Daphne Armstrong, on Love and Legacy

Daphne was a child growing up in England when the Second World War broke out. As a measure of protection against expected air raids, her school was evacuated inland to Chinley, just south of Manchester. She was billeted with a couple she still, decades later, refers to fondly as "Mr and Mrs White."

"I still called them Mr and Mrs White, never gave them any other name. They were still Mr and Mrs White, and they were lovely, and they looked after us beautifully." Daphne recalls with affection.

By her own account, it was one of the happiest periods of her young life. Her home life had been difficult as her father, who had served in the First World War, carried the scars of the experience in ways that shaped the household. Mr and Mrs White, who had no children of their own, simply welcomed her in.

"I really did have two happy years with them”, Daphne remembers. "I loved being with them."

After the war, Daphne's path into service was almost accidental. She was back home and in the middle of an argument with her mother, when she stormed out of the house, walked into town, and joined the Navy on the spot.

Because of her education, the Navy trained her as a radio mechanic. It was normally a three-year course but was compressed into nine months to meet demand.

“I've always laughed, because with all my education, all I really ever did was take the transistors out of where they were and take them to the workshop for the boys to fix, which I've always laughed at since. That was a three-year course to do that."

After her service, Daphne went on to meet her husband Gordon in rather unusual circumstances.

Daphne likes to tell people she "pinched" her husband from her older sister, Audrey. His photograph sat on Audrey's dressing table.

"I used to look at it and say, if you don't want him, I'll have him," she says. “Life was meant to follow that, I went on to meet him at a dance”.

The dance was held at the end of Southend Pier, the longest pleasure pier in the world.

Daphne admits she was out of her depth on the dance floor that night, watching from the sidelines while everyone else danced.

"It's rather funny, because I was a good dancer — I used to go to somewhere called the Studio, and I always had lots of dances."

In the end, she did have one dance that night. When a young man took pity on the girl sitting alone at the edge of the floor. The next day they met again, went to the pictures, and walked all the way home along the seafront afterwards.

"We got on so well," Daphne says of Gordon. "From then on we just clicked, and later on I married him."

They married in 1947 and had two daughters, Caroline and Jane.

"I adored him, and he adored me, and we were happily married 50 years” Daphne shares.

It was Gordon’s work as an architect that brought the couple to Australia. Daphne never looked back and has loved Melbourne ever since. Gordon went on to design several buildings around the city.

Gordon had also served, as a pilot in the Air Force, and it was that history of service that would lead him to Legacy.

Not long after settling into Melbourne life, a friend from the RSL asked Gordon if he'd be interested in joining Legacy to help support the widows and children of soldiers who lost their lives. He was, and it wasn’t long before he became a passionate and dedicated Legatee with the Beaumaris group. Legacy became a cause in which he was devoted to for the rest of his life.

Daphne reminisces on Gordon’s commitment to Legacy fondly, particularly his Friday night ritual of taking the Junior Legatee boys to Legacy for their weekly social activities.

"It took up all his spare time, we didn't do anything else. All Legacy," she says, before adding, without a trace of resentment, "Never mind, it was a good, good job.”

She remembers joining Gordon for "Operation Firewood," where Legatees would load up their cars before dawn to deliver firewood to widows in their area to alleviate the stress of having to keep their families warm.

Daphne recalls one particularly memorable Sunday when a stray comment she made about a neighbour's new beard, reportedly sent him straight inside to shave it off. (The neighbour, as it happens, was former Prime Minister of Australia, Bob Hawke.)

Gordon was devoted to Legacy and it was clear how much the organisation meant to him.

"Once you were a Legatee, you were total," she says. "You were very busy, always."

There were widows to visit, paperwork that never let up, and a tight-knit group of men who relied on one another.

"They were a lovely group together, the Legatees," she says. "They all liked each other and did a lot of work. Not everybody could have done that job, but people like my husband could, and he did."

Gordon passed away some years ago, but Daphne's connection to Legacy remains strong. She still attends local widows' events when she can, and speaks warmly of her own Legatee, Joan, with whom she’s formed a lovely friendship.

"She looks after me, doesn't she?” Daphne leans over to Joan, who is sitting beside her as she speaks, with a smile. “You're wonderful, Joan."

On love and loss, Daphne is unsentimental in the way only someone who has lived a full life can be.

"You shouldn't love people too much, because they die sometimes," she says. "I lost my lovely husband. We always lose our husbands, don't we, because women usually marry older men. He was lovely. He was lovely." She muses.

This November, Daphne will turn 100. She’s already looking forward to a big party and to her letter from the King. It’s a fitting milestone for a woman whose life has so far encapsulated a World War, a beautiful romance, a new life on the other side of the world, and more than half a century of connection to Melbourne Legacy.