Story synopsis

Bede (left) with friend, possibly taken in Toronto

My story about my father is nearing completion. Here's a synopsis of the story which I hope will help me hone in on a title for the book.

The year is 1939. Australia is on the brink of war. Bede Smith, an talented young dentist from country New South Wales, has his own dreams. He hopes to travel to Canada to take a postgraduate degree. En route, several days into the Pacific crossing, war is declared, throwing his plans into disarray. Not knowing how long the conflict will last, he continues on to Toronto. There, he falls in love with Marg Baggs, a Canadian. He graduates with a Doctorate of Dentistry and marries Marg in Toronto. They return from their honeymoon to the news that Japan has bombed Pearl Harbour. Feeling duty bound, Bede enlists with the Canadian Army and starts military training. Marg is six-months pregnant when Bede is sent to the wilds of northern Ontario to serve the harsh winter at an army prisoner-of-war camp. Their first child, Pat, is just six months old when Bede is posted to England to prepare for combat. While there, he is involved in a motor vehicle accident – hit by a truck. He recovers in time for the invasion of Europe. In August 1944, Bede lands with the Canadian Fourth Armoured Division on Juno Beach in Normandy. The Canadians advance north through the muddy, wet autumn into the brutal winter of 1944-45. Bede serves with a field ambulance team, treating the wounded. He encounters famine and devastation in Belgium and the Netherlands. He just wants to survive to make it home to his wife and daughter. After five and a half years of war, the Allies finally achieve victory in Europe in May, 1945. However, Australia is still at war with Japan, so Bede volunteers for the Pacific. Demobilised, he returns to Canada and is reunited with Marg and Pat. He is training for jungle combat when the Hiroshima bomb is dropped and Japan surrenders.

After the war, Bede brings his young family home to Australia and starts a dental practice in Sydney. He has two more daughters and settles into family life. Marg takes the girls on a long holiday to Canada, but he has to stay back to attend to his patients. Over time, work becomes all-consuming, with the daily commute into the city, leaving no time for holidays. His life is out of balance. With his part-time position teaching young dentistry students Bede realises he can devote his energies to teaching. A position comes up at the Perth Dental Hospital, on the other side of the country, prompting a decision to sell up and leave Sydney.

Bede moves the family to Perth. At the age of 52, he has a new lease on life. Now working regular hours, he has free time to study an arts degree and develop his creative side. He takes the family on a long road trip across the country to see his beloved Australian cricket team play the Ashes Test match in Sydney in 1963. On the way there, he stops in Leeton, where his parents were pioneer settlers. Once back in Perth, all seems rosy. But time is running out for Bede.

Aunty Joan

Joan in Kuching, Sarawak circa 1959

My aunt, Joan Smith, passed away in 2107 at the grand age of 95. She was my father, Bede's, younger sister, who outlived Dad by 50 years. Throughout her life she was involved with us all and we miss her terribly. Below is a piece I wrote about Joan in 2014.

Piece on my Aunty Joan Smith for the newsletter of her Nursing Home in 2014

Joan Smith, celebrated her 93rd birthday on 6 November 2014– quite an amazing milestone.
Joan was born to Alice and James Smith in Leeton NSW in 1921 and she is the last in her family of that generation. She had a twin brother Kevin and 3 older siblings: Bede, Honora and Noel. At the time of Joan's birth her father, James Smith, was a school principal at the Five Bough School in Leeton. When Joan was 7 the family moved to Sydney.
She has many fascinating memories of Sydney in the 1930s and was an eye witness to the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. Joan attended Burwood Home Science School, and later went to Miss Hale's Secretarial College. During the war years she worked at Coopers in Concord. Joan remembers the fear that spread through Sydney when the Japanese subs came into the Harbour in 1942. She was so scared she jumped into bed with the family dog for comfort.
Joan went to Europe in 1949 on the first of many overseas trips. She travelled to the UK and then to Ireland to search for her Irish ancestors. On her return to Australia in 1950, Joan's career took her into the exciting work of Sydney radio and a position as the secretary of the General Manager of 2UE.
In 1957 Joan took an overseas appointment with the British Government in Kuching, Sarawak. This was at a time when Malaya was preparing for Independence. While she was working in Kuching she met some future leaders of the region, such as Mr Lee Kwan Yew, when he came to play golf with the British governor at the time. Life in the final days of the British colonial rule in Sarawak was exciting and there was a large ex-pat community to share the experience. Trips up-country into the Sarawak jungle and flights over to Singapore were all part of the scene. Joan even had a pet monkey while she was in Kuching, but of course she could not bring it back to Australia.
She returned to Sydney in 1962 and went back into the world of radio, where she became the secretary to the General Manager of 2GB Macquarie Broadcasting. She was living in Mosman then and caring for her elderly parents. Around that time Joan bought her first car and enjoyed motoring holidays with friends heading off to the Blue Mountains, Canberra and around NSW.
Joan retired from 2GB in 1984. She kept herself busy by catching up with the family in Perth, Queensland and NSW and meeting her many friends from the radio days and from Sarawak. Travel was always on Joan's agenda and included trips to Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Europe, UK, Italy, Greece, Canada, USA. Hawaii and Fiji.
Joan moved to Saint Mary's Villas in 2010 and is in good health for her age.

Photo essay image nine

Captain Bede James Smith Image Nine, final image

When I visit the Garden of Remembrance in Perth, I'm reminded of the sacrifices of  Bede, and all those who put their personal lives and dreams on hold to serve their country. Even in death, they fall into line, united.

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Captain Bede James Smith Image Eight

A lone Canadian maple leaf on a plaque in Perth commemorates the military service of Captain B J Smith.  After the war, Bede brought his wife and daughter home to Australia. They had two more children and raised a family.  His final years were spent teaching dentistry at the Perth Dental Hospital.

Photo essay image seven

Captain Bede James Smith Image Seven

In 2003, I was helping my mother sort through her books, when I came across this volume of poetry. ‘That was your Dad's,’ she said. ‘He had it with him all through the war in Europe.’ Now, I can just imagine him, taking solace in the lines of Keats or Longfellow, trying to blot out the insanity of war

Photo essay image six

Captain Bede James Smith Image Six

Bede landed  in Normandy  with the Canadian Fourth Armoured Division in August, 1944. They faced a formidable German defensive wall of barbed wire, metal and concrete bunkers. Later, after the Victory in Europe, Bede returned to the area and photographed the Atlantic Wall.

Photo essay image five

Captain Bede James Smith Image Five

In September 1943, Bede was posted to England to prepare for the Allied invasion of Europe. He’s seated here (middle left), relaxing on a sunny day with his mates in the medical team. These men will be sharing tough times ahead, treating the wounded, working in field hospitals close to the front.

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Captain Bede James Smith Image Four

But the Army must have taken pity. Marg was pregnant now. Bede returned to Toronto in time for the birth of their first child in 1943.

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Captain Bede James Smith Image Three

After enlisting, Bede was posted to the frozen north of Canada, where the snow piled high and foot-long icicles hung down from the military huts.

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Captain Bede James Smith Image Two

Bede died in 1965 of a war-related illness, just after we’d moved from Sydney to Perth. He never discussed his military service with me. In later years, my mother told me what she knew. I’ve pieced together his life as a soldier, using military records, photos and objects.

Photo essay unit UTAS Family History

I recently completed another unit in the Diploma of Family History run by the University of Tasmania (UTAS). This one was Photo Essay all about Storytelling through photography: go deeper than a single image.

My final assignment consisted of several images telling a story about my father's life in the Canadian Army during World War Two.

I'll try to reproduce it here. This is the first image with caption below. I'll post the others over several days

Captain Bede James Smith Image 1

My father, Bede James Smith, was on board ship, headed for Canada when the war broke out in 1939. He planned to take a postgraduate course in dentistry, before returning to Australia. But he fell in love with Marg, a Toronto girl, and stayed on, enlisting with the Canadian Army.

Rough Justice

David, Kibbutznik at Red Sea 1974

This piece of my travel memoir writing was originally published in Harvest, the 2017 Anthology of  the  Past Tense Group at Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre, Greenmount, Western Australia

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Rough Justice

I look up from my breakfast in the kibbutz dining room to hear Ruth, one of the community leaders, addressing me.
'I read your account of the Sinai excursion in the newsletter. Goodness me, how gruesome! I'm glad you're all safe.'
'Thanks, Ruth. We're still recovering from the shock. Very glad to be back.'

In the winter of 1974, a year after the October War in the Middle East, the atmosphere in Israel is uneasy. I've volunteered at Kibbutz Ayelet HaShahar, nestled in the fertile Hula Valley, 35 kilometres south of the Lebanese border. The idyllic landscape of orange groves and snow-capped mountains, belies the danger of the place. Walking past the kibbutz kindergarten, I can hear the deafening screech of fighter jets overhead, flying north towards Lebanon. The children continue to play hide and seek, not even looking up. These sorties have become a regular occurrence, but no one explains why.

We volunteers, who have decided to stay for the winter season, are offered a four-day excursion to the Sinai Peninsula. The plan is to cross Israel from north to south and back again. Our final destination is the ancient monastery of Santa Katerina at the foot of Mount Sinai, where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments. Along the way, we'll explore the Red Sea coastline and the inland oases of this sparsely-populated region. Our group consists of fourteen kibbutz volunteers and David, the kibbutznik, who will be bus driver and guide. David is a tall, friendly Yemeni man with dark bushy eyebrows and a long black beard. He's never been to the Sinai either and is keen to explore the area.

On the first day, we leave Upper Galilee and head south through the Jordan Valley to Jericho, Jerusalem, Hebron and Be'er Sheva – names steeped in Biblical history. By nightfall we reach the desert town of Eilat, located at the top of the Gulf of Aqaba. The lights of Eilat's twin town, Aqaba, twinkle a semaphore greeting from across the border in Jordan – a world away. We pitch our tents on the beach to the sound of lapping waves, and inhale the pungent aroma of barbecued fish. The crescent moon rising behind the Jordanian mountains evokes romantic images of Lawrence of Arabia with his band of Arabs, crossing desert and mountain range to seize Aqaba from the Ottoman Turks in 1917.

At dawn on the following day, we are up early and continue south, following the Red Sea coastline. To our left in the distance, across the Gulf of Aqaba, stand the stark red mountains of Saudi Arabia. The beaches of the gulf are pristine, white and deserted. From the bus we glimpse our first nomadic Bedouin – a man in a long-flowing garment, kneeling on his prayer mat, laid out on the beach.

The next day our path takes us inland into unknown territory. Israel has a tenuous hold on the Sinai, which it occupied after the Six Day War of 1967. David's tone is serious as he imparts our instructions for the day:
'We'll be stopping at several spots before we reach the Santa Katerina Monastery. Please stay with the group and don't go wandering off. We don't know much about these parts.'

The road takes us along the main pilgrim route from North Africa to Mecca and past a deserted quarantine station. Further along we reach the green Wadi Fir'an – a pleasant oasis of date palms, fragrant vines and crops, which springs unexpectedly from the rocky landscape.

Our bus stops again for afternoon tea. In the narrow valley behind us, several hundred metres away, there's a small village shadowed by rugged, stony mountains. Two men in long robes are crossing the valley floor, making their way towards the village. We keep our distance. David pulls out a stack of camp chairs and we find a spot near a thorny acacia tree and unpack thermoses of tea and slices of sweet-smelling lemon cake. A light dusting of snow covers the mountain tops. The air is dry and sharp. I sit in a reverie with the sun warming my back, while a lone eagle circles overhead, lifting high on the thermals.

David stands up, stretches and looks around to do a head count.
'Hey! Two people are missing. Did anyone see them leave?'
The Bedouins we saw earlier have vanished into the landscape.
'I'll go and search in the village over there,' David says. 'Wait here.'

Just at this moment the two volunteers appear in the distance, like tumble grass blowing across the rocky terrain. By the time they reach us, they're sweating profusely, wide-eyed and gasping for breath. They stop in front of David, bent with the exertion, their blue jeans dusted in red.
'Oh God! Something horrible! A dead man!'
'What?'
'A body hanging in the tree – a rope around his neck.'
'Where?'
'Over there, behind the rocks, at the edge of the village.'
'Quick!' David says. 'Pack up! We need to leave.'

Grabbing our bags and half-eaten cake we pile back into the bus and take off in a cloud of dust. Our friends relate a garbled description of the grisly scene – a bare-footed young man, fully clothed, swinging from a tree with a thick hemp rope around his neck.
'Who would have done this?' We ask David.
His brow furrows as he looks out the bus window. 'I don't know. It could be some sort of tribal feud.'

Later that day, when we reach the Santa Katerina Monastery, David makes enquiries about our shocking discovery. The Orthodox monks maintain good relations with the local Bedouins and sometimes step in to assist in resolving conflicts. The Bedouins have their own system of justice, they explain. Decisions of law are made by the village elders, according to honour codes. In this case, the dead man had probably committed a capital crime and therefore paid with his life. To us it seems like rough justice.

In 1979, after the Camp David peace agreement, Israel handed back the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. In the intervening years the region we traversed has opened up to tourism and the tribal justice systems and traditional ways are disappearing. The brutal death we stumbled upon in 1975, cast a pall over our remaining travels in the Sinai Peninsula and the memory lingers still.

Bedouin children Sinai 1974

They Shall Grow Not Old, Bud's Story

Photo of Bud Baggs from his RCAF enlistment record in 1941

My family first history book, 'They shall grow not old', Bud's story was published in 2016. 

The book is written as a quest, describing my journey to find out about the uncle I never met. Herbert Gerald Baggs died aged 21, while on active service with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in 1943. If he were still alive today he would have just celebrated his 96th birthday!

Copies of my book are available in the State Library of Western Australia and the National Library of Australia. A copy has been sent to Library and Archives Canada.

Here are some lines from the beginning of the book:

"On 19 April 1943, just three days after his 21st birthday, our Canadian uncle Gerald died while on active service with the Royal Canadian Air Force. A few days later Gerald's name appeared among the list of air casualties, one of the grim announcements published regularly in the Toronto Globe and Mail. Four other Canadian Air Force personnel lost their lives that day in 1943 – a sobering reminder of the fear and dread families lived through during wartime, not knowing who might be next.

As children growing up in sunny post-war Australia, we three sisters had heard little about our Canadian uncle – he was somewhat of a mystery to us. We knew he had died in a plane crash during the war, but the circumstances of his death remained hidden from us for many years. Both our parents, like so many others who had experienced those harrowing war years, kept their painful war memories to themselves and we hesitated to press them on that subject. As a child I imagined uncle Gerald would suddenly appear at my school and announce himself to me. I couldn't fathom that he could have just disappeared. Maybe someone had made a terrible mistake in declaring him dead?"

Grave of Herbert Gerald Baggs in Toronto

At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember him.

The Raid

This piece of my memoir writing was originally published in 2017 in  Harvest, the Anthology of the Past Tense Group at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Wrters' Centre in Greenmount, Western Australia

The Raid

Viewed from the front, there was nothing unusual about my grandparents' house in Strathfield, but to me as a seven-year-old, around the back was a place of intrigue and mystery. A towering brick wall formed the boundary fence between their house and the row of shops beyond. Shards of broken glass had been cemented along the top of the wall, like a row of sharp brown fangs to scare off intruders.

'Why are there broken bottles on the wall, Gran?' I asked.
'Because they don't want people climbing over.' She folded her arms across her bony chest and stood tall.

Curiously, the window of the room above the shops had been plastered over with brown paper.

'Do people live over the shops, Gran?'
She shrugged and turned to go inside. 'I'm not sure.'

But Gran was dodging my question. Sometime later, I discovered that my grandparents often heard shouting, late into the night, behind the browned-out window.

Most of the days when I visited, I spent the time in my grandparents' bedroom at the front of the house, playing with my little sister. While Gran toiled in the kitchen, preparing her famous coconut-ice, we would be getting into mischief, bouncing up and down on their big old iron-frame bed. We'd crawl under the bed and explode into fits of giggles at the large porcelain chamber pot, hidden there. I don't know why they kept a chamber pot, because they did possess an indoor toilet. Maybe because they were country people at heart and old habits die hard?

Grandpa was semi-retired and spent his leisure time growing vegetables in a garden bed along the side of the house. We'd trail behind while he pulled up a fresh crop and couldn't wait to sink our teeth into the juicy sweet carrots, still smelling of earth. During the school week, I took the train to Strathfield Station and dropped in to see Gran and Grandpa on the way to school.

The peace of my grandparents' suburban life was shattered late one night when they were rudely woken from their slumber by a sharp knock at the front door. Grandpa stepped into his felt slippers, pulled on his chequed, woollen dressing gown and, still half-asleep, shuffled to the front door. Gran padded after him, gathering a shawl over her tall frame. They turned on the veranda light and cautiously opened the door, peering out into the gloom. Standing there on the front veranda was a uniformed policeman. The light caught his sandy-coloured mustache as he smiled reassuringly. Behind him, in the dim light of the front path, were several more policemen, one of whom held a long wooden ladder under his arm.

'Sir, we're sorry to disturb you at this late hour, but we need to cross over your backyard to gain access to the shops behind you.'

Grandpa led the way down the driveway and the men tramped behind him, their black leather boots leaving deep imprints in the garden soil and squashing the precious carrots. Gran retreated into the house and emerged at the back door in time to witness events from a safe distance.

The police propped up the ladder and scaled the fence, avoiding the spikes of glass. They climbed to the covered window, and tried to force it open. When it wouldn't budge they took a mallet and crashed through the glass.

My grandparents couldn't see inside the upstairs room, but they heard the commotion and voices shouting: 'police raid!' – followed by the muffled footsteps clomping down the timber staircase as men were being frog marched out. And so, that night, another Sydney Two-up school was busted.

Over the next few days Gran pored over the morning newspapers, searching for juicy details of the late-night raid. Shoppers at the local butcher shop winnowed through the husks of the story, searching for the precious grains of truth. It transpired that more than a dozen men had been apprehended at the Two-up school above the shops. They were taken to Strathfield Police Station and charged with being found in a common gaming house. The mystery behind the backyard fortress was revealed. The next time I visited Gran on my way to school, she regaled me with the whole thrilling saga.
In the postwar years, Two-up schools were common across Sydney. From Kirribilli to Surrey Hills, if you were keen for a flutter, the local taxi driver knew where to find the action. Usually a man, known as the cockatoo, would stand guard to warn of an imminent raid. On the night of the Strathfield raid, the hapless cockatoo, like the guns defending Singapore, must have been facing the wrong way.
Law enforcement never did stamp out the evil of Two-up and eventually they surrendered the fight. By 1954, the era of clubs and pokies had already begun. In the 1990s, the New South Wales government legalised Two-up and in so doing, eliminated a long standing element of Australia's larrikin tradition. My grandparents dined out on the story of the Strathfield Two-up raid for several years, until they moved away from the neighbourhood in the 1960s.

Northwestern campaign Europe 1945

Bede's photo of the German coastal fortifications along the Atlantic sea wall, 1945

The piece below is a first draft of a scene from my book about the life of Bede Smith

Oldenburg, Germany, May 1945  

In early April, the Fourth Division advanced into northwestern Germany. A campaign of targeted bombing by the Allies cleared the way for them to seize the medieval garrison town of Oldenburg. Meanwhile, less than 300 miles to the northeast, in a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the streets of Berlin, the Nazi leadership imploded, and on the 30th of April Hitler put a gun to his head.

Events moved swiftly towards Germany's surrender, until the guns fell silent on the 5th of May. Bede was 10 miles from Oldenburg when the news came through of Victory in Europe (VE), and the celebrations began. For him, it had been 276 long days since he'd set foot on the four-mile stretch of grey sand in Normandy.

Several days after VE Day, Bede entered the smoke haze of the officers' mess, the notes of Lili Marlene still ringing in his head from the previous night's entertainment. He wandered over to the notice board and stood, arms folded, scanning the announcements. One flyer outlined the three options available post-VE: soldiers could remain in Europe in the Army of Occupation, volunteer for the Canadian Pacific Force, or apply for a discharge. While Bede was examining the fine print, a separate headline suddenly caught his attention – "Australians Land in Borneo." He adjusted the glasses on his nose and bent lower to read the details. The news item reported a military landing at Tarakan, an insignificant island near Borneo, where the Japanese were still dug in. His middle brother Noel would be there with the Australian Eighth Division. And younger brother Kevin, as far as he knew, was serving in the Solomon Islands. For them, the ordeal continued.

Bede's thoughts were interrupted by a burst of raucous laughter coming from a corner-table in the mess. Despite the sore heads from days of celebration, nothing daunted their spirits. He sauntered over to join the group. The men had copies of the Canadian Forces newspaper, The Maple Leaf, spread out on the table.

'Have you seen this?' his colleague said, holding up the front cover of The Maple Leaf Victory edition. One word filled the full length of the front page – "KAPUT."

'Yes,' Bede laughed. 'The cover's a beaut!' He pulled out a chair and sat down to join the men.

'What else have you found out?' asked Bede
'Some more information about volunteering for the Pacific.'
'You going to volunteer?' Bede asked.
'I'm not sure yet. Are you?'
Bede hesitated. 'I haven't decided. No one can say we haven't done our bit.'
'You've got a wife and child at home. You're off the hook, so to speak.'
'That's true,' Bede said. 'Still, the job's only half done.'

His colleague reached into his uniform pocket, tapped out a few cigarettes and offered them around the table. Bede reached over for one and dug into his pocket for a match.

'Some of us are applying for leave,' his colleague said. 'Going to try and see Paris while we can.'
Bede's eyes brightened. 'That sounds terrific!'

He took a short puff on his cigarette. He'd need to make his decision about the Pacific soon. How would Marg react if he volunteered? All this time in the Europe campaign amounted to a 20-month separation from his family. He'd missed out on Pat's first birthday, and her second birthday. His daughter wouldn't know him when he returned home.

Bede worried about his parents in Sydney who had endured the last five years with fortitude. James and Alice Smith had three sons in the military. As well as Bede, their middle son Noel had served in the North African campaign and was now in Borneo. Youngest son Kevin was a pharmacist with 17th Field ambulance in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Their daughter Nora worked for the government in Canberra, leaving youngest child Joan (Kevin's twin) as the only one at home.

Towards the end of May, Bede's Division relocated south to Almelo, a town in the eastern Netherlands, where they helped distribute food to the starving population. For the Dutch, after the famine and the flooding of parts of their country, the peace was sweet indeed. At a victory parade in The Hague on the 21st of May, Queen Wilhelmina was welcomed back from exile. Dutch red, white and blue flags flapped in the breeze, and the Canadians were hailed as heroes.

After breakfast on the 25th of May, Bede marched across the quadrangle and joined a queue of soldiers filing across the barracks' yard in Almelo. He stood with the morning sun warming his back, as the line inched slowly towards the entrance to a large canvas tent. Behind the perimeter fence, a flock of starlings roosting in a tree chirped loudly, reaching a celebratory crescendo.

When Bede reached the head of the queue, he paused at the entrance to wait his turn. A dozen officers were lined up in a row inside the tent, seated at makeshift tables, each with a pile of papers in front of him. The pug-faced lieutenant at the next available post looked up, raised his hand and summoned him forward. Bede sat opposite the lieutenant and handed over his completed questionnaire.

'I'm volunteering for the Pacific,' Bede said, confirming his intentions.
'Good to hear, Captain,' he said. 'We're short of dentists.'
'So I'll be in the Sixth Infantry?'
'Correct. All volunteers from Europe will be assigned to the Sixth.'
'What happens next?' Bede said.
'You'll be demobbed and sent back to Canada. Then you'll start training for jungle warfare. Very different from what you've been through here.'
'Yes. I have an inkling.' It was not a welcome prospect either – the heat, the rugged terrain, the tropical diseases.
'So, how long before we sail?'
'It could be a while yet, Captain. Word is, they're having trouble locating enough carriers to ship you guys back across the Atlantic.'

Bede's face broke into a broad smile, buoyed by the news. Chances were he'd be in Europe a while longer – time for a trip to Paris.

More than 60,000 volunteered for the Canadian Pacific Force. Bede spent another six weeks in Europe and visited Paris. He also inspected the remains of the massive German fortifications along the Atlantic Sea Wall. The beaches were still covered in barbed wire and discarded military hardware and the once palatial seaside hotels remained boarded up.

Bede sailed back to Canada, on the troopship SS Pasteur and disembarked in Halifax on the 7th of July, 1945. There was much talk among the soldiers on board as to how much longer Japan could hold out. He prayed that this next stage of combat could be averted.

Family History Writing Challenge 2018 starts Feb 1

Every February for the last several years Lynn Palermo has run the Family History Writing Challenge.

Lynn Palermo, who is also known as The Armchair Genealogist   sets out some good reasons to join the challenge:

Why Should You Join the Challenge? 
•    Do you have a desire to turn your ancestor’s dry documents into exciting stories? 
•    Have you procrastinated for far too long?
•    Do you want to start but not sure how to begin?
•    Have you been writing sporadically never finishing a story?
•    Do you need to polish those stories making them more interesting, less of a yawn?
•    Do you need that nudge to finish your stories and finally publish?
•    Are you overwhelmed and need some support in getting started?

I'm so glad I stumbled across Lynn's Family History Writing Challenge  several years ago. It has helped me complete two family history books. I keep coming back and have done the Challenge three times now.

This time around I will be writing about my father, Bede Smith and I have several posts about him already on this blog. I've been working on my book about Bede for about 18 months and hope to finish this year.

A stranger in town

Henry Lawson in 1900. Portrait by John Longstaff in the Art Gallery of NSW collection

A stranger in town

In the early days, Leeton was accustomed to welcoming outsiders. But one stranger who arrived in the district in 1916, attracted particular attention.

My father Bede was only seven at the time. He and his mother Alice were on the main street of town, when a curious disheveled man approached from the opposite direction. He was tall, thin and stooped over a cane. His coat hung loosely on his back and a baggy felt hat covered his head. A drooping, handlebar moustache extended out beyond his jaw line.

'Mum,' said Bede. 'Look at that man's huge whiskers!'
'Sssht, Bede. Don't stare.'

Bede's eyes locked onto the stranger's penetrating gaze. A pungent cloud of tobacco smoke enveloped them as he passed. Alice remember the man from her home town of Gulgong, but he didn't recognise Alice.

'Son, that's the famous author, Henry Lawson. He lives in a farmhouse by the river, down on the Daalbata Road.' Bede turned to look back at the faltering figure receding down the dirt road.

Henry Lawson's friends from Sydney had helped him relocate to Leeton, a dry town, where he could get off the grog and pick up the pen again. Henry stayed two years in Leeton from 1916 to 1917. Among the orange groves by the Murrumbidgee River, his writing bore fruit, producing important new works: Leeton Town and A Letter from Leeton.

Family History Writing Challenge

Bede Smith in 1909.. The ancestor I will write about in the Family History Challenge

Every February for the last several years Lynn Palermo has run the Family History Writing Challenge.

I'm so glad I stumbled across Lynn's Family History Writing Challenge several years ago. I keep coming back and have done the Challenge three times now.

It really doesn't matter what stage you are at – whether you are starting out or are more experienced at writing family history, you will benefit. It's all about setting goals, staying focussed and sharing results with a friendly bunch of fellow writers.


This time around I will be writing about my father, Bede Smith. There is a sad story behind the baby photo in that Bede's twin brother died at birth. His mother, Alice Smith was living in rural New South Wales where medical care was not close by. Bede survived and went on to live a fascinating life which I hope to capture in my writing.

Bede in the Canadian Army 1943

Capt Bede Smith, middle row seated on the left. Photo probably taken in the UK in 1943 or 1944

 The piece below is a first draft of a scene from my book about the life of Bede Smith

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Bound for Europe, 1943 

On 5 September 1943, Bede left the army transit camp in Windsor, Ontario and travelled by train to Halifax, where a carrier waited to transport the Canadian Fourth Armoured Division across the Atlantic. The SS Queen Elizabeth, had been stripped of its luxury fittings and converted into a troop ship. Repainted battleship grey, the modern ocean liner ran the Atlantic at high speed, zig-zagging to avoid encounters with enemy warships and U-boats. There were 13,000 personnel on board for the crossing. With so many troops, all needing to be berthed and fed, the operation was handled with military precision. Bede, like all the others, wore a coloured label indicating in which zone he was berthed. The ship's dining room held 2,000 and meals were served around the clock. No sooner had the last breakfast been served, than lunch began. After lunch the queues formed again for the first evening meal.

Six days after leaving Halifax, the ship landed safely in the United Kingdom. The invasion of Europe was imminent, but no one knew exactly when or where it would occur. All military intelligence was shrouded in secrecy. As it turned out, the Fourth Division would remain in the UK for another 10 months, undergoing rigorous training in an atmosphere of mounting tension.

Upon their arrival in Southampton, the Canadians were transported to a busy military camp in the town of Bordon, East Hampshire in the south of England. The once quiet country roads around Bordon growled with the flow of military vehicles coming and going. Situated in a picturesque landscape of rolling hills and lush green pastures, Bordon offered the troops some recreational opportunities off-base. Whenever he had the chance, Bede took a pass which allowed him to walk into the local town.

More than a month after arriving in Bordon, Bede was returning to barracks by foot along a winding country road. It was harvest time and the haystacks, piled high in the stubbled fields, were touched bronze by the setting sun. In the calm of the late afternoon, the only sound was his own footfall and the plaintive bleating of a lamb. Bede stopped along the road to inspect a flock of black-faced sheep curiously eyeing him from behind the hedgerow. Just then, true to form, a soft drizzle began to fall. The road became shiny and slick with oil residue – time to hurry back to barracks. He quickened his pace.

All of a sudden, came a loud rumble from behind. A vehicle bore down on him. There was a screech of brakes. Bede had no time to react before a truck loomed up and flung him side-ways into the ditch. He hit the ground with a thud, doubling over in pain.

A few yards up ahead the Bedford truck pulled over, its engine still running. A cloud of acrid smoke wafted back and Bede felt himself starting to retch. The driver leapt down from the truck cabin and ran back to where Bede sat dazed on the ground.

'Bloody hell. Sorry, mate. I didn't see you. That bend in the road. Are you OK?'
Bede looked down. The wool of his khaki army jacket was torn at the elbow. He tried to move and sit up, but winced in pain.
'Damn. It's my arm,' Bede said, a sharp tone to his voice.
His hand and arm had taken the full brunt of the fall. Blood congealed around a wound on his hand which was dirty with grit and gravel.
Bede tried to flex his hand.
'Ouch! Christ!'

The truck driver moved in closer. He was a pale, freckled young lad, with a cigarette hanging from his lower lip. He stared down at Bede and flicked his cigarette on the ground.
'Blimey. You're as white as a sheet.'
Bede sat up and moved his arm and shoulder again.
'I hope it's not broken,' he said, trying to remain civil.

Bede felt like he'd done ten rounds in the boxing ring and was down for the count. Finally he pulled himself up to his full height, shook himself off and straightened his uniform. The pants were soaked through from the muddy ditch.

At this point the driver, observing his rank, started up again.
'I'm dreadfully sorry, Captain.'
'Look. I'm OK.' This lad was starting to annoy him now.
'I'll take you to Bordon Camp.'
'That would make sense,' Bede said, a slight tone of sarcasm in his voice.

In the dwindling light they drove back to the army base. The driver attempted to make conversation, but Bede was occupied with his own thoughts. The injury weighed heavily on him. Some years previously, he had hurt himself playing cricket. Since then, he'd been plainly aware that his hands were his lifeline. Any accident could derail his future career in dentistry. And he hadn't even seen action in this war. He tried to put such bleak thoughts aside and remain calm.

It was dark by the time they saw the lights of Bordon Camp and drove through the security gates. Bede directed the driver to the front door of the hospital, where he hauled himself down from the truck and went indoors to find the duty doctor.

Harvest Past Tense Group Anthology 2017

Our writing group recently published an anthology of members' writing. The title is Harvest:  Anthology of the Past Tense Writing Group at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre. Below is one of my memoir pieces that appeared in Harvest.

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Visits to Labrador

Our visits to Labrador are always on a Sunday when no one else is around. On these occasions, Dad drives into town and parks opposite in the grounds of the colonial hospital. Labrador – a strange name for a building. Mum says it's also the name of a dog that lives on a rocky island off the coast of Canada. But my Labrador is the four-storey terrace building where Dad has his dental surgery.

Sometimes, we see a scruffy old lady with a pile of canvas bags, camped outside Labrador. Dressed in sand shoes, a full-length dark coat and a green tennis shade, she scares me, especially when she shouts out strange words.

'She's speaking Shakespeare,' Dad says. 'She went to the university and lost her marbles.'

I hold my breath as I run past her, to avoid breathing in her smelly old socks.

The building has an old-fashioned cage lift of ornate iron work. After we press the black metal button, the lift comes clanging down from the top floor and shudders to a stop at the ground floor. You pull down on the iron door handle and step inside an open cage that ascends slowly, past all the other tenants, their doors locked on Sunday.

Once inside the surgery, we always make a circuit around the benches, picking up the tiny brown pottery jars and fingering the neatly laid out rows of spikey instruments. Dad lets us mix the amalgam for the fillings, putting the liquid mercury into a china bowl and crushing it with the pestle. The mercury breaks into tiny little droplets that dance around the bottom of the bowl, until he adds some extra ingredient to form a silvery lump.

I climb into the dentist's chair, like queen of the realm, while my sister pumps the foot pedal to send me upwards. The drill has a shrill, noisy motor and Dad ties a ball of cotton wool onto the rotating wire and tell us to 'watch the rabbit going around'. One Sunday I need a filling and Dad asks me to be the guinea pig to try out his new drill. He has just acquired a thrilling new-fangled model that makes a fast whizzing noise and sprays water at the same time. It's all over so quickly. I am always encouraged to be very brave and to this day my dentist can't believe how calm I am in the chair.

Then, one day Dad breaks the news that Labrador has been bought by the bank and is to be bulldozed. In 1958, the site was subsumed for a massive commercial development in the heart of Sydney. Out of the rubble of old Labrador, rose the headquarters of the Reserve Bank of Australia at the corner of Macquarie Street and Martin Place. The eccentric old lady we used to see outside the building, turned out to be the well-known eccentric, Bea Miles, whose life was depicted by Kate Grenville in her novel, Lilian's Story.