Lois Hicks

Canberra resident with memories of Acton
Born: 1929, in the first Canberra Community Hospital
Interview: Audio only, April 2011

“My name is Lois Hicks. I was born in 1929 at the first Canberra Community Hospital, which is now part of the Australian National University. I was delivered by Dr John James, who was our family doctor. My family lived in Ainslie first of all, and around 1938 we moved to Braddon, and then my parents built their own home in 1941 in Turner.

We used to come to Acton – to Lennox Crossing to see the river when it was in flood. I was a senior guide with the guides and the scouts, and they had their training and sports days here at Acton, and I used to play hockey on the Acton flats. Later on I trained as a nurse at the Canberra Community Hospital, which at that time wasn't up on the hill at Balmain Crescent, it was down where the Americans built it in 1941/42. It was going to be a big base hospital, and they built it very solidly. I nursed there from 1948 to 1952 - it was a 4 year course. I was later on staff there from 1957 to 1960 when it was the Royal Canberra Hospital.

I used to ride my bike up to the top of the hill just beside the Canberra House and just stand by one of the gum trees and look over the racecourse and watch the sunset because that's the west. It was just lovely looking over the sunset there after a busy day. The buses used to come down and go past the hospital down over the bridge up the other side, and they always stopped at the hospital because there was a bundy there - the bus conductors used to have to punch the bundy to make sure the bus was on time. The ambulance drivers knew all the nurses and quite often if we were standing by the bus stop waiting for a bus the ambulance drivers would give us a lift. It was a very friendly place.”