Subiaco Stories...A Brick Builder (1950).
The article is from Trove, the database of the National Library of Australia. No copyright infringement intended.
Daily News, 5 June 1950.
She Knocks Off To Make Bricks.
With some help from her mother and other relatives, a young Subiaco woman in her spare time has, since March 4, made nearly 10,000 cement bricks for her future home.
Miss M. Villiers, of Nicholson-rd., Subiaco (pictured above on the job) has a full-time office job, has made the bricks in the evenings after work and at weekends. She said that she would need about 28,000 bricks for the house.
An ex-WAAF, Miss Villiers said that she and her mother and expected to have the rest made in about three months, had been living in rooms for about eight years and had 'had it.' Her sister and brother-in-law, both ex-service people, were also living in one room with their young child and were expecting another.
A cousin was arriving from England as a migrant in August. 'After trying in vain for three years to buy a house, mother and I decided to try to build one for the seven of us,' said Miss Villiers. 'We got a self-help permit and began making the bricks.' They could now buy bricks but as she had made so many she decided to make the rest herself.
She averaged 1000 bricks a week, once turned out 100 in an hour, exclusive of time taken for mixing. 'Shovelling sand for mixing is the hardest part of it,' Miss Villiers said. The weather was also an important factor, and she had to take advantage, of every fine day. On Saturday Miss Villiers started making bricks at 7 a.m., stopped at 8 a.m. for breakfast, then went on with the job.
