Henry will remember

On a quiet street in Victoria’s Ascot Vale sit four white weatherboard houses in a row – built together in 1908. At the end of the street, with the aqua coloured trimmings, lives 92 year old Henry Lowe, who has lived there all his life.

Born in the front room on Remembrance Day in 1920, Mr Lowe was the youngest of seven children, six boys and one girl. His eldest brother was 22 years older than him and Mr Lowe, being the youngest by seven years, jokes that he was an ‘accident’.

“My parents told me I was found under a cabbage leaf, a beautiful happy boy that everybody loved,” he says.

Mr Lowe yesterday remembered one of his brothers who died in a concentration camp during World War Two.

The house and its surroundings hold many memories of flying kites on the road out the front which used to be made of dirt and recollections of driving everyone crazy while scooting around the house in his pedal car.

At the age of 15, Mr Lowe got his first job at the government explosive factory in Maribyrnong. He worked there for eight years before World War Two began.

Mr Lowe and the other men taught the newly employed females how to produce the cord irons for the ammunition for the war and once the women were trained the men headed to service. Mr Lowe joined the air force. One of those women he trained would end up being the love of his life Jeannie, who became his wife for 57 years.

He served in the South Pacific, where he visited Morotai, Labuan and Borneo. He travelled to Borneo three times – twice by plane and once by row boat. They took the row boat because their plane had crashed and they had to burn it so that it wasn’t found.

Mr Lowe has many memories of the war and he says sometimes his memories come flooding back – sometimes triggered by a certain word or a smell.

“I don’t like to talk about my time in the war; I don’t think anyone should know what we saw. I only like to think of the lighter moments – how the natives were good to us. I also like to think of the night we had Victory over Japan. We all got rip roaring drunk except for one man who ending up putting all of us to bed that night.”

During his four years in the air force, Mr Lowe would write countless letters to his family and friends – so many in fact that he was asked to make a letter box because he wrote too many.

On his final leave, he married Jeannie on 7 March 1945. The following year, Mr Lowe received an honourable discharge from the air force.

For 56 years, Mr Lowe lived in the weatherboard he was born in with his wife up until she passed away in 2002.

Living on his own for the past decade, Mr Lowe says the house makes him feel closer to his family and to his beautiful wife, who he says good morning and good evening to every day.

Mr Lowe is happy to be able to remain in his own home and he wishes to remain as long as possible.

He not only receives services from Benetas Community Care North West, which allow him to remain at home, but also from helpful neighbours who always pop their head in to see if he is okay.

All Benetas sites joined Mr Lowe and many clients and residents yesterday to mark Remembrance Day, and reminisced about those who served for our country.