Roma and her 1920s Childhood.

Today we're going to meet Roma, a friendly lady born in the early 1920s. Roma always looks neat and well-tended in her pleated skirts and soft blouses, or sometimes a tailored suit. Today she is wearing navy and cream. Come around the back, and we'll look at the pot plants while we wait for her to open the door. She has some lovely pink begonias and impatens here, and also some potplants she is minding for her granddaughter.

Before we leave I must ask Roma to show you the dollhouse and 19th Century minature shop people she has been dressing. She has made some beautifully detailed Edwardian clothes, including satin corsets complete with suspenders and beflowered raffia hats no bigger than shirt buttons.

Here comes Roma now. Sit down and let's hear what she has to say about her 1920s Tasmanian childhood.

Roma says: "Mum and Dad were Launceston people, and Dad planted an orchard near Freshwater Point. He cleared ten acres of virgin bush, just him, his dog and his horse. Dad and his father bought this land after the war. There was a slogan that went like this; "If every gum tree was an apple tree, that wouldn't be too many."

The apples were to go to England. They were loaded into cases lined with newspaper, but the apples sweated and went bad. After that, apples were stored in crates like egg boxes, lined with corrugated cardboard. Every apple was hand-wrapped. The granny smiths were very sensitive to paper; they had to be wrapped in green tissue paper. Grandfather invented an apple grader and he and Dad worked there for ten years before they realised the English market wasn't what it was meant to be. They sold up.

After Mum and Dad were married, they lived at Freshwater Point. Mum wouldn't get married until Dad could afford two things. One was a copper in an iron stand and the other was a varnished sideboard. She got the sideboard all right. It had big glass doors with borders around them. She had town ideas because she wasn't a country girl. She was a twig - the waistband of her wedding dress was 19 inches and she took a Size 3 in a shoe.

They went from Freshwater Point to Hillwood, and Dad saved up and bought an orchard. We had tank water and it was my doubtful pleasure as the youngest to sweep the mud off the walls, which were made of galvanised iron. Then out would come the red paint and muggins had to paint the inside of the tank. Mum used to do it, then my brother and sister, then me. I was twelve or thirteen.

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