MEMORIES OF HIGH WYCOMBE

By Allison Coles

My name is Allison Coles (nee Brooks). In May 1968 my family, Dad George, Mum Joyce my two sisters Edwina and Freda, emigrated to Perth.

We were sponsored to Australia by the building company, Landalls. They helped migrants with the paperwork, medical and character checks required by the Australian Government. In return the migrants had to bring enough money for deposit one of their houses on arrival. They bought parcels of land on the out skirts of Perth, sub-divided it and built houses on the land. They were building houses in Kelmscott, Thornlie and High Wycombe. The houses were available for purchase by Australians and migrants.

On our second day in Perth, the salesman took us to Tia Avenue in High Wycombe where my parents bought the house they were to live in for the next twenty years. It is still there but there is another house in the back garden now. I don’t know if the salesman told my parents how close High Wycombe was to the airport.

In High Wycombe Landalls had bought an orchard, sub-divided it into building lots and were in the process of constructing houses on the land in 1968. When we moved in a few months later, half the street was complete, the other end was still under construction.

By coincidence, we lived near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. Mum took me to see a specialist at High Wycombe Hospital when I was diagnosed with hay fever when I was nine years old.

Where our house stood had been where the previous house and garden for the orchard has been. Neighbours that moved in before us said it had a lovely garden. Some had apparently helped themselves to the plants. All Dad got was a rusty old chest, a rusty bedhead and springs that he found buried in the back garden.

In 1968, High Wycombe was outside the metropolitan area. There was a sign on Kalamunda Road stating this. It is no longer there. When my parents bought anything and wanted it delivered, it was usually a problem. Some businesses only delivered to the metro area, and they would say High Wycombe was outside the metro area so my parents would have to pay for delivery. Other businesses would only deliver to the country. When they asked for delivery to High Wycombe, the response was “it’s not REALLY in the country, it is only just outside the metro area”. Kalamunda was still a country town then.

Most people in Perth did not know where High Wycombe was in 1968. We lived in Yokine while the house was finished. The school principal knew me and my sisters were migrants. Just before we left, he asked me where we were going. I said High Wycombe. He had no idea where it was. All I knew was it was near Kalamunda, so that is what I told him. He replied, “Ah yes, the migrants know where all the new suburbs are”. High Wycombe was considered “out in the sticks” at that time. When I met my future husband, he thought I lived in the back of beyond. He had grown up in East Victoria Park.

High Wycombe still had several orchards and a potato field. There was an orchard in Edney Road. I think it went when Roe Highway was constructed. There were other orchards in Rangeview Road, Wycombe Road and at least two in Maida Vale Road. Mr Madderson owned the orchard on what was then the corner of Maida Vale and Edney Road. The roads have since been altered and Madderson Road is named after them. Mr Fonti had an orchard in Swan Road opposite the park. Most of them grew oranges. One in Maida Vale Road also grew apricots. My first job was there. I was paid $3 for picking a box of apricots. I think the potato field was near or where the shopping centre now stands. Hill View Golf Course was a sheep paddock. There was also an egg farm in Newburn Road owned by Mr and Mrs Steene. The bush at the end of Tia Avenue is now Edney Primary School. This was built long after my sisters and I had left school.

Officially, High Wycombe was still part of Maida Vale. The name High Wycombe was given to the original sub-division near High Wycombe Primary School. Some of the older residents insisted it was Maida Vale, but the newcomers who didn’t know that, called it High Wycombe. It was officially changed in 1978. Mum was in the service station one day when an older resident came it and berated the owner. He had sent her invoice addressed to High Wycombe. She insisted her address was Maida Vale and refused to pay until he corrected the address and re-mailed it to her.

Our house in Tia Avenue was completed and we moved in, just in time for the Meckering Earthquake. It was Queen’s Birthday holiday. Dad was at work but the rest of us were at home. It felt like someone had removed one of the foundation stones and the house was going to collapse. My sisters and I were playing in the lounge room and Mum was in the kitchen. She thought “what on earth are they doing in there” and we wondered what Mum was doing. It sounded like she was dragging the kitchen table across the floorboards. We all met in the passage. Then Mum realized what it was and we all went out to the front garden. When Dad came home, he did not know there had been an earthquake. Working in a factory there was plenty of noise and things banging around. He did say they lights started swaying and something fell of a rack in the middle of the morning.

At first, Dad worked at Chamberlain’s factory in Welshpool. This involved shift work. I can’t remember exactly which way he went but coming home he used to turn into a road that had a timber model of a horse painted white on the corner pointing to a riding school. As there was no lighting, the white horse was a useful landmark. The road is what is now Horrie Miller Drive and the end is now the airport runway. The first few times he drove home at night he got quite a fright to see bright headlights coming towards him and descending rapidly from the sky. The other side of the shrubs running along the road was the airport and the planes were coming into land.

Another useful landmark was the “dinosaur” in Edney Road. In the bush in Edney Road, there was a fallen tree laying near the edge of the road. In the dark we used to say it looked like a dinosaur coming out of the trees. When we saw the dinosaur, we knew we were nearly home.

My sisters and I started at High Wycombe Primary School in Newburn Road. The school had just had a new extension built. There were three new classrooms for Grade 1 children, staff room, principal’s office and toilets. I was in Grade 7 and my teacher was Mr John Webster. My sisters were in Grades 1 and 6. 1968 was the first time children in Grade 7 had been able to attend High Wycombe school all the way through from Grade 1 to 7.

When Mum took us to enroll us, the principal, Mr William Day, said High Wycombe School had a good mix of Australian, Italian and English children. Everyone got along fine. My first friends at school were Heather, an Australian girl who still lives in High Wycombe. Anna, Australian born with Italian parents. Ann from Scotland and Gaynor from England.

Later, Edwina and I went by school bus to Kalamunda High School. It was only a three-year high school then. Freda was in the first intake at Forrestfield High School.

Soon after moving in, a note came home from school about the P&C meeting. Mum and Dad decided they had better find out what this was all about. Notes had also come from Yokine Primary School for P&C meetings. The night they went, the secretary had given notice he was leaving the position. Mum asked what was involved. She came home as secretary. They both served on the P&C for several years. Soon after Mum was offered a part time office job at the school. This suited her as it was near home and she got school holidays. She later worked in the office at Kalamunda High School until her retirement at the end of 1986.

The new home in Tia Avenue meant my parents received their first rates notice from Kalamunda Council. In it was a notice about Watsonia. If they had it on their property it had to be removed. Of course, they had no idea what it was. One of Dad’s sisters had lived in Perth for about five years, so he asked her. She said they made butter and bacon. There was a company at the time called Watsonia. So, Mum went to went to the council offices (now a Dome coffee shop) to find out what it was. She was told it was a noxious weed and had to be removed. Luckily, there was none in our garden.

We got used to planes coming and going. One advantage of living near the airport was going to see the astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins when they came to Perth on their world trip in 1969. They were surprised at how many people came to greet them. Another morning Mum also saw a plane go over with one of the side doors open. Somehow, it came open on take-off and was circling back.

Edwina and I started going to table tennis club one evening a week in the Community Hall. This was run by Mr and Mrs Young who were keen players. Unfortunately, neither of us became world class players but the club was very popular with teenagers at the time.

My parents lived happily in their home in Tia Avenue until 1988 when they moved to Mandurah. Perth had grown during that time and High Wycombe and the surrounding areas were losing their orchards and bush to housing estates, shops and schools. They said they got nearer to Perth without moving. In that time, they saw their children married and welcomed three sons-in-law and six Australian grandchildren into the family.

Although my sisters and I have married and moved on we all live not far from Kalamunda. I now live in Armadale. Mum moved back to the area to be nearer to us after Dad passed away six months short of his 90th birthday in 2016. One of my sisters still lives in the City of Kalamunda area as do her children and grandchildren. She teaches at a local school and has taught the some of the children of her school friends.

In 2022, the new High Wycombe train and bus station was opened. I think most people in Perth will know where High Wycombe is now. It is almost an inner suburb. People in High Wycombe can get to the airport in a few minutes. Less than half an hour to Perth. It used to take nearly an hour on the bus to the city in morning peak. Never in our wildest dreams did anyone living in High Wycombe in 1968 think there would be a train station in Maida Vale Road.

This is written as I remember it as a child in the 1960’s and 1970’s.