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In an unlikely twist of circumstance, a fire in Trevor Watson’s childhood home has led to him rediscovering some of the history of Australia in the Second World War – and an interest in his own father’s military service.
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Mr Watson, 74, said the house recently had an electrical fault in the roof which caused the fire. Thankfully Ballarat fire brigades were quickly on the scene and limited the damage, but the carpets and lino in some rooms needed to be replaced.
Upon pulling them up, Mr Watson discovered that the floor had been covered by copies of newspapers like The Courier, The Sun News-Pictorial, The Age and The Herald, and magazines including The Australian Women’s Weekly and Pix.
The discovery made a fascinating personal archive for Mr Watson, whose own father had served in the RAAF during the war, but refused to speak about his experiences afterwards.
“He was in New Guinea, in the Kokoda Trail campaign,” says Mr Watson. “He wouldn’t talk about it. He got malaria, and came back and worked in his mother’s milk bar in Macarthur Street. And then he got a letter asking him to rejoin the RAAF.
“He was offered a commission. He travelled everywhere – Woomera, Sydney, Brisbane, and spent 12 months in Washington DC. He met (General, later President) Eisenhower. Mum wouldn’t shift. It was hard on her, but she had her friends here.”
Mr Watson says the deliberate non-specificity of the reports regarding locations struck him as he read.
“One of things I noticed was a that a lot of the reports say ‘Somewhere in Australia’. They didn’t want people to know exactly where things were going on I suppose, because of spies. One letter home from Dad asked ‘How are the fowls laying? He was telling Mum he was in Lae.”
The newspapers and magazines are in remarkable condition after spending almost 80 years under the floor coverings. The print size is much smaller than today’s Courier, but a lot remains the same: a motorist named Rudolph Fiscalini is fined for driving an unregistered motor vehicle without a licence; a ‘sacrilegious act’ of vandalism had taken place at the Pax Hill Scout Camp, where the chapel suffered extensive damage.
Trevor Watson says he plans to keep the relics.
“There’s a fair bit of history there, a lot of interesting pictures.”
