Coins in the wall and newspapers in the floor: the hiding places of renovators

"That was certainly a regular custom in the old days," John wrote, adding that, "often timber that hadn't been properly seasoned would be used to make the tongue and groove floorboards, and the newspaper was to serve as insulation as the boards shrunk, at times leaving noticeable gaps."

"Another custom was to put a current coin in a wall of a house under construction.

"We renovated a house at Glendale in 2010 and I found a coin in one of the walls. I forget the exact year but it was sometime in the 1940s or '50s. I added a 2010 one-dollar coin to mark our major renovation (we replaced all the Masonite internal walls and ceilings with gyprock).

"I've renovated or added to every house I've owned, and have also built bookcases and other semi-permanent furniture. And we owner-built our current home. In every case we have rolled up newspapers, magazines and advertising materials (e.g. Woolies or Aldi specials) and placed them in a wall or in a sealed part of the furniture to give future occupants an idea of what was happening and what things cost back in the day."

The rest of John's letter told a uniquely local story that I felt was too good not to reproduce in its entirety; a story about one local man and a life well lived.

Here's John:

"I was about 10 when I did my first building job. I was the 'apprentice' when dad - a labourer at Comsteel steelworks, christened Clarence Roy though everyone called him Jack - did an extension on the back of our small 1880s miner's cottage at the Merewether end of Victoria Street, Adamstown, so that we could have a bigger kitchen and a separate bathroom and laundry (although it didn't extend to installing an inside toilet - we still had to go out the back).

"We used second-hand hardwood that dad had scrounged, requiring lots of nail-holes to be drilled with a hand drill. And we put newspaper under the lino.

"Among the many things my father taught me was to be willing to have a go at what needs doing.

"Dad was the youngest of nine children, with six brothers and two sisters. He had an interesting if, unfortunately, uneventful life and was in some ways representative of many lives in the earlier part of last century. He was born on Boxing Day 1913 and his mother died when he was two.

"His father, a barber, farmed him out to relatives for a few years then dad came back to live with his father, at about age five, when his father remarried. Dad attended Adamstown Public School - as did I - and then Central High School, Broadmeadow, now the Performing Arts High School.

"His dream was to be an architect, impossible without a scholarship because the family couldn't afford to send him to university, but that dream was dashed when his father withdrew him from school after his 14^th birthday, to work in the barber shop. So his schooling ended when he was just 13.

"He worked with his father until he was 18, when his father died. The depression was at its worst about then. He married my mother in 1933, when he was still 19, and a short time later was working on the railways.

"At one stage, around 1935, he was working out of Paterson, on the northern train line. I'm not sure what he was doing, but I grew up with the understanding that my mother lived in a boarding house in Paterson with my one- or two-year-old brother while dad and his work mate took a hand trolley some distance further north where they camped out while they worked there Monday to Friday.

"I recall being told that their daily task was to dig a hole eight-feet long, six-feet wide and six-feet deep and fill it with ballast.

"I regret that I never asked Dad about that but it's strong in my memory.

"Dad, with mum and my brother, moved up to Mount Isa in 1937 chasing work in the relatively new zinc-lead-copper mine.

"They lived in a tent, as did all the other families. My mother's parents were also there and I have seen mum's brother, Uncle Alb's, enlistment papers when he signed up for WWII. The address for his next-of-kin was "Tent (number), Mount Isa Qld".

"They returned to Newcastle in 1942 when it was believed that Australia was under threat from Japan and Mount Isa may be a target, and dad gained a job as a labourer in the boilermakers shop at Commonwealth Steel at Waratah West, where he would remain for the rest of his working life.

"He used to ride his pushbike to and fro, until he bought a second-hand two-stroke motorbike when I was about 11 or 12.

"When I married and joined the NSW Police in 1964 I knew I couldn't afford to run a car in Sydney so I gave him my old Ford Falcon to use as a trade-in deposit on his very first motor car. I also had to sell my piano accordion to pay for my honeymoon.

"Despite his lack of education opportunities dad was always well-read and up to date with world affairs. There were always interesting discussions around the kitchen table.

"He was a great lover of classical music and I grew up listening to the classics on our old radio (he made sure we all - my older brother, sister and I - had piano lessons, although I am the only one who carried on and I certainly inherited his love of music.

"I have a 7'10" Yamaha grand piano which I now play too infrequently - arthritis in the hands gets in the way. One of my sons is an accomplished pianist and often played at charity recitals here before moving away to join the RAAF several years ago.

"Dad died in 1988, at 73, following a knee replacement which became infected then gangrenous. He failed to survive an operation to remove his leg. I spoke to him the night before the operation and he simply said to me: "I've had enough". And he meant it.

"I often think of what he could have been if he had just had the opportunity of an education.

"I've always been very proud of Dad; his willingness to have a go at anything despite being poor and lacking formal education. He was always so positive.

"One interesting point; although he worked in male-dominated areas all his life I never once heard him swear or raise his voice to mum, or us kids for that matter. His greatest legacy to me has no doubt been my love of music. He was a great role model and a true example of a self-sufficient man."

John was born and raised in Adamstown, and was a NSW Police detective in the Hunter throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. He now lives at Mount Hutton.