Worker's Cottages

Frank Dunshea: Recollections of Acton between 1926-1946
[Excerpts about the Workers Cottages]

Our Community

"The heart and soul of the Acton that I knew consisted of fifteen small weatherboard cottages in a single row with galvanised iron roofs, known as Acton Cottages. They were situated in an area extending from the present wharf on Acton Peninsula, near Sylvia Curley House [no longer there], heading west in the direction of Springbank Island. This area is now covered by the water of Lake Burley Griffin.All the cottages, with one exception, were basically the same and were built as temporary worker's accommodation. They were the same design as the houses at the Causeway in Kingston and at Westlake which was a community situated in an area between the present American Embassy and Lake burley Griffin. Westlake, was known locally as The Gap.

The one exception to this design among the Acton Cottages was number 12. It was a different shape with a front porch and was bigger than the others and was known to us as the big house. The occupant of this house during my early years was a fairly reclusive woman called Addie, and the only name I recall her being referred to was Addie Big House. This house was later occupied by the McNamee family.

The house my family occupied, number 4, originally consisted of two bedrooms, a sitting room (always referred to as the front room), kitchen, combined laundry and bathroom and a toilet. There was no hallway. The front door went straight into the front room with the main bedroom off it, then through to the kitchen with the second bedroom straight off that, and the backdoor with the laundry outside.

The toilet was attached to the house with the door to it being outside at the rear of the house, so you would have to go outside via the backdoor and down the back steps and walk past the laundry windows to go to the toilet. But, we considered ourselves lucky as we were connected to the sewerage system and had both running water and electricity, which is something our grandparents in Queanbeyan did not have.

The laundry/bathroom consisted of a fuel copper, concrete tub and a flat bottomed tin bath with a cold water tap and no shower. In later years the baths were fitted with wood fuelled bath heaters. These heaters consisted of a heavy steel cylinder with a removable conical fuel feeder also used as an air intake in the top in which the fire was established. It was surrounded by a water jacket fed in at the bottom and coming out the top. They were known as Puffing Billys as when they were really going (especially when fed with pine cones from the pine plantation behind the cottages) they puffed like a steam train and seemed to be rattling the whole house. The water coming out would be almost at boiling point.

The kitchen had a fuel stove and a porcelain sink surrounded by a wooden bench. The stove was almost continuously kept alight with a large kettle simmering away at the side ready to be pushed on to a hotter section at any time to boil the water for a cup of tea should a visitor arrive. The only power point in the house was in the kitchen. It was a porcelain two pin outlet with a switch that had a brass cover and toggle.

We had an open wood fireplace in the front room around which on winter's nights you would be able to alternatively roast the front of your body while the back froze or put your back to the fire while your front froze.

The houses were originally unlined and in some places you could see outside through the gaps in the weatherboards. The houses were lined with canite after many years and this made a big difference. My father insulated our ceiling by fastening flattened out reinforced cardboard cartons to the ceiling rafters. This was long before the days of pink bats.

My parents slept in the front bedroom and my two sisters in the other bedroom. My elder brother and myself slept in the leanto, built by my father at the rear, which only had a rollup canvass blind covering the large open window space, flooring laid on the ground and no lighting.

The house was extended by the addition of another bedroom and a small verandah at the front of the house when my paternal grandparents moved in with us. My brother or myself then slept on this verandah with only canvas blinds to keep out the winter cold

The cottages were fenced in by wire netting with a small gate at the front and large farm type gates at the bottom of the backyards. These faced onto a track that ran between the cottages and a pine plantation established in a paddock, with the Royal Canberra Golf Course on the other side of the plantation.

We had, like most people in the street, a large vegetable garden in the backyard, some fruit trees, a wood heap, fowl yard and a shed built out of mostly scrap material. The road in front of the cottages was unsealed and without kerbing or storm water drainage. There were only two street lamps which were mounted on the electricity poles that ran alongside the road, one between the front of number 12 and one in front of Seton's place - number 5." […]

Life in Old Acton

I was born in Acton at No 4 Acton cottages on 4th June, 1926. I have been told that when my mother went into labour my father rode his bike across Lennox Crossing to the Hotel Canberra where they had heard a new doctor was staying. This doctor was Dr John James and he came and made the delivery, so I became one of Dr John James's first patients in Canberra and was possibly the first child he delivered in Canberra. […]

Acton was a great place to grow up in those days in spite of the fact that we, like most of the Acton Cottage residents, had very little money. We had an abundance of play areas and facilities for sport and recreation. There was a huge area of many acres of grassland and trees between the road along the front of the cottages and Lennox Crossing Road that was our usual playing area. In the centre of this area there was a playground that had swings, a see-saw, a rail to hang from and a sandpit and there was even a drinking fountain nearby.

The swings and see-saw got a lot of use. The swings were two sets, one a lot bigger than the other. It had wooden seats and a solid steel bars suspended from eye bolts in a solid wooden frame and with hard swinging could be swung - standing on the seat - until they reached the horizontal position. My sister Helen who was a bit of a dare devil on these swings used to swing them higher than any of the of the kids and I reckon at times she got it past the horizontal position with the timber frame shaking like mad. The sand pit got pretty overgrown and never got much use.

Between the swings and the cottages was a flat area where we played cricket. The pitch was bare hard packed earth without any grass worn that way by years of use. The bowling was mostly only done from one end and usually only one batsman at a time. The pitch area was surrounded by quite a few gum trees scattered from about thirty yards to fifty yards from the bat. These trees acted as extra fieldsmen and a ball that got past these trees was usually declared a four or a six. The bats were often home made affairs and butter boxes were used for stumps. Quite often some of the grown ups would come and join in the game and some very hard fought matches would result. There was also a fairly flat grassed area close by where we would play pick up games of football - Aussie Rules or Rugby League.

In the cottages about in front of house No 12 we had a very good tennis court with a good red clay surface surrounded by a high wire fence that we could play tennis on at almost anytime. There was a proper shed alongside the court on a concrete base with lift up seats under which the net line marking gear and roller etc were kept. There were no locks on the court or the seats but I can't recall anything ever being taken away from there. The maintenance of the court was done by the residents. Mostly by the McNamees, Stuarts, Gardiners and Wares who lived close by and used the courts fairly frequently.

We also had the hockey fields down in the middle of the agistment paddock where we would play hockey and soccer. Most of us kids did not have hockey sticks so we would use pickhandles or other lumps of wood for sticks and probably a tennis ball or a compound cricket ball for a hockey ball.

During the war a military camp was set up in the area in front of the cottages for a period. It consisted of AIF soldiers who had recently returned from the Middle East. We used to have some of the soldiers come to our house for a home cooked meal occasionally. I remember one very tall and big man named Mick who told us he wore size 13 boots with lining removed.

We also had the choice of two golf courses to sneak onto and play a few holes early or late in the day. The Federal on the Race Course and the Royal Canberra. We generally only had two clubs - an iron and a putter - usually hickory shafted but we managed to score fairly well with them. My Mum and Dad and several of the other parents would also go and have a hit on the Federal Course. Bill Ware and his wife Lettie who lived in No 14 were members of the Federal Golf Club. […]

With lots of trees and birds around the cottages tree climbing and bird netting were common activities and lots of the kids had bird egg collections. These were obtained by robbing the birds nests of eggs which wasn't considered a terrible thing to do in those days and then you would pierce each end of the egg with a pin or small nail and blow the inside yolk and egg white out of the egg and keep them in a box on a bedding of cotton wool or other soft material. One of the favourite bedding materials was fluff of bullrushes which grew prolifically along Springbank Creek. My brother Eric had a great collection kept in a large shallow wooden box with a sliding glass lid which he made himself.

We also climbed trees just for fun and one tree not far from the front of our house was different from the other gum trees and was almost spherical in shape with branches radiating out in all directions a couple of feet above the ground. This tree was very popular as half a dozen or more kids could all climb to about the same height up different branches and sit there and talk to each other. This tree was known to one and all for some unknown reason as Fatty Finn's Tree after the comic strip character of the time.

We also had pine plantations at the rear of the cottages and near the Acton Hall to play in as well as having the swimming hole in the river, Black Mountain, the farms and animals in the agistment paddock - all in our area.

Entertainment was generally of our own making in my early days as we didn't have a wireless (radio) or have money to go to the pictures very often. We played a lot of cards at night - Five Hundred, Euchre and Crib being the favourites. We also played Rummy and a game called Pedro.

We also had a wooden Bobs set which was played on the kitchen table with a short cue and wooden balls. Our old gramophone had a broken spring which Dad had fixed but had to shorten it so that when we played one of our few records the spring would start to run down before the record was finished and you would have to grab the crank handle and wind like mad to keep the record running at the correct speed.

Board games were also popular such as Ludo, Snakes & Ladders, Draughts, Dominoes and other games. I remember that before we got a wireless that our next door neighbours - the Setons - used to have a permanent booking at the Capitol Theatre every Saturday Night and they went to the pictures and they invited us to go into their house to listen to the wireless while they were out. This was one of the highlights of the week. The pictures in those days were often referred to as the talkies.

I remember when we got our first wireless in its wooden cabinet standing in the corner of the front room and putting up the aerial which consisted of a long length of wire suspended between insulators strung from a poplar tree at the bottom of the backyard to a riser nailed to the side of the house and a lead down into the set with a lightning cap installed between this lead and an earth stake. It was wonderful to have the radio and be able to listen mainly to 2CA and 2GB and occasionally the ABC from Sydney. This radio remained a large focus of our entertainment at home for many years.

One very popular programme in those days was a serial produced by 2CA called Ben & Sam which came on in the later afternoon and we would be out playing and the word would go out that Ben & Sam was about to come on and we would all run home to listen to it. I remember the theme music for it was the Bolero. We also loved listening to the cricket and football on the radio and my Dad loved the boxing and wrestling.

We had lots of outside games we played with other kids in the street such as Hopscotch, Cops & Robbers, Chasings, Prisoners Base, Tops and Marbles etc. We often played a lot of games after dark under the street light in front of Seton's place next door.

Fred Marshall who lived next door in No 3 was a terrific marbles player and was considered the champion at Ainslie School so I never played him for keeps where you kept all the marbles you knocked out of the ring. We also played a form of marbles called Little Ring and another game called Poison Hole.

Cracker Night or Bonfire Night was always one of the great yearly events at Acton and we justifiable claimed that we always had the biggest bonfire in Canberra. We had a head start on most of the other places as Sid Griffiths who drove one of the very few -perhaps the only lorry (tip-truck) that the Parks and Gardens Section had lived close by the cottages near the Nursery and for weeks before bonfire night he would drop off all the suitable prunings etc at the site of our fire instead of taking it to the tip.

We always left all the material scattered around the area until the last day when we would all hop in and build the fire. This was in case somebody set fire to it before the night. The kids from The Gap were considered the most likely villains.

Bon fire night was always on the 24th May which was called Empire Day and I believe this had been Queen Victoria's birthday. On Empire Day we had to go to school in the morning where we were fed a lot of English propaganda till lunch time then we were given the afternoon off which allowed us time to build the fire and get ready for the night's activities.

The preferred method of building the fire was to erect a centre pole usually in place a week or so before then the first large branches could be leant against the pole almost vertical and the rest stacked around and above them to form a conical fire that burnt really well.

Getting a suitable central pole was often a problem and one year we decided to take a pole that had been an Aussie Rules goal post on a now abandoned field in the middle of the race course. This post and some others had lain in the grass for a few years. Tom Stuart, Ron Ware and myself about two or three weeks before cracker night went down to the race course to collect the pole but we found it was a lot heavier than we expected and by the time we had carried it to the race course gate that opened on to the lane than ran down to Springbank we were feeling pretty pooped and were having a rest when we spotted a tractor and trailer coming from the race course paddock area towards the gate.

These tractors followed by a long flat bed trailer were used quite a lot by the Department for goods delivery in the same way as trucks would be used today. This one had probably been delivering trestles or other equipment to the course for a coming race meeting. We knew that it would be returning to the main road along a track than ran very close to the bon fire site. We opened the gate for the tractor which slowed down to go through the gate and turn on to the lane where we threw the pole onto the trailer and jumped on ourselves. We hung on to the pole and the trailer as we bumped along the lane and the track.

When we reached the nearest point to the bon fire site we shouted at the driver to stop but instead he opened up his throttle and started to speed up. I don't suppose you could blame him as we hadn't asked permission to use his trailer. We quickly threw the pole off and jumped off ourselves only suffering a few scratches and bruises when we landed. We dug a hole and erected the pole which was probably the best centre pole we ever had for a bon fire.

Before going to the bon fire we would share out the crackers separate them from the strings they were in and each have our own box - usually a shoe box with a lid to stop sparks or lighted crackers landing in it. The most popular crackers were about two inches long and quarter of an inch in diameter. There were much smaller ones called Tom Thumbs and larger ones which were fairly powerful called Penny Bungers.

Usually some people at the fire would have a sixpenny hunger which was virtually a small bomb. They were about six inches long and two inches in diameter with a great long wick to allow you plenty of time to get clear. When someone was lighting one of these everybody at the fire knew about it and would stand at a safe distance and watch it go off. It would make a very loud bang and paper -many pieces of which were alight - would be scattered over a large area around the cracker.

There were also basket bombs which were encased in wicker basket material. These were also very powerful and you had to keep well clear of them. Sometimes they were set off under a square kerosene tin with the top cut out and tin would fly about five metres into the air and be badly bent. These bombs were also responsible for a few wrecked letter boxes.

The bonfires were quite a community affair and when anybody was going to set up a special firework such as a Catherine Wheel, Flower Pot, Roman Candle, Rocket etc everyone would be informed and you could all gather around and enjoy it. In spite of the fact that crackers were thrown around and some powerful fireworks were used I can't remember any serious accident occurring.

Our Father's birthday was on the 25th May, the day after cracker night so we always kept a few crackers to be let off on his birthday. We were always the first out on this day searching for crackers which didn't go off. Some would still have some wick left and could be used normally. Those that didn't would be broken in half and the powder set alight sending out a shower of sparks. These were called Fizzers. In our later teenage years we would stay at the fire after the festivities and throw potatoes into the ashes where they would cook. Then we would break off the black skin and have a feast.

The Blacksmith's Shop which was situated behind the cottages at the top end of No 15 -Gardiner's house - was a favourite place of mine to visit. It consisted of a galvanised iron building with huge galvanised iron doors at one end and hinged galvanised iron windows that were propped open by a hinged piece of timber A track ran along one side and another to the front of it. The back and the other side was a huge tangle of rusted iron and steel and old cart wheels etc.

The blacksmith was Bill Wallace who lived in No 1 Acton Cottages. He was a huge man over six feet tall with big bushy mustache and huge mostly black hands. He was assisted by Bill Gardiner who lived with his relation, Bert Gardiner who had No 15 Acton Cottages. I was fascinated watching these men bend and shape red hot steel to various shapes and repairing picks and other tools. The best part was watching them replace the horse shoes on the huge draught horses that were used for pulling the drays still in common use in those days by the Road & Bridges Section. Those big docile horses would stand quietly while the blacksmiths would take the horse's foot between their legs, cut lots of hoof away with a huge rasp then they would slap an almost red hot horse shoe on to the hoof and bang in the nails. I can still remember the smell of those smoking hooves.

I was friendly with Alf Wallace, Bill's son and we were sometimes allowed into the shop and allowed to turn the handle for the pump that blew air into the forge. There was no electricity supply to the shop. There were a few storage sheds near the blacksmith shop and a stable and horse yards bordering on to the Acton Nursery where the government kept a variety of horses. There was one horseman named Monty Tracey who was often around there. I think he was a ranger who always had an immaculately groomed horse and was extremely well groomed himself with brown leggings and boots so shiny you could almost see your face in them.

We were fortunate at Acton to have a better bus service than most Canberra residents. There was only three different bus routes and they all passed through Acton. When they reached the Acton Offices stop the conductor would have to take a large brass key and turn it in a Bundy Clock that was situated across the footpath. There was also a bus stop near the Acton Hall. Very few people had cars so other than buses we either walked or rode push bikes.

The Bus Service to Queanbeyan also ran through Acton. It was owned by Mrs Barton and I have memories of a square shaped bus with luggage rack on the roof for luggage, prams, parcels etc and a ladder running up the back of the bus.

Bill Wallace the blacksmith was one of the few Acton Cottage residents to have a car. I can remember a bull nosed Morris Tourer that would really whine in low gear and you could hear it whining all the way up the hill around the Bachelors Quarters when he went that way. Bessie Chatham also had a little yellow baby Austin with a dicky seat in the back.

Our nearest shops were at Civic Centre where we did most of our shopping. The only other shops were at Kingston and Manuka. The administration would not allow any corner store. Youngs did quite a few other Acton residents. Bill McQueen would come on a motor bike and take the orders and two days later Angus Mortlock would come around in the JB Young delivery lorry with the groceries. Sometimes there would be a complementary bag of boiled lollies with the order.

Bill McQueen would come into the house and sit down at the kitchen table with Mum and tell her the prices of various items and write the order in his duplicate book. Sometimes he would have a cup of tea. I recall that one day when Bill was in the house taking an order that a kid, I think one of the Wares, pulled the motor bike over on to himself and broke an arm. Bill was terribly upset about it.

When Angus Mortlock delivered the groceries myself and some of the other kids would get a ride on the back of the lorry up to the top part of Acton where we would carry the groceries into some of the houses for him as a lot of these houses were situated at the end of a very long driveway. This saved him a lot of walking. We were very happy to do this just to get a ride on the lorry. […]

In 1946 my father exchanged houses with a widowed lady, Mrs Mcllveny and we moved to Flinders Way near the Manuka Shops but we always retained a great affection for OLD ACTON and its people.