Thursday, 13 September 2012

Factual Story - A Literary Love Story.


Six children, twenty-two grandchildren and twenty great-grandchildren. It was a life partnership that started with one letter and five simple words; “Give it to me then”. Five seemingly innocuous words that had a lifelong impact on Les Dwyer. It was not the most auspicious or romantic of beginnings however it was a lasting love, 59 years to be precise.

Les and Lola, Thailand 1998. 
The year was 1946. He remembers it well. For him it was a year of starting afresh and new adventures. It also happened to be the year Lola came into his life. Les Dwyer had returned to St Brendan’s College Yeppoon to complete his final year of school as a boarder. He had taken the previous year and a half off to assist his father and then mourn his death and finally arrange his affairs including the selling of a small business. Upon his return he remembers that he was enthusiastically greeted by all his old friends.
However like all school boys, they often sought a reprieve from the repetitive hustle and bustle of the school day. One boy, whether out of boredom or pure brazenness entered all the names of his ‘mates’ into the Church Magazine and listed them as wanting a pen friend. Les recalls that the responses were numerous and varied from the “ages of fourteen to forty.

Les and Lola - 2002
 “We were seated in the refectory in three row tables with six at each table. I was the captain of my house – the Hayes house. It was dinner time and the mail was always delivered at the night time meal. John Murphy received the letter and read it out.” It was from a girl, more than 3,000 kilometres away in the small city of Geelong. She too was in her final year at school and a boarder at a catholic college. Les then asked one simple question, one that he did not know would result in “such far-reaching effects.” Was John Murphy going to answer the letter? “Not on your Nelly” was the response. Les remembers replying “Well give it to me then.”  Those innocuous words would have a lifelong impact. So the letters commenced and a friendship grew to a close relationship. In years to come Lola always said that if there was one thing Les could do, it was write a good letter.

Les and Lola meeting Queen Elizabeth - 1970
It was 1951 and while the letters continued, accompanied by the occasional photo, the two still had not met. Les worked hard in his business and travel was not easy or cheap. No doubt though his letters to and from Lola filled a void in living a life in an isolated region in Queensland. Receiving Lola’s letters from Melbourne where she began work was a medium to a different and exciting world.

Les had purchased a sea-side business at Seaforth in 1949 with the money left to him by his father and at the tender age of 21 he was working as the sole operator. It was in this year that Lola wrote to him and told him she would be travelling to Sydney with two friends for a holiday. “I remember thinking that it’s time to make more direct contact with her.” So with his mother minding his shop for the few precious days Les set off to Sydney to stay with a long-time college friend and most importantly to finally meet Lola. 

Lola and Les - 1951
The day still remains clear in his memory. Les is a fine storyteller and has regaled many audiences with the love story.  “She had booked into a hotel and I was going upstairs to meet her but she was coming down and we ended up meeting half way on the staircase. And you know what that brazen, forward girl did to me? She kissed me!” The next day Les and Lola had their first date at Luna Park in Sydney which obviously went well! Discovering their physical attraction was as strong as the bond built through five years of corresponding, Les proposed.  Lola obviously felt the same and they were engaged to be married that night. “The next day we went shopping and I asked her what sort of ring she wanted. Sapphires she replied and so we went into a little jewellery shop where I bought her a sapphire ring with a diamond on either side.”

Lola was to get a taste of her future when she travelled to Mackay to visit Les and his family.  It was 1951 and a flight from Melbourne to Mackay was a long ordeal but then a four hour bus ride to Seaforth – a beachside community near Mackay must have felt like she was going to the back of beyond.

Les and Lola - 1952
Les recalls with some mirth that the driver dropped her off with instructions to follow the track through the bush and she would find the beach and Les’ shop. It was dusk and as she wandered through she became aware of a flicker of light through the foliage. As she emerged into a clearing she was taken aback as a group of aboriginal women sat in a circle fanning a fire. The dry fear rising in her throat dissipated as the stunned looks on their faces gave way to the biggest smiles and through gleaming white teeth one said “you must be Lola.” With great fondness he recounted that those women were to become her close friends for years to come. Lola returned to Geelong to organise the wedding and prepare to move over 3000 kilometres to a new life.

The two were married the following April in 1952. It was a Geelong wedding with Les only flying down several days before the wedding to be introduced to the bridal party and his best man. He did not have a lot of family and it was expensive to travel for his friends. They returned to Seaforth and worked together in the store and post office before relocating to Koumala – Les’ hometown south of Mackay where they remained until 1961 when they relocated to Mackay.
 Les and Lola's family at their 50th wedding anniversary - 2002
Les and Lola were married for fifty-three years before her death in 2005. They have six children, twenty two grandchildren and twenty great-grandchildren to date. For both Les and Lola there was never anyone else. And to think it all began with a simple prank of one school boy and the chance that the boy who received the letter read it out was sitting at my grandfather’s table.


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