Miss Laurie Mullens

Interviewed by Eve Klein on 7th March 2002
Subject: Second World War, Work

Miss Mullens. I started nursing when I left school but I got an infection and my mother was advised to take me away, she said the little ones get through all these things and you will find your daughter is being involved in lifting and helping etc., so we stopped that. I then went to business College and got various jobs through them, starting off with Felt & Textiles and I worked for Irish Linen that imported materials, and Wakefields, the Oil Company. That was a very nice job – a new building in Ultimo and we had nice quarters, a rooftop kitchen, showers, toilets, and lockers. When Lord Wakefield died he ordered that every employee throughout the world received a week’s wages for each year of service.

Eve Klein. After which length of time?

Miss Mullens. Over six years I think.

Eve Klein. In those days do you think your involvement in work was pleasant?

Miss Mullens. Yes it was.

Eve Klein. What made it pleasant?

Miss Mullens. I was in a pleasant atmosphere with people that were agreeable. At Wakefields – it was during the war – we girls had little evenings for the sailors when the British fleet was here and they said, ‘whatever money you can manage to acquire, we will double it’, and so we hired halls in the city and had dances, and also I made a life-long friend of one of the sailors. He was an electrical officer and we still correspond. When he went back home after the war he had a daughter he named after me.