SUMMARY AND PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT
ABOUT WORK FOR WOMEN IN NEW FACTORY ‘We took over this derelict warehouse in Jenkins Street opposite the Pop Factory… lemonade pop, we stripped this place bare, decorated it and put in new furniture, and I did this within a period of seven days (PROUD) and we recruited loads of girls and we put in accounting machines – about 200 – we had a vehicle servicing department on the ground floor, my son worked there… they come across from Somerset, and my other son worked for SUREVISION (spelling?) which was the local cable company that cabled all the valley, provided people with TV, relied on cable in those days, aerials were no good here, couldn’t get pictures on aerials.’
02:00 AUSTRALIA ‘The most amazing thing… when we came into Sydney Harbour… during the war… I saw my brother’s ship, the Implacable… and when we got up to this transit camp I went to see the CO to try and make contact with him. Hadn’t seen him two years, three years maybe this was late on in the war. He’d been up to Arkangel with the Russian troops.
I obtained leave and went down to the dockside and tried to get out to this ship which was out in the bay. I noticed the front of the ship was all bashed in and I thought it was one of these Kamikaze attacks… but it turned out it was rough seas, very very rough seas, and the aircraft carrier is flat, and this was all stove in, and she was in for a refit.
I went down to the quayside and found I could get out with the mail ship at 4 o’clock going out, so I went out to the ship, went aboard, found there were a few rough types on board as well, and then inquired for my brother and they said, ‘He’s ashore!’ would you believe it, so I had a job then to get off the ship, had to wait for a ship leaving with sailors going for leave before I could get off, so I didn’t see him that day at all, but the following day they had a new building they were putting up for British servicemen, called the British Centre, like the NAFE. I went up and inquired for him there and they said ‘we could use you, for publicity’ SO THEY ARRANGED TO MEET AND TO BE PHOTGRAPHED, STAGED FOR BROTHER TO PRETEND TO BE SURPRISED IN THE BARBERS AND WAS IN THE SYDNEY SUNDAY SUN, THEN KEPT GETTING RECOGNISED, BIT OF FAME FOR FIVE MINS.
‘We had ten days leave which we spent up in the Blue Mountains… beautiful countryside… yes we had a good time… which leads me on to a second coincidence.’
STORY OF GERMAN SHIP SPOTTED OFF CORNWALL LIZARD POINT ‘On Christmas Eve in England down on the Lizard Point I was courting my wife… and we had a beautiful sunny crisp day… and they had organised this treasure hunt… and we were going around all these little villages following clues… suddenly a panic… apparently… German cruiser out in the channel’… scrambled all the RAF mosquitos from Trebanock (sp.?) …went out to sink the Sharnhorse (sp.?) …unfortunately …heavy fog made ship invisible, planes had to turn back and one crashed… and who should I meet but his mother and father in a café in Australia… I was in this café waiting for my brother to come ashore… big place… hardly anyone in there… the little girl approached and said would you like to come and join us rather than sitting on your own… I said I’m from the West country. TURNS OUT THEY TOLD HIM THEY HAD A SON WHO HAD BEEN KILLED THERE WHEN HIS PLANE HAD CRASHED, ‘and I had to tell them I had witnessed this.’
ENDS