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and shell fish. They were our guardians and we respected them and they looked after us well, for hours on end,
always getting us home safely by about six pm.’
Christa also described many outings to bazaars, sports days, football on the Darwin Oval, movies at the open
air Don Picture Theatre, and the occasional vaudeville shows which came to town. The family made its own
entertainment and particularly enjoyed fancy dress parties, dances, and playing euchre or crib, card games taught
by Val and Jessie. Christa, like many of her generation, had particularly fond memories of Darwin’s colourful
Chinatown, in Cavenagh Street, and the elaborate Chinese New Year celebrations with the King and Queen,
dressed in beautiful Chinese costumes, leading a colourful procession of floats, food and the traditional Chinese
dragon prancing and dancing in the rear.
Christa also often spoke of meeting all the famous aviators and aviatrixes who arrived in Darwin in the 1920s
and the 1930s. She remembered the unveiling in 1923 of the memorial to Ross and Keith Smith, the first aviators
to fly from England to Australia in 1919. One of her treasured memories was of having morning tea in the Southern
Cross aeroplane with Charles Kingsford-Smith’s co pilot, Scotty Allen. She recalled when the Darwin aerodrome
was a huge paddock behind Fannie Bay Gaol, which also doubled as a golf course, where Christa learned to play
the sport, which she pursued until her final years.
When Val Litchfield died in 1931, Jessie, who was then editing the Northern Territory Times and Gazette, took
over the family reins. Gradually the children grew up and went their own ways. Christa met and married Keith
Perron and their home was a favourite meeting place for friends. They survived the cyclone of 1937 but soon found
disaster of another kind looming.
In 1941, with war moving closer to Australia’s shores, the officials decided to evacuate most civilian women
and children from Darwin. Christa, who was eight months’ pregnant, and her young son Stan were evacuated to
Perth, Western Australia, on a 10 seater aeroplane, having been given half an hour to pack a 14 kilogram bag.
A few days after arriving in Perth, Christa gave birth to another son, Marshall, later to become Chief Minister of
the Northern Territory.
Keith later joined the family and they spent the war years in Perth. But with war’s end Christa longed for
the Territory where the rest of her family still lived. So, she and Keith parted ways and Christa and her two sons
returned to Darwin, where they lived for a short time with Christa’s mother, Jessie, in her self-built Roberta Library
at the corner of Mitchell and Knuckey Streets. Soon Christa met and married Roger Roderick and the family
moved to Winnellie, where two more children, Margaret and Edward, were born. In the 1950s they moved to a
house in McMinn Street, which had been built in 1940 for Darwin Mayor Harry Chan and where Christa and
Roger lived thereafter.
They were there when Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974, and having been through
a cyclone already, Christa took all the appropriate precautions, which included wearing a cyclist’s helmet on her
head all night. Having survived the ordeal herself and with her home largely intact, Christa was motivated to
do what she could to help others. Her first concern, as always, was for her immediate family, and after having
established that they all survived, she began checking on friends and acquaintances. As the day wore on 17 people
moved into their McMinn Street house.
Roger, who was then Manager of the Darwin Truck Owners’ Association, arranged for members to get water
from the main pipeline and distribute it to the people of Darwin, while Christa began working to help those most in
need. She realised that the Red Cross, for which she had been a voluntary worker since 1967, would need helpers.
She made a point of checking the old age pensioners and residents of Tuckwell Court, many of whom she found
alone and frightened.
She immediately set about arranging meals for them, a task she carried out on her own until other volunteers
joined her, and took on the unglamorous job of sorting and drying their clothes. At the end of the first month, Christa
transferred to the tracing section of the Red Cross where, for the next two years, she helped trace individuals and
families in an effort to ease the anxiety of friends and relatives residing outside the Territory.
Christa later received a letter of commendation from the Australian Red Cross in recognition of her service in
the aftermath of the cyclone. In 1980, she was also given an Australian Red Cross Service Award for her work with
the organisation, which included being elected as Divisional Councillor in 1975 and as Vice President in 1977.
In 1984, she was presented with a Life Membership badge and a certificate from the Northern Territory Council
on the Ageing in appreciation of her support over the previous five years. In 1985, she became the first recipient of
Telecom’s Advance Australia Merit Award for her many unselfish contributions to the community, a just tribute
to a woman who shunned publicity and modestly downplayed the value of her constantly caring work. As the
close friend who nominated her for the award put it, ‘Christa asks for no thanks, never complains and just accepts
whatever happens naturally.’
In addition to her Red Cross membership, Christa also belonged to a Quota Club and the Country Women’s
Association and was an active participant in the Old People’s Workshop that provided material and equipment
for the elderly to take part in various arts and handicrafts. She was a regular contributor of cooking and craft
entries in the Darwin Show and particularly enjoyed making and dressing dolls. As a personal contribution to
the Bicentennial celebrations in 1988, Christa taught old time handicrafts to the pupils of Saint John’s College.
Although in later years she suffered chronic pain, she continued her many activities, including a weekly round of
her beloved golf and regular Friday night visit to the Returned Services League Club. For many years, she laid
wreaths at every Anzac Day, Remembrance Day and bombing of Darwin commemoration in Darwin.
Another of Christa’s most significant but largely unrecognised contributions to the community was her great
interest in preserving Territory history and heritage. Her mother, who passed away in 1956, was a prolific collector
of newspaper clippings, photographs, stamps, manuscripts, books and memorabilia. Christa not only acted as