of schools. In the end, Harry made the decision to be Protestant, so William won out after all.
Fay daydreamed all through school. She was excellent at English, loved to read, and she would write poetry and school compositions. Mathematics, however, remained her worst subject. Although Lillian was five years younger than Fay, they were always very close. Even though she didn’t remember her older sister Dorothy, as she was only two years old when Dorothy died, it did make Fay feel a sense of loyalty to Lillian, the remaining sister. Lillian was extremely shy in comparison to Fay and Harry. Their mother took advantage of this, persuading Lillian to remain at home with her after she left school. Fay, on the other hand, was extremely ambitious and started a course at a secretarial business college. She excelled in Pitmans shorthand and her typing skills were top-rate. Lillian, contrastingly, grew skilled in cookery, sewing, and domestic duties.
By 1926, 17-year-old Fay was anxious to become a Flapper. The Roaring Twenties were her teenage years and she embraced all things and styles modern. Lillian would watch in wonder as Fay experimented with rouge and lipstick, bought from her salary as an office secretary. She also began to make her own straight shift dresses using a Butterwick pattern. Her mother tried in vain to put a stop to Fay’s insistence of a short, sleek hairstyle, but managed to confiscate the long cigarette holder (although only used as a prop)! When the family purchased a wireless, Fay would practice the Charleston and Black Bottom to the sounds of Jan Garber singing ‘Baby Face’ , Gene Austin’s ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ and ‘Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue’ . She yearned to epitomise the spirit of a reckless rebel who danced the night away at a smoky Jazz Club.
Just after the Great Depression, Annie pulled out her trump card and bought a generous home at 123 Tooronga Road, Malvern. It was paid with the money she had been taking from William all those years. The house was in her name and the family moved in, enjoying the luxury of a large back and front yard.
Every Sunday morning Fay and Lillian would attend Mass with their mother. Harry, of course, was never expected to attend. They became parishioners of St Joseph’s Catholic Church close by. Annie hoped her eldest daughter would meet a nice Catholic boy and settle down. After church one sunny, autumn day in 1932, Fay was introduced to an extremely handsome, dark-haired man with sapphire blue eyes. At thirty-three, Jaime San Miguel was eleven years older than 22-year-old Fay. It was a short but animated conversation, and on the walk back home with her mother and sister, Fay couldn’t stop thinking about him. Although Fay had many ardent admirers seeking her attention, she hadn’t really met anyone who had touched her heart. She was a born flirt with a dynamic personality, and enjoyed the attention she always gained.
The following Sunday, he was there again, and after the service came straight over to Fay. This time they chatted for a good hour, Lillian and their mother hadn’t attended due to both having a nasty cold, so Fay relaxed and listened intently to Jaime’s conversation. She learnt that he had attended Xavier College in Kew, and had been Captain of the school for two years running in 1916 and 1917. She also discovered he worked as a sales representative for the Dunlop Rubber company at 108 Flinders Street in the city centre. Meanwhile, Fay had recently landed a job as private secretary to Roy Rostron, of Rostron and Company Solicitors at Chancery House in Little Collins Street. Jaime suggested as they both worked in the city, they should meet for lunch.
‘Perhaps this Wednesday at 1pm?’ Jaime inquired.
When Fay heartily agreed, he asked if she knew the Teapot Inn, and they made plans to meet there. Jaime offered to drive Fay home, but knowing her mother’s sticky-beak nature, she declined. She did, however, skip all the way home!
Fay decided, for now, not to tell anyone about her invitation. She wanted to know more about this charming stranger before all the questions started from her somewhat interfering parents. At work that week she found it hard to concentrate, and by Wednesday morning she was a nervous wreck in anticipation of the looming lunch.
When she walked into the café a minute after one o’clock, she spotted Jaime at a window table, and made her way through the busy lunchtime crowd. He stood and greeted her warmly as he helped her into a chair. Mixed sandwiches and a large pot of tea were ordered from the plump, cheerful waitress. They talked incessantly for an hour — Fay was intrigued to hear that Jaime’s father was born in Spain and that his mother was English. He spoke of his time at boarding school in Spain as a little boy, and also his passion for sports, especially golf and tennis. The lunch break flew by, and Jaime wrote down Fay’s office phone number, promising to ring her the following morning.
‘Perhaps a drink on Friday evening?’ Jaime suggested.
Fay shook his warm, firm hand as she made a dash back to the office, grinning from ear to ear. Jaime was also smiling as he hurried up Flinders Street. Fay was such a cheerful and animated young woman, something he’d been missing for several years — the problem was, he would have to explain his situation to her very, very soon.
In late August of 1870, 19-year-old Antonio San Miguel, the dark, broad-shouldered, handsome second son of successful Catalan wine grower Cipriano San Miguel and wife Francisca (née Mirambel), of Alella, Spain, set off from his homeland in a spirit of adventure to seek his fortune in Australia. Besides his parents, Antonio left behind his 22-year-old brother, Francisco, and sisters Carmen, twenty-seven, and Maria, twenty-five, who were both married.1 He carried a ‘Passport for Abroad’, an identity card which gave him the right to travel to France and overseas as a Spanish citizen. Close friends of the San Miguels, the Parer family, also from Alella, had arrived in Australia in 1858 and had a number of prosperous restaurants, hotels, and catering establishments. So this optimistic and confident young man was determined to succeed.
Antonio arrived in Paris en route to England shortly after the commencement of the Franco-Prussian War.2 He heard that the Prussian troops were about to cut off each railway line out of the city and realising the danger he was in, made a desperate dash to the Gare du Nord train station where he caught the last train out before the siege of Paris on 19 September. It was a story he often related over the years. He arrived in Calais and boarded a ship bound for Australia, arriving in Sydney late November 1870. He took lodgings at an inner city hotel. With the money he had saved working for his father and the money his family had given him, he would be comfortable for a suitable amount of time. Antonio eventually moved in with a Catalan family, whose son was a good friend of his. He had plans to import his father’s wine products, plus other ideas that came to him as he toured around Sydney. An economic boom was just beginning in Australia and young Antonio was extremely optimistic. He soon had interests in a number of billiard parlours, and began importing and selling Alella wine.
Around 1876 Antonio had become very close friends with two brothers, Andres and Joaquin Mauri who had come from the southern province of Andalusia, Spain, a year before. The brothers had experience in the cork industry and by early 1877 had begun a partnership in Sydney called Mauri Brothers. They traded as cork merchants and importers with their headquarters in Seville. On 12 September 1877, Antonio acquired a Publican’s license for the Australian Hotel in Druitt Street Sydney, taking over from Antonio Plannis. He continued importing wines and later spirits; soon, his hotel (which also had lodgings available for rent) became a very successful establishment. Antonio also took some risks, however, and on a number of occasions was fined for trading on Sundays and other offences against the Publicans Act. In 1882 he transferred his license to Joseph Gilnot and left Australia to visit his family in early 1883. Although Antonio had plenty of pretty girls seeking his attention, he still hadn’t met a potential bride, and wondered whether the girl of his dreams was back home in Alella. He remained in Spain for a number of months before returning to Australia
