The Tweenies

‘Tweenies’ is a story I have always wanted to tackle, but from a different, more personal, and intimate perspective than is found in most of the extensive literature on World War kids stuck at home.

Tweenies is not a new word. If you Google ‘Tweenies’, a zillion articles appear, including about 120+ episodes of a BBC TV children’s puppet series by the same name. However, ‘tweenies’ is, as best as I know, a word of my own invention that describes a very particular group of kids about whom little has been written—the boys [and I apply it just to boys] who, during World War II, were too young to join up, but too old to be just children.

As I write this, I have one very special Lorne ‘tweenie’ in mind—Henry Love, who has gone down in the annals of my family as a Lorne tweenie to revere and celebrate.

Much, if not all, of what follows will be second-hand hearsay from family stories told by my grandmother over 60 years ago. She died in 1967, but they have stuck in my memory ever since. I have always wanted to write Henry a ‘thank you note’, despite that his kindness was rendered to my two older sisters and not to me. So, here I go.

Henry was a ‘tweenie’, as was his mate, Don Stewart, another local tweenie, never old enough to join up but, by the end of the war, old enough and strong enough to do many of the jobs around town that the men would have normally done had they not been away in far-flung battle fields of Europe, North Africa and the Pacific.

Henry helped my grandmother, my mother and my sisters,then two small girls, make it through the 6+ anxiety-ridden years when my father was away, first in the Middle East as a Rat of Tobruk [he was the regimental medical officer to the 2/23rd battalion] and later in the Pacific islands in Bougainville and New Guinea. I was a post-war baby, and not then on the scene. Were there other tweenies? Yes, a legion of them, but Henry was ‘our’ tweenie.

My grandmother, a quiet and reclusive woman, became a full-time, lifetime resident of Lorne from the middle of World War I and raised my mother as a single mother in Lorne at our family home on Deans Marsh Road.

Many years later, married and with two small daughters, it was natural for my mum to return home to Lorne in 1939 for the duration of World War II while dad was absent. However, as it was with so many other young families, this left my Gran, my mum, and my two sisters alone in Lorne without any male support for the many long years of WW II. Enter Henry Love!

Henry was a small boy, still very much in short pants, who lived at the top of Gwynne Avenue, just behind our place. As he would take a short cut through our garden on the way into town or on his way to school, he soon became a well-known favourite of my grandmother and mother … especially when he began to earn his boiled lolly pocket money [especially for the humbugs] doing man’s work for them about the house and in the garden.

Henry would chop wood for the green enamelled wood stove that Gran used for cooking. He would load and fire the old copper that stood nearby and that boiled up their clothes on wash day. He even turned the handle of the clothes wringer outside the back door [see picture].

 

More than that, he did gardening chores, ran errands and, despite his still tender years, took on the role, as my Gran would later describe it, of the ‘man about the house’. Henry was indispensable, as I would later learn from Gran and my mum.

But Henry was much more. He taught my sisters how to make sandcastles on the beach. He helped Mum teach them to swim in the Erskine. He taught them how to bait a hook and catch bream.

Most of the current Internet literature about ‘the tweenie generation’ dwells on the psychological harm inflicted on the children of war, as it should, and must. The threat of, or actual loss of, a parent, whether through absence, injury, or death—the loss of social normality, stability, and family harmony and the anxiety provoked by unanswerable questions like: ‘will dad [or mum] be OK?’ or ‘will he come home?’ or ‘what will happen to me if …?’ All provoked profound fears that cannot be minimised and, for many, led to psychological and other traumas that would last a lifetime.

Yet the minutiae of day-to-day life did go on, for Henry, Don, and all the other kids caught ‘in between’ in Lorne and other similar small towns throughout Australia in those dark days – kids too old to be kids, but not old enough to fight.

Just like Henry, other tweenies the nation over, must have stepped up to play adult roles in their child’s body. Just as women manned the munitions factories, ploughed the fields, became mechanics by necessity, and did the countless tasks that had previously fallen to their absent men, the tweenies, like Henry, went to war, too. They contributed just as meaningfully in the only way they could, as boys doing man’s work. And they literally kept the home fires burning.

Henry’s role as a child-minder, mentor, and older friend for the ‘littlies’ of our small family, as wood-chopper, odd-job doer and mini-male support, must have been replicated in Lorne-like communities everywhere, yet with little formal recognition.

I would like to think that it was Henry’s wartime training as a “tweenie-about-town-who-does-the-lot” that taught him the power and the pleasure of community service, for as his long life will attest and as a servant of Lorne, there is much for which our town should thank Henry Love.

His many years as our long-serving councillor and his successful stint as Mayor of the Surf Coast Shire—his election slogan ‘Henry makes it happen’ came true to the benefit of Lorne many times over—were among his stand-out years.

But then there was his …
• seminal work as manager of the Fish Co-op
• influence as a fisherman-guardian to Sammy the Seal
• pivotal roles on the Foreshore Committee
• decades of service to the Surf Club and Surf Lifesaving
• devotion to the Football Club and the Stribling Reserve
• board roles at Geelong Otway Tourism and Surf Coast Tourism
• steering role for the Lorne Pier project
… the list is endless.

 

All that said, and in my eyes, his role as our family’s unsung tweenie gets the chocolates!

Our family owes Henry—our ‘family tweenie’—a debt of gratitude we can never repay. While I have personally thanked him before—we used to talk at the Aged Care Facility while I was visiting my Susie during her last years there, I am pleased to have finally had a chance to put my gratitude into print.

John Agar

Feature Writer

 

A word from the chairman

Hello

Last week, GORCAPA (The Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority) met with representatives of the Point Grey Community Reference Group, the Lorne Aquatic Club and the Lorne Historical Society, to provide briefings on the forthcoming public release of the draft urban design framework (UDF) for the Point Grey precinct. An urban design framework is a detailed planning and design document, otherwise known as a strategic plan, that sets a long-term integrated design vision to guide the future use and development of an area.
The draft UDF for Point Grey will set out the plan for development of the Point Grey precinct over the next 10 years, but most importantly will show the proposed layout of the site including the location of buildings and other structures. This will then enable progress with the detailed design of the new Aquatic Club building and the proposed food and beverage outlet, now being referred to as a “kiosk”.
It is planned to publish the draft UDF on May 27, inviting public submissions until June 22 before which there will be a number of in-person and online engagement sessions. This is an important next step in the Point Grey redevelopment and the Committee for Lorne encourages everyone with an interest in this unique site to consider and contribute to the discussion.
On Friday May 9, GORCAPA released the findings of two independent technical assessments of the Lorne Fishing Co-operative building at Point Grey. The assessments confirm that the building, which was originally constructed in 1949, has reached the end of its useful life and is unsafe for future use. GORCAPA have advised that early works in preparation for demolition will commence shortly.
******
As we move well into our winter sport seasons, the level of enthusiasm, endeavour and participation among all our Lorne netball and football players continues to impress, although not always rewarded on the scoreboard. Last Saturday, our senior footballers took on Irrewarra Beeac in a grand-final rematch. After a tight struggle in the first quarter, the Dolphins “switched on” in the second quarter kicking 8 goals to 0 and went on to secure a comfortable 35-point win. They will need all their skills and energy this Saturday when they take on their nemesis, Alvie, at Stribling Reserve. Come along and support all our netballers and footballers.
*****
We have enjoyed wonderful autumn weather, but that’s enough, we need rain! Our farmers are struggling through what is being referred to as the “forgotten drought” because it is not being felt in the cities. However, we know that what affects the farmers now will affect us in the future through increased food prices and stock shortages. Even in Lorne where we are fortunate to have ample water supplies, our rainfall for this year to date is only about one third of the long-term average.
So I leave you with a prayer for rain:
“We pray that You open the heavens and pour down rain upon the dry land. Let the rivers flow again, the crops flourish, and the land be restored. Amen.”

Cheers

John

Lorne Ward Events Calendar

May

5-18 – Exhibition of Works Needlecraft, Embroidery & Tapestry, Bhanu Mistry ‘Journal’. 10am-4pm at Lorne Community Connect.

17 – Lorne Dolphins Football and Netball V Alvie, at Stribling Reserve, juniors match from 8:445am, seniors at 2pm

17-18 – Great Ocean Road Running Festival, Running, music, wellness, adventure.

June

7 – Lorne Market, 9am-3pm www.lornemarkets.com/

8 – Lorne Aquatic & Angling Club – Major Fishing Competition No 4, Weigh cut off 12.30pm. Free roast lunch for competitors, $10 non-fishing members.

July

6 – LAAC Winter Comp No 2. lines down after 6am, weigh in at the Lorne Aquatic and Angling Club at 12:30 followed by BBQ lunch.