Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 493
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[Page 493]
(31)
[Alo]ysius College, North Sydney: I used to drop him there on my way to work, during my last few years with Shell. Margaret, my eldest daughter, had entered the Sydney Girls High School in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, during which she joined the W.A.A.F. (Womens Auxiliary Air Force) at the Pennant Hills training camp, and was subsequently transferred to the Melbourne area. After the war, with Madge's aid and encouragement she was successfully coached privately to pass the matriculation requirements in the Leaving Certificate, and though she started in first year medicine at Sydney University, she did not persevere with the course, the expenses of which were financed by the Repatriation Department. I think she found the revised syllabus for Chemistry I too difficult. I thought it very incomprehensible myself.
While we were still at "San Marino", Madge had bought two allotments of a languishing subdivision in Tutus Street, Forty Baskets Beach, East Balgowlah. First she bought No. 14 for two hundred pounds, and then was approached by the owner of No. 16 to buy his for one hundred and seventy pounds, which she did.
Madge had fallen in love with this almost bushland locality, as it was then, and decided it was the site for the "dream home" of our old age. So we both got busy designing and planning it, and as soon as I was finished with Shell I drew up plans and specifications in accordance with Madge's ideas and submitted them to the Manly Council. But this autocratic body proved to be frustratingly difficult and delaying and insisted on several unexpected modifcations before finally passing the plans.
I began clearing the site of trees and stumps in April of 1954, after first erecting a large corrugated-iron shed for materials and tools. At Madge's behest I acted as the head contractor for the job; engaging day-labourers and sub-contractors, and buying the bricks, timber, and all other materials required as the building progressed: Madge was the financier and in June 1956 the house was finished enough for us to move into it.
Pensioned off on 11 January 1954 with three months extra salary