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wanted to better herself. And as soon as she could, probably when Alma was old enough to
take her place, Rene took a course as a stenographer.
Her nephew John, Esther's grandson, said of Rene: 'She was a very independent and clever girl.
She studied in her own time, at night, and learned how to do book-keeping and to type. When
she was quite young, she got a job as a secretary with one of the first solicitors who opened up
in Ayr, Mr Dean. She kept in touch with him and wrote to him for the rest of his life; he was still
practising in Townsville when he was over 80. The firm, Dean, Gillman and Thompson, is still
one of the leading law firms there'.
366
Esther must have paid for Rene's typing course, hoping (vainly) that such skills could be put to
use in the store. She was in favour of people improving themselves and of boys in particular
having a proper education. Her husband's father (John) and allegedly her fosterfather, Edward
Chapman, had been educated men, although neither did much, it seems, about their own sons'
education. Esther always thought that John Honeycombe should have done more for his eldest
boy, Willie, her husband. She did what she could for her sons, and although Len worked in the
shop fulltime from the age of 11 (from 1918) his mother sent him in 1920 or thereabouts to
Thornburgh College in Charters Towers when she could afford it. It seems he wasn't happy, for
he was only there for a year.
Bill, her eldest, didn't go to college - he wouldn't go. He left school when he was 14 and
slopped around the shop during the war, delivering groceries by horse and cart. When he was a
few years older he worked in the canefields, as his father had done. A good-natured, good-
looking boy, Bill was happiest playing football and tennis and fooling around; he enjoyed singing
popular songs. He even taught himself how to play the euphonium and performed with the Ayr
Citizens Band. 'He was a bit of a rover,' said Alma. 'A very spoiled boy. Always had his own
way. Len was the worker. Both of them were strong, healthy, but Len was bigger. Bill was tall,
but scraggy'. He was his mother's favourite son.
The First World War had little material effect on Esther's homely business, although they were
difficult years. She was mainly concerned with breaking even, and with giving her children a
good start in life. In doing so, she was honouring Willie's memory and name, and although she
may have had suitors, or craved the arms of a man around her, it seems she was faithful to
Willie all her life; and as his widow she lived on without him for 43 years.
But the First World War had a large effect on Australia, most visibly in the stone and other
memorials that eventually sprouted in virtually every community and church throughout the land.
Nearly 60,000 of Australia's fittest young men died in the war, most in France; more than twice
as many were injured. More than 300 went to the war from Ayr; 53 of them never returned.
There was no conscription, although two government referendums in support of it (and generally
supported by politicians, the church and the press) were narrowly defeated. But the social
pressure to enlist was great, and men went off to fight for the Empire and the Mother Country
with hardly a thought for their families or themselves.
At home, in Ayr, patriotic committees raised money for the war; socks were knitted, shirts and
dressing-gowns made, and tins of tobacco and cigarettes sent. Then, while the murderous
military actions of Gallipoli were being fought in 1915 and Anzac became an enduring symbol
and a name, those at home struggled with various hardships caused by a severe drought and
with a national income tax, introduced as a temporary measure to help pay for the war. Early
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