What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

90 Years of Memories

This past week, my grandmother Mary celebrated her 90th birthday. Sadly, I couldn’t be at the celebrations, which were held back home in Australia, but my mother was kind enough to send me a transcript of the speech she gave at the party on grandma’s behalf. 90 years is a long time, and as the speech contained a number of memories and reminiscences about life in the previous century, I asked for and was granted permission to share those parts of it here. 

Looking back over 90 years is a remarkable thing to be able to do and over the past few days Mum has recalled a wealth of stories. And two things stand out clearly: change and the importance of love and friendship.

As to the first, the changes over the past 90 years have been extraordinary. The advent of flight, the telephone, radio, television, the gramophone and the car, space travel, computers, smart phones, CDs, iPads - the list goes on and on.

Mum says she was told that her mother picked her up in her arms and rushed into their backyard the day the first plane flew over their house in Inverell. Most people had never seen a plane and her mother was anxious in case it crashed into their house.

And as to the phone, Mum’s love of a good natter may well have had its origins in early childhood. Mum recounts that the phone in their house was attached to the wall. It had no dial. You simply picked up the receiver and the operator asked what number you wanted. As a little girl Mum would regularly stand on a small stool under the phone, pick up the receiver and ask the poor operator “what’s the time please?”. And being a country town, back would come the reply, “Is that you Mary?”. There was no such thing as a private conversation back then and Mum still remembers that the phone operator was one Isabelle McKinnon!

Apart from the telephone, Mum’s family was one of the first in the street to have a radio - a rather substantial piece of furniture that took pride of place in the living room - and neighbours used to come in, Mum says, to listen to the Test cricket broadcasts.

Then there was the automobile. Mum’s father had a Dodge. It was his pride and joy and even when it was old and no longer road worthy he refused to part with it but put it up on chocks so it could still be admired. Mum has a vivid memory of driving in the Dodge sitting on her father’s knee with her hands on the steering wheel, convinced she was doing all the steering. 

On the domestic front, all the washing was done in the brass copper and all rinsed and rung out by hand. And this was common right up until the 1950s when Mum bought her first electric washing machine. Mum’s mother didn’t get an electric iron until the 1930’s so ironing was done with a heavy iron heated on the fuel stove. And try making a cake when the only way of knowing how hot the oven was was by opening it up and feeling it with your hands. Now that takes both courage and skill! As a child, Mum’s role was to chop the kindling for the stove and it was a job she loved and which she boasts she was very good at. Then there was the task of keeping things cool. There was no refrigeration, only the ice chest and the ice man and the milk man called daily. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Mum enjoyed the benefits of a gas powered fridge.

I suppose no reminiscence would be complete without the Depression getting a mention. Living in the country with grandparents who ran a farm meant that Mum’s family did not go without like so many others did. She has a strong memory of the times her grandmother would fill a sack for one of the many swagmen walking the countryside looking for food or work. “We always had some fruit, vegetables and meat to spare when a swagman called”, Mum recalls, “ we never turned anyone away”. And at school Mum vividly remembers a little girl who on seeing her eating an apple at playtime approached her and asked if she might have the core when Mum had finished with it. That’s not something you forget easily.

And finally let’s not forget the huge strides made in medicine. Mum’s little sister died of dyptheria because there were no antibiotics. And we complain about our hospitals today but Mum had me laughing this week when she told me that when I was in hospital as a 3 year old, mothers could bring in an egg for their child to have as a treat - but you had to write your name on it to be sure the right child got it. And some other things have changed too. Parents were only allowed to visit their children twice a week - any more often was considered too upsetting for the child. How different the world is now!

So there are some of the changes that Mum has experienced. But what has really stood out for her when thinking about the past 90 years is the importance of family, friends and neighbours.

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