The average bloke's story as History

[pmccarthy]

I left school on a Friday fifty years ago this week (!) and started work underground in a mine on the Monday. I reckon the miners were just the same as they would have been fifty years earlier, even to the clothing and behaviour. I should write about them.

 

 

[Marty_d]

tell us more marty

 

 

 

He grew up on a tea plantation near Kandy, where his father was the manager.  

 

Had a lot of stories about his youth, I reckon he was a bit of a trouble-maker at school.  (One story involved placing a couple of throw-down style fireworks under the front legs of a disliked teacher's desk, who was known to lean heavily on his desk after sitting down).

 

He worked on a steam train after leaving school.  His older brother emigrated to Australia first - must have been early 1950's - and had to prove he was at least 50% European because of the White Australia policy.  Dad moved here when he was 25, did a few jobs in Melbourne, then settled in Tassie when he met Mum.

 

As a kid I remember him telling the story of going out hunting in Sri Lanka with some mates, armed only with a 12-gauge.  Apparently spent what seemed like half the night crouching behind a fallen tree, listening to something snuffling around on the other side and waiting for it to appear against the skyline, only to be told later that it was a leopard.

 

The book is "Memoirs of a Cockroach" (the burghers, European settlers in Sri Lanka, were known as cockroaches by the locals).  It only had a single print run - more for family and friends than anything else.  But it'll be good to give the kids when they're old enough to want to read about him.

 

 

[Bruce]

I'd like to hear about your first job, pmc. And the school, and where all this happened.

 

Gosh I realize my life was more sheltered than I thought, I thought school was tough.

 

 

[old man emu]

I followed up on a post in our sister site about this bloke, Ivan Southall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Southall

 

If Southall had written nothing else he would deserve the same kind of fame as his fellow-Australian, Paul Brickhill (author of The Dam Busters, Reach for the Sky and The Great Escape), for his non-fiction accounts of fascinating and important people and actions during World War II but Southall wrote much more.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

OK here goes again:

 

True Story

 

Two men are walking down a dark tunnel. They are wearing cap lamps, attached to rounded brown helmets reminiscent of the “tin hats” used in the trenches. The younger man is carrying a canvas bag over one shoulder, and a long yellow-painted package on a strap over the other shoulder. The older man carries a green metal box with a leather strap. They are walking along a railway track, stepping carefully between the rails so as not to trip on the edges of the partially-buried sleepers.

 

The rock walls of the tunnel are coated in grime which has settled out of the polluted air. Rock dust, diesel smog and the residue of explosives hide the progress marks that were painted there when this tunnel was driven. A drain runs alongside the tracks on one side, filled with a muddy stream that runs back toward the shaft and to the pumps that will carry it upward for a kilometre to the surface of the mine.

 

Two galvanised steel pipes run along one wall, hanging from pins driven into holes drilled in the rock. The larger pipe carries compressed air to power the rock drills. The smaller one carries fresh water to flush the drill cuttings and wash down the dust after blasting. That water is clean and can be used for drinking. Above the two men, the bare rock is studded with bolt heads, each supporting a steel plate held by a nut. These rock bolts hold the damaged, loose rock at the surface of the tunnel to the strong rock two metres further in. It seems like lifting yourself by your bootstraps, thinks the younger man, but it works.

 

A light appears dimly ahead, quickly growing brighter. The two men step off the tracks and stand against the tunnel wall, backs to the wall, on the side opposite the drain. The younger man puts the bag and bundle down carefully beside him. A rumbling grows, then gains a shrill overlay of the sound of dozens of steel wheels rolling on steel rails. The locomotive approaches, nearly as wide as the tunnel and tall as a man. The driver sitting at the front, hand on the electric control lever, nods to them as he passes. Then the trucks, one after the other, taller and wider than the locomotive, filled with glistening ore. They flash past at what seems a fantastic speed but is probably only ten kilometres per hour. If any truck were to jump the rails, perhaps because of a loose rail or collapsed wheel bearing, they would be crushed like bugs on a bumper. It has happened to others.

 

The two men do not wear high-visibility jackets, nor do they have a safe place to stand as the ore train passes, because this is the year 1970 and such things are barely thought of. They wear laced leather boots which fill with water every day as they wade through pools in the low points on each of the mine levels. They tie their trouser cuffs to their bootlaces in a vain attempt to keep the mud off their saturated socks. They wear square-cut leather bootlaces as bowyangs around their knees, to ease the weight of saturated trousers on their belts. Their larger leather lamp belts carry only a battery. In years to come that belt will carry a self-rescuer in case of fire, a lanyard for safety and even a communication system, but not yet.

 

Neither man wears safety glasses. Although the mine has just introduced a rule making it compulsory to do so, it just isn’t practical. The atmosphere is saturated with moisture, and glasses fog up quickly anywhere away from the intake ventilation shaft. They carry glasses in a left top pocket and will put them on quickly if the mine foreman appears. He will pretend not to notice.

 

The men trudge on, reaching a turn-off to the right. There is a switch-point in the rails which they step over. A loud hissing sound is just a leak in the compressed air line and the sound fades behind them as they walk on. Now, in this crosscut, they have entered the orebody itself, the largest mass of lead-zinc ore ever discovered in the world. Above and below them, on twenty-six levels, other men are doing similar things. To the north and south, for kilometres, men are driving new levels, extracting ore, and performing all the tasks needed to make these things possible. Most are specialists; some work the big drills or drive the trains. Some empty the dunny cans from the toilets, every day of their working lives.

 

The two men have reached the base of a ladder in a small chamber. The older man pulls on red plastic gloves and starts to climb. The younger man reorganises his two burdens, slinging them across his back, and follows. He doesn’t carry gloves – he thinks it is effeminate. The sooner his hands toughen the better, and they will toughen soon on those rusted iron ladder rungs. He doesn’t trust his partner and is concerned that if the fool slips and falls the he will be knocked off the ladder too, and both will plunge to the level below.

 

They reach the top of the ladder. The sounds of the mine have faded to silence. The rattle of drills, which carries through rock, the hiss of leaking pipes, the gurgle of water are all behind them. They walk down a tunnel that is strewn with loose rocks. Dozens of pipe-ends protrude from the floor where the drillers have finished creating rings of blast holes.

 

The air is different here, too. It smells of diesel exhaust from the big loaders working far below. There is an overlay of ammonia from spilled explosives and yellow nitrous fumes from the explosives that have already done their job. The younger man puts down his bag and the long bundle. They may not need the theodolite at all here and he will have carried the tripod up the ladder for nothing. The surveyor has already put the instrument down carefully.

 

The young man takes a powerful torch out of the bag and hands it to the surveyor. Together they walk carefully along the tunnel. In places, cuttings from the drills have left long beaches of grey sand between the standpipes. There are spills of oil from the drills lying in pools. Suddenly the tunnel ceases to be. Where it must have continued is now a yawning void, so deep, wide and high that with their bobbing cap lamps they can see nothing beyond. Even with the torch the far wall is dimly seen, the continuation of their tunnel a distant dark rectangle set in a grey universe.

 

The stope, for that is what they have reached, is the void left when ore is removed. It is as wide, high and long as a city skyscraper. The young man knows that but finds it hard to comprehend, because there are dozens of such stopes on this mine and dozens more in other mines along the length of this massive lode. Most stopes behave as they should, but some become unstable as they grow larger with repeated blasting. Some collapse, threatening the safety of the levels above and the stability of the mine itself.

 

This stope is misbehaving. Miners have reported rock noises and crashing sounds, suggesting that the roof is becoming unstable. Usually no one is present to observe such behaviour because stopes are non-entry openings. They are blasted from side tunnels like this one and the ore is drawn off by big loaders through tunnels beneath the pile of broken rock. The surveyors are here to measure the top of the stope and determine whether it has grown any larger.

 

Against one wall is a safety harness attached to a rope about six metres long. The rope, in turn, is attached to a large steel pin which has been placed in one of the blastholes in the floor. The mine rules, and government regulations, require anyone approaching an open hole to wear a safety harness. The young man wonders what it would feel like to fall six metres and be stopped suddenly by a rope. The harness just goes around waist and shoulders – would it pull off over your head, dislocating your shoulders as it did? Would it break most of your ribs?

 

People have fallen into stopes without a harness. The fall, of course, killed them, but miners always retrieve the body. Sometimes a miner is paid danger money to go over the side attached to a winch rope, with unknown fields of loose rock a hundred metres above him. At other times the loaders work to draw the ore from below until something appears that might once have been a body, before it was milled to fragments inside tonnes of grinding rocks.

 

The older man puts on the harness and approaches the lip of the cliff. The younger man follows, not wanting to miss anything and confident of his footing. They stand together and follow the beam of the torch as it plays around the edges of the void.

 

The miners joke about the size of rocks that fall in these stopes. There are suitcases, mini-minors, and kombi vans. Kombi vans are about as big as they get. As the two men stand together in the silence, staring across the void, a kombi van flashes past their faces perhaps two metres away, striking with a crash far below. Even before the crash they have begun to move, turning in panic.

 

The first reaction is automatic and doesn’t involve the thinking brain at all. They turn and run, legs pumping perhaps harder than they have ever done, accelerating past the oil spills and the pipes. The torch was dropped but their cap lamps illuminate their path. Two or three seconds pass like a minute. The younger man, running on the left, sees his partner’s legs suddenly flick up until they are horizontal and above the floor, pointing in the direction they are running. He doesn’t take it in, doesn’t think, keeps running. Seconds later he is at the ladderway with a foot on the top rung.

 

His heart is racing but now his mind has caught up. There is no danger here. What has happened to his partner? He climbs out of the ladderway and walks carefully to where the surveyor is lying on his back. The man’s chest is heaving, so he isn’t dead. A taut rope stretches behind the surveyor’s body to the steel pin in the floor. Ahead of him, his helmet lies on the floor still attached to his waist by its electric cable. His head, fortunately, rests on a mound of sandy drill cuttings.

 

It takes a few minutes for the surveyor to realise where he is, to calm his panic, to control his breathing. The young man squats beside him and tries to be reassuring. Eventually they are standing together, gathering their equipment. They will do no more work today. They will tell the underground manager that the stope has become unstable and should be backfilled with sand as soon as possible.

 

Back down on the level the surveyor finds it difficult to walk, his knees trembling. Somehow, they get back to the shaft before the crib-time cage run to the surface and eventually emerge, blinking, into sunlight.

 

In the staff crib room, the surveyors are playing five hundred as they eat their pasties and drink Coca-Cola. The young man tells the story with embellishments because his surveyor, an unpopular man, eats his lunch alone elsewhere. Somebody says

 

“You should have left the pommy bastard down there.”

 

 

 

 

[facthunter]

Some of you people are lucky to have parents who "lasted" . My father died when I was 25 primarily as a result of an industrial accident. and I left the area when I was just under 19 to work in Sydney. I did take him UP once in a Tiger Moth, from District Park to Caves beach, near Swansea, so that's something.. IF he was scared he didn't show it.  Nev..

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

PM your story is better-written than much professional stuff I've seen. It's worthy of archiving and use in education.

 

Did the younger man go back down that hole?

 

 

[pmccarthy]

PM your story is better-written than much professional stuff I've seen. It's worthy of archiving and use in education.

 

Did the younger man go back down that hole?

 

Yes I did, spent ten years doing it and then moved on to other mines. The story is as accurate as I can remember it. The pommy surveyor moved to the Northern Territory shortly after this incident.

 

 

[Yenn]

Not really a family history story, but just  bit from the past about an easy job.

 

This was a job that had been waiting for some time, there had been one tape put in as the chimney was constructed, but the second one had been left to the end. Over 650’ of 1” by 1/8” copper to be lowered from the top, then attached to the inserts already in place in the concrete.

 

Picking a day when it would be possible to get it all hanging in place and not blown around by the wind was the first priority. Getting it attached before the wind got to a point where it was too difficult to handle was not far behind.

 

This was in the days before hand held radios, so for the steeplejack to get what he needed from the others was going to take a bit of shouting.

 

For a drop this long he is using a single whip, which is unofficially illegal, but there is a little caveat which says an experienced person can do it. The single whip is one rope over a single pulley at the top and he uses a piece of ¼” cord between the bosuns chair and the standing part of the rope, tied off with a halyard hitch. That lets him go down by pulling down on the top of the hitch, so that it will slip down the standing part. Easy when you know how and a lot simpler than some of the modern mechanical methods.

 

The rope has to be longer than twice the drop, so it is quite heavy and has to be lowered all the way to the ground and then nearly as far again, until there is no slack. Getting into the chair, which is 10” deep and a couple of feet wide with an inverted double V of 2” rope spliced underneath it is not the easiest with all the gear which has to be carried, a 5/16” tap to clean out the threads in the sockets, an ample supply of bolts to screw in and the capping plates.

 

The first length of tape is lowered and the steeplejack gets into the bosuns chair. Negotiating the scaffolding that his helpers are working on is the first problem, it is easy to get the tool bag caught and drop a load of gear. It is also quite hard pulling up the standing rope, because it is heavier than the steeplejack, or at least feels it with all the friction.

 

Bolt up the first clamp over the tape, drop down a bit, hammer the tape into alignment and close to the wall, then attach the next clamp. Most of the threads have to be cleaned out, they were filled with grease when the wall was poured, so a tap in a hand brace does the job well. Tighten up with a spanner and go down another 3’ 9” and repeat.

 

The view from up here is great, it is nearly possible to see Sydney and the South Coast runs away, just around behind the wall in the other direction. When the siren goes off at the fire station it is easy to watch the firies come out, open the doors, pull the truck out, close the doors and eventually drive off, leaving the steeplejack wondering if the fire waited for them. Looking up is always daunting, as the clouds pass over the top it gives the impression that the stack is falling over, it doesn’t seem to matter how often he sees it, the same feeling comes, rather the same way as when engrossed in what he is doing, he sometimes gets the feeling he is tumbling. It takes a quick look at the horizon to cure that ill.

 

When the first length of tape is attached, the next is lowered on a rope, always a trying time. Who wants to be under a hundred pounds of copper tape, writhing in any wind. Best way is to lower it off to one side and then walk it sideways into place around the top scaffolding.

 

All goes well and the steeplejack is about 200 feet down at smoko. Too far to pull back to the top and still further to go down to the ground. Ah well, let’s skip smoko, but the back of the legs are getting stiff from the edge of the chair. Time for a walk so he climbs up out of the chair, holding the ropes above and stands on the chair trying to walk for a minute or so.

 

Back to work and so it goes until lunch, when there is still a couple of hundred feet to go. Much too far to go up and if he takes the chair down, he will have to pull himself up that far. The only thing to do is tie off the chair and climb down to the ground.

 

Lunch is finished so to get back to work, he goes to the top of the chimney in the lift and then climbs back down to the chair. A couple of hours later, job done, but he has to go back to the top, pull all the rope up and coil it. That rope is much too important to drop it from the top.

 

Some people may think this is a dangerous job, but I would rather be up here looking down than down there wondering what someone is going to drop on me.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

A great story Yenn. No author could write that detail unless they had been there and done it.

 

 

[Yenn]

I spent years doing it, just thought I would put in one of the good days.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Thomas Henry Dasey was my Great Great Uncle. He was born on Bukkulla Station on 7th Nov. 1848. He wrote the following vivid account at Copeton in or before 1917

 

Away back in the 70's I was in south-western Queensland working among the stations ‘inside' (as the more settled district were called), and had as a mate one Charley D. He was a graduate of Oxford, and the "Wild Boy" of an aristocratic English family. We were shearers, and were making for the "Never Never" which meant the wild and thinly populated parts.

 

The season was a bad one, and we had travelled for many weeks in search of shearing and, failing to get that, we tried to get other work, but in this also were unsuccessful. Our coin had dwindled down to a few shillings, and our horses were so thin we could barely feel them with. four-inch spurs. The tucker bags were nearly empty, and altogether the outlook was anything but bright for us. But in this wonderful land of the bounding marsupial, let a man's luck be ever so bad, he never knows the moment it will change for the better.

 

We were jogging along smoking our last bit of weed, feeling very glum, and sadly meditating on the emptiness of most things in this world - especially our tobacco pouches - when Charley, who had very keen eyes, noticed an object lying in the scrub a short -distance off the track. This on closer examination proved to be a large valise and on opening it we were amazed to find it contained a complete clerical outfit. It had evidently been lost by somebody and been exposed to the weather for some time, but the contents were in good order. Truly a strange thing to run against in the dense, unbroken bush, and as it occurred to us that there might be a dead parson not far away, we searched the scrub for some distance and, as we could not find the owner alive or dead, we had no hesitation in taking possession of the valise and its contents.

 

We went into camp a bit earlier than usual that evening, and examined our find more closely. Charley put on some of the clothes and they fitted him splendidly, and next morning, after I had trimmed his hair and shaved him, and he had donned a black suit, he looked a parson from top to toe. We had formed our plans the night before. Charley was to impersonate a clergyman, and I was to act as his 'man'.

 

In those days in the Never Never' country, persons residing on stations and wishing to get married were often put to great inconvenience; they either had to take a long journey to some township 'inside' where there was a resident minister, or make up their minds to wait until one came along. In the latter case, they stood a chance of having to wait till their love grew cold or expired altogether by effluxion of time. Missioners were being sent to China, the Cannibal Islands and other outlandish places to convert (and assist to feed) the heathen; but the spiritual requirements of the inhabitants of back-blocks of this country were shamefully neglected and the visits of gentlemen of the 'cloth' to these remote places were very few indeed.

 

We determined to remedy this evil as far as lay in our power and, with that end in view, decided to make for Cooper's Creek - right through the stations - and our purpose was to marry and christen as many of the population as possible on our way.

 

The first place we called at was an outstation occupied by a stockman and his family.

 

I felt rather nervous, but Charley was as cool as the proverbial cucumber and introduced himself as the Rev Charles Smugson, a travelling minister sent out by the London Missionary Society to assist in Christianising the aborigines. I, being only the 'man' needed no introduction.

 

Our reception was a very kindly one and we were invited to unsaddle and remain for the night. The stockman's wife, after a brief conversation, in the course of which she informed us that her two youngest children had not yet been christened, busied herself preparing supper and, seeing that we had breakfasted that morning off burnt 'Johnny cake' and tea without sugar, we both noticed this proceeding with much inward satisfaction. Our hostess, not heeding Charley's reiterated requests not to 'put herself to too much trouble', insisted on setting a separate table for him. I was asked to sit down with the family.

 

Before we commenced operations, Charley stood up between the two tables and said what I though the longest grace I had ever heard. Of course, I said 'Amen’. It was while Charley was standing up to say grace, with his hands together, that I noticed what I considered the only flaw in his get up. We had converted our last bit of flour into a Johnny cake the evening before, and having forgotten to pare his finger nails there was a considerable quantity of dried dough sticking to them.

 

They entertained us most hospitably that night and the stockman, being a rather intelligent fellow, and well acquainted with that region, gave us a lot of valuable information about distances between stations, their owners' names, and other facts, all of which we noted for further use. I borrowed some tobacco from him and surreptitiously passed half of it to Charley who, shortly afterwards, stepped out into the starlight; and as he was a long time away I hinted to our hostess that he was praying in solitude; but I knew very well that he was enjoying a good sound smoke.

 

Next morning Charley christened the two children, and went through the ceremony without a hitch. When the stockman asked what was to pay, Charley said that he never charged for Christening, but if he chose to donate anything to the 'Mission' fund, he would have much pleasure in taking charge of it. Our hostess then produced two sovereigns, which Charley pocketed with a most benevolent smile. We then saddled up and made a start for the head station which was 20 miles away, the stockman riding with us some distance, to put us on the right track. After he left us, we had a consultation and decided not to get to the station too early and, as his wife had put us up some lunch and there was plenty of grass and water for the horses, we turned out for several hours - and came to the conclusion that so far we had got on splendidly and that we would be alright if we didn't run against some of our old shearing chums. If we did that we were well aware that the fat would be in the fire.

 

I may mention here that I began to have a sort of respect for Charley -that I hadn't had before, and couldn't help addressing him in much choicer language than heretofore.

 

I don't exactly know what caused this feeling, but probably his clerical garb had most to do with it. I also had a dim idea that there was some difference in Charley, as I fancied - perhaps it was fancy - that on one or two occasions that day his manner and language when speaking to me savoured somewhat of giving orders.

 

We reached the station about sundown. Charley introduced himself and was at once taken into the squatter's house and I was shown into the kitchen. The cook informed me that he had lived there for six years, and that my boss was the second 'devil dodger' that he had seen in that time. I felt rather pleased at hearing this, as I thought it augured well for the 'Mission funds.

 

We remained for a week at this Station, living on the fat of the land. Charley married the sheep overseer to a native Princess named Lily, though she wasn't much like the flower of that name, being about the blackest damsel I had set eyes on. However, her groom seemed very much enamoured, and took her out riding every day, dressed in crimson shirt and moles. We christened 18 children during our stay, their ages ranging from a few weeks to six or seven years. I had to hold several of the biggest while they were being christened, and they bit and scratched like wild cats. When we departed, the 'fund' had benefited to the extent of 20 pounds and Charley carried a letter of introduction to the owner of the next station, some 30 miles distant.

 

We got on in this way for six weeks, marrying and christening, more or less, at nearly every place we called at and, strange to say, we hadn't met a soul anywhere that knew us. Our horses began to put on flesh - and so did we - and we began to get tired of the life. We had heard of a lieutenant of black police with his troop about 100 miles ahead towards Cooper's Creek, and as his father had a station 'inside' and we had been shearing for him two seasons back, and the lieutenant had been in charge of the shed, we didn't think it exactly politic to meet him

 

Not that we were afraid, why should we be? We knew that we had done a vast amount of good during our travels through this benighted and parson-forsaken country, and the mission fund had reached the respectable total of 120 pounds. Why should we be afraid? No, as I said before, we were simply tired of the life. However, we abandoned our original plan of going to Cooper's Creek, and turned off at a right angle, and after three day's travelling came to a place called the 'Cross-roads' where a foreigner (a Frenchman probably) named Moriarty owned a small station, and also kept a public house. All the most popular brands of 'electricity' were manufactured on the premises and retailed at 1/- per glass. The liquor was divided into three classes - extra strong, strong and medium. Of course he kept a supply of  “good stuff”  for special customers.

 

As there was no other house of the kind nearer than 50 miles, this man did a big business and had for clients men of all classes, from the squatter to the swagman. Many a poor fellow, after two or three years toil 'outback', making his way 'inside' with a big cheque, met his downfall at this place. If he called for a drink, he was supplied with the 'extra strong' and two, or at the most three, glasses were sufficient to make him drunk and, unless he was a man of strong will and cast iron constitution, he was never allowed to sober until his money was all gone, and his horses, saddle and gear had 'jumped over the bar'. This usually took from a week to a fortnight, according to the size of the cheque,

 

When the last coin was scooped into the till, he was 'tapered off' with the 'medium', and after a day or so was started off on the road with a bit of tucker and a bottle of 'chain lightning' to help him along. Some of these unfortunates were never seen again alive - went raving mad and died in the bush of d.t.s and thirst. Sometimes they couldn't get away from the place, and had the presumption to 'peg out' on the premises. In such cases they were quietly 'planted' over on the sand ridge - no enquiry, no inquest; just a line from Moriarty to the nearest police officer stating that a sick traveller had died at his place and was buried at his expense - that was all.

 

There had been races a few days prior to our arrival and a number of men from the surrounding stations were still about the place, seemingly getting a drink as best they

 

could, and engaged in a game that Charley (who, of course, was a Latin scholar) called 'flagelatis cati', which, being translated, means 'whipping the cat', but, without doubt, they were the sorriest looking lot I had ever seen. After Charley was fixed up in the parlour, I sauntered round to the bar and 'shouted' for them a couple of times, which had a wonderfully exhilarating effect, and one bleary-eyed old warrior called me aside and informed me (almost confidentially) that, for a sky-pilot's flunkey, I was a real good sort.

 

Charley held a 'meeting' that night in a large room at the back and, between blacks and whites, had a fair attendance. He was a fluent speaker and a good elocutionist, and on this occasion he dealt at considerable length with intemperance and its concomitant evils. During this part of his address, some of the sorry ones held their heads down, others said 'ere, 'ere and righto Mister', but towards the end of the discourse, when he got very eloquent and, by way of a smile, brought Beelzebub down from the highest point of the Bunya Mountains on a buckjumping horse, he drew such a graphic picture that the congregation (being more or less under the influence of Moriarty's medium) thought it was real, and sprang from their seats in a body and called out 'sit back: hold him: hold him: and, as the uproar continued, the meeting was brought to an abrupt close.

 

We decided to take a few days rest at this place and then make it back 'inside'. I didn't see much of Charley during these days, as I believe he spent most of his time in devotional exercises with Miss Moriarty who (notwithstanding her surroundings) was a very pretty and pious girl. I, feeling somewhat lonely, determined to essay a little mission work on my own account. I had noticed with much concern that the barmaid, (who was a fine upstanding wench) was forward and frivolous in her manner and as, doubtless, the poor child was set by many temptations in this wicked place, I felt it my duty (in the absence of Charley) to try to induce her to adopt a more staid and modest demeanour.

 

With this object in view, I engaged her as often as possible in conversation of a spiritual nature and, being young, very earnest, and not bad looking (valuable aids in mission work) I believe my efforts would have been fairly successful if it hadn't been for a pernicious counter-influence who was continually hanging about the place, and who even had the effrontery to hint at throwing me out of the bar.

 

We rested for nearly a week and, when we left, turned our horses' heads for 'inside'. We travelled 50 miles the first day, and camped for the night. After boiling our 'Jack Shays', we put the whole of the clerical paraphernalia into the valise, and solemnly burned the lot. I stirred the fire with a long pole, and Charley said a few appropriate words over the ashes.

 

With regard to the 'mission fund' which amounted to 130 pounds, after due consideration we came to the conclusion that sending missionaries to the islands to be eaten by the savages was a sinful waste of money (also of good men and women) and we could not conscientiously encourage such a system. Moreover, we always understood that the labourer was worthy of his hire, and we were entitled to a fair remuneration for all the arduous work we had done in the good cause during our travels.

 

We wished to be strictly honest in this matter and, after much discussion, we finally decided to divide the amount equally between ourselves and to donate £5 each to the Roma hospital. This we did a fortnight later, when we reached Roma. Charley and I parted at Roma, and the parting was a sad one. We were mates for three years and had had many ups and downs, and had been in many tight corners during that time; but as we both had a kind of presentiment that if we remained together we might get into a still tighter corner, we thought it best to part.

 

Charley went over to Adelaide and founded a sect of his own called the "Smugsonians', had a large following, made heaps of lucre, and married a rich widow, was highly respected by all who knew him, and died in the odour of something (sanctity let us hope) a few years ago.

 

As for myself, from my youth up I was always of a most backward and retiring disposition, and as I hadn't the ability to found a new sect, or the good fortune to marry a rich widow, I am still a poor and, I hope, an honest man.

 

 

[Bruce]

That's a wonderful story pmc. Thanks for sharing it.

 

 

[old man emu]

I've just finished reading John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The story follows a family's journey from the time they are thrown off their tenant farm in the Mid-west USA to their early times in the San Joaquin Valley of California as crop pickers. While it does not tell the story of any real family, it is written from what Steinbeck learned and experienced at the time, although he was not an "Okie" that the characters in the story were. While writing The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck visited Arvin Federal Government Camp near Bakersfield, portrayed as "Weedpatch Camp" in the novel. The camp is still used by migrant workers.

 

The story, although a fiction, could have been written about any of the thousands of families who trekked to California hoping to survive and maybe get a better life than they had in the drought-ridden lands of the Mid-west during the Depression years. It is a story that paints land owners and original residents of California in a very bad light. It also gives an indication of how these people with secure lives used violence and intimidation to not only prey on the newcomers, but also shows how those who had possession of wealth stifled the attempts of the disadvantaged to organise to obtain better pay and conditions. 

 

The background to the story is true. https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=OK008

 

The Associated Farmers of California dismissed the novel as a "pack of lies" and "communist propaganda". The book was briefly banned in the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin, because the ruling Communist Party was troubled by the thought that it showed that even the most destitute Americans could afford a car. Steinbeck received death threats and the FBI put him under surveillance. The book was banned in many libraries and copies were symbolically burned in towns across America. When WB Camp, one of the most successful cotton producers in California, presided over its burning in Bakersfield, he said: ''We are angry, not because we were attacked but because we were attacked by a book obscene in the extreme sense of the word.''

 

The title was taken from The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord/He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored) written by abolitionist Julia Ward Howe in 1861.

 

Even if you are not interested in this historically-based story, the book is a really great read because Steinbeck was an excellent wordsmith whose word pictures are detailed, yet vivid.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Thomas Henry Dasey was my Great Great Uncle...

 

I enjoyed reading of their exploits immensely. Reads like Henry Lawson. 

 

...He was born on Bukkulla Station on 7th Nov. 1848...

 

I commuted past Bukkulla each day in the 1979, riding my new CX-500, travelling further in an hour than your Great Uncle did in a day, but no doubt missing many aspects of the bush.