’s oldest son lost his wife to cancer, leaving him with six children, the youngest, Alyson, being only 8 months old.  Bernadette and I fostered her for approximately three years.  She was a loveable child, and we were anxious to adopt her.  Her father, however, remarried and reclaimed her.  We were distraught when she left our care.  It may be some consolation to say that we now have four children of our own.  Depends on how one looks at it!
 
And so, my demons have been expunged!
​
 
Ray O’Shannessy,
5th May 2024

I came across an old ‘Benalta’, the Benalla High School magazine from the fifties.  I gazed at the photos of the prefects, house captains and sports teams, recognising many of them.  We looked so young—and we were! 
 
Where did all those young people go?  Did they have happy lives and fulfil their dreams? 
 
I looked at a photo of myself, a shy teenager.  Did I think then that one day I would be over eighty, still farming, feeding chooks, gardening, carting in wood, or that I would have four children and seven grandchildren?  No, our thoughts didn’t stretch that far ahead.  In fact, the year 2000 seemed too far away to even think about.
 
I looked at the others standing there in their uniforms.  Some I’d kept up contact with, others drifted away to work.  Sadly, some died young.  Many probably had achieved their dreams, in careers, sport and family life.  We caught up at reunions, but over the years the numbers dwindled with each successive meet.
 
Now our old Benalla High is in disrepair, probably beyond fixing, but in our minds, we can still see those rooms where we did science, maths or cookery, remember school sports, the House sports (and war cry), and the mischief we got up to.  There were socials in the old Memorial Hall, speech nights in the Town Hall.  The annual fete was held in the school grounds, especially the mannequin parade down the outside stairs to the quadrangle which always provided lots of laughs.
 
Thinking back, despite the times we found modern history boring, or the maths exams difficult, these were happy, care-free days.
 
Margaret Nelson
August 2022

​Right at the bottom, but safely wrapped, is a small red bible signed by Queen Elizabeth on the occasion of her coronation. All children attending the coronation were given one of these. I wrote about this event in an earlier session.

Finally, a bundle of graduation documents from Uni and various courses of training I took. My RAAF and METPOL entry documents, photos and discharge certificates also unleashed a flood of memories.

In closing, I can say I have had a great life, lots of experiences, many many memories and almost no regrets.


Heather Hartland
July 2022

​I was in Grade 3 at Invermay Primary School in Launceston. The girls learned sewing once a week and our first task was to make a small bag out of pink material with blue cotton so our tiny hemming and backstitches could be checked. Initials were proudly chain-stitched on the front.

When we had finished, we moved on to make a rectangular bag with flap and our full surname included in the chain stitching. This had tapes at the side and was proudly worn around our waists each Wednesday with our sewing materials inside.

In the meantime, at playtime and lunch time, marbles were in fashion. Everyone brought along their marbles in their pockets and showed their prowess. I enjoyed the game but was no expert so didn’t enjoy when we were playing for ‘keeps’ as I had my favourite marbles I didn’t want to hand over. These included a Tom Bowler, an agate and several bottlies, one somewhat misshapen. One boy played so often that his thumb nail was partly missing from flicking his tor into the circle.

An expired passport and the current world political climate evoked memories of years past and an attempted landing on an Arctic Island with a NATO Base, from a small Russian ship.

”Sailing from the port of Longyearbyen on the Island of Slavbard, latitude 78 degrees 13’ north, our attempted destination is Scoresby Sund in North East Greenland. The Greenland coast is land locked by fast ice for most of the year. There is only a short window of time when it may be possible to reach N/E Greenland. This is a very heavy ice year.  Our ship is ice strengthened but it’s not an icebreaker.

The second day at sea is spent slowly poking into a curtain of thick fog. Visibility forward is reduced to no further than the bows of the ship. The radio crackles, “This is Danish navy ship Theseus. Do not proceed any further, wait for us and prepare to be boarded.” For an hour our ship is stationary, wallowing, “dead in the water.”

The Captain is watching the radar; he says quietly, “They are here.” A ghostly grey shape of a navy ship looms up behind us and then disappears again into the fog.  A bright red zodiac with four red clad crew members is speeding across the rough sea and the ship is boarded with navy precision. An officer examines the ships papers while the other crewmen check for sea worthiness. We are advised that the area we are heading into has a 9/10ths covering of sea ice 50 nautical miles from land.  After some time we are cleared to continue on into the ice.

Early on the third morning we see a thin band of light on the horizon; it’s “the ice blink”, the reflection from dense pack ice.

Anticipation runs high as we approach the pack ice. On the bridge the crew is very intent and unsmiling. No one speaks.

Our expedition leader sits silently at the bridge window. He picks up the microphone, “As you can see we are approaching the ice edge. At the moment we are taking on sea water for ballast. The ship will lay deeper in the water so that the most strengthened part of the ship can be used for sailing through the ice. We will head north so we will have head winds which will make the ship less vulnerable. The ice here has been broken by the waves and the situation looks promising but when we have travelled some nautical miles it may be different, we’ll see.”

We enter a field of broken chunks of ice on a rolling sea. The ice is banking down the wave action. The further we sail the larger these floating ice missiles become.

At this point we are twenty nautical miles from the nearest land. The idea is that we will proceed into the ice with a heading north, while the stream is setting us to the south. The result will be that we sail in the direction of the mouth of the fjord.

The broken ice eventually becomes large pancake ice, heaving in an icy sea.  The captain has his binoculars trained on the ice searching for open leads. We charge straight into the ice. There is no open water, just huge lumps of ice, white, blue and the dirty brown of moraine. The further we go the worse the situation becomes. The ship slows to .03 knots. The pack ice becomes a solid field of ice. We can no longer make any headway and are being swept south in the East Greenland ice current. Our speed is one and a half knots backwards!

The sky is leaden and the wind keens across the ice field. There are no open leads. We are not going to Greenland, but the problem is will we get out of the ice? The Captain's face is inscrutable as he paces to each side of the bridge surveying the ice. The danger is getting ice damage to the propeller. After an hour of skilful manoeuvring we retreat south along the ice edge.

In open water we meet large waves head on and the spray is flung up over the bows and drifts back over the ship.  To keep our spirits up, we are told that we are in for a special treat. We will go to Jan Mayen Island.

Five hundred kilometres to the east the towering rocky cliffs of Jan Mayen loom up out of the mist. We have been refused permission to land as there is a NATO base here and we are on a Russian Ship. We unobtrusively cruise the rugged coastline, keeping close to the shore.

Loren C was established for long range radio navigation in 1961. A Norwegian territory, the Island is uninhabited save for a small military presence.

The Mountains are wreathed in low cloud and then a window opens in the cloud and reveals sunshine on snow clad Beeranberg, the most northerly volcano in the Arctic.

An Irish Monk, St Brendan the navigator is believed to have sailed in this area in the sixth century. He reported a terrible noise and a black Island that was on fire. He thought he had discovered the entrance of Hell.

We sail around a rocky headland and there in the cove is a sleek grey gunboat!

The radio crackles ominously. The Captain takes this call in the radio room. He has been caught red-handed!

We are ordered to leave at once and are now under the control of the gunboat. We retreat carefully; the Captain at the helm.  We are guilty of breaching their three mile exclusion zone!“


Bev Morton
​July 2022  

I am looking at a sepia photo of an old woman, wearing an apron, watching three children climbing on the veranda rail.  She is our Nana Pascoe, photographed with my younger brothers and myself, at the front of her house in Lily Street.  It must have been one of the earliest houses in Violet Town, as it is built on the very corner of the block, with a step down from the veranda onto the footpath. Perhaps it had been a shop in earlier times.

I can still visualise that house and yard. To a child the garden seemed so big, with a chook run and woodshed far away on the back fence. The house was small and rather dark, with a detached bathroom and bedroom.  The kitchen opened onto a veranda which housed a Coolgardie safe, a table, Pa’s chair - where he read the paper and smoked his pipe - and a huge plant stand.

The kitchen was very homely, with a black wood stove, a huge black kettle and Mrs Potts’ irons. As children, we loved to go there after school to eat Nana’s endless supply of Gingernut biscuits and make Milo with hot water and condensed milk. Having no refrigerator, the local dairyman, Foster Mackrell, delivered milk several days a week. I remember him riding his huge horse along the side of the house, picking up the billy hanging on the gate, and delivering milk back when he returned the cows to the paddock.

Early photos show Nana as a pretty, petite girl with dark curly hair and dark eyes, but I think she had quite a hard life.  Pa was away a lot working at road building or farm labouring and she raised the children mostly alone.

When my mother was born, Nana Pascoe was over 40, considered a dangerous age to have a baby. She haemorrhaged badly and had to be taken to Wangaratta Hospital by train (no ambulances in Violet Town). To get her to the train, she was put in a cart and several men took the shafts and carefully pulled it to the station.  Times have changed since then!

Later in life Nana slipped and fell, hurting her hip badly. She bravely carried on, refusing to see a doctor, relying on her Bex tablets and making a makeshift crutch from a broom.

Toward the end of her life a burst ulcer in one eye resulting in the removal of that eye, while the remaining eye had a cataract. Her near blindness was difficult, but she did not complain. I clearly remember the day I took Ray along to meet her. To his embarrassment, she pulled him over closer to her, looked him over, and declared he would suit Margaret!

We regularly had Sunday lunch with Nana and Pa Pascoe. I really enjoyed the simple meals of cold corned meat and salad or vegies, followed by fruit and custard, or nana’s plum jam tart (we called it “stone jam”) on the back veranda in summer. Mum would sometimes send us down the street for a Family Brick” of ice-cream.
​
I realise now that Nana Pascoe suffered a lot of pain, but I never remember her complaining or being cross.  We were so lucky to have her till she was 84, setting such an example to us.
 
Margaret Nelson
July 2020

​Our entrance area is now a centre for memories. 

There is a framed collage of family photos on the wall.  These were originally separate photos that sat on the entrance unit.  But it got to the point where the whole surface was covered with no room for more.  Some were even hidden behind others even though I tried to place the larger ones to the back.  So we made the collage and had it framed.  Now I can look out my study door and see these family memories on the wall.  It includes 17 years of memories with both our children and four grandchildren and reflects the changes that have occurred over these years – moves around the country, children growing up, and the changes that have occurred for them in that time.

But what to do with the empty surface?  This now serves as a place for many of my knitted dolls.  I have not knitted any dolls for a few years, but these show what I have done in the past. And there is a knitted floral arrangement from last year’s “Benalla Rugged Up” event.

On an opposite wall, another smaller collage of a family holiday in Noosa (well, it was a holiday for those of us who do not live there).  The is also an Irish music poster from a trip to Ireland.  I cannot remember whether this was a visit 10 years ago with my husband, or a business trip three years earlier.

Yes, our entrance hall is full of memories!

Joy Shirley

Joy Shirley
​

My sporting achievements are somewhat underwhelming. I did play football, basketball and tennis from an early age, but I can confidently say that I participated.

Going through the storage boxes I found some unused tennis balls. They were still firm, but I would suggest if hit, they would disintegrate into a cloud of dust. I did play competition tennis initially for Wollert, and in later years for Beveridge. I did not make it to the higher ranks, however we did have a great coach in the early years. Lancelot Greer was a former prisoner of war, and was in Changi with Weary Dunlop. ‘Lanie’ as he was known, was still winning district competitions and championships when he was in his fifties. I must have been somewhat of a disappointment to him, but he actively encouraged myself and the other children in the district to persist and practice, practice, practice.

It was whilst playing for Beveridge that we were competing at Yan Yean. We had been relatively successful throughout the day and were well up in the games score as we entered the mixed doubles. It was the last game of our set and as I reached to return a low ball, I felt something like a kick to the back of my right leg. I finished the set a little uncomfortable and then started to feel pain as I cooled down. I returned home with the assistance of other team members and the leg stated to swell. Nothing could be done on Sunday, so first thing Monday morning we rang our doctor in Whittlesea for an appointment.

I was indeed fortunate, as our local GP’s at the time were Dr. Bruce Reid, who became the club doctor for the Essendon Football Club and Dr. John Tickell, who left Whittlesea to take up a position with the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

A quick examination revealed that I had in fact torn my Achilles tendon rather badly. An appointment was made for an operation at the Warringal Sports Hospital in Heidelberg and the tendon was eventually restored, albeit after some weeks in a cast over summer.
​
Barry O’Connor.
July 2020.

Sifting through the old boxes, I came across a corded touch pad telephone. This prompted a flood of memories from days past.

Whilst the touch phone is still in use today, it has been very much superseded by the cordless model.

I do not use the landline system anymore, instead utilising the mobile device network for our communication needs.

In the early days the automated telephone system was not available for every home to have a telephone, so public phone boxes were strategically placed around the suburbs. Unfortunately in early 1950, the suburb of Lalor was very new and the only public phone in our area of the suburb was at the railway station, some 560 mt. from our house. The streets were unmade and when wet, were a challenge to navigate, especially for my mother when pushing a pram with a child in it. The local families actually had a large wooden box at the railway station where people would leave their gumboots whilst away on the train. Most people left their phone calls until they were in the vicinity of the station. The automated telephone installation did eventually come in late 1952, but the eastern end of our street was one of the last areas to be connected.  We were not connected for some time, instead relying on nearby family members in an emergency.
​
My second experience with the telephone was at my Grandparents property near Woomelang in the Mallee. This line was known as the ‘party’ line, with two wires strung on insulators between mallee tree trunks. 

​There were no allocated phone numbers, just a special series of ring sequences. These ring sequences were a series of either ‘short’ or ‘long’ rings. Each person on the ‘party’ line had a different sequence. I always remember my grandmother and aunties racing to the phone, holding the hanger down and lifting the receiver to listen in on the other conversations. Nothing was private in the bush, everybody knew everybody’s business. To call outside the area you had to ring the exchange in the nearest town and have the telephonist connect you to the desired number.

I often wonder if our grandparents could see what is available in communication equipment today, what would they think?
​
Barry O’Connor.
July 2020.

My lifetime – I’m 88 years of age – includes memories and stories from the Great Depression of 1932 to the current Corona Virus pandemic of 2020.
 
In 1932, many jobless males walked the countryside looking for work, any type of work, if only to obtain a meal.  Farms were routinely visited by these desperate men.  Indian hawkers and their horse-drawn vehicles were regular visitors selling their wares.
 
In the 1930’s polio was termed infantile paralysis as there was then an epidemic to which my brother Basil (two years older than me) succumbed, but fortunately recovered from.
 
At my school in the late 1930’s we were regularly visited by men known as “swaggies” or swagmen because they normally carried a bag (swag).  They were prepared to cut wood, tend the garden, milk the cows, or do any job that may be available.  We had one regular who was affectionately called “Billy Butterfly”.
 
In September 1939 we saw the commencement of World War II.  Our school was adjacent to the main Melbourne railway line.  In the early 1940’s America joined the war and their troops came to Australia.  We saw many “Yanks” and their tanks, jeeps and other warfare on the never-ending trains that went by.
 
One of my school mates left school and the next year, at age 14 years, came back to visit in an Army uniform.  He was later deployed to Darwin where bombs were being dropped.
 
During the war years, and for a long time afterwards, we had to get used to the “ration tickets” which were required for practically every commodity, food, clothes, petrol.  This saw the introduction to gas burners attached to the rear end of cars.  It also saw the introduction of the popular, illegal practice of using kerosene to propel motor vehicles.
 
May and August of 1945 treated us to the termination of warfare in the Pacific and Europe.  There were great celebrations by way of processions in the streets of every town in the country.  My brother Pat returned from Tobruk.
 
1950 saw me entering the workforce.  There was also the beginning of the Korean War and later on, National Service.  I was too young to go to Korea and, believe it or not, too old for National Service.  I had completed my registration form for National Service and went to the Post Office to mail it.  At the entrance was a notice telling all eligible males to register and on re-reading it I became aware that I was one month too old.  With some regret I destroyed my registration form and returned to my somewhat mundane job.
 
Work continued and I transferred to St. Arnaud, then Wodonga, and Melbourne in the early 1960s.  At that time the Vietnam War was current, and my niece’s fiancé was drafted for service.
I then got married, completed my accounting qualifications, and had a successful business career.

I retired in 2000 and all was well in the world.
 
Then, in early 2020, the Corona Virus struck, and we now find ourselves in lockdown.
​
So, there you have it, “As Time Goes By”, reflections on historical events across a lifetime spanning 88 years (to date!).
 
 
Ray O’Shannessy
7 July 2020

​A breakfast menu from the Ghan revived memories of a college trip to Alice Springs.

It was 1958 and we joined Melbourne Teachers' College on a 16 day trip, costing £63  all inclusive.  We'd been paying it off all year so there was great excitement when we finally boarded the Overland for Adelaide.  We had a day to look around, then early the next day we headed to board The Ghan, which was quite luxurious for its time.  We were four to a compartment, a bunk bed pulled down at night.  There was a dining carriage, a kitchen and a lounge with a piano, besides an observation area at the rear of the carriage.  It travelled very slowly, taking two days and nights to get to Alice Springs.  The meals, served by waiters in bow-ties, were very good.

Compared with Victoria, the country was so different.  I was amazed by the flatness and vast horizons, the red soil, stunted scrub and trees and the clear blue cloudless sky.

Boarding buses in Alice, we headed off on a circular tour west of Alice, camping in the open in sleeping bags around a camp fire.  The days were hot and the nights very cold.  The bus drivers were the cooks and provided plain, nourishing meals. 

We travelled over cattle stations, crossing dry river beds, sometimes bogging in the sand.  We then turned back to Palm Valley with its oasis like pools and cycads.  From here we visited Hermansburg Mission and Stanley Chasm.  We were lucky to arrive at midday when the sun turns the chasm wall a vivid red.  Namatjira was painting at this timeand his paintings sold for only £50  In the local gallery I was lucky enough to buy an unframed water color of Adolf Inkamals for a few pounds which has since increased considerably in value.  

I felt so lucky to have seen the outback in a relatively pristine state and to see the beauty of the country through the eyes of the aboriginal painters.  Friendships were made on that trip which have lasted a lifetime.

​
Margaret Nelson,
​June 2019