by A B Facey
This was a shock to the people of Perth as the trams were then the only means of public transport.
The Union was asking for one shilling per day rise in pay and for shorter hours. At that time we were getting only nine shillings and sixpence per day for the first twelve months, and then ten shillings and sevenpence per day thereafter. A big percentage of our shifts were spread over twelve hours and the Department could work us ninety-six hours a fortnight without having to pay overtime. If we worked a Sunday we got time and a half.
The strike was well organised. We kept a picket on the car barn around the clock and nobody was allowed to enter or leave, not even the bosses. I was in charge of one shift of eight hours. I had twenty men with me to make sure that the Department couldn’t train ‘scabs’ to do our work; we also had to protect the trams and car barn against damage. The Union at this time was about four hundred and fifty strong.
This strike caused a lot of inconvenience to the travelling public of Perth and suburbs, but when our pay and working conditions were published in the newspapers, the people were soon on our side.
The Government of the day was opposed to the worker in every way. It was called a National Party Government, the worst kind of Government a worker had to put up with. They were, in my view, complete dictators and there was nothing democratic about them.
The public wrote letters to the Press that were readily published – hundreds of them – and very few were against us. Demonstrations were held and the Union marched through the streets of Perth to Parliament House, but all to no avail. Hundreds of donations were sent to the Union and we took up collections on the streets. All the hotels gave us a weekly donation throughout the strike. We held concerts on the Esplanade and in concert halls. The result of this was that the Union had sufficient weekly income to pay strike pay; single men got one pound a week, married men without children got one pound ten shillings, and couples with children got five shillings extra per child.
The unionists were real true blues – loyal and sticking together. To start the strike pay off, some of the members who had their own homes paid for, got further mortgages to get the fund underway. Our President at the time, Mr Tom Bycroft, was the first to do so.
After the strike had lasted eight weeks, the Government cracked and offered us two shillings a day increase to go back to work, and agreed to set up an independent tribunal to hear our case and award what wages and conditions were considered fair after both sides had put their case. The Union agreed to this.
The Chairman of the tribunal was a Mr Canning and the award brought down was referred to later as the Canning Award. This award increased our wages from ten shillings and sevenpence per day to sixteen shillings and fivepence per day, to be made retrospective from the day we commenced work after the strike. It also stipulated numerous improvements to our working conditions and ruled that the Department was to employ extra crews at night. As a result of the Canning Award, the Tramway’s strike was considered to be the most successful strike held in Western Australia up to that point in time.
61
ON THE TRAMS
Our first baby was born during the strike – on the third of February 1919 – and it was a son. We called him Albert Barnett (Barney). My wife and I were very happy.
The new conditions made my job much better and more pleasant. I liked being a motorman and my nerves had improved a lot.
I also began to get involved a little in the Union organisation at this time. Everyone who was in the Tramways had to be a member of the Union and once you had your ticket you could attend meetings and so forth. I had my ideas about the way things should be done and started getting involved in the meetings and giving my views.
When you get active among men, and start talking about one thing and another, they begin to encourage you to get more involved. I was eventually appointed by my fellows to the Union Committee and I enjoyed this work a lot. I was able to get on well with everybody and felt that I contributed something to the Union. It also gave me another interest and helped to make the job with the Tramways more interesting and worthwhile.
Working for the Tramways all kinds of experiences happened, some very humorous and some very serious. The public could be quite unpredictable. Some days they were very tolerant and other days they were full of complaints, but generally they were a fine lot.
Once I had a narrow escape from tragedy – I very nearly put a tram into the Swan River. Some trams had to run to the Barrack Street Jetty for the convenience of the people living in South Perth who had to cross the river by ferry. I was driving a small tram down to the jetty and as we neared it I went to put the brake on. The chain taking the pressure to apply the brakes snapped with a jerk. This unbalanced me and before I could apply the reverse brake, the tram had crashed into a steel post at the end of the line. (The post had been put there to hold the overhead power lines.) It bent into almost a half-circle but stopped the tram from going into the river. Luckily I had the window directly in front of the driver’s position open – otherwise I would have been badly cut by glass. As it happened I was thrown through the open window, striking my head on the steel post and knocking myself out for about ten minutes. Other than this I was all right and only badly shocked.
I often wonder what would have happened if that steel post hadn’t been there. I think the tram would have gone into the river for sure, and that would have been the end of me.
Many funny things happened too. For example, when I was going into Subiaco once with a loaded tram, a very good-looking young girl got on carrying a lot of parcels. There weren’t any seats left so she contented herself to stand, holding the parcels as best she could. An old man sitting on a seat next to where she was standing, apologised to her for not being able to give her his seat. He said that he was too old to stand up. She said, ‘Oh, that’s all right. I don’t mind standing.’ He then offered to hold the parcels for her but she refused, saying that the parcels were important and that she would rather not let anyone else handle them.
The tram was travelling fast and swayed from side to side on the uneven track. With the stopping and starting the young lady began to get leg weary and the old man could see this so he said, ‘I’m too old to stand up Miss and you won’t let me hold your parcels for you. What about sitting on my lap? There is nothing wrong with that.’ She exclaimed, ‘Oh thank you. I’ll do that.’ So she sat gently on the old man’s knee and the tram stopped and started and rocked its way along for the next few streets.
Suddenly the old man tapped her on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me Miss, please get off my knee.’ She responded and the old man struggled to his feet and said, ‘You take the seat lady, I’m not as old as I thought I was.’
I liked the amusing little daily incidents like this, and the job went along quite well.
Western Australia had an outbreak of a very severe kind of flu in 1920. It was called bubonic influenza and it killed dozens of people. I got it, but only in a mild form and we were quarantined for three weeks. I was away from work for a month and it was many months before I felt well again.
On January twenty-eighth 1921, our second baby came along. It was a lovely little girl we named Olive. My wife and I were very happy. Evelyn loved babies and she was a very capable person. She made all their little woollies and clothes and dressed them so beautifully. I used to feel very proud of them and we went out as often as my job would permit.
We had a terrible experience in June of that year. I was feeling very ill and the doctor announced that I had diphtheria. They sent me by ambulance to the Infectious Diseases Hospital and my wife and children were again quarantined, this time for fourteen days. I was in hospital for three weeks and after that I didn’t seem to recover properly, so I arranged for an appointment with the Repatriation Department. The doctor gave me a thorough examination and told me that I would have to leave the Tramways. He warned me that if I didn’t anything could happen to me. He advised me to get out of the city and into the country.
When I told my wife the bad news she sat silent for quite a while. We puzzled our brains as what to do for the best. She reminded me that it was nearly five years ago that the same doctor and six others had given me only two years to live. I carried on working with the Tramways until we decided what to do. Then all of a sudden it came to me one day while I was at work. The Government was settling returned soldiers on the land and as I had a lot of know-how about wheat and sheep farming, I thought I stood a good chance of being selected. When I went home and explained the idea to my wife she thought it was the answer to our problem. I had been losing weight and also a lot in wages because of sickness. On a farm I would be my own boss.
62
SOLDIER SETTLER
I went to the Soldier’s Settlement Board and made an application for a wheat and sheep farm, explaining my background. They put me before the Selection Board. I came through fine and then had to select a property. (The procedure was to find a property for sale, and if it suited, make an offer for it, subject to the Board’s approval.) I submitted several that the Board said were outside the price that they were prepared to pay.
Then one day I got a letter from the manager of the Agricultural Bank, Perth, to the effect that he would like me to come and see him – he made a day and time in his letter. This man also sat on the Soldier’s Settlement Board. So I called to see him at the appointed time. His name was Mr Heuby and he was a very nice, understanding man, and he asked me to take over a farm in the Narrogin District. It was situated twenty-six miles east of Narrogin and ten miles from Wickepin.
This farm had been purchased some two years before by two returned soldiers. They failed to agree on the running of the farm and one of them left the place to the other, who didn’t know much about farming.
I got time off and went and had a good look at it. The property consisted of approximately twelve hundred acres, a nice house, several horses and a number of badly neglected farming implements, but there was six hundred acres of cleared land which had been partly fenced. On this land there was an abundance of grass for sheep. This took my eye, as I could see a grand chance of doing well by grazing sheep. My wife was in agreement so we accepted the offer of this property.
Mr Heuby was pleased when I told him and gave me an assurance that he would see that I got a fair deal from the Board. We made arrangements and a date for us to take it over. I use the word ‘us’ as my wife was to come in as half share partner. We were the first couple to be registered as man and wife under the Soldier’s Settlement Scheme. The property was valued at this time at three thousand pounds and the limit on finance allowed by the Board for one soldier was two thousand pounds, so the Act was altered to allow the wife of a returned soldier to come in as a partner, and the allowed amount was then four thousand pounds.
So we sold our home in Victoria Park and I gave notice and finished working on the trams. We packed our furniture and effects, and a carrier carted them to the Perth railway yards and loaded them into a wagon.
There was a railway line with a siding only three miles from our new home. The siding was called Nomans Lake∗; the railway line ran from Narrogin to Merredin through this district and there were two passenger trains each week.
We arrived on our farm late in July 1922, too late to put any kind of crop in. My wife, who didn’t know anything about wheat and sheep farming, was amazed at the size of the place. After we settled into the house (it had only been built two years), which was four-roomed, weather-board lined with dressed jarrah board, and a roof of iron, we spent a whole week having a good look over our farm and planning what we would do.
Finally we decided to fence as much of the cleared land as was possible and purchase some sheep to graze on it as soon as we could. So we purchased wire and wire netting, and while waiting for this to arrive, we both worked hard putting up the fence posts to hold the wire. My wife worked as hard as I did. By the end of August we had two hundred acres fenced and ready.
There was a soldier settler about seven miles away from our place. Apparently he was not able to make a success of this wheat and sheep farming and the Board was holding a sale of his sheep at his property. As we were wanting sheep I attended the sale. The sheep that were offered for sale were just what we wanted, merino breed with very high quality wool. I purchased two hundred ewes with lambs at foot and one hundred hoggets (that is, year old sheep), which were mixed sexes. The following day, with the help of our neighbour we drove them to our place. Most of the lambs were six weeks old when I bought them, and their growth when their mothers found the delicious feed at our place was amazing; in fact, we sold the lambs in early October and the price they fetched covered the cost we paid for the ewes with the lambs at foot. This was a very encouraging start.
We did our own shearing. I had learnt to shear with blades before I had gone to war. A wool classer called at our place while I was doing the shearing. He was out trying to buy wool privately. There was a lot of wool sold privately before the Wool Board was established. He gave my wife a lesson in wool-classing, and although we never sold him any of our wool, he went to a lot of trouble making my wife understand how to class the wool and how to skirt a fleece. (Skirting involves removing the correct amount of stained and straggly pieces from the fleece.) My wife was very proud when she learnt to do this and was a wonderful help to me. I suffered hell with my war disability while doing the shearing, but stuck to it all the same. We sent our wool – seven bales, each weighing about three hundred pounds – to market. My wife got the surprise of her life when the wool was sold, because the price it brought was the highest obtained for the district that year.
Now that the shearing was over and the wool sold, we continued fencing in more land, and by March 1923 we had six hundred and eighty acres fenced in, which included all the cleared land on the property. We put in subdivisions – making three paddocks; one of two hundred acres, one of one hundred and sixty acres, and one of three hundred and twenty acres. We were employing a man to help with our heavy work and by April we were ready to put in our first crop.
We had six working horses and a six-furrow, stump-jump plough. I had to do a lot of repair work on the plough and replace many worn parts before we could use it.
We purchased three merino rams to go with our ewes early in this year and the lambs commenced to arrive late in July. We also had to do quite a lot of repair work to the shed and stable, make a better place for shearing and build sheep-yards. All this took us through to shearing time again.
We made quite a lot of money dealing in the buying and selling of sheep. Many farmers became over-stocked and this caused a shortage of feed for their animals, with the result that their sheep became unfit for market. As we had plenty of feed we purchased the sheep that were in poor condition, then after they had picked up in condition and were ready for market, we sold them at a reasonable profit. One lot of two hundred wethers that I had purchased for twenty-five shillings a head – they were very skinny and we kept them on good feed for six weeks – I sold to a butcher for two pounds and sixteen shillings each, not a bad deal for six weeks. We also built some pig-sties and purchased some young pigs.
∗ For the location of Nomans Lake see the map on page 232.
63
GOOD AND BAD
Although I had sent her letters I had still not seen Grandma since before I had gone off to the war. By the time I had joined the Soldier Settlement Scheme and moved to our farm, Grandma had left Wickepin. Uncle Archie and Aunt Alice McCall had left their farm to their sons and had moved to a small property in Bruce Rock, which was a town approximately one hundred miles north-east of Wickepin. Grandma had gone with them.
It was impossible for me to go and visit her because of the great distance involved. We were also far too busy establishing our farm. Whenever I went to Perth it was by train and this did not go through Bruce Rock. The nearest it went to Bruce Rock was York which was about ninety miles to the west.
I was sad that I was not able t
o visit this fine old lady who had been so important in my life up to when I came back from Gallipoli and married Evelyn.
Summer was now approaching again. The weather was getting very hot and I started to cut the hay and harvest the barley, oats and wheat. The barley and oats were a beautiful crop and the wheat was fair. We finished the harvesting and hay-carting near the end of January 1924 and we were still able to afford to employ a man.
My wife had presented me with another baby boy – George – on July seventh the previous year and was due for a holiday. So I sent her off with the three children to her parents’ place in Bunbury in the first week of February.
The hired man and I then set about doing some more clearing for wheat growing. Land for the best wheat was the new land.
Burning season commenced on the fifteenth of February each year and closed on the fifteenth of November each year. This had to be strictly adhered to on account of bush fires, and the Australian bush was very flammable during the summer months.
The man and I commenced clearing an unfenced block some three quarters of a mile from our house. With my wife away we had to cook our own meals and look after ourselves. We were both very fond of stew of any kind, so we always drove in a horse and cart to the place where we had to work and then returned home for our midday meal. Then, while we waited for the kettle to boil, one of us would prepare some onions and potatoes and put them into a saucepan to cook while we had our lunch. Then we would leave the fire in the stove, close the fire-box doors and leave the saucepan, pushed to one side, to simmer. When we came home at night we would open a tin of cold meat, cut it up and put it in with the potatoes and onions to cook for a few minutes – then we had a well-cooked stew for our evening dinner.