Away to the westward, I’m longing to be
Where the beauties of heaven’ unfold by the sea
As Dad promised, our new house in Albany did go up fast. He had several mates who lent a hand. For Mum, the small primus stove continued to be the only means of cooking. Washing was done in the open in a copper perched on a rough brick fireplace. One large galvanised basin served for rinsing and another one for starch. The washing line was strung from the backyard dunny to a post set in the ground. A wooden prop held it up in the middle because it would sag dangerously close to the ground when it was hung with the heavy dripping washing. Wringing was done by hand. On several occasions, I remember Mary’s frustrated rage as she picked washing off the ground covered in dirt. Electricity was several years away and even water was not yet connected to the block. My father fashioned a yoke from wood, which he could lift onto his shoulders. There was a hook on each end for two galvanised buckets. Each morning before he rode his bicycle to work, he would make several trips to the main road and bring enough water back for washing, cooking and baths that day.
After my father had cycled off to work in Albany, I can only imagine how alone my mother must have felt, at this stage left with two small children, never seeing another soul unless she walked to the main road and caught the bus into town to do her shopping. She remembers people always being kind. There were very few migrants down that way and she said they stuck out like sore thumbs. One kindness was never forgotten. The owner of the town’s department store, Drew Robinson, stopped her in the store one day. He asked how they were getting along. She tried to crack hardy but admitted that cooking on one small primus burner was no fun. With that, he ordered her to go upstairs and pick herself out a stove. When she protested that she couldn’t possibly afford it, he told her he wasn’t asking her to pay for it. A Meters wood stove was duly delivered and made all the difference to our lives. Dad was able to repay Drew by doing repairs to his boat.
Every evening it would be my job to walk up to the main road and leave the billycan for the milkman. The next morning I would walk back and collect the billy full with milk. The repetition of this chore made it tedious. When it rained the puddles on the rough track that led to our house almost joined to become a river. One morning, after heavy rain, a large red clay coloured puddle had formed right across the track. This did not present a problem for me in my Wellington boots, but the intensity of the colour fascinated me and I had a sudden urge to see what the white milk would look like against this vivid orange canvas. I gave into my urge, and after feasting my eyes on the patterns as they swirled around and gradually faded, I was filled with the enormity of what I’d done. I ran home sobbing to tell mum I had spilt the milk. I do remember feeling guilty as she tried to comfort me.
One morning I was jolted out of my tedium by a vision in pink sitting on a pile of planks on a block on the main road. There sat a small girl about my age all alone. I found out later she sat waiting patiently for her father to return with more building supplies. I was so excited I grabbed the milk and ran home to tell Mum, but when I returned a few moments later she had disappeared. I was heartbroken. I hadn’t yet started school and hadn’t met another child in over a year. However, before long the Docking’s house was being built and Maxine and I became best friends.
The house that Dad built – Lurline Street
Once the main house was built, we had an inside toilet and my mother begged my father to get rid of the old dunny from the backyard. I think to she wanted to show the street that we had gone up in the world, but much to her frustration Dad was in no hurry until suddenly one day he took a rush of blood to the head and demolished the dunny with a few swings of the axe. However, he neglected to notice it was still attached to a line full of washing. It is an understatement to say that Mary was not happy.
The rest of the land around us was gradually settled, mainly by migrants. There were Poles, Yugoslavs, Ukrainians, Macedonians, Italians and Dutch, but for some reason, we called them all Dutchies. I think I deliberately never got to know any of the other migrant children very well. I wanted desperately to be like the other Australian kids. Our Polish neighbours
turned up with such things as liver sandwiches for school lunch, or after school were found sharing a bowl of cold meat jelly, reeking of garlic and exclaiming in delight over the occasional bit of meat. We either ignored the two bigger boys and their little sister or had wars with them, each side thinking up mean and sometimes dangerous tricks to play on each other.
At the end of our street, there was a short cut through a cow paddock to school. In the middle of the cow-paddock grew an enormous fig tree. During fig season we climbed up and have a feast on our way to school. One morning after we had been particularly mean to the Polish boys, Eilean, and Maxine and I were up in the fig tree. Suddenly we became aware of Sluffco and Johnny quietly working down below. To our horror, we saw that they had completely covered the tree trunk, all around, with big soft cowpats. I don’t know whether I was more horrified by our predicament or the fact that they had done this with their bare hands.
I don’t remember the fathers of the migrant children, but my mother was always kind and ready to help the women. Unlike us children, she would have understood the reason for their haunted faces. Perhaps they were grateful to be able to come to the land of opportunity, but I don’t remember seeing any joy in their faces. They would have missed their homeland as desperately as my mother, and they had the added obstacle of not being able to speak English very well. As children, we grew hearing stories, but never really understanding the lives out parents had led. Scotland was always referred to as “home.” There was a constant reference to the war. Such and such happened before the war, or during the war, or after the war. There were also references to the First World War, the flu epidemic and the Great Depression. All this was beyond our comprehension, as we grew taller, browner and stronger than our parents had ever been. We didn’t have a lot in the way of material possessions, but neither did anyone else. We took having enough food and clothes and a warm bed for granted. We grew up as little Australians and my father would often shake his head in wonder as he listened to our broad Australian accents.
My mother has always been a wonderful cook and still was until the day she died aged over ninety. She seemed to have an inbuilt knowledge of nutrition. We had a three-course meal most nights: soup, main course and sweets and she battled to give us variety. I was always ravenous and ate anything, but she got little appreciation from my more finicky sisters. Mum scorned the use of such things as polony, meat pies and other processed food as rubbish. Her own mother had made delicious meals out of offal, but when she tried to feed us tripe or liver there were long faces and untouched plates. It must have been disheartening to be creative with a tight budget only to have turned up noses. One night, as we sat down to eat, Eilean exclaimed, “Not that again,” and the next moment the plate was upturned onto her head. One Sunday, lunch roast lamb was on the menu. I was told to watch the joint while the gravy was being made. As I tucked into my plateful I spied a maggot squirming on my meat. To draw attention to it would have caused a storm and perhaps the end of the lunch. It was my fault for taking my eyes off the joint. I shut my eyes and swallowed it.
At least once a week we would go fishing. This wasn’t a sport, but an enjoyable necessity to top up the larder. On the weekends we might all go, Eilean in her pram, but most weekends were spent working on the house. My mother and father sometimes went down to the wharf, or the deep water jetty, usually on a Thursday night, so that we would have the traditional feed of fish on a Friday. Eilean and I were left asleep in our beds. Later in life, my mother shook her head in disbelief that she left us like that. There was no doubt they took a risk, but she couldn’t go fishing by herself, and after being alone with two small children all day she was desperate to get out. Perhaps parenting comes easier to some people, but I can fully understand Mum’s need. As a young Mum, I often felt the same.
The terraced hillside overlooking Middleton Beach: Our favourite picnic spot.
I remember my parents were delighted when they caught a feed of small fish that they called mackerel (I think they were mullies) and yellowtail, but the locals scorned these as baitfish, and only fished for ship-jacks or King George whiting. During the salmon season, my father would ride his bike around the south coast to the Salmon Holes. A wild beautiful beach near the mouth of the outer harbour, where salmon chased the herring into the bay and were sometimes trapped in the reef. He would often fish all night, and return in the morning with two huge salmon and perhaps some herring. I once hounded him to take me. The eleven-mile ride in the dark on the crossbar of a bicycle is not for the faint-hearted. I spent the night untangling my line or huddled in a blanket cold and bored. I never asked to go again.
