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Interview with 105 yr old Veronica Phillips in 1989 (soundbite)

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The Margaret Henry Oral History Archive is a collection of audio tapes, transcripts, summaries and essays that were part of the Oral Histories Open Foundation Course (1986-1989). Margaret Henry was a history lecturer at the UON in the 1980s.

The oral history tapes have been digitised and made freely available to the wider global research community thanks to the generosity of The Vera Deacon Regional History Fund.

SummaryInterview by Heather Rooney in 1989 with her grandmother Veronica Phillips (nee Harper) who is 105 about her life growing up in the Hunter Valley.

Veronica was born in Scone in 1884, she was the eldest of five children, and attended St. Joseph's Catholic School in Scone. Her father Harry Harper was a horse trainer, he used to deliver the mail by horseback with his good friend "Jimmy Jimmy" when they were young. Jimmy was Aboriginal, he would protect his friend and they would camp on the riverbank together.

Later her father was a shoemaker "very well known in Scone". Veronica recalls the great drought in 1898 that hit Scone and the Hunter, she also talks about young women politically at the turn of the century and "that was the time of the suffragettes, I was right up with that . . . I wanted the vote for women, and you know Heather, Australia led, was one of the leaders of the women gaining the vote."

In 1904 she married Steven Phillips, his in-laws owned the Shamrock Hotel, she recalls the "unsinkable Titanic", all the young people keen to go to WWI, the light horse brigade training at Scone at "Bakerwells paddock" and helping fundraising for the Red Cross to support the soldiers. Veronica played the the piano at the silent movies at Cardiff, she used to come down by horse and sulky from Weston.

This is an exceptional and rare interview because the interviewee not only recalls pre-1900s but able to describe the years during WWII later decades. As she says "I have had an interesting life Heather. I've had from a horse and dray and to see the landing on the moon and to see all the wonderful vehicles they ride around in nowadays and the aeroplanes. I've had a very interesting and a very good and healthy life."SubjectPhillips née Harper, VeronicaPersonRooney, HeatherPhillips née Harper, VeronicaInterview logA6969 (vi)_PhillipsCollectionMargaret Henry Oral History ProjectDate Created1989-08-25IdentifierA6969 (vi)_Phillips

Phillips.mp3

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