I remember sailing in the S.S. Runic as a bride arriving at Albany in February 1914, and travelling by train to Perth seeing for the first time Blackboys and Jarrah trees and Red Gums, arriving in Perth and staying at the Esplanade Hotel. I had washed my long hair on board ship with sea water which had made it very unmanageable so I tried to find a hairdresser.
My husband [Henry Edward Braine] eventually tracked down a barber in Murray Street whose wife would wash it for me. So up some uncarpeted stairs I went where his very pleasant wife had a kettle on a gas ring and an enamel bowl, she washed it and dried it strand by strand with vigorous rubbing with a towel, she charged me 5/-.
I walked up Mount Street which was quite a hill to climb in a hobble skirt which was then highly fashionable in England but had not arrived in Perth, and people turned to stare at me, was it the hobble skirt, or the suit being made of blue serge which was very hot in February in Australia?
Kings Park I thought was beautiful especially the view of what I was told was the Swan River, it looked like a lake to me.
Every or nearly every town in England has its High Street but Perth spelt it Hay Street. There were two wheeled vehicles called Sulkys which was a strange name as they were jaunty rather than sulky and four wheeled vehicles called Buggys which sounded a rude word to me.
I was taken to the only restaurant for a cup of tea, it was called the Moanna, there were long trestle tables with forms to sit on - strange.
We left Perth by train for the South West where we had leased a small farm for five years, it had ten acres of orchard and we ran a few sheep, had three cows and six pigs. I learnt to milk the cows, use a separator and make butter in a churn. Also make yeast from hops and sugar and water, put into bottles with the corks wired down. I used the yeast when ready to make bread I also fed the pigs. I, who had, in England, never done a menial task not even peeled a potato. As well as all that I gave birth to my first child.
Was not that quite an achievement for a young Pommie bride?
