‘Two husbands and a brandy every night is the secret to a long life’. So said my godmother Flora Jean Judd on her 100th birthday. ‘Aunty Jean’, as she was commonly called, was born in Brighton on 10 November, 1904. She lived for a little over 101 years and was the last remaining child of Arthur Judd and Mary Jane Davie.
At 23 years of age she got her driver’s licence, a very unusual occurrence for a woman in that time. Jean drove in motor car gymkhanas with 44 gallon drums at each end of a paddock - the drivers would drive past, pick up a flag and deposit in the drum at the other end. Jean married Jack Ware in 1931. They had no children and were divorced in 1945. Jean worked as a driver for the Red Cross during WW2 in Melbourne. She loved to play the piano and sing. Later she was employed by George Heslop, a veterinary surgeon, as a driver and secretary (?when). George and Jean eventually married in 1956 and lived in Kambrook Road, Caulfield. It was about this time that George and Jean were kind enough to accommodate my whole family during the time it took my father to build our house in Biscop Rd, Moorabbin. I remember bread and milk being delivered along Kambrook Rd, Caulfield in horse drawn vans. George died in 1985 and Auntie Jean spent her final years in Inala Village, Blackburn South. She was a dignified woman with a sharp mind and keen sense of humour. I recall her being a lively character at my mum’s 60th birthday party in 1992.