Page 10 - Gwen Landsberry - Memories Memento for Family

Once I was at North Sydney railway station and there was Patsy Kelly’s brother, who had been in

the forces, collapsed on the platform. Someone was making fun of him, saying he’d collapsed drunk.
I was only young but had to speak up saying he wasn’t drunk, that he was ill from the time fighting in

the war. I think he had malaria. I was so mad. I can’t stand people making fun of others when they
don’t know their story.

Somehow Patsy and I got through school. I’d never been clever like the boys. At the end, when I’d
done the leaving, I was offered to go ‘into service’. Mum and Dad would not allow this and I

eventually found a position in Madame Germaine Rochés - one of the two top fashion houses of the
day – and there I learned my trade as a seamstress, a tailor. We had huge wooden tables and cutters

to cut the patterns and fabric. My job was to tack them before sewing. I was doing the tailoring –
suits and coats – and Claire was in another area doing dresses. Madame Rochés was up near to St

Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney. I caught the bus to Wynyard with my new friend Pat Binns and we

walked arm and arm up George Street to work. Pat’s name was really Joan, Joan Binns, but they
already had a Joan so they said ‘you can be called Pat’ and that was it. You didn’t question that in

those days. So Joan became Pat and I always called her Joannie but my children called her Aunty

Pat.

Mum and Dad moved from Pine Street to Earle Street one day but forgot to tell me the address so when
I came home from boarding school for the weekend to do my washing, I found the old house empty. I

was wandering around the streets and only found them when I saw Anne and Claire’s coats hanging
over the verandah! We all got married from that home.

29 Earle Street, Cremorne, Pen and Ink, Kate Smith/Landsberry 1994

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