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| Joan in Kuching, Sarawak circa 1959 |
Piece on my Aunty Joan Smith for the newsletter of her Nursing Home in 2014
Joan Smith, celebrated her 93rd birthday on 6 November 2014– quite an amazing milestone.
Joan was born to Alice and James Smith in Leeton NSW in 1921 and she is the last in her family of that generation. She had a twin brother Kevin and 3 older siblings: Bede, Honora and Noel. At the time of Joan's birth her father, James Smith, was a school principal at the Five Bough School in Leeton. When Joan was 7 the family moved to Sydney.
She has many fascinating memories of Sydney in the 1930s and was an eye witness to the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. Joan attended Burwood Home Science School, and later went to Miss Hale's Secretarial College. During the war years she worked at Coopers in Concord. Joan remembers the fear that spread through Sydney when the Japanese subs came into the Harbour in 1942. She was so scared she jumped into bed with the family dog for comfort.
Joan went to Europe in 1949 on the first of many overseas trips. She travelled to the UK and then to Ireland to search for her Irish ancestors. On her return to Australia in 1950, Joan's career took her into the exciting work of Sydney radio and a position as the secretary of the General Manager of 2UE.
In 1957 Joan took an overseas appointment with the British Government in Kuching, Sarawak. This was at a time when Malaya was preparing for Independence. While she was working in Kuching she met some future leaders of the region, such as Mr Lee Kwan Yew, when he came to play golf with the British governor at the time. Life in the final days of the British colonial rule in Sarawak was exciting and there was a large ex-pat community to share the experience. Trips up-country into the Sarawak jungle and flights over to Singapore were all part of the scene. Joan even had a pet monkey while she was in Kuching, but of course she could not bring it back to Australia.
She returned to Sydney in 1962 and went back into the world of radio, where she became the secretary to the General Manager of 2GB Macquarie Broadcasting. She was living in Mosman then and caring for her elderly parents. Around that time Joan bought her first car and enjoyed motoring holidays with friends heading off to the Blue Mountains, Canberra and around NSW.
Joan retired from 2GB in 1984. She kept herself busy by catching up with the family in Perth, Queensland and NSW and meeting her many friends from the radio days and from Sarawak. Travel was always on Joan's agenda and included trips to Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Europe, UK, Italy, Greece, Canada, USA. Hawaii and Fiji.
Joan moved to Saint Mary's Villas in 2010 and is in good health for her age.
