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Winnie had talked her parents into letting her leave school the year they moved from Skipton so her first few years in the Mallee were spent at home helping with the farm. Like her brother Laurie, she eventually decided to seek work away from the farm. Her first steady job was as a companion and helper to the town's newly arrived female GP. 'She was very good to me and took me on the rounds to help her find the places, there are no street signs in the Mallee, all the roads ran into or off one another, all red sand, all looked the same'. Dr Weir also took Winnie with her to Melbourne where her family showed Win the sights. She so loved 'the spaciousness of Melbourne and the lovely trees and gardens' there, that she returned to live and work there a couple of years later. There she met her future husband, Fred Stafford, who was then working as a grocer for Croft's chain stores in the City. Frederick Thomas Stafford was born at Melbourne in 1912, the son of Isaac Stafford (1874-1948) and Catherine Mary Anderson. In 1887 the eleven year-old Isaac and his mother, Elizabeth ('Betty') Stafford nee Whitehead, and three siblings sailed on the Hohenstaufen from Antwerp in Belgium to Melbourne. There they joined Isaac's father, Isaac Stafford snr (1830-1906) and another of his and Betty's sons, James Stafford, who had sailed from London to Australia the previous year. Betty died in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood two years after the family were reunited. Her grandson, Fred Stafford, would die from the effects of nephritis in Preston in 1974.
In 1937 Teen came to Melbourne to work as well and she and Winnie 'took a small flat closer to the City'. They both went home for the Xmas of that year to meet up with Laurie who had returned from his saw-milling exploits in New South Wales and would introduce them to his new motor bike. That year water had also been connected to the farms by a new system of channels so their dam was at last full of water and, according to Les, wonderful to swim in. The high point of their visit home, however, was the New Years eve dance held in the Walpeup Hall. 'Everyone in the district was there, some of them were just home for Xmas like me, it was a great night for meeting old friends and hearing their last year's experiences. I used to teach the boys a few new dance steps in preparation for this event and we always had a most enjoyable time'.
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Laurie, Winnie and Les about to go to the New Years eve dance at Walpeup in 1937 and
the newly filled dam on the farm there.
Laurie, Winnie and Fred Stafford walking along Melbourne's Princess Bridge in 1937.
Winnie married Fred Stafford in Melbourne in 1939 and they lived in the grocery store he had bought in West Preston a few years earlier. In 1941 Fred joined the RAAF and was posted to Darwin. Teen, who had married Fred Bainbridge (1909-2002) the same year, came to work in the shop after her Fred, who was then studying to become a doctor, also enlisted and was sent to New Guinea. Winnie tells us 'he had joined a medical unit, but was pushed into the postal unit when they found he had seventeen years experience and they didn't have anyone else who could handle it'. Both Freds survived the war and returned to 'civvy street', Fred Stafford to his shop in West Preston and Fred Bainbridge to complete his medical studies before working as a doctor in Bougainville, Cairns and Elmore in central Victoria. Winnie and Fred had two children - Merrill Christine and Gregory Thomas - and six grandchildren. Teen and her Fred had six children - David, Alison, John, Hugh, Keith and Bronwyn - and five grandchildren. Winnie died in the Austin Hospital in Melbourne in 2000, Teen at the Rochester Nursing Home in 2011. Although she wasn't able to get back to Walpeup as often as she would have liked after her marriage, Winnie remained in close contact with her parents for the rest of their lives. As she relates in the two extracts below, she lost her father in 1949 and her beloved mother in 1967.
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Alfred and Alice at Teen's wedding in 1941 and Alfred's grave at Walpeup.
Winnie and Laurie in Melbourne in 1947 each with their eldest child: Merrill and Graeme.
Return to Laurie's memoirs.