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Copyright © 2017 Patricia Blackwell
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Blackwell, Patricia.
The drover’s daughter / Patricia Blackwell.
ISBN: 9781925367751 (paperback)
ISBN: 9780648697015 (eBook)
Blackwell, Patricia.
Drovers--Australia--Biography.
Women--Australia--Biography.
Printed in Australia
Cover design by Brolga Publishing
Typesetting by Alice Cannet
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Author’s preface
When I moved to Melbourne in 1971, aged 20, I took with me a broad country Aussie accent that had people mocking me about the way I spoke. Dog was never “dog” it was “dawg” plus I had no dress sense and many other bushie quirks. I quickly learnt a port was where ships came in and a suitcase was for placing clothes for travel. As I spoke to others over the years they kept telling me I should write a book about my experience of being a drover’s daughter. In early 1980 I started to put my memories on pieces of paper. Some of these I copied out and sent to Mum, Emmie and Mary to add to. Mum made an effort to fill in the gaps, Emmie did as much as she could but she found it very stressful to talk about our past life “in the long paddock” and Mary did not acknowledge my notes. With their help and the memories I gathered over the past 25 years I have managed to get a book together that I am proud to call my own.
I would like to thank my friends Leanne Jones, Tina Fry, Jacqui M and Deanne Berry for the many hours of “gramma” corrections, moral support and laughter as this book progressed over the past two years. Thanks girls.
A number of people both living and dead are mentioned in this book, which is my personal account. Any misconceptions that might be perceived are mine alone.
Patsy Kemp
© Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
NARRABRI 1955
Traditional land of the Kamilaroi people
My earliest memory is one of terror. The flood. I was about four years old and it had been raining for days. Everyone was talking about an impending flood. We had been camping on the reserve beside the Namoi River but with the constant rain we were now short of food. The roads were mud and none of the vehicles could get into town. We were well and truly stuck. Dad decided that if the rain stopped he would catch the horse and ride into Narrabri to get some basic food supplies because if the river broke its banks we would be stranded for days.
Rain pelted down. There were nine adults and six kids and we huddled together trying to keep dry underneath a small lean-to Dad had built onto Mrs McCaw’s humpy-like kitchen. Mrs McCaw, a friend of ours who also camped on the reserve, made us all a hot drink as the adults discussed our dilemma and the best way to tackle our predicament.
I was sitting on my eight year old sister’s knee. Emily (Emmie) cuddled me as I sucked my thumb, mesmerised by the smoke from the adults’ cigarettes lazily wafting out into the open to join with the rain. With the constant drone of their voices going up and down in heated discussion as to who had the best plan, I eventually drifted off to sleep. When I woke, it was early the next day and I was in the back of the truck along with my parents and siblings who had all slept there to keep safe. While they were still sleeping, brown muddy water rushed below. I could see it was halfway up the wheels of the truck and decided it would be fun to climb down and have a play while the others slept. I was having a lovely paddle in the flood waters until my mother woke up, horrified. She ordered my eldest brother Col, who was nine, to grab me before I was washed away with the debris in the swirling torrents. I couldn’t understand why I got such a hiding when I was only trying to make mud pies for breakfast!
Thankfully, the attention was quickly diverted away from me and my wet muddy clothes as news arrived that the floodwaters had broken the bank of the river not far from where we were. Mum woke Dad. ‘We have to move to higher ground,’ she said in a panic.
Dad looked down at the depth of the water encircling the truck. ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ he yelled. ‘We’re already on the only bit of high ground there is.’
We had parked on a sandy ridge that was used for a rubbish tip where the local night cart and odd job man, Teddy Small, had built a shed. Suddenly, a great wall of water appeared from seemingly nowhere and there was a desperate flight towards the shed. I was terrified. The biggest and eldest all had to lock arms and struggle against being swept away in the powerful current. I was perched on top of Col’s shoulders and Dad carried Mike, aged three. My brother Les, aged five, and sister Mary, six, were being piggy backed by Alec and John McCaw. Emmie was struggling with the adults and at one point she lost her footing, slipped into the muddy water and began to float away. Dad quickly grabbed a handful of hair and tugged her to him. Mum shoved the blankets she was carrying under one arm and put her other hand around her eldest daughter’s shoulders to help her along in the slippery, swift flowing water.
Sounds vibrated in my head: men yelling and swearing, the women and us kids screaming and crying, the rushing of the water, the absolute terror of it all. Teddy Small jumped onto the shed’s roof and Col handed me up to him. He placed me a few feet away and then helped to drag the others, one by one, over the jagged, rusty guttering that was almost falling from the excess weight of rotted foliage and the heavy downpour now being thrust upon it.
I thought we were going to die. I sobbed uncontrollably as I watched drowned sheep, dogs, chooks and various other once-living creatures float past, tangled in the debris of the raging flood waters.
Beside the eight in our family there was Mrs McCaw and her five adult children, John, Alec, Colleen, Lucy, Mary; her siblings, Norman and Amelia; along with Teddy Small. Although we were grateful to be safely up above the water line, as the day went on, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The tin roof became unbearably hot and began to burn us. We were