An Interview with Rita

Queen of Campbelltown Competition, 1922. Rita is the queen seated in the middle of the photograph.

In 1977, 73 year old Rita Brunero gave an interview to the library about her life in Campbelltown. The interview took place at her home at 28 Oxley Street. Rita's interview is one of 119 sound recordings that the library has now digitised and is to be made available on the library's website.

Rita Brunero, formerly Tripp, was born in Campbelltown in 1904, the daughter of Charles and Maria Tripp. Her interview provides an insight into what life was like in Campbelltown for a young girl in the early years of the twentieth century. Campbelltown was then a small village and far enough away from Sydney to be regarded as a country town. Life was simple for a girl like Rita but still full of adventures and memorable moments that she recalled with fondness in her interview in 1977.

Rita was there in 1917 for the "Jack's Day" Regatta on the reservoir in Allman Street. She remembered the day fondly. The navy used it to raise funds for the war effort and people would pay to have a turn on row boats floating on the reservoir. Rita made sure she had a turn on a boat. On that same day her younger sister lost her gold bracelet there and Rita, not knowing she had taken it, was devastated when she found out. The bracelet had been given to her by a young man who went to war. The next morning at 5.30am she went back to the reservoir and found the bracelet in the grass!

She went on to talk about the night that electricity was first turned on in Campbelltown in 1926. (1924 ed.) A large crowd including Rita had gathered at the electricity station in Cordeaux Street for the switching on at 7pm. Her family had left the switches turned on and when they returned home they found their house lit up like a Christmas Tree!

In the interview she talks about her father and how he was a pioneer in developing radio (see my earlier blog post on Charles Tripp). He would get her to test the sound by going into a nearby room or on the verandah. If it worked there would be great excitement in the house.

Rita married Leslie Brunero, an Italian migrant who was to establish a saw mill in Patrick Street. She fondly recalled how handsome he was and how nervous she was that her parents would not allow the couple to marry because of his background. If they had not given permission she would have accepted this, as back in those days one never argued with your parents. Fortunately, they took a liking to the friendly Italian.

I hoped that Rita might have discussed the photo shown above of her as Campbelltown Princess in 1921 but unfortunately she didn't. One can imagine the excitement she would've experienced that day too.

Rita Brunero lived the rest of her years in Campbelltown. She died in 1982 aged 78 and is buried beside her husband in St John's Catholic Cemetery.

Rita's interview and the other 119 sound recordings will, in the near future, join our current oral histories on our website at http://www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au/OralHistories.

I will keep you informed of the project's progress on this blog.

Written by Andrew Allen

Swimming in the Cattle Tank and Reservoir

Located in Allman Street, Campbelltown are the historic Cattle Tank and Reservoir. Both were constructed and completed by convict labour in the 1830s. They were regarded as necessary as water supply was a constant problem for both farmers and townspeople living in Campbelltown.

Both the Cattle Tank and Reservoir appear mostly to have had an ample supply of water, even during droughts. So of course one can imagine how alluring they were to the locals on a sweltering Campbelltown day. An interesting photograph in our collection is of "Jack's Day"- a regatta held at the site in 1917. It shows a crowd of people gathered around the Reservoir and a couple of local lads cooling off in the water. The newspaper reported "A band of 20 performers headed a procession from the railway station to Hurley Park, where juvenile sports and aquatic displays in the once tabooed reservoir exhilarated spectators".

The Cattle Tank has also been the scene of drowning tragedies over the years. In 1925 seven year old Leniel Johnson drowned after she accidently fell in while playing with her sister. She had been in the water for 20 minutes before she was found but couldn't be revived. Ten years later sixteen year old Betty Humphreys drowned. She had been suffering a nervous breakdown according to the 'Campbelltown News' and ran from her home in Allman Street and jumped in the Cattle Tank. Despite attempts from a young boy named Jack Hadden, she was unable to be revived. The newspaper mentions a mass of tangled wire and rubbish under the water so the days of a clean place to swim appear to be gone by then.

I interviewed both Jim Summers and David Milliken and they described their experiences of swimming in the Cattle Tank when they were boys. Jim, who was born in 1929, recalls his days of swimming there: "we used to swim in those and when I was a kid they were always full of water. We used to catch fish and eels in the smaller one on the bottom side. The tanks would dry up and you could walk in them. Then they would fill up and the fish and eels would be back, they must stay under the mud." He also went on to explain how there used to be a creek that ran down from the tanks in Allman Street. It ran down to Oxley Street and came out in Dumaresq Street. In the late 1930s council, worried about flooding from the Reservoir and tank, decided to drain water from them. Only a year earlier however, there were plans to convert the Cattle Tank into a 'glorified swimming hole', with preliminary estimates of the cost put at 400 pounds for cleaning out and concreting the tank, plus 5 pounds per refill. The proposal was eventually dropped in the late 1930's after another expert calculated a more realistic cost of 2500 pounds for the conversion.

David Milliken described swimming in there as a kid with whatever was underneath! "Every now and again you would get a bite on your foot from a yabby."

The Cattle Tank continued to be used to water stock as late as 1960. By the early 1960s, both the Reservoir and Cattle Tank were all but dry. Subsequent earthworks for a playing field at the top of Hurley Park radically changed the topography of the site. Although dried out today, both catchments continue to provide recreational facilities for nearby residents- albeit in the form of a cricket pitch or sunken volleyball arena.

 

The photograph above shows the regatta held on the cattle tank in 1917. Note the young boy in the water.

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

PEDDELL, Wendy
Conservation Plan Stage 1: Campbelltown Reservoir and Cattle Tank

Campbelltown Water Supply and Cattle Tank: A Conservation Plan

Interviews with Jim Summers and David Milliken held at Campbelltown Library

The Water Tower

The photograph above was taken in the 1920s and shows Georges River Road (today's Colonial Street) with St. Patrick's College and a water tower in the background. The water tower held an iron open water reservoir that supplied the nearby Soldier's Settlement and by stand pipe to Kentlyn. It was filled by a main charged by a Pump Station situated in Hurley Park. In a recent interview with Margaret Templeman (nee Worrall), she explained how as a girl in the 1930s that sometimes on a hot afternoon after school, she would stop for a swim in the reservoir! It was located on the corner of Waminda Avenue and Colonial Street where the small shopping centre is now located.

Photo from the Moy Collection (Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society)

Written by Andrew Allen