“Mrs Heppler, how many times have you done this journey?”
“More times than I care to remember really.”
“Always by yourself?”
“Yes. I prefer it and it works well with the Station. It gives me peace, solitude and thinking time. I’m always equipped with enough provisions and water and can more than get by in vehicle maintenance and I also have the rifles. I’m respectful of the sun, the way of the land and all its glorious nasties. I’m a tough old bird Maggie, I can take care of myself.”
“Can you tell us some stories from England?” asked Emily. “We’d love to hear them.”
“Well,” Maggie began, “as you know I lived on Primrose Farm Estate and as a small child I enjoyed playing in the apple orchards while my mother picked the apples and my father, who was the Estate’s manager, drove the tractor to collect the apples. I remember the air raids, can still hear the sirens, it was very frightening and I could feel the vibration in my chest as hundreds of planes flew overhead on their way to London during the Blitz. I was only three when the war started, so this was all normal to me, but the noise was still scary.
“There were night raids too and I remember that sometimes I would go to bed in my room but in the morning, I woke up in the Anderson shelter down at the bottom of our garden. I had been so fast asleep that I never felt being scooped out of bed and carried to the shelter while the sirens were sounding. Oh, sorry, you probably don’t know, the Anderson shelter was a bunker that was dug into the ground giving us more protection from bombs than staying in the house. It was a small place and smelled of damp earth, there were a couple of benches inside and we had a little food and water as well. We had blankets too because it was so cold over the winter months. To give the shelter extra protection and to also make it look nicer, my father covered the top of the shelter with heaps of soil and grass where buttercups and daisies grew in the springtime.”
Emily and Mrs Heppler listened in awe trying to imagine what life was like back then.
“And then every September the village more or less came to life during the hop season because for the rest of the year it was just a sleepy little village. The hop pickers and their children came down from London and I would play with the children. I also used to love going with my father to see the Squire at the Manor. I liked the Squire, but I loved going to see the housekeeper, Mrs Sutton, even more. She’d give me warm jam tarts and milky cups of tea. I remember it being extra special because she often let me use a real bone china cup and saucer. I’d pretend I was a princess who lived in a huge castle.” Maggie smiled at the memory.
“Oh, that is so sweet,” said Emily, “the castle I mean, not the war.”
Maggie smiled and nodded, knowing what Emily meant. “I remember my mother’s face when I told her about the china. She looked at me in horror as she realised the true value and knew if I had broken it we could never afford to replace it. I was only around five or six then, I think. That was when things were normal, or I thought they were normal, before things changed between us...”
“You don’t have to go on, love,” said Mrs Heppler gently, knowing that Maggie’s father had passed on.
“It’s okay, honestly. I’d rather get it all out now from the start. You see, because the village was in between London and the English Channel we, and many other towns and villages in Kent, had lots of air raids as our pilots tried to intercept the German bombers during the Blitz.
“Just before my eighth birthday my father was killed by a flying bomb, or you may know them as doodlebugs. It was shot down by anti-aircraft fire and landed in the village. I went to bed thinking of birthday party celebrations and woke up to find out that my beloved father was dead.
“After he died my mother did too, in a way. She pushed me away and I didn’t understand why.
“Actually, I believe I will never know the real why. Mrs Collins, our lovely neighbour, looked out for us and helped me a lot. Then we had to move because the Squire needed the cottage and outbuildings for the new manager. The Squire helped us as we moved to another cottage on the Estate on the outskirts of the village. It was a longer walk to the shops and school, but Pete and Billy, Mr and Mrs Collins’ twins, used to walk me home from school. They were heaps of fun and they played all kinds of tricks on me.” Maggie smiled again at the memory.
“Then things got a lot worse. My mother started drinking and the cottage became a horrid place to live. After school I dreaded going home and used to walk as slowly as I could. It was when she left me for days on end without any food in the house that I blurted it all out to my grandma. And that was when I went to live with her. Then things started to get a whole lot better. We had a blast and Sally, my best friend, would come and stay. We used to have tea parties and play music… and then when grandma died a few years later, I was kindly invited to stay with Sally and her parents, who ran the village pub. They became my adopted parents of sorts and I love them dearly.
“I visited my mother just before coming here and we said some horrid things to one another. She actually accused me of killing my father…” Maggie’s voice broke as tears welled up in her eyes.
Emily and Mrs Heppler gasped together in disbelief.
“I know she was angry,” said Maggie, taking a deep breath and continuing on, “she had no one else to blame, but it hurt deeply. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get over that. But, Sally always said, that when someone dies no matter where you are in the world, they will always be with you. I took a lot of comfort in that keeping my father and grandma in mind.
“So. Here I am. Ready to start a new life on the other side of the world. It hasn’t been too bad so far, as I’ve met two lovely ladies already, although…” Maggie looked around, “I’m not sure where they are!”
They all laughed.
“What a bloody awful beginning for you,” said Mrs Heppler. “I knew from your letters about the passing of your father, but never in a million years envisaged anything like this. Stupid woman. What on earth was she thinking to be like that with you and saying those awful things to her own daughter?”
“If I knew the answer, Mrs Heppler, then I’d be the happiest person alive.”
“We’ll always be here Maggie, if you ever want to talk,” said Mrs Heppler, as Emily nodded in agreement and gently patted Maggie’s arm.
Maggie smiled, appreciating the gesture.
“Now, McKinnley Station introductions,” said Mrs Heppler changing the subject. “First, the family: there’s Mr and Mrs McKinnley, their son, Jack and daughter, Sylvia. Look, I’m not a gossip per se, just know that Sylvia can be somewhat difficult, don’t take it personally, it’s just the way she is. Mrs McKinnley, myself and Elsa work more or less in the kitchen and also tend to the washing duties as well as maintaining the gardens and fruit and veggie patches. Then there’s the chooks, cows and goats that need looking after and anything else that may crop up. It certainly keeps us busy.
“Mr Price is the Station manager, who is counting down towards his retirement, then there’s the stockmen, Dusty and Mellow with Jack being the head stockman. Next, there is Ted who is the Station hand, and Sid the jackaroo. Sylvia is a jillaroo, although she prefers to be known as a stockman for whatever reason that only she can answer. Then, at big events like shearing, lambing, the rodeo etc, we have an influx of staff who travel around the Stations. On the whole there are just the eleven of us well, thirteen now that we have acquired you two, plus horses, kelpies and a little matter of around thirty five thousand Merino sheep, give or take a thousand or two!”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Maggie, “That’s a huge jump, I thought there were five thousand?”
“Five thousand? Where did you get that from? No, it’s definitely around thirty five, or thereabouts,” Mrs Heppler said adamantly, nodding her head.
“From