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After their marriage at Eden, NSW they set up house at Towamba, where Ernest worked at ‘Goldbergs’. Their first child, Leslie Harold, was born there on the 2nd April, 1904.
In February, 1905 huge bush fires swept through that whole area and the Kents and all their neighbours had to seek refuge in the local creek. The family lost everything they possessed. The 2005 valuation of this is $800,000.
After the fires they went to live at Wyndham, further north and with the help of Charles Gill, they started again.
Their second child Edna Vera was born there on the 9th July, 1905.
The following year their third child arrived, Ruby May on the 3rd October, 1906.
The Kent family stayed in that area until 1908 and then for some reason that is not known to the writer, they moved to Pymble, a suburb on the North Shore of Sydney. But it is on record that they lived near the railway gates at Pymble.
On 18th December, 1908, Ernest (Jnr) ‘Bill’ was born there, but was a very sick baby and was taken to the Mater Hospital on the North Shore. The sisters at the hospital didn’t think he had been named and thought he was going to die, so he was christened ‘Bill’. Some years later he was christened Ernest. That’s the reason for the two names.
In 1910 the family moved to Wingham, NSW, near Taree with four children under seven. Ernest Kent secured a job at ‘Walls’ General Merchants at Wingham. The job didn’t last very long so Ernest opened the “Brush Studios” in Isabella Street, and did photography and signwriting. He didn’t make enough to live on at this, so he also took on felling timber in the Wingham Brush as the area’s dairy farming was forging ahead.
A new addition to the family happened on 19th February, 1911, when Charles Leonard was born in Isabella Street, Wingham.
Another addition occurred when Roy Sydney was born on the 19th March, 1913, but he was a very sick baby and died aged seven months, on 28th September, 1913. he is buried in the Church of England section of Wingham cemetery.
The Kent’s seventh child was also born in Wingham. Cecil Arthur arrived on 10th September 1914. after the start of World War 1 (1914 to 1919), the family moved up to Comboyne, which at that time was just virgin bush and alive with wild life, like possums, foxes, wild turkeys, pigeons and kangaroos. Possum, fox and roo skins were in big demand then. Ernest Kent was a good rifle shot, so the family lived very well. There was always plenty for the table. He also trained men and horses to join the famous Light Horse Brigade in Egypt.
Ernest felled a lot of timber on the Comboyne plateau, ready for dairy farming. The going price for land clearing in those days was two pound (£2) per acre.
He also made the first ice cream ever seen at Comboyne. The ice was brought up from Wauchope packed in sawdust, by the mail coach. Alf Taylor had the horse-drawn mail and passenger coach from Wauchope. The Taylors also had the only shop there. Ernest tried to get the Taylors to sell his ice cream but they refused, so he sold it on certain days out in the open paddock. He put up a sign to say which days it would be sold—at threepence a dish, and people came from miles around by horse and buggy to buy it.
During this period, their eighth child was born. Neta May arrived on 30th December 1916—the first girl in 10 years!
The Kents made a good living there then, and the First World War was at its worst in France and Belgium, with thousands of people dying every day.
Towards the end of the War, the family’s ninth child, Valton Lloyd was born on 22nd May, 1919.
Les, their eldest son, was working on dairy farms even then, and helping his father felling timber. At the age of 15, Les also drove a four-horse waggon to Wauchope with produce from Comboyne and brought back freight from the railway. It was a 2-day trip each way!
1919 also saw the end of World War 1 and the local men who survived the war were coming home and wanted jobs. The Kents sewed two double bed sheets together and painted them with “Welcome Home Boys”. The Brown brothers were some of them and their families are still in the area—in sawmilling. A huge party was held which, or course, featured Kents ice cream—something the boys had never seen before!
Les stayed on at Comboyne, working, when in 1920, the family moved down to Port Macquarie where Ernest Kent was employed as the “Nuisance Inspector”. Almost all the streets then were just grass and if you registered your cattle and horses with the local council and paid a fee for each animal, you received an ear tag, and your stock could graze anywhere in town. Untagged animals were then impounded by the inspector. Then you had to pay a fee to get them out of the pound.
The other duties Ernest had to attend to were the lighting of the 12 gas lamps and putting them out at midnight. The lamps were serviced by a hand cart with a small ladder on the side. This job often was done by the oldest boys of the family, who were home at the time.
The Kents also had a small shop at 44 Gordon Street, which sold groceries, lollies and of course, Kents’ famous ice cream—all you could eat for threepence!
The open air picture show had just started operation by Mr Oswald Ochs. At the rear of 68 Horton Street. To hold the concession for seling lollies and his famous ice cream, Ernest Kent and his sons had to assist running the picture show as the reels in those days were turned by hand the whole time that the picture was running. We only had silent movies in those days and if it rained, the show had to stop and the projector had to be covered over.
The two oldest girls, Edna and Ruby helped their mother run the shop. Quite a lot of photographic work was still being done by their father as the family history will show. It was a passion he had since 1901.
The Kents’ tenth child—Albert ‘Keith’ was born in Gordon Street on 20th November 1921. by this time ‘Bill’ had been sent out to work on Jock McInnerney’s dairy farm at Blackmans Point. He worked most of his young life on farms in the Hastings and later the Manning district.
1921 also saw ‘Fosseys’ come to Port Macquarie, with their “two weeks only” sales in the Masonic Hall in Hay Street, or in one of the empty shops or Scout halls. The firm spread all over the North Coast and inland. Ernest Kent secured a job with Fosseys—an “on-and-off” position that lasted for thirty-two years. The Nuisance Inspector job fell to the boys as he was now travelling with the firm. The girls and their mother managed the shop.
On April 29th, 1924, Victor Vincent was born in Gordon Street, the Kents eleventh child. Early in 1925, Ernest Kent lost the Nuisance Inspector’s job and the shop site was re-developed so the Kent family moved to Taree and he secured a job with ‘Bulmers’ store.
Their 12th child, James, died at birth on 21st October, 1926.
Two months later, Ruby May married Vince Harris on 27th December, 1926 at St.Johns Church of England in Taree. This happy event occurred during the biggest flood ever recorded in the Manning District and the bride had to be carried to the car—Mr Kent’s T-model Ford. The car often took the family to the seaside at Harrington on weekends.
In 1927 Fosseys opened “The Hub”, a multi-floor store in George Street, Sydney and Mr Kent was offered a department manager’s job. The Kents left Taree to live in Concord West in Sydney.
Edna, the Kents’ eldest daughter also got a job at Fosseys, and later that year ‘Bill’ left the dairy farm to also work at Fosseys.
The Kents’ 13th child, Shirley was born in Queen Street, Concord West, on 4th March, 1928.
The Kents stayed on at Fosseys until late in 1929 when the Great Depression struck and they all lost their jobs. The family then had to move as they couldn’t pay the rent and Ernest Kent’s great friend Dave Cody moved them in his old green truck to Concord Road, Concord West. Dave later became head keeper at Taronga Zoo, a job he kept for over twenty years.
In 1930, Cecil and Charlie were sent to Herberts’ dairy farm at Rollands Plains to work. Les was also working on a dairy farm in the Taree district and Bill got a job at Brittons dairy farm at Smithfield, now a city suburb.
The family couldn’t keep up with the rent payments—again—at Concord Road and Dave Cody moved them this time to Victoria Road in Concord West. The house was behind and above some shops, right next to the railway gates and everytime a train went past, it rattled the house. The house had three bedrooms, no hot water and it had a long back yard with two carriage sheds and stables, with an entry from Queen Street.
Ernest Kent turned this into his workshop and had a big sign on the gates, advertising “Photograpy, Bootmaking, Signwriting, Furniture Repairs & Sketching.” His favourite were pencil sketches with horses in flight. He had every spare inch of the yard turned into a vegetable garden. He also made small inground fish ponds and bred and sold goldfish and carp.
Another enterprise was pigeons, and he bred and sold them too, but many of them went into the pot! Pigeon stew was a mainstay meal some days, as things were becoming very tough then.
Edna Vera married Arthur Moyle on the 21st March, 1931, at St.Anne’s at Strathfield. Luckily Arthur had a job with the then E.S.and A. bank. The reception was held at the Kents’ home in Victoria Avenue, Concord West. Edna’s sister, Neta, was the bridesmaid and her baby sister, Shirley, (aged 3) was the flower girl. Valton, Keith and Victor were not allowed to go to the wedding and were locked up in their bedroom upstairs.
The Moyle’s moved into a house in North Strathfield.
Ernest Kent tried to get a job with Dame Edith Walker, who owned a big estate at the end of Concord Drive. It had a housekeeper’s house at the large entrance gates. We used to see her driving around in her black Rolls Royce, complete with Chauffeur. She said she didn’t have any work for him, but he could take any dead wood that was lying on the ground. As we had a wood stove and a copper fire in the laundry, that would be a big help, so he built a large billy-cart from scrap he got from the tip. It was six foot long and two foot wide and two foot deep. A pair of shafts in the front fitted up with rope. The three boys and their father would take the billy-cart, with axe and cross-cut saw over to the estate and load it up with as much as possible, and tied it on with rope. Coming home, Valton would be in the shafts and Keith in front of him, with the rope around his waist, with Victor in the front with the rope around his shoulders—much like a dog-sled. And Dad walked alongside. It was about a two-mile trip and people would come out of their houses to watch us go past.
Ernest also had a half-day-a-fortnight job at the Church of Christ on Concord Road, doing gardening. But to keep this job he and the three youngest boys had to go around the streets on Sunday nights singing hymns while the preacher prepared his sermon. Victor’s job was to hold the hurricane lamp on a pole. It was very cold some nights and we had no shoes or socks—and very little clothing.
1932 saw the opening of the harbour bridge and Concord West public school students marched over the bridge that day. Neta, Valton and Keith all went, but Victor’s class were too young. The opening by J.T. Lang was spoilt by Captain de Groot, who rode up on his horse and slashed the ribbon with his sword. They rejoined the ribbon for the NSW Premier, J.T. Lang and Captain de Groot was then arrested.
In 1933, things were getting very bad. This writer often went to school having had no breakfast and with no lunch and sat and watched other kids eat theirs. The government had a scheme whereby you paid a small sum of money at school on a weekly basis and at lunch time you received a small bottle of real milk. If there were any kids who had paid but didn’t come to school that day, the teacher would give their milk to Keith or Victor.
In 1933 Valton was sent to be an apprenticed jockey with one of Sydney’s leading trainers. But he soon became too heavy, so he was sent to work at Rogers’ dairy farm and butchery at Rollands Plains, near Port Macquarie. Also that year, Keith was run over by a car while playing on the road. He spent a long time in Prince Alfred Hospital and a long time on crutches. The wealthy man who ran over him came to see him at home and put a one pound note under his arm on top of the crutches! There was no such thing as compensation in the depression years. Keith carried a huge scar on his knee for the rest of his life.
There were many empty shops and on two days a week a charity had a soup kitchen in the back yard of one of the shops. It was just a big copper with a fire under it. Dad made a billy can out of a seven-pound treacle tin and Keith or Victor were sent down to get it filled. It was then reheated on the stove for tea. Most of the time that was all we had—no bread or a cup of tea. Unemployment was about 60% in those days and it was not unusual to see 200 men turn up for one job.
We kids didn’t have any money to go to the pictures on Saturday afternoon, so about six to eight of our mates would sit outside the picture theatre on the footpath, laughing and talking and the man who owned the theatre would yell out from the ticket office: “Come on! Get inside, you are a lot of bloody pests!”
The three youngest boys had been caught for stealing on more than one occasion. They mostly stole food. Victor was caught in a neighbour’s back yad pinching fruit and locked up in the policeman’s garage until his father (Ernest) came to get him.
1933 saw the start of the draining of Homebush Bay, which is now the Olympic Village. It was an employment relief scheme. There were hundreds of men working there with just picks and shovels and wheelbarrows. The boss would walk around the banks and if he thought any man wasn’t working hard enough he would say ‘hey you!’. The boss would throw him a two-shilling piece and say: “You’re finished! Get going!” If the man didn’t catch the coin, he got nothing. The coin would be lost in the mud.
At knock-off time, all the men would walk to Concord West railway station, where they caught a special train that took them home. The men had the same clothes on that they had worked in—they were filthy dirty and a lot of them got hurt trying to get on the train first to get a seat. The other men just walked over the injured.
Neta, who was working at David Jones in Sydney, and the railway-gate keeper, Cliff Henderson began courting and they were married on 17th November, 1934, at Concord West.
The three oldest Kent girls were very lucky as they all married men who had jobs, so the impact of the great depression on them and their children would have been very minor.
1934 was a very tough year for the Kents! The rent payments were well overdue once again and there was very little food to go around and not much clothing for the kids. Eels and penny winkles from the mud flats of the river were routine food. The ‘Salvos’ and St. Vinnies helped us survive. Ernest Kent was offered a managerial job with Fosseys at Tamworth. He took the job to start in February 1935.
Mum didn’t want to go there, so there was a lot of friction between them.
Mum wrote to a Mr. Herbert, a dairy farmer at Rollands Plains, (who was the same farmer that Charlie and Cecil had been sent to some years before). He agreed to take Keith and Victor. Our parents told us we were being sent there and that we would be well clothed and fed. Just after Christmas 1934, we were taken to Strathfield station and put on the North Coast Mail. We each had a little cardboard suitcase with everything in it we possessed. We arrived at Telegraph Point station about five o’clock in the morning and Mr Hebert picked us up in his old car and we started work for him for food and clothing.
We rode a horse to Rollands Plains public school and worked before school and after school and weekends. We have kept ourselves ever since.
All the seven Kent boys were sent to work on dairy farms at an early age. The youngest was Victor, aged 10. None of the boys went past 6th class at school.
The Kent marriage finished in 1935. Ernest Kent borrowed the money to go to Tamworth to take the job with Fosseys. His wife, Ruby, went to live in Port Macquarie and took Shirley with her. Mrs Kent took a housekeeping job with a Joe Bartlett, but he died soon after, then she did housekeeping for Charley Baldwin, a World War 1 digger, who was killed in a quarry explosion in 1938. she then took on housekeeping for Mr. Sid Heath and also worked in the kitchen at the Royal Hotel. She stayed with Sid Heath in Buller Street, in Port Macquarie. He made any members of her family very welcome there. A wonderful man, he died about 1960 and left the house to Mrs Kent for her lifetime.
She died on 21st October, 1970, aged 88.
Ernest Kent stayed with Fosseys at Tamworth for a few years and then moved to Fosseys at Griffith. He stayed there until his retirement in the late 1940s, and then lived with his daughter, Ruby, at Griffith. In his 80s, he moved up to Wauchope to live with his son Bill.
Victor hadn’t seen him since February, 1935 and he didn’t recognise his father. He asked Bill “who is this man?” Ernest was by that time, almost blind and he died in Wauchope hospital on 14th July, 1962.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you all for your contributions and photos. The family history has taken well over two years to complete. It has been compiled in a loose-leaf folder for you all to insert your own family in the appropriate place. You may wish to alter some of the material but make sure you use the right paper as this type of paper should last for a hundred years with proper care.
Those documents could not have been possible without the help of the Gill family, who are Ernest Kent’s step-brother Charles’ relatives, some of whom are still living.
Also to my cousin, Leonard Robert Long Groom, who is Ruby Alice Kent’s brother, Charles’ only surviving son and the last of the Groom males. He lives with his wife, Monica and family, at North Berwick, East Lothian, Scotland, EH39 4JD.
The author corresponds with them on a regular basis. Leonard turned 77 in 2005.
And last but not least to Heather Chettle, a graphic artist, who lives in our retirement village. These pictures and stories would not have been possible without her help.
Good health and good luck for your future.
© Victor Vincent Kent 2005-6.
Copied to the internet by Keith Henderson (Victor's nephew).