Do you want to go first Beryl? Beryl Burrowes... What am I? A hundred. 27 December, 1923. Benalla in Victoria. I’m Jim Burrowes. I’m a hundred. We've just had a lovely party for Beryl’s hundredth. "People from the village, the RSL, bowling mob" and everybody. I’m looking and I can’t find something. I can’t find what I wanted to show you. Damn mobiles, they’re stupid! That's my birthday cake. It’s still there. It was a lovely cake. We came down to Melbourne when I was about nearly three. "My old Aunt Kate, she brought my father up." His mother died when he was born. She helped bring us up when we were young. My father came from... He was in the railway business. He was on the railways from Benalla. And he was like most men in those days. They'd get a job for a couple of days. You'd go up, you know, put your hand up, and they’re calling out. And they'd spend the money on drink. "My mum didn't work before she was married." She was a lady like your mother? Yeah. They both married and had to work. My father lost his job, and my Mum used to go cleaning for people that had money to get food for us. "And of course, my father used to accuse her " of going out with other men to get the money and belt her up. Doesn't pay to think about it now. I don’t know how she stood up to it. "She just put up with it for the rest of us." Yeah, she had a really tough... I don’t know how she put up with it. You know, people had hard lives back then. "I know I used to talk with girls at school." "They all had troubles with their mum and dads" because half the dads... "I don’t know, they just weren't family men." Not like today. They're so different, aren’t they? We used to tell her to leave him. We'd say, “Mum, you’ve got to leave. You can't put up with all that.” He was horrible. Anyway, she finally had to go. "He started kicking her as well as belting her." And then she left when I was nearly 12. "And my father wouldn’t let us go with my mother." And we lived in "St Kilda for a while and then we moved to Hawthorn." When he was home, "we stayed out in the backyard, out of his way." Or in bed. We didn't have much to do with him at all. He was always touchy. "I have four sisters, two older and two younger." The oldest one left him and went to my mother. "And the second girl went to the country with the elderly people." Grandpeople. "And myself and the two younger ones were stuck with my father." We all got rid of him as we got older. He's an idiot. "Well, he had all those girls, and he could have had a" great life and he wrecked it. And Beryl became the "potential mother of her two younger sisters." She was wonderful. Pseudo mother. "And the little one, she still right up until she died," she felt I was her mother. They were neglected so... "You were the only one left to look after them." My sister and I, a year between us, we worked and kept the four of us, "ran the house, cooked the meals and cleaned the house, chopped the wood." Did everything. Great big logs. I got pretty good at the end. I loved school and I was good at my school work and maths especially. "My older sisters won scholarships to go on" and the headmaster said, “I'm sorry”. He asked me if I got a scholarship and would I go on, and I said, “No my father wouldn’t bother”. So he didn't put my name down because he was sure I’d get one like my sisters. I knew I was going to have to leave school at 12. The eighth grade. That was the legal age you could leave. When I left, I ran the household. When I was 15, I left him and took the two young ones with me to a lady that was boarding us. We had a lovely time with her. She had two sons so she was thrilled to have some girls. Had a good life. "We didn't have any money over, we had enough to pay our board." And well, my sister and I had a night time job and Saturday morning. Hers was in Woolworths and mine was in Ezywalkin Shoes and that was our bit of spending money. Well, my older sister and I, we were working and boarding and we thought we weren't doing anything for the war effort, so we joined up. The air force, air women, WAAAF. I joined up at 18, but I wasn't called in until I just turned 19. But in that meantime, I was learning a lot from books. We didn't think much of ourselves. "We put our names down to be mess orderlies." That's the lowest thing. And when we went, the day we went to sign up, they called us into the officers' room and she said, “I'm not putting you girls in [the] mess area. You have done an IQ test and you can do much better”. She said, “I want you to be clerks.” “Oh!”, we said, “We couldn't be clerks. We haven't done anything like that.” "And I said, “Well, what about an officer [orderly]?”" “No”, she said, “You're both clerks”. "So we took her word and we had good jobs and good pay." "Met a lot of lovely people from all around Australia." The best thing we ever did. "You grew up and learned independence and..." it's amazing what you learned. Well, you got discharged and I got a good job at Radio Corp. It was "just when they were starting to make televisions" and it was a good job in the office there. I was in their accounts department. Yeah, I was there until I got married. We both used to go out with other people. But I still, in my mind, thought he's the one for me. "I didn't know that at the time, till later." I was going out with his friend but there was nothing in it. We were platonic friends and I met his mate. She was just herself. That's enough. Hey? You were just yourself. That's why I loved you. I didn't do anything about it. I just hoped. I used to get annoyed because. Because I didn't do what [I} was told. No, I mean I had a lot of people, "fellas used to come around and take me out." And the one I wanted never did. Oh, eventually I did. "I turfed off the others and left just Beryl and I in the car." And that's when it started. "We got engaged in the July and were married in February." "But we knew [each other] for more than 12 months before." And that was a lovely day. I was so happy. "We only had 20 at the wedding, but when we came out of the church" we had about 80 people waiting for us. "We would have liked it but we couldn't, I mean," I was paying for the wedding and I couldn't afford more than family. "And we had two bridesmaids and two best men." The lady that made my dress, I knew her well. She made it for $10. Oh 10 pound, material and all. And she leant me the veil. Oh well, we get on well together and we respect each other's wishes. He was kind and generous and and even tempered. Nice fella. Still is. Sense of humour. Sorry? Sense of humour. You have to laugh about things. What did you say? I laugh about things. Jim’s more serious but then he laughs. I can get him to laugh. I remember, Jim and I were in the town and he wanted a pair of shoes. "So I said, “You go and get your shoes and I'll get what we need" and I’ll come and meet you.” And when I went into the shoe shop, "he was chatting very animated with a fellow" and it was my father. It was Beryl's father whom I hadn’t met obviously. "He was just a likable sort of fella you’d see..." Outside people thought he was great. I didn't know anything about his history. Oh yes, I saw her. "I didn't for a few years because we couldn't do anything." "You know, there's no communication back then." "We didn't have any money for trams or trains" to go looking for her. So we found her when I was working. About 16 or 17. And after that we saw a lot of, we used to call her ‘nanny’. I used to call her ‘the old bat’. She came and lived with us for a while and came and visited us, so we loved her. She was a lovely lady. She had a lovely life anyway. Jim was marvelous. He’d have her with us a lot. "In the meantime, Beryl was helping her friends" "where they've had husbands that don't look after the family." They had no idea how to manage money. Yeah. Their husbands were mean. You know and two friends I had, had an awful time with trying to get money without him finding out "they were working so they could feed their kids." They were terrible fellas. And the one that had ten children, her husband was great. They had debts. "The dairy, the milkman, the grocer, everyone." And they didn't know what to do. "And it got to the stage that they weren’t going to deliver it." She needed milk. I said, “Well, let me manage your money.” I said, “I won't pinch any of it.” I said, “I don't need to.” So I ran her money for about six months. I got her out of debt and in front. You see, she had money "but didn’t know to manage it with so many children." I said, “You've got to forget yourself. "You don't have anything yourself to start with." Then you get enough food for everybody. "And then when each one, if they needed pants" "or socks or something you work it out.” " It works out. They both worked out well. They have more say now. You’re your own person. Back then, you sort of fought your way but I was lucky because I was my own boss from 16. Oh, washing machine. Don't you reckon? I remember... Do you remember the old Trayway? Yeah, that's what we had first. Worked in the trough. Then we finally got a proper machine. "But the washing machine, you put it in, put a button," and then put them out on the line. I mean we all had ice chests. And we worked out we were all paying for the ice, the amount of paying off a fridge. So it was our first laybuy. We bought a fridge instead of paying [for] ice. My happiest times were the day we married and the day each child was born. They were just lovely. And we're lucky they're all still good. I enjoyed every minute. I still do. And of course, Jim made it easy. We had two sons and two daughters. "During that time, I was away a hell of a lot and Beryl" was just an amazing, capable bringing up four kids. She was mother, father and everything. All that time. She was just absolutely wonderful. She was an angel. So you could not imagine a better loving wife. And all the kids have been good. Of course, Jim's been great. I'm a very lucky lady.