Happy Birthday to ...

... ME.

This story, relating to my birth, is the first story I wrote when I began writing my life history a couple of years ago.

The World was at war in the summer of my birth in 1944, with Peace yet another 20 months away. The effects of the war were felt even in the small community in Victoria’s South Gippsland, into which I was born. Families were missing relatives and friends, some never to return from battle, whilst even at home the rationing of petrol and food and nightly blackouts were felt by everyone.

My father, who had migrated from England in 1929 and spent several years in the Australian Army Militia, akin to today’s Army Reserve, was trying to eke out a living with my mother and two older brothers on a steep, blackberry-infested dairy farm in the Strezlecki Ranges. The walls of the house were covered in newspapers with hessian pasted over, and for a time, Mum cooked meals over an open fire until they could afford to buy a stove. But it was their first home together since the War began, and offered a place of stability after moving house seven times since then.

I was born in a small private hospital called Cooinda in the nearby town of Warragul. Cooinda, meaning Happy Place, was an old homestead with wide verandas, surrounded by a vast garden of big shady trees, lawns and flowers. Many years later, long after it ceased to be a hospital, I longed to own this beautiful property.

I was named Frances, after my father’s mother, Edna after my mother, and Beverley was added for good measure, which has ensured much confusion ever since. My parents were pleased to have a daughter, though I don’t know what impression I made on my brothers – Geoffrey 5 and Ormond 3½. When just a few days old, Mum told Ormond that it was time to feed the baby and asked, “What should I give her to eat?” He thought for a while and said, “Well, give her a scone.”

Two and a half years later we moved to another dairy farm in West Gippsland, which remained in the family for the next forty years. A boy and 3 girls were added to the family in just over four years. Although money was scarce and today’s mod cons non-existent, I lived a happy, healthy and carefree childhood.