Anzac Day always evokes very emotional memories for me. Mostly around my grandmother, Hilda Hamilton. Hilda (nee Bell) was the eldest of 13 children, including 3 sets of twins, can you imagine! She had to leave school in her early teens to help look after the children. She became an amazing self-educated business woman mainly due to the difficult circumstances of her marriage with my grandfather Richard Hamilton (very Scottish ancestry – kilt wearing). He was gased with mustard gas in WWI and it slowly ate away at his lungs. He died when my mother was 16 and she tells of his endless coughing. He couldn’t really work so Hilda ran the hotels they owned in several Newcastle suburbs. She became a very astute business woman and and used her cash flow to buy property as during the hard economic times they had pubs in mining areas and the miners always had to have their beer.

Only photo I have of Sarah Bell – Mandy’s Christening 1963.

She was an incredible speller, read newspapers cover to cover, listened to all broadcasted Parliament sessions and took herself off to courses at Uni in her fifties. She always encouraged me to study hard “Keep your head down girlie” she would say particularly during the times when my mother was difficult. Without her support and encouragement I wouldn’t have got the education I did.

Proud Grandma at my College Graduation as I received several top academic prizes. Note the gloves worn by my mother and grandmother.

She was very active during my early years in Newcastle Senior War Widows and was president of it for years and years. She had quite a high profile in Newcastle. Legacy and Legatees were very much part of the landscape when I was young. In primary school I was part of the Junior Red Cross and I wore that uniform proudly when I accompanied her to Anzac Day dawn services for many years.

Several of her brothers also went to fight in WWI. My great uncle Wal was a poet and horseman. Many of the Bell Boys were connected with horses and horse racing as stewards and other things to do with racing. Wal was a great friend of the poet William Kendall and consequently his stories were fascinating. He would tell me wonderful tales of how they brought their horses to Melbourne to be loaded on ships to travel to the war. Hundreds of horses on ships – imagine all that way!

When I was young, Hilda lived with her mother, Sarah Bell because even though Hilda owned a small cottage on the same street there were laws in place which protected tenants to the point that they sort of had lifelong rights to the tenancy. So it was at 48 Veda Street I have most memories of her. She got her own place back when I was in my late teens I think.

Grandma Bell had a weekly poker game in the Breakfast Room and many of her grown sons and their wives attended so there were always war stories being told. I just adored sitting at the huge table watching and listening. Thanks to the internet I can show you the house and marvel that a couple of years ago it sold for just under a million. It doesn’t mention a Breakfast Room and in the old days there was a coal fire in the kitchen which was the only heating! There were fireplaces in other rooms but the kitchen one was the only one used. I think a dollar or two has been spent on it since.

The other emotion Anzac Day evokes is the shame I feel on how we treated the Vietnam Vets. So many of us were so against the war we didn’t acknowledge what these guys had done and been through. Today they are leading the Anzac Parade in Melbourne for the first time. It has taken our nation a long time to make amends.

The national service lottery also makes the feminist in me feel very guilty as well. They used to pull marbles out with a birth date and boys born on that date were conscripted. At Teachers’ College one of the guys in my group had the same birthday as me and he was conscripted so off he had to go when he finished his course. Because I was female I didn’t have to do anything whilst the ‘chosen ones’ had to give up two years to serve their country and then we didn’t treat them very well at all.