by Stuart Kells
Talking about rain, I heard rather a good story the other day. It is absolutely true and shows the intelligence of the average Australian. A blocker in Renmark purchased a barometer some time ago and felt very pleased with himself for having obtained, for a few pounds, an instrument which would foretell what the weather was going to be. One day during the drying season black clouds rolled up from the south and all careful growers covered up their fruit. But he did not. He had consulted his ‘glass’ and had found that although the pointer had dropped back several degrees it only pointed at ‘change’. Plenty of time, thought he, to cover up tomorrow. The ‘glass’ will have to drop back a lot before it rains. So he went to bed that night perfectly satisfied that it was not going to rain.
As he dozed off to sleep, he mused what a good investment a barometer was. If he had not bought one he would have covered up. It will soon save its cost, he thought. He woke up in the middle of the night. It was pitch dark and the rain was coming down ‘in bucket fulls’. He had to get up and go down to the drying green and cover up by lantern light. He had to do the job by himself, whereas had he done it during the day he would have had help. The first thing next morning he went into the shop where he had made his purchase, with the barometer. It was still raining.
‘Here, take this rotten thing back,’ he said, ‘and either give me back my money or give me another one. This one’s no good. Look at the thing yourself, it isn’t pointing to ‘rain’ and yet isn’t it raining?’
If we do not get any rain the pumps will start on Monday week. There has not been enough rain yet to enable us to plough, so we shall have to do this after the irrigation. We shall not start watering until the second week in September. It is strange what the pumps sometimes pump out of the river. Hundreds of thousands of small fish are pumped into the channels every watering. Yabbies are also pumped out by the score.
Sunday, 10 August 1924
I want to thank you all for the splendid letters you send me, and especially Father. I received a nine-page letter from Father last night and it is impossible for me to conceive that a more interesting, instructive and loving letter could be written. Nine pages of ‘sheer joy’. I have it before me now, it is dated the 4th July.
‘The sun is just about setting here and in a few hours’ time will be awakening you to what I trust will be a very happy day and the fore runner of very, very many more.’
How can I read a few lines like that when I am here, nearly 12,000 miles from home, without being thrilled? ‘Thrilled by what?’ you may ask. Thrilled by a father’s love. I read the letter at Mr Smith’s while the usual ‘four’ were playing bridge, and during the time I was reading it and for a long time after I experienced that pleasure which it is the luck of few to experience. The pleasure of reading perfect letters from home when one is abroad.
How different are the Sundays out here to the Sundays I spent at home. Home, I would stay in bed until 8.30am. When I dressed, I would put on my best suit. Perhaps I would go to church or perhaps for a walk with Father. Or perhaps the walk would be in the afternoon. And it was not unknown for it to be in the evening. But very rarely did a Sunday pass without some kind of a walk.
Now, how things have changed. Rise before 8am. Milk before breakfast. Of course, when one has to milk it is no good putting any good clothes on. Serve the milk customers. Have breakfast. After this come washing up, bed making, sweep out a couple of rooms, chop some wood. Today I cut up some oranges for a fruit salad, and between us the boss and I had to give the house its weekly clean and cook the dinner. On Sundays we have a hot dinner. On weekdays we have cold dinners; we cannot spare the time to cook hot ones. The butcher brings us a couple of pounds of cooked meat on Wednesday and a leg of mutton (or some similar joint) on Friday which we cook on Sunday. This lasts us until Wednesday. We might also have a couple of pounds of sausages during the week, just for a change.
On the whole, we fare very well. Last night we had given us – by friends of the boss and Mrs Withers – a fair-sized cake, a fish (which we had for breakfast this morning), half a dozen jam rolls (pretty solid affairs), some cooked beetroot and some radishes. For dinner we had roast mutton, potatoes and marrow, and a solid jam tart each with custard. We finished up this two-course dinner with almonds and raisins, which the boss dearly loves. For tea we shall have orange salad and custard, bread and butter, cream, jam or honey, or cheese and radishes, and finish up with cake. What more does any man want?
In spite of all these sumptuous repasts we are enjoying I shall not be sorry when Mrs Withers returns. The boss had a ring from Adelaide this morning to say that she had left the hospital and was now staying with a friend. The doctors can do no more. Time and rest must complete the job. The boss hopes that she will be able to come up here in about three weeks. The friend who she is staying with will come up with her and stay here a few weeks.
It is surprising how the weeks roll by. Never have they moved so quickly before. Every week flashes past slightly quicker than its predecessor. The almond trees are already in blossom. They look very pretty, most likely because they are the only trees in blossom. Looking due east from here there is a row of almond trees just in front of a row of fir trees, which are evergreens. (I don’t mean to say that all fir trees are evergreens. I am not quite sure about that, but the trees of about which I am speaking are evergreens.) When the sun is setting these trees look very fine. The dark, almost sombre green of the firs forms a perfect background for the mass of pinky white blossoms. Everything else looks barren. The vines – some pruned, some not. The posts and strainers look very desolate when they are not covered with masses of long, twining green shoots. The weeping willows no longer look magnificent when swaying in the breeze. When the willows, fully clothed in the height of summer, rise and fall with such a drooping motion before a gentle breeze what a pretty picture they make. Now they are all bare. Is this not the time they should weep?
Talking about strainers reminds me about a fairly new idea that is being practiced up here. At each end of every row of vines that is trellised is a post, usually larger and stronger than the other posts. These posts are strainers. The wire naturally ends at these posts and it can be tightened, or strained, from them. Hence the name ‘strainer’, short for ‘strainer post’. The old way of putting a strainer in was to place it perfectly upright and use a strut.
A new idea is becoming very popular, especially with low trellises. It is not so successful in the case of high trellises. The idea is to place strainers in on the slant and not use struts. They slant outwards, at an angle varying from fifteen to twenty-five degrees. A seven foot strainer is usually buried between two feet six inches and three feet in the ground. So you can imagine they take some shifting. Doing without struts is a great advantage, for struts have to have a peg in the ground to hold them and also, to make a good job when putting in a strainer, they have to have holes bored in them for the wire to pass through. Also, in using struts, when the end which is propping the strainer post up happens to be anywhere near any of the holes in the strainer through which the wire passes it is very awkward to twist the end of the wire around the wire between the strut and strainer. Perhaps you quite agree with me!
The actual straining, by the way, is done by a contraption called a ‘wire strainer’ but I need not explain how it works! The strainer without a strut is very simple and needs little explaining. Of course, it may give a little at first, but with low trellises it is surprising how efficient it is. I think that is enough about strainers for the present.
A fortnight ago today I took our washing to a certain Mrs Clements, who lives not far away. The day after I took it there her mother, who lived in Adelaide, died and she had to go down to the funeral. I went to see her again this afternoon to see how our washing was getting on, for we are getting rather short of clean clothes. A terrible catastrophe. I discovered that she only returned last night so our washing was not done and, even worse than that, she had nearly run out of water! In the end I arranged t
hat she should come up here and do it, for we have plenty of water. I then had a talk with her son, Jack, who is about twenty-five years old. He is a very decent sort and looks after the block which is about fifteen acres. His mother had just brought him up an old violin which she had discovered at the house of her mother.
Jack wanted me to come and try to play it. I assured him I could not do so. But, eventually, I had a look at it and after a few minutes practice I managed to play the first few bars of God Save the King on one string. This, he thought, was great. He then had a go and commenced by tucking the violin under his arm! As I left I heard him assuring his mother – who had not been present at the concert – that I had actually played a tune on the violin, which was far more than any other visitor who had called that day had one! I! I, who couldn’t play a single note correctly to save my life. The only other time I have ever ‘played’ a violin was home, when I have firmly held that delicate instrument down on a chair and have ‘sawed’ music out of it. While I was doing this, an elder brother of mine – who in later years was a fellow member in the ‘Bingham Williams Concert Party’ – banged a certain tune, which is known as The Dutchman’s Dog, out on the piano with the loud pedal on. And a younger brother of mine (who, strange to say, was also a member of that famous concert party) firmly held a ‘concertina’ and, with all the stops held down, stretched it as far as it would go and closed it until there was not another ‘c.c.’ of air left in it as fast as his dear little arms would permit. I can hear the words now but not the tune (thank goodness): ‘Oh where, Oh where, can he be?’
Had the old Dutchman in the song used but half the expression we did on that day, in calling his dog when first he discovered its absence, believe me the song would never have been written. But perhaps, who knows? Other members of the family may not have enjoyed the concert as much as we did.
Tuesday, 19 August 1924
When some Renmarkians visit Adelaide, the citizens of that town often ask them what they can manage to do with themselves during the long winter evenings. Their replies are naturally different. But, personally, I have never been troubled by having nothing to do during the evenings, or during the day as far as that goes.
Last Saturday night, at Smiths. Sunday afternoon I was present at a ‘busy bee’ on a returned soldiers’ block. He has been gradually dying for the last six months. It will be a great relief to everyone when he dies. A nasty comment to make. But when death is an absolute certainty and life is mere existence, and unbearably painful at that, I do not think that doctors should do everything within their power to prolong the agony. But I am rather wandering from the subject I started on. I expect you know what a ‘busy bee’ is. When anyone is incapacitated through any deserving or unintentional cause, his friends congregate together en masse to help him along with his work. In this case it was to prune the block. Wednesday and Thursday nights we are asked out. Saturday night the usual. So that leaves Friday night free. I received two John O’London’s last Saturday which I am longing to read. So with any luck I might be able to do so on Friday night.
This is a very trying time. Money is getting scarcer and scarcer. The boss is getting quite desperate and would like to start off on something else. He says that he has been hard-up plenty of times, but never before in a place where there is no money. Before, when he has been hard-up, it has been in a place where there had been plenty of money and where he has been able to get hold of some. But where there is no money you cannot get hold of it. This really applies to fruit growing. At the present time one cannot make any money at fruit growing and one cannot get hold of any money as a fruit grower (that is, by posing as one).
Bob Beer has a Fiat car, and if the boss can get hold of one then they will start some sort of a service to Adelaide. Then, perhaps, I shall do some track driving. I sincerely hope I do. But still, ‘sufficient unto the day–’. The boss hasn’t got the car yet. But he is anticipating going down to Adelaide in Bob’s car next Sunday and when there he will see what can be arranged. There is certainly some money to be made on the track. I hope I shall be able to say some more about this later on.
The boss performed quite a marvellous conjuring trick the other day. He was serving out some custard on to a plate of prunes. I witnessed it, so there is no catch in it. The first spoonful was exactly like coloured water, yet the second – this time he dipped deeper – was more like uncooked, lumpy porridge. Never before have I seen such a thing. It was simply marvellous. And, believe me, it tasted as marvellous as it looked. One custard, mind you. And in one basin.
Last Thursday evening I witnessed a most curious phenomena. The moon had risen just as the sun set, therefore it was full moon. And at 8 o’clock a perfect circle, of perfect rainbow colours, completely encircled it. It was slightly cloudy at the time (obvious), so the colours were not what one could term brilliant but, still, they were distinguishable. It looked something like a huge archery target. Mr Withers also witnessed this and said that he had never seen anything like it before. As it sounds so incredible, I will read this out to him and if he thinks that the above is a fair description of the phenomena in plain words, I will ask him to sign it.
(This is a fair description – signed A.B. Withers)
The boss says please excuse the writing, but he is sitting in front of the fire – so am I, as a matter of a fact, in his Morris chair – and he is not used to writing in that position.
The sun must have set at about 5.15pm and the day was Thursday, 14 August 1924. I do not know how long it lasted as I, or rather we, attended a meeting of the Renmark branch of the Agricultural Bureau of South Australia shortly after and when we came out two hours later there was no sign of it.
*
Box 185
Renmark
Aug 21st 23
State Immigration Dept
Adelaide
Sir,
Enclosed my cheque for £6 on a/c of Farm apprentice R.G.W. Lane and anything further owing will be forwarded shortly. At the present time money is very scarce up here as fruit sales are not too good and our still has stopped all payments for the present and out of a crop of about £1,000 last year I have received barely £200 so you will quite understand that nobody is anxious to pay out anything that can be held over however small. As regards the interest if at the end of the period you will tell me what you consider the boy has lost I shall be only too pleased to double it. The boy is doing very well and already receiving double pocket money besides extras and so soon as things are better he will be getting more. Within the next month I hope to send him to Adelaide for a short holiday when I will ask him to give you a call.
Yours faithfully
A.B. Withers
*
Sunday, 24 August 1924
I believe that the first word that catches the eye on the first page of Book I is ‘baching’ and although I have not devoted many pages to that most interesting subject I have batched many times since that first entry. Sometimes by myself (‘on my pat’, as they say out here) and sometimes with the boss. This, however, is the fifth time that I have been by myself.
I do not consider that I ever work really hard, but when I am by myself I have a fair number of ‘odd jobs’ to do.
The boss left for Adelaide at 8.15am in Bob Beer’s car. After he had gone I had the usual jobs to do. Feed the various animals, birds and pets. Wash up, clean up, cook a loin of beef; but I will not bore you by mentioning all the trivial little chores. I finished them all soon after 12 o’clock. Had dinner and half an hour’s rest. Then I spent an hour patching a pair of working pants and then I had a bath. After that I had to walk down to the bottom block and water the horses. By the time I got back it was time to start the evening chores. Then tea. Directly after that, I picked up my pen and started writing in this book. It is now just 7 o’clock. I have been out a terrible lot this week. Wednesday, Weste’s; Thursday, Clucos’; Friday, Bob Beer’s; and last night, as usual, at Smith’s. I have not had one evening for reading since last Thursda
y week. I hope, however, to have better luck in the coming week.
I had an invitation to go for a picnic down to Lock Three today, but owing to all the work I had on hand I was forced to ‘decline with thanks’. It would have been a very pleasant little run down too, as the weather has been perfect. I expect I have mentioned before that number three lock is on this side of the river, between Cobdogla and Overland Corner. Number five is on the other side of the river and a couple of miles from Renmark. The river is far too wide to have a lock right across it, so I think that a fairly wide weir will have to be constructed. Although it has been a beautiful day, it is now raining. But rain is what we require so I hope it keeps on. Not much hope I am afraid though; the glass is too high. We rarely get any heavy rain when the glass is above thirty inches, and it has not dropped below that for any length of time for months and months and months.
The first day that I am left on my own is never a very pleasant one for me. I feel very much that I am all by myself. All alone and, yes, I feel a little homesick. The first day usually happens to fall on a Sunday. So I long for a Sunday home, a day of rest, of peace, of quietness, of joy, of happiness and of everything desirable. Green fields, sweet smelling wild flowers. As Scott says:
Breathes there the man, with soil so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
That’s the feeling. ‘England, my England’ and ‘Home, my Home’. But in my case my heart has ‘burned’ without my footsteps having been homeward ‘turned’.
I had better not do any more writing tonight as all I am capable of is ‘I am all by myself, and the rain pours down, and home is thousands of miles away, and I have no chance of getting there for a long time and I think I had better go into the garden and eat worms’, so I think I had better ‘shut up’.