OH805 GOLDSWORTHY, Reuben

STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION OH 593/5 Full transcript of an interview with CHRISTOBEL MATTINGLEY on 17 July, 24 July, & 21 August 2001 By Karen George Recording available on CD Access for research: Unrestricted Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library OH 593/5 CHRISTOBEL MATTINGLEY NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT This transcript was created by the J. D. Somerville Oral History Collection of the State Library. It conforms to the Somerville Collection's policies for transcription which are explained below. Readers of this oral history transcript should bear in mind that it is a record of the spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The State Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the interview, nor for the views expressed therein. As with any historical source, these are for the reader to judge. It is the Somerville Collection's policy to produce a transcript that is, so far as possible, a verbatim transcript that preserves the interviewee's manner of speaking and the conversational style of the interview. Certain conventions of transcription have been applied (ie. the omission of meaningless noises, false starts and a percentage of the interviewee's crutch words). Where the interviewee has had the opportunity to read the transcript, their suggested alterations have been incorporated in the text (see below). On the whole, the document can be regarded as a raw transcript. Abbreviations: The interviewee’s alterations may be identified by their initials in insertions in the transcript. Punctuation: Square bracket [ ] indicate material in the transcript that does not occur on the original tape recording. This is usually words, phrases or sentences which the interviewee has inserted to clarify or correct meaning. These are not necessarily differentiated from insertions the interviewer or by Somerville Collection staff which are either minor (a linking word for clarification) or clearly editorial. Relatively insignificant word substitutions or additions by the interviewee as well as minor deletions of words or phrases are often not indicated in the interest of readability. Extensive additional material supplied by the interviewee is usually placed in footnotes at the bottom of the relevant page rather than in square brackets within the text. A series of dots, .... .... .... .... indicates an untranscribable word or phrase. Sentences that were left unfinished in the normal manner of conversation are shown ending in three dashes, - - -. Spelling: Wherever possible the spelling of proper names and unusual terms has been verified. A parenthesised question mark (?) indicates a word that it has not been possible to verify to date. Typeface: The interviewer's questions are shown in bold print. Discrepancies between transcript and tape: This proofread transcript represents the authoritative version of this oral history interview. Researchers using the original tape recording of this interview are cautioned to check this transcript for corrections, additions or deletions which have been made by the interviewer or the interviewee but which will not occur on the tape. See the Punctuation section above.) Minor discrepancies of grammar and sentence structure made in the interest of readability can be ignored but significant changes such as deletion of information or correction of fact should be, respectively, duplicated or acknowledged when the tape recorded version of this interview is used for broadcast or any other form of audio publication. 2 J.D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION, STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA: INTERVIEW NO. OH 593/5 Series of interviews with author, Christobel Mattingley, recorded by Karen George for the State Library of South Australia’s Honoured Women’s Oral History Project Part 2. The interviews took place at Stonyfell in South Australia on 17th July, 24th July and 21st August 2001. TAPE 1 SIDE A This is an interview with Christobel Mattingley being recorded by Karen George for the State Library of South Australia’s Honoured Women’s Oral History Project. The interview is taking place on the 17th July 2001 at Stonyfell in South Australia. First of all I’d like to thank you very much for becoming involved in the project and agreeing to an interview. I understand that you have some connection with the Honoured Women’s Oral History Project. Well, it was I who suggested it to Di Laidlaw at the lunch that she gave for the women who had received Order of Australia honours. So it’s fitting that you’re having an interview, I think. Yes! So can we start, perhaps, with your full name and your maiden name? I was born Christobel Rosemary Shepley. What’s your date of birth? The 26th October 1931. I was born in the middle of the Depression, and my father, who was a civil engineer, was out of work and he became ill with TB. It was a very tough time for my parents. What was your father’s name? Arthur Raymond Shepley. And your Mum? She was Isabelle Margaret Mary Provis, née Provis, and then Shepley. Can you tell me a little bit about their background? Yes. My father grew up in Leabrook. His father was some sort of a manager in Lions, the food firm, and they had a house in Bretwalder Street in Leabrook. And he 3 had two brothers, two twin brothers older than he, and a younger sister who had a disabled knee when she was growing up, so there was always a certain amount of pressure on the family because of her ill health. And my father won scholarships to Prince Alfred College, where he was dux of the school and Head Prefect and tennis champion and several other things, and then he went to University of Adelaide and graduated in Engineering, and won a scholarship overseas. But his family were not well enough situated to enable him to take that scholarship, which was perhaps just as well – he mightn’t have met my mother, because he took a job with the railways and that led to him going up to Murray Bridge to work on the construction of the railway bridge, and at that stage my mother was living in Murray Bridge. Her parents had kept railway refreshment rooms and hotels in various parts. At that stage they were at Murray Bridge, and I think that’s probably where they had the Bridgeport Hotel. I know they’d had the refreshment rooms, but they must have been at the Bridgeport Hotel then, and that was where my father met my mother, and they were married at Murray Bridge, 21st October in 1926. Whereabouts were they when you were born? We were living at Brighton then. They’d bought their own home in 39 King Street, Brighton, just opposite Sir Douglas Mawson’s home, only a few doors from the sea, and I was born in a little cottage hospital in Jetty Road, Brighton, which subsequently became an old people’s home, and recently when I drove down there I couldn’t recognize it at all, so maybe it’s been demolished and other things built on the site1. Are your first memories of Brighton, then, is that where you go? Oh yes, very much so, of that little house on the sandhills and the beach, the jetty. So Brighton was very important. It was a lovely place to grow up, up there on the sandhills, and the emu running through from the Patersons’ place, which was down in a dip in the sandhills among the pine trees, and they kept a wide variety of animals including a couple of kangaroos and an emu, which used to – which we had a very healthy respect for as children when we encountered it in the sandhills. And they had peacocks and the sound of peacocks is one of the sounds of my childhood. 4 What were your interests as a girl, growing up there? Well, as a small girl there – I was only just eight when we left there – I loved the beach, I loved swimming and I loved all the freedom of the beach. And I loved the garden and my father kept canaries and zebra finches, and we had chooks and we children had bantams, and we had a large cat, Smoky, a big grey cat, because I was afraid of dogs at that stage, and so we had the cat, which always used to sit up on the gatepost at the front in King Street waiting for us when we came home. And that cat translated itself a bit into The sack. A lot of these things have translated themselves into stories. And – That was a question I was going to ask, (laughter) so it’s good that you – – –. – well, we had a big cypress hedge along the front and then the house, because it was built on a sandhill, was higher above the hedge and with a lovely big, flat lawn that we used to play on, and a parapet along the roof of the garage, which was the lower level. And there were brick steps coming up from the front gate and stepped garden beds, and I can remember my father preparing one of those for me, it was my garden, and we planted linaria in it. He was a great gardener. At that stage he was beginning to go deaf and so the garden was always a great solace to him, and he used to grow shirley poppies, and they were where the fairies lived and sometimes left presents for my sister and me, and down the other side of the house there was the fence between us and the neighbour’s tennis court, and that was covered with pink ivy geranium, the deep pink one, which I always remember being in flower.

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