Ron Grose is turning 100 on January 12, 2021

*Ron, in 4 RSU (Repair and Salvage Unit) Uniform, 1942, backyard Joseph Street, West Leederville. Image courtesy of Ron and Claire Grose.*

Ron was born on 12^th January 1921, in the front room of their house in Joseph Street, West Leederville.

Ron remembers walking to school and walking home again for lunch. There were only two cars in the whole street, where the boys played cricket.

*Ron Grose standing on running board of Morris Cowley Car, Gulval Cornwall 1930. Image courtesy of Ron and Claire Grose.*

Ron’s father, Jack and his two brothers, Jim and Bill Grose, were Hatters and Mercers with a shop in Hay Street and one in Forrest Place. Originally they had a shop in Kalgoorlie and one in Fremantle as well as in Perth.

On leave in WWI, Jack visited Cornwall, where his parents were born. There he met and married Eliza and bought her back to Western Australia. Ron was their second son. He had an older brother, Len. The two brothers grew up with 28 relatives in the surrounding streets.

In 1930, Jack Grose took the family back to Cornwall to meet their English relatives.

The Grose family en route to England at Colombo Port, where the ship Oronsay docked in 1930 on holiday to see their grandparents. Photo by Jack Grose, image courtesy of Ron and Claire Grose.

In 1941, Ron joined the AusCorp III RSU unit and was stationed near Darwin, at Adelaide River. He recalls being flown to Broome to work on salvaging planes, hit when Broome was bombed. Ron’s role was to fix the electrics.

When he returned from the war, Ron’s mother, Eliza, invited home a young lady who sang at church, Claire Young.