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[Page 69]
everything done early morning and that way one can relax in the afternoons a bit. She was here with me a month ago (1985) and she has not changed only that she is older and wiser and now 50 years.
John is 9 years and he is a little gambler in pennies and halfpennies, he has a bike and by all accounts he is running a double book, believe me it was born in him. I think going to dog races etc. with his father, and believe me he still is a gambler at the age of 48 this year July 1985 (born and bred). The young ones are still going to Sunday School and if they are good they are allowed to go to the pictures of a Saturday afternoon. Albert liked to stay home and help me cook. Margaret is 6 years old and she would go with the older ones and demand chips or lollies when they came out of the pictures and she really loved Beryl
because she would buy the lollies etc. for her or chips. Now Yvonne is only 4 years and still home with me and not yet going to the pictures, but she and Jimmy were still friends and sometimes Yvonne used to lie down on the back steps and she would put her hands just inside her pants to lift the elastic off her tummy and she used to say to me 'mummy my tummy is sore but I never could find out what it was and I would take her and put her on the toilet but no way would she have the door closed and she would sit there singing and swinging her little legs till I went and got her and she always said "it is still sore mummy". So what I did I made her a little stay bodice like I used to wear and made her pants to button on to them in our days we used to call them the taleboard style and so often used she have the back hanging down but she did not complain much after that so I made a point of not putting tight things around her tummy. But since she has grown up she still had trouble with it and about 8 months ago she had a very big operation and they discovered she had 2 big cysts as large as a large grapefruit. She was off work for about 2 months and since then she does seem to be much better, married for 15 years come Tuesday and now will be 43 years
November 11 1985 (no family).
I think it was about 1946 that Uncle Bill Young whom I wrote about earlier came to our place that year for Christmas. I remember he bought Yvonne a Koala Bear and she had it for years and he brought Margaret a Monkey on a string that used to go up and down. She had hers for ages too. I can not remember what he brought the others nor Ray or myself. But he came that year as his wife Glad had gone to her people and his mother and father has passed away (Aunty Nell and Uncle Charlie). It was not long after that his sister Nellie came and stayed with us for a few months while waiting to get married and their house being built.
We are now into 1947. Yvonne is 5 now and ready for school. It was so sad the day I took her to school. I can remember it so well I cried like a baby and as I had not another baby at home to cuddle, but she was alright Margaret thought, she was a real big sister looking after her and Betty was there too to keep an eye on things. One day when Yvonne came home from school she said to "me why can't I have a baby to play with when I come home, all the others did". so I told her I could not afford any more babies. I guess I was lucky as honestly I did not want any more. But she was closer to me than the others and used to whisper secrets to me and we still have one of those secrets as I promised her I would never tell another soul and I have not. Perhaps that is why there is a closeness a bit more than with the others and her not having any family. Perhaps when I have gone she will tell her sisters and brother what our big secret has been.