St Kilda, Wellington, St Kilda, to Freemantle — the remarkable story of a 1939 Harmony guitar.
Guitars are just stories, with strings attached. James Freemantle’s 1939 Harmony has more than one story, it has what Rivers of London author Ben Aaronovitch terms ‘vestigium’, or in the more easily pronounced plural form ‘vestigia’ — a kind of haunting quality that makes it vibrate when you come close to it.
Just pick it up, and you will know this archtop, steel-stringed beauty has seen some things. The battered case, with the remarkable ‘case candy’ as collectors call the receipts and miscellanea in the internal pockets — all add up to a first-class adventure.
This is some of that story. We’ll add to it as we get to know more. Places, times, wars, dances, centennials, boat voyages, boarding houses, trouble, strife, handsome American soldiers courting rebellious Aussie girls on the beach, at Luna Park and on the ice rinks of St Kilda, regretful sales, growing up and more. Echoes of an Antipodean yesterday that are actually closer than we imagine.
It would be easy to make more of the few facts than we have — to get carried away fictionally filling in the many gaps in this story. That is the job of true writers, not mere diarists on Medium. Let’s start with what we know, and go from there.
INEZ SHEAF, THE HERO OF OUR STORY
My greatest wish of a gap to be filled in this tale would be a photograph of our hero Inez Sheaf, born 1916 in Victoria, Australia — her Dad Stephen Sheaf getting together with Inez’s mother Rose Batten (who already had her step-sister Elizabeth in tow) some time before 1913.
Inez had a brother Walter, born 3 years earlier — another wartime baby. Hundred year-old records are challenging to follow, but it appears her father may have been a musician in Melbourne— which would explain a lot of this story, if true.
It is Inez who got this saga under way as a rebellious 23 year old, leaving town in Melbourne in 1939, headed for a new life in Wellington NZ.
With her brother married off in early 1939, she was gone — “bye everyone!” Her equally impulsive purchase of a beautiful American guitar along the way kicks off this whole 80 year saga.
Thanks to some descendants’ diligence (especially a researcher on Ancestry called Julie M Connell, a descendant of Inez’s Mother) we know a little about Inez — the threads taking a while to find. This is Inez’s story that we will try to follow, and are lucky to embellish with a fine musical instrument.
Inez’s first two decades in Melbourne had been spent in a very turbulent times in history.
It is useful to remember that ‘World War 2’ was not a term used at this point in world history — who would believe there could be a second global apocalypse the scale of the first? The ‘Great War’ or ‘War to End all Wars’ in 1914–18 had been long over. The political ramifications and deprivations in Europe had been significant, with Hitler’s revengeful entry into German politics in 1932 and the subsequent decline in civilisation leading to the appearance of many refugees (lots of them Jewish) in the far flung seaside Australian community of St Kilda. Inez would have to have noticed them as she passed her teenage days, commuting to work, on the trams, at the beach with her friends.
The 1930s had been tough enough for all Australians — recovering from massive ANZAC war deaths, the influenza epidemic that followed, then the Great Depression that brought more than its fair share of shortages and conflict in society. Newspapers of this period were also full of solemn news of life in the Northern hemisphere, and the pessimism of politicians and newspaper editors alike.
Inez’s grandparent’s had lived in St Kilda, and she potentially visited them there as a young child. She would certainly come to love it over time — which is easily understood when you look through the eyes of a 20-something year old. Luna Park, the beach, movies, ice-rinks, music halls, cafes and more.
TRAVEL TO NEW ZEALAND, 1939
However, despite the attractions of seaside St Kilda in Autumn 1939, Inez boarded the brand new (in 1936) NZ operated luxury trans-Tasman liner Awatea, and set off for a grand adventure across the sea in Wellington.
The Awatea would famously be sunk in 1942 working as a troop ship off Morocco. For now it was resplendent on the 3–4 day journey across the Tasman — with passengers dancing, spending time on deck, playing endless games and socialising.
What possibly could have tempted Inez away to an unknown small town in a cultural backwater like NZ?
Possibly news of the greatest public event to happen in the Antipodes since Federation in Australia — the NZ centennial in Wellington.
Arriving in May 1939, Inez would have found the city buzzing with what was to open in November that year. Construction of the Expo centre had been going on for years, performers and acts had already prepared for months. The scale of this event is hard to fathom today — in a country with a population of approximately 2 million, 2 million people would go through the turnstiles in the course of the Centennial — in wartime!
For an insight into the ‘vibe’ (to use a very 2022 term) of Wellington at this point, you might enjoy Patricia Grace’s book Tu, following the fortunes and misfortunes of Maori families in the Wellington Poneke area, and their subsequent wartime horrors in key battles in Italy where the Maori Battalion brought honour to the 100 year old nation of NZ.
Was Inez involved in the Centennial in some way? We might never know — but we can be sure it was on the tips of everyone she met’s tongue. Given St Kilda’s reputation for live music, theatre and performance, no doubt many Australian actors and musicians that Inez would have known socially had been tempted across to participate.
One thing is certain — that Inez arrived to a miserable Winter in Wellington. Known even today as ‘windy Wellington’, in 1939 records were being set for wind, rain and snow. It snowed in Northland, 500 kilometres closer to the equator! For a Melbourne girl, this would have been a shock.
Inez found a home in a boarding house at 58 Majoribanks Street, close to the central city in Mt Victoria. Insulation? Not invented yet.
The house was a well-known boarding house for people coming to Wellington, with 6 or more rooms, some with cooking facilities, some with 2 beds for shared costs. Many had heaters — one causing a documented fire there in 1941.
What did Inez do for a job in Wellington? How did she earn enough money to pay off an expensive Harmony guitar from Beggs Music Store in Manners Street in the city? Let alone the many nights out of fun with the community of young people gathering for the grand Centennial event while trying desperately to ignore the depressing daily headlines from Europe? A clue comes from her return to Australia in September 1940 — where her occupation is listed as Tobacco Worker.
Near to Wellington is the city of Lower Hutt. A low-lying industrial town, it had one of the largest cigarette factories in New Zealand owned by HO Wills, and cigarettes were in peak demand. The dexterous hands of young women in producing the cigarettes were highly valued — so much so that buses were put on to bring women from all over the region to work there daily.
It is quite possible that Inez was already skilled in the arts of working in the tobacco industry — near to St Kilda where she lived in Australia was a massive plant producing cigarettes in the 1930s. She may have walked straight into a position.
Who knows, she may be one of the women depicted in this documentary photograph from 1940 (there’s a 1:70 chance!).
Inez buys a Harmony Guitar from Beggs
Which brings us to the real beginning of this story.
Every New Zealander of a certain age, with the slightest interest in musical instruments or electrical goods has heard of Beggs. As it happens, my first acoustic guitar, bought for $12 by my generous parents in Hamilton in the early 1970s was from a Beggs store.
By 1960 the Beggs store in Wellington, which had originally opened in 1895, looked like this… it was a mecca.
But our story is back 2 decades earlier, in pre-war July 1939. By July, the NZ newspapers were openly predicting war in Europe. The dissonance within a town preparing for the 100th anniversary of the nation must have been palpable. The party was spoiling.
Inez Sheaf had only been in Wellington since May. The freezing Winter from hell was still upon them, doubtless made up for by warm-spirited parties held at the homes of the many entertainers and young folk planning for their performances at the Centennial in Autumn. She and her friends would have walked along Manners Street, sheltering from Winter’s wet and cold Southerly wind, past the inviting windows of Beggs Music on Friday and Saturday nights, and at some stage, she saw the Harmony guitar.
Beggs was in a prime retail location in 1939, on a popular street that was the main West to East thoroughfare of the time. Today virtually none of the amazing landmark buildings of the time remain — all knocked down in a frenzy of horrific 1980s ‘modernisation’ that 40 years later needs another round of demolition.
Perrett’s Corner (seen in the photo above) was a famous meeting place for young people, a landmark in the city for after-work or weekend liaisons. In a world where cellphones were science fiction, and everyone arranged things days ahead, a widely-known meeting place was a vital thing. From there you could head to anywhere in Wellington, on foot or by tram.
Harmony Guitars were manufactured in America — they had a long history, the factory had been bought by the 1930s giant trader Sears Roebuck as their house brand of guitar, mandolin and ukulele, and they manufactured for many more stores under licensed brand names. In 1939 they produced 70,000 guitars. Only a store of Beggs standing could hope to stock guitars like Harmony in NZ.
Guitars were mostly gut-stringed for the higher 3 strings, or nylon where available. Some were termed ‘steel guitars’, for the strings being steel across all 6. It was one of those that caught Inez’s eye.
It remains a slight mystery how someone of only 23 years, working in a Wellington cigarette factory pre-War, could sensibly set her heart on a £12 guitar. Perhaps she had arrived with some money in her pocket and her heart set on being a bigger part of the live-playing musician’s circles that were part of social life in NZ and Australia in the 1930s and 1940s? Could she play? Was she actually expert and able to teach for income?
We may never know.
Women’s wages in the 1930s and 1940s were regulated by the government — at a fraction of men’s wages. This table from the 1940 yearbook tells the story of wages from 1914 through to 1940 in NZ for women. Men’’s wages were double to triple for the same work.
Whilst this seems incomprehensible 80 years later, the vestiges of this structural economic slavery are still with us — that’s the subject of another essay however!
How much was £12 in today’s money then? Luckily, the NZ government provides a handy ready reckoner for us, including old currency (pounds, shillings, pence). Inez made the decision to buy and pay off over 6 months what would amount to a $1300 guitar in 2022. A substantive purchase for someone in her position. Good on her!
In 2022 with the many options for paying off on ‘buy now pay later’ at the fingertips of every young spender, the thought of not having the goods in your hand, and having to return monthly with a payment might seem cruel. But Inez patiently takes her freshly minted payments book, and sets about to get it done as quickly as possible.
We know where she lived, simply from the inside front cover.
The terms of the payments were straightforward. She would end up paying it off much quicker than planned. The official outbreak of war in September may have hurried her along, taking the shine off the opening of the NZ Centennial Exhibition a few weeks’ later.
By the late Summer the khaki uniforms of NZ soldiers assembling for troop ships to depart for the war would have been noticeable everywhere on the streets. Special trains were put on for citizens to travel to the Hutt Valley (Trentham and Petone) to view the troops marching and training at parade grounds. Inez was a reliable payer, and had it done by February or March of 1940.
Return to Australia
With the Centennial exhibition buzz winding up, the war taking off, and another Winter coming to an end, Inez made the decision to return to Melbourne — her adventure in Wellington over. Her finest souvenir was a beautiful Harmony guitar, packed carefully with her luggage for the return trip — via Sydney in this case, from where she would catch a train to Melbourne.
The Maunganui was a much less glamorous ship than the voyage from Melbourne to Wellington. Inez would have been on one of the last trips before it was converted to a hospital ship and conscripted for the war effort.
Back in Melbourne
We next find Inez Sheaf in St Kilda in 1942.
With the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941 at Pearl Harbour, St Kilda was to undergo a transformation from austere, fearful war suburb with a lurking suspicion of anyone slightly ‘foreign’, to the wartime party capital of Australia. What a place for a young woman and her Harmony guitar!
Akin to hundreds of young women in Melbourne, Inez’s employment was utilising her talents as a tobacco worker at the giant Carreras cigarette factory in Prahran. This is her job as listed in a directory (see below). Inez and her mother both worked at the cigarette factory!
The main clue for what happens next is the second treasure in James’ guitar case — a white receipt from 7 March 1942, documenting the sad day Inez sells her guitar to Miss R K Lani. Was it a sad sale? Perhaps not. It was certainly at a brutal discount to the purchase price only a couple of years earlier in Wellington — from £12 down to just over £1. The guitar collector in me weeps for her!
Perhaps RK Lani was her friend, and she cut her a great deal? Perhaps wartime economic circumstances forced the sale? Second hand instruments, other than pianos, are non-existent in the Melbourne papers. It appears from the receipt it came with a lesson and the case at least.
From this receipt we were able to validate the addresses as the homes of Inez and RK. They lived close.
Inez’s apartment still stands today.
Miss R K Lani lived in a row of shops on Blessington Street, occupied by boot makers, tailors, dressmakers and milliners. Her shop’s purpose is not listed in the directory of the time however.
These shops also still stand today. RK’s shop is now a pizza place at number 45 Blessington Street. It’s only a few hundred metres from where Inez lived — did they used to hang out, head down to the beach with the soldiers and their friends to dance, skate, play music and enjoy a life that was trying so hard to not let anyone enjoy it? We hope so.
The Final Chapter — from St Kilda to James Freemantle
How the beautiful Harmony archtop guitar with original case and documentation made its way from Miss R K Lani to James Freemantle’s care remains a mystery to be solved. James recalls buying it in an estate sale in Northern Victoria in the 1980s, for the princely sum of $50. The guitar that indeed, saw some amazing things.
Inez married in 1946, right after the war ended. Other than this, pretty much all we can glean is Inez Sheaf’s final resting place at the Springvale Botanical Cemetery, where she went after a long life, living until 1971 (the latter years in Mt Waverley).
We love this story, being fellow guitar-playing enthusiasts, collectors, travellers, adventurers, and are awestruck at the pluck of young Inez Sheaf in the 1930s and 1940s. Good on you girl! You are not forgotten. Might drop in one day and strum you a tune.
If you have any more of this story to share, we’d love to hear from you. Email me using nxdalton@gmail.com and we’ll be glad to add your part to the tale.
