Published on Tuesday, 2 September 2025 at 4:02:16 PM
Hello Friends and welcome to #TimeWarpTuesday! This week we continue our ‘virtual exhibition’ of the entries from the 2025 Local History Awards. Continuing in the Personal Memoirs category.
Personal Memoirs
Walking the Gravel Roads, Home: A Recollection of the 1940s and 50s Air of East Victoria Park
- A Story of Valmai Tilbrook as Dramatized by Renae Carey.
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Exhibition Cover Page of Renae Carey’s Entry
Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service
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PH00463-01 Little dreams in East Victoria Park.
Valmai Bruce (later Tilbrook) out the back of her Aunty’s house at 178 Hubert Street, East Victoria Park. Val is about 3-4 years old, c. 1942
Donated by Renae Carey. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
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Note:
This entry is a dramatized account of Valmai Tilbrook’s time in East Victoria Park as written by Renae Carey.
Valmai Tilbrook nee Bruce, known affectionally as “Val or Mrs Tilly” was born to Robert Alexander Bruce and Hilda nee Taylor. Her parents were dairy farmers associated with the Douglas family by marriage and the Manning family, whom they lived and worked with for many years. She would marry farmer Roy Tilbrook, whom she would go on to share a 60-year union before his sudden passing from a car accident that also claimed their youngest son. Today, Val lives in Mukinbudin where she retired with Roy. They have 1 daughter and another surviving son..
-PART ONE-
A skip in my step amongst the pebbles on the ground, with a boundless imagination and a bolder, compassionate heart that I have found. Years being made brave amongst the wind, bushes, ant hills and mounds of East Victoria Park.
From the red dirt roads of Mukinbudin, some 300kms east, I take out oven-baked, delicious country-style treats to share with my family and feast.
Eating at the dining table, staring off into space, with tantalising flavours to taste, I am asked to recall a 40s East Victoria Park Wind on my Face.
It was warm. It used to stretch for miles across wet rags and clothes on the old hills hoist, soaking up a lot of fun childhoods just mucking around in the dirt.
As a little girl, I would walk down gravel paths to see my friend and it would graze my skirt.
Blowing through the Savoy Theatre and Gardens, past the entryway where amongst kinder men, we would flirt.
This was a wind that wailed across a different era of existence for us.
Too many moments across 19 years walking those streets intersect in my brain, so I stand up, collect the plates, wash them and gaze at the rain.
The timber-framed window overlooks the neighbour’s backyard, and I continue to ponder about air. About the East Victoria Park wind in my hair.
Light little thoughts float through the cracks in my recollection of a time in my life that called for a loud imagination to share, and a little moxie to make do with the barren landscapes that surrounded me at the time.
The hidden treasures buried under dirt, that I would come to find.
My mind, now lit ablaze by thoughts of pretty gowns at balls and plays; I dry the plates and then put them away.
Sitting down on an old rocking chair, my memories fling back to how I ended up there. Gravel running on skin of the ancient experiences I have been holding within.
So many fond memories of Victoria Park, I am unsure where to begin.
PH00463-02 A new perm for a popular personality of East Vic Park.
Val is standing in the front yard of 6 Milford Street, East Victoria Park, 23 December 1964.
Donated by Renae Carey. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
Milford Street, 1941.
A pebble and a rock in my mind, of how to set up shop amongst the shrub and make a dime.
I used to look out to the sunset and use its light dispersing across the horizon as a method for keeping time.
There was something unique about cobbling down gravel stone roads and East Victoria Park streets. The kind of people you would meet. The creepy crawlies underneath your feet. The plants that litter the path.
Everything had an air to it and time to kill.
As an empathetic, intuitive and ambitious girl born at King Edward Memorial Hospital on the 23rd of February 1939, I was ready to feel the wind.
I came out ready to go and thick skinned.
KEMH at the time, was notorious for forced adoptions so to go home with my parents and older brother Ray, I was blessed. Ragland Road, Mount Lawley was my first address.
PH00463-03 Early days of existence in East Victoria Park.
Valmai Tilbrook nee Bruce aged around 6-7 months, at the front of 178 Hubert Street, East Victoria Park, the home of Val’s Aunty Mavis.
Donated by Renae Carey. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
After moving to 6 Milford Street some years later, the houses became dotted across bush with only four more to spare on my immediate sights. It had enough room to kick a ball or fly a kite.
If you crossed Swansea Street, there would only be one house at the end and bush everywhere else you could tend, so my father built a gate in the back fence. The short cut it created down the back made it quicker to visit my parents on Welshpool Road.
Across Swansea was a large, deserted land. An empty field that some might consider bland but to me, it was teaming with space to play. Ample room to imagine other worlds or lives to live someday.
It connected to Briggs street from the back of properties along that line. I would often visit my friend Pat and her sister Dot from open space behind.
Now an industrial zone, this quaint little cul-du-sac had very few houses to call home. Just 2 one-acre blocks on the left and another on the right I would roam.
Their backyard had a massive red gum tree with sap running down the trunk, to some bugs who would consider this sap to be like golden gunk.
They also had two large gum nut trees at the front with a branch Mr. Roach swung a tyre over to make a swing. The joy this idea would bring, as it didn’t take long to get friendly with the function and grin. Just another way to feel the wind.
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PH00463-04 Ray Bruce, the son of an Airforce personnel.
Ray Bruce, Val’s older brother out the front of 6 Milford Street, East Victoria Park on the occasion of his father Stanley Bruce’s farewell to Airforce training on 13 January 1942.
Donated by Renae Carey. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
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PH00463-05 A father's farewell, Milford Street.
Valmai as a little girl standing next to her father, Stanley Bruce on the 13 January 1942. Her father is about to head off to attend training in Sydney for the airforce in World War II.
Donated by Renae Carey. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
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Scrapping up dirt from the grass, we would set out our intentions on the ground below and create a path.
It was a bootleg trail.
Wondering if we had wheels underneath our shoes, could we create a rail.
Chugging through the lonely sites scattered around the little neighbourhood. Tooting at ants to move out of the way. An incoming train with a fleeting and fanciful mind at bay, sunshine across our face and a pace to match.
The land around her house was worth far more in a good game than an empty patch.
This place was desolate for our dreams. Bound for the TV screen in our minds.
Imagining scenarios of circumstances not so easy to find. Like making a pound or two from sand. Pretending to sell gum nuts from a makeshift stand.
Wind flicking hair, back straight, thinking grand.
Lemonade stands or sticks to sell; an old car-made-shop and financial transactions doing quite decently well.
We would sell anything we would find to thin air.
Anything the nature around us would be so kind to spare.
In other times, this same old car was a tram. Hoping on board in our imaginations and visiting dams, bustling streets and quiet lanes, where we would glide smoothly upon its chains.
A ribbon of steel beneath its wheels, the journey marked by rhythm and squeals. We would imagine the marks on the ground were market appeals.
This make-believe tram gliding on forever in our fond memories with its story unsealed.
Amongst many other of its daydream machines to reveal.
Wildflowers would visit in winter and make their presence abundantly clear. Bright, beautiful and full of itself with cheer.
Never a colour that wasn’t ready for insects to stand under it and shower, Blue Hovea was always the first to flower.
This would be followed by Pink Myrtle, striking a feminine landscape for the bugs.
Wrapping themselves up in a rug of Donkey Orchids would be next. A purple, pink and yellow technicolour flex.
Along similar coloured straits, Cat and Kangaroo Paws would put on a show, and by Djiba season, the Wattle Banksias would grow.
What shrunk in its place around the 1940s was an air, carefree and clean.
World War Two began and this would shift the scene. My father joined the Airforce and left my brother in charge of our mother and me.
He went to Sydney to train, then came back to go up north to load the bombs on planes.
A secret airbase in Corunna Downs Station, adjacent to a homestead from 1891. Two bitumen runways for use by long-range B-24 Liberation Bombers and guns.
I had no idea at the time, as I was too blissfully unaware of what I stood to lose.
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PH00463-06 Uncle's farewell, Milford Street WWII.
Fred Bruce (Val’s uncle), with little Val in front and her older brother Ray Bruce at right.
Donated by Renae Carey. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
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PH00463-07 Off to the Airforce, Milford Street.
Stanley Bruce and his wife Hilda. This photograph was taken in the front yart of 6 Milford Street, East Victoria Park.
Donated by Renae Carey. Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service.
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In East Victoria Park, the skies remained wide, but the soldiers marched, and the trains continued to glide.
The sound of planes nearby would drop the scent of change and to varied capacities for all, our lives were rearranged.
As the men went off to war, the women stayed to look after and shelter what remained.
Cleaning up what stained.
Easing up what pained.
Making our lives feel larger than how it was contained.
My mother, like many, built the future from what she knew.
Through trial, tribulations and tears, something I was raised with, was the strength to always remain sincere. I always found air that floated in the fickle little lights of things I still held dear.
One of which, were walks through the bush and cosying up at home.
We had a brick foundation house, painted green and cream. Bottom wood, asbestos walls, tile roof and some beam.
The back wall was made of wood and when my father returned from war, would oil it best he could.
The back veranda was converted to a kitchen and dining room later, with hedges planted by my mother lining the boundary fence to hide from neighbours next door who gossip prone to cater.
Veggies and a shed with the reassurance from my mother who, from war, would hide her dread. She was always cheerful and loved to dance.
It became a busy house when my mother’s family came around in the absence of my dad.
I would play competitions with my Uncle Bill to test how many pancakes could be had.
My son would come to love pancakes just as much.
Our home had a wood stove in the kitchen and a fire in the lounge. Mr brother Ray would go down to the bush and cut Banksia trees down.
Crackling warmth in the winter, cozy tracks came from those logs as they sizzled and cracked.
We moved to this place on Anzac Day and never looked back.
-END OF PART ONE-
Be sure to check back next week for the next installment of Lois Tolbrook’s story as told to and dramatised by Renae Carey.
Don’t forget we are always happy to accept donations of photographs, memorabilia and stories about the suburbs within our Town. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via telephone: 08 9373 5500, email: vicparklibrary@vicpark.wa.gov.au or in person at 27 Sussex Street, East Victoria Park.
#LoveVicPark
PH00341-26 Val Tilbrook and family in the Main Gallery, enjoying the 2025 Local History Awards Exhibition. From left to right: Val’s daughter, Anne Carrapiett (nee Tilbrook), Renae Carey, Valmai Tilbrook and Val’s grandson, Joshua Carrapiett.
Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service
PH00341-101 Val Tilbrook and grandson Joshua Carrapiett enjoying an entry in the 2025 Local History Awards Exhibition
Local History Collection, Town of Victoria Park Library Service
Go to Part Two
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