Chapter 15

Nephews, Typewriters and Daycomb Shorthand

Shirley had no real understanding or knowledge about babies. Her world was full of older relatives, and she was the youngest daughter of a youngest daughter. Her father’s brothers had a couple of stuck-up young sons who were a few years older than her, and that was the extent of her experience of family children. So, when her sister Lorna gave birth to Jeffrey in 1942, she was unprepared for the aching love that filled her heart when she saw the little squirming package in her sister’s arms. Her mother was quite beside herself at the birth of not only her first grandchild, but a boy as well. Shirley had never seen her mother so dewy eyed and disarmed. Jeffrey was such a beautiful little baby boy. Shirley spent hours playing with him and holding him whenever she could prise him out of Lorna or her mother’s arms.

Grade 8 was ending, and plans were well in hand for most with moving on to jobs in the local factories, shops, trades, family businesses or public service. Sister Maxentia had been the titanic matriarch of St Jimmies’ who, with a firm, kindly and perceptive mentorship, took on the bristling young crowds in Grade 7 and 8s, preparing the majority of them for the world of work. Over the two years that she worked with these swiftly maturing, commonly impoverished catholic teenagers (before that term was generic) Sr Maxentia had doggedly yet calmly informed herself of each of their personal situations, inclusive of innate talents and intractable limitations, and been instrumental in fostering their secure ‘passover’ into earning their keep. She heard and knew (because in that community nothing was secret) the many tales, whispered or free-spoken, that each of these young people confronted outside her school walls; and it was her yearly quest to ensure that, at the very least, they were leaving school with the guarantee of secure pay at the end of each week to ensure they could look after themselves no matter what the swirling situations around their daily living arrangements threw at them. She wielded substantial influence with a range of the local catholic businesses, many of whom were former clients of hers, leveraging irrefutable pressure when in need of placing a child who was yet to find their own employment. To Shirley though, she became a loving and affirming touchstone. A kind and motherly stalwart. Shirley would miss her enormously, yet she was very relieved to be able to escape the agony that was her school studies, where she had often felt dull and inadequate, and beyond all of that, bored! And with no less than the exciting prospect of growing up and having her own money beckoning to her, Shirley was a swathe of excited emotions.  

May had organised, somehow, with the Daycomb sisters, who owned their own newly established college in Little Collins Street, for Shirley to commence business studies including typewriting and Daycomb shorthand skills for twelve months. There was little chance of her mother finding any money for Shirley to attend this prestigious business college, but after May made her own personal persuasive pitch, Clara Daycomb offered a subsidy to Shirley with the proviso that she took the job of being pulled out of class to run messages whenever they needed someone to do an errand.

Thus, Shirley was introduced to the glamourous world of typewriters and shorthand. The teachers at the school were thin, prim, and very self-important; all ruled by the garrulous and cheery Clara and the dour, imposing, intimidating Beatrice. They scurried around the gloomy corridors and bustled the girls into dinghy classrooms where they were taught the importance of being an army of well-behaved, easily overlooked typists and receptionists, who were marking time until they could stop work, get married and spend the rest of their days being well-behaved and easily ignored wives and mothers.

The smell, and smooth pedals of the typewriters and the tapping of their impressive metallic keys seemed redolent of such a romantic and official atmosphere. Shirley, however, wasn’t a naturally fast typist, and felt frustrated with the speed and clumsiness of her hands, but she worked very hard and diligently when given the chance, eventually cracking the magic rate of 35 words per minute – the lowest benchmark for graduating girls. Daycomb Shorthand was another challenge altogether.

​With the many interruptions occasioned by her trips up and down Little Collins Street to the other connections of Daycomb Shorthand in the business community, there were important chunks of shorthand classes that were lost completely, and catching up presented an almost impossible challenge for Shirley. No matter how much homework she tried to do in the her cramped little room, it always looked like Chinese to her.

In her class there were a fun bunch of girls that Shirley eventually teamed up with, and they would hang around down at Healey’s cafeteria where they would sometimes have the money for a milkshake and a Chester Slice. Her first days at the college were lonely ones however, because it was the first time Shirley and Lorna had not been together sharing each of their school days chugging through the boring grammar books, and trying to keep their many flirtations with the boys from St Jimmy’s under wraps.

Lorna went to a competing business school where she learned Pitman shorthand instead. To compensate, they began to meet on the corner of Highett and Griffith Streets at the end of each of their business college days to catch up on the exciting new events, people and skills that had come their way that day. They also organised to enrol in a sewing course together at William Angliss College on a Tuesday night, starting out diligently enough in the program learning the basics of dressmaking. As the year wore on however, and the streets of Richmond became icy and bitter wind tunnels, the girls would shiver as they set off down Bridge Road together to the tram stop into the city, passing the ‘Cin’ on the way. Outside, under the bright lights, groups of their friends would be hanging about waiting for the session to begin for the most recent movie. With the foyer looking so tempting and so warm, and much more fun than the unwieldy sewing machines they were otherwise going to be ‘watching’, there were a few of the sewing classes that came off second best some nights, and Lorna was never to go on to develop a great knack for running up quick, simple, cheap, and cheerful costumes in her future – no matter how many children she had who needed them! Shirley on the other hand remained more of the driving force in support of their sewing course, and she actually managed to get them on the tram safe and sound most of the time, sewing kit underarm – with the ‘Cin’ and the tribe of boys outside, disappearing disconsolately behind them.