Fleeing to the Blue Mountains: Viv and Bert Moxon

Bert, Viv & Bette 1935

How many of you knew that Sydney was bombed during World War 2?  I certainly don’t remember learning this at school in the 1960s.  However, my sister in law, Bette Mason (nee Moxon) certainly remembers it, because she was a teenager at the time.

I recently interviewed Bette, now aged 88 and living in a retirement village in Kincumber on the Central Coast of NSW about her life as a young girl and as a teenager.  Having been born in December 1927, she has vivid memories of life during the war:

“We were living in Bronte and they started bombing off the coast.  Mum didn’t like that so we moved to Hazelbrook. I went to Katoomba High School.  And when I finished there in Third Year, she wanted me to go back to Fort Street.  So I went back to Fort Street, but they were so far ahead of me, so advanced.  I didn’t like it so I left and found a variety of jobs, including  back door receptionist at the Minerva Theatre at Darlinghurst.[1]”[2]

The bombardment of Sydney, particularly the eastern suburbs, occurred in June 1942[3] and quickly stopped but the residents of Bondi and Bronte were not to know that.  Like many others, the Moxons sought safety in the Blue Mountains.

In 1936, for reasons unknown to Bette, her parents had taken her to London by ship, the steamer Moreton Bay[4].  I asked her how she felt about this:

“I was only eight at the time.  I didn’t question their decision to go.  We saw many countries, it was six weeks in those days.  It was very enjoyable.  I was always curious about new things.

 “It was hard getting used to my school at Sydenham.  I wasn’t very popular because this foreigner topped the class at the end of the year.  But also, they asked me to speak Australian, and I said I was. But they said I couldn’t be Australian because my mother’s not black.  So that was their knowledge of Australia.

 “We rented half a house in Sydenham.  It was very old and had a ballroom upstairs.  Mum and dad weren’t married at the time, they got married when we returned to Australia in 1938, before John was born.”[5]

I showed Bette three photos, one of two adults and a little girl, one of the same adults with two children, and another of the same man.

“Oh, this one here is me with Mum and Dad.  (See above). I was about seven or eight at the time, and yes, it was before we went to England.  And that one is Dad – Bert – he looks a bit younger there.  I always called him Dad, even though he was my adopted father. 

Bert Moxon 1902-1987

“My real father was Alf Prahl, but I didn’t see him from the time my mother left him until I was 45, when he contacted me.  I invited him up to Narrabri for a holiday, but I just thought of him as Alf, never as dad.  I felt embarrassed sometimes, when I unthinkingly talked about mum and dad this, mum and dad that.  But I couldn’t help it – I hadn’t seen him for 40 years, never a birthday card or anything.

“I think it was Mum’s doing really.  She told him she never wanted to see him again, and didn’t want any money from him.

Bert was a real father to me, and later he formally adopted me.”[6]

The third photo showed Bette, aged about 12 with her parents and brother John, born in 1938.

Viv, Bert, John and Bette Moxon 1940

“We were living at Lewisham when that was taken, because John was just a toddler then.  I loved having a baby brother, I’d been an only child up till then.  I used to pretend he was mine, pushing him everywhere in his stroller.  That was before we moved to Bronte during the war.”[7]

References

Gross, Rebecca The Minerva Theatre and Metro Kings Cross, in The Dictionary of Sydney, http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_minerva_theatre_and_metro_kings_cross ,

Mason, Bette, interview by Margaret Moxon, digital recording, Kincumber, 18 November 2016, in author’s possession.

Waverley Council.  Shelling of Bondi, 1942. http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/8667/Shelling_of_Bondi,_1942.pdf

Wikipedia, The Minerva Theatre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva_Theatre,_Sydney

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva_Theatre,_Sydney  Minerva Theatre, accessed 5/12/16

[2] Bette Mason, interview by Margaret Moxon, digital recording, Kincumber, 18 November 2016, in author’s possession.

[3] Waverley Council. Shelling of Bondi, 1942. http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/8667/Shelling_of_Bondi,_1942.pdf, accessed 5/12/16

[4] Ancestry.com. UK, Incoming Passenger List 1878-1960 for Herbert J. Moxon, accessed 5/12/16

[5] Bette Mason, interview by Margaret Moxon.

[6] Bette Mason, interview by Margaret Moxon.

[7] Bette Mason, interview by Margaret Moxon.