At school, children I knew contracted a disease called polio. It was spoken about with dread as it caused paralysis and was sometimes fatal. When my school friend Sidney Sutton died from the disease I was deeply disturbed. How could this pleasant, well dressed gentle boy who bothered no-one just die? Apparently he had simply not woken up one morning. It was my first encounter with death. I would miss Sidney Sutton.
Listening to the serials on the radio after dinner was a regular part of our day. My favourites were, ‘The Air Adventures of Biggles’, ‘Gould League of Bird Watchers’, and ‘Ovalteen Club’. Reading when I went to bed was encouraged and became a habit that has endured for life. My frequent periods of illness, mainly asthma, and the hundreds of boils I experienced meant I was often confined to bed, sometimes with the blinds drawn. I discovered the beauty of books and associated them with the peace of isolation. The periods of illness cut heavily into my time at school, as noted in my school reports. It was made worse by Stan’s growing habit of keeping me home to help him deliver bread whenever a bread carter was unable to work.
To begin with, I thought this would be good fun - until his foul temper and indifference to me had him laughing. I was frightened of the dogs that bailed me up when I entered a property to deliver bread. Being small, and having no experience with dogs, this was a big problem but he insisted I deliver the bread anyway. I would often have to run and catch up with him because he kept moving on into the next street or beyond. He was unmoved by the occasional dog bites I received.
Each year, our church used to celebrate the Sunday School Anniversary. The children of the church would sit on raised benches at one end of the hall facing the adult congregation. On one occasion, the visiting minister was well into a story when he paused and asked the seated children if anyone knew where Jesus Christ lives. My brother Bruce put up his hand. ‘Yes, the little boy up the back,’ the minister said. ‘Where does Jesus Christ live?’ Bruce replied, ‘Next to my father’s horse paddock!’ The congregation broke up with laughter and the poor minister, a visitor, was the only person who didn’t understand why.
I enjoyed my involvement with the church, apart from the boring admonitions of the minister about the many sins that might befall us, or the repetitive hymns that droned on and on. Some sins, from my limited experience, held a tantalising attraction and would need to be tested. The Church Boys Club was run by Mr. Keith Miller who donated a lot of time to making us into decent citizens. At first it was gymnastics and ball games one night a week after which we graduated to the Junior Order of Knights with its rituals, secret codes and regalia.
Bruce and I had been adopted as ‘helpers’ by two of the longest serving ‘carters’ (our name for the drivers of the horse drawn carts). Bruce was adopted by Bert Harris, whose horse was Jack, an ex trotter while I was the favourite of George Neil, who drove Tiny, a 17.5 hand ex-hunter. George called me ‘Picolo Pete’ and treated me to a ride on the cart with him at every opportunity. I was very fond and proud of Tiny. He was so big even George, who was six feet tall, had difficulty putting Tiny’s headstall on. One day when I was about nine, Tiny was kicked in the shoulder by another horse and had to be put down.
I remember his execution clearly. The man put the captive bolt to Tiny’s lovely head and tapped it with a small hammer. ‘Pop.’ It was done. His lifeless body was hauled by a winch into the truck and it departed. But my memory of that day did not. Some images are never forgotten.
CHAPTER 2
WINDS OF CHANGE
By the late 1940’s, Stan was grooming Bruce and I with the notion that we would be selling the bakery and moving to a farm. He was increasingly debilitated with abscesses and suffering from what he called ‘flour on the lung’. He assured us we would get a pony and painted a picture of an idyllic life in the country that surpassed our wildest dreams. Our occasional family visits to the grandparents in Tecoma and my brief holidays there also reinforced my love of the bush. The drive swept gently up through the tall trees into the garage next to the small white weatherboard painted house. Inside, the smell of kerosene and candles was strong for at first electricity was not connected. The dining table had an ornate lamp in the middle that gave off a soft yellow light which cast shadows in the room. These shadows were enlivened by the flickering of the fire as it warmed the room and added to the charm. My grandfather would greet us warmly and although finding conversation was difficult due to his deafness, he would engage us by playing cribbage, a game he loved.
Another joy was going for the milk. We would walk about a mile further up a track through the bush behind the house to a small property where, if we were early enough, we would see the man milk his cow by hand. When finished, he would fill my tin billy with milk. The pungent smell of the cow and her warm frothy milk was unforgettable.
The sights, the sounds, the smells – the bush was a magical other world. The fact it was always raining only added to the charm. On our many walks in the forest, we were on the alert for a glimpse of the lyre birds and wombats that inhabited the bush. Although eighteen months younger than me, my brother Bruce was similarly enchanted. We were more than ready to believe that life in the country would be wonderful.
Naturally, we were on Dad’s side to go farming. Mum remained unimpressed. She knew this was a recipe for failure. Stan was in fact trying to avoid the reality that although the bakery appeared to be a raging success, he had expanded the business too rapidly and borrowed money from the flour mills. He had no strategy for its survival.
There were many subtle pressures at work in the community at this time. People were becoming more prosperous. An increasing number had cars and shopping habits were changing. Plastic goods were coming onto the market and food and clothing, rationed throughout the war, became available. Larger bread companies like Tip Top appeared, sometimes funded by the flour mills that bought up the smaller bakeries and stopped home delivery to reduce cost. The advent of sliced bread and the saving of distribution costs allowed the consolidated bakeries to undercut prices. The demise of the small bakery business was inevitable.
One day my father was talking to the owner of the local garage, Mr. Carpenter. Stan told him that as a commando during the war he had parachuted from a low flying aircraft into New Guinea. I piped in suggesting that can’t be true as it was not what he had told Uncle Bill. My father was furious and hurried me away before punching into my arms and head. I was at a loss to understand what I had done wrong. I had long detected inconsistencies in his exaggerated stories but this was direct proof of his telling lies. His war records which were released to my mother following his death in 1999, revealed he had never seen action or served beyond Brisbane.
A friend of my father, Hec Neil, owned a stable yard in Newport. Behind the high paling fence was a long stable with a loft above which contained the horse feed for about ten or more big draught horses. I was fascinated by this collection because of the size of the horses which were even bigger than ours. On one occasion I was allowed to go up into the loft. The atmosphere was quaint and dusty. The smell of horses, feed, sweat and manure was pungent and for me, somewhat addictive. I was in awe of that restless horsepower. Each horse in a dray was able to pull a ton or more at a trot for quite a distance. And besides, Hec owned a farm at Rockbank.
Hec invited my father and me to visit his farm. I felt fortunate to be included. Unlike the bush of my dreams, this was sheep country – open and almost treeless. There was an ancient house, the remains of a primitive tractor, a shearing shed and sheep yards. The true purpose of our visit was revealed after rounding up a flock of sheep. I was put to work catching lambs that I dragged to the waiting Hec, who castrated the males with a pocket knife and an emasculator before cutting their tails off. I had to admit to wondering if it hurt. Hec said it didn’t unless you nicked yourself with the knife.