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REFLECTIONS

By Noelin Burnie (née Lello)

born 1931

We used to go to Queenie¹ for our holidays. Dad had a motorbike and sidecar. Nana (Bess) always had a lovely calm house and insisted on everyone being cleaned out with her home made concoction consisting mainly of cod liver oil. She called it her emulsion and she kept it in beer bottles on the top shelf of the pantry.

She had four boarders who lived in rooms separate from the house but joined by a large veranda type room. Her philosophy was two men to pay for the extra food, one man to pay for the wear and tear and the fourth boarder was for profit.

As a Midwife, Nana was well respected for her work. She would also do housework for whoever would engage her.

I don't remember Harry (Papa) ever being anything but sick and in later years Nana used to wheel him down to the garden seat in a wheel barrow. My father (Allan) mentioned once that Papa used to abuse Bess physically in the earlier days so perhaps his poor health and his dependence on her was one of life's ironical paybacks. As for Bess, she didn't have a mean bone in her body.

There are a lot of little things I remember of that era but I expect people will not want to hear about most of them.

One of my memories is that Papa played the piano beautifully. He was reputed to also play the violin but I don't remember hearing him play that. When Harry played the piano, the neighbours would stand outside to listen but as soon as he realised they were there he would stop playing.

Before Papa died, he gave me his piano and my brother Tom his violin. Nana paid a friend of hers to teach me to play. Oh how I hated those lessons and would do anything to get out of them.

Nana finished up with angina and diabetes and bucked against the enforced diet. At first she would insist on tasting all the jam and puddings when mother was cooking whenever she stayed with us - which she did quite frequently. It took her a while to settle in to the dietary restrictions but eventually she did which meant that she didn't have to have so many insulin injections.

In later days when we lived at Devonport, Nana and I had a couple of run-ins. The first one I remember was getting my bum smacked one morning for waking her up too early. I didn't think it was funny; after all, I only wanted to see what I got for Christmas!

After having a hard time giving birth to the ten and a half pound girl which was me, Mum refused to go back to hospital to have Tom. That meant that Nana had to travel to Hobart to deliver the strapping eleven and a half pound baby boy. Tom was born at Perone Avenue in Moonah in a house Mum and Dad were renting at the time.

On return to Queenstown from a trip to Hobart, I can't understand why Papa told Nana he didn't think Mum and Dad would rear me – I looked too delicate. If only he could see me now!

Keith was the runt of the family at only eight and three quarter pounds at birth, with Joe next weighing in at nine and a half pounds. There was however a long time between births: 1931, 1936, 1945 and 1950.

Dad met Mum at Colebrook where she worked as a housemaid. I think she was at the pub and Dad used to visit the area, a place called Mona Vale, where he went for rifle shooting practice. The practice must have paid off because Dad won the Kings Cup for shooting in 1934. It was quite strange that many years later when I was working for Mercury Walsh in Hobart I met a chap named Jimmy Watt who was with Dad when he actually met Mum. Just goes to show how small the world really is.

Dad was apprenticed with Millingtons, the funeral people and worked in their Liverpool Street workshop where he made beautiful furniture. I always loved going to visit him at work because he always seemed to have half a case of apricots under his bench from Pers Jaques' orchard at two shillings and sixpence a half case. I was always allowed to have a couple and they were always the best.

When dealing with the people at Millingtons on the occasion of Dad's death, they stated that they would often go to a home or a farm house and be proudly shown fine furniture from their own workshop and built by Allan Lello.

Unfortunately, Dad developed a spot on the lung, possibly because of the fine saw dust, and was advised to turn to an outdoor job. Harry Rough, a friend of Dad's in Perone Avenue where he lived, had a brother Charles Rough who was a building contractor in Devonport.

When Charles offered Dad a job, he promptly accepted it and killed two birds with one stone. Many of Mum’s relatives were frequently dropping in, sometimes staying weeks, sometimes months. Granddad Bennett had a small farm near Ouse producing small fruits and berries which he sold mainly in Hobart and Queenstown. As he used an old bus to transport these, he frequently gave lifts to friends on the way. I think Dad was mainly escaping the many breakfasts Mum was expected to provide when they dropped in of a morning.

Dad had a friend called Ray Cannon who lived in Claremont. At that time Dad was living with Nana's sister in Derwent Park where she and Uncle Mack had a small shop on the main road (from memory, roughly opposite where KFC currently stands). Ray and Dad caught the same train into the city each day and their friendship lasted for many years. Ray and his wife Rose, became my Godparents.

Dad and Ray used to have a routine of magic tricks and sleight of hand which they would perform on stage. Some of their acts comprised hypnotism (??) swallowing razor blades and bringing them back up threaded on cotton, jugging, etc.

All these tricks looked pretty fabulous to me especially when they had a real horse on stage for one of their acts. A lot of their acts were performed for charity and after we left Hobart, Ray used to go into the Royal Hobart Hospital and amuse the kids practically right up till he died.

Thomas (brother) seemed susceptible to things. At about 2 years old he developed ulcers behind his eyes. After these were (scraped off?) removed, he had to wear dark glasses for quite a long period. There were no "wrap-arounds" in those days so he had to have little leather bits at the side so no light could enter.

His next episode was stepping on spring scales which pierced his foot and turned septic. More weeks of going to the doctor. About two years later he got pleurisy which the doctors thought was strained stomach muscles and from this he developed a spot on the lung.

We were in Devonport by then and as he was supposed to sleep in the open, Dad put canvas roll-up blinds all around our front veranda. I thought it was good, as I got the bedroom to myself. That was, except when Nana came to stay. At that stage she seemed to travel around the family and stayed with us a lot. Apparently many of her Queenstown friends also lived in Devonport.

The story of the aborigine in the family came about because Papa wrote home to England to say he was marrying a Tasmanian girl. The family was horrified as they thought all Tasmanians were aboriginal.

Another little anecdote of Nana's was of the twins’ (Jess and Jean) birth. Papa was camped in the bush with a mate with whom he was cutting their winter’s firewood. All of a sudden Papa was struck with stomach pains and rolled around in agony for hours. His mate had to bring him home where they then found Nana had given birth, and the times coincided with her labour pains. They had no more children after that!

1953 - Nana wrote to say she was flying from Hobart where she had been with Tom and Edie Ellison, for a holiday at the farm. After her arrival she told us that she had come home to die, as she couldn’t stand the thought of looking at brick walls. Sadly she passed on three weeks later, but spent that time walking around the farm looking at everything there was to see and enjoying the country smells – even the cow yard.