On The Homefront: Growing Up

Children played with tricycles, scooters and "pushbikes" and indoors played board games such as "Monopoly" or "Snakes and Ladders". There were not television sets, videos, video games, cassettes, CDs, roller blades, skate boards, Barbie dolls or computers. Records were played on a turntable and the family radio occupied a large cabinet in the lounge room. Children enjoyed radio serials such as "the Air Adventures of Biggles" while their parents listened to "Blue Hills" and radio plays. Going to the pictures was very popular for both children and adults and many picture theatres had weekly serials.

June Walker's recollections
Extract from Bremer Echoes, July 2023, a publication by the Ipswich Genealogical Society included a tribute to June Walker. Following the tribute was June's story of what life was like in Ipswich during the war.

 

My first memory, I suppose was hearing the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain declaring that they were now at war with Germany, after the invasion of Poland by Germany, and this was followed by our own Prime Minister R.G. Menzies, committing our forces also. We had no TV in those days and we all listened eagerly to the daily communiques on the wireless. Prior to the Declaration of War, there was a weekly broadcast on the wireless, I remember, by a Dr. Goddard, who always ended his broadcast with the words “500 planes for the defence of Australia!” I think, in actual fact, we had 5 Wirraway planes at the start of the war.

I was 16 at the time and working in an office in Brisbane. The very next morning after the declaration of war, there were soldiers guarding each end of the Indooroopilly bridge. The office I worked in was next door to the American Consulate in the Bank of Australasia Chambers on the corner of Queen and Wharf Streets. Soon there were Officers of the Marines going past in the corridor and many American servicemen in the streets.

Whenever our soldiers were going overseas they would march through the streets of Brisbane and we all left our offices and shops and lined the streets to wave them off. The soldiers apparently had very little equipment and I remember them training around the streets of North Ipswich where I lived, with their broom sticks for rifles.

Read more of June's recollections by clicking on the Bremer Echoes link below.