Patricia Edlington

Canberra resident with memories of Acton
Born: 1926 in Singleton, NSW
Interview: Community session, April 2012

“My name is Pat Edlington. I was born in Singleton in 1926. I came to Canberra at two months old and lived in Kingston. Then I married my husband (Harry Edlington) - a school friend - in 1952 and lived at the Duntroon Dairy. That was an operating dairy for Canberra, amongst quite a few others, and the milk was taken to the Co-Op in Kingston each day. It was a fully operational dairy then. Previously it had been a very tiny dairy and the milk was taken to Duntroon House. As you walk in to Duntroon Dairy, the picture of the boy on a calf is Harry – my husband. We only lived there from 1952 to 1963, which was when the government took it over to build the lake, so we bought out at Weetangera at Emu Bank. We stayed there for about ten years before the government took that over to build the Belconnen mall over the farm. There's still a big gumtree there that was near the dairy. Then we moved again and went to Gundaroo, and lived out there on a dairy. But we had to move all the time for progress!

As a child I used to go to Brownies every Saturday morning in the Acton Hall. Next to the hall there was a park area and they had dog shows there, and as a child I had an Alsatian and I used to take the dog to the shows. I also remember when the hospital was built in 1941. I nursed there. I was the first obstetrics trainee in Canberra in 1950 – that's my only claim to fame, and I’m very proud of that! Dr Nott was the Superintendent, and I remember Sylvia Curley was very high up. I played hockey on the Acton flats, and after I married, I used to go very Saturday and watch my husband (Harry) play football down there. They used to sing out on the field ‘Go home to your cows!’ Harry's Aunty was Edith Griffith and she lived in one of the cottages at Acton. I can still picture the houses lined up along there. Aunty Ede lived on her own and her house was very close to the back of the brownie hall. Of course I remember the racecourse. Harry raced horses there from 1952 until he died in 1999. He owned them and had them trained. His nephew trained a few of them. He had quite good horses. I still have all the photos from the paper of some of his winnings.”