'We Were Going to Be Different'

‘We were going to be different’ The story of The Kosmopolitan Klub and The Girls Anne Rawson The story, in their own words, of a group of girls who grew up by the beach in Adelaide, who formed the Kosmopolitan Klub (colours: orange and green), gave themselves extraordinary names, produced a magazine, held dances, went on holiday, got married and stayed friends all their lives. © Anne Rawson First published in Canberra in 1998 ISBN 0 9585733 5 2 Second edition as an e-book in 2018 Anne Rawson Mobile: +61 408 879 224 Phone: +61 2 62543894 email: [email protected] In memory of my mother the Lady Camelia Featherstonehaugh my aunt the Czarina Nadja Zamoyski and all my honorary aunts Contents Introduction ...........................................................1 List of names ...................................................... 11 Maps ...................................................................12 First and last meetings .......................................14 Beginnings ..........................................................20 The Tech .............................................................32 Working in the depression ..................................50 The Kosmopolitan Klub ......................................66 My Grandmother.................................................85 The Kosmopolitan Kourier ..................................88 The boys and the men ...................................... 112 The war years ...................................................138 The Girls ...........................................................152 Introduction n September 1994 my mother died suddenly of a heart attack. She was Itwo months short of her eightieth birthday and was the fifth member of The Kosmopolitan Klub to die. Most of the remaining members came to her funeral, or sent a child as a representative. These women were The Girls and had been part of my mother’s life since she was a girl growing up at Semaphore in South Australia. They were also my honorary aunts: Aunty Doss whose family came to our Guy Fawkes parties and on holidays with us; Aunty Jess who brought memories of other holidays at her cottage, Peerie Noost, at Mylor; Aunty Mary who lived just round the corner from Mum’s last home where we had gone to play cards; my real and beloved aunt, Mum’s elder sister Jean. Aunty Doris had sent her son Robert whom I had not seen since I was about 12. He looked just like his father, Uncle Eric. For years my historian brother, John, had been saying that someone should write the story of The Kosmopolitan Klub which became The Girls. Our mother’s death spurred me on to tackle this project. Of course the job was now much harder because Mum was not there to ask. Nor were Rita, or Net or Phyl, or Gwen, but I visited all the others and taped our conversations. We met first at Jess’s place, a compact, prefabricated ‘chalet’ behind her son’s house in a beachside suburb. Three other members were there, Babe, Betty and Jean, plus Jess’s English pen friend of 70 years, Molly. Jess was the fittest and most active of the group. She had just returned from a trip to England to visit her daughter, Heather, and family. This was an annual event so that she could attend the weddings of grandchildren and be present for the births of great-grandchildren. She had played her last game of tennis at 82 and was now writing her memoirs. She had always loved writing, so her records and her active memory mean that her voice is a dominant one in this record. Jean’s is the other strong voice; her pragmatic outlook making a counter point to Jess’s more idealistic view of the world. Jean has been a central part of my life for as long as I can remember. She has grown down little as she has aged but her mind is still young and robust. When I started this project she was living 1 Jess McLennan Betty Ginman in her two-bedroom unit in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide and I would stay there with her, so we had many conver sations, on and off the record. During the course of the project she moved to an apartment in a new private develop- ment for older citi zens. This was a difficult change for her but she fought her way out of this slump and has now resumed her active social life and become a member of the residents’ committee. In March 1998 I, and about thirty others, went to her 85th birthday party. The walls of Babe’s house were hung with many delightful watercolours and oils of flowers and birds, most of them painted by her, some by her sister Ilex. The furniture looked, and probably was, antique. She was proud of her heritage, of the notable people in her family and of the achievements of her engineer father. She described herself as a ‘flighty piece’ and there were elements of regret in much that she said. She still appeared light and graceful and beautiful, though arth ritis was wreaking havoc on her bones. She told me her elbows, knees and hips were shattered and she was in the midst of a series of operations to do some repair work. ‘I lived on lettuce, you see’, she said, ‘you shouldn’t do it’. She died in January 1998. Our family had little contact with the Ginmans but I remembered Betty as slim and upright and athletic looking with a soft, sweet voice. Her body has changed but not her voice. She lives with her husband David not far from Jess who remains her close friend. David is remar k ably fit; every year he walks in the city to the Bay run and he has a limitless supply of jokes. Betty, in her quiet way, told me the story of the devas tating illness that had made a ten-year gap 2 Jean Edwards Babe George in her young life, something she hadn’t talked about for years. Doss and Mary are sisters and our conversation was spattered with sisterly disa- greements about who said and did what when. We had lunch in Mary’s new apartment by the sea. I was touched by her kindness in making some plain ham sandwiches for me just in case my tastes were as plain as my mother’s had been. Doss lives in a two-bedroom unit in a large but most attractive elderly citizens’ complex south of Adelaide. There is a swimming pool and spa but she is al- lergic to the chemicals. There are red buttons in strategic places on her walls so that she can call for assistance. She has used them when her back is so bad she cannot move. While we talked she jumped up and down, to get photos, a pamphlet about a bus trip she had been on, some old hats out of her wardrobe. She provided afternoon tea, savoury biscuits and two sorts of cake, a remin der of the suppers which played such a big part in the story of the Klub and The Girls. As we walked back to the car I en quired about her health. She said the incontinence was a problem. ‘It’ll stop me getting married again’, she said and we both laughed. Jean and I went out into the country to visit Doris who lived with Jenny, her potter daughter. She didn’t really want us to visit because her memory was fail- 3 Mary George and Doss Hancock ing her badly. She did remember some things: the Bradley girls refusing to walk home down Woolnough Road with her; Peter Cooke on his motorbike; work at Dalgetys. But she got cross with herself and embarrassed when the memories would not come back. She was amused to see copies of the Klub magazine again, especially her detailed Treasurer’s report from 1932. We stayed for lunch and I think that on the whole she was glad that we had come. She died in 1997. Merle Marten was a mem ber of the Klub but not a Girl. The others lost touch with her back when they were young women, but they did not lose track of her She was a public figure, the Lady Mayoress of Port Adelaide for 18 years. Jean renewed contact with her to tell her about this project. Unfor tun ately, she was not well and our visit was pos tponed. When we did visit she took us to lunch at the Largs Pier Hotel and we had some delic ious whiting. She lives at Largs in a spacious house with a housekeeper and photos of her public life on the walls. Despite her frailty she talked quickly and with energy about her life in the intervening years. Before we left she played the pianola which had been such a feature of Klub gatherings. These are the women who told me their stories and whose voices are recorded in the pages that follow. I was privileged and honoured to talk with them and I hope this story does them justice. I also enjoyed the experience immensely; it 4 Merle Martin at the pianola, with a picture of her Kevin and morning tea, with photos of Phyl on and long-dead sister, Gwen, on the wall. the shelf was wonderful talking to them about their history that was also mine in part. But I sometimes wonder if they would have said more, or less, to a stranger. Of course there are other women in this story whose voices are absent or only present indirectly: Gwen, Phyl, Net, Rita and my mother Nance. Gwen died 60 years ago and so is the most ghostly of them all. Phyl, according to the others, was a driving force of the Klub, dynamic and full of ideas. The absence of her voice seems all the more regrettable because of this. I never knew Phyl but her sister, Madeline, who was an honorary member of the Klub for a while, sent me some information and I have met her husband, Kevin.

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