'Nothing is impossible' - Part 2, chapter 4-8 - The Spastic Centre

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108 Princess Alexandra talks to a resident with Mrs McLeod
Nearing the end of the roof section, it was getting late in the day and I had only ten short rafters to nail in a section where the roof valley met a ridge. Unfortunately, I had miscalculated my sawcut and it was short of the length required. I was tired, I forgot my craftsmanship, and I fixed them all a few cm off the square. It did not interfere with the roof structure, and I said to myself it would be hidden by the roof tiles and no one would be any the wiser. The next Saturday, I was surprised to notice that the rafters had all been replaced – my short sawn ones were neatly piled on the ground. I never found who my good fairy was – but privately I put it down to the spirit of Freddie Marsden, who had been my original foreman/carpenter and who had died shortly after the Mosman school was finished. He was a carpenter and joiner of the old school, and I could just picture him keeping an eye on the progress I was making on my own job, and he would not have liked a botched job, whether it was visible or not. I laid the roof tiles myself and did all of the floor, architraves, scantlings and inbuilt cupboards, while Audrie put on her oldest hat and creosoted the floor timbers against the ravages of white ants, and painted all the walls and ceilings of the house. She did a good job with her painting, and she would not mind my remarking that she was the only painter in my experience who, when her work was done, washed her face and hair with turpentine! The building looked superb with its whitewashed walls and the deep green roof tiles, with the eaves finished in a deep coral pink. We moved in during the Christmas holidays in 1954, with a minimum of furniture because ours had been battered beyond repair after ten years in service at The Centre, but it was all ours. Jenny and Robin had separate rooms. Electricity and water had been connected, but the telephone never rang because the number was not yet published in the phone book, so we had a silent holiday which we enjoyed very much indeed. The temporary building shed stood in our back garden for two years, until we had completed all the things that made the job complete. ______________________________ On Sunday, 9 February 1958, the Country Children’s Hostel was officially opened by the Governor of New South Wales, Lieutenant General E. N. Woodward, C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O. It was raining hard all day and despite the sand that had been strewn on the unfinished lawn, a most attentive audience listened to the speeches under their umbrellas, even though they were in danger of losing their shoes in the gluey, clay bog. It was built as a place for spastic children, and in its building light and colour riot – and here the cerebral palsied child is King! 109
Page 1 and 2: Medical This chapter emphasises, wi
Page 3 and 4: One of the senior members of a dent
Page 5 and 6: We thought that this was a signific
Page 7 and 8: Splints/Braces 1949 In March 1949 I
Page 9 and 10: Heel cord lengthening by operation
Page 11 and 12: had an academic career in his unive
Page 13 and 14: training and psychological work lag
Page 15 and 16: The fourth significant call was to
Page 17 and 18: The Chromovox was a mechanical TV b
Page 19 and 20: Education 1945 When we started our
Page 21 and 22: This aim applies to our school at T
Page 23 and 24: Had the Department yielded to our p
Page 25 and 26: Academically - he is more likely to
Page 27 and 28: Country Children’s Hostel At Alla
Page 29 and 30: He has missed the bus if his speech
Page 31 and 32: trampling down his precious steelwo
Page 33 and 34: H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh award winn
Page 35: Esther Woodhart presents a bouquet
Page 39 and 40: Westbrook, to whose generosity the
Page 41 and 42: The boy, Bernard Doran, had been bo
Page 43 and 44: Finally at the age of six they had
Page 45 and 46: Jenny Takes up the Story My father
Page 47 and 48: was so floppy, so they made me a pl
Page 49 and 50: make less noise, but even so I stil
Page 51 and 52: much. Someone had to read everythin
Page 53 and 54: the plumbing and electricity. Mothe
Page 55 and 56: They teased me about my poor taste

'Nothing is impossible' - Part 2, chapter 4-8 - The Spastic Centre

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