Jules Life Story 1952 - present

Born 1952 the 4^th of five children at Camperdown Childrens Hospital, Sydney.

School – Infants and Primary school at St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School, Parramatta 1957-1963

High School – Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta 1964- 1968

Parramatta Business College – Secretarial/Shorthand, Bookkeeping, Typing, Post and Switchboard 12months course. 1969

                                                  

June Dally Watkins Deportment



First Marriage – St Patrick’s Church – Parramatta now known as St Patrick’s Cathedral 1973-1999

Second Marriage – Gledswood Historic Homestead – Catherine Fields 2007 to present

Between the ages of 0 to 12 I lived at North Parramatta in a brick home initially with no verandahs or steps, we used wooden planks to get from our doorways to the outside.  It was a very large block of land with a big back yard no landscaping like today my parents started everything from scratch.  This back yard had the Burnside Orphanage Homes dairy behind our back fence and this became our extended back yard, as a child you could not have wanted anything else.

We had so much fun running bare foot in hand me down clothes, even from my brothers, no such things as thongs or sandals.  Initially we had a dirt road, not too many houses, creek’s running everywhere so this was our playground.  The paddocks of the dairy had clumps of blackberry bushes which provided homes for the wild rabbits we used to chase, lizards, snakes and spiders which we did not even think being dangerous.  In season we took any containers we could find to pick the blackberries and mum would make plenty of jam, preserves and anything else she could make with the berries.  The dairy cows would eye us off occasionally but generally left us alone we would go looking for tadpoles in the creeks with any jars we could find and come home to show off our catch.   Put bark boats and chase them down the creek, catch them and start again this filled our whole day, the only time we returned home when we heard the bell mum used to ring to round us all up for dinner.  My young brother and I would play in the dirt with our imaginary cars made of a bit of wood and rocks stacked up for whatever our imagination thought they were, no dolls in this household.

As we got older we helped mum and dad lay concrete for a driveway two long narrow strips for the car tyres to travel up beside the house to the back yard and help put in bush rock edging for the gardens mum’s favourite outside activity, a beautiful garden.  The reason for the beautiful garden is the cow manure and of course this came from the paddocks of the dairy, mum would tells to help get the manure and she would give us hessian bags called sugar bags then fill them up with cow paddies dry most of the time but occasionally a damp one would make the bag we would stack the bags full against the fence to be hoisted over to our back yard.

When my parents first moved to this house the milkman used to deliver our milk cart calling out “milko” then technology took over and we had milk deliveries leaving out our empty bottles with our money each night and the “milko” would deliver during the night, we had a baker also deliver the bread.

We left North Parramatta in 1964 due to personal issues my parents had at the time and moved to Blacktown in a wooden house at the back of my uncles business, I would have to say this was not happy times then left here and moved to a fibro house in another suburb of Blacktown with an outside toilet and a can again I felt my life had been turned upside down but you learn to live with it, this area is now known as Huntingwood, we lived here until the end of 1965 beginning 1966 then moved to Dundas into a new home.  Although this was new I felt insecure as this was not North Parramatta and my schooling was very interrupted and with the moving around it made it hard to encourage friends.  After leaving school my mother insisted I do a Secretarial Course so I would have some training to help me get a job.

After leaving Business College I got my first job at Hobart which was a food equipment supplier which has its office in Kent Street in Sydney, and my duties were post using a franking machine, invoicing and other junior duties, they had a factory at Mortlake my first wage was $37 how proud I was.  Socially I joined the youth group at the Catholic church it was known as the CYO (Catholic 
Youth Organisation

Anne and me 

it was here I met my first husband.  I enjoyed my time at Hobart and working in the city walking around at lunch time in book shops, exploring the QVB and catching the train to St James to go to my favourite music shop to buy LP’s then racing back to be back at work on time, that was a lot of technology ago.

My next job was working for Mermax Seat Covers at Epping, in the office doing accounts, invoicing answering the phone, this is where I actually used my first bookkeeping knowledge.  This job was closer to home, less travel but I did miss the city buzz. During this time and before I was married we bought a block of ground at Glenbrook for $4000 this was a great place with bush behind us and the Blue Mountains National Park as our neighbour although we did not have the sewer on it did not faze us.  After we married we lived in a one bedroom, with a kitchenette and share laundry $25.00/week flat at Meadowbank for nearly 12 months while our house was being built.

I had to move from Epping as the location from Glenbrook to Epping was not viable due to the lack of transport from where we lived.




The next job was working for W E Woods at Guildford, this worked in well for us as my husband worked at Yennora so we could travel to and from work together, Woods made the Swarfega hand cleaner and many other industrial hand products they also had a cough medicine which was sent overseas and all their products were made in the little factory and tested in the in house laboratory this was very interesting I really enjoyed the work here.  Here I initially answered a Sylvester switch board and invoicing then moved to stock control and accounts it was from here I fell pregnant with my first daughter, Danielle.

We built a Jennings home and thought we were kings even though we had no furniture and what we had we borrowed or got second hand until we could afford to gradually buy what we wanted we lived at Glenbrook for 11years but my husband thought it was time to move on and found an acre at East Kurrajong and by this time was had another daughter, Nicole.  Danielle was 6 when we left Glenbrook she started school at St Finbars in Glenbrook then we started her in year 1 at St Monicas in Richmond while the house was been built at East Kurrajong so she would not have to change schools during the year, during this time we rented a place at Leonay right on the golf course.

We made the move to East Kurrajong in 1985 just before Nicole started school in the beginning of 1986
 





Having an acre was a lot harder than a block it was much bigger to keep under control, therefore our weekends were spent mowing and generally keeping the outside in check.  Water came from an in ground concrete tank and sullage pit for water and toilet waste.
 



I was able to go back to full time work once Nicole started school and lucky enough to find a job at local business in Wiberforce, A W Wheeler, here I answered the phone, did the payroll which at that time was only 20 people, invoicing as started to learn how to use a computer.  My children grew up in this area we were there for 14years and I stayed with this company for 17years.

THE EDMONDS

I did not see my paternal grandfather he passed away a year after I was born but I do remember my paternal grandmother she was very tiny and would catch a bus to our place at North Parramatta and I remember her bouncing me on her knee and singing to me luckily we have photos for our memories.

 THE DONNEYS

My maternal grandparents lived in different places and this I found normal not realizing they were divorced I really did not know what that meant as a child. 

My maternal grandfather “Pa” as we called him lived at a place called Basin View which is an arm off St Georges Basin and we would go and see him a couple of times a year. 

He was one of the first people to build a home in this area and it took him a long time.

  The house was built over two blocks, a beautiful white timber home with a big timber garage/workshop.  

He had a waterfront position on to the basin and he built a beautiful big jetty with concrete piers and timber boards to walk on and timber railing back in the 1950’s and this jetty is still standing today.  He was a perfectionist in his work but not in looking after himself. 

Across the front was a white timber railing fence and over the driveway entrance was white timber overhang it reminded of the entrance to a “Ranch”.  My Pa met a beautiful lady called Irene and they married and this made his life more complete and happy.  The house had flushing toilets and all the mod cons of the time except the stove was a fuel stove and oh so beautiful, it kept us warm in winter and Aunty Rene cooked the most beautiful cakes and biscuits.  We would sit in front of the stove and talk about our day each chocolate, listen to the ABC news 7.00pm every night, play a board game then bed.

This is when my Pa asked my mum if we (my young brother and I) would like to go and stay with him and Irene (we knew her as Aunty Rene) during the school holidays from about 1962.  It was a bit scary at first but in time we began to enjoy it.  They had a dog called whisky and a cat called nippy (very appropriate) and chooks (one of these was a brown chook and of course she was called Mrs Brown), they grew their own veggies and the best of all they could get fresh fish from the local fisherman.  The fish (mainly blackfish or bream) were so fresh they were still jumping when my Pa went to pick them up.  Our Aunty Rene showed us how to clean, fillet and prepare our fish for dinner and even the scraps did not go to waste they were cooked and fed to the chooks and the innards were tossed into the basin to feed the ever hungry pelicans and water birds.  To get the fish my Pa would do little jobs for the fishermen for example fix a broken propeller (made of brass), or replace a new shaft (he would put this on his lathe

My brother and I learnt a lot with these two older people, a lot about life, feeding, cleaning chook pens, collecting eggs, grading and weighing the eggs, preparing them for selling to the local community, watching the chooks being prepared as food, this was all very necessary when you live in country areas.

We learnt how to grow various veggies and amongst the veggie patch was special green leafy grass for the chooks they were the healthiest chooks in Australia they had the best food.

We were shown how to make garden pots made with a mold and cement made a special way not to dry and not  to wet, the shape was lay out to dry over a period of time then painted with special designs typically for the garden.

MY DAD

MUM and DAD

MY MUM

MY SIBLINGS