Gloria was nine years old when her family moved to Redcliffe to live permanently. Gloria attended Scarborough State School and then held a variety of jobs at such places as the Rainbow Café, the Jetty Newsagency and Jess Moy dress salon. Gloria met her husband-to-be Dixie Lee at Redcliffe during the war and they were married when he returned from Borneo in 1946.
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During the War my sister and I joined the younger set of the Comforts Fund and one of our duties was to around after work of an evening to help look after the different servicemen who came to ‘Mae Lynn’ was the name of the big house, and we had a hostess, of course, to look after the girls but we used to serve the boys their lunches or dinners, whichever was appropriate, and after we had done the washing up etc we’d usually gather around a piano and have a singsong, or in a little area we’d have a dance.
They also played darts and cards and so on, so that was one of our things that we did during the War, but for our own enjoyment – not that we didn’t enjoy that, we did – but we used to also go to dances and they had a wonderful skating rink down here where Anzac Park is at the moment at Anzac Place over there, and we would often go roller skating, which was great fun.
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Well, I was almost 9 years old when we moved to Redcliffe, to live permanently and went to Scarborough State School. I think I was about 12 years old when War started. I don’t remember too much about those first few years, but because we couldn’t afford to go to High School – there was no high school on the Peninsula – I left school and began working.
I went to quite a few jobs actually. In those days there were plenty of jobs available, and in my early teens I was quite ill. Actually, in the first job I was employed at, was the Rainbow Café (which is now the Jetty Café) because my sister worked there and I joined her.
I left there and went to the Jetty Newsagency, which was actually situated where the National Bank is now, and I really enjoyed that job, but I don’t know what happened – probably I became ill again and was out of work for a while - and then I worked at Blanch’s little shop up at Suttons Beach and from there I became very ill again and my last job was at a dress salon, which I really loved.
I must remember to tell you that I worked at Corrigan’s for a while – that was a grocery store on the front there at Redcliffe. I wasn’t very happy about that job because all they seemed to want me to do was to wash dirty old kerosene bottles, so I wasn’t at all happy and I was glad to leave that job to start work at Jess Moy’s Salon, the dress salon, which was delightful. I stayed there until my future husband returned from the War, and we were married in 1946, February 1946.
I was quite young when I met Dixie. Dixie was his nickname and we corresponded for quite a few years because I was quite young, and we corresponded for several years until I turned 17 and he asked me to marry him, so I had to wait then until he came home from Borneo, which was his last theatre of war, and we married in February 1946.
When I was married we were still using coupons for not only food but clothing, so I used most of my coupons up buying some frocks for my honeymoon, and my wedding gown – I was very lucky because they had a new fabric out which was called ‘silk jersey’. The frock was beautiful, I thought, just beautiful and I didn’t have to use coupons for it because they classed it as underwear – the fact that it was a silk jersey fell into that category, so I was pleased about that! It meant that I could use coupons for other things, but it was a beautiful frock – long sleeves, and of course, in those days long white gloves as well, and we were the first wedding photos taken at Potters Studio in Comino’s Arcade.
It was so hot that I almost passed out. They had to fan me while the photos were being taken, because February is always a very hot month and it was one of the hottest I’ve ever experienced. Dressed like that, of course, it was a bit much!
There are lots of memories.
Pat Can we talk about dances and things that went on during the War years, where you went to and all that sort of thing?
Gloria How we amused ourselves?
Pat Yes
Gloria During the War my sister and I joined the younger set of the Comforts Fund and one of our duties was to go around after work of an evening to help look after the different servicemen who came to ‘Maelyn’ was the name of the big house, and we had a hostess, of course, to look after the girls but we used to serve the boys their lunches or dinners, whichever was appropriate, and after we had done the washing up etc we’d usually gather around a piano and have a singsong, or in a little area we’d have a dance.
They also played darts and cards and so on, so that was one of our things that we did during the War, but for our own enjoyment – not that we didn’t enjoy that, we did – but we used to also go to dances and they had a wonderful skating rink down here where Anzac Park is at the moment at Anzac Place over there, and we would often go roller skating, which was great fun.
Dances were held at the Woody Point Memorial Hall, also a lovely little hall at Scarborough, which was pulled down many, many years ago and that’s where I met my husband actually, at a dance. They were wonderful times; I mean we did really enjoy ourselves during the War because I think we were very young and we didn’t realise probably how serious it all was. We were just having a great time, but it became serious when they started to build the Brisbane Line. We realised that we were going to be cut off because the Brisbane Line meant that everything this side of the Brisbane Line was going to be let go, and if the Japanese had invaded we would have been first in line, but luckily that never happened!
Dances and movies – they had movies several nights, well two or three nights a week I think and a Saturday afternoon, so we had a good time during the War, except when we had word that different ones from Redcliffe were casualties. This was very sad and my uncle who had joined the Army was taken prisoner in Singapore and actually he was on the Burma Railway and he didn’t survive, so those were the sorts of things that brought it home to us in a very bad way.
Transport was really very minimal in Redcliffe. Several people had cars – we didn’t – but there were buses and if we wanted to we could have got to Brisbane on a bus. I think the coordinated service – I’m not too sure when that started but there was a train running from Sandgate as there is now.
I remember when I was quite young, very early in the War, there was quite a lot of Diphtheria around and I wasn’t too well and the doctor told me that I was a ‘carrier’. I didn’t think I was sick, but because he classed me as a carrier I had to be taken to Brisbane into the Wattle Brae Hospital and we had to go by public transport.
My mum took me in and I was ‘incarcerated’ is the only word to use in Wattle Brae Hospital. I absolutely hated it, but I couldn’t do anything. It was like being in prison – I’ve never been in prison but I think it would be the same type of thing. You weren’t allowed out until the doctors cleared you, so that wasn’t very pleasant for me.
As far as transport went on the Peninsula, if we wanted to go to dances – as you can imagine, one end of the Peninsula was Scarborough and right down to Woody Point for the other, there was no problem for us to walk to those places if we wanted to. Sometimes we would get a bus, but if the dances finished and there was no buses running we’d walk home, no problems at all! Redcliffe was different in those days, definitely, wonderful; no problems at all.
When we were married, the first month or so we stayed at my mum’s place, and then we moved to my auntie’s house, which was quite pleasant, for a while because we didn’t have enough money to buy a home. In those days you had to have one built if you wanted to but at Aunty Carol’s place it was quite good, but we were running out of money fast because it seemed almost every week we would have to (even though we paid board) it almost seemed that we had to draw more money out of the bank because we ran out so quickly, so we thought very quickly about moving into a little flat of our own so that we could manage our budget a little bit better.
We were saving money you see, and we managed very well when we did move into a flat. They were called ‘Kookaburra Flats’ and they were in Sutton Street – very nice. In actual fact we moved from a flat in the main building into another little place, which had been converted from a garage into a little flat, so it was like our own little home; it was lovely. We were there for almost two years I think and I became pregnant, and by this time we started to have our house built.
I remember I used to take a freshly baked cake up to the men who were building the house and give them morning tea (hoping that they would move faster so that I could be in my home before the baby came!), which I was actually, I think about two months before my first daughter was born we moved into our own little home in Louis Street and it’s still standing as far as I know. I think it’s probably going to be sold for high rise as lots of them are, but that’s where we lived for thirty-three years until my husband died.
Before that, when my children had got through high school, we started our own business and it was the first tour and charter business in Redcliffe. We had to try and find a name for the business, and because he was so well known after many years of working for Elson’s Buses I suggested he use his nickname, which was Dixie. Usually anybody who was in the Army with a surname of Lee was nicknamed Dixie because of Bing Crosby’s wife, Bing Crosby’s first wife who was Dixie Lee the actress, so everybody knew Dixie so I said, “Why not use your name, nickname, as the business name?” It was very very successful. We were very happy and it went from strength to strength. We started out with a little 12-seater Commer and we ended up with I think 5 buses before he died, but I just carried on the business for two years after he died and sold it.
During the War we had to use coupons for grocery items and meat etc and I’m quite sure it never worried us. As I said, my mum was a farm person. She’d come from a farm and she used to manage beautifully. We never ever went hungry and my dad at that time used to do a lot fishing off the jetty and I remember he used to make fish head soup. I don’t know how he made it but it was delicious, I must add, it was delicious. There was plenty of fish in those days; you can’t catch anything now I don’t think, but we never went hungry so I was quite happy about that too.
We never worried about too much butter or too much fat for cooking, because everything tasted delicious. I think it’s the fat that makes it delicious really!
Pat So if you wanted a new dress for a dance or something like that, did you make it yourself?
Gloria No I didn’t. I had an aunty who made clothes for us. She was great and used to make lovely clothes and knitting as well. She knitted for all the girls, my sister, myself – I’m not sure whether she made one for my cousin (my cousin’s Jean Thurecht) – I’m not sure whether she made one for Jean, but I know that she made a beautiful knitted frock for my sister and I, just lovely. She was a great needlewoman and we missed her.
Then of course, my Aunty Carol used to make frocks as well, so we were always pretty lucky in that respect because they always made sure that we were dressed nicely, cleanly and tidily. That beautiful knitted frock was just gorgeous. I often look at an old photo of myself sitting on a fence with that frock on and I can just picture it now, it was beautiful. It was a lot of wool and I don’t think you could afford to make it now!
When the War ended we didn’t have a radio, but the people who did hear it on the radio of course soon spread the word and everybody knew about it and they just went crazy. Everybody went crazy because it was just such a big thing. People danced in the streets and we did have a parade (a Victory Parade) later but the initial day, the first day when we found out about the end of the War, it wasn’t chaos actually but it was wonderful! I can’t describe it and we a military band.
The boys in the Army gathered and played in the street. I took a photo of them actually, playing in their Army greens or khaki or whatever colour it was. Then I think somebody put on movies that night at the Renown Theatre, and I’m pretty certain that was the first time I’d ever smoked a cigarette in my life and I was as sick – I’ve never had another cigarette since because I was so sick. I couldn’t believe it! That was the day War was over, and to think I ended it being so sick in the movies! I’ll never forget that!
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