Atyeo Bryce Mervyn
| Type of person | Individual |
|---|---|
| Date of birth | 1930 |
| Place of birth | Nurse Greens Nursing home King Street Gawler |
| Principal occupation | Farmer |
| Date of death | 2014 |
Bryce Atyeo’s Story 1930 Ward Belt Gawler
Bryce was born at Nurse Greens Nursing home in King Street Gawler, on the first of March 1930 at 4p.pm.At this time his family lived at Woods Road Wads Belt just off Parkers Road on the right hand side, parts of the old home still remain today.” I remember the layout of the sheds and the garage for the old Overland Whippet Six car that Dad bought new in 1929 . I remember clearly the day my brother Lance and my sister Mavis came home from Gawler in the horse and sulky with my red tricycle in the back. It was my birthday I think and I was thrilled to bits. On one occasion I was in bed with tonsillitis and feeling very ill when Mum and Dad came in with a tiny little puppy. She was mostly white with black patches and one wall eye. I called her Lass on the spot. She was to be my constant companion until 1939. Another thing I remember was my pusher (stroller) the body part was made of wicker and cane with a red padded seat, two rubber tyred wheels. A wooden T handle that folded back over the body when stored and a prop stand on the front so I could sit in it without anyone holding the handle. A small wheel protruded out the back for going up kerbs or steps. This was my make believe motor car and I can remember making out to crank it like Dad had to crank the old Whippet to start it quite often. I would then make engine noises and jumping in pretending to drive it like a car.
STRATHALBYN 1933
It was probably 1933 when we left Ward Belt and moved to Strathalbyn next door to the racecourse. I think my Uncle Bert and my Dad must have been share farming my Grandfather’s property at Ward Belt and my Dad decided to strike out on his own. Our property was situated on what’s known as Dry Plains Road and was bordered by this and the racecourse, Michelmore Road, the railway line at the rear. The property was very run down when we moved in and the house was small. Dad had two or three built rooms on as soon as we moved in. This work was done by two stonemasons Paul and Abe. All day long Abe would say “Why worry Paul” and Paul would answer back ‘Why worry Abe” and that went on for several weeks til the job was completed. There were three dams on the farm and two of them had yabbies in them. Every year there were mushrooms in the paddocks along Michelmore Road and we picked them by the bucketful and in cardboard boxes. I was always interested in mechanical things and my dog Lass and I used to walk behind the binder and watch the sheaves of hay coming out. She would catch and kill all the mice coming out as they ran to escape the binder. Riding in the grain box on the harvester was a real thrill with the beaters whirring, the sieves shaking and the belts flapping, it all sounded like one big roar. Lass always followed about 50 yards behind. All the farm implements were pulled by Dad’s pride and joy, his beautiful Clydesdale horses. My favourite brother Lance used to take me with him everywhere usually in the spring dray and he would let me drive the horse and hold the reins and Lass would always be there too. One day Dad and Lance were cutting chaff and Lass and I were standing close by watching, as usual, the speed governor on the old T Ford engine began acting up and going too fast so Dad ordered me up to the house and to take Lass with me and stay there. If I had not done this I would not be here today writing this. Minutes after I left and went up to the house the governor jammed and the engine rev’s increased until the chaffcutter was destroyed, pieces went in all directions, and the cast-iron gear that used to drive the jaws landed right where I was standing and the knives were found on the other side of the sheds and haystacks. Swaggies used to come around in those days and would stay in some of the empty sheds at the racecourse. They would come to our house and offer to work for food tea, coffee, eggs, flour etc. Dad would give them odd jobs and Mum would have them chop wood and garden jobs. One of the men made a kite for me, it was 6ft high and 3 foot wide, the frame was the tongue and groove floor boards. It was covered with newspaper and glued with flour and water paste. It had a very long tail and took off first try. The kite flew all afternoon but broke away in the evening and disappeared into the sky. My brother Vern and I had this pet lamb we named the BEBBIE WEBLER don’t ask me why it’s an Atyeo thing to give pets or anything strange names. We trained this lamb to butt us in the backside when bent over, this was fine until BEBBIE WEBLER grew a bit larger, then we had to detrain him. Everything went well and we thought we had solved the problem until the Hannaford’s truck came around to grade our seed wheat and other grain ready for seeding time. The machine was started and the man put a bag of our seed into the hopper, when the seed came out of the machine into the bag and the bag was half full, the man bent over the half full bag to check the grain. BEBBIE WEBLER could not restrain himself and charged making contact and sent the man sprawling over the bag and into the dirt. If the man could have caught that lamb I am sure there would have been roast lamb for tea that night, the BEBBIE WEBLER was gone and so were Vern and I. The language that came out of that man’s mouth was unbelievable to say the least. My sister Mavis bribed me with a Freddo frog and a dandy ice-cream to have my first haircut at Nesbit’s barber shop in High Street. I came out to Mavis who was waiting in the horse and buggy outside yelling” smell me Mavis smell me” I had never had hair oil on before. Next was Mrs Wiley’s baker shop to receive my bribe. Another day I recall was a race day and I was out at the front fence, as usual, on race day and I was watching the cars going past to the race course next door. Suddenly an aeroplane flew over very low, circled around and landed in the paddock across the road from our house and taxied right up to the fence. Lass took off around the back of our house and stayed there all day until it took off later that day. Two men climbed out of the plane dressed in overcoats and scarves around their necks, Biggles type leather helmets and goggles and leather gloves. When they removed all the gear they walked down to the races in navy blue suits and felt hats for their day out. This happened at about 10am and I refused to leave my spot until they 4.30pm when they left. Mum had brought my lunch out to me I remember. I still have picture of that plane in my mind to this day. It was a monoplane dark green single engine twin cockpits with small windscreens and no tail wheel just a skid. This would have been 1934-1935 and to this day I still wonder who those men were and I still remember the roar of the engine as they took off.
KAPUNDA 1936-1937
In late 1935 or early 1936 my father sold the Strathalbyn farm and bought a farm at Kapunda which proved to be the big mistake in his life. The farm was situated 4 or 5 kms out of town on the Tarlee road, the house was large with a big wide veranda on three sides, a large garden, enclosed orchard and lots of sheds, and my Mum loved it. It was all she never had. There was electricity, tap water, telephone, good chook sheds, large German style kitchen with large pantry, huge lounge-dining room and 3 or 4 bedrooms, all the things Mum wanted and more. It was centenary year and I remember we all went into town to join in the celebrations. There were hundreds of people, whistles blowing and a band playing in the street. Before we moved onto the farm, we lived in an old rented house in Hare Street in Kapunda. The house was very old and it had a cellar and an underground tank under the kitchen floor with old Douglas hand pump to pump water to the kitchen and drinking water. On the farm there was a blacksmith workshop and a carpenter’s workshop. In the carpenters workshop there was a wooden bench. It was beautifully built. On the front of the bench at each end there was a six inch or more vice, all made of wood including the main screw with an acme thread. There was an old horse-works for driving the old chaffcutter but this was longer used, but was still in working order, just need two horses to provide the power and walk slowly around in a circle. It had been replaced with a car engine. My brother Vern and I with Lass my constant companion, used to find rabbits in the many stone walls on the farm. Lass would sniff them out and we would pull the wall apart and pull them out and put them in a bag to take home. One incident I remember very clearly was when Vern put me and Lass getting into an old wicker pram (which Mum had used for all 6 of us children) with 4 large wheels and was probably four feet ( or 1.2m) high and very unstable. This was at the top of a very steep hill which ran to the garage and sheds and past the house. Vern assured us it was quite safe, and then gave us a push and away we went. We picked up speed very quickly and in no time we were head straight for the garage, and Lass decided at this point she had had enough and bailed out and left me to my fate. What happened after that I am not sure; the pram must have done a sharp turn tipping me out and rolled over 3 or 4 yards short of a stone wall at the back of the shed. I remember lying there and Lass licking my face I was crying my eyes out and all I had were a few scratches and a lump on my head. Vern by this time had gone missing and did not return until late in the evening. The farm was not what Dad had hoped for, the land was not very fertile, and it had been neglected and heavily cropped over the years. The property was sold at a loss and dad bought another farm at Kulde in the Mallee between Tailem Bend and Karoonda.
KULDE 1937
We moved there in April 1937 and moved out again in 1941 and came back to Gawler and leased a dairy farm on Hillier Road, right at the end on the northern side, it is a vineyard now. The house at Kulde was a let -down for Mum it was old with 3 stone rooms on the front, and four timber and iron rooms and a lobby for the Post Office at the rear. Outside there was a grapevine trellis right across the back, a cellar at one end and a stone garage and laundry come bathroom at the other end. The toilet was twenty yards from the house, a galvanised iron structure with a piece of hessian for a door and a bucket. There were two 1000 gallon rainwater tanks for the house and the annual rainfall was 7-8 inches per year. There was no tap water and the water for the cows, horses, sheep, bathing and garden and laundry had to be carted by horse and dray from the government windmill bore half a mile down the road by the school. The school was a one room weatherboard building with an entry porch one end and a shelter shed at the other end. There were 16 students all together when we came. One teacher for 7 grades, Miss McCurley was her name strict but very good. The school opened in 1936 and closed in 1940 when the student number got below 6 and I went to correspondence lessons from 01/02/1941-01/05/1941. I loved this because I would complete my fortnight lessons in three days and do what I liked until the next pack came by post. As well as the farm we had the Post Office, telephone exchange and mail run to Chapman’s bore six miles down the Murray Bridge Road by horse and sulky. We had to pick up the mail bags from the morning train from the Kulde Sth or siding was across the road about 250 yards away and put the outgoing bags on the afternoon passenger train to Tailem bend. Mum ran this side of things most of the time or brother Harry. On The farm I was never bored, I would walk for miles with Lass around the farm and I loved the bush on the farm and each side of the railway line. We chased rabbits and looked for rabbits and lizards and looked for burrows or warrens to put to the ferrets down on Sundays and net the rabbits as they rushed out to escape from the ferrets. Sundays was also the time for pulling down big stone heaps and catching the rabbits hiding between the stones and underneath in the shallow burrows on the hard dirt. The dogs Lass and Arty Lou and drgon dirt would circle around the outside and grab any escapees. The rabbits were sold for meat to the collector, at his truck at the Government Bore the next morning for one to two shillings a pair. Sometimes it paid to skin them and sell the skins in the winter time when their skins were at their best. At one time we had a family living in two tents just outside our front gate. Their names were Whitehead, 3 Children and Mum and Dad. The father was a ganger working on the railway line and the kids and I used to play together and go to school together. One day we went up the line to an old stone crushing plant up the hill towards Tailem Bend. The engine and the crusher were still there and a large tin of grease. We took grease and spread it on the railway lines and then hid in the bush to see what would happen when the mid-day train from Loxton came through to Tailem Bend. The engine hit the greasy line and that was it, the driving wheels just spun around and the train stood still. Several times they reversed back to Kulde then with sand boxes open and men throwing sand onto the line with shovels they tried again without success. About this time we headed through the bush very scared and wondering what would happen to us if our parents found out. They had to send another engine out from Tailem Bend with long cables to pull the train through the greasy section of the line and then a gang of men worked until dark to clear the line ready for the passenger train next morning. We were very scared for a long time and never told a soul. After the investigation by the police everything was forgotten. I had a friend named Bobby Hacker who lived about 2 miles toward Moorlands with Uncle and Grandfather. Bobby walked to school every day and would call into our place and we would walk to school together. At school we had a lesson called Nature Study and Bobby would always bring along an item. Sometimes the item would be in a bag or in his pocket, even in school bag with his lunch. Items included an owl, a lizard, Skink, wood pigeon, echidna, small goanna, or some bush or flower, the poor teacher never knew what to expect next. One morning he arrived at our house with a bag but did not show my Mum the contents, I thought that was a first, and wondered what he had this time. Halfway to school he pulled out of the bag a white leather belt with .22 bullets all around it and two silver black and white leather holsters with sliver studs and two silver, black and ivory seven shot .22 revolvers. I said “where the hell did you get them.” Bobby said he found them on the side of the road and I knew he wouldn’t lie to me. We fired off two shots then Bobby hid them in some bushes and we went off to school and I Promised I wouldn’t tell anybody. Bobby could not contain himself however and told Bruce Hood who ran and told the teacher. Booby was expelled from school for two weeks for bringing guns to school. Booby was telling the truth when he said he found them on the road side. Our next door neighbours had moved house and the revolvers had fallen off the truck as they turned the corner. They were very glad to get them back and gave Bobby a reward. I lost lass in late 1939; I always had her tied up at night on a strong rope so she could not get into trouble for chasing and killing sheep. We could see one morning that rope had been cut cleanly and Las was gone and we knew but could not prove that the rotten neighbours across the railway line had killed her; I was devastated and cried for days. The neighbours were always causing trouble in the district and one day when they came for their mail, they brought their dog spot with them to the Post Office. Now Lass did not take kindly to other dogs in her yard even blue heelers, and she gave spot one hell of belting and took off a third of his right ear and he went home howl home. Next day at school the Masters (that’s their name) children threatened to get Las and I am sure they did. A couple of months later we went to Gawler and French Follard gave me a cocker spaniel called Yo-Yo he didn’t want him because he dug up their garden. Dad didn’t want yoyo in his car and refused to take him home to Kulde and said a spaniel dog would be useless on the farm. As it happened Elliot Higgins was going to Kulde in his T model Ford buckboard that same weekend to get Mallee stumps so yoyo and I rode all the way (150kms) home in the back and Elliot and my sister Effie rode in the front. It was cold and uncomfortable but I had a dog again and renamed him yoey. D ad was wrong about Yoey he was an excellent tracker and could locate lost rabbit traps and traps pulled up and taken down fox’s burrows after foxes had got caught and pulled the trap anchor pins. The Masters kids brought Spot their blue heeler over with them again one day to get their mail and Yoey belted the hell out of him again. After that spot would never come inside the road gate, fifty metres from our house and the Post Office. There was no electricity in our house and we used kerosene lamps, torches, hurricane lanterns for lighting, no refrigerator just a cool safe and cellar, That was where we kept the cream we sold to Amscol ice-cream and they picked it up every Friday evening if we were lucky we would get a dandy or a twin choc. 1937-1938 were drought years and Dad went broke. If it wasn’t for the grain stack agencies that he had at the Kulde railway station and rent Mum received from two houses in Gawler we would have starved I think. Early in 1939 Dad sold the farm to Ed Shultze from Gawler and we stayed onto share farm it with him until May 1941 then he sold it. Ed was the father of well-known Gawlerites Terry and John Schultz.
GAWLER 1941
In May 1941 we moved to Gawler and leased the dairy farm in Hillier Road until September 1943. Mum and Dad came back in May, but I came back to Gawler in February (late) and stayed with Effie and Elliot in Mum’s house in Queen Street. I went to Gawler primary school for two months what a shock that was. I was picked on and bullied the whole time until one day Neil Dawe and I had a whole lunchtime fight and wrestle down under the pepper trees. Neil was bigger than me but I was determined I would not be beaten and at the end of school we shook hands and became real good friends for years. I came from a school of 6 students to a school of 600 students and I was a country kid. I hated every day that I was there. I was in grade 5 and the teacher was Mr Pearce, he was cruel and sadistic and should never have been allowed to teach at all. He would walk up and down the room with a cane behind his back just looking for some-one to make a mistake and then he would hit them with a force with his cane. He didn’t care whether he hit on the fingers, head, neck, head, back, arms as long as brought them to tears and humiliated them before the whole class. He also loved to twist kid’s ears until they cried. The girls with plaits, he would wrap them around his hand up to the girls head and twist them until they cried out in pain. The headmaster was Mr Barbary and if you were sent there for punishment he used a strap or belt with rivets in it to hit your backside or open hands leaving dents from the rivets. During the May holidays I went back with my parents and Lance and Vern on the dairy farm on Hillier Road and of course my dog Yoey. After the holidays I started school at the Gawler River School with 26 students, 7 grades and the most wonderful teacher any-one could have. His name was Mr Gordon Mugford and in those 3 years I never saw him hit or ill-treat one student. Long talks sometimes lots of help if needed and advice if needed to put you back on track but never physical punishment. I got along well with every-one at the school, and 8 of the students were my first or second cousins. I sat for my Q.C. at the Kangaroo Flat School with Eileen Lodge and we both passed. The Lease on the dairy farm in August 1945 and Mum and Dad moved into Gawler to 14 Queen Street, Dad’s farming days were over. I stayed with Lance at Ward Belt during the week and went home at the weekends so I could finish school at Gawler River School and get my Q.C. I used to go out Monday mornings with Betty Morgan in her Morris 8/40 Ute on the mail run and Lance or some-body would bring me home on Friday nights. At this time Lance was still single and leasing the old Ratcliffe farm next to Ward Belt cemetery. I used to go to school with Ron and Kath Atyeo and the two Masters kids. Sometimes we walked sometimes we went in a horse and sulky all 5 of us. I used to help Lance after school and cook tea for us; sometimes we didn’t get tea until 8.30p.m. We had a wood stove and oven, Lance did the wash up while I did my homework by the light of an old kerosene lamp just like Kulde. My Grandfather Martin Cork had 4 daughters and two sons and when he died he left properties to all 4 girls, Siss, Rose, Daisie, and my mother Myrtle and I think money to Les. Lyn the other son died at a young age of T.B.Siss married George Jones house in 9th Street( Blacksmith and Farrier Globe Hotel Yard) Rose married Nugget Freeman house and 2 blocks on the corner Hill Street and One Tree Hill Road Myrtle married Wilfred Atyeo 2 houses 14 Queen Street and 1 Sutton street. Mum and Dad moved into Gawler in August 1943 and after I sat for my Public School Q.C. exam at Kangaroo Flat School I moved into Gawler with them at 14 Queen Street. No: 14 Queen Street and No: 1 Sutton Street was both on the same title and was separated from Cameron Street by a very narrow lane that ran from Queen Street to Cameron Street. When Lois and I were married in 1953 we moved into No: 1 Sutton Street and lived there until 1961. It had originally been built as a School for Mrs Helmore in the early 1980’s. The school was known as “Mrs Helmore’s School for Young Ladies “and was closed in 1878 when the Gawler Public School opened. My Grandfather Martin Cork purchased it sometime after that and left it to my mother and after we moved out in 1961 Mum sub divided the block and sold it. While we were living at Hillier Road on the dairy farm, Dad and I went into Gawler in the horse and sulky one hot day and my dog Yoey decided to follow us. He was getting further behind all the time and I begged Dad to stop and pick him up but Dad just laughed and said he will go home. I looked back again and Yoey was gone and I decided I would never speak to my father again and didn’t for weeks. My father had always been good and kind to me, he told bedtime stories when I was little and stories about his growing up. He also taught me to read comics without help. I know Dad didn’t like Yoey but I did not understand how he could do that to my dog on such a hot day or anytime and I lost my respect and feeling for him. I did not know I was to meet up with Yoey again about 3 or 4 years later. We were living in Gawler and people from out on Hillier Road moved into a new house down the bottom of the hill from our place. Their name was Milane; they had a son named John and an old black cocker spaniel named Darkie. I knew it was Yoey and he knew me too, he came to me when I called him and he wagged his old stumpy tail. He was so pleased to see me. It was Yoey for sure as he had a split in his left ear from fighting with spot Masters in Kulde. Yoey was happy and much loved by the Milanes; he would always welcome me when I went there to see John but never tried to follow me home. I never told John but one day I said once had a cocker spaniel like Darkie but he ran away and never came home. Both John and his mother very quickly said they had bought Darkie as a puppy and looked at each other very sheepishly. Yoey died about a year later of old age and I was glad I had said nothing .
Gawler 14 Queen Street
A month after moving into Gawler I got a job Arthur Hawkins poultry farm in Queen Street three houses from home. The property was between Queen St. and Jerningham St. There were orange trees in the chook runs and these had to be cared for as well as the chooks and chickens. My job was feeding, picking up the eggs twice daily, general cleaning up, cleaning and packing the eggs and on Monday mornings I had to drown all the white leghorn chicks as they came out of the incubator. They were no good for meat birds to light in weight. I had to put them in a bucket cover them with water and put a block of hardwood on them for ten minutes, then throw them in a pit. I hated doing it, it made me feel sick. I also had to run errands for Mrs Dawkins and her companion Miss Min Harris who also helped me with the egg washing and packing etc. I worked from 8.00am to 5p.m.with one hour off for lunch Monday to Friday. Wages were 15 shillings($1.50) per week and I paid Mum 5 shillings a week board, went to the movies Wednesday and Fridays, and bought a new Super Elliot bicycle from Jim McCabe as well on T.P.I had always wanted to be a motor mechanic and in January 1945 I was offered an apprenticeship in Gawler. I had to get Dad’s approval and he refused to sign my apprenticeship contract. Dads excuse was there would be hundreds of mechanics coming out of the war time training and I would find it impossible to get a job. In February I got a job at E. Anders & Sons, Britannia Foundry as a labourer and gave up the chook industry, and my wages were 25 shillings per week. In May I was offered an apprenticeship as a fitter and turner with Anders and Sons and this time Dad agreed to sign the papers. After signing my papers I went back to my job, soon after I was called into the office. Cyril Anders gave me a talk on my responsilbities as an apprentice and told me that the award wage for a first year apprentice was only 23 shillings per week. However he said seeing as how I had been a good honest lad so far this last 4 months they would continue to pay me 25 shillings per week they all laughed and Tom Symes said “you always were a lucky bastard” and my nickname was “Lucky” for the next six months. My next nickname came about because Frank Downs, one of the moulders, said he could never catch me to kick my arse, belt me in the ear, or stop me buzzing around like a bloody mosquito so I became “Skeeter” or “Skeet” to this day many of my friends still call me by that name. Frank Downs was like a giant shoulders like a gorilla heavy build hair all over his body, a grip like a vice and a heart of gold and a temper to match if you annoyed him. One morning he came into work late, he lived in Lyndoch and train was late. Cyril had a go at him for being late and he was not happy. Frank went to open his tool box and found the keyhole plugged up with clay. I just happened to walk past at this moment and he of course blamed me. He yelled abuse at me and tried to catch me but I was too quick for him. At a safe distance I turned around and ask him if he had fallen out of a tree on his way to work swinging through the trees or down the E.T.S.A. line and why didn’t he come to work on the train like others did. Frank would have killed me if he could have caught me but Murray West the foreman came and broke up the battle and we all returned to our jobs. As I said Frank lived at Lyndoch but in a part of the town known as Jollytown and the local kids used to teases him and called him Jollytown ape-man and he was well aware of that and so was I as I had friends in Lyndoch. During my time at Anders as an apprentice as a fitter & turner I also learned core making, blacksmithing, and striking, fetterling, moulding and casting. I went to the school of Mines and & Industries on North Terrace for training two afternoons a week for period of 3 years and at the same time did two years of Maths at night school. At the end of my time Cyril Anders said they no longer needed a fitter and turner and offered me a job as a Second Class Machinist. I told him what to do with his offer and walked out of the place with my tool box and a lot of good and bad memories. I was intending to leave as the workforce was about two thirds alcoholics including Cyril Anders himself and working for an alcoholic is always a bad thing. You never know where you stand with them and their mood swings etc. This was May 1950 and a friend of mine who worked for the Commonwealth Government as an electrician at Long Range Weapons Establishment, got me an interview with Billie Burnside an engineer in charge of No: 1 workshops. The interview went well and I had a job but I had to have an SA Police check and also an Australian Federal Police security check as well. I passed and got my security pass issued to me and started at L.R.W.E. on the 4th July 1950. It was to be a 30 year career until the 20th June 1980. I went into the mechanical instrument shop for a six month trial period and at the end of that time I was reclassified as an Instrument Maker. The reason for this was they were looking for young mechanical to train as Instrument Makers as there was no trade calling at that time in Australia. The only Instrument tradesmen they had in instrument shop were three poms and the foreman and they needed more. There was a lot of work of this kind to be done on the restoration of captured German cameras and tracking equipment for the Woomera Rocket Range which was then growing very quickly. At the end of 1951 I was offered a job as an Electrical Instrument Maker and after a six month trial and training period I was reclassified as an Electrical Instrument Maker. I loved this job as it was more interesting, and more fine delicate work which was interesting. I had been given a manual on electrical, practical and theory used by the New Zealand Air Force by George Easter who I had worked with in Mechanical Instrument Shop and I found this very helpful in my new trade. Unfortunately after 2 years or so I found I was not getting along all that well with our foreman. He was bringing in his mates from church as Electrical Instrument makers and quite obviously they were not. A friend of mine who worked with me who had a friend as a P. I. and he did a check-up and discovered one of these ring ins was a Window Dresser and the other one was a Photographer and they all belonged to the same Congregational church. He also found out our engineer was also a member of this church and a very good pal of our foreman. One morning in February 1954 for the third time, the foreman came to me with another job that one of these two guys had pulled apart and could not reassemble and asked me to put it together. I refused and told him “to stick his left eye in lukewarm cocky shit”. He then headed for the engineers office to have me sacked and I headed for the office of Mr Olsen the man to handle disputes of this kind at the Administration Headquarters. There was an inquiry which I had to attend and the foreman left and the two ring in’s also but the engineer stayed on of course. 1954 I went into the Instrument Workshop in the A.D. doing both electrical and mechanical for four years. At this point A.D. was actually under the control of H.S.A.L. (High Aerodynamics Speed Laboratories) at Fisheries Bend in Victoria, and it was more laid back and casual. Practical jokes were high the agenda, much like MASH on T.V. and you never knew when you would be targeted. We did some top secret work on anti-tank weapons guided by wire and I did all the calibrations of measuring instruments etc. 1958 to 1960 In 1958 I applied for a staff position as a Technical Assistant Grade 2 with instrumentation section I got the position. After a couple of years this became the U.A. R. (Upper Atmosphere Research Section) and we were involved in the measuring of the density and thickness of the ozone layer, and wind speed in the upper atmosphere. This was very interesting work and secret because it was tied to the Skylark Rocket Program and the climate change controversy. Skylark rockets were being fired to do measurement of the ozone layer and at the same I was taking density measurements of the ozone layer at Salisbury and Woomera using an ozone spectrophotometer on loan from Cambridge University. We were also going to Woomera regularly to operate cameras and other instruments in conjunction with Skylark firings to measure wind speeds in upper atmosphere. 1965 About 1965 U.A.R. was shut down and some of us were transferred to F.F.R. (Free Flight Research) still in A.D. area. About the same time at Woomera they were doing static firings of the BLUE STREAK ROCKET on the launching pad at Lake Hart. When they had a firing it would burn some of the ceramic tiles off of the curved section of the blast tunnel that went from the launch pad down into Lake Hart. They needed to know the temperature at the curve in the tunnel to solve this tile problem. Over the years I had developed a way of making thermocouples using wire as thick as your hair to wire one 1/16th of an inch in diameter for measuring temperatures inside rockets and the Department Of Agriculture and also C.S.R.I.O. They also wanted them installed and I did not like working at heights but she agreed to set up scaffolding etc. for the job. It was a cold winter’s day and the wind was icy cold blowing in off Lake Hart I was about 100ft up inside the blast tunnel. I have never been so cold in my life although I had my jeans thick shirt and a woollen jumper combination overalls and a leather jacket, I was shivering shaking or both. I completed the job got back to the airport and on the plane just in time luckily I knew the air hostie and she got me two brandy and dry’s which was against the rules but it pays to have friends in high places. 1965-1970 During the five years in 1965-1970 I spent a lot of time developing a testing miniature pressure transducer for measuring pressure inside rockets at certain points I never had complete success but later on in 1986 while with the E. & W. S. at Morgan I received a phone call from a bloke in D.R.C.S. who wanted to know if I still had notes from the research and drawings. I didn’t of course but he still came up to see me and I helped with what I could but I never heard from him again. 1971 In 1971 F.F.R. closed down and I went to the wind tunnel group I had been upgraded to technical officer Grade 1 in 1968 with the F.F.A. and W.T.G wanted a TO1 for Instrumentation work in the S.I & S.3 tunnels. This was very intricate work wiring up strain gauges with enamelled copper wire .0048 thousandths of an inch in diameter and all sorts of electrical and mechanical instruments including completing of the model wind tunnel area. In 1976 there was a change of staff duties and I was O.I.C (Officer in Charge) of operations and maintenance of S1 wind tunnels but no rise in salary. From then things began to deteriorate there was very little work for the S1 tunnel only RAAF testing of stores attached existing models and a small amount of other jobs for the B.E.A. The Poms had pulled out likewise the Yanks had also. I was going to work in the morning costing the previous day’s work if any and sitting on my bum all day after checking the maintenance charts and telling the workshop foreman if any maintenance was needed to be done that day. Sometimes the engineer would decide to upgrade something in the plant and I would spend all day chasing and ordering only to see it sit in the stores for years. At one stage they decide to upgrade all plant pumps and electrical motors all new switch gear and change the control panel voltage to 12 volt DC I ha d to find all these items and fill out requisitions for them and arrange deliveries as well as all this and new control panels had to be designed, and make all new switches and metres etc. I took care of all this knowing all the time none of it would be used. People who stayed to the end of the road told me it was all sold off before the tunnel was demolished. 198-1982
MORGAN
I got so tired of doing nothing that I decided to get out as I was feeling unwell and depressed. And on the 20th June I left D.R.C.S. and I went to Morgan to live. I had been offered an overseas job at Penfolds Vineyard 1977 taking charge of the vineyard irrigations and pumps and motors etc.etc. But I chickened out in favour of my secure Government job. In February 1980 I said to Lois one lets go to Morgan tomorrow and buy a block of land and put a transportable house on it and move. We went next day and bought a block where the flour mill used to be No: 6 Eighth Street. We worked on the block weekends and took holidays to erect a fence and put a garage on the block. The house was put down by the end of May I had the services connected and moved in on the 27th June on Craig’s birthday. We had sold our house at 55 Hillier Road Evanston at the end of March and we had been living in our caravan at Peter and Deb’s place at Lyndoch since then. At last I was out of my job at D.R.C.S. and out of Gawler which by this time had started to feel too crowded for me. Penfolds Morgan 1980-1982 When we moved to Morgan I intended to take a 3 month break before looking for work but in the first month I was offered three jobs in the area. I chose the position of fitter and turner at Penfolds Vineyard working shop it was the first time I had actually worked at my trade since completing my apprenticeship 30 years ago. I fitted in really well with the other workers and there were only three of us in the workshop. Gill McDonald foreman Stewie Horne T/A and myself, Gill and Stewie were only in their 30’s I was 50 years and we worked perfectly as a team. The job was a complete change for me I had never seen a grape harvester and now I had 3 to maintain including a complete rewire for 2 of them. I had never worked on diesel engines now I had 14 of them to service and repair (8 tractors 1Tip Truck 2 tray top trucks 3 grape pickers). I also had 3 vineyard trucks and 2 Honda 100cc trail bikes plus 2 utilies and anything else that needed fixing including unlocking the managers Sigma station wagon regularly to get the keys to the ignition as wife Sally had locked them in again. Fortunately Stewie’s father, Merv Horne owned the garage in Morgan and Stewie had worked with his Dad on and off. Stewie was a good as mechanic as anyone and together we could do anything. We reconditioned a diesel engine in the Ford tipper and dent knocked and resprayed the whole truck. We also replaced the crank shaft and fitted new rings and bearings in the diesel in the Bedford six cylinders, the cab had to be removed to do this and to refit the cab was the most difficult part of the job. When I started there were no maintenance schedules for any of the equipment and I fixed that with a book for everything, trucks, tractor, bikes, utes, harvester, spray units, generator etc. I repaired the fibreglass tanks on the spray and the pumps. One day I pointed out to gill the lack of safety equipment that they should have and he said to go ahead and make a list of items I thought were needed. When the manager saw the list he was amazed and got a Safety Advisor in to do an assessment of the equipment I said was needed. The manager was even more amazed when he got the report and the estimated cost. We got all the gear and I got the job as safety officer added to my duties. When the aerial spraying was being done the plane came in to reload one day and the tail skid broke off. Stewie and I jacked the tail of the plane up, removed the skid and welded it together and replaced the skid and spraying was resumed. Not long after this the pilot had just finished spraying his load and the engine seized. He managed to glide back to the landing strip and land safely. Next morning Gill said to Stewie and I, guess what you two dudes are doing today, removing the engine from the plane and replacing it with a new one. I queried this because of the Civil Aviation laws but the pilot said what the eye doesn’t see does not matter and if we could do it he would take full responsibility. He would get a new from Parafield by lunchtime. Stewie and I had a look and it looked an easy job so we said ok. It was an easy job, we lifted the engine out with a front end loader and the plane was back in the air and spraying the same day. I also did electrical work such as wiring and fitting air conditioners to the two houses on the property and lighting for the implement shed and loading bay for night shifts. When I had been there six months Di Fields came up for her six monthly visits, she was Penfolds Manager and informed me that they were giving me a wage rise of $20.00 per week. She said this was because I was saving them from having to send tradesmen up from Nuriootpa to Morgan to do a lot of the jobs I had been doing and saved travelling as well. I had a truck license and often took loads to Nuriootpa, Clare, and Magill and brought gear back to Morgan. I found Penfolds very good to work for and very disappointing when they started to pull out the red grape vines in May 1982. Then the permanent workers were reduced and they began more casual labour and a rumour went around that they were selling up. Just at this time a position came up for a Fitter & Turner At the E.W. &S. so I rang Di Field and asked her what was going on. She told me that she was leaving and could not say what was going to happen to Morgan. I applied for the job at E. &W.S. and was told the next day I had it and I gave notice at Penfolds the next day and started at the E. &W.S. the following week.
JULY 1982-88 E. &W.S.
It was very easy to fit into the job at E. &W.S. as the people at Morgan was very friendly and helpful and we mixed with them both socially and work situations as well. Most of the employees were locals and a real good mob to work with. When I started in 1982 it was a small group of 12-14 employees including Robertstown depot and Sedan depot, I was the fitter and turner. We had three pumping stations on the Swan Reach to Moculta pipe-line and four pumping stations on the Morgan-Robertstown pipeline and we had two pipelines C and D and of course there were backup pumps for each line. We were always busy with maintenance on pumps, electric motors (200-500h.p) compressors, power operated control valves and helping the pipeline gang with maintenance on the pipeline and P.R. Valves spread around the area. I also did the servicing of the motor cars, utes, trucks, portable compressors, portable welders and anything else that needed fixing or welding. I had Chris Jaeger as my trades assistant and we worked together and travelled thousands of kilometres in the ute together and I cannot ever remember ever having a cross word with him during the six years together 1982-1988. In 1986 the Morgan Filtration Plant came on line and things changed dramatically. Instead of just having Superintendent Adrian Hobbs for a boss we now had an Engineer at the top, a Filtration Plant Supervisor, a Pipeline Supervisor and an absolutely hopeless Workshop Supervisor. I was given the job of O.H. & S. along with my other duties and had to do inspections of the pump stations every two months. I also had to attend courses at Murray Bridge Administration to discuss any problems on O.H. & S. these lasted all day and got back home 6pm. The opening of the Filtration Plant more than doubled the workforce but this did not help me, the fitters and electricians went into the Plant. We eventually got two more fitters just out of their time and everything settled back into a routine again. In April 1988 I thought I might like a change so I had an interview for a job in Loxton with the Department of Agriculture in the Research Centre Workshop. After the interview there was a BBQ and the foreman told me that I had the job and they wanted me to start in May. It was a dream job; I was to run the workshop on my own and do servicing and maintenance on two tractors, 3 Honda trikes, 2 Honda quad bikes and two spray units. There was a lot of welding making up experimental gadgets and things for the laboratory. I also had to serve fuel and top up the oil etc. on all vehicles in the research station so about the first hour of every day spent taking care of this and sometimes during the day. We put our house on the market in Morgan and took a contract on a house in 6th Street at Loxton and moved to Loxton in a rent free house on the research Station until our house at Morgan sold. I began with the Agriculture Dept. at Loxton on the 10th of May and it was a great job, I was practically my own boss and did things my way. There were only 5 men in the farm team and myself in the workshop, and Darryl the boss who was an Experimental Officer in charge of us. I got along with all the blokes in the team very well and loved the job but it wasn’t to last. I found out the bloke before me was dealing in drugs and he had lived in the house where we were living. We were getting strange phone calls at all hours and one Sunday afternoon we were abused by a mob in a car who came to our front door looking to buy pot. When the mobile tanker came round the driver had another bloke with him and he came into the workshop and asked where Robin was, I said that he had left and taken a job with National Parks Meningie. He said he was a friend of Robin’s and asked if I was permanent at the centre and I said yes. He then asked me if I would like to earn a little money on the side, that’s when the penny dropped and I told him to get out or I would call Darryl. He then warned me not to do that and that we know where you live and to keep my mouth shut and he went out and sat in the cabin of the tanker. This all happened late June and I decided to get out of the place as soon as I could, as I had heard from the workers that Loxton was full of drug activity and I didn’t want any part of it. I rang the Engineer at the Morgan Filtration Plant that night and explained my problem to him. He told me he had a vacancy for me but not until November when a fitter at Morgan would be transferred To Happy Valley, I said ok and he said he would be happy to hold the job for me. The contract on the house at Loxton had expired, the house at Morgan had not sold so we moved back home. This meant that I had to 220kms there and back each day to work at Loxton but I soon got used to it and the petrol was only 75 cents a litre but I clocked up 17500kms in the Commodore during that period. MORGAN 1/11/88 to November 1991 Back at Morgan I went into the workshop and maintenance in the Filtration Plant, O.H. &S. Officer and Rep for O.H. &S. for Morgan area. During the period before I went to Loxton I had stood in for up to 3 Months as Workshop Supervisor when he was on holidays or when he was on sick leave which was quite often. Just after I came back he took ill again on several occasions and was off work for months at a time. During these times from November 1988 to 16th November 1991 I stood in as Workshop Supervisor and I did a lot less work on maintenance etc. I had always intended to retire by the sea so in early 1990 at age 60, I decided to do something about it. We rented a house at Coobowie and started looking for a house or a block of land. We looked at houses in the area but there was nothing that we liked but we had found a nice block at Stansbury. I had already looked at prices of transportable homes and the cost of buying one and having it set up on the block. The Tape family from Coobowie had been builders on the peninsula for decades and they were my second cousins. So we went to see them for a price to build a timber frame home on the block at Stansbury. Jay Tape was so pleased to see me as we had not seen each other since we were kids and he wanted to catch up on family members etc. I showed him our house plans and the first thing he wanted knows was where you do want to build this house. When I told him he said the Tapes owned the block and we could buy it for $10,000.00 instead of the $14,000.00 the agent was asking. The next day he came up with the price slightly lower than the transportable homes and the cost of buying it and having it set up on the block. We signed the contract next day on the block and a contract for the building as well then went home to Morgan to make more plans. The house was completed by October 1990 and I had a 9mx6m garage put on the block as well. Lois and I then went over some weekends and holidays and painted the whole house, inside and outside and we put some second hand furniture in for the time, until I retired. In November 1990 I spent many hours making an elaborate FOR SALE sign to sell the house at Morgan. I put the sign up on a Saturday morning and sold it on the Sunday morning to Bill Hand who had bought a share in the Commercial Hotel at Morgan. Before selling the house I had arranged to rent an E. &W.S. house until I retired. We moved into the E.& W.S. home just before Christmas 1990 and from that time until the 16th November 1991 we spent all the time we could at Stansbury. With lots of help from Lois we put fences to two sides of the block and put 1m wide concrete paving all around the house and down one side of the garage. WE also made tank stands for our rainwater tanks and erected a garden shed at the rear of the garage. We had the garage floor and front apron as well as the back veranda concreted by a professional concreter from Ardrossan and he did an amazing job of it. I did the front veranda floor myself. Three years after we moved to Stansbury with help from Lois we built a 6.2mx5.6m double carport onto the end of the house. It was all steel and I filled all the C channel with fibro cement sheeting and plastic fibro cement sheet joining strips. When the council Inspector came to do his final inspection he said it was as good a job as he’d seen by professionals. Lois and I had always worked together well on projects around the house etc. at Morgan and we built a timber deck across the back of the house. It was 15m long and 2.6m wide. I had completed the base and just started the decking when I cut my index finger on my right hand at work and had to have 11 stiches in it. I drilled the nail holes in the Kapur decking so Lois put every nail in that deck and punched them down so I could fill the holes with a mixture of araldite and sawdust.
MORGAN-STANSBURY
1991 I was 61 years old and everything was ready at Stansbury so I handed in my resignation and left Morgan E. &W.S. on the 16th November and we moved the last of our furniture etc. to our new home at Stansbury at 9 Adelaide Road. Once the garden was set up and lawns were planted front and rear, I made a vegie garden with concrete edging at the rear of our yard and planted four fruit trees. It was now time to buy a boat for fishing and there was a 15ft GANNET runabout with a 25hp. Johnson outboard motor for sale in Stansbury for $2,700. I bought this boat and used it all the eight years we were at Stansbury and brought it back to Gawler with us and I sold it for $3,300 in 2003 to a bloke at Two Wells.
While we were in Stansbury we did a lot of travelling, first trip was in a Cub Camper Trailer towed by our VN Holden Station wagon. We followed the south and east coast all the way around to Sydney, stopping and staying at many places and spent ten days in Sydney. We came home through Canberra, stayed six days there, then to Bright, Eucha, Bendigo, Ballarat, Naracoorte and home. We were away for two months plus. Our next trip was to Darwin (1995) on the way up we stayed at the Alice for a week and five days at Katherine, four days at Litchfield Park and ten days in Darwin. We then went to Kakadu National Park for six days, did a day trip out into Arnhem Land then came out through Cooinda and back onto the Stuart Highway and headed south to Alice Springs. We stayed there a few days then took the outside track to Kings Canyon. We only stayed two nights at Kings Canyon then went to Uluru and stayed five nights. From there we came back to Coober Pedy for three nights then back to Woomera and Roxby Downs for a couple of days and home to Stansbury.
STANSBURY 1991-2000
When we got home I started planning our third trip up to Katherine and around the West Coast and across the Nullarbor to Home. I decided to sell the camper trailer and get a caravan for this trip and I bought a 12ft pop top 1976 model from an old couple in Hindmarsh. They had bought it new and it was in excellent condition, they only used to holiday to Aldinga twice a year. We did a trial run with it to Ceduna and it towed well behind the VN Wagon sitting on 110kms at times. When we got back home I was shocked to find that the tyres were split all the way round nearly every groove. They were the originals and they had perished and we were very lucky. So three new tyres the gear box reconditioned and a new clutch for the VN wagon and in late May 1977 we were heading north for Katherine and our trip around the West. Everything went well until the Alice when the clutch started to shudder and squeal. It was Saturday afternoon every garage shut so we pushed onto Tennant Creek and stayed the night. We got to Katherine and pulled into a garage for fuel, the operator told us to stay away from Peter Kittle the man with golden spanner he called him where we intended to go. He put us onto a mechanic who had a workshop behind Woolworths and did all Kerry Holden work for them. Kerry Holden were in Darwin but sold a lot of vehicles in Katherine. We stayed at the caravan park that night and next morning (Monday) I took the wagon in for to him to look at and repair. To my amazement he informed me that Maitland Motors had fitted a reconditioned clutch not a new one and it had failed and they had not greased the pivot bearing, plus the throw out bearing had been running continuously and was ruined. A new kit was fitted and cost us $250 less than Maitland Motors, I had been ripped off and not happy.
Next stop was Timber Creek then onto Lake Argyle for three nights and a fabulous day on the lake. Next stop was Kununurra for a few days with a day trip to Wyndam. Turkey Creek was our next stop and an all day trip into the Bungle Bungles which was amazing to say the least. Halls Creek was next there we met up with Bill Atyeo and Jan. Had dinner with them and looked around the town for a couple of days before moving onto Fitzroy Crossing for a few days. The Crossing was a real eye opener; it was full of Aborigines, some vertical, most horizontal, they were everywhere. The main street, just dirt road, was paved with flattened beer cans. There were mounds of beer cans two or more meters high by four or more metres diameter on the edge of the main street and the shops were a mess. The strange thing was the caravan park was fully lawned spotlessly clean including a pool café come kiosk and toilets, showers and laundry. I would say it was one of the best parks we stayed in the whole trip.
Next stop was Derby where Lois took ill with the Kimberly Flu. She had to go to the outpatients at the hospital and it was full of aboriginals and she was not impressed. Derby was not a very attractive town for us, it had Boab trees in the middle of the main street and I picked up some Boab nuts to bring home. We stayed several days until Lois felt better then moved on, but what amazed me was the movement of the tides, they rushed in like a river flooding with about four metres from high to low. We moved on to Eighty Mile Beach and stayed there in the park, which was pretty basic. The toilets and the shower were portable buildings about a metre off the ground and large generators ran all day and night to supply power and our site was only 50 metres from them. It is a very popular place for beach casting and there are some beautiful shells to be found there. A bloke on a quad bike was bringing some big ones every day and selling them.
From there we went to Broome for ten days, we had a problem getting into a park, but we got into a brand new park, just one street back from Cable Beach by bribing him with a six pack of cans of West End Beer. It was a beaut park about 150m from the entrance to the beach takeaway and restaurant. Most nights we had tea at the beach and watched the sunset and an aboriginal bloke played the didgeridoo as the sun set over the water. There were lots of things to see and do in Broome and we enjoyed our 10 day stay there. We then moved onto Port Hedland and stayed in Caravan Park at South Headland for three nights before going south 240kms to the AUSKI ROADHOUSE CARAVAN PARK for four nights. From Auski Road house we drove out to old Asbestos town of Wittenoom Gorge which was worth seeing plus the old town itself then back to Auski. The next day we did an all day trip into the Karigini National Park in a 4x4 bus, this was spectacular, the gorges and the pools are beautiful and the rock formations and colours were amazing. Next we came back up to South Headland and onto Roebourne for 2 nights then onto Exmouth. We didn’t think much about Exmouth, so we moved south to Coral Bay; this was an excellent spot so we stayed for a while. A trip out to Ningaloo Reef in a glass bottom boat was worth really while, the coloured fish and snapper were amazing The fish know the boat by the sound of the motor and they turn up underneath for a feed. The beaches were white, fine sand and the water was crystal clear.
Next stop was Carnarvon for a couple of days to get a new exhaust system fitted and a new drive belt tension pulley. We did a tour of a banana plantation and that was interesting, so was the lunch they served up as well. From there we went to Denham and Monkey Mia to see the dolphins, this was a rip off, you had pay to enter the beach and only a few selected were allowed to feed the dolphins. We stayed at Denham a few days then came out to Hamlyn Pool to have a look at the Stromatolites, then down the coast to Kalbarri. This is a beautiful place and the wild flowers were everywhere, as they had been in most places and on the roadside ever since we left Wittenoom. There were also the Kalbarri National Park wild flower walks and the beautiful scenery on a drive south of the town. Geraldton was our next stop, it was a big town with a huge fishing fleet in the harbour, but otherwise not that interesting. After that we went onto Cervantes and The Pinnacles which were a real eye opener and well worth seeing. Cervantes itself was a strange old place with row upon row of shacks, and lots of tractors for launching boats. From there we went to Perth and stayed in a caravan park in the northern part on the outskirts. From there we did day trips using public transport from out front of the park, to the city. Kings Park and as far as Freemantle on a boat. We loved Perth it was clean and everybody was friendly and helpful and we were there for 6 days or more I think.
After Perth we followed the coast main road around to Esperance stopping at Augusta, Albany, Ravensthorpe and Esperance for 1 or 2 nights. When we got to Esperance it was raining heavily and the wind was blowing a gale. I filled up at a garage and the bloke said it would stay the same for days. He said the best thing to do was to get out and go to Kalgoorlie where it would be 25-30 degrees instead of 13 degrees like it was there. We took his advice and had a wonderful 5 days in Kalgoorlie and Boulder before heading across the Nullarbor. The first night we stayed at Madura and then the Travellers Village at Eucla the next night. The next day we headed for Ceduna stopping at the Head of the Bight to see the whales, we were lucky that day there were twenty five in the area, including a mother and her calf right under the viewing platform. Then it was Ceduna for the night and home to Stansbury the next day, a total of 15,000 kilometres.
About September 1998 Craig was involved in a car accident; he was the front seat passenger in a car driven by a drunken woman driver. The phone rang at 4.10am; it was the police telling us Craig was on his way to the R.A.H in a helicopter with serious injuries. Craig was in hospital for some time and then came home to Stansbury but he was suffering as a result of the accident and Lois was not handling the shock of the whole situation. One morning about 5.00am Lois became ill and I suspected it was the start of a heart attack by the pains etc. I got her to Yorketown hospital just in time, she went into cardiac arrest twice, and Doctor Koka was able to resuscitate her both times during a period of fourty minutes. Lois was extremely lucky, she was back in the boat with me fishing in January with no physical impediments but she has lost all her memory prior to the heart attack.
We had been in Stansbury for nine years and Lois had to go Adelaide a lot for medical test and visits to her heart specialist so we moved back to Gawler. We sold our house at Stansbury and came to Gawler in November 1999 to live at Hindmarsh Blvd Evanston Gardens. We still continued to holiday at Stansbury with our caravan and boat twice a year until May 2008. In May we decided to do a trip to Queensland, we sold our 12ft pop-top and bought a 14ft 6 Viscount Aero-lite pop-top. We left for our trip in mid-May first to broken Hill, then to Wilcannia and onto Cobar, and made Bourke our third stay. We stayed at Bourke for 3 nights then moved onto Cunnamulla for one night, then to Charleville for three nights, and then to Blackall. Next stop was Barcaldine or Barky as the locals call it for four nights in the caravan park, where Country & Western singer Graham Rodjer was putting on a show every night right at the back of our caravan. Barcaldine was an interesting town with lots of things to see and do, we enjoyed it. We then headed for Longreach, on the way there was a little place called Ilfracombe where there is a museum on the side of the road 3kms long containing earth moving equipment, graders, tractors, old war tanks converted to bulldozers and all sorts of other heavy machinery. Entry is free and you stay as long as you want to. There is a 60km speed limit through the town, the police station and house is right on the roadside and the cop sits in chair with a remote and nabs you if you speed through town. The locals in Barky warned us about it and we saw him sitting there, with a drink in his hand and we saw the flash of the camera as we passed by. Longreach was the gem of the trip for me, and entertainment in the park was top notch. We stayed 5 nights and every night was entertainment and a barby with dessert for $7.00 each. We also did a late afternoon trip on the Thomson River on an old paddle boat. There was no separate control on the paddle wheels so everybody had to go to one side of the boat to lift the opposite side of the paddle wheel out of the water so we could turn around. By the time we got back to the campsite there was a roaring fire going, and two huge pots of road kill stew which was delicious, waiting for us and a choice of two desserts. After our meal we were treated to two hours of bush ballads and bush poetry, then taken back to the park, it was 11.pm all that for $15.00.The Stockman’s Hall of Fame and the Qantas museum were excellent and the railway station was good as well. The next stop was Winton and the Waltzing Matilda Centre and the old General Store and Hardware shop which was stocked with all the original items, and there were lots of old buildings in the town, still in good condition. The old Flying Fox type overhead system for sending dockets and money from the sales counter to the cashier and return just like the one at Crosby’s (Essex House) in Gawler long ago when I was a kiddy. We had entertainment that night as we had in all the parks, from Bourke to Cloncurry and it was great after driving all day, to sit back with a beer or two and watch the shows and meet other travellers. Cloncurry was our next stop for two nights with a day drive to Mt Isa and back. We didn’t find either of these towns very interesting so we set out for Karumba. Karumba was a strange sort of place, the town itself was a long way from the shore and so was the caravan park which was pretty basic. There lots of fishing boats and trawlers and I have never seen so many tinnies in one place at one time. Ten and twelve foot tinnies were going out miles and coming in with Barramundi and other fish I didn’t recognise. From there we went back to Cloncurry and onto Hughenden for two nights, and from there we went to Charters Towers.
Charters Towers has some of the best old buildings you would hope to find anywhere in Australia. There was weir across the Burdekin River a few kms out of town and we spent a Saturday out there, it’s a very pretty spot. People are very friendly around this area, we went to a pub for lunch on Sunday and met up with a young couple and we talked for hours and had a good laugh. We spent three nights there then went up to Cardwell for a stay; this included a day trip out to Hinchinbrook Island. With a walk from one end of the island to the other, 6kms it was and that’s where we saw our first and only cane toad in Queensland.
Cairns was our next stop with a trip in the tourist train up to karunda and back which was great. We also took a drive up to Port Douglas and Mossman one day, also a day trip to Cooktown, and one day at a huge shopping centre in Cairns. Next Town was Townsville for four nights, we went out to Magnetic Island for a whole day and that was great and the rest of the time we just drove around the town and had a rest. We moved from there to Proserpine for a few days and went to Airlie Beach for the day and looked around the area. After that we moved onto Yeppoon and stayed in the park at Emu Park just down the road. It was a beaut spot very clean and quiet and run by a bloke from Waikerie SA, we got service and advice on where to go and see things etc. WE had an all day trip to Great Keppel Island and this included the underwater aquarium just off the coast. Next stop was Agnes Waters and 1770 which was beautiful the park there was all natural bushes, with sites set in amongst it. There were tame kookaburras everywhere that would eat from your hand, and lots of other native birds. We had a catamaran trip out to Lady Musgrave Island for the day and on the way out it was very rough and Lois and I were the only ones on the cat who were not sea sick. It was a perfect day out and on the way home Lois and I tried fishing for a while but caught nothing. The beaches were beautiful, dark coloured hard sand that was beaut for long walks. Next stop was Hervey Bay where we stayed at the Pialba Caravan Park and took a day trip out to Fraser Island. We really enjoyed the Island trip and other places around these parts.
We then then moved onto Caboolture, then Esk for a night and onto Toowoomba for two nights and onto Tenterfield for two nights and it was freezing cold at night but good days. Tamworth was our next stop with the big guitar centre display and really good motor cycle museum, with old and new bikes. From Tamworth we went to Forbes with the Big Dish, then to Hay for two nights, and then onto Mildura, where the power steering reservoir was found to be empty. It was a Sunday and I called the R.A.C.V. who gave me a litre of oil and said stay the night in the park and then fill it up in the morning and head for home and check every 100kms. We did this and arrived home next day with half a litre of oil to spare. This was the only problem we had for the whole trip and we arrived home in late September. We didn’t do any more long trips with the van, only to Stansbury for three weeks every year. Until 2006 and then we sold it. Since then we have used cabins or villas when we travel or stay at Stansbury to fish.
In May 2008 we sold our house at Hindmarsh Blvd and purchased a home in Hillier Park Residential Village and have been living here for six years and Four Months at the time I am writing this, which is August 2014.
Growing up in Gawler 1946-1953
I was Sixteen in 1946 and entertainment was movies at the movie theatre on Saturday afternoon, and Wednesday night a dance in the Institute or South Hall, or the R.S.L. Hall or Gawler Blocks Hall an Saturday night. Sometimes there would be a Ball in the Gawler Institute on Friday night and these would go from 8pm until 1.30am and they were very popular and well attended. Of course there was always footy at the oval on Saturday arvo in the winter time and cycling at the oval Friday evenings in the summer time. Myself and two good mates Shrubie and Jim and sometimes Jack used to get rides to country dances with Freemans Band These were held at Hamley Bridge, One Tree Hill, Lyndoch, Williamstown and Roseworthy. We used to ride in the back of their EX. R.A.AF. utility along with a set of OCCIE Megors drums and sometimes Bill Threadgold and his saxophone. Crofts fruit and veg. and deli shop was the gathering spot for talking, gossiping and planning our next excursion or mischief. When we went to dances we would always take grog such as port, sherry, or we would take flagons filled with draught beer from the Railway Hotel. This had to hidden with great care somewhere over three hundred yards from the hall as drinking within three hundred yards was illegal and you would be fined if caught. At Christmas time the in 1946 all the Atyeo family went to stay at Middle Beach, in a shack that Harry had bought, for 3 weeks. I met a girl who was camping with her family not far down the beach, and we hit it off just like that, right from the start. Her interests were the same as mine, the beach, fishing, swimming, crabbing, and boats. We spent the whole three weeks together in the daytime and at night she came up to our shack to play Bagatelle with our gang. From then until next Christmas we met up in Adelaide and went to a movie or a dance hall in King William Street with her sister and sometimes to Henley Beach for the day. She had an Aunty and Uncle in Gawler and she used to come and spend the weekend with them and sometimes at our place. We got together again for Christmas at Middle Beach in 1947 and had a great time but her Dad seemed cold towards me and did not invite me to come out in his boat as he had done previously. About a month after we came home she came to stay for a weekend and I knew something was wrong, she was upset and I knew she had been crying. Her Aunty told me her dad had stopped her from coming to Gawler anymore, and from now on she was not to see me again. Her Dad and Mum were strictly catholic and would not listen to reason at all when I went home with her on the Sunday and tried to talk to them. We met up a couple of times but it was no good as her Dad would not give, and he was making life miserable for her, making curfews and turning up to take her home from her friends’ homes and even football. At this time I was 18 years old and she was two month younger and both of us were devastated but it was a hopeless situation, so we agreed not to meet again. That was February 1948 and I vowed never to become seriously involved with a girl ever again. And hit the booze seriously every time I went out anywhere and every Saturday afternoon at the Roseworthy pub or the Sandy Creek pub.
One day at work Shrubie and I decided, or rather the office girl talked us into it, going to the Tuesday night dance in Gawler Institute without any grog, to see if we could pick up a girlfriend, this was May 1948. It was a slack night with not a lot of girls to choose from, but I spotted this one with a blue dress with tiny white spots on it and a full skirt. I watched her dancing and I could see she was a good dancer and really enjoyed every step. When the next dance was called I was there for the next dance, and then she said yes and we were away, and I am still dancing with her every chance I get after sixty years. We had nearly every dance together that first night and I walked her home to Willaston. I asked her what her name was and she said Ann Kelly, then we made a date for following Friday night and kissed goodnight and I walked home. The next day at work the office girl wanted to know how I went, when I told her the full story, she said that the girl I took home was not Ann Kelly but a little devil called Lois Kilian. Friday night came and I wondered if she would show up for the walk around the town but she did and laughed about the name thing. We were a couple from then on for almost 5 years, we had a few disagreements, and broke up 2 or 3 times but we always got back together in a day or two. Lois would never know what kind of vehicle I would pick her up in to go out, it could be a motor bike, a 1925 Alvis car, a 1929 Austin Wasp which often refused to start when it was time to go home, or a push bike and a donkey ride, or my Dad’s car or a motor bike and side car. She put up with a lot, including my drinking when we first met and I wasn’t always on time for dates. When Lois turned 18 years old on the 3rd of November 1951 we were engaged and on the 31st January 1953 we were married in the congregational Church at the top of hill in Reid Street Gawler and we set up home in the old School for Young Ladies at No: 1 Sutton Street Gawler. This house had originally been built in the 18 hundreds as a school for Mrs Elmore and was closed in 1878 when the Gawler Public School opened.
We lived at N0:1 Sutton Street until 1961 during that time our sons Kym, Peter and Garrie were born. Then we moved into an old house in 9th Street Gawler south until our new home was completed at 55 Hillier Road Evanston. The old place was very basic and built on three levels, with the kitchen in the cellar, and the bathroom and toilet were corrugated iron building in the back yard. It was a miserable 10 months until October when we moved into our new house but there was a lot of work ahead. While we were living there I used to drive school buses and some charter trips for Greg Harris part-time and during my holidays. I also worked for the Gawler Jockey Club watering the race course at night during the summer months of 61-62 and 62-63. Our fourth son Craig was born there in June 1971 and was christened in the Congregational Church as the other three boys had been. We became involved in the church in about 1956 so that the boys would learn what religion was all about if they chose to take that path in life. I was the secretary of the congregational Church for a couple of years and also a Deacon but became disillusioned with religion during the joining of the Congregational and Presbytian churches. There was so much fighting and greed over properties and belongings that I became disgusted with all those involved. All they were concerned about was money, money, money and the older members were worse than anyone else when it came time to settle differences. While we were living in Evanston I restored an old 13ft sailing dinghy, it was given to me after being pulled out of the Port River, behind Garden Island, possibly one dark night along with a 14ft cabin boat. I put 13 new ribs in it, a new gunwale plank down one side and two new seats then turned it over and fibre glassed the whole hull. I paid $50 for an old trailer and $50 for an old Water boy outboard motor, fixed them up and used the boat for 2 years at Middle Beach and on the river at Blanchtown then sold it $300. Next project was to build two Hartley 13ft runabouts, in partnership with my friend Ivor Jones. We used the same building form to build the boats, Ivor’s boat first at Salisbury, after a toss up to see who got first use of the form. When we got his boat to turn over stage we brought the form up to Evanston and built my boat to turnover stage. In the meantime we had both built our own trailers and painted both hulls, so they went straight onto the trailers and from then on we finished our own boats at our homes. The both boats turned out to be really good and very sea worthy, they were both Marine Ply and Philippine mahogany frames, all copper rivets and nails and all fittings were either stainless steel or polished aluminium. I powered mine with a Johnson 33 H.P. outboard motor and it performed very well. I kept mine for five years and Ivor had his for thirty five years or more until he died and left it to his son and as far as I know it’s still going strong. After that I built a 12ft two man canoe, using the same Marine Ply and timber that I used for the boat, this turned out to be very good too. It was used at the beach and on the river. I took the canoe to Morgan and used it on the river and Craig and I paddled all over the golf course when it was in flood in 1982. Eventually I sold it to a bloke from Waikerie, he had a plan to take it to Remark and paddle down to Goolwa. I don’t know if he ever did it or not as I never heard from him again. I’m sure he would have made it as it was very stable and had inbuilt floatation.
TO YOU BOYS (this was written for his Sons)
I have written down all these memories so that my boys will know that I have had a very interesting time while I have been around. The stories that I’ve told are all true and I could tell you lots more about practical jokes I have played on people and jokes that I myself have carried out on people. I can tell you now that I have also been on the receiving end of a few, like finding my motor bike in the ladies toilet, when it was time to go home from work or dangling from the hook of the travelling crane in the workshop five metres from the floor. Another time when I started my bike I got a hell of a shock off the throttle grip; there was a very fine wire from the spark plug to the rubber throttle grip. Another good one was I got on my Panther and Tilbrook side-car outfit in the car park after clocking off with a large audience took off 20metres down the road engine starts to labour, shut the throttle, pull in the clutch and next thing I’m back in the park fifty blokes cheering and clapping with a length of Bungee rubber fixed to the rear of the side-car chassis and the other end to a gum tree. THAT’S ALL FOLKS
References
Memories of Atyeo Bryce Mervyn
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