Gilchrist Leslie

Born 1912

Mr Gilchrist Leslie, who is known as Gil to his friends, was born on 14^th February 1912 and Gil is talking about his childhood in the Subiaco area.

I was born in West Perth and we moved to West Subiaco, now known as Shenton Park, in 1914 to Commercial Road. In 1918, when my father was 34 years old he died and my mother sold the house and bought a grocery shop up Railway Road near the corner of Onslow Road, opposite the West Subiaco station.

I went to Rosalie School in Onslow Road and it’s still there. It recently had its 100^th anniversary. I used to walk to school but when I got older I used to ride. In the whole of West Subiaco there were only two cars and they were both in Hopetown Terrace. We had two horses and a cart, and a sulky. When I got to about 9 years old, I had to drive around West Subiaco and pick up the grocery orders and take them back and make them up and deliver them. I went to sixth standard in school and I must have been about 13 years old when I left. I shouldn’t have left school until I was 14.

I used to sit behind Charlie Court at Rosalie School. He was in the same class as me. He hadn’t been out from England long. They went to Leederville first and then shifted to near Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. His father was a tinsmith and his brother Syd used to sell butter at Foy & Gibson’s butter counter. George Cornell was also in my class at school and he became a politician too – his father was a politician also. That’s where I met Bill Dawes. We were good mates until he was about 17 and then he went to Kalgoorlie.

I got into trouble in my first job which was at the Perth Post Office. The Perth Post Office had only recently been built then, prior to that it was an arcade - Forrest Place. I got a job there on the 3^rd Floor, going around picking up the telegrams and I was there for about three months, I think, and the headman found out I was only 13. He called me down to his office and said "I believe, you’re only 13". I said "yes, but I’ll be 14 before we start school again". He said, "Oh well, don’t you say anything about it. I won’t mention it because you’ll be in trouble and I’ll be in trouble if they find out". I then sat for an exam and started delivering telegrams around the city. I think I was there for about three months.

Then I went to work, at what finished up being my trade, with a German chap who bought the Clem aeroplanes to Perth and then later the Bulldog tractors. The manager of Ettishagens left and started his own business and he asked me if I would like to be apprenticed. I became an apprentice and his factory moved into Barker Road, Subiaco. That was 1926 and I was 14 years old.

I was paid about 15 shillings a week. There were pennies and halfpennies, they were called "coppers". There was threepence, which was a "tray". There was sixpence, that was called a "zack", then there was a "bob" which was a shilling, then there was "two bob" which was two shillings and there was half a crown which was two and six before they went into notes. There were ten shillings and a pound.

When I came out of my apprenticeship, I went to work on a farm and I got 15 shillings a week and my keep. The farm was in Tambellup. I used to get up about 5.30 in the morning and milk five cows, feed the chooks, gather the eggs and then I used to sew the wheat bags. They used to go around with a harvester and fill the wheat bags and I used to sew the wheat bags up.

In 1930 I started to make stuff at home and a chap in Subiaco by the name of Divine used to buy any furniture I made, either cane chairs or prams or dolly prams, cots and bassinettes. One day, I went in and he said to me "Are you interested in buying this place". I said "I’m interested but I don’t think I’d have enough money. "He said "Have you got 25 pound? You can have it for 25 pounds." So I shifted in and that was in Rokeby Road. I paid three pound fifteen for three shops in Rokeby Road and I sublet one. I kept the front part for storage and I let to an old aged pensioner lady who gave me 15 shillings a week. I then took over the shop and still traded under the name Divine’s Pram Shop. When I took it over and checked all the things that were left - tools etc, there was about 125 pounds worth of things. That finished up all right.

When I lived in West Subiaco, there were only three main roads. There was Aberdare Road, Onslow Road and Nicholson Road and the side streets were just sand tracks because only horse and carts used them. Nicholson and Onslow Roads were blue metal but the others were gravel. In winter, the water used to lie on the side of roads because there were no kerbs or things like that.

I ran the business until the war started and then in 1942 I enlisted in the air force and was stationed in Australia. We did courses over east and the last time I did a course in Victoria we went down to Port Melbourne and caught a ship back. At the same time there was a ship going up north, up Sydney way, and that was sunk by the Japanese. The boat we were on – actually it was quite a nice boat - it was the 1^st World War Kaiser’s luxury yacht. We took off and were only supposed to take four days to get to Fremantle and we took about ten days. We finished up in the South Pole, I think. Icebergs and everything, we were frightened we might get sunk too.

I served up at Exmouth Gulf with the 85^th Squadron. I was there for about 12 months. They were originally where the airport is now, I think its called Dunreath now. I finished up at the end of the war in Cunderdin with the 25^th Squadron. I don’t see any of my air force mates now. But since I’ve been going over to McAuley House, I have met three or four people that I went to school with. I haven’t seen them for over 70 years and I didn’t know any of them. I knew their names only.

When I was discharged from the air force, the government brought in a new law on import tax and cheap imports meant we couldn’t compete. The Blind School offered me a job and I was there for about 20 years until I retired.

I was there as a tradesman and made frames and showed the blind people how to weave baskets etc. When I retired the blind workers had their own union, or association, and couldn’t get anybody to be their treasurer so I took over the treasurership up until about 12 months ago.

When I went to work at the Blind School, I shifted out of Subiaco and went to live in Bayswater. I bought a war service home and lived there until about 12 months ago when my wife died. I moved out here from Bayswater and I couldn’t get back to Bayswater to be treasurer, having sold my car, and so decided it was too hard. You know, I still don’t know my way around here!

When I was young, there was no Daglish, only bush, and all the way out to City Beach was bush. We would walk through the bush and swim in the ocean. It was quite a walk but there was no other way of getting there. In those days, they never used to have toilets – behind each street was a laneway and the "dunnies" were built on the back fence and they used to clean them out and dump the stuff out near City beach. They used to tell the tale of old McKinney who used to drive the night cart, or so we called them. One day, his coat blew into it and he was digging it out and one of his mates said to him, "You can’t use that coat again, Mac, it’s ruined". He said "No, but my lunch is in the pocket".

I played for Subiaco Football Club and was captain of the B Grade. That was the same as the Reserves. Then I was on the training list for the A Grade and played about seven or eight games with them. It’s a lot different now, of course. There was no money in those days. You used to get a pair of shorts and socks and go to a place in East Perth who used to make the boots. We used to get those for nothing. But as far as money goes, none. While I was playing, Hayden Bunton, Keith Shay and another one, were brought over from Victoria and they got paid about six pound ten a week. Bunton’s son also played here too, he played full forward and kicked a lot of goals.

My wife was one of the originators of women’s cricket in Western Australia. They used to practice in Roberts Road just near Subiaco oval. Subiaco Football Club used to a run a dance and she was the captain of the cricket team and I was captain of the B Grade football and at a dance one day when a girl was sitting on my knee, she came over and said "Come on, a captain must sit on a captain’s knee" and that was that.