Backing them up

BY CLAIRE ALLISON

Seventy years since World War II began, Claire Allison talks to two South Canterbury women about their wartime experiences `back home'.

Shirley Quirk struggles to recall some of the details around how she came to work at Hanmer Hospital during World War II, but the memory of the uniform the girls had to wear remains clear.

"Oh my God, that uniform was ghastly: celluloid six-inch cuffs, celluloid six-inch collar, and a celluloid six-inch-wide belt.

"It was a blue uniform with a large white apron on top, and black stockings and shoes. We had the little white caps as well."

Shirley can also remember how much she missed home.

"I was terribly homesick – a little country girl away from her parents for the first time. I remember lying in bed at night crying."

Then Shirley Tubb, she had grown up near Pleasant Point, and had not long left school to help out on the farm when she went to work at the hospital. It's many years ago now, and she can't recall whether she applied for the job at Hanmer Springs, or was manpowered.

"I have an idea whether I was manpowered, because I really wanted to help my dad on the farm, but the Government said otherwise. I don't recall even going to Hanmer Springs, so I don't know how I got there."

Shirley was in the the VAD (Voluntary Aid Division), working at the hospital, which at that time housed servicemen returning injured from the war.

It was a culture shock. "Some were blind, some had limbs off, some were suffering from shell shock and some from trauma.

"You had to feed a lot of them because of their state. We took their meals in to them.

"Somebody had to do it – the dogsbody sort of stuff. I can't remember whether we did the actual housework around the place.

"I think doing toilets or the bathrooms were some of the duties. Somebody had to be there to look after those boys, and see to their requirements, but they weren't easy to cope with.

"It wasn't so much nursing. It was more convalescing.

"Attached to the hospital, they had a lovely golf course, tennis – we were encouraged to play tennis after work with those who were able. We'd play draughts with them – things like that.

"I was very fortunate. My cousin was a patient. If it hadn't been for him, I don't know whether I would have coped. To have his support, when I should have been supporting him – we were good for each other. I played golf with him, even though I couldn't play a stroke of golf, but I did."

Shirley remembers the salary too – 25 shillings a week. That was a decent sum in those days. Her sister-in-law at the same time was earning only 10 shillings a week doing alterations at Thomsons department store.

It was a hard life.

"At first I was very unsure. Being a country girl and coming from a home that didn't have electricity. But you soon learn.

"I remember the matron. Matron Lane was absolutely lovely. She was a gentle, sweet person, and very nice. But we had such a strict sister. She was like a meat axe. She was shockingly strict. This old dragon, I remember, everybody used to hate her, and we were terrified of her.

"I tell you what, the job got done well, or else you'd get the boots knocked off you, or you'd have to come back and do your work."

Shirley recalls the hot pools were quite primitive compared with what they are today, but that didn't prevent them from being popular.

"As soon as we finished duty, we'd be over to the pools and soaking. It was lovely."

She doesn't remember being able to go home at all. It was too far, and probably too costly, but she remembers a trip to Greymouth to stay with another girl's family, and meeting her family in Christchurch.

After two years, Shirley returned home.

"I had met somebody, and married when I was 21."

Married life took her to Auckland, where she worked in the fashion industry as a model, and raised three children.

The family moved to Australia when the children had almost finished school, and Shirley lived there for 35 years, working for 10 years as the senior housekeeper at Cairns Base Hospital with a staff of 104, and being responsible for buying and rostering.

"When I left, they took on two people to do my job."

When she was widowed, she returned to New Zealand and settled in Geraldine.

Bobbie Ivey's first attempt to join the war effort was thwarted by her boss. Then Bobbie Munro, she had not long left school to begin her working life at the Canterbury Farmers when war broke out.

The family farmed Dalmore Farm at Pareora, but with another sister at home, Bobbie wasn't needed to stay on the farm.

"So it was better for me to go out and work. There was nothing in Pareora, so I boarded in town during the week – at the YWCA in Elizabeth St to begin with, and then privately."

She travelled home at weekends – at first on the bus, but when the buses were stopped during the war, she had to find her own way.

"I was determined to go home for the weekend, so I used to bike from Timaru to Pareora each weekend.

"I used to work Saturday mornings, so I'd bike out on Saturday afternoon, and bike back on Sunday evening, or early on Monday morning."

When Bobbie's brothers enlisted and went overseas with the First Echelon, she decided to follow their example.

"I felt that I wanted to do something too. I applied for a job with the linen flax people – I can't remember what it was going to be – but I found out afterwards that my boss in the office said I wasn't available. I think he had a word in someone's ear."

Undeterred, Bobbie joined the EPS (Emergency Precautions Scheme), and was attached to the fire brigade. The scheme was designed to meet emergency conditions arising from enemy attack, epidemics, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Many local authorities undertook enlistment drives, urging women and men not liable to military callup to become involved.

The perceived threat in Timaru at the time was of a Japanese invasion. There were tank traps in Beswick St, in the event of anything coming up from the port.

"We used to have training sessions. We used to go to the fire station for sessions – to be trained in how to use the hoses. There was a callout one night when we were all upstairs. Some of the girls went down the shiny pole, but I'm afraid I didn't. I went down the stairs.

"On Saturday afternoons there would be a drill. All the sirens would go. You would know it would be on a Saturday, but you wouldn't know what time.

"We used to have to go down to the fire station, and we were all transported around on the back of trucks to various areas, and there'd be fires we'd have to put out.

"At one stage, we got to a fire and they said, `You're too early, it hasn't been lit yet'.

Bobbie was also involved with the Army, Navy and Airforce (ANA) Welcome Club, upstairs in Church St, where soldiers or airmen on leave could come for a social evening, dancing, and a cup of tea.

"I can't ever remember there being any liquor. We had the old 33 records, I would imagine. I don't imagine there was live music."

It was on a roster system, and Bobbie and a girlfriend liked to go together so they could walk home together. There were no buses, and it was 6pm closing.

Patriotic dances were held at Pareora on Saturday nights.

"I think the money went to sending parcels overseas for the soldiers. There was a grocery department downstairs at the Farmers, and they used to dispatch a lot of the parcels to the boys overseas. I remember being down there once when the Scottish Society were sending some, and two of them were addressed to my brothers."

Half her time was spent in the office, and half of it was spent on the manual telephone exchange. She still remembers the store's number – 1210. She earned 19 shillings and sixpence a week, with 10 shillings of that going on board.

It didn't leave much at the end of each fortnight. There were coupons for clothing and food rationing.

"It was very restrictive. We made our own frocks, and when silk stockings came in, there was a rush for those, if you had enough coupons left."

It was a time of farewells and homecomings.

"A lot (of men) went from the Canterbury Farmers. For us, it was quite a social time in some ways, with farewells to ones we worked with, families down at Pareora. "And the wonderful welcome-homes too. Then, of course, there was a lot of sadness, when you read the names in the paper of those who did not come back."

Bobbie worked at the Farmers until 1944.

"Then a friend I knew before he went away came back and knocked on the window of the Farmers. We were married in 1944, and went and lived on a farm at Salisbury, just opposite where the crem is now."

Back 'em upVisitors to the South Canterbury Museum can experience wartime in South Canterbury.

The latest exhibition at the museum is entitled Back 'em up, and marks the 70th anniversary of the start of the war in 1939.

The exhibition looks at how the six years of war affected the local region, and how local people responded to the challenges. These included supporting New Zealand forces serving overseas, doing without and coping with rationing, preparing for the threat of enemy attack; and gearing up local industry to support the war effort.

During the war, local children practised air-raid drills, homes and businesses learned to deal with blackout conditions, anti-tank ditches, coastal gun emplacements and road blocks were constructed, and local workshops turned out mortars, ammunition and even the legendary Semple Tank in Temuka.

Tangible reminders of the war include the Station St air-raid shelters, the Smithfield coastal gun emplacements and the so-called "tank trap" concrete cylinders now exposed in the small pond at the north end of Caroline Bay.

The exhibition features a replica 1940s kitchen and items from the war years, including local uniforms, household items, and examples of local industry.

Back 'em up will run until January 31.

War memories Memories of South Canterbury during World War II will be shared tomorrow.

The South Canterbury Historical Society is organising another of its popular panel discussions, with the theme this year being "The War and You".

Panelists are Brian Petrie, Gerald Taylor, Bobbie Ivey and Pam Wilson.

The discussion will be held at St Mary's Church Hall, Church St, Timaru, beginning at 2pm.

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