Welcome to Listen To Older Voices, a program produced by Rob Greaves 
for Wesley Mission Victoria and podcast through the Toorak Times.

Listen To Older Voices presents the stories, views and opinions of our older citizens. It is predominantly in a life & times format, with interviewees reflecting upon their lives from earliest memories. An underlying principal of the program is to promote the concept of positive ageing, reinforcing the principle that older people have & continue to make a valuable contribution to both their local & wider community.

This is part 1 of a 3-part series on the Life & Times of 85-year-old Marie Ainger. Born in the outskirts of London in 1931 her story starts with the death of her father from TB.  As he died before Marie was born she never got to know him but that never stopped her thinking about him. We follow Marie’s story of her early years and how her mother had to bring up her and her brother with no welfare assistance at all.

A young Marie

Her story is a mixture of happy and not so happy events, such as the story she relates of her life with her stepfather. Marie gains a scholarship to an all girls’ school which was one of her happiest times. Probably the only thing that was a happier time was when she met her husband to be – Ken. It’s quite a story that we hear from Marie about when she knew that Ken was “the” one, how she went through agony and ecstasy waiting for the shy Ken, to propose. War breaks out and we follow her adventures that finish with her having to follow Ken to Australia – but why did he go alone in the first place?

Click to hear Marie Ainger – Part 1


Previous LTOV Programs can be accessed clicking on this icon –

[Listen To Older Voices receives funding from the Commonwealth Government 
through the Commonwealth Home Support Program Program]