Farmers and Company Archives

W.E.Pidgeon
C/O DPR Unit
Army Post Office
Darwin

Monday Aug. 1 or something
[2 Aug 1943]

Darling,

Sorry I growled about there being no letters from you. Very little mail arrived for anyone last week. Must have been some hitch. Happily I received two this morning and was thereby much delighted.

What - No Letters Blokes

You seem pretty lonely poor darling – it is obviously sickening to have to either stay home alone or still see the same faces & the same chatter. It’s lonely here as a rule when I’m not working. That is why I like to get out each week to some camp down the road and settle in to steady effort. There is a great deal round about here I want to get on to, moreover the general atmosphere of this mess is slow. At the moment all the correspondents are spine bashing. Apparently there is bugger all for them to find in the way of news with the exception of raids. Now that would be exciting if I didn’t catch a bomb. And the food up here is bloody awful. Margarine, dried eggs, macaroni pudding, stewed tea & leathered meat. That wouldn’t be so bad if the cook thought of something besides going on leave. Believe you me, I’ve been criminally spoilt.

On the beach again yesterday¹. Water really wonderful – the sunshine and Freds bountiful. I’m losing the lolly pink – changing chameleon like into tiger stripes owing to a little semi spine bashing of my own the other day. Curled up in a deck chair & came to with pink bands across my belly skin where the creases between folds of fat had been retained it lily white line. Got sunburnt on the flat yesterday – result – pink & brown now instead of original barber’s pole style. Nerves not much better – worry a bit about the job as I don’t know how I can remember all the different colour & tones of the scenes I have ideas of portraying. Most of the stuff I want to get down is of the rapid impression type –Much too quick even to get the drawing let alone tone, etc. The only painting I do is to note down appropriate backgrounds & incidentals to the job. Have written these blue lines while waiting for a haircut in a military camp.

He’s a hell of a little barber about as short & thick as a fart. An ex-ladies’ hairdresser from Farmers, or, some say Borrowmans – anyway he cuts a pretty hair. The charge is 1/- of which he gets 6^d & his unit comforts fund 6^d. You sit on a sawn off log in a parlour of the most delicate hessian. Whilst outside in the ante-room grim faced & spare witted troops purse lips and pen handle heads in the agonising concentration of writing the dear ones at home. I draw. Somebody asks how to spell Americans. I oblige.

Have returned to Happy Messy. This mail is due to go off in 10 minutes. So lots of love dear & keep on writing even if it kills you. Won’t be very long before I see you again. Thanks for the lipstick – tasted good. Love

Bill.

The Australian Women’s Weekly, 29 July 1944

Reading and writing letters whilst waiting for a haircut

Notes:

1
Most likely Mindil Beach

Wep Goes Over the Top

Wep is married. To the un-initiated let it be said that Wep is one of Sy d n e y’ s brilliant young artists of the most modern school, and on Thursday he took unto himself a Mrs. William Edwin Pidgeon, for that is Wep’s real name. The bride, was Miss Jessie Graham, only child of Mr. and Mrs. Ceorge O. [sic – A.] Graham, of Brighton, while Wep is the youngest son of Mrs. Thirza Pidgeon and the late Frederick Pidgeon. The ceremony was performed quietly at St. Stephen’s Church, by the Rev. R. McCowan, the bride wearing a dainty frock of pink angel’s skin, and she added a white hat. Her father gave her away. A reception lunch was held at Farmer’s, after which Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Pidgeon left by car for Kosciusko for a fortnight’s honeymoon.

1933 ‘Wep Goes Over the Top’, The Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 – 1954), 27 August, p. 28. , viewed 20 Aug 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article231434950

St. Stephen's Church, Phillip Street, Sydney. The church was demolished just after Wep's wedding to make way for the Martin Place extension and a new church built in Macquarie St. [Photo - Sydney Architecture Images- "Gone but not forgotten", St Stephen's Church, http://sydneyarchitecture.com/GON/GON126.htm, viewed 20 Aug 2016] — St. Stephen’s Church, Phillip Street, Sydney. The church was demolished just after Wep’s wedding to make way for the Martin Place extension and a new church built in Macquarie St. [Photo – Sydney Architecture Images- “Gone but not forgotten”, St Stephen’s Church, http://sydneyarchitecture.com/GON/GON126.htm, viewed 20 Aug 2016]

Each motor-vehicle for which a registration certificate is taken out in New South Wales from the beginning of December will be required to carry a visible registration label on the windscreen, or, if a windscreen is not fitted, in an approved container. The label will indicate the date to which the vehicle has been registered, so that after the first 12 months of the plan any vehicle not registered will be readily detected. The plan is similar to that already in operation in Victoria. 1932 'Motors and Motoring.', The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), 22 November, p. 11, viewed 21 August, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4510135 Registration could be paid quarterly with new labels issued explaining why the Chrysler had differing registration months 1932 'Motor Registration Fees.', Singleton Argus (NSW : 1880 - 1954) , 30 November, p. 2, viewed 21 August, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article83438816 — Bill and Jess set off for a fortnight’s honeymoon at Mt. Kosciusko in Wep’s Chrysler Roadster; 24 Aug 1933

Jessie Pidgeon with Best Man, Geoff Turton (aka Petrov) and his wife Mollie seeing Bill and Jess off on their honeymoon at Kosciusko, 24 Aug 1933.

Tag: Farmers and Company

War Letters – NW Australia: 2 Aug 1943, Darwin; Barber’s shop in a forward area

Notes:

“Wep Goes Over the Top”

1933 ‘Wep Goes Over the Top’, The Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 – 1954), 27 August, p. 28. , viewed 20 Aug 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article231434950