MARION SYRETT
(born 2 October 1937)
My name is Marion Syrett. I am the eldest child of Jessie Lello and George Benjamin (Pat) Rooke. I was born in Queenstown and was indeed delivered by my grandmother Bessie. Our family lived next door to Harry and Bessie so I remember my grandmother well, but have no recollection of my grandfather, as I was just two years old when he died. My mother’s twin sister Jean had also recently died, leaving behind a three-year-old daughter Frances, who became part of our family and was brought up by my parents until she was fifteen.
We lived at South Queenstown until I was eleven years old, when my father followed a “sea change” of jobs because of his health and we moved to Lake Margaret for four year. This was quite an experience for us (by this time there were four kids) but not as beneficial for dad as was hoped, so back to Queenstown we came to a bigger house.
Bessie had by this time sold the house that Harry built for them and was dividing her time between her Tasmanian offspring - Edie in Hobart, Allan in Forth, Don in Rossarden and Jessie.
My primary school education was at the South Queenstown School where my aunts Nell, Edie and my mother had taught, and attended also. My secondary education was at the Queenstown Junior Technical High, until I gained my School’s Board Certificate at 16. I achieved good marks through primary school but found other things of more interest during my teens, so like many of my peers, “could have done better with a little effort.”
I spent the most boring year of my life in the office of the Queenstown Medical Union, until in desperation I convinced my parents that I REALLY wanted to go nursing.
Teacher training or nursing training were the only acceptable escape from Queenstown to the big city of Hobart (where you had to live-in the hostel or nurses home under supervision.) So off to Hobart I went where I completed one year at the Royal Hobart Hospital and discovered LIFE, before again convincing my father that I HATED nursing and could get a good job in an office and share a flat with an older girl friend who was also leaving.
I had a couple of wonderful years of freedom until I ruined it by getting married at nineteen and much too young, to a boy who played the trumpet in a jazz band and was also much too young. One baby son and a failed marriage later, I started to grow up, took myself back to nursing and eventually completed my General Training at the Mersey General Hospital at Latrobe.
I moved to Hobart after training and worked first at the Repatriation Hospital and then I scored a job with the Hobart District Nursing Service, that was physically brutal on the back, but hey, it came with a car and weekends off and no shift work! Having a school-aged child this meant much, and I toughed it out for five years. When I collected the five-year bonus ($500), which enabled me to buy a car of my own, I took what was left of my back and moved to a job in a doctor’s surgery - again acceptable hours, where I remained for fourteen years.
As I now could join clubs or have interests like other people, I re-joined the Theatre Royal Chorus. I recalled what great fun I had with them doing “The Mikado” in my earlier carefree years, and had always been fond of singing. I spent the next twelve to fifteen years being involved with them and the Theatre Royal Light Opera Company as it was to become, the G & S Society, and the Tas. Conservatorium Choir, singing main roles in many productions and chorus roles with The Australian Opera productions when their travelling troupe came to Tasmania.
It was during the later years that I met and married my second husband Alfred, who was also a singer, and I have greatly enjoyed over thirty happy years sharing my life with him. Tragically I lost my son Gray in 1997, but have been warmly accepted by Alf's four children, and am "Grandma" or "Marnie" to his ten grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren.
Then three months ago, in November, I lost the love of my life when Alf died just four months after Leukemia was diagnosed. We had a wonderful life together, sharing many common interests, such as singing, classical music, craftwork and we travelled extensively overseas.
Marion Syrett
February 2005, Hobart