Dallas Dyson

Interviewed by Eve Klein on 6 August 2001
Subject: Housing

Eve Klein. Prior to that time what were houses mainly built from? What materials was he using?

Dallas Dyson. Oh in Mosman – bricks. It was an ordinance in Mosman Council. It was obligatory – well in my time you couldn’t use weatherboard. You could initially but…..

Eve Klein. …and then during the war was there sufficient material for building?

Dallas Dyson. No, you really had to scratch. As a matter of fact when we built this house after the war there was insufficient – I had to go to get tiles for the roof. An Italian ship had put into Circular Quay filled with tiles because they were so short, and I had to hire a man to bring a lorry and I had to physically put every tile I wanted on the lorry one Saturday morning and I finished about two o’clock in the afternoon. A man came along and I paid him for the number, and the same thing happened with timber. I had to go up to the Blue Mountains where a man had a mill and I got timber for the roof.

Eve Klein. Which years would that have been?

Dallas Dyson. These were post-war years, 1946/7.