Of Tragedy and Valor
Michael John Shannon

VICTOR HARBOR ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, ‘Beside the Seaside’ 

Interview with Winifred (Leah) Tapscott on 17th November 2015 

Interviewer: Sue West 

Welcome Leah and thank you for agreeing to be part of this project. So we’ll start, Leah, by asking when you were born? 

LT: I was born in 1953. 

And whereabouts? 

LT: At Ceduna. 

What took your family to Ceduna? 

LT: After the Second World War - my father (Lin Shannon) served in the Middle East and in New Guinea in the  2nd Sixth Battalion -  and I think he just wanted to get away from the madding crowd of War.  Before the War he worked for the Harbours Board so I think when he was in New Guinea, I’ve  got a photograph of him mending a net while they were waiting to be demobilised. It’s a fabulous photo because he’s got this net and cameras were  actually banned in the War but somebody had one but he’s got this net over him with blokes  standing around him all waiting for him to finish mending the net so they could cast it off I  suppose. 

He (Lin) was a born fisherman, his father was a fisherman, professional fisherman, and he was too.  My mother was Winifred Mollie Shannon, nee Trebilcock. She came from Montacute, from the  Adelaide Hills and my father was John Lindsay Shannon born in Encounter Bay in a house  called Lallawa. 

I’ve got a long family history of this area. My grandmother was Jane Caroline Shannon nee  Rumbelow and my grandfather was Joshua Shannon. 

Do you remember your grandparents? 

LT: I remember my grandmother but my grandfather died in about 1946 so I didn’t ever meet  him. 

Right, but you remember your? 

LT: Grandmother. 

Yes and your mother’s father? 

LT: Both grandparents I remember came from Montacute. Grandpa was a cherry farmer and a  fruiterer and a market gardener. Both very hard working people; walked to the markets to sell  their produce. That was all very good.

My grandmother, my mother’s mother, was Winifred Edith Trebilcock and my grandfather was  Ashley Thomas Trebilcock. 

My first name is Winifred, named after my grandmother because I was born on her birthday. My  mother’s name was Winifred Mollie, Grandma was Winifred Edith and whenever I complained  about the name Winifred my mother said, “Well, you could have been called Edith!” No, I didn’t  want to be called that either so I was Winifred Leah because I was born on my grandmother’s  birthday. 

Your father went to Ceduna from Encounter Bay after the War? 

LT: After the War, yep. 

What are some of the memories you might have of the Ceduna? 

LT: Of Ceduna? The sea and the jetty and Dad fishing and being tickled by my brother. Oh I  don’t really remember that but he did tickle me and I was very, very ticklish as a child and I leapt  off the bow of the boat and went straight underneath and cut my head on the propeller that was  going, so flat panic stations by my parents! 

Rushed off to the Ceduna Hospital, Murat Bay District Hospital and I got three stitches in my  head and a beautiful dolly and that was lovely. Nobody knew how I got to fall in until my brother  turned twenty-one and he confessed – he tickled me. I was very ticklish and I just leapt over the  bow, into the water. 

Do you recall the hospital trip perhaps but not the incident? 

LT: No, I don’t recall the incident at all and I don’t really recall the hospital trip but I do  remember the doll  got. 

Not to be outdone your brother? 

LT: No, not to be outdone my brother Timothy, because Ceduna was a remote community and  you made your own fun. He decided that he wanted a slippery dip and so he got a sheet of iron  and put it up against the shed and slipped down and cut his hand. Dramas of course, Mum was a volunteer at the hospital, but Timothy actually beat Mum to the hospital because he wanted  his present and he got a canary! I remember that canary, it used to sit on the back verandah. 

My understanding was that every child who presented to Murat Bay Hospital would get a present? 

LT: A present yes! It was a lovely Church-based hospital. It was run by the Bush Church Aid,  the BCA. Because I wondered, Mum’s closest friend was Joyce Hayman and her husband was  the Reverend Theo Hayman. They remained firm friends all their lives and I said to Joyce one  day, because Mum was Methodist, I didn’t know how come she got to go to the Anglican  Church. She became friends with Joyce because Joyce used to volunteer at the hospital as well  because they were both Registered Nurses. 

They became very close friends and their friendship remained very strong, in fact I think Joyce  is still going. My Mum died in 2010. Dad died in 1992, but I think Joyce is still going. She now  lives in New South Wales. 

Your mother was a Registered Nurse and she volunteered at the Hospital and your Dad  by now was a professional fisherman?

LT: Professional fisherman, yep. 

He bought his first boat from the Raptis family? 

LT: Yeah he did. The Raptis family had migrated to Australia after the War and settled in  Thevenard and the Raptis family were very close friends with Dad. I think when one of the  Raptis sons got married I think they sent a wedding invitation to every fisherman in that area,  being a big Greek wedding. 

The Angelakis Bros, who then set up, they were fishing from Thevenard as well and that’s a  famous name with Michael Angelakis. My brothers went to school with Michael. 

Both families still fishing? 

LT: Well Michael Angelakis is now an entrepreneur really; quite a celebrity. Whenever we went  to the Central Market we had to go around and see the Angelakis’ and the Raptis’ they built a  fish-processing factory in the city somewhere. Not in the city but near Richmond Road, near  Port Road. It was on the corner of Port Road. Down that way somewhere anyway. 

You had two brothers? 

LT: Two brothers, two older brothers, I’m the youngest of three. Michael, he was the first born,  1946 so he was just after the War finished and Timothy. Three years between, so six years  between Mike and I and three years between Tim and I so every three years one was born. 

Your Dad initially, and your Mum, lived in a caravan? 

LT: They did, they lived in a caravan that Dad built. Accommodation was very, very scarce after  the War. Eventually they were able to get a War Service Loan and build a two-bedroom home;  they were only allowed to have two bedrooms because they only had one child. Subsequent  children just had to squeeze in. 

Make do? 

LT: Make do, yep. Dad provided for us very well, Mum had a good relationship with the butcher  and Dad reckons he was sweet on her because she always came home with the best cuts of  meat! (laughter) Much to his advantage of course because Mum was a great cook. 

I imagine you would have eaten a lot of fish though? 

LT: Yeah, I guess so. 

What might some other childhood memories be? Were you a bit of a climber? 

LT: I’m a bit of a climber? Yes, yes, yes. There was a lane at the back of the house, the night cart lane; it was still there in those days. In Mum’s new house that she built there was still only a  wood stove, a Metters wood stove and the old copper out the back. A chook yard down the  back yard and the wood heap, so down the lane there was an enclosure with some kangaroos  in it and I decided I wanted to go and pat the kangaroos. I climbed up the cyclone fence and I  was trying to talk my next-door neighbour, Julie a girl the same age as me, to come with me,  climb over the fence. “Come on Julie, come on, climb over the fence!” 

“No, no,” she said, “I can’t.”

“It’s easy. Just put your foot in the cyclone fence and come.” 

Then Julie’s Mum came racing out and, “Get out of there, the kangaroos might hit you!” 

I was very disappointed. I was also disappointed that Mum wouldn’t let me jump off the jetty too  at Ceduna. She said that I was too little but I was going to do it, I didn’t though. 

The young are invincible. 

LT: Dad used to collect birds’ eggs so we used to go on trips out to the bush and I was the tree  climber. I had to climb the tree out to the nest, collect the eggs and drop them into Dad’s hat  one by one. I think only one of them broke, but that was a risk that he had to take. He still had  his bird collection right up until we cleaned up the house in 2010, no must have been in the 90s. 

We had a carefree childhood, playing, learning to ride a bike, all the roads were dirt but it was a  community with a policeman, the Area School, it was just like a normal community but just  compact I suppose. The lady next-door, Dulcie, she ended up, Foodland ended up, I think it  might have been a Four Square store at the time and which turned into the Foodland. She spent  something like forty years working at that Foodland store. I try and catch up with her whenever I  go to Ceduna now, she’s still going. 

After fourteen or so years in Ceduna, your family moved back to Encounter Bay? 

LT: Mum being an Adelaide Hills girl really wanted to come back closer to Adelaide, closer to her family. Her parents had retired into Eden Hills and she was the eldest of  six so she had a lot of family and she was always very dedicated in keeping in touch with the  family. 

My Grandma, Grandma Shannon, was living in the old house, well it seemed old to me anyway,  on the foreshore at Encounter Bay and she moved into a Nursing Home in Adelaide called  Allambi. I think it’s a Congregational Home and we moved into Grandma’s house on Franklin  Parade while our house was being built. That was in 1961. 

You lived in Nevin Avenue then? 

LT: Nevin Avenue, yep. 

And went to the local school? 

LT: I used to ride my bike to the local school, yeah. Drink the milk, the warm milk, underneath the pepper trees. 

It was always a mystery to me why the milk was always left in the sun. 

LT: Ours was at least under the pepper trees. I didn’t ever like it myself and we weren’t forced  to drink it so that was a good thing. We used to get our milk delivered in the billy; the milkie used to come around and fill up the billy and I can remember seeing the milkie, he must have  run short of milk one day because he was topping up the billy-can with water. (Laughter) 

Did Victor Harbor seem large to you, having come from Ceduna or was it much of a  muchness in terms of size at the time? 

LT: It didn’t seem large; it seemed like an adventure I think. I was determined to ride my bike  which was too big for me; I got a bike for Christmas I think and it was a bit big. It was a 26” and I was only pint-sized. I managed, I just had to stand on the pedals, I couldn’t sit down to ride; I  grew into it. Initially I had to catch the bus which I hated but that’s what you had to do. Again, a carefree childhood really. 

Did you get up to much mischief with your brothers? Were you ever mislead by them? 

LT: Tied up to the clothes-line more like it! Brother Mike was thirteen when we moved to Victor  and he went to High School. When he was seventeen he joined the Army and my brother Tim,  he was a bit of a ratbag but I think he was the one who tied me up to the clothes-line. He joined  the Navy when he was sixteen. I was that little bit younger and being the only girl I was fairly well spoilt really. 

Your Dad was fishing on the west coast and when he came back here he continued to fish but now in the local waters of Encounter Bay? 

LT: Yes he and Uncle Graham Rumbelow built their fishing cutter in Uncle Graham’s backyard. Uncle Graham was a carpenter by trade and so they built the Gralin a forty foot fishing cutter in Uncle Graham’s backyard. It was a big adventure when that was finished and it had to be  trucked to the nearest boat ramp to be launched. 

Gralin is an interesting name. 

LT: Gra-lin; Gra is from Uncle Graham and lin is the first three letters of Dad’s name. We thought  it was a good name. 

Yes a very good name. And they fished mainly for? 

LT: They were cray-fishermen and they had what they called a wet well so any fish they caught  as well would go in the wet well and they would also go to the market. Initially the crayfish were  fairly plentiful and Dad and Uncle Graham would only have to go out for half a day, set the pots  then pick them up on the way back and that would be enough to send off to market. Gradually the crayfish became more and more scarce so they had to set their pots closer to Kangaroo  Island or out on The Pages, out that way. They were out for a week then. 

The fish wasn’t processed here; it was sold directly to the markets in Adelaide?
LT: Yes I think so. 

Did they drive it up there or was it couriered up there? 

LT: I think they did; I’m not sure about that. I can remember Dad selling some fish to a fish shop  over in Goolwa. You’d remember them, I can’t remember but anyway there was a bloke over  there that had a fish and chip shop. He used to buy some of Dad’s fish but that would only be a  small part of the market. It provided a good living for Mum and Dad compared to Ceduna; they  did quite well. Eventually Uncle Graham wanted to go his separate way and so Dad bought his  share of the boat and fished a little bit, a couple of years after that, then he retired. Sold the boat  and then he retired. 

You went to Victor Harbor High? 

LT: Went to Victor Harbor High School. 

So in 1979 you moved back to Encounter Bay. 

LT: Back to Encounter Bay. We had built our house because there’s nowhere to spend your  money up on the North West Aboriginal Reserve so we had saved enough money to build our  house. I think we borrowed $15,000 or something and Chris’ Dad was the building overseer and  the plumber so we were very, very lucky people because he did a fantastic job so we moved  into a brand new home which we are now in right now. 

Which we are sitting in right now. 

LT: Yes, so at the end of 1979 we moved into here and I was six months pregnant with Nick. 

He was born in April 19? 

LT: ’84. No! That was Phoebe. 

In 1980? 

LT: In 1980. 

Born in 1980. 

LT: Yes, 24th April the day before Anzac Day; in the South Coast District Hospital, Cynthia Rymill wing. I was probably a stay-at-home Mum for six months and then the yearning to get out  there and work was too strong so I joined the RDNS and did some relieving weekend work with  Jenny Vincent and Aileen Gale and Marg White. That satisfied me a bit and then managed to  lose a baby in 1983 and then Phoebe was born in 1984 but I took up Diabetes Education on a  very part-time basis. 

Cynthia Rymill was a very strong advocate for diabetes education. 

So we’re speaking about Cynthia Rymill the person now and not Cynthia Rymill the midwifery Ward at the local hospital? 

LT: No, no. 

The real Cynthia Rymill. 

LT: The real Cynthia Rymill, yes. Obviously the wing was named after her because she was a  member of the Board and a very dedicated and strong member of the Board. She would have  advocated to the Health Commission to get me some hours as a Diabetes Educator. That’s how the Diabetes Education started in this area. It was only half a day a week mind you but still, big things come from little things don’t they? 

Dr Wayne Crawford was successful in gaining a grant?

LT: Yeah the Health Commission were putting out grants for Diabetes Education so he applied with the encouragement of Peter Carpenter. 

He was the CEO? 

LT: He was the CEO of the Hospital, yes. So Wayne applied and was given a grant, so I got a few hours of diabetes Education and I worked at the Victor Medical Centre as a diabetes  educator; Goolwa Medical Centre did the same thing so I got some hours at Goolwa Medical  Centre too working as a diabetes educator. In the meantime because that was only a few hours  a week, in the meantime I worked at the Victor Medical Centre as a Practice Nurse. I think I had  three and a half days work altogether between the two jobs, three jobs.  

The town by then was starting to grow presumably? 

LT: Yes, yep. 

More population and buildings? 

LT: It wasn’t the City of Victor Harbor then, though. 

Still the District Council of Victor Harbor? 

LT: Yes, yes, yes. 

Yes, it would have still been quite a popular holiday destination at that point? 

LT: Victor Harbor has always been the playground of Adelaide. Even in the early days in the 1800s, Victor Harbor was for some reason popular. Well, people used to come to the seaside.  The crayfish were plentiful; I think Dad used to sell crayfish for six pence a dozen or something.  They were almost like rubbish food. 

Now we can’t afford to eat them! 

LT: No, no. no. Where was I up to? 

So you went back up north again? 

LT: Yep in the mid-1990s, Chris won the position as Deputy Principal at Ernabella, so we took  Phoebe with us, our daughter and put Nick into a boarding school in Adelaide. We had 1995 in  Ernabella and I worked as a School Services Officer with the PYEC, the Pitjantjatjara  Yankunytjatjara Education Council. That was their office so anybody who went there and didn’t  have a job was offered a job there. They had a turn-over of staff, not because it was bad but  because the people come and go a lot up on the Lands. 

In 1997 you left the desert again to return back to Encounter Bay? 

LT: Yes I did. At the end of 1997 we came back to Encounter Bay to our house that we’d built in  1979. By the sea; I always have to be by the sea, it’s in my blood I think. It was in my Father’s  blood so I think it’s in mine as well. Right up until the end of 2014 I’ve been working in the  community up here; down here. 

Coming back at the end of ’97 at the beginning of ’98 I got a job with the community nurses and  worked with them ever since until the end of my working career, which was wonderful. 

Community nursing had previously been RDNS, the Royal District Nursing Service, so  essentially you went back to working for an organisation that you had worked for in the  past.

LT: Yes, yes. Everything goes around in circles. It was really funny because Chris, his first  teaching appointment was at Amata Aboriginal School, so he returned there as a School  Principal so that was circular.  

Then he went to Port Elliot Primary as a child? 

LT: He went to Port Elliot Primary School as a child. 

He went back there as the Principal. 

LT: Yes, so there’s another circle. 

A circle of life. 

LT: Yes it is. 

So now we’re in the ‘90s and heading to the turn of the century, how had Victor Harbor  changed again in that time? 

LT: Expanding, growing yes. The Primary School had been bought out by Woolworths, was it  Woolworths? Yes I think it was. No, it was bought out by, was it Woolies? 

Yeah. 

LT: Yeah. 

So four generations of your family have gone to that school and now it’s sold but to talk  about another circle you find yourself working back at the school, doing immunisations. 

LT: Doing immunisations, yes. Oh yes, there’s lots of skeletons in the cupboards there. That  was the Grade Seven classroom where we did the immunisations there. 

That was part of your role as a community nurse, so you set up the Clinic and ran it? LT: Yes. 

Provided immunisations for babies and up to five years old? 

LT: Yes up to five year olds. That happened because the immunisation rates were a bit down  here in this area and my Line Manager was approached by the Health Commission saying that  according to our records your immunisation rates are a bit low, especially in the four year olds.  How about setting up a Clinic, an immunisation clinic? Those negotiations went with Joe Byrne  so that was when Joe Byrne and Sue West and Kerryn Windsor-Male, Helen Gregor and we  established an Immunisation Clinic. 

Because of my love of babies that was right up my alley, I just loved it. Again, it was only done  on a minor scale with comparison but it was a very good thing to do. And now it’s stopped. Bad  luck. Right, what else? 

Any other memories of Victor Harbor that you might have or comments that you’d like to  make about the town, how it’s developed, spread; key things that you might recall. 

LT: We are very much entrenched in this community. The horse-drawn tram was back in the  1960s, ‘50s and ‘60s, was driven by Chris’ Grandpa.

Really? 

LT: Yes. 

So that was the train when it was the train? 

LT: No it was before the train. 

So it was horse? 

LT: Yeah it was horse. If you go inside a carriage now there’s an old photograph of Chris’  cousin sitting on top of the horse, the draught horse, with his Grandpa holding the horse’s head. 

Memories of doing swimming lessons in summer-time. 

Where were they held? 

LT: The ones that I can remember, some of them were held in the Hindmarsh River, you  wouldn’t be able to do that now. A lot of them were held on Granite Island I remember when I  was little, just in the waters underneath the jetty over there. 

Was that the Screwpile Jetty or the Causeway? 

LT: No the Causeway. It was a childhood filled with sun and surf and sand really and fishing. I  didn’t do fishing, Dad did. Just carefree. I used to have to make friends during the holidays as a  child with the holiday people who had holiday houses down here. They often had speedboats  and we used to go down to the Coorong. Unfortunately I hung around like a bad smell so they  took me along as well. 

One particular friend was Rosemary Day. She was the same age as me so I did a lot with that  family because she was the youngest, no she wasn’t the youngest, she was the only girl out of  four boys so they took me along to keep her company. We did a lot of things together; we used  to go out onto Wright’s Island camping overnight, things like that. Just a carefree childhood  really. Lots of surfing, lots of sand, sea. Dad used to go to the Museum, the South Australian  Museum, I think it was the Museum that approached him to go and tag some penguins over on Wright’s Island. We went out there one night and Dad said, “Come on boys, put your hand in, they don’t bite!” So he put his hand in and pulled it out very quickly, got a peck on his finger. Of course, there’s no penguins there now at all. 

On Wright Island? 

LT: No, it’s full of boxthorn. A small beach, we used to go out there and there was enough room  for us to have a camp at night, sleep overnight. The house that my father was born in, Lallawa, is still standing on Franklin Parade. 

Do you know the number or what would be the nearest side street to that home? 

LT: It’s in between, just down, two houses down from the Fountain Inn. 

OK, so heading towards Victor?

LT: Heading towards Victor. 

Right, OK. 

LT: I think it’s Fell Street on this side and there was a house called Bachelors’ Hall because  there were a lot of boarding houses down here in the 1920s and ‘30s. Mum used to talk about  Bachelors’ Hall. Encounter Bay was a very tight community then with the Rumbelows and the Shannons. Being a tight community they used to support each other. 

I can remember Mum telling me, she wasn’t an old lady but she was a very kind lady would  always, she had a domestic cow she used to make custards and things with this milk from the  cow but she was a carrier for one of the diseases. It wasn’t until there was a doctor had a home,  holiday house on Franklin Parade, nearby, and his son got this disease, because she’d made  the family a custard and he tracked it down to her because she didn’t know she was a carrier.  He got her treated and solved the problem. I should know what disease it was, it was a nasty  one, not glandular fever or anything like that or Hepatitis A but it was something like that. 

Right! What else? 

If you’ve got nothing else you’d like to add. 

LT: The first job I ever had was a Community Nurse and it was the best job I ever had, true  nursing position. 

It was. Hear, hear! OK Leah, we’ll leave it there for today. 

LT: Thank you Sue. 

Thank you very much indeed, it’s been a pleasure. 

LT: Thank you.