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Keeper of the Scrolls
2010 Posts
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 Posted -
17/05/2004
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16:38
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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. Yellow. Track 1. 024\lgstory.002
To give you some kind of an idea what sort of feller Jim was, I think I can illustrate it by telling you a story about a ghost.
There was a bridge across the Macquarie River at a place called Eschol near where the school was that we attended. at a certain night of the month when the moon was full, it was reputed that a man used to sit on the bridge rail with his head cut off.
Now this was supposed to be the ghost of a man who was murdered there by some convicts some years ago. On this particular night we’d been to a concert and were riding home. When we got near to the bridge, Jim said “I wonder if the ghost will appear tonight.” So I pulled back and got to the back. I didn’t want to be in front coming up to this bridge. Anyhow, as we were approaching this bridge, the horse that Jim was riding reared and shied and squealed and whipped round. Stan’s did the same and so did mine. They were absolutely terrified. We couldn’t get them near the bridge at all.
I said to Jim, “Let’s go up the river and swim it.” He said,”No, we’re going across this bridge if it’s the last thing I ever do! I’m going to find out where this ghost is and what he is!” So he said to us “You stand here, can you see him?” We said “Yes, we can see him”. He said “I’m going up, you tell me if he disappears.” So he walked towards the bridge and we stood watching this ghost. He got right up to where he was and said “Is he still there?” We said “Yes, he’s still there.” So he came back again and went down below the bridge, looked up from below the bridge. He came back again and said “Is he still there?” We said “Yes, he’s still there but he’s shifted a bit.”
Well, this went on for about an hour and eventually, the ghost disappeared. So we got the horses and rode off home. Went across the bridge with no trouble at all.
Well, the next night, Jim said to Stan, “I’m going out to see this ghost again tonight, are you coming?” Stan says “Yes, I’ll go.” I said “Yes, and I’ll come to.” So we went and we got there at about eleven o’clock, I know the moon wasn’t in quite the right spot because there was nothing on the bridge when we went out to it. We got into a place where we could watch and we watched until this thing slowly appeared. Very, very slowly. One minute we thought we could see it and another minute we thought we couldn’t. So Jim says “Right, we’re going to lay this ghost.”and he went off away into the moon and he climbed a tree and he started chopping. We said to him “What the bloody hell are you chopping that down for?” He chopped the limb off the tree and the ghost was never seen again.
Now, there was hundreds of people who knew about this and there were grown men who wouldn’t go near that bridge at full moon, at a certain time of the night, not for any money in the world. But Jim was that phlegmatic type that said that if there was something there, he didn’t believe in ghosts, he knew there was no such thing as a ghost and he was going to find out what was causing it. But the thing that always amazed me was, or the thing that made me wonder, was why the horses were frightened of it. Why were they so scared? And yet immediately the shadow disappeared off the bridge rail the horses went over and weren’t affected in any way. They weren’t afraid at all. Anyway, that was the sort of feller that Jimmy was, he would have a go at anything.
Whilst we’re talking about ghosts, I can tell you another story about Jim and a ghost and this one was a little more dramatic than the headless man sitting on the bridge.
We were taking some ponies which had been sold for polo playing and we had to make one night’s camp and when we got to this place it was a deserted farmhouse where there had been a murder or a number of murders and the place was deserted and allowed to go derelict. As it was coming up like storm, Jim said, “ I think about the best thing we can do is to put into the old Lacey place for the night. We’ll at least get some shelter there from the rain.”
The stable was attached to the house, built very similar to some of the farmhouses you see in England with the living quarters and the barn all under the same roof. We put the horses in the stable, fed them some cut grass and bedded them down and they seemed quite contented. We went into the main house, rigged up a fire as best we could in the old fireplace and boiled the billy and had our tea. We only had a candle to see by and we were sat yarning when Jim decided it was time to go to bed.
By this time it had started raining and the wind was blowing and it was a pretty wild night.
We just got nicely bedded down when I heard a noise that I hadn’t heard before. It was like a chain rattling. I said “ Can you hear that noise?” He said, “Ah, it’s nothing. Go to sleep.” Stan said “There’s something out there, I can hear something.” Then, all of a sudden, we heard the horses, they started kicking and squealing and Jim said “There’s somebody in with the bloody horses!” So we dashed out and we had a job quietening the horses down. We eventually got them quietened down and all of a sudden, right over the horses heads, we heard this chain rattling again. It sounded like a chain being dragged across ruts or something.
Now, knowing that there had been convicts there, we wondered whether it was the ghosts of these convicts ‘cause the place had a reputation for being haunted. I said to Jim, “It’ll be those convict’s chains!” He said, “ Don’t talk so bloody silly, there’s no convicts in any chains. If there’s a noise going on there’s some reason for it. Get hold of those bloody horses and get them outside!” So we got halters on ‘em and got them out into the open where they quietened down.
After about half an hour shivering in the rain he shouted, “It’s alright, you can come in now.” So we come in, put the horses in the stable. He says “The ghost is gone.” We said “Where was it?” He says “ It was quite simple, there’s a tree growing outside the house, you’ve all seen it. The branches are close down on the shingles and at some time they must have had a pet bear or something and there was a chain they must have used to chain him up to. With the wind blowing, this chain was dragging back and forwards across the roof. So I just removed the chain and the ghost is gone.”
Well, that all sounds very simple but for my money, it took a bit of courage to go up there and find out what was causing it. Anyhow, we slept peacefully through the night and went on the next morning to deliver the ponies.
Now I’ve jumped on ahead a bit to tell you this story. At the time this happened I was about 11 years old.[1904] I now propose to go back and carry on the story in its proper order.
Mother and Father were fond of social life and our home was very popular. I think this was because we had this very large room that I’ve mentioned before which made an ideal dance hall. We used to have a party about once a month when all the farmers from near and far used to turn up and they’d dance and sing and eat until daylight. But on occasions we used to have what they called a surprise party. About four o’clock in the afternoon they’d start arriving. Mother and Father would know nothing about it but the people who came would bring roast turkeys, some would bring cakes, bread and butter, all kinds of food and they’d just roll in, unharness their horses, put them in the stable or in the home paddock and announce that they were going to have a dance.
The women would all set to and prepare the meal and dancing and singing would start. There was always musicians available. One chap, Paddy Flannery, he played an accordion and there was a coloured lad who used to work for me Father, we called him Jimmy,he was a very good concertina player and there was an old chap called Bob Jones who use to play the fiddle. That made up the dance orchestra.
We kids used to have a good time because we couldn’t go to bed, they were in our bedroom so we were allowed to stay up. Our good time consisted of eating plenty of food, listening to the men talking and boasting and bragging about what they could do and what they couldn’t do. Occasionally a fight would start, two fellers falling out over a girl or something like that.
I know today it doesn’t sound very much but in those days it was quite an event. On this particular occasion that I speak about, a lot of young fellers had arrived on young horses. During the night they got into an argument about who was the best rider and who could do this and who could do that. Next morning, after dancing all night, at about seven o’clock in the morning, they were out on the field with these horses seeing who could put up the best show on a rough horse. The way they made them buck was they put a flank rope on them. The rope was round the horse’s flanks, the feller that was doing the riding, he got in the saddle and somebody else got hold of this rope and tickled it to make the horse buck. About nine o’clock in the morning they’d all sheer off to wherever they were going and the party was over for another month.
Of course, we very often went away to other people’s parties. The children were never left at home. They were all taken and they bedded down with the other kids. Spent the night with all the other kids all bedded down together and we all had a good time and it was a very happy life.
But all of a sudden, something went wrong. I don’t know what it was, but without any warning, news came that we were leaving Eumalga.[1902] It all happened in a flash we were never told anything about it but I’ve often wondered what went wrong between Father and old Billy Brownlow, whether it went back to something a bit more serious than anything that had happened at Eumalga.
I’ve often wondered what Father did in his young days. He was never very communicative, he didn’t tell us much. A lot of things happened in those days. I never thought about it at the time but since I’ve grown up they’ve had a significance for me.
His young days were spent at the time when the Kelly Gang were ranging the country around Euroah and those places and Father came from over that way. I’ve often thought since, things would be going all right then all of a sudden, bang, it all......, connections were broke and we set off somewhere else. Now what the cause of it was I don’t know and I never will know but I’ve wondered.
So we left Eumalga and we went to live at a place not very far away [Eulomogo] and Father left home and went somewhere out into the bush to work. He only came home about once a month. He generally arrived home on the Saturday and was off again on the Sunday night. What he was doing we didn’t know. But then after a time he took a contract to sink a dam. There was a valley run down past the house we lived in and his contract was to sink a dam and build a bank across this valley to make a water catchment place for a farm nearby. So we had him at home for about six months.
He was a great shot with a rifle. I remember one morning going in and telling him there was some ducks on the lagoon. He took his rifle and he said “Come on with me and show me where they are.” So I took him along the bank of this lagoon behind some brush and I said “If you just go past that brush you’ll see them out in the middle”. He went ahead and he had one shot at these ducks while they were sitting on the water. He shot the head clean off one. They rose in the air and flew over and he shot another one, with a rifle, as they flew over our heads. That’s pretty good shooting. I’ve also known him knock a kangaroo over easy four, five hundred yards away, shot clean through the head.
I remember one amusing occasion he had some friends at the house, it was Sunday afternoon and, as men always will, they started doing a bit of shooting. The railway line ran past the house about three hundred yards away. In this valley there was a big embankment. So they put a target on the railway embankment and they were firing at this target. A bloke came along in his sulky just as they fired at this target. The bloke stopped his horse and come across and started to play hell with the Old Man about the danger of shooting across a main road. The Old Man said “What are you worrying about, it was a good six inches above your head!” I thought well blimey charlie, if he can tell to six inches about two hundred yards away that he’s missing a bloke and he thinks he’s quite safe he must have some confidence in himself.
This was in 1901 the time of the Great Drought when it never rained for eighteen months. Somewhere, somehow, Father got hold of a few beasts and we were running them on a bit of land that he rented. It was a bit of wild scrub country and there wasn’t a lot of grass on it. We had to start feeding. He spent all his money on hay and fodder for these cattle and he got as much on tick as the store would let him have. Then he went to a farmer who was next door to us who had two stacks of straw, not hay, straw. He offered to buy this straw from this feller, anyhow, old White wouldn’t sell it. The Old Man’s idea was to buy the straw and get some molasses and feed the cattle on straw and molasses. But he wouldn’t let us have it. So the old feller decided, that rather than have them starve, he’d feed ‘em on the railway line which was against the law of course. We used to make way through the fence, it was a post and rail fence, shift these rails so we could put ‘em in and out in dark of night. We used to put ‘em in and then we used to have to get up in the morning before daylight and have ‘em out before the fettler’s gang used to come along and see them in there. But they must have known they were in because there was droppings and hoofmarks all over the place. Anyhow, we did that for a time until all the grass on the railway was eaten up and one night Old White’s two straw stacks caught fire and were burnt out. I never knew what started that fire, I’d love to know but it seemed to me to be poetic justice when I came to think about it years afterwards. Anyhow, the Old Man decided he’d have to sell. He took these cattle to the stock market in Dubbo and they brought 18/- a head and a fortnight after he sold them it rained like hell. Anyhow, it was too late, they’d all gone.
2,847 words.
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LESLIE GRAHAM MACDONALD TAPE (02)
