Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 439
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[Page 439]
(4)
at its expense. It was hinted that with my qualifications I had good prospects of rapid advancement. Anyhow, I was able to say, quite sincerely, that I really liked the work, and the Company, and as the depression was getting worse instead of recovering, I had definitely decided to make my service with Shell a permanent career.
At Palmerston North the Winters were very cold, damp and prolonged, and Madge who was a cold mortal suffered considerably. She had had a couple of years architectural training as an unmatriculated student at the University of Sydney, and this together with the fact that she had some shares in the Australian Gas Company worth about five hundred pounds, with which to furnish a deposit on a local building loan, impelled her to while away the time, during my absences, in planning a little cottage of our own. A nice little allotment on the corner of Manupori Crescent and Victoria Avenue was secured for one hundred and twenty pounds, and during the periods that I was home I drew up plans and specifications according to her ideas. A good Italian building (Barsanti) and his two sons signed a contract to build it for a little over thirteen hundred pounds, being the lowest of three tenders received. They made an excellent job of it in just under four months, and we moved into it during the Easter of 1933. It comprised two main bedrooms, a big lounge, a small dining room, a superbly fitted-up kitchen (all electric), a maid's room and a roomy detached garage. The walls were of attractive narrow weatherboards (bell-cast at the bottom) on a red-brick foundation wall. Because the front was embellished with classical pilasters and modillions (carved in wood) Barsanti, in his broken English, always referred to it as a "Georgina" house. The central feature of the lounge was a fine big red-brick open fireplace to keep Madge warm. We had to find an Australian bricklayer to build it: because most of the buildings in this area are of wood there are plenty of good carpenters about, but the few local "brickies" are capable only of laying straight walling and pathetically incompetent. It was