Hattie Duncan
| First name | Hattie |
|---|---|
| Last name | Duncan |
| Country of Origin | England |
| Date of Birth | 7/15/1899 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1928 |
| Submitted by | Hattie McFarlane |
Story
Hattie Duncan (nee Hewitson) arrived in Australia in July 1928 with her son Alan (aged 4), as passengers on S.S.Hobsons Bay. She came because her husband George, a Scot born in Aberdair, now a merchant seaman, had come to Australia on the maiden voyage of the Aorangi in 1926 and had remained as a crew member traveling the Sydney-Vancouver route. She came on the understanding that she would stay for perhaps two years and then they would go back to England. Ten months after her arrival a daughter was born and the Great Depression started. As George had a reasonably secure job, they stayed on and three years later a second daughter was born. Her parents in England offered to pay for her and the children to go back but she declined their offer because George did not want to return.
Hattie was the only daughter in a comfortable middle class business family with 5 older brothers, from Liverpool, a sizable city. She was a shy reserved young woman, who now found herself in a totally alien situation. George’s routine was “away 7 weeks, home 5 days” with one trip off each year. For the first year she lived with an Irish aunt by marriage, of George, his uncle having died before he arrived in Australia. After the birth of the baby they bought a house in Berala a suburb in western Sydney ,where she lived alone with her young family with wide open bush blocks all around and with no relatives or support system. Hattie showed her great courage in managing to bring up her young family, even though she was very lonely and always homesick.
As the Depression deepened George was not signed on for every trip, as members of the crew shared the availability of work. His position as a steward presumably depended on the number of passengers on board. During this time they decided to rent out their house and move closer to the city so that George would be able to find work, which he did in the well known night clubs Romanos and Princes, and also at the Hotel Australia. At times they both also found work cleaning offices in the city.
Later, in about 1937/8, they moved back to Berala, where Hattie started a small business – a shop which was a lending library, dry cleaning agency and tobacconist. This was much better suited to her background and disposition.
At the outbreak of war in 1939 things changed. George had answered the call of the sea once again and was sailing on the Niagara, sister ship of the Aorangi. He had his trip off on only the second voyage of the war, and as fate would have it, the Niagara was torpedoed and sank as it sailed out of New Zealand. After that he sailed on coastal freighters, dangerous work at that time, interspersed with attempts to stay ashore. Hattie answered the call for women to help with the manpower shortage and became an insurance agent for the A.M.P., riding her bicycle around to collect client’s premiums.
After the war George worked for the Adelaide Steamship Co. mainly doing much shorter trips. His heart trouble, which he had lived with since the 1918 ‘ flu epidemic, became more of a problem, so when the company offered him the job as caretaker of their Sydney building he accepted and they moved into the city where they lived for some 3 years.
Hattie, George and their younger daughter Shirley moved to the Central Coast when he finally retired. He died in 1958 leaving Hattie a widow at 59. From that time until her death her family continued to be her focus. She was always on call for emergencies and devoted herself to the three children and seven grandchildren who loved and admired her. In 1960 she moved back to Sydney, where she lived in in her own unit in a shared home with her daughter Hattie and family. In 1965 she returned to England with them for a 12 month visit. There she was able to spend time with her two surviving brothers and a surviving sister of George, who had been one of her best friends. She had never really felt Australian until that time, when she found herself homesick for her family in Australia. She made us smile and sometimes slightly embarrassed as she espoused the great virtues of living in Australia to all and sundry!
In 1981, she died after an accident in her 82nd year. She will always be loved and remembered by her family as the lynch pin, strong in adversity and loving and gentle in disposition.