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Seek the
narrow road...
Because the broad
road only leads to destruction.
And they were the two verses
and they were the two verses
that converted me
on the night
that Billy Graham preached on them.
My name is Ethel Joycelyn Murphy.
I was born in Newcastle Street in Perth.
I was a horrible little kid.
I grizzled all the time.
And my mum never got me up out of bed
until all the men had had breakfast
and gone out to work, and then she'd
concentrate on getting me up.
And she had a little table.
I don't know where it came from
or how she got it and a little chair,
and she put those
in the center of the kitchen
and I had to sit there
and eat my breakfast,
and whatever she gave me was never right.
I didn't want it.
I wanted something else every day.
I lived in a happy home.
Mum and dad were happy, happy
married couple.
I loved my brothers
and everything was simple,
you know, very simple.
We used to play games after tea
at night
when there wasn't any homework to be done.
And everybody was happy,
but everything was simple.
No, nothing was sort of involved and
you loved all your neighbours.
You went to things
in an old horse and cart,
and everybody was on the same footing.
Just life was
happy.
Well...
the saddest
time is something
I don't talk about at all anymore.
I think about it a lot.
But I have never told
anybody about it.
It was just
within my family.
I was an only daughter after two boys
and I was the apple of my father's eye
and...
it all just went wrong,
and I spent many, many years
not knowing,
and I still don't know what happened.
But the other person concerned,
before she died,
asked me could I ever forgive her
for what she did to me?
And I said I'd already forgiven her.
Uh, that would have been...
The many years in between
those times were my saddest times.
In those days,
parents kept their daughters at home
after they'd finished school.
Hardly any of my girlfriends
went out to work.
They just lived at home, helped their mum.
With me, my life was my music,
my singing, my acting
because I was taking lessons
from a chap who came out from England.
An actor.
We played tennis a lot
and just helping my mum.
That was my
photo with my mum,
who in in those days...
even 50 was considered fairly old
and she passed away when she was 55.
And that was the photo
we had taken together.
I was about 16.
I had a grandma and a grandpa,
and I used to go
and stay with them in Shenton Park
on school holidays a lot.
And by today's standards,
they weren't terribly old.
About 80. But they looked 180.
You know, they dressed in black
and they never went out
and they were they were old.
That was my mother's parents
and her father used to come
and stay with us in Lower Chittering,
usually just after Christmas.
And in those days,
you bought Christmas stockings
and they always had
little white lollies in the toes.
And one of my brothers
and I, we used to put Aspros
in them, in this pile of lollies,
and we'd put them in addition.
We'd hand them around to -
we called him Danan -
and Danan never took them.
He always took a lolly.
But we found out afterwards that he was
he was awake up to what we were doing.
One of the things I remember.
It came from my father.
The mail arrived,
which we only got three days
a week and I got a letter,
and when my father finished
reading his mail, he said, "Oh,
who was your letter from Jo?"
I must have been...
I don't know if I was dating Keith
at the time...
I probably was.
And I said, "Oh, just a boy that I met
at one of the dances we go to".
"Oh?"
He wanted to know all about him
and I said, "I don't know anything
about him", I said, "All I like
is that we danced well together".
And he said, "Do
you know what happens to people
who try to sit on two stools at once?"
And I said, "No".
He said "They finish up on the floor".
I said, "Well,
it doesn't even apply to me
because I'm not going out with with him.
I didn't even expect a letter from him."
Well,
he was doing an apprenticeship
with his uncle
at Bullsbrook, which was the nearest
little settlement town
to us.
I just thought he was a nice boy.
At the beginning of the War,
of course, I lived at home
and we were just dating
then we became engaged in 1941.
And that was quite funny
because we went to Perth.
I didn't know that Keith had spoken
to my dad about being engaged
and all that.
I didn't know that.
But anyhow,
we went to Perth to buy the ring
and we were going to
a dance at night - on the Saturday
night...
Saturday morning we bought the ring
and of course I was
all keyed up thinking, "Oh, everybody's
going to notice my ring",
you see with my hand around his shoulder.
It got to the very last
dance of the night,
and nobody had even noticed it .
And then one lady who
we were quite friendly with.
A middle aged lady.
The music stopped and they were standing
next to us and she saw the ring.
It was gorgeous then
but it had been disappointing all night
that no-one had noticed it.
We were married in 1942.
We'd had the date three times
and his leave had been cancelled
every time.
And the fourth time,
he went to the C.O. and said that,
you know,
this is the fourth time
he tried to come down to Perth
and get married,
and it's been canceled and
that was, you know, a bit poor...
You know, everybody
was invited had to be let know
at the last minute
that the wedding was off.
And anyway, the C.O.
said, "Well, if you can find a car
going to Perth this weekend, you can go".
And so that's what happened.
They travelled all night. And.
And we finally got married.
When my first baby,
that lived, was born.
I had already lost a full time
baby at birth.
I'd lost one halfway through
and then I had the daughter
and when I came to afterwards
and asked them, "Was my baby alright"?
She said, "Of course she's all right".
And that was the most wonderful words
I'd heard.
No, it's in a worse
place, gets worse every year.
It is going to get worse
because, of course, I believe in the Bible
and I think that there's
other things that will happen
before it gets better.
Well, I think, there again, it's just
being unselfish and
thinking of others
and putting others before yourself.
A lot of young people today,
I often wonder
if they've ever heard the word
"unselfish"
because they just think of themselves
and they don't worry
about what they're doing
- that it's causing grief to
so many people.
And I think if they thought
more about other people,
the world would be a better place.
So many things give me joy.
I think meeting up with old friends
and people I've known for
90 years.
That doesn't seem possible
that they've been my friends
for all that time.
Yeah,
I think it would all come back to
being with friends.
Thanks To
Carissa Dunn
Joy Murphy
"My life was my music, my singing, my acting."
100yo Joy reflects on 'the good old days'
Joy takes us on a journey back to her childhood in a town near Perth, Western Australia. For her, life was ‘simple’ and those days really were ‘the good old days’.
She also talks about the major events in her life including here encounter with preacher, Billy Graham, in Perth 1959, and the marriage to her husband during WW2.
Her advice to future generations is simple, uncomplicated and invaluable.
Age in Video
100 yearsDate of Birth
14th September 1921Place of Birth
Perth, Western Australia, AustraliaThanks To
Carissa Dunn