Childhood memories of a professional ratbag (Part Four)

See, I did call it part four. Then I felt guilty about confusing all those people who don't have my sense of humour and I considered renumbering it three. But it's my blog anyway so I'll do it how I want to.
Cohuna memories are varied. Walking up the street and knowing everyone you see. Knowing not only the person, but where and how they fit in to my life. Everyone was compartmentalized, slotted away into little boxes according to their place in the order of things. This man was the father of my friend Alan and that was how I saw him. I knew other things about him of course, he was the anglican vicar, he dissaproved of shooting on Sundays, he was also the father of Ken. But the most important thing about him was that he was Alan's father. When the anglican church was mentioned by someone else, I always thought of it as the church where Alan's dad is the vicar.
This lady was my music teacher and I resented her. Music lessons were in the middle of Saturday afternoon and that was a cruel blow to me. It's hard to describe how I felt about her. Effie McKinnon was a musician and therefore one of the annointed. Coming from a family where music was second only to the church, I had respect for good music ingrained into me almost to the point of awe. A faculty that has lasted to this day. Therefore, as a muso, she was to be regarded as one of the elect, but there was still this niggling, bothersome business of Saturday afternoons lessons. The gods could not be that unkind to me, but alas they were. A pity in many ways, for my lessons did no go as they should and I stopped them after nearly a year. To this day I regret it, for although I can get a noise out of several instruments, I still cannot read music to any real extent. Although this didn't stop me, later on, joining what eventually became the Daly Wilson Big Band and a Trad Jazz septet for a couple of years.

I couldn't walk down the street without being greeted by just about everyone coming the other way. They all knew me and I knew pretty well all of them. In some ways, of course, this was a drawback. I couldn't blow my nose without someone running to tell Mum that I had a cold. The trouble with that was that by the time it got to Mum, the cold developed into double pneumonia with the undertaker standing by. Mum jealously guarded both my sister and I, but she was particularly heavy on my poor sister. There was nearly ten years between Joan and I and Dad maintained that they never had a family, they had two only children. He was quite right of course, what 14 or 15 year old girl wants a 4 or 5 year old brother tagging along. I must have been a terrible trial to her, and she naturally enough resented it. Mum, unfortunately, could only see Joan being aggrieved with me and was very strict and harsh on her.

To return to the music for a moment. Mum was a very talented pianist, a qualified teacher and a brilliant accompianist. Dad played a variety of instruments but could not read music to any great degree. Enough to get by on, but that was all. His real talent was in his voice. It was very strong and powerful and he could hold pitch superbly. He liked to sing first bass as he felt this was where the foundation was laid for the choral work, but the only range he could not cover was counter tenor. In later years he had a cassette recorder with dubbing facilities and I have heard him recording tapes of hymns with him singing all four male voices. I, for my pains, inherited his ability but I only put it to use after I left home. Perhaps I wasn't brave enough to risk comparison with my father. But several people have been generous enough to pass kindly comments since I started to sing a bit.

I was never really interested in football of any code. In Hay, of course it was rugby and I knew very little about it and when we moved to Cohuna, I knew even less of Australian Rules. I recall in one of my early kickfer games, taking a mark and setting it for a place kick. One of my fellow students dived in, grabbed the ball and promptly kicked it That made me something of an outcast. For those of you not in the know, kickfer is a kicking and marking session with two groups of players kicking a ball at each other. Short for Kick For Kick.

I had always been interested in both flight and ships and towards the end of 1957, I applied for and was accepted for training in the RAN. My aim was to join the Fleet Air Arm. This was something that had long been close to my heart and it would mean 3 years at the Naval Training College at Jervis Bay followed by 6 months at Nowra learning to fly and then 18 months at the Royal Navy academy in Devon. The weekend before I was due to go, I was hit by a car and by the time I woke up, I was too old for that scheme. So I was at a total loss really and didn't know where I wanted to go, but I eventually opted for the Post Master Generals department as a technician. And that brought an end effectivley, to my life in Cohuna when I went to the Telecom School in Ballarat.

So there you have it, some of my recollections for those who have been pestering me. Perhaps one day, some more who knows.

Childhood memories of a professional ratbag (Part Two)

yes I decided to make this part two. I know it is boring and routinely predictable, but if you don't like it, tough. It's my blog and I'll do it my way.

I remember things about living in Cohuna that seem now so remote and in a different world. The attitude of the town copper would never be allowed today. Senior Sergeant Stan Weeks was a purpose built small town copper. He knew everything that was going on, he knew what was happening and who was making it happen, and he exercised enormous discretion in the meeting out of justice. But he was never unfair or biased. He just didnt like booking people. In his own words "to much bloody paperwork". In reality of course, it mean that the offender got a second chance to go through life without a record, but if you re-offended, then you got hit hard.

He made it his business to be down the street after school one day and called me over. So up I trotted, "Yes Mr Weeks?" He had me down at his house every night for an hour after school cutting his firewood. And then going home and trying to explain to Mum why I was late home from school without giving the game away. But to this day, only he and I know why I was cutting his wood. That made a special bond between Stan and I and I have been very proud to have him as my friend.

This was the same copper who told us, when we had reached more advanced years and started building cars that if we got one of our parents to tow the cars out to the sandpits on the island and tow them home again, he wouldn't see anything. Fortunately, one of the mates' fathers had an old Buick straight 8 and he towed us out and back. We slid those cars round in the sandpits as if there was no tomorrow, indeed sometimes I wonder why there was a tomorrow for us. But it taught us basic mechanics and it taught us also how to drive. Handbrake turns, J turns, slide control, use of a gearbox, it all came from those sessions out in the sandpits. Maybe it should be included in driver training today. His funeral was the biggest ever seen in Cohuna. There were over 1500 mourners present, including the Chief Commissioner.

There was beauty there as well as fun, growing up in the country. I used to ride the pushbike out to Mount Hope and sit up on suicide rock just on sunset. it was about 18 or 19 miles out of town, and the rock overlooked quite a large area of paddock. The brolgas used to dance there of an evening in flocks of up to 200 or so. It was a long and usually cold ride home afterwards, but I never minded it. I was warmed inside by the memory of what I had just been allowed to see. It was a magnificent spectacle and one that is almost gone now, certainly from that location. The birds just aren't there any more. But I was involved in that, I was a part of it. I never took anyone else with me, it was too private and delicate to be shared.

Standing at a friend's farm gate with Dad talking about school late one summers evening. We weren't really talking about anything, just being together watching a magnificent sunset. A flight of swans went over the coloured clouds, with an occaisional honk as one got out of line. They always fly in a V formation so that each bird rides on the wash of the bird in front, rather like a surfer rides a wave. They take it in turns to lead the V so that one bird doesn't have to do all the work. They looked so beautiful silouhetted against the reds and oranges and purples of the clouds. No details, just the black shapes flying home. I looked at Dad and we both cried.

I remember also the excitement of the snakeman coming up. The Commonwealth Serum Laboratories were doing a lot of research into snake bite antidotes at that time under Struan Sutherland and one of their men used to come up and catch various snakes and milk them. He was a keen Scout leader and would come to the meeting of the Cohuna troop to talk about the work. Some of us used to go out with him on his field trips, taking him to good snake spots, handing him his equipment and generally getting in his way. We must have been a terrible trial to him, we were messing about with lethal animals, but he not only tolerated us, he seemed to welcome us into his world. No one ever got bitten on these trips and they went on for quite a few years until the Laboratory aquired its own breeding facilities. This, like Stan Weeks, would never be allowed nowadays. Occupational Health and Safety would have a fit and the insurance companies would be up in the air like a startled pigeon.

I might write Part three one day. but I might call it part four instead

Childhood memories of a professional ratbag (Part One)

I recieved an email from a friend of mine this morning. One of those "Do you remember when" sort of things and another friend (yes I do have more than one) commented on another site about how glad she was to be living in the country. This got me thinking and in spite of the risks of perpetual headaches, I kept on thinking. Mainly about why I was glad I grew up in the country. I must admit that there are advantages to city life, but they concern mostly grown up things like access to medical services and good concerts. So thankyou to Barry and Donna for reviving thoughts I had not seen for a long time.

The Murrumbidgee river flowed past the end of our street when we lived in Hay and at the bottom of the street was a beach, known locally as Butt's beach. Probably named after George Butterworth, one of the early pioneers of the area and the family still owned a timberyard in the street. That was the local swimming hole and I nearly drowned there once. I got out of my depth and sank. When I hit the bottom, I pushed off, burst through the surface, yelled for my sister and had time to grab another lungfull of air before repeating the process. After what seemed like several hours of this, my sister realized that I was in trouble and flew down the bank, saved me and told me not to tell Mum about it. I think she was more worried about Mum finding out than she was about my welfare.

We were a very strict Methodist household and of course I had to go to Sunday School. That was in the middle of Sunday afternoon and all my friends would be going of to picnics, swimming or just visiting each other so Sunday School was not very popular with me. My girlfriend , Glenda, lived over the road from, us and she was the daughter of one of the local chemists. In those days, chemists sold cigarettes as well and she would go into the shop, pinch a packet and take me down behind the scout hall to smoke them. My, we did think ourselves very adult and all growed up. Glenda taught me a few other things down behind the scout hall as well, but they are not for listing here.

The company Dad worked for in Hay was bought out by Permewan Wrights and Dad didnt think much of his chances of staying on under the new owners, so he applied for a similar job, Hardware manager in a department store, in Cohuna. (Pronounced K'yunah by the locals) and this was a town I loved growing up in. About the same size as Hay, but not nearly so remote. The nearest town of any size to Cohuna was 20 miles away, Hay was 86 miles from it's nearest town and there was nothing between Hay and Deniliquin but saltbush.

I remember camping out near the Gunbower Creek mostly but sometimes near the Murray River and there is nothing quite like the experience of lying under the stars on a clear night looking up and seeing how deep the sky is. Diving into it like a spear thrown by the gods and floating over its secrets. Seeing a point of light and wondering if there is someone on that point of light looking at this point of light. Spotlight shooting on Friday nights for dogfood. That's where I learned to shoot, when you have to skin and clean the rabbit, you quickly learn to make them headshots. Eventualy I even learned to take headshots on the run and I was so proud of myself the first time I did it.

We also used to go shooting the wild pigs, but that was a real adventure with quite an element of risk to it. Of course they were't really wild pigs, they were domestic pigs gone feral, but some of them were pretty big and they were all bad tempered. The best way we found was to use a shotgun loaded with Coopall cartridges. These had a load of one single big piece of lead instead of the usual handfull of small shot. They would do a lot of damage with they hit something. We'd go out into a billabong when the sows were in season and the boars were feeling even more territorial than normal. Make a bit of noise and the boar who owned that patch would come looking pretty quick. At this point, it was a good idea to be close to a fairly substantial tree, cos when the boar saw you, he'd charge and those tusks can be big and they are always sharp. Pull one trigger and up the tree. If you wait to see if you need to climb the tree, you are too late to climb the tree. That's why you only pull one trigger, it's very embarrasing to be treed by an angry boar and have nothing left to discourage him with.

There is nothing like an irrigation channel for swimming. It teaches the delights of skinnydipping in a way that has never been equalled. Imagine it if you will. Your brave young heros, disporting themselves in the water as God intended and a couple of those lesser beings, girls, come along. They note the clothes discarded on the bank and insist on hanging around to embarass and confuse the frolicing sportsmen. They will not go away, they ignore the combined pleas, threats, bribes, and any other inducements to leave the scene until they have thrown the clothes into the creek. so we arrive home, sopping wet and tell mum how we fell into the channel. Then, only three days later, the same band of brave heros wallking along the same bank of the creek, discover girlish laughter and giggles coming from some way ahead of them. Sneaking up quitely and unobserved, they watch as the girls, blissfully unaware, frolic and play. we took pity on them and did not let them know they were discovered. We simply took away their clothing and hid it up a hollow log. Then we waited until they were out of the water before we let them know that we were around.

Here endeth part the first. To be followed by part the second, maybe.