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Australia

Muriel, who always preferred her middle name, Jean was born to Hilda Elsie and Eardley Austin Clark on the last day of September 1915. The family lived in Strathalbyn in South Australia where Eardley worked in the local mines. Jean had two brothers and a sister but Hilda was to eventually give birth to a total of two girls and six boys.

Eardley signed up in the 1st AIF in late 1916 which made him a “Fair Dinkum” a term used to describe anyone who signed up after the mess of Gallipoli must be Fair Dinkum about the war. He departed Adelaide on the steamer “Berrima” on 16 Dec 1916 and arrived in France 2 months later. Jean never saw her father again as he was Killed in Action at Merris near Villiers Bretonneux on 31 July 1918.
Jean was linked with the ANZACs and it was a link that she maintained all her life. Five of her family would subsequently serve in WW2 and I can’t remember a time that she didn’t watch the march.

Jean moved to Adelaide when her father signed up and spent much of her young life in Glenelg where she attended the Glenelg Primary School and played around the beach and showgrounds. In those days there was little government welfare, the fatherless family of 6 struggled financially and as the Service record of Eardley supports, Jean lived in many different places as a child. She would come home from school sometimes to find a note on the door telling her they had moved and what the new address was. Unsurprisingly the centre of her world and her security revolved around 54 Penzance St, Glenelg where her maternal grandparents and Auntie Ruby lived – Jean’s extended family meant a great deal to her.

Hilda married George Kester on 12 February 1921 and this was followed by the birth over a few years of three boys. Jean’s Family consisted of
• Doris – Born 1908 – Died 1988
• Norman – Born 1910 – Died 1945 (KIA)
• Frank – Born 1912 – Died 1984
• Jean – Born 1915 – Died 2014
• Ken – Born 1917 – Died 2013
• Roy – Born 1921 – Died 2011
• Vernon – Born 1923 – Died 1939
• Ron – Born 1927 – Died 2009.

Jean’s High School was Norwood Girls High and she did well at that school, remarking once that it was a cut above Julia Gillard’s old school, Unley.
Her Aunt Dorrie (Maxine’s mother) waited at the school gate after her final exams to ask how she had done. With 7 siblings she had little parental attention and so Auntie Dorrie’s kindness on that day meant a great deal to her. She lived in Unley as a teenager learnt to ride a pushbike around the streets of Adelaide. She turned her hand to retail work where she worked at Rossiter’s shoe store. The tiny brown shoes that she displayed came from this store. While she was generally coy about her love life there was a hint that she dated a few young men in Adelaide.
She tried acting at a local theatre group, a story that was first mentioned only after Hal’s passing. I am sure there is a story behind that.

She helped as her brother Vernon sickened and died. He was a sickly child and spent much of his short life in hospital but she never had long to mourn for shortly after his death the clouds of war gathered and the country mobilised again. Over the war period Norm, Roy, Ken, Jean and Ron joined and by 1945 the Kester Clark clan had a representative in all three services. Frank had a problem with his ears and so went into essential transport industry.
Jean signed up in WAAAF 13 Sep 1943 and did initial training at Victor Harbour and Sydney. She was posted to No. 3 Fighter Sector at Townsville Grammar School as an Aircraft Plotter. 3FS was responsible for fighter aircraft control and coordination for the Townsville region. Jean was billeted at the nearby St Anne’s Girls School. En route her unit stopped at Newcastle and were taken to a firing range where her hearing was permanently damaged learning to shoot without ear muffs.

Her job involved plotting aircraft movements over the area and was critical to understanding the air war. Jean and her fellow plotters consolidated the radar picture with ground observations and radio reports from aircraft and then plotted on a large map of the area. This allowed the right response to any enemy action.
She was in telephone and radio contact with the anti-aircraft, searchlight, Radar stations in the Townsville area. Her unit moved into the Stuart complex in December 1944. The main operations building was made of reinforced concrete designed to withstand a direct bomb hit.

Townsville was attacked in 1942 but by 1944 the risk had reduced but flying over North Queensland had its dangers and Jean worked with aircrews via radio and undoubtedly knew some of them socially.

Recreation for the air women in Townsville was limited but the beaches of Magnetic Island and the dance halls offered some relief from the tedium of the job. Sometime in late 1944 Jean met Hal and over the tropical heat of the summer of 1944-45 their love bloomed. They met after chatting on the phone on night duty and it grew from there.

Norm was killed in New Guinea on 11 April 1945. It hit her hard, the loss of her brother added to the loss of her father in the first war. She carried the legacy of war at a very personal level throughout her life.

Hal & Jean were married at Burwood on 23 June 1945. She went AWOL in Sydney to marry rather than seek permission that might be refused. Jean carried on in the WAAAF until September 1945 when she demobilised. Hal & Jean resettled in Sydney after Hal was posted to No2 Supply Depot at Hunters Hill.

Hal and Jean set up house up the hill from the Supply Depot, in two rooms with shared facilities at 4 Alexander Street Hunters Hill because accommodation was very tight after the war. In December 1945 he was demobilised and started work with the Department of Civil Aviation. In due course Dorothy then David, Margaret and finally Elizabeth were born. In 1953, a few months after Elizabeth’s birth, Jean and Hal bought the family home, 33 Osborne Road Lane Cove.

Hal worked with Civil Aviation on opening up the outback. That meant that Jean was left to raise the children and tend the house for long periods by herself. She often described herself as a homemaker but in her 40s she worked for 10 years five nights a week as a cleaner to give her children an education. Later in her 50s and 60s she worked at Pak-Ads and Faberge because she wanted her own money again and she used it to paint the house and buy new furniture. She was made a permanent employee at 65 and retired at 69. However, perhaps due to her own early family life the most important thing to her was to have a home and family – she often said “I just wanted to be a good mother”.

She always encouraged her children, particularly the girls to develop a profession and in due course Dorothy became a Nurse and later a Theatre Sister, David a Town Planner, Margaret a degree qualified Librarian and Liz was certified as a Librarian after a short time in teaching.

Jean was her own woman as one might expect from someone who married at 30 and had her last child at 38. As the children grew up she developed her own interests more – in mid life she taught herself French, completed a law course for non-lawyers primarily aimed at legal researchers, para-professionals and librarians. Other interests were classical music, especially in Mozart; Opera, she read voraciously from childhood until the last days of her life – crime novels in her later years. She would hate to admit it but she became a shopaholic and her collection of Black Pepper would stock a small shop.

She had a strong feeling for her Scottish heritage, loved the bagpipes and Celtic festivals such as Brigadoon at Bundanoon, and revisiting Strathalbyn. She valued friendship with people she met in the WAAAF, at work and through Dad, people such as Ralph Tobias who she knew for more than 50 years.

She was supportive of Hal and his ventures. As such she travelled with him to Perth and elsewhere to assist him in his duties with the Manly Juniors. She was always keen to support her children in adult life in many ways and a;ways said “If I can do anyone a good turn I do.”

She travelled overseas late in life and her trips included a cruise to Fiji both by Liner and by air. A trip to UK and France to visit Hal’s ancestral home at Brighton, a Bowen grave in Bath Abbey, and Villers Bretonneux where her father is memorialised.

She had 6 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren. She visited the boys in Queensland every year while she was fit to travel and took an active interest in the girls in Sydney as well as 2 step grandchildren, Colin and Sean. She took an interest in two generations of the Talvi children next door and in recent years 2 little neighbours across the road gave her frequent hugs.

Jean was very supportive of people introduced into the family and it is a truism that she was more likely to gain a son/daughter rather than lose one. There are a number of people from outside the Barnes family who would call her Mum or a similar term of endearment, I am one of them because when I first met Liz my home was a barracks then a ship, Jean made me welcome and fed me as part of her family whenever I was in port. She worried if I did not eat breakfast and was concerned for my health.

Jean married late and thought her daughters married too early but when Liz and I sprung our desire to be wed one morning when we should have answered her question as to our whereabouts the previous night she swung behind us and organised a wedding to be proud of. Noting that we were the fourth marriage in her family, she poured her effort and heart into the day.

Jean started her life in South Australia but lived in North Queensland and made Sydney her home. She was a servant to the nation, a faithful wife, a loving mother, and a person who impacted many in her life. With Hal she provided a stable home even though money was tight at times; they both worked and the home was eventually paid for, and she will hand on more than she was given.