The Sausage Tree (3 page)

Mum had given us all strict instructions—“Do not talk to the men who empty the cans”. One morning on designated can day the twins were standing on the back verandah step when the men duly arrived. Mum was mortified when she heard them say very politely, in unison, “Good morning Mr Dunny Men”. They both received a hiding for that little misdemeanour. We were never too sure what happened to the contents of those cans, but Dad told us that it was tipped over the local orchards and that was why the apples that were shipped overseas were wrapped in paper. At the time we believed him!

We must have been very gullible when we were young because we also believed him when we asked him how the letters Mum wrote got to Melbourne and he told us that there were lots of tunnels under the ground and some of them even went under the sea. Little men carrying letters ran up and down the tunnels to deliver the letters to the post offices all over the country! Even though the post master rode his bike with a mailbag over the handlebars past our house on his way to meet the trains to and from Launceston twice a day, we didn't connect that scene to the story Dad told us!

Although Dad was a harsh disciplinarian he had a quiet sense of humour and enjoyed telling us silly stories, many
of them reputed to be true, and ditties from his own childhood.

Dad told us a story about one of his workmates who, like everyone else, took his lunch to work in a sugar bag but without the usual shoulder ropes. He just picked it up, slung it over his shoulder and walked to work. The bag had a hole in the top edge and when he got to work he hung it on a nail in the shed. One day the man must have unknowingly taken the wrong bag. He got to work and stood by the pole with the nail in it turning the bag round and round looking for the hole so that he could hang it up. When he couldn't find it he said in a surprised way, “Well look at that, somebody's pinched the hole outa me bag!”

Two ditties that Dad taught us are well remembered and were told to our own children for amusement. One went like this: “Not last night but the night before, three little cats came knocking at my door, one had a fiddle, one had a drum and one had a pancake stuck to his bum!” The other ditty was: “Dan Dan the dirty man washed his face in the frying pan, combed his hair with the leg of the chair, Dan Dan the dirty man.”

We always washed our hands before going to the meal table, but if we didn't comb our hair Dad told us we looked like Dan Dan and we knew we had to leave in a hurry to fix our hair.

When we were playing in the yard, dirty and untidy, Dad would say that we looked like “the wild man from Borneo” and tell us to go inside and tidy ourselves up. We never did find out where, when or if he had met a “wild man from Borneo”.

Mum also had stories to tell, but hers were always true ones about when she was young and living in Noojee (which even
today we refer to as “up the bush”). One story that she loved to tell was about firewood. Her father was responsible for the well-being of his single employees. The men ate their three meals a day with the family; eggs and bacon and bread for breakfast, meat and bread for lunch, and a full hot meal at the end of the day. Sunday was different though and the hot meal was served at mid-day. At every hot meal Grandfather carved the roast or served the hot meat, and the vegetables were put into hot covered dishes and placed on the table so that everyone could serve themselves.

One Sunday when the bell rang for dinner and all were seated, our usually mild-mannered Grandfather stormed, “What's the meaning of this?” Grandma quietly told him that she had no wood for the stove and that was why everything was raw! No wood at a sawmill? Grandma and the girls never carried wood; that was the boys' and men's job. That Sunday dinner was eaten very, very late in the day.

There was also the story of the school “up the bush”. In the early days in the settlement here was no school teacher so Grandfather wrote to the Education Department in Melbourne and pointed out that there were quite a number of children who needed schooling. The reply duly came back that if he would build and furnish a school then a teacher would be supplied. With his own funds, without reimbursement, Grandfather did as asked. He even supplied a piano and when the teacher eventually arrived found room in his house for the newcomer, much to the disgust of his children.

Mum also told us of her early days at Nabowla. She and Dad lived close to a saw mill but had no near neighbours and the shop was eight miles away. She had to push the baby in the pram over a very rough rock-strewn road to collect the groceries.

Every housewife made her own bread but Mum's wasn't always right until Granma Johnson showed her how to
make good yeast from potatoes and then the finer points of making the dough properly. Mum always maintained that Granma made the very best bread that she had ever tasted, so we suppose that Mum had the very best teacher.

Then there was the time Mum told Granma that she was going to make rissoles for tea. “What're they?” Granma asked. When Mum told her how they were made Granma laughed and said, “Oh! you mean patties”—and from that day Mum called her rissoles “patties”.

One story that has survived the years concerned Valda who when little had a language problem. One morning when we lived at Oakleigh Mum told Valda to tell her when she heard the baker come because she was going to bath and feed the twins. When Valda heard the baker callout “Bako” she called from behind the closed door “Who um dut?” (who is that). When told it was the baker and who was there Valda called out “Wah Deenie Dontie” (Valda Jean Johnson).

Valda is still on occasions affectionately called “Wah Deenie”, and her younger son sometimes does the whole thing. “Wah Deenie Dontie”. One day recently, Rosalie was telling her co-workers some of these stories when the suggestion was put to her that she write them into a story about our childhood days and so we began our little book.

4

When we moved to Lilydale we didn't have a wireless, we had a funny old wind-up gramophone and about twelve very old records that we used to listen to in the evenings. After about a year Mum and Dad sold the gramophone to a family who lived over the back fence from us. Then they bought a big battery operated Wireless that ran on three big dry cell batteries and one wet battery (similar to a car battery) that had to be sent on the bus to Launceston to be recharged. This meant that we were without the wireless for a week. Later Mum and Dad were able to afford to buy an extra wet battery for a spare to be used while the other one was away.

In order to be able to get a reception, a high aerial was needed and for this Dad brought home from the bush two thin thirty foot poles. To the top of each he attached a length of wire and erected one pole near the side fence and the other next to the house near the dining room window
where the aerial wire was passed into the room and connected to the wireless. We only listened to the news and an hour and a half of serials.

When electricity came to Lilydale on 3 April 1940, it was a milestone in everyone's life. Of course we boasted at school that we knew all about it. We had had this luxury before and we weren't about to let anyone forget it. Electricity didn't mean hot water on tap or a refrigerator for us but we had our wireless for evening entertainment. Mrs Brooks would only pay for five lights and one power point in the dining room to be connected to our house so Mum had to pay for the passage and back verandah lights and a power point in the kitchen. The next year Mum and Dad bought an electric wireless and we remember Mum tried several types, including small mantle ones before settling on a big cabinet one because it gave the best reception.

After the dishes were finished and we were listening to the wireless programs on cold winter evenings, our hands were always busy. Before electricity came we would be warm and cosy with a big fire blazing away in the fireplace helping to light the room. We would sit around the big table in the soft light of the kerosene lamps and play games. We played Snakes and Ladders, Ludo and Chinese Checkers. We also played simple card games. These games were banned on Sundays as was knitting or sewing. We were told that the devil would get us if we played cards on a Sunday and if we knitted or sewed, we would have to undo all the stitches with our nose when we got to heaven. Because we were also listening to the wireless while playing our games at night, we didn't argue over the board games or cards. This only happened when we played in the daytime in winter.

Although we cannot recall the story-lines we still remember we listened to a serial called “The Search for the Golden Boomerang”, after which came the regional news followed by the world news at 7 o'clock when we hurried to the
kitchen to wash the dishes before “Martin's Corner” came on.

To save on electricity the wireless was never turned on during the daytime, but this didn't worry we children because for amusement during daylight hours we used our imaginations. During the summer months we kids didn't listen to the wireless as we always went straight outside after doing the dishes. We stayed outside playing until it was too dark to see. Unfortunately, more often than not, our imaginations got us into terrible trouble and the crime did not always merit the punishments that we received.

After tea, we girls would quickly clear the table and stack the dirty dishes onto the kitchen table and put the saucepans on the hearth in front of the stove because there was no room on the table, before we listened to our serial. If we hadn't finished the dishes by then we weren't allowed to listen to the other serials. Sometimes we mucked around a bit and ran out of time, so to keep up with what was happening on the wireless, the one drying the dishes would take the wet tea towel into the dining room and stand in front of the fire holding the towel to dry while listening to the serial. Then out to the kitchen again to report to the washer-up who by now had a great pile of washed dishes on the tray. Now it was her turn to go inside and listen for a while until the wiper-up called out that she'd caught up. You guessed it! The tea towel was too wet again and so back to the fire we went. Of course we couldn't get another towel, there'd be no excuse to go inside! For these escapades we missed out on the games because we were sent to bed early for taking so long to do the dishes. We never seemed to be able to even please ourselves.

With the brighter electric light to see by, we spent our evenings knitting and sewing. As each one of us turned seven we were taught to knit and when we were eight were taught to do simple embroidery that we called fancywork.
We were expected to always have busy hands and we knitted small singlets and jumpers for the younger ones because we tired of the project very quickly when attempting to knit for ourselves. The fancywork we started on was small doilies, then we moved onto larger ones from where we progressed to the more ambitious working of aprons. The aprons usually had a flower garden pattern, complete with the tracing of an old-fashioned lady on them and they took a lot of time and patience to complete. Mum was a hard taskmaster and so our work had to be just so, but how proud we were when they were completed. In those days everyone wore an apron and we wore our pride and joy everywhere we could so that everyone could see and comment on our work. Our best work was entered in the school show in early December; sometimes we were lucky enough to receive a prize and then we really were puffed up with pride.

Mum and Dad had a very strict rule that to save on costs, no more than two lights were to be on at the one time, so in fear of punishment we were always careful not to disobey. Sometimes we even avoided switching on the light at all, but one night when Dad went to clean his teeth, he scratched around as usual in the drawer where he kept all his personal items, found the tube that he assumed was toothpaste, squeezed some onto his toothbrush and began to clean his teeth. From the dining room we heard him spluttering and gagging. It wasn't toothpaste he was using, it was his shaving cream! The next night he turned the light on and the “two lights at one time” rule was relaxed a little.

Another rule was that once we sat down in the dining room after we had finished washing the dishes, we weren't to move from the spot we had chosen to sit. If we forgot to get some wool or embroidery cotton, a book or whatever, it was too bad. We knew that if we left our chair for the slightest reason we were sent to bed. Bad luck for us if we
needed to go to the dunny, because when we came back we were sent to bed.

Except for asking for something to be passed we were not allowed to talk while we were sitting at the table during meal times. Usually when one or two of us got the giggles it was contagious and we all started, but on one occasion it was Valda and Wilma who were in heaps of trouble for giggling. Dad threw his knife at Valda and after it was returned to him he threw it at Wilma who thought she had escaped his displeasure. They were probably giggling because Mum was always prodding Wilma between the shoulder blades so that she would sit up straight.

We did not get an electric hot-water service until 1952 when Mum and Dad bought the house and renovated the back, making the kitchen into a fourth bedroom and building a new kitchen and bathroom where the back verandah had been. What a luxury! A bath long enough for comfort and plenty of hot water, although the bath mustn't be more than a quarter full. Washing the dishes was easy now we had a sink with a draining board and a hot water tap. The wood-burning stove was moved from the old kitchen to the new.

The moving of the stove called for a new flue and as Mum was sick and Peter had to go to town for allergy tests he was told to go to the hardware shop before catching the bus home. The instruction was to order six feet of flue pipe with a cowl on the top. All seemed well until 12 year old Peter came home and asked Mum how a cow was going to sit on top of the flue!

Mum never wanted an electric stove, saying that wood was cheaper than electricity and the kitchen would be much warmer in the early mornings and the winter. The kettles were still always singing on the top of the stove so there was no need to buy an electric one.

Our toast was always made on a long fork made of wire,
in front of the firebox of the stove. Toast could never taste as good from an electric toaster so we didn't need one of those either. We had, however, progressed from hot bricks in our beds to hot-water bottles as by 1952 there were only two dependent children living at home. Because of the intense cold of winter in Lilydale warm beds were a necessity. After Dad had completed the improvements to the house more power points were added, including two in each bedroom. Now we even had bed lights. Mum and Dad could see no reason for outside lights, although we did have lights in the new outside laundry and new toilet, complete with septic tank.

A big change that came to Lilydale because of the electricity was the installation in 1941 of a flax mill in the old agricultural show building. The annual show was abandoned and was never revived, being replaced with the school show.

The flax mill was imported from England. All the parts, right down to the last nuts and bolts, were packed in crates and secretly transported by ship. The engineers, foremen and workers travelled with the machinery. Because of fear of the presence of German submarines in the route to the Suez Canal, the shipment was a closely guarded secret. The ship arrived without enemy conflict, via South Africa, right on schedule. When the mill was assembled and working successfully the engineers returned to England and their important work there. Some of the Lilydale men were employed in the mill and worked alongside the English men.

Many of the farmers in the district were contracted with the Department of Defence to grow the flax. When the flax was ready for harvesting, anyone including older school children on school holidays, was employed by the grower
to pull the flax by hand, gather it into big sheaves, tie it with twine and then stook it. For this hard work the wage was a halfpenny a sheaf or, if one was fortunate, a penny a sheaf.

Mum would make a huge cut lunch for each of us and a big bottle of lemon barley water to drink. By 7.30a.m, Geoff, Joan and Valda would be at the shop corner for the farmer to pick them up in his open lorry and take them to the paddock where the flax was to be pulled. The workers stopped for lunch and dinner breaks when the timber mill at the top of our road blew its whistle. Knock off time also coincided with the mill whistle which could be heard all over the district and was so regular that many residents used it as a clock. By the end of the day the younger workers were utterly exhausted and on many occasions suffered sore and blistered hands. Because of the blisters many days work were lost, but the farmer didn't worry about it because he knew that when they were ready to return to work they would be standing at the comer ready for another day's hard work.

The flax was used to manufacture the fibre to make camouflage netting for the army to conceal their war equipment. Nearly every household in Lilydale had a special board attached to the wall in a convenient place where a portion of camouflage netting could be made by hand. The netting was collected at regular intervals and taken to the mill to be joined together. The mill made an enormous number of nets but the idea was that “every little helps”. The mill and its operations were strictly secret and never talked about, so what else was manufactured there remained a secret. A slogan during war time was “loose lips sink ships” and was strictly adhered to.

In 1942 Geoff started work in an apple orchard, but Joan and Valda returned to the flax-pulling earning fifteen and twelve shillings respectively, which they spent on a school case each and their schoolbooks. The little that was leftover
was deposited in their school bank accounts. The next year when they went flax-pulling Joan forgot her sun hat and was very sick with a bad dose of sunstroke that ended that work for both girls as Valda was not allowed to go on her own.

Every afternoon at knock off time the farmer made his rounds and checked off the number of sheaves each one had pulled. The flax had to be pulled by hand as at that time there wasn't any mechanical harvester in Tasmania that could do the work.