Fishing for something

I've been fishing through photo albums for any photographs that I might have that could relate to the prompt this week, but without much success, which doesn't surprise me. I know my late father-in-law enjoyed fishing when staying at the simple beach house at Malua Bay on the NSW South Coast, which he built himself in the early 1960s, and which is still standing, now amongst a lot of much more recent and more permanent homes, but I don't have any photos of him fishing, and my own father was never a fisherman. Gardening was his recreational activity of choice, and the only fish we had were some goldfish in an ornamental rock pool in the back garden. I remember one unfortunate occasion when the pool had to be covered with netting after some large birds flew in and decimated the resident fish population.

This photograph in my mother's album was taken when Jean was about 10 and her aunts Flora and Bess had taken her to visit their sister Ruby and her family at Invercargill, down at the southern tip of the South Island of New Zealand.  A suited gentleman, who I think may have been Ruby's husband William Berry, appears to be using a line or rope, either to fish or to pull something out of the water, and the process is being keenly watched by half a dozen boys. No rod to be seen. The boy in the hat standing next to the gentleman looks like Will's son and Jean's cousin, Jack Berry.  This and the next two photographs appear on a page that Jean has captioned "Picnic at Invercargill".  In the background you can see what looks like a white tent, with possibly several more a little further away. Perhaps the boys were attending a camp or some similar event, especially as another boy is wearing what looks like a scout hat. My mother's older brother Ken might have been attending the camp, but but without the benefit of any further explanation from my late mother, I can really only guess at who is in the picture and what they were really doing. Taking the photograph from across the water enabled good reflections to be captured.

The next photograph shows Jean, Flora (behind), Bess and Jack relaxing on the grass after their picnic. Will might have been the photographer.  Son Jack's full name was John Waldwyn Berry, He was aged 23 when he was killed when serving in Italy with the NZ forces in 1943. He and his older brother Doug were two of my mother's favourite cousins and I've previously written a little more about him here. 

In this photo Jack is surveying the rural scene, with the river and the tents or huts in the distance.  Another photo which I haven't included shows him attending to a boiling billy, no doubt so that the picnickers could enjoy a nice hot cuppa. Perhaps they had a bacon and egg pie for their lunch, as that was always one of Jean's favourites.

I remember taking out a fishing licence one summer when we were spending time at Hawks Nest NSW with the children, but our overall lack of success at catching anything did not encourage me to renew it the following year. Here in Victoria holders of Seniors Cards do not require licences, but despite hearing enthusiastic reports of where the fish are biting on the bay and elsewhere, every Saturday morning on my favourite radio station at around 6 a.m., I'm still not tempted!

Here is a collage of photos taken last evening near Dendy Beach, Port Phillip Bay. A lone fisherman had a couple of rods in place, but we didn't see him hauling in any fish.  We sat on the step of one of those bathing boxes to watch the sun set. I saw someone catch a sizable fish last Sunday over on the other side of the bay but didn't think to snap off a photo.

To see photos posted by others who have better lucking at fishing or perhaps entertaining tales of the ones that got away, just cast your line in at  Sepia Saturday #253

Doorsteps: family gatherings and stories of love and loss, and of then and now

I didn't really think I had many photos of people framed in doorways or porches, but on closer examination my mother's albums come to my rescue again.  I could single out just one, but I'm not good at choosing, so will include a few of them here.

Here are my grandparents Mona and Jack Morrison on the porch of their weatherboard home at 2 Aylmer St Somerfield, with their two oldest children Patricia and Kenneth, in about 1925. My mother Jean was the next child to arrive, being born the following year.

Kenneth Forbes Morrison, the baby in the photograph above, enlisted and became a pilot in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Aged only 19, he was a Flight Sergeant in the 78th Squadron RAF, but tragically Ken and all his crew were killed when the Halifax he was flying was shot down over Wuppertal Germany on 25 June 1943. Sister Jean was sixteen, and has told me she remembers the day they received news of his death as if it were yesterday.  The crew members' names appear in one of a large number of books of remembrance maintained for all those RAF members who have died in conflicts worldwide. These books line the walls of the RAF Church of St Clement Danes, London, and are well worth a visit.

 The second photo was taken just in front of the Aylmer St porch, and shows Jack with his father Daniel and brother Arnold, who must both have come down to Christchurch for some occasion. Daniel and his wife Mary Bridget Morrissey emigrated from Cork in 1875 with their first baby daughter,changed their surname to Morrison,  and had another fourteen children in the district of Canvastown, Marlborough NZ. Daniel began his working life as a messenger boy in Cork, and retired as a much respected company secretary of a local cheese factory. A large brood indeed, but in those days babies just happened, and four of the Morrison children died in infancy. Of the remaining sons, Bill, the eldest, was a farmer, and three of his brothers became lawyers, including the two above, but missing from any future family gatherings would be their brother Austin Lindsay, who was killed in the Battle of the Somme. On Sept 9th 1916 he wrote his last letter home: 'If anything should happen to me try and bear it Mother, as cheerfully as possible, just for my sake.  I can't write any more, there is a great deal I would like to say but don't know how to; I send my fondest love to all and hope to meet you all again.  Farewell now Mother mine, with fondest love from your son Austin.xxxxxxxx. '

Lest We Forget

Next are three photos taken when Mona and daughter Jean visited Mona's sister Ruby and her husband Will in about 1935. Will Berry and his son Jack posed in the doorway of their Invercargill home.

The Invercargill home to which the arched doorway is attached

A couple of charmers: Jack, right, with his older brother Doug, still in the doorway

 Sadly Jack [John Waldwyn Berry], born in 1920, was to be killed in 1943 in Italy. The report from the Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database records that "[At] 8:00 am on 21 November 1943, Corporal Berry and two others crossed the Sangro River. Arriving on the further bank, Berry left his men behind and went on alone to the foot of a cliff. He left his gun and then, apparently, climbed the cliff unarmed. He did not return, and nothing more was heard of him until months later when his grave was discovered near Chieti, Italy". So there was to be equal heartbreak for sisters Mona and Ruby,  mothers of cousins Ken and Jack.

On a happier note, here are my paternal grandparents Oliver and Myrtle Cruickshank, standing in the alcove of their home in Rangiora NZ, in 1949, and then no doubt one of them has taken a shot of their son Ian and his fiancee Jean in the same setting.  Jean has captioned the photos accordingly.

Mr and Mrs Cruickshank

'A future Mr and Mrs'

The Cruickshank family home in Park St Rangiora. Granddad Oliver was a keen gardener.

Back in the Aylmer St porch a few months later, we see Mona and Jack again, all dressed and ready for the wedding of their daughter Jean to Ian Cruickshank on 22 April 1950.

Here too are  Aunties Bess and Flo, two more sisters of Mona, also set to go to their niece Jean's wedding.

 Finally, here's a doorway photograph taken in far off Turriff Aberdeenshire, ancestral home of my Cruickshank ancestors. During the year spent in the UK in 1953/4, my parents visited the mothers of all the crew members who had perished with Ken. We also called in on some relatives like my great great Aunty Kitty in Margate, as discussed in  a previous post, and also my great grandfather's cousin, George Morrison Cruickshank, who ran the chemist shop in Turriff, where we stayed in a flat above the shop for a few nights.  Pictured in the doorway with a small yours truly are George, born 1874, and his daughter Janet, born 1919.

 Amazingly just a couple of weeks ago another Cruickshank descendant in Invercargill NZ showed me this 'matching' postcard that George had sent to her family back in the 1920s. On the back George wrote that it showed him standing in his shop doorway, with his little daughter Janet standing on the kerbside.

High St, Turriff, 2003. 

 The Cruickshank pharmacy in Turriff is still run by Alan, one of George's grandsons. We met him there but didn't think to pose in the doorway.

For more doorstop gatherings and reflections, go to Sepia Saturday 203.