A very special Mum
SOUTH FREMANTLE star Annie is loved by many and turned 90 last December!
Annie came to Perth at the end of WWII as a 10-pound pom – she earned the money for her fare stamping sizes on rubber gloves in the bombed-out shell that was London.
• Annie and daughter Chris Doyle
Mum and her sister Georgie helped support the family by working as fruit pickers when they arrived in WA.
An orchard owner said Mum and Georgie weren’t smart enough to be nurses.
Both became nurses, with Annie receiving an award for excellence from Royal Perth hospital in 1959.
Unfortunately, Mum married a violent drunk, and was married for 30 years.
• Annie’s best friend Chop Chop was also such as star his death made the Chook’s front page.
Early in her marriage, Mum had a catastrophic brain injury, and was hospitalised for an extended time.
Annie had three young toddlers at this time and went on to have another daughter. (Me!).
In 1988, Annie inherited some money from her Aunt – she was excited that it ‘might be enough for a lovely dinner’ (Aunty Dottie drove an ambulance without lights on during the London blitz).
It was enough for Mum to leave her shitty marriage and move to South Fremantle, where her amazing new life began.
• The move to South Fremantle changed, and maybe saved, Annie’s life.
On her birthday, Mum was in fine form, surrounded by family and friends.
Mum wanted to give a speech…
“You all make Fremantle a better place.”
So do you Mum
Love Chris, Step and Decline
Right on!
STEVE GRADY’S recent letter (Herald, June 24, 2023) deplored AUKUS protestors because other countries abuse human rights.
Putting aside some of Australia’s own finest having also ended up in “rooms without windows” because they are born Aboriginal, (thus more likely to be incarcerated), or faithful climate activists trying to stop fossil fuel expansion off the north-west shelf, with more draconian legislation promised their way, of course we should be concerned about everyone’s human rights!
It’s a furphy, though, to avoid the stark impacts of AUKUS on our economy and national sovereignty, a race to the bottom, with taxes being redirected from diplomacy and foreign aid to a handful of nuclear powered submarines (less about defence and more about playing underwater chicken beneath the South China Seas, far from our shores but on the edges of Chinese territoriality).
Instead Australia’s military command is embedding with US interoperability, which takes decisions about deployment and Pine Gap effectively out of our hands.
Ask former foreign minister Gareth Evans, who once tried to have a say about things during the Gulf War, quickly put in his place by our dear friends from Hawaii.
Whether it’s because we will have high fission nuclear reactors in Gage Road and Garden Island, or because we are making ourselves capable of manufacturing nuclear weapons out of the fuel, or the opportunity cost, to our schools, environment and health, or the lack of grace in managing international relations, I’m grateful that more people are becoming aware of the huge risks to Australia through AUKUS.
And let’s say, risk to our friends from the United States, whose leaders seem to have learned nothing from the belligerent policies, illegal invasions, and disastrous human rights that came out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
We can see the fruits of Australia’s comic-tragic role as deputy sheriff, waiting for the next catastrophe.
Peace turns out to be more prosperous and cheerful than in the murky depths of the submarine alternatives.
Adrian Glamorgan
White Gum Valley
Keystone cops
BEFORE and after the demolition of the Old Woolstores building in Cantonment Street, there was a rather impressive design for a building that was to house the new police station.
Coles was to return with associated shops to return the area to its former glory, with talk of apartments as well.
I recall talking to officers and detectives, pre- and post-Covid and their understanding was that the Woolstores was where a state of the art station was to be built.
Some businesses were sure that they were to return to their old digs in the new build.
The rather impressive design showed a curved design of three to four storeys, unlike the boxes that are all too familiar and sadly preferred by Fremantle council.
Examples are the new council and FOMO building.
The position would have also offered the police easy access to major roads in and out of Fremantle and into the inner city.
The South Terrace site will cause traffic disruption and turn the venture into Keystone Cops as police cars wind their way in and out of one of Fremantle’s major arteries.
This will also add disruption to one of the main tourist and locally visited streets in the Fremantle area, not to mention the continued demolition of heritage walls like the one opposite the Warder’s Cottages.
Ric Aldrovandi
Fremantle
