53 Duke Street

demolished and rebuilt c 1978

Memory submitted by Mrs Josephine (Jo) Lupton (nee Saunders) May 2024.

1942 - 1946:
This was the address of Mrs Ursula Saunders and her two daughters, Josephine
(known as Jodie) and Lynette during their husband and father’s service in the
Airforce during World War 2.

He was Ken, the youngest son of Percy and Maude Saunders who owned the bakery at number 58, on the opposite side of the street.
The house was a simple 4-roomed cottage, unpainted weatherboard and iron clad,
with a back veranda that sheltered the laundry troughs and iron copper at one end
and enclosed at the other end to create a very simple bathroom.
The block on which the house stood was solid limestone – almost the highest point
of a ridge that ran along that side of the street. The front of the block had been cut
away so that it was about a metre higher than the footpath. There was no front fence
and the only “garden” was two stunted oleander trees that had somehow managed
to get a footing in the cracks and hollows of the bare limestone. The southern end of
the block had also been cut away to make a sloping driveway that gave access to
the back of the property.
The was another building in the backyard near the southern side of the block. It
was fully enclosed and part of it had a glassed window. It may possibly have been
built for extra sleeping accommodation. My father used it to store a mountain of
chopped firewood before he left for his Airforce service. The only other building was
the brick-built toilet that was sited about two-thirds of the way down the block.
Behind the toilet, right across the block, was a wire-netted fence that may have been
there as the barrier fence of a chook yard. In my memory it was just full of castor oil
trees.
Inside the house:
1. The four main rooms the ceilings and upper walls were clad in stamped metal.
The lower parts of the walls were covered in wooden dado.
2. The Kitchen had a wood stove at the end and a very solid, black iron gas stove,
The gas was supplied by the Fremantle Gas and Coke Company and payment
for the gas was made controlled by a meter which stood next to the stove. A
penny would be inserted into the meter to activate the time-measured supply of
gas. The Gas Man came regularly to empty the pennies and record the amount
of gas used and what had been paid.
3. The room beside the kitchen was used as my parents’ bedroom. It was small,
with barely room for a double bed and a wardrobe.
4. From the kitchen another doorway led into the living area (known as the “lounge
room”) and opposite that doorway was the front door.
5. The front bedroom, used by my sister and me, opened off the living area –
halfway between the front door and kitchen.

1946:
My father returned from his War Service. We continued living in the cottage on the
limestone ridge while a new house was built for us during that year -at 75 Duke
Street, the property my parents owned.
1960s:
This property was purchased by an Italian family. The cottage was demolished and
the block was bulldozed so that it was entirely at street level. A two-storey house
with impressive verandas fronted with pillared balustrades was then built in the
space in 1978.

Correspondence with Jo Lupton jo.lup@bigpond.com