by Barry Heard
However, at school, my charisma and other natural gifts only got me so far with the opposite sex. Curls, for some reason, didn’t respond to my charm. So I asked one of the older kids — again, Roy — who’d grown up in the city, for some advice.
‘Money,’ he said, ‘the evil of a good root.’
No doubt this was another of Roy’s pearls of wisdom that I couldn’t quite follow, but I gathered that money was a necessity when attempting to court a mountain maid. So, armed with this knowledge, I looked for a job, got an offer, and then wagged school for a brief time just before school holidays. In all, I worked a full three weeks — two of them in the holidays.
Now armed with several quid, I discovered that Roy was right. Suddenly, back at school, I had a lot of kudos and the perfect drawcard to ask Curls to the movies. Yes, money put the male contestants at the top of the popularity queue. Just as well, as, despite my magnetism, I was turning into an ugly bugger, really. With pimples, growth spurts, bum-fluff, and freckles on my face, it was quite a challenge to win a female heart.
But let’s go back to earning my pocket money. To be honest, the three weeks’ work away from school was a lot of fun. I was the rouseabout in Wilson’s two-stand shed, just up the road from home. There were two shearers — both good, neat craftsmen, and I admired their skill. However, I was amazed at the effort required to shear a sheep. Both shearers were capable of shearing one hundred or more sheep a day, and they lost a large amount of sweat in the process. A rouseabout is a busy job. There were fleeces to be picked up and thrown, the floor to be swept clean, and catching pens to be filled up every time a shearer called, ‘Sheep-oh!’
This particular year it had been a good season, and the fleeces were heavy and full of thistles — an annoying plant with needle-sharp prongs that stick into your hands. This is doubly a problem if you work in a woolshed, as your hands become very soft because of the lanolin in the wool. Within two days, my hands were very sore, and I had trouble milking the cows early in the morning before work. Then one of the workers in the shed noticed my problem and kindly took me to one side.
‘Not to worry,’ said the wool classer, Tom — Tom Cook from Ensay.
‘I know a good way to harden ya hands. Just pee on ’em, Baz. Rub it in well, and do it every time ya have a leak.’
Three times he explained the procedure until, a little confused, I headed for a catching pen to have a piddle. Tom was a good bloke, so the shearers reckoned, so I was grateful to him, and appreciated the advice. In fact, I was pleased that he almost treated me like an adult. So I began the daily ritual. Every time I snuck out into the catching pens to have a pee, I would liberally smother my hands. Boy, did they sting. I continued with this procedure, even when I went home for weekends, but the sore hands remained a problem. However, I was encouraged, as Tom said they’d be a lot worse if I stopped the pee routine. Nice bloke, Tom — he always had a smile on his face when he spoke to me. It was funny but, at home, Mum complained that there was a foul smell most nights at tea. I never determined until years later that it had been me.
Then the woolshed job finished and I was back at school with twelve quid in my pocket for three weeks’ work. Curls was mine. Within a day, I had a date to the movies arranged. I rode my pushbike into the town and picked her up. Fortunately, she only lived around the corner from the hall. It was Tuesday night and we headed for the Town Hall.
A bloke from Buchan, a town just over the hill, ran the movies. He was deaf, the poor blighter. Once the movies started, you could hear the noise that blasted around the hall from half a mile away. This meant that if I wanted to say something really special to Curls, I had to get in early, or shout once the flicks got underway.
We sat in the back row — the ‘cool row’. The lights went out, and we all stood for the national anthem. The Queen’s head appeared, in the middle of a waving flag. The men and boys all stood to attention. Then it was the Movietone news, cartoons, and trailers. Finally, the first feature started. It was a Doris Day epic; someone had told me that the trailer the week before suggested it was a cool movie with a lot of ‘smooching and flapping eyelashes’ — very suitable for my first date. Ten minutes after it started, I made my first move. With the grace of a good-looking male goanna, I slid my arm around Curls’s shoulders, tickled her chin, and stared at her like a hooting owl.
‘What’s that awful pong?’ she asked, with her nose in the air.
Those around us sniggered. Then bloody Shinga — Tom Wilson, a schoolmate — burst out laughing, the rotten blighter.
‘Pardon?’ I asked (this was a really bad mistake).
‘Ya hands stink. Don’t ya wash, ya dirty beggar?’
By now, the back third of the hall was in uproar — this was better than any Doris Day movie. Devastated, I rose to my feet and said I needed a pee (without the hand-washing). Then I snuck out the back and cleared off.
The three-mile bike ride back home was a long one. There were no damn horses wandering up to the fence, or owls hooting. I knew that at school the next day there’d be questions. Not about ‘how’d ya git on with Curls?’ but about where my hands had been. God, it was embarrassing — everyone in the hall had heard Curls’s comment. She’d had to shout above the booming sound from the movies. How would I explain it to the parents, since the word would have reached her mum and mine by the next day? So I learnt my first lesson about dating: take a bit of time before you make your first move.
The next day at school, I lay low. After the movies fiasco, it was best if I steered clear of the girls for the week, I reckoned. Naturally, after pondering on the entire incident, with the hindsight of a typical vacant adolescent, I changed my ways. Well, let’s just say I wasn’t deterred, and I gave Curls the shove; she chewed her fingernails, anyway.
Meg was my next target. This time I didn’t ask Roy for advice or guidance; I simply took my time and waited for the right moment. Meg was a bit of all right: she had long hair and she barracked for the Bombers. As I mentioned, timing was important, and here I had an opportunity. I needed a date for a special occasion — a party for Jacko’s girlfriend, Rosie, who was turning fifteen.
I approached Meg, real cool-like, and enticed her for a date with a comment about her beauty. Now that was a downright lie because, in reality, Curls was the only good-looker in the school. But Meg had charm and was a goer, according to Roy. Did that mean she was good at netball? (Roy had offered me his opinion anyway, and that was good enough for me.) The main thing was that Meg accepted my invitation, which was great. I begged Mum to let me have a bath on the night in question, and she obliged. I polished my shoes and put on some of Dad’s hair oil and a pair of his pants, since I was now taller than he was.
The evening’s entertainment was at Rosie’s family home. They lived in a mill-house in the town. It was a typical 1950s’ country party: some twelve of us in attendance, the boys in one corner with their plastic-looking hair slicked down with Californian poppy, looking smooth and pretending to ignore the girls — a well-honed Aussie ritual. Meanwhile, the mountain maids, even though they were our dates, were over in the far corner, giggling, fluttering, and whispering.
Then, of course, there was Jacko. What a hero. He was fourteen going on fifteen, and he was holding hands in public with his girl already — boy, did I envy that. Word had it that they’d been going steady for 22 days.
Naturally, at a bush party, several mothers were there, and they had a nice supper prepared.
We did a rough barn dance to a wind-up 78 record player, followed by the Mexican Hat dance. Then we played some games: Pass the Parcel, and Postman’s Knock were usually the first. Both were games that were regularly played at teenage birthday celebrations.
Then we played a new game called Over the Water. Two broomsticks were placed parallel on the floor about seven feet apart while Mrs Buckland leapt around the room in a big circle, giving a brief
explanation of the rules. We boys were fascinated by the way her boobs flopped about. The game sounded great — at some stage we had to pick up our partner and carry her between the two brooms. I vividly recall glancing briefly at Meg and wincing. This would test me.
‘Let’s give it a try,’ announced Mrs Jackson, as she wound up the gramophone and carefully placed the needle in the groove. The music started up, and we held hands and skipped around the room in twos to the tune of Pat Boone’s hit, Silvery Moon. Then it was time for the broomsticks: ‘Time to pick up your partner in your arms and carry her over the water,’ said Mrs Boucher. ‘And remember, if the music stops while you are in between the sticks, you are out.’
Now, to be honest, I wasn’t sure if Meg and I were a good match for this game. You see, she was a bit on the heavy side; sort of plump, or pretty solid, is how I would put it. On the farm, you would call her a good doer, in prime condition. The game continued. We were approaching the broomsticks as Pat Boone — the bloke on the 78 record — got to the bit ‘on Moonlight Bay’, when Mrs Jackson reefed up the needle. Terry and Linda, caught between the sticks, were out. Down went the needle again. We’d done about two rounds, and my poor old arms were stuffed. Then, as I rounded the bend, the broomsticks came into calculation. I bent down, went to lift Meg up, fell backwards slightly, and my hand shot up the back of her legs and got tangled in some clips or something. Twang! A shriek rang out, and Meg took a back-hander at me as her stocking separated from its suspender belt, and shot down to her ankles. Her leg was very white.
Holy smoke, cripes, and hell — the party turned into a riot. The girls all ran off to another room screaming and squealing. Jacko turned to me, winked and said, ‘Brilliant move, ya cunning bugger. You’ll ’ave ta show me that one, mate.’
What one? I didn’t know if I should run and hide, or maybe pretend that nothing had happened — or perhaps, in an act of total foolhardiness, look real cool in my new status as a womaniser. It didn’t matter. Meg’s Aunt Muriel, the evil-eyed old magpie, came out, looked at me with utter disgust, and then tutted. Now that put a damper on things.
Then a girl’s head appeared around the door. ‘You’re disgusting, Heard,’ she said.
Not long after, the party ended and I rode my bike home, very confused. Again, I did learn something: never date a girl heavier than yourself.
Back at school, both Curls and Meg now avoided me. School holidays couldn’t come quickly enough. I’d already planned my next bush venture.
chapter seven
Back in the bush
I SPENT ANY SPARE TIME I HAD IN THE BUSH AT DORRINGTON’S. But this rarely happened, as I usually went out with Dad and Gator Lambourne to work. Gator had been born and bred in the bush, and he enjoyed chatting away about the old days while he helped us with fencing, clearing, and burning off. Our first job had been to fence the Five Acres. We put in three gates, and wire netting all the way around to make it rabbit-proof. This particular year had been very dry: the Tambo had dropped to half its normal flow, and Sheepstation Creek was only a trickle, with just the odd pool. It was the start of the Christmas holidays. For me, it meant fun in the bush — I couldn’t wait.
At school, I talked excitedly to the other kids about what I’d found in the bush. Some were keen to explore and help me finish the log cabin. This time, there’d be four of us. We’d take enough flour, spuds, onions, and the like to last at least a week. We had the added advantage of a horse and cart: we had Morrison’s half-draught called Dolly, and a heavy, two-wheeled cart available. The Morrisons lived down the road a bit from us, in the same house that my mum had grown up in as a young girl — Boonabirrah Hill.
After school on the Friday, we were packed and ready to go. Two hours later, we were unhitching Dolly at the Five Acres and organising a camp fire outside the log cabin. Now, I have a confession to make after all these years. We had a packet of Turf cigarettes with us, hidden away with the food. They were cork-tipped — though I wasn’t sure what that meant — and there were ten of them in the packet. The highlight of our first night, as you might have guessed, was the cigarettes. Pud was sick, I got the staggers and ended up walking backwards, and the other two gave up after a couple of drags. Naturally, we all tried to do the ‘drawback’.
In all, it was a very quiet, early night. We didn’t even cook ourselves any tea. The idea of smoking got the thumbs down. First thing on the Saturday morning, we put up the stringy-bark sheets and waterproofed the cabin. For a door, I’d brought along a sheet of canvas with a board nailed to the bottom, to stop it flapping too much. By now, the cabin was quite comfortable and clean — although I didn’t tell the others that I’d scared off a black snake in there a couple of weeks earlier.
We wandered down to the creek below the cabin, and I was surprised to find almost no flow. More fascinating was the fact that the large pool of water, which was about five feet across and only about a few inches deep, was full of trout. There must have been hundreds of them: tiny trout, about six or seven inches long, with a bright red dot behind their gills. We scooped up a small bucketful, and fried them for lunch. It was a delightful meal. Satisfied, we headed on foot for the First Waterfall.
An hour later, we were there. The three boys reacted almost the same way I did — they just went quiet. The fall remained completely hidden until the last moment, and then, there it was — what a sight. After 20 minutes of just looking and hoping to see some wildlife, we decided to have a swim in the large pool. This was a bad idea — it was freezing. Quickly, we were back on dry land, dressed, and ready to venture further up into the headwaters.
Briefly, I showed them the bullock track I’d found. By now, other locals, as well as Gator, had explained to me that it was a bullock track used in the late 1800s for both the small township of Brookville and the gold mine at Cassilis. My find had created a lot of local interest.
Back to the creek we walked — or, I should say, jumped — from rock to rock, as we moved up the stream. The banks were quite steep and the flow was almost nothing — just a dribble, but certainly more than at the Five Acres. Even in good times, it would have been only two to three feet wide. The water trickled quietly around large rocks and made little noise. As we climbed higher, we noticed the bush change from stringy-bark trees to grey box. Suddenly, the stream flattened again; there was a lot more water. The area became more open and, looking ahead, we spotted a huge waterfall — the ‘Second Waterfall’.
It was much higher than the first, and it was in two stages, or steps. Simply, it was awesome. Again, it was a formation of gigantic granite rocks. The first stage was a drop of roughly 25 feet, and the second was even bigger. We all just sat, talking about how stunning it would be after a good rain — even a flood. The surrounding area was different, too. Being higher up in the mountain, there were tree ferns and small reeds. The waterfall was 50 feet wide, and seemed way out of proportion to the small amount of water that cascaded over the top.
My camera quickly appeared, and I ended up running out of film; everyone wanted to be in a photograph. Fortunately, the camera had a self-timer.
After exploring the fall for more than an hour, we headed up Sheepstation Creek. After all our spectacular finds, the further we went up from Second Waterfall, the narrower the creek became, dividing itself into several gullies and then almost disappearing. We’d found the headwaters. By now, we were a very long way from the cabin, and decided to climb to the top of the nearest spur and get our bearings. It took two hours to trek back to the cabin.
I’d decided to cook a large stew in the camp oven. Pud wandered off with the rifle to get a rabbit, and I went down to the creek to get some water. As I was about to leap the fence, something caught my eye — a snake. It was dead. My guess was that it had been there several days. However, the way it had died was amazing. It was a huge, black snake, probably five or six feet long — it might even have been the one I’d scared o
ut of the cabin weeks earlier. It was stuck in the wire netting fence, facing towards the log cabin. The poor thing must have gone down through the fence earlier, ventured to the creek, maybe, for a drink — who knows? Obviously, it discovered the trout and must have had a ball catching and eating them. In fact, its body was the size of a small football when I found it. When we cut the snake open, it had twelve trout inside its belly. It had managed to get its head and about ten inches of its body through the wire netting, and then it became stuck — its scales, which faced to the rear, wouldn’t allow it to go backwards … it was one dead snake. I said it was probably five feet long as, already, a fox or a dingo had eaten part of its tail. Several battalions of sugar ants had already made a well-worn tiny path from the snake to their ant hill. Within a week it would be nothing but a skeleton.
The remainder of our holiday around the Five Acres was a lot of fun. We climbed Mad Lucy’s Rock, trekked to the top of Mount Flagstaff overlooking Swifts Creek, and panned for gold, managing to get a few small specks. We set traps and caught rabbits, shot a kangaroo, and managed to scalp three wombats. In those days, the government paid ten shillings and sixpence a scalp. In fact, we devised a cunning way of catching them. After lighting a good fire slightly inside the mouth of their burrow, and then stuffing green leaves on top of the flames, we would quickly cover the entire opening with dirt. Invariably, when we returned several hours later and dug open the mouth of the burrow, the wombat would be there, dead, having suffocated.
We were away ten days, and it was a great holiday.
I FIND IT CURIOUS, now, to look back and consider my connection with nature then. In those days, I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot almost any bush animal I came across. When walking in the bush with my staff, I killed many a black snake — the most common animal I’d encounter — and I never gave this a second thought. For bush meals in the camp oven, I sampled snake, wombat, kangaroo, cockatoo, and emu. I found none of them objectionable. Yet give me a lyrebird dancing, a platypus, an early-morning dawn with kangaroos standing on a ridge, or two snakes curled around each other mating, and I would be struck by the splendour and wonder of nature. Never would I interrupt, or even consider ruining the scene with a rifle shot.