The Sausage Tree (2 page)

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We set sail in the SS
Nairana
early in 1936. What a nightmare that trip was. Only Dad, Geoff and Joan were not seasick. The dreaded travel sickness was to plague Valda and the twins until we were well into our teen years. When the trip was finally over Geoff remembers thinking to himself that this couldn't be much of a place we'd come to because the wharf was very small and in need of repair.

Twenty years later when Joan went with her husband to the wharf to fish for eels, she recognised Goderich Street with the trees down the middle as the wide street we had driven down away from the wharf and into Launceston. Valda was too sick to remember anything, and the twins were too young.

Prior to going to visit us in Victoria, Uncle Bob had bought Granma and Grandad a big house in George Street in Launceston. Before the move from their isolated country home, they sold their furniture to other families living in
the district, then carrying the rest of their meagre belongings they walked eight miles along rough unmade roads into Nabowla railway station where they caught the train and travelled to Launceston to begin a new life.

We stayed with Granma Johnson until we were all over the seasickness and Mum and Dad could search for a house for us. We were all so young and timid and we were frightened of the houseful of dark haired people; they seemed to be everywhere. At the time we didn't know that Granma and Grandad had Aboriginal heritage. There were at least fifteen to twenty people in the house (including seven of their eleven children) and it was quite daunting for us to live in the same house as so many other people. How she fitted us all into her home with her large extended family is still a mystery, but she never seemed to be worried. In fact we can never ever remember her being cross during our stay.

Dad's brothers had found him work “bushing” on Mt Arthur near Lilydale, but we went to live in a house in Oxford Street near the East Launceston State School. Because there was an epidemic of infantile paralysis in Melbourne, we children were in quarantine for six weeks after we arrived in Launceston. While we were in Oxford Street a girl who lived opposite us died of the disease and we were all very frightened. We stayed in Launceston until August 1937 when we moved to Lilydale to be nearer Dad's work.

The picturesque small township of Lilydale nestles beneath the slopes of Mt Arthur and Brown Mountain. During the winter months Mt Arthur is snowcapped and the weather is wet and freezing cold and frozen water pipes are not uncommon. In contrast, due to the locality of Lilydale, the summers can at times be stifling hot.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939 all Australians were still suffering hardships caused by the Great Depression. Dad was called upon to attend the army recruitment drive and was relieved when he was rejected because of his asthma and also because he had too many children to support. Our family wasn't well off monetary wise, but we weren't the poorest family in the district. We were clothed, fed and housed.

We find it hard to believe that we were loved because we were subjected to the most severe hidings for what to us seemed trivial misconduct. Mum and Dad believed that they had to be cruel to be kind and that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. In our house the rod was either a stock whip or Dad's razor strop doubled in half. The child that was to be given a hiding was grabbed and tucked between his legs as Dad dealt out our punishment. We children used to yell in anguish “Please don't hit me, I'll be good” but the hiding kept on until Dad deemed one had had enough and then started on the next one to be punished. As we grew older we realised the futility of crying and beseeching and endured the punishment as quietly as we could, only to be afflicted more than before. Only when we cried loud and long did Dad think we'd been sufficiently punished and the hiding stopped. Toys were almost nonexistent, but we all had fertile imaginations that we used to keep ourselves amused.

We were very fortunate to live in a rural area where we learnt many elementary farm skills. We not only watched a myriad of activities, we were able to participate in some tasks.

We saw how hay was cut, stooked and made into chaff. We learnt how to milk a cow, to feed and care for poddy calves and bottle-feed orphan lambs. On the farm over our back fence was a blacksmith's shop complete with anvil and forge. We helped work the huge bellows so that the coals
in the forge glowed red hot and then watched while the farmer shod his draught horses. Rosalie has one vivid memory of she and Barbara watching while pigs and sheep were slaughtered for meat. It was very unpleasant and they wished that they had gone home when they were told.

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Uncle Bob had bought a motor car and he took Auntie Merle, Mum, Joan, Valda and the twins out to the new house at Lilydale. We were horribly carsick and Uncle Bob stopped on the side of the road beside a big rainwater puddle and cleaned us up as best he could. He was always a gentle, caring man. Auntie Merle, one of Dad's younger sisters and about sixteen at the time, travelled with us to help Mum get the house ready for the furniture and to stay until after the new baby was born at the end of October.

The house had been empty for some time and was very dirty inside. We can still remember our disgust that someone, on more than one occasion, had used the kitchen and the front passage as a toilet. We children were sent outside while Mum and Auntie Merle used cold water and scrubbing brushes to clean all the floors in the house. We were a little frightened to go outside into the yard because the grass was so high that Valda and the twins had already been
lost once. Mum and Auntie Merle were still cleaning when the furniture van arrived carrying Dad, Geoff and all our possessions.

Not long after the furniture van had gone we heard a “yoo-hoo” at the back verandah and in walked Mrs Brooks our landlady. She was a small lady and carried an enormous tray that held cups, a big pot of tea, sugar, scones and cake and a big jug of milk for us children. The look of appreciation on Mum's face will never be forgotten. Mum and Mrs Brooks became lifelong friends calling one another Johnnie and Brookie and that “yoo-hoo” was their greeting as they opened each other's door on a visit.

We children in later years disrespectfully called her Old Mother Brooks because she always seemed to be on the lookout to catch us misbehaving. When we heard her rapping on her kitchen window we knew we were in trouble because she would waste no time hurrying along a well worn track between the two houses to report us to Mum. This resulted in us being thrashed and we still think she must have been a sadistic person. Who else would instigate the dreadful punishments we received? It was just as well she never had children of her own. They would have had a miserable life. We will never understand how the same woman could be so concerned as to ring the RSPCA about a local farmer who regularly whipped his draught horses until they screamed in pain and fear. The noise was frightening to hear. Apparently working horses meant more to Old Mother Brooks than children being treated in a similar way.

We were again quarantined for six weeks because the infantile paralysis epidemic had spread to Tasmania and we had moved from Launceston which had been proclaimed an infected area. When the new baby arrived she was named Wilma for Mum's father William, and the chosen second name was Merle after Auntie Merle who had been so very
good to Mum. Mum stayed three extra weeks in Launceston when Wilma was born because due to the paralysis epidemic all bus and train transport had been suspended.

The three older children missed a lot of schooling during 1936-37, but, as young folk most often do, we soon caught up on the lessons. As time went by this proved to be true with us as we were all high achievers at school. When we finally went to our new school we thought we were special. We'd come a long way, travelled in a big ship, lived in Launceston and had such a lot of holidays. All the other children hadn't come from anywhere; they'd always been there. In reality the first three years at that school were horrible. The other children used to beat us up and many times we went home with our clothes torn, sometimes almost irreparable. As a result we were once again in trouble at home. Mum was quite sure that we were the instigators of the fights.

Our early years at Lilydale school are remembered as an ongoing fight with the local children. We soon learnt to fight back with the same unfair tactics of scratching, kicking and hair pulling, but the advantage was always to the other side who had numerous allies, whereas we were one against many because we were too busy defending ourselves to go to the aid of our brother or sisters. Perhaps the fights were initially because we were new kids but we sometimes think it turned out to be just another pastime. However, when Wilma and Peter started school they were accepted as locals and so escaped the “ganging up” and the resultant bashings from their schoolmates.

Although we later became friendly with everyone, only Barbara and Wilma made a lifelong friend from school.

One particular event that we remember very well
involved a rather unpleasant twelve year old girl who lived with her grandmother and travelled to school on the school bus. One day at recess time she announced that her grandmother had given her some special sandwiches to share with her friends (which she didn't have). The six girls involved enjoyed the treat and were then told that they had just eaten mashed snail sandwiches. Joan promptly threw up and the other girls felt queasy for the rest of the day. The girl was more disliked than before and no-one would have anything at all to do with her.

Despite the disruptions in our schooling and the fights at school we were determined to do well and make Dad and Mum proud of us, but no matter how high our marks were we were never praised or made to feel that our efforts were in any way exceptional.

After three years of using electricity, having a kitchen sink, a bathroom and a proper toilet at Oakleigh and Launceston, Mum must have been dismayed at the lack once again of these conveniences. We children thought it was going to be fun, but when night came and we only had candles we were scared of all the shadowy places in the rooms. Worse still, we were scared to go to the outside toilet by ourselves. The shadows from the trees, the big shed and the fence were very scary.

As we had no electricity to light the house, Mum went down the road to the big general store on the corner and bought two kerosene lamps. They were made of glass and had a bowl for the kerosene and a tall glass chimney that, if splashed with even one drop of water, quickly cracked and had to be renewed. Candles were used to light the way to bed and then blown out before we hopped into bed.

In the winter when the bedrooms were very cold, we
warmed our beds by using a hot brick. Early in the evening we would place our bricks on the hob of the dining room fireplace. After a couple of hours when the heat from the big log fire had made the bricks hot, we carefully wrapped them in old jumpers, then placed them in our beds right where we thought our feet would go. We would take our nighties out with us and put them on the mat in front of the fire. When it was bedtime we had a lovely warm nightie and a warm place in the bed. On occasions we didn't wrap the brick as carefully as we should have and we would wake in the night to feel a hot rough brick in the bed. Mum and Dad had a hot water bottle but they were too expensive to buy for the children. After the bottle had been filled from the kettle singing on the hob, we had to ensure that we refilled the kettle as more often than not the water pipes would be frozen next morning and there would be no water for Dad's wash and breakfast when he got up at 5.00a.m.

Washing the dishes was done in a special tin dish on the kitchen table and a large tin tray was used as a draining board. The hot water came from the kettles on the stove. Washing dishes for nine people was quite an undertaking and we children were rostered to wash and dry. Woe betide us if we were unlucky enough to crack the glass chimney of the lamp by splashing water on it; our bottoms would be then well and truly tanned. We were also punished if we broke any of the glass or china. As a result, when washing up, we were always very careful and sometimes a bit slow. Dad would yell out from the dining room “get a wriggle on, you kids”. The older ones would then get the giggles because the twins would stand there and wiggle their skinny little bums.

The only water tap we had was over an awful wooden sink set into a rough wooden bench on the back verandah. As soon as he had time Dad replaced that sink with a large enamel one. When we washed our faces and hands and
cleaned our teeth, we used a small dish that was kept just for this because the sink was too big and we used too much water. Mostly we washed in coldwater, but during the winter we used hot water from the kettles. We would then refill the kettle and take it back to the kitchen.

When we first moved to Lilydale the copper used for boiling the clothes was set on bricks in the open in the backyard. Straight away Dad built an alcove onto the side of the back verandah, made a chimney and set the copper under cover. A bucket was used to fill the copper with water and first the whites and then the towels were boiled in soapy water. Mum would lift them from the copper with a strong smooth stick that we called the copper stick and used only for this purpose. When we girls were home from school for the holidays we were given the task of pushing the boiling clothes down into the copper to help the dirt to bubble out. Valda thought it a good idea to pretend she was a witch and was often seen stirring the clothes in the copper and muttering “spells” as she stirred her steaming “cauldron”.

There were no wash troughs. We had one large galvanised tub for washing the clothes in, and another smaller one for the rinse water. The tubs were put on the bench, pushed under the tap and when full enough were dragged along into place on the bench.

After the clothes were lifted from the copper they had to be checked over to see if there were any stains or dirt left on them. Mum would do that, wring them by hand and then put the clothes into the second tub ready to be rinsed. We girls had to push them up and down in the tub that had “blue” added to it, wring them by hand and put them into a big dish ready to be taken out to the long clothes line where we girls hung out the small items but Mum always hung out the sheets because they were too heavy for us. When the line was full we would use the long wooden props that were strategically placed along the length of the line
to push the line up high away from the ground so that the clothes would flap in the breeze.

One day after the washing was finished Mum stood on the verandah step and looked at all the panties on the line and said, “Look at all the undies on the line, anyone would think that a centipede lived here”. It took Mum a while to realise why we were laughing.

Our ironing was done on the kitchen table covered with a special “ironing blanket”. Three cast-iron flatirons were heated on the kitchen stove and wiped clean with a piece of old towel before using it on the clothes, tablecloths and pillowslips to be ironed. For some unexplainable reason we never ever reached the bottom of the basket—and goodness knows what lay there!

Bath night only came on Saturday and in preparation the water was heated in a four-gallon kerosene tin hung on a hook over the open fire in the dining room that was also our lounge room. Our bathtub was the large washtub set on a mat in front of the fire in winter or on a bag in the kitchen in the summer. Youngest went first, with hot water being added with a dipper from the tin over the fire into the tub as needed. When their turn came around, the older children had to put up with the murky water but no one complained; this was the way it was.

The toilet was a small noisome building behind the big shed built at the side of the house and always had thick spider webs around the timber that held it together. There were always huge evil-looking spiders and we were all terrified of them but no-one was ever bitten and Dad only very occasionally swept them away with the straw broom. Mum never did; she didn't like them either. These little outbuildings were commonly called “dunnies” and were serviced every two weeks by two men who came in a horse-drawn cart. They fitted lids to the smelly used cans, carried them away and left clean replacements. Each dunny had a little
door in the back for the men to open so that the full cans could be replaced with empty ones. We were very careful on “dunny can day” to run to the gate and look down the road to ensure that the cart was nowhere in sight before answering nature's call. Mum was very strict about language and when within her hearing our family always referred to the dunny as “the little house” except Dad, who always called it the “dumpty”.