"Well my older brother came first. He was he was, went right through the war without anything happening to him until just a few days and the Germans sent poisoned gas over their Battery and of course the Bower Battery was put out of action and my brother came home. Oh, they wore blue arm bands round their coat if they were still under medical treatment and he came home and the boat went into quarantine for a fortnight because a lot of citrus on board and the first thing my mother did when we knew that the boat had arrived in Sydney was to take us girls to Manly so that we could sail past his ship - that was the closest we could get to him until he was released from quarantine and ah his boat came into Woolloomooloo and we hired, of course I don't know whether Dad, Dad, Dad was back in Sydney at that time, we hired a, a car from Coogee with a driver, oh he was such a good driver, he took us right down to Woolloomooloo Bay and then the soldiers started coming off and of course my brother was walking around and he spotted us in the car and of course we were all very, very excited and he took us home through Centennial Park and he pulled up outside the Rose Garden in Centennial Park so that my brother could get out of the car and stand with the roses behind him and my sister could take a photograph of him and we had the house decorated with the British flag and the Australian flag and a big welcome home sign on the house, and my sister had made a nice flag of his shoulders colours. They were red and blue."

ANITA RYALL