City Girl, Country Girl
Page 24
She aims for balance in the life of her children, too. Growing up on a station, they have extraordinary freedom and independence compared with many of their city counterparts, but even though there are no school bells or sirens, when it comes to their education there is no escaping routine. At eight o’clock every school day they make their way to the workers’ quarters where a governess supervises their lessons. One end of the building is set up as a classroom, which also doubles up as a sitting room for Sophie, who came to Bunginderry about six months ago. There are a couple of desks, and colourful illustrations based around numbers and letters and words fill the walls, just like a conventional classroom.
Off to one side is a small room set up with computers. The days of high-frequency radios which gave the School of the Air its name are long gone. Today students rely on the internet and video-conferencing to communicate with their teachers and classmates. It might sound like progress, but there are more than a few days when the Tullys wonder if they wouldn’t be better off going back to the old technology. Conferences of the Isolated Parents and Children’s Association in 2015 brought to national attention just how bad telecommunication services are in the bush.
Out here, people rely on satellites to connect them to the internet. In what Annabel describes as a monumental stuff-up, a satellite service that was meant to cater for 250,000 users stopped functioning properly when it hit 38,000. The end result is interrupted access and slow delivery speeds, which make using the internet a nightmare. Harriet, Hugo and Eve use video-conferencing without the video because the system can’t handle it. The distance education office at Charleville has to provide still pictures and CDs instead, and Annabel often has to drive into Quilpie to the library to do online research and download material.
Even when the service is working, it’s expensive. The Tullys pay $180 for twenty gigabytes a month for the schoolroom connection, and $90 for a separate service at the homestead. ‘It’s disgraceful and it doesn’t even work. We use most of it up by week one or two, and there is no watching YouTube clips or online movies in this house,’ says Stephen, the frustration clear. ‘When it’s dry and you’re doing it tough, you get this lecture from people that you should be more educated. Yeah, how? My cynical negative hat says we have grounds for class action, with the amount of dollars we are losing every day because we cannot operate properly.’
The Federal Government has been trying to reassure rural communities that it will all be fine when two new satellites come on line as part of the roll out of the controversial National Broadband Network. That is not due to happen until 2017 and people are worried it will soon be over-subscribed anyway. Desperate for alternatives, Stephen even climbed onto the homestead roof, with a car kit and a big aerial, trying to find mobile coverage.
Even if the satellite service does improve to the point where the children can take full advantage of the distance education services available, Harriet, Hugo and Eve will follow their older siblings to boarding school in Brisbane once they turn twelve. Annabel and Stephen agree that it is the best way for them to broaden their horizons, meet new people and make friends, and then make an informed decision about what they want to do with their lives.
Reminding herself of all those positive benefits hasn’t made it easy for Annabel to be parted from Lachlan and Sophia. ‘The concept of my kids going to boarding school has been really foreign to me. Stephen’s better at it than I am—in fact, he is better at most things when it comes to teenagers!’
To try to lessen the wrench, Annabel aimed for a festive, party atmosphere when the first child left. She took the younger children to Brisbane, too, so they could see where Lachlan was going to school, and the bed he would be sleeping in. Everyone got balloons and she worked at keeping the conversation positive on the long drive there and back. It might have convinced the children but the day after she got home, Josh walked into the house for lunch to find chaos.
Annabel had put a large tub of crystallised honey into the microwave to melt it. Instead of programming it to operate for one minute, she hit ten. ‘The tub had spilled its guts out the door and all the way down through every single drawer in the cupboard and then onto the floor. It looked as though the microwave was crying, and I’m sitting in the corner crying, too. I don’t know if it was because I was missing Lachlan or the mess I had to clean up.’ Josh took one look and left.
Annabel is standing on the rise next to her studio, watching the children’s puppy, Jersey, disappear into the distance chasing a kangaroo. She tries to call the feisty Jack Russell back but in the excitement of the chase he is ignoring her calls and shows no sign of giving up. Annabel isn’t giving up, either. Her husband’s family have put down deep roots in the fragile soils of the Channel Country and Stephen is committed to it. In turn, Annabel is deeply committed to Stephen and has come to love this country of extremes, too, weaving her own thread into the Tullys’ long outback yarn and finding her own way of expressing that love through her paintings.
This place and illness have sorely tested her resilience. Annabel has known many more dry years than wet since she moved here in 1999. There were three good seasons before the current drought, and the Quilpie district was green for her first summer, teasing her with its luxuriant best. Then came the ‘Millennium drought’—ten years that drained the land of livestock, feed and water, and tested the Tullys’ skill at managing Bunginderry, while Annabel waged her own battle with cancer and depression.
‘I don’t think it’s bad luck. If I’m completely honest with myself, I think it was a combination of having genes that are predisposed to cancer, and that I didn’t look after myself. I really, really didn’t and I’m completely honest about that. And I do believe quite strongly that if you don’t look after yourself then something will happen to you. It will either be cancer, or diabetes, or a stroke, or heart disease. I ate, drank, partied, smoked. I never did drugs but I was a smoker for eight years. I think I did some irreparable damage. Then there was the stress of having kids, a new environment, and working hard. I think my biggest pressure was trying to find the mix between my old life and my new life, and while I enjoyed the challenge, it was hard to find a way to fit in this new life. Nothing was easy.’
Annabel would look at her mother-in-law and how she coped with losing a child and raising nine others, and she would look at her awesome, supportive husband and think, ‘Get your shit together, love. What have you got to be depressed about?’ She works very hard to focus on the positives in her life. ‘I’m not fortunate to have gone through a crappy time with cancer, but when you come out the other side and you are still alive, well, you know, I am pretty lucky.’
She has also come to realise that she is never going to stop missing her family a thousand kilometres away, or the close friends she made as a girl. It is the same yearning that took Wendy back to Kingaroy after forty years. ‘As you get older you realise what is important and what isn’t,’ Annabel says. ‘When you live in a man’s world, the number-one thing that you miss is being close to your girlfriends and your family, and I will never get over it. I have tried, and I will never get over it. I just have to suck it up. It would never be reason enough for me to leave, but I have never found a friend here that comes close to the friends you make in those formative years between sixteen and twenty-six, when you live, eat, breath, sleep mates.’
She calls an old teaching friend on the Sunshine Coast two or three times a week for a chat, although she finds the phone a poor substitute. She also takes advantage of school holidays, and delivering or picking up Lachlan and Sophia from boarding school to visit her parents. And once a year, she goes on a walking holiday with a bunch of girlfriends, including Ali. They have even tackled a trek in the Himalayas.
At the Creative Cowboys workshop she told participants that everyone had faced challenges in their lives and had stories to tell. ‘I’m just crazy enough and loud enough to stand up here and share my story but, please, remember, it is really no better than anyone else�
�s,’ she stressed, with the self-effacing modesty that colours her entire approach to these workshops and the message they carry.
‘I had this drive to be super human and I don’t any more,’ Annabel says. ‘I love to be busy but what I’ve learnt is that if you fill your life right up to the top, when something else comes along, it all falls apart. You are kidding yourself if you think you can keep pushing and something isn’t going to give. The container will not only pop its lid, it will smash. So you have to leave a little buffer at the top. Give yourself a bit of a break, and do it often. I still push myself, but I’m doing it for better reasons now. I’m doing it because I want to get the most out of my life and out of every day.’
In the same vein, Annabel has started studying nursing part-time by distance education. It’s going to take six years and a lot of juggling with family, station and community responsibilities to finish the degree, but she is determined. In the back of her mind is the potential to marry her qualifications when she is done with her interest in art as therapy. Meanwhile, she is very conscious of the words of wisdom passed on by Wendy, who in turn received them from Stephen’s grandfather. ‘You have to learn to live with drought and look forward to the good seasons,’ Wendy says, quoting her father-in-law, before adding her own words of wisdom. ‘And you have to laugh at yourself. That’s how you survive the hardships.’
Elaine on a visit to the Harfull farm before she was married.
Elaine (right) and her sister Reay with their father, Bruce Schwennesen, in 1928.
The photo Elaine signed and gave to Lyall shortly after they met.
Elaine and Lyall leaving the church on their wedding day in April 1946.
Elaine and Lyall’s home at Mil Lel, c. 1946.
Elaine outside the dairy, with Valerie, Elizabeth and Snowy, 1962.
Elaine’s newly decorated dining room, c. 1955.
Elaine’s parents, Vida and Bruce Schwennesen, inspecting the pigs with Valerie during a visit to the farm, c. 1958.
Elaine with her grandson, Thomas.
Elaine and Lyall with their children, (from left) Valerie, Roger, Fiona and Elizabeth.
A birthday party at Gilmores for Byron (pictured with the cake), including Grace’s sons, Norman (back row, left) and Trevor (back row, fourth from left), and Elaine’s children, Roger and Valerie (back row, right). PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GRACE GILMORE
Grace Gilmore wearing her military service medals, 2015.
PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANK MONGER
Grace and Ray, 1945.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GRACE GILMORE
Grace in uniform, 1944.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GRACE GILMORE
Road to Harrow.
Trooper Bruce and his horse Gertie, during the Harrow Sound and Light Show.
The old gaol at Harrow, with the seventeenth anniversary memorial in front, and McClure’s Kalang Cottage behind.
Jesse and baby Bailey, 2013.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MARNIE BAKER
Marnie and Nathan on their wedding day, March 2011.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MARNIE BAKER
Marnie and Nathan with Jesse and Sam at Harrow, 2012.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MARNIE BAKER
Geoff and Jean Simpson with their children, Sherryn (left) and Danielle.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF SHERRYN SIMPSON
Mark and Sherryn, c. 2007.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF SHERRYN SIMPSON
Sherryn with her dog, Polo.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF SHERRYN SIMPSON
Sherryn and her daughter, Rhianna, on the farm at Connewirricoo.
The Turner family pictured a month before leaving England, January 1949.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WENDY BONINI
Wendy, aged 15.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WENDY BONINI
Doris in 1934, aged 21.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WENDY BONINI
Wendy and Joe on their wedding day, August 1959.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WENDY BONINI
Wendy and her daughter, Giuliana.
The Vincenti orchard at Carmel.
Daljit on her fruit block near Loxton.
Daljit with her husband, Paul, and their children Monica, Tim and KJ.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DALJIT SANGHERA
The extended family gathered together for Monica’s wedding.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DALJIT SANGHERA
Daljit (third from right) in a high school sports team.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DALJIT SANGHERA
Daljit (right) with her sisters.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DALJIT SANGHERA
Bunginderry station.
Annabel helping to build the ‘fence of hope’.
Annabel sitting in front of her studio.
Sarah Durack.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WENDY AND JOHN TULLY
Wendy Tully packing her last School of the Air satchel after 18 years.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WENDY AND JOHN TULLY
Annabel and her brother, John.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ANNABEL TULLY
Annabel and Stephen, with their children at Bunginderry, 2008.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ANNABEL TULLY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing this book has at times proved to be a real struggle, not least because the woman who inspired it died while it was in its early stages. So for that reason, I begin with an extra special thank you to my patient publishers, Allen & Unwin, for understanding that sometimes life just gets in the way, and to my family and friends for their extra love and support when I needed it most.
Special thanks to Claire Kingston for her ongoing faith in me as an author, and for reuniting me with the wonderful team that brought Women of the Land into being: my thoughtful and diligent editor Aziza Kuypers, always encouraging and considered copyeditor Susin Chow, and also to eagle-eyed proofreader, Simone Ford. Once again my agent, Fiona Inglis, was there for me too, with wise advice and words of encouragement when needed, despite her own challenges.
For the wonderful cover, I have to thank the singular talent of photographer Nigel Parsons. Working with you is always a great pleasure, Nigel, and I promise to buy you that drink sometime very soon! And to Rick and Tania Gladigau who not only allowed us to shoot the image on their beautiful Adelaide Hills dairy farm, disrupting milking and end-of-year school commitments, but managed to organise perfect weather, quiet well-mannered cows and a dog, even if he was a bit reluctant.
Most of all, my deeply felt gratitude goes to the women who agreed to be part of this book—my mum Elaine and Aunty Grace, Wendy and Giuliana, Marnie and Sherryn, Daljit, Annabel and Wendy—for trusting me with your stories, and your willingness to share your lives. In particular, thank you to my family for allowing me to cross the Rubicon in this book and tell something of our own story. It was no small thing to ask any of you, and I take none of these privileges for granted.