MY EARLY LIFE
     

I once came across an issue of the Sydney Morning Herald that had been printed on the day of my birth. It contained three articles that I found of interest. One related to a new technology called "television". Another to the laissez-aller approach of the Australian state governments towards their excessive London borrowings that became a major factor in the looming depression. A third described conditions under which the correspondent’s father had migrated from the "Old Country" in the 1850s. He wrote, with much wisdom:

Roger           John

"I wonder what the sturdy voyagers of those days  would have thought of modern conditions of travel and of the people who so frequently complain of them. It may be said that the two sets of conditions are not comparable; that the luxuries of yesterday have become the necessities of today; that the inventive triumphs of the past half-century have raised new standards of comfort, and that we are entitled to benefit from them. No one would deny that, but whether these changes are entirely good for us, or whether they have destroyed something of our self reliance, leaving us less hardy and more dependent on artificial aids to living is at least questionable."

These remarks could well apply with equal force in our present day and age.

I spent the first decade of my life in the small country town of Wingham, upstate in New South Wales. I guess that its population would have been in the low 1000s, but it was the centre of a prosperous farming and timber-getting area and had been first settled around the mid 19^th century.

It seemed to me, then as well as now, as if our family lived in harmony with the environment and with ourselves. I cannot envisage a family where the parents could be more loving of each other and of their children, or more respectful and considerate towards each other. Characteristics that I’m sure we would all speak of our parents.

My brother and I were insulated from the hardships of the depression years of the 30s. Money was never plentiful in our home, but it was never permitted to become such a major issue as seems to be the case so often these days in our mad rush towards a "consuming" society. My parents were content with their lot and did not have false ambitions.

We lived in several houses in Wingham – moving to better quarters as my father progressed in his employment. The home that sticks most in my memory (perhaps because we lived there longest) was located at the junction of two streets, both of gravel surfaces without formed gutters, on the outskirts of town.

It was clad in weatherboard and had a galvanised iron roof. (I always liked the soothing sound the rain made as it played its tune on the roof while I was dropping off to sleep – do you have similar memories?)

Inside, the walls were of tongued and grooved boards as were the ceilings. Paintwork was dark. Floors were mostly covered with linoleum, but a large floral carpet square graced the centre of the lounge room with its surrounds varnished black. Few ornaments decorated the walls. A gloomy description perhaps, but then and there we didn’t think so.

In common with similar type country houses there were wide verandas with drop-down blinds of canvas to provide protection from wind and rain. My brother and I slept out on one beneath mosquito nets.

Most modern wives would shudder at the thought of working under the conditions accepted by my mother as being the norm.

Her kitchen was a large room. A pine table set in the centre was the main work area and where we ate our meals, except for Sundays. There was a narrow bench along one wall under the only window where the dishes were washed in a tin tub – water was obtained from a tank outside. But it was the big, black, wood burning stove that really dominated the room – this was the altar before which my mother practiced most of her chores.

Meat and other perishable food were kept in a contraption called a "Coolgardie Safe" – there was no ice for cooling and certainly no refrigeration. The "safe" was a square box with shelving, its sides were covered with thin sheets of zinc perforated to allow air to flow through, and on top was a container filled with water from which strips of Hessian dangled down. The water seeped into these strips and ran down the sides. The safe was hung in a breezeway creating a cooling effect.

It was in this hot kitchen that my mother spent countless hours, uncomplaining, sweating over the stove as she prepared meals or pressed clothes with a set of cast metal irons that were hearted on the stovetop.

We had electricity, but no running water. We relied on rainwater collected from the roof and stored in large tanks that also acted as the breeding grounds of tadpoles; so a spoon was always on offer to ladle them out before drinking a glass of water.

The house did not have a bathroom. There was a lean-to shed, made from rough slabs of wood, by the back stairs that contained a set of concrete tubs for washing clothes and a round tin bath for us. Hot water was obtained from a copper mounted over an open fire. The copper was also used on washdays to boil the family’s clothes.

There was no town sewerage so bodily functions were performed in a special purpose shed located as far as possible from the house. It was unlit. Toilet paper consisted of newspapers cut into squares and hung from a nail on the back of the door. Use of the "Privy" as it was often called, could be downright dangerous after dark as snakes often visited the sheds and the underside of the seat was home to the red-back and other frightening spiders.

I was too young to fully comprehend the disaster of the Great Depression of the ’30s, but it had its influence on our family. It caused my father to develop an attitude of mind that centred on the need for job security and an antipathy towards all forms of risk taking. His views were so strongly held that even from our early days he encouraged us to aim for employment in a safe environment, such as in a bank, an insurance company or in government as a civil servant.

What chance do you think you would stand today in adopting this approach with our youth? Most probably you would be told with some force to mind your own business. But, as obedient sons, we heeded the advice and when our turn came to head out into the unknown territory of employment we joined banks.

It is now nearly 70 years since those troublesome times and memories tend to dim. But we should not forget that at their worst point, one-third of Australian breadwinners were unemployed and their families subsisted on dole payments and handouts from soup kitchens. Thousands of poverty stricken families had to leave their homes because they couldn’t pay their rent. In Sydney, the Domain park became the refuge for hundreds, sleeping on benches or bare ground, wrapped in woollen garments or in newspapers. Shantytowns sprang up around the city. The Workers’ Weekly of 16/2/1934 recorded one poor devil’s description of his habitation:

But the government of the time did little to alleviate these conditions. One wonders if those in charge really understood or cared about the enormity of the problem. For instance, in the Sydney Morning Herald of 10/6/1931 it was reported that the Governor of New South Wales and his wife had visited "Happy Valley" in La Perouse. Lady Game is quoted as saying that she had seen "...one darling little home in which she would not mind living herself!"

You might well say that the conditions described pale when placed beside the happenings in some of our Third World countries today, but when related to the then population they were significant. Do you agree with me that the attitude of "government" has not improved much over the years?

It took a generation for the community to forget the indignity of the dole queue, the begging and the breaking up of families as the men folk left the cities to go "on the track", or else "jump the rattler" to a far off country town in the vain hope of finding work. These itinerant unemployed were uncharitably described as tramps or "swaggies" because they carried their meagre belongings in a bundle over their shoulder.

My father’s job was secure, although in common with many workers he had to accept a cut in pay, so we were not greatly affected. There was always food. Fowls were kept for eggs and the occasional Sunday roast, vegetables were all homegrown and we had fruit trees. But there were no luxuries. For instance, apart from the occasional bag of boiled sweets slipped in among our weekly grocery order, my father would bring home a half pound of Rocky Road chocolate on fortnightly pay-days that we ate with relish. Fizzy drink only appeared on the table at Xmas and Easter, and Santa Claus wasn’t overburdened when he crept down the chimney – nevertheless my brother and I did not feel disadvantaged, but I now wonder what sacrifices our parents needed to make so that we could have presents.

It was about this time that we acquired our first radio set that was proudly displayed on my mother’s sewing machine below a window. One umbilical cord stretched to a large battery, another passed through the window to form an aerial, I quickly found out the meaning of radio waves for we had to sit close to the set and concentrate as the sounds rose and fell like the waves on a turbulent sea.

When cricket tests were being played between Australia and England the radio was popular. I was assured of a thick ear if I ventured to interrupt and ask my father a question about the state of play. This brings to mind a story written by an Australian humorist, Lennie Lower. It was titled Bradman and the Burglar and went like this: A family was grouped around the radio, heads lowered, engrossed in the commentary of a test being played at Lords. Unbeknown to them a burglar had been silently ransacking the house. A shout went up from the audience, the burglar dashed in and asked, "What’s the score?’ The reply came back from those still bowed heads, "Bradman’s made 200". "Good-oh" exclaimed the burglar as he quietly slunk off with his bag of booty. Well, that’s how I remember it. It must have impressed me because some years later I used the tale for a school essay only to receive a marking of 1 out of 10. My teacher obviously knew her Lennie Lower!

Early in my sixth year, I enrolled at Wingham Public School in the 1st class. This school, now called the Brush School, is located adjacent to the noted Wingham Brush, a heritage area of virgin rain forest. Over the years, with my mates, I spent countless hours exploring this bush and sailing through the air, like Tarzan, on liana vines that hung down from the high canopy.

It was at this school that I learned my 3 Rs – reading ’riting and ’rithmetic, each being drummed into me and hammered home with repetition and constant practice. After mastering my ABCs I progressed to three letter words – "the cat sat on the mat". I was introduced to tables – twice six are twelve, three sixes are eighteen. I was told that grass was green and the sky was blue, and met up with singular and plural – hoof, hooves; sheep, sheep; spoonful, spoonsfull. All this was chanted aloud, like saying prayers, but we soon became proficient.

I can never understand why the bureaucracy chose to make such a mess of our education system, to change a system that had stood the test of time and was effective. Now we have children who are computer literate, but cannot spell, add up or write legibly. I am not averse to change; it is inevitable, but not change just for the sake of change. Perhaps you won’t agree with me.

During my Wingham years I could not be accused of lolling lazily around home after school and certainly I never used the expression "I’m bored" that we hear from our young ’uns so often these days. It was my habit to race home, change my clothes and, armed with a fistful of "poorman’s" biscuits hot from the oven, to be off playing until darkness set in, when we dragged our weary bodies home for tea and bed.

We lived close to the escarpment that led steeply down to extensive river flats fronting the river. This was one of our most popular play places. The flats were thick with oak and callistemon trees and were first rate for our games of cops and robbers, and cowboys and Indians – they provided an array of cool places to hide in. We built wooden sleds and careered at breakneck speeds down grassy slopes, miraculously escaping cracked skulls and broken bones. How fortunate I was to have such freedom, freedom that would not have been available in a larger town and is denied present-day contemporaries who, in any event, would most likely prefer to play computer games rather than indulge in the rough and tumble of outdoor fun.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened in 1931. We did not witness the ceremony but, shortly after, when holidaying in the city, my father walked us across the bridge. What a thrill, but when boasting about it to my mates at school I deliberately omitted to tell them how fearful I really felt when I looked down through the grill of the bridge railing to the water so far below. I was pleased to have the security of my father’s hand.

I was never aware of class or racial distinctions. Certainly I was never told that I could not mix with this or that fellow. In fact, one of my best pals was the son of a menial worker who lived close by. I was always made welcome in his home where I often feasted on slices of bread and hot dripping. Another pal was the son of the town dentist who’s father tortured me when he drilled my teeth with his foot-operated drill. My mother had an aboriginal lady, Bella, to help with the washing and cleaning. She used to take her lunch with us while we listened to the community singing broadcast by radio from Sydney Town Hall.

Our next door neighbours were Gus and Gert Griffin. Gus operated the only garage in the town and owned a Buick car. They were good friends and often on a hot and steamy Sunday would drive us to the seaside. This involved a trip of some distance and the crossing of a wide river by a manually operated ferry that carried about six vehicles. There were few facilities at the beach, but we always managed to find a shady spot under a grove of leafy casuarina trees. I liked to lie on my back and watch the parrots hard at work cracking seeds in the branches above. This was before refrigeration reached country areas and instead of ice cream we were sometimes treated to cones of thick yellow custard that was kept cool in an icebox.

The journey home was always a trial. The problem arose when approaching the river when the ferry traffic would be banked up for over a mile – everyone wanting to travel home in the cool of dusk. The delay was expected and accepted, and the holidaymakers patiently waited their turn to cross; there were no instances of "road rage", in fact the evenings became social occasions. The men would stroll back and forth, smoking their pipes and yarning as they assessed how long it would be for their turn. Billy’s would be boiled by the roadside for a cuppa and, if the season was right, mushrooms would be gathered from the cow paddocks or blackberries picked from the road verge. And the exhausted kids… They were all asleep in the cars.