Every year that Allan Willet was away for Christmas during World War II, he received a Christmas cake from his grandmother. Sometimes it didn’t get to him until March the following year.
“My aunty was at a place in Essendon making
aircraft harnesses during the war. She had the cake tin soldered around the lid to make it completely airtight,” Willet says.
He says his grandmother was a great cook and, despite the time in transit, the cake
was delicious.
Willet joined the RAAF as a groundsman in 1942 and it wasn’t until 1946 that he had another Christmas at home.
At 90, Willet has more Christmas memories than most. And it is the simple things that he remembers most fondly.
There’s the roast chicken his squadron had one year at the Tocumwal RAAF base (on the NSW border).
“It was a real treat … most families only had chicken for Christmas and Easter,” he says.
He recalls fresh bread and butter with the Christmas meal his squadron had in a shed in Brisbane and then there was the Christmas in New Guinea.
“Our commanding officer used a contact in Townsville to bring in some Christmas goodies,”
says Willet.
“There was tinned turkey … I think we even had
a bag of potatoes … and lots of beer.”
He says he wasn’t overly bothered about being
away from home at Christmas but he could see it
was hard for the married blokes, especially the ones with children.
When Willet first tried to enlist in the air force he was refused because his occupation was considered protected. He worked for the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation as an apprentice fitter
and turner.
Determined to join his friends in the armed forces, he quit his job and went to work for Myer selling napery. He was there in December 1941 when Japan joined the war. He remembers it well because that’s when he and another man were told to go down into the basement to do “a very important job”.
“When we got down there a bloke pointed to a great heap of crockery. He said, ‘It’s all got stickers on it that say Made in Japan. I want you to take off every sticker and put a Made in China one on’. It was a rotten job,”
he says.
A few months later, Willet was accepted by the air force, returning home in April 1946.
“When I got home I was pretty lost,” he says.
“I had a lot of mates before I joined up … we all got separated, some were killed. I’d go up to the local pub, always hoping someone would come in that I knew. It really got to me.”
It was around that time that he met his beloved Jean. By the Christmas of 1947 they were married and decades of family Christmases unfolded.
A week before their 65th wedding anniversary last year, three months out from Christmas, Jean died.
Christmas is not the same, says Willet.
“Jean’s not here and I feel it.”
But he still has the memories of the “many, many lovely Christmases” the two of them spent with
their kids.
“We had five kids and not a lot of money. But we had great fun. We always managed to get the kids nice things and Jean was a good cook.”
When his children had families of their own, everyone would come together on Boxing Day.
“We’d play cricket. The kids would all be squawking and yelling … tearing up my garden. They were great days,” he says.
KIM NORBURY
kimnorbury@theweeklyreview.com.au
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