Early Memories
Some early memories from Sam, talking to his nephew ( or someone like that).
So you would like me to tell you a bit about what it was like to be a kid when I was a kid. Pull up your chair and we will get going, Sam. See if I can make a word picture for you. A couple of things before we start. When I say 'Mum or Dad' I am talking about my Mother and Father. 'Marg' is your Granny, 'Jock' is your Uncle Jock. 'Frankie' is your Aunt who used to live down the road from where you are now. Off we go.
"The Leigh" 7 Hawthorne Rd, Malvern. It is the first house of which I have clear memories. We lived there for quite some time. It was a bigish house on a very big block of land. It was very deep because the next road had been built a long way back. The house beside us had a tennis court and the back half of their block. Ours had a fence and hedge across it. The hedge was 'Tree Lucerne' I have never struck it since then. We called it 'the back paddock'. There were big Pine trees at the far fence. Good for climbing in but not much else. Behind the house was a fair size building. A laundry, a workshop and an outside WC. In one corner of the 'Back Paddock' was the chook house. Mum always had some chooks. They used up the scraps and supplied us with fresh eggs and one to eat now and then. Later there was another chook house where I kept some Bantams.
What about the house. It was two story, although the second was almost an attic. Two rooms and a linen closet. The thing that would strike you is that there was no shed for a car, not even a 'Carport'. We had never heard of that word either. Where did we keep the car? We didn't, because at that time there was no car. If we were going somewhere we caught a Tram or Train.
Soon after we moved in Dad bought a Motor Bike. A Douglas. I don't remember much about this, more from what I have been told. It was a 'twin cylinder horizontally opposed'. If you don't know what that means, ask your father. Later he bought a car. Morris Cowley, single seater. That means there was only one seat although three people could sit in it. Open with a fold down hood. For the benefit of the kids, Dad made a seat to go in the boot. The boot opened from the front out, so there wasn't much chance of us falling out. It wasn't very comfortable.
Time to get inside the house. A set of steps went up to the verandah. The front door opened into an entrance. Hat Stand and some storage with lids on top. The telephone standing on a wall bracket. A turn table on the base and an ear pice hanging on an arm. You lifted the ear piece and dialed the number. Ours was 'U4785'.
The front sitting room, for grown ups and formal occasions. Square room with a fireplace in one corner, two desks a couple of book cases and an old wind-up Gramophone. Little steel needles with a very sharp point. With four matches and bit of paper for a fin they made a very good dart. The hall ran right through the house from the front to the back door.
Curtains about half way down to cut off the living part of the house from the working part. Main bedroom on the right. Another smaller one on the left. Then a short passage to the bathroom, which also contained the WC.
On the right, the Nursery. The most important room from our point of view. A big room, Marg, Jock and myself all had some complaint at one time and three beds were set up for us without having to take any furniture out of the room. In those days, we didn't go for 'built ins'. Behind those the working part of the house.
Store room, kitchen and pantry on one side. Cook's bedroom and store shed on the other. The pantry had a window opening onto a shady place with a Tree Fern. That window was always opend and sitting in front of it was the 'Coolgardy Safe'. A safe with a water reservoir of water on top, the sides covered with flannel, wicks of flannel going from the top to the sides to keep them damp. This kept things pleasantly cool. We also had an Ice Chest. A block of ice in the top part and what you wanted to keep cool in the bottom part. In the kitchen, a Wood Burning and a Gas Stove. The gas was 'Coal Gas' piped to the house, like water. The draining board around the sink was actually a board.
The windows from the up-stairs rooms were set into the pitch of the roof. The left a flat piece outside the windows. Marg and I used to climb out of one window, then crawl across the roof to the other window. How we never slipped and fell of the edge I don't know. Only the good die young, so they say.
Enought about the cage, what about the animals in it. What did we play with and how did we fill in our time? To start, we didn't have Telly or a computer. The only noise maker was a wind-up Gramophone. Driven by clock-work. So you had to wind it around for each record.
We played a lot outside. The yard was big enough for us to ride bikes round in it. We had a big crate which had once help a table. It served many purposes, a ship, a fort, a cabin in the wild country.
There was room in the Back Paddock for all sorts of games, cricket, chasing games of different sorts. The Pine trees were big enough for climbing and building houses. Although never very successful or reliable. Electric toys hadn't started and there was no such thing as Radio Control. We flew hand launched gliders. Clock work trains were good fun. Having to be re-wound at intervals was a nuisance, but that was a fact of life, as you had to be fed at intervals.Toy cars had to be pushed round or they were clock work also.
That was how things were so your play was adjusted to that. We had a lot of inside games for wet weather. Dominos, Tiddly Winks. With one counter you flicked another and tried to land it in a container. Card games. A lot of special cards just for certain games. 'Happy Families and Snap'. Other board games, Ludo, Snakes and Ladders.
There was always a book to read or a picture to colour. Connect up the numbers and see what picture it makes. Magic drawing books where you rubbed back and forward across the page with a pencil and a picture appeared. I think the main difference with our games and a lot of the games now was in what we had to do. We had to imagine the cars speeding round, not have it given to us on a screen.
Perhaps more that we had to amuse ourselves, not have a mechanical something amuse us.
I'm sure I would have loved computer games and I don't blame anyone for enjoying them, but I think you need to learn to do it for yourself.
Now I'm getting right of the track Sam, hope this is of some use to you.
