One of the great things about visiting Charles Mum a few weeks ago, was hearing all sorts of family stories. Here are just a few of the things they told me about June’s Mum, Mairn.
June:
My mother was the story teller. She seemed to be able to pull all those things together with a good memory. She kept in touch with people and was full of sayings – she had a saying for everything. And she was fairly light-hearted and fun. So that combination made her good at stories.
Charles:
When I brought a friend Leonard to visit her, she said, “Oh Leonard. Yes, I had a Leonard once. Liked him a lot… Didn’t get him.”
June:
Papa was a sea going engineer and had been all over the world and thought Australia would be a good place to settle.
They first moved to Hurstville but she didn’t like it so she got on a train and travelled all over Sydney and found Balmoral. First they bought a weatherboard house near the water. It’s Yuppy now but there was a little cottage at the back they used to rent out to the people who wanted to travel from the country.
In England, my Grandparents had met a family who was almost desolate. The Cranmers. Grandfather taught the man welding. And grandmother employed the woman to do the washing. Mostly just to help her. Then Mr Cranmer decided to come out to Australia where he started a welding firm and did very well. Very courageous of them. Then when Mairn she came to Australia, she stayed with them before the wedding.
When she became a Grandmother, she said she was far too young to be a Granny so that they should call her Mairn.
She was always a person who was looking for a better place. Her parents would say, “She’ll never be satisfied until she’s on the top of the hill.”
Charles
She had fire proof hands and incredibly large knuckles -pulled cake tins out of the oven with her bare hands.
June:
When she was in school she won a scholarship to Bead College but couldn’t take it because was needed in the house. She was always yearning to do something with her life. But she was the only daughter in family of several brothers so she left school to take care of the family.
She used to dress the windows in Enlgand. She liked that kind of thing. She liked fashion. She also had a job as a lamp lighter and she was in the women’s army corp. They had a song –“we are the girls of the AWC and jolly fine lot are we….” And when she was at older and played on the bowles team, she used to tell them she was at least 10 years younger than she was. And once she went to sing them the song and stopped herself just in time –because they would have known how old she was then and she would have been caught out.
My friend Nicole has had severe arthritis since she was 7 years old and she’s had more joint surgeries than a whole water aerobics class full of senior citizens.