Local solicitors, HSW Lawson on Lyttleton st.:
Jean’s father worked at Thompson’s foundry and her two brothers did their apprenticeships there too. Jean, aged 15, went instead to work for the local solicitors, HSW Lawson on Lyttleton st. ( now the Copy Centre) Sir Harry Lawson lived in Melbourne at the time but came up every Friday and in preparation for his visit they had to go the Vin Whaley’s bike shop ( now antique shop next to National Bank) and make sure his bike was well serviced, for Harry liked to use the bike to go visiting. He visited the Levinny sisters at Buda who made cakes and decorated them with Calendula flowers. He also visited Alice King, a nurse who lived on Myring St whom he helped turn Emma in her bed, who had a hip problem and couldn’t turn herself.
While Jean worked at HSW Lawson, there was a Popular Girl competition in town, set up to raise funds for the new swimming pool. A girl was chosen from different work places in the town and which ever of them raised the most money won. Irene Elliot was the Thompson’s foundry girl, Sylvia Eastman was from the Woolen mill, Jacqueline Dillon was the town girl and Winsome Barlow from the Theatre Royal ( Jacqueline later worked at the photographers (now the chemist on barker St) on Very’s corner, colouring photos) Walter Lyndrom, the billiard player came to town as part of one fund raiser. Sylvia Eastman won it.
Jean lived on Myring St. When she and her sister were young their mother would call out “ Here comes the Desmond boy on the horse,” and they would run out and watch the Desmond boy pass on his black horse which was 17 hands tall and had been ridden all the way from Happy Valley, up the steep hill, across Kalimna park. Some time later and somewhere between HSW Lawson offices and the Post Office, Jean would meet Ray Desmond again. The boy on the black horse. had returned from the war, now a quiet war-wearied man who she would later marry at the Congregational church.
Jean and Ray took 3 years to build their house on north as bricks were scarce and Ray rode his bike over to the place where they were manufactured on ten foot hill and begged for them.
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