Dear Mrs Smyth    30th May, 1965


Thanks a lot for your letter which I received today — I was happy to get it.
I’m waiting back today as I do not have much to do and I’m feeling really lonely.

You see Henry has taken a job as a bar-manager about 150 miles out of Hobart
at a small mining town on the west coast of Tasmania called Queenstown.

I miss him terribly even though he rings me every day.
I hope in the near future I’ll be able to around to him and work there too.

You said not to spoil him too much.
I’m afraid it a bit late—he often says to me how I have him spoilt.

Queenstown is a tiny, little mining town
on the rugged west coast of Tasmania with a population of about 4,000.

There is one Main Street a few others and quite a large number of hotels.
Henry works at the Four Seasons Motor Hotel as a head-barman.

Most of the people here in Queenstown
work at the Mount Lyell Copper Mining Company.

Henry likes Queenstown and his job but his job takes up a lot of his time.
He doesn’t get much time off because one reason he is head barman

and secondly he lives in at the hotel and is always on call.
He gets very good wages though, and so he doesn’t really mind his hours.

When I was working at the hotel I was a waitress,
I met so many new people from everywhere.

I worked 8 hours a day and my wages for 5 days were £14-7-8—
the basic wage for all waitresses throughout Australian hotels.

Furniture and clothes are very dear out here even with wages we get.
For example, a television would cost about £135 guineas,

a dining room suite about £42 and a radiogram about £103-10.0.
I don’t get much time to look at T.V.

I like Bandstand, The Country and Western Show and Homicide.
Yes, most all the cowboy pictures have been taken off.

I love to go dancing and Henry loves it too.
I miss him now because we used to have wonderful times at dances together.

The ‘shake’ is very popular here and so is ‘rock n roll’ but the ‘twist’ is nearly out.
We also love the modern dances as well as the old- time ones.

Well I guess I’d better get back to work and I’ll be waiting for Henry to ring tonight.
I was going to ask you if you had any photos of your family and Henry.

The negatives would do but I’d really appreciate one of Henry.
It doesn’t matter how old he was in the photographs.


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