A remarkable rise in the public service Cecily and John returned to Canberra in August 1940 and John resumed his position of research officer in the statistician's branch of the Department of Commerce. On his modest income of around £300 he and Cecily set about turning their rented house in McCaughey Street, Turner, into a home. They furnished it simply, planted prunus trees outside the back western windows to help cool the house in summer, and made friends with their neighbours and beyond.

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... yone knew everyone in the small but growing community of Canberra. Haig Park, the pine break north of Canberra's city centre, marked the city's northern boundary. Cecily learned to ride a bicycle as a means of getting around town. Everyone did. People would rug up in Canberra's freezing winter temperatures and cycle to work. In the hot dry summers they would throw their bathers and towels in their bicycle baskets and cool off in the Molonglo River or at the Manuka swimming pool. The Blue Moon in Civic Centre was the only café in town and the modest but grandly named Albert Hall was hired for eisteddfods, live shows and school socials. Performances of the newly formed repertory company staged at Radio 2CA's theatrette were well-attended, as were the 'flicks' or pictures, as movies were then referred to, at the Capital Theatre in Manuka on the other side of the Molonglo River that divided the north from the south side of the town. These, Cecily recalled, were good days. Canberra was the nation's capital city in the making. The Commonwealth governed the territory in which it sat. Public servants transferred to Canberra from Sydney and Melbourne as government departments This text is taken from Persons of Interest: An Intimate Account of Cecily and John Burton, by Pamela Burton with Meredith Edwards, published 2022,