Interview with John Hardwick

Hi guys,

Here are the responses of our questions to John Hardwick. If we have anything further we would like to know I have a contact number for him. I will e-mail this to you.

His full name is Frederick Joseph Hardwick. Born on January 19th 1909 at Sutton Forrest NSW.
He lived in Queanbeyan from 1937 until 1962 where he left to live in Bombala NSW and take up a job as a station officer for the ambulance service. He moved to Canberra in 1967.

The barber shop itself was located at the rear of a Newsagency and is part of it. The Newsagency is owned by Richard Dunn and Frederick worked for him and was the only staff member for the barber shop. John believes there was one other hair dressers open at the time. The barber shop was not only just for male customers though it was not advertised as such. There was a room screened off from the shop if female customers wanted their hair cut.

During the war period Frederick contributed to the community by being a Air Raid Warden. He would walk the streets of Queanbeyan at night and ensure all lighting were switched off in the homes.
Frederick became interested in first aid etc and in 1957 left the barber shop and worked for the Queanbeyan Ambulance Service.

Tobacco was sold in the Barber shop and he is not sure if clients solely bought Tobacco but being inside a Newsagency I'm guessing they did.

John does not have any other photographs of the barber shop. There are also no specific stories on the items.

The barber shop did in fact have the barber pole at the front.

He also mentioned that the 'e' was removed from their surname couple of generations ago. So correct spelling is Hardwick.

John has no objections to anything we use for the Exhibition and is looking forward to meeting us and learning of what we are doing in regards to the War Memorial, QBN museum and CIT.

He is also looking forward to seeing the exhibition launch and will be accompanied by his wife and daughter.

Thanks
George