Meet our members: Nola Howard

Meet Nola, 92 years young. With her grandfather, father and brother all working on the railways, Nola has a long and happy history of involvement with rail. She joined RT Health in 1945 which means she has now been a member for 77 years. Here Nola talks about her family’s railway experiences over the years.

Nola’s grandfather was a “big, strong man”, who was the youngest driver on a train at the time, and at 19 years of age he broke the time record for driving a train from Dubbo to Bourke.

Her father started work as a cleaner on steam engines, then soon followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a driver. He started driving steam trains and ended up on the electric trains, based at Flemington in Sydney’s west.

Railways ‘in the blood’

“He was a solid worker and a stickler for time keeping and would run the length of the platform at Blacktown to get the train out on time,” she says.

“Unfortunately, he had a heart attack doing that; the doctor said he was burnt out and so he retired.

“We all loved trains; it must be something in the blood,” says Nola of herself and her siblings. “We loved those handcars that you had to push up and down, but Dad always said to stay away from those things. We lived near the train track and when Dad was going past he’d toot the horn. He even mended our shoes with bits of train line.”

The family went by train on holidays to Sawtell on the NSW North Coast. With Mum, Dad and six children, they had a whole box carriage to themselves. They made the tables into beds for the children so they could sleep on the way.

Holidays via railways

“We’d leave Central Station at eight o’clock at night and get to Sawtell at nine the next morning. I’d sleep all the way,” says Nola. “We had wonderful holidays at Sawtell, and we’d see all of Dad’s mates on the railways. And we all went out together as families.”

Nola joined RT Health in July 1945. “My father insisted I had to join because it was the law and I joined before my 16th birthday. Sixpence a week, then it went up to ninepence a week, and when I got married it was a shilling a week. But it didn’t cover ambulance – that was separate – so you had to join an ambulance fund as well and that was two shillings a week for the ambulance service.”

Her husband was in the British Navy during the war. He joined the Australian Navy in England, and he was drafted to the war in Korea, but he was taken off the ship in Sydney. He spent six years in the Australian Navy, then he worked at Otis Elevator company for 35 years until he retired.

Nola has always believed strongly in private health cover. She says: “Who was going to look after you if you were sick or injured? If your health goes, you’ve had it. Health insurance is more important than a glass of beer or a glass of wine; if it means you have to cut off some of these things to pay for health insurance then you have to cut them off.

“I had a pacemaker done last year. I went to see the specialist on a Wednesday and he said ‘I’m doing you tomorrow’ because I was in a private hospital fund. He just rang the surgery and said ‘I’ve got a vacancy for seven o’clock, so put her in there’.”

World War II charity work

Nola started doing charity work after the Second World War and has kept it up until today. It began with her being on the committee to entertain the troops at Concord Hospital visiting returned, injured soldiers. Her father came home from the war and was based in Darling Harbour because the POW ships used to go there.

“He was in tears because he said some of the men had no arms, no legs, and he said, ‘Those poor buggers’,” she says.

Nola adds that there were returned soldiers who were physically injured and also psychiatric patients. She says the administration said that “when the psychiatric patients became agitated, we had to leave straight away, as it might not be safe for the girls”.

Nola said they would write letters for the soldiers, as some of their parents were in the country and they knew they were home but didn’t know where they were. “So, we’d write letters for them as the nurses were too busy. We’d just talk to them, entertain them and write letters for them. I’ve carried it on ever since, just welfare.

“I’m on the committee here (at the retirement home) and have been for 19 years. I organise the monthly barbecue – not that I do the cooking anymore; I get the men to do that. And we have bowls, and happy hour of a Tuesday afternoon. And there’s Bingo, so there’s something to do all the time. There’s craft to do in here. I used to do a lot more, but I’ve started to back off a bit. Because I’ve got to remember my age, my son tells me. But age is a figment of your imagination.”

At age 80, Nola decided she wanted to get a computer, despite her son saying she was “too old”. Her daughter-in-law, a teacher at TAFE, advised her to go and get lessons to see if she was capable of it. “And that was like shaking a red rag at a bull. So, I went out the next day and I bought a laptop, a printer and a desk. And I can do SMSs on my mobile phone too.”

Nola’s love of trains and train travel has never dimmed. “I’ve been to Melbourne by train, and I’ve been by plane, but I’d rather go by train. I’ve gone down in the sleeper and come home sitting up, but I just love trains. I could go round the world in a train.”