Olga with Margaret, Washington D.C. 1948

As we collated the pictures the first thing eveyone commented on was "the hair". So I made a collage of the various hairstyles down the years and intended it to be he insode of her birthfay card, but the printer did the cover page on one sheet of A2 and the collage on another sheet, So I changed the plan and made the collage into a poster for marg to hang on the wall and everyone had plenty of room to write on the card.

Seventy years ago your Grandma,Margaret looked like this,

This was her at her Christening.

That is me on the right. The little one, I am Margaret's big brother Neil, or as some of you may know me "the tickle monster".

Four years earlier Don, an up and coming economist from Adelaide had married Olga, a seamstress from Auburn in Sydney.

The tall bloke next to Olga was her Father, your Great Great  Grandfather.

Can you guess who the baby is in this photo?

Yep, your Great Grandfather Don with his grandfather.

ie your Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather.

Ok at this point my head is hurting so we might come forward a bit.

So who is this – No it's not Grandma as a baby. Remembr she was born in America, and this is Croydon, so..its me.

I ruled the roost for nearly two years before my accomplice came along.

Mum & Dad moved to the USA when I was six weeks old and Margaret was born there, yep your grandma could be a yank.

We got on pretty well together and the next three years were pretty good.

She actually was a cheeky little nymph, sweet innocent face, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth .

When Margaret was about 3 she was playing with our next door neighbour Sally Schoo. Sally was the guest of honour at some family function that afternoon and had a special hairdo done for the occasion.

So Marg and Sally were playing hairdressers and Margaret  cut off one of Sally's plaits.

Whoops .

Mum was not happy.

Whilst Margaret was playing hairdressers, I was much taken with cowboys.

They were simple times, the good guys wore white hats, the bad guys wore black hats.

Who wore red hats ? Little rascals wore red hats.

I have a diary of mums where she is writing about our trip back to Australia, via Europe.

Mum writes in exasperation “ The children are being very naughty tonight”; Note “The Children” – plural, Not Neil is being naughty but the children IE MARGARET and her unwitting accomplice Me.

in 1951 we came back to Australia by boat, here we are at Adelaide with our Auntie Lena.

Note the pathetic attempt by Mum to put some life into Margaret’s hair.

In Adelaide Dad’s family saw us for the first time.

Remember I was six weeks old when I convinced Mum & Dad to take us to the other side of the world and Margaret was born there.

Your grandma is not the girl sitting next to me, that is my cousin Margaret from Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

Your Grandma is surprise, surprise patting the dog. 

Imagine how much work went into getting Marg’s hair this curly.

However look at the hair on cousin Margaret and her sister Kelly, bit of a family trait methinks.

We moved back into our house in Croydon.

This photo of it was actually taken on Margaret's 40th birthday as I took her for a nostalgic drive whilst the rest of the family prepared her surprise birthday party.

Here we are in the front yard at Croydon in 1952 with our new sister, Patricia.

In the background is the last known photo of our front fence, shortly after this was taken it was destroyed by Mum learning to drive and trying to swing into the driveway in one motion.

There was an almighty crash and the whole fence fell down.

Mum didn’t drive again for another fifteen years.

Dad’s brother was a farmer at Mt Schank , outside of Mt Gambier in South Australia. 

Every second year we would drive across to S.A. to have Christmas with his family.Three days over two days back, stinking hot, no such thing as air conditioning.

This photo is us with two of our cousins and a cat each, this is the first confirmed sighting of Margaret with an animal.

We brought one back to Sydney with us, the beginning of the end.

About the same time we got out first dog, Woggy.

Woggy was a special dog as every morning he would bring us a chook; sometimes live sometimes dead.

Unfortunately he soon disappeared and we never saw him again.

As Trish grew up we started to experience overcrowding issues.

Up until then Margaret and I had shared a double bed in the second bedroom.

Once Trish was big enough to move out of Mum & Dad’s room, I was relegated to the back verandah.

This was not uncommon in those days, very few houses had a bedroom for each child.

In  1954 we moved to 56 Epping Ave, Epping, an imposing house in, at the time, an outer Sydney suburb.

Sue was born in 1956.

Inaugurating the tree photograph tradition.

The large block of land was fantastic for young kids and later on came in handy for wedding receptions.

All three sisters had their receptions there as did my daughter Julie. Each of the receptions was held in a different area of the garden.

We were able to get another dog, Nippy, who co-incidentally was responsible for our new next door neighbour no longer having chooks.

The girls had cats and there was a massive aviary where we bred budgerigars, until a large tree came down taking half the aviary with it.

After that it was used to breed, unfortunately, hampsters.

Eventually one of the cats, white cat, put an end to that enterprise by developing a taste for them. 

The area was well served with schools.

We all went to Eastwood Primary with Magaret moving on to the OC for 5&6th class.

Epping Boys High was opened in 1957 and Cheltenham Girls opened the next year. In 1957 girls wishing to attend Cheltenham went to Epping for one year until their school was ready.

I started at Epping in 1958 and Margaret went to Cheltenham in 1960.

Trish and Sue went on to Cheltenham as well.

Dad was transferred to London for three years in 1960 and we went with him.

We stayed in an apartment behind Harrods for the first month and I don’t think it stopped raining the whole time we were there.

I came across a letter that Dad wrote where he commented that the weather was making the children a little less than enthusiastic about their  new home. Less than enthusiastic, we hated it, it was cold and grey and wet all the time.

An early trip to Scotland to try out the new Chev, ULK56, back right hand corner of the photo.

Cold but exciting, i am standing on the iced-over river .

Two door left hand drive station wagon bought from a Yankee soldier who was taking home a Jaguar.

Because we had to spend so much time indoors, dress-ups was a favourite game of the girls, and even dad got in on the act

We lived in a large apartment, five bedrooms, two bathrooms, lounge and dining room. There was a large drying cupboard in one of the bathrooms and in hide and seek, my favourite spot was curled up on the top shelf with a sheet over myself, It was lovely and warm and it was not inknown for me to fall asleep there and appear sometime later quite bleary eyed.

After two years I had had enough and I returned home while the rest of the family stayed on. Here we are at Southampton docks where I was to catch the boat to New York, beforing th etrain across the USA and then a boat to Sydney.

It was towards the end of the worst smog that London and South England ever recorded. For a couple of weeks it had been impossible to go outside without fear of not finding your way back home. Mum had to walk in front of the car with a torch to guide Dad out of Southamoton.

I had done two years schooling in England and received good "O" level results but the Australian school system wanted me to go into the class immediately above the one I had left two years previously.

I didn't but I probably should have, completing fifth year was a close run thing.

I had a good year, my schooling suffered but I had a good time.

Meanwhile Margaret was expanding her interest in animals and at her school in England she had a pet rat.

Consequently it was no surprise to anyone when she decided to do Veterinary Science at Uni.

Our house was well suited for her endeavours as she used the concrete deck above the garage as a clinic for anatomy practice by cutting  up dead dogs there.

I then got the job of burying the remains down the back yard.

I couldn't find a picture of Margaret cutting up a dog on the balcony as we called it , so we have Sue dressing up in her mother's wedding dress and fur stole.(about the same size as a greyhound).

Dad was quite strict with me, I had to have the car home by midnight, Margaret was allowed to go away for the weekend.

Fifth year Vet was undertaken at a special facility in Camden, so Marg disappeared down there for a year -

and came back with a fiancée.

Family dinner to celebrate the engagement at The America's Club

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John Charles Hawkins - Sept 8th 1971

Little did he know he was starting a family tradition.

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