I was born in Rhyll in North Wales. Dad came over by himself to find out if Australia was a good place to bring his family. He came out and got a job straight away because he was a very, very good moulder and was running some hundreds of people under  him in – in England anyway. He came out, soon got a job. He was made foreman of Forwood Downs in Wellington Street. Decided that the place would be fit for his family, so he called my sister whose name was Margaret and he called Mother, Margaret and myself out. We came out on the Hobson Bay, paid for our trip; it wasn't a $10 job. We arrived and went straight into 626 Murray Street.

 

In those days women didn't work, of course, that was definitely infra dig. Mum was a wonderful woman. My father was an amazing man. I was very fortunate in my parents; they were the most wonderful people. My father when he started at Forwood Downs, he made a name for himself, so much so that some other firms wanted him, but he wouldn't move. He stopped there for around about forty years of more, I think. That's about the size of it there.

 

My sister Margaret worked at the chocolate people Plaistowe's. She worked at Plaistowe's and she was head dipper. A dipper was a very skilled person with a fork. In those days expensive chocolates were all hand-dipped. You need a fork and push it into the chocolate and do that and put wriggly lines on the top of them. That's where Margaret was and she stopped there all of her life. Plaistowe's was in Havelock Street I think. She'd be near twenty years older than me I suppose. I was a great mistake. She used to wheel me around in the chair and all that sort of thing. My memory of England is pretty lean, but I remember coming over on the boat. 

 

My earliest memory of Murray Street is in a hill trolley coming down Murray Street which was not paved in those days, dodging in and out of the holes that were there. Hill trolleys were all the go in those days. We had a lot of fun in Murray Street, it was amazing. When we reached down the bottom we'd throw a picket under the cast-iron wheels and stop the thing before it came down into the next street. In doing so once, it ran up my finger and that finger's never been the same again. That's where I got some interest in the local children's hospital.

 

We used to go out at night. See we had tremendous freedom, enormous freedom. Whether it was the right thing or not I don't know, but there was no problems anywhere that my parents could see probably and certainly we couldn't see them. We used to go out and play on the street. There were no cars, once night-time came everything stopped. We used to play – there was probably six or eight or ten of us – we would play Red Rover all Over, Statues and that sort of thing. Until then about nine o'clock or perhaps a little later my father would come out and say, [calling] "John---nie," and Johnnie would come home. I'd never think of not coming home, once "Johnnie" was out. I knew I had to come home. That went on even if we were up at Hay Street, the top end of Hay Street (there was a place called Strathalbyn, there's more stories there) and I could hear them up there without any trouble. It was so quiet in those days because there was no traffic; it was just quiet as anything. 

 

In Perth, I don't know whether it was there as a demonstration or what, but I know there was a hansom cab, only one. Mostly there were horses everywhere. Horses were a wonderful asset; everybody rushed out when they messed on the road. We used to rush out with a shovel and a bag and take it home for the garden. Of course we had the milkman, he had a horse and cart and he used to bring the milk into the house with a big container of milk and he'd ladle it out. Then we had the baker, he used to come in under similar conditions. We used to willie behind, hang onto the back of the horse and cart. We had – what was the other one? Oh the ice man. That was always an open event. I think it was about twice a week at least. The ice man cometh! He'd have a great big pair of tongs, sharpened, big enough to pick up a block of ice 25cms wide, with really sharpened points on it. He'd grab that with a lump of ice – a big lump of ice – and come and knock on the door, "Ice-oh!" He'd come in. We all had ice chests of course, there was no refrigerators. He'd come in and he had a great big stiletto as an ice pick and depending on the size of your ice box, the top, he'd, chip, chip, chip, chip, cut off pieces and plonk it in there, always making sure that Johnnie had a little bit, because they always kept in well with the mothers if they looked after the children, as you know, psychologically. So he used to break off a little bit and give it to me you see. So that was it. It lasted a couple of days – the ice lasted about two to three days. As it melted underneath it went down to a basin and Dad would empty the basin every night. That about sums that up. 

 

Town was very interesting. The two major big stores were Boans and a Foy and Gibson's. Boans was possibly the upper class one, we'll put it that way. That was a fantastic place. They used to sell butter there. Now can you visualise a butter counter, square, in the middle of the shop. About conventional size, of course and about four to five people working in it with great big piles of butter big squares, about a metre by metre. You'd come in and they had a flat wooden pat. You'd ask for so much and he'd dive into this and pat it, pat-pat, pat-pat, pat-pat, pat-pat and make it all square. That was how we bought our butter. Also in that same shop was a remarkable thing to me. The marble staircase, at the bottom of the marble staircase, probably as an advert, they put in one of the very few first refrigerated drink places. They advertised it. It was free of course, water. I went in there like everyone else to get my free drink of iced water. We'd never heard of iced water, apart from what we could get by putting ice in from our ice chest, that was all right. This was iced water that had come out of a tap! There were thousands of people there, at the bottom there, they were milled around as far as you could see, all people with these darn drink things, looking for a cup of water. Psychologically it really struck me as being amazing. 

 

Up the top end of Hay Street and Murray Street there was a church and when we walked home from school – Thomas Street School, it was on the way – we used to go through this church, very fascinated because it was a Catholic place I think and it had candles and the old candles that they'd been using, half done. We used to grab all these, I forget now what we did with them, but that wasn't the point, we grabbed these candles. On the way out of there there was a big bush. Naturally we had a look under the bush and there to our amazed gaze were eggs. Now keep in mind this is the middle of the Depression and having eggs under a bush was not right. We lassoed them and took them home to Mum, who grabbed them with great glee and checked them over. They were all good, so we had eggs. It was very good. So we went back and every day we picked up a couple of eggs from this site. Looking back on it of course, the people across on the other side must have had chooks who came over and laid under this bush. Now this went on for several weeks. We were living in the lap of the gods there for a while, very good.

Jack Burrows interviewed by Heather Campbell, 2012

OH 201206 | City of Perth Cultural Collections