Ray - by Vera Clack (a digital story from the Lake Illawarra MAP Project)

MENTOR WRITER: Chris Mansell
SYNOPSIS: The second world war had its effect on Vera and her husband Ray. Vera found her refuge in Oak Flats.
SCRIPT: It wasnt an easy life. The war had its effects on us, thats for sure.

I met my husband Ray on Good Friday 1942. He was in the 7th Light Horse stationed at Dapto. It if wasn't for the war we wouldn't have met. He was very handsome and only 19. He took one look at me and said to his mate 'I'll have the little one.' Then he gave me the badge off his slouch hat and had to tell the army that he had lost it. I was sixteen at the time. Ray went off to war.

It was during the war that I had the accident which made things hard for the rest of my life. My left arm is still like lead. All the specialists were away at the war. I was lucky to be alive.

After the war Ray and I lived in a caravan in my parent's backyard, even when we had our first girl Cindy. When we moved to Oak Flats in 1957 we moved into a Caravan Park. And then we found this place in Theodore Street. We paid two thousand pounds for it and paid it off through a War Service loan at fourteen pounds a month. I made a lot of changes to the house and garden.

During the war Ray was in New Guinea and came back with war neurosis and was never well. His bones would break. He couldn't work. Eventually he turned night into day and we would hardly see him. I named this gnome after him because it looks just like he did paper, glasses on the head!

When Ray died Fred from next door mowed the lawns, pruned and fixed things for me. He and Betty check on me every day to make sure I'm all right. Thats what I love about Oak Flats. I want to live here until I'm 100 with my gardening and my friends and family. I love it here.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lake Illawarra
• world war 2
• grief
• family
• adversity
• Oak Flats
• digital story

[Kokoda144]

people dont know about the little stories that matter in deciding on new commitments to war