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Keeper of the Scrolls


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Posted -  17/05/2004  :  16:35
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. Yellow. Track 2. 024\lgstory.005



Mr Dulhunty said to Father “I think the best thing we can do is to send the boy outside, let him go out and wait in the garden and we’ll send for him later on.”

After about half an hour, they called me in and Mr Dulhunty said to me “I wonder, do you realise that you’ve broken the law. For the offence that you’ve committed you could be sent to the Soubronne.” Now the Soubronne was a training ship in Sydney harbour where all the bad boys used to be sent instead of to a detention home like they do in this country. I said “Yes, I realise that I broke the law and I’m very sorry for it, I’m sorry that I forged me Father’s name and I’m sorry for the trouble I caused the man at the cycle shop.” He said to me “Well, if you’re prepared to give me an undertaking that you won’t do anything wrong again, your Father and I between us can put the matter right and you won’t be taken in by the police.” I gave the undertaking and he told me I could go and wait for me Father outside. I thanked him and went outside, I don’t think I’ve ever felt happier in me life. After a while Father come out and he said to me “Come on, we’ll go home.” As we were walking home I was thinking all the time about the hiding I’d get from Mother when I got home. But strangely enough, nothing was said when we got home. Father never mentioned it again to me and to all intents and purposes, the matter was forgotten. It often struck me since that the more serious the crime, the less punishment you got for it. But anyhow, it didn’t teach me a lesson. I was still inclined to go me own way without regard for what was right or what was wrong.

It would only be a few months after this incident that I was again in trouble but this is a longer story and it started with a friendship I’d developed with a man named Thompson who lived just beside the racecourse. He was an astronomer and again, they had no children and I used to go and play in his garden and talk to him and they made rather a pet out of me. Mrs Thompson told me I could go any time I wanted. They used to invite me to stay to tea. One day I went into his study and he was busy writing, I sat there fiddling about whilst he was writing and suddenly he said to me “Dubs, how would you like to go on a trip with me?” I said “Where to?” He said “Well, I’m making a trip across the Great Sandy Desert and I want a tent boy. If you’d like to come and your Father’ll let you go I’ll take you with me.” I said “Oh yes, I’ll go!” Well he said “You go home and ask your Father and if he says you can go I’ll come and talk to him and we’ll make all the arrangements.”

So anyhow, off I went home and I assumed that they’d let me go because I said to me Father “I’ve just made arrangements to go with Mr Thompson on one of his expeditions. He’s going to take me with him across the Sandy Desert.” Father said “Who says he’s going to take you across the Sandy Desert.” I said “He did. Well, he told me to ask your permission but I know you’ll let me go.” Father said “You know nothing of the kind and you’re not going.” Well, I begged and prayed of him to let me go but he was adamant and said “You’re not going, you’re staying at home and go to school.” So that was that.

Well, I still kept going to Thompsons while they were getting ready and the day came for them to go. I went down to the train to see him off and he just happened to say to me “If your Father changes his mind within the next day or two, you’ll have time to catch me up if you take the train to Bourke because we’ll be there for some days getting ready with our camel train.” I said” Right, I’ll try. I’ll ask him again.” Anyhow I didn’t ask him.

For about a week after they’d gone I kept fretting and worrying about it and wishing I was with them but I’d almost given up the idea of the whole thing when one morning, I was going to school. We had to be in school at half past eight and to get to the school I used to go across what we called the Sleeper Yard. It was a big stock-yard right up at the railway station. I was walking across the yard this morning when I heard the whistle of the train. It was the eight o’clock mail train to Bourke coming down the hill.

All of a sudden I dashed across the yard, over the railway line and up on to the platform. I waited until the guard came along, they used to change guards there and there was a man called Jack Longarbardi who was the guard who took the train from Dubbo to Bourke and then he’d bring the next train back. I went to him and I said “Mr Longarbardi, me Father told me to see you, he wants you to git me a ticket to Bourke and he’ll fix up with you for it when he next calls at your pub.” This fellow kept a pub as well as being guard on the train. He said”The best thing you can do right now is hop into the guard’s van.” which I did.

When the train got out of the station he came along and said “What are you going to Bourke for?” I said”Oh, I’m going up to stay with some relations for a while.” He said “What about your clothes? You haven’t brought any clothes with you.” I said “No, I haven’t brought any clothes because last time I was up there I left some behind and they’ll do me when I get there.” He said Have you got anything to eat?” I said “yes, I got something to eat.” I had me schoolbag. He said “The best thing you can do is get bedded down in a corner there, it’s no good going into a carriage.

I didn’t realise at the time but he was taking me on the never, he wasn’t going to get a ticket for me. Anyhow, I bedded down and we spent a pleasant journey and we got into Bourke about half past four in the afternoon. I thanked him and said goodbye.

First thing, I went down the town because I didn’t know the name of the man that had the camels for them. So anyhow, I made enquiries and found out that he was a man called Biddolph and I was going to get to know him a lot better in later years. I didn’t know that at the time.

I went up to his house and saw him and I told him that I was going with Mr Thompson’s expedition. He said “Well, you’re a bit late. They’ve gone. So I said “Oh, when did they go?” I thought that’s buggered it, I’ll have to go back home now. He said “They only went the day before yesterday. If you want to go with them I’ll have to send somebody to take you, you’ll soon catch them up.” I said “How are we going to go, in a buggy?” He said “No, you’re not going in a buggy you’ll have to go on a camel if you want to go at all. What is it to be, are you going after them or are you going to let them go?” I said “I’m going after them.” He said “Alright, you call up here first thing in the morning and I’ll have somebody ready to take you out and pick them up.” I said to him “Where can I sleep?” He said “Haven’t you got any money?” I said “No, I haven’t got any money and I haven’t got anywhere to sleep.” “Oh well, in that case, you can sleep here, we’ll fix you up for the night. Anyhow they gave me a feed and fixed me a bed and woke me up the next morning about six o’clock. He said “We might as well go before the heat of the day.”

So I went out with him to this settlement where the Afghans and the camels were and he introduced me to a bloke, he could hardly speak English, but we could make one another understand what we were talking about. He said” Up you get onto that camel.” There was one laying down there, so I got in the saddle, this feller said something to it, umpala or something he said to it. Anyhow it got up and he hopped onto his an it got up and off he went. He was leading mine. Anyhow, I got on alright. It was a bit different to riding a horse, but still I could manage to keep on it alright.

We were going all day. At night-time he said to me “I don’t know whether to make camp and go on tomorrow or whether to keep going and try to catch them tonight.” I said to him “I’m tired and I want to have a sleep.” So he said “Right, we’ll make camp.” So we made camp and he hobbled the camels out. We cooked some fritters and we had some jerky and billy tea. I just lay in the saddle and went to sleep. He woke me next morning just as it was breaking day and we got the camels saddled up and off we went.

We rode in on to them about mid-day when they stopped for their mid-day meal. Mr Thompson was very surprised to see me. He said “Oh, you’ve got permission from your Father at long last have you?” I said “Yes, everything’s alright. He didn’t want to let me come but I talked him round and he eventually agreed to me coming.” He said “Right. You’d better get your clothes.” I said I haven’t got any clothes with me, I’ve only got this schoolbag.” He said “Why didn’t you bring some clothes?” I said “he made up his mind all of a sudden and I hadn’t got time to get any clothes so I come without them. Anyhow, I don’t want any clothes, these’ll last me, we’re not going to be very long are we?” He said “well, we won’t be back home for three months.” So I said “Oh, that’ll be alright I’ll not bother about any clothes.” He said “Well, if we stop at a store anywhere we’ll see whether we can get you something.” Anyhow, we did come across a store right out in the Never-Never and it was run by an Irishman or a Scotsman, I forget what he was and they had no boys clothing but they got me some small men’s clothes which they cut down with a pair of shears and we made do with them alright.

Well, I expected this trip to be full of high adventure and excitement but it was nothing of the kind, it was very dull and very ordinary. We had very little excitement until we got almost to the MacDonald Ranges. One night, one of the men came in who’d been on watch and he said “There’s some blacks watching us, I thought I saw them this morning and I’m sure I saw them again tonight.” So they had a bit of a pow-wow and decided they weren’t unfriendly and it was nothing to worry about.

Next morning when we got up one of the camels was gone. Now this was a very serious matter because it meant dumping some of our supplies or somebody having to walk. The man that was in charge said to Thompson “If we let them get away with this, before we get through their territory, they’ll have taken all our camels. The best thing we can do is to give ‘em a lesson.” Thompson said “Well, I don’t know anything about that. I’m leaving that in your hands.” So he said “Right, we’ll deal with it.”

These fellers went out and they rounded these blacks up, mind you, they’d done nothing else only pinch the camel for some food, but they rounded them up and they shot about half of them. Well that got rid of the blacks, they didn’t bother us any more but I’ve since thought that it’s no wonder that the blacks hate us, when we take such drastic action against them as that feller did that morning.

Anyhow, we got through after that with no trouble at all but on our arrival at the foot of the MacDonald Ranges it was decided that we should spend three days exploring the hills. We went off on foot first thing in the morning up the hills and they were taking geological samples, samples of the grass that was growing, anything that might be of any interest, different types of timber that were growing. We came across a pool, you couldn’t call it a lake, it was a pool in a rock. It would be about twenty or thirty yards across it and it was I don’t know how deep, you couldn’t see to the bottom of it but the water was as clear as crystal. We decided to have a swim. The first fellow that dived in let out a howl, you’d have thought he’d been murdered. We all experienced the same thing when we jumped in the water, it was as cold as ice. But it was beautiful clear spring water. Where it come from, because we’d be at least two thousand feet up, I don’t know, I couldn’t see any other peaks around it that were higher than that, but there must have been a pressure of water from somewhere. Where it was trickling away, it was going underground and you couldn’t see where it was going to. When they’d finished their mountain survey we made a weary trek right down through Kalgoorlie into Fremantle. When we arrived at Fremantle I had a shock coming to me because the police was waiting for us.

I wondered how they’d got to know, but anyhow they said that I’d got to go straight back home again. Whilst we were waiting in the police station, I asked the sergeant of police how they knew that I was with the expedition. Oh he said “It was quite simple. When your Mother and Father missed you they got making enquiries, the guard on the train told about you going to Bourke, the owner of the camel train told us that you’d gone with Dr Thompson and all we had to do was wait at this end until Dr Thompson come in. Tomorrow, you’re off back home.”

The next day they took me down to the quay and they put me on a boat called the Mongolia. It was an old banana boat and I don’t know how old it was but I’ll bet it was at least fifty years old. They put me in a cabin and I was introduced to the various people on the ship and they were told that I had to be delivered in Sydney, New South Wales. So we set off.

Everything went alright until we were rounding the Leeuwen. We’d just got round Point Leeuwen when it started to blow and the bosun said to me “Have you ever been to sea before?” I said “No.” He said “Well, you’re going to have a good trip, if we get across the Bight alive you’ll be lucky. Can you see those white horses?” I said “What white horses?” “Can you see those white things out there?” I said “Yes.” He said “That’s a sign there’s a blow coming up. This ship will only do eight knots an hour. When we get into the gale we’ll be very, very lucky indeed if we can keep away from the coast.” Anyhow it wasn’t very long after that the Skipper ordered the ship to change course and we set due South. It blew all day and at nightime I could still see the places that we could see in the morning. We didn’t seem to have shifted although we were running full steam ahead all day. When it got dark, the Skipper ordered everyone below and told them to batten the hatches down and all night long we lay there with the old engines pumping away and pumping away and next morning it had blown itself out. We got up, went on deck and we could still see places that we could see when the blow started so it’ll give you some idea, we hadn’t gone more than ten or twenty miles but after that everything was alright. We had an uneventful trip round, we stopped at Adelaide and Melbourne and then we set into Sydney Harbour and I was met by the police and put on the train to go home.

When I got home, Mother was so pleased to see me and Father was away that nothing happened. I didn’t get a cross word said to me and I had nothing said to me until about three months after when Father gave me a good talking to for not obeying him when he gave me an instruction.

It was about this time when we first got to know the Skinners. Mrs Skinner, at one time, used to keep the Occidental Hotel in Talbragar Street. They had a daughter named Molly and a son named Dick and then there was one son by her first husband a man named George Ganes. he had a wife and four children and they lived together with Dick, Molly and their Mother in Fitzroy Street. I never got to know Dick Skinner very well he was always a mystery to me, he never seemed to work but he used to go out every morning about nine o’clock and return in the afternoon about five o’clock then he’d go out at night and return at all ours of the morning. There were all kinds of rumours about him but even Molly, who later become my more or less adopted sister, never would talk about him. in fact I don’t think she knew what he did do. He never used to speak to anyone and therefore I don’t think anyone knew very clearly what sort of a life he led.

The old lady was a grand old lady and I used to spend many happy hours cleaning her casements, looking after her pony, cutting wood getting water and all that sort of thing, doing all sorts of jobs about the house. I always used to like staying for my meals because she kept such a good table.

At the time we got to know them, George Ganes wasn’t at home. He was the “man that was away”, he was doing time in Melbourne gaol. The fact that George was a wrong ‘un was a source of great sorrow to the old lady but he was a kindly good-natured, friendly sort of a bloke and I suppose, being her son, she loved him and that was that. Father took an interest in him, I think it was because of sympathy for Mrs Skinner, and later in life that interest was going to get me into very serious trouble. But I’ll tell you about that later on.

At about this time, Father got a job on a farm, I think he was engaged on a share basis, for a man named Payne at a place between Eulomogo and Murrumbidgerie. [Payne owned Standford Hall, now Valley Fields 1888-1912] So we left Dubbo and went to live at, I think the name of the farm was Sunnyside. It was a fairly big farm and quite a lot of it was arable an we also milked quite a few cows. When we first went there the farm was in a very run down condition. There was only one farm hand engaged on the place and he was a ‘go day, come day, God send Sunday’ sort of a bloke. He’d been an orphan and this man Payne had taken him in and reared him and apparently was now using him as cheap labour on the farm.

When Father got there, things changed considerably. The place was tidied up and painted, improvements carried out, the horse stock built up, the cow stock increased and we started sending cream to the Dubbo butter factory. now it was our job, I mean the boy’s job and Mother’s, to look after the cows. I don’t know how many cows we milked but I know that my share was six. I had to milk six cows before I went to school in the morning. We didn’t milk in the afternoons but we used to have to feed the calves on skimmed milk when we come home from school and feed the pigs. We not only used skimmed milk to feed the pigs but we used to trap rabbits and we had to skin and gut these rabbits and boil them down and mix this with wheat for pig food, that was another of our jobs. I can tell you that in the winter-time to get out of bed and milk six cows before going to school was quite an effort for a young lad. On top of that, we used to have to get up at four o’clock in the morning to walk and feed the horses. In the ploughing time there’d be anything up to thirty or forty horses in the stable that wanted feeding and grooming and watering.

Our daily routine used to be; four o’clock in the morning, up, one of us would let the horses out and take them down to the dam to drink whilst the other two would fill the mangers with chaff and oats. We’d bring them back, put them in the stable and then go and get some breakfast. This would probably bring up about five o’clock. Then, as soon as we’d had breakfast, we had to hare off again to get the horses brushed down and the harness on them ready for the ploughmen taking over. One annoying thing that used to occasionally happen at this stage, Father would walk down the yard and look between the horses legs and under their collars and if he saw the slightest bit of dried sweat he’d make us un-harness them and brush them down and wait for him to come and look at them before we put the harness on them again, before he’d let the ploughmen take them over.

About this time if we were lucky, it would be between six and half-past. It was then time to get ready for the morning milking. Whilst one of us took the night-horse and went to bring in the cows, the other two used to get the bail ready and the pails for holding the milk and wait for the cows to come in. Then we’d set to and milk our quota and by then it was time to get ready for going to school. If Mother was in a good humour we’d have a little bit of something to eat before we set off to school.

At this time we were going to the school at Murrumbidgeree. The schoolteacher there was a man named Lovatt. He was a very good teacher and I think he taught me as much as any other teacher I was under for the length of time that I was there.

Whilst the teacher was very good to me, I still couldn’t get out of the habit of playing truant and I evolved a method of getting letters from Mother taken to him whilst I played truant. Doris used to take the letters and then she used to tell Mother that I’d been to school with her and had gone birds-nesting if I didn’t get home at the right time. I used to play truant with a girl called Vivienne McCally, and we used to go into the forest bird-nesting or playing about doing all sorts of things. When it was time to go home we used to hide in a tunnel under the railway line until we saw the kids going by when we knew that school had been let out and we just made our way home. She lived at a railway crossing with her parents, her Father was a ganger on the railway in charge of a permanent way gang. I’d go on home about a mile further on. But like all good things, this arrangement had to come to an end because one day, Mother was going visiting some friends called Crowleys who lived a few miles away and she had to go to Murrumbidgeree to get to their place. On the way she decided that she’d call at the school and take Doris and I for a bit of a break. Anyhow, when she called at the school, Mr Lovatt said to her Doris is here but we haven’t seen Dubs for about a week and we’ve got a note from you saying that he was ill. Mother shut up like a clam and said no more, took Doris and off she went. When I arrived home there was nobody there, she hadn’t got back from Crowleys. I thought everything will be alright and wasn’t looking forward to any trouble at all when she arrived home and said “Where have you been today?” I said “I’ve been at school.” She said “You haven’t been at school.” Then she told me what had happened. I owned up then and said that I’d been playing truant and she wanted to know who I’d been playing truant with. I said I’d been on me own but anyhow she said she’d go and see the schoolmaster and ask him who else was missing and they’d find out who I was with. So, next morning, I had to get ready for going to school after milking the cows and I decided I wasn’t going to go. Anyhow, she flogged me up to the gate and I run off down the road and she went back and I sat down on a log. She came after me and gave me another hiding and I still wouldn’t go. She was there beating me and telling me to go to school and I was saying I wouldn’t go when Father come out with a load of wheat on a wagon. I thought Oh blimey, here’s trouble. Anyhow he came up and he stopped the team and he said to Mother “What’s the matter?” She said “You’ll have to speak to him. He won’t go to school.” Father said “Oh? Leave him to me. Come on you, get up on that wagon.” I hopped up on the wagon, I thought he was going to take me to school because he was going past the school. He was going to a place called Suntop with a load of feed wheat.

Anyhow, when we were getting near to Murrumbidgerie I started to get a bit itchy, I was wondering if I ought to make a break for it because I knew what would happen when I got back to school with Mr Lovatt. Anyhow, we got to Murrumbidgeree and we passed through it and I thought he’s forgot so I just lay doggo and said nothing about anything and just kept to myself. We got into a place called Geurie so I was laid down in this wheat and he couldn’t see me from the ground and then he shouted to me “Hey up there!” I said “Yes?” He said “Come on down!” So I come down and he took me into a shop and he said to me “Would you like a lemon squash?” and I said “Yes I would please.” So he bought me a lemon squash and he bought me some sweets and he said “Go on, get back on the wagon again.” So I got back on the wagon, we took the wheat out to Suntop and delivered it, it was getting on about four o’clock in the afternoon then.

We set off back home, we got back about eight o’clock at night and do you know that for the whole of that trip both there and back, he never said a word to me about going to school until I was going to bed that night. He Said to me “Remember, tomorrow morning, you go to school.” I said “Yes Dad.” and I went to school the next morning and took me hiding from the schoolmaster. The Old Man had queer ways of dealing with you, you never knew when you had him and when we were doing things wrong he always used to come out sort of sympathising with us. I don’t know, I could never get to the bottom of what was in his mind, he was like a sphinx.

I remember one incident that upset the Old Man quite a bit. One afternoon a fellow came up the road leading a greyhound, a black greyhound bitch. He said to the Old Man,”Do you want to buy a dog?” and the Old Man said “Well, it all depends.” He said “Well, she’s a thoroughbred dog. She’s a very good one.” So the Old Feller said “How much do you want for her?” He was always a sucker for a greyhound. They were talking it over for a while and eventually the Old Man decided to buy her and he gave the feller twenty five quid for her. The feller had hardly got out of the yard before the Old Man was off down the field to see if he could find a hare and I remember him putting up a hare in a ploughed field and she was just like a hoop bowling along after it. It didn’t get more than four hundred yards before she caught it. Well after that he used to have her out nearly every day but hares couldn’t live with her. He was boasting to the men, but he never said anything to us, that he was going to send her to Maryvale, that was the coursing place at the time where they used to course hares out of traps. What he wasn’t going to do with her, he was going to win the Waterloo Cup and all sorts of things with it.

The Dubbo papers used to come out once a week, there was the Dubbo Liberal and the Dubbo Dispatch and we used to take both of them. The next paper that came out, there was a notice in about a black greyhound bitch that had been stolen from a man called Jack Manning who was the editor of the Dubbo Dispatch. [Martin Manning was editor until 1903 when he died. He was succeeded by E.M.Manning who died in 1906] Well, the Old Man saw this in the paper and he realised that he’d been taken for a ride but I think he first debated with himself whether he should report it to the police or go and see Manning about it but eventually he decided to take the dog back and go and see Manning and see whether he could get his twenty five pounds back. Anyhow, Manning wouldn’t pay him the twenty five pounds but he said that he’d split the difference with him as a reward. So Manning got his dog back but it cost him twelve pound ten, the Old Man lost his dog and it cost him twelve pound ten. But this dog eventually did go on to win a number of big races, if it ever won the Waterloo Cup or not I don’t know.





5,449 words.


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