Searchlights, Slate Pencils, and Suspicions: A Child's War 1939 - 1954

By Pamela Davenport

These memoirs record life in Brisbane, Australia during the Second World War, as seen through the eyes of a child. Pamela Davenport was two and a half when the war began. She has vivid memories of this time. As a lifelong historian, Pamela knows that childhood reminisces of the war years are rare, and are important to preserve. With wry humour a

• Language: English
• Publisher: 93 621 350 988
• Release date: Apr 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648073710

Pamela Davenport

Pamela Davenport is a former teacher of History at Somerville House, a Brisbane Independent Girls' School, who attended the school in the 1950s and taught there for 45 years. She has a passion for History, both Modern, which she taught for several years, and Ancient History, in which she has several post-graduate degrees. She has worked as a volunteer archaeologist in Paphos Cyprus for 25 years. Now retired, she maintained her love of History for many more years teaching at U3A. Throughout her life, she has maintained a great love for animals, and has raised dogs, cats, donkeys, goats, ponies, sheep, chickens, and more besides, entertaining her generations of students and friends with their anecdotes.

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Published by Pamela Davenport 2017

Copyright © 2017 Dr. Pamela Davenport

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher.

Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to ensure that this book is free from error or omissions. Information provided is of general nature only and should not be considered legal or financial advice. The intent is to offer a variety of information to the reader. However, the author, publisher, editor or their agents or representatives shall not accept responsibility for any loss or inconvenience caused to a person or organisation relying on this information.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

Book cover design and formatting services by BookCoverCafe.com

ISBN:

9780648073703 (pbk)

9780648073710 (e-bk)

To the loving memory of my parents, Eric and Winifred Davenport without whose guidance I would have been a very different person.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Preface

Photographs

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Months Before

Chapter 2 Eriwin, Ipswich Road, Moorooka

Chapter 3 School Days

Chapter 4 Wartime Shortages and Making Do ‘Make 46 and Mend’ wartime slogan

Chapter 5 News bulletins, blackouts, curtains, convoys 63 and search lights

Chapter 6 Keep the Home Fires Burning

Chapter 7 Games Children Play – Wartime Outings 85 and Adventures

Chapter 8 Tony, Myself and Other Animals

Chapter 9 Peace at last

Chapter 10 A Sea of Troubles

Conclusion

Bibliography

About the Author

Foreword

Searchlights, Slate Pencils, and Suspicions A Child’s War – Brisbane 1939-1954

Pamela Davenport achieved legendary status at Somerville House where she taught both modern and ancient history for over 45 years. She was a marvellous and inspirational teacher. I was one of the very many students to have had the singularly good fortune to have been taught by her. She had the rare gift of being able to impart her own passion for her subject to others. She instilled a love of learning as a joy in itself. Her history classes were always a happy place. History was not dry and distant but vivid and immediately engaging.

Her classes provided an opportunity to understand to comprehend the forces, movements and individuals that shaped and the world, both modern and ancient. It was ancient history, however, that was her greatest love. In her classes students embarked on marvellous journeys with the Ancient Greeks and Romans, encountered the brilliance of Marcus Aurelius and Cicero.

As Fustel de Coulanges, himself a great teacher of history, observed, history does not study material facts and institutions alone; its true object of study is the human mind: it should aspire to know what this mind has believed, thought, and felt in different ages of the life of the human race. Sadly, history is not always taught with that observation in mind. But it was very much at the centre of Pamela Davenport’s classes. Her students were taught not only about facts and institutions, and the great figures of history, but why events had come to be and what they revealed about humanity.

John Steinbeck said I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. Pamela exemplified what it is to be a great teacher. A great teacher gives a student something utterly priceless – the means to access a vast treasure box of knowledge and understanding. Pamela Davenport did that for so many students. I will forever be in her debt for her doing so for me. Pamela was, however, more than a great teacher, she had a genuine interest in and affection for her students and was an extraordinary mentor to many well beyond their school years. In my case, the mentoring and friendship has continued for over forty years.

This wonderful book of Pamela’s experiences of growing up in Brisbane during the Second World War is beautifully and honestly recounted. Pamela’s personality, intelligence, kindness, wonderful sense of humour and love of animals are clearly evident. So too is her capacity for curiosity about the world beyond her own. By means of the Bakelite radio and the map on the kitchen wall in her home in suburban Brisbane, the events of the war unfolding so far away were placed into context by parents.

The book provides an important and valuable contribution to the literature chronicling daily life in Brisbane during World War Two. It recalls a world that has entirely disappeared. The details of daily family life, growing up and going to school, the deprivations of the times and the intrusion of the war are shared from a perspective not often documented –the perspective of a child and young person. In that respect, it will be particularly interesting reading for young students. And so, a new generation will have the benefit of Pamela’s wonderful ability to impart historical information in an engaging manner. They will be introduced, through Pamela’s book, to a historical gem.

Justice Anthe Philippides

Acknowledgements

This collection of war memories has been a long term project which I was able to bring to fruition only after I completed my University studies in 2010. I have had the help of many friends whose contributions I would like to acknowledge. Frances Williamson, my typist, has ‘unmuddled’ my sometimes confused manuscripts with unfailing expertise and patience, while Kate Bottger has spent considerable time scanning the many photographs with skill and cheerful good humour. My editor, Jenny Noble, a former student, provided me with the insights I needed to negotiate my way through the minefields which face the inexperienced author. It was a case of a teacher becoming a grateful student. Yet another former Somerville House student, Alex Adsett, was wonderfully encouraging, as my agent and adviser. To her I owe a great debt of gratitude. I was fortunate that a former colleague and friend, Gill Bridgwood, proof-read the manuscript several times and suggested emendations which I believe improved the quality of the work. I acknowledge too, the work of Kay Cooper who, in reading the manuscript, made many useful suggestions.

Many old friends jogged my memory about times past. Toots (Valmai) McVinish, a friend for seventy eight years, whose love and support I am pround to acknowledge, reminded me of our many shared experiences, as did Anne Young. We have been the closest of friends since 1951, after this child’s war was over but she reminded me of games children played and incidents from her primary school days. Another friend from the 1950’s, Len Forrest, was able to give me a boy’s perspective on his school days.

I thank Barbara Merefield too, a friend from Somerville House years who has already explored the maze of publishing a memoir of her father and has guided me in my endeavours.

My deepest love and gratitude are reserved for my parents, Winifred and Eric Davenport, long deceased, but whose encouragement, love, sacrifice and wise parenting made this book possible. I dedicate all that is good in the book to them and acknowledge that any errors are my own.

I am honoured that my former student, and now dear friend, Anthe Phillipides has written the foreword to this book and for that, I thank her sincerely.

Preface

I was fortunate enough to live my early childhood during the momentous years of World War Two. Most adults would not have regarded this experience as a cause for celebration but I found that, inspite of shortages and anxieties, it was an intensely interesting period. Because I was so young, I could not remember what life had been like before the war when the Depression had brought its own troubles, I did not miss the luxuries I had never known.

The War was a formative experience in my life and for this reason I decided to write my memories of the years between 1939 and 1954. I had always loved stories of my parents’ childhood and youth. My father told of seeing the women during the 1912 strike sticking their hat pins into the police horses in Adelaide Street. We were both outraged by their cruelty. My father was a boy of twelve and he used to earn pocket money on Saturdays leading horses from the Roma Street Railway yards to the sale yards on the corner of Adelaide and Albert Streets where his father was an accountant. My mother told vivid stories of her early life in Guildford, Surrey, and her immigration to Queensland. After a year or so in Brisbane, her father still suffered from crippling asthma which was the reason the family had left England, so they moved to Kin Kin. My mother briefly attended Yeronga State School, where the taunts of the boys about her button-up boots persuaded her to remove them. Her feet were so badly burned on the stones and gravel as she crossed the un-bitumined Ipswich Road, that she could not walk for days.

There were so many of their stories that very early I developed a love of history. My experiences of the war in Brisbane nurtured and increased this love so that, in spite of the rather unimaginative way it was taught in primary school, I was fascinated by the past. This was especially true of British history which was so much more exciting than Australian history with its repetition of the exploits of the explorers.

At Somerville House, a Presbyterian and Methodist Girls’ secondary school, my love for the humanities – History, Geography, French, Latin and English – was nurtured. In year 10, I decided I wanted to teach and at Somerville House. English and History were my favourite subjects and in Year 11 I was able to study both Ancient and Modern History. I had loved the school from my first day there, but Years 11 and 12 were exciting and challenging. I had discarded Mathematics, which I hated and found very difficult, and had taken up Zoology which was interesting and at which I achieved well.

After completing the Senior examinations and winning a Commonwealth Scholarship, I attended the University of Queensland. The Scholarship made this possible because my parents had sacrificed much to pay for my school fees and another three or four years of going without luxuries was something I could not have asked of them. They were unable to afford a car and had no holidays together for many years. I received a living allowance as part of the Scholarship of £3/6/8, which my parents made up to £3/10/- (about $7). During the long vacation I worked at the Queensland Public Library, where I earned what was then a princely sum of £10 ($20). My mother wanted me to be a Librarian. She felt I did not have the patience to be a teacher! I held on to my dream of teaching English and History at Somerville House. I majored in English and Modern History, studied Latin for two years, and Geography and Ancient History for one year. In those days, there was only a one-year course