Transcript: Mrs Constance Jewell remembers social life in Hammondville during the Depression

Description

Mrs Constance Jewell was born in 1896 and [media]interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' She moved with her husband to Hammondville, a housing settlement for families in difficulty, in the Depression. She remembers a rich social life in the community there.

Transcript

CONSTANCE: We had a great time there. We had a Younger Set, and a gymnasium class. Mrs Jones, Mrs Laura Jones of Stewart Avenue, Hammondville, she ran the Younger Set for us. And we had a ball here and they all went to the ball. I can't remember who they [debutantes] were presented to now, I really can't. In those days the hall was up where the shops are now. Mrs Brasnet gave us that hall for recreation and we ran dances up there, some for the Liverpool Hospital, some for the ambulance [service], and some for the Harmony Club; the Harmony Club consisted of a lot of men that used to like to come and sit and have talks and games and one thing and another. The ladies had the Black Cat Club and we all used to belong to that. The younger ones had a Younger Set and they had quite a lot of games and one thing and another, you know, to occupy their minds. [1]

References

Catherine Johnson (ed). Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900–1960 (Liverpool: Liverpool City Council, 1986). http://mylibrary.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/Electronicbooks/Lookingbackatliverpoolanoralhistory-1900-1960.pdf

Notes