8.1 IDENTIFICACIÓN DE LA COMPETENCIA
8.1.1 Observación
67 KK Interview. Also AW who used to have an 'old Canberra woodbuming stove, which I think sometimes I'd like to have it back again. It was so easy.' AW Interview.
66 IW Interv iew
67 NR used her solid fuel stove in the kitchen for heating even though she had an electnc one for cooking. In 1956, the NCW Housing Survey found that 90% of houses were still equipped with fuel stoves; 68% had electnc stoves owned by the Government, 14% privately owned; and 65 had 'other' cooking dev ices. NCW Housing Surv ey Report 1956. The surv ey w ent on to say, 'Of all the houses in the sample, 16% used a fuel stove only; and 64% used both a fuel and another stove. It is interesting to note that almost three quarters of these used the fuel stove in the winter only, ev idently using it as a means of heating the kitchen.' NCW Housing Survey Report p2.
68 R. Arndt 'Iceman', referring to her Tocumwal house in Ainslie in the early 1950s. See also Wensing 'Southern Stitches': There was no electricity so every thing was wood and kerosene.'
69 'We used to buy the loads of wood from out the outlying districts'. KK Interview. DM's husband and older son went out to the bush to get it. Wood also came from 'nearby paddocks, fuel merchants contracted] to clear them'. Ragatz Canberra p9. Also MS; NR; VB Interv iews.
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Arndt 'Memories'. ' 1 KK Interv iew.
2 The NCW Housing Survey (p3) found that 66% of householders preferred slow combustion heaters over open fireplaces, and my interviews support this. MK had a Rayburn slow combustion stov e in her Narrabundah pre-fab; KK 'found that the Wonderheat w as the idea of heating, so we had a Wonderheat put
attracted down the chimneys of open fireplaces.73 In addition, slow combustion stoves were less dangerous with young children around. One woman recalled her son throwing a cushion into an open fire 4, and another claimed, '1 always did worry, so we put in a (slow combustion stove| very early, and I always had a guard around it.'75
Given the Canberra climate and the large numbers of children living in Government houses at that time, it might have been more convenient for mothers if the Government had equipped homes with these slow combustion stoves as standard issue from the beginning, but that did not occur. Other conveniences to guard against Canberra's cold winters were likewise missing from Government homes. One American visitor commented that,
despite the climate, [houses) lack double insulated panes, . . . weather stripping is unknown and gales under doors and around windows are the accepted thing.76
Admittedly she was from a culture more accustomed to dealing with very cold weather but her comments highlight some of the less publicised effects of life in the new capital city. Canberra residents, however, learnt to adapt.
These houses [in 'brick Narrabundah'J were designed by a Melbourne architect and because of gas houses in Melbourne, they had ventilators. There were three sets of ventilators in this room and if the wind was in a certain direction, you'd have to have a scarf on. So very quickly, like everyone else, we put cardboard over them.
in. The glass doors would protect [the children] and it warmed up the w hole room.' Others also spoke of their slow combustion stoves in the lounge-room. However, one American visitor (Ragatz Canberra p8) noted with amazement that the locals lit fires only in the evenings, even on the coldest winter days. She was presumably refenng to fires in the lounge room only, as most of the women I spoke to kept their wood-fired kitchen stoves burning all day in the winter.
' Stephenson and Burmann 'History ol NCW p32. Houses were not fitted with fly screens when they were built so the Hies were bad enough in summer, without the problem being extended into the winter. ARADC 1952/3 pl8.
74 IW Interview. 5 KB Interv iew . 7 6 Ragatz Canberra p5.
' NR Interv iew'. The NCW Housing Survey found that 52 people had sealed their ventilators, against
Another Canberra mother noted that:' housewarming, in a country which considers central heating an expensive luxury . . . presents a real problem to the Canberra housew ife' 8 and the findings of the 1956 NCW Housing Survey supported this:
In the question of preferences regarding house design. Effective House Heating | wa|s considered to rate second in importance only to a large kitchen'.79
Heating the house at night was perhaps the w^orst problem. The woodbuming stoves w hich kept at least part of the house warm during the day were not so effective against the extreme drop in overnight temperatures. The drop did not occur to the same extent in the State capitals, so many new arrivals experienced it as a great shock. One mother described her amazement when her baby developed 'odd-looking things on his fingers'. Never having seen chilblains before, she took him to the doctor who reprimanded her and demanded that she heat her child's room at night - not such an easy matter for families still coming to terms with the extra heating costs incurred in Canberra.80
Another woman stated that 'women had to be taught to keep the room warm at night'.8 1 She did not elaborate, but probably referred to the use of thick floor coverings and curtains reported by another mother.82 A third mother had a practical solution to the problem of low overnight temperatures and midnight visits to the child's bedroom to replace kicked-off bedding. As a migrant from Germany she had brought with her some Bavarian featherbeds (or duvets). These were much more suitable for children in Canberra’s climate than were the traditional wool blankets, so whenever she had a new- baby, she asked her mother to send her another duvet from Germany.83
Helen Cnsp Notes tor her radio program Through a Woman's Eyes August 1960. Helen Crisp papers MS 7593 NLA.
5 23% considered it the most important feature of house design, and 58% included it in their first three preferences.1 NCW Housing Survey Report p3.
80 JB Interview. There was no fixed heating in the bedrooms of Government houses. KK Interview (others alluded to this without openly stating it).
81 MP Interview.
82 RP hung a thick curtain in the hallway of her house to help insulate the warmer living areas from the colder bedrooms. Thick curtains at the bedroom windows would have helped to reduce heat loss. RP Interview.
83 MS Interv iew. It took quite a few years howev er for such items to become accepted apparel for Anglo-Australian beds.
woman remembered the discomfort of ’sitting right up like this |against the combustion stove I trying to keep warm, w ith the rest of the house freezing.'84
Other implications of the localised heating arrangements in Canberra homes created safety problems. In winter, it it was too cold for young children to play outside or in their bedrooms, and too dangerous for them to be left alone in the lounge room, they tended to congregate in the kitchen where the wood-burning stove, and mother, made life more comfortable.8'*
I used to have kids in the kitchen and I'd make dough and I'd get them rolling out dough and things 86
But kitchens were not designed as play areas for babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers and there were dangers in a mother having several young children, her own and perhaps the neighbour’s, crowded into a small area near hot pots and pans, sharp knives, electrical items and poisonous cleaning substances. There was no safe and warm area set aside for young children within sight of their mother in the kitchen, nor was there any room for a playpen in that room itself.87
Another major household task for mothers in the 1940s and 1950s was the laundry. Each Government house was equipped with its own laundry. While this is evidence of an assumption that washing was to be done at home, it is also in line with the recorded wishes of housewives.88 Responses to a national survey in the mid 1940s indicated that only 16.1% of housewives were prepared to share a communal laundry with three other families, the other 83.9% wanted an individual laundry.89
Editorial comment prompted by these figures claimed the result was not surprising given that most people had had no experience of communal laundries, but in reality, the
84 MA Interview; also mentioned in KB Interv iew. The custom o f allow ing a young child to share its mother's bed was frowned upon by the babycare experts.
8 -^ The H ousewife Speaks 86 IW Interview.
X7
A delegation sponsored by the Victorian Branch o f the Federal Public Service Union to discover w hat kind o f accommodation aw aited transferees to Canberraa in 1958 reported that 'Kitchens inspected w ere also quite inadequate and allowed insufficient space for meals and were also lacking in cupboards.' 'Victorian View point' Federal Public Service Journal, July 1958.
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In blocks ot Hats, one laundry was provided for perhaps every four, six or eight Hats. RP Interv iew. 89 MPWR The H ousewife Speaks.