Empowering people to communicate and connect

‘I was awarded the James Brunton Stephens’ Essay Prize for 1949, as the candidate who presented the best essay on the selected topic at the Junior Public Examination 1949. A prize presented by The University of Queensland (UQ). My name was put on the Brisbane Girls Grammar School Honour Board for that prize. I was awarded a scholarship to attend UQ, commencing in 1952, awarded by the then Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies. I graduated in 1954, with a Bachelor of Arts. At university I was awarded the Charles Robertson Memorial Prize in history in 1952.  

‘I married John Robert Hanscomb on 30 April 1955, later Dr John Robert Hanscomb, PhD in Physics, and moved to Canberra, where he was a lecturer at the Duntroon Military College. My first two children were born in Canberra.  

‘We moved to Sydney in 1958. I started working fulltime at the Prince Henry Hospital School, at La Perouse in Sydney when my youngest child was three years of age. There was a preschool kindergarten there which my daughter could attend. I worked in the capacity of a teacher, assisting patients in the spinal surgeries ward, and in the psychiatric ward, who were studying secondary school studies by correspondence. It was interesting work: I attended the case conferences for those students, and there was a hospital school in the children’s ward, which the primary school children were happy to attend. The last child in NSW to contract poliomyelitis lived at the hospital. She came out of her iron lung to attend school in her wheelchair.  

‘On three occasions—1965, 1972, and 1979—I lived for a year in England, when my husband was on sabbatical leave. I attained a Teaching Diploma and began teaching English as a second language at the South Sydney Boys’ High school, in Maroubra in Sydney, to boys who enrolled with no English language. Later I transferred to the Adult Migrant Education service workforce, teaching classes in the evening at the Gardeners Road Public School to migrants and refugees, and in the daytime, at the ESL centre in the grounds of the Daceyville public primary school. I also taught conversational English in the daytime to migrant women in various locations.  

‘I am happy that I assisted many people to become proficient in English. The students really appreciated being assisted. For those who fled times of crisis and war, you could see them gradually relax. Many years later I still met people who told me how much they enjoyed their classes. Once a teacher, always a teacher. I liked my job.

'After my husband and I retired we ran a community group for elders called 55 Plus. My husband produced a news letter detailing the group’s activities and items of interest.  The group meet weekly at the Eastlakes Community Centre under the auspices of the Botany Council. We had weekly speakers and exercise, English and art classes plus monthly excursions. We also had an annual art show. The mayor’s wife was our patron.  

'During this time I received a NSW Seniors Week Premier’s Award in recognition of outstanding service to the community, and to NSW, signed by the Premier of NSW.'