Lambeth-Australia & NZ and New South Wales Trees

1-8-1970 Hocking Wing Ward 18 Room 3

Dear Mary, Just a line hoping you are well and had a good trip home on Sund ay , and to say I am feeling mutsh better now and getting around a littl e. I feel well and eating well so I and hoping to be home soon again a nd to see you all. How is Phyls cold. I hope she is better. I am droppi ng her a line too so look after yourself dear and don't work too hard. I s end my fondest love to my dear daughter and all hope to see you all soon love from Dad x x x x

Hocking Wing Ward 18 Waikato Hospital 7/9/1970

Dear Mary, How are you dear. I hope well. I am keeping fairly good at prese nt and the last few days and nights I have felt very well. The Dr has ju st been around and gave me a good report and if I keep progressi ng as I am I can go home on Friday so I have just written to Doreen and No rman to make arrangements to get me home, so hope to see you all soon a nd I know that you and Phyl will look after me for a while. Love to all from Dad x x x

COPY OF NOTES WRITTEN BY MARY WALTON.

20 Feb, 2000 Aussie till 1923

Glen Moan Station. 1921 & before. What I can remember about Australia is that we loved what was then, the back blocks or outback. We lived on Glen Moan Station. The main house was a big house and the one we lived in was big too with verandas. The toilet or dunny was a backdrop outside, it had one seat for adults and one for children with a big pit underneath. Us children had to wear large shady hats for the sun, high button up boots for keeping prickles out of our feet and to keep snakes off. We were always wary of snakes, but remember seeing a big iguana crawling along the inside passage well in the house. We had to keep away until it decided to go outside. We also had to keep watch on a pet ram which often decided to pounce on us children. Those days there was no car on the station and most of our travels were by horse and gig. When mum was expecting babies we had to go into town to await the birth and then dad would bring her home in the horse and gig. Those days heavy work was done by bullock teams consisting of a dozen or two of bullocks, the number depending on the size of the workload. They were always driven by 2 or 3 men with whips and loud voices. A 20 ton boiler was pulled through Adaminaby, (then only 2 or 3 shops and muddy roads) and it was pulled by 80 bullocks, 2 rows hitched together by two. I can remember when we had a mice plague (very nasty). Young children had to be protected day and night as the mice would chew hair, noses, ears, anything that wasn't covered. They were everywhere, and in everything. The men used to catch what they could by ½ filling a 44 gal. Drum with water and putting a stick across it with a fatty greasy tin in the middle and as the mice crawled up the ramp to the drum they would jump on to the tin for the fat and as soon as they got into the tin it rolled them in to the water and they couldn't get out of the drum and drowned. I picked up a mouse one day by the tail and I can still remember the bite it gave me under my thumb nail. They spent their time on our station and travelled on through the count y. This was in the year 1920-1921-1922 (can't remember which) but it still happens to this day. Our family shifted from the station to Willow Tree in early 1922 where dad bought a blacksmith's business, where there was a pet snake under the floorboards of the office. A large one it was and while there we saw snakes and frilled neck lizards which were fascinating while running. Watching while the horses got shod and also the making of tools, cartwheels, steel gates etc. the forge was very hot. We never saw any of our relations over in Australia when we were children. What I can remember of hospitals over there was my brother and I were hospitalised when I was about 4 and Norman was 3. We were put in the men ward, one large room with lots of beds (like N.Z. was at that time) we were athed in a tub on top of the bed in front of all those men and I felt very embarrassed, the men were very kind to us and gave us a tobacco tin each and they all put pennies in it for us and we carried them everywhere till Mum and Dad were saying goodbye and taking us home and then the matron took our tins of pennies off us which we couldn't understand and were very disappointed. We also visited a beach, Woy Woy which we enjoyed. Not many people those days. We were in Willow Tree for about 18 months and our parents decided that it was time they got us somewhere for schooling, and Chum's sister asked Mum and Dad to come to N.Z. so we set sail to N.Z, in July 1923. Sydney was so different to country. 1923 onwards. Was last horse drawn trams run in Melbourne, construction began on Sydney Harbour Bridge, regular broadcasting begins, waists on woman's dresses ascend to hips, and so on. The trip on the boat "Manuka" was fun for us kids climbing on berths and things to look out the portholes till we were caught and talked too. Coming into N.Z. waters everyone was on the deck talking about seeing the hen and chickens. I couldn't see any hen and chickens, but it turned out to be the islands people were excited about. We were still wearing our boots and they were hard to button up and sometimes I was panicked I was going to be left behind on leaving the ship. My first view of Auckland wasn't very impressive, cobbled streets etc. Our first home in N.Z. w as at Ardmore where at Papakura there was mud footpaths and roads and not many cars, mostly horses and gigs etc. We moved to Clevedon and us three older children Phyll, Norman and I started school for the first time. We had about three shifts between Clevedon and Ardmore, but all our schooling was at Clevedon. Walking to school we saw the first electricity poles being put up for power to Clevedon. Our days going to school, we walked, rode a horse and biked and had about 3 miles to go at times. In my early teens Dad bought 3 cows and we kept them in a paddock, beside the house we were living in, at night and during the day they ran on the long acre. And we spent many a long hard ride on our bikes to find them and bring them home to be milked by hand, after school. While there we got our horse and gig which was our way of going to church and then on to the beach on Sundays and also visiting our Aunt and Uncle and cousins at Brookby. We had a lot of fun while at Clevedon. Mum's sister Stella (Aunty Nance?) come to our place to have her 3 children and Dad had to drive the horse and gig to Papakura to get the Dr. each time and take him home again. We progressed to getting our first motor vehicle, a Model T Ford, and it was a lot of fun. We used to go to Otahuhu once a week to do our shopping at the self-help shop. Dad used to have kidney and heart trouble, so when we had all left school he asked us if we would be willing to help him and go sharemilking, which we did. Our first move was to Glen Murray where we stayed one season and then went sharemilking at Hoe-0-Tainui and from then on the family started going our own way. The Second World War started, Norman and I stayed on the farm to help Dad and when the war ended, Dad and Mum shifted to Te Puninga and stayed there until Mum died and 10 years later Dad came to Thames and stayed with me till he passed away 13 years later, 22 years after Mum died.