A life well lived

Hall & Prior cares for many former nurses at its 27 homes in NSW and WA, one of them is Jennifer Smyth, a nurses who now lives at St Lukes Aged Care Home and was never quite “off duty”.

By Gabi Mills

Digging through the archives of Jennifer Smyth, one of St Luke’s long-time residents, have sparked many happy memories for her children – David, Mary, Peter and Michael.

Those who know and love Jennifer, a resident at St Luke’s Aged Care Home in Subiaco for the past eight years, use powerful words to describe her: kindness and generosity.

A nurse who never quite took off her uniform, even in her 80s, Jennifer would often attempt to help other residents who had perhaps fallen or required help. Her eldest son David explains.

“My mother was long past the point of being able to offer assistance and Trevor Weaver, one of the home’s Registered Nurses would say to her with a smile; “Nurse Smythe, you are not on duty tonight.”

Born in 1934 in Lambeth, London, as a child Jennifer was evacuated to north London with her younger brother Michael during the war like so many other children at the time. Peter says that she recalled a beautiful summer spent playing with the children from a gypsy camp nearby to where she was billeted.

“Mum said it was the happiest summer she ever knew,” Peter said.

Her youngest son Michael, who now lives in Germany, recalls his mother reading ‘Carrie’s War’ to him as a child, a book about two children who were evacuated from London to Wales.

“I remember my mother recounting her experience of being evacuated – she had many pleasant memories of seeing the countryside,” Michael said.

As a teenager, Jennifer belonged to the nautical arm of the Girl Guides, and won awards for the long jump at school, even visiting the Commonwealth Games facility in London on occasion. Blissful family holidays were spent on Hayling Island, off the south coast of England, and there are many photographs showing Jennifer with her brother, mother Phyllis and father Nelson having fun by the seaside.

Nelson, a machine tool foreman from Wales, died suddenly in 1954 while Jennifer was training to be a nurse, and Phyllis and the children were subsequently taken under her Uncle Alec’s wing.

A close-knit family, Phyllis’s father Ernest lived next door to the family on Hannington Road in Clapham, meaning Jennifer and her brother were always surrounded by love and support. Uncle Alec would go on to give Jennifer away on her wedding day, to John Smyth, on August 23, 1957.

“You can see Uncle Alec and Aunt Lala (as my mother referred to her), standing next to her in the group wedding photograph,” Michael said.

John and Jennifer met after she started her midwifery training while John was rostered to manage the staff clinic at London’s University College Hospital.

John would write touching letters to Jennifer, who was on night duty.

“They would be addressed ‘Dear Dormouse. . .” David said.

“Mum also remembers getting sunburnt after falling asleep in the roof garden of the nurses’ quarters. She went back to work with a starched apron on her burnt knees and was accosted by a staff nurse with a broad Sydney accent who reprimanded her for being sunburnt!”

Her nursing role even had a touch of glamour at times; she nursed on ‘The Wing’, a private ward in the hospital where she looked after Clementine Churchill, Winston’s wife, and Hollywood superstar Dirk Bogarde.

Just a few months after marrying John, the couple left Tilbury Docks in London on the Stratheden for Perth, arriving on October 28, 1957. During the long voyage, Jennifer was pregnant with David who was born on December 1.

“When my mother went into labour, my father was stopped for speeding en-route to the hospital,” Mary said.

“The police helped with an escort when they realised what was happening.”

Initially, the couple lived in the Perth Hills at Wooroloo Sanatorium, a facility initially built for those suffering from TB and leprosy but by the time the Smyth’s arrived, it was also a general hospital for the area.

The change of scenery seemed to agree with Jennifer, who enjoyed taking walks with her new baby around the Sanatorium’s grounds, meeting local Indigenous families who were camping nearby, and continuing her lifelong habit of making friends with an eclectic group of people.

“Mum remembers the first time we went back to the UK in 1965, taking us to see a panto. The theatre was full of families and nannies with their children who were horrified when the lights went up after the show to see four Aussie children scrabbling under the seats to find their shoes,” Mary said. “We were more accustomed to thongs and sand between our toes and found shoes an unnecessary restriction!”

The Smyths relocated to the south west of the UK near Exeter for 12 years when the children were high school age, but returned to Perth in 1978 for good.

“My parents both enjoyed travel, theatre, gardening and art. Mum played the piano very well and loved dancing, cooking and eating food from around the world,” Mary added.

In 2011, John died and in 2012, Jennifer moved into St Luke’s in Subiaco. These days, she loves listening to Mozart, gardening and watching movies, according to Madelyne Glover, Hall & Prior’s Senior Occupational Therapist.

Her four children now live in four different countries and have perhaps inherited from their parents a love of travel.

“A significant number of our family’s lifelong friends were neighbours from various places around the world,” David said.

“My mother made herself available to adults - and especially children - which endeared her to so many. She has become an honorary grandmother for so many people and always took everything in her stride, as she seemed to do with all the major changes in her life.”

Jennifer Smyth as a young nurse in London.

Jennifer Smyth pictured recently with a photo of herself.

John and Jennifer Smyth were married were married in 1957, and shortly afterwards left Tilbury Docks for Perth in October.