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Nine decades of memories

In recent times I've taken the opportunity to sit down with some nonagenarians - that's people aged in their 90s - to hear a sampling of their recollections. What follows is a selection shared by Leonie Leben and Ken Watt, who grew up in Merewether and Cooks Hill, respectively. Leonie Leben. Photo by Greg Ray Leonie Leben grew up in the Newcastle suburb of Merewether and was a schoolgirl during the years of World War 2. Her father, Leopold "Bob" Hay, spent most of his working life on Newcastle Harbour, on dredges and tugs operated by…

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Read more about the article August 15, 1945: the war is over!
Celebrations in Newcastle, NSW, for the end of World War 2, August 15, 1945.

August 15, 1945: the war is over!

Never in Newcastle’s history has there been a day of such celebration as VP Day. August 15, 1945, was the day the long-awaited news came that Japan had surrendered and the war was finally all over. In May the news that Hitler was finished was received with pleasure, but the direct threat to Australia had been from Japan and it wasn’t until the atomic bomb was dropped and Japan capitulated that the pent-up emotion was able to be released. The darkest days of the war, for most Novocastrians, had been three years earlier when a Japanese…

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