Dr and Mrs Brose lived directly above us in No 4. They shared the dim stairwell with Aunty Helen and argued with her about whose turn it was to replace the lightbulb whenever it died leading to it often being spookily dark in there.
The Broses were already quite old compared to the other neighbours when we moved in - ancient, I thought. I would go up and visit and plink around on their baby grand piano or ride the donkey that Mrs Brose's brother had made, but I didn't have the close relationship with them that I had with most of the other neighbours although Mrs Brose was really kind to me and once gave me a most beautiful petticoat that will feature in a future blog.
Mrs Brose was variously called 'her Majesty' or 'Mrs High and Mighty' behind her back by the other neighbours (except my parents) as she grandly swept about. She had been an actress, Jean Robertson, and had starred on the stage in Australia and in England, mainly in the 20's and 30's. When we knew her she performed in radio plays, which were very popular in the 50's. In those days there was often a live audience at those performances and she would grandly depart for the radio theatre wearing evening gowns and furs. I thought it unbelievably glamorous. Sometimes when I went to visit her she would let me drape myself in her silk wraps or furs. She had looked beautiful as a young woman and would tell me about herself and the other actors in the multitude of photos that covered the walls of their flat. Unfortunately I can't remember anything about those conversations, it was just too long ago. When I knew her Mrs Brose dyed her hair a rich chestnut so that she looked younger and tried to avoid ever being photographed. If she happened to be snapped by the neighbours at a social event she would deny that it was her in the photo and would refuse to look at it.
Mrs Brose's brother had worked on the big face at the entrance of Luna Park when it was first erected in Sydney. He was some kind of sculptor, I think, and made the model of his sister's hands which lay on the piano lid as well as the beautiful little donkey on wheels that I loved to ride. He would come and visit every so often and apparently I decided that he looked like the picture of Uncle Toby on the front of boxes of oats and insisted on calling him Uncle Toby. Everyone thought that was so funny that he was called Toby by everyone thereafter. I have no idea what his real name was.
In her later years Mrs Brose became quite forgetful. She would start filling the bath and then decide to go to the shops. The bath would overflow and then flood the floor. There were no drains in the floor so the water would work its way through the floor and then through the ceiling into our place. I'm not sure how, but rather than running down the walls, the water would fall through the ceiling like rain. I can remember going to the toilet holding an umbrella during the downpours. My mother ended up with a huge cleaning job and stemming the flow before it worked its way into our hallway was a big challenge. Because she was forgetful Mrs Brose often wouldn't lock the door so turning the water off wasn't a problem. It was another story if the door was locked and someone had to break in. We thought it fairly funny the first few times but the novelty wore off pretty quickly.
When I was thinking about the Broses the other day, I decided to google 'Jean Robertson' (Mrs Brose) and through that discovered that it was her husband Henry who was actually the more famous one in the family.
Henry was a German speaker and through him my parents were introduced to Dr Schweizer, the dentist. I called Mr Brose Onkel Doktor and spoke German with him.
In the 1940's, 50's and 60's Henry Brose was the Australian agent for Bioglan Laboratories and was a great advocate for vitamins which really weren't commonly taken in those days. Certainly people didn't know much about them at all and many people in that era suffered from vitamin deficiencies, particularly if they came from poorer socio economic groups and didn't eat fruit or vegetables.
No 4 always smelled of Vitamin B which Dr Brose considered a miracle vitamin. He used to give us bottles of Vitamin C particularly if we had colds. My mother was a great believer and fed me the tablets and also insisted I have various health giving tonics at the change of seasons. All I remember is that I would complain bitterly because they tasted foul. My mother maintained that the worse they tasted the better they were for you.
I found out the following facts when I did my google search. Dr Brose had a long and varied scientific career but had also been a gifted pianist, hence the baby grand piano in their flat, which I don't recall ever being played. He taught French in Adelaide before being awarded a Rhodes scholarship in 1913. He did research and held positions as physicist, pathologist and biochemist. He translated German physics texts into English, studied mathematics at Oxford and taught physics at the University of Sydney and at the University College in Nottingham where he acted as Albert Einstein's interpreter in 1930 and 31.
Dr Brose was in the wrong place at the wrong time twice in his life. He was interned in Germany during WW1, being considered an enemy alien seeing he had been born in Australia. To add insult to injury he was interned in Australia during WW2 because he was a German speaker. He had a terrible time whilst being interned in Australia. An academic, with little physical prowess, he was sent out to do hard manual labour on farms. Mrs Brose mounted a campaign to have him released and was finally successful. She had kept the Bioglan business going throughout this difficult time.
Dr Brose became interested in cancer research and started giving Vitamin injections as cancer cures. His reputation suffered.
I didn't know all those details about his life and I don't know that my parents did either. They were on first name terms with him very early on, so they must have got on really well.
There is a little picture of Dr Brose in one of the articles I looked up. He had been a good looking man and must have been quite a catch or the glamorous Jean Robertson wouldn't have had her head turned, but I remember him as a little white haired stooped figure. The poor man got Parkinson's disease. I visited him and we spoke as equals and giggled about monkey bottoms, of all things. He was diminished in mind as well as body. The Broses had a live-in nurse for a while but Henry was moved away and died in a nursing home in 1965 aged 75. His wife Jean lived out her days in Clitheroe but only survived him by two years. Unlike some of the other neighbours, there was a son. I don't think I ever met him and am not sure that he wasn't overseas somewhere.
How lucky was I to have had the Broses in my life! Both were idiosyncratic and so interesting.
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