Читать книгу The Drover's Daughter - Patsy Kemp - Страница 8

SURAT 1955

Home of the Mandandanji Aboriginal people

We were going into a sheep station called Moolah a few miles west of Surat and fifty miles out of St. George south east Queensland to pick up 3,000 head of Border Leicester sheep to drive them to Nyngan, in north western New South Wales. We found the station entrance, a sagging post that had a rusty tin bucket hanging off it being used for a mail box with the name of the station written across it. The front gates were what the bushies called COD. This meant you could either “carry or drag” them opened and closed. The long lonely dirt track into the station homestead followed the fence line for miles accompanied by a wire for the telephone. The line went from tree to tree and in many places, hung so low, it nearly touched the ground. The whole station was very run down and had a look of desertion about it. To add to the gloominess, the ground was bare of any grass or green herbage of any sort and the small gum trees and bushes looked sad, dry and miserable. Dad took the stock, counting them out of the yards, agreeing with the owner on the amount we now had charge of and signed off on the job.

We eventually arrived at Mungindi, the New South Wales border crossing in that area. The river was high and water was over the stock crossing, which made it impassable for stock, so we had to go over the actual town bridge. This meant taking the stock between the houses on each side of the road to reach the bridge. The sheep did not mind except when a skinny mongrel dog ran from under a house and barked at them. Some sheep got into the house yards that didn’t have fences, nibbling on the lawn or getting into the flower gardens for a quick bite before our dogs chased them out with a whistle from one of the men.

None of us were ever too young to help in any way that we could. Over time, Mum had collected tin lids to make rattles. A hole was made in the middle of the lid and about ten lids were threaded onto a six inch piece of stiff wire that was twisted into a circle. We rattled these to keep the stock moving at a brisk pace. With tins rattling, dogs barking, and people shouting, the town’s people came along to help as it was a novelty to see a large mob of sheep passing through.

The stock was herded to the beginning of the bridge but balked at going onto it. Dad grabbed a sheep and carried it across and it promptly turned around and ran back into the mob. He grabbed another one, tied a dog chain around its neck and carried it part way over the span in view of the other sheep, tying it to the railings. He then came back and shooed some more along. It was hot dusty work, as we were all kept busy moving the 3,000 sheep onto the bridge that didn’t have guide rails on the approach. My brother Col rode his horse across to stop the traffic on the other side where cars had started to bank up. Col had to stand his horse in front of the first car to stop it from edging into the sheep as they came over. As the last of the mob bunched up onto the bridge to cross the Barwon River into New South Wales, Dad lifted me up and put me onto a sheep.

‘Hang on love, ride the bastard over the bridge,’ he said.

Being fully instructed, this was exactly what I did. The ride was rather bumpy as the sheep did not like me on its back. It tried to run between its mates and jump on the ones in front of it but with my little hands clinging on to the wool and my legs firmly dug deep into the sheep’s woolly sides I managed to stay put. I was probably the first person, maybe even the only person, to ride a sheep over the border on the Mungindi Bridge! I could hear my mother screaming at Dad to get me off, but I think he was laughing too much to hear.

When we came off the bridge on the opposite side, the sheep I was on started “baa baa-ing” and ran crazily amongst the mob. After a few seconds of this, I let go of the wool and fell off backwards. I picked myself up, dusted off and stuck my thumb in my mouth for comfort. Emmie rushed through the mingling sheep and gave me a cuddle and over her shoulder I could see Dad striding back to the truck. I poked my tongue out at him, feeling bold and extra safe, as he had his back to me. Dad had often put us on a sheep when placing them in the sheep break at night and we always fell off quickly.

The Border Leicesters were short and wide and as this mob was near full woolled, it made it easier to hang on. My siblings admired me for my ride and were a bit envious. For years afterwards, my bravery was spoken of to any friends and acquaintances who would listen. I think Dad had expected a frightened sobbing child waiting for him over the bridge. It was very high and it would have been a long drop down to the water for a four-year-old if I had fallen off that sheep.

Most roads we travelled on were rough and dusty, either bare dirt or gravel. Things in the back of the truck quite often broke. We did not have crockery until we got a caravan in the late fifties. Up until this time, we ate off tin dishes and later on enamel plates and drank from enamel mugs. We had a lot of plastic dishes too that lasted longer then the enamel ones. Enamel chipped badly but we still used it. If we were short on mugs, the stockmen would use the cups off their quart pots to have a drink. The cooking was done in the camp ovens or aluminium saucepans.

It was not always convenient to bake in the camp ovens. A good fire had to be made with coals under the oven and on top of it and that was not possible if there was not a lot of good quality wood around. If we knew that there was a shortage of wood at any upcoming camps, we would stack some in the back of the truck and use it sparingly. It does not take a lot of wood to get a billy to boil or cook up a pot of boiled potatoes and pumpkin or heat a tin or two of peas. A small fire would be lit and this was normally called a “black fella fire” or a piddly attempt at making one.

To light a campfire in high grass we had to dig a hole about eighteen inches deep, depending on how hard the ground was. The soil from the ground was stacked on the opposite side from where the wind was blowing, so it offered more protection if the wind was very strong. The smallest flame could turn into a raging bushfire and we were all aware of this. The flames would literally roll along the ground hungry for substance.

It was common to see at least one of us squatting near the fire, one hand holding a forked stick with bread on it over the hot coals and the other hand held in front of our face to keep the heat off. If the fire was big, the stick had to be a couple of feet long or you cooked your face while browning the toast.

Dad had made a tucker box but it had disintegrated over the years, so he bought a green tin travelling trunk. Though it did not keep the ants out, it certainly kept out flies and the other pests that we preferred not to share our food with. In this box we carried all the things we needed on the table: hot sauce, tomato sauce, dry milk in half pound tins, mugs, cutlery, plates, syrup, Vegemite and opened tins of jam.

When this trunk was required, it was lifted down onto the ground and then carried to the closest tree that had half decent shade. It was actually quite heavy and as the truck was rather high, it was never my job, though I was quite capable of jumping into the back of the truck and pulling it to the door so Emmie and Mary could carry it. If the shade of the tree was sparse, it was shared by all – dogs and humans. We had tables on and off over the years but if they broke while we were on the road, miles from anywhere, then we made do without until a new one was bought. When we did not have a table, we ate picnic style and we learnt not to drop our bread.

We lived with the constant knowledge that water was not to be wasted. We had two canvas water bags on the side of the truck and hung an enamel mug off a hook to use when we needed a drink. But if no one was around to see us, it was easier to just tip the water bag and drink straight out of it. We all hated to see others do it but we appeared to have no qualms about doing it ourselves. We were only allowed to add three mugs of water to the small cream enamel dish we used for a hand washing basin. This same water was used by all of us until it was quite dirty, then it was thrown out and more water added. We always left a hub cap full of water for any dogs coming into the camp, otherwise they made straight for the hand washing dish. A cake of soap was with the dish and quite often it was left in the bowl to become a big blob of jelly (which was always someone else’s fault!) and an old threadbare towel was hung nearby.

Petrol was very dirty and Dad kept an old pair of Mum’s panties that he used to put over the nozzle of the petrol hose to filter the fuel as it went from the bowser into the tank. He used to take great delight in embarrassing Mum by putting his head in the window and saying, ‘Take your panties off love and give them to me so I can filter the petrol.’ He did not care who was walking past the truck as he said it and he never got sick of the joke at Mum’s expense. She would always take the bait and be mad at him and then sulk for the rest of the day.

Dad and Mum went to Collarenebri to do shopping. Dad went to the Stock and Station agent to collect any messages for us, as our mail was always directed to the next town, and then continued to the pub. Mum did the grocery shopping and posted any mail. After finishing the shopping, she sat in the truck cabin with Mike. We “young ones” were quietly sitting in the back of the truck. Mum eventually got fed up and walked to the door of the pub. She poked her head around the door and spied Dad, then said to one of the patrons, ‘See that red-headed bastard over there, well you go and tell him I want to see him.’ Luckily Dad was a happy drunk and took no offense and back to the camp he drove.

Another time we were camped close to town, Dad was once again in the pub and Mum had Mike with her and no money. She decided to ‘leave the red-headed bastard in the pub’ and walked out of town, carrying Mike who was eighteen months at the time, back to camp. When she arrived, the blue cattle dog would not let her in, so she sat on a nearby log and cried and cried. She was tired, hungry and very upset as she knew she would possibly have a long wait until Dad got home. In her annoyance, she had left Emmie, Mary, Les and me in the back of the truck and she didn’t know what we were up to. She was too tired to walk the couple of miles back into town carrying Mike. When Dad eventually arrived back to camp half-tanked, he asked her why she walked and she told him in the only way he appeared to understand, with much screaming and bad language.

Mum never bothered to walk back to the camp again. A couple of times she risked driving the truck back herself but she hated driving in town. Instead, she would annoy Dad so much at the pub, he would eventually give in and drive us all back to the camp. In those days it was frowned upon for women to be in pubs, hence her calling from the door. Sometimes the other patrons would tease Dad about Mum and the kids wanting to go home. He always made her wait an hour or so but then he would leave, often singing her a dirty ditty to get her into a good mood again.

We were camped on a common where there was plenty of green grass for the stock so Dad called a holiday. Some of the leather bridles, halters and hobbles needed fixing so he decided to do that. I used to love watching him get the hemp, rub it in with wax and roll it. This made the sewing waterproof and extra strong. When possible he would just push his awl through by hand, but if the leather was extra thick or several thicknesses, he would use a hammer and gently tap the awl until it was through all layers. He would rarely get anything fixed professionally, preferring to do it all himself. He also had a leather punch that made various sized holes in the leather. We often borrowed these tools to play with, making holes in anything we could and we were very careful to put them back into the bag in the crate where we got them from. Dad taught us to always put things back where we got them from, so next time they were needed we could find them. He preached this to us all the time.

One day we met up with Tom Bunyan’s delving team camped on the side of the bore drain. With stock walking in and over the drains, the drains eventually filled in with dirt and debris, stopping the water from flowing into the next paddock or onto the neighbouring station so their stock would not get any water. When the drain was clogged entirely, the water was wasted and would flood the surface of the land. This was okay in one respect as the grass grew in abundance, but it was frowned upon if it was allowed to go on. To keep the bore drains open, a bore drain delver was hired to clear them. In this team was Tom Bunyan, his wife and daughter and her young child and another hired man. They bore drain delved in the St. George area. It was wonderful to see the huge draft horses walking along pulling the delving machine, two to four each side of the drain pushing all the mud, water and silt up out to the sides and over the edge. In the mud would be various sized “yabbies” as we called them. We would collect them from the mud and water, throw them into a bucket of boiling water and eat them with gusto. What a treat for us all! They were very rich though and we younger ones quite often got sick from eating them.

The delver’s camp was set up similar to the drovers. They had a fair-sized tent put up as a kitchen and living area and they also had their own personal tents away from the main tent. Their living conditions were much the same as ours, although they did not move every day, which had to be a good thing. I was amazed to see they had chooks scratching around, clucking as they looked for seeds and bugs. When they were called to camp, they came running and jumped into their crates. When the Bunyan’s moved camp the chooks were carried in these crates that were packed under the wagon. It was quite usual upon arriving at the next camp to find an egg or two in the crate.

The Bunyan’s also did earth tank making, using a wooden blade with the draught horses pulling it and ploughing fire breaks around station boundaries to stop any grass fires from entering the property. If you were a willing worker there was always a job going.

On this trip, we met another droving family called Wilson. There were quite a few Wilsons who were drovers in and around St. George. Over the years we met most of them and if they were driving past they would always call in to catch up with the news. George and Bertha with their children Georgie, Tommy, Julie (Maud), Shirley, Tony and Betty. The family was rather unusual because although the kids were around our age they spoke like adults. We were in awe of them as they all used bad language and swore like troopers, which we were not allowed to do. They also smoked. The Wilsons senior wanted us to call them by their first names but our parents insisted on us calling them Mr and Mrs or Uncle and Aunty. Aunty Bertha was a warm loving adult and we Kemp kids adored her. She was always ready with a cuddle and a kind word. One day we were camped with them in St. George and she was hand washing for the family and got a bit fed up with the wash load.

‘That’s it,’ she said, ‘they may not be clean but they will smell fresh.’ She dipped them all in water and put them on a nearby fence to dry in the sun, then sat back and had a nice cuppa.

Around this time in the mid-1950s, a dress came into fashion called a Muu Muu. The Muu Muu was a shapeless dress that hung from the shoulders and the men hated them. They had a split up the side to about the knee and they were very roomy. Pregnant woman could use them to the final day and no bump would be seen. This fashion did not stay around for long. One day Crow (Roy) Wilson grabbed the bottom of his wife Marion’s Muu Muu and ripped one side of it right up the seam to her armpit. He did this in front of everyone. We kids were horrified, but the Wilson kids thought it a huge joke and so did Dad and Crow. Marion told Crow off, but he knew she would not buy any more.

My older brother Col had a camp stretcher that he slept on under the stars. Each morning he had to roll his bed up and leave it on top of the stretcher near the back of the truck. Apart from a thin mattress and his blankets, in the winter he had a tarp that was thrown over the bed entirely that kept him dry and of course warm. Our blankets were ex-army and very thin. If we had any men working for us, this is how they slept also, outside on a stretcher. Col would place his hat over the top of his boots to stop creepy crawlies getting into them. He once had an incident where his foot would not fit entirely into his boot. He stood up and forced it in in frustration but when he turned his boot upside down and shook it, out fell a dead squashed green frog!

It was a bitter cold winter with severe frosts and Col could not keep warm at night. In the morning his bed would be white with ice. Mum pulled two potato bags apart and joined them together and then hand sewed an old double blanket around the bags. Col was quite pleased with his new “wagga” blanket and it kept him nice and toasty. Most country women didn’t have a lot of spare money and had to use their ingenuity to keep their family fed and warm.

Christmas 1955 was spent camped on the Namoi river bank. I went shopping with Mum and she bought all these lovely big trucks, dolls and other things that would delight any child. I was wondering which gift was going to be given to whom but was not allowed to ask. Mum used to say, ‘You are like the bird on the biscuit tin, seen and not heard.’ This was referring to the Arnotts biscuit tin that had a colourful parrot on the side nibbling a biscuit that it held in its claw.

Dad bought a wooden crate of Orbell’s soft drinks that was put in the river to keep cool. An extra-large watermelon was placed in a bag and tied to a tree root and also placed in the water. Christmas morning came and I waited anxiously for all the delightful goods that Mum had bought for us. What a dreadful disappointment to discover the presents were given to the Holsbourne children or posted off to Aunty Anne’s children. I cried and cried over the doll that I had thought I was going to receive and love like no one loved me. Instead we received the same gifts we received each year: a colouring-in book and pencils, reading book, a small tin of toffees and some much needed clothing including a new swim suit.

Swim suits came in handy, even though none of us could swim. We could jump in bore drains and dams for some fun, always staying in the shallow end under Mum or Emmie’s watchful eye. On occasions the stock trough was a handy bath. All the stock troughs had a windmill near them so they could pump water into a tank and then into the trough with a bore cock in it to stop it from running over onto the ground. If the tank overflowed it ran into a dirt dam as a secondary water supply. Quite often the trough would be full of dirt and slime and really green. We had to first clean out all the muck then refill it before we could get into the water. If a trough did not have a bung to unscrew at the end, or we could not open the bung because it was too tight, we would use a broom to get the muck off the sides and bucket the water out by hand. A nice clean trough was for our pleasure but the animals benefited too, with fresh clean water to drink. This was not done on a regular basis as some places didn’t have the water to waste.

Sometimes we would dare each other to get in the trough before the stock arrived. We would sit quietly in the water while the stock had a drink close by. We would try and sneak in a pat but we never managed to connect with a beast as they were not that tame. The horses would look at us curiously, as if to say, ‘What are you doing in my drinking water?’

Wash day was a big event that had to wait until we were camped near any sort of clean water. A bore drain, dam, river or ring tank would do. If we were camped near a river, no matter how steep the bank was, we had to bring water up to the camp. I can remember one particular time, we were camped on the banks of the Namoi River between Narrabri and Wee Waa. The bank was quite steep and we had to carry the water up from the river in tin buckets. The buckets were used-kerosene tins with wire handles. Our hand knitted jumpers and cardigans had to be hand washed as well, these had to be drip dried and laid flat on nearby bushes – or on Col’s bed.