The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Fay Berry 2013 © – Chapter 9

 

Two years before Mum and Dad married they were baptized into the Christadelphian faith and began meeting with the Adelaide Ecclesia in its hall located on Halifax street in Adelaide. The Halifax street hall, built in 1922, is a very gracious building and is just up the road from Hurtle Square and is east of King William street, Adelaide. The Halifax Street hall has always been referred to as the Temple. (Coincidentally, the row house that Mum and Dad lived in for a time is just across the road from the hall and further down towards King William Street. This is the house where my brother Maynard opened the gate and took Charlie for a walk in his pram.) The main hall of the Temple is entered from Halifax street through double doors off of a large vestibule and library area at the front of the hall. A screen prevents the main hall from being viewed from the street when the main doors are open. Inside the hall there are rows of wooden chairs on either side of two aisles, one on each side of the hall. At the front of the hall there is an elevated two-tiered platform. A piano stands on the floor adjacent to the platform on the left and a pipe organ on the right. The beautiful pipes of the pipe organ rise toward the ceiling at the rear of the stage. Doors on each side of the hall lead to another small hall at the rear and from there into the kitchen. A second large hall was built on the back of the property for meetings and activities other than the memorial meeting, but in 1950 their was a basketball court in where this second hall now stands. Here the young people used to play “keep the ball away” on every possible occasion, even after the memorial meeting on a Sunday.

Sunday School was in the afternoon and commenced at 3.00 pm. The reason for having afternoon Sunday School in Adelaide was because there were no trams or buses running on Sunday mornings. In those days children generally stayed home while their parents attended the memorial meeting and then caught a tram or bus to Sunday School in the afternoon. In the early years Dad would drive us to Sunday School but as we all got older we would catch a tram or ride our bikes to Sunday School. For the night lecture we would go with Dad in the car or if we wanted to visit Woodville or Cumberland which were the only other Ecclesias in existence in Adelaide around that time, we would travel by tram or by bus.

In 1950 I was 11 years old and that was the year I had a “crush” on Des Manser one of the young people at the Adelaide ecclesia. Des was, in my opinion, the most promising of the available boys around my age at that time. He was three years older than me and attended Adelaide Technical High School and was in the School cricket team, which impressed me greatly. I remember playing in a softball match on the same grounds that Des was playing a cricket match. I played my heart out, hoping that Des would notice me excelling on the field. I know I hit 3 home runs that day, but I suspect he never noticed me at all.

There were three events each year in the calendar of the Adelaide Ecclesia which were very important to all the Adelaide young people. They were the Sunday School Prize Giving night, the Sunday School picnic and the Tea Meeting. I know that year, that I tried very hard to do well in the Sunday School exam because I hoped that if I could win a prize then Des would have to notice me. I did win a prize that year but once again, it is doubtful whether he noticed me or not. You see, I was three years younger than my friends of choice and if I wasn’t “noticed” I would not be invited to events in the older age group.

While I was waiting to be “noticed,” I was still living part of my life as a child; still enjoying the rough and tumble activities with children my own age and younger. At the Sunday School picnic at Ridge Park  that year, I enjoyed what I suspected would be my very last “bracken” battle along the creek bed, boys vs girls. This battle had become a tradition each Sunday School picnic for a number of years past and I enjoyed them so much.  A group of girls and boys would cut sticks from the bracken bushes and run yipping like Indians and pelt each other with the bracken sticks.

It was also, most likely,  the last time that I would rip a three corner tear in my brand new “picnic” dress which Mum had made for me as she did every year, just for the Sunday School picnic. In one of our scuffles John Wilson pushed me into the shallow creek and soaked my shoes and socks, so I pushed him back and his shoes and socks became soaked as well. We put our wet shoes and socks on a rock to dry in the sun and then sat up in a tree and chatted until they were dry enough to be worn again. Some time during that picnic Mum took a photo of me which I love and I still have it today. I liked the way the sun shone on the waves in my hair and on my plaits. (My little granddaughter Lara reminds me so much of me when she wears her hair in plaits 2016 at Xmas in Adelaide). It was the last photo I ever had with my hair in plaits because the following year I had my hair cut. For me, that photo marked my transition from girlhood to womanhood. It was the year that I began to cultivate friendships with older girls such as Phyllis Matthews, Nancy King and Heather Burney, girls who were three years older than me. Although I still played sport and was very physically active, I pretty well ceased my “tom boy” ways. All in all I had a happy childhood. I think I was very blessed.

  Adelaide ecclesia had a large group of young people and the Sunday night lecture was the most important of the young folks’ activities each week. All the young people would gather on the footpath in front of the Halifax Street hall, chatting and socializing right up until about 3 minutes to 7.00 pm, the time the lecture commenced. Then we would all troop inside and walk in single file down the aisles and sit together in a body, filling up around  three rows of seats near the front of the hall.

Unlike what I observe at meetings today, if a boy sat next to a girl it was not considered an indication that they were “going together.” It was customary also, and quite accepted, for the boys to ask to escort the girl of their choice to her home after a meeting or an outing. The couple would catch a bus or train to the girl’s home and talk for a short while, maybe a chaste kiss would be exchanged and then the young man would catch a bus or train back to his own home. It made lectures for me, even more exciting, wondering if someone might ask to take me home. I used to feel sorry for Nancy King because her parents lived at Eden Hills which was considered “the back of beyond” in those days and much too far away for a boy to want to take her home. My home was not far from the hall so my chances of being escorted home were generally very good.

It was important to be invited to the Kitchen Evenings which seemed to occur every couple of months in those days. These were put on for any young couple who were getting married. The Adelaide meeting had such a large number of young people in the Youth Group that there always seemed to be someone getting married or engaged. Kitchen evenings and sometimes engagement parties were held in the rear hall.  An MC chosen by the couple would run the evening and introduce the party games that we played.

The culmination of the evening would always be the favorite game of all, Musical Hearts! Each boy would choose a partner and together they would walk around the hall with the boy’s arm around the girl and some pages of newspaper in their hands. When the music stopped the two would jump onto the newspaper and try to balance without touching the floor beyond their piece of newspaper.  If they stepped off the paper and were caught they would be “out.” This game was liked so much because it actually gave the boy the opportunity to legitimately “touch” the girl by putting his arms around her and hugging her tight for balance  – very romantic!

This final game was followed by a beautiful supper and the couple would inspect their gifts which were displayed on a trestle table at the front of the hall. I loved kitchen evenings. I remember my own kitchen evening in 1960. I designed my dress and my dressmaking teacher made it for me. It had a fitted bodice and full underskirt made out of pink and white striped taffeta with a white taffeta over skirt. It looked wonderful!  I knew it looked wonderful because on the following Sunday, Lilly Lund turned up with her little daughters all dressed in exact copies of my dress! I was very flattered. A bit different to how I felt when Pauline Viney copied the rose on my hessian pinafore.

Other activities for the Ecclesia were picnics at Belair National Park which were held about once a month, tennis most Saturdays and table tennis or basketball in winter. Then there were outings into the hills and lots of hiking. Often we would travel to our destination by train. We would all sing hymns and the latest pop songs as we hiked along to our destination. In those days everyone knew the pop songs and the hymns.

On one hike I remember that Phyl Matthews drove me crazy by singing a little ditty over and over again,

“How does a little liver pill, when you’re ill, know where your liver is, Ay”

When we went to a place like Silver Lake we would take our bathers and swim. We would have a wonderful time and it was a great social life. I remember one outing at Silver Lake when I was NOT so happy and NOT having a good time. That was when I saw Des Manser and Elaine Luke go off for a walk together. Elaine was very pretty and she was wearing a green polka dot dress with a full skirt and a matching head band. I am afraid my eyes were as “green” as her dress was on that occasion.

We had a little book of Sunday School hymns with songs in it like “Christ the King is coming.” There was no music in the book, just the words, but then we also had the main hymn book which included the music and so most of us knew the words and could sing the parts in harmony. Lulu Wilson, Phil Wilson’s wife, was a wonderful pianist and had a cupboard full of beautiful music for us to learn and sing at prize giving evenings and other events. I loved the choral work at the Adelaide ecclesia. I used to ride home after a choral class practice singing the prayer we always sang at the close of the night. I will never forget the music and the words.

“Our father from thy throne on high,
Watch o’er us while the night is nigh,
From danger keep us every one,
And father let thy will be done,

Amen.”

Phil Wilson and Ron Palmer were in charge of the choral class and they both had the most beautiful voices, Phil had a rich bass voice and Ron a lovely tenor and both of them conducted and taught us so many hymns and songs during choral class. Towards the end of the year after Sunday School we used to go out to the rear hall and practice our songs for the prize-giving night. One of the songs I remember was one I loved. I think it was called

“Lovely Galilee.”
“When the storms of life are raging
Fearless let us be.
Christ will calm the troubled waters
As he did on Galilee.

Chorus.

O lovely Galilee,
Sweet lake of Galilee
Where Jesus loved so much to be
The waves obeyed his will
When Christ said ‘Peace be still”
In bygone days on Gallilee.”

Most years there was also a production of the Messiah arranged by the Melbourne ecclesias. It was held in the Wilson Hall in Melbourne. At least twice I traveled to Melbourne with other members of the Adelaide Young People to take part in the Messiah. We would all stay in the same hotel and have great times together.

Grantley Jolly Snr was my Sunday School teacher at the Adelaide meeting. He was a kindly man, but very talkative! He was easily diverted from the topic we were discussing to something more lively. On one occasion we had an animated discussion about what would happen if we were in a lift that was going downwards when we were jumping up in the air, would we hit our heads on the roof of the lift? Very edifying!

One Sunday there was a new member in our class, a girl called Roma Wilson. She was sitting opposite me and looking very unhappy indeed. Every now and then she would wipe a tear away from her eye and I felt sorry for her. After Sunday School, I asked her what was the matter and she told me that she had been removed from her last year’s Sunday School class and put into our class away from her old friends. She said it was because her birthday came towards the end of the year, making her the youngest in her old class.

I thought this was unfair so I went to Grantley Jolly and complained. Roma was returned to her old class and Roma was very grateful. From that time, Roma was friendly toward me and for me this had certain negative consequences.  Roma was Ern Wilson’s sister but he was much older than her and because of this she had been brought up practically as an only child.( Ern and Grace Wilson, Roma’s brother and his wife, were the couple who had minded my brother Maynard after he came out of hospital after having been in the Salvation Army Boys’ home when Manard was a young boy.) Roma complained that she had no friends. I thought that was sad so I encouraged her to come to tennis on Saturday and start to mix with the young people.

The next Saturday she came to the courts. She sat on the bench for a while waiting for a court to be free but then she came up to me and said,

“I’m going home. No-one has talked to me.”

I pleaded with her to stay and give it some more time but she went off in a huff. Then as time went on, to my utter dismay, my brother Maynard began to pursue Roma. It would have been fine if Roma had treated him well but she did not. One day she said to me,

“I wish your brother would leave me alone, can’t he see that I don’t like him?”

When Roma was so unkind to Maynard, I grieved for him. I went to him and begged him to leave her alone, but he would not. Maynard was a very persistent and optimistic person. He continued to pursue Roma and his persistence was rewarded and he and Roma became an item and eventually, married.

Fay and Roma -sister-in-law to be