Mum's Diary from 1926 - The girl from Weja

My Life 1926

I was born on Sunday 9th May 1926 at West Wyalong Private hospital to wonderful parents Eileen & Walter Lemon who had me 15 months after they married on 25th February, 1925.
I was named after a great singer (I cannot sing a note) Mum always told me but I could not remember her name so upon research in the Chronicle of the 1920's I came across a Marie Lloyd who was the only Marie around at that time so guess thats who I was named after.

My Mum was to suffer through my birth as her Doctor went on holidays and a replacement medic delivered me, he was no better than a novice as he stitched her insides wrongly preventing her going to the toilet. So I guess that was the start to the many operations she was to have in her life.

November 1919 Colin Ingram took charge of a Free Bag service for residents of Weja and got 1 pound per year. There were 14 residents at that time living there. On March 24th 1922 Mark Emmerton succeeded Mr Ingram and Mr John Daniels became Postmaster on 1st Feb,1923 and that year the telephone was connected on 23rd August 1923. Because of ill health Mr Daniels had to resign and Mr Emmerton came back but on 1st April,1924 a telephone exchange was opened to to three subscribers. Mr George Wallace took over on 6th Nov,1925 and my Dad Walter Lemon became Postmaster on 15th June,1926 and stayed 50 years until it closed in 1976.

I was the only child for the next three years then along came a sister Valerie and eight years after that another sister Beverley.
My Childhood was a happy one except for a bad accident when I was around three I was playing with matches in a hessian cooler and got 3rd degree burns to my legs taking some 12 months to heal after skin grafts, you can still see faintly on occasions where the skin was taken from. Don't think I ever played with matches again after that.
My first school was at Winnunga 6 miles from home and I was taken by horse and sulky by the Arundels who also attended.