My step grandfather ran a hotel next door. I remember the first day I started school, I swore and got the cane. My father's friends taught me to swear. They thought it was funny. When I'd go to the General Store for my mother, I'd stop by the Saddler's Shop for a chat. We owned a large block of land and we had hens, cows and a huge vegetable garden. My father William Roy would go in to Wollongong Harbour to work as a professional fisherman. He'd had enough of coal mining.

When I was six or seven, I was expected to get up early and milk the cows and again after school. On weekends I played at the creek, catching tadpoles. I remember a sad incident involving our family doctor. He had travelled from Wollongong in his sulky to attend to my mother who was ill. On the return trip, while attempting to cross Mullet Creek in heavy rain, the sulky was washed away and he drowned. When I was eight years old in 1913 my mother's friend's daughter Eileen came to live with us. I told her I would marry her one day, and I did, when I was 18.

This is a photo of my brother 'Sparrow' Roy (because of his skinny legs) pushing Wollongong's first bus. He's the one towards the front. The bus is driven by a Chinese man called Mr Dion. Dions still own the bus company today.

I told her I would live to be 100. I stayed at school until I was twelve or thirteen, then I got a job with the mining company, and later I became a painter with a metal manufacturing company. When World War One started, I was only nine years old so I was too young to fight. A lot of our neighbours and friends lost their sons and it was a sad time. The lists of the dead and missing were published in the newspapers and that was often the way they would find out, or sometimes a telegram boy would bring the bad news, or an Army officer would come and knock at the door. No-one wanted a telegram to come.

In the last year of the war I was conscripted for part time army training at the age of 13 or 14. I'd have to catch the steam train to Sydney to the training camp and it sometimes took five hours by the time the train stopped to take on water. One time after training I went out with the other boys and had something to drink. I got on the train, took off my army boots and fell asleep. When I woke up, the boots were gone. Leather was in short supply due to the war and I was in big trouble for losing those boots.

When I was 17, my father drowned at sea while he was fishing and was never found. Times were hard for my mother after that. She worked as a midwife. I had to do all the work around the place like chopping wood and collecting coal by the side of the railway line where it had fallen off coal trains. There was no electricity in Wollongong until the 1930s.

After I married Eileen we bought a house in central Wollongong but because I lost my job during the Depression, we lost the house. My mother agreed to buy it from the bank and she rented it out. So the house is still in the family and my nephew lives in it these days. Eileen and I had four children, Bill, Alice, Patricia and Bruce. Eileen died when she was 89 years old, in 1994.

Now I am looking back on 100 years of history. I have seen both world wars, the Great Depression, the coming of radio, electricity, telephones and TV. When I was growing up, transport was by walking, bicycle, horse or train. There were only one or two cars in the district until at least 1930, and those were owned by doctors. There have been a lot of changes but the greatest thing in my life is my wonderful family of over a hundred descendants. In July 2005, my great, great, great grandchild is due to arrive and then there will be six generations of my family alive. I think it's unusual for anyone to have a great, great, great grandchild. I am looking forward to getting a telegram from the Queen and the Prime Minister but they tell me there are no telegrams any more so maybe it will be a letter. I am very tired now and I sleep a lot, dreaming of the happy times when my children were growing up, playing cricket with them in the orchard.

Submitted by Tom Roy
Location: Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia