Homes Is A Strange Country - Chapter 27

TWENTY SEVEN

1907- 1908

Florence found herself rented accommodation in Marrickville to the north of the city in a small house on Unwins Bridge Road, a long fairly straight and wide road which was close to a series of new and established brickworks which were springing up in the area. She selected Marrickville as much for the a fact that the name appealed to her as anything else. The brickworks in the area had been built because of the large volume of building going on in the city, and in the south of the city in particular. Something in the ground made it suitable for brick manufacture and several companies had started in the area, The Bedford Brick Works was the largest, Spiers Pipe and Brick Company, the Sydney Brick Company and a new company, the Austral Company, were some of the companies which she could walk to if she could find a job there. Australian architecture, encouraged by the new enthusiasm of the Federation, had created new styles of housing to suit the climate of this hot country, rather than the cold northern climate from which most of the immigrants hailed. Within days of settling into the house she found herself a job at the Austral brickworks.

From the time of her arrival in Sydney Thomas spent more time at sea and separated from Florence than she had anticipated, so although he had made an allotment from his wages, she did not want to simply rely on that income for her survival, a job was necessary. The pay was not as much as that of men in the brickworks, but was sufficient for her needs, and in fact enough for her to open a Government Post Office Savings bank account, into which each week she placed a minimum of a shilling, often more. The clerical work which she found was not very taxing, but in view of the fact it was work in an office, she felt pleased with herself, that she had lifted herself beyond the level of mill-girl. This was the sort of job she felt she should aim at, one which lifted not only her way of life, but her status as well. Suddenly her position in life mattered to her, when before, it had not been a consideration when she had been just a mill girl; a girl with definite limited prospects. As a mill girl she would get married and have children, and that was the outline of her life, in England. Now, she had options not before dreamt of.

Each day she would go off to work in a clean skirt and blouse, with her hat perched on top of her luxuriant head of thick hair, carrying her lunch in a basket in her hand. Part of her job was to process the orders going out from the brickworks to the various building firms busily engaged in enlarging Sydney, and beyond. At first the work was strange and new to her, and yet despite her lack of previous experience of anything similar, she fell into it with a will, and was soon appreciated by the man who owned the firm, and his manager. She gained for herself a reputation for hard work, accuracy and good time keeping, something which her employers, and in particular her manager, James Heaton, had had difficulty in finding in some of the girls who had done thejob, prior to her arrival.

The days dragged on longer and longer even though her job at the brickworks was interesting. The day when Thomas returned in the early part of November was a fine time for her. The sun rose almost before she did and with a keen sense of anticipation she hurried her breakfast and caught the tram down to the naval dockyard where his ship was due. As the tram made its way through Marrickville and on towards the station near Circular Quay she sat nervously in her seat wishing it to move faster. She caught another tram to the dockyards in the company of many other young wives like herself, all dressed in their best clothes and trying to contain the heat of the fast approaching Australian summer. At the tram stop by the dockyards she tumbled onto the pavement along with the other women, casting her eyes around to see where his ship was berthed, and then she spotted it. Being the Commodores ship it was the largest one in port, and Florence felt a sense of pride in the ship and her dear husband who served aboard it.

About mid day the gates to the dockyard opened and from the ship she saw a stream of white uniforms pour down the gangway onto the dock. All of them were wearing the dark blue flat cap of the ordinary seaman, none appeared to wear a pecked cap which Thomas would wear. Eventually as the crowd of men pushed around her she spotted him striding out with two other similar ranked sailors alongside the ship towards her. She hopped excitedly from one foot to the other as he approached until as he came over the threshold from the dockyard to the pavement she threw herself into his arms and kissed him hard on the lips. 'Eh up love, careful. You'll have the rest of the men jealous' he joked.

'Don't care Tommy, don't care one bit.' She said, releasing him and standing back to look at him. She still liked what she saw. 'Oh I've missed you love.' She said at last, 'Really really missed you.'

'Have you really love?' he asked, 'That's good. Wouldn't like to think you've found someone else.'

'Tommy!' she exclaimed. 'How could you?' Florence was genuinely hurt by the suggestion and felt immediately crushed.

'I were joking love.' He said. 'I know you've been a good lass. Come on, let's get off and see what this house is like what you've got for us.' Taking her hand he swung over his shoulder a white canvas kitbag stencilled with his name and service number. Florence craned her neck round as they walked along the dockside. 'L.O.W.E T.A.F.' she said, '346928. What's the number Tommy?'

'It's my service number. Follows me everywhere I go. I might get promoted and moved to another ship but the name and number stays with me 'til the day I finish.' He smiled at her as she struggled to keep up with him.

'You've not been promoted have you Tommy?' she asked excitedly.

'Just a grade or two since I left Pompey' he replied. 'Going on up in the world is your Tommy.'

The house on Unwins Bridge Road at Marrickville was small with one bedroom, but it had a living room and a kitchen which led out through a back door into a small garden. Florence loved it and had spent many hours working in it since leaving Brougham Street, so that by the time she showed it to her Tommy, the few flowers she had planted were starting to bloom and the Jacaranda tree in the front garden was dripping its blossom all over the floor.

As Tommy unpacked his kitbag in their bedroom Florence busied herself in the kitchen preparing a meal for them both. She stood by the small stone sink under the kitchen window and listened to the strange noises of someone else in her home and smiled silently to herself. It was good to finally have him home, she thought.

The door to the bedroom opened and Tommy emerged into the living room and through into the kitchen, curling his arms around her waist from behind and cupping her breasts in his hands. 'Eh! Can't you wait?' she joked. He nuzzled his chin into the side of her neck and played kisses up and down from her ear to her chin. Florence squirmed and tried half heartedly to pull away. 'Tommy,' she whispered. 'If you don't watch out there will be no tea for you.'

'Not too bothered about that love,' he whispered breathily into her ear. 'Let's eat later,' and pulled her gently away from the sink and, turning her around, planted a long kiss on her lips. Florence moaned gently, circled her arms around his neck and not too gently, forced herself into his groin. 'Sod it' she muttered under her breath. 'We'll eat later,' and led him off back into the bedroom. 

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A little over an hour later Florence lay dozing on the bed by the side of her husband. My husband, she thought. Fast asleep and worn out.

They had made love three times and then Thomas had turned on his side and fallen asleep. Three frantic times when Florence felt almost nothing at all. Florence listened to his gently breathing and wondered, not for the first time, was she missing something in their love making. Although they had not had the same practice at making love that other married couples had, Florence felt that something was missing. She knew when he had reached the end of his love making, the noises he made were almost like an animal, but for her there was nothing. To be sure, she enjoyed the physical part of their love making, but she never came to a point in it where she had the same closed eyes, load moaning and groaning which seemed to attack her husband. Was she doing something wrong, she wondered, or was there simply something wrong with her which prevented her from reaching the same sort of climax as he did?

As she lay wondering, questions also came to her mind, Who could she ask about the problem? Should she see a doctor? What was wrong with her? Was she different from other women, other wives? What was she doing wrong? Then as they questions came and went, she finally realised that there was nobody she could ask. Her doctor would not tell her, and in any case she was too embarrassed to ask him such personal questions. It was something she would leave alone until the right opportunity arose with her women friends, though she only had one, Helena French, and she still did not feel close enough to her to ask the questions. If only Hettie was there, she would know the answers. She moved slowly onto her side and slid her legs off the edge of the bed and placed her feet on the floor. Sitting up she heard a slight change in Thomas's breathing and stopped for a moment, but he didn't move, so she stood up from the bed and reached for her clothes on the upright chair which stood by the side of the bed and dressed herself.

Florence walked quietly from the bedroom into the kitchen area and put the kettle on the black iron stove which, still lit, stood against the wall, and then poked the fire with the iron poker which lay at the side and sat to wait whilst the kettle boiled.

The kettle boiled and she made a pot of tea and took it out of the back door into the small garden area at the back of the house and seated herself down on a small stool which stood in the shade of a small tree growing on the right hand side of the garden. She sipped at the hot liquid and watched as Sulphur Crested Cockatoos hopped from branch to branch in the neighbours trees. The sun was starting to go down and the heat of the day was gone now, a peaceful time of day to sit and think. A time to consider what her life was going to be like now that her husband was home, but for how long? It had all seemed so easy back in England when she and Thomas had talked of being married, and in fact the whole process had gone through easily. They had asked their parents, who had not raised any objections, they had married in Devonport without too many problems, the only one being that her age was just under the legal permitted age, but the registrar had raised no objections, and then Thomas had joined the Australia station and she had come out to meet him. Everything had gone smoothly and without too much fuss. But what about the future? How was she going to exist by herself during the times when he was away at sea? The more she spoke to him about these periods of service away from her the more she came to understand his life in the Navy, wives counted for nothing. His absences would happen with or without any comment or objection from her. The more she thought about it the more she came to understand that what she wanted would have no effect on him or his life, or his service in the Royal Navy. The sudden realisation gave her an empty feeling. Despite the kind warmth of the falling sunshine she felt cold and alone. What was she to do with herself now? The question struck her with a suddenness which at first she refused to contemplate, then as it stayed with her she forced herself to understand what her situation had now come to. To all intents and purposes, she was alone, thousands of miles from home, with no family or friends to help her should she need it. The realisation made her uneasy and low.

Around her were noises from the neighbourhood. A tram wound its way down the main road, clanking over joints in the rails. An ice man delivered blocks of ice from Boston in America and was moving slowly round the backs of houses to deliver his wares to those who could enjoy it. Branches in the trees of her neighbours gardens clicked softly against each other in the slight breeze, and Cockatoos and the odd Ibis hopped from one branch to another then took off in swarms to another tree. A silence enveloped her like an invisible cocoon and kept these noises away as she sat and sipped at her tea. Slowly she sank into a sad lonely depression. Was there nothing she could do? What was she to do? The questions swam around in her head repeating themselves again and again. She found no answers. Clutching the cup in her hands the sadness welled up in her and she started to sob softly, her head bent low over the cup.

From the periphery of her eye she caught sight of a movement and quickly wiped her eyes and looked to where Thomas was standing in the doorway, watching her. 'What's up love?' he asked. 'What you crying for?' She sniffed and took another sip from her tea. 'Nowt love. I'm alright.' She replied quietly, and paused. 'Just wondering how long we're going to have together before you're off again.' Thomas walked to her side and stroked her hair. 'Not sure love. Maybe a week or so. I know I'm not going to be here for your birthday next month. Sorry. Nowt I can do about it. You know what the Navy's like.' Florence nodded her head silently. Here she was, she thought, not yet twenty and alone in Australia, with a husband who she had not spent more than a few days with since they had been married. More time apart than together in the two years they had been married. The thought made her give a convulsive shudder. 'You alright love?' he asked again. Silently she nodded her head, then rose from the stool and folded her arms around him and gave him a hug. 'I think we need to talk about something love,' she said and walked back into the living room, placing her cup on the stone sink in the kitchen as she passed it. She settled herself down in the easy chair by the side of the unlit fireplace. Thomas stood in the doorway to the room and regarded her quizzically before sitting down in the mirror seat on the opposite side of the fire. For several seconds they sat looking at each other, neither of them speaking. Finally Thomas broke the silence in a small voice. 'What's the matter love?' he asked. Florence flicked her eyes to meet his for a second then down again to her hands clasped on her knees. She finally took a deep breath and looked sideways at her husband. 'What's to become of us Tommy?' she said quietly. Thomas stared at her for a few seconds in puzzlement. 'What do you mean love?' he asked.

'What's to become of us. You're away and I'm here and I want to start a family at some time, but we can't 'til you settle down. How long are you going to be in the Navy?'

'I'll be in for a good few years yet love, signed on for twenty two years, and I've only done four or so.' He sat upright in the chair and leaned back. 'Anyway, you knew what I had signed up for before we was wed, so I don't know what you're on about. I'm in the Navy and that's it.' Florence flushed a deep red and felt her heart racing. This was not what she had hoped for, not at all. 'I want you to come out and settle down here in Sydney with me so we can start a family.'

Thomas rose from his seat angrily, his face flushed red at the cheeks. 'Well you can put that right out of your mind missus,' he shouted. 'I am in the bloody Navy and that's it. If you don't like it you can bloody lump it.' He turned and strode off into the bedroom.

Florence sat down again in the chair, tears rising in her eyes as she listened to him banging things around in their room. Within a few minutes he reappeared from the room carrying his kitbag, fully packed. 'You need to think about this Flo. I never said anything about kids before we was married. I don't want them. I'm off back to the ship 'til we sail. That's going to be in a couple of days. If you've made your mind up by then, well, best thing we can do is for me to get a posting back to England. You can do what you want then.' He turned to the door and left, banging the door closed behind him. Florence sat in silence in the room, alone now. This is not what she had planned, but the more she now thought about it, the more logical it appeared to be, hard as it was for her to contemplate.

They had fallen out of the breathless love which had been all they had felt when first they met, now she was alone. Now she would have to make a life of her own. But in truth, it would not be too difficult. She had lived a solitary life since arriving in Australia, what with Thomas being in the Navy. The future was not going to be very much different from what it had been this past couple of years.

Within a few days the ship had left the harbour for Singapore and a conference of Naval chiefs from the Pacific and Indian oceans. Florence went silently to work, came home, and went back to work again. Days merged into a boring monotonous wave of repetition.

Christmas and the New Year came and went, and so did Thomas. In January 1907 his ship sailed to Freemantle, and at the end of the month from there it sailed to New Zealand where it berthed in the port of Lyttleton. Sadly, the ship was then forced to stay there for several weeks. One of the crew, a canteen manager, came down with a fever and other symptoms which caused the port authorities to determine that the cause of the man’s illness might be plague. Consultation between the port doctors and the ship’s medical officers felt that the man might simply be suffering from influenza, but that it might also be plague. In view of the nature of the man’s job onboard they decided to quarantine the ship until it became more evident what the illness was. All leave was prohibited, and the ship was stuck in port until the man became fully recovered and was declared free from illness. Most of the month of April was in New Zealand as a result, and it was not until the middle of May that Thomas and HMS Powerful set anchor once more in Sydney harbour. The year was almost half gone.

By this time Florence had almost forgotten what Thomas looked like, and though he wrote from time to time, she felt herself drifting further and further away from her husband. His letters tried to build a bridge between them, but it was useless, she thought. Their life was finished.

On the Powerful, Thomas was kept occupied all day long, but he too experienced the feeling of drifting away from her. Their infrequent letters from one to the other did little to strengthen the bond of their marriage. Over the next few months the Powerful left Sydney for several destinations around its patrol area. It made visits to Auckland, Singapore, Melbourne and Adelaide until it docked once more in Sydney during the month of July, where it stayed until September. For the crew this prolonged stay had mixed blessings. They were busily occupied onboard the ship maintaining its standards of efficiency and seaworthiness, but it also gave them opportunities to go ashore on sporting outings. The crew regularly pitted themselves against shore based teams in football and cricket, and there was fierce competition from the Sydney based teams to beat the Naval teams. In time both Thomas and Florence accepted that eventually they would go their own ways.

Their parting happened in December of 1907, by which time Thomas had applied for, and was granted, a posting to the Home Fleet based in Devonport and Scapa Flow in Scotland. During mid October Thomas took his leave of Florence and sailed for the UK onboard HMS Dido to take up a new post as Third Electrical Artificer on HMS Encounter, a warship of similar size to the Powerful. After a short time on the Encounter he served on the Warrior, Defiance and Dido. During the First World War, in the Battle of Jutland at the end of May 1916, Thomas was injured and his ship at that time, the Warrior, was sunk. He survived his injuries and went on to complete his full term of service in the Royal Navy.

When he left Florence was faced with a decision she had to make, and quickly. Should she stay in Australia or return to England? For a multitude of reasons she decided to stay. The main reason was she loved the country and the place where she now lived. She had grown to love the city she lived in and the people who lived in it. It offered her more opportunities than anything she could find in England. This was a progressive country which could offer her a life she would never experience in England. The decision to stay was not difficult in the end. Like her, most of the friends she had made were new to the country, and they had an attitude and determination about them which broke no thought of failure. Florence was affected very positively by the attitude of the people she met and lived amongst. Nothing would persuade her to return to England to a life she knew and disliked. The thought of going back to the cotton mills in Bolton was not a thing which she would even contemplate. Australia was her home, whether by herself or with someone else, she was determined to stay. The time she had spent with Helena had shown her that a woman could live in Australia by herself. A man was not a necessity. She continued in her job beyond Christmas and into the new year of 1908.

As the weeks went on Florence became aware that though it was possible for her to live by herself she wanted the company of a man in her life. Being alone now contained no fears, in fact on the contrary, she was excited at the prospect of living alone and making her own way. Though she was still young and attractive enough to not only want a man for a companion, but to be able to get one if she wished to.

She did meet another man, Harold Louis Skidmore, a native of Lithgow in New South Wales, beyond the Great Dividing Range. Like Thomas before him, Skidmore had served as an engineer on ships, but for him it had been the Australian merchant fleet. For a little over six years Skidmore sailed up and down the east and west coast of the country, and occasionally across the Pacific to Canada.HMS  HMSHM The vessels he served on were cargo vessels, carrying a variety of goods from one part of the country to another with a few days off in port between voyages, whilst others were predominantly passenger vessels. The last one, the Aramac, sailed into Sydney at the end of January 1907 with some eighty passengers onboard in addition to the cargo.

And that was it, sweet and simple. Florence and Thomas said goodbye to each other. Thomas sailed off into the sunset and Florence soon found herself in the company of another man, Harold Louis Skidmore. He too had found himself a job at the Austral brickworks in Marrickville, a company which had only set up in 1908 in the area and which was now flourishing in the economic boom which was Australia was experiencing following the depression of the 1890s. Florence and Harold found that they got on well together and fairly soon Skidmore had moved in with Florence into her house at 'Hastings' on Unwins Bridge Road. It seemed to make a lot of sense, or so they said to people who asked, since they both worked at the same firm after Skidmore had stopped sailing, and it cost less for the two of them to occupy the one room at the house, rather than paying for two separate rooms in two separate houses.

Pretty soon Skidmore left the brickworks and set himself up as a builder with a couple of the men from his last ship. Business was good, very good, and Skidmore evidently had a talent for the business he had established. Sydney was bustling and growing, and the call for builders was constant. From his experience in the brickworks Skidmore was able to buy the materials for his building company at a good margin, so much so that by the end of 1907 he was advertising for carpenters to work on jobs his firm had under their wings. At the same time, in December of that year, he established a company to distribute floor oils. And in November 1908 he, together with some others, set up another company to manufacture photographic materials. Life was finally looking settled and good for Florence. Their life together was comfortable as Skidmore’s company was busy building Sydney, and Florence carried out her part as well, helping to order materials for the variety of projects his companies had on their books.

After Christmas 1907 and New Year of 1908, Florence decided she wanted to go back to England, the purpose being to tell her Ma and Pa face to face the reasons why she and Thomas had separated, and to convince them of the wonderful new life she had established for herself in Australia. The few letters they had exchanged had not really allowed Florence to explain in any detail the way their lives together had not really been together, that they had spent more time apart as a married couple than they had together. Florence persuaded Harold that the trip was a good thing. He had little option but agree, as he knew Florence was capable of paying for the ticket herself from the money she had been given by Thomas before he left for England. In the end, she failed to tell her parents anything about the termination of her marriage to Thomas Lowe.

She booked her ticket for England and in early March 1908 she embarked on the Royal Orient Mail ship Ortana for the trip to England. On 17^th April Florence arrived in London, and a couple of days later arrived in her parent’s home on Waterloo Street. All was not well however. Not long after the ship had left to retrace the steps she had taken just a couple of years earlier, Florence was struck badly by the most common of ailments to bother seagoing passengers, sea sickness. The vomiting lasted for three weeks. Every morning, no matter how calm or rough the sea, Florence spent two or more hours feeling very, very ill and vomiting for most of the time. The final leg of the journey by train to Bolton seemed to last forever, the train swaying and jolting her over every mile.

When eventually she arrived at her parents’ home in Bolton. she had hoped to settle back into some form of routine with them, but it seemed to her she felt that she was a stranger to them. Her parents lives had carried on without her, and she now was now no longer a part of their daily routine and rituals. The time she spent with her parents was not as enjoyable or joyful as she had imagined it would be. Of course they were delighted to see her once more, and eager to hear how her life was progressing. Hettie from next door had herself married during Florence’s absence and now had a child, which she proudly held up for Florence’s inspection. But something felt wrong. Something felt amiss with her parents, or maybe it was she who felt out of place. The answer had presented itself some six weeks after she had left Sydney. She was pregnant. As the thought grew in her mind she realised that the only thing to be done would be to keep quiet and tell her parents nothing about her condition, and make a hasty journey back to Australia and Skidmore, who would surely know what was to be done. As far as her parents were concerned, the marriage with Thomas Lowe was still going strong.

     Just a few weeks after her arrival in Bolton, at the end of May 1908, she left London bound for Sydney once more, this time in the company of only a handful of passengers compared to her original trip. The journey was a mixture of excitement and apprehension as she struggled with her new condition, one which was growing on her every day. She arrived back in Sydney and as delicately as she could, explained to Skidmore her condition. Before the end of that year they would become parents.

Harold Skidmore was the same age as Thomas, a few years older than Florence, who was now twenty one years old, and he had become a moderately wealthy man. This wealth had not come about through good fortune alone. He had worked hard to achieve his position in the community, and continued to work hard to build up his various enterprises. He did not want to get married, nor have a family, this would disrupt the plans he had made for himself. Living with Florence had been good for him, in that she cooked and kept house, but a child!  This was not part of his plan. He threw Florence out of the home they had shared together, his home, with a hundred pounds in her pocket to take care of the child. He had hoped that this would be the last he would see of the woman, and he immediately moved house to Redfern, to the east of the city. To Florence this had a similar resonance to the situation with Thomas, and the hundred pounds, which Thomas had given her. She tried to persuade Skidmore that they could make a life together, that the child would be a gift to them both. If nothing else, Skidmore was more determined and set in his mind and would have nothing to do with her. With the money in her handbag she made her way back to the house on Unwins Bridge Road which she had occupied with him when they had originally lived and worked together.

In December of that year, 1908, Florence was taken into confinement at the house of a midwife at ‘Craigie Lea’ on Terry Street, St Peters, not far from ‘Hastings,’ her home on Unwins Bridge Road. There on the ninth day of that month, under the care of Mrs Shipway, the midwife, and Dr Hodgson, Florence gave birth to a girl who she named Clyda Elsie Lowe. She chose the name Clyda after the name of a river in the Lithgow area where Skidmore had come from, called the Clyde, itself named after the great Scottish river flowing through Glasgow. She used the surname Lowe because she was still legally married to Thomas, but she kept the true identity of the father hidden from everyone. No one within her family were ever told the true story of the father of her child, and neither was Thomas Lowe.

With the money she had saved during the time when she had lived and worked with Skidmore, Florence was able to live comfortably in the small house on Unwins Bridge Road for some time, but she knew it would not go on forever. Mr and Mrs Jepson who owned the house were happy to help her in any way they could, and were delighted with the new arrival in their midst, but they all knew that she needed to take a job eventually. Florence wanted more than anything to go back to England to show her Ma and Pa their new grandchild. There was something she had to do before leaving for England once more. On the twenty eighth of February that year, she took her child to St Peter’s church in Marrickville and the Reverend Peter Presswell baptised her child, giving her the name Clyda. Mr and Mrs Jepson went with her to the church, but when the time came for the baptism certificate to be completed, Florence did something she never thought would be possible for her. She said something to the Vicar she did not believe to be the truth. She put her husband’s name on the certificate though she knew he had been out of the country when the child was conceived, and in fact when she had been living with Harold Skidmore. It troubled her a little, but not for long. She had become hardened to life in her new country and was prepared to do almost anything to ensure that she and her child would be regarded by anyone they met as normal.

The following year, when Clyda was four months old, on 3^rd March 1909 she left Circular Quay in Sydney on the mail ship RMS Ortana with the child, inaugurating the ‘Apple’ season, carrying butter and wool for the home country. The ship arrived in London on 11^th April and mother and daughter made their way back to Bolton once more. Florence stayed there only a few weeks before returning on the same RMS Ortana on 29^th May to Sydney once more with her daughter, arriving back in that fair city to take up residence once more in Marrickville. The child had been welcomed warmly by her grandparents and both Ma and Pa made strong efforts on Florence to remain in England, but Florence had already had the same conversation in her own head long before leaving for Bolton. Australia was her new home. It was, she felt, a country where she as a woman would have more opportunities than anything she could have expected in England. The country was more spectacularly beautiful than the dismal mill town in which she had been born, the weather certainly was kinder, the people more energetic and forward looking, and there was nothing at all to tie her to a future in England. Australia was the country she had fallen in love with and the one where she was happy to live and make her future.

This time however, with no husband, and no immediate source of income the reality of her financial situation finally struck home to Florence. The man whom she had felt was to be her husband in the future and who had been half responsible for her pregnancy, would pay.

Shortly after arriving back in Sydney Florence made her way to the offices of Mr Russell Roxburgh, a solicitor, on Bridge Street in the centre of the city. The efficient Mr Roxburgh took an affidavit under oath from Florence and from them he produced the papers necessary for the family court in Sydney. The family court decreed that Skidmore should pay to Florence the sum of ten shillings and six pence each week for the upkeep and clothing of his child, Clyda. By mutual agreement with Florence and Mr Roxburgh, the money was paid by cheque to Mr Roxburgh every two months, the sum of four pounds and ten shillings. It was the same sum paid by the state to people who took in foster children, a fact which would resonate in Clyda's later life. It was not a fortune, but enough to provide the clothing necessary for the child, who, like every child who is fed and watered, continued to grow, to the satisfaction of her mother, and through the letters her mother sent to her mother in England, to the satisfaction of the child’s grandparents.

Despite the way in which the financial situation had resolved itself, like many other women in an identical situation in the city, indeed the country of Australia, Florence was young enough to want more for herself and her child.