FOR Joy Kent the weekly publication of the Dandenong Journal was a social event.
As a young secretary at stock agent Dan Godfey and Co. in the 1950s, Joy would leave her office in Clow Street and join the line of people queuing outside the Journal’s Scott Street office.
“After finishing work at 5pm you’d line-up outside the old office in Scott Street to buy the Journal before you went home. You’d meet friends there and talk,“ Joy recalled.
“Everyone read the Journal and all your friends read it. Everyone bought it. That’s how you knew who was having a kitchen tea and when the dances were on.“
Joy Bramich was born at Murray House, the forerunner to the Dandenong Hospital, and grew up in a house in Power Street. Her dad worked for the State Electricity Commission.
She attended Dandenong Primary School and after completing her education at Malvern Girls College, Joy returned to Dandenong to work at Godfrey and Co.
Another weekly task was delivering the stock reports to the Journal office so they could appear in the next paper.
Joy met her husband Ray Kent through her work and naturally the couple’s engagement, kitchen tea and wedding all appeared in the Journal.
The couple was married on 21 February, 1959, at the Methodist Church, in Scott Street.
Ray grew up on a Cranbourne farm ’Maintop’, where Settlers Run now stands, and worked at the Ordish Brickworks on Stud Road.
Legendary Journal reporter Marg Stork wrote the story on the couple’s wedding under the heading ’Autumn rosebud bouquets’ noting that the “bride chose a beautiful Empire-line gown of heavy faille, encrusted on the moulded bodice with traceries of hand-embroidered pearls“.
And that when they returned from their honeymoon, “the young couple will be at home to friends at 15 Barnett Grove, Noble Park“.
The couple lived in Barnett Grove for 19 years, raising three daughters – twins Bronwyn and Sharon and Carolyn.
They then shifted around the corner into Gatcum Court, where they resided for 36 years, before making a final move to the Long Island Retirement Village in Seaford last September.
Since retiring, the couple has enjoyed caravanning trips throughout Australia and spending time with their six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
They are parishioners at the Noble Park Uniting Church and members of the Springvale Garden Club.
They were keen members of the historic Dandenong Croquet Club until its recent closure.
The couple still like to read the Journal and pick it up whenever they are in Greater Dandenong.
“I still remember (the Journal’s) Scott Street office,“ Joy reminisced.
“It was very small, just a single-fronted building. There was a hotel on the corner across the laneway. When you queued up you ended up mingling with the hotel patrons,“ she laughed.
