‘Sons go wrong without fathers’: Australian children and absent serviceman fathers in the Second World War

Abstract

This article analyses the perceived problems and proposed solutions concerning absent Australian servicemen fathers during the Second World War, and places them within the broader context of contemporary ideas about masculinity. The absence of servicemen fathers led to concerns from all areas of society about the impact on their children, in particular sons. There were fears that being raised solely by women would lead to boys becoming lonely, effeminate, spoilt, or juvenile delinquents. It was suggested that existing male family members, such as uncles and grandfathers, as well as male teachers, act as surrogate fathers and become role models. Boys’ clubs, such as Scouts and the YMCA, also provided boys with access to male role models, and their weekly meetings, Father Son events, and camping provided opportunities for imparting the ‘code of boyhood’ and the development of masculine qualities.

Keywords:

• Second World War
• fathers
• children
• masculinity
• boys’ clubs

During the Second World War, the absence of Australian servicemen from their families, coupled with infrequent and inconsistent communication between them, led to concerns about the welfare and upbringing of children. In October 1944, for example, Western Australian newspaper The Daily News boldly proclaimed: ‘Sons go wrong without fathers’.¹ The article stated that on a single day thirteen boys stood before the Perth Children’s Court on the charge of stealing and breaking and entering, and that most of the boys were fatherless. According to the article, the boys were an example of the ‘absence of the father’s control and mother’s consequent difficulties in dealing with sons’, and that, in the words of the magistrate presiding over the case of one fatherless boy, it was clear that the boy ‘wants a man’.² This sentiment was echoed across Australian media throughout the six years of the war and in the years that followed. This article analyses the perceived problems resulting from the absence of servicemen fathers, namely that their children, particularly boys, would become effeminate, spoilt, and/or delinquent. It then discusses the solutions that were proposed to these perceived problems by the media, government agencies, healthcare professionals and the families themselves.³

Scholarly literature concerning the Second World War and the ‘home front’ is voluminous, but there are relatively few studies that examine the relationship between service personnel and their families. Those that do prioritise the experiences of men and women over those of the family and children. When the family is examined, the focus tends to be on marriage and birth rates. If children are considered, there are three common themes that arise: childcare, patriotic war work, and delinquency. This is not to say that the father–child relationship is ignored completely, although it is generally only briefly discussed, and often centred on the return of soldier fathers.⁴ Scholarship focusing on the American context is the most developed. William Tuttle claims that the absence of soldier fathers was the worst aspect of the war for children in the United States, although he adds that for many families it was how the mother dealt with the father’s absence that affected children more than the absence itself.⁵ He maintains that ‘there was a fear of growing maternal influence in the lives of children, especially boys’, and consequently parental advice literature emphasised the importance of families finding surrogate fathers, such as grandfathers, to fill the role.⁶ In his study of fatherhood in America, Robert Griswold suggests that surrogate fathers such as ‘uncles, neighbors, and scout leaders might do what they could … [but] the absence of fathers in wartime reconfirmed their importance to personality development, sex-role identity, and family emotional health’.⁷ John Jefferies demonstrates that absent-father induced juvenile delinquency was viewed as a national emergency in the United States, which he nevertheless believes was an exaggeration and more predominantly caused by other factors.⁸ Writing about the British context, Laura King contends that in both world wars the absence of a father was seen as detrimental to a child’s welfare. She maintains that a father’s role in the family was a disciplinary one and that mothers were perceived to be unable to exert the same level of authority and control.⁹ King claims the press blamed juvenile delinquency on the absence of fathers, and that the media found the ‘fathers’ long-term separation from their children was as or more troubling than their lack of time with mothers through war work or children’s evacuation’.¹⁰ These problems, King claims, extended beyond fathers to the lack of male influence in schools with the shortage of male teachers.¹¹

Histories of the Australian home front, such as those by edited by Jenny Gregory and written by Michael McKernan and Kate Darian-Smith, generally eschew discussion of the relationship between servicemen fathers and their children.¹² Darian-Smith and McKernan both examine children primarily in relation to mothers and childcare, and juvenile delinquency. Darian-Smith contends that during the war there was ‘growing concern among educationalists and social commentators that the wartime atmosphere of uncertainty had unsettling influences on the psyche of children and teenagers’.¹³ She notes that the increase in juvenile delinquency in Australia was blamed on the breakdown of family life and parental authority during the war, a point echoed by Andrew Spaull in his study on Australian education and school students.¹⁴ McKernan argues that while working mothers were blamed for the increase in juvenile delinquency, other factors were of equal importance including absent fathers, war-related anxieties and the partial breakdown of the school system, although he does not examine these in any further detail.¹⁵ Neither the international nor Australian literature devotes much space to discussing the proposed solutions to the perceived problems of absent servicemen fathers, and thus this is the area in which this article makes its most original contribution.

Masculinity

Boys were the particular focus of anxieties about absent servicemen fathers. As Martin Crotty has outlined, by the start of the twentieth century the ideal boy was deemed to be one who embodied the masculine qualities of strength, athleticism and militarism, aspirations that only intensified with the onset of the First World War.¹⁶ This masculine ideal, Crotty argues, meant that it was believed that men should be significantly involved in raising boys as ‘women are likely to make them soft and effeminate, to instil qualities which by the 1900s were no longer associated with an ideal manliness’.¹⁷ Julia Grant claims that as a result of the ‘politics of masculinity and transformations in child rearing, gender socialization, and the new sciences of human development’, it became increasingly important for boys to conform to ‘the code of boyhood’.¹⁸ Boys who did not conform to the idea of a ‘real boy’ were often labelled as effeminate, unmanly or ‘sissy’. Such boys were characterised as sickly and timid and overly dependent on their mothers, and it was parenting by mothers that was deemed to be the cause of this condition.¹⁹ As boys with absent servicemen fathers were being raised predominantly by women during the second world war, concerns about the code of boyhood and masculinity being scrambled were amplified. Speaking at a Legacy conference on the topic of fatherless boys, Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Savage claimed these boys had no one to take them ‘fishing or camping, or do any of those rough and tumble things which will make [them men]’. He went on to say that a mother might try to compensate for this by ‘tying Johnny to her apron strings, which ends in Johnny either becoming a sissy, or he revolts and joins up with the tough boys’.²⁰ Reverend A.G. Reilly, Chaplain of the Mission to Seamen, told the community that young men who had grown up during the war ‘under complete feminine control’ now had a ‘feminine outlook on life’, which he considered to be one of the ‘biggest problems of the post-war era’.²¹

The female environment extended beyond the home and into schools where many married female teachers were brought back into service when male teachers enlisted.²² The Daily Telegraph asked readers if they thought the increase in female teachers during the war made boys effeminate. The answers were mixed, however most readers believed boys under the age of 10 benefited from female teachers, but after that age a male teacher was required because ‘men teachers have more in common with [boys]’.²³

Spoilt and delinquent

As suggested above, there were also concerns that while the disciplinary figures of households were away, mothers would spoil their sons. The Courier-Mail featured an article by ‘The Counsellor’, who advised that without their husbands present, mothers had a tendency to spoil their children in order to fill the emotional void left by their spouses’ absence. This, ‘The Counsellor’ argued, could lead to male children becoming ‘mummy’s boys’ and that ‘it [would] be a great disappointment to a soldier father to come home to a family of spoilt over-indulged children’.²⁴ This was the case for returned soldier ‘C.A.’, who wrote to the Daily Examiner in 1947 for advice concerning his three children. He claimed that prior to the war they had been ‘obedient and well behaved’, but after returning from his four-year absence he found they were ‘completely out of hand, and [his] wife seemed to have lost control of them’.²⁵ Author Clive James, whose father died on his journey home to Australia at the end of the war, felt similarly about his childhood. He recalled that ‘my mother was the only pillar of strength available. One parent is enough to spoil you but discipline takes two. I got too much of what I wanted and not enough of what I needed’.²⁶

Public concerns surrounding the lack of parental discipline were accompanied by anxiety about the lack of supervision of children, which combined could lead to the final and most pressing problem associated with fatherless children: juvenile delinquency.²⁷ Juvenile delinquency was already considered a problem in the inter-war years, however from 1940 onwards there was an increase in prosecutions.²⁸ This increase was measured by counting the juvenile offenders convicted by the Children’s Courts or Magistrates Courts in each state. Andrew Spaull, who gathered this data from statistical registers, has shown that the number of convictions of male juveniles nationwide increased considerably from 11,400 cases in 1940 to 14,944 cases in 1942. The number of convictions of female children increased from 941 to 1,592 over the same period.²⁹ Whether the increase in convictions during the war reflected an increase in delinquent behaviour is less clear cut, however. Analysing a similar rise in juvenile prosecutions in Canada during the war, Jeffery Keshen argues that police then had the time and resources to identify and prosecute minor crimes committed by children because many men from the ‘most criminally inclined demographic’ were in the military and no longer menacing society. This was possibly true in Australia as well. Spaull believes that the heightened public anxiety about moral decline during the war resulted in police focusing attention and resources on juvenile behaviour, which could explain the rise in cases being prosecuted in this country.³⁰

Regardless of whether the rise in offending was real or not, newspapers and magazines were flooded with articles concerning the disastrous actions of fatherless juvenile delinquents. According to The Mail,

Social workers are concerned about the small boys, with fathers away in the services or working long hours on munitions, who find adventure in dangerous ways about back streets and as camp followers. They find girls, 12 or 13 years old … whose disreputable weekends are spent in the company of soldiers on the outskirts of camps.³¹

The Sydney Morning Herald published articles in a similar vein, claiming ‘the absence of a father reveals inadequacies in maternal control’, leading to ‘boys who fall into a life of petty crime and girls who, seeking glamour, find a life of drunkenness and vice’.³² The specific concerns relating to juvenile delinquency differed depending on a child’s gender. Public discourse on boys was concerned with the criminal nature of boys’ delinquent acts, while discourse on girls was more concerned with their moral misconduct and generally focused on girls who were in the late stages of childhood.³³

The apprehension regarding juvenile delinquency voiced by the press was echoed in the national parliament. In 1947 during a debate on the war widow’s pension, Senator Charles Brand claimed that ‘the lack of a father is a terrible hardship. There is no one to advise and control the young children … the correct upbringing of the children is most important. Denied a father’s guiding hand they tend to drift into undesirable ways of life’.³⁴ The perceived severity of the problem is evident in inquiries that were undertaken during the war years. In 1943 a Royal Commission into juvenile delinquency ordered by the Western Australian Government concluded that ‘war conditions have contributed to an increase in the more serious forms of delinquency, due to the absence of many fathers on service, and to the general laxity that characterises wartime life’.³⁵ The commission called for immediate action as:

war conditions are bound to greatly increase the number of ‘broken homes’. Fathers killed in battle, hasty and ill-conceived marriages, desertions, and divorces, must mean that an increasingly large number of children will be without the guidance that good and united homes afford. Their welfare is clearly an obligation of the State since their condition is the direct result of the war.³⁶

While the commission believed broken homes to be the cause of juvenile delinquency, it placed responsibility on the state unlike the press which placed responsibility with mothers. Children themselves were not usually blamed. The Sun, for example, sympathetically described delinquent children as the ‘youngest war victims’.³⁷

Beyond the media and the government, research by sociologists and childcare experts on the impact of absent fathers began to emerge during and after the war. In 1943, The Australian Institute of Sociology’s Committee on Family Relations noted that:

truancy and uncontrollability appear to be increasing in the lower school age groups as well as in the upper, owing to the absence of one or both parents from the home. Mothers, who may themselves be working, find the responsibilities of managing a home and rearing families greatly increased by the absence of their husbands, who may be either in the armed forces or in Civil Constructional Corps, which take them away from home. Boys especially more readily assert themselves in the absence of their fathers, and seek outlets for their energies in unsupervised (and often as a consequence socially undesirable) activities.³⁸

Similarly, writing for a 1951 guidance book for parents and teachers, Ralph Levy stressed the importance of fathers:

the father has a unique contribution to make to his child. That this is so was clearly shown during the war when so many fathers were perforce absent from their homes over a period of years; sometimes, in fact, we see problems and disorders arising from this lack of balanced parenthood. In this one word ‘balance’ we have the clue to the main function of fatherhood. No mother, by her very nature, can provide that masculine outlook so necessary if the child is to lead a balanced life. This is the father’s job, and when that job is done, and done well, the benefit to the child is inestimable.³⁹

As demonstrated above, the fears surrounding the effect of absent servicemen fathers on children were made more pressing by the wartime employment of mothers. In their study of Australian working mothers from 1920 to 1970, Shurlee Swain, Ellen Warne and Patricia Grimshaw argue that the disapproval of mothers undertaking employment was already apparent in the decades preceding the Second World War and became pronounced during the war years.⁴⁰ The criticism and anxiety surrounding working mothers was also felt overseas, with Keshen arguing that in Canada ‘working mothers were considered problematic. While generally accepted as a needed emergency measure, women’s absence from the home generated talk about “eight-hour orphans” and “latch-key children”’.⁴¹ In America, William Tuttle contends, these ‘latch-key children’ were considered to be the ‘most pitied homefront figures of the Second World War’.⁴²

In Australia, the panic regarding the employment of mothers intensified in 1942, when the Manpower Directorate, a government body whose responsibilities included overcoming labour shortages, began recruiting married women.⁴³ The recruitment of married women, particularly mothers, caused an increase in the moral panic felt by the public, who were already concerned with children being made ‘fatherless’. Newspaper article headlines were indicative of this discourse: ‘If Mothers Work, Who Will Mind the Children?’ and ‘War Work by Mother May Be Cruel to Children’.⁴⁴

When working mothers were unable to find suitable care, children were often left alone unsupervised. There were concerns in particular for the welfare of the youngest children who could not yet attend school, but these also extended to school aged children, who were perceived to be vulnerable to juvenile delinquency. Social workers, police and child psychologists saw maternal neglect and lack of discipline as a consequence of mothers working, and an obvious explanation for the perceived increase in juvenile delinquency.⁴⁵ With servicemen fathers unable to fulfil their role as the disciplinary figure in the household, mothers were falling short. Darian-Smith states that it was believed by the aforementioned professions that ‘disciplinary influence over children was supposedly lessened by 75 per cent if the father was absent in the armed forces and the mother worked full-time’.⁴⁶

While public discourse clearly articulated anxiety about the effects on children of absent servicemen fathers, it is less apparent in private communication. In their correspondence, servicemen did not appear to express any of the above-mentioned concerns to their children. By noting fathers’ comments on schooling, sports, children’s general interests, as well as comments on their children’s behaviour, however, we can ascertain that fathers were at least aware of these possible problems. It is in letters from wives to their husbands, then, that these concerns are revealed, although they are not always explicitly stated. For example, Mim Scales expressed her frustration to her husband Edwin about their son David’s behaviour, writing ‘oh darling I did need you badly to help me to cope with him – I didn’t want to be too sympathetic and he’s got to toughen up if possible and no good as I told him will ever come of crying or telling lies – he’s just got to learn to stick it out’.⁴⁷ Similarly, Ken MacFarlane’s wife Eileen wrote to him on 19 May 1944 about his war service, stating, ‘I know what you feel about it but after all you’ve given the 7th [his army unit] the four best years from the child’s viewpoint and Tig’s reaching the stage where she needs a father rather badly. She just leaves me at times like a piece of wet string’.⁴⁸ Both Mim and Eileen’s statements to their husbands are reflective of their concerns about their own capacity as mothers and the impact their husbands’ absence was having on their children.

Analysis of servicemen letters in general suggests that fathers were unable to fulfil their disciplinary role through such correspondence.⁴⁹ The many constraints of letter writing as a form of communication meant that it was not a suitable vessel through which fathers could parent and continue upholding ‘fatherly’ roles. These constraints included censorship, both government-imposed and self-imposed (by which both parties were aware of the need to maintain morale on both fronts, resulting in them omitting challenging events or feelings from their letters). The staggered and infrequent writing and receiving of letters – in some cases it could take several months for them to arrive – meant there was little opportunity for fathers or children to sustain organic relationships. Wartime conditions such as the lack of privacy and writing materials also presented obvious challenges. The difficulties servicemen fathers and their children faced when communicating were made even more complex if the father became a prisoner of war, in which case the exchange of letters and photographs was almost non-existent.

Proposed solutions

As the war continued, there was an increase in advice and suggestions on how to overcome the perceived problems of child loneliness, effeminacy, over-indulgence and delinquency due to the absence of servicemen fathers. Among the suggestions was the idea to use existing male family members – uncles, older brothers and grandfathers – who were advised to assume the role of a surrogate father while the child’s real father was away at war. The Daily Telegraph published a series of parenting advice articles by child psychologist Irma Black titled ‘Bringing Up John’, which the newspaper urged mothers to cut out and keep for future reference. Black advised mothers that the absence of a soldier father was a ‘severe blow’ to the family, and in order to help their children through it, they should have the child form a ‘close relationship with some other man in the family [to give] a child a father substitute’.⁵⁰ In a later article in the series, Black stated that grandfathers may take on ‘the responsibilities and even the emotional place of a father’.⁵¹

Utilising existing male family members seemed to be an ideal solution; these were men whom the boys already knew and trusted, and in some cases with whom they lived, as many mothers and their children moved in with grandparents during the war. Oral history interviews with boys whose fathers were away at war confirm that in many cases male family members were able to assume this role. John Hindmarsh, whose father served overseas in New Guinea during the war, stated that he was very close to his grandfather because ‘he was the surrogate father in a way whilst I was growing up’.⁵² Similarly, Veronica Schwarz, whose father enlisted and was sent overseas when she was only two, recalled that ‘my grandfather was, ah, a tremendous influence [be]cause, of course, not having a father figure – he was it’.⁵³ Peter Phillips remembered that ‘all my uncles, they fathered me in a sense’ after the death of his father in 1943, when Peter was only eight years old.⁵⁴ While some boys may have benefited from their relationship with male family members, for others it caused confusion. In an interview for Michael McKernan’s study of returned prisoners of war, when asked about his father’s return from war, John Ringwood recalled that he was confounded as he had assumed his grandfather was his father.⁵⁵ Furthermore, while some boys may have had the opportunity to have a male family member in their lives, it did not mean that both parties took well to each other. Roger Jones moved in with his grandparents during the war and found his grandfather to be a stern and frightening man.⁵⁶

A similar solution was the use of male teachers as fatherly figures. Teachers from all over Australia noted that boys whose fathers were away at war were forming close relationships with them, and that the boys’ mothers were turning to teachers for advice. At a meeting of the Education Reform Association, teacher Paul Radford claimed ‘the child was turning more to the teacher in place of the father away on active service’.⁵⁷ Similarly, T. Hunter, the headmaster of Brighton Street State School, stated that mothers ‘came to teachers with problems concerning their boys’.⁵⁸ This solution had its own difficulties however; as previously mentioned, many male teachers enlisted, meaning there was a shortage.

As the war continued, the solution to the ‘problem’ of absent servicemen fathers recommended by psychologists, teachers, policemen and welfare officers alike, was the establishment of children’s clubs and organisations, particularly boys’ clubs. Boys’ clubs were seen as a way to address the problems of the lack of parental discipline and supervision. Dr A.G. Scholes claimed in an article published in Melton Express that youth centres and clubs would reduce delinquency and help children become ‘useful citizens instead of squandering their lives’.⁵⁹ Psychiatrist Dr Irene Sebire stressed the importance of clubs for children, as did stipendiary magistrate of the Children’s Courts in Victoria, L.R. Ripper, who believed the clubs were ‘of inestimable value in the community, and parents should encourage their children to join’.⁶⁰ The recommendation for children to join clubs and organisations intersected with the National Fitness Act 1941 which sought to ‘improve the fitness of the youth of Australia and better prepare them for roles in the armed services and industry’.⁶¹ The Act was concerned with the physical fitness of children and supported the establishment and operation of youth clubs with grants. The Federal Government provided two grants of £100,000 to the National Fitness Council, and from this boys’ clubs could apply for funding.⁶² According to a report by the National Fitness Council, in 1945 there were at least 214 youth clubs and organisations in Australia run by the Churches and independent groups.⁶³ Some of these clubs and organisations existed before the war, but they were seen as more important than ever due to the absence of servicemen fathers. While these clubs were formed to help children, they also provided an opportunity for men who were not serving in the war to act as surrogate fathers, which was a way for these men to contribute to the war effort.⁶⁴ As girls were generally not the focus of concerns relating to absent fathers, the proposed solutions for their welfare were limited. There were some suggestions that girls join clubs such as the Girl Guides, but these proposals were sparse in comparison to the concern and subsequent suggestions for boys.

Boys’ clubs were present in every state in Australia during the Second World War. The Australian Woman’s Mirror reported on one such club in an article by ‘Billy’s Grateful Mum’. Named the ‘Fathers-by-proxy Club’, it was formed during the war by a small metropolitan community of men who would ‘act as father-by-proxy to lads whose real fathers were on service’.⁶⁵ The proxy-fathers would meet as a group to discuss problems – ‘the sort women find difficulty in appreciating, that if Dad were home he could rectify in a second’ – which had been brought to their attention by the desperate mothers. These included everything from truancy to determining the appropriate amount of pocket money for a son. The proxy fathers would also take on duties that they believed mothers were incapable of, such as attending court with the boy where necessary, giving beatings, playing sport with them, or telling them ‘the facts of life’.⁶⁶

Perhaps the most popular boys’ organisation was the Boy Scouts. Formed in Australia in 1908, the Boy Scouts were extremely popular during the early twentieth century and aimed at ‘producing tough, courageous and chivalric boys who would be ready to devote their lives to the nation and the empire’.⁶⁷ While popularity waned somewhat after the introduction of compulsory military training in 1911, the Boy Scouts were still a well-patronised group by the commencement of the Second World War. In 1941 the Queensland Chief Scout Commissioner, Charles Snow, urged parents to have their sons join the Scouts as:

the Scout movement was particularly valuable for boys whose fathers were serving in the fighting forces … a boy over eight needed a man in his life, and the Scout movement could give him those things that otherwise he would receive from his father.⁶⁸

Similarly, Cubmaster N.H. Bishop wrote an article in Le Courrier Australien about the importance of Cubs, the junior Scouts group. He believed that with the absence of soldier fathers, it was a Cubmaster’s job ‘to help the small boy and try in some measure to make his father’s absence less poignant … we try to instil into the lad those principles which are part and parcel of a father’s education to his son’.⁶⁹

Membership of the Boy Scouts fluctuated during the war years, with some troops experiencing a decline during the middle of the war, and then an increase in the last few years. In Tasmania, for example, there was an initial increase, with membership growing from approximately 1,500 scouts in the 1939/1940 financial year to 1,625 scouts in 1940/1941. There was then a decline in numbers between 1941 and 1943 with 1,299 scouts in the 1942/1943 financial year, but membership increased again, reaching 1,644 boys in the 1944/1945 financial year.⁷⁰ According to The Age, there was a total of 50,000 scouts in Australia in 1944, which is indicative of the value seen in the organisation.⁷¹

A similar boys’ group was the Police Boys’ Club, which sought to reduce juvenile delinquency by keeping boys off the streets and providing them with leaders ‘who could take the place of the boys’ fathers and keep them in good shape during the war’.⁷² The clubs were run by policemen with help from local citizens. While the official age range for most branches of the club was between twelve to eighteen years, there is evidence that boys as young as six years of age joined.⁷³ Unlike the Scouts, the Police Boys’ Club was not a nationwide organisation during the war, existing only in New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria. The first Police Boys’ Club was formed in 1937 in New South Wales and quickly expanded throughout the state. It was established in Western Australia in 1940 in order to ‘enable [the club] to look after youths whose fathers are overseas fighting … and who have only the guidance of their mothers’.⁷⁴ There were approximately 1,100 Western Australian members in 1941, with numbers increasing to approximately 2,000 members across twelve branches by 1945.⁷⁵ The 1943 report of the Western Australian Royal Commission into juvenile delinquency stated ‘much excellent work is being done by the Police Boys’ Clubs and [the Commission] strongly urges the extension of their activities’.⁷⁶

Another organisation that took on the role of surrogate father to both male and female children was Legacy. Heralded as a ‘father to the fatherless’,⁷⁷ Legacy was formed after the First World War in all states of Australia and provided assistance to war widows and their children, attempting to ‘shoulder many of the burdens which thousands of fathers would have borne if they had not died as a result of war’.⁷⁸ Historian Stephen Garton argues that Legacy provided widowed families with an adviser whose role was ‘a manly one: standing in for fathers as guardians of the material and moral needs of children, and ensuring that children had healthy bodies, sound minds, and correct outlooks’.⁷⁹ Legacy helped to look after all aspects of children’s welfare including health and dental checks and education.⁸⁰ Bev Larven’s father was a member of the Legacy Club, and recalls that he was ‘allocated families to look after when the father joined the services. Dad stood in for them as a father figure and helped their children in a lot of ways; if a kid got into some sort of trouble Dad would often get them out of it’.⁸¹ One important way that Legacy helped boys whose fathers had died was through the formation of a Junior Boys Club, and it was the only boys’ club that existed solely for boys who were fatherless as a result of the war. The first Junior Boys’ Club was formed in 1926 in Sydney. They were then established in other states, and as such all were operating during the Second World War.⁸² The age for admittance into the club during the war varied depending on the state, although the youngest boys were approximately nine years old.⁸³

Most Christian denominations also either had or formed their own youth groups during the war. In 1945, there were at least sixty-nine youth groups related to the churches and registered with the National Fitness Council (NFC), which bestowed government grants, and there were certainly more that were not registered with the Council.⁸⁴ There were ten Christian groups and one Jewish group registered with the NFC in Victoria, nine Christian groups in NSW, three in QLD, thirty-four Christian groups in SA, six Christian groups in Tasmania and five Christian and one Jewish group in WA. Most of the groups were boys’ clubs, and within each of these groups there were different branches belonging to individual parishes. Despite similarities between religious and non-religious groups, members of the clergy asked parishioners to support church-led boys’ groups over non-religious groups.⁸⁵ Two of the most prominent church-led boys’ organisations at the time were the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the Church of England Boys’ Society.

The YMCA had formed branches in every Australian state by the end of the nineteenth century, with membership open to boys and young men.⁸⁶ Through its activities, it sought to foster ‘the development of character, fitness of body, mind and spirit, and full citizenship’.⁸⁷ While it was a religious organisation, by the 1940s religious activities were less prominent than in its early years. Like the Scouts, popularity of the YMCA had waned with the introduction of compulsory military training; however, patronage increased during the war. The Broken Hill YMCA, for example, recorded an increase in membership, particularly with its introduction of a boy’s club. In October 1941, there were 110 boys attending and this rose to 250 boys in May 1942, with the Barrier Miner noting the schoolboy classes were at maximum capacity.⁸⁸ From the period of May 1942 to July 1943 there was a 281 per cent increase in members, and at the 1943 annual meeting the club reported it had reached a record level of membership.⁸⁹ By August 1943 there were 340 members and in March 1945 it was reported that membership was still increasing.⁹⁰ The Broken Hill club allowed boys whose fathers were on active service to ‘have full club privileges at no cost at all for the duration of the war’.⁹¹

One of the most prominent Christian youth clubs was the Church of England Boys’ Society (CEBS), which had clubs in each state during the war aside from Western Australia. The first CEBS club was formed in Victoria in 1914 during the First World War and was open to boys from eight to eighteen years of age. CEBS adhered to the programme that dealt with ‘the four sides of a boy’s nature’ – his physical, social, spiritual and mental health. A boy’s spirituality was the priority of CEBS, and he was expected to regularly attend church, as well as weekly club meetings.

Boys’ club activities

All of the clubs mentioned above sought to instil in boys the masculine qualities that they were afraid boys would not develop without their fathers, although the activities that clubs undertook in order to instil these qualities differed based on the club’s values. Weekly meetings and open clubrooms were some of the activities that the clubs offered and were seen as valuable for several reasons. They provided boys with a supervised space to conduct their activities, which in turn removed boys from the streets where it was believed they would be more likely to partake in delinquent acts. Frequent meetings also allowed boys to develop connections with older boys and men who could act as surrogate fathers. Furthermore, they provided the discipline and development of masculine qualities that it was feared boys with absent fathers were unable to attain.

Each meeting of Junior Legacy Boys’ Club included a ceremony of remembrance, which was ‘led by the boy or girl the anniversary of whose father’s death [was] nearest to the night of the ceremony’.⁹² The boys would have one minute’s silence to remember their fathers before continuing with the night.⁹³ Other activities included lectures, reading, debates and an hour every week in the gymnasium.⁹⁴ Most Boy Scout troops also met weekly, although their meetings focused on outdoor activities such as knotting, signalling, morse code, outdoor cooking, campfires, singing and relays.⁹⁵ The YMCA also held weekly club meetings. For example, in Broken Hill, the boys’ department of the YMCA held meetings for boys aged 8 to 14 years old every Saturday morning.⁹⁶ Physical fitness was one of the main aims of the YMCA at this time, with clubs providing a gymnasium and physical education programme.⁹⁷ Boys were also taught hobbies and crafts, singing and drama, as well as life skills such as first aid and lifesaving.⁹⁸ CEBS similarly ran weekly meetings although these were more orientated towards religious education than the YMCA. At the meetings, boys would receive ‘spiritual and moral talks … as well as their physical training and fun’.⁹⁹ The Police Boys’ Club did not have weekly meetings; instead, it ran as a hub for boys. It focused heavily on athleticism, with boxing, wrestling and gymnastics being the core activities. In some cases, specialised instructors were brought in to teach the children. Citizenship was another focus of the Club, and activities such as debating, music, reading, first aid training, and crafts were undertaken. Children were also urged to bring their homework should they need help. In NSW, the clubs were open from 3 pm to 10 pm on weekdays and 10 am to 6 pm on Saturdays with a police officer in attendance, along with local volunteers, in order to give boys a place to congregate instead of loitering on the streets.¹⁰⁰

The Scouts, the YMCA and CEBS all ran ‘Father and Son’ events, mainly dinners. These events continued throughout the war despite many fathers being away. The Mudgee Boy Scouts troop held father and son teas as part of Scout week. On the night, boys brought their fathers to dinner, where they would wait on them, and then participate in a display of their troop activities. Those boys who were unable to bring their fathers were ‘given an adopted father for the evening’.¹⁰¹ The YMCA and CEBS also held such dinners. In 1942, the YMCA in Melbourne held a father and son social which more than 400 fathers and sons attended.¹⁰² The social was held again in 1943, and this time The Age noted boys whose fathers were away on active service were accompanied instead by their uncles and grandfathers.¹⁰³

One of the activities that each type of club participated in was camping. In her examination of police led boys’ clubs in England and Wales, Elizabeth Wilburn argues that ‘by participating in camp activities away from the city streets and engaging with nature, boys were encouraged to build their characters, become manly, be good citizens, and be resilient in the face of adversity’.¹⁰⁴ The same held for camps organised by boys’ clubs in Australia. Camping was seen as an important part of family relationship building, particularly for fathers and sons. By running boys’ camps, clubs ensured that boys whose fathers were away on active service did not miss out on this aspect of the father-son relationship. As noted by Wilburn, camps were more likely to be held in the country or by the sea. The activities in camps were similar to the activities boys participated in during weekly meetings and gave boys further opportunities to develop relationships with the leaders of the camp who were normally senior boys of the club or older men who assumed fatherly roles. Some of the camps specifically sought to attract the boys of absent servicemen fathers. In 1943 the Melbourne YMCA invited soldiers’ sons to a free weeklong camp in Westernport Bay, and in December 1944 the Adelaide YMCA organised camps for over 400 boys. The Advertiser noted that ‘the YMCA was anxious that as many boys as possible whose fathers were on active service should be given an opportunity to attend a camp’, and as such it would assist those who were unable to attended due to financial difficulties.¹⁰⁵ This assistance was also offered in 1945.¹⁰⁶

By offering activities such as weekly meetings, father and son dinners, and camping, boys were able to engage physically and mentally in activities that many would have otherwise had to forego in their fathers’ absence. This then allowed the values and skills that fathers were expected to teach to be instilled in boys, while also providing a masculine environment through which boys could develop fatherly bonds with their senior leaders.

An examination of the activities of the Boy Scouts, the Police Boys’ Club, the Junior Legacy Boys’ Club, the YMCA and CEBS clearly demonstrates that parents, the government, the church and medical professionals believed boys’ clubs could begin to compensate for the absence of the boys’ fathers. This is especially evident taking into account the increase of membership to the clubs as well as the recommendations in the media. It is difficult to assess the extent to which boys with absent servicemen fathers felt boys’ clubs helped them while their fathers were at war. There are collections of oral histories related to boys’ groups, but not all include boys whose fathers were at war, although some do exist. Ted Mack’s father was stationed away from home for several years and he told his interviewer:

I sort of grew up in church-sponsored things like the YMCA. I learnt to play basketball with the YMCA. And then I’d joined the Boys’ Brigade … and I learnt to … play cricket and soccer and did gymnastics classes with them. Then there were other churches I got involved with at camps at various places. ¹⁰⁷

He also attended the Cubs section of Scouts. Ted was ‘very thankful for this sort of upbringing in the church’ and believed these organisations were of a great help to his generation.¹⁰⁸ Similarly, Ian Wilson, whose father was stationed in the Middle East, was a member of the Boy Scouts and remained there for many years because ‘it had meant so much to me’.¹⁰⁹ From recollections such as these, it is evident that boys’ clubs were a significant part of the boys’ lives, teaching them masculine qualities at a time when they were unable to acquire these from their fathers.

Conclusion

This article has analysed the perceived problems and proposed solutions concerning absent servicemen fathers and placed them within the broader context of contemporary ideas about masculinity in Australia. By examining public discourse, it is evident that the absence of servicemen fathers led to increased concerns from all areas of society about the impact on their children, in particular their sons. There were fears that being raised solely by women would lead to boys becoming lonely, effeminate, spoilt, or juvenile delinquents. Existing male family members such as uncles and grandfathers, as well as male teachers, were asked to become surrogate fathers and model masculine qualities. Similarly, boys’ clubs provided boys with access to male role models, and the clubs’ activities such as weekly meetings, Father and Son events and camping provided opportunities for imparting the ‘code of boyhood’ and the development of masculine qualities such as strength and athleticism. While these solutions may have had a degree of success, there was one problem that was unable to be solved by ‘proxy’ fathers and boys’ clubs alone – the emotional and physical burdens placed on children during wartime – but that is a story to be told elsewhere.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jade Ryles

Jade Ryles is interested in the histories of family, marriage and childhood in the twentieth century, and particularly the way in which family relationships are shaped and disrupted by migration and war. She completed a MPhil. thesis at The University of Adelaide in 2023 titled ‘“Dear Daddy”: Australian Children and their Servicemen Fathers during the Second World War’.

Paul Sendziuk

Paul Sendziuk is an Associate Professor in the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at The University of Adelaide. In addition to authoring a number of articles about social aspects of the ‘home front’ during World War Two, he is leading a project that examines the mobilisation of private industry during the war, using General Motors Holden as a case study. His most recent sole- or co-authored monographs are A History of South Australia (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and In the Eye of the Storm: Volunteers and Australia’s Response to the HIV/AIDS Crisis (UNSW Press, 2021).

Correspondence to: Paul Sendziuk. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 ‘Sons Go Wrong Without Fathers’, Daily News, 11 October 1944.

2 Ibid.

3 The absence of servicemen fathers was, of course, just one of the threats posed by war to family life. Others, real or imagined, included greater rates of female participation in the workforce, relationships between women and visiting American soldiers, promiscuity and venereal disease: Rachel Harris, ‘In a State of War: Women’s Experiences of the South Australian Home Front, 1939–45’ (PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 2020); Marilyn Lake, ‘Female Desires: The Meaning of World War II’, in Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century, ed. by Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 60–80; Michael Sturma, ‘Loving the Alien: The Underside of Relations Between American Servicemen and Australian Women in Queensland, 1942–1945’, Journal of Australian Studies, 13, no. 4 (1989), 3–17; Michael Sturma, ‘Public Health and Sexual Morality: Venereal Disease in World War II Australia’, Signs 13, no. 4 (1988), 725–40.

4 Stephen Garton, The Cost of War: Australians Return (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996); Joy Damousi, Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in Post-War Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Alexandra MacCallum, ‘Strangers and Heroes: The Impact of the Second World War on Children of Australian Servicemen’ (PhD thesis, The University of Melbourne, 2011). Concerning the international context: Barry Turner and Tony Rennell, When Daddy Came Home: How Family Life Changed Forever in 1945 (London: Pimlico, 1996); Alan Allport, Demobbed: Coming Home After the Second World War (London: Yale University Press, 2009).

5 William M. Tuttle, Daddy’s Gone to War: The Second World War in the Lives of America’s Children (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 35.

6 Ibid., 40–1, 216.

7 Robert Griswold, Fatherhood in America: A History (New York: BasicBooks, 1993), 175.

8 J.W. Jefferies, Wartime America: The World War II Home Front (Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1996), 91–2.

9 Laura King, Family Men: Fatherhood and Masculinity in Britain, c.1914–1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 68.

10 Ibid., 63.

11 Ibid., 64–5.

12 Kate Darian-Smith, On the Home Front: Melbourne in Wartime, 1939–1945 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1990); Michael McKernan, All In! Australia During the Second World War (Melbourne: Thomas Nelson Australia, 1983); Penelope Hetherington, ‘Families and Children in Western Australia’, in On the Homefront: Western Australia and World War II, ed. by Jenny Gregory (Perth: UWA Press, 1996), 94–105. Also Kay Saunders, War on the Homefront: State Intervention in Queensland 1938–1948 (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1993); Joanna Penglase and David Horner, When the War Came to Australia: Memories of the Second World War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992); Daniel Connell, The War at Home, Australia 1939–1949 (Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1988); Joan Beddoe, Aussie Kids View WWII (Coolum Beach: Joan’s Desk, 2007); Carolyn Newman, ed., Legacies of Our Fathers: World War II Prisoners of Japanese – Their Sons and Daughters Tell Their Stories (Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 2005); Libby Connors et al., Australia’s Frontline: Remembering the 1939–45 War (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1992).

13 Darian-Smith, On the Home Front, 131.

14 Ibid., 134; Andrew D. Spaull, Australian Education in the Second World War (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1982), 108–17.

15 McKernan, All In!, 215.

16 Martin Crotty, Making the Australian Male: Middle-Class Masculinity 1870–1920 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001); Martin Crotty, ‘Scouts Down Under: Scouting and Militarism and “Manliness” in Australia, 1908–1920’, in Scouting Frontiers: Youth and the Scout Movement’s First Century, ed. by Tammy Proctor and Nelson Block (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publisher, 2009), 74–88.

17 Martin Crotty, ‘Manly and Moral: The Making of Middle-Class Men in the Australian Public School’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 17, no. 2–3 (2000), 27.

18 Julia Grant, ‘A “Real Boy” and Not a Sissy: Gender, Childhood, and Masculinity, 1890–1940’, Journal of Social History 37, no. 4 (2004), 829.

19 Ibid., 829, 838.

20 ‘Helping the Missus and the Kids’, Queensland Times, 29 March 1951.

21 ‘War Made “Sissies” of Youths’, Courier-Mail, 1 April 1948.

22 Spaull, 123–7.

23 ‘Australian Boys Not Effeminate’, Daily Telegraph, 28 January 1946.

24 ‘More About War Babies’, Courier-Mail, 1 July 1941.

25 ‘Life’s Problems – War Brought Change’, Daily Examiner, 24 October 1947.

26 Clive James, Unreliable Memoirs (London: Folio Society, 2010), 5.

27 Damousi, 39.

28 Spaull, 109.

29 Ibid., 110. These figures exclude the number of juveniles convicted in Tasmania.

30 Jeffery A. Keshen, Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers – Canada’s Second World War (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004), 108–18; Spaull, 111.

31 Elisabeth George, ‘Problem of Children in War Time’, Mail, 8 August 1942.

32 ‘Problem Children of Soldier Fathers’, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December 1944.

33 For further discussion: Harris, chapter 4.

34 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, Senate, 28 May 1947, 2980.

35 Western Australia, Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire into the Care and Reform of Youthful Delinquents (1943), 3.

36 Ibid., 6.

37 O. Beeby, ‘Children’s Court Tragedies Are Real’, Sun, 16 July 1943.

38 Committee on Family Relations, ‘Family and War’, Social Horizons (July 1943), 58.

39 Ralph Levy, ‘The Father in the Home’, in The Emotional Problems of Childhood: A Book for Parents and Teachers, ed. by Zoe Benjamin (London: University of London Press, 1951), 26.

40 Shurlee Swain, Ellen Warne and Patricia Grimshaw, ‘Constructing the Working Mother: Australian Perspectives, 1920 to 1970’, Hecate 31, no. 2 (2005), 21–33. Also see Lynne Davis, ‘Minding Children or Minding Machines… Women’s Labour and Child Care during World War II’, Labour History, 53 (1987), 86–98; Darian-Smith, On the Home Front, 116–45.

41 Keshen, 212. The term ‘latch-key children’ refers to children who were given keys to lock and unlock the doors of their homes while their working parents were away.

42 Tuttle, 69.

43 Darian-Smith, On the Home Front, 123.

44 ‘If Mothers Work, Who Will Mind the Children’, Australian Women’s Weekly, 13 March 1943; ‘War Work by Mother May Be Cruel to Children’, Argus, 20 March 1945.

45 McKernan, All In!, 256; Kate Darian-Smith, ‘War and Australian Society’, in Australia’s War, 1939–1945, ed. by Joan Beaumont (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996), 68.

46 Darian-Smith, On the Home Front, 135.

47 Letter to Edwin Scales from Mim Scales, n.d., State Library of South Australia, PRG 1716/26.

48 Letter to Ken MacFarlane from Eileen MacFarlane, 19 May 1944, in Heather Haughton, Au Revoir My Darling: An Intimate War Correspondence (Sydney: New Holland Publishers, 2010), 186.

49 The points made in this paragraph are fully developed in Jade Ryles, ‘“Dear Daddy”: Australian Children and their Servicemen Fathers during the Second World War’ (MPhil. thesis, University of Adelaide, 2023), chapter 1. Also Emma Carson, ‘Intimacy, Power, and Separation: The Impact of Military Service on Marital Relationships in World War II’ (PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 2023).

50 Irma Black, ‘Bringing Up John: Helping Children Whose Dads Have Gone to War’, Daily Telegraph, 5 November 1944.

51 Irma Black, ‘Bringing Up John: Grandma Can Often Be on the Right Track’, Daily Telegraph, 21 January 1945.

52 John Hindmarsh interviewed by Michelle Potter, 6 August 2014, National Library of Australia (henceforth NLA), ORAL TRC 6545/42.

53 Veronica Schwarz interviewed by Katie Holmes, 22 March 2013, NLA, ORAL TRC 6300/161.

54 Peter Phillips interviewed by Terry Colhoun, 30 January 2007, NLA, ORAL TRC 5761.

55 Michael McKernan, This War Never Ends: The Pain of Separation and Return (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2001), 147.

56 Roger Jones interviewed by Alison Viney Houghton, 1 July 2010, Australian War Memorial, AWM2018.572.37.

57 ‘Education Reforms Advocated’, Argus, 22 June 1945.

58 ‘Boys Miss Company of Fathers on Service’, Herald, 14 October 1944.

59 A.G. Scholes, ‘Youth Suffers Most in War’, Melton Express, 15 August 1942.

60 ‘Children and War – Disturbs Boys More Than Girls’, Sun, 5 June 1941; ‘Juvenile Crime Increasing’, Age, 20 February 1943.

61 Julie A. Collins and Peter Lekkas, ‘Fit for Purpose: Australia’s National Fitness Campaign’, Medical Journal Australia 195, no. 11–12 (2011), 714.

62 ‘Australian Youth’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 May 1943; ‘Moulding Youth to Sound Citizenship’, Pix, 14 July 1945.

63 Kathleen M. Gordon, A Youth Service for Australia (Canberra: Department of Health, 1945), 8–12.

64 Ralph LaRossa, Of War and Men: World War II in the Lives of Fathers and Their Families (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 53.

65 ‘Fathers-By-Proxy Club’, Australian Woman’s Mirror, 20 November 1945.

66 Ibid.

67 Crotty, Making the Australian Male, 198–9.

68 ‘Appeal For More Boys to Join the Scouts’, Tweed Daily, 27 October 1941.

69 ‘Cubbing and the War’, Le Courrier Australien, 20 December 1940.

70 ‘Boy Scout Membership Increased’, Advocate, 31 October 1945.

71 ‘50,000 scouts in Australia’, Age, 27 April 1944.

72 ‘Police Boys’ Club’, Kalgoorlie Miner, 5 June 1941.

73 ‘Police Boys’ Club’, South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus, 6 July 1945; ‘Police Boys’ Club’, North Midland Times, 15 December 1944; ‘Fresh Start’, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 11 January 1940.

74 ‘Police Approve Boys’ Club Idea’, Sunday Times, 2 June 1940.

75 ‘Boys’ Clubs Police Scheme’s Growth’, West Australian, 21 June 1945.

76 Western Australia, Report of the Royal Commission, 2.

77 ‘Father to the Fatherless’, Sun, 27 June 1940.

78 ‘Fatherless Children are Legacy’s Special Care’, Age, 3 June 1944.

79 Garton, 204–6.

80 ‘Legacy: What It Will Do’, Crookwell Gazette, 22 May 1946.

81 Betty Goldsmith and Beryl Sandford, The Girls They Left Behind (Melbourne: Penguin Books, 1990), 11.

82 ‘Doing Splendid Work’, Herald, 14 July 1926.

83 Margaret Beveridge, ‘Work for Soldiers’ Children’, Weekly Times, 5 December 1945.

84 It should be noted that there were other church groups in existence that were not affiliated with the NFC.

85 ‘Father and Son Dinner at Rosalie’, Telegraph, 25 October 1941.

86 J.T. Massey, The YMCA in Australia: A History (Melbourne: F.W. Cheshire, 1950).

87 ‘Much Activity at Local YMCA’, Barrier Miner, 20 February 1943.

88 ‘Big Increase in YMCA Boys’ Club Membership’, Barrier Miner, 9 October 1941; ‘Growth of YMCA Membership’, Barrier Miner, 13 May 1942.

89 ‘YMCA The Annual Meeting’, Barrier Daily Truth, 22 July 1943; ‘Membership of YMCA Increases’, Barrier Miner, 3 July 1943.

90 ‘Big Increase in Y.M. Membership’, Barrier Miner, 5 August 1943; ‘YMCA Activities’, Barrier Miner, 23 March 1945.

91 ‘The Citizens of Tomorrow’, Barrier Miner, 6 December 1941.

92 ‘Junior Legacy Club Ceremony’, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 June 1945.

93 Ibid.

94 Frank Silwood and Legatees, Fathers Anonymous: Legacy in South Australia, Broken Hill, Northern Territory, ed. by Dudley Coleman (Adelaide: Legacy Club of Adelaide), 82.

95 ‘Boy Scouts’ Corner’, Recorder, 9 July 1940; ‘Scout Pie’, Advocate, 20 November 1940.

96 ‘YMCA Activities’, Daily Miner, 11 January 1947.

97 ‘YMCA’s 35th Annual Meeting’, Barrier Daily Truth, 17 July 1941.

98 ‘YMCA’, Barrier Daily Truth, 26 February 1943.

99 ‘Yackandandah’, Border Albury Mail, 13 November 1942.

100 ‘Police Boys’ Clubs Have Reduced Youth Delinquency’, News, 31 May 1944; ‘Police-Citizens Boys’ Club’, Propeller, 15 February 1940.

101 ‘Scouts are Good!’, Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative, 13 May 1940.

102 ‘Fathers Challenge Sons’, Argus, 12 October 1942.

103 ‘Fathers and Sons at YMCA’, Age, 11 October 1943.

104 Elizabeth Wilburn, ‘Police-Led Boys’ Clubs in England and Wales, 1918–1951’ (PhD thesis, Open University, 2020), 177.

105 ‘YMCA Christmas Camps For Boys’, Advertiser, 14 December 1944; ‘Holiday for Soldiers’ Sons’, Argus, 17 December 1943.

106 ‘YMCA Camps for Christmas’, Advertiser, 23 November 1945.

107 Ted Mack interviewed by Peter Donovan, 5–6 August 2010, NLA, ORAL TRC 6100/25.

108 Ibid.

109 Ian Wilson interviewed by Susan Marsden, 6 and 12 August 2009, NLA, ORAL TRC 6100/1.