An Outback Nurse

by Thea Hayes

  So, to keep him happy, I said to Emilie, ‘Who should I give this dress to?’

  It was a size ten.

  ‘Please, Missus, give him me.’

  ‘But it won’t fit you,’ I said, Emilie being a considerably larger size.

  ‘No, Missus, me fix him up.’ Off Emilie went with the dress.

  Several hours later she returned, resplendent in her new dress. Every seam, every gathering had been let out and sewn by hand—and it fitted.

  In the weeks that followed, ‘the dress’ was seen on at least ten different Aboriginal girls around the place—at the settlement, at Limbunya Station, and even as far away as Nicholson.

  25

  Twins

  A few months later I was back doing the nursing on the station.

  Sister Ellen Kettle, the rural survey sister in the Territory, notified us that she was doing a tour of the stations and settlements where registered nurses were employed. She would be arriving the following week. I knew that Sister Kettle had started a register of Aboriginal births and infant deaths in the Territory. The old galvanised clinic with its cement floors got an extra spring clean that week.

  Anthony was three months old at this stage and Ralph was going to be out in the stock camp. Tom was on holidays.

  Sister Kettle duly arrived. I took her down to the clinic and we went through a lot of my records. She was there for my morning appointments. That afternoon we continued with more patients, and then around 4.30 p.m. Ida came into the hospital to say that Marian, a young Aboriginal woman, had had her baby. The routine was that after the birth, the mother—when she was feeling up to it—would bring the baby up to the hospital, and both would be checked over by the nursing sister. Mother and baby arrived; they were fine.

  I said to Sister Kettle, ‘I’m going to go and feed Anthony. See you at dinner.’

  A little later, I’d just finished breastfeeding my son when there was an urgent knock at my door. It was Sister Kettle with two babies, one on each arm, wrapped in rather discoloured shawls.

  ‘Thea,’ she said, puffing and panting, ‘you’ll have to look after these two. They both belong to Marian. She’s had twins. After you left the clinic, Pansy came up to tell me that the elders of the tribe were going to get rid of one of the babies.’

  And off she went to dinner! I didn’t know where Marian was, but I wished Sister Kettle had brought her up too. I’m not sure whether I ate that night; probably not, as we all ate in the dining room and I don’t think the boys would have thought of me. If Ralph had been there instead of out in the camp, it would have been a different story.

  There I was with three babies who woke every hour—including Anthony, who normally woke only once per night—and I had to feed them. Thank goodness I had a few baby bottles, so the twins could drink boiled water. I kept thinking, Where’s Marian? Then I thought, Lucky woman—Sister Kettle probably chased her back to the camp last night.

  The next morning I struggled down to the dining room, having instructed Emilie to find Marian urgently so that she could feed her babies. This left Pansy in charge of the ‘nursery’, while I breakfasted with a well-rested Sister Kettle.

  ‘How are they, Thea?’

  ‘Well, they’re fine but very hungry. Hopefully Marion is on her way now.’

  There was no mention of how was I after a night of horror with no sleep, up every hour to calm three screaming babies.

  Sister Kettle had to move on to her next port of call, which would have been the Wave Hill settlement, so we said goodbye, with the sister adding, ‘I do think you should keep those babies under your care, as you never know what would happen to them in a big hospital.’

  I didn’t argue with her, because it didn’t really matter where Marian went with her babies. The fate of one of the twins was inevitable with the tribal laws as they were.

  Once I saw Sister Kettle’s vehicle going out the gate, I got on to the Aerial Medical Service and told them I had two premature babies for them to pick up with their mother. Some weeks later, poor Marian returned with only one child. The other had died of a chest infection. As Ralph said, the baby would not have survived in the camp if it had returned anyway.

  Over the following years, I learnt more about Ellen Kettle, this nursing sister and historian. She, with Dr John Hargreaves, compiled the first register of leprosy patients in Australia. Ellen also wrote her autobiography, Gone Bush, which gives a remarkable insight into the work of this dedicated and courageous woman. She received an MBE for her work with Aboriginal people.

  26

  My second Negri

  In 1962 my mother came to see her first grandchild again and accompany us to the Negri Races. Ralph, who loved old cars, had bought a Humber Super Snipe on holidays and driven it back to Wave Hill. A luxurious English car with rich-looking leather upholstery, it was a few years old, shiny black, and looked a bit like a Rolls Royce. It was a beautiful car but not suited to dusty conditions.

  We drove our Humber to the races and it was bulldusty to say the least: a worry with a baby, but we coped. On the way we called in to Inverway Station to see Peg and Pat Underwood. They were a hospitable couple who loved the races and usually did very well with their racehorses.

  The Negri was a real eye-opener for Mum: her first time camping in a bush donga and seeing a bush race meeting. The rodeo and campdrafting fascinated her. The thing that she couldn’t get over was the quantity of alcohol consumed. She even asked the barman how many cartons of beer and bottles of spirits he’d ordered, and then recorded it in her diary. She would go on to delight in telling her friends in Wollongong all about the enormous amount of alcohol.

  The Vestey Company declared it was time to upgrade the buildings for both whites and Aboriginals at Wave Hill. As Ralph and I had just been married, the company decided that the first building would be an overseer’s cottage. Vestey hired the ‘Greek boys’ to come out from Katherine to build our house. They were good builders but bad lads, as they would bring bottles of potent ouzo out for Tom Fisher and probably some of the men in the kitchen.

  When the cottage was completed, Ralph and I suggested to Tom that, as he was the manager, he should move in. ‘Karjinga,’ Tom’s favourite Gurindji expletive, ‘what would I want with a flash house like that?’

  So we very happily moved into our three-bedroom cottage with a lounge/dining room, kitchen, pantry and closed-in verandah. The highlight of our home was the septic toilet with its push-button flush, situated inside just off the bathroom—no more going out in the dark to find the loo, no more sitting on a stinking thunderbox!

  Unfortunately, the overseer’s cottage had been built right beside the old men’s quarters. Our bedroom had floor-to-ceiling windows looking straight out onto these quarters. I asked Tom about curtains for the cottage, and particularly for our bedroom, but he showed no interest as he was always conscious of the budget. We ended up hanging our queen-size sheets, received as a wedding present, over our windows.

  By the time our cottage was completed, the company realised there wasn’t enough water on the present site. Building ceased. The Greek boys left. Messrs Peter Morris and Reginald Durack flew down to Wave Hill and decided that the perfect site for a new station complex was near the settlement. The complex was to sit atop a range of basalt hills with contoured banks that look like waves rolling down from top to bottom: this is where Wave Hill got its name.

  Water was needed and so a boring contractor, Jack Warner, was employed to start drilling with a percussion drill at the new site. It was a great scenic spot high up on the hills, but not a place for gardens, and it was far too close to the settlement.

  Molly and Basil were transferred to Tennant Creek, and a new policeman and his wife, Roy and Margaret Harvey, took over. We were invited down to the police station for dinner one Saturday night not long after they arrived. As we sat out in the breezeway of their house, socialising, all very pleasant, I was thinking what a well-organised hostess Margaret was, with no dashing to and f
rom the kitchen to check on the cooking. Suddenly she said, ‘Okay, Roy, are you ready to cook?’

  Off he went and returned some time later with a tray covered in barbecued rib bones. Ray and I loved ribs but these were about half a metre long. We sat there eating with one hand on each end of the bone. It was hilarious; I thought, I’m really in the bush now!

  Margaret told a story about her two house girls, Mildred and Connie, who’d also worked for Molly and Basil. One day Margaret threw out the David Jones catalogue, which she had no more use for. The two girls found it in the rubbish bin and got very excited when they saw ‘all dem pretty clothes’. Margaret offered to buy anything they wanted.

  ‘Yes, Missus, we want trouser alonga noberloo.’

  They wanted bras—padded ones at that. Margaret tried to talk them out of it, as they were quite big girls. But that was what they wanted, so Margaret ordered the padded bras.

  Sometime later, after the bras had arrived and been given to Mildred and Connie, Roy and Margaret decided to go fishing up the river and brought the trackers and house girls. They were all scattered along the riverbank, and Roy walked over to see how the girls were going catching yabbies.

  He came back to Margaret and said, ‘Come have a look at this!’

  There were the girls, pulling up the yabbies, their hands wrapped in the ‘trousers along noberloo’—one side under the yabby and one side on top—to protect their skin from the claws.

  27

  The Americans

  Tom married a lovely Irish lady, Anne, whom he’d met in his hometown of Kyogle. Once again we insisted that Tom move into the new house, with his new bride—but no. ‘We’ve settled into the post office cottage and there we will stay,’ he told us.

  One evening, Tom and Anne decided to have drinks at their place, as they had visitors, the Jansens from Limbunya. I left Anthony in the care of Pansy while Ralph and I went over to their cottage.

  Anne poured the drinks; we were all drinking Scotch with dry ginger or soda. Instead of a nip of Scotch in a glass of soft drink, Anne served the reverse! We all got pie-eyed, so much so that the party ended quite quickly and everyone staggered home to bed. It was the last time we allowed Anne to pour our drinks.

  Australian beef producers were looking for export markets; America was after more hamburger beef for their fast-food outlets. A member of the Australian Trade Commission knew Tom Fisher and arranged to bring a plane-load of Texan ranchers and their wives to Wave Hill to see some good-quality Shorthorn cattle.

  The Americans were to arrive in a Douglas DC-3, a fixed-wing propeller-driven plane. The plan was for them to have the day at Wave and then fly on to the town of Kununurra for the night.

  The day before their arrival, the Greek boys, who’d recently moved to the police station, passed through Wave bringing a cargo of grog. They called in to see Anne and Tom with bottles of ouzo.

  Early the next morning, I went down to the homestead to check on the smoko area and the dining room. Were there enough chairs? Enough place settings at the tables? Was everything clean and tidy? Ralph then informed me that Tom hadn’t turned up for breakfast—most unusual.

  Suddenly Anne arrived, looking quite distraught. ‘Thea, please come have a look at Tom—he’s very sick.’

  Up at the post office cottage, I found Tom trying to drag himself out of bed, looking ill and breathing heavily. He was very hung-over; I’d seen him like this before.

  ‘I’m a’right,’ he slurred. ‘Anne’s jus’ carryin’ on ’bout nothin’. Be down later to see th’Mericans.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘please stay in bed, Tom—you’re not well. We can look after the visitors. I’ll come back later and see how you are.’ Of course, I was really thinking, Tom, please don’t embarrass us all by coming down!

  Tom had a habit of feeling inadequate when important visitors were expected, which resulted in him getting on the grog if any was available. His insecurities were ridiculous, as he was a great conversationalist and a very interesting individual—when he was sober.

  The Americans duly arrived. Ralph and the stockmen drove out to the aerodrome in several vehicles to pick them up. The big Texan men wore their ten-gallon hats. The women were very stylish, flashing their huge diamond rings.

  We had drinks on the paperbark verandah before going in to lunch. The Texans were fun people and easy to entertain. After lunch, the men were taken out on the run to view some cattle. The women returned to the verandah, searching for a cool spot to read or chat. They felt the severe heat, especially as there were no fans or air-conditioning; otherwise they were quite happy. I left them to go and feed Anthony.

  Returning to the verandah an hour later, I heard a gasp from one of the women. She was gazing up the entrance path to the homestead. Everyone turned to look in the direction of the post office cottage.

  There was our manager, weaving and staggering down the path, waving a bottle in his hand.

  ‘Karjinga,’ mumbled Tom, as he plonked himself down on a chair in the midst of the women. They all shrank as far from him as they could. Luckily, the men had just returned and the pilot announced that they were now to fly on to Kununurra. The women looked very relieved.

  But Tom, inebriated as he was, didn’t miss this. ‘Sounds a good idea,’ he said. ‘I’d like t’go to Kununurra, if there’s room.’

  Unfortunately there was a spare seat, so off they all went, Tom included.

  The passengers boarded the plane while the pilot sent his estimated time of arrival—but he couldn’t get through. He tried again, and again, while they were all getting hotter and hotter in the plane. The pilot then announced that he was unable to fly to Kununurra, as ‘sunspots’ were preventing communication on his radio. Sighing and with gasps of horror at the prospect of staying the night at Wave Hill, the Texans disembarked.

  Tom had to be woken up. Stepping out of the plane, he looked down at the ground and said, ‘Proper good country, this Kununurra.’

  Happily for the Americans, the sunspots cleared up before they had to return to that ‘dreaded station’. Tom was taken back to the homestead, and our visitors flew to the comfort of their hotel.

  We all breathed a sigh of relief.

  28

  Relieving at Gordon Downs

  Sometime in October, Tom called Ralph into his office to inform him that we were being sent over to Gordon Downs Station in the Kimberley, situated right up against the Northern Territory–Western Australian border. We were to manage the property for twelve weeks while its manager, Stan Jones, and his family went on holidays. We were so excited. This was another challenge and we were proud that Ralph was to be given this opportunity to relieve for another Vestey manager. I was also excited because I’d been told that Gordon Downs was a delightful station: after all, Wave was very basic.

  Leaving Wave Hill at the end of November, we drove via Nicholson Station where we called in to see the managers, Robin and Len Hill. As a young stockman, Len had driven cattle down the Canning Stock Route and back in 1946, an experience he later wrote about in his book Droving with Ben Taylor. Robin and Len had been at Nicholson since 1949.

  We also visited Gus and Pat Ringler on the outskirts of the station complex. Gus, the improvement manager, had lent us his caravan the year before. He was of German descent and had come out to Australia after World War II, after having been a member of the Hitler Youth Movement and later a prisoner of war in America. He was a very interesting character. His delightful wife, who kept their aluminium and steel house spotless, was Ceylonese—they’d met on a ship going to England. Ralph was good friends with Gus and Pat, and over the years we spent a lot of time in their company, together with their two children.

  Having said farewell, we continued to Gordon Downs Station, an area of about half a million hectares. We drove eighty-five kilometres across a black soil, treeless plain covered in Mitchell and Flinders grasses on the edge of the Tanami Desert. Suddenly the plain ended. The soil became red. Spinifex and an abundance o
f low mulga scrub added beauty to this new landscape.

  ‘It’s only desert,’ Ralph said, after I exclaimed at the abrupt change and the beauty of our surroundings. I decided I liked desert country.

  Gordon Downs was on the Tanami Desert Road, which eventually headed south to Alice Springs; not that you could see much road, as it was overgrown with yam bushes and mulga trees. It has since been diverted to come out near Halls Creek.

  We drove on for another thirteen kilometres, and there was the homestead, like an oasis: a red-and-white two-storey house surrounded by lush lawns. Trees shaded outdoor tables and chairs, and water sparkled as it twirled from the sprinklers. The Aboriginal girls were waiting on the lawn to bring the smoko down from the kitchen. After Wave Hill, we thought we were in heaven.

  Stan and Mary Jones had five children, and their governess, a young Swiss girl called Shauna, stayed on to do the cooking for us for the twelve weeks we were there. She loved experimenting with food and we loved eating it. Smoko, morning or afternoon, was either under the trellis beside the house or under the trees on the lawn. We even had fresh vegetables flown in, which Tom would never have allowed.

  Soon after our return from Gordon Downs to Wave, the Vesteys held a managers’ meeting there, which Messrs Peter Morris and Eric Durack attended. The young managers and stockmen would come up to our house each day when business was finished. They were dying to have a drink, but Tom was the only one who had some grog and they weren’t likely to get any of that. Then, one afternoon, Ralph suddenly thought of my ‘apple wine’.

  Months before, in my fruit order from Katherine, I’d received some green, green apples. Mrs Beeton, in her Cookery Book, told me how to make wine out of them. I asked Ralph for a container and he brought me a large ceramic bottle that had held battery acid. We gave it a thorough cleaning-out, then filled it with apples and the rest of the ingredients.