Monday, Jan 28, 2019 at 14:10
You're not wrong there, Phil. I deeply regret not getting the old man's full life story.
Orphaned at age 17, he came to Australia alone, in 1925, at age 19, (as a "Ten-Pound Pom") and endured some torrid times. There was no-one in Australia that he knew, or was related to.
Mistreated by rotten employers in Victoria who even kept his personal possessions when he left their employ - meaning he had to go to the
Police to retrieve them.
Given accommodation by these mean rotters, that was a garden shed in a market garden, with black snakes for company on his bed - which bed had hessian bags for bedding!
Left Victoria for W.A. with little money and arrived at the end of Oct 1929 - right as the Great Depression hit, with little chance of any meaningful employment.
He ended up sleeping in the sand dunes of
Cottesloe Beach to try and save a quid.
Then he set off North in the hope of finding work. I still have no idea how he made it up there, probably a lot of walking involved.
He then managed to find a job running the water pumping station engine in
Carnarvon, a big old horizontal, slow-speed, single-cylinder Blackstone.
He was only there for 6 weeks when a bloke with 7 kids rolled up. Married blokes got priority for jobs during the Depression - so the old man was on the road again.
He ended up in
Wiluna, then at Doolgunna Station - where the station owner, Jimmy Howard, offered him a station hand job - but without any immediate pay.
Jimmy promised he would pay him up in full - and he was a man of integrity.
After 4 yrs at Doolgunna, wool prices boomed, and Jimmy paid the old man up in full. Jimmy became a lifelong friend of Dad's.
Whilst on Doolgunna, he worked for independent fencing crews on all the other stations in the Murchison. These crews were some of the hardest-bitten rogues, alcoholics, and ne'er-do-wells you could ever encounter.
The old mans stories of these blokes were endless. So drunk, they often had the DT's - they even drank a whole case of lemonade in the dark, before they realised it, next morning! - and then abused the old man for giving them lemonade! LOL
The old man got lost on Doolgunna when fencing one time, and was only saved by the leader of the fencing crew - an old bushman who was 70 - who climbed a
big tree, and lit a fire in a fork of the tree, for a homing
beacon for the old man!
He left Jimmys employ and took on a percussion drilling rig on contract for the W.A. Boring company - and taught himself to handle camels.
He bought several camels (including a killer black camel who had killed his vicious Afghan owner in
Meekatharra) - and bought a dray from Jimmy Howard, in 1934 - that was one of Charles Cannings original drays from his 1906 expedition!
The old man loved his camels, and reckoned the black "killer" camel was his best, hardest-working camel!
He went water boring, often by himself, for 3 years, enduring loneliness, heat, and hard work, like I couldn't imagine.
The jumper bar on the drilling rig was a massive steel bar, 4" in diameter (100mm) and 12 feet long (3.65M).
He gave himself a bad hernia lugging this jumper bar around by himself - it weighed over 220kgs!
He left the Murchison in 1937 and came to
Perth, where he got married - and a whole new set of adventures awaited him!
Cheers, Ron.
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