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Doc
Keeper of the Scrolls
2010 Posts
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17/05/2004
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16:32
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VERBATIM TRANSCRIPTION OF LESLIE GRAHAM MACDONALD TAPES
Recorded and transcribed by Stanley Graham. Strictly copyright. No part of this manuscript may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language without the written permission of Stanley Graham.
Tape identification File Number
Tape 1. Red. Track 3. 024\lgstory.007
In the case of the Barry’s, I had heard that the land that they were on was a grant given by the government to their father for services rendered.
For the first few months that I was there I had a busy time learning about all the things that went on on a sheep station. We were, at that time, engaged on erecting a rabbit-proof fence right through the heart of the station run and when I went there it was almost finished. It was only about two miles to do.
Now the standard fencing was, I can remember the specification perfectly well, the posts used for the job were to be either box wood, pine or bubbah(?). Bubbah is a sort of bastard sandalwood. For the small posts like bubbah they had to be a minimum diameter of four inches at the top and for the thick posts, they had to be no less than six by six. The posts had to be spaced ten feet apart and they had to be twenty two inches into the ground with a straining post every 100 yds which was not less than a foot diameter at the small end and sunk three feet into the ground. There was six wires and wire netting of one inch mesh, three foot six wide and this had to be buried a minimum of six inches into the ground.
Our other job was ring-barking as most of this country was in its wild state and no attempt had ever been made at any cultivation of any kind. As the sheep flock grew they wanted more grass and therefore they had to turn to clearing the land to get a higher production of grass. There was a law in Australia, or in New South Wales at any rate that when ring-barking the forest, a belt of two chains had to be left all the way round the edges of the forest. The idea of this was to stop soil erosion. Also to encourage rainfall.
There were a number of types of ring-barking and for boxwood trees we used to do what was called ring-barking. That was a ring of bark six inches wide was taken off all round the tree. If there was gum trees in the plot then they had to be what was called sapped, that was that you had to cut a scarf out all round the tree right through the sap. If this wasn’t done they would overgrow and the ring-barking would be no use at all. On things like bullagh(?), bubbah and sycamore and all other kinds of scrub timber, oak, they were what we called frilled, that was one axe cut around the tree leaving a frill. That was generally sufficient to kill that type of tree. The worst tree to kill was the gum tree because immediately you sapped it, within the next two or three weeks it would throw up suckers and you’d have to go round again and cut the suckers off and that went on until eventually the tree died.
Our hours of work were, up at daybreak, breakfast and off to work. We’d get away to work just shortly after sun-up. We worked until mid-day and had our mid-day break. If the weather was hot we might have a couple of hours for lunch. If it was normal then we’d have about an hour and we were off again. This went on until sun-down. There was no stop for a drink of tea at ten in the morning or four in the afternoon, you just had a water bag and if you wanted a drink you had a drink out of the water bag. You used to work in lines when you were ring-barking and you had to hold your end up with all the other people and keep a straight line as you went along.
When you were fencing you used to dig the holes by digging so many holes then going round each other and that kept you up to the mark, you had to dig as many holes in the same time as the rest of the gang. The same thing happened on the fencing. The only break that I got was when we were running the wire and if the Old Man set me on the reel while the other fellers ran the wire out. I used to get a bit of a break then. I also got a bit of a break when we got the wire netting in position because when we’d done about half a mile, he used to send me back with small wires to secure the wire netting to the fence wires. I soon learned that it wasn’t all beer and skittles. You were always very glad when the Old Man had to go away anywhere for a day or half a day because we had a bit of a break. We didn’t do much work when he wasn’t there I can assure you.
When the fencing job at Uabolong was finished, we moved away to another camp on a ring-barking contract. This was a pretty big job and the Old Man decided to hire some labour. He brought out two of my uncles, uncle Art and uncle Ernest and a friend of ours named Louis LeFevre who was the son of the lady I’ve spoken of before, Mrs Minogue. We also had one or two fellers that had drifted into the camp and the Old Man had given them a job.
Whilst we were on this job we noticed a terrific amount of rabbits. We got together and had a talk about it and we decided that it mightn’t be a bad idea to have a rabbit drive. At that time, rabbit skins were worth about 11d a pound and there were about eight skins to the pound so we thought that if we got a few rabbits it might supplement our spending money a bit. We had a word with the Old Man about this and he said “Well, if you want a rabbit drive you can have one but all the arrangements will have to be made in your own time, you’re not knocking off work to go chasing rabbits.” So we said alright.
Now we used to knock off earlier on a Saturday and we had Sunday to ourselves ostensibly to do our washing and all that sort of thing. We decided to go in to the home station and have a word with Mr Barry. We told him what we had in mind and he was all for it off course. He promised that he would lend us sufficient wire netting and wire, anything we wanted. Also when we were ready for the drive he would send the men out from the station to give us a hand with the drive.
We worked two or three weekends on this thing, we built a yard first and then we built an outer yard and then we run a wing out, we set our yard and wire netting fence and we run our wing out about a mile. About a quarter of a mile from the yard we put what we called a drop net across, that was wire netting supported with sticks so that when we drove the rabbits through we dropped it and they couldn’t get back.
Everything was set for this rabbit drive which was to take place on a Sunday morning. Just before daylight we went out to start the drive. There was about 40 men had turned up. There was all sorts of blokes arrived from round about and they had bowls and rattles and tin cans and all sorts of things. We started the drive, we drove these rabbits on and as we got further down the wing the ground was just moving with rabbits. We got ‘em in through the drop net, dropped the net on them. Of course a lot got back and got away but we got ‘em through into the big yard and started driving through into the small yard and we found the small yard wasn’t big enough to hold them. We made the big yard secure and started killing. We killed all the rabbits and counted them and we’d just over 4,000. So then there was the problem of skinning and by this time it was getting on towards mid-day so we went back to the camp and had our mid-day meal. Father said “Well what are you going to do now, you’ve got all the rabbits, what are you going to do with them?” We said “we’re going to skin ‘em.” He said “You’ll have to get busy if you’re going to skin all them today. There won’t be much in it by the time you’ve paid all these fellers for working.”
We hadn’t thought about that. We’d thought about sharing this thing amongst five of us. The Old Man said “You needn’t worry about it. I’ll let the men help you with the skinning and you can start tomorrow morning. Have the rest of the day off.” That suited us fine. We went next morning and started skinning. I could skin about twenty or thirty an hour, Stan could skin about the same amount, Jim could skin more. Anyhow we were at it all day and well into the night before we’d finished these things and it took about a mile of old Mac Barry’s wire to put these skins on to dry. We got them all pegged out and hung up to dry but there was a bit of trouble about half way through the skinning session.
I don’t know what happened but my uncle Ern, he was a bad-tempered bloke and he didn’t like Jim. I had a knife that Jim fancied and while we were stopped for a break he pinched this knife and left his own knife for it. Now I tackled him about it and he wouldn’t give me me knife back so I rolled into him and he gave me a belting. Well this just suited Ern because he had a down on Jim and he rolled into Jim. But he’d lost sight of the fact that although we could fight between ourselves, it was a private fight and no outsider was allowed in. As soon as he tackled Jim we all tackled him. He took a knife in his hand and he hit Jim under the chin with the butt end of the knife. Not with the blade, he shut the knife and held the knife in his fist and then hit him under the chin with it and cut his chin.
Anyhow, we weren’t satisfied with giving him a good hammering we took to him with sticks and gave him a belting with sticks. He went off to the camp to tell the Old Man all about it. Anyhow, we went back to the camp when we’d finished and he’d already told the Old Man his story and before the Old Man said anything to us he went and had a word with Louis LeFevre and me uncle Art joined in the chat as well. Then the Old Man went to uncle Ernest’s tent, he was lying in the tent, and he said something to him. About ten minutes afterwards he had set off towards Berrida. I daren’t ask the Old Man what had happened to him, he never said anything to us but we learned afterwards that the Old Feller’d given him his time, sacked him and told him he needn’t come near the camp again because he wouldn’t get a job if he come there.
About this time, Mae become engaged to big Jack Crawford and we were looking forward to the wedding because we knew we’d have a good time. The wedding day was fixed and we got ready to go off home to attend the function. That month that we were waiting, between the time we heard of the engagement and the wedding was one of the longest months I’ve ever spent in me life. We were counting the hours every day, how long it would be before we got back to Dubbo. It came at last and Father went off on his bicycle and we took the stage coach to Gilgandra and the train home. She was married in the Catholic church and the reception was held at a restaurant in Talbragar Street. We all had a good time because there was lashings of everything bar booze of course. But everything else that one could wish for was there. There was about a hundred guests. I had no idea that Mae and Jack Crawford were so popular until the marriage. People that I didn’t know that they knew turned up and of course I suppose they were invited. It was a very grand affair.
Jack Crawford was a big chap about six foot six. He weighed about sixteen or seventeen stone and was nothing but bone and muscle, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him anywhere. He was a big slow-going feller, slow speaking and slow thinking, if you asked him a question he always considered it a minute or so before he answered and I personally never saw him lose his temper. I know he could lose his temper and he was a pretty rough handful when he did but I never ever saw him lose his temper. At the time they were married he was working around on farms and sort of doing odd jobs up and down, he was nowhere very permanent.
Of course this didn’t suit Mae, she wanted a permanent job and a permanent home, she said she didn’t want to be like Mother. To satisfy her wants, Jack took a job on the railway as a fettler, that is what you’d call platelayer in this country. We call platelayers at home the men who lay the permanent way. Jack’s job was maintenance of the permanent way.
Well the wedding was over and back we go to Berrida. On our return trip we only took Louis LeFevre with us and a new character by the name of George Ganes. Now Louis LeFevre was almost one of the family at that time because he was the son of Mrs Minogue’s first marriage and really, the friendship between Mother and Father and the LeFevres, the Minogues later on, was really founded at the time when she was married to Mr LeFevre. They came from Italy but whether there’s any connection or marriage between them and the Johanstones I don’t know. I never heard her talk about it but I’ve often wondered if there was a connection between them before they emigrated to Australia.
George Ganes was the son of Mrs Skinner. He was the only son of her first marriage. He was a peculiar chap, he was one of the most likeable fellers I ever met in me life. He was good-hearted to a fault, he’d do anything for you, in fact he’d do anything for anyone but he just could not keep his fingers to himself. If he saw anything that he thought he could make a bob or two out of he’d steal it. He’d been in gaol and because of Mother and Father’s friendship with his Mother she prevailed on the Old Man to take him out into the bush where he couldn’t get into trouble. Little did she know that he could get into as much trouble in the bush as he could anywhere else. Anyhow, he came with us and for a few months we all got along very well together. He joined in, he shared things, hunting shooting and fishing, anything that was going and he worked like a tiger.
As we were miles away from the nearest town, it was up to ourselves to create our own entertainment. This was generally done by probably visiting some other camp or being visited by fellows from another camp and we’d sit around the fire yarning and singing and telling recitations. It was amazing the things of interest that you heard because you met men from all over the country and they all had there own special yarns to tell. Some of them had been miners and some of them just tramps, sundowners, and they’d had all kinds of occupations. There was one chap that used to come to our camp, he was a remittance man. A remittance man was a man who was a neer-do-well in this country and his people sent him off to Australia and they paid him so much a quarter. Well, this feller, he used to get his money from home every three months. When he got it there was nothing would hold him back from town. He’d go into town and he’d get on the booze and he wouldn’t stop drinking until it was all gone and they chucked him out and then he’d go back to work again. But he was a well educated man and he told some very interesting stories about not only England but other countries he’d been to as well as his life in the army, he’d been an officer in the army, but was cashiered. All in all he was a very interesting fellow.
As very few of the fellers could sing, giving a recitation was the favourite entertainment. I’ve no intention of inflicting recitations on you at this juncture but I once did win a prize for saying nearly a hundred pieces of recitation by memory. This will give you some idea of the studies I must have put in learning them.
One day when I was out hunting I come across a bower bird’s run. We knew there was one in the woods nearby because we often used to hear him at night time imitating all sorts of things. He could imitate a saw or he could imitate a dray, the way the wheels of the dray knocked going over the rough ground and he’d imitate other birds. He’d even ‘cooee’ like a man but we were never able to find his run and one day I stumbled on to it. It was very interesting to see. He had a main hall and this hall was built up with branches and leaves and that sort of thing then there was a passageway and a sort of outer courtyard and this was covered with all sorts of things, I don’t know where he’d found them all but there was bits of crockery, bits of stone and all sorts of little things like that spread on the floor. I waited about three hours to see him and eventually he did come down to the nest and did one or two struts through it and made one or two calls. They were his natural calls he wasn’t imitating anything at that time but it was very interesting to see and when I went back and told ‘em at the camp that I’d seen it they wouldn’t believe me because it was very very seldom anybody ever found a bower bird’s run. But I took them back and showed them where it was and they were quite satisfied, they saw the run but they never saw any birds. He wouldn’t come anywhere near whilst we were there.
When the ring-barking job cut out, Father went back to Dubbo and we went over to the main homestead where we had a bit of a job to do and also we were going to help with getting in the hay. George Gains went with Father as far as Gilgandra and there he met a fellow that he’d known before and he told Father that he’d get on the train later on and Father went off home on his bicycle.
Within a couple of days we got word that George was in the police station in Gulargumbone. He’d met this feller and apparently he was a chap that he met in gaol and they teamed up together and decided they’d break into a skin and hide warehouse in Gulargumbone which they did. They got the skins and brought them back and sold them to the skin and hide warehouse in Gilgandra. So of course, it was an open and shut case and they were found guilty and they got six months in Bathurst Gaol.
After Mae’s wedding Mother felt very lonely and as there was only her and Doris and the two kids she prevailed on Father to take her out to Berrida on the next job that they went on. We did have a job to go to and it was at the Berrida homestead.[Barry’s] We had a bit of fencing to do and Father had agreed to help them with the haymaking so we went to the homestead after buying some new tents and equipment in Gilgandra and started to prepare the holiday camp. We put up a big tent sixteen by twelve and this was supposed to be a living room and sleeping quarters for Mother and Father. Then we put a ten by eight tent up for the three girls and we also put up the big tarpaulin flies for them to cook under and eat under and made everything as comfortable as we could for them.
It was a lovely spot where we were camped, it was right on the banks of the Marthagai Creek. There was a big weir which was used as water conservation for the homestead, there was boats on it and you could go fishing and shooting, anything to pass away the time.
They arrived out eventually and got settled in. We lads thought it was a wonderful thing because we had the pleasure of Mother’s cooking. We didn’t have to do quite so much of the camp work after we’d finished work during the day.
We went on with this job and got it finished then we went on with the hay-making and that went off uneventfully. There was only one little incident that was a bit exciting while it lasted. They had an immigrant chap who’d worked on a farm in this country (England) and he was on the wagons loading the hay, the other lads were pitching it up from the stooks down below. There was plenty of snakes about and one day, a chap threw up a sheaf of hay and there was a snake in it. This snake ran up this lads trouser leg. He must have had great presence of mind because he just grabbed hold of his trousers, or this was what he told us afterwards, he grabbed hold of his trouser leg, got his knife and slit the trouser leg from top to bottom, the snake dashed out and he slid off down to the ground. He was very fortunate that he didn’t get bitten because it was a brown snake and they give rather a nasty bite.
Anyhow, the job finished and Mother and the kids went back to Dubbo. We moved out to another contract on one of the out-stations and we were putting up a line of fence in there. We were on a boundary between Berrida and a man called Big Bill Ring. Now Ring and Father were at daggers drawn over something. I don’t know what it was but it was something that had happened that I knew nothing at all about. We were cutting the posts for this fence in some Bubbah scrub on the boundary. Inadvertently either Father or one of us had fallen a tree over the boundary line on Ring’s land. This was a trivial thing which the majority of squatters wouldn’t have thought anything about but Ring happened to come along and see this tree and he accused the Old Man of trespass. The Old Man said there couldn’t be trespass because there was no line of demarcation as to which was Ring’s land and which was Barry’s land. Anyhow, Ring made a case of it. He had the Old Man summoned, he was taken to court and he was fined five bob for trespassing on Ring’s land. The judge, very politely told Mr Ring what he thought about him.
We had another exciting experience here, or at least, it was exciting for me, we’d been out shooting and were coming home through an ironbark forest. A thunderstorm come up and either Jim or Stan shouted let’s run for it, there’s going to be a storm. It was a fixed rule there that if there was a thunderstorm you got away from timber as quick as you possibly could well out into the open. Anyhow, the thunderstorm beat us. I was running through the forest when, I don’t know how far it was in front of us, it seemed about a yard, it must have been about twenty or thirty yards, lightning struck a tree right in front of me. I stopped dead, I was rooted to the spot, I couldn’t have moved if anybody’d given me a thousand pound. When I did move my legs were so weak they’d hardly carry me. Anyhow I got over the fright and we got out in the open without anything further exciting happening and fortunately, none of us were hurt.
When this job finished, we moved off to Curban on another job. This was putting up a telephone line. At this time, Berrida was just installing, from the home station to all the out stations, telephone communication and Father got the contract of putting in the telephone lines. This was a very interesting job because we had first to find a forest for suitable poles and they were fallen and barked and painted with creosote. We got the line up and telephones through to the home station in record time. We had a little bit of a celebration because when we got through to the home station Mr Barry invited us to come up to the boundary rider’s hut that night and listen to some music which they played on their gramophone in front of the telephone. It was a bit of an occasion for us.
Jim had been showing marked signs of discontentment for some time now and one day he and I and Stan were sitting together having our mid-day meal when he broke the news to us that he was going to make a break for it. We discussed ways and means of him getting away. What he was going to do when he got away and that sort of thing. He hadn’t any idea of what he was going to do, his one idea was to get away, the job had become so monotonous to him, and I think he resented Father’s authority over us as we all did and he said “I’m off.” So we said, “When are you going”. He said “I’m going to go on Sunday night, I’ll get to Curban and I can hide out there until the train comes which is about ten o’clock in the morning and if I get on the train alright I don’t think the Old Man will ever find me.” Anyhow, we gave him what bit of cash we had, it wasn’t much, only a bob or so but anyhow we gave him all we had and helped him to pack his things and about midnight he went off. Well, that was alright for him but we had to face the Old Man the next morning. When we got up and were having our breakfast he said “Somebody go and call Jim”. Stan went to the tent pretending to go and call him and he came back and said he wasn’t there. The Old Man asked where he was and Stan said he didn’t know. “When did you see him last.” He said “We saw him when we went to bed last night”. He didn’t sleep in the same tent as us. We didn’t know what time he’d got up or where he’d gone to. So he never said any more. We had our breakfast and went off to work. The Old Man said nothing, he just carried on. We thought he’d go looking for him but he didn’t. So in the evening when we were having our meal he just said “Anybody see anything of Jim today?” We said “No.” He said “I suppose he’s made a break. Well, if he wants to go, let him go.” A few days after this, Father came in and said “I saw a Quondong tree while I was out today and it’s loaded with ripe fruit.” We said “Where is it?” He directed us to where it was so Stan and I thought we’d go on the Sunday and have a feed of Quondong nuts. Now these Quondongs, they were very pure quality fruit, a stone about as big as a plum a bit bitter and we took them back to the camp and eat them and my God, about twelve o’clock at night we were rolling about all over the place. I thought I was poisoned. Anyhow, Father heard us groaning and he came to see what was the matter, he said we had bellyache and said it served us bloody well right for making gluttons of ourselves, he said it was the quondongs we’d eaten. Anyhow we got a dose of salts and we were alright next morning.
Very shortly after this, the job on Berrida cut out and we left Berrida and go to Gilgandra.
4,993 words.
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LESLIE GRAHAM MACDONALD TAPE (07)
