Interview with Geraldine Sharp

Interview with Geraldine Sharp (nee Brown), born in Te Puke in 1924. Talks about her family background, growing up in Te Puke and Lower Hutt, and her father having lost a hand in a workplace accident. Refers to hard times in the Depression and to one brother living with relations. Comments on her schooling and leaving at 15. Refers to being aware war was coming, using blankets for blackout, and not going out alone at night in the darkness. Discusses her brothers' involvement, Allan leaving in the Third Echelon and George going to Fort Dorset. Refers to Allan dying as a prisoner of war in Italy. Talks about a cousin Raymond Swaysland who was a conscientious objector but was not interred because he worked for the railways. Describes their father getting news from a crystal radio with headphones and reading war news in the paper. Explains it became more scary after the Japanese came into the war. Discusses writing to friends and relations serving overseas. Talks about using a bicycle and later buses to get to work, holidays, Christmas during war time, and food rationing. Recalls VE (or VJ) day and going to the pub with fellow workers for a drink.

Discusses working at the Wills cigarette factory, an essential industry during the war. Refers to her hearing being affecred by the noise levels at Wills and later at Gadsdens metal fabricating factory where she worked until her marriage. Mentions making four gallon petrol tins and Army biscuit tins at Gadsdens, where she lost a toe in an accident. Comments on company picnics and parties which servicemen attended. Comments on meeting her first husband Arthur Dalley at Gadsdens and his having lost bits of fingers from work accidents. Recalls her father's death [in the early 1940s] and needing to keep working to help out. Refers to her marriage to Arthur ending, meeting her second husband Ron and marrying him in 1970. States that she does not recall the war having any effect on her life, and that her husband Ron never talked about his experiences. Talks about having a pie cart in Whanganui for a number of years, and Johnny Devlin writing a song about it. Refers to working as a hospital cleaner briefly. Mentions her daughter Bronwyn graduated Ph.D.

Abstracted by - Erin Flanigan

Interviewer(s) - Alison Parr

Arrangement: Tape numbers - OHDL-001158

Quantity: 1 digital sound recording(s) digital sound recording(s). 1 printed abstract(s). 1 interview(s). 2.52 Hours and minutes Duration.

Physical Description: Sound files - wave files

Finding Aids: Abstract Available - abstracting complete OHA-7338.

Photocopy(?) of a black and white photograph of Geraldine Sharp (early 1940s); printout of two colour photographs of Geraldine (2007)

Search dates: 1924 - 2008