Tough times recalled in self-published book
Donnybrook identity Pam Trigwell says the past is precious and should be recorded. She has written a book about her past.
BORN in Perth in 1928, Pam Trigwell’s earliest memories are of depression times.
“We were fortunate enough that my father had a job when many others didn’t,” she said.
“But we didn’t have a great deal of money.
“Nobody had anything in those days.”
Even meat was scarce. “Offal and mince sausages were about the best you could do, or a lot of the men who didn’t have jobs would come around selling rabbits, which was a feed if you could afford them,” Pam said.
“We were quite well dressed because my parents were from the UK, but to go to school in a working man’s area was diabolical.
“We soon learned to shed our shoes and socks at the corner and arrive barefooted, which helped a bit.”
When Pam’s mother died, her aunt and uncle took over as legal guardians, because her father was unable to look after her.
Her brother stayed with their father.
“I was put into boarding houses and it was a tussle between my father and my aunt finding out where I was. One would shift me from one place to the other without the other one knowing.”
After two years of this uncertainty, Pam’s father made her a ward of the state, unbeknownst to her aunt and uncle.
“I went to a home for a while, that was the holding paddock for waiting to be adopted,” she said.
“I had two trial runs at that and got sent back both times. I accepted it, I never ever felt that I was disadvantaged.
“The only thing I ever felt was that I’d like a home of my own.”
When Pam’s aunt and uncle found out what was happening, she was back to being in boarding houses once more.
She left school at 14, deciding to become quite independent of everybody if possible.
After working in Perth, Pam joined the land army. She did her training in Pinjarra and then transferred to Donnybrook, where she stayed.
“Then I met Murray my husband and we were married in 1949,” she said.
“He left the farm and joined the police force. We were stationed in Perth, Kalgoorlie, Harvey and Brunswick, where he resigned, and we came back to live in Donnybrook.
“We bought a business, the Old Pines Tearooms, and were there for nearly 10 years.”
Pam and her husband travelled to Carnarvon, then points further north, around Australia, to Tasmania and overseas to New Zealand.
“We fulfilled the dream of the travel I’d always wanted to do, until he died in 2005,” she said.
Pam wrote and self-published her autobiography, which she launched last week out of a desire to share the past.
“I think everybody should write a book, everybody should write their story for their family,” she said.
“In our day families didn’t talk. Nobody knew about the skeletons in the cupboard.
“With technology the way it’s moved ahead.
“The olden days are quite precious and unless you write it down, there’s no record of it.
“In the day and age of computers, there’s no reason you should not write.”
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