The Reed Family Picture Album (as drawn by Les)


Els and Dot: very fashionable young ladies.	Syd. From a school photo. Form F1, Coburg High School 1926.	Ron training for the Tour de France … is it my imagination, or does Ron resemble a very young Sean Connery in this snap?

Syd taking an aspro. Mum is forcing the aspro down Syd's unwilling throat. Els: "We've tried water, milk, honey, jam, bread, cake, biscuits, cheese -- what next?" Len comments: "I think he's ducked another one." And Bobby (ever-helpful) offers to get his peashooter and blow it down!

Cherry bob time coincides with the Melbourne Cup. Bobby: "Who'll go in my lucky bunny hole? 3 and your old girl back." To which Syd responds: "Try my toodlumbuck. 3-1 Spearfelt 5-1 Nightmarch". [Nightmarch won the Melbourne Cup in 1929, on the very day that Bobby turned 9 years of age. Just a week earlier, the New York stock exchange had famously crashed.]

Dad "doing" the garden. Everyone has a task to perform, except for Les whose health did not permit him to strain himself.


Bobby and Foster with Barry (Len's son)	Ern at work as an architect. Note the stand-up collar. Ern had a small drawer in the big chest of drawers dedicated just to his collars. That object on the wall is NOT a flat-screen TV: it will be a standard painting or photo.	Les and friend in the drink.

Wash day. The clothes were washed in boiling hot water and soap. You can see the firebox under the copper tub. A large wooden stick was used to swill the clothes about in the water, and then to lift them from the copper straight into the trough next to it. From there, the clothes were carefully wound through the mangle (wringer) by manual labour (not electrified) and into the rinsing water. After rinsing, they were wrung out again and were ready for pegging on the line. Wooden dolly pegs, of course. Shirts might need their collars scrubbed and a blue-bag would have been applied to the wash-water if white linens were being washed. Just imagine how much washing there would have been every Monday: 10 people lived at 11 Downs Street Brunswick by late 1920!

Wash day continued. The washing was hung onto the wire line (with the sheets perilously close to the ground) and THEN the long pole was hooked under the wire, pushing the line up high enough to catch the drying winds.

Shelling the peas. You held the peapod such that the "string" was at the bottom and the stalk pointed towards you. Then you "popped" the rounded top and slid open the peapod. With a finger or thumb, you then pushed/forced the peas out into a bowl. The pods ended up in the compost heap with all the other veggie scraps, tea leaves and egg shells. Then the compost (when matured) assisted the garden to provide the next crop of peas and beans.

Len lights the bath heater (20th Century) for the girls' bath. It's nearly Christmas time so watch your head when you get in (as there is a pudding hanging from the shower). Note that this is where the Reed boys and girls kept their cricket bats and hockey sticks.

Making the wireless pole. Dad and Ron plane, while Syd and Ern use sandpaper. Len sweeps with Les and Bobby happily lending moral support.


A young Syd kitted-out for cricket.	The chef of international renown: Ernesto!	Stan Binch with Len behind him.

Ern excites us all with his new gramophone. But Ron is not so impressed. There was a handle to crank the thing along -- it was not electric nor battery-powered. So (just like cranking an old automobile) you wound like crazy and then moved the microphone arm (with the needle at the bottom) over onto the record which now began to spin at an alarming rate of 78 revs per minute. The sounds of Peter Dawson, Rudy Vallee or Gladys Moncrieff would spill out over the assembled spellbound audience from the speaker in the arm itself.

Afternoon tea time on a summer afternoon. Note the autotray: it had casters for easy transport and enough room to hold a full tea service (no doubt with knitted teacosy) on top and loads of cakes, sandwich points and other delicacies could be placed on the bottom shelf.

Dot -- a sister's view (as told by Els).

I do not remember much of Dot in early life except for the following: Dot being very ill with a fever. She was delerious and we were miserable. The house was hushed and Mum and Dad were very anxious. A sheet soaked in phenyl or vinegar was fixed over the bedroom door. I guess to prevent infection spreading to the others.
Dot and I were dressed alike until, later, Dot protested and the custom was abandoned. I remember Mother taking us to the shop in Sydney Road to be measured for clothes.
Dot was a strong character, outspoken and definite. Dot and Ern (when young) seldom agreed. Dot was said to be "bossy" and Ern was stubborn and refused to change his ideas.
Dot was in a physical exercise display, with wooden clubs to wield. She needed a brown hair-band with elastic at the back of the hair and brown streamers of same fixed to each club. As I wanted to look like Dot, Mother made a hair-band for each of us, much to Dot's indignation -- I was not in the display -- I wasn't performing etc. I was so delighted with the hair-band that Dot's crossness did not worry me.
Visits to Aunt Ada and Uncle Bob were always pleasant: they were always so kind and welcoming and Alan and Eunice were cousins we saw often. Dot didn't mind her second name being "Ada" because she was so fond of her aunt.

Dot was always hopefully wanting to reform us, to make us conform with social graces and etiquette but found the young Reeds too individual, too difficult to reform. They were their own man.
Dot was not involved with the family; she was more out-going with friends. She had the gift of keeping friendships for many years.
She was a pretty, animated young lady: socially motivated and an excellent tennis player. In the family she could be outspoken at times and more aloof than the other children's close family unity of fun and activities. But later in life she became the family centre with hospitality. We met at Dot's place in Surrey Hills quite often for companionship -- keeping the family very much together as a loving group. At this time there were teenagers (the children of Dot, Els, Len and Ron), Les's Judith and Elizabeth and myself.

Later, Dot said that (when young) she felt she was the odd man out.
At this stage I admired Dot's out-going nature and her happy social life. She could talk to people, make friends easily wherever she went and was an interesting and natural talker.