Camelot – Excerpt from Marie Nicholls’ Oral History Interview (1930s,

Marie Nicholls is the daughter of Eric Nicholls, a well-known architect in the Willoughby area who worked with Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahoney Griffin in Castlecrag.

Camelot

Getting back to the preschool group that Marion [Mahoney Griffin] and Mum had at home, I obviously didn’t go to that as I wasn’t old enough when Marion was there. Marion had gone to India when I was born and only came back for a year, then went back to America in 1938, but I can remember that Mum was part of a small group that used to meet. I have no memories of either of the Griffins because I was too young for one and the other wasn’t there.

In this playgroup I remember doing finger paintings with Godfrey Miller, a well-known artist, whose brother was very involved in the society, Louis Miller, and who was also one of the early Directors of Glenaeon [Rudolf Steiner School, Middle Cove]. A lot of these people will be in different scenes and intermingling. Godfrey used to come and look at the paintings and say I guess he is quite artistic. Also I used to go to Julia Barrachis. Guido Barrachi was one of the early members of the Communist Party and he was living with Betty Roland, a well-known writer of that day who wrote books and plays. They had obviously come to Dad and he had designed their house “Camelot”. It is a rather beautiful house, I love it. It was designed because of her putting on her plays, as a circle so that it could act as a stage. The sliding doors could come back and people could sit in the grass out the front, around this lovely central part you could see this wonderful little staircase going up to the tower. Gilda, who was a little younger than I, used to play down there. I remember that and having a good time climbing up those stairs that went up to nowhere. Also, just remembering little personal things and food played a very big part in my life and still does. I can remember going there and sitting in the little banquettes where you have the seats built in. This was part of the thing and Dad had obviously designed that. I can remember sitting there and being given cauliflower with white cheese sauce. It was absolutely delicious and I had not tasted anything like it in my life. I still love it. But then because Guido knew my parents were teetotallers (there was no alcohol in our house) he gave me some beer. I must have been only five or six and I thought it was the most terrible thing. I had this beautiful stuff on one hand and the terrible stuff on the other. I am not a beer drinker to this day.

That is one little insight. They were quite colourful characters – very interesting people in those early years.

For more about Marie Nicholls, you can view the full oral history transcript at Chatswood Library.