Bessie Lily Gould

Story

Bessie, our Mum.

Bessie, my Mum, the much beloved wife of my dad Joe,was the oldest of three English born children of parents who escaped from Russia to England during the 1915 Bolshevik Revolution. Her father had been a musician in the Tzar’s Regiment and her mother, Fanny, also Russian born, was only 16 years old at the time she gave birth to my mother. Until Bessie married my father Joe, she lived with her parents in the East End of London which had become an enclave of Russian and Polish immigrants. It was a poor place to live, with not much money coming in but she learned, and eventually became an extremely accomplished dressmaker. My dear sister Beryl and I still have a photo of her wearing the beautiful, long white wedding dress she made for herself.

In, or about, 1930, she and my father, he was a cabinet -maker, through hard work, even with The Depression of the 30s, managed to get enough money together and bought the house, 46 Dorchester Avenue, Palmers Green where my sister and I were both born. In the same neighbourhood, she opened up a little dress shop where she made dresses to order and, being so good at her vocation she bacame quite well known locally and all went well until 1940 and The Blitz and we were be evacuated with all my school to Cheltenham away from the bombing. Dad had to leave us to work in an aircraft factory in Worcester making the famed plywood De Haviland Mosquito fighter-bombers. But Mum and Dad loved each other madly – they adored each -other, couldn’t live apart and so, we, my mother, my sister and I joined him in Cheltenham where we spent the rest of the war together.

At wars end, Dad said “That’s it, were going somewhere where we can all live far away – in peace.” Australia! he told us! Six weeks it took – to Paradise. What an adventure. 20 pounds the fare for our Faithfull Bessie and Dad and no cost for us two kids. The ship? The P&O Ranchi, an old troopship from the 1st WW. 17,000 tons. The Captain – H.S. Turnbridge brought us here with our little family seeking peace and prosperity. And we found it, with 1,400 other Pommies, in Port Melbourne, 13th October, 1948. For the first few weeks , we stayed with an uncle in Holden St, N’th Fitzroy. Bert Newton lived just down the street from us.

I found it a bit tough at first; it was on the tramline and I was sleeping on the patio outside in the front with the tramlines four metres from my bed. Dad and I got a job together right away building wooden lifts for buildings in Swanston st. Bessie, the expert dressmaker, started working for a well known in those days, gown manufacturer, Sharene Creations. After a short time, she rose to being the company’s top woman on the shop floor. Whenever the celebrity Sabrina came to Australia, for her gowns, she always made sure she only dealt with Bessie. Mum eventually retired 18 years later to care for her beloved Joe in his illness.

Our Mum, the intrepid, faithful, fiery in her justice, our loving Bessie Gould, with the red hair, left us Jan18 1988 and we all miss her but we thank her and her Joe for bringing us to this great country, and we feel comforted to know that, on a handrail over a beautiful lake, in our Capital her name will be placed, as it was in life next to her Joe.

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