Page 145 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 145
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
responsible that he did not want to go on, I don’t know, but once again Mr. Walker turned up and
invited Father to manage a farm for the Co-op on the Wongan Hills line at Maya. By the time Mother
and Father left Brown Hill, they had five children, Amy, Jim, Beth, Jack and Dora, so it must have been
quite a job moving us all.
At that stage in my life I was strongly imaginative and full of ideals. I loved reading and so did Jim and
Father encouraged us by buying boxes of books from Perth. There was never any rubbish among
them. The classics became familiar to me and my love for Dickens started then. I read Walter Scott
and was delighted with a volume by Harriet Ainsworth called “Old St. Pauls”. It was a historical novel
set in London at the time of the Great Fire and the Plague, and centred on the doings of a gang of
underworld criminals who had their headquarters deep down in the crypt of St. Pauls Cathedral. I
could still picture it years later when Percy and I visited St. Pauls together, gazed up at the beautiful
ceiling and climbed up to the Whispering Gallery. I couldn’t help wondering what dark secrets lay
deep down beneath our feet!
Two volumes called “The Mysteries of Paris” by Eugene Sue were great favourites too. Arthur Mee’s
‘My Magazine’ came regularly and many interesting facts learned from that magazine at that time still
stick in my mind today, like signs of rain - ants busy storing food and birds flying low and others. For
Christmas we always received books among other things and while we were on the farm, Jim and I
were given copies of the Boys’ Own and the Girls’ Own Annuals. I doubt if Jim ever read the Girls’
Own, but I devoured his as well as my own and felt that boys’ stories were much more interesting than
girls’ stories. Perhaps I was at a stage then which most girls go through at some time of wishing I had
been a boy instead of a girl. I certainly found boys’ stories and adventures much more to my liking
than the ones for girls.
It was while we were on the farm that notices appeared in the Perth papers about correspondence
courses being opened by the Education Department for country children. Father caught at this
immediately, and wrote expressing interest, so that as soon as the scheme was really started, they put
our names on the roll. Jim and I have the distinction of being the first two names to appear on the
rolls of the Western Australian Education Department correspondence courses, and later, during the
Second World War, when we were in China, I enrolled Frank in the same course and he studied at
home until he was able to go to school. Our teacher in Perth was a Mrs. Atkinson, and all the time we
were in Maya, our daily lessons were supervised by Mother at the big kitchen table and then sent off
to Mrs. Atkinson for correction.
BAYSWATER
We were only at Maya for two years or less and then moved down to Bayswater in Perth where
Grandma and Grandpa Mercer now lived. My grandparents, after moving from West Perth, bought
two acres of land which extended from Maurice Street to Sanderson Street in the district now known
as Embleton. At that time not much of the area had been cleared, and it always seemed a long walk
from the Bayswater railway station along Beechboro Road with no shelter on either side, out to what
was known as Mt. Panorama.
Grandma and Grandpa’s home was on the far slope of ‘Mount Pam’ as we called it, and to reach it we
had to climb the hill after that long walk, get to the end of the paved road which was the Beechboro
end of Maurice Street, and then go through another hundred yards or so of soft sand to reach
Grandpa’s front gate. What a wonderful relief to get inside the gate and be greeted by the scent of all
the lovely old fashioned flowers that Grandpa delighted to grow, and to come into the cool shade of a
huge golden wattle in the middle of the front lawn, or under the five big black wattles which covered
145
Amy Moore
responsible that he did not want to go on, I don’t know, but once again Mr. Walker turned up and
invited Father to manage a farm for the Co-op on the Wongan Hills line at Maya. By the time Mother
and Father left Brown Hill, they had five children, Amy, Jim, Beth, Jack and Dora, so it must have been
quite a job moving us all.
At that stage in my life I was strongly imaginative and full of ideals. I loved reading and so did Jim and
Father encouraged us by buying boxes of books from Perth. There was never any rubbish among
them. The classics became familiar to me and my love for Dickens started then. I read Walter Scott
and was delighted with a volume by Harriet Ainsworth called “Old St. Pauls”. It was a historical novel
set in London at the time of the Great Fire and the Plague, and centred on the doings of a gang of
underworld criminals who had their headquarters deep down in the crypt of St. Pauls Cathedral. I
could still picture it years later when Percy and I visited St. Pauls together, gazed up at the beautiful
ceiling and climbed up to the Whispering Gallery. I couldn’t help wondering what dark secrets lay
deep down beneath our feet!
Two volumes called “The Mysteries of Paris” by Eugene Sue were great favourites too. Arthur Mee’s
‘My Magazine’ came regularly and many interesting facts learned from that magazine at that time still
stick in my mind today, like signs of rain - ants busy storing food and birds flying low and others. For
Christmas we always received books among other things and while we were on the farm, Jim and I
were given copies of the Boys’ Own and the Girls’ Own Annuals. I doubt if Jim ever read the Girls’
Own, but I devoured his as well as my own and felt that boys’ stories were much more interesting than
girls’ stories. Perhaps I was at a stage then which most girls go through at some time of wishing I had
been a boy instead of a girl. I certainly found boys’ stories and adventures much more to my liking
than the ones for girls.
It was while we were on the farm that notices appeared in the Perth papers about correspondence
courses being opened by the Education Department for country children. Father caught at this
immediately, and wrote expressing interest, so that as soon as the scheme was really started, they put
our names on the roll. Jim and I have the distinction of being the first two names to appear on the
rolls of the Western Australian Education Department correspondence courses, and later, during the
Second World War, when we were in China, I enrolled Frank in the same course and he studied at
home until he was able to go to school. Our teacher in Perth was a Mrs. Atkinson, and all the time we
were in Maya, our daily lessons were supervised by Mother at the big kitchen table and then sent off
to Mrs. Atkinson for correction.
BAYSWATER
We were only at Maya for two years or less and then moved down to Bayswater in Perth where
Grandma and Grandpa Mercer now lived. My grandparents, after moving from West Perth, bought
two acres of land which extended from Maurice Street to Sanderson Street in the district now known
as Embleton. At that time not much of the area had been cleared, and it always seemed a long walk
from the Bayswater railway station along Beechboro Road with no shelter on either side, out to what
was known as Mt. Panorama.
Grandma and Grandpa’s home was on the far slope of ‘Mount Pam’ as we called it, and to reach it we
had to climb the hill after that long walk, get to the end of the paved road which was the Beechboro
end of Maurice Street, and then go through another hundred yards or so of soft sand to reach
Grandpa’s front gate. What a wonderful relief to get inside the gate and be greeted by the scent of all
the lovely old fashioned flowers that Grandpa delighted to grow, and to come into the cool shade of a
huge golden wattle in the middle of the front lawn, or under the five big black wattles which covered
145
