by Stuart Kells
*
Bective
Coonabarabran N.S.W.
6th November 1925
The Immigration Officer,
Dear Sir,
When I withdrew from the Farm Apprentice Scheme just over a year ago, I believe there were a few pounds still owing to me which you were unable to pay me owing to my three years not having been completed.
Would you please now send the money on or if possible pay it into my account at the Commonwealth Savings Bank, as I now need the money.
Thanking you in anticipation
I remain,
Yours sincerely
RGW Lane
*
Saturday, 7 November 1925
This is being written late on Saturday afternoon. So late, in fact, that it is almost evening, the time being about 6 o’clock. But this is the first spare moment I have had today, as this afternoon I have been busy with sheep. During the past week I have spent most of my time ‘stooking’ sheaves of wheat. Owing to a scarcity of rain, the wheat was not worth stripping so we are going to chaff it up instead. The weather was unpleasantly warm and I think it will be a long time before I forget the stooking I did on the Castlereagh River flats at ‘Bective’.
On Thursday, ‘Bective’ and ‘Morock’ wool was sold in Sydney by Messrs Schutt Bell and Co. ‘Tops’ fetched twenty eight and three-quarter pence; all other classes were also satisfactory. The top price for the day was twenty-nine and a half pence and 7,000 bales were sold. The boss was very pleased with the price, although last year his ‘tops’ brought thirty-seven pence. Last year was an exceptional year, as the highest price for the season was fifty-two and a half pence. I think this price was reached on a Friday, and on Monday the price slumped to about twenty-seven pence and never really recovered. In connection with sheep, land is only a small item. The main factor being how many sheep the land will carry. Country like ‘Millamolong’ would carry one to one and a half sheep per acre. Here it requires nearly two acres to a sheep and without lucerne it would not do that. At Cobar, where the boss was jackarooing, they had to allow fifteen acres per sheep; but they did not worry about cleaning the land at all, did not even trouble to ring bark the trees.
I could go and get a couple of thousand acres of Crown land tomorrow, the only cost being about £10 to £15 for fees, documents, stamps etc. But the land would take a lot of clearing before it would carry a sheep to, say, ten acres. And I should have to fence it with wire netting to keep the rabbits out, kill all the rabbits in the property, build a house to live in, perhaps sink bores or wells for water, ring bark the trees and succour them for a couple of years and, after then, stock the place. So it is no easy job taking up Crown land.
A couple of nights ago Mrs Thompson evidently thought that I looked homesick for she entered into a conversation with me that resulted in her offering to lend me enough money to come home – on no security and at no interest. This will show you what a kind-hearted person she is. This afternoon she repeated her offer and added that she could not understand how a person like me could ever have left home. And, on thinking it over, I now cannot understand myself why I ever left my native land.
Now it is too dark to write and, not being able to switch the light on, I am afraid I must cease for the present. One thing I miss very much is twilight. There is practically none in this country.
Sunday, 8 November 1925
It looks as if this part of the country is in for a drought this year. If we do not have any rain within the next six weeks there will be no feed at all and the stock will have to be sold or else it will die. They have had about an inch of rain during the last six months, while in that time ‘Millamolong’ must have had at least ten inches. No wonder land is worth more there than it is here.
But I can see that this entry is going to consist of about one page as I keep on getting interrupted, one odd job after another. Although it is late on Sunday night I still have several odd jobs to do. Remove a horse from the lane and place him in a lucerne paddock, set a rat trap (the humpy is full of rats), empty a tin, fill a bucket and so on. And tomorrow morning, up at 5am. What a life. Who’d be a farmer? Not I. ‘Millamolong’ I love, but ‘Bective’ – ye gods, no.
Wednesday, 11 November 1925
As I wrote down the date it dawned upon me that it was the anniversary of some important event. I did not realize what the date was but knew it was Wednesday and, looking at the opposite page, I saw that Sunday was the eighth. So that means today is Armistice Day.
Today I have been on the go for a good many hours. Up at 4.55am (it sounds better that five minutes to five). Finished breakfast before 6am. Working all the morning. Dinner at 1pm. Working all afternoon. Commenced tea at 7.50pm. My work was driving sheep – along the dry river bed most of the time, through umpteen gates. Had to chase mobs of straying sheep away. The weather during the morning was stifling hot and this afternoon we had a thunderstorm and it grew cold. I got wet through and still had to ride on until I nearly froze. (The variations in the weather here are very marked.) The boss was back in the house by 7pm and he left for town just as I entered at 7.50pm. Before he left he told me to take a lantern as soon as I had finished tea and do all the odd jobs I could, so as to be able to get away from here early. Empty tubs, fill buckets, chop wood, etc., etc. Well, I’ve finished tea and done some of the odd jobs and the time is 9.15pm, and now I emphatically declare that I am so tired that I would not take a lantern and chop wood for all the Browns in Australia. The ground is slippery, the wood wet, the night is dark and I am tired. So, good night.
Friday, 13 November 1925
Well, I must admit that I have made rather a mess or hash of things this time, as, in some ways, a lot of the matter I have written during the past couple of months will go to show you that I am not satisfied with myself at ‘Bective’. This I did not intend you to know till later. The only way I have of preventing this is not to send this book on to you, at least not for a couple of months.
However, I do not intend to do this. Tomorrow I mean to send off to you Book I and II, as it will be getting on for Christmas by the time you receive them. So this will be my last entry. What shall I write about? The weather: still no rain. My work: today I have been cleaning out a well. For two hours I was standing in water. It eventually rose up to my waist and every time I bent down to dig out some of the sand and mud my face touched the water. All I was wearing was a pair of boots, trousers and a hat. The well, I might add, was fifty foot deep. No, I don’t want to write about my work in this, the last entry. Shall I write about my hopes and plans for the future? You must know by the time you reach this part of the book that I am not satisfied with jackarooing at ‘Bective’.
My plans for the future are not yet very definite. I am going to leave here at Christmas, spend a few days at ‘Millamolong’ and then look out for a job that will enable me to save enough money to come back home. If I cannot secure such a position in Sydney – which I think quite probable – I may go back to Adelaide. Anyhow, something will happen. It is these little uncertainties that sometimes make life interesting and although, as I previously mentioned, in some ways I am sorry that you will know everything at such an early date it will at least place me in no false position. You will know exactly how I stand and what I think of various people, places and chances of succeeding in certain occupations.
Unfortunately, on this, the last evening I have for writing, I am feeling very tired and I am afraid that I shall not be able to fill up the next two pages.
Saturday, 14 November 1925
Fate decided that this was not to be finished on the thirteenth after all. Last night I suddenly remembered that as I got all my clothes wet while working down the well I should have to mendup some old clothes for the ‘morrow’. So I had to turn to with a needle and thread.
If there is one thing that I wish more than anything else it is that I could wrap myself up with these books and come home in time for Christmas.
Now that I have come to t
he end, I don’t quite know how to finish (rather Irish!).
Shall I bewail that the time has come for this diary and myself to part, and mourn over it as I should the loss of a friend? No, for the parting may only be a temporary one and this, my diary and my friend, is going to a ‘far, far better place than it has ever been in before’. Trusting that I may have interested or amused you once or twice and that I haven’t ‘bored’ you too much.
I remain, as ever, your very own Dick.
*
19th November 1925
Mr R.G.W. Lane,
Bective,
Coonabarabran, NSW
Dear Lane,
I am in receipt of your letter of the 6th inst. asking that the balance held on your account should be made available to you. I regret that you should have found it necessary to make this application, but trust that the small amount will help to tide you over your difficulty.
I enclose herewith a cheque for £2/9/8, being the balance of your account.
With kind regards,
Yours faithfully,
[R]
Director
*
Sunday, 22 November 1925
It is just eight days ago that I finished and packed up my last two volumes, but the parcel was not posted until last Thursday – the first opportunity I had. On Tuesday and Wednesday I went to ‘Morock’ and the parcel accompanied me, but I passed through town before the post office opened and returned after it had closed. It was not until last night that I was able to purchase this book, so I am losing no time in making a fresh start.
Last week I had quite a busy time. To go on from the time I left off, I finished the last page of Book II year 1925 on Saturday afternoon. In the evening I went to the pictures and saw the only film I have ever seen before. This was Girl Shy in which the leading part is taken by Harold Lloyd. It was in Adelaide, about last March, that I saw it before, when I went to Weste’s with Mr Harding and his son. On Sunday morning I greased the car. In the afternoon I accompanied Mr Brown to one of the paddocks where there was a windmill that required fixing. We did not arrive back at the house until 6 o’clock. After tea, Mr Brown asked me if I would go as far as Mr Loveband’s with him. I assented and off we went. This was the first time I had ever been in the house and I was surprised to find how spotlessly clean and tidy it was – a great contrast to here. I had an interesting conversation with Mr Loveband, who told me that he was born at Burrington, Devon, and was intimately acquainted with such places as Winkleigh, Ashreigney, Eggesford, South Molton Road, Westward Ho, Appledore and Instow. He said it was through some people named Winter, who lived somewhere in the Ashreigney district, that he came out here about seventeen years ago. Personally he is a very quiet man, reads the paper but few books and hardly ever goes anywhere. He was educated at Exeter Grammar School and Cheltenham College. His father was a clergyman. In his house there was a highly polished warming pan; this, I think, was the first I have seen in this country. Did I ever mention that all the ancestors of a friend of mine, who now lives in Adelaide, lived in South Molton and that during ‘leave’ from France he visited that place to see them. His name is Les Frayne and he is a salesman at Savery’s in Rundle Street, Adelaide.
On Monday morning I was working in the harness room and tool shed, and in the afternoon put in some more work on the windmill. On Tuesday I went to ‘Morock’. Owing to the scarcity of water, Mr Brown decided to equip a well there with a pump and engine and I went there to help fix it up. The well, which is 110 feet deep, contains thirty feet of water. The first job was to lower the piping, and let me assure you that 100 feet of two inch piping – all complete with foot valve, pump and pump rod – is fairly heavy. When we had eighty feet of it down the pipe, the chain, which was holding the pipe, slipped twenty feet and was only prevented from crashing to the bottom by the chain jamming on a clamp. This jar broke the half inch wire rope that we were using. I was holding on to the windlass handle at the time and had the rope not broken I should have been hurled halfway to Coonabarabran and most likely killed.
Later in the day Mr Brown wanted to descend the well, but just as he started the windlass slipped while the handle remained firm. Mr Brown did not take any notice of this but I suggested fitting-up a rope brake in case it should slip again. This was agreed to and, when he had been lowered forty feet and was still forty feet from the water, it slipped again and he would have dropped right down had it not been but for the brake. When we got back that night he told Mrs Brown that had I not suggested the brake he might easily have been killed, so we had quite an exciting day.
On Wednesday I again went to ‘Morock’ and we fixed up the engine and stand – 2,000 gallon tank and stand – and also troughing and piping. We pumped the tank nearly half full and had water in the troughs before we left.
Monday, 23 November 1925
On Thursday, for the third consecutive day, I went to ‘Morock’. In the morning we examined the sheep and culled out the poorest, and in the afternoon we fixed up a shelter for the engine and pump. Friday saw Mrs Brown and myself ‘stooking’ or, rather, ‘re-stooking’ what the wind and rain had blown down. We finished this job about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and then I replenished the differential, gear box and engine of the car with grease and oil. After this I had a bath and tea. On Saturday we mustered all the sheep and drafted them into two mobs. In order to do this we had to handle 400 to 500 sheep. After dinner I washed the car, repaired a fence and moved two mobs of sheep. The excitement of the week took place in the evening, when we went to the pictures. On Sunday morning I made a start on this book and in the afternoon I drove Mrs Brown, Mrs and Miss Thompson, and the children to Timor, where we joined Mr and Mrs Loveband and family. We had tea and Mrs Loveband and I talked about England and cars for the rest of the afternoon. I took this book with me, as I intended to do some writing. The only reason why I went was that Mr Brown had gone away for the day and Mrs Thompson was rather ‘windy’ that they might have some trouble with the car. There was very little petrol in the car and the spare tyre was punctured, and Mrs Brown does not know much about a car (in fact, she wonders why a car has three gears to go forward – she has only driven Dodge and Wills Knight – and only one reverse).
Today I have been fixing up a harness room out of a portion of the tool shed. I also rode over the ‘Singers’ (one of our paddocks) and examined the water supply and distributed some salt. For the last day I have been having a very painful time with a full-sized boil inside my nose and, at the present time, I am feeling really cheerful. Half of my ‘dial’ is badly swollen and the nose itself is a real picture. I have bathed it, placed hot ferments on it, applied ointments and finally painted it with iodine, so now it appears to have taken on a real dark, rich, sunburnt hue.
While I am writing, Mr Brown is entering up his books and on a blotter he is using are the words: ‘The only difference between a rut and a grave is that the rut is longer.’ I am not quite sure that I can agree with this but I hardly feel in the mood for an argument, even on paper. So, for the time, I think I will ‘ring off’.
Wednesday, 25 November 1925
Some few weeks ago I sent off three letters to X, B.B. and A.B.W., three persons who live in South Australia, and in each of them I asked for some money or monies due to me by them. I received a reply from each of them yesterday, and I think I will write down some extracts from the letters received. The most pleasant was from X, which happens to be a government department. I had a couple of pounds to my credit there, I asked for it and, somewhat to my surprise, I received it. The letter accompanying it was from my old friend ‘Daddy’ Ryan (Victor H. Ryan as he signs himself):
I regret that you should have found it necessary to make this application but trust that the small amount will help to tide you over your difficulty – I enclose – cheque for £2.9.8 being the balance of your account, with kind regards Yours–etc.
Quite a welcome communication this. But the next, from B.B. who owes me £10: ‘… things are
in a terrible bad way still and one cannot raise a cent more than necessary for the carrying on of the blocks.’ (B.B must be a fruit grower.) However, he ends up well: ‘… with best wishes and the compliments of the season, yours etc–.’
But the best of the lot is from A.B.W. (should not be hard for you to guess who this is). Poor old Withers, he wrote me a five-page letter, but enclosed no cheque.
It is now time to stop. Up at 5.15am. Time is now 10pm. Have to be grubbing out thistles, Mexican Poppies and ‘unstooking’ today. The latter means knocking down stooks in order to dry them thoroughly, preparatory to building a stack, and I am feeling fairly tired. I would have written last night but Wally Thompson came and prevented me.
Tonight Mr and Mrs Brown, and Miss Thompson, has gone to bed, so I am ‘on my pat’ – to use a common expression out here. I won’t guarantee it to be genuine Australian slang, as it might have come from the Old Country.
The proposed motor trip around New South Wales by Mrs Thompson – myself as chauffeur – is progressing quite well. We are both quite serious about it, although Mrs Thompson has not yet mentioned the subject to her husband. She is going down to Sydney to tell him all about it on the eighth next month.
Sunday, 29 November 1925
The time is 6.30am and I am writing this sitting on the edge of my bed. It being Sunday, I am entitled to a ‘lay in’ until 7.30am. Although you may think it fairly early in the morning, I have already done quite a lot. Where I milk there is no shelter at all from the sun or rain, and as the sun is very hot by 8am in the morning I find milking a very warm job. I usually milk about 7am, but if I had stayed in bed till 7.30am it would be 8am before I commenced milking as I should first have to light the fire. So, for comforts sake, I rose at 5.15am and have milked three cows before commencing this entry.