by Ron Rathbone
When I was eleven and in Year 6 at Carlton Public School, my father, a successful businessman, decided it was time “I learned the use of money”. I am not sure whether he attributed his success in business to the fact that when he was growing up he had been a paper boy but that was the future he had mapped out for me and once my father made a decision that was that.
I was duly presented before Mr. Cooper of Cooper’s News agency in Carlton Parade who, I suspect, had some reservations about the latest addition to his team of paper boys but he agreed to give me a go.
My run took me along Carlton Parade to Grey Street, up Grey Street to Ethel Street, along Ethel Street to Willison Road then back down Willison Road and Short Street to Carlton Parade. It was supposed to return me nine shillings a week less any uncollected debts.
In those days there were two evening newspapers, The Sun and The Mirror, the Women’s Weekly which appeared weekly and a host of women’s magazines. While the nine shillings gave me a degree of financial independence, it was the powerful Thunderer whistle which was an essential piece of your equipage that was the real attraction of the job.
Among my customers was a somewhat confused, middle aged, grey haired lady who wore unfashionable long dresses and took a copy of almost every publication I carried. Unfortunately, she could never find her purse to pay for them. Despite my beloved Thunderer which I ceased to blow as soon as I turned into Grey Street and my efforts to get past No.26 before the owner appeared, my attempts at financial debt containment were to no avail as she was always sitting on her verandah, hiding behind the fly wire door or standing just inside the front gate waiting for me to appear. According to her neighbours she was a harmless old eccentric who wrote poetry and was a bit soft in the head.
The net result of all this was that by the time my uncollected debts were deducted from my nine shillings each Saturday, I was lucky if I was left with five shillings.
Years later I won a scholarship to the Teachers’ College where one of our compulsory subjects was Australian Literature. It was while I was there that I discovered the impecunious old lady whose reading matter I had subsidised during my time as a student at Carlton Public School was none other than Stella Miles Franklin, Australia’s most outstanding woman novelist and a lady who enjoyed an international reputation for her writings.
There also lived in Carlton in the large two storey terrace type house on the corner of High Street and Carlton Parade another remarkable old lady. Her name was Miss Nellie Battye.
She had worked as a receptionist for a group of doctors until she was 80 and had then donated her services to the City of Sydney Eisteddfod where she inscribed the various certificates in her immaculate copper plate writing. She had been a member of the Fourth Ward Progress Association for a number of years and at the age of 84 joined the Carlton-West Kogarah Branch of the Liberal Party where she filled the vital position of Whip in the Branch’s debating team in the fiercely contested competition each year with other Liberal Party Branches in the area.
A pillar of the Carlton Methodist Church and a great supporter of the Wesley Mission, she fell down the stairs of her home on one occasion and broke her hip. When I visited her in Prince Alfred Hospital she was sitting up in bed reading the raunchy American novel “California” and declaring to anyone who would listen that she was a fraud who should have been sent home as there was nothing the matter with her.
One day I was telling her about my experiences with Miles Franklin whereupon she produced an early copy of “My Brilliant Career” the novel that first brought Miles Franklin fame signed Stella Miles Franklin and insisted that I keep it.
It is still one of my most treasured possessions.
This article was first published in the January 2014 edition of our magazine.
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