by Sally Morgan
Shortly before his death, Howden mailed me a whole pile of photos that had been taken on Corunna Downs. I guess Howden figured no one else would want old pictures. That was why he sent them to me. It was the only thing he ever gave me.
***
Apart from Daisy, the other thing I discovered in the twenties was boxing. Actually, boxing and wrestling. I was good at both, but I didn’t know it till then. When I was a kid, old Fred Stream learned me a bit. He knew they were going to send me to the mission and he reckoned if I didn’t learn something I’d get a hiding.
I was a farmer, I wasn’t trained for fighting, but one punch from me and I could flatten them. I used to know Riley. His son was a referee and he had a boxing and wrestling tent. He used to travel all round Perth and up the Nor’west.
Riley said, ‘If I trained you, I reckon you’d be middleweight champion of the world.’ They always let me in the Show free because they knew I was a good fighter. I didn’t want to be a boxer.
Whenever the Shows came round Nungarin, I’d put in for the boxing and wrestling. Sometimes, they were too scared to take me on. I remember one bloke took a long look at me and then said, ‘I’m not taking you on, mate. I seen a bloke look like you once before. He gave me a terrible time.’ I missed out that year.
One year in the late twenties, the hotel manager from Mucka said, ‘Arthur, you want to take my beer on your truck into the Show and sell it for me?’ I was one of the few men who had a truck in the district. I thought, why not? I loaded up the truck, threw a tarp over the grog and drove to Nungarin. I spent the night in the hotel there. Everything was booked up to the pub in Mucka, my board and tucker. I was a white man then, not black. It was a king’s life.
Once inside the Show, I sold the beer from the truck, and all the time, I could hear these men, singing out, singing out. They were boxers and wrestlers and they were singing out for men to come and challenge them. When all the beer was sold, I thought, I’ll have a go. I walked over, put my hand up and yelled, ‘Hey! Over here, I’ll have a go!’
While I was standing there, a bloke came up to me and pushed me on the shoulder. He was one of the trainers. I’d seen him before. ‘You can’t wrestle, mate,’ he said. I just grabbed him, clothes and all. Lifted him up and dropped him. Pinned him to the dirt. ‘What do you think of yourself now, mate!’ I said. ‘WHO can’t wrestle??’ He went for his life, dirt all over him. The men in the ring had seen what happened and they wouldn’t take me on after that. I looked too tough.
There was a boxer I remember well, Jack Yakem. He was white and he fought in the Royal Show, everywhere. He lived for fighting. He used to stick out his chest and strut round the ring like a rooster round the hens and yell out, ‘My name’s Jack Yakem! I CRACK’em, you STACK’em.’ Everyone was scared of him. Anyway, he was the same weight as me and I thought, Arthur … have a go.
When they let me into the ring, the crowd was full round us, urging us on, calling out. They all wanted to see me get beat. Jack didn’t waste no time. He started pummelling me in the ribs with his fists.
After a few minutes, I thought, I’ve had enough of this. I hit him fair over the earhole and dropped him right there. He went flying, flat to the ground. The crowd roared.
Anyhow, he got up and I dropped him again. Eleven times I dropped him, quick with my fists. He never knew when I was going to hit him! I’d drop him, then wait for him to get up, then drop him again!
I won that fight, but they never gave me any money. It was always the same. Later when I got home, I took my singlet off. I was black and blue all round my ribs where he’d pummelled me. I don’t know what colour he was.
I was a hard nut to crack, when I was young. My life was full of sport.
***
When I was young, I had girls runnin’ after me all the time. I was a good catch and they all wanted me. Trouble is, I was like my old grandfather, tender-hearted. I wouldn’t go with any girl, because if I got her into trouble, I’d have to marry her. Other blokes were different. They’d take a girl out, get her into trouble and then let her go. Have another one and let them go. I ain’t got no stock like that. I saw to it that I didn’t. Only my own, what I’m going to have, that’s how I am.
In the old days, you were nobody unless you were somebody important. And when they announced your engagement, they took your photo and everything and put it in the paper. I was worried about that. I thought to myself, when I get engaged, what can I say? Who could I say I was and who was my father? I decided I’d trick them all, if they ask me, I’d say, ‘Well my father is Mr Corunna from Corunna Downs Station.’ That’s what I would put in the paper and no one would know any better. No one would know about Howden and Annie and how they wasn’t married white man’s way. You see, they were very particular about such things in those days.
There were times when I could have protected myself through the name of Brockman, but I never did. Howden never gave me nothin’. I’ve only got one good father and he’s in heaven. No matter which way the wind’s blowin’, he’s there with you.
Before I married my wife, Adeline, she came to me and said, ‘Arthur, I’ve seen a fortune-teller and she told me I’m going to marry you. She also told me what your life will be like and that, one day, somebody will rob you of your farm.’
I said, ‘Nobody’s goin’ to rob me. They’ll get this fist if they try!’ I was gettin’ on in years, about thirty-five, and I’d been thinkin’ I should marry, but when Adeline said that, I thought, better not get married or I’ll be losin’ my farm.
Still, I couldn’t stay single for ever, so I thought the only fair way was to put all the girls’ names in a hat. I figured the name that I picked out would be my wife. Me and my mates put all the girls’ names we knew into an old felt hat. I thought, well, Helen Bunda’s name could come out. She was my cousin and her name was in there. I wanted a small girl, not a big woman. Someone like my mother.
One of my mates held the hat up and I picked out a slip. On it was written Adeline Wilks!
‘That can’t be the one,’ I said, ‘she’s plump. Let me have another go.’
We mixed the papers round real good, they held up the hat and I chose another one, Adeline Wilks again.
‘Those papers ain’t mixed up right,’ I said, ‘give me one more go.’ This time, we gave those papers a mixin’ they’ll never forget. They held up the hat once more.
‘Last time,’ I said. I closed my eyes, put my hand in and pulled out a slip. Adeline Wilks! I gave up.
‘Well, if she’s the one I got to have, so be it,’ I said. I think the spirit of her people must have chosen her for me.
We were married in the early thirties in Perth in St Marys Cathedral by Bishop Prindiville. She was a Catholic and I was an Anglican. I agreed to bring up the little ones as Catholics. It didn’t seem important, all one God, after all.
Shortly after we were married, I was out in the paddock, diggin’ roots. It was a hot day, the sweat was pourin’ off me. Anyhow, I was diggin’ away, diggin’ away, when, suddenly, I was struck blind. I closed my eyes and opened them, but I couldn’t see nothin’. I closed my eyes real tight and opened them again, but I still couldn’t see. I could feel my hand on my face, but I couldn’t see it. I sat down and closed my eyes and stayed there for a while, real still like.
That’s when I knew Annie was dead. My poor old mother who I hadn’t seen since they took me away was dead. I stood up and opened my eyes, I could see again, but Annie was dead. She was so small and pretty, I wish I’d seen her again, just one more time.
The first farm I had in Muckinbudin was hard work. My house was only a bit of tin. I had to cut great big sleepers on drums with a handsaw for the roof. No electricity or water. We had to go over the line if we wanted water.
Men teased me when I bought the farm, they didn’t want a blackfella movin’ in.
‘Where you gunna get stock?’ they said. I just ignored them. When I should have had sheep, they wouldn’t give me any, because m
y colour wasn’t right. Everybody else got them, not me.
I was on my own, a black man with no one to help him. I done all the fencing myself, bought everything, the dam too. Paid money for men to clear land. I chopped all the fence posts, dug out the holes and, when there was nothing else to do, helped clear the land. I made sure I owed no one, I didn’t want no mortgage. You mortgage a place and you’re beat. They’ve got you then, just over a lousy little bit of money.
After I’d improved the farm, a bloke wanted to buy it. Jack Edwards was his name. He already had other farms and he wanted mine as well. You see, the white man gets greedy, he wants to take everything.
We sold the farm bare for four thousand pounds. He told me he wanted to rent it for so many years till he got his money together. So he gave me four hundred pounds the first year and said he couldn’t give me any more till he’d made some more money out of my farm so he could pay for it. There was no stipulation in our agreement that my horses and machinery went with the land, but soon I found he was takin’ my horses and machinery and workin’ his other farms with them as well as mine.
He had big ideas and big ways. He put in one season and had a good crop, but the following year, the Depression hit and he said he couldn’t go through with the sale.
I said, ‘Well, Jack, if you can’t go through with it, you replace everything on the farm the same as you got it, the horses in the same quantity, the machinery in good gear, collars and harness and everything.’ He done all that, but two horses he never replaced. I let him off on that.
With the Depression, the price of wheat fell to ten shillings a bushel and then to five shillings. I had two boys, Arthur and Manfred, by then, and in 1934, my third son, Albert, was born. My crop yielded eights bags to the acre that year, but, at five bob a bushel, it didn’t amount to much. All we got out of it was a pram for Albert.
In 1936 my daughter, Norma, was born and life was real hard. I’d do anything to make a few bob then, anything to keep my wife and family. I picked roots at a shilling an acre, I cleared five hundred acres of mallees* for seven pounds. I burnt mallees for charcoal to sell to gas producers. By gee, some men were mean then, they’d pinch my roots and my charcoal. I was doin’ the work and they was gettin’ the profits.
Ever since the Depression, I’ve voted Labor. When the Labor Government got into power, we got another two shillings a bushel.
It was during this time that I owed money on my header**. I was the first farmer in the district to have a truck and the first to buy a header. My header came down by train. Tug Wilson, who ran the post office at Mucka and was also an agent for Wesfarmers, took a photo of it. I was makin’ history, you see.
I think I must have been somethin’ out of the ordinary, to be a black man ahead of everybody else.
Anyway, Wesfarmers summonsed me over the header. When Wesfarmers first started, I bought me bags, me super, everything, off Wesfarmers and I paid them every time. It was little men like me that made Wesfarmers. I even had one of their men come and service my machinery, and now they were summonsing me over the header.
First, a policeman came and said, ‘We’ve got to sell you up!’
‘Oh yeah,’ I said, ‘what are you goin’ to sell?’
‘All your goods and chattels,’ he said.
I laughed. ‘You needn’t worry about that,’ I said, ‘I got no goods and chattels!’
Anyway, when the summons came, I went down to Perth to see a lawyer who came from Bunbury, Howard Barth. He rang Wesfarmers and said, ‘Believe you’re takin’ Corunna on about the debt he has. You want to fight him, you have to push it through me!’
I could have stuck to the header, if I’d wanted. I had a good crop and was goin’ to use it to take it off. In the end, I said, ‘Take the rubbish of a thing away!’ I’d never had any debt with them before, I’d always paid my way. The one time I’m short and they won’t help me.
Later on during the Depression, the Agricultural Bank served a summons on me for owin’ them one thousand three hundred pounds, I’d had to mortgage my farm with them to get by. They sold up everything, all my machinery, except my horses. I had nowhere to keep them, they were strayin’ everywhere and the bloke who’d taken on my farm said he was goin’ to shoot them if I didn’t take care of them. I had to round them up and sold them for three pounds a head to be shot for pig feed. Can you tell me that was fair, for all my pioneering days, to be treated like that?
The Depression didn’t do no favours for my neighbour who’d had four farms either. He had to sell up, he left the district for good. I had to take my family and start again on new, uncleared land. It’s hard for the black man to get ahead. Struggling under all disabilities, I went on in hardship on my new land.
My neighbours in Mucka were a mixed bag, some good, some very bad. There was a man that give me a lot of trouble, he was mean, he didn’t like blacks. He’s dead and gone now, God finished him. That man used to shoot my horses and pigs.
One day, he was in town and he said to one of my neighbours, ‘Have you managed to get Arthur off his farm, yet?’ He went on and on, talkin’ to my neighbour about how two white men can easily get rid of one black man. My neighbour never said a word, he just let him ramble on, then he said, ‘You’re talkin’ to the wrong bloke. I don’t want Arthur off his farm.’
You see, he thought he was going to turn this man against me, but this man was my friend. I’d helped him when things went wrong. When he was in hospital, I’d helped cut his hay and shear his sheep. He was my mate. Whenever I wanted a wagon or anything, he’d say, ‘Take what you like, Arthur.’ If I wanted hay, he’d give it to me. Later, he married and moved to Arthur River. He took all his cows, and his wife and family and moved on. His name was William Arthur Bird and he was a good man.
Now, you take the bloke opposite. He was the one that give me all the trouble. He was only livin’ on what he could steal off me. He was the one bad egg in the nest. He was mean. He was the only man I knew who spent a penny and saved a shilling.
He put a fence right round the lake so he could steal my sheep. Got his son to lift up the bottom fence at the bottom dam and mix my sheep with his. I lost a lot of sheep that way. He used to have meetings at his place, tryin’ to be a big shot, sayin’ he was the first man with Corriedale sheep. In the end, he had no Merino at all, only Corriedale, my Corriedale!
When the sheep came back to my land, he summonsed me. I had no earmark on my sheep, only a woolbrand. He put his own earmark on my sheep and then accused me of stealin’ them. The police came out and saw my Corriedale sheep runnin’ back to me.
I went down to Perth and saw a lawyer. When I told him what was going on, he said, ‘You let me handle this.’ While I was sittin’ there, he rang the police.
‘What’s this I hear about Corunna being accused of stealing sheep?’ he said.
I don’t know what the policeman said, I couldn’t hear, but my lawyer replied, ‘You speak to me like that again, man, and I’ll have you in gaol! Any further action on this has to go through me, I’m Corunna’s lawyer. We’re going to fight you on this!’
After that, they dropped the case against me. They knew they couldn’t win. I wasn’t stealin’ those sheep, they was just comin’ home.
I never did nothin’ mean to the men who robbed me. You got to leave God to do His own work.
No one could ever rightly accuse me of stealin’, because everything I got I paid for. I didn’t want no one sayin’ to me, ‘You in debt, we got to sell you up!’ You see, they’ll get you if they can. They’ll follow you to the last ditch, even the government. You got to be a blackfella to know what the pressure is from the government.
They never even treated the blackfellas right during the war. I heard of this native bloke, he went and fought for the country overseas, when he came back he still wasn’t a citizen, he had to get an exemption certificate. And he wasn’t even allowed to vote. That’s the white man’s justice for you. You see, the black man remembers these things.
The black man’s got a long memory.
They took a lot of natives away to Palm Flats, Moore River, during the war, old ones and all. Neville* was still the Protector of Aborigines. Any blackfella that had dealings with Neville got no good word to say about him. He wasn’t protectin’ the Aborigines, he was destroyin’ them!
These poor blackfellas they took away had to live in a compound with soldiers around them. The young girls would say to the soldiers, ‘Why you worried about us for, we not your enemies, Australia’s our country.’ The soldiers couldn’t do anything, it was their business to keep them there. So in the end, the girls made love to the soldiers and got away.
Anyone who escaped, they sent trackers after them. They’d catch them, beat them up and put them back in gaol. Our own country and we not free. They didn’t let no one out till the end of the war.
I don’t know why they didn’t lock me up too. Maybe they didn’t think of me as a real blackfella. They seemed to go for the real dark ones, the ones out of work and battlin’ for a livin’. The real bushies, too. I heard a rumour that they were worried the Japanese would get hold of the bushies and the bushies would lead them through the interior. I’d be no good to them. I’d be lost myself, probably.
Aah, it seems funny, lookin’ back now. Mucka was a good place to live in the old days. People were more friendly, they needed each other. The black man was workin’ for the farmers, gettin’ paid in tea, flour and sugar. Blackfellas cleared the land, put crops in, pulled sandalwood. I remember the lake country used to be full of dingoes, the blackfellas used to track them, hunt them down. Aah yes, no one can say the blackfella didn’t do his share of work in Mucka. They helped make it what it is today, I hope they won’t be forgotten.
***
Well I’d like to finish my story there. That’s the important part. I been livin’ in Mucka for years now. I got my children all growed up and my farm is comin’ along real nice. I still put a crop in and I got my pigs and there’s plenty of the wildlife on my place. The wildlife always got a home with me.