Patricia Stradwick

Past resident of Hotel Acton
Interview: April, 2011

“My name is Patricia Stradwick. I came to Acton from Perth in 1949 when I was seven and we lived in Acton Hotel (now NewActon). My father had a job at the Bureau of News and Information, which was in the Department of the Interior (on Acton Peninsula), so he didn't have far to walk to work. My mother was anxious to have us (with my brother and I) join him from Perth, but at the time the Hotel was only a bachelor's quarters, so we had to stay in Queanbeyan in a rather poor boarding house that was there. My father managed to talk the powers that be at the Hotel to let us join him, and so we moved in to occupy what was a lounge at the end of the corridors. There were open verandas on either side that they made those into our bedrooms. We got rather spoilt by all the married men who were separated from their families and also the bachelors as well. It was rather a good time!

“I can remember they had enormous bonfires to celebrate the Queen's birthday just outside the front of the Acton Hotel, down under the water now - on the left hand side going towards Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. My father and I would also go yabbying down on the river near Lennox Crossing. I remember going to the Acton Hall to watch my brother playing in bands and attend the dances, and walking around the old golf course with him when he caddied there (he was eleven at the time and rather irritated by his seven year old sister following him around). I can remember learning to ride at Mrs Llewellyn's riding school, and eventually my parents bought my brother a horse which we agisted in the paddock between the Hotel and where the hospital ended up being built. I also remember a great big row of pine trees that I used to climb constantly. On one occasion got a whole lot of pine resin stuck in my hair, and my mother had to shave a big patch of my head to get this sticky mass out! ”